I have been reading Roberto Saviano's
brilliant book, Gomorrah, about
the brutal mafia clans in an around Naples, Italy, and I haven't been
able to stop myself from taking down copious notes. Here's an excerpt
about why the author thinks the AK-47 is the absolute icon of free
enterprise and its price a measure of human rights violations:
“Nothing
in the world – organic or synthetic, metal or chemical – has
produced more deaths than the AK-47. It has killed more than the atom
bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, more than HIV, more than the
bubonic plague, more than malaria, more than all the attacks by
Islamic fundamentalists, more than the total of all the earthquakes
that have shaken the globe... AK-47s have been used by armies in
conflicts in more than fifty countries over the last thirty years...
It has been the prop for every role: liberator, oppressor, soldier,
terrorist, robber and the special forces who guard presidents.
Kalashnikov's highly efficient weapon has evolved over the years:
eighteen variants and twenty-two new models, all from the original
design. It is the true symbol of free enterprise. The absolute
icon..."
“To
calculate the state of human rights, the analysts consider the price
of an AK-47. The less it costs, the more human rights violations
there are, an indication that civil rights are gangrening and the
social structure is falling to pieces. In western Africa, an AK-47
can cost as little as $50. And in Yemen, it is possible to find
second- or thirdhand weapons for as low as six dollars..."
“The
arms question is kept in the bounds of the economy, sealed in the
pancreas of silence.”
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