on the heels of the success of "doctors without borders", africa experiments with "unstable war torn dictatorships without borders"

i smell another "journalists without borders".

ahhh, i love the smell of empire building in the morning. i think that we have a skewed view on the subject. for one thing, our history classes frame the ancient empire builders (the persians, the greeks, the romans, the egyptians...) as though they were hollywood movies, and who are we to know the difference? we take our teachers to be vendors of the objective truth, and how many of our hollywood movies are based on the stories we hear in social studies and history class?

as for the modern empire builders, well, we sort of gloss over the british and the dutch. i'm not sure why. at one point the entire indian subcontinent was owned by a british import-export company. not to mention the disasterfuck that was made of the african continent by the brits, the francs, and the dutch. then there's the pathetic attempt at an arian empire by the germans, which often gets overshadowed by the holocaust that ensued. then of course, there's the USSR, which will always live on in american history books as a faulty, illogical, and oppressive regime of maniacal james bond villains.

but what of the existing empires?

what about the good ol' US of A-holes? who, of course, are never even whispered about as an empire, for fear of being strung up on charges of treason, or domestic terrorism. but given the facts, who could deny that we are the classic empire builders in the vein of the romans, or the east india trading company? and are we not failing? i find it hard to swallow an opinion to the contrary.

then there's the EU. which is so trendy nowadays, as to never be referred to as an empire, but essentially pushes around smaller european economies by denying them entry into the union until their economies are of a certain standard, or face the fate of being crushed under the weight of a booming economy based in seemingly fabricated monetary values (if the euro is worth 1.5x the dollar, and a candy bar costs $1 why would it cost €2.50? secondly, i don't care if the entire continent has the same pictures on their valueless paper and metallic baubles, each country is still an independent economy, and thus the euro should be far more volatile).

there is a lesson to be learned in all this: empires fail on the grounds of a basic human lack of empathy for the population as a whole. the building of an empire in and of itself breeds a lack of empathy in those lucky enough to be on the builders team, and not one of the populations being bowled over. meanwhile, the people being absorbed (to put it lightly) by the empire, are prone to a bitter resentment for the culture that annexes them like so much consumer inventory, if they even survive the ordeal.

so who will africa look to, when workshopping their new borderless empire?

granted, they've already got a few groups of cooperative nations. take ECOWAS (Economic Community Of West African States), for example, a place i recently visited, a place that it's citizens hardly know exists.

upon arrival in accra, ghana, i found that the immigration checkpoint was broken into three lines, "foreigners", "citizens of ghana", and "citizens of ECOWAS". as it was very early in the morning, only the "foreigners" and "ECOWAS" lines were open, yet there was much confusion among those of us offloading from the flight. there were people i knew to be nigerian, togoan, and côte d'ivoire(ians?) waiting in the foreigners line, when, in reality, only myself, and perhaps two others actually needed to be in that particular line (ECOWAS includes those countries, as well as ghana, and 11 additional countries in the "armpit" of the african continent). in addition, there was some confusion among the ghanaians as to how they would get back into the country, there being no line open for them. if the citizens of ECOWAS don't even know that they are citizens of ECOWAS, how can we consider it a successful union of nations? perhaps on the grounds of the philosophy, "a job well done, is a job you didn't know was done". but that hardly seems appropriate when dealing with overt international political and economic relationships.

during my stay in ghana i discovered that there were many people who had a particular kind of tattoo. the lucky ones had them on their arms, but i was told of some unfortunate enough to have them on their faces or necks. the tattoo was of the individual's name and village, and it wasn't so much tattooed on them as westerners would think of a tat, but stitched through their skin with ink soaked needle and thread. why would they do this? well, one of the reasons we might be more comfortable with is that children are often expected to be independent much younger there, and given that people will make mistakes, or forget things, and that children often simply don't have the life experience to work through a problem caused by a mistake they've made (a wrong turn on the way home, a missed curfew, etc), the tattoo would hopefully help the child find help getting back to a family member. the more disturbing reason for the tattoo is the human trade industry. in the bitter irony of a group of nations once victim to european and american slave trade, the international human trafficking business is still booming in africa, especially amongst neighboring nations (ghana and togo and nigeria, for example). the tattoo could be seen by a border official checking a car for contraband, who could then arrest the smuggler, and return the child to his or her home. as disheartening as this is to think about, i think it is absolutely something that needs to be considered when discussing the dissolution of international african borders.

