Dark-Skin and Afros- Our worst nightmare

I’m not going to generalize this to all Africans. I’m going to speak about my nation. Inferiority complex is implanted in every Sudanese. We constantly bring ourselvesdown. We dislike ourselves. We are always trying to be something we are not. We view ourselves as inferior and others as superior. We need to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery!

The dream of the average Sudanese girl is to marry well and have a lighter skin. Lighter skin is viewed as beautiful (Sudan is not the only one in this case!). We bleach our skins, use lightening creams and use harmful skin-damaging products as long as we become “lighter”.

When my mother was young, she lived with her grandmother for 2 years because grandpa was doing his graduate studies in the United States. She was good friends with her aunts because many of them were her age. The result of early marriages of course. Almost all her aunts are light-skinned and so is her mother. My mum got her beautiful skin-tone from her father. She disliked it. It made her feel less attractive. She secretly envied them. One day, she had the most brilliant idea. At least she thought so. She went to have a shower and ended up scrubbing her skin so hard. She scrubbed and scrubbed thinking the black layer will go away leaving a smooth, light-skinned skin tones she always wanted. This didn’t happen. She bled instead. She moved on with her life but I don’t think she got over it. Ironically, she refused to marry a light-skinned, green eyes Sudanese and prefered my father.

When I was born, I was lighter than her and I had pinkish cheeks. People were amazed at this and my mother was pleased. Later on, I discovered that I inherited her inferiority complex but in another form. It was a typical African female problem. The Afro hair. I was blessed with thick very curly hair. I didn’t like it when I was a kid. Mabye because my mother and sister have long straight hair or mabye because my mother didn’t like it and she didn’t exactly hide that. My family didn’t hide this too. I often heard this from my aunts ” oh you have a nice skin tone, nice brownish color but you sure didn’t inherit your mother’s hair”. I have my Nubian grandmother’s hair, curly and thick. Curls that bounce back. It’s African hair. I’m not ashamed of it. Hair represents so much to people. It shows your heritage. But again, aren’t my people ashamed of their whole heritage? Why shouldn’t they be ashamed of their hair too?

Conversation with mother…
Mum: hey kizzie, we have a wedding tomorrow go straighten your hair
kizzie: why, I will wash it and put some cream. I like my curly hair
Mum: y not straighten it? it will look nice.
kizzie: you go straighten it, I don’t like doing so. It doesn’t suit me
Mum: well mine doesn’t need that, do whatever you want…

So..I’m back from California. I lived by the sea for a week and then next to Bass Lake for a week. We used to go swimming, rent a barbecue boat or just walk around. I’m back with a weird tan ( u know when your body is three different skin-tones) I’m brown and shiny.

Conversation with grandma…
grandma: god, you are darker! what happened?
kizzie: we went to the beach alot, cool huh?
grandma: whatever you say…..

I read an article written by a Nigerian intellectual once related to this topic. He basically blamed some African problems on our inferiority complex. He said that we think of ourselves as inferior all the time. Our self-esteem is low. IT IS. Caucasians are white so they must be happy. White is beautiful. Asians have nice hair. Straight hair is more feminine. Get over yourself people because you are not better than anyone and no one is better than you.

India Arie had to sing about it for people to realize you must be proud of your Afro hair. Toni Morrison had to write a book about it. I just had to experience it to know there is more to me than my hair or color.
seo company

AfroSpear Growing Pains

(Crossposted at thefreeslave.wordpress.com)

When this particular thing called “AfroSpear” was created, we didn’t have a three, six, nine, twelve or thirty-six month plan. We, the six of us, knew a couple of things: we wanted to do more for Afrikan people in the diasopora. And, we wanted to connect with people in the Afrikan diaspora to facilitate our own growth and that of our people.

We, naively perhaps, thought that we could make a contribution, not by “leading” people, but by providing a place that could function as an incubator for black folks to lead themselves. Think, plan, create, act…and then reflect on the thinkingplanningcreatingacting.

