Genocide Olympics

I understand the imperatives of developing nations, noting that the U.S. did undertake horrific measures to ensure its prosperity- slavery, deals and instigating coups in shady countries
America’s hands are by no means clean nor its history sinless

But the fact is, at the time no one was in a position to remedy these situations
And I like to think that human beings learn from their mistakes, that they vow to never allow these things to occur
They know better now
The U.S. is not the same country it was 7 years ago, let alone a decade or century ago.
Our rhetoric is informed by generations of trial and error
We are in a continuous state of self-improvement

And within this context of “knowing better” we are allowing injustices to continue
Short of advocating any kind of military approach, we need to do something
Our leverage does not lie in our weapons
Our political system is stable, our institutions fair and effective, we are prosperous and our culture cloaks the world- art, literature, movies, music, even our slang
It is our presence that makes the Olympics legitimate
Victory would be hollow, knowing that they did not compete with the best in the world, that they didn’t really prove themselves

But this isn’t a statement we’re willing to make
Given how dependent we are on our polluted Asian friend

So at this point all that we can do, is honor the victims enough to educate ourselves
To know what lies at the root of all of this hoopla
I leave you with these facts

-China sold arms to Sudan
bullets that pierced innocent men, women and children were supplied by China

I understand neutrality man, but the difference between you and Sweden is that you enabled this destruction, you put the weapons in the hands of the janjeweed
You shook hands with Bashir as he stood idly by, counting his money while 400,000 people were brutally murdered, and 2 million raped and mutilated refugees fled in terror

Actively selling arms to international pariah states doesn’t exactly qualify as “non-interference”

It would be equal to America selling giant furnaces, building railroads and giving billions of dollars in unconditional aid to Germany during the Holocaust

And we’d actually have to take it a step further, as up until 2007 China barred the deployment of peacekeepers and the levying of tangible sanctions
But don’t take it from me, let the Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Zhou Wenzhong explain their view on the mutilation and death of innocent Sudanese
“Business is business…the internal situation in Sudan is an internal affair, and we are not in a position to impose upon them”

So during the Holocaust, we would not only not have become involved but done everything in our power to prevent others from intervening

Maybe to China it’s just a matter of supply and demand
But when the demand is coming from one of the most conflicted areas in the world, wouldn’t you hesitate to add more fuel to the fire?
“Africa today has become, in the popular media, synonymous with poverty, a blot on the conscience of the world, the last place where absolute poverty is not yet on the way to eradication. It is also the place where the nation-state is said to have utterly failed in delivering the promises made at the time of its birth” (Chatterjee, 2005).

-China is also forging tight relationships with other unstable African countries
Currently drilling or exploring for oil in Sudan, Angola, Algeria, Chad, Gabon, Nigeria, Namibia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Ethiopia (Amosu, 2007). It is extracting copper and cobalt from Zambia and Congo, purchasing timber from Cameroon, Mozambique, Gabon, Guinea and Liberia, and obtaining platinum and chrome from Zimbabwe

Say it with me people: “zim-bob-wey” also known as “moo-gah-bee”
Do yourself a favor and wikipedia Robert Mugabe: a brutal, authoritarian senior citizen who is still in the process of rigging this year’s presidential election

Chinese and Zimbabwean military ties are among the closest on the African continent, with Zimbabwe receiving jet aircrafts, vehicles, and a Chinese radar system.
In June 2004, Zimbabwe purchased $240 million worth of Chinese military equipment (Foerstel, 2008)
China even built President Mugabe’s $9 million mansion

China is financing corrupt regimes; enabling them to continue their destructive reigns at the expense of their people’s welfare

Now wikipedia Angola and marvel at the injustice
One of those most corrupt regimes in the world, is China’s bro

Angola is rolling in the petro-dough, its growth rate has been projected at 20.8% for 2007, making it one of the world’s fastest-growing economies (Shinn, 2007).

“And yet this is the same country where one out of three children dies before reaching the age of 5, where average life expectancy is 38, where cholera, polio and hemorrhagic fevers like the Marburg virus flourish — a country that ranks 160th out of the 177 countries on the United Nations' Human Development Index. How, and when, will the cataract of oil money flow down the hill from Luanda Sul to improve the lives of Angola’s impoverished, war-weary citizens?” (Traub, 2006)

If our lack of intervention in Africa (Sudan, Rwanda, Congo, Liberia) can be seen as complicity, then what does that make China? A country actively engaged in funding and protecting corrupt and volatile regimes
Providing asses like Mugabe and Bashir with lucrative resources
Our foreign aid may suck compared to oil revenues but at least we aren’t eagerly perpetuating Africa’s debilitating instability



The sources cited in this post:

Amosu, Akwe. (2007). China in Africa: It’s (still) the governance stupid. Foreign Policy in Focus. Retrieved from http://www.fpif.org/

Chatterjee, Partha. (2005). Empire and Nation Revisited: 50 Years after Bandung. Inter Asia Cultural Studies, 6 (4)

Foerstel, Karen. (2008). China in Africa. The CQ Researcher, 2 (1) 1—26

Shinn, David H. (2007). Africa, China, the United States and Oil. Center for Strategic and International Studies Online Africa Policy Forum. Retrieved from: http://forums.csis.org/africa/index.php?s=Shinn&searchbutton=Go%21

Traub, James. (2006). China’s African Adventure. The New York Times. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/magazine/19china.html?ei=5088&en=92b91 6a872aa4d3&ex=1321592400&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all


(This is a good one--->) Friedman, L. Thomas. (2006). The First Law of Petropolitics. Foreign Policy, May/June, 31–2.