i am continually entertained by this spam i get from alleged relatives of former african leaders trying to scam money off me. the entertaining part is not that they are asking, or posing as relatives of former deposed leaders, but that they are choosing only some of the nastiest former dictators of the continent. i have gotten appeals from alleged relatives of general abacha of nigeria, charles taylor of liberia, mubutu sese seko of zaire (congo), and idi amin of uganda. it's not like africa is brimming with good leaders, but why are they choosing so many famously awful people to give their appeal some semblance of credibility?
there are plenty of african leaders who i have never heard of, why don't they use them? and even among the ones i have heard of there are clearly better choices. jomo kenyatta had his human rights problems during his leadership of kenya, but now now is pretty universally respected and remembered as the leader of the independence struggle against britain and the founder of his country. and what about nelson mandela? he's almost too obvious. but then, he's still alive. maybe that's somehow a problem if you are in the pose-as-former-leader's-relatives-to-scam-money trade
i suspect that the reason so many terrible names are dropped in these appeals is because either (1) the author of the email wants to drop a name that the reader may have heard of, and generally only bad african leaders get any publicity, or (2) the authors themselves are not african and have not heard of any other african leaders themselves. either way, this is a sad reflection of the fact that the only way african leaders get any major press is when they do something really bad. and even then, there is no guarantee. i can't remember the names of any of the hutu leadership from the rwandan genocide. maybe it's because their children haven't gotten in on the spam racket yet.
in any case, its interesting because the authors of these emails are really toeing a fine line here--they want a name who the reader has heard of enough to give them credibility of a real former president/prime minister/emperor/whatever, but not heard of the individual enough to know just how little sympathy they deserve. maybe i should google up a few human rights link and send them as a reply to the next appeal i receive.
