https://allafrica.com/stories/201907300294.html



Zimbabwe: Western Racism Hurts African People, Wildlife


30 JULY 2019
The Herald (Harare)
OPINION
By Emmanuel Koro


The world has just been reminded that racism is a deeply hurtful problem that cuts across all spheres of life.

Recently, Republican US President Donald Trump repeatedly told four Democratic US members of Congress to "go home".

All four were female and of colour.

One of these elected officials might be a descendant of Africans who were brutally enslaved to help develop and enrich the American nation.

In Africa, those of us involved with wildlife conservation realise that Western racism is also a constant sub-theme in Western policy.

Take Africa's elephant and rhino range states for example. They have been subjected to a harmful form of racism by Western animal rights groups for the past 43 years. How?

They have imposed their values on how African wildlife should be managed. For example, they have promoted a ban on ivory and rhino horn trade -- and stopped all trade in domestically bred African grey parrots -- in the hope that this will end poaching. It hasn't.

In fact, poaching of elephants, rhinos and grey parrots have increased because demand for these products remains high.



"The younger supporters of the Western animal rights groups, many of whom consider themselves politically progressive, do not realise the racist nature of these organisations," said US public policy specialist and managing director of the Ivory Education Institute Godfrey Harris.

"They have no idea that the money they donate is making things worse for Africa, particularly the rural populations who live among wild animals.

"Yet the animal rights groups shamelessly use the increase in poaching they knowingly enable in order to drag even more money out of their supporters. The ugly truth is that Western animal rights groups create and benefit from the poaching crisis."

While the executives of the animal rights groups enjoy a luxurious lifestyle, rural Africans suffer the consequences of being unable to benefit from the wildlife that is part of their environment and culture.



They go barefoot, poor, hungry, and hopeless, without clean drinking water, decent healthcare or adequate educational facilities.

They suffer these conditions because African wildlife can't pay for itself while the ban on ivory and rhino horn trade, and limitations on hunting, remain in force.

Worse, urban and rural African taxpayers are forced to pay for wildlife protection in order to satisfy the values of Western animal rights groups. Comfortable in their luxury homes and offices in New York, London, Brussels and Berlin, they claim that they know what is best for African people and African wildlife. How is this attitude any different from the colonial racists such as Bismarck, Leopold, Rhodes or Livingston? Remember they proclaimed "the higher races have a right over the lower races. They have a duty to civilise the inferior races."

This idea of imposing abhorrent Western values on Africa then is no different than the attitudes of the Western animal rights groups today.

Without benefits from wildlife and after so many fatal attacks of elephant and lions on their people and livestock, Africa's rural communities are suffering.



If you were suffering in this way, wouldn't you rather poach wildlife by collaborating with the poachers than adopt the racist attitudes of unseen and unknown do-gooders from abroad?

African leaders have long found racism abhorrent. Nelson Mandela, the former South African president and global icon, said it best: "I hate racial discrimination most intensely and in all its manifestations."

The first black president of the first African independent country, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, told the US civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King that he "would never be able to accept the American ideology of freedom until America settles its own internal racial strife."

We could extend Mr Nkrumah's thought to wildlife. Let the US solve its own wildlife issues involving the white-tailed deer, the wild Mustang horse, and the Western mountain lion before it uses the Convention on International Trade In Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) as its tool to interfere in Africa's wild animal issues.



Trade, not aid saves African wildlife.

If the SADC countries were to leave CITES, they could easily start trading in all their currently forbidden wildlife products with world markets without endangering their wildlife populations.

The Organisation of Oil Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC) is trading oil internationally without a UN environmental agency regulating it.

Yet oil has and continues to negatively impact the environment.

The diamond-producing countries under the Kimberly process is also trading independently.

Accordingly, there is no reason why SADC countries cannot do the same with their rhino horn, ivory and grey parrot stocks if CITES fails to end its continued racist prohibition of trade in these wildlife products.

Before taking this action, SADC countries should ensure that the countries that are going to buy their products are also willing to defy CITES.



The good news is that countries such as Japan are likely to agree to that because they have problems with international wildlife regulatory bodies as well.

In late December 2018, Japan set a precedent that sovereign countries can pull out of international wildlife regulatory organisations that don't serve their national interests.

Japan pulled out of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) because it was prohibiting its people from commercial whale hunting for meat, which is an important source of protein.

Following its pull out from the IWC in December 2018, Japan started commercial whaling on July 1 2019, totally ignoring Western animal rights groups' outcries against commercial whale hunting.

