And winds up in prison:
MANUTE BOL SPENT HIS ENTIRE FORTUNE TRYING TO SAVE HIS PEOPLE FROM THE NORTHERN ARAB ISLAMIST INVASION - SPENT TIME IN SUDANESE PRISON ONLY TO ESCAPE BACK TO THE US AS A PENNILESS REFUGEE.
HBO Realsport's Frank Deford profiles Manute Bol and his tragic life after basketball.
Bol tells Deford that during his career he wanted to go back to Sudan and fight alongside his Dinka tribesman in Southern Sudan. Considered the tallest people in the world, Christian and black, according to the show lived peacefully in Southern Sudan - until Arab Muslims from the North invaded with an intention to take over and Islamize them.
Bol and his best friend went to over 39 Congressmen personally and met with the Pentagon in the 90's telling them that their people were being decimated by the Arab Muslims from the North and would disappear if the US did not help. He said they got nothing.
His friend said he told the US the greatest threat they would face in the future would be from Islamist Fundamentalism, at which most laughed.
Read the whole thing.
No one has listened to the plight of the Dinka for the last 20 years. Now everyone talks about Darfur, but no one condemned the slavery and massacres of the Dinka. Bol tried, Alek Wek tried, even Colin Powell tried. No one listened. Hardly at all. An interesting read: Francis Bok's book Escape From Slavery.
ReplyDeleteI don't follow pro sports, so all of this was news to me.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this!
Did you know that Manut Bol is responsible for the term "my bad" in the English vernacular?
ReplyDeleteInstead of saying "my fault" he used to say "my bad" and it caught on and entered suburbia.
Wow, benue, I had never put two and two together. Very sad.
ReplyDeleteEteraz, that's interesting trivia. You can see how that would happen. It must have been kind of charming to hear him say that.