He is multi-talented. I like this kid.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Thursday, November 15, 2007
...Elf has done it's part for Africa...
I am compiling a list on this subject. I shall be coming back to this in a moment but please feast on this video while you make up your mind about foreign aid to our beloved continent.
My next post will start with the following line: "I have always believed that the white man, no matter how much they strife to show that they are helping us in Africa, never really intend for us to be as well off as they are..."
Now enjoy the video. Thanks!
My next post will start with the following line: "I have always believed that the white man, no matter how much they strife to show that they are helping us in Africa, never really intend for us to be as well off as they are..."
Now enjoy the video. Thanks!
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Thursday, November 01, 2007
...Most cruel emblem of racism...
Article from Chicken Bones:A Journal for Literary & Artistic African-American Themes
She was born on the Gamtoos River in the Eastern Cape in 1789 of a Khoisan family in what is now South Africa
Sara's Story a symbol of subjugation
and humiliation, her homecoming will be a spiritual thing
Sara is the short-name used these days for Saartjie Baartman, a Khoisan slave woman who at the tender age of 20 was taken from Cape Town to London and then on to Paris to be displayed naked in their streets and at their circuses like an animal her European audiences viewed her to be. Her story is a tearful and moving one. It is at once the story of an everyday woman, a human being, one of us, treated in the most grotesque ways, used as "scientific proof" of "European white superiority."
But it is also a story about the more widespread "social, political, scientific and philosophical assumptions which transformed one young African woman into a representation of savage sexuality and racial inferiority." Finally, her story is one that provokes us to look in some detail at the power of imagery to form opinions, and the way such power has been employed to depict people of color, especially women of color.
Since this story was published in February 2002, Sara's remains have been returned to South Africa. Saartjie Baartman's skeleton and bottled organs -- long stored at a French natural history museum -- were turned over to South African officials on April 29 at a ceremony in Paris, the culmination of years of requests by countrymen who wanted to bring her home [February 27, 2002 Editor's Note].
The Miami Herald on February 24 carried a story about a South African woman named Saartjie Baartman that attracted our attention, and, we have learned, has had the attention of many for some period of time.
Before getting into the story, we’d like to highlight what we think is the key issue here, the image of the black person, in this case a woman, in Western art. This is tied into the more macro issue of the way blacks have been portrayed as racially inferior and more specifically, the way black female sexuality has been portrayed as inferior. Those times are changing, but Saartjie's story is worth knowing about, because her story says a great deal about history, recent history at that.
Who is Saartjie Baartman?
She was born on the Gamtoos River in the Eastern Cape in 1789 of a Khoisan family in what is now South Africa. The Khoisans are among southern Africa’s oldest known inhabitants, people who made a major role in shaping South Africa’s past and present. But back in those days, bands of Dutch raiding parties went on horseback to the eastern and northern Cape frontiers to hunt down and exterminate these "bushmen" groups who were considered cattle thieves and a threat to settler society.
Canadian socio-linguist Nigel Crawhall, speaking of the Khoisan people, says this:
"These people moved across this land before any other human being. It was they who named the plants and the trees and the features of this land. . . . There [has been an] explosion of identity . . . [among] people who had spent their whole lives having to hide who they were. These people had been destroyed and now suddenly there [is] light and air."
There was never any light and air for Saartjie. In her late teens, she migrated to Cape Flats near Cape Town where she became a farmer’s slave and lived in a small shack until 1810. That year, she was sold in Cape Town in 1810 at the age of 20 to a British ship’s doctor, William Dunlop, who persuaded her that she could make a great deal of money by displaying her body to Europeans. Dunlop put her on a boat and she ended up in London.
There she was put on display in a building in Picadilly and paraded around naked in circuses, museums, bars and universities. She was most often obliged to walk, stand or sit as her keeper ordered, and told to show off her protruding posterior, an anatomical feature of her semi-nomadic people, and her large genitals, which varied in their appearance from those of Europeans.
Khoisan people anatomically have honey-colored skin and stock their body fats in the buttocks rather than in the thighs and belly. These are natural things for them, but Europeans found them to provide an excuse for stereotyping African blacks in grotesque ways. For example, the British described her genitals as like an apron, "skin that hangs from a turkey’s throat."
Contemporary descriptions of her shows at 225 Piccadilly, Bartholomew Fair and Haymarket in London say Baartman was made to parade naked along a "stage two feet high, along which she was led by her keeper and exhibited like a wild beast, being obliged to walk, stand or sit as he ordered".
There were protests in London for the way Baartman was being treated. The exhibitions took place at a time when the anti- slavery debate was raging in England and Baartman's plight attracted the attention of a young Jamaican, Robert Wedderburn, shown in this portrait, who founded the African Association to campaign against racism in England, and wrote of the horrors of slavery.
Wedderburn is himself an interesting black British radical. He was arrested twice in the early 1800s, once for Sedition for defending a slaves rights to rise up and kill his master, and then a second time for sending among the first revolutionary papers from England to the west Indies. For that, was found guilty of "Blasphemous libel" and served two years in Carlisle jail. He subsequently was released wrote and released his autobiography entitled, The Horrors of Slavery.
Under pressure from his group, the attorney general asked the government to put an end to the circus, saying Baartman was not a free participant.
A London court, however, found that Baartman had entered into a contract with Dunlop, although historian Percival Kirby, who has discovered records of the woman's life in exile, believes she never saw the document.
After four years in London, Sara was handed to a showman of wild animals in Paris, where she was displayed between 1814 and 1815 in a traveling circus, often handled by an animal trainer.
French Research Minister Roger-Gerard Schwartzenberg told the French Senate recently that she was also exhibited before "sages and painters," including George Cuvier, surgeon general to Napoleon Bonaparte, and seen by many as the founder of comparative anatomy in France.
Cuvier, shown here,
described Baartman’s movements as having "something brusque and capricious about them that recalled those of monkeys." Cuvier used such descriptions to demonstrate the superiority of the European races. Several "scientific" papers were written about Baartman, using her as proof of the superiority of the white race.Jeremy
Nathan, a South African film producer who is making a feature film on the life of Baartman, says such women excited the attention of the Parisian intelligentsia at the time. Cuvier was at the center of an eminent school of social anthropologists who believed she was the missing link, the highest form of animal life and the lowest form of human life.
Her anatomy even inspired a comic opera in France. Called The Hottentot Venus or Hatred to French Women, the drama encapsulated the complex of racial prejudice and sexual fascination that occupied European perceptions of aboriginal people at the time
Sara Baartman died in Paris in 1816, an impoverished prostitute, a lonely woman, and an alcoholic. She had come to be known as the "Venus Hottentot," which was a derogatory term used to describe "bushmen" of southern Africa.
Instead of providing her a decent burial, Cuvier made a plaster cast of Baartman’s body, dissected her and conserved her organs, including her genitals and brain, in bottles of formaldehyde. Along with her skeleton, shown here, Sara Baartman’s brain and genitals were stored somewhere in a back room of the Musée de l’Homme in Paris Her remains including those in the jars were displayed there until 1976.
Saartjie Baartman has created controversy in South Africa as well. Willie Bester, a world known contemporary South African artist, made a metal sculpture of Saartjie Baartman.
Bester is shown in the next photo, and you can barely see an overhead image projection on the screen behind him of his sculpture of Sara. Bester's father was Khosian and his mother what has been called "Cape colored." He was himself classified as "other colored" during the apartheid years.In Bester’s work apartheid has remained the dominant theme.
In particular he has consistently tackled the Group Areas Act (the law that defined where people could and could not live according to their color); the militarized and violent character of South African life stemming from apartheid; and the role played by the Dutch Reformed Church in supporting the apartheid ideology.
Yet, his sculpture of Baartman created controversy, perhaps because it was displayed in the Science and Engineering Library at the University of Cape Town. A panel was convened to discuss the sculpture. Some felt it needed greater explanation to accompany it, to explain the oppression and injustices committed during the colonial era. Others complained that the science library was the wrong venue, because it was in the name of science that Baartman was paraded about Europe like an animal. There were also complaints that if art of indigenous peoples are to be displayed, they should be by indigenous people.
Here in the US, an African American woman, Deborah Willis, has written a recently published book that was motivated to a great degree by the tragedy of Saartjie Baartman. The book, entitled, The Black Female Body in Photography, focuses on the power of the photographic image to reflect and affect opinions. Willis, curator at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture, commented on Baartman’s situation this way: "The stereotypical caricatures of Baartman portrayed her as entertainment while also sexualizing her image. (Despite the negative and stereotypical nature of Baartman’s images) the bustle soon became very stylish in Europe and later in America, and this may have been the result of the popularity of her images."
After reading about Baartman, Willis contacted Carla Williams, a longtime friend and fellow photographer, to discuss the possibility of a book on the black female body
in photography.
Willis has noted that most images of black women produced in the decades after the Baartman images were exotic shots of African women in tribal attire or were of slaves working in the fields or taking care of white children and babies.
The latter images, according to Willis, provide a counterpoint to the earlier sexualized images of black women. "They were images of ‘neutered’ black females instead," Willis explains. These new images of slaves and "mammies" robbed black women of their femininity and portrayed them more as genderless workers.
A recent advertisement for Benetton, an international clothing store chain, featured a black woman with a white baby at her breast and was considered controversial when it debuted, Willis says. "But I loved the imagery, because it provided a counterpoint to that neutered black female aesthetic."
