Insurgencies, civil wars and conflicts in Africa

As fingers point and hands are wrung about 50 soldiers pulled out of the Turkey-Syria conflict where the U.S. is attempting to hold back ISIS, can anyone tell me why this particular civil war in Syria is so critical to American interests?  I’m not looking for snarky, ad hominem attacks, this is a REAL QUESTION.

It’s about Africa, not the Middle East.

There are civil wars, insurgencies and tribal/ border conflicts all over Africa. Except for Kenya (Obama’s relatives) and Nigeria (Boko Haram kidnapping Christian girls) the U.S. media and politicians  rarely pay attention to the slaughter and mayhem in Africa, particularly of Christians by Muslims. And please spare me the trash talking about European colonialism—a quick look  at Wikipedia shows wars, conflicts and civil wars going back 1500 years, and most of these are tribal or Muslim sects.

Here’s a quick check, according to Wikipedia. See that source for more detail:

• On going insurgency in Egypt
• On going South Sudanese Civil War
• On going 2nd Libyan Civil War
• On going ISIL insurgency in Tunisia
• On going insurgency in Maghreb (Algeria and Morocco)
• Ongoing insurgency in Somalia
• On going conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia
• On going Burundian unrest
• Ongoing Anglophone crisis, Cameroon
• Ongoing Northern Mali conflict
• Ongoing Boko Haram, Nigeria
• Ongoing Kamwina Nsapu Rebellion, Democratic Republic of Congo

Is it the color of their skin? American blacks don’t care about Africa if it’s not directly related to U.S.  slavery? The amount of natural resources?  The distance? Language problems?  CIA doesn’t even have Fact Books on some of these countries.

White Africans and Black by Caroline Singer and Cyrus Le Roy Baldridge, on my bookshelves

According to a letter I found, I bought this book in 2001 from the wonderful used book store (now closed) Acorn in Grandview because of the beautiful pencil and charcoal drawings. There are no whites in the book so I was a little puzzled by the title—the authors say it’s because all Africa was controlled by whites. Originally written in 1929 and published by The Methodist Book Deport , Cape Coast, Gold Coast,  it is extremely respectful of the beauty and culture of black Africa, but the authors comment on the presence of the Europeans and their culture throughout the book as they travel in Africa for 14 months.  There is an inscription in mine from the original owners: January 1945, Marilyn Phyllis Birch, A memento of our field of foreign service. Daddy and Mother (beautiful script).

One of the first things the authors mention is that photographs do not do justice to the shading and tone of African skin--but their drawings certainly do. The people are all beautifully drawn--very well muscled, graceful, and beautiful. They comment on relations between men and women, slavery (which had been outlawed, but still was obvious), funeral customs, polygamy, religion, the culture of the "Creole" West Indians who had returned to Africa but weren't really African, food, bathing, language, work attitudes.

The illustrator is Cyrus Baldridge, and  his wife, Caroline Singer is the writer. Her writing style is unusual. She uses almost no active verbs, lots of descriptive clauses, and sometimes word repetition, and so her writing develops sort of a calming rhythm. I would love to see something else they've written--and they did a lot of traveling,

“Quiet is the bedroom which adjoins our own, occupied by a swaggering hawk-nosed Kissi, his childlike wife and half a dozen retainers who, though slavery is by law abolished, differ racially from their employer and obey him, without servility, but still as people owned obey.  That the young man is Moslem is evidence not by robes and sandals alone—for many pagans assume this dress without derangement of their inner life—but by his pretty one’s abasement, which has a subtly meretricious quality.  She is demure.  But I think she is so designedly, not unselfconsciously as pagan women are.  It is often stated by the governing whites—despite the missionary’s protest—that any pagan, Moslemized, has made an upward step.  This child, littered with European jewelry of dubious gold, is set apart from other women here by a mincing self-consciousness, equalled only by the preciousness of half-Europeanized women of the larger coast settlements, unduly inflated by newly acquired monogamy, Charleston sandals, and coverings for their upper parts.  A favorite toy, chosen for her charms and not her usefulness, the girl, as if in fearful anticipation of the day those charms may pass, undetected from behind her husband’s back, plunges long glances into the eyes of passing men, searching for reaffirmation of their potency.”

