What could the president have been thinking when he
said what he is alleged to have said? Was he thinking about a country’s
sanitation arrangements within the home or of facilities installed in a
shed-like annex in the yard, or of other types, less elaborate in design nearby
or afar?
Or was the president referring to countries that he
disapproves of on the basis of anatomical considerations. If he was thinking
anatomy, he should know that that way of categorizing nations will not wash. It
is too general. The standard model of humanity comes equipped with the aperture
in all instances. Everybody has one, so the use of that parameter is not
distinctive enough to enable one to classify a nation as a shit hole country.
In short, no one country, by this characterisation, is more of a shit hole than
the next. That approach won’t work, Mr Trump. So, it is more likely that the
etymology of the president’s word choice arises from the technical aspects of
managing the products issuing from the anatomical end zone I mentioned earlier.
The transfer of product from the one category of
hole to the other has been a challenge since the dawn of civilization, and the
way this troublesome matter is handled in every country remains fraught. At its
most elemental, holes dug specifically for the purpose are to be found in every
country on every continent in their various iterations. Perhaps it is
differences in the waste management procedures that the president was thinking
about when he made his comment using language that is not generally acceptable
in polite society. Interestingly, I find that my grammar-checking software is
not comfortable with the phrase in question and coyly substitutes “shit whole”
for the one I type. Makes no sense of course but, given time it may yet come to
accept Mr Trump’s use of language.
But here’s the thing: The current President of the
United States has single-handedly lowered the quality of public discourse to a
level that, to quote the man himself, is “unpresidented”. So here we are, in
2018, holding our nose and repeating his utterances everywhere, by word of mouth,
in print, on the radio and on TV, even in staid organizations such as the BBC.
And this is not the only term that the man, with his vast presidential reach,
has made usable in what used to be called mixed company. Remember, he is the
one that describes the way in which he captures women - by grabbing them by
their nether regions. And then, recently, we are made to wonder what climate
phenomenon “Stormy Daniels” represents; but, thanks to Google, one is quickly
informed that this has nothing at all to do with the weather outlook.
Why am I conflicted then? Describing a country as
Mr Trump did, is rude, crude, undiplomatic and vicious and ultimately does not
serve America’s interests. It is deeply offensive to people in Africa and from
Africa. There are so many things that are good on the continent that anyone,
even the dullest dotard, can see that the continent has the potential to be a
real powerhouse not only on home turf, but right across the world as well.
Africans in the diaspora, in America for example, are among the brightest
lights in industry and the universities . And most of the fastest growing economies in
the world are in Africa. So, if
we combine the potential of its brainpower with its current economic vigour,
the continent could rapidly progress to boom, creating more employment for its
young people and reduce, if not completely eliminate the need for them to
embark on perilous journeys to far off places where they waste their lives in
some employment ghetto and are never are able to shine and flourish. That is,
provided they have not died before getting to their desired destination
But
then, the peoples of the African continent have a blanket woven in oppression,
corruption, deprivation and denial of opportunity held over them by their own
leaders, who by any metric, can only be described as “shitty”. All their protestations
to the contrary are hollow and merely self-serving.
Let
us seize the opportunity to drum them out of office whenever they give us the
chance.
Tell Fren Tru