It is also worth noting that a new documentary film has been produced by Zola Maseko, who grew up in Swaziland, entitled, The Life and Times of Sara Baartman – "The Hottentot Venus". Using historical drawings, cartoons, legal documents, and interviews with noted cultural historians and anthropologists, The Life and Times of Sara Baartman - "The Hottentot Venus" deconstructs the social, political, scientific and philosophical assumptions which transformed one young African woman into a representation of savage sexuality and racial inferiority.
American Historical Review has said of the film:
"Zola Maseko's elegant and rather beautiful film recounts the life and times of Sara Baartman in clear and acceptable terms, using both contemporary and contemporaneous sources.... A telling and quite powerful film. It would be very appropriate for any class in the history of racism or colonial history. And just an hour long, it is perfect for a single classroom showing."
Le Monde has written:
"By combining the history and tragic destiny of Baartman, with the theories and racist imagination of the period... (Sara Baartman) presents an implacable plea against racism."
The film was rated the Best African Documentary, 1999 FESPACO African Film Festival, Ouagadougou Burkina Faso, and Best Documentary, 1999 Milan African Film Festival, Italy.
Commenting on the film and the life of Saartjie Baartman, now known to many as Sara, Alex Dodd says this:
"Part of the power of the documentary is that, as a viewer, you cease to think of history as words on a page or abstract theories. Despite the myriad discourses her tale has triggered, one cannot for a second escape the reality that Sara Baartman was a real human being with feelings. (The film) was Baartman’s life…an amazing story of one woman’s life."
South Africa, since it broke loose from the grip of apartheid, has been asking the French to send Sara home. Former President Nelson Mandela made that a personal project. He asked the late President François Mitterand for help in 1994, and two years later, South African Foreign Minister Nzo formally raised the issue yet again But no progress was made.
However, now the French Senate, in late January 2002, approved a bill proposing that Sara be returned home to South Africa. The lower house of the French parliament, the National Assembly, is expected to pass the law before the end of June.
For many South Africans, most especially for the Khoisan and a man named Boezak, a representative on the Khoisan legacy project of the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA), Sara’s "sad story has become a symbol for us…of the subjugation and humiliation of Khoisan women through all the ages." He went on to say:"(When) we celebrate her homecoming it will be a spiritual ceremony. It will be a reburial. It will not be a Cape Town thing, it will not be a Griqua thing, it will be a national thing."
* * * * *
She was born on the Gamtoos River in the Eastern Cape in 1789 of a Khoisan family in what is now South Africa
Sara's Story a symbol of subjugation
and humiliation, her homecoming will be a spiritual thing
Sara is the short-name used these days for Saartjie Baartman, a Khoisan slave woman who at the tender age of 20 was taken from Cape Town to London and then on to Paris to be displayed naked in their streets and at their circuses like an animal her European audiences viewed her to be. Her story is a tearful and moving one. It is at once the story of an everyday woman, a human being, one of us, treated in the most grotesque ways, used as "scientific proof" of "European white superiority."
But it is also a story about the more widespread "social, political, scientific and philosophical assumptions which transformed one young African woman into a representation of savage sexuality and racial inferiority." Finally, her story is one that provokes us to look in some detail at the power of imagery to form opinions, and the way such power has been employed to depict people of color, especially women of color.
Since this story was published in February 2002, Sara's remains have been returned to South Africa. Saartjie Baartman's skeleton and bottled organs -- long stored at a French natural history museum -- were turned over to South African officials on April 29 at a ceremony in Paris, the culmination of years of requests by countrymen who wanted to bring her home [February 27, 2002 Editor's Note].
The Miami Herald on February 24 carried a story about a South African woman named Saartjie Baartman that attracted our attention, and, we have learned, has had the attention of many for some period of time.
Before getting into the story, we’d like to highlight what we think is the key issue here, the image of the black person, in this case a woman, in Western art. This is tied into the more macro issue of the way blacks have been portrayed as racially inferior and more specifically, the way black female sexuality has been portrayed as inferior. Those times are changing, but Saartjie's story is worth knowing about, because her story says a great deal about history, recent history at that.
Who is Saartjie Baartman?
She was born on the Gamtoos River in the Eastern Cape in 1789 of a Khoisan family in what is now South Africa. The Khoisans are among southern Africa’s oldest known inhabitants, people who made a major role in shaping South Africa’s past and present. But back in those days, bands of Dutch raiding parties went on horseback to the eastern and northern Cape frontiers to hunt down and exterminate these "bushmen" groups who were considered cattle thieves and a threat to settler society.
Canadian socio-linguist Nigel Crawhall, speaking of the Khoisan people, says this:
"These people moved across this land before any other human being. It was they who named the plants and the trees and the features of this land. . . . There [has been an] explosion of identity . . . [among] people who had spent their whole lives having to hide who they were. These people had been destroyed and now suddenly there [is] light and air."
There was never any light and air for Saartjie. In her late teens, she migrated to Cape Flats near Cape Town where she became a farmer’s slave and lived in a small shack until 1810. That year, she was sold in Cape Town in 1810 at the age of 20 to a British ship’s doctor, William Dunlop, who persuaded her that she could make a great deal of money by displaying her body to Europeans. Dunlop put her on a boat and she ended up in London.
There she was put on display in a building in Picadilly and paraded around naked in circuses, museums, bars and universities. She was most often obliged to walk, stand or sit as her keeper ordered, and told to show off her protruding posterior, an anatomical feature of her semi-nomadic people, and her large genitals, which varied in their appearance from those of Europeans.
Khoisan people anatomically have honey-colored skin and stock their body fats in the buttocks rather than in the thighs and belly. These are natural things for them, but Europeans found them to provide an excuse for stereotyping African blacks in grotesque ways. For example, the British described her genitals as like an apron, "skin that hangs from a turkey’s throat."
Contemporary descriptions of her shows at 225 Piccadilly, Bartholomew Fair and Haymarket in London say Baartman was made to parade naked along a "stage two feet high, along which she was led by her keeper and exhibited like a wild beast, being obliged to walk, stand or sit as he ordered".
There were protests in London for the way Baartman was being treated. The exhibitions took place at a time when the anti- slavery debate was raging in England and Baartman's plight attracted the attention of a young Jamaican, Robert Wedderburn, shown in this portrait, who founded the African Association to campaign against racism in England, and wrote of the horrors of slavery.
Wedderburn is himself an interesting black British radical. He was arrested twice in the early 1800s, once for Sedition for defending a slaves rights to rise up and kill his master, and then a second time for sending among the first revolutionary papers from England to the west Indies. For that, was found guilty of "Blasphemous libel" and served two years in Carlisle jail. He subsequently was released wrote and released his autobiography entitled, The Horrors of Slavery.
Under pressure from his group, the attorney general asked the government to put an end to the circus, saying Baartman was not a free participant.
A London court, however, found that Baartman had entered into a contract with Dunlop, although historian Percival Kirby, who has discovered records of the woman's life in exile, believes she never saw the document.
After four years in London, Sara was handed to a showman of wild animals in Paris, where she was displayed between 1814 and 1815 in a traveling circus, often handled by an animal trainer.
French Research Minister Roger-Gerard Schwartzenberg told the French Senate recently that she was also exhibited before "sages and painters," including George Cuvier, surgeon general to Napoleon Bonaparte, and seen by many as the founder of comparative anatomy in France.
Cuvier, shown here,
described Baartman’s movements as having "something brusque and capricious about them that recalled those of monkeys." Cuvier used such descriptions to demonstrate the superiority of the European races. Several "scientific" papers were written about Baartman, using her as proof of the superiority of the white race.Jeremy Nathan, a South African film producer who is making a feature film on the life of Baartman, says such women excited the attention of the Parisian intelligentsia at the time. Cuvier was at the center of an eminent school of social anthropologists who believed she was the missing link, the highest form of animal life and the lowest form of human life.
Her anatomy even inspired a comic opera in France. Called The Hottentot Venus or Hatred to French Women, the drama encapsulated the complex of racial prejudice and sexual fascination that occupied European perceptions of aboriginal people at the time
Sara Baartman died in Paris in 1816, an impoverished prostitute, a lonely woman, and an alcoholic. She had come to be known as the "Venus Hottentot," which was a derogatory term used to describe "bushmen" of southern Africa.
Instead of providing her a decent burial, Cuvier made a plaster cast of Baartman’s body, dissected her and conserved her organs, including her genitals and brain, in bottles of formaldehyde. Along with her skeleton, shown here, Sara Baartman’s brain and genitals were stored somewhere in a back room of the Musée de l’Homme in Paris Her remains including those in the jars were displayed there until 1976. Saartjie Baartman has created controversy in South Africa as well. Willie Bester, a world known contemporary South African artist, made a metal sculpture of Saartjie Baartman.
Bester is shown in the next photo, and you can barely see an overhead image projection on the screen behind him of his sculpture of Sara. Bester's father was Khosian and his mother what has been called "Cape colored." He was himself classified as "other colored" during the apartheid years.In Bester’s work apartheid has remained the dominant theme.
In particular he has consistently tackled the Group Areas Act (the law that defined where people could and could not live according to their color); the militarized and violent character of South African life stemming from apartheid; and the role played by the Dutch Reformed Church in supporting the apartheid ideology.
