Saturday, August 10, 2013

No, New York Times, Steubenville really does not equate to the Third World


In our essay here,


(which we commend to your attention) we skewered that politically-correct mindset that combines self-lacerating liberalism with exaltation of the primitive, as showcased in the New York Times.  Here is the latest incident for contemplation, this one from Zanzibar:

The teenagers, who were on a month-long break volunteering for a charity when two men on a moped threw acid over them, suffered injuries to their faces, hands, legs, backs, necks and chests.

That was their reward, for their selfless devotion to strangers.




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A Christian of my acquaintance, while a girl growing up in Palestine, was threatened with acid unless she dressed in the Salafist fashion.   She eventually emigrated.
And for you sentimentalists who imagine that Palestinians show cross-confessional solidarity in the face of the Israeli occupier -- think again.


Nor do their Arab brethren, whatever their confession, have any tender concern for refugee Palestinians, despite loud proclamations in the press.   The refugees were kicked out of Jordan (granted, they had behaved badly);  in Lebanon, they still live in what are essentially concentration camps, decades after they were forced to flee Palestine. 
The point is simply this:  The humanitarian goals and ideals, of which we fall short, and beat ourselves up  for doing so,  barely even exist  in most of the rest of the world.


[Update 14 August 2013]  It is not that uncommon for those who selflessly devote their time and expertise in tending to the needs of total strangers halfway around the globe, to be targeted by the very populations they have humbled themselves to serve (especially in Muslim countries).  The latest development comes this very day:  The seriously ballsy group Médecins sans Frontières  has finally called it quits in that self-created hellhole known as Somalia:

Sixteen MSF staff members have been killed, and the organization has experienced dozens of attacks on its staff, ambulances and medical facilities since 1991, the group reported. Two MSF employees were shot and killed in Mogadishu in December 2011, and their convicted killer was given an early release from prison.



The necessity for humanitarians in such circumstances  to get the heck out of Dodge, does not relate only to their own safety, but that of all of us:   For those who are not killed outright, are sometimes kidnapped;  and European governments (while denying it publically) regularly pay millions (as much as ten million Euros for a single hostage, in one recent case in Arabia Felix) to get their citizens back -- thus putting a fat price upon the head of every Westerner.
In the present case:

En octobre 2011, deux employées espagnoles de MSF avaient été enlevées dans les camps de réfugiés somaliens de Dadaab, dans le nord-est du Kenya, avant d'être emmenées en Somalie où elles ont été retenues 21 mois. Elles ont été libérées le mois dernier, dans des circonstances non dévoilées.
http://www.lepoint.fr/monde/somalie-medecins-sans-frontieres-quitte-le-pays-14-08-2013-1714076_24.php

“Des circonstances non dévoilées.”  Those who follow international events, know quite well what that means.


[Update 10 September 2013]  “1 in 4 men surveyed in Asia-Pacific say they committed rape”
One in four actually admit to it.

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