There is nothing that media in general loves more than a catchy, snappy title to an event. Thus, their calling the dissolution of Côte d'Ivoire's government, "The Valentine's Crisis" looked to be the defining term for the event, at least in the local media. Naturally, this was flawed from the start given that the announcement was made on February 12th and due to that being a Friday, there was assuredly going to be no resolution until at least Monday, the 15th. Still, they ever-so-badly wanted the Valentine's moniker to stick.
It may yet well stay, but it will depend on a great many things; namely a resolution to the current crisis at some time in the foreseeable future, which seems rather unlikely. Things are heating up and protests are growing around the country. I've found that the media blows these a bit out of proportion, but still, the fact is that to date, eight people have been killed in three different cities due to the police using live ammunition on the crowds when the go-to tear gas wouldn't disperse them as it did where I am in Abengourou last week.
The more alarming aspect in all of this is that the government's approach to the situation could be transposed on just about any time over the last 50 years. Violent repression of assembled crowds. Making state television avoid the issues. Suppression of outside voices. Repression of opposition newspapers. This is old stuff and it belies the fact that you're dealing with an old regime that has yet to really wake up to how Ivorians get their information. In doing what they're doing, they are only making people more angry and are not controlling the message. To do that, they would have to shut down the internet, television, and mobile networks. In doing that, they would make a great many enemies with those who matter most: foreign companies with deep pockets.
One of the prime sources of information through all of this has been Facebook. I didn't learn about the France24 blockage through their site, but actually through an update of a Ivorian friend on the site. Twitter is useful, but only insofar as the amount of users on it and this has been greatly stunted by the fact that if you are trying to SMS the system with a +225 number, you aren't allowed. I made a request to change this, but as you can see, I don't have much sway on that company.
Blogs are in a different state. I really wish that Ivoire Blog would pull together some kind of coverage section in regards to these events, but it has not yet come to pass. They have more Ivorian bloggers than anywhere else, so it would seem that they would be a good, direct source of information. Otherwise, I have seen few reactions to the state of affairs. I'm not sure if this isn't because there is a lack of political commentators in blogs (which are in much greater supply in other countries, African or not) or just because people don't really want to comment on it just yet due to their being no absolutes in the process and it being an ongoing issue with no solution in sight.
Whatever the case, this has been a sudden change of events in what has been a very long, ongoing process. To dub it a Valentine's anything is ridiculous. Like other crises that arise, there is no simplification of the process and it very well could end up taking the rest of the year for this to sort out.
There is much (or perhaps little) that can be said about US Secretary of State Clinton's visit to Congo DRC this week. For starters, I'm guessing that the US government heard about the 9/11 attacks in 2003 since there appears to be a two year delay on fresh information. Either that or reporters are hashing together the same "blah blah blah rape. blah blah blah tool of war" that they've been saying for the last god knows how many years. And this does not shed light on the situation. Anyone who actually cares knows about it. How about someone such as... I don't know, a US Secretary of State actually do something about the problem there, like working to shore up a broken government and stop the cause of the rape problem. Eve Ensler's "rape is an epidemic" line does nothing to solve the core of the problem although it does keep her employed.
Okay, sorry, that was my counter-diatribe. I'm rather tired of the situation and those who constantly "shed light" on it as opposed to letting the Congolese speak for themselves. But what I'm not tired of is the fact that under the Obama administration, the embrace of new technologies is wide open. Case in point, the Embassy in Kinshasa has a Twitter which was apparently spurred by Clinton's visit. I assume that it's legitimate, but it definitely comes as a shock given that I've seen the inside of that extremely fortified building and it really doesn't seem like the kind of group that would hop on Twitter. Of course, with a new president probably came a new way of thinking. It will be interesting to see how this evolves.
News has come down that WHO is backing a rotavirus vaccine to be given as a regular vaccination to children. This is good news. A great many people die from this virus each year; apparently 85% of the half a million being in Africa and Asia.
