Darfur

Its interesting that the 20 thousand-strong demonstrations outside the Labour party conference protesting the Iraq war has not been matched by any demonstration of any kind over the ongoing genocide in Darfur. It seems strange that such horrors should go unnoted by such good Guardian-readers and self-appointed champions of social justice while (or, more probably, because) they are frothing at the mouth by the injustices of Western imperialism. Or perhaps the fact that white western imperialists are probably the only people capable of preventing the violence between oppressed African blacks is too much for them to contemplate.

Perhaps, though, they are merely following the example of their parents. Back in the seventies a generation of leftwingers stood by and watched as the horrors of Cambodia unfolded, all the while patting themselves on the back for having gotten America to withdraw from Indo-China in the first place, thus leading to the conditions whereby one fifth of Cambodia were murdered. That the evacuation of Vietnam was immediately (and remains) canonised as unquestionably good is one the things that supports the ongoing anti-Iraq war demonstrations, despite the fact that, regardless of one's opinions of the war in the first place, it would be calamitous for the people of Iraq if the West withdrew.
Intervention in Darfur, by constrast, is probably the only option in saving the lives of its people. Its not going to happen though. Why?
a) the UN is toothless
b) China has oil interests in Sudan
c) The West is already over-stretched.

It's interesting, after all the bleating about oil interests supposedly involved in Iraq, and the uncritical view of the UN held by those demonstrating at the Labour conference, that they have nothing to say on these matters.
But then again, not.
The left is nothing if not shallow.

Hear the message

The BBC's drama 'Shoot the messenger' is one of the finest and boldest works they have produced in many years, perhaps even going back to the golden age of 'Cathy come home'. Of Course, there was much in it that was blatantly obvious, but in these very PC times it is something of a relief that a message is not watered down so as not to offend silly egg-sheel types. I was so taken by it, that I immediately felt moved to write a review which I posted to IMDB.COM. I was surprised that there were already a couple of reviews there, posted days before the film actually aired, by vested interests (ie an organisation called Ligali) to try to rubbish this fine work. Ligali exists because of the blame culture which "shoot the messenger' set out to challenge. Here is my review:

"As can be seen from some of the comments posted here, there are plenty of people intent on 'shooting the messenger', rather than listen to the message itself. In this case, the message happens to be the questioning of blame-culture which exists among certain sections of the black community. It is the contention of the author (Sharon Foster, herself a black writer) that it is this culture, and not that which is being blamed (ie white people), which is the cause of black underachievement. It is a serious argument, and one that can withstand close scrutiny, but that hasn't stopped the usual suspects from using their lazy cries of 'Racism' to try and silence the debate. A similar point was made during the film itself and it is interesting that many of the same terms of abuse used to castigate the main character in the film are identical to the ones being thrown around here (mainly by people who don't appear to have seen it). That would seem to indicate that Foster is, indeed, on to something.Of course, this film could amount to no more than a 'worthy' drama, but 'Shoot The Messenger' is much more than that, due, in no small measure, to the quality of the writing. Foster has constructed an engrossing journey of self-discovery which begins with provocative words ( a gauntlet deliberately thrown in the face of the audience) uttered by Joe Pascale (excellently played by David Oyelowo), a well-intentioned but somewhat aloof black teacher, who falls foul of the authorities after he is accused of hitting a pupil. The fact that this is not true does not prevent him being vilified on a local black radio station. He loses the case in court and this leads him into a spiral of depression and madness, which he increasingly blames on black people (an interesting inversion of the blaming of white people which seems acceptable among his black contemporaries). I found this portion of the work the least satisfactory since the script sped over his insanity rather too quickly leading to loss of detail. After spending some time on the street, he is befriended by a middle-aged Black Christian lady. It is at this point the script really catches fire with some astute and occasionally hard-hitting views of the black community. All of this is maintained by a high degree of directorial energy and a high class cast. Highly recommended."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800199/usercomments