July 12, 2006--The Real Thing
Some of the most under-reported news concerns Somalia. Yet another place where the Bush policy to bring freedom and democracy to the Islamic world has turned into a disaster.
While we have been concentrating on Iraq, Afghanistan again, and of course Iran and North Korea, after the 1993 tragedy of Black Hawk Down, when 18 American troops were captured in Mogadishu and publicly slaughtered by Islamic insurgents, we have been backing a series of warlords in Somalia thought to be secular and Western tipping. Well, they just lost control of the city and the country, and a fundamentalist government similar to Iran’s may be coming into existence. Well done George and Dick and Rummy.
But the NY Times is attempting to catch up with the news, albeit on page six. One finds two stories there—the briefer one, physically situated below Marc Lacey’s “Mogadishu Journal,” tells of the 60 Somalians murdered by Islamist militias over the weekend. Not so different from last weekend and the one before that. The featured story, on the other hand, is a little unusual—it’s about the fate of Coca Cola in a Somalia going fundamentalist (articles linked below).
It seems that a number of local investors, during the good-old warlord days, put together enough money to secure a license from Coca Cola in Atlanta to open a bottling plant. It proved to be a good investment because Coke caught on quickly and they were beginning to make some real money, even though a Coke costs about what a typical employed Somalian earns in a day.
But then along came the Islamists and they saw Coke as an expression of “the devil’s alliance with the warlords.” A leading Imam railed against Coke, proclaiming it “an un-Islamic beverage” that should not “go down a proper Muslim’s throat.”
In these circumstances the Somalians who love Coke and want to buy and drink it may need to risk their lives to do so. And the owners of the bottling facility have had to assemble their own private militia to guard their plant and themselves.
And to this point I naively thought we were involved in a 21st Century crusade in the Middle East. Now I know better—it’s to make the world safe for Coke.
While we have been concentrating on Iraq, Afghanistan again, and of course Iran and North Korea, after the 1993 tragedy of Black Hawk Down, when 18 American troops were captured in Mogadishu and publicly slaughtered by Islamic insurgents, we have been backing a series of warlords in Somalia thought to be secular and Western tipping. Well, they just lost control of the city and the country, and a fundamentalist government similar to Iran’s may be coming into existence. Well done George and Dick and Rummy.
But the NY Times is attempting to catch up with the news, albeit on page six. One finds two stories there—the briefer one, physically situated below Marc Lacey’s “Mogadishu Journal,” tells of the 60 Somalians murdered by Islamist militias over the weekend. Not so different from last weekend and the one before that. The featured story, on the other hand, is a little unusual—it’s about the fate of Coca Cola in a Somalia going fundamentalist (articles linked below).
It seems that a number of local investors, during the good-old warlord days, put together enough money to secure a license from Coca Cola in Atlanta to open a bottling plant. It proved to be a good investment because Coke caught on quickly and they were beginning to make some real money, even though a Coke costs about what a typical employed Somalian earns in a day.
But then along came the Islamists and they saw Coke as an expression of “the devil’s alliance with the warlords.” A leading Imam railed against Coke, proclaiming it “an un-Islamic beverage” that should not “go down a proper Muslim’s throat.”
In these circumstances the Somalians who love Coke and want to buy and drink it may need to risk their lives to do so. And the owners of the bottling facility have had to assemble their own private militia to guard their plant and themselves.
And to this point I naively thought we were involved in a 21st Century crusade in the Middle East. Now I know better—it’s to make the world safe for Coke.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
3:19 PM
1 Comments:
'it’s to make the world safe for Coke'
well this line means a lot! indicates the kind of influence corporation (read jews) has on government policies
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