Yet, his sculpture of Baartman created controversy, perhaps because it was displayed in the Science and Engineering Library at the University of Cape Town. A panel was convened to discuss the sculpture. Some felt it needed greater explanation to accompany it, to explain the oppression and injustices committed during the colonial era. Others complained that the science library was the wrong venue, because it was in the name of science that Baartman was paraded about Europe like an animal. There were also complaints that if art of indigenous peoples are to be displayed, they should be by indigenous people. Here in the US, an African American woman, Deborah Willis, has written a recently published book that was motivated to a great degree by the tragedy of Saartjie Baartman. The book, entitled, The Black Female Body in Photography, focuses on the power of the photographic image to reflect and affect opinions. Willis, curator at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture, commented on Baartman’s situation this way: "The stereotypical caricatures of Baartman portrayed her as entertainment while also sexualizing her image. (Despite the negative and stereotypical nature of Baartman’s images) the bustle soon became very stylish in Europe and later in America, and this may have been the result of the popularity of her images."
After reading about Baartman, Willis contacted Carla Williams, a longtime friend and fellow photographer, to discuss the possibility of a book on the black female body
in photography.
Willis has noted that most images of black women produced in the decades after the Baartman images were exotic shots of African women in tribal attire or were of slaves working in the fields or taking care of white children and babies.
The latter images, according to Willis, provide a counterpoint to the earlier sexualized images of black women. "They were images of ‘neutered’ black females instead," Willis explains. These new images of slaves and "mammies" robbed black women of their femininity and portrayed them more as genderless workers.
A recent advertisement for Benetton, an international clothing store chain, featured a black woman with a white baby at her breast and was considered controversial when it debuted, Willis says. "But I loved the imagery, because it provided a counterpoint to that neutered black female aesthetic."
It is also worth noting that a new documentary film has been produced by Zola Maseko, who grew up in Swaziland, entitled, The Life and Times of Sara Baartman – "The Hottentot Venus". Using historical drawings, cartoons, legal documents, and interviews with noted cultural historians and anthropologists, The Life and Times of Sara Baartman - "The Hottentot Venus" deconstructs the social, political, scientific and philosophical assumptions which transformed one young African woman into a representation of savage sexuality and racial inferiority.
American Historical Review has said of the film:
"Zola Maseko's elegant and rather beautiful film recounts the life and times of Sara Baartman in clear and acceptable terms, using both contemporary and contemporaneous sources.... A telling and quite powerful film. It would be very appropriate for any class in the history of racism or colonial history. And just an hour long, it is perfect for a single classroom showing."
Le Monde has written:
"By combining the history and tragic destiny of Baartman, with the theories and racist imagination of the period... (Sara Baartman) presents an implacable plea against racism."
The film was rated the Best African Documentary, 1999 FESPACO African Film Festival, Ouagadougou Burkina Faso, and Best Documentary, 1999 Milan African Film Festival, Italy.
Commenting on the film and the life of Saartjie Baartman, now known to many as Sara, Alex Dodd says this:
"Part of the power of the documentary is that, as a viewer, you cease to think of history as words on a page or abstract theories. Despite the myriad discourses her tale has triggered, one cannot for a second escape the reality that Sara Baartman was a real human being with feelings. (The film) was Baartman’s life…an amazing story of one woman’s life."
South Africa, since it broke loose from the grip of apartheid, has been asking the French to send Sara home. Former President Nelson Mandela made that a personal project. He asked the late President François Mitterand for help in 1994, and two years later, South African Foreign Minister Nzo formally raised the issue yet again But no progress was made.
However, now the French Senate, in late January 2002, approved a bill proposing that Sara be returned home to South Africa. The lower house of the French parliament, the National Assembly, is expected to pass the law before the end of June.
For many South Africans, most especially for the Khoisan and a man named Boezak, a representative on the Khoisan legacy project of the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA), Sara’s "sad story has become a symbol for us…of the subjugation and humiliation of Khoisan women through all the ages." He went on to say:"(When) we celebrate her homecoming it will be a spiritual ceremony. It will be a reburial. It will not be a Cape Town thing, it will not be a Griqua thing, it will be a national thing."
* * * * *
Friday, October 12, 2007
...Nigerian Comedy...
Gone are those days of Zebrudaya and co.; Usher in Ukwa et al.; but don't forget the amateurs.
Nigerian Laugh Out Loud comedy. Just a couple of videos.
Another one.
Nigerian Laugh Out Loud comedy. Just a couple of videos.
Another one.
Monday, September 24, 2007
...Columbia University's Guest
But was he treated as a guest or a target? Columbia's president honors promise to tear up Iranian President, Ahmadinejad in opening commentary. I wonder whether the President of Columbia University would ask these tough enough questions to President Bush were he to be invited to speak there. That is just my personal perception of the whole thing...
Before you read the following CNN article and then my commentary, please note that CNN interrupted the Iranian President's Address and started commenting on it even before he had finished greeting the forum. I think this is the most inebriated form of disrespect because no one should be insulted as much as Iran's President had been right there in his face and then not given a chance to respond or not at least listened to even if he is going to try and circumvent the answering any questions posed or if he was going to try to avoid the matter altogether.
This seems to be the approach that the American government has adopted since they seem to be happy with passing their opinion on everyone else. How come they allow the president of Columbia insult the president in the name of free speech and then start interrupting the very next address to those insults. The media has played a great part in tinting the American public's views on a lot of these political things and it is hard because most people believe that journalists really are impartial unless they are on FOX NEWS but I guess this is far from a truism.
CNN seemed bent on portraying the Iranian President as a bad man and we all know many people have been called bad in the media only to be discovered later that this was not true. I must also point out here that CNN also seemed to summarily think that marching for the Jena 6 was pointless. They had some gentleman on a show that argued that Mychal had prior convictions on battery and assault and was on probation and tried to make sense of the fact that these poor highschoolers were victims of an overzealous DA with a racial agenda.
Just read the CNN article about Pres Ahmadinejad...
My Comments:
I don't feel this man was given enough time to explain himself but that shouldn’t make me an idiot because I want to listen to what he has to say no matter what others have said about him already...
Imagine that the USA supported Iraq in the early 1990s to fight a war against him and now are calling the President of Iran all sorts of names. I am not a pro-Iranian but we as advocates of the truth should seek truth. The US dismissed claims of the Nuclear Inspectors that Iraq did not have WMDs and waged on with their war only to find out that the inspectors were right.
The US now has turned its attention on Iran saying they too are in possession of enough Uranium to build WMDs now how should the US be trusted when they blew it so badly in Iraq even turning down UN calls for more patience and a diplomatic solution in Iraq? It is ridiculous that we as a free people love to hate people we don't know or people who tend to pose honest questions but we really are proving to the world that we are the ignorant ones not the President of Iran...and booing him when he spoke? Please! what he said consisted his views and they will never change just as our views are pretty much set and we would not allow another person's views to even be spoken.
Bush to me is the worst and greatest dictator in the world. Wiretapping; attacking Iraq and Afghanistan; ruining the US economy; making a liar of a decorated War veteran (Colin Powell) amongst a lot of other things. He even succeeded in making a joke of the US justice system-imagine what nonsense we students of International Law and Policy have to face with the whole war on terror versus the recent firings of the Attorney Generals debacle. The President of the US even condones revealing the identity of a CIA operative's name just because her husband didn't accept his lies for without seeing facts. He promised to follow the issue and assured the nation that the culprits will be punished accordingly but what became of that? He hindered investigations by telling his former staff they had immunity and shouldn't even speak to Congress about anything he didn't want them to and Americans just sat back and kept quiet.
Before you read the following CNN article and then my commentary, please note that CNN interrupted the Iranian President's Address and started commenting on it even before he had finished greeting the forum. I think this is the most inebriated form of disrespect because no one should be insulted as much as Iran's President had been right there in his face and then not given a chance to respond or not at least listened to even if he is going to try and circumvent the answering any questions posed or if he was going to try to avoid the matter altogether.
This seems to be the approach that the American government has adopted since they seem to be happy with passing their opinion on everyone else. How come they allow the president of Columbia insult the president in the name of free speech and then start interrupting the very next address to those insults. The media has played a great part in tinting the American public's views on a lot of these political things and it is hard because most people believe that journalists really are impartial unless they are on FOX NEWS but I guess this is far from a truism. CNN seemed bent on portraying the Iranian President as a bad man and we all know many people have been called bad in the media only to be discovered later that this was not true. I must also point out here that CNN also seemed to summarily think that marching for the Jena 6 was pointless. They had some gentleman on a show that argued that Mychal had prior convictions on battery and assault and was on probation and tried to make sense of the fact that these poor highschoolers were victims of an overzealous DA with a racial agenda.
Just read the CNN article about Pres Ahmadinejad...
My Comments:
I don't feel this man was given enough time to explain himself but that shouldn’t make me an idiot because I want to listen to what he has to say no matter what others have said about him already...
Imagine that the USA supported Iraq in the early 1990s to fight a war against him and now are calling the President of Iran all sorts of names. I am not a pro-Iranian but we as advocates of the truth should seek truth. The US dismissed claims of the Nuclear Inspectors that Iraq did not have WMDs and waged on with their war only to find out that the inspectors were right.
The US now has turned its attention on Iran saying they too are in possession of enough Uranium to build WMDs now how should the US be trusted when they blew it so badly in Iraq even turning down UN calls for more patience and a diplomatic solution in Iraq? It is ridiculous that we as a free people love to hate people we don't know or people who tend to pose honest questions but we really are proving to the world that we are the ignorant ones not the President of Iran...and booing him when he spoke? Please! what he said consisted his views and they will never change just as our views are pretty much set and we would not allow another person's views to even be spoken.
