Ashley Morris: the blog: American Biafra

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American Biafra

Why don't I just turn off the pipeline and shut down the port now?

Because if we try to secede, they will kill us, our children, our pets, our culture, our legacy.

They want us dead.

In 1967, seven years after Nigeria became independent, the Republic of Biafra seceded from Nigeria. Biafra was on the southern coast of Nigeria, and Biafra was an integral part in the Oil trade.

Biafra was not like most of the rest of Nigeria, and ethnic tensions between the native Biafran Ibos and the more conservative Hausas caused the death of over 30,000 Ibos, who fled to their homeland.

On may 30, 1967, Biafra declared their independence.

The Nigerians would not allow this, and would not be happy with a simple defeat over their former countrymen: they wanted to extract a pound of flesh; they wanted to make an example; they wanted to show them who was boss.

Two and a half years after the declaration of independence, between two and three million Biafrans, over a million of them civilians (out of a population of 13.5 million) were dead.

Most of them died of starvation, due to a Nigerian blockade of food.

Nigeria starved their brothers to death.

Many other countries tried to help out Biafra. The Ivory Coast, Haiti, Rhodesia, South Africa, Israel, France and Portugal all provided food, money, medicine or arms.

It wasn’t enough.

The Soviet Union, Egypt and Britain supplied plenty of arms to Nigeria, so that they could crush Biafra.

40 years later, the things that led to the Biafran war are still happening. Nothing has really changed, except the Ibos still have no real voice in government.

Compare this to New Orleans today.

New Orleans is a southern port city, vital to the oil trade. Unlike most of the area surrounding it, New Orleans is predominantly Roman Catholic, due to its French and Spanish heritage.

The rest of the nation, typically evangelicals, do not want tax dollars used to rebuild flood protection for New Orleans.

These red staters, the vinyl siding cowboys, do not want to let us rebuild, and are blockading our aid and our insurance money. Initially, they even blockaded entry and exit to our city, and would not allow us to flee, by threatening us with gunfire.

They even withheld food and drink, and those that tried to obtain it by other means were dealt with in a true draconian fashion. Using them as the baseline, what should Ken Lay get, other than an eternity in hell?

They tried to starve us literally, and now they’re trying to starve us financially.

They’re starving their brothers to death.

Congratulations. Mighty Christian of you.

Many nations have recognized us and given aid, but others know not to annoy ~~Nigeria~~ Washington.

One year later, little has been rebuilt, and most New Orleanians still cannot return to their homes.

When we are dead, they will show no pity for the corpse, and build their idea of a theme park, since the theme park maker wants nothing to do with us.

We are the first city I know of that has ever been completely abandoned by their federal government.

I've been in Europe for 2 weeks. People ask "What's it like there?" I reply: "You ever seen Hiroshima? Well, Japan rebuilt Hiroshima."

Sinn Fein.

06 July 2006 at 09:44 AM | Permalink

Comments

I hate it when you think it necessary to sugarcoat.

Jeebus. I think I'll listen to some Dead Kennedys (Biafra!) to BRIGHTEN my mood.

Posted by: oyster | 07 July 2006 at 03:54 PM

Right on Ashley!

As usual, you peg the situation for what it truly is.

Sinn Fein!

Posted by: GentillyGirl | 07 July 2006 at 04:48 PM

You think the red(der) states are to blame?

You don't agree with self-defense of a community?

I've got to take issue with you on a couple of these, amigo.

The lack of funding is as much a problem due to forces outside of Louisiana as it is due to forces inside Louisiana. The majority of our senators and representatives in Baton Rouge haven't made the short trek to come look at what's going on down here.

Why would they want to spend money to rebuild NOLA when they could have their potholes in Ruston fixed? Why would they want to spend money to re-shore up and augment the flood defenses for the state's largest economic center when they could buy new desktop computers for public school children in Alexandria?

The length of legislative foresight is precisely the length of their terms. And if the timetable for rebuilding NOLA and getting it back into a profitable state where it again provides 25% of the state's revenue takes longer than their terms, it's not going to be as valuable a goal as their constitutents' pet projects.

Sad but true ... the red(der) states have so much influence, but our own lawmakers have so much more.

As far as the defense of a community against those attempting to invade it ... I can't find a problem with it. If a group of people from a historically high-crime area were attempting to make their way into a community whose safety was my mandate, my response would have been similar.

The valuation of human life is a series of amorphous concentric circles (phrase and concept copyrighted by ME), and with that in mind the community is going to be regarded more highly than and more forcefully protected than those attempting to invade said community.

And it's true that those in necessitous circumstances could have received greater provisions from those who had them to give. But only as long as those provisions could be spared by the community. The law enforcement officials had to make a hard decision and I think their decision was appropriate.

But that's just my ol' redneck opinion. :-)

Posted by: Brian | 10 July 2006 at 08:55 AM

I see a lot of finger pointing at outsiders here, Ash. But...

- It has taken New Orleans nearly a year to come up with "a process for a plan" for rebuilding, and the plan itself won't be ready for months to come.

- Nagin did the right thing and brought in the Urban Land Institute shortly after the storm, and they produced a plan that was near-universally hailed as the right way to go. But the plan wasn't "free candy for everybody," so Nagin immediately put his tail between his legs (that particular spot being apparently uncrowded) and shelved it.

- Those big bad multinationals gave us $1M worth of utility vehicles deperately needed by first responders to replace the ones damaged in the flood, and our elected officials
F*&KING STOLE THEM.

- Meanwhile, our state reps are busy adding midnight provisions to re-route tax dollars to support the TPC golf course, our judges take taxpayer-sponsored vacations to Jamaica while 6,000 cases pile up, and we're focused on putting in free WiFi for all the empty buildings downtown.

And that big, bad Republican-controlled US Congress...they have approved more than $10B in recovery spending.

So explain to me again who is responsible for the current state of affairs in New Orleans? At what point do we start to accept a little responsibility for ourselves instead of pointing fingers?

Posted by: Will | 10 July 2006 at 02:30 PM

Will keleher? From Auburn Univ.(late 80s, early 90ish)?

Ashley - when you coming home? It had been pretty quiet around here - at least until today.

Posted by: saintseester | 10 July 2006 at 08:11 PM

You are completely right Ashley, you always see what other people can, master !!!

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