what about the civil rights issues? not just among countries that have known human trafficking issues, but toward countries that still enslave their own for diamond, coal, and gold mining? for those that kill their own over tribal and cultural schisms? what about the sanctuary of refugees? what about countries that are "functioning" democracies, and those that are functioning democracies, and those that are still essentially under dictatorships? what about the arab nations, who exist on the african continent, but are light years apart from the majority of african tribal cultures? what about countries that are considered international threats? do those hoping to affect a change in a particular african region through military action risk going to war with every nation on the african continent? if so, do those african nations who wish to remain neutral, or who agree with the foreign opposition to a region's actions risk forced enlistment? civil war? internment camps? holocaust? how does such a large population of people reconcile the differences between tribal and urban life? what sort of representation would they receive in the UN? what would come of the representation that already exists within each of the existing nations? could bono kiss that many babies?

what of the war? how many would have to be fought before any sort of settlement could be reached?

what about the economy of a nation like zimbabwe? who's dollar is trading today (8/7/09) at 0.00000003 US dollars. meaning that if you went to the forEx in zimbabwe and handed them one US dollar, they would hand you 37,410,030 zimbabwean dollars. so for anyone that still has an unfulfilled fantasy of rolling around naked in a million dollar bills, you could make that happen for 2.6 cents american, if you don't mind those dollars having robert mugabe's face on them (just kidding, they don't have a $1 bill, how pointless would that be? they do however, have a $100billion bill, awesome!)

this is not even to speak of the horrible schizophrenia that has festered in a group of cultures rocked by western religious missionaries for so long that they give their children names like prosper, godson, godwin, verdict, and virtue because they read them in the bible. this group of people has arguably the most adherent populations of any in the world to both christian religions, muslim religions, and tribal religions. how does this play out in one united africa? religions are notorious for killing each other for no good reason (religion, itself, is not a good reason). nor does this post speak to the language barrier in a place where within on small country like ghana there are 13 completely different languages (let alone dialects). how does that play out in one african parliament (or council, or congress, or what have you)? nor does this post speak of the great number of nations on the continent, and the individual governments' international relationships within and without the continent with things like ECOWAS, SADC, EAC, the League of Arab States, OPEC, WTO, the UN, the EU, UNICEF, FIFA, and various other international organizations, as well as specific, individual non-african countries.

i will say it again: disasterfuck.

you know, it might seem quite to the contrary, but i hate to bring this downer stuff about an idea like continent-wide african prosperity. and what would be better than one world population living together as one? imagine all the people...

but humans have faulty wiring. it takes far too much resistance to inborn tendencies simply to get a family of 3 or 4 to live together in harmony for the standard 18 years or so until the kids move out, or the parents just say, fuck it, i want a divorce. we've had great ideas before, democracy, communism, socialism, moral barometers through ridiculous religious stories that are accessible to children, free market capitalism, free education. but what happens? money gets in the way, power gets in the way, fear gets in the way, people start touching kids, greed breeds deceit, law breeds lawlessness, desire breeds immorality. we just don't have what it takes right now, as a species, to pull off something with this kind of scope.

it would take not only an organized, pure, functional, prosperous, and peaceful society in each and every last african country. it would take an age of enlightenment so massive, and sweeping, that there was an absolute and impenetrable wall of virtue surrounding each and every african individual's life. what's more, it would take an age of enlightenment so massive and sweeping, that every last one of the world's nations outside of the african continent would be able to just leave africa the fuck alone, if they succeeded in doing this. for non-african nations too not cower in fear, encroach upon them, or threaten to cripple them or shut them off from the rest of the world because we felt that their way of life was a threat to our way of life, because an entire continent of once disparate nations, now prosperous and at peace, somehow posed a threat to all-you-can-eat salad bars, 15 minute oil changers, and designer jeans, or to wine appellations, organized soccer, and men wearing scarves, or to smog choked industrial districts, seizure inducing commercials for happy good time shrimp flavored soda drink, and the eternal oppression of tibetans.

yes, i think that one world at peace is a fantastic idea, but i leave you now with the words of a great poem (translated to modern english), words that have inspired one of my favorite books (you'll figure it out), words that have inspired this post, and my life in general:

In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leaves us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

Still you are blest, compared with me!
The present only touches you:
But oh! I backward cast my eye,
On prospects dreary!
And forward, though I cannot see,
I guess and fear!