Bush to me is the worst and greatest dictator in the world. Wiretapping; attacking Iraq and Afghanistan; ruining the US economy; making a liar of a decorated War veteran (Colin Powell) amongst a lot of other things. He even succeeded in making a joke of the US justice system-imagine what nonsense we students of International Law and Policy have to face with the whole war on terror versus the recent firings of the Attorney Generals debacle. The President of the US even condones revealing the identity of a CIA operative's name just because her husband didn't accept his lies for without seeing facts. He promised to follow the issue and assured the nation that the culprits will be punished accordingly but what became of that? He hindered investigations by telling his former staff they had immunity and shouldn't even speak to Congress about anything he didn't want them to and Americans just sat back and kept quiet.
Friday, September 21, 2007
... Peak of Randomness (mind me not, trying to catch up)
I haven't been on blogger for a while. Routinely, going from a nine-hour work day to a three hour evening school class and from school, homework; falling asleep on top of the books stacked on my computer desk; and waking up with a jolt to realise I am running about 30 minutes late for work, and then amidst the mad rush to catch up with time, realise I haven't eaten anything in 24hrs is the life I always dreamed of in America. Of course I rush out and get to work a minute late and have to get scolded by a supervisor that just came back from a three week vacation in Hawaii; God save her soul I was a little winded else, I'd be writing this piece from within three walls and bars with a peep hole for a window. The Peak of my ramdomness...here it goes:
....Zimbabwean Parliarment has set a new precedence for African countries still under draconian law of dictatorship by offering a retirement package to Robert Mugabe. Really, I doubt that they saw any other way of asking their president to leave the country and leave it in peace. I think Cameroonian Parliarmentarians should start thinking about a retirement package for Bi Mvondo and his Etoudi entourage. READ MORE
....And the Senator from Idaho who is gay but actually doesn't think he is...Courting an undercover police officer in the bathroom at the airport in Portland? The funny thing is that he pleaded guilty quietly and when the media is unto him, he decides to take back his plea, etc..This is the second gay Republican Senator that has been outted in half a year. There is the one who was not only a gay man but a pedophile also targetting Congressional Pages. I am seriously tired of Republicans in the US. The war in Iraq is going well; the US economy is doing very well; We know Iraq has weapons of mass destruction; the list is unend. More Republican balderdash here!
....Oh! The Jena 6 Neocivil-liberties-era racism at its best is all I can say. Why hasn't the prosecutor been summoned by Congress? Mike Nifong, the former prosecutor in the Duke rape case has been disbarred, served a 24hr sentence in jail, had to pay a fine and is now facing a multimillion dollar lawsuit from the students whose lives he ruined.
....Oh and my birthday was September 6th. HA!
....still thinking... we will catch up in the next piece. Thanks for reading and making sense out of my randomness this morning. God speed.
....Zimbabwean Parliarment has set a new precedence for African countries still under draconian law of dictatorship by offering a retirement package to Robert Mugabe. Really, I doubt that they saw any other way of asking their president to leave the country and leave it in peace. I think Cameroonian Parliarmentarians should start thinking about a retirement package for Bi Mvondo and his Etoudi entourage. READ MORE
....And the Senator from Idaho who is gay but actually doesn't think he is...Courting an undercover police officer in the bathroom at the airport in Portland? The funny thing is that he pleaded guilty quietly and when the media is unto him, he decides to take back his plea, etc..This is the second gay Republican Senator that has been outted in half a year. There is the one who was not only a gay man but a pedophile also targetting Congressional Pages. I am seriously tired of Republicans in the US. The war in Iraq is going well; the US economy is doing very well; We know Iraq has weapons of mass destruction; the list is unend. More Republican balderdash here!
....Oh! The Jena 6 Neocivil-liberties-era racism at its best is all I can say. Why hasn't the prosecutor been summoned by Congress? Mike Nifong, the former prosecutor in the Duke rape case has been disbarred, served a 24hr sentence in jail, had to pay a fine and is now facing a multimillion dollar lawsuit from the students whose lives he ruined.
....Oh and my birthday was September 6th. HA!
....still thinking... we will catch up in the next piece. Thanks for reading and making sense out of my randomness this morning. God speed.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
... Legislative and Municipal elections in Cameroon July '07
With the July 22nd elections come and gone in Cameroon, the ruling party in Cameroon, the CPDM (Cameroon Peoples' Democratic Movement) has been declared winner by landslide margins. Asked by a friend of mine whether I thought the SDF (Social Democratic Front), the leading opposition party in Cameroon was ready to rule the country, I was adamant yet very clear in my response. See my response below.
With 9 million people registered to vote, the MINAT (Ministry of Territorial Administration) is reporting that 4.5 million voted this past July 22nd, contrary to the 1 million reported by BBC, and the Associated Press. This in itself is enough for us to realise that the Cameroonian populace is sick and tired of the politics surrounding our country and they have through silent protest, expressed themselves clearly.
The landslide by the Bi Mvondo Household is somewhat a good thing for Cameroon since I will stand by many who love Cameroon and spell out that Ni John and his family is not ready to move to Etoudi. 1992 was a perfect year for the revolutionary ideas and change that Ni John would have brought to the Cameroonian political scene but since then, his influence has faded and his ideals remain shadows of patriotic idealism at best. That is not to say though that the Ni John's SDF hasn't contributed to the somewhat apparent change in the Cameroonian political life as well as socio-economic progress and development. Heck, their constant criticism and outcry captured attention from the world and have paved the way for renewed interest in Cameroon from investors.
The SDF is just too distracted at this point to do a great job in ruling the country. The fact that the SCNC (Southern Cameroons National Council) is based in the Anglophone part of the country and its ideals of a separate sovereign state call it Southern Cameroons or Ambazonia are far more appealing to the populace and to my brothers and sisters who have been jobless for years, poses another huge impediment to the SDF Etoudi takeover machinery. You must also note here that Buea (seat of the SCNC) is a mere 8 hours by road from Bamenda (seat of the SDF) and so is Yaoundé (seat of the CPDM).
That aside, the SDF has even lost ground in its own lair. Losing out Wum, Ndop and Bamenda in the legislative elections in the Northwest province thus far. There are more places where the SDF lost and will lose the elections in the Northwest and this is a relatively big slip up given that in the 1996 elections, the SDF lost out only the Bali constituency to the CPDM and that was because as it was alleged, the Fon of Bali had taken ballot boxes to his palace, …but that is another discussion. The SDF even won some parts of Yaoundé in that election.
Then there is the infighting issue that has rendered the SDF a joke in the face of international observers. Could someone answer this question to me clearly? Why on earth is Ni John Fru Ndi still the Chairman of the SDF? 1992 to 2007 is 15 years that is one year more than 2 seven-year terms (septenats), which the current constitution says is the limit for any one president of Cameroon. If Ni John had been president, would he have stepped down in 2006 like Mbah Ndam and the other dissenters in his party called for? That to me is the root of all the infighting that has derailed the SDF charge to taking over the Etoudi mansion.
Bi Mvondo's house (CPDM) on the other hand, is united around their greatest figure and were Bi Mvondo to be elected chairman again in the CPDM, I am quite sure, they will have control of the country for a couple of more decades or so.
They are more organised and their popularity is growing even more in Cameroon, even attracting the toughest critics. I hate to admit this but most of the opposition leaders in Cameroon have thrown in the towel and are very good at making a truism out of the if-you-can't-beat-them-join-them statement.
It is sad yet very true when you consider that people who were running for elections in the SDF camp not too long ago have somehow "seen the light" and are now with l'equipe qui gagne. Our SDF leaders promised a lot of things and they themselves have not stood up to the end of the deal so it is tough to side with them. Through their my-way-goes type of attitude, we have had people we looked up to scuffle and tumble over the direction the party should take. The infighting amidst other things has crippled the SDF and interest has dissipated.
Cameroon's politics is in the hands of the CPDM and with them becoming the majority in the National Assembly for the twenty seventeenth time since our independence, we are sure to have another constitutional amendment that will ensure another 14 years at least for Bi Mvondo as chief exec of La Republique. This of course only means that Cameroon will continue to be raped by corrupt officials and as foreign investments keep pouring in, government officials will continue building mansions, etc.
Fellow Cameroonian brothers and sisters, it is up to you and me to make sense of this travesty. Either we pick up arms and revolt and turn the country into what Cote D'Ivoire has become today or, we just sit back in true Cameroonian laissez-faire fashion and drink while our country is sapped of its little pride and economic resources. Of course the second option is always going to be more appealing to the greater population since many do not understand or simply don't care. I do think though in some naively unrelenting way that if the price of beer were to double as has the price of gasoline in Cameroon, some people may actually start to feel the pinch enough to realise what Bi Mvondo and his accomplices have done to our great nation of Cameroon.
God be with you all!
With 9 million people registered to vote, the MINAT (Ministry of Territorial Administration) is reporting that 4.5 million voted this past July 22nd, contrary to the 1 million reported by BBC, and the Associated Press. This in itself is enough for us to realise that the Cameroonian populace is sick and tired of the politics surrounding our country and they have through silent protest, expressed themselves clearly. The landslide by the Bi Mvondo Household is somewhat a good thing for Cameroon since I will stand by many who love Cameroon and spell out that Ni John and his family is not ready to move to Etoudi. 1992 was a perfect year for the revolutionary ideas and change that Ni John would have brought to the Cameroonian political scene but since then, his influence has faded and his ideals remain shadows of patriotic idealism at best. That is not to say though that the Ni John's SDF hasn't contributed to the somewhat apparent change in the Cameroonian political life as well as socio-economic progress and development. Heck, their constant criticism and outcry captured attention from the world and have paved the way for renewed interest in Cameroon from investors.
