Bits and Bites from Around the World > Camel Fights back when Bullied

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Enraged camel turns on taunting man, tramples him to death in shocking video

By Ben Cost

February 2, 2023 1:26pm  Updated

Footage captured the shocking moment an angry camel fatally trampled a man who punched it at a children’s camp in Russia.

“The animal did not appreciate such treatment,” local media reported regarding the deadly incident, which occurred last month at the Beryozka recreation centre in Omsk, Siberia, per East2West news.

The fiasco occurred after a watchman named Yury, 51, struck the dromedary while attempting to move it, causing it to become enraged and attack him, local media reported.

In the disturbing footage, the guard can be seen walking up to the double-humped Bactrian camel — which can weigh over 1,100 pounds — and yanking on its reins. However, the animal, named Vasya, refuses to budge, after which Yuri punches him in the face. He then tries to get the camel to move a second time, whereupon Vasya wheels around and grabs his assailant with his teeth, then flings him around like a ragdoll.

After getting mauled and trampled for a protracted period, the guard can be seen lying motionless in the now-blood-stained snow while the camel continues to prod at him.

The watchman, named Yuri, could be seen punching the camel in the clip.

The dromedary proceeded to maul and trample the watchman to death.

The camel could be seen tossing Yuri around like a ragdoll.

The clip concludes with a white car arriving at the grisly scene, prompting the critter to pause his assault.

However, by that point, the watchman had reportedly sustained trauma to his head and body. He was rushed to the hospital, but succumbed to his injuries shortly thereafter.

Prior to the attack, the animal had reportedly been described as peaceful and was often around children sans incident.

Some sources blamed the watchman for provoking the beast by punching him. “The man paid with his life after hitting the animal in the face,” local sources said, per E2W news.

Bactrian camels can weigh over 1,100 pounds.

The man was rushed to the hospital, but unfortunately succumbed to his injuries.

Nonetheless, authorities decided to put the camel down to prevent future attacks. Law enforcement is investigating whether the animal was held legally on camp property.

In a similar incident last March, two men were killed by a rampaging camel that escaped from a petting zoo in Tennessee.

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Angry S Africa Heading for Famine While Forgiving Zimbabwe Heading for Prosperity

Land expropriation failed miserably in Zimbabwe and the new government has wisely reversed courses

South Africa has learned no lessons from Zimbabwe's descent into poverty and seems determined to follow its course

‘Time for Reconciliation Over’: South Africa Votes to Confiscate White-Owned Land

A worker leaves after working at a farm in Eikenhof, South Africa © Siphiwe Sibeko / Reuters

The South African parliament voted on Tuesday in favor of a motion seeking to change the constitution to allow white-owned land expropriation without compensation.

The motion, which was brought by Julius Malema – the leader of the radical Marxist opposition party, the Economic Freedom Fighters – passed by a wide margin of 241 votes to 83 against. 

Several parties – the Democratic Alliance, Freedom Front Plus, Cope and the African Christian Democratic Party – did not support the motion. The matter has been referred to the parliament’s Constitutional Review Committee, which must report back by August 30.

“The time for reconciliation is over. Now is the time for justice,” Malema told the parliament. “We must ensure that we restore the dignity of our people without compensating the criminals who stole our land.”

South Africa has a population of over 50 million people. According to a 2017 government audit, white people own 72 percent of farmland.

Last week, South Africa’s new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, pledged to return the lands owned by white farmers since the 1600s to the black citizens of the country. He added that food production and security must be preserved.

The official opposition Democratic Alliance party (DA) has criticized the motion, saying it will undermine property rights and scare off potential investors.

The DA’s Thandeka Mbabama told the parliament that expropriation without compensation was a way to divert attention from the failure by successive ANC-led (African National Congress) governments.

“It is shocking that at the current rate it will take 35 years to finalize (land) restitution claims lodged before 1998,” said Mbabama, who is deputy shadow minister for rural development and land reform.

It’s been more than two decades since the end of apartheid in the 1990s, and the ruling ANC party is still trying to tackle racial disparities in land ownership in South Africa.

The president of farmers’ group the Transvaal Agricultural Union, Louis Meintjes, warned the country risks going down the same route as Zimbabwe, which plunged into famine after a government-sanctioned purge of white farmers in the 2000s.

“Where in the world has expropriation without compensation coupled to the waste of agricultural land, resulted in foreign confidence, economic growth and increased food production?” Meintjes said, as cited by Australia’s news.com.au.

