Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: wagner group and africa

shalom, indeed, cornelius

instead of a tit for tat, you said i'll say response, i just want to agree that negotiations for peace ought to be prioritized now. i'm not the president of ukraine, and he has his limits; i am not the president of russia, and i suppose he too has pressures

i don't know how free either man is to simply say yes or no, any more than biden or trump could, really.

so, as the outsider to their governing powers, i just hope that the war ends.

i am the descendant of jews all of whom came from some part of that region of the world. if you were to ask me where my grandparents and great grandparents, and great greats came from, the answer begins with: russia, and poland and romania. but the romanian had a turkish grandparent, which simply meant romanian but across the border which happened to be ottoman in the 19^th c. and the polish was probably really autria-hungary, which actually ruled part of ukraine, and ukraine was russian and they all, in fact, were probably yiddish speaking from the Pale or close to it.

the names of all those countries and empires and spaces has changed over and over, as has my family name, in fact, as well.

so if i were to approach this war in ukraine, as a descendant if you will, of the people who had once lived there, before the holocaust, before the revolution, before the war, and before the second world war, and before the current war, i would have to say, well, the nation's ownership of its own land is not quite so permanent as all that.

if i came from west cameroon, or the spaces of nigeria once part of the cameroons, or the british cameroon, i'd have to say something like that. if i came from northern mali, or mauretania, which empire in the past would have been the rulers of my lands and people.

so, i belong to the generation of africanists who believed in and fought for national liberation. but in hindsight, as in fanon's own warnings on the topic of nationalism, i can say i believe a lot more in the liberation part than in the nationalism part.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2022 6:16 AM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: wagner group and africa

 

Shalom !

On the menu:

Information Clearing House

Global Research

https://www.rt.com/

Russia Insider 

You are not the only righteous one crying. The inescapable truth is that there is disquiet all around and it's a crying shame that first there was The Yugoslav Wars at the heart of Europe 1991-2001 and now, no end in sight it's either immediate negotiations for peace or ultimate apocalyptic conflagration / total nuclear annihilation.

 In this  Russia Superpower  - NATO-backed Ukraine imbroglio right at the border of Russia, Ukraine  now escalating the war to dangerous levels, dreaming of "reclaiming" Crimea  - it seems that encouraged by Biden, he also has the ambition of taking Moscow too, and that's why the clown has started hitting hard at ammunition depots, air force and military bases deep within Russia, as if without a moment's notice Russia does not have the capacity or capability of flattening Kyiv in less than two minutes at any given point in time  - at which time the survivors could all be crying  "done is done", Curtis Mayfield still singing, " And the soldiers who are dead and gone, if only we could bring back one" 

How can it be,  it seems that no one - not even the United Nations or Pope Francis can stop them or initiate a peace dialogue with his counterpart Patriarch Kirill as " ignorant armies clash by night " in what we still want to pass off as our most civilised world - in this conflict between the religious domains of Ukraine and Holy Russia…

To have a much better idea about the impotence of the United Nations, just listen to yesterday's  Nobel peace prize winners 2022 on BBC Hardtalk from which this question arises: How can the Nobel Peace Prize be awarded to anyone actively advocating war?

Perhaps we should consider how Ukraine's Oleksandra Matviichuk answered when that question was posed to her in that BBC Hardtalk interview.

Meanwhile, over there in The Middle East, where people are supposed to live by the Golden Rule  the new, most extreme right-wing Netanyahu government  is all set to escalate its policy of territorial aggression, suppression and oppression, imposing greater territorial sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza, with not so many squeaks coming from Sleepy Joe Biden &  the Western sections of the so called International community 

On Tuesday, 13 December 2022 at 09:05:11 UTC+1 Kenneth Harrow wrote:

It makes no sense to me to dredge up old flaws, or even contemporaneous flaws, of the west when discussing russia and ukraine.

I loved the russian revolution, but putin and his invasion of ukraine is unconscienable.

I agree it was foolish to push nato advances eastward, but that doesn't excuse the reality of invasion and brutal disgusting bombings and killings and naked aggression.

I agree the gulag was horrible, but that has nothing to do with ukraine. It is naked agression.

I agree the west colonized and enslaved africans, and slaughtered native americans, and even has relatively anondine or bboring or disgusting pop culture and bad hollywood movies, and even lots of people with bad teeth.

But that has nothing to do with nothing. It's all bohlbohl

Putin is a monster.

 This ain't the Dark Age, is just Trinidad,

is human nature, Spoiler, after all,
it ain't big genocide, is just bohbohl;

Cornelius, we need you to be the spoiler, and don't let the monster off the hook, just because there were and are and will be others just as bad,

Like hitler say

Ken

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From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 11, 2022 7:48:41 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: wagner group and africa

 

Re - those toothless sanctions...

More than twenty years ago, didn't the Russians take over Antwerp?

Aren't they still running the show over there? 

I seem to remember there was a time during the struggle against Apartheid  when the Russians / USSR could have 

flooded the diamond market with their  diamonds and brought the Kimberely hooligans to their knees ( senses)

The US, &  beloved Western Partners pursued the sanctions policy with infinitely less passion against Apartheid South Africa 

 than they are now applying against Russia 

On Thursday, 8 December 2022 at 01:38:33 UTC+1 Kenneth Harrow wrote:

the wagner group continues to rip off central africans, and probably everywhere else in africa where it is given free rein.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/06/wagner-group-mercenaries-africa-diamonds/?=undefined&utm_campaign=wp_for_you&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_personalizedforyou&utm_content=readinghistory__position2

Russian mercenaries accused of using violence to corner diamond trade Report alleges that individuals linked to the Wagner Group are active in the Central African Republic's illicit diamond trade. www.washingtonpost.com

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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