The Al Jazeera slavery debate

sat’day riddymz

“Os tambores de Minas, by Milton Nascimento. This song roughly means, the drums of Minas Gerais, Milton Nascimento’s home state, will never be quiet.” Sis Ana. Saludos…

Eduardo Galeano Chronicles the History of Human Adventure

“I believe this reading by Eduardo Galeano is very interesting.  Eduardo Galeano, the Uruguayan intellectual, writer and novelist, describes himself as being obsessed with remembering and committed to humanity and just causes. I agree with him.” Sis. Ana.  Saludos…

Click here.

sat’day riddymz

From Sis. Ana

Panamanian national, Basilio Fergus went to Spain to study medicine and realized his true calling was composing songs and singing. With his rich angelic voice, he became an international star troughout the Spanish speaking world. Cisne Cuello Negro-Black Necked Swan, a song that talks about how the word” black” has been debased, became one of his most popular songs.

Basilio succumbed to cancer and died in 2009. Panamanian soprano, S.E. Dianna Torre, paid tribute to Basilio on Dia de la Etnia Negra: Black Ethnicity Day, celebrated on May 30th across the isthmus of Panama.

Beautiful! Thanks for this Sis. Ana!

Obama vs Jesus

“Killing and treatment of Gaddafi blow to NTC” by Nkwazi Mhango‏

Although former Libya strongman Muammar Gaddaffi was almost hated by everybody except those who were closer to him, what the new regime did to display his remains for public to ridicule was unreasonable. There might be three reasons as to why Gaddafi was killed and publicly displayed.

One, it is either the order came from above to have Gaddafi killed or it shows how disorganized National Transition Council is. Two, the display of Gaddafi’s corpse might have resulted from disorganization, vengeance, even sheer brutality and lack of vision, reason and humanity. If anything, this is a big blow to the intergrity and preparedness of National Transitional Council (NTC) to run and successfully reconcile a divided country.

The author personally needs to divulge his interests. In short he did not like Gaddafi, not just he hated him because of being a human being, but a tyrant. Again, despite author’s freedom to hate or love, he did not like the way Gaddafi’s remains were abusedly maltreated so to speak. Gaddafi is still a human being even posthumously. This is the fact like it or not. Gaddafi therefore, deserved to be treated humanly just like any other human being. What the new regime did is to punish the corpse, whereby the law is clear that once someone is dead, his sins or offences are dropped. This is why you cannot hear ICC baying for Gaddafi’s blood anymore. Actually there was no logic or necessity to dress down a desperate dead body. Indeed, this is a bad precedent NTC has set for its leaders in the future.

For whoever with rational thinking that saw how Gaddafi’s body and those of his defence minister, Abu Bakr Younus and security advisor who also was his son Muattassim, hated the act of displaying the copses for people to photograph and scoff at. Half naked and bullet ladden, the bodies were displayed for longtime  against Islamic practices. Though many Libyans said Gaddafi was not a Muslim, thanks to their pent-up anger, he was a human being and the head of the state. This is the fact that no sane person can dispute.

Why then did the new regime allow this inhumane treatment to dead bodies? Dead bodies are no flowers or something good to look at given that everybody will die and nobody knows when and how. Even when Gaddafi took power, abused it and clung to it, he did not know he would end his life the way he did. If he knew, he’d not have behaved the way he did.

Looking at how Gaddafi’s body was publicly displayed, ridiculed and abused, reconciliation for Libya will become very difficult if we face it that Gaddafi still has sympathizers, especially those that used to benefit from his rule however brutal it was. What adds insult to injury is the fact that even children were brought in the supermarket where the bodies were for long displayed. Indeed, if anything, this is but abusing children and teaching them such bad behaviour and cruelty.

We all know that Libyans suffered a lot under Gaddafi. It is obvious they had vengeance against Gaddafi. Yet again, one must avoid behaving like a madman so that people onlooking at him should nary fail to notice the difference. It’s sad that even the champions of human rights, the West which helped to topple Gaddafi, did not see this anomaly! They were heard demanding that an investigation be conducted into the death of Gaddaffi. Ironically the West led by the US wants an investigation. Why didn’t America conduct investigation in the death of Osama bin Laden? Where is the rule of law that emphasizes presumption of innocence of a suspect till court rules otherwise? If such countries can protect the rights
of animals, homosexuals and other immoral behaviour, how come they did not see this barbarism committed by the institution that is expected to prepare the country for elections?

Ironically, most of the people forming the transition government, apart from working with Gaddafi before ditching him, are the same people who made Gaddafi a stinking dictator. They don’t ask themselves what would happen to them shall the masses decide to completely scap Gaddafi’s legacy. This is possible given that Gaddafi’s autocratic rule was defined by many cheerleaders and bootlickers among who are in the current regime. Indeed, NTC has commenced the journey to “heal” Libya by violations of human rights. Will this heal or divide Libya even more? Without removing that stain of blood, whatever NTC thinks about doing is going to be weighed in the prism of this way. The cubism Libya is in, has to be dealt with much care and emphasis be put on delivering justice that Gaddafi failed to deliver.

Nkwazi Mhango is a Tanzanian living in Canada. He writes regularly for “The African Executive” and also has a blog entitled “Free Thinking Unabii”. He is a regular contributor to AfroSpear.

sat’day riddymz

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