TALKING OF sh*thole countries, Mr President, how would you describe a country where 20 people are gunned down as they go about their lawful business in a shopping mall in El Paso, Texas and then the very next day nine people are murdered by another gunman in Dayton, Ohio, bringing the number of mass shootings in the country to 251 (as I write this, no doubt it has risen since) in 2019 alone?
How would you describe a country like that, Mr President?
You see, most law-abiding people love their lives. They love their lives even more than they love their lifestyles. Granted, some African countries (by no means all) leave a lot to be desired. And, true, there are some countries which have been existentially challenged by terrorists and civil strife on the continent.
But, even so, I doubt if the number of mass shootings for the whole of Africa in 2019 adds up to 251. The number is, I suspect, nowhere near that. But even if it was, how does that compare to a country that has seen children repeatedly massacred in schools since the Columbine shootings in 1999?
And whereas these countries in Africa that you describe as sh*thole countries make every effort to take the guns off the street and to pursue anyone that owns one, in your country you actively encourage the possession of weapons, many of which have been used in crimes, whether in mass shootings or just domestic murders or hold-ups or whatever it may be.
Would a country like that not be something of a sh*thole too, Mr President? Let’s face it, would you take your children to a country where people are routinely slaughtered in mass shootings?
It beggars belief that the queue to get into the United States is still bigger than the queue to get out. Having said that, it is about who controls the narrative. You see, the countries in Africa that you describe as ‘sh*tholes’ do not have the gazillions of followers on Twitter that you do. Moreover, even if they did, the global media is more focused on you than it is on Nana Akufo-Addo.
In fact, you probably wouldn’t even know how to spell Nana Akufo-Addo. But don’t worry, most people reading this won’t have heard of him at all, even though he is the current president of Ghana and has just been voted the best president in Africa.
As you made no distinction as to which of the countries in Africa are ‘sh*thole’ countries, let us throw Ghana in that bag, too. But if we do, it will make the United States look even more sh*tty than it might otherwise be perceived.
That’s because Ghana is a peaceful country. It is also beautiful. Naturally so. Just like the United States.
Children who go to school in Ghana, however, do not have to be protected by teachers carrying guns or law enforcement officers. Indeed, I have seen children in Ghana run barefooted for miles to the nearest schools, and the happiness on their faces at the opportunity they have been given is one to bestow.
It may be ‘sh*thole’ in your view, but people are happier. Oh, of course, they would be even happier if the economy was as strong as it is in the United States. After all, they have seen the narrative on their television screens of people in the US driving fancy cars and living like life is sweet like milk and honey or at least sweet as a nut. If only…
But I wonder whether people in Ghana would swap their current level of happiness for all the milk and honey and all the sweetness of a nut in the world if it meant they would live in fear of the next man coming to kill them for, apparently, no reason whatsoever.
Time and time again, in all the surveys of the people of the world, the first consideration in people’s minds is security. But somehow, despite the obvious – that America is a dangerous place where there is (to take this year’s average) more than one mass shooting a day (and I define mass shootings as incidents involving multiple victims) – there have been 1.2 incidents per day this year, in which 1,032 people have been shot and in which 281 people have died.
Remember, these are just the mass shootings.
But you wouldn’t think the US was that dangerous if you believed the hype. Indeed, if any African country were to have stats that had even one tenth of the number of mass shootings the US has, there would be a government health warning on the country. I kid you not.
There would be a warning to British nationals on the Foreign Office website urging you to go and find some other destination to spend your summer holidays. And yet there is nothing.
It is like the Foreign Office is complicit in keeping British tourists under a veil of ignorance about how unsafe the US is. And what about keeping British tourists of colour ignorant as to how dangerous the US is to them, with white supremacists going about the place itching to use people of colour as target practice?
If the mass shooting in El Paso is confirmed as a hate crime, as it appears to be at the time of going to print, the Foreign Office should be posting up a warning to people of colour and others that racist hate crimes are a feature of the US at the moment.
But it just keeps quiet and says nothing for fear of upsetting the President of the United States who will get the hump if you even suggest the US could be regarded as a ‘sh*thole’ with regards to race relations and if he gets the hump there will be no lucrative trade deal after Brexit which of course would leave Britain up sh*thole creek without a stinky paddle.
I love the US, by the way. I would never describe it as a ‘sh*thole’.
We have problems here in the UK too, not least in London with regards to mass stabbings.
But I would never regard the UK as a ‘sh*thole’ (parts of it, maybe). But when you preside over mass shootings you shouldn’t be a sh*t stirrer.