By Mossy Vimes, War Zones & Weird Smells
PRETORIA/BAMAKO — The exquisite choreography of Western humanitarian concern has reached peak performance art this week as international organizations express shocked bewilderment at the discovery that anti-immigrant vigilantes in South Africa are denying healthcare access to foreigners—apparently forgetting that this exact same humanitarian principle magically evaporates whenever white Europeans decide to militarize their own borders.[1]
Operation Dudula, a grassroots movement dedicated to “saving South Africa from foreign invasion,” has taken the revolutionary step of blockading hospitals to prevent immigrants from accessing constitutionally guaranteed healthcare—a tactic that would be condemned as crimes against humanity if practiced in Gaza or Haiti, but gets treated as legitimate political expression when performed by Black South Africans against other Africans.[1]
Meanwhile, in Mali, the delicious irony continues as French authorities express outrage over the detention of generals and a French citizen accused of plotting to destabilize the government—apparently convinced that Mali should welcome foreign intelligence operatives the same way France welcomes African refugees. The arrested French national, Yann Vezilier, allegedly worked with French intelligence to rally political opposition against President Assimi Goïta’s rule, though French media predictably frames this as persecution of innocent humanitarian workers.[2]
The magnificent hypocrisy burns particularly bright when considering that Western powers routinely fund opposition movements in countries they wish to control, yet express moral indignation when those same countries treat such activities as national security threats. If Malian intelligence officers were recruiting French dissidents to overthrow the Élysée Palace, one suspects the response would involve far more than polite detention.[2]
I can smell funding—and this week’s funding smells suspiciously like selective humanitarian concern that conveniently ignores identical abuses when committed by Western allies or when addressing them might threaten profitable resource extraction arrangements.
“Peace talks are just war with better snacks.”
—Mossy Vimes, The Clacks Leak
War Zones & Weird Smells
References:
- DW News Africa – Anti-immigrant vigilantes block hospital access – Deutsche Welle, August 16, 2025
- Mali Arrests Generals and French Citizen in Alleged Coup Plot – OkayAfrica, August 15, 2025
[1] https://archive.org/details/DW_20250816_183000_DW_News_Africa [2] https://www.okayafrica.com/today-in-africa-news-2025/ [3] [4] https://www.euronews.com/tag/african-politics [5] [6] https://www.cnn.com/world/africa [7] https://www.un.org/en/africa%E2%80%99s-push-hiv-independence-advances-first-procurement-locally-made-medicines [8] https://www.frontiermarkets.co/frontier-markets-news-august-16th-2025/ [9] https://www.bbc.com/news/world/africa [10] https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/ [11] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/african-politics/ [12] https://afro.com/sahel-women-girls-violence-africa/