09/03/2006

They were cannibals!
That rhymes so well with animals.
While it is so much more civilized
and dignified to kill someone
to let him rot.

They are violent
because it's in their black nature and culture
and therefore they will remain uncivilized
until we solve their problems.
While our own repetitive war history,
our own contemporary violence, exploitation and discrimination
would have to be seen in a complex historical and social-economical context.

They are alive
and that seems to be the problem really.
Because, a dead Indian
is a good Indian.
The Indians from the Americas had to be exterminated or minoritized
by adventurers and slaves,
before they could safely be turned into myth,
before we could credit them with wisdom and science,
before they could enjoy the sympathy of the great humanists Sting and Mel Gibson.
But alas,
the colored people in Africa,
they are alive in big numbers,
so no movie about the 1000 year history of a highly civilized African kingdom,
but just safe stuff about a glass bottle or a white woman studying big apes.


Who are they anyway?
These people from my Liebig collection of 'Tribes of the Belgian Kongo'.

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© photo Peter Mertens