https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/collex/exhibits/cyrus-leroy-baldridge-illustrator-explorer-activist/

If I were collecting books instead of giving them away, this is an illustrator/author I would try to locate.

https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/media/documents/baldridge-C.pdf

A WWI illustration from “ I Was There With the Yanks In France (1920), a book of sketches by the artist Cyrus Leroy Baldridge, who had served as a war correspondent in occupied Belgium and France before America even joined the war. Baldridge later joined the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and became the chief illustrator for the new Stars and Stripes military newspaper.”  https://library.wustl.edu/wwi-archives-dan-bartletts-books/

Democrats don't share the values of immigrants and refugees

Why are Democrats like Pelosi and Schumer so determined to go back on their word about the Wall? Why are they now failing native born Americans--especially blacks? The 2020 election. In raw numbers, Pew Research projected 32 million Hispanics will be eligible to vote in 2020, compared with 30 million blacks. Hispanics now outnumber blacks and the attention they get from Democrats show that. The population of Asians eligible to vote will reach an estimated 11 million in 2020, which is more than double the 5 million who were eligible to vote in 2000, accounting for 5% of next year’s electorate.

So Democrats will grovel, lie and smear to suck in Hispanics which are from dozens of countries and they are primarily white. The Anti-Wall hysteria, not the pro-Wall common sense is the new racism--on the part of Democrats. Don't let that happen. Sanctuary cities are hot beds of crime for illegal crime syndicates. Democrats want to destroy the family values of Mexicans, Ecuadoreans, Venezuelans, Hondurans, etc. values that include religion, children, strong work ethic--all the reasons they came here, legally or illegally.

Millions more Africans came to the U.S. as legal immigrants in two decades than the 300,000 who came as slaves in 300 years. Many are Muslims--their family values and their experience with oppressive governments should make them Republicans, not Democrats. Africans have little in common except skin color with native born black Americans--not even President Obama had any roots in that period of history.

United Nations and reparations

We live in an era where there is more sex and labor slavery than there was during the 18th c. Atlantic slave trade--perhaps 30 million.  But a United Nations panel has decided the United States tax payers should pay descendants of African slaves reparations. I didn't find the document where it demands reparations from Arabs. 

Slavery has existed from the beginning of time, but usually as the spoils of war.  However, for 1400 years continuing to the present Arab Muslims have controlled the African slave trade for profit, as well as the European slave trade.  In the 17th-18th c. they paid Africans to capture other Africans and then sold them to Portuguese, Spanish and English slavers who transported them mostly to South America.  Only about 300,000 were brought to North America (according to Prof. Gates of PBS).  Although it is ignored after the hash tags fade, young women are still being sold into sex slavery by Muslims such as Boko Haram and ISIS. 
On May 15, 1986 seven-year old Francis was selling eggs and peanuts near his village in South Sudan when Arab militia stormed the marketplace, slaughtering men and rounding up women and children. Strapped to horses Bok and others were taken to North Sudan and sold into slavery.

For ten years, Bok was a chattel of an Arab master – he slept with animals and endured hard labor, constant beatings, humiliation and forced Islamization. He was given an Arab name and was taunted as “abeed,” a black slave.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROdzWD7gbOA

Francis Bok, a Sudanese Dinka, escaped from slavery in his home country and is now living in the United States and working with the AASG to abolish modern-day slavery worldwide.  He was 21 years old before he had any education. He now speaks publicly on behalf of all the slaves of the world.  And he is grateful to the United States which took him in.

Meanwhile, there are more legal immigrants from Africa to U.S. in the last 10 years than in the years of slave trade--about 500,000.  So who is going to referee all this in a time when our first black president is a millionaire who is not a descendant of African slaves and black high school students have a higher college enrollment than whites and the descendants of the new immigrants are highly successful?

http://www.iabolish.org/

Success of black immigrants in the U.S.