The SDF is just too distracted at this point to do a great job in ruling the country. The fact that the SCNC (Southern Cameroons National Council) is based in the Anglophone part of the country and its ideals of a separate sovereign state call it Southern Cameroons or Ambazonia are far more appealing to the populace and to my brothers and sisters who have been jobless for years, poses another huge impediment to the SDF Etoudi takeover machinery. You must also note here that Buea (seat of the SCNC) is a mere 8 hours by road from Bamenda (seat of the SDF) and so is Yaoundé (seat of the CPDM).
That aside, the SDF has even lost ground in its own lair. Losing out Wum, Ndop and Bamenda in the legislative elections in the Northwest province thus far. There are more places where the SDF lost and will lose the elections in the Northwest and this is a relatively big slip up given that in the 1996 elections, the SDF lost out only the Bali constituency to the CPDM and that was because as it was alleged, the Fon of Bali had taken ballot boxes to his palace, …but that is another discussion. The SDF even won some parts of Yaoundé in that election.
Then there is the infighting issue that has rendered the SDF a joke in the face of international observers. Could someone answer this question to me clearly? Why on earth is Ni John Fru Ndi still the Chairman of the SDF? 1992 to 2007 is 15 years that is one year more than 2 seven-year terms (septenats), which the current constitution says is the limit for any one president of Cameroon. If Ni John had been president, would he have stepped down in 2006 like Mbah Ndam and the other dissenters in his party called for? That to me is the root of all the infighting that has derailed the SDF charge to taking over the Etoudi mansion.
Bi Mvondo's house (CPDM) on the other hand, is united around their greatest figure and were Bi Mvondo to be elected chairman again in the CPDM, I am quite sure, they will have control of the country for a couple of more decades or so.
They are more organised and their popularity is growing even more in Cameroon, even attracting the toughest critics. I hate to admit this but most of the opposition leaders in Cameroon have thrown in the towel and are very good at making a truism out of the if-you-can't-beat-them-join-them statement. It is sad yet very true when you consider that people who were running for elections in the SDF camp not too long ago have somehow "seen the light" and are now with l'equipe qui gagne. Our SDF leaders promised a lot of things and they themselves have not stood up to the end of the deal so it is tough to side with them. Through their my-way-goes type of attitude, we have had people we looked up to scuffle and tumble over the direction the party should take. The infighting amidst other things has crippled the SDF and interest has dissipated.
Cameroon's politics is in the hands of the CPDM and with them becoming the majority in the National Assembly for the twenty seventeenth time since our independence, we are sure to have another constitutional amendment that will ensure another 14 years at least for Bi Mvondo as chief exec of La Republique. This of course only means that Cameroon will continue to be raped by corrupt officials and as foreign investments keep pouring in, government officials will continue building mansions, etc.
Fellow Cameroonian brothers and sisters, it is up to you and me to make sense of this travesty. Either we pick up arms and revolt and turn the country into what Cote D'Ivoire has become today or, we just sit back in true Cameroonian laissez-faire fashion and drink while our country is sapped of its little pride and economic resources. Of course the second option is always going to be more appealing to the greater population since many do not understand or simply don't care. I do think though in some naively unrelenting way that if the price of beer were to double as has the price of gasoline in Cameroon, some people may actually start to feel the pinch enough to realise what Bi Mvondo and his accomplices have done to our great nation of Cameroon.
God be with you all!
Friday, July 20, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
If there is no soccer in heaven, I am not going...
He is a three-time African player of the year and I saw him play his first games in Cameroon. Enjoy!
Oh yeah! If you can identify the songs please leave the title and artist in the comments section. Thanks!
Oh yeah! If you can identify the songs please leave the title and artist in the comments section. Thanks!
Friday, July 06, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
...Nollywood: How far from Hollywood?
In India, 
the term used to refer to the movie industry is called Bollywood. In Nigeria, it is Nollywood. These are renditions of the powerhouse movie center of the world, known as Hollywood.
Hollywod is located in Los Angeles, California in Western USA. Anyone hoping to pursue a dream as a career actor hopes to one day move to Hollywood, where more than half the population in some way is connected to the movie industry either through acting or production. There are a few dozen gigantic movie production houses like Paramount Studios, Universal Studios,etc that help make this dream come true.
Half-way around the globe, in Nigeria, the scene is another page of the book. Springing into action in the late 90s, the Nigerian movie industry has grown tremendously to greater heights. I still remember the title of the first movie I watched, Glamour Girls. We had gathered in front of the TV as my mother proudly announced that she had managed to secure one of the few copies available of the first Nigerian movie to hit the stands in Cameroon.
The nostalgia is still fresh as I remember popping open a bottle of juice and savoring a slice of cake as the screen flickered. The feeling was immense as I was proud to note that my own kind were movie leads and actually had put something together.
Fast-forward 10 and some years. I am in the US and every African or International Grocery or Clothing Store you go into has Nigerian movies on sale. The titles are inumerable. It seems movies are produced by the minute and the stands are suffering of this mass production type deal. The themes of the movies all seem to be alike, with most of them very poorly done due to attempts to jumpstart acting and production careers, and beat the competition. It has become so cut-throat that now, the movie need only have a title and a few people to call actors.
Mostly void of plots, and story lines, the Video Compact Discs leave quite little to desire. The truth is, if I were to create a label from Microsoft publisher, I am sure I would do a better job. Apart from the physical appearance, the content itself always almost leaves me regretting the reason for my purchasing the movie to start with. Grammatical errors, inconsistent plots and horendous audiovisual quality are the sign posts by which these movies thread.
Don't get me wrong, I admire the effort but I have to also admit that the road is quite long and mass production of this kind is only diminishing quality, which goes a long way to affect the quality of our most dear possession, the ability to make movies about our own society and lives. It is a great thing to make movies but because the Nigerian movie industry is lack lustre in quality, this has caused a lethargic pace to theme Africa's movie industry. We are a long way away from Hollywood.
the term used to refer to the movie industry is called Bollywood. In Nigeria, it is Nollywood. These are renditions of the powerhouse movie center of the world, known as Hollywood.Hollywod is located in Los Angeles, California in Western USA. Anyone hoping to pursue a dream as a career actor hopes to one day move to Hollywood, where more than half the population in some way is connected to the movie industry either through acting or production. There are a few dozen gigantic movie production houses like Paramount Studios, Universal Studios,etc that help make this dream come true.
Half-way around the globe, in Nigeria, the scene is another page of the book. Springing into action in the late 90s, the Nigerian movie industry has grown tremendously to greater heights. I still remember the title of the first movie I watched, Glamour Girls. We had gathered in front of the TV as my mother proudly announced that she had managed to secure one of the few copies available of the first Nigerian movie to hit the stands in Cameroon.
The nostalgia is still fresh as I remember popping open a bottle of juice and savoring a slice of cake as the screen flickered. The feeling was immense as I was proud to note that my own kind were movie leads and actually had put something together.
Fast-forward 10 and some years. I am in the US and every African or International Grocery or Clothing Store you go into has Nigerian movies on sale. The titles are inumerable. It seems movies are produced by the minute and the stands are suffering of this mass production type deal. The themes of the movies all seem to be alike, with most of them very poorly done due to attempts to jumpstart acting and production careers, and beat the competition. It has become so cut-throat that now, the movie need only have a title and a few people to call actors.
Mostly void of plots, and story lines, the Video Compact Discs leave quite little to desire. The truth is, if I were to create a label from Microsoft publisher, I am sure I would do a better job. Apart from the physical appearance, the content itself always almost leaves me regretting the reason for my purchasing the movie to start with. Grammatical errors, inconsistent plots and horendous audiovisual quality are the sign posts by which these movies thread.
Don't get me wrong, I admire the effort but I have to also admit that the road is quite long and mass production of this kind is only diminishing quality, which goes a long way to affect the quality of our most dear possession, the ability to make movies about our own society and lives. It is a great thing to make movies but because the Nigerian movie industry is lack lustre in quality, this has caused a lethargic pace to theme Africa's movie industry. We are a long way away from Hollywood.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Healing Day One
It is time to start my healing process...
I shall answer to my God
If question ever were He to of my love for her.
He knows it,
she knows it,
I know it,
That the love was love.
The love was immense.
Endless was the love.
We stuck to our love,
Through the mill,
We believed in each other,
Through the storm,
We were each other's rock.
Yesterday I cried.
Today I cry.
The tears come trickling.
I know not if I shall stop,
The pain too severe.
But my dear,
Through all the hurt,
I still will find it in me
To forgive.
As you desire,
I shall set you free.
So fly.
Fly high
Go for your dreams
The world is yours to conquer.
My one and only love.
I shall answer to my God
If question ever were He to of my love for her.
He knows it,
she knows it,
I know it,
That the love was love.
The love was immense.
Endless was the love.
We stuck to our love,
Through the mill,
We believed in each other,
Through the storm,
We were each other's rock.
Yesterday I cried.
Today I cry.
The tears come trickling.
I know not if I shall stop,
The pain too severe.
But my dear,
Through all the hurt,
I still will find it in me
To forgive.
As you desire,
I shall set you free.
So fly.
Fly high
Go for your dreams
The world is yours to conquer.
My one and only love.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
...Somber day in Cameroon...
