If voting changed anything they’d make it illegal.
African saying
A billion here, a billion there-- pretty soon it adds up to real money.
Senator Everett Dirksen
The world has lost some famous personalities this past week. Some will be sorely missed. One will not.
Mobutu Sese Seko, self declared head of state of Zaire, died of prostrate cancer this past week in what hopefully was a long drawn out painful demise. For surely Mobutu Sese Seko was one of the true scumbags of modern times.
Joseph-Desire Mobutu seized power in a military coup on Nov. 24 1965, five years after the mineral rich Congo had gained independence from Belgium. His victory was welcomed by the United States Government who was vying with the Soviets for influence in one of Africa’s richest countries. He was also welcomed by the Zairians, weary of the bickering civilian government, who still after 5 years could not decide how to share the power in the ethnically diverse nation.
Mobutu promised to preserve democratic institutions & eventually return the country to civilian rule.
Instead he declared himself head of state, banned all political parties, donned a leopard skin cap, & named himself Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga which of course means “The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance & inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest leaving fire in his wake.”
Right away you’d think that might have thrown up a flag to the Zaireans. I mean If Bill Clinton had taken office, then 5 days later his press secretary made the announcement that.
“The president formally known as Bill would now be called ‘The all powerful raging bull of an Arkansas White Elephant who tramples lawyers, seduces many women, blows a mean sax while always smiling Clinton.....he wouldn’t be able to get a job in a sewer plant within the week. Not so in Africa. Motutu had picked a good name. The people dug it.
Mobutu then enticed the military leaders to see it his way with gifts of limousines & palatial villas. If you opposed him you were executed. Tough decision.
He nationalized all mining & major industry, funneling the bulk of profits into his Swiss Accounts & soon running the potentially richest country in Africa into ruin. He channeled billions in Foreign aid into his villas & hotels from Switzerland to France, while 80% of his 43 million subjects starved. Mobutu never had enough. He took from France, from Belgium, from the United States, from his own people. When that finally dried up in the nineties, he took from the Soviet Bloc. All these countries, along with aid, supplied Mobutu with an unlimited supply of arms. Now his greed was such after 30 years he even refused to pay his own army, whom promptly turned their impressive arsenal on the civilian population to get what they wanted. While Mobutu, ‘The All Powerful Warrior, lay about his European pools, Zaire slid into chaos.
That’s when Smilin Mike & I thought we’d visit.
We had been told it wasn’t a very good idea, but Zaire unfortunately is where the last of the Mountain gorillas were & we wanted to see em.
We were holed up in a Tanzanian ‘campground’, (typically an acre of privately owned hard dirt with a 20 foot high steel fence around it to keep out the lions, elephants & thieves.) These ’campgrounds’ are what the African traveler strives for before the sun set on him.
Our plan was to pop across Burundi in the next couple of days then on to Zaire. Around sunset the guard dogs set up a howl ,the two huge steel gates swung open & into the campground drove Mad Max. What at one time was a Toyota Land cruiser had been converted into the War Wagon.
The sides of the vehicle were quarter inch solid steel plate, only tiny slits allowed the occupants to peer out. The front grill was a ‘roo bar’ of 3 inch steel pipe, The headlights & wind shield were protected by a steel mesh, the strands of which being as big around as your thumb. Aluminum sand bridges hung from it’s sides. A massive roof rack held diesel drums & half a dozen spare tires all chained together. The Toyota was covered from front to rear in gashes & bullet holes.
The two filthy, scrawny occupants clambered out & introduced themselves around the small crowd of curious travelers. They appeared to be a young German couple, dressed in bizarre rags, nose rings, & shaved heads,{for a ‘tiny lice problem’}. these two had driven, in 6 months, from Amsterdam, across the Sahara desert, along Africa’s west coast & finally across Zaire.
That evening around a campfire & a bad bottle of Kenyan whiskey tales of Zaire emerged.
It had taken 2 months to drive across this country twice the size of Texas. There was no food in the stores, no fuel at the stations. They ate what they could buy from villagers, they burned palm oil for fuel in the Toyota, a process that required a complete breakdown & cleaning of all engine filters each evening. They slept in circled convoys of other travelers & truckers, standing guard all night against the hordes of thieves. The roads had deteriorated in such a manner that at times pot holes literally swallowed vehicles whole, allowing the next in line to simply drive across the roof of the hapless leader. One such bog, the length of a football field, required 3 weeks to navigate. Everyone carried guns, American M16s, Russian AK47s, Everywhere were road blocks, many of which the Germans chose to run rather than risking losing everything from their vehicle to their lives by stopping.
At one point, the Germans were pulled to the side of the road changing a tire when a young lad of twelve or so streaked by tearing the rear view mirror from the Toyota. The driver gave chase yelling ‘THIEF THIEF! as they tore through the boys village. Suddenly the villagers descended on the boy, knocking him to the ground the proceeded to beat the lad with stones, sticks & tire irons. The beating kept up till the child lay dead, whereupon the villagers held the mirror out to the German & demanded....TIP, TIP!!
Such is life in Zaire, for the greed of one man, 43 million are reduced to animals. What could have been the richest country in Africa, is a starving hell hole of survival.
Greed seems to be an inordinate desire to obtain wealth that raises it’s ugly head sometime around pre-school. For the first time in their short lives kids are thrown together in what might be their first social interaction. Everything is running along nicely when suddenly one child will stand up & yell...”MINE!”. Whether it be Barbi, or a truck it is suddenly...”MINE!” The other kids stare in wonder at this new concept, but only for a moment, then that tiny greed gene stampedes to the frontal lobe & suddenly it’s a madhouse of “MINE!!” as Barbis are ripped to pieces & trucks battled over.
Greed festers in a person & grows with their desires till it can run or run over a perfectly good life. Now it’s not abnormal to want , or even want more than the next guy, but when this desire to get it all affects your friends, family & neighbors you’ve gone to far.
Which brings me to the point...finally.
There are people in this valley that are getting just plain greedy...you know who you are, I certainly don’t have to name names here in this a family newspaper. But up until now there was no place to report these people, other than to their mothers.
Up until now even if you recognized this unwholesome trait in yourself there was no agency to call, in a capitalistic society, no self help group to confess to....
Until now....
That’s why I have taken it upon myself to form the GAGG or Get A Grip on Greed. Now you...that’s right YOU!! have a place to go with greed....me. If you feel like you have taken a little more than your share, then now’s the time to save yourself. Send that share right on over to GAGG c\o Steve Church Box 905 Crested Butte Colo. What you’ll gain by giving it away will be measured by your heart....& my bank account.
So remember when your lying awake nights, with no place to turn with your lonely fortune, pick up that phone & dial 6359, we’ll be right over with a kind word & a deposit slip.
No comments:
Post a Comment