Obviously, I'm in favor of such a vaccine. I just happen to be repulsed by the fact that on BBC News, they feature the article not only in their Health section (where it rightly belongs as it's a worldwide problem), but also in the Africa section and just the Africa section. Why? Why is it always Africa? And why when it is always Africa there has to be the requisite picture of poor African children to go along with the article. I assume that there must be endless libraries of these shots and they cost next to nothing to use.
At least if this had been in the Asia section as well, it would have been a bit less offensive. But as it is, having it be only Africa, it does nothing but perpetuate the stereotypes of Africa being the continent that is swimming in disease. I mean, the article even states that there are 130,000 cases in the UK each year. That's not a meaningless figure. That means that this problem is definitely an issue in the UK (as well as probably the rest of Europe and the US), but still it's Africa that is seen as the hot spot of disease. Big media needs to take note of what they're doing and try and get back in to just telling the facts in a balanced manner. Of course, my hopes in this are slim. Long live the blog.
As you can see in the screen capture of a twit below, even Israelis are getting tired of the lopsided coverage of the ongoing, never ending, ridiculous Israel-Palestine conflict that we've had with us for over a half century now. As always, this latest bout has been a massive loss of life and a horrid continuation of a war that just won't stop that ends up killing countless civilians in its wake. But, these things happen everywhere in the world. Why is it that when say, the Rwanda Genocide was happening, we heard nearly nothing about it in the us?
I find it amazing that a local paper I read a great deal like the SF Chronicle goes along with local coverage of news and events. The occasional US national item will pop in there and then BAM, 200 killed in Gaza Strip offensive. Yet, there is no coverage about the peaceful elections taking place today in Ghana or in any events happening in the rest of Africa unless of course it's massive atrocity in the Congo.
It's just the epitome of the lazy journalist and one of the reason that print media is dying. No one goes out and finds the stories anymore. Sure, they find out about what's happening in Israel, but that's their "go-to" foreign location. Anywhere else is largely ignored because trying to get there, digging in, and writing a proper story is too taxing and these days, too expensive despite the irony that flights cost a lot less than they did 20 years ago.
Yeah, I'll admit that getting in to the Kivus of Eastern Congo isn't the easiest place to get to, but Accra? Please... These aren't cut off locations in the middle of nowhere. They're large cities with regular flights and for the most part a great many have solid infrastructure that even the biggest loser newsman should be able to get around on.
Of course, as I'm reading "Chief of Station Congo: Fighting the Cold War in a Hot Zone" by Larry Devlin right now, I'm realizing that the US didn't give a fat rip about Africa until about 1960 or so. This naturally gave the whole shebang in Israel a nice, decade plus to be in the news more before Africa was even realized to exist.
Being that I am neither metrosexual nor gay, I read Men's Journal about as often as I get my nails done; ie never. But, apparently in an attempt to get "edgy", in this month's issue, there between Ask Dr. Bob and an article on T. Boone Pickens on Page 60 is an Emile Hirsch's account of traveling to Congo on the protected wings of Oxfam.
Obviously, this is another case of "Celebrity Goes To Africa to Raise Awareness and/or Save African Babies". I don't like these cases. They're a flash in the pan and then they're gone. People forget about what whomever it was, was talking about when they did that thing that was... you know, somewhere over there.
But to just blindly say that Hirsch is an ass would be arrogant and childish. In his account, he is very honest about what he saw, what he knew going in, and what he got coming out. He was only there for five days, but he saw a lot. Of course, given such a short amount of time and such vast ground that he was covering around the Kivus, one could say that it was all pointless. But, what good does that do? Sure, it doesn't really help anyone and I don't really support celebrities doing this, but on some level he is trying do something, although like Ben Afflecks out there, the energy is largely misdirected. For better or worse, I can say that I've read the whole article and here are a few of the things that stuck out.
And I'm reading these pages and thinking about the $600 in 20s and 50s I was told to carry for "security reasons"...
