Hotel Rwanda: An epic fallacy with enduring effects.
A few days ago I was running late for a meeting so I hastily parked my vehicle in a faculty reserved parking spot. I returned an hour later in time to find a parking enforcement officer writing me violation ticket. I approached the straight faced man with a beaming smile, hoping he could let me off the hook. As I started to explain myself, he noticed my foreign accent and asked where I was from. ‘Rwanda’, I answered.
‘You mean like in the movie Hotel Rwanda?’ he asked, a typical question Rwandan diasporas get on an almost daily basis.
‘Yes, that is my country,’ I shot back. At this point he quickly crossed out the ticket he was writing and apologized for wasting my time.
‘You have been through enough already. I will not cause you any more problems,’ he said as he drove off leaving me stunned but nevertheless elated.
In the west, Hotel Rwanda has become the first and in some cases the only point of interaction between Rwanda’s ten million people and the vast majority of the hundreds of millions around the world. Sadly, the very inspiration that foments the creation of this film is based on fallacies, inaccuracies and outright fabrications.
In 1993, Steven Spielberg directed probably the most critically acclaimed film on the subject of genocide based on the story of a German businessman, Oskar Schindler, who saved the lives of more than a thousand refugees during the Holocaust.
The similarities between Hotel Rwanda and Schindler’s List are obvious as Paul Rusesabagina, the hero of Hotel Rwanda is portrayed as a Schindler like businessman who saves lives in a nearly identical chapter of history. This, among many other erroneous insinuations, epitomizes a barren filmmaking that rushes to loosely base the ideal story line of one successful film to inspire the creation of another. This would be otherwise perfectly acceptable if the film did not lay claim to being a true story.
Not only does Hotel Rwanda fall short in terms fact checking, it also lags far behind in terms of quality when compared to its ‘original’. And yet, despite all this, I can’t help but be thankful that this film saved me from paying a hefty parking fine – this being a cheerful barometer of the more significant consequences of this film.
Looked at in the bigger picture, the world did not pay enough attention to trigger any action when scenes of the actual Rwandan genocide were broadcast on live television and yet audiences worldwide have so far paid over thirty million dollars to watch this film.
Hotel Rwanda is to date the most publicized piece of Rwanda’s documented history worldwide. If it wasn’t for this film, hundreds of millions Americans, Asians and Europeans would never know who or what Rwanda is.
The most important lesson from this therefore lies is in understanding how we as individuals and collectively as Rwandans are perceived wherever we go around the world. We live in a global village that has cowered to the cult of celebrity and succumbed to the influence of media supremacy. Sadly this arsenal is powerful enough to compromise and alter Rwanda’s globally accepted history by sheer volume. Hate it or love it, the world sees Rwanda through the myopic lens of Hotel Rwanda.
It is nearly impossible to argue out or challenge individual facts of this film because regardless of the platform one uses, changing the global impact of a medium that was viewed by hundreds of million people is a mammoth task. Especially given the emotional strength of the film and it’s good jumble of fact and fiction—touching enough to be believable, yet phony enough to be laughable.
In the short term the best Rwandans can do is to try to harmonize their identity with this film by identifying and accepting its points of accuracy. In the long-term Rwanda should increase its interaction with Hollywood with an aim to instigate a historically accurate blockbuster film that will overshadow the current impact of Hotel Rwanda.
I drive off the scene with mixed emotions — relieved that I will not be paying a hefty parking fine and guilty that I am a beneficiary of a filmmaker’s profit motivated scheme to milk the sympathy of whoever cares to watch this film.
Popularity: 61% [?]
Why it is hard to accept a successful Rwanda
Foreign media coverage on Africa is defined by crisis. For two decades, Rwanda has made the pages of global newsprint for both positive and negative reasons, yet on the onset the country’s weaknesses always seem outshine its achievements. Positive and negative stories alike are given the same treatment that capitalizes on a predetermined dramatic editorial tone.
For over thirty years, Rwanda has been referred to as a war torn country even when the war ended sixteen years ago. In 2005 Ben Richardson of the BBC authored a very positive story on Rwanda’s coffee sector yet he dramatically titled it, ‘Coffee buzz lifts wartorn Rwanda’. Nowhere in this story does the reporter discuss a war in Rwanda — and indeed there was no war going on anywhere in the country at the time.
