Je suis un Africain
At the risk of sounding crass and insincere, who the hell is
Charlie? They put out a magazine weekly sometimes offensive other times not,
but that’s what they do, they know what the risks are to what they do because
there are a few crazies in this world and yet they continue to and profit from
it. I believe strongly in freedom of speech, but there is a fine line though
between that and provocatively offensive. But what happened on the 7th
January unacceptable.
So that day has brought forward a few realities to me and to
many others I’m sure. It’s insane that when a person/persons of a certain
religion (which has over 1.6billion followers) portray heinous crimes and the
whole religion is branded as terrorist. A Palestinian throws a rocket into
Israel (which are more often than not intercepted by the Iron dome) they are
terrorists, Israelis flatten half a city, its called retaliation? It could
never be seen that these so called terrorists could also be retaliating against
what they believe to be occupation or the denial of having a recognized
state…but let me stop there before I am branded an anti-Semite. On countless
occasions we have crazed individuals bombing abortion clinics in the name of a
Christian God, yet they are not terrorists?! David Koresh, Waco?
Some might argue the Quran in some verses preaches violence
such as this verse…
Quran (2:191-193) -
"And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they
have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah [disbelief or unrest] is worse than
killing...
but if they desist,
then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful.
And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping
of others along with Allah] and worship is for Allah alone.
But wait read below…
6 If your very own brother, or your
son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices
you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your
ancestors have known, 7 gods of the peoples around you, whether
near or far, from one end of the land to the other), 8 do not yield
to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them.
9 You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first
in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people. 10 Stone
them to death, because they tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who
brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.. (Deuteronomy 13:6-11).
You see I am a Christian, but you don’t see me wanting to
stone my brothers because we are ‘unequally yoked’, believe it or not there are
many more good Muslims who personify peace, than those who don’t. Many an
atrocity has been committed on the basis of this Book, my Bible…apartheid, KKK,
the Crusades to name but a few, but has this religion and its people ever been
branded terrorists? Well not to my knowledge. The west bombs Iraq pursuing
imaginary weapons of mass destruction, none are found, now ISIS is born, the
world shrugs and blames Islam… The west aids in creating the chaos that is now
Libya and once again the people just shrug, thousands died and thousands more
continue to perish senselessly, yet no terrorist branding.
Another phenomenon that boggles my simple mind is how on
earth a network such as fox news (no capitals because I have no respect for
that channel) is still on air. In my humble opinion that network just promotes
hate, if its not against blacks, its against Muslims. The presenters seem set
on only promoting their bias and prejudices, using their broadcasting powers to
promote their own agendas. Why they even invite guests is a wonder to me
because they tend to not allow interviewee to respond.
You see the thing is stupid people do stupid things. And
that’s the bottom line, just because you have the power or the means does not
mean that you have the right to classify or treat people in a manner that meets
your satisfaction, because in that case the opposite is true too, in that if I
don’t like the infidel then I am fully in my rights to kill them!
Anyway the one thing that came from these attacks that stuck
to me was this. So on the 7th January 2015 a dozen people were
killed in Paris, on the same day a few hundred people (some say thousands) are
massacred in a little known town called Baga in Nigeria. A dozen people killed
gets the world’s citizens, presidents (African ones included) and social media
all up in arms, telling the world that they are Charlie and condemn the violent
attack on the office of these 12 people. The world however is silent on the
Africans who were shot or burnt alive in most cases by a similar fundamentalist
group. We have all known for a while that not all lives in this world are
equal, lets not even go to those police killings in America recently…
My agitation though, lies right here on this damn continent.
In 2013, Africa had a population of 1.11bn compared to America’s 316.1mil and
Europe’s 742.5mil. So we have resources. Nigeria is a large country with a
massive population, with money and means. It is the largest producer of oil on
this continent. Which equates to plenty dollar bills! There are many media
moguls, entrepreneurs who have made something of their lives. I don’t live
there but apparently the news of the killings didn’t even make the headlines.
Al Shabaab is merrily going around killing people that cant read the Quran. Now
the actions of both Boko Haram and Al Shabab are deplorable in my humble
opinion, but equally deplorable is the silence from the continents leaders as
well as the inaction. The AU where is the voice in all of this. Let me ask
another more pertinent question, what exactly is their use other than a few
meetings? If we don’t know how, can we not learn how? Can we not send our
troops for proper training in the US or the Soviet Union or China? Those
countries are benefiting from our mineral wealth I am sure they would want for
us to be ‘safe’ so they can continue to benefit?
The western media ignores ‘our’ story and all of a sudden, we
as Africans think we are Michael Jackson and at the top of our voices we shout
“They don’t really care about us” but my answer to that is, shut up! Why should
they care if we don’t really care about us. So quick to Be Charlie, but a few
hundred or thousand of our own die and its like oh shame, but its in a village
in Nigeria. And therein lies most of our issues as a continent.
We are yet to be emancipated from mental slavery, as Bob
Marley so eloquently put it. Even we value western lives more than our own. And
I could be wrong, but we have a few dollar millionaires and billionaires on
this continent, countries with raw minerals aplenty, yet we are held to ransom
by diseases such as Ebola, malaria, cholera, etc until Bill Gates or Bono come
and sets us free.
I have lived in South Africa for 31years, my parents have
educated many (and still do), my uncles and aunts healed more, yet we go to a
restaurant, Moyo Melrose Arch, to query a legitimate error, the manager has the
nerve to mutter, go back to your country. Now say it was a German patron, what
would Reuben, the manager’s response be? You see that mentality is what holds
us back from being great. I look at Cape Towns beachfront area, then I look at
Accra’s, the beachfront of one is one to behold and the other… well not so
much, why? Well because someone decided to do something! Some might argue
that’s because Accra has bigger fish to fry, and I will answer, but even those ‘bigger
fish’ aren’t being fried!
Our own inaction, our own silence, our own inability to fend
for ourselves not because we can’t but because we choose not to, that is why
they don’t really care about us.
Live and let live. Maximum respect.
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