My Heart Grieves - Not

So the Italians are up in arms because Somali militiamen are destroying the graves of colonial invaders? Color me utterly indifferent; the only possible problem I see is that the Somalis are likely throwing away the opportunity to milk future Italian tourists for revenue someday.

The Italian government has condemned the destruction of an Italian colonial cemetery by militiamen in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
The office of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi described the action as barbarous and called for those responsible to be brought to justice.
Some 700 graves in the cemetery were destroyed and their human remains dumped elsewhere.

[...]

"To desecrate a place of silence and memory, sacred to all civilisations, represents a vile and particularly hateful act that cannot have any justification," Mr Berlusconi's office said.
His Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini has ordered Italy's special envoy and its head of mission in Somalia to express Italian outrage to the Somali government, which is based in Kenya.

Someone should tell Berlusconi and Fini to shut up. Not only is it futile to protest at the actions of individuals in a land whose only "government" resides in another country, but it is also the height of cheek to do so in the name of brutal invaders whose remains only ended up where they did because Italy was engaged in a savage war of conquest and self-aggrandisement. One might as well demand that Russians tend lovingly to the graves of Wehrmacht soldiers.

Abiola's Lesson of the Day: If you're going to engage in colonialism, don't expect the natives to look kindly on the sacrifices of your troops on your departure.

Comments

[hex]

The erstwhile "brutal invaders" have a mission in Somalia, while the Somali government is based (or rather, hiding) in Kenya?

[Eddy]

If you're going to engage in colonialism, don't expect the natives to look kindly on the sacrifices of your troops on your departure.

[Eddy]

"If you're going to engage in colonialism, don't expect the natives to look kindly on the sacrifices of your troops on your departure."

Amen

[Abiola Lapite]

"The erstwhile "brutal invaders" have a mission in Somalia, while the Somali government is based (or rather, hiding) in Kenya?"

Even if so, it's not today's troops whose graves are being desecrated.

[Kevin Donoghue]

"Even if so, it's not today's troops whose graves are being desecrated."

They will be relieved to hear that.

[Abiola Lapite]

And if they aren't, screw them. Why anyone should expect Africans to look kindly upon those who came to treat them as inferiors in need of a strong hand is beyond me, especially when no one asks the same once white faces are involved. If today's Italian soldiers can't distinguish between what is owed them and what their savage forefathers deserve, they're in need of the sorts of lessons Germans have spent the last 50 years giving themselves.

[james]

I feel the same way about Iraq

[Chuckles]

Long overdue; heh?
But these actions are traceable to conditions of stress.
I dont think there is any malice behind it - which of course, is what baffles me about Africans.
Peoples who have suffered less than African peoples from invading forces hold such bitter memories - especially in Europe and Arabia. I was listening to a friend from Bulgaria the other day tell me all about the evils of the Muslims.
Yet, I dont see anyone hounding white children to death on the Streets of Abuja or organizing a vendetta against the LugardNiks.
Africans, it seems, have forgotten. Which again, might be good or bad, depending on how you spin it.

[Julian Elson]

I think respect for the dead is overrated anyway. I think that we went wrong with the idea of a permenant grave: the medeivals Europeans, burying the dead until the flesh rotted away, then digging up the bones and putting them in a charnel house, were fairly sensible. Or, if not that, maybe there should be a statute of limitations (say, 90 years) of how long graves are respected, at which point the people who cared about the deceased are themselves deceased.

[captainblak]

Ah! If the Somalis want to dig up those graves and burn the remains in a big national campfire, I support them.

Chuckles -
"I dont think there is any malice behind it - which of course, is what baffles me about Africans."

It baffles me too! One would think South Africa would have violently cleansed itself.