|
China makes into way to the hearts and minds of developing countries by building roads, sports stadiums, national theatres and water wells. Chinese businessmen come to Africa, for example, with a spade, hammer and cash in one hand and their cheap merchandise and business deals in the other. Mention America, and people will immediately think of its firepower; mention China, and people will point at everything they use in their homes, offices and farms.
Intervention is a must. The world cannot afford to stand by and allow another Rwanda to unfold in Zimbabwe. It will be an insult to entertain future generations of Zimbabweans with another Hollywood blockbuster of an African buffoon who ruined his country while the civilized world remained unconcerned.
President Robert Mugabe has shown his contempt for democracy and his hatred for his people. He is one of those dictators who cannot see beyond the cheering cronies around him. He wears suits, lives in palaces and is welcomed by dancing and drum beating crowds. He is not the first African leader to live in fantasy while the world collapses around him. We have seen how such crazy men have squandered the meager resources of their countries and reduced their citizens to abject poverty and humiliation. The world has witnessed the genocides they committed when their people dared to stand against them. Siyad Barre of Somalia, Mubuto Sese Seko of Zaire, Idi Amin Dada of Uganda, and Jean-Bédel Bokassa of the Central African Republic and Omar El Beshir of Sudan are but only a few of the tyrants that the world let to dehumanize their citizens.
It is therefore the duty of African leaders to act before it is too late. They should freeze Zimbabe’s membership in the African Union until Mugabe accepts to bow to the will of the people. They should send a clear message to him that they will not allow him to rob the elections and hold the Zimbabweans hostage.
The Bush Administration should use its political and economic influence to urge neighboring African leaders to stop apologizing for Mugabe and treating him as an equal. Mugabe should be isolated and the MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, should be accepted as the elected leader and the legitimate voice of the Zimbabean people.
The Current Discussion: The U.S. State Dept. says China's no longer one of the world's worst human rights offenders. Are they right?
Does it matter, one might ask, whether the U.S spills tons of ink accusing China of all kinds of human rights violations or absolves China of any wrongdoing at all? For many years, the U.S. State Dept. was criticizing many countries, including China, for their human rights records. Most of these countries, however, knew that the U.S. human rights reports were just like the boy who cried wolf. Leveling criticism without accompanying it with punitive action makes such reports meaningless.
The Current Discussion: Australians are voting online for a "Word of the Year" from a list of new words to be included in the dictionary: among the frontrunners, "Chindia", "globesity," and "password fatigue." Create your favorite new word of the year that tells us something about trends in your country.
Somalilandracy: A self-declared independent country that establishes peace and security within its borders without much international help; abides by all rules of democracy and international law but not recognized by the international community. The name is derived from the case of , known by academics as Africa’s best kept secret.
The Question: The U.S. starts to choose a president this week. If you could send the candidates one message, what would it be?
My message would be simple and clear: Use the great American values of liberty, equality, and human dignity for all that are enshrined in the American Constitution. This is what attracts the world to America. It is the illusion of realizing this dream that appeals to people all over the world and makes America the land of opportunity. America defeated the Communist world not by force but by propagating these ideals through its powerful media, through its corporate culture and its liberal trade.
The Question: After Benazir Bhutto's assassination on Thursday, what's next for Pakistan?
Benazir Bhutto was Pakistan’s strongest voice against terrorism and military dictatorship in Pakistan. After her assassination, the country’s fate has been thrown into the unknown.
A look at Benazir’s latest statements gave us a glimpse of just how much of a threat she was to the extremists. She didn’t mince words in stating loudly and clearly her intention of cleansing Pakistan of Islamic extremists and terrorists.
Ann Curry of The Today Show wondered aloud why Bhutto was risking her life by returning to Pakistan. She told the former Prime Minister, “You're a mother of three. You could be living in London fine. You don't have to do this.”
Benazir replied, “Look into the eyes of the people who came to receive me at the airport, the joy, the happiness, the singing, the dancing, before the terrorists struck. They were celebrating my return because they want hope. If I don't come back, the 160 million people of Pakistan won't have hope of a future free from terrorism, a future in which there will be democracy.”
The Question: The producers of the movie "The Kite Runner" had to evacuate three boy actors from Afghanistan because they were involved in a scene portraying homosexual rape. Who's at fault here: the movie producers who exposed the boys to danger, or the Afghan culture that threatens them?
