"Something of Value"

I saw this movie today in the hotel room... starring Rock Hudson and Sidney Poitier, its a tragic film about the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya that lasted 8 years in the 1950s.

Even though the main conflict was between the English and the tribal Kenyans, there were some moments where the strifes between the Mau Mau and other Kikuyu were evident; a sort of bitter reminder of what's going on in Kenya, Rwanda, Chad and other areas of Africa...

...at the same time we're seeing solutions between ethnic groups slowly start to make their way through the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; Kosovo seems to be on track to true independence. After the fall of Soviet communism, the independent countries and peoples became... just that - independent.

It would almost seem like the same thing should happen in the African countries as well... now that the European imperialists are gone, the tribal people should have their own lands again, instead of being kept in the states that their various empires put them in... would this solve everything? no... would it solve anything? maybe

... nothing more than just a thought.

"If a man does away with his traditional way of living and throws away his good customs, he had better first make certain that he has something of value to replace them."
-Basuto Proverb

... and so too should the people that invade his lands and take away his 'way of living'. Its pretty evident that the unrest in Africa can be partly attributed to the fact that the people native to the land were immediately forced into a different way of life. Once the demand for this way of life was removed through revolution or other means, we can see that anything holding these countries as a unified state was pulled away as well