“If Mr Ramaphosa is set on creating an untenable situation, he should actively create circumstances which will promote famine. His promise to expropriate land without compensation sows the seed for revolution. Expropriation without compensation is theft.”

White farmer gets land back under Zimbabwe's new leader

Farmer Darryn Smart and his family are welcomed back to their farm by workers and community members CREDIT:  FARAI MUTSAKA/AP

A white Zimbabwean farmer evicted by the government of Robert Mugabe has returned to a hero's welcome as the first to get his land back under the new president, in a sign of reform on an issue that had hastened the country's international isolation.

With a military escort, Robert Smart made his way into Lesbury farm about 124 miles east of the capital, Harare, on Thursday to cheers and song by dozens of workers and community members.

Such scenes were once unthinkable in a country where land ownership is an emotional issue with political and racial overtones.

"We have come to reclaim our farm," sang black women and men, rushing into the compound.

Two decades ago, their arrival would have meant that Smart and his family would have to leave. Ruling Zanu-PF party supporters, led by veterans of the 1970s war against white minority rule, evicted many of Zimbabwe's white farmers under an often violent land reform program led by Mugabe.

Farmers, Darryn, left and Robert Smart, right, are welcomed back to their farm 

CREDIT:  FARAI MUTSAKA/AP

Whites make up less than one per cent of the southern African country's population, but they owned huge tracts of land while blacks remained in largely unproductive areas.

The evictions were meant to address colonial land ownership imbalances skewed against blacks, Mugabe said. Some in the international community responded with outrage and sanctions.

Of the roughly 4,500 white farmers before the land reforms began in 2000, only a few hundred are left.

But Mugabe is gone, resigning last month after the military and ruling party turned against him amid fears that his wife was positioning herself to take power. New President Emmerson Mnangagwa, a longtime Mugabe ally but stung by his firing as vice president, has promised to undo some land reforms as he seeks to revive the once-prosperous economy.

Mr Smart is the first to have his farm returned. On Thursday, some war veterans and local traditional leaders joined farm workers and villagers in song to welcome his family home.

"Oh, Darryn," one woman cried, dashing to embrace Mr Smart's son.

In a flash, dozens followed her. Some ululated, and others waved triumphant fists in the air. "I am ecstatic. Words cannot describe the feeling," Darryn told The Associated Press.

Smart's return, facilitated by Mnangagwa's government, could mark a new turn in the politics of land ownership. During his inauguration last month, Mnangagwa described the land reform as "inevitable," calling land management key to economic recovery.

Months before an election scheduled for August 2018 at the latest, the new president is desperate to bring back foreign investors and resolve a severe currency shortage, mass unemployment and dramatic price increases.

Zimbabwe is mainly agricultural, with 80 percent of the population depending on it for their livelihoods, according to government figures.

Earlier this month, deputy finance minister Terrence Mukupe traveled to neighboring Zambia to engage former white Zimbabwean farmers who have settled there.

Brilliant Analysis of Muslim's Way of Thinking

Op-Ed: Why Arabs are so Easily Offended

The writer analyzes a culture that is diametrically opposed

to what we are taught

Ron Yager  Arutz Sheva
The writer, a 25-year veteran of the I.D.F., served as a field mental health...

“Call me Ishmael”, is the opening sentence that opens the novel “Moby Dick” authored by Herman Melville. Ishmael, who is telling the story of Moby Dick, recounts that he is sailing to sea out of a sense of alienation and cultural inadequacy.

Ishmael describes the behavior of Captain Ahab who is so relentless in his obsession to kill the great white whale, that he is willing to endanger the entire ship, all of his sailors, just to kill the great white whale.

The name Ishmael, the son of the Patriarch Abraham from the old Testament as well as the Koran symbolizes more than anything the sense of being rejected and being scorned my one’s peer’s and by one’s civilization.

Ever since the days of Napoleon's landing upon the shores of Egypt at the very end of the 18th Century and bringing with him the modern era to the Middle East, Islam has been unable to free itself from the shackles of inferiority and self-destructive primal rage that typifies the hatred of modern day Islamic radicalism against Western civilization.

In recent years, despite Israel being at the foci of much of what has been termed the "war of civilizations" between the Western world and Islam, Europe is undergoing a rapid demographic transition that will lead to a large Muslim population harboring an unchanging, hostile attitude toward their national communities.

Four main differences of Muslims

and how they interact with Western influences.

They concern anger, self-confidence, 

the so-called "locus of control" and identity.

