Africa's Political Immaturity
Asian/Black Nightmare Black/White Nightmare
 
I was reading a short history of international relations this weekend, both for school and for pleasure, when I happened upon the sad story of Ugandan dictator Ida Amin's expulsion of Ugandans of Indian descent in 1972.
The story is familiar to anyone following Zimbabwean dictator Mugabe's expulsion of white Zimbabweans over the past two years. A corrupt and insane dictator, seeking to draw his people's attention away from his own misrule and corruption, focuses on a small, affluent minority as the source of all the nation's problems. "Bloodsuckers" they were called by Idi Amin, who issued an order expelling all Ugandans of Asian descent and forcing them to sell their assets within 90 days. The West, led by former colonial ruler the United Kingdom and the United States, does protest but their cries fall on deaf ears, the Ugandans of Indian descent, many who had married Africans, were forcibly expelled and their properties taken over by the ruling elite in Uganda.
The parallels are similiar right down to this fact. In 1972 the Organization of African Unity (OAU) passed a resolution supporting Idi Amin's efforts to expell the Ugandan Indians. In 2000 the OAU said nothing while Mugabe stole his people's farms and raped and robbed white Zimbabweans before stealing the presidential election in 2002. Both times the so-called Organization of African Unity did nothing to protect racial minorities living within Africa and who considered themselves Africans. Should the name of the new version of the OAU, the African Union, instead be changed to the Black African Union?
Africa has a long, long way to go before it reaches the West in respect to protection of minority cultures and human rights. We in the West sit in bewilderment while Africans loot, maim and murder their own people and then come crying to us with their begging bowls extended, asking why we've turned our backs on Africa. I'd argue that Africans turned their back on themselves long before we in the West did. Until Africa reaches a political maturity that extends to treating all Africans as one based on living in Africa rather than skincolor I'd argue that we in the West should sit on our hands and do nothing. Sometimes inaction is better than misguided action and in the case of Africa sometimes doing nothing is the best thing we can do for them.
4:12:25 PM 
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