AfroSpear was birthed in April. We’ve come far, but we have so far to go, primarily because we want and need the participation of more of our people. Some have expected the worst out of us and believe that they’ve seen it – from afar. Even a few folks who have come in with goodwill and an open mind have been turned off by our shortcomings.

We understand. We are flawed. We haven’t plugged the many holes in the dyke; of course, we’re still building it as the racist flood waters rush by – over, under and all around us. We’re under pressure to be perfect, to appeal to all of our disparate, unique selves.

How do we make it better? How do we get out of our own way and make this page serve rather than alienate? We need YOU!

I propose that a couple of mistakes be corrected:

1) There should be no distinction between the AfroSpear “Circle/Nation.” We ARE the Circle, ALL of us! The only thing those of us who formed this page should do is facilitate the discussion, moderate the comments, put in our two cents. But our two cents is no more important than yours. Because its all of OURS!

2) Membership & Overmanagement. If you’re black, you are a member. There should be no requirements to “join” this page. Show up and you’re in; if you want to be linked here, BOOM, there it is! I don’t care if people are democrats, republicans, voodoo practitioners…you are one of us. Let’s be an open ended space where the majority feel comfortable communicating and feel like their words have an audience and will be heard and maybe even utilized.

3) Civility and Bans. We want to treat each other here with respect. We know that that is hard for all of us sometimes. I try to use my page for my more “in your face” diatribes, but try to keep the “AfroSpear” page sacred. As moderators, I believe we should keep it clean, as well as real. “Character blassisination,” that masquerades as criticism has no place here; of course, some of the more skilled rhetoricians know how to straddle the line. All I can say is, we should do our best to figure out the difference and ban folk only as a last resort.

4) Brainstorms/Plans/Action. I think its critical to have a “philosophical,” analytical, planning component. Some people are all about action, without reflection, without foresight, without strategy. They just want to “do.” That’s a wonderful sentiment, but in most cases fails miserably. To quote Denzel, “this is chess, not checkers!” My hope is that we use this space to look and then leap, but only after knowing where we’re going and planning for the exigencies that might develop on the way down.

5) Welcome the Fencesitters. There’s a lot of brainpower hanging back, waiting. Maybe they are waiting for us to fail so that they can say, “I told you so.” What kind kind of spectator sport is it to stay detached from an effort to help your people and root for that effort to fail – minus the ingredients you could have added if only you’d wanted to?

There’s more wrong, of course.  But there are also some good things happening here, don’t forget that.

Speak. Post here – about all of it. Pick this thing apart in our faces. This site should be that open, that it wants to hear such a critique made to us, not about us. Bring it.

We need all hands on deck. Its about progress, not perfection; we’ll never get far if we don’t have our “stars.” Come Home. HELP. S-O-S!!!

We need to tweak this thing, to make it work. TOGETHER. Let’s do it. I’m personally not wedded to how its done, just that it’s done.

The AfroSpear/AfroSphere/Blackosphere is all the same thing. Let’s keep it simple, open, welcoming and diverse.

Let us be the spot where Afrikans in the diaspora plan and plot our ascent.

More White People Like This Needed!

Hey Field,

I’ve been reading your blog for only two days. And I’ve been reading blogs like it for only two days. I’m sending this your way because I want you to know the effect your blog has had on me, and because I’d like to hear your thoughts on it, if you have the time. Either way, thanks for writing your blog. It has changed me. I’m a 28 year old white guy… And I always thought I was where I wanted and needed to be when it came to race relations in the U.S. I thought I knew something. But I didn’t speak out against racism and I didn’t much care about those who live with it every day. Now, I’m angry with myself for living like that, and infuriated with our society insofar as it tolerates and even promotes racism. I will no longer be silent. I wrote what follows earlier this afternoon during a slow time at work. It is more or less an open letter to my contemporaries.  “Slavery ended in the late 1800’s The civil rights movement occurred in the 50’s and 60’s. If you were born in 1972 you’d be 35 now.

