Big Brother

Africa, there’s never a dull moment with you. Liberia’s neighbor, Ivory Coast has taken their little presidential disagreement to a whole new level (they’ve started shooting http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12582014) The fighting has become so strong that now instead of hundreds of refugees coming into Liberia a day, up to 5,000 have come in 24 hours. Schools are shut down and NGO workers in the country are evacuating. UNHCR is flipping out because of the massive influx and the rest of the UN community is estimating that this could lead to another civil war (we’ll see about that). Liberia, I am happy to say is just peachy. What else is going on in Africa? Oh yea, Qaddafi. This fool. He has riots and fighting going on in Libya and is doing what he does best, oppressing people.

Fun facts about this dude: He is known as the “Big Brother” of Africa. His country is the training base for many “special forces” around the world. ( Al Qaeda, rebel forces who fought in Liberia and Sierra Leone, the list goes on). Big deal? Not unless he’s looking for some fighters to save his Libyan butt from riots in his own country.

Here’s how he works: He trains you. He sends you in to start some conflict in a country. You set up the government and are permanently indebted to him. He needs some support, you give it. After all, he owns you. Let’s apply this to Liberia just for fun. Let’s say that during the civil wars in Liberia, the special forces (I like to think of them as high ranking rebels) were trained on Libyan territory. They go in and do what they do best (wreak some havoc) and in the end are promised a reward by the leaders who “employed” them to fight (which they were). Let’s say they never got this reward and fell under the radar during the reintegration process (which they did). So we’ve got Libyan trained Liberian “special forces” wandering the city with no real job skills, who are angry because they have yet to receive what they thought they would years ago. Neglected by the bad, the good and the international. Excellent. In the words of Johnson (local Liberian NGO worker) who enlightened me on this topic: “No one pays for that kind of skill.” Except Qaddafi. Johnson's argument was that if Qaddafi owns them, then there would be no hesitation on the part of these special forces to come running if Gaddafi calls. “He’s the big brother of Africa. You do what he says.” What if he doesn’t call them? “They could start something here out of spite.” That’s what scares locals like Johnson the most. The big brother made promises he didn’t keep and these highly trained special forces have one skill; bringing on violence. “You want his attention. You get it doing what he taught you to do.” So, 1. They go to Qaddafi’s aid in Libya. 2. They join the madness in Ivory Coast. 3. They rally up some old buddies and put their training to use in their home country because they were never reintegrated properly and are wandering around angry. All winning options…if you’re them. Maybe they’ll just continue to wander around jobless and not cause any trouble. Research topic change? Absolutely. I'm snatching up Johnson’s number and we’re chatting about this more.

Great work Qaddafi, thanks for nothing. I liked you better when you brought your own sleeping accommodation to New York and literally set up camp on D. Trump property. You won me over when in response to your choice of accommodation you replied: “that’s how I roll.” Just don’t “roll” your trouble into Liberia. That goes for you too, Ivory Coast.