I find it hard to believe people are still practicing human sacrafice in this day and age. In general the AP is fairly reliable. Of course the University Marxists seldom criticize anything other than Israel or America. If you get into any discussion of slavery in Africa you get long winded rationalizations that it is somehow different from slavery elsewhere.
It is hard to believe that these practices still exist.
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So what else is new? Pygmies are herded together, slaughtered and eaten and 5yo girls raped because sex with a virgin is supposed to cure aids. So slavery doesn't exactly come as a surprise and is even one of the more palatable customs in that nick of the woods.
Leftists don't give an aviationg fornication for the well-being of the people. Have you ever heard as much as a beep about the treatment of women in countries were the Religion of Peace rules, or in India, for that? They rather worry about "date rape" or other means to disenfranchise men. Here, they support the "right" of Muslim women to wear the headscarf. Is there ONE unjust, dangerous, cruel, futile or simply silly cause which eftists DON'T support?
One traditional healer in Uganda, when asked about the phenomenon, pointed to the story told in the Bible's book of Genesis, when God asked Abraham to sacrifice a son.
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Religious fanaticism is always with us.
I teach an introductory course over various religious traditions and always encourage students to speak up and share their thoughts on various matters. This is difficult with 90 students but some of them are fearless.
In any event, I had an excellent student from Sudan that wrote me a paper over his people's tribal beliefs, which included sacred landscapes and stories about them. He then went on to describe how divisive new religions had become to his family, particularly Islam. Under the cloak of anonymity here, I have to wonder how much of a help Islam is to these people, coming on the heels of Christian missionization, civil war, and centuries of colonialism? I'm not condemning Islam or Christianity in total, or trying to romanticize indigenous traditions either, as we're all human. Therefore, nothing we do or practice is without its blemishes. But, sadly, Islam as of now has seemed only to reignite old rivalries and start new ones.
Ray
Even an African weasel couldn't have worded that any better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCvz8y_DUSY&feature=related
Let me tell you about my exploits upon the Dark Continent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbyzTI0M8eo
I'm no expert, but wouldn't Islam be one of the main problems that has plagued Africa ever the Arab slavers brought it to Africa centuries ago?
Muslims are still slaving in the Sudan.
Slavery and Sudan
That's worded rather awkwardly as well, by modern conventions, anyway. (As well as those conventions established by African weasels.) Are you trying, Sir, to posit that slavery was unknown upon the Dark Continent before the arrival of the Arab Mahommetan Semite in the seventh century? Being no expert myself, I nonetheless find this postulate rather suspect if not somewhat quasi-preposterous. Just imagine asking those early Afro-African feminist princesses. They'd have told you. Those poor women were no doubt perpetually a slaving all the live long day long for their domineering Afro-African husbands. And many of them preferred it that way. Only they knew why. Must have been the perks. Regardless! Slavery has no doubt existed upon the Dark Continent, as elsewhere, from time immemorial, and long before, if I recall. But I'm with you. Let's blame the Arab Mahommetan anyway.
"I'm no expert, but wouldn't Islam be one of the main problems that has plagued Africa ever the Arab slavers brought it to Africa centuries ago?
Muslims are still slaving in the Sudan."
SO right, Mac! Islam and the fact that the West doesn't give a damn what happens to the people in Africa. It was you who made me aware of Romeo Dallaire. He's become my hero as well.
Hey Mac, I hope you're doing well. I think you raise an important point regarding Africa's most recent struggles. The Arab intrusion into Africa parallels some of arrogant European excursions into the "New World" in how the indigenous inhabitants were viewed and treated.
In my not-so-humble opinion, Islam is not a silver bullet that is going turn war-torn, poverty-stricken Africa around. (Sudan as an example). Like most reform movements, it likely will come from within the Sudanese people themselves. Those that hope to hold onto their traditional practices face genocide in response (Darfur). By the way, I fail to pick up on Spalding's point. How bout you?
Ray
Mark Winters, where exactly did anyone here insinuate that slavery and other, similar behaviors that are frowned on today, did not exist in parts of Africa before the coming of Islam? You seem to be saying that since Africans were human beings that had the capacity to harm other human beings, that they somehow "deserve what they've gotten."
I only stated that Islam has complicated an already desperate situation, increasing hostilities and granting longer life to various warlords, etc.. It's given some a new means of subjugating their own people. In your apparent attempt to come across as witty and relevant, you've actually accomplished neither. Perhaps rather than forcing what people say here to conform with straw man arguments, you should pay attention to what is said rather than what you wish was said.
Ray
Quite frankly the vast majority of Americans and western Europeans are quite shielded and ignorant of what goes in the rest of the globe, especially in the backwaters and remote areas of the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Central and South America. We want to think that everyone shares values in common with us, and if we're nice to them, they will be nice to us too. I've known people who have lived and worked in some of these places. First you must gradually build trust and rapport with some local leaders and then follow their lead. You do not travel and move about lightly in their territory without risking your life, regardless of your good intentions to the natives.
I think there is a fair number of stories about Europeans and Americans trekking in some remote regions and disappearing or being held for ransom or beaten to death and robbed for their backpacks and hiking boots. Some Indians in South America and New Guinea tribes are still feared as head hunters, etc.
My kids wanted to drive down to Mexico and "go hiking in the back country." I forbade it. They hadn't been paying attention to the news.
Anonymous
I shall consider taking your stern and humorless admonitions under advisement. (After all, I might could continue to use a straight man at various points hence.)
Ray
Mark, you're a big boy and can take it.
Ray
That I am.
Personally, I wish my second daughter would have paid more attention to the news and listened to me more when I was about the foreboding of the traveling abroad of a lone and tender footed White American girl into the African Heart of Darkness. But, she is 24 years old, adventurous, takes after her intrepid father, and is off defiantly traipsing around the hyena infested plain of the Massai Mara alooking for to volunteer, for food and potable water, in the teaching of English and/or computer skills to budding Massai Kaffirs, as Dickens would phrase it. May she travel with the eye of God upon her. Those here, that partake of such things, could offer up a pious supplication, Catholic or no, upon her, and my, behalf. And that would be greatly appreciated. And I'm not kidding at all about that.
You believe me, don't you?
Hurray for Capt. Spalding and his wayward prodigal daughter!
Mark, I do wish your daughter all of the safety in the world on her excursion to Africa, as well as your own peace of mind.
Ray
You are misspelling Mark. It is
"Spaulding" as in Captain Jeffrey (or Geoffrey) T. Spaulding.
Sir Alligator
I've never in my life misspelt Mark. Jeffrey, Geoffrey,...Spalding, Spaulding. I never read the screenplay...
Thank you, Ray.
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