If you’re a black man born in ’72, you’re 35, and you’re living in a system in which someone just 10-15 years your senior was raised and molded in a pre-civil rights era. Meaning, that a black man (or Lord have mercy – literally, have mercy – a black woman) just entering the prime of his life and career is navigating a system largely formed by the ideas and prejudices (which, by the way, we all have to some extent as a result of being human beings) of people (most often white men) who’s conception right and wrong is colored (pun intended) sometimes very subtly and unconsciously, and often overtly and deliberately, with racist ideology. God help us. God help me!

How can we, white, proud (arrogant?!) America expect of a people not more than 2 life spans removed from SLAVERY, and only two generations removed from out-right and government sanctioned racism to “rise above” (the effects of a system designed to cripple you), and to “take personal responsibility” (for that which you are not responsible)? I’ll tell you how we can. We can because it’s comfortable (if you haven’t a heart), it’s easy (to buy the lie), and it’s ok (’cause anyone can make it in America today!) The playing field is level right?

Not quite and even if it is (ha!) there are yet many ill-equipped to take the field. And ill-equipped to our shame. Thus the privileged go on being privileged, go on encouraging a system that neglects those it purports to help, all the while turning a blind eye to those they throw under the bus. Forget moving to the back of the bus! Throw em under it! So much more can be said about this!

This is a matter of race for two reasons (at least). One: It seems to me to be objectively obvious that slavery in the U.S. was a racist practice. And it seems equally obvious that the problems and difficulties suffered by the black community today can be, in large part, ultimately traced back to slavery (and the underlying racism). I believe that racism still plays a major role in our American Dream (Nightmare?) Two, even if you reject that line of reasoning, it is indisputable that blacks in the U.S. today face issues which track neatly (too neatly to not be suspicious) along lines of race. Why are so many more young black men in prison than young white men? Why is the poverty rate among blacks significantly higher than among whites? Are black people just more likely to fail at living the American Dream? If so, why? Is it in their DNA? Or do we need to dream a different American Dream? For more evidence that this can be traced back to slavery, ask yourself why Asians in America generally are much more affluent than blacks? Think about it. Racism isn’t always white vs. black, or vice versa. But sometimes it is just that.

Reparations… What an idea and what a polarizing word! So, for a moment, let’s do away with it. And in its place let’s speak of personal responsibility. Yeah that one thing most of those blacks just don’t seem to get! (sarcasm) Let’s appeal to our individual American personal responsibility and thus our collective American responsibility to the oft lauded ideals of our founding fathers, namely that business about “freedom and justice for all” and “all men are created equal.”

(By the way, do any of us feel a responsibility to ideals anymore? Maybe appealing to them is a waste of time.)

Anyway, back to equality. It seems that the only time the privileged are worried about equality is when it’s them getting the short end of the stick, which is almost never. But, why is the incarceration rate among young black men so high in these United States? (And why don’t we give a damn?) And why in 2007, do we live in a land so full of opportunity, and yet so heart-breakingly failing so many of our American brothers and sisters? (And why don’t we give a damn?)

And forget about “white guilt.” Too corporate for me. Forget about the sins of our fathers. (Though millions of people will never be able to.) What about my (white) guilt? And what about yours? Are we not at the very least guilty of not being who we say we are and who we wish to be (i.e. Americans and all that that supposedly means), so long as we do not care for our own? We started as a nation of rebels against oppression. We started with liberty on our lips. We started as hypocrites. We wander in that wilderness yet! God forbid my generation end up like Moses, seeing the Promised Land but not able to enter in because of unbelief. Unbelief in our own people, and our responsibility towards each other.

So, yeah I too have a dream. Mine is that we all will wake up. That my contemporaries will wake up, will get off the road of good intentions, and will fight injustice where we see it. I’m new to these thoughts and feelings. Thank you to Field Negro for being largely responsible (through his blog) in waking me up. Thank you to all the other writers out there that I was fortunately enough to read.