-from to a mouse, on turning her up in her nest, with the plough by robert burns

now that my celebrity death pool is underway, and two of the players have already cashed in on the untimely death of karl malden (yes, ben, it is fair to call it untimely. a timely death would have had that man in the ground decades ago), i feel it's time to start putting the screws to mr kim jong il. while he was picked by a fair few people, thus lowering his total value, i would still like to put up some numbers on the big board, early in the season.

get it straight, i don't want to go to war with korea, and i don't want to see the north koreans have to fight through a long, drawn out, bloody rebellion (though i would love to see them rebel, and rise up on their own). but why can't we send in our pirate assassins, or the guys that pulled saddam out of his foxhole? or what about the guy that assassinated georgi markov with the poison dart umbrella (how badass was that?)? i don't care if we assassinate him right there, or take him to a short trial for crimes against humanity and off him a week later, like we did with hussein. just kill the guy. it would really help me out with my rotisserie league.

so, what say you, united nations? no talking, no exile, no new stuff. taking care of business... now.

...get to the "execution by firing squad" part.

12 years in a labor camp? i can't even get a part time job!

i think we've really got to hand it to kim jong il.

i mean, the man must have balls so big, they have their own balls.

yesterday the highest court in north korea sentenced two american journalists to 12 years of hard labor, without possibility of appeal, for unspecified hostile acts against the state, and crossing the border illegally. first of all, if you're going to incarcerate someone for 12 years, i think you had better specify. second, illegally crossing the border gets that kind of punishment? you know, usually when you wander over the border of most countries, the response is either, "hey, my friend! you want smoke marijuana? come to my club. free drinks! sexy ladies!" or "you're not supposed to be here. go home" depending on the economic situation of the country you wandered into, and the one you wandered from.

well, apparently that's not how north korea rolls. north korea's policy seems to be based on that creepy old man who lives next door. you know the guy. every time your frisbee goes over the fence, he runs out and snatches it, "it's mine now you little brats! and you ain't getting it back! i told you to quit fucking around near my fence!"

i guess the upside here is that these ladies got off light. it could have been far worse in a country that invites south korean tourists to stay at fancy resorts, then shoots them twice in the back for walking around the grounds too early in the morning. then again, in the past north korea was known to punish journalists by sending them to "re-education camps". who can speak ill of free schools? and if it's anything like the re-education camp in a clockwork orange...

but what are we surprised about? north korea has been posturing for decades now. and kim jong is clearly having daddy issues with the other world leaders. while we were busy searching for saddam hussein's invisible weapons of mass destruction, and liberating the iraqis from whatever he was doing to them, kim jong il was literally broadcasting to the world that he was developing nuclear weapons and he planned on using them. any one who has ever taken care of a kid, or seen a kid around, or heard of children before, knows that this kind of behavior is unfounded in sound logic. a child who is known to act out will often make threats of bad behavior simply to get attention, but when it illicits no response, often the child will go through with it, or at least see how close he or she is going to be allowed to get before daddy or mommy finally pays some attention.

ok, so north korea isn't a child throwing a tantrum at the supermarket. it's much worse. it's a nuclear power throwing a tantrum in the political sphere. why are we playing the parent who just wants to let them "scream themselves out"? it isn't really a matter of dealing with the embarrassment of being the parent with the unruly child, then taking them home and putting them down for a nap. the UN's best idea so far has been to write resolutions condemning north korea's actions. and when, years later, that doesn't work, they simply write another one, using firmer language. oooooh, so scary. the UN doesn't approve of their behavior? big bad UN is writing a letter to your parents, mister!

this is not kindergarten, people! these are the leaders of the world, and they have serious weapons and militaries (the "good guys" and the "bad guys", both), and economies, and legal power. in fact, they have the most serious all of the above, in the world. the actions taken at this stage don't make or break snack time for a handful of toddlers. they affect the lives of 6.5 billion people, most of whom are innocent bystanders.

why are we screwing off on this issue? this is a man who ignores all UN censure of a nuclear weapon program that has been publicly acknowledged as being in development and testing for years. a man who named a 25 year old kid as his successor, not because of his proven skills or intellect, but because his eldest son embarrassed the family by trying and failing to take a vacation at tokyo disneyland (for god's sake, if clark griswold can do it...), and his second eldest son was deemed too effeminate to be a dictator. too effeminate? i know no less than 6 elderly (most older than kim) women who strike me as more threatening and powerful than kim jong il, based on appearance and behavioral affectations alone (this is a man who was singled out on october 3, 2007, by menwholooklikeoldlesbians.blogspot). a man who has been in a cold war with south korea since the 50's. a man who is still pretending the rest of the world is stuck in the cold war. a man with no allies.

