Knowing someting and seeing something is different.
I am reading the book "Marie and Blanche" by per Olov Enquist, about Marie Curie and her assistant Blanche. I only just started the book, which says Blance was a beautiful woman, but she ended her life with a body without legs, and without her left arm, which had become the victim of her devotion to research on radioactivity. The book also reports that during that time many cosmetics had been produced with nuclear substances, leading to the deaths of many hundreds of people - caused unknowingly.
It reminded me about the nuclear waste deposits in Somaliland which I heard about, both on the land and in the sea. Usually Somalis justify their profusive pirate attacks by these alleged nuclear deposits, or pesticide deposits. Actually, I am aware that the West is using African countries as a waste deposit, and especially countries without much governmental control like Somalia are especially palatable for these kinds of activities. I just found it a lousy excuse for piracy. I also cannot say I am impressed that pirates seem to create the most job opportunities, which are even announced in the newspapers, I am also not impressed that they even pay taxes from the profits they make, and I am also not impressed that they get the most beautiful women, because they are the richest men.
Then, one day I stepped into one office. The director had a beautiful colonial map about pastoral movements. He said, for three years during the civil war he stayed in a refugee camp in Ethiopia. They did not have any material, so they gave them old documents to wipe their mouths after eating. The colonial map was one of these documents for wiping their mouth, but he put it aside. I really was shocked, I said this map is very valuable. He said, he put other documents aside, of which he showed me some. One was an agreement between some British colonial officers to send ships with nuclear waste to Somaliland, which was signed in the sixties - knowingly. I almost fainted.
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