Let's not lump all westerners in the same genocidal sympathising camp

Editor, Reference is made to the article, “Arrest of Karenzi Karake: Was he entitled to immunity?” (The New Times, July 13). I know I am just as guilty in applying a broad brush in accusing these and those people of all sorts of ills. It is the normal consequence of attempting to simplify often complex situations and a wide spectrum of views to fit a framework you consider most representative. But I have no doubt there are as many Britons of goodwill who are just as stunned with the surreal nature of Gen Karake’s arrest on transparently fatuous grounds (obscene inversion of historic roles in the Genocide, where real-life heroes, like Karenzi Karake and his comrades, who sacrificed their lives in stopping the Genocide against the Tutsi while the west stood by indifferently or were actively complicit in it, for instance the French, are now converted into its perpetrators by Spanish and European judicial fiat, while the actual perpetrators of the Genocide are, as if by alchemy, turned into its victims). It is very easy in such circumstances to lump all westerners in the same genocidal sympathising camp, but I know we would be wrong. Many British people—and even many French and Spanish—are just as disgusted as we all are by such naked judicial terrorism masquerading as the application of the notion of universal jurisdiction. The only problem, perhaps, is that they are not as vocal as those in the media and fake human rights activists who have made a career as Rwanda and RPA-bashers. But that is probably because many feel they couldn’t make any difference even if they spoke out. That is always the problem undergirding the lack of engagement of members of the so-called ‘silent majority’; haters are almost always more motivated to hit out at their preferred targets, while those who sympathise with you tend to remain silent. Hatred is a much more potent driver than empathy, especially when those who empathise see the savaging those who speak out receive from the red-in-the-teeth media, as Andrew Mitchell received from Ian Birrell’s tract of Daily Mail when he criticised the abuse of the European Arrest Warrant system as applied in Karenzi Karake’s case. So you end up with many people disgusted with the obscene actions of hidden hands with unavowable motives in cases like these, but who choose to keep their heads below the parapet to avoid similar savaging. Mwene Kalinda

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Let's not lump all westerners in the same genocidal sympathising camp