Emmanuel Koro is a Johannesburg-based international award-winning environmental journalist who has written extensively on environment and development issues in Africa.

Boy, talk about starting off on the wrong foot.

And i don’t think it’s racism. Paternalism maybe, but even from the anti-hunters I dont think it’s been about race at all.

But then again calling people racist is how things are done now...

Wow!!!

While there are some small truths in the article...the overall theme is nuts.

Guys,

In the current atmosphere here in the USA If you are a Caucasian and disagree with anyone that is not a Caucasian on anything including the color of the sky you are a racist. I'm just so-o-o-o-o-o tired of all this shit.

As for the article I don't think even the anti hunting loons are basing their stance on race.

Mark

+1

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:
Guys,

In the current atmosphere here in the USA If you are a Caucasian and disagree with anyone that is not a Caucasian on anything including the color of the sky you are a racist. I'm just so-o-o-o-o-o tired of all this shit.

As for the article I don't think even the anti hunting loons are basing their stance on race.

Mark

100% Spot On Mark.

What a crock of crap

Whoever wrote that article is a racist.

Didn't Africans sell their own people off for slaves?

quote:

Originally posted by Aspen Hill Adventures:
Didn't Africans sell their own people off for slaves?

to have a seller you need a buyer ...

quote:

Originally posted by medved:

quote:

Originally posted by Aspen Hill Adventures:
Didn't Africans sell their own people off for slaves?

to have a seller you need a buyer ...

What an ungrateful bunch!
If it wasn't for the historical past imagine where they would be today; maybe they haven't thought that one out.

Ali said “Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat” after a reporter asked, “Champ, what did you think of Africa?”

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:
Guys,

In the current atmosphere here in the USA If you are a Caucasian and disagree with anyone that is not a Caucasian on anything including the color of the sky you are a racist. I'm just so-o-o-o-o-o tired of all this shit.

As for the article I don't think even the anti hunting loons are basing their stance on race.

Mark

&+1+1

I think many minorities in the USA truly believe most, if not all, Caucasians are racist.

As for myself, I am Caucasian, and I believe most Caucasians just want to make a decent living and raise their children in a safe environment. They don’t sit around and hate people because of their race.

What I hate, and I assume many other Caucasians hate as well, is when minorities are confronted for committing a crime, and the liberal press makes them appear to be the victim of racism.

Crime is a serious problem in the USA. LEOs need the support of the community, regardless of the racial makeup of that community. If the neighborhood alliances itself with minority thugs over LEOs than rule-of-law and civilization suffers.

There are many decent people of all races in our country, but even decent minorities sometimes get caught up in the passion of perceived racial injustice.

DOJ statistics shows that blacks commit slightly over 50% of homicides in our country, yet comprise only 13% of the population.

What is truly sad, is black communities seldom trust or support LEOs, even though most of the victims of black murderers are also black.

The liberal press does our country no favors by continually showing biased video snips that are edited to make black criminals look like victims.

BH63

quote:

Originally posted by Todd Williams:

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:
Guys,

In the current atmosphere here in the USA If you are a Caucasian and disagree with anyone that is not a Caucasian on anything including the color of the sky you are a racist. I'm just so-o-o-o-o-o tired of all this shit.

As for the article I don't think even the anti hunting loons are basing their stance on race.

Mark

100% Spot On Mark.

Replace USA with AR and Caucasian with Blaser owner and it is even more spot on

On Africa I follow the wise words of a zim ph I respect - what do you call a black African with an ak47 - Sir.

Mike

I don't believe it's racial. It is economic discrimination. The rich believe they must apply their values, morals and culture to the poor so as to profit from the poor.

NGO's and conservation groups have leaned that there are BIG profits in the conservation game. Most are amazingly ineffectual at getting much accomplished at the ground level, but they are amazingly successful at raising money and soaking it up in administrative level BS. All these guys are driving brand new Cruiser double cabs, attending meetings, flying from here to there, but strangely enough, we never see any of them on the ground working with anti poaching patrols or spending weeks on end in the bush.

Yes, they love to tell the locals what they can and cannot do and working with the local community leaders isn't high on their list. It has nothing to do with the Race Card and everything to do with profits over results. But the race card narrative is a convenient way to push a false narrative and blame everything on Trump. Sorry folks, but this is simple profiteering and nothing more. Can't blame Trump for that.... well you can, but you'll look like a raving lunatic - like so many do around here.

No NGO ever benefitted from solving problems; they exist to pretend they are solving problems whilst creating more...

TIA

"Racist" is what liberals yell when they have lost the argument and have nothing else to come back with. Yelling racist worked for liberals for a number of years until people like Trump wouldn't accept their premise.


