Nigerian Cannibal Cafe?

A story has been circulating the social media world over the last couple of days that has shocked many, a "NIGERIAN restaurant shut down for serving HUMAN FLESH", certainly would seem like a worthy thing to be appalled by if there ever was one.

The author of this story, Jay Akbar, writes that "a Nigerian restaurant has reportedly been shut down for serving human flesh to its customers" and that the police discovered "human heads which were still dripping with blood in plastic bags". Normally, I would easily dismiss articles like this as being the racist, fear-mongering, xenophobic nonsense a rag like the Daily Mail produces to cause divisions among the working classes. This story was different. It was linked to an earlier report of the story on the BBC Swahili website. 

So could it be true that a small group of Nigerians have been serving some other Nigerians flesh of their kin? The fact it was first reported on a news source which is not synonymous with lies gives it an air of credibility. 

For once it seemed like a story published by the Daily Mail which sought to expose a specific ethnic minority within our society to prejudice was telling the truth.

Except that it probably wasn't. 

At the very least it certainly was not reporting 'news'.

After typing in to a search engine "Nigerian resurant human flesh" followed crucially - as you should do with all dubious news stories on the internet - by the word "debunked" it revealed something not at all surprising. It was a racist article that seeks to cause a divide and fester suspicion among ethnic groups in our multi-cultural society. 

The search revealed a plethora of articles and web pages dating back a couple of years on the subject. Ranging in scope from relatively decent sources of information, such as the Independant (dated February 2014), to the Nigerian tabloid newspaper Osun Defender (dated September 2013) which I am assuming is the earliest source of the story. The articles are nearly word for word identical. 

I will not even begin to pretend that I know anything about the Nigerian tabloid who published this story, what its motives are, its political or ideological stance is, or if it is indeed a reliable source of information. I will assume, perhaps falsely, that it shares similarities with our tabloids. Similarities including, but not limited to, the falsifying or manipulation of data, outright lying (which they constantly have to edit once caught out), using unreliable or uncorroborated accounts from questionable individuals, and most likely, a penchant for sensationalism. 

If these are indeed characteristics of the original source I would take the whole story with a fist full of salt. 

It is worth noting that the original story went a whole SIX MONTHS before it was first picked up by an English news source and then, rather misleadingly, made to seem like a new discovery and not something which apparently happened six months prior. Then a whole year passed before it was picked up again and packaged as a new and shocking revelation about Nigerian society!

This could easily be dismissed as lazy journalism. A simple case of a journalist net checking on the sources, making sure the facts are correct, and being thorough all around. For many who have discovered this, it probably would be the conclusion they draw from the evidence. However, I know something far more nefarious lies beneath the surface. 

Which brings me neatly to the point of this post, there is nothing new about these allegations against African peoples. It is a long and worn out trope of the imperialist, racist mindset, which sought to label indigenous 'savages' of our colonised lands as qualitatively differing from the superior European people which murdered and displaced millions in a series of 'civilizing missions'. The natives peoples were predominantly imbued with characteristics closer to apes and other species in the natural world than they were 'humans'. They were even used as exhibits in "human zoos". 

It was in these earliest distant European colonies in the Americas, Africa, South East Asia and so forth that the shoots of the cannibal myth emerged. It seeps into every aspect of our Western Eurocentric culture. Connections between savagery, cannibalism and dark skin tones are everywhere, from the historical justifications of slavery, to the modern justifications for suffering and poverty in the often neglected and exploited parts of the world, through to depictions of natives in Hollywood movies. 

That is what I fear is at play here in these articles doing the rounds on social media. They are too easily being used as a justification for the continued racism, social exclusion and material deprivation of a large part of our society - and of the world - by highlighting a perceived 'otherness' that accounts for their position.

Let us not forget for a moment that the same 'group' who benefit most from the extreme exploitation of non-white European ethnic groups, are the same people who own most of the major media sources world wide, the rich white capitalists. It is very much in their collective interests now, as it has been historically, to continue to propagate these myths about the savage peoples of the world and to get the rest of the population to believe them. It's a role (nearly) all media sources play in maintaining existing power-relations, and one in which they revel.


Edit:
After posting this I found a website with a quote from a police stating that there was no such raid on a restaurant serving human flesh. Alongside many others carrying the same or longer quotes.

http://www.oasesnews.com/newsmakers/item/3668-refutation-restaurant-serving-human-flesh-as-meat

The General Election Result, Tories In Government, And The British Love Of Sadomasochism

I've been unable to fully articulate just how I feel in the couple of days since the result of the GE2015. In fact I've been almost inconsolable. Snapping at people over the smallest things. Hell, I've even thought about just flat out severing all connections with the self interested scum who voted for the Tories. The uncaring, unthinking, sadistic, class traitors among my friends, who I know exist but will never admit to it. How or why would people look at the record of their incumbent government, even when being held back to a pathetic extent by the LibDems, and think "yes sir, please may I have more of that?"

