O "fardo do homem branco", cem anos atrás, era a legitimação do colonialismo e do imperialismo pela missão civilizadora das nações engajadas no ato de conquista. Atualmente, como fundamentalistas -- e não se pode esquecer que eles são basicamente islâmicos -- insistem em impor sua vontade intolerante sobre sociedades inteiras, o "fardo do homem branco" é a tarefa de eliminar esses elementos, que são infensos aos diálogo e ao debate democrático.
Não é fácil, não é simpático, mas creio que é necessário...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
War brewing on the latest front line against terrorism in Mali
The Washington Post, December 7, 2012
BAMAKO, Mali — The next war
against terrorism is taking shape in this West African country, as
African nations backed by the United States and France are readying a
force to recapture Mali’s north from extremists linked to al-Qaeda and
prevent another haven for jihadists from taking root on the continent.
But whether a military intervention can defuse such a complex
crisis remains in doubt. Mali’s transitional government, installed after
a military coup earlier this year, is weak and lacks legitimacy. Its
poorly equipped army is in disarray.
African and Western powers are already in disagreement over the
timing and goals of a military strike. Also unclear is whether regional
African forces are strong enough to defeat well-armed militants in
desert terrain the size of Texas without help on the ground from Western
armies.
Johnnie Carson, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for
African Affairs, said this week that “the military concept proposes an
Africa-led effort, but several key questions must be answered to ensure
that this effort is also well-planned and well-resourced.”
Nevertheless,
after months of hesitation, the momentum for a military intervention
has surged in the region and among Western powers, as the radical
Islamists and al-Qaeda militants have deepened their grip over the north.
Analysts
and U.N. officials say that any military strike is still months away,
but the United States and France are playing an active diplomatic role
in it and encouraging African nations to take the lead — a model used
most recently in Somalia, where Islamist radicals also seized much of
the country. Last month, the Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS) approved a 3,300-member force for northern Mali.
Thousands of Malians
have fled to this capital to escape the Islamists’ brutal rule, and
many say military action is the only way to liberate the north. “It’s
the only solution,” said Aziz Maiga, a 27-year-old rapper who recently
left the north. “Negotiating with the Islamists will not work.”
The American role has intensified since U.S. officials implicated
al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb — the terrorism network’s North and West
Africa affiliate known as AQIM — in the September assault on a U.S.
mission in Libya that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and
three other Americans. AQIM is one of the three major groups that now
control northern Mali.
In
a telephone interview, a senior Islamist leader denounced the United
States, declaring that its people are “against Islam” and that
superstorm Sandy was “a punishment from God.”
“If the Western
countries send troops, that will be fine. We are prepared for war,” said
Oumar Ould Hamaha, the military leader of the Movement for Oneness and
Jihad in West Africa, known as MUJWA, which is an offshoot of AQIM. “If
they don’t come here, one day we will attack them. If we cannot do this
in our time, our sons and the next generation will attack the West.”
Coalitions and factions
This landlocked former French colony, much of it in the Sahara
Desert, is one of the world’s poorest countries despite an abundance of
natural resources, including gold and uranium.
Um comentário:
"The Brown Man's Burden."
by Henry Labouchère
"Pile on the brown man's burden
To gratify your greed;
Go, clear away the "niggers"
Who progress would impede;
Be very stern, for truly
'Tis useless to be mild
With new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.
"Pile on the brown man's burden;
And, if ye rouse his hate,
Meet his old-fashioned reasons
With Maxims up to date.
With shells and dumdum bullets
A hundred times made plain
The brown man's loss must ever
Imply the white man's gain.
"Pile on the brown man's burden,
compel him to be free;
Let all your manifestoes
Reek with philanthropy.
And if with heathen folly
He dares your will dispute,
Then, in the name of freedom,
Don't hesitate to shoot.
"Pile on the brown man's burden,
And if his cry be sore,
That surely need not irk you--
Ye've driven slaves before.
Seize on his ports and pastures,
The fields his people tread;
Go make from them your living,
And mark them with his dead.
"Pile on the brown man's burden,
Nor do not deem it hard
If you should earn the rancor
Of those ye yearn to guard.
The screaming of your Eagle
Will drown the victim's sob--
Go on through fire and slaughter.
There's dollars in the job.
"Pile on the brown man's burden,
And through the world proclaim
That ye are Freedom's agent--
There's no more paying game!
And, should your own past history
Straight in your teeth be thrown,
Retort that independence
Is good for whites alone.
"Pile on the brown man's burden,
With equity have done;
Weak, antiquated scruples
Their squeamish course have run,
And, though 'tis freedom's banner
You're waving in the van,
Reserve for home consumption
The sacred "rights of man"!
"And if by chance ye falter,
Or lag along the course,
If, as the blood flows freely,
Ye feel some slight remorse,
Hie ye to Rudyard Kipling,
Imperialism's prop,
And bid him, for your comfort,
Turn on his jingo stop."
*The Brown Man's Burden was first published in the London magazine, Truth, and republished in Literary Digest (Feb. 1899).
Vale!
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