The angry prophetic voice today...

Some is finally expressing the truth of the situation in Sudan.

I have followed this story for years, since at least the early 1990's. For at least a generation now, the Arab/Muslim people of Sudan, many of them people who have moved there from other parts of Africa, have been masacreing the black Africans. These Africans have committed absolutely no crime other than not being Muslims or Arabs.

But here we sit, "protesting" and talking about things like sanctions and UN intervention, as the Muslim world quietly condones the slaughter of black Africans by Arab militias and Sudanese government officials. The Sudanese government blocks aid and UN inspectors from getting to an area, while the Arab militias murder all the African men and young boys, rape and torture the women, and burn the village to the ground. We've seen it, we know what's happening, and we're not doing much to stop it.

"I can't trust your government!" the US envoy shouted at the Sudanese official. I'm glad that someone, anyone, has finally said something approaching the truth. Of course, we will continue to negotiaite, as the blacks in Sudan are murdered. Sooner or later, there won't be anyone left for us to have to worry about protecting. I wonder, if the Muslim and Arab leaders in Sudan were committing genocide against a white, Christian, Jewish or Muslim population, if we'd be sitting on our hands?

Meanwhile, I'm tired of hearing about the "unrest" in France. I generally sympathize with the underdog, the poor, the struggling (to the point that some friends have even accused me of being a socialist). But, to call what these boys in France are doing an "uprising" is ludacris.

Let's review: this wave of crime started when two boys ran from the police who were trying to ask them questions. They ran into a power station to hide, and got themselves electrocuted. Not one aspect of that terrible accident was caused by social injustice. Mindlessly setting fire to things, especially in one's own neighborhood, is equally disconnected from social justice. In fact, both are simply acts of stupidity; terrible, aweful, stupidity.

I had a professor in school that liked to refer to the LA riots as an "uprising." While he was a favorite professor of mine, this was one of those things we had to agree to disagree about. An uprising, I pointed out to him, is when an oppressed people takes up arms against it's oppressors, and a riot is when stupid and criminal people do things like set fires to the businesses in their neighborhoods, loot the homes and stores of people like themselves, in an orgy of greed and idiocy.

Young men have a penchant for destruction that crosses lines of race and culture. There is a sense of tremendous power in destruction, especially when it leads to recognition. It's like vandalizing a teacher's classroom, then getting to sit down with the principal and discuss what that teacher did to hurt and alienated you, when what should happen is that you get suspended. We don't talk about the "uprising" of sports fans when they set fires and over turn cars after a loss. Or a win. For many boys, it doesn't take much excuse, whether you're poor, black and French, or you're rich, white and American.

People need to pull their heads out of their asses. You cannot negotiate your way out of genocide, and you shouldn't. You should stop it with any and all means at your disposal, including force. It's not a political act every time a group of young men decide to set fires, it's usually just criminal mischief. We need to discuss issues like the clash of cultures, or poverty and education, with a clear view that being in the midst of a cultural meeting, being poor, or being uneducated, does not remove a person's ability or obligation to judge right from wrong. There is no circumstance in which the rape and murder of innocents, or the destruction of an innocent person's property is a valid political statement. They are crimes, and the people that commit them are criminals. They should be treated as such.