code (RED)

in Bono's (RED) product campaign he uses positive words like empowe(RED) desi(RED) and inspi(RED) to promote the cause. This all well and good and I enjoy this campaign and its aims. But when I think of Africa and AIDS I want to add to that list RED words that reflect the current desperation in that continent. I feel like people are caught up in the warm fuzzies of fixing the daily atrocities and we wont make any real progress until we expose and explore the painful past that brought us the present crisis.
It is a shameful and ugly past, full of evil. I don't think that modern people understand what has happened to Africa so they think that the first world must once again come to the rescue of those poor stupid people who cant help themselves. We neglect our part in their history, the part that stripped the continent of natural and human resources, and deliberately carved up the land for our uses and convenience, regardless of the damage and chaos caused by this seemingly arbitrary division. We pitted tribe against tribe and established governments that deliberately encouraged infighting- this justified our "divine calling" to "tame the savages". How could we be good Christians and leave these poor stupid people to kill each other? Its also convenient that they were so busy fighting and mistrusting each other they couldnt organize as one and throw the colonial invaders off their land and out of their lives.

This continued for roughly 500 years. Until the 1950-70s many african countries were not sovreign states, and when they were handed the reins a stable economy and government were not part of the deal. Many former colonial powers keep their hand in the mix thru business and economic concerns in former colonies, subtly interfering.

I know that Africa was not a paradise before westerners set foot on it, and that there are good things that came out of colonialism(not many but they are important). What I am saying is we are very good at making ourselves feel like the calvary coming to the rescue and ignoring our fingerprints on the root of the crisis.



Here is my list of (RED) words:

sca(RED)
fette(RED)
plunde(RED)
massac(RED)
scar(RED)
surrende(RED)
encumbe(RED)
dismembe(RED)
scatte(RED)
tatte(RED)
igno(RED)
.....