The Heart of Darkness 1: Concentration Camps Make a Big Comeback.

If you were horrified by President Trump's idea to build concrete walls along vulnerable sections of the Mexican border, then you, as Americans themselves say it, ain't seen nothing yet. In fact, you are in for a real shock, in the far more eerie specter of concentration camps springing up in the hot sands of Texas, close to the proposed walls.
Recent days have seen children of illegal immigrants being separated from their families and taken to detention facilities converted from warehouses and defunct supermarkets while their parents and other accompanying adults are sent to jail awaiting trial under laws extant, or non-extant, that criminalize illegal entry or immigration into the US. This family splitting now seems a cardinal focus of what has been dubbed Trump's 'zero-tolerance' immigration policy. Reports have it that all available spaces have been filled up and plastic tents erected for the same purposes are springing up in the deserts of Texas where temperatures more ruthless than humans can reach 105F. In a recent six-week period there had been more than 2000 family separations and officials are planning to build more tent cities to house these innocent children. We are describing these shelters as detention and processing facilities only out of literary politeness and deference to the taste of our readers. Actualities are grimmer. Representative Peter Welch has made a visit to one of such centers in Brownsville, Texas, and in a tweet, described harrowing images of boys being held in chain  link cages. It held more than1500 boys sitting and staring vacantly in space in what used to be a Walmart. If this is not the description of a concentration camp, we don't know what it is. The good Peter was very prompt in slamming the zero-tolerance policy as zero humanity with zero logic in it.
His is just a bellow in a stridently growing outrage. An indignation so loud and obstreperous that the normally reticent First Lady, Melania Trump, has chipped in with her serious concerns. No woman is ever going to stay undisturbed seeing children being violently torn from their parents. And Laura Bush, wife of ex Republican President G. W. Bush has wasted no time in comparing the unfolding situation to Japanese American internment in the 2nd World War. One of the most dire episodes of the war. Even such frightening reminiscence will hardly do justice to a concentration camp filled with innocent children languishing under conditions that easily stop the heart. Trump has often been compared to Adolf Hitler and there seems to be more than just mere mischief in the dovetailing images now. It is difficult seeing how Trump can get away with this. Maybe in politics where fortunes are so inconstant but morally, the guy has overplayed his hand.
We have it on good authority that conditions in these camps are not all that cozier than what subsisted in Nazi extermination camps or British-built Boer concentration camps in South Africa. Perhaps not many people have noticed that it is in the most advanced countries at a point in time that we find the cruelest methods to run the most deranged of policies. In no time, barbed wire fences and watchtowers are going to spring up in those detention facilities as the situation grows desperate and you wouldn't think the US will be the place to see such horror in this post-internet age, would you? The mightiest, the richest, the supposedly most civilized nation on earth. Man seems to be climbing out of a deep, deep, dark abyss and no matter how much he has achieved, he really cannot tear himself free of his eerie, primordial beginnings

Ugandan Museum of Evil.

Adolf Hitler.

It is always difficult resisting the urge to quote Pliny the Elder's famous saying that there is always something new out of Africa and once again the ancient wise comes to mind with the decision of the Ugandan government to build a museum to the late, execrable dictator, Idi Amin Dada. According to statements credited to Stephen Asiimwe, Chief Executive of Ugandan Tourism Board, the move is to 'set the records straight'. As if what we know about this monster's nine years reign of terror is not clear and well-documented enough. What records do you still need to clarity for descendants and relatives of the over 400,000 people murdered during his evil regime? Or thousands of Asians who were driven out of the country after their businesses were confiscated? Plunging the once-buoyant economy into instant crisis. Or innocent Israeli air passengers hijacked by Arab terrorists and diverted to Kampala? This sparked Operation Thunderbolt, one of the most audacious and spectacular air assaults in history, a rescue in which Col Yoni Nentayahu, brother of the current Israeli prime minister, was killed during the raid on Entebbe Airport, Kampala. This grim buffoon made himself King of Scotland, Conqueror of the British Empire, among his many comical excesses and deservedly met his Waterloo in an infantile and immature attempt to annex the Kagera region of Tanzania. The well-motivated troops of Julius Nyerere counter-attacked instantly and in record time, captured Kampala. The beast fled to Libya, after writing one of the bloodiest, darkest chapters in world history. The same tourism boss, who could be easily accused of having a reckless way with cliches, without sounding offensive, likens Ugandan history to wine. The older it gets the better, especially with some flavors added. He should just try tipping some hemlock into the cask.
 Stephen Asiimwe and the Ugandan authorities can only succeed in establishing a museum for the sadist, the voyeur, with their plans and it is all parallel with creating a museum for Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot and other infamous denizens of history. What are we going to see there? Images of Idi Amin snarling at the governor of the Ugandan Central Bank to simply go and print money after the hapless fellow had told him the government was broke? We might be compelled to treat the whole plan as a joke if not for the curious knowledge that Idi Amin is still considered a Field Marshall in Uganda. The guy is effectively a lieutenant in the British Army and if they still accord him that regard in his country, then we cannot scream loud enough in this outrage. And to compound mischief, they are also planning to dedicate a section to the notorious Lord Resistance Army. Sadists, kidnappers, butchers and child soldiers recruiters. Uganda is very resourceful in manufacturing monsters but, sorry, few of us, very few, are interested in their showcasing.

