May
7
2008
Greetings from Ethiopia
Jan
4
2008
Kenya: “Save Our Beloved Country”
This photo is from Mental Acrobatics. I don’t know if the media is still operating under a blackout, but at least they’re working together now to articulate what must be every Kenyan’s collective wish: “Save Our Beloved Country.” Read an amazing piece of citizen journalism from Mental Acrobatics, who braved the empty, boarded up streets to document the planned rally by Odinga supporters in Nairobi yesterday.
Jul
30
2007
Notes on Rwanda, Democracy & Authoritarianism
A few weeks ago, I wrote a very optimistic post about Rwanda for the Guardian’s Comment is Free. A very many people accused me of being a propagandist mouthpiece for Kagame, although I wasn’t sure how much weight to give certain comments once the conversation descended into a debate about whether there was ever a genocide in Rwanda.
But then I received an email I could not ignore. It was written by an aid worker who has been living in Rwanda for 3 years and who undoubtedly has a much deeper understanding of the country than I possibly can. She found my depiction of the situation there “appalling.”
Jul
25
2007
hope
A reader recently asked for some hope. Shot by my friend Robbie, with my camera. One possible alternative to this.
Jul
18
2007
A new campaign to “Save Africa”…with blackface!
I ended up writing a post titled “Saving Africa in blackface” for the Guardian’s group blog, Comment is Free. Here are some of my thoughts:
“I am waiting for my last day in school; the children in Africa are waiting for their first one,” reads the slogan hovering alongside a young German girl who’s just cute as a button. It would be just another run-of-the-mill solidarity campaign, were it not for the puzzling fact that her face, stretched into a farcical grin, is covered in mud. Let’s save Africa. In blackface.
I was a bit appalled, but laughed in spite of myself. I can appreciate satire. Lord knows after Kate Moss’s Nubian makeover and Gwyneth Paltrow gone native – OK, more Cherokee Indian than Chewa, actually, but why get lost in the details? – the debate over celebrity advocacy for Africa could use some.
But an email exchange with UNICEF headquarters in New York revealed that this children’s minstrel show was not, as I had hoped, the latest in a long tradition of internet hoaxes trafficking in bad taste. It was an actual ad campaign to promote an actual plan to give African children an education: UNICEF Germany’s “Schools for Africa” initiative. All I could do was shake my head.
Nov
23
2006
China’s New Scramble for Africa
The Chinese are looking at Africa as a business opportunity, not a charity case. America should pay attention.
By Jennifer Brea
In 2004, just three years after a peace accord ended Sierra Leone’s decade of nightmares, I was walking along Freetown’s Lumley Beach toward the Bintumani Hotel. War and neglect had destroyed everything: Freetown, the capital, had no reliable power grid and only a handful of paved roads. Its already struggling population was swelling with those displaced by the fighting. It was a tropical destination whose only visitors were foreign relief workers. And yet, standing there in front of me was a luxury hotel, glowing with the light of its own generators.
Inside, I found a lobby serviced by a Chinese-only staff, decorated with large red lanterns, and completely rebuilt from floor to ceiling with Chinese materials and technology. The hotel was deserted. They could not have been turning a profit. Were they crazy to be here?
“Chinese believe high risk can bring high benefit,” the hotel’s manager, Yang Zhao, would say in later interviews.
And Chernor Jalloh, Sierra Leone’s Tourism Minister, would say, “The early bird catches the worm.”
