Paul Kagame is no saint

A point picked up from one of my previous posts (Hotel Rwanda) by someone from the Congo commenting is about President Paul Kagame of Rwanda.

Paul Kagame is probably the single most important person in bringing the genocide in Rwanda to a stop in the face of overwhelming odds, and basically no help from the outside world. Phillip Gourevitch's book on the subject paints a glowing picture of him. Bill Clinton has also described him as being one of the most important world figures in promoting reconcilliation.

However, as I said earlier he is no saint. I remember returning to Britain from Rwanda, and reading about the Rwandan army's human rights abuses in the neighboring DRC. Amnesty International has written extensively on the subject, and Kagame was subject to a grilling in this BBC interview.

This is summed up best in this article by Georgew Monbiot, who argues that we have a fairly tale view of Rwanda's Genocide. I have to say, although I agree with some of his points, I do not agree with all of them. Indeed, Fergal Keane, one of the best authors on Rwandan politics has described Kagame as a Lenninist of the worst kind, in The Economist.

However, despite the title of this post, I think the most important moral point is that we should condemn all human rights abuses, and work to try to prevent them occurring.

Christian Fundamentalism

Christian Voice, the organisation which took on Jerry Springer the opera, are now taking on a variety of different issues.

Just had a look at their website, and they are peciluarly driven by blind intolerence, hatered of other religions, and homosexuality. Nice.

Well apperently we are always 10 years behind the Americans. Next thing you know we'll have tele-evangelism. "Praise Jesus, by donating by Mastercard or Visa".

Melanie Phillips spouting nonsense

You can always rely on Melaine Philips to provide the Daily Mail's point of view. She was on the Moral Maze recently discussing Global Warming and arguing

the key claims supporting the theory wwre [sic] being demolished

She admitted she was a journalist not a scientist, but then proceeded to argue against the one scientist in the room. A full breakdown of her argument is available here on her site, and the BBC moral maze is here.

It angers me greatly that people who have no understanding of the issue feel they can wade in and cite studies erroneously giving themselves the veneer of credibility.

Science is meant to be continually challenged, and dissent from the mainstream is all well and good. However, as Monbiot eloquently pointed out, if ten thousand scientists support one view and seven disagree, it would be grossly irresponsible to ignore the ten thousand.

As the Government's chief scientist advisor has said:

Climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today

The most severe problem.

If ten thousand astronomers told you a meteorite was likely to hit earth killing thousands of people, and seven said they disagreed, what would you do? If you are Melanie Phillips you would only listen to the the few that supported your view of doing nothing, and ridicule those who did not agree.

She seems obsessed with the idea that the mainstream media (which she refers to as the MSM) is a liberal elite shutting out her views. I would agree that the media does often show a limited range of permitted views, and indeed strongly agree with Noam Chomsky's propaganda model.

But sometimes you have to realise that your views are not widely expressed because nobody believes them. And in this case, her belief that global warming does not merit any serious attention is a nonsensical view unsupported by any serious thought.

Hotel Rwanda

After spending a couple of months living and working in Rwanda, I feel I have an affinity with the country. I've read a dozen or so books about the country and the genocide. This is an important and timely film.

The genocide killed the best part of a million people, all due to an extreme racism on the part of the ruling Hutu regime. The murders occurred over a three month period and happened at a rate several times faster than the Holocaust. The film repeatedly points out how the world was not ignorant of what was going on, and made a clear decision to not act, despite the clear moral and legal case under the 1948 UN genocide convention.

There's an article (I disagree with), that discusses the film here, in which the author argues that the film gets the moral case wrong. I think the author is unaware of the history of the genocide, and specifically the US's role in preventing the UN from acting.

It is well worth seeing the film, and if you are interested in gaining some background knowledge theres a whole list of resources here, also some more contempory information here.

The best book on the subject is We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch. Gourevitch is a great author, and really sets out the whole story well. The one problem with his book is his deification of the now President Paul Kagame. Kagame may have done some great things in bringing the genocide to a close, but he is far from saintly.

Another great book is Fergal Keane's Season of Blood. This provides clear hiostorical background, as well as some excellent first person narrative. His work has won the Orwell prize for non-fiction writing.

Verbalicious

Been seeing a lot of this rather shockingly bad "singer". She seems not to care that she is obviously miming. She looks ridiculous in "street" wear and braces, and her name is a mixture of "delicious" and "verbal". Verbalicious? It sounds as ridiculous as "The Past Tense-tastic".

Her site is here, but is currently equally crap. Her look, her "attitude" and everything about her oozes naffness in a sub-Vanilla ice stylee.

I predict she'll be at number one within a couple of months

Coca Cola's involvement with the Nazis

A good breakdown here

"After the US entered the war in 1941 Max Keith couldn't get Coca Cola syrup from America to make Coke, Keith invented a new drink out of the ingredients he had available to him and made it specifically for the Nazi market and the Third Reich. The drink was called Fanta. In 1943 alone he sold 3 million cases of Fanta in the Nazi empire."