I always thought I was reasonable and guiltless. I wasn’t. This stuff matters. And if you’re silent, you’re guilty. I cannot be silent any longer. ”

That was an e-mail and subsequent essay I recieved from a young man by the name of Drew P.  The guy was so on point  that I thought it was more than worthy of a post in the AfroSpear.

We need more people like this gentleman in the majority population; speaking out and calling out prejudice and injustice whenever they see it. 

Peace.

    

Going To Jena

Justice in Jena:

Something beyond petitions and phone calls to corrupt, poli-tricksters is necessary to prevent the racists in Lu’siana from doing what they are in fact, DOING, to our people right now in Jena. Maybe its time for the AfroSpear to be raised in defense of our people and levelled at our enemy. We need and want justice. Justice for Jena! Justice for New Orleans! Justice for Black People!!!

There is one caveat: They don’t they don’t give it away. The only way to get justice, is to take it. Are we willing to take the justice that is ours?

We need to go to Jena, Louisiana, by the carload, by the busload – AND NOT LEAVE – until our people are free. We need to let these people know that they can’t do this to us. Not anymore. And we need to organize ourselves to go wherever, BE wherever we need to be in order to ensure that we get our rights – until we’re disconnected from this damnable system.
Yes, we need to pay attention to Darfur, Iraq, maintain that good global perspective. Additionally, having an online presence, “connectivity” and alladat is righteously good shit…However, if they can railroad Mychal Bell and the other members of the Jena 6 right here in the US of A, what are we are we doing on the real?!  We need to flex some homegrown power at home, damnit!

To me, we have to find a way to establish a strong, huge presence, organize a nouveau ‘Freedom Rides for the 21st Century.’  We need to show up with our bodies.  Can we do it is the question.  Can we?

I know for many of us this is difficult, if not impossible. We have jobs, children, bills, responsibilities. I know I do. Still, its important, perhaps even critical, that in this moment and through this unconscionable event, a spark be lit for us that elevates our nascent activity to a plane beyond mere words. To movement and collective action.

Who wants to go to Jena?

A Tale of Two Genocides

(I found this remarkably interesting article on Black Agenda Report. The article challenges the silence of the United States over the 5 million+ people killed in the Congo, compared to the various voices lifted for the deaths in Darfur. It also discusses imperial and corporate interests guiding ethical concern. Here’s an excerpt. Crossposted at my blog and at AfroSpear.)

Active U.S. Passivity In 1994, Rwanda was on the brink. The Hutu majority, which had for a century been oppressed by Tutsi surrogates for European colonialists, feared that another massacre of their kin was imminent. There had been many massacres of Hutus, before, in Rwanda and neighboring Burundi, also under minority Tutsi control. Pent-up hysteria exploded in an orgy of violence that claimed the lives of as many as 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus that did not support the genocide.

The U.S. did nothing to interfere, because they had two actors in the game. Ugandan dictator Yoweri Museveni was now the Americans’ guy in central Africa. Tutsi Rwandan exiles, headed by Paul Kagame, were an integral part of Museveni’s army. As the genocide began, Kagame’s forces launched an offensive from Uganda into Rwanda. It did not halt the massacre of Tutsis, but succeeded in driving the disorganized Hutus into neighboring Congo. The Americans now had another player in the African game: the new head of the Rwandan Tutsi-dominated state, Paul Kagame. His forces then invaded eastern Congo, chasing the fleeing Hutus.

“The eastern Congo was up for grabs, and everybody grabbed some.”

