...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Wednesday, July 09, 2003
      ( 10:34 AM )
 
The Emperor Has No Clothes

Thanks to Eschaton for the link to the story (mentioned by Daintily Dirty) about how residents of Goree Island were penned up so that Bush could give his stirring speech about the evils of slavery. Body and Soul also notes the irony.

N'diaye and other residents of Goree,
site of a famous slave trading station,
said they had been taken to a football
ground on the other side of the quaint
island at 6 a.m. and told to wait there
until Bush had departed, around midday.
[...]

He then gave an eloquent speech about the
horrors of slavery, standing at a podium under
a sizzling sun near a red-stone museum,
topped by cannon pointing out to the sea.

The cooped-up residents were not impressed.

[...]

Normally, the island teems with tourists,
Senegal's ubiquitous traders, hawkers of
cheap African art, photographers offering
to take pictures and all the expected trappings
of a tourist hot-spot in one of the world's
poorest countries.

On Tuesday, shutters on the yellow and red
colonial-style houses remained shut. The cafes
were closed and the narrow pier deserted,
apart from security agents manning a metal
detector, near the sandy beach. A gunship
patrolled offshore.

[...]

We were shut up like sheep," said
15-year-old Mamadou.

Excellent. It's sad when such a disturbing story is not surprising at all.

| -- permanent link