The second tired cliché that is commonly used in reference to Rwanda is, ‘the tiny central African country’. Not a single foreign media entity that has ever covered Rwanda can deny using this tired phrase.
The Telegraph’s Boris Bachorz last year wrote, ‘This tiny central African country, still struggling to recover from a genocide that left more than 800,000 people dead…’
The New York Times’ Mark Lacey in 2005 wrote, ‘…a killing frenzy left this tiny Central Africa country in ruins…’
The VOA’s report on the issuing of an arrest warrant for Mrs. Habyarimana in March 2010 said ‘the move was aimed at improving France’s battered ties with the tiny central African nation.’
I could go on all day.
The undertone of describing Rwanda in this is manner is reminiscent of the disdainful reporting on Africa that goes on everyday in foreign media. Are these the most fundamental descriptions that are appropriate and deserving of Rwanda?
Let’s look at each of them one at a time:
War torn - There is no war currently going on that is tearing the country apart.
Tiny - It is a truism that Rwanda is of small geographic dimensions however; it is not the only truth there is about Rwanda. We all have short friends; do we refer to them as vertically challenged in our daily speech? If we did, what impact would this have? The Vatican, Singapore and Cyprus are all smaller than Rwanda, yet no one ever refers to them as tiny.
Central African country - This too is a truism but when used collectively with the other two exhibits more complex undercurrents.
In Factors influencing the flow of news, Einar Ostgaard reveals that western media treat their culture, history and body politic as superior to that of developing nations.
Ebo L. B also explains that Africa is often perceived as a “crocodile-infested dark continent where jungle life has perpetually eluded civilization’, in his publication on the Ethical Dilemmas of African journalists. Branding Rwanda as located in Central Africa therefore does not aim at educating the audience of the country’s location but to enable it to place Rwanda as the center-point of the darkness and extremes that define the continent.
In 1999, George Alagiah, a BBC African correspondent admitted this failure of foreign journalists to fairly and accurately cover Africa, “My job is to give a fuller picture. But I have a gnawing regret that, as a foreign correspondent, I have done Africa a disservice, too often showing the continent at its worst and too rarely showing it in full flower. There is an awful lot of historical baggage to cut through when reporting Africa: the 20th century view of the continent is, even now, infected with the prevailing wisdom of the 19th century”.
A decade later, not much has changed. Africa is still portrayed as an immature continent, barely crawling out of the Stone Age and Rwanda is inconveniently placed in its center.
Popularity: 23% [?]
What if you had a few more hours to live?
A few days ago I was presented with an interesting question by one of my mentors. She asked me, “What would you write if you knew you had only a few days, maybe even hours of life left, just long enough to sum up what is most important to you about life? What would you write?”
After sleeping on it, I put down my thoughts and wish to share them with you. As you read, I invite you to reflect upon the same question; If you had a few more hours to live what would be your own last message to the world?
In my view, success can be defined as the measure of human legacy. All knowledge and achievement that can be marshaled in a lifetime is not of much significance if it does not educate or empower at least one fellow human being for the better.
If I had a few more hours to live, my final words would be summed up in a message about the importance of an immortal human legacy: mankind’s ability to leave behind, that which is greater than him.
I will illustrate why I hold this topic dear with two short stories that have inspired me: Stories that touched my heart and will hopefully continue to define my standpoints.
In 1722, a series of letters appeared in the New-England Courant written by a hitherto unknown middle-aged widow named Silence Dogood. She discussed various aspects of colonial life in America by criticizing societal ills like drunkenness, religious hypocrisy and sexism.
She wrote that she had been widowed after her husband, a minister, who had died leaving her with three children. She also demurely revealed that she could be easily persuaded to marry again.
She served as a consistent social commentator and her letters are today remembered as a mirror through which society saw itself in earnest.
Regrettably for her many admirers, Silence Dogood did not exist. She was a character and a pseudonym, for a sixteen year old boy who worked as an apprentice at his older brother’s printer in Boston.
This young boy would later become one of the founding fathers of the United States, the scientist, inventor, soldier and diplomat who formed the first public library and fire department in America. Silence Dogood was Benjamin Franklin.