Email from my friend in Cameroon:
Dear friends,
It has been a dark weekend for Cameroon;
In a split second we lost prominent local businessmen (Cameroonians, Chinese, etc.), Top management staff of MTN Cameroon (CEO, CFO & husband, and 2 others), 3 of Cameroons international referees on their way to manage a continental clash, and the list goes on.
To the families, friends, colleagues and other close ones of these victims I pray for courage in this time of grief.
Have a safe week ahead.
********************************************************
Flight 507 engine failure a focus
POSTED: 9:23 p.m. EDT, May 7, 2007
Story Highlights
MBANGA-PONGO, Cameroon (AP) -- The searchers drove as far as they could into the swamp and then set out on foot, crawling over soggy earth until they found signs of so many lost lives.
A white tennis shoe. A black purse of braided leather. A length of orange and blue cloth that a woman might have worn as a skirt. Unrecognizable, shredded debris hanging from trees.
Crash investigators were combing through the wreckage of Kenya Airways Flight 507 on Monday. They were concentrating on the possibility that the jet lost power in both engines during a storm and tried to glide back to the airport before plunging nose-first into a mangrove swamp.
All 114 people on board were killed.
Members of the recovery team -- some soldiers in camouflage and red berets, others barefoot villagers in shorts and T-shirts -- used branches as walking sticks during the 20-minute hike to the site. Workers placed bodies and body parts found nearby on stretchers and carried them to waiting ambulance. Trees had been chopped down and placed over puddles to make the walk easier.
The Nairobi-bound Boeing 737-800 sent a distress signal shortly after takeoff Saturday from Douala, delayed an hour by storms, and then lost contact 11-13 minutes later. It took more than 40 hours to locate the wreckage, most of it submerged in murky orange-brown water and concealed by a thick canopy of trees.
"The plane fell head first. Its nose was buried in the mangrove swamp," said Thomas Sobakam, chief of meteorology for the Douala airport. He said the plane disintegrated on impact.
The early investigation is focusing on a theory that the plane lost power in both engines but did not have enough altitude to glide back to the airport, a source close to the airline's investigation in Kenya, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.
A Cameroonian coast guard official helping lead the recovery operation said late Monday one of the plane's two black boxes had been found, a development that could help investigators determine what happened on the flight. It was not clear whether it was the data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder, or what condition it was in. The official, Capt. Francis Ekosso, did not immediately have further details.
The wreckage was found late Sunday along the plane's expected flight path. Procedures for losing all power in an aircraft call for the pilot to try to return to the airport along the same path. A nosedive crash also is consistent with a plane stalling as a pilot desperately tries to coax the plane farther along the glide path.
There were no survivors, said Luc Ndjodo, a local government official.
"We assume that a large part of the plane is underwater," said Ndjodo. "I saw only pieces.
'Scene of horror'
Debris at the crash site is spread over a small area roughly the size of a soccer field.
"It's a scene of horror," said Bernard Atebede, prefect of the nearby town of Vouri. "I saw things that should never be seen. It makes you realize the fragility of life."
He said 20 bodies have been recovered, and DNA testing would be used to determine the identities of some.
Among the 105 passengers on board was Nairobi-based Associated Press correspondent Anthony Mitchell, 39, who had been on assignment in the region. Nine crew members also were on board.
Initially, the search focused on the rugged, forested area near the town of Lolodorf, about 140 kilometers (90 miles) southeast of Douala. Sobakam said officials were led astray by an incorrect satellite signal, possibly emitted from the plane.
But fishermen living in the swampy mangroves near the Douala airport reported hearing a loud sound at the time of the crash.
"It was the fishermen ... who led us to the site," Sobakam said Sunday. "It's close enough that we could have seen it from the airport -- but apparently there was no smoke or fire."
'Just a big muddy hole'
A U.S. Embassy official who saw the crash site from a plane Monday said it would have been impossible to find from the air without coordinates provided by searchers on the ground. He said searchers in planes saw nothing when they flew over the site Sunday after hearing reports that the plane could have gone down in the swamp.
"It's not what you expect -- a bunch of trees knocked down and charred," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media. "It's just a big muddy hole, like many others out there."
The U.S. and France are among the nations providing aircraft and other equipment to help Cameroon. A U.S. National Transportation Safety Board team was expected to arrive Tuesday.
Capt. James Ouma, Kenya Airway's chief pilot, told journalists that Douala airport does not have weather radar but that such equipment was not mandatory because airplanes are required to have their own weather radars.
Stormy weather, power failure a focus
Officials said it was too early to tell what caused the plane to go down so soon after takeoff. But crash investigators focused on the stormy weather as a possible contributor to the crash.
Another source close to the investigation, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said officials wanted to know if the storms caused the plane to lose power in both engines. Also of interest was whether a power failure caused the aircraft's own radar to fail, the source said.
One of the many unanswered questions is why the plane stopped emitting signals after an initial distress call. The plane is equipped with an automatic device that should have kept up emissions for another two days.
An exhausted battery could be one reason, said Capt. Paul Mwangi, head of operations for Kenya Airways. He also said Sunday the device could have been destroyed upon impact.
Kenya Airways is considered one of Africa's safest airlines. The Douala-Nairobi flight runs several times a week, and commonly is used as an intermediary flight to Europe and the Middle East. Many passengers had been booked to transfer in Nairobi.
The plane was only six months old, said Titus Naikuni, chief executive of Kenya Airways.
The last crash of an international Kenya Airways flight was on Jan. 30, 2000, when Flight 431 was taking off from Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on its way to Nairobi. Investigators blamed a faulty alarm and pilot error for that crash, which killed 169 people.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Dear friends,
It has been a dark weekend for Cameroon;
In a split second we lost prominent local businessmen (Cameroonians, Chinese, etc.), Top management staff of MTN Cameroon (CEO, CFO & husband, and 2 others), 3 of Cameroons international referees on their way to manage a continental clash, and the list goes on.
To the families, friends, colleagues and other close ones of these victims I pray for courage in this time of grief.
Have a safe week ahead.
********************************************************
Flight 507 engine failure a focus
POSTED: 9:23 p.m. EDT, May 7, 2007
Story Highlights
MBANGA-PONGO, Cameroon (AP) -- The searchers drove as far as they could into the swamp and then set out on foot, crawling over soggy earth until they found signs of so many lost lives.
A white tennis shoe. A black purse of braided leather. A length of orange and blue cloth that a woman might have worn as a skirt. Unrecognizable, shredded debris hanging from trees.
Crash investigators were combing through the wreckage of Kenya Airways Flight 507 on Monday. They were concentrating on the possibility that the jet lost power in both engines during a storm and tried to glide back to the airport before plunging nose-first into a mangrove swamp.
All 114 people on board were killed.
Members of the recovery team -- some soldiers in camouflage and red berets, others barefoot villagers in shorts and T-shirts -- used branches as walking sticks during the 20-minute hike to the site. Workers placed bodies and body parts found nearby on stretchers and carried them to waiting ambulance. Trees had been chopped down and placed over puddles to make the walk easier.
The Nairobi-bound Boeing 737-800 sent a distress signal shortly after takeoff Saturday from Douala, delayed an hour by storms, and then lost contact 11-13 minutes later. It took more than 40 hours to locate the wreckage, most of it submerged in murky orange-brown water and concealed by a thick canopy of trees.
"The plane fell head first. Its nose was buried in the mangrove swamp," said Thomas Sobakam, chief of meteorology for the Douala airport. He said the plane disintegrated on impact.
The early investigation is focusing on a theory that the plane lost power in both engines but did not have enough altitude to glide back to the airport, a source close to the airline's investigation in Kenya, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.
A Cameroonian coast guard official helping lead the recovery operation said late Monday one of the plane's two black boxes had been found, a development that could help investigators determine what happened on the flight. It was not clear whether it was the data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder, or what condition it was in. The official, Capt. Francis Ekosso, did not immediately have further details.
The wreckage was found late Sunday along the plane's expected flight path. Procedures for losing all power in an aircraft call for the pilot to try to return to the airport along the same path. A nosedive crash also is consistent with a plane stalling as a pilot desperately tries to coax the plane farther along the glide path.
There were no survivors, said Luc Ndjodo, a local government official.
"We assume that a large part of the plane is underwater," said Ndjodo. "I saw only pieces.
'Scene of horror'
Debris at the crash site is spread over a small area roughly the size of a soccer field.
"It's a scene of horror," said Bernard Atebede, prefect of the nearby town of Vouri. "I saw things that should never be seen. It makes you realize the fragility of life."
He said 20 bodies have been recovered, and DNA testing would be used to determine the identities of some.
Among the 105 passengers on board was Nairobi-based Associated Press correspondent Anthony Mitchell, 39, who had been on assignment in the region. Nine crew members also were on board.
Initially, the search focused on the rugged, forested area near the town of Lolodorf, about 140 kilometers (90 miles) southeast of Douala. Sobakam said officials were led astray by an incorrect satellite signal, possibly emitted from the plane.
But fishermen living in the swampy mangroves near the Douala airport reported hearing a loud sound at the time of the crash.
"It was the fishermen ... who led us to the site," Sobakam said Sunday. "It's close enough that we could have seen it from the airport -- but apparently there was no smoke or fire."
'Just a big muddy hole'
A U.S. Embassy official who saw the crash site from a plane Monday said it would have been impossible to find from the air without coordinates provided by searchers on the ground. He said searchers in planes saw nothing when they flew over the site Sunday after hearing reports that the plane could have gone down in the swamp.
