University of Virginia Library

Biafran Farce

The current campaign here to
help the starving Biafran children is
a horrible farce, for two reasons:

1) It is merely a "Great White
Liberal" ego trip designed to provide
psychic compensation for personal
impotence in establishing a
meaningful socio-political commitment
to ending injustice on the
domestic scene. These people seek
to assuage their guilt complexes by
a mere financial donation, rather
than any sort of personal involvement.
There are at this moment
thousands of tons of food destined
for Biafra which are rotting on the
island of Fernando Pao because the
renegade Biafran government refuses
to accept it (on the absurd
grounds that the Nigerians plan to
poison it as an act of genocide - if
this charge is, indeed, true, why are
the boss who elected to remain in
Nigerian territory not only alive,
but better off, than their
treasonous brothers in Biafra?). The
Biafran government is allowing its
children to starve in a cold blooded
propagandist attempt to gain international
sympathy. While one can
only feel a deep sympathy for the
famine-stricken noncombatants,
and a great admiration for courage
of the (well-fed!) Biafran army, it is
impossible to condone the inhuman
policies of their government or the
well intentioned actions of their
dupes, particularly in this country
and Britain.

2) These "bleeding heart" liberals
are objectively neo-colonialist
imperialists insofar as they are furthering
the factionalism of already
badly splintered West Africa. By
encouraging tribal breakaways, such
as those of the Ibos and Katongonese
they are delaying, if not
irreparably damaging, the hopes of
West African unity. Only in unity
can West Africa become economically
viable and truly independent;
only through unity can she
develop her resources, nurture her
cultures, and resist foreign encroachments
(such as the machinations
of Charles DeGaulle, who
clandestinely supports Biafra in a
neo-colonial attempt to re-assert
French hegemony over West Africa).

These people's short term aims
are laudable; the long term results
of them would be to perpetuate
chaos, poverty, and foreign dominance
over an area of the world all
too long exploited by the west (for
example, it was the homeland of
virtually all the Africans so brutally
enslaved by our Founding Fathers).
Why do not these people end their
tacit support of the puppet Biafran
government and concentrate their
efforts on aiding bona fide liberation
movements from poverty, ignorance,
and oppression, such as
are occurring in our ghettos?