we sent our special forces in to hunt and kill somali pirates so that we could save a cargo ship. we have had our troops in iraq basically straight through since bush senior to keep an eye on, and then remove from power a man who wasn't half the threat kim jong is. we dropped not one, but two atomic bombs on a country that, all indications are, was moments from surrendering anyway (i guess kim jong gets to drop one more before he's a bigger threat to the world than we are), simply because we saw a cold war with the soviet union in the cards, and we ourselves wanted to do some posturing. we went to war in vietnam and the philippines because we were getting a little rusty. yet, for 8 years we ignored a man who regularly broadcast video of himself or his underlings making blatant and explicit threats to our country, and who, in fact, successfully followed through on one very painful threat.

we actually let osama bin laden off the hook long enough for him to walk across europe, learn russian, and start a pub and trading post on a remote siberian highway where he could have wacky adventures with anthropologists and international treasure hunters (did that seem a little complicated? that's how much time we gave him. enough time to get complicated).

we spent so long with our thumbs up our asses looking for iraqi WMDs that weren't there, then making excuses for why we couldn't find them (he musta hided 'em real good. like under his bed er sumthin') but we didn't seem to think it was important to follow up on north korea's nuclear program they were telling us they had.

i could have found north korea's WMDs in about 5 seconds. just follow the sounds of the 100 megaton explosions, you fucktards!

so now here we are. still sitting around the halls of congress, jerking off and trying to figure out what we can rename our army in iraq so nobody will be mad that we aren't going to be pulling them out of there any time this side of 2012. still posing for photo opps and giving pretty, flowery speeches about how we sure are gonna go get that taliban, maybe, possibly, someday in the future, we've been thinking about probably discussing it. talking about two state solutions, and how we really wish we could help out the palestinians, but boy, we sure would look stupid if we voted to create a country that turned out to be a bunch of violent, greedy, bigoted, religious fanatic, war mongers that decades of violence, decades of attempted diplomacy, a people's militia, multiple treaties and summits, and two nobel peace prize winners couldn't bring anywhere near a peaceful coexistence (oops! our bad).

i'm a peaceful man. i don't want to go to war with anyone, and i'm not suggesting violence is the answer to this north korea problem. but i think it might be high time to realize that our organizations and coalitions, and whatnots, are only as important as the people who give a shit about them. a bunch of people signing a treaty, or a constitution, or a declaration, or a censure, or a resolution, or an affidavit, is no more legit than me standing on top of a mountain and declaring myself all-powerful emperor and high priest of the universe. it's not lofty declaration that gets things done, it's action, even if that action is simply to go over there and have this out in person. you don't break up with your girlfriend with a text message, and you don't overthrow a dictatorial regime with a stern letter asking him to please stop, we'd really appreciate it. so why doesn't the UN stop writing letters to kim jong's mommy, and go over there and remove his regime from power? and we don't have to go to war with his country for 12 years to do it (of course we don't. north korea doesn't have oil). this is a government with no allies. this is a government that shares a border with an opponent that happens to be one of the largest, richest, most powerful countries in the world. this is a government that runs a regime that publicly beheads its citizens for petty crimes like having your elbows on the table during the dessert course. i think we might, possibly be able to use this opportunity to practice changing the world for the better using some new, improved tactics that don't involve stealth airplanes with ray guns attached (but perhaps sharks with frickin' laser beams!), or land mine resistant armored vehicles, or innocent human casualties...i mean, uh, negligible collateral damage.

perhaps now is the time to stop acting like kindergartners who are faced with one of two choices: be the bully stealing other kids' lunch money, or be the kid curled up in the fetal position, covering his face and handing over the money so he doesn't get hurt.

perhaps now is the time to stop being passive aggressive (oh, you have nuclear weapons? that's cool, or not, or whatever... due to your weapons of mass destruction that we may or not be able to prove that you may or may not have that you may or may not have explicitly told us that you did or didn't have, and plus some other stuff that we can't remember right now, we are now going to invade, or liberate your country and then occupy, or train and stabilize it for the next decade and a half, because your leader was a tyrannical dictator, or maybe he was just a jerk who wouldn't share his cookies...). perhaps now is the time to walk right in to north korea, and say, listen, this isn't going to work anymore, this is why, and we're going to do something about it right now. do any of the north korean citizens have a problem with this? it's awfully quiet in here. oh, i see. they've all been sentenced to life terms in labor camps for unspecified hostile acts against the state, and walking too briskly (it looks like they have a purpose. this is very threatening to the state).

so it's on you, world leaders. are you going to let this guy push you (but more accurately, the innocent citizens and prisoners of north korea) around? or are you scared your going to go all HULK SMASH! if you try to stand up for yourselves?

let's try this: let's try using our big boy voice, and going over there, and confronting mr kim jong il with our words, like adults. i promise, if you don't get locked up in a labor camp for 12 years, i'll take you out for ice cream, later.