"It's not what you expect -- a bunch of trees knocked down and charred," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media. "It's just a big muddy hole, like many others out there."
The U.S. and France are among the nations providing aircraft and other equipment to help Cameroon. A U.S. National Transportation Safety Board team was expected to arrive Tuesday.
Capt. James Ouma, Kenya Airway's chief pilot, told journalists that Douala airport does not have weather radar but that such equipment was not mandatory because airplanes are required to have their own weather radars.
Stormy weather, power failure a focus
Officials said it was too early to tell what caused the plane to go down so soon after takeoff. But crash investigators focused on the stormy weather as a possible contributor to the crash.
Another source close to the investigation, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said officials wanted to know if the storms caused the plane to lose power in both engines. Also of interest was whether a power failure caused the aircraft's own radar to fail, the source said.
One of the many unanswered questions is why the plane stopped emitting signals after an initial distress call. The plane is equipped with an automatic device that should have kept up emissions for another two days.
An exhausted battery could be one reason, said Capt. Paul Mwangi, head of operations for Kenya Airways. He also said Sunday the device could have been destroyed upon impact.
Kenya Airways is considered one of Africa's safest airlines. The Douala-Nairobi flight runs several times a week, and commonly is used as an intermediary flight to Europe and the Middle East. Many passengers had been booked to transfer in Nairobi.
The plane was only six months old, said Titus Naikuni, chief executive of Kenya Airways.
The last crash of an international Kenya Airways flight was on Jan. 30, 2000, when Flight 431 was taking off from Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on its way to Nairobi. Investigators blamed a faulty alarm and pilot error for that crash, which killed 169 people.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
...Better than an episode of Cheaters...
These two were caught pants down... literally. LOL! In many parts of Africa, if you are caught cheating on your spouse, you can face punishment up to and not limited to being stoned to death. Most parts of Nigeria for example, where Shari laws prevail take this very seriously. In Zimbabwe, where these two are from, I guess the pictures tell you how they treat them. I wonder how this would be handled in Cameroon since it seems he is married to her but sleeping with her, her and her, and she is married to him, but sleeping with him, him and him. Man, I need to open a manufacturing plant for condoms.
I probably should have told you that these two didn't even have the courtesy to get a room. They were right behind the market.
I probably should have told you that these two didn't even have the courtesy to get a room. They were right behind the market.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
...Why Africa is poor. Really!
Although many people consider Africa poor, the continent is rich in resources and one can only bemoan the situation in which the people of Africa are. How does one explain being rich in resources but really poor? How do you come to see that a people that are so warm and friendly can be so destitute and corrupt? How do you explain an act so inebriated and cancerous that a government official, instead of trying to help his people would be ridding it of the financial regiment that sustains such a lethargic economy?
“Africa: Rich in Resources but Economically misfit. The Case of Cameroon.” is the title of a term paper I submitted in 2006. In it, I talked about the theoretical and conceptual principles in the economical and financial health of the 82nd richest country in the world, (GDP-Gross Domestic Product of $16,875,000,000. World Development Indicators database, World Bank, April 23, 2007) cross referencing such wealth to the current factors that cripple any meaningful sustainable economic development and growth in the country of 16million people. Although Cameroon has this much potential, ranked among the top ten percentile in Africa, ahead of Gold-producing power houses Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, little is left to be desired in the country’s futile trade and industry scene. In 2005, it was estimated that a little more than 40% of the country’s households live on less than $2 a day, while the average household lives on about $6-9 daily.
While the economic picture vis-à-vis the potential show a considerable departure from progress or adequate utilization of its resources, Cameroon has never failed to RSVP economic meetings abroad. This, most ministerial budgeters see as an opportunity not just to go abroad, but also to transport their ill-gotten loot to foreign banks and sap their country of any more financial resources as they report exorbitant expenses. For example, when the Minister of State of Communications visited Bonn, Germany for a conference in 2006 for three business days, he had a delegation of four. The report they submitted for expenses totaled almost $40000. Now, imagine how many round trip air tickets and hotel room packages can be bought for that much. But then, since there are no checks and balances, the government is bound to absorb the charges. How ironic that this delegation had just flown back from Bonn with an insurmountable amount of knowledge learnt from the conference that was based on the role of Communication in the Good Governance and Anti-corruption war.
Please look at the picture below and tell me if you see what these people learnt during a conference just like the one my Minister of Communications attended, and whether they are more likely to plunge a country into the troughs of poverty rather than development.
...Yea you guessed right, probably the jet lag!
“Africa: Rich in Resources but Economically misfit. The Case of Cameroon.” is the title of a term paper I submitted in 2006. In it, I talked about the theoretical and conceptual principles in the economical and financial health of the 82nd richest country in the world, (GDP-Gross Domestic Product of $16,875,000,000. World Development Indicators database, World Bank, April 23, 2007) cross referencing such wealth to the current factors that cripple any meaningful sustainable economic development and growth in the country of 16million people. Although Cameroon has this much potential, ranked among the top ten percentile in Africa, ahead of Gold-producing power houses Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, little is left to be desired in the country’s futile trade and industry scene. In 2005, it was estimated that a little more than 40% of the country’s households live on less than $2 a day, while the average household lives on about $6-9 daily.
While the economic picture vis-à-vis the potential show a considerable departure from progress or adequate utilization of its resources, Cameroon has never failed to RSVP economic meetings abroad. This, most ministerial budgeters see as an opportunity not just to go abroad, but also to transport their ill-gotten loot to foreign banks and sap their country of any more financial resources as they report exorbitant expenses. For example, when the Minister of State of Communications visited Bonn, Germany for a conference in 2006 for three business days, he had a delegation of four. The report they submitted for expenses totaled almost $40000. Now, imagine how many round trip air tickets and hotel room packages can be bought for that much. But then, since there are no checks and balances, the government is bound to absorb the charges. How ironic that this delegation had just flown back from Bonn with an insurmountable amount of knowledge learnt from the conference that was based on the role of Communication in the Good Governance and Anti-corruption war.
Please look at the picture below and tell me if you see what these people learnt during a conference just like the one my Minister of Communications attended, and whether they are more likely to plunge a country into the troughs of poverty rather than development.
...Yea you guessed right, probably the jet lag!
...So VETOed; What can you do about it?
My man, Dub-ya did say yesterday that he didn't think the bill before him made much sense. While I applaud his resilience and duck-taped stubborness on anything concerning Iraq, I also realise he is the ultimate deciding power in this country. Should Bush have waited for more intelligence before dragging us into Iraq? Sure. Should he have gathered support and tried his hand at diplomacy first? YEAH!
Should he have had a consistent plan and a strategy for withdrawal after success? Sure. Are our friends, relatives and loved ones dying in the war? Damn Right! So why is he so stubborn and in utter denial of the reality of the war...
The reason is simple: You voted for him ... twice! Now take that. Actually, I take that back. You voted for him once because of Florida.
Many people would gladly say this man, Dub-ya, is going to go down in history as the worst president ever in the history of the US. True, but he may also become a heroic influence for rogue leadership as he has set an untellable presidence, that I am sure others would gladly emulate.
The Senate understood that their bill would do very little to shake Bush of his stance, but they nonetheless went ahead and put it through. At least they did something right for once. Remember before the war, they all voted to send our man, Dub-ya to war with a blank check? Then come time for elections, they all came out swinging at Dub-ya saying the war wasn't going right, the war could have and should have been avoided, etc. You voted them back in, and they are now back to big ole buddy-system voting for bills. Politics is an institution of fanatics even greater than religious extremism, I must point out here. These old goons have the powers to make decisions but when they get to the Hill, their resolve is to do what their next buddy is doing, and pass irrasive bills.
Let's see what these people at the Hill and our man, Dub-ya at the Maison Blanche or La Casa Blanca or das weiße Haus have done to our beloved country:
1. Gas is $3.00 a gallon when before our man stepped into the White House, gas was $1.09. The economy could have suffered no worse fate.
2. I cannot have a normal phone conversation because I know they are listening.
3. The-US-dollar-to-UK-pound conversion rate was 0.96 in 2000(the dollar was almost the same value as a pound, now, it is 0.49 (dropped to almost half the value of a pound)This tells you the value of the US dollar outside of its boundaries.
4. The justice system has been made fun of in so many ways. Some of which are:
a)THEY Fired Atty Generals because of their failure to acknowledge republican power and lied that their performance left lots to be desired. When the inquest by House Committee started, they tell everyone that Karl Rove's emails went missing. Email records from 2001 to 2006 from his computer and also from the servers. How convenient!
b)THEY Leaked the identity of Valerie Plame. As if firing her husband was not enough, they went ahead and told reporters that his wife was a CIA operative.
c)THEY Drowned people in New Orleans. I don't need to elaborate this point any further...actually I have one for this point. THEN THEY Had their mother call people in the astrodome, refugees "living in better conditions [in the astrodome,] than they are used to in their regular daily lives." ...Oh and gave THEIR friend, FEMA director, a new job after his "commendable and excellent handling of the Katrina disaster".
d)THEY Lied to Congress about his rationale for war. Do I really need to elucidate here?
e)THEY Disgraced a decorated war hero, Colin Powell, by reducing him to a lying-cheating-coniving head hunter for an administration riddled with indignant affinity for revenge on Saddam and strip his country of its oil.
f)THEY Massacred the queen's language on numerous occasions,etc
5. The list continues... (don't want us to spend the day on this, but please feel free to add to the list)
Why are you surprised about Iraq?