It was an unwise decision by the movie producers to take the boy actors back to Afghanistan. At the very least, it shows that they misread Afghan culture, tribal hostility and the country’s political situation.
This is a country where children engaging in a kite competition can easily ignite tribal feuds. If one believes the situation of the Hazaras as demonstrated in The Kite Runner, it is dangerous for a Hazara and a Pashtun to share the same space – let alone become friends. The Taliban’s mass killings of the Hazaras in 2001 were just a hint of the Sunni Taliban’s resentment toward the minority Shiite Hazaras.
**Editor's Note: This piece was written in response to a question asking panelists to choose the best of six proposals on how to move forward on climate change. Read More Panelist Views**
In the face of the resounding chorus for action against global warming, it may be tantamount to self-immolation to say anything negative against the campaign to fight climage change. One may not even dare to raise his voice for fear of becoming a victim to inquisiton by the brigades of climate change cheerleaders.
Despite that, I must risk refusing to follow the herd on the motives and long-term objectives of the global warming campaign. I am not a scientist to disprove the findings of eminent scholars in the field, and indeed that is not my point at all. Instead, my concern is the timing and fervor with which developed nations, particularly European countries, push the agenda of climate change. (Please refer to my previous piece)
Earlier this week, news reports carried the tragic story of 64 Somali-Ethiopian would-be immigrants who drowned off the coast of Yemen. A UAE paper also reported the story of two teenage Ethiopian boys who were found near starvation in a shipping container in Dubai. The 14- and 15-year-old boys had each paid US$1000, which they saved over five years, to make the trip to Germany; some of their friends had made the journey earlier in a similar condition and are now making a good living there. The boys ran out of food and water in the first day of the trip and had to resort to drinking each other’s urine to survive.
Under normal circumstances, this could be seen as a human tragedy of immense proportions. But since such stories and other even gloomier ones have become daily occurrences, they fail to make headlines – let alone invoke shock and invite empathy.
As one report put it, the seas separating Europe from Africa are being turned into a mass grave of the “unidentified immigrant”: hundreds and thousands of men, women and children perish in an attempt to find a better life abroad.
But instead of looking into the roots of the problem and forging out a common strategy to find a solution, European leaders are panicking and inclining more and more to turning Europe into a fortress. One might remind the Europeans of their scramble for Africa and their 1884 Berlin Conference, during which they divided Africa among various European powers. When Europe today complains about illegal African immigration, they should remember that they robbed a whole continent of everything of value for more than eighty years before they handed over the empty bowl to Africa’s native citizens.
Europe has been trying to refill the empty bowl since the majority of African nations gained their independence in the 1960s, but it seems the African masses have realized that filling the empty bowl with Europe’s kitchen leftovers have only satiated the appetite of the African ruling elite, while the majority of Africans slept on empty stomachs. The tribal wars and unending conflicts in Africa are therefore only about people fighting over these handouts. But with the population explosion and subsequent dwindling of resources, the young Africans began to look to Europe for survival and hope – which is how the rush toward Europe for food started.
The solution to this myriad problem, in my opinion, is not to turn Europe into a fortress but to revolutionize the current concept of aid to Africa. It is clear that the current trend not only places an economic and social burden on Europe, but also deprives Africa of its effective workforce, particularly as a UNESCO report notes that the majority of those who risk their lives on the high seas are in their prime between the ages of 17 and 30 and are predominantly high school graduates.
I agree with David Ignatius’ conclusion in his latest column that “…changing Pakistan is a job for Pakistanis, and history suggests that the more we meddle, the more likely we are to get things wrong.” In the Muslim world, it is history that shapes people’s perceptions of political situations. Unlike people in the West, who view emerging political scenarios through prisms of economics and of self-interest, Muslims and Arabs turn to history for explanations of western conspiracy in every situation they face.
The West thinks many of these events lie in the dust of history: the crusades, the loss of Andalusia, European colonial rule, the destruction of the Ottoman Caliphate, the debacle of Palestine, and the willy-nilly interference and changing of Muslim leaders. But these wounds are very much open and hurting in the Muslim world.
This is why when America goes east, Muslims go west. Recent U.S. military ventures into Afghanistan, Iraq, and indirectly into Somalia, and the larger war against terror, are all seen by the majority of the Muslim populace as the continuation of a war to dominate and subjugate the Muslim world.
Comments (3)