Someone really told him wrong on this front. First of all, it's a cash economy and one that runs on external cash (dollars or euros) at that. Your day to day needs are going to have to be met solely with the cash that you bring in. $600 would probably be more than enough to cover his five days there given that his stay was taken care of by Oxfam. But the "security reasons" part was laughable. First, there was no way anything was going to happen to Hirsch and secondly, if it did, $600 was going to do little to make things better.
As we wait on the runway, Lyndsay points to a demolished plane nearby. Two months ago it crashed as it tried to take off, catching fire and killing 21 people. Gulp.
Why "gulp"? That was a pathetic sub-contractor airline of the slightly less, yet still completely, abysmal Hewa Bora airline. Again, there was no way Oxfam was going to toss Hirsch on anything close to resembling a Hewa Bora flight. Also, that flight crashed in the market nearby (which was the reason for all the ground casualties.) Maybe that was another plane they were referring to as it would seem it wouldn't be where the girl thought it was?
I can't believe it, but he's wearing a Marilyn Manson T-shirt.
Apparently no one filled him on on the whole t-shirt thing in Africa. Might have been a nice thing for him to know as he could have brought extra clothes to give someone to sell at the local market.
For a boy such as Prince, the support from NGO's represent a chance to take his destiny into his own hands. And for a rape victim such as Kimanizani, donations to Oxfam go toward her medical costs and food and give her a chance to rejoin the world.
I was sorta okay with Hirsch's whole account up to this point. This chunk makes me cringe as it feels like it was written by the marketing people at Oxfam. It cheapens the whole account by him as it makes it suddenly one big sales pitch for throwing more money in to the NGO's that in all truth really aren't making much progress. They're just bandaid solutions to the much bigger issue that the government of Congo and all those in MONUC actually need to actively work for change, which they aren't. Throwing money at Oxfam is not the answer, although I'm sure that readers of this article will see it that way.
The real solution is to educate yourself and not listen to some actor who is being used as a pawn. If you actually know what is going on in Africa (and know much more than Hirsch, whose soundbite history lesson left out France's involvement in the start of the Rwandan Genocide as well as other crucial facts) you are going to understand a lot better what needs to be done. Informed people can actually do something. Otherwise you're just a very obedient sheep foolishly giving your wool to an all too eager recipient who just waits for your next wool to grow in.
On November 21 at 21:00, Radio Okapi journalist Didace Namujimbo was shot and killed in Bukavu, Congo DRC. It's not only a tragic affront to freedom of the press (DRC is in the lower 15% of the world) but sad to me as I had met Didace on my trip to DRC this year. I can't speak French, so our conversation was quite brief, but he was one of those people who exuded a warmth from him. He was also a father and sadly whomever shot him leaves behind a wife and three children.
Of course, I could on about this. I could eulogize and wax about how sad this is. I'm not going to though because the real crime in all of this is the complete lack of balance in media when it comes to DRC and Sub-Saharan Africa at large. Yes, Reuters picked the story and of course MONUC has an article, but there is nothing on BBC or CNN about it. While this may change once the reporters wake up after the weekend, it currently sits that all they're talking about is the conflict up in North Kivu. And it's not like that conflict is raging. There is currently a ceasefire, so Didace was killed on what is in reality a slow news day.
Anyone reading this is more than likely aware of the fact that news coverage in Africa is quite poor, but what irks me beyond everything else is that this is just viewed as "normal". What do you expect, they're savages there, right? Wrong. Bukavu is not Goma. It is not a violent area. It's calm, beautiful, and about as normal as any town can be. This assassination has just come up from nowhere, much as the previous one a year ago. But again, in Western eyes, this is normal.
Congolese have every right to be affronted by such an assumption. If they keep up with European media, they too could assume that Europe is a violent place full of "savages". I bring to light, Ivo Pukanić who I wrote about here and here. He was a journalist killed by a car bomb last month in Croatia. No matter how you want to argue it, these two murders are exactly the same. Ivo and Didace were both journalist, both killed by others trying to silence them, and more importantly both human beings. Yet, for Ivo there was news coverage all over Europe as well as in the US because it was viewed as "shocking". For Didace, nothing. A couple of minor blips on some blogs here and there. Just a normal day in the Heart of Darkness. Is it time for another trip to Panzi?