I've been reading some glowing reports about foreign born black immigrants--education level, income, extending to 2nd generation. But that's not what Pew Research reports, although foreign born blacks do much better than native born, especially in marriage rate and education they don't necessarily do better than other immigrant groups. The difference may be Pew figures  include blacks from all over the world including South American and Caribbean and the other reports may be just Africa. The fact remains, many American blacks, like our President, do not have slavery in their history. And many American blacks are descended from families that did own slaves.

 

 http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/04/09/chapter-1-statistical-portrait-of-the-u-s-black-immigrant-population/

 

 http://www.atlnightspots.com/african-immigrants-have-the-highest-academic-achievement-in-the-us

 

 http://atlantablackstar.com/2015/06/26/survey-shows-black-immigrants-educated-make-money-african-americans/

 

"First- and second-generation immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean, though only 13% of the nation’s blacks as a whole, represent 41% of all those of African descent at 28 selective universities and 23 % of the black population at all public universities." Their children excel at higher rates than any other American immigrant groups. This is reported in a number of publications, including Pew Research and the Census. But all the others sources mention that the marriage rate is much higher for immigrant blacks. Washington Post (this source) doesn't.
 

Pastor Buba (North American Lutheran Church evangelist)

https://vimeo.com/117041982

Always happy to find his program in English—he travels all over the world.

Is this the worst Christmas song ever?

“Do They Even Know It’s Christmas?” is voted as the worst Christmas song ever by this writer at a Catholic site. It's from Band Aid 1984. He says it disrespects Africa and has images of neo-colonialism. However, efforts to end poverty or hunger always improve the heart of the giver, and rarely the recipient in the long term, in my opinion.

http://www.catholicismusa.com/worst-christmas-song-ever-po…/

Frankly, I didn’t remember it, even when I found it on the internet it brought back no memories.  But it must mean a lot to some because there were people defending it, believing they had made a difference.

http://thefederalist.com/2014/12/03/do-they-know-its-christmas-is-the-worst-christmas-song-ever/

http://www.acton.org/pub/commentary/2014/12/17/worst-christmas-song-ever

“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” was released in 1984 as part of Band Aid, an effort organized by Bob Geldof in response to a famine that struck the east African nation of Ethiopia. The song certainly captures the spirit of the season, as its charitable aims are noble enough. The problem, however, is in how these good intentions are translated into word and deed. The song describes Africa largely as a barren wasteland, “Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears.” It continues in this vein. Africa, the onetime breadbasket of the Roman Empire and home of the Nile River is a land “where nothing ever grows, no rain nor rivers flow.” The title question likewise plays into the supposed desperation of the continent. The only “Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom.” The response to this call is supposed to be charity from the affluent West, to “feed the world” and thereby “let them know it’s Christmastime again.”

https://medium.com/@magattew/stop-raising-money-for-relief-and-start-investing-in-africa-bd5c44a75557

In 1984, when Geldof’s first African Christmas song was released, no one thought of investing in Africa. Since then, China and India have already begun their path to prosperity.

Now some of the fastest growing nations on earth are African. Yes, Ebola is an urgent humanitarian cause that must be addressed, but we have long passed the point where it is legitimate (if it ever was) to re-enforce the stereotypes of a billion people when we have a very specific health crisis at hand.

Mauritania—where slavery is alive, unwell, and open (but illegal)

Where there is still slavery--Mauritania. And many don't even realize they are slaves. Something like 10-20% of the population with lighter skinned Arabs enslaving dark skinned Africans. A tradition of centuries.  This is a fascinating video made by CNN, at great risk  Stay with it (it isn’t long) for the interview with the Arab slave owner who became an abolitionist.  http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2012/03/world/mauritania.slaverys.last.stronghold/index.html

When we finally have that “conversation” about race. . . let’s tell the whole story

I was probably in my 30s or 40s before I found out that before the Civil War freed blacks in the U.S. owned slaves. I don't recall that was covered in American history in high school or college. But it wasn't until Prof. Henry Gates (Obama's friend in Boston and PBS host) wrote about it, that I learned that free blacks owned slaves at a much higher rate than whites, something like 25% compared to about 1.5%. Some of course, bought their wives and children after they bought their own freedom, although those were still counted as slaves in the census.  But many owned large numbers and nice plantations that needed slave labor. Also, Gates reported that only a very small number of African slaves ever came to colonies that became the U.S.--most of the 10+ million went to South America or the Caribbean where they died in huge numbers and had to be replaced. Free American blacks were voting before the Revolution and most likely helped ratify the amendments and send the men to Congress. There were very wealthy free blacks who owned a lot of property as well as small businessmen and craftsmen of all manner of the arts in the South.