Nicolai Sennels

Nicolai Sennels, a Danish psychologist who has had extensive experience with treating Muslim youths has identified four main differences that are important in order to understand the behavior of Muslims and how they interact with Western influences. Without dismissing the intrinsic value of multiculturalism or the need to identify with ones cultural roots Sennels has identified four main differences that are important in order to understand the behavior of Muslims. They concern anger, self-confidence, the so-called "locus of control" and identity.

Westerners are brought up to think of anger as a sign of weakness, powerlessness and lack of self-control.

In Muslim culture, anger is seen as a sign of strength. To Muslims, being aggressive is a way of gaining respect. When we see pictures of bearded men hopping up and down and shooting in the air, we should take it for what it is: these are the true role models of acceptable behavior.

In Western culture, self-confidence is connected with the ability to meet criticism calmly and to respond rationally. We are raised to see people who easily get angry when criticized, as insecure and immature.

In Muslim culture it is the opposite; it is honorable to respond aggressively and to engage in a physical fight in order to scare or force critics to withdraw, even if this results in a prison sentence or even death. They see non-aggressive responses to such threats and violence as a sign of a vulnerability that is to be exploited. They do not interpret a peaceful response as an invitation to enter into a dialogue, diplomacy, intellectual debate, compromise or peaceful coexistence but the opposite.

"Locus of control" is a term used in psychology, and relates to the way in which people feel that their lives are controlled. In Western culture, we are brought up to have an "inner locus of control," meaning that we see our own inner emotions, reactions, decisions and views as the main deciding factor in our lives. There may be outer circumstances that influence our situation, but in the end, it is our own perception of a situation and the way we handle it that decides our future and our state of mind. The "inner locus of control" leads to increased self-responsibility and motivates people to become able to solve their own problems.

Muslims are brought up to have an "outer locus of control." Their constant use of the term inshallah ("Allah willing") when talking about the future, as well as the fact that most aspects of their lives are decided by older traditions, clan tribal affiliations and authorities, leaves very little space for individual freedom. Independent initiatives are often severely punished. This shapes their way of thinking, and means that when things go wrong, it is always the fault of others or the situation.

Finally, identity plays a big role when it comes to psychological differences between Muslims and Westerners. Westerners are taught to be open and tolerant toward other cultures, races, religions, etc. This makes us less critical, impairs our ability to discriminate, and makes our societies open to the influence of other cultural trends and values that may not always be constructive.

Muslims, on the other hand, are taught again and again that they are superior, and that all others are so bad that Allah will throw them in hell when they die. Muslim culture's self-glorification achieves the opposite with their culture and identity.

In general, Westerners are taught to be kind,

self-assured, self-responsible and tolerant,

while Muslims are taught to be

aggressive, insecure and intolerant

The spreading and sprawling map of open Muslim violence against Americans and against America as the leader of the Western World in recent years was brought home with the assassination of America's Ambassador to Libya. All this despite President Obama's attempt to "reset" relations between the U.S. and the Muslim World and put Israel on "stand-by" mode.

In effect, American foreign policy towards the Middle East since Obama came to power has been characterized by a public relations practice called “public diplomacy" a nebulous term meant to hide the true intention: "soft power".

The cornerstone of this policy was the statement: “America is not at war with Islam.”

In June 2009, newly elected President Obama went to Egypt and made a pronouncement that raised false expectations in the Arab world: “I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear." This stunning pronouncement flies in the face of the First Amendment, and, by committing to protect the image of a specific religion and political philosophy, Obama gave the Muslim world the false impression that he could control media content in America — like dictators control the media in the Arab-Islamic countries.

Unfortunately Obama's natural inclination to go overboard with a destructive need to self- blame and take responsibility when it is wholly unwarranted has resulted in the opposite result. This mix of a Western tendency to being overly forgiving in response to Muslim self-pity and blame is the psychological crowbar that has opened the West to invite escalating Muslim violence against what we know in the West as "the other".

Newt Gingrich has stated that "the Islamists cannot reconcile with a secular system of laws. They cannot tolerate a West that maintains a presence in the Arabian Gulf or that would defend Israel's right to survive as a country. They cannot tolerate freedom of speech, freedom of religion, or freedom for women." In short, their demands are irreconcilable with the modern world. While trying to understand the volatility of millions of Middle Easterners taught from birth to hate America and to despise Israel, we in the West should be asking one basic question.

The real question to be asked is why we feel the need to pander and apologize to the most radical, violent and intolerant extremes around the world, to let them set the tone; a tone designed to stifle all criticism of Islam, to declare as blasphemy any attempt to reform radical Islam.

This more than anything else might explain why Arabs are so easily offended.