We have to stop viewing Africa as a less-than continent where killing is expected given the circumstances. We have to understand that foreign journalists are not serving the citizens of Africa. They are serving Western media conglomerates who work to glorify the violence and not tell the stories. Lastly, we have to understand that we are directly responsible for all of this. There are great swaths of minerals in central Africa that everyone wants to control and profit from. This want causes conflict which then causes a good person like Didace Namujimbo who was just doing his job to be killed all in the name of our being able to buy the next iPhone.
It appears that once done with their weekending, the BBC has gotten around to a scant two sentence mention of Didace.
Ben Affleck is in Congo again. He was already there a few months ago and ended up creating a short piece that was aired on American primetime television. Affleck is definitely one of the least annoying celebrities to hit Africa this year, especially when compared to that jaunty Rankin fellow as he keeps going back. But even still, what is he doing there? He claims to be trying to draw attention to the region; a region that if anything, is not lacking for attention, as opposed to clean drinking water which they could use just a dash more of. So what is it? Simply put, Affleck is obviously embarking on Celebrity Humanitarian Fashion Education.
While not the best acronym, CHFE is incredibly crucial to all celebrities that want to journey to a crisis-stricken region and have it be known that they do indeed care as you can see in the way they dress that they're ready for anything. It is critical not to make a fashion faux pas like she did. Those sunglasses may block the equatorial sun that is indeed strong (I got knocked down for three days with sunstroke after being an idiot) but they're just too fancy and out of touch. They're not a classic Ray Ban or other "rugged" travel sunglasses. No, Affleck is on to something here and he's going to get a lot of recognition for it. All the Paris Hiltons will never be caught offguard again and for that, the celebrity world will be ever so thankful. The actual people living in Africa? Well, there is so much hope and they're such survivors, that they'll probably just manage.
For those unfamiliar with her work, Lisa F. Jackson's "The Greatest Rape in the Congo. Silence. Their stories need to be heard." is going to be playing next week in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina. Some people might be looking at the title for the film below and wondering if this is a film praising rape. It's not of course, but it just reads the way I wrote it when you look at it. I'm not the first person to point this out though, thanks, WR.
This is a documentary that in theory delves in to the lives of women who have been raped by soldiers in the long slew of wars that have plagued the eastern region of DR Congo. The only problem with the film is that Jackson ultimately casts herself as a protagonist in the film, in front of the camera instead of allowing the subjects of the film to tell their own story.
Obviously, this is ridiculous. She's a Westerner and an American from New York who stayed in the best hotels of area. Despite this, her film constantly gets screen time because it is one of the few films about the region, although not the only one. Lumo is another which I highly recommend to view instead of sitting through not only Jackson's film, but listening to her talk about how little the UN is doing despite the fact her film was made possible through UN transportation, UN security, UN friends that were high up, and UN National staff who worked as her translators and guides. Hypocritical doesn't even start to describe it.
The real problem that I have with her and her film is that she is doing nothing but sensationalizing an area that needs to be humanized. Jackson gets endless, endless mileage out of showing this film and making a name for herself, but what do the Congolese women get out of it? Nothing. I've been to Panzi Hospital, which she features in her film. They're sick of all the coverage and all these media vultures that come in, do a reportage and then leave without causing any kind of change. They want some kind of action and they rightly want it now.
So, if you are a Westerner, one may ask, how can you help and make some positive energy in all of this? Stop watching sensationalist films, that's how. Nodding along to what they say doesn't help anyone. Search out the better made, more intelligent films that will inevitably be by non-Americans (Darwin's Nightmare is quite good) and as always, take a trip to Sub-Saharan Africa to learn that you don't need to be scared of the continent. They are people there, not freakin' savages despite how many Heart of Darkness references people use. No, you don't need to go to conflict areas to see the "real" Africa, but at the same time, Cape Town doesn't count.
