Zimbabwe #2 Letter from Zimbabwe Afterthought Fredrick Töben 10 April 2004 The alleged African AIDS epidemic is no allegation. In Southern Africa there are thousands of reported deaths where the death certificate reads: Cause - AIDS. This simplifies things somewhat, especially if we recall that the acronym AIDS stands for some 30-odd illnesses that in the past were categorized specifically, for example, as TB or yellow fever. The powerful AIDS lobby has successfully cornered the opinion market  - there is no dissent permitted. Proof of individuals dying is a fact, dying horribly and tragically. Few households remain untouched, all know of someone who has died of AIDS. When South African President Thabo Mbeke visited the US in 2002, he was called an AIDS denier because he insisted that the multi-national pharmaceutical companies' asking price for retroviral drugs was simply too high. Never mind that he had invited dissenting voices on the AIDS debate to the 2001 Durban International AIDS Conference. AIDS is a reality - a physical fact. Recently - as happens regularly in Australia and elsewhere in the world - the matter of male circumcision has reared its ugly head again under the guise of the fallacious cleanliness argument. Now, thanks to the AIDS tragedy, the matter of branding individuals with that snip of the penis foreskin is again in vogue because so-called medical experts claim this will prevent AIDS. Jews, Moslems and some Christians are happy to inflict this operation on their sons, of course for the sake of their religious belief. Why the foreskin delights their God as an offering is dubious to the non-believers who regard this practice as barbaric, and medically quite unnecessary.  A year or two ago a doctor in Australia claimed that little bits of snipped foreskin are good for healing burn wounds. Mothers and fathers were urged to get their sons done and then donate his snipped item to one of the burn units at a hospital. Prime time television exposure guaranteed that this information flowed into the community at large, though I never saw any follow-up on this. That there are more effective ways of treating burn victims than by placing on the wound a patchwork of snipped foreskins is a scientific fact. If this matter of cutting off a part of one's genitals is supposed to be done for cleanliness reasons, then some may recall how one of our correspondents claimed this to be utter nonsense. If it is good to snip for the sake of cleanliness then, she said, we would also have to snip off our fingernails, ears, nose, perhaps mouth, etc. So, it is quite safe to assume that the cleanliness argument is fallacious, if not somewhat deceptive. Notice how, when pressed, the advocates of circumcision will withdraw from the cleanliness argument and fall back on the religious argument: That's what we have been doing for centuries, that's our custom and we demand the right to do exercise this rite on our sons. It is our genuine held belief, our religion demands it be done. That religious argument is also offered as a reason to continue the disgusting practice of female circumcision, though fortunately the UN has accepted this to be unacceptable and barbaric, if not an outright human rights abuse - a crime against humanity. At school the snipped boy will do what all boys do - compare. And so the physical division-discrimination between snipped and uncircumcised boys begins. It is physically a fundamental difference, and there is no going back on it, except when older. At a certain age the circumcised will wonder what is IT like with the foreskin on. Now there are Internet websites that attempt to help those snipped to grow back their foreskin. Some of those that have lost something now seek to find that which they have lost - and the restless spirit begins the quest to find out, wanting to know. There is a Jewish gentleman in Paris who has made a detailed study of circumcision and what effect this has on the infant's developing nervous system, claiming it does lead to the development of character traits specifically found in Jews. He claims it must be done on the eighth day for it to elicit that specific effect. Such thinking does not consider the tragedies created when the snipping is botched, as happened a while ago in Zimbabwe where a handful of infants bled to death. Snipping the foreskin is thus a practice that is unnecessary and barbarous at best. I wonder whether this practice gave rise to the world-famous Melbourne Cup Race where horses are handicapped by weighing them down so as to ensure that the not-so-fast horse can also win the race? Is the uncircumcised mentally more balanced and less driven than his counterpart because it is easier to relieve the procreative imperative? Is the circumcised forever out to prove that his suffered loss does not lead to deficiency thinking but merely to excessive pursuits of whatever nature? Perhaps a thesis needs to be written on this topic that will produce unequivocal results. A related topic is how humans treat their animals because this indicates at what cultural level a society operates on the continuum of the life cycle- elementary/developed/degenerate. In Australia, and elsewhere in the world, most farmers tag the ears and brand their cattle on the rump so as to have a quick visible identification mark in case the cattle rustler is too slow in getting his stolen goods to his kind of market. Besides the fact that this method is work intensive there are farmers who wish to get away from this practice. Likewise with the religious practice of slitting an animal's throat, a practice that Adolf Hitler stopped as soon as he ascended to power by outlawing such religious practices. Isn't there an argument that animals are insensitive and don't feel pain when slaughtered? But then I forget that Judaism, Christianity and Islam have separated the human from the animal - and that humans are the crowning glory of creation. This reminds me of a certain individual I met years ago in Southern Africa who claimed that black Africans lack sensitivity and that they can endure much more pain than the whites. Hence the need to beat them into submission!  