A multi-sided object lesson I stumbled upon

[APeacefulWarrior]

This is a few months old, but it got posted to Imzy earlier today and I've been mulling it for awhile now:

The Woman Who Gave Her Life To Save The Gorillas

On one hand, it's an inspiring story of just how much good one person who has truly dedicated themselves to serving other-selves can do. On the other hand, it's also a stark warning of how badly things can go awry if a Positive person in conflict with Negative people ends up adopting Negative tactics. On the gripping hand, it illustrates the need for wisdom balancing love when attempting great deeds of service.

Either way... it's got quite a bit of food for thought, I think.

[Dekalb_Blues]

On a somewhat related note...




Absolutely not someone to be downrange of if you're up to no good in the East African boonies.

http://www.trueactivist.com/people-hunt-...-poachers/

    

[YinYang]

Yeah the poaching thing is a tough one. I'm at point now with the rhinos here by us where I've realised the only thing that will stop the poaching is if all the rhinos are dead, which is pretty soon I guess... all other measures have failed. It feels strange driving through the Kruger National Park an encountering these anti-poachers on the road, armed to the teeth. There's no dialogue anymore, or bringing them in alive, it's now shoot on sight. A last desperate measure for sure.

[YinYang]

I read the article you posted PeacefulWarrior, thanks for sharing. I'm well familiar with Dian Fossey's story, it's heartbreaking. I just wouldn't call her murder mysterious, as terrible as that may sound. It's Africa. Around the time she was killed, the Hutu/Tutsi tension was already building, and she could have done something as innocent as simply getting along with some Tutsis, which would have made her a target.

You have to go back all the way to King Leopold to understand how sensitive you have to be with these ethnic tensions in Rwanda. The colonisers favoured the Tutsis, which enraged the Hutus. I'm not saying that's what happened, I'm just saying her death wasn't necessarily related to her work with the gorillas.

King Leopold's Ghost is a great book, and explains the deep distrust they have to this day for white people. The history is well known to them all.

[YinYang]

Another great book is Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart. Congo is the most dangerous location on the planet, it's ruled by fear. The Belgians were the cruellest colonisers, and the Katanga Panhandle is the richest mineral deposit on the planet, which means peace will probably never come to that region.

The good thing, there's always a silver lining, is that those forests are the lungs of the planet, so where the Amazon jungle is under threat from development, that's not the case with the Congo jungle. Congo is the size of Western Europe, and there are areas in the North West of that jungle which is still unexplored.

[APeacefulWarrior]

Yeah the poaching thing is a tough one. I'm at point now with the rhinos here by us where I've realised the only thing that will stop the poaching is if all the rhinos are dead, which is pretty soon I guess... all other measures have failed. It feels strange driving through the Kruger National Park an encountering these anti-poachers on the road, armed to the teeth. There's no dialogue anymore, or bringing them in alive, it's now shoot on sight. A last desperate measure for sure.

The problem with desperate last measures is that they tend to inspire more desperation in those the measures are aimed at. :-/

[YinYang]

Yeah, it's a hopeless situation. Kruger's location is just unfortunate, right next to Zimbabwe that has totally collapsed. I don't know how much they're getting for rhino horn, but it must be substantial in their world.