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Thread 7986

Thread ID: 7986 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2003-07-08

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Leveller [OP]

2003-07-08 19:21 | User Profile

Please Don’t Eat the Pygmies By Gary Brecher

[url=http://exile.ru/168/168052003.html]http://exile.ru/168/168052003.html[/url]

It was a big week for readers sending me hot tips on the kind of little stories that make war interesting. My favorite was this tidbit from the Congo: “Army, rebel and tribal fighters, some believing the pygmies are less than human or that eating their flesh would give them magic power, have been pursuing the pygmies in forests, killing them and eating their flesh, activists said.”

You can always count on the Congo to come through when the rest of the world is getting all dull and practical. You have to wonder what kind of arguments they have around the BBQ, munchin’ away on a nice Pygmy drumstick. Do the ones chompin’ the little fella to get magic powers get flak from the ones who just like the taste? “Hey, magic man, let’s see you fly now that you’ve had your pygmy meat!”

The story didn’t say who the “activists” were, but I like the idea of a bunch of Europeans fanning out in the jungle with little “Don’t Eat A Pygmy” kits—you know, armbands with a little pygmy in a red circle, trying to be sensitive to the local culture, then losing it when they walk into a village and see the local bigwigs just finishing a teeny arm or leg: “You savages! Oh no, did I say that?” I guess your typical “activist” would have to go off into the jungle and shoot himself if he got caught saying something politically incorrect like that. But hey, that wouldn’t end his problems, not if the locals really had a taste for Long Pig. You might be cremated the long, slow way, in a crockpot with some yams.

Thing is, picking on pygmies is pure discrimination—Heightism. Maybe you could get Dustin Hoffman to do a charity visit. All those Hollywood liberals like to talk about “all the little people”—see how they like it when Dustin’s suddenly one of the appetizers.

It was a good couple of weeks for Africa. If there’s one country that can give Congo a run for its money in the crazy sweepstakes, it’s Liberia. A reader sent me an update on one of my favorite military figures, General Butt Naked of Liberia.

Liberia’s right next door to Sierra Leone, and has the same sort of history. Both were started up as places to settle freed slaves. Sierra Leone was a British project and Liberia was American, but otherwise it’s the same story: freed slaves set up little towns on the coast, make the inland tribes into slaves, then the whole thing dissolves into massacres, with “armies” of M-16-totin’ 13-year-old boys in dresses, killing and f*cking, in that order, anybody they can catch.

General Butt Naked was like the Patton of these guys, the Robert E. Lee of Liberia. Instead of wearing wigs and high heels like most Liberian “army” kids, he started a wild new fashion: he just didn’t wear anything at all. Here’s the item, just the way the reader sent it:

“Liberia: Joshua Blahyi - formerly known as General Butt Naked and leader of the Butt Naked Battalion in Liberia's recent civil war - says that he now regrets the drunken murderous rampages he led his troops on, and says that he was a ‘slave to Satan.’ Speaking to the press from his new Soul-Winning Evangelical Ministry in Monrovia, General Butt Naked told reporters that at the age of 11 he had a telephone call from the Devil who demanded nudity on the battlefield, acts of indecency and regular human sacrifices to ensure his protection. ‘So, before leading my troops into battle, we would get drunk and drugged up, sacrifice a local teenager, drink their blood, then strip down to our shoes and go into battle wearing colourful wigs and carrying dainty purses we'd looted from civilians. We'd slaughter anyone we saw, chop their heads off and use them as soccer balls. We were nude, fearless, drunk and homicidal. We killed hundreds of people—so many I lost count. But in June last year God telephoned me and told me that I was not the hero I considered myself to be, so I stopped and became a preacher.’”

Just try imagining one of the General’s military campaigns. It makes you realize how tame movies really are, even the ones that say they’re all “dark” and daring. I’ve seen a lot of war movies, but none of them ever even tried to show anything this fucked up.

Imagine a movie of General Butt’s “army” hitting a village. They grab a kid off a trail to the village, rip him up and drink his blood, then get naked. They’re already high on who knows what mix of drugs and booze, probably screeching like parrots. Oh, wait—I forgot about the purses and wigs. So they’re in drag, naked, dripping blood from their mouths, and boom! they’re sprinting into your village. The killing isn’t even the fun part for them. That’s just a day at the office for these guys. It’s the big soccer game they’re up for. So they get their pangas out and chop off a few dozen heads and start kickin’ them around. Yellow flag!

Compared to that, Apocalypse Now is about as “dark” as Alf.

Of course, the General’s a Christian now. The sad part is, I can imagine my folks going to see the bastard preach and getting all sentimental when he starts talking about how the Devil captured him at age 11. Pentecostals are about the most easy to fool people in the world. All you have to do is say you found Jesus. Hugs and money and dinner invites. The Bible verse I hated the most, and that’s saying something, was the one that says “There is more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents than 99 of the righteous.” God loves people like General Naked. What that meant to me was God is crazy or stupid. General Naked may be preaching the Gospel now but that’s the kind of job-change psychos like him can do without breaking a sweat. And they can go back to the old psycho-killer job just as quick when the time’s right.

And the time could be right just about now, because Liberia’s heating up again. One of the biggest, craziest killers in the history of Liberia, Charles Taylor, just came back from Sierra Leone on June 5. Anyplace else in the world, Taylor would’ve come home like Hannibal Lecter, complete with that little grill over the mouth. But like I said, Liberia’s different. The locals were so happy to have Taylor back that they lined the road all the way from the airport to his house just for the chance to wave hello to the Homecoming King.

Taylor went to Sierra Leone a few years back and joined up with the one man in Africa who’s maybe crazier than him: Foday Sankoh, leader of the RUF. You might not know the initials, but you’ve probably heard of the RUF’s unique way of doing business: they’re the ones who used to go into a village in Sierra Leone and cut off arms and legs and pile them up in the middle of town. It was Sankoh’s idea of a joke. He’d tell the villagers who were rolling around in agony, “Go ask the government for your arms and legs.”

Taylor just naturally wound up working for a guy like that when he moved next door to Sierra Leone. Now that he’s back in Liberia, things are likely to heat up again. His fans won’t settle for waving hi to him on his way to his mansion. They’ll want action, some good killing again, and Taylor will give them what they want.

And I bet you anything you want that in some stinking hot little church in downtown Monrovia, General Butt Naked is taking off his preaching clothes, getting out his cute little wig, and thinking about making another career change. I bet he’s getting bored being so holy. His chopping finger’s getting itchy. He wants to play soccer with somebody’s head again. The boys are back in town, and General Naked wants in the game. That’s the best part of seeing the light, Pentecostal style: you can always change your mind later.

Leveller

2003-07-08 19:23 | User Profile

More Gary Brecher here: [url=http://exile.ru/browse?author=3]The War Nerd[/url]