No wonder that now in Southern Africa for many white farmers there is real pay-back time from those blacks who recall such treatment as they make out their claim to white-owned land. And so we have come full circle: The whites - mainly Anglo-Americans-Zionists (AAZF?) - are thrown out of Africa and their exploitation ends, and they return with full vengeance and throw all their scientific knowledge back on to the continent in the guise of humanitarian aid, thereby ensuring that obscenely-rich Africa - diamonds, gold and other strategic minerals, - is further exploited by the multinationals with just a little larger fraction of such wealth creation returning to its place of origin. What's a few billion dollars if that helps to safeguard markets!   The Christian Church is also doing its bit to help the southern African people. In both South Africa and Zimbabwe the Rhema ministry from the US is servicing countless hungry souls, especially during this Easter Weekend. Any Australian church official who bemoans the secular nature of the country would be delighted to have such a high number of adherents swell their dwindling congregations. That a number of Christian groups from the USA are also keen on remitting as much cash back to the USA is a factor overlooked by those who claim they are serving the people's spiritual needs. Business is business. This reminds me of the categorisation that fits Europeans in parts, and is illustrated through the following:  A plane full of Europeans crash-lands on an island and the survivors begin to interact with the indigenous. The Americans explain to them how to deal and make business; the French show them how to cook; the Germans get them into military marching mood; the English remain at the seashore waiting to be introduced to the locals. Islam's way of helping South Africans and Zimbabweans is done more subtly. Emphasis is not on bread and circus but rather on propagating concepts such as 'truth' and 'justice' within their closed but growing social and religious communities. Five times a day when the call goes out to the faithful the individual is strengthened by communality and not mere individualistic and hedonistic consumerism, be it physical or psychological. There is indeed strength in the collective. This coming Wednesday, 14 April 2004, South Africa celebrates ten years of democracy. It will be a slick celebration that its television services will present in typical American commercial style. And that's the sadness of it - consumerism is the glue that keeps the various South African racial and religious communities together, and it seems that most South Africans have willingly accepted the Goddes of Consumerism. The country is stabilising at a level of economic and social development that ensures there are now enough individuals who have a stake in the country's future development. Living standards have 'democratised'. How long this multi-ethnic consumer society will remain stable is anyone's guess. Perhaps one day it, too, will need to prime its industry in a way that has now made the USA a war economy where there is a desperate need to find ever more wars to fight. No wonder the neo-cons agenda - President George W Bush - specifically states that the fight against terrorism will never end. So, watch out World, don't upset the war machine because it is a predator waiting to gobble you up - for the sake of freedom and democracy. 'Democracy' has now become the catch-cry as had before it 'freedom'. Both concepts are now linked so that the third concept 'terrorism/criminality' is firming as the official scapegoat. Any social unrest can now be explained away by blaming those who are excluded from the New South Africa on account of some personal deficiency. Woe be him who dares criticise the consumer-driven social and political system as defined by the multinationals. The 'terrorism' category awaits them - if they let it happen! To date Zimbabwe is getting beaten with a big stick in the hope it will also relinquish its intolerable adherence to the 'nationalism' concept. The land issue that was the major drive for independence for Zimbabweans smacks too much of nationalism. The multinationals wish huge corporations to control the primary industry sector, not by thousands of individual farmers. History offers examples where the little farmer was ruthlessly smashed by both international predatory capitalism and international communism, where the landless masses were then driven into factories as wage slaves. In South America the restless landless masses are re-staking claims to land that belongs to insurance companies. When will Australian's landless masses re-claim the land that belongs, has belonged for over a century, to the largest landholders - the banks? My prediction is, never, because too many individuals don't wish physically to work anymore. It is better to rest somewhere under a tree and drink or smoke or snort or inject the stuff that guarantees for a while at least Nirvana.  That reminds me of those individuals who have a hard time in finding a home within themselves, within their own mind because of their self-perception - self-fulfilling prophecy? They find themselves in a 'holocaust', or are just coming out of a 'holocaust', or are expecting a 'holocaust'. The psychological effect of such state of mind creates terrible neurosis, if not an outright persecution complex because of the perceived 'the world is out to get me'. I had the opportunity to glance at the December 1912, latest reprint 1944, of Chambers's Etymological Dictionary wherein the following definition is given: Holocaust, hol'o-kawst, n. a burnt sacrifice, in which the whole of the victim was consumed. [L.-Gr. holocauston-holos, whole, and kaustos, burnt.] In my definition the most recent of such events was the destruction of Dresden by the British Airforce at the end of World War Two. All other claims to 'holocausts' and having been ' holocausted' are nonsense claims that cannot be backed up with physical evidence, while Dresden's claim can be verified, to this day even.    So be it - for a while at least!