All hell broke loose. President Mobutu Sese Seko, America’s man in the Congo, then called Zaire, was terminally ill. He fled and died in exile in 1997. The eastern Congo was now up for grabs, and everybody grabbed some. Eastern Congo is one of the most minerally rich places on Earth, an extractors’ paradise. According to the CIA’s “Factbook,” the DRC abounds with “cobalt, c

opper, niobium, tantalum, petroleum, industrial and gem diamonds, gold, silver, zinc, manganese, tin, uranium, coal, hydropower, timber.” All of these resources are exploited by European and American corporations that maintain their own mercenary armies to guard the extraction fields. For generations they have run their patches of Congolese land like governments, with the support of France, Belgium, the United States and other powers. The so-called civil war effectively gave them full autonomy in the wake of Mobutu’s corrupt demise, as the power of the central government in Kinshasa, crumbled. Mass carnage raged around them, but did not interrupt the extraction process.

Read the rest here.

The Talibanization of Catholicism

 

Religious discourse can be very controversial. Although I am open to share and listen to the religious beliefs of others (or lack thereof), I have never been interested in debating the issue. How can one debate the issue of faith? I find it pointless. I have nothing to prove nor do I want to convert someone to my way of thinking (or belief). However, I do want to comment on the endorsement this week by Pope Benedict XVI of the doctrinal document “Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrines on the Church“. In a nutshell, this treatise asserts the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, while other churches, like the Orthodox church are “wounded”, and that Protestant churches are not “true” churches. It also claims that Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation.

In this age of inter-denominational and inter-faith dialogue, which is working to bring about a better understanding and respect for others of different beliefs, I find this assertion and endorsement by the Pope as troubling. As the arenas of government, politics, economics, culture, etc., struggles towards greater harmony and peace, it appears that the religious community and their leaders, regardless of their faith, are moving towards greater fundamentalist polarization of beliefs. We don’t need to look only to history to see the danger in this type of thinking. We need only to look at the Middle-East today, Iraq in particular, to see the outcome of such rhetoric. Although I am a Pentecostal Christian and have beliefs, which could be classified as “christian fundamentalist beliefs”, I do not believe that only Pentecostals are going to heaven, nor do I believe that other denominations are “wounded” or are not “true” churches. As a Christian, I do believe that it is only through Christ that someone can receive salvation, but I don’t condemn to “hell” someone from another religion or those who have no belief in religion at all. Judgment, as far as I am concerned, I will leave to God.

There are 3 points I would like to share in regards to this topic.

1. The church I attend, although fundamental, it is non-judgmental. The Pastor believes, preaches and is involved in inter-denominational and inter-faith dialogues. This is one of the reasons why I go to this church.   

2. As far as I know, there has been no bombings of Catholic or Protestant churches; no burnings of effigies of the Pope by Protestants; no return to the Inquisition; no killing of Priests, Nuns, Pastors or Reverends; no violent demonstrations or protests; no separation into neighbourhoods based on religious beliefs, due to this proclamation. I would pray that those of the Muslim “Ummah” will be influenced by this example.

3. There has been no difference in the dynamics of the relationship with my family, friends or acquaintances of different denominations (or faiths for that matter), since the Popes endorsement of this edict. It is all a non-issue for us. Regardless of religious beliefs or non-belief, we are all still “cool”. Love and respect prevails.     

A Great Movie Review!

I saw this great review of the upcoming Don Cheadle movie-an actor who I happen to like by the way, and I thought it was cut and paste worthy.

AFRO STYLIN’

Cruising along cinema’s chitlin’ circuit

By Armond White

Talk to Me

Directed by Kasi Lemmons

“Every stereotype has truth,” says Don Cheadle as Petey Greene. That fallacy ruins Talk to Me, the new film about Ralph Waldo “Petey” Greene, the radio disc jockey who was popular among Washington D.C.’s black listeners in the 1960s. Taking a nostalgic view of that period and its styles, director Kasi Lemmons attempts to re-animate stereotypes; she misreads the music, clothes, afros and attitude as the essence of Petey, his woman Vernell (Taraji P. Henson) and Dewey (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the radio exec who put him on the air.

