The Gambia versus the Rohingya

– Interesting events of the first month of the year 2020.

– Oh yes, I am aware of the controversy over Amọtẹkun.

–  Strident Yoruba youths are sold on self-protection. They believe the Buhari’s government has failed to protect the nation, and so each region should find ways to defend itself from extermination. Others say it’s a recipe for disintegration.

– That’s true, but I don’t really worry about Amọtẹkun, except of course that it is interesting to note the division, even between the Yoruba nation on what Amọtẹkun is.

– Oh, really?

– Yes, some say it’s a leopard and others say it’s the tiger or something of that nature.

– Wow.

– Yes, some people would have wanted the Ijapa, the tortoise as the totem symbol of any security outfit in the Yoruba kingdom following the many wily tales of the tortoise in Yoruba folklore.

– Ah yes, most West African folkloric traditions give enough reasons for animal right activists to make defamation claims.

– Talking about suing, are you following the International War Court trials?

– Is another African leader arraigned? Or have they summoned enough courage to finally charge David Blair and George Bush for war crimes?

– Why should anyone charge Blair and Bush for war crimes?

– Those two; they dragged half the world’s most ‘civilized’ nations to war on a dodgy dossier and claims that Sadam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Sadam only had verbal diarhoea! He couldn’t even defend himself.

– Of course I remember.

– Those two deserve prosecution.

– But you know it’ll never happen.

– Wishes never made anyone a member of the jet set revolution.

– (Laughs) Work on your dreams and you might be inducted into the jet set family increasing flight traffic at jet set weddings.

– Like the recent one in Maiduguri.

– Exactly. Plane jams at Maiduguri airport a town where the poor are displaced, blown up or kidnapped?

– Some people have said that the day half the bad things hitting the poor hit the elite would be the day they find lasting solutions.

– I won’t disagree much. Anyway, the International Court of Justice has just made a significant lame-duck resolution.

– What about?

– Prevention of genocide against the Rohingya.

– From whom?

– Aung San Su Kyi and her military friends.

– Wait a ruling – like those parliamentary resolutions – mere horse on paper you cannot ride.

– Well, it’s a moral torch leading to the roads not traveled to make things right.

– So, the ICJ wants Myanmar, (which denies the Rohingya their Burmese identity) should be protected by the same state?

– Yes, and ICJ rulings could go to the UN to be acted upon.

– The ICJ; the UN; never ganged up to help the poor.

– True.

– Good intentions are like hope; the world needs the ration of concrete action, not the starvation diet of hope.

– You’re sounding like activists.

– Activism is good.

– Not when Greta and Donald meet.

– Those two are like fuel and fire.

– The Rohingya case was brought to the ICJ by an African nation – The Gambia, not by the Saudis.

– Wow! You mean contented Gambians are so bothered about the plight of Myanmars?

– Well, the Myanmars deny that the Rohingya are Myanmars.

– All humans came from somewhere. I am impressed that an African country cared about people living 12,000 kilometers away. There must be strong links.

– Yes, The Gambia declared itself an Islamic Republic in 2015, the Rohingya too are (to quote a worn cliché) predominantly Muslims.

– There’s a brotherhood there.

– True. The Gambian petitioner said he wanted to prevent another Rwandan experience that he worked on and that he sees disturbing similarities.

– Good job. I wonder if Africa has similar stuff or did Rwanda end it all?

– Central African Republic where the Seleka and Anti-Balaka have turned the nation into a senseless killing field.

– Are Muslims involved?

– Well, one side in the conflict is Muslim. Both sides are pitched in a war of attrition since the 1990s; number of deaths unknown, half a million displaced; 2.9 million in need of humanitarian aid.

– Wow. We have Boko Haram here.

– With thousands killed and over 2.5 million displaced.

– I guess The Gambia is free of strife.

– Not the political type. By the way nearly 50% of Gambians are poor.

– Yet, they are selfless enough to care about events moons away.

– Well, religious brotherhood is stronger than blood relationship.

– So, we congratulate The Gambia for its altruism and the landmark ruling that cannot be enforced.

– The ruling is very significant because it came on the 75th anniversary of the Soviet liberation of Auschwitz where over 1.1 million Jews perished.

– The world needs monuments to many atrocities. We surely need one commemorating the 2.4 million Africans that died being forcibly crossed to the so-called New World. It’s pejoratively called the slave trade, as if Africans were things merely battered for other valuables.

– How about a monument in Lampedusa and another for the Libyan Desert.

– Perhaps another for victims of covert or overt racism. For now, let’s agree that The Gambia has done a very good job.

– Who knows? Some day a people from another planet would show up and right all the injustices in our world.

– Don’t bet on it!