Maybe if the people of Guinea-Bissau watched more South Park, they wouldn't have to deal with this assassination stuff. LOL!!
I'm thinking of the episode called Scott Tenorman Must Die. In it, Cartman and an older kid named Scott Tenorman get into a sort of practical joke battle. It escalates into worse and worse pranks. The episode ends with Cartman killing Scott Tenorman's parents, cooking their meat into chili, and tricking Scott Tenorman into eating it. In his triumphant glee, Cartman sings the refrain "Made you eat your parents! Made you eat your parents!" and licks Scott Tenorman's salty tears as they fall from his eyes.
This episode has been rated by South Park fans as one of the ten best of all time, but it is based on one of Shakespeare's worst plays, Titus Andronicus. In it, a Roman general named Titus and Tamora, Queen of the Goths have a little practical joke battle of their own. Soon people in both families are getting killed, raped, and dismembered through various acts of revenge, until finally Titus bakes Tamora's sons into a pie and feeds them to her. Then everyone kills everyone else. The end. YUCK!
Anyway... Guinea-Bissau. This week there was some upheaval in the country. The President, named Joao Bernardo Vieira but nicknamed "Nino", never got along very well with the general of the army. Well, this past Sunday, the army general is assassinated, perhaps by a Nino-supporter. The next day Nino himself gets assassinated, perhaps by a supporter of the late army general. No one has been baked into a pie or a pot of chili yet, but this kind of revenge killing stuff does make me feel a little sick.
We can all learn a lesson from Eric Cartman. Namely: DON'T BE ERIC CARTMAN. We should all go around asking ourselves WWECND? (What Would Eric Cartman NOT Do?) Then the world would be a better place. If I was a diplomat in charge of peace talks (whether in Africa or the Middle East or anywhere), I would make everyone watch Scott Tenorman Must Die before a word was said.
Of course, there is another theory that neither of the assassinations in Guinea-Bissau had to do with political revenge, but were instead orchestrated by the druglords who have rapant control over the country. Nino was killed by a bomb, which many people seem to think is an "un-African" method of killing; therefore it must have been committed by one of the foreign drug-trade types. I'm not sure if that sort of reasoning would hold up in court, though. Hmm.
(And do I detect a hint of pan-African pride when I read things like "Oh, bombs are SO not the African style"? On a continent where child soldiers are trained to hack people up with machetes, a bomb almost seems merciful...)
Remember: WWECND.