To some this story may not mean much, but to me, Silence Dogood stands for values deeply respected. Through her name and actions, ‘Silence’ actually ‘Did good’. She revealed the selfless nature and relentless imagination that foments the immortal legacy of Benjamin Franklin.
My second short story is about a young man in his mid twenties who chose to start a career as an artist in the late 19th century. This man had little money, ate poorly and spent everything he had on materials.
In February 1886, he wrote to his brother saying that he could only remember eating six hot meals since May of the previous year.
His teeth became loose and caused him much pain as he suffered from anxiety and frequent bouts of mental illness. Nevertheless, he produced more than 2,000 pieces of artwork. He later died as a sad and impoverished man from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the tender age of 37.
98 years after his death, his painting ”Irises” sold for $53.9 million at Sotheby’s in New York, making it the highest price ever paid for an artwork at an auction at the time. The man was Vincent Van Gogh.
One may argue that there have been far too many great artists and politicians and, therefore, there is no specific reason why these two personalities would be part of one’s last message to the world. Silence Dogood and Vincent Van Gogh never got to taste greatness in their lives.
While Silence chose to avoid the limelight that came with greatness, Vincent never achieved the wealth or fame that he so desired. And yet the works of these two ordinary human beings changed the world and the way we see it, albeit posthumously for Vincent.
For this reason, I believe that we all have it in us to think bigger than the present day, to create that which will outlive our stay and to make an impact that will not be measured by today’s power, fortune and fame.
If I had a few more hours to live, it would be sad because I have not had enough time to build this kind of lasting legacy.
This is why I would choose this as my final topic in the hope to inspire the reader to build their own legacy, to think big, be virtuous and work relentlessly at whatever they are good at. This note, in essence, would be my legacy.
What would say if you had a few more hours to live? Share your thoughts by posting a comment below.
Popularity: 18% [?]
End the ‘Aid vs. Trade’ debate
Only six years away from the 2015 deadline, world reports indicate that none of the Sub-Saharan African countries is currently on track to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The African continent is home to 20% of the world’s population which collectively, partakes in only 2% of global trade. This year, the impact of the global economic crisis is expected to slash growth rates on the continent down to 2.8 per cent, less than half of the average growth rate achieved during the past five years.
A new wave of African politicians and journalists has been engaging in a debate that Africa’s salvation lies not with further infusion of aid but rather in stepping up trade. It is argued that western assistance to developing nations has given rise to dependency and created a suitable environment for corruption.
In the west, tax bases are shrinking and unemployment has reached record highs because of the global recession. Like never before, western purses are squeezed by the need to take care of their own people thereby reducing surplus resources and limiting generosity towards African problems.
By press time, the US national debt amounted to US $ 12 trillion and was increasing at US $ 3.85 billion per day – the largest national debt in the world. It is safe to assume that even the USA could use some debt relief and aid money to mitigate the risk presented by such debt on future generations.
Unfortunately for the US it cannot receive aid since it is perceived to be the most prosperous country on earth and while for decades, Africa, has been painted by the global media as a continent of desperation and suffering thus deserving of aid.
While aid is blamed for many challenges in Africa today, it is important to note that it was born of a need to defeat global health, administrative and social challenges and to balance inequitable global resources.
A case in point, in 2006, more than half the Uganda’s mostly aid funded annual budget was lost to corruption amounting to US $ 950 million. A considerable amount of the money that was stolen had been intended to provide vaccinations and treatments for tuberculosis, malaria and HIV – epidemics that are not in a recession.
In calling for an end to aid, African administrators epitomize the saying, ‘a bad workman blames his tools’, since it is them that are responsible for the mismanagement and misappropriation of aid money, given out of generosity by western taxpayers.
True, aid monies bring forth several challenges – like setting rigid terms and failing to adapt to rapidly changing conditions on the ground. However, African administrators should behave like the good workman who will struggle to do a good job even with bad tools.
Trade and charity run parallel. The west will not donate trade to Africa in the same way that it donates aid and therefore the Aid vs. Trade debate does not hold. With trade, Africa simply needs to take action instead of calling out for help.
Where charity promotes generosity, trade presents competition – sometimes cut throat. In some sectors, Africa will have to compete with some of the very nations that have been offering it aid. Therefore, the continent Africa will need to marshal all her bargaining chips through continental integration and closely guard mineral and oil resources from exploitation by more powerful nations.
