When Speaking Against Oppression and Brutality Is 'Evil'

The West is calling for the oppression and brutality of Mugabe's regime to be dealt with. I guess that puts many African leaders in quite the pickle. Some African leaders refuse to criticize Mugabe because they don't want to be perceived as siding with the West against a fellow African "leader". The good thing is that they equate the West with speaking out against oppression and brutality. Or is it that they equate speaking out against oppression and brutality as Western? Either way, the West becomes synonymous with speaking out against oppression and brutality. So the problem created by those who attempt to vilify the West is that they also vilify the concepts we hold dear such as freedom, liberty, and human rights. So now they have created an environment where they have forced themselves to be complicit in the oppression and brutality because, for them, doing the right thing in opposing opression and brutality would be siding with the "evil West".

This is the idea of "acting white" on a global scale. Heaven forbid you should do the right thing because that's what the west/whites do. Working hard and getting an education is chastised as "acting white" in some American sub-cultures. Speaking out against oppression and brutality is chastised as "siding with the West" by some non-Western cultures. How absurd is that? It's as if you were to say you oppose the scientific understanding of gravity as a "Western" concept because that was developed by the westerner Isaac Newton. Or you oppose air travel as a "Western" thing because that was first developed in the West? All of these things are not unique to a particular culture. These are universal things that the West has harnessed to great success. The problem is in depriving yourself the universal tools to achieve success because those tools are associated with the "evil West".

Admittedly, many non-western people were subjected to western colonialism in the past. The problem is that they continue to see the West through that lens that is no longer representative of the West today. The West as a colonial power has been dead for well over half a century. The West today is a force against oppression and brutality wherever it is found. In placing yourself against the West today, that puts you on the side of supporting oppression and brutality. Ask yourself one simple question - if all world governments opposed oppression and brutality and embraced human rights, would there be any state on the West's "shit list"? The mistake made by many leaders is that it is an "us vs them" thing and that they are on our "shit list" because of that when the reality is that they are on our "shit list" because it's an us vs oppression and brutality thing. The concept of "Human Rights" is not a Western philosophy but rights to which all humans are entitled but that some states abrogate. Abrogation of human rights is what earns a spot on our shit list. The easiest, best, and only way off of our shit list is, quite simply, to STOP OPPRESSING AND BRUTALIZING YOUR PEOPLE AND START RESPECTING HUMAN RIGHTS.