From its inception, the War to Free Iraq was doomed to go sour. The administration was never forthcoming with their motive for war and time went on and international opposition mounted, they continued to make up reasons. Saddam has WMDs
(which have not been found till date); Saddam hosts Al-Qaeda terrorists (which is a blatant lie); Saddam is a dictator and is killing his poeple (I will get back to this later); Saddam bought uranium from Niger, Africa, to build WMDs (Ginomous lie-Ambassador Wilson proved it); the reasons went on as the war progressed. I wonder how they could have passed up the fact that Saddam cheated on his wife too.
The administration lied from day one and they still continue to throw (for lack of a better term) shit in the faces of the American people and actually smear it all over. It is ridiculous that in this land of freedom, the administration would hijack personal liberties, amongst other things and blatantly violate the constitution by infringing on the rights of its people and actually act as though to say: "what would you do about it?"
Although the motives for war were shady and the conduct of said war has been far less inspiring, Dub-ya is the ultimate executive power in this country and decided whether or not we go to war, and also decides how much can be spent at the war, and how it should be run. It is what the constitution says so the Senate was sort of fighting a battle that was out of their arena when they cut a spending bill and sent one to Bush saying that troops should start leaving Iraq by July 1st, 2007. The war was waged by the President, and until the President says it's enough, our troops are going to be in Iraq . All we can do is organize rally after rally after rally and hope that he understands that we hate the idea of war.
I know you don't want to hear this from someone who has been Dub-ya's nultimate fan from his days at Stanford, but the constitution says so and I am a sucker for history and the law, so constitution hurray! The only thing though is that the other articles of the constitution preventing wire- tapping without warrants, bank account tracking without warrants, etc have been swept under the rug. It is lamentable that the cherry-picking never ends. HURRAY CONSTITUTION!
Saddam's dicatorship and effects of imperialism from the West
The situation in Iraq now is worse off than it was years ago, when Saddam was their leader. Minus the fact that they are at war, the country is now in a civil war that pits tribes against each other. The Sunnis and Shiites hated each other and now, it is only more prevalent as violence keeps escalating. This is what Saddam knew and sought to put to rest. No wonder he was so draconian with his rules and would crack down at the sign of any uprising.
The US, just like colonial powers in the mid 1800s to late 1900s, failed to realise that instituations that work for one society will not work for another society. Islam and it's people have a democracy of their kind and although this doesn't necessarily work for the West in general and the US in particular, did not necessitate a strike and war as has been the case in the past 4 years. Moslems through Islam are keen to allowing themselves be ruled by someone they believe is doing all in their interests just as Allah commanded. They retire their freewill to the common good of their religion, which is evermore present in their government.
In the US and much of the West, on the contrary, our democracy obliges us to each exercise individual freewill and choice. We have a say in everything that we want done and the affairs of state are distant to religion because we each have a freewill to either believe or not believe in God or not.
The picture is that of two contrasting ends of the spectrum and for us to come out successful, we need to understand not only the culture behind their way of life, but also the fashions of their thoughts.
You march in with guns and bombers, they throw stones but still come out martyrs to their country men. They will go as far as blowing themselves up in crowds in order to put through their message.
I would close with an anecdote that my father once told me. A man was in his house watching TV when he noticed a mouse running around. He caught the mouse and took it outside and set it on fire. The mouse, on fire, ran back into the house and the structure was incenerated.
Should he have had a consistent plan and a strategy for withdrawal after success? Sure. Are our friends, relatives and loved ones dying in the war? Damn Right! So why is he so stubborn and in utter denial of the reality of the war... The reason is simple: You voted for him ... twice! Now take that. Actually, I take that back. You voted for him once because of Florida.
Many people would gladly say this man, Dub-ya, is going to go down in history as the worst president ever in the history of the US. True, but he may also become a heroic influence for rogue leadership as he has set an untellable presidence, that I am sure others would gladly emulate.
The Senate understood that their bill would do very little to shake Bush of his stance, but they nonetheless went ahead and put it through. At least they did something right for once. Remember before the war, they all voted to send our man, Dub-ya to war with a blank check? Then come time for elections, they all came out swinging at Dub-ya saying the war wasn't going right, the war could have and should have been avoided, etc. You voted them back in, and they are now back to big ole buddy-system voting for bills. Politics is an institution of fanatics even greater than religious extremism, I must point out here. These old goons have the powers to make decisions but when they get to the Hill, their resolve is to do what their next buddy is doing, and pass irrasive bills.
Let's see what these people at the Hill and our man, Dub-ya at the Maison Blanche or La Casa Blanca or das weiße Haus have done to our beloved country:
1. Gas is $3.00 a gallon when before our man stepped into the White House, gas was $1.09. The economy could have suffered no worse fate.
2. I cannot have a normal phone conversation because I know they are listening.
3. The-US-dollar-to-UK-pound conversion rate was 0.96 in 2000(the dollar was almost the same value as a pound, now, it is 0.49 (dropped to almost half the value of a pound)This tells you the value of the US dollar outside of its boundaries.
4. The justice system has been made fun of in so many ways. Some of which are:
a)THEY Fired Atty Generals because of their failure to acknowledge republican power and lied that their performance left lots to be desired. When the inquest by House Committee started, they tell everyone that Karl Rove's emails went missing. Email records from 2001 to 2006 from his computer and also from the servers. How convenient!
b)THEY Leaked the identity of Valerie Plame. As if firing her husband was not enough, they went ahead and told reporters that his wife was a CIA operative.
c)THEY Drowned people in New Orleans. I don't need to elaborate this point any further...actually I have one for this point. THEN THEY Had their mother call people in the astrodome, refugees "living in better conditions [in the astrodome,] than they are used to in their regular daily lives." ...Oh and gave THEIR friend, FEMA director, a new job after his "commendable and excellent handling of the Katrina disaster".
d)THEY Lied to Congress about his rationale for war. Do I really need to elucidate here?
e)THEY Disgraced a decorated war hero, Colin Powell, by reducing him to a lying-cheating-coniving head hunter for an administration riddled with indignant affinity for revenge on Saddam and strip his country of its oil.
f)THEY Massacred the queen's language on numerous occasions,etc
5. The list continues... (don't want us to spend the day on this, but please feel free to add to the list)
Why are you surprised about Iraq?
From its inception, the War to Free Iraq was doomed to go sour. The administration was never forthcoming with their motive for war and time went on and international opposition mounted, they continued to make up reasons. Saddam has WMDs
(which have not been found till date); Saddam hosts Al-Qaeda terrorists (which is a blatant lie); Saddam is a dictator and is killing his poeple (I will get back to this later); Saddam bought uranium from Niger, Africa, to build WMDs (Ginomous lie-Ambassador Wilson proved it); the reasons went on as the war progressed. I wonder how they could have passed up the fact that Saddam cheated on his wife too.
The administration lied from day one and they still continue to throw (for lack of a better term) shit in the faces of the American people and actually smear it all over. It is ridiculous that in this land of freedom, the administration would hijack personal liberties, amongst other things and blatantly violate the constitution by infringing on the rights of its people and actually act as though to say: "what would you do about it?"
Although the motives for war were shady and the conduct of said war has been far less inspiring, Dub-ya is the ultimate executive power in this country and decided whether or not we go to war, and also decides how much can be spent at the war, and how it should be run. It is what the constitution says so the Senate was sort of fighting a battle that was out of their arena when they cut a spending bill and sent one to Bush saying that troops should start leaving Iraq by July 1st, 2007. The war was waged by the President, and until the President says it's enough, our troops are going to be in Iraq . All we can do is organize rally after rally after rally and hope that he understands that we hate the idea of war.
I know you don't want to hear this from someone who has been Dub-ya's nultimate fan from his days at Stanford, but the constitution says so and I am a sucker for history and the law, so constitution hurray! The only thing though is that the other articles of the constitution preventing wire- tapping without warrants, bank account tracking without warrants, etc have been swept under the rug. It is lamentable that the cherry-picking never ends. HURRAY CONSTITUTION!
Saddam's dicatorship and effects of imperialism from the West
The situation in Iraq now is worse off than it was years ago, when Saddam was their leader. Minus the fact that they are at war, the country is now in a civil war that pits tribes against each other. The Sunnis and Shiites hated each other and now, it is only more prevalent as violence keeps escalating. This is what Saddam knew and sought to put to rest. No wonder he was so draconian with his rules and would crack down at the sign of any uprising.
The US, just like colonial powers in the mid 1800s to late 1900s, failed to realise that instituations that work for one society will not work for another society. Islam and it's people have a democracy of their kind and although this doesn't necessarily work for the West in general and the US in particular, did not necessitate a strike and war as has been the case in the past 4 years. Moslems through Islam are keen to allowing themselves be ruled by someone they believe is doing all in their interests just as Allah commanded. They retire their freewill to the common good of their religion, which is evermore present in their government.
In the US and much of the West, on the contrary, our democracy obliges us to each exercise individual freewill and choice. We have a say in everything that we want done and the affairs of state are distant to religion because we each have a freewill to either believe or not believe in God or not.
The picture is that of two contrasting ends of the spectrum and for us to come out successful, we need to understand not only the culture behind their way of life, but also the fashions of their thoughts.
You march in with guns and bombers, they throw stones but still come out martyrs to their country men. They will go as far as blowing themselves up in crowds in order to put through their message.
I would close with an anecdote that my father once told me. A man was in his house watching TV when he noticed a mouse running around. He caught the mouse and took it outside and set it on fire. The mouse, on fire, ran back into the house and the structure was incenerated.
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