Hama Tuma
Many naïve people like me believe that crime does not pay while the reality shows it does. On the other hand, lying is an art of governance not only in Africa but all over the world and even Barack Obama has been caught in the act more than once. Remember Powell at the UN with his ridiculous flask and the present day dull fellow Kerry following the Powell act on Syria. Lies are part of bad governance and worse politics.
But no one makes as much money from a lie as that Bush poodle called Tony Blair. Even the obdurate liar called Meles, who lied his way to the grave (he claimed he was not sick and what he died of is still considered a secret), would have had much to envy and learn from mentor Tony even if the so called Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) that has wrecked Ethiopia, has been referred to as the “The Professional Liars’ Front”. To leave the dead pest alone and to return to Blair: while he was prime minister this person lied to the British public and to the whole world that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, an Anglo-American lie responsible for the carnage and destruction in Iraq. Blair, along with Bush, is responsible as a person and his recent attempt to give advice on Syria has been dismissed, and rightfully so, as appalling and repugnant. The main point being that Blair was and is a liar and backed tyranny in Ethiopia and many other places. And, surprise surprise, this notorious liar is paid for a two hour speech a hefty sum ranging from 200,000 to 360,000 English pounds, more or less 2000 to 2500 pounds per every minute of a lie! The stingy liar spends not a cent for hotel expenses as he exploits the tax payer’s money by staying (with his wife and entourage) in British tax funded residences during his money making trips. He is often a holiday guest of one dictatorial Sultan or another. Blair does political consultancy (Tony Blair and Associates) and has bagged an 8 million British pounds fee from Kazakhstan which was also visited, gas and petrol obliges, by David Cameron in June 2003 damn the human rights violations. Prince Andrew often goes to the desolate capital of Kazakhstan, ostensibly to hunt for goose, but this British royal hobnobbing with the Kazak tyrant has eye catching economic reasons. When Prince Andrew decided to sell his Sunning hill Park home for a cool 12 million pounds a Kazak businessman bought it for 15 million and never lived in it (up to now). The Kazak thank you or bribe? If Blair thinks all this is not fair he can find excuse by pointing to America, France and China who cuddle with tyrants for economic motives.
If any Ethiopian institution, other than that of the Blair loving ruling clique, was to invite Blair to Addis Abeba, he would have told them at millions of Birr how the dead tyrant was good for Ethiopia and why he named him to the African Commission despite his gross human rights violations and massacres. No hesitation, no qualms, pure unadulterated British lies like the Kenyans and Yemenis know of. Blair is one of the most corrupt of British politicians and he has paved his way by bombing and mayhem from Serbia to Iraq, Sierra Leone to Libya. Blair has lied his way into a profitable business mixing diplomacy with trade and using his role as the member of the UN Quartet on the Middle East for his own profit.
A British paper wrote:”Not long after leaving No. 10 Downing, Blair was flying to Kuwait—a country that benefited greatly from the fall of Saddam Hussein—where Tony Blair Associates eventually landed a 27 million pound contract to advise on Kuwait’s economy. This much has been reported in the past, but Oborne notes that one of Blair’s advisers at his consultancy even accompanied him to a meeting that Blair was ostensibly conducting for the Quartet. “On one hand, our former prime minister is promoting peace,” says Oborne. “On the other, he is earning millions from an autocrat in the same region. In fact, more than one.” Blair also has strong links to Abu Dhabi; he advises a sovereign wealth fund with ties to the crown that has had interests in the Iraqi oil sector. –
Blair gets 2 million pounds per year from J.P. Morgan, promotes the luxury designer bag and luggage giant Louis Vuitton. Being a liar is good business and Blair lied and lies for himself and for his stooges like the Kazak and the late and unlamented Ethiopian despots. There is a foundation set up to make sure Blair is tried for his crimes but that of course will not be by the ICC that claims to have more important fish to fry or cats to whip in Africa. Why Blair? Because he still does condemnable damage to oppressed peoples and we cannot forget the crime against Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, the DRC, etc…
Helter Skelter. Not many people notice that Obama, as a Washington Post article revealed , has expelled more migrants from America than had done Bush junior in eight years. Actually, one wonders what promise this president has fulfilled or when will he just openly admit defeat and cry like Eisenhower at the Military Industrial Complex, the Israeli lobby or somebody.