I, like many others throughout these shores, feel partially guilty for this. We were repeatedly told to vote Labour to keep them out. We were told "that's the only way to ensure a more caring society". Even when I have belief that so-called 'tactical voting' to ensure the lesser of two evils prevails is what is wrong with our system, with all the polls pointing towards the difference progressive politics offered by the SNP, Plaid, and the Greens could make towards Labour's pathetic attempts to re-balance the inequality in society - even though it still wouldn't be anywhere near enough - I still feel a more than my fair share of guilt over the outcome.

I shouldn't feel guilty, and neither should anyone else who voted against austerity, but I still do. The guilt should be firmly laid at the door of the turkeys who voted for Christmas. The dead directly caused by the politics of the Conservatives should be laid at the feet of the masses among the 37% of Tory voters which do not belong to the top 1-5%. The small minority I'm sure the party will do their very best to improve the lives of, the minority who love to inflict pain on those less fortunate because they are not affected. As long as they don't have to see them from their gated communities, or their mansions in Kensington, or wherever they've chosen to inbreed these days, they are happy. Unlike the class traitors who said "exploitation, pain, and humiliation? Thanks for offering, I'll have more of that please. Oh, I do love a bit of extreme anal knife fucking", who must actively enjoy the Sadism of voting in a heartless Tory elite. I'm not going to say none of them knew what they were voting for, In fact I'm willing to be generous and say they all did. They've voted for more divisions in society, even larger levels of inequality, more scapegoating of the powerless, more tax breaks for millionaires, deeper cuts on the vulnerable, and given an endorsement to the government that gave us our first UN investigation into violations against our own people! Lovely stuff.

In the interest of fairness - a strange courtesy they'll never afford anyone else - I cannot solely blame the Tories and their voters, much of it must be accredited to our poor excuse of a workers party. The Labour party, who are continuously called left wing in some kind of weird joke aimed at true socialists/communists/anarchists, weren't really offering too much different. Both the Tories and Labour had plans to fuck the poor. Labour would have just given them a condescending cuddle after they were done slapping them about a little, rather than the Tory plan of wiping their genitals clean on the curtains, leaving a floater in their toilet, and wandering off to fuck the next person. Their ridiculous adherence to austerity politics and Tory neo-liberal economics is what alienated the true left from continuing their traditional voting plans. The voters Labour relied upon for support in many areas across the country to boost their numbers somewhat. The one's who would begrudgingly put an X next to the Labour candidate because they knew somewhere, deep among the party, there was at least a few decent people. Nowhere was this more evident than in Scotland, which as a nation deserted them in unprecedented numbers and practically wiped Labour off their political map. I am willing to bet was not all down to the pro-independence camp and that a huge proportion of them would have been anti-austerity voters.

It may well be gone forever if they do indeed listen to Alan Johnson and "celebrate our entrepreneurs and wealth creators and not leave the impression they are part of the problem". I fear a shift even further away from where they once belonged is beckoning, and whilst the party may retain its core voters who have it ingrained within them that they are Labour voters and will always vote that way, they will hemorrhage more and more of those who see past their moderate Toryism. As happened in this election.

Instead of voting for Labour and running off home to wash the taste out of their mouths, many in the true left looked for other parties, ones who still believed in reforming the morally bankrupt capitalist system, but had much more leftist credentials. A genuine working wage, plans to give greater voice to communities, a reduction in planetary exploitation for the benefit of profiteering, nuclear disarmament. I could go one for ages about how much more left, the slightly left were, than the phony left. Collectively, they were held up as 'radical' when compared to Labour, dangerously so by our right-wing press. The were anything but radical. In many ways they are simply what Labour used to be. Parties that could see beyond the benefit of the companies, their friends in the city, the interests of corporations. Unlike Labour they were prepared to do more than take small measures (albeit desperately needed ones) to placate the poor, whilst continuing to allow the poor be scapegoated and offering policies that worked against them as a fix for our nations economic ills.

So I will own my guilt for the Tories getting in to power for five years, unchallenged, to systematically make lives so, so, so much worse for every vulnerable person or family in the UK - thankfully at the very least excluding pensioners, they'll never hurt pensioners, they vote for them - because I can think of at least two groups far more guilty.

One last thing, I urge anyone who is reading this and wants a more inclusive, representative politics (to tide us over until the revolution at least) to sign up to this petition, let's make seats match the votes.