To sustain their economic activities, free people of color acquired increasing numbers of slaves. Urban artisans--carpenters, bricklayers, stonemasons, mechanics-purchased black apprentices, hod carriers, and helpers; merchants and business people bought haulers, carters, and stock boys; plantation owners purchased house servants, cooks, mechanics, and field hands. By 1830, approximately 1,556 free black masters in the Deep South owned a total of 7, 188 slaves. Representing about 42 percent of the black owners in the South, they owned 60 percent of the black-owned slaves. In the Charleston District, 407 owners held a total of 2, 195 slaves. In New Orleans, there were 753 free black owners, including 25 who owned at least 10 bondsmen and women and another 1 16 who owned between 5 and 9 slaves. Although some of these slaveholders owned members of their own families, or loved ones, unable to free them by law, in 8 rural Louisiana sugar and cotton parishes, 43 Creoles of color ( 1.2 percent of the black slaveholders in the South) owned a total of 1,327 blacks, or lout of 9 slaves owned by blacks. In St. John the Baptist Parish, 3 plantation owners held 139 blacks in bondage-an average of 46 slaves each; in Pointe Coupee Parish, 8 planters held 297 slaves, an average of 37 slaves each. In 1830, approximately lout of 4 free black families in the region was a slaveholder.  “Prosperous Blacks in the South, 1790-1880”

http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/L_Schweninger_Prosperous_1990.pdf

More recently, the Cherokee nation has expelled descendants of their black slaves which since the Civil War had been considered part of the nation according to a treaty they had with the U.S.  Before being forcibly removed to Oklahoma, over 7% of the Cherokees owned slaves--more than the whites in the same states and they took their slaves with them on the “trail of tears.” I suspect that the action had much more to do with money than racial animosity--there was a huge government settlement to be divided up a few years ago. Imagine thinking your family was Cherokee since 1866, and then you get exiled from the tribe over a few billion dollars.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/the-cherokees-one-nation-divisible-judge-will-decide-if-black-members-can-be-expelled/2014/05/06/8690e56c-d55e-11e3-aae8-c2d44bd79778_story.html

What this really shows is that slavery, which exists in larger numbers today than in the 18th century, is a human problem, not a white American problem.  Africans enslaved and sold people of other tribes, and the Arab Muslims were the middlemen to get them to the coast for the Europeans to sell.  Cherokees and other Indians had slaves long before the Europeans stepped ashore, and saw no problem in buying and selling black Africans.

http://ballandalus.wordpress.com/2013/11/24/trans-saharan-slave-trade-and-racism-in-the-arab-world/

http://randomthoughtsonhistory.blogspot.com/2014/04/just-finished-reading-black-property.html/

Muslims slaughter Christians in Central African Republic

450,000 Christians Flee From Muslim Attacks in the Central African Republic

"Unlike Christian communities in Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, and in other nations, whereby various sects are persecuted, it is clear that in the Central African Republic -- just like in South Sudan -- that Christians will not just sit back and wait to be slaughtered or become trapped in ghettoes. It is hoped that the international community will be fair in pointing out the real factors behind communal violence. After all, it is clear that religious tensions erupted after Seleka troops began to ransack Christian areas. However, the same media which always points out the "Buddhist" angle in Myanmar (more Christians have been killed in Myanmar than any other non-Buddhist religion in the last few decades) in relation to the persecution of Muslims in this country; they appear to loathe to point out massacres by Muslims forces in the CAR against Christians; just like the persecution of Buddhists and others in the Chittagong Hill Tracts is barely mentioned in Bangladesh." http://www.aina.org/news/20131127122830.htm

I first read about Seleka at a Human Rights site, which noted that it was a Muslim group, but didn't identify the civilians or villages as Christians.