The always insightful giraffe wrote about a talk given by Ory Okolloh awhile back at TED Africa. The talk was interesting as she brought up the very important issue of perception. She was pointing out that because we in the West have a view of Africa as being the horrid, asshole of the world (that's from Apocalypse Now, not her) type of place that it ultimately fulfills this idea. Watch the video and you'll see her explain it better than I can summarize because she shows that it is very easy to view the West in just as bad a light as it is Africa.
Curious to expand on this, I took a look at BBC News yesterday as Monday is typically a big news days. I did a screen capture of BBC News - Americas and BBC News - Africa. Now, I happen to like BBC News a great deal as they and Reuters are some of the few large news outlets that really cover Africa with any depth. With that in mind, take a look at the headlines. I did a rough calculation. On the Americas page, about 81% of the articles were good news as compared to 19% bad news. For Africa, it was 80% bad news to 20% good. See a slight issue there?
This portrayal of Africa is unfair. Yes, a lot of bad things happen there like Malaria and the LRA, but there are good things happening there as well, except that you just don't hear about them as there is seemingly no outlet. It really is easier to report about the bad things and when you report about the bad, it's easier to sell things, which in this case is the constant need for aid to poor, poor Africa. I'm not saying that African countries don't need aid, but they don't need it as it currently is packaged as this system has shown to do very little in the decades since Colonial Rule was ousted in the continent.
Big Media really has little vested interest in showing a different side to Africa. Aid groups also have little interest because despite their altruism, if things don't look bad, the donations don't come in and admittedly some aid groups are far, far worse with this than others. This is one of the reasons why we've been working to create Maneno.
It's not a lie that DR Congo is a fashionable tragedy story as of late. Celebrities and others have latched on to it as a way to get their name out as doing good in the world by bringing light to the issues there. Well, add to that list one Ben Affleck whose reportage appeared on ABC last month.
In all fairness, Ben's work is pretty good when taken from the perspective that an American was responsible for it. If you want to judge for yourself before reading more, you can watch Part 1 and Part 2.
Finished watching? Okay, good because I wanted to say that there is something of an honesty to this piece that he spearheaded. You get the feeling that he is a person with the means to do pretty much whatever he wants and he was curious about DR Congo, so he went there to actually try to understand, which is something most people don't do. He covers the country (mostly the east) from the viewpoint of what he sees. He even tries to put a positive message at the end by saying that there is hope, which of course there is, because there is always hope.
That being said, this report says nothing new. Much like the flood of redundant coverage of Panzi Hospital, Affleck is treading on a path worn deeply by those who have come before him. Maybe this reaches out to Americans somehow as Ben is a big name and he might appeal to the everyday person more than someone from academic or NGO circles. But the one really big point in all of this and why it is so unabashedly American is that the subjects of the video are not allowed to speak in their own voices. Ben becomes a mouthpiece for them, guiding we the viewers. Much like Lisa F. Jackson, no matter what good intentions he may have had when starting the project it comes across as Ben Affleck wanting to show what Ben Affleck can do and what place Ben Affleck went to. At one point, he even seems to me to come across as falling prey to the, "I'm here to save African babies!" syndrome that many who visit the region do.
I do respect what Ben is trying to do, but it's a shame that some of these things happened. I don't know if he watched work like Lumo or Darwin's Nightmare before going, but there is a lot to be learned from films like these. They allow the narration and story to happen from the subjects of the film and thus, it's much more engrossing and powerful work.
There are other little bits that I didn't like in how this story was presented, but they are quite subjective, so I won't get in to them unless people feel like commenting. I just really wish that people could get Bernard Kalume's job title correct though. Bernard is the fellow helping Ben with translations out in the bush. He is not a "contractor with the UN". He is a fulltime employee with the UN who friends of mine know well and I would have met had he still been in Bukavu and not up in Goma. I'm told that he's a great and extremely capable guy who speaks English, French, Swahili, and Kinyar Rwanda. In short, he's very smart and does his job well. Yet, he never gets credited as being a fulltime employee. The only reason that this must be the case is because it would paint the UN in a light that was less than negative and we just couldn't have that now, could we?
