Objectify This

Images of the “third world” have long been distorted before they are displayed to the American public.

Most people don’t even know that “third world” refers to the Cold War and should have died along with “red scare” and those bomb drills where schoolchildren were put under desks.

American ignorance abounds when it comes to Africa. It’s easier to find Americans who are unfamiliar with the Rwandan Genocide is than it is to find hay in your average haystack, yet it’s estimated that up to a million people, or 20% of the population was massacred in 100 days in 1994. It sounds pretty memorable.

Yet around here, in 1994, people were mostly talking about the death of Richard Nixon and “Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M. which took home four awards at the VMAs!

It’s not difficult to argue that the U.S. media is racist, by which I mean that our news has a geographic, cultural and racial bias. It is, however, difficult to understand what’s going on without acknowledging that bias.

Even apparently benevolent Canadian bloggers who would like to free Kareem are guilty of  equating African heritage and poverty. According to one Raincoaster, the truth about pirates is that  “Sadly  . . . none of them look like Johnny Depp; they actually look exactly like that guy that asked you for change the other day.” Uh, no, not really, except in the sense that neither of them has the resources to defend themselves.

I could write a whole post explaining why that comparison is offensive. Instead,  i will just say that demeaning historically oppressed people en masse and across circumstances is just revealing your ugly prejudice.

In short, there are a few things that are generally true: 1. white people colonized many parts of the world; 2. these were people who enjoyed a good public hanging at home and treated foreign nationals like inedible meat; 3. it wasn’t actually humorous, 4. many white people still benefit from this economically and psychologically, and 5. many people ignore it because they don’t like to admit that their forebears and the inventors of such popular ideas as “western culture,” “manifest destiny,” and “stuff white people like” were barbarians.

The problem with this resistence is that it perpetuates barbarism. In Johann Hari’s article in the Indepdendent, “one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali,” stated: “We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas.”

The article details the conditions that the fishermen face because their nation is unable to protect their waters from powerful, “first-world” trawlers for fish and dumpers of radioactive waste.

To quote Hari, “Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our toxic waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We won’t act on those crimes – the only sane solution to this problem – but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 per cent of the world’s oil supply, we swiftly send in the gunboats.

“The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know “what he meant by keeping possession of the sea.” The pirate smiled, and responded: “What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor.” Once again, our great imperial fleets sail – but who is the robber?”"