Idi Amin Dada.

This Ghost Won't Go Away.

Yesterday, Brazil defeated Germany 1-0 in a friendly played in Berlin, Gabriel Jesus of Manchester City scoring the only goal of the encounter. Before the match, the Brazilian coach, Tite said the encounter would have a lot of psychological significance. A victory for Brazil would go some way in pushing back the ghost of the humiliating 7-1 defeat suffered by Brazil at the hands of Germany in the semifinals of the 2014 World Cup in Belo Horizonte. Right on Brazilian soil. It was terrible, and that is putting it mildly. Tite himself said that his wife started crying the moment the 5th goal went in. It was a collective national impulse. Even many people all over the world, one way or the other supporters of Brazilian football, could not resist joining the crying fray. There was the eerie felling a horrible destruction was going on on the field. Something great enduring was being torn to shreds.
But in truth, the real damage had been done after the 4th goal. It was the last straw that broke whatever the camel had left of its back. At 3-0 down, there was the poor hope, very poor hope, that stirring miracles had happened before in football from such hopeless situations. The fifth goal ruthlessly dispelled such faint stirrings. The agony was just unbearable for many. Some had desribed it as Brazil's darkest hour and it is very difficult disagreeing with that conclusion. It had been very few in the history of nations that a 29-minute capitulation threw a huge mass of the populace into a dark, wailing abyss which they could not climb out from for a very long time.
Hence the victory in the friendly match in Berlin that incidentally ended Germany' 23- match unbeaten run couldn't have come sweeter. It didn't matter that Mesut Ozil, one of the prime architects of what became known as the Horizonte Massacre, did not play. Any revenge in this regard would do.
But nothing is ever going to erase the memories of that notorious ghost. Like Hamlet father's ghost, it will always keep on coming back, no matter the revenge gained. Nothing will ever replace it. Some human and natural events are so unique, so peculiar, so stirring and striking that they cannot be repeated. Even if Brazil and Germany meet again in the next World Cup and there is a reversal of the 7-1 scoreline, the occurence might not elicit substantially more than a sense of deja vu. With a shrug. We've all seen that before, hadn't we? Brazil won the football gold at the Olympics, by defeating the same Germany but it will be the most amenable that will suggest they gained satisfaction from it over the 7-1 thrashing. France was to later emerge victorious, sort of, in the 2nd World War and even was to later occupy parts of Berlin but there was simply no erasing the pain and agony of Hilterite armies racing through France in the early stages of the war.
Few incidents in history can be compared to that defeat but not far from the mind is George Foreman's reverse against Muhammad Ali in the Rumble in the Jungle boxing contest in Zaire in 1974. Foreman was to become a very successful businessman and even later in life became the oldest heavyweight boxing champion in history by sensationally knocking out Michael Moorer but nothing would ever erase that defeat to Ali. Such events have such a powerful force of their own, such electricity, such magnetism that nothing will ever neutralize them. They insist on etching their memories alongside the stars in the sky.

Between Hitler and Merkel: Women Reign over Peace and Grace.

Today is the International Women's Day.
If you believe in providence, then the obvious place to be or refer to in order to underline your faith is Germany. Hitler envisaged a supreme Germany, a nation that would be master over any other nation on earth, a state before which every other state must tremble, and then set to actualize his vision by building a mammoth army, manufacturing state-of-the art weapons and then underlining his resolve with a frightening philosophy in which racism was the chief creed. Aryans were the superheroes and every other race was subhuman. He did not mince words. He was going to exterminate all Jews on earth. He held nothing back too in launching a devastating war in which millions perished and whole cities were flattened in his quest to achieve greatness for Germany. A political continuum, the Third Reich, which he heralded, was supposed to rule for a thousand years. Germany was not going to be master of Europe, but master of the universe. It took approximately five years for his empire and dreams to unravel. His grandiose, male-dominated world in which women were barely allowed even a whimper.
Fast forward to 2018 and Germany is at least master of Western Europe, a key voice in international affairs and an economic superpower. Greatness achieved through hard-work, economic ingenuity, tolerance of differences and healthy respect for the rights of others. A healthy superiority achieved without firing a single shot and vividly contributed to by the same Jews Adolf Hitler did all he could to remove from the surface of the earth.
And it is all so apt that a woman should now preside over this greatness. Angela Merkel reigns in Berlin and her ascendancy, and Germany's own, is pure testimony to the fact that the most resilient rise of nations are the ones achieved not by war and conquest but by healthy desire and determination. And God places women on thrones so uplifted to show all of us the wonderful grace and charm and peace these superb creatures possess.
But if you don't believe in providence, then come down to Ikole-Ekiti, in the state of Ekiti, south-western Nigeria, to isinmole, a traditional festival that usually holds in August. For two or three days during this cultural fest, women are usually barred from the streets. A phenomena of interest to the sociologist, no doubt,  but of very shocking impression to the visitor. No matter how many times he has witnessed it. A frightening air of desertion, desolateness, sweeps the streets and the immediate impression is that not a half of humanity is missing, but three-quarters of it. Humans have two legs and a woman is the third leg of the tripod on which our world stands. Without them, folks, we are toast.
It might seem  a bit condescending, setting out a special day for women, a sop to our chauvinistic societies, but so do we set out a special day to celebrate Christ. After God, these amazing creatures are next.
Happy women's day to everyone.