Yesterday, Ivorian soldiers in Abidjan fired on protesting women, killing many of them, including a woman who was pregnant. This shameful display of cowardice is despicable. It reminded me of Egypt where women and little girls and boys were sitting on tanks as soldiers looked on. What a contrast of honor, courage, and responsibility! The soldiers of Ivory Coast must be ashamed of themselves for defending the interest of a dictator rather than their own women and children.
A similar shameful incident took place in Cameroon just over a week ago when the police turned the water hoses on an unarmed and defenseless woman even as she stood in a posture of surrender. Such thoughtless display of cowardice in the service of dictators should be appalling to all. It should be appalling to the soldiers and police who sell their souls for the defense of rapacity.
3 comments:
These acts show such a lack of human and self respect. Every human being deserves the same rights as the next and there should be no leniency just because these men are soldiers. It is mind boggling to think how they can commit these acts in the first place, but to then have to live with what they did to innocent people is even more so. do they have any remorse? any sympathy at all for the people they have unjustly hurt?
This is just another example of how those with power abuse it and see their elevated status as an excuse to do harm to those that they see below themselves. I think the real problem is that these soldiers and police officers are not acting on behalf of the people but instead on behalf of the government. As Abraham Lincoln said, governments exist to do for people what they cannot do for themselves. Governments were not meant to oppress people but protect them but when you have a corrupt government then the corruption often extends to those employed by said government. It would be nice to see soldiers siding with the citizens like in egypt rather than siding with a corrupt and failing government.
It is never easy to be a soldier, especially in a country divided by political protests. However, in many of the current cases the only division is between a dictator’s last grab for power and populations’ will and desire for peace and fair government. As we read in Dowden Africans often revere power; however the type of power the soldiers wield is mindless power. They identify with the one that gives them power, rather than their peers for whom they should support. Their self-interest not only damages the country as a whole, but also the individuals and their families to whom the violence is directed.
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