It is important for the continent to rectify its faulty policy making framework and build stronger institutions before it can engage the west as a worthy trading partner. Neither trade nor aid will amount to continental progress if institutions remain deficient of integrity.
Popularity: 50% [?]
The night we all read Babu’s letter
By Emile Babu
MICHIGAN. It is quiet Friday night in the lobby between the long walls of the administration block at Wayne State University. I sit between two students, Mtishi, a Zimbabwean, and Sentongo, a Ugandan as we intently listen to VOA’s African news broadcast.
‘…In Harare, Hester Theron a 79-year old white widow and farm owner has been handed a suspended sentence for refusing to vacate her farm,’ the sound of the radio broadcast tears through the silence. Our eyes shift to Mtishi with curiosity - he faces down in awe.
‘Hester is accused of violating the Gazetted Land Act’, the radio blares on irrespective of the eerie silence.
There is a significant increase in violence against the country’s remaining white commercial farmers as the country fast-tracks enforcement of farm takeovers. Farm invasions have been taking place since 2000, but the latest round is more vicious than ever before.
Not so long ago things were very different – real growth between 1980 and 1981 exceeded 20% and in 1983 the country experienced a 30% jump in agricultural production. The country had one of the most stable economies on the continent - hinged on solid agricultural and industrial fundamentals.
Today, news from Zimbabwe is surprisingly easy to disregard – not because the country is the poster child for human rights abuse or because it is home to a fragile political coalition — but because the global news audience has more than had enough tragic news from Zimbabwe.
At 94% unemployment cannot possibly get worse, as for hyperinflation, there can be no report more damning than the indefinite suspension of the national currency. It seems like Zimbabwe has no more surprises in store – for its people and for the global news audience. But then again it never runs out of surprises.
Meanwhile, President Mugabe is one of the most educated presidents in the world, with two postgraduate and a staggering five undergraduate degrees – one of them from the prestigious University of Oxford.
‘Did he have no advisors, fellow professors, friends, mentors or ministers to offer him counsel?’ I can’t help but ask Mtishi if no one foresaw this. He stares back at me seemingly distressed by my curiosity.
He asks both of us to follow him to his tiny room several blocks away where he draws out copies of an open letter to President Mugabe dated May 1980. The letter is authored by Professor Abdul Rahman Mohammed Babu, a former leader of the anti-colonial struggle in Zimbabwe.
I am surprised to find a manuscript by the author that I have not already perused. It was written around the eve of the celebration of the country’s independence after decades of colonial rule under the British.
‘In the last five years since you took over ZANU, you have shown magnificent leadership, resolute qualities without being dogmatic, daring without being adventurist and flexible without being lax.’ Mtishi reads the preface as I envision the professor turn in his grave in bemusement of his early analysis.
‘Experience elsewhere has taught us that the taking over viable farms has invariably led to almost total collapse of agricultural production and has forced the countries concerned to incur heavy foreign debt and import food,’ the letter reads.
‘To expropriate white farmers will amount to economic disaster [and yet] allowing them to continue as before will amount to perpetuating national injustice. This is a serious dilemma.’
I can sense frustration in Mtishi’s voice as he goes on to read out Babu’s proposal to diffuse the foreseen dilemma.
‘Surround white settler farms with producer agricultural cooperatives and make it obligatory for white settler farms to share their facilities like farm implements, expertise, marketing and dispensary services with the newly-established cooperatives. This will help to develop viable cooperative farms at a minimum cost and resolve the gross income inequality without creating a crisis.’
At the dawn of independence in 1980, when the world was wobbling with optimism for Zimbabwe, Babu shared his honest and clear description of a series of events that have come to unravel almost thirty years down the road.
Unfortunately Mugabe never heeded his advice — and the results? There for everyone to see. In 1996, the professor died in London at 72 just in time to catch a glimpse of the economic and political nosedive Zimbabwe was about to take.
As for the three of us that night, well, we decided to retire early.
Popularity: 70% [?]
Why the East African Coast needs its pirates.
On December 26th 2004, tons of leaking barrels of hazardous uranium radioactive waste, lead, cadmium, mercury, chemical and hospital waste were washed ashore the East