It would be naïve on my part to believe we live in a perfect world were all was perfect, justice always prevailed and good deeds are always rewarded: a world reminiscent of super hero comic books were a character who stands for good and right is endowed with some specific variety of super human or extra human abilities.
In real life the villain is the one who often possesses power - political power. Perhaps, the world is rescued by the few times power resides in the corner of the good.
During an internet browsing session one afternoon, I came upon the comments of a Chinese gentleman who stated his belief that somehow blacks were sub-human. He brandished some sort of scientific evidence, as he called it, to buttress his assertions. I will not bother with the details at this time but his “scientific evidence” was of an anthropological nature relating to the findings of ancient human remains.
The Beginnings of Genocide
Now, this Chinese person's prejudice would not have bothered me much: one would easily blame it on ignorance. The problem is, this fellow is an intellectual; a scholar with a PhD, or on his way to one, by the manner in which he wrote. What I worry about, is this brand of ignorance in high places: This individual potentially holds influence over a generation and we are faced with a scarier prospect that there may be more “educated” persons, about in china, with this brand of “knowledge”, who may be re- enforcing erroneous anecdotes and racist beliefs relating to the Negro race.
I, herein, present a simple life cycle of genocide. At the first stage one person resents another because he is born different. At the second stage, that one person becomes a group. At stage three, this group begins to mask their hatred behind, for example, economic issues: they begin to say things like, “They are stealing our jobs”. In these seemingly harmless comments, lay the tinder for future atrocities. At the fourth stage, someone - perhaps, a politician - decides to do something about the “problem”. At one point, Hitler dubbed his genocide “the Final Solution”.
We have been here before. We remember the genocide carried out by Nazi Germany: An atrocity that resulted in the loss of millions of Jewish souls: an atrocity that made Europe hang her head in shame and disgust. However, seeing that men, unfortunately, do not learn from the past, we saw the same shameful murderous phenomenon during the Bosnia crisis of the 1990s and, most recently, the genocide still ongoing in Darfur. Needless I say that hapless millions are crying for help at the hands of brutal regimes. The international community does nothing, or takes token steps, in the face of these blatant injustices in the name of “maintaining the balance of power”.
Conclusion
It is as though the international community is stuck in a non terminal decimal representation: the world stood aloof till it was too late in the past; it is doing the same in the present and; by all indications it plans to continue with the same strategy in the future. I believe it does not have to be this way. We do not have to continue making old mistakes. The international community defined itself with the founding of the League of Nations in 1920: it is time for the international community to define itself once again.
Then, I read your write-up: What the Black Man Wants 2. It was great and should not be digested as a literary piece alone. The message is deep and should be reiterated at every chance.
Keep it up.