This posting is a response to two recent articles from the Guardian
("Misrule Britannia: It's good news that Tony Blair wants to help heal
the scars of Africa ….." Mahmood Mandani, Guardian 8-2-02
and
"Mr Blair says that we should feel guilty about this……". Rod Liddle G2-7-2-02)
which deal
with the issue of Tony Blair's reference of Africa
being 'a scar on the conscience of the world'.

The current debate in the British press which has been
sparked off by Mr Blair's trip to West Africa and in
particular his reference last year to Africa being the
scar on the conscience of the world in my opinion is
laughable.
That, so many people should be up in arms about the
very suggestion that British people and the rest of
the Western 'Civilised' world for that matter may have
had a part to play in the current climate in Africa
shows that there has been no advancement made in
acknowledging the obvious truth of the West's role in
Africa in the past and today.
Mr Liddle for instance seeks to illustrate his point
that Africans are responsible for their own
predicament by illustrating the bunch of half-wits
that make up the African population today. The people
are passive, have no work ethic and the leaders or
corrupt mad men. One wonders how such an article which
had no factual basis whatsoever in a stark contrast to
the article by Mamood Mamdani, can make its way to the
pages of the voice of white liberalism itself, the
Guardian. The picture that was used to illustrate Mr
Liddle's point was one of dead bodies lying whilst
some barbaric (no doubt) militiaman walked past them.
Responsible journalism has taken on a whole new
meaning. In the interest of freedom of speech and
impartiality could we please have an argument that is
based on more than Mr. Liddle's racist ideas.
He quotes from a Unicef worker in Uganda or so we're
told who describes Africans as having no concept of
time as a linear constraining thing, and this is
indeed typical of the type of people who staff
international humanitarian organisations in Africa,
who would otherwise be out of work. Amazingly this is
a business and more money is wasted on these bigots
than on the African people it is supposed to target in
the first place.
I would urge the 'concerned' British citizens not to
fret too much about Mr Blair's rhetoric which is much
in the same vein of the Belgian apology for a 'moral
role in the death of Patrice Lumumba'. If we cannot
acknowledge the whole truth of what role each party
played and still plays today, how can we possibly move
on?