Conservatives are wising up to the term racist and are no longer apologizing or kowtowing away.

Just realize if someone calls you racist and you aren't one, you have won the argument because they have nothing else to say. Feel free to pin them down because they have no comeback except to yell racist louder. On a slow day with the right person, this can be quite entertaining.

quote:

No NGO ever benefitted from solving problems; they exist to pretend they are solving problems whilst creating more...

Never have truer words been spoken.

Those of us here in Zim read The Herald the same way as you in the 'States read The Onion. We are rarely disappointed, though H-Metro is better if you want to read about goblins and vengeful ancestor spirits...

You have to define NGO. You can't say that about, for example, Charlton-McCallum's Dande Anti-Poaching Unit or Tashinga Initiative in Zimbabwe, but you culd say it about abominations like IFAW.

quote:

Originally posted by fulvio:

quote:

No NGO ever benefitted from solving problems; they exist to pretend they are solving problems whilst creating more...

Never have truer words been spoken.

A better place starts with yourself, not by pointing fingers. If Africa wants to improve they need to improve themselves. Be critical to their politicians, their governments and state owned companies and move away from politics along tribal heritage.

quote:

Originally posted by ijl:
You have to define NGO. You can't say that about, for example, Charlton-McCallum's Dande Anti-Poaching Unit or Tashinga Initiative in Zimbabwe, but you culd say it about abominations like IFAW.

quote:

Originally posted by fulvio:

quote:

No NGO ever benefitted from solving problems; they exist to pretend they are solving problems whilst creating more...

Never have truer words been spoken.

Granted, there are a few bright sparks, but for the most part, they are few and far between...

The Tashinga Initiative, an in-country NGO, is doing an incredible job supporting the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife anti poaching rangers assigned to the Zambezi Valley.

Piss and moan, Have they ever seen the inside of a African prison operated by blacks, talk about brutal...Its just more of the same, its reached a point where we as whites should be yelling for equal opertunity..Im sick of the whole bucket of crap...

We had eight years of a black president and all he did was ster up racial strife. He told an hispanic audience that republicans were their enemies. He was voted into office twice not inspite of being black but because he WAS black, pure and simple. America was trying to put the past finally behind us but Obama brought it back because he believed everything his father, mother and maternal grandfather told him. Yeah, his maternal grandfather was a nut case too.

Obama was half black and half white. Don't ever forget that statistic. In spite of that undisputed fact, which he could have used to draw everyone together and could have used it to everyone's benefit, he chose to stir race relations up to fever pitch. Because of that, he made race relations for his 8 years in office, the worst that they have been since the 60's. The hue and cry today, where everything is racist, is due directly to that. And, for ages, the willing buyer in the slave trade were Arabs and other black tribes. The US and British North America combined was less than 5% of the slave trade-try looking at Brazil and other countries. This needs to be moved to the political forum. Portugal was one of the biggest offenders in slave trade.

quote:

he made race relations for his 8 years in office, the worst that they have been since the 60's. The hue and cry today, where everything is racist, is due directly to that.

^^^this 100%

Racial tension was almost a thing of the past...til 0bama arrived on the scene.

Trump takes a lot of heat, and undeservedly, for racism. The Obama administration was the most racist since FDR. Lots of quotes to support that. "The police acted stupidly." "If I had a son, he would look like Travon." And so on. And of course his attorney general was a racist.

Seller...buyer...
Portuguese and British didn’t just stop along the coast of Africa and told locals, “ hey next time we’ll come buy, get me some slaves “
That trade was already there for thousands of years and complete regular business practice as it was just few hundred years ago before that throughout the Europe

Now we know better of course but some people still bring this shit up every time something doesn’t go their way
Stupid...stupid...stupid...and unbelievably irresponsible

quote:

Emmanuel Koro is a Johannesburg-based international award-winning environmental journalist who has written extensively on environment and development issues in Africa.

That pretty much says it all. No mention of racists activities in RSA due to the behavior of blacks against white farmers. The writer is either a dumbass or racist himself.

quote:

Originally posted by muttleysgone:
Trump takes a lot of heat, and undeservedly, for racism. The Obama administration was the most racist since FDR. Lots of quotes to support that. "The police acted stupidly." "If I had a son, he would look like Travon." And so on. And of course his attorney general was a racist.

Which AG? They both were quite bad relative to this subject.

Those obsessed with race are racist.

The democrats are obsessed with race and how each race can only be represented by someone of that race. This is what bad government schooling does to people.