It Could Be Us
I was going to write about the auto show, but I haven’t attended yet. There are more pressing issues I caught on the news. It relates to my blog “Moral Obligations.” We’re seeing more and more activity in Africa regarding Al Quaeda. As a typical American, I know we don’t discern individual countries in Africa very well. Africa is Africa to us, but there are sooo many fighting factions in very different countries of Africa, that are clearly removed from Al Quaeda. I think the guerilla fight in Niger might get distorted and lumped together by Americans as just another factor of terrorism.. But they aren’t..
World News Tonight reported Nigerien (Niger’s citizens) militants threatened to blow up oil fields in the Niger Delta. Africa is our 5th largest oil supplier. The discussion on the news was that the militants are basically avenging their land. Before closing, the last question wasn’t about anyone’s plight there but “How much of a threat does this pose to our oil?”
Never mind these people are the same ones I spoke of in Moral Obligations. The so-called Nigerien militants are really Catholic Christians fed up with what is happening in their delta region. Besides Lake Chad evaporating from global warming, their land has been overtaken by oil fields spewing pollution, ruining their ground, and pretty much making people sick. Fighting is escalating. Royal Dutch Shell evacuated their employees recently. The militant groups are kidnapping workers in the oil fields and holding them for ransom.
It is reported that the total amount of wasted and/or stolen money through corruption of both the government and the oil companies is near $400 billion. Niger remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Rubbing salt in that wound are all the bad environmental factors the people live with, starving them out even worse.
I want people to watch how this unfolds. We American’s are a fickle lot. We’re choosy anymore with who gets our sympathy. It may be suggested in the future that Nigerien militants are the enemy because they threaten our oil. They don’t deserve our wrath. They deserve our help. What are Niger’s people supposed to do when no one listens? Their land is overtaken, their air is polluted, their freshwater supply is disappearing, and someone is filthy rich, but it’s not them.
There is a fine line between them and us. Our land is being high-jacked for oil or natural gas, our mountain tops stripped away for coal, we have smog alerts for our air, our water has mercury hotspots, and someone is getting filthy rich, but it’s not us. Oh and ditto for corrupt government, oil companies, and nobody listening to us anymore. We’re only one or two big disasters away from being miltants ourselves.