What do I do? What can WE do?
My friend Erin was posting on her blog recently concerning Zimbabwe (Where is that you ask? It's in South Central Africa, you ugly American!) and I commented upon it. I started writing so much in response that I copied & pasted it into a blog entry. Yeah, it's cheating, but I wanted others to read about it.
NPR Zimbabwe Story
Foreboding indeed....
Do we really need, as a global community, MORE people killing people over space? Mugabe (idiot and dictator that he is) is simply lowering himself to the tactics that the Israeli government has used against the Palestinians as a means of political, social, and economic repression for years now. My perennial question in such situations is, "WHY in the hell is this necessary?" What does he hope to gain by leveling thousands of homes? It's not like he's going to be rebuilding on top of these shanties to create more office space, more businesses, more jobs, and a better economy. He's destroying just to destroy and I can't even begin to understand/fathom actions of that nature.
More than that, I don't even think he realizes what kind of hornet's nest he's stepping into with such actions. Does he really think that the political activists whose homes he's destroyed will sit back and do nothing? Most likely not.... Or maybe that's just it (says my cynical politically-oriented mind) -- maybe he WANTS to mobilize his opponents against him in open conflict in order to hurt them even more, to paint THEM as the reactionaries who are rebelling against his government. Of course, that could backfire on him if the country as a whole decides that he's the jerk who needs to be eliminated and NOT his opponents. Ugh.... The possibilities of even MORE bloodshed on the African continent.... My heart is crushed under such emotional weight....
And the saddest part is that the average American on the street has no clue this is going on. They couldn't even pronounce Zimbabwe, much less know where it is. The fact that 200,000 politically active persons (this is probably lower if you remove the children of the families) have been displaced from their homes does NOT bode well for political stability in a country that has been notorious for tampered-with elections and other forms of repression. But does USAmerica even attempt to intervene in Africa? Not really, unless we're hunting for natural resources to exploit....
Do we hear about this on CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, or (God help us!) FOX? NO!!! We just hear more about lost Boy Scouts and missing rich white girls in Aruba. Not to say that those people aren't important to their families, but are they worthy of national news attention? Not hardly. 200,000 people lose their homes overnight? That should make the news, but it doesn't, unless it comes through natural disasters. I don't think that the American viewing public could even fathom what's happened in Zimbabwe, much less Sudan and those people died....
What do we do with this information? That is the key for me. What do I, as a politically and globally aware American, do with the information that there's the possibility of an uprising in Zimbabwe, when we have YET to address what's going on in Darfur/Western Sudan? What do I do? Any ideas??
NPR Zimbabwe Story
Foreboding indeed....
Do we really need, as a global community, MORE people killing people over space? Mugabe (idiot and dictator that he is) is simply lowering himself to the tactics that the Israeli government has used against the Palestinians as a means of political, social, and economic repression for years now. My perennial question in such situations is, "WHY in the hell is this necessary?" What does he hope to gain by leveling thousands of homes? It's not like he's going to be rebuilding on top of these shanties to create more office space, more businesses, more jobs, and a better economy. He's destroying just to destroy and I can't even begin to understand/fathom actions of that nature.
More than that, I don't even think he realizes what kind of hornet's nest he's stepping into with such actions. Does he really think that the political activists whose homes he's destroyed will sit back and do nothing? Most likely not.... Or maybe that's just it (says my cynical politically-oriented mind) -- maybe he WANTS to mobilize his opponents against him in open conflict in order to hurt them even more, to paint THEM as the reactionaries who are rebelling against his government. Of course, that could backfire on him if the country as a whole decides that he's the jerk who needs to be eliminated and NOT his opponents. Ugh.... The possibilities of even MORE bloodshed on the African continent.... My heart is crushed under such emotional weight....
And the saddest part is that the average American on the street has no clue this is going on. They couldn't even pronounce Zimbabwe, much less know where it is. The fact that 200,000 politically active persons (this is probably lower if you remove the children of the families) have been displaced from their homes does NOT bode well for political stability in a country that has been notorious for tampered-with elections and other forms of repression. But does USAmerica even attempt to intervene in Africa? Not really, unless we're hunting for natural resources to exploit....
Do we hear about this on CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, or (God help us!) FOX? NO!!! We just hear more about lost Boy Scouts and missing rich white girls in Aruba. Not to say that those people aren't important to their families, but are they worthy of national news attention? Not hardly. 200,000 people lose their homes overnight? That should make the news, but it doesn't, unless it comes through natural disasters. I don't think that the American viewing public could even fathom what's happened in Zimbabwe, much less Sudan and those people died....
What do we do with this information? That is the key for me. What do I, as a politically and globally aware American, do with the information that there's the possibility of an uprising in Zimbabwe, when we have YET to address what's going on in Darfur/Western Sudan? What do I do? Any ideas??
posted by APN at 19:46
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home