As we seek ‘justice’, the world must be forgiven for having a low opinion of us

We are sui generis, a truly different breed of humankind, we the people of Africa. Perhaps it is true, as our leaders have said in Addis Ababa, these past few days, that the world should leave us alone. The events in Addis remind you, almost tragically, where it is written in the Good Book, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or a leopard his spots? Then you who are trained to do evil will also be able to do good (Jeremiah 13:23). Some versions of the Bible even say “the colour of his skin.”

Is our skin colour the metaphor for unmitigated greed, evil and wickedness aforethought? Whoever “the Ethiopian” may have been when the Biblical book of Jeremiah was written, between 627 and 586 BC, I do not know. But this I know. Certain mindboggling things can only happen in Africa. We are the only continent that has killed more than two million of our children in armed conflict since 1991. We have permanently disabled over six million people in the same period. We have turned many more millions into refugees and internally displaced persons. We use rape as a weapon of war. The woman’s body, on our continent, is at once a battleground, an absurd entertainment and a relief amenity in war. It is an instrument of military pleasure and humiliation. Africa’s Great Lakes Region is the global rape headquarters. In the DRC, they rape men and women alike, all in the name of “justice.”