Who really cares? Bush or Obama?

As many faults as Bush brought to the table, Obama is making him look like a hero and statesman, which I doubt that he was. However, Bush was definitely a patriot, a committed Christian, and a man who loved his country. Obama is none of those.

In lives saved, Bush has no match in my life time. The embryonic stem cell executive order (it was never outlawed, it only limited government funding to cells lines already in use) allowed technology to catch up and save women’s bodies from becoming medical labs for experimentation, his moral leadership on abortion inspired thousands of local organizations and volunteers which are reducing that killing field, his trafficking in persons effort (there are more slaves today than during the 17-18th centuries of the Atlantic slave trade) and the PEPFAR AIDS drug assistance in Africa (Obama has let this slide since it wasn’t his idea), and freeing the women under control of the Taliban all put Obama, the peace prize prez, to shame.

AIDS affects gay men and and blacks more than any other demographic, but it was Bush, not Obama, who really stepped up to help. Just one more example of how people who blindly supported Obama where left out in the cold after he got their vote. Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, said HIV/AIDS was a higher priority for Bush than it is for Obama, citing the ADAP waiting list and the distinction in PEPFAR as a key difference between the presidents.

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/aa/index.htm

Do numbers matter?

In the 16th through the 19th centuries Arab Muslims captured and sold black Africans to European slavers who then shipped them to the “new world” for resale in the various colonies of Spain, Portugal, France and England.

"By the end of the seventeenth century, slavery and the products of slave labor comprised the single largest economic enterprise on earth. Over the course of more than two hundred years, European carriers -- British, Spanish, French, and Portuguese -- had shipped more than 2 million Africans across the Atlantic in chains. But that was just the beginning. Spurred by an explod­ing European demand for sugar, traffic in slaves surged, and in the eighteenth century alone more than 6 million Africans were taken from their homeland to plantations in Brazil, the Caribbean, and, to a much smaller extent, British North America. ... Sons of Providence by Charles Rappleye

Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, estimates 54,559,615 abortions since Roe v. Wade in 1973, and about 40% of those are black. Life Site News

Abortion is legal and approved by the state and federal governments of the United States, and has been a plank in the Democrat party political platform for decades.  Legal abortion  has killed more blacks than four centuries of the Atlantic slave trade.

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, whose organization invested $15 million in the election, was overjoyed by the results of Tuesday’s election of a pro-abortion president, as was NARAL President Nancy Keenan.

Obama and Racism

There are so many political and moral reasons to fight Obama's fight to claim our White House, I'm always surprised (not really) when he and his supporters claim racism will be at the root if he fails. Indeed, it's the racism of the left that has pushed him this far. The leftist racism is essential to keep African Americans down so Obama has a podium on which to stand and preach to the rest of us.

• Racism that destroys the black family by pushing the father out of the home.
  
• Racism that destroys the drive and initiative that sustained African Americans during the darkest days of slavery and Jim Crow days with trillions in government handouts.
  
• Racism that strangles job growth and development with the new next best thing on their agenda, global warming (liberals have short attention spans).
  
• Racism that killed more black Africans by removing DDT from the international market in the 20th century than all the transatlantic slave trade with Arab Africans in the 17th and 18th centuries.
  
• Racism that puts government sponsored church "social justice" programing above Biblical righteousness and justice.
  
• Racism that shuts its eyes to the denigration of black women in hip hop and entertainment industries owned by white liberals.
  
• Racism inherent in the high abortion rate of black babies and the location of Planned Parenthood clinics near black neighborhoods.
  
• Racism that would keep black children from school choice while white liberals, civil rights leaders and our members of Congress send their little darlings to private schools.
  
• Racism that ignores the immigration of the African families who have come here for economic and religious freedom, more than ever came as slaves.
  
• Racism, if it exists in this campaign, is swamped by the sexism and ageism against Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin and John McCain.

This morning on CBS I saw a Halloween costume look-alike contest of "Palins" with wigs and jackets and glasses. Some extremely unflattering, but getting great guffaws and cheers. Imagine someone doing an Obama look alike contest in black face for Halloween on a major network!