To continue. An American family that had adopted an Ethiopian girl and boy severely beat them, starved them, kept them outside of the house and the girl, 13 years old Hannah, died as a result of the mistreatment. Though the cruel parents have been found guilty Hannah was exhumed because of arguments on her age and , as the foreigners say, to add insult to injury (we say goiter on swollen ears) the adoptive parents lawyer did argue that “poor parenting technique is not a crime. The typical manipulation and misuse of words and the disregard for African lives. In fact, the criminals are the rulers in Ethiopia who are amassing millions from the adoption racket, selling children (most are not even orphansand a good example is Angelina Jolie’s Zahra) like cheap Samosas in the Merkato. Brother and sister have been separated to be sold to different parents in different countries and though I argued, tongue in cheek, that they, the foreigners, should adopt us all the plight of adopted children and those sold into modern slavery in racist Arab countries is indescribably bad.
Take the suffering of thousands of Ethiopian refugees in Yemen, on the border areas of Saudi Arabia, Djibouti and many other places. The khat crazed thugs calling themselves policemen and tribal chiefs have raped and murdered hundreds of our compatriots in Yemen. They spare not their own children, these criminals who hide behind antiquated customs. More than a quarter of Yemeni females are forcefully married off before they reach 15 and a bride of 8 called Rawan married off or sold by her parents to a 40 years old man in an area called Hardh died on her wedding night (September 2013) from injuries suffered in bed. It may not be fair to single out Yemen in this as child brides exist in Ethiopia and many other countries too but the cruelty shown to children and refugees highlights the level of depravity unto which extreme poverty (parents selling their children) and ignorance has led most people. Norway compounds the whole issue by claiming that it has “resumed” the deportation of Somali refugees back to Somalia. With most of the world not quite sure if a Somalia exists as such one wonders on the itinerary of the deportees at the same time as the Ethiopian press reports that one deported refugee from Kenya has died under torture in the notorious prisons of the Addis Abeba regime that Obama or Cameron have praised to the skies as democratic. With the party of mass murderer Breivik taking over power in Oslo it is proper to wonder if refugees in Norway or in “Fortress Europe” in general are headed towards a tragedy that would minimize all that has happened up to now
The ongoing, frenetic and also brutal neocolonization of Africa by China has spawned many serious problems and hilarious jokes on Chinese African relations and inter relationships. Chinese expansion has little conscience and even less soul. It is imperialism at its deceitful and hungriest. Africa’s wealth and resources are the source of misery to Africans (Eastern Congo is a glaring example) and of greed and competition to foreigners. With more and more countries depending on Africa from gold and diamond, to coltan to uranium, the fate of Africa does not cast a bright tomorrow. Especially, as the continent is gripped by tyrants selling their countries to the highest bidder and are experts at celebrating deception and slavery. The powers that be are convinced that a divided Africa would best insure their interests and thus they are backing murderous militias, ethnic based vagabonds and mercenary African ruling elites. Countries that cannot be controlled and subjugated are being droned and bombed to the Stone Age and the masses of people are bamboozled on all sides to give up their condition as fate or else take note of Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Syria.
The attempt to laugh at all this and to claim our importance because they all covet us, they are not ignoring us, they want to finish us off, they still hate black or any other color but white and we matter because of all of this jars the victims and is often taken as sprinkling salt in to an open wound and Africa, for one, is surely wounded and full of gaping sores. Satire seems to hurt. Still others complain that to talk of our failings as Africans is to expose our dirty linen in public though this is pure ostrich politics hiding your head in the sand and hoping no one will see you or the problems will just fleet away. That gives no solace to Africa and impoverishes the condition of the aspiring satirist with enough optimism (yet) to defeat what some call Afro pessimism instead of critical consciousness. Gandhi and his ways were not popular in our continent and are not so now. Turning the other cheek leaves you without any cheek as we are not accustomed to see, expect or get any magnanimity ever. We saw none from colonialism, we got none from our compradors and traitorous rulers, absolutely zero from Western and Eastern imperialisms. The role of the eternal fool is not a comedy but an ultimate tragedy but it is played as a cruel farce especially in Africa, alas. Helter skelter, we move on, life asunder and hoping and struggling for a better tomorrow.
(Written on September 11, 2013 which was, as we take it slow in our calendar, Ethiopian New Year Meskerem 1, 2006).