Cewe,



While I agree that meaningless and ritualistic and sadistic murder can be found anywhere, there is a big differance between how common it is in the "1st world" and africa. In my experiance, having travelled extensivly in over 20 african countrys, it is far more common in africa amongst people who are otherwise considered normal in their society. Especially in west africa where Voodoo originated.



As I said, these people are not considered "psycos/nutcases/whatever" amongst their own, but are quite "normal". In our culture, if you ritually kill and partion up a baby to make "Muti" or whatever it might be called in that paticular region, you would naturally be looked upon as a nutcase that should hang or be locked away. This is not nessicarily so in africa. To belive otherwise would be niave IMO. I've seen some of the going ons of Voodoo (not human sacrifice of course!), and can tell you there is no comparission to western nutcases. It's two very differant things.



I won't try to get into the reasons why these sick actions are more common in africa, but the fact is that life is "cheap" down there in the mind of far too many...



Erik D.

Cewe: So explain to me why Europe produced say, Werner von Braun, Albert Einstein, Madame Curie, DaVinci...ad nauseaum ( the list is endless) and why thery are still using drums, voddoo and taking perfectly well-run countries like RSA and the former Rhodesia and turned them into disaster areas? I guess I just don't get it. jorge

Hey cewe,

Jorge is US NAVY. He has been pretty busy fighting wars, and hasn't made it to the library lately. Besides, the NAVY guys were always getting kicked out of the library for moving their lips when they read, and coloring in the book margins with crayons.

I'm fairly recently retired USAF.

I love libraries, and have done a lot of area studies (mainly because I wanted to know the architectural history of the buildings before I dropped a 1000 Kilogram bomb down the main stairwell).

To understand present day Africa one might do better to study a textbook of Epidemiology. a friend of mine is a full time Epidemiologist (personally I would rather date Rosie O'Donnell than do that for a living, but I digress). His view, which I unfortunately share is that Africa is already well along on a massive die-off that will make Europe circa 1348 - 1356 (The Black Plague) look like a Sunday picnic.

I recommend you read Dark Continent . It is about Europe, not Africa.

JCN

PS Fighter pilots in the USA, be they NAVY or USAF, are selected for bombing accuracy, not cultural sensitivity.

Yeah, right, we�ve done no wrong -ever!- so let�s forget whitch hunts, the childrens crusade, the inquisition, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin etc ad nauseum. Oh and let�s forget Jugoslavia -oh I forgot, they�re mostly dangerous muslims.

I work for the Finnish Navy and our study requirements on global political science, national economy are quite severe.

USAF doesn�t seem to have those?

Recommended reading: Africa -the biography of a continent.

Ganyana,

The key word here is "help."

There seems to be this genetic make-up of whites to perpetually "help" blacks, no matter how absurd it may be. Of course, the reverse will never be true, as everyone in Zim must know by now.

JCN: He misses the point entirely. OF COURSE we had Hitlers and Stalins ( Obviously he didn't read my previous post), so being cruel and inhumane is not the issue. Stalin, Hitler and those criminals in the former Yugoslavia, et al, had telephones, electric lights, etc. It's the methodology that's different. If Stalin had a tooth ache, he went to a dentist, not a witch doctor. GEt the point? BTW JCN, I'm trying hard not to movemy lips as I type this. jorge

Are you daft man! When Stalin had a headache he executed a few people from the Polibureau, filled up a Gulag and sent Berija hunting for the guilty party.

Read up on everything while your at it.

Yes there will be a major crisis in many African states due to Aids. There will be similar problems in Russia and Asia.

Point: Try, for a moment, to be a bit objective. I hereby refrain from continuing this discussion.

For Kathi etc who know northern Zimbabwe

Every year on the half moon in late september/early october there is at ritual killing of a child at Chirisa cave (about 500m outside the boundary of chirisa safari area in Gokwe north communal lands). This is a sacrafise to the rain rain godess. For five years when I was the senior government officer in the district I tried to stop the murders and was accordingly either prasied by parents for protecting their children or cursed by most for the poor rains. Generally all that happend was the murder was delayed until I had left.- you can only camp in an area for a few days and come back for the next half moon and try and interfere.

The police were fully suportive- but afraid to even be present. I could not be cursed by withcraft but they could!

I now watch with sadness and frustration my Church's efforts to help the tonga in that area.

man cewe, I thought your grasp of the Queen's english was above average, but you are missing my point again. I'm not talking about the level of brutality , but at civilization as a whole! Are you going to tell me that the level of civilization, sophistication and technology is the same everywhere?