Lemmons’ approach in Talk to Me strikingly contrasts Radio Golf, August Wilson’s recently closed Broadway play, the final installment of his 10-part opus about black American life in the 20th century. While using each decade as a setting, Wilson subverted racial stereotypes by consistently concentrating on his characters’ spiritual and social struggle—not style. Talk to Me relies on stereotypes as an easy way of involving the audience, making Petey’s self-destructive, mack-daddy behavior seem familiar. But when Talk to Me shows how Petey eventually botched his own career arc, he becomes an enigma rather than a man whose difficulties and stress have been made clear, or deeply felt, as with Wilson’s vividly imagined characters.

Nostalgia has taken the place of research and insight in faux black American histories like Talk to Me, Dreamgirls, Ray and Ali—the new cinematic chitlin’ circuit. Our pop past, as represented by fashion and music and television, provides a superficial link to history. Lemmons and screenwriters Michael Genet and Rick Famuyiwa go no deeper than Petey Greene’s surface (which unfortunately resembles Tim Meadows in Ladies Man). No wonder Wilson was reluctant to sell Hollywood rights to his plays; he correctly feared how even black filmmakers tended to turn life into clichés. Talk to Me begins in a prison where Dewey visits his inmate brother (Mike Epps) and first encounters Petey jiving on the p.a. system. Petey asks for a job when he’s released and Dewey dismisses him as a “miscreant.” Far from examining masculine competitiveness—as in Walter Hill’s great prison/life drama Undisputed—this is just instant class conflict: the suit vs. the pimp suit.

Dewey and Petey—the well-behaved assimilationist and the wild, unembarrassed stereotype—circle round the issue of black legitimacy; it’s the guilty secret of Lemmons’ previous films. Mustachioed Petey and rump-shaking Vernell bust into Dewey’s office buckin’ and stylin’ and slinging Ebonics the way actors would do in blaxploitation films a full decade later. Dewey recognizes Petey’s natural gift and hires him. Their teamwork leads to success and fame that get explained in superficial terms: “I need you to say the things I’m afraid to say. You need me to do the things you’re afraid to do.” This fatuous examination of careerism is hung-up on opposing styles of behavior without understanding that Dewey and Petey share complementary goals yet hold different values. That’s Wilson’s key insight about the male protagonists of Radio Golf, but Talk to Me confuses the problem when success-drunk Petey complains, “I never asked for this shit!” (The film doesn’t acknowledge that one has to work on his patter the way the other has to work on spread sheets.) Lemmons ignores Petey’s satisfaction with money and celebrity for fear of losing her specious house negro/field negro dichotomy.

Cheadle and Ejiofor leap at the men’s stereotypical differences. From Dewey’s “The world’s been waiting for a nigger like you” to Petey’s “Love you like a brother,” the relationship is as fake as the afro toupees, ’70s mutton-chops and chest medallions. Cheadle lacks a star DJ’s insinuating voice so he emphasizes Petey’s impudent swagger, yet he’s never trenchantly persuasive like the itinerant worker in Radio Golf who describes his swelling hope as, “I felt like I had my dick in my hand.” Wilson’s line distilled machismo to a psychological basis. It dissolves stereotypes of black male bravado whereas “Every stereotype has truth” keeps us ignorant.

After the disgrace of Samuel L. Jackson imitating a jack-o-lantern in The Caveman’s Valentine and the mawkish sisterhood of Eve’s Bayou, it’s fair to say that Kasi Lemmons’ view of black folks has always been reductive. Only her weak compositions are worse, such as reducing the D.C. riots after MLK’s assassination to a blizzard of paper in the streets. All this suggests that Lemmons doesn’t know enough about African-American experience to fill a chitlin’.

Preach it brother Armond, I am feeling you.  Although sadly, I still might check out this flick.  

I will let you all know what I think after I see it.

International Justice in the Shadow of Truth and Reconciliation

I was never a proponent of “Truth and Reconciliation Commissions” in adjudicating crimes, especially crimes involving human rights abuses and atrocities during armed conflicts,  such as torture, rape, kidnappings, murder, etc. The idea that a perpetrator of these crimes could just come forward and receive amnesty for telling the truth of their participation in these reprehensible acts and then ask and receive forgiveness, to me was a not only a devaluing of the ideal of justice, but also of human life. Especially African/Black life! I found my opinion on this issue somewhat of a paradox since I am strongly influenced by Christian ideology about forgiveness (but the quote by JFK more reflects my real stance: “Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names”), but as a law enforcement practitioner, I also strongly believe that one should be accountable for one’s actions, and criminals acts should be punished. 

I first became aware of this concept being put into practice after the white South African apartheid government came to an end in 1994. To my knowledge, it has been used also in Rwanda, Liberia and Sierra Leone after their bloody civil wars. I am also aware of the reality that not everyone received amnesty through this process, although due to political and civil stability, some of those who should have been prosecuted (and executed) went free. I am talking here more about leadership figures who started, encouraged, perpetuated, ordered and even participated in these crimes. In the case of South Africa for instance, former presidents F.W. de Klerk and P.W. Botha, both received amnesty, although de Klerk apologized for the sufferings caused by apartheid, while Botha refused to appear before the commission calling it a “circus”.

Various international criminal tribunals and courts have subsequently been established to prosecute government and military leaders who were involved in crimes against humanity, genocide and other war crimes. Currently Liberian ex-president Charles Taylor, is being tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, Netherlands, on 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. A former Rwandan army major was just convicted of his role in massacre of 10 Belgian U.N. peacekeepers in 1994, at the start of the Rwandan genocide. These various international courts and tribunals currently have outstanding warrants out for ex-presidents of Chad and the Central African Republic, five leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army in northern Uganda; a janjaweed leader in Darfur; a Sudanese government minister; a Congolese warlord; is it only me or is there a certain pattern emerging here, hmmmm….  Granted there are warrants out for some former Balkan leaders, but their capture is being hampered more by political interference and back room dealings, than by not knowing where they are currently hiding…. and for the record, as one who does not easily believe and/or ascribe events to conspiracy theories, even I found that it was way too convenient for former Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic to abruptly die before being sentenced by ICC.  

Interestingly, one of the countries which refused to recognize the legitimacy and jurisdiction of the ICC was the U.S.A. There was a concern (more like a fear) on their part, that the court would/could be used to bring U.S. government and military leaders to trial. I am no legal scholar, but would these acts individually or collectively, be considered worthy of prosecution by the ICC:

1. lying to start a war to topple a hostile leader who was a former ally;
2. creating a situation of chaos, destruction, mass murders and civil war in the said country;
3. encouraging the imprisonment and torture of said citizens who were not charged with any crimes and using the former prisons and torture chambers of the former dictator;
4. establishing a prison in a foreign country for those deemed “enemy combatants”; and amid allegations of torture, hold your own military tribunals to try these “enemy combatants”, while there are constitutional challenges at home and outcry from the international community;
5. kidnapping of individuals and “renditioning”  them to countries, where your allies sense of justice and adherence to human rights are questionable at least, but are more often than not: non-existent! Or better yet… send them to secret prisons that you have set up around the world to “vigorously and/or aggressively” interrogate them;

As someone who has friends and acquaintances who have suffered at the hands of Charles Taylor and his armed forces (primarily gangs of boy soldiers), and the Sudanese Islamic government, I am all for bringing any and all those involved in “crimes against humanity” to justice. The leaders should be tried and punished (executed where applicable). I do however see a place for “Truth and Reconciliation Commissions”…. to address the actions of those, like the boy soldiers who were physically and psychologically coerced, as well as being filled with drugs (mixtures of cocaine and gun power), to engage in atrocities. I understand that there are no simple solutions to this issue, especially since the procedures and practices of justice, like history, are wriiten and controlled by those in power.