In a News Analysis piece (7/11/09), New York Times reporter Adam Nossiter attempts to illustrate the difference between some African countries and more enlightened nations, writing:
The gulf separating the West and many African leaders on fundamental issues like human rights was on display just last week. The African Union announced that it would refuse to cooperate with the International Criminal Court in its attempt to prosecute the Sudanese president, Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, for crimes against humanity, over the mass killings in Darfur.
Whatever you think of the ICC’s pursuit of Al-Bashir (some human rights observers thought it an unwise move), is enthusiasm for the International Criminal Court really a good test for whether a country is really similar to “the West”? If so, then the United States of America, with our history of determined opposition to the court, would not seem to meet the test for membership in “the West” either.
America should pursue international war criminals regardless of the rock under which they hide! It would be a good idea for us to start with our own in house offenders here: george bush, dick cheney, alberto gonzales, rummy, rice, powell, wolfowitz, perle, et al.! Before we go to Africa or Europe or Asia to imprison their miscreants, we should incarcerate our own criminals!
The problem with the ‘West’ and ‘Africa’ when it comes to these sort of issues concerning various understandings of human rights continues to rest with the history between the two. Africa’s experience of the West has been conquest, colonialism and capture (into slavery). In each of these cases, the West advertised its ‘product’ as a benefit for primitive, unfit, inhuman, etc., Africans. Why should any African trust the West’s newest mantra about human rights that is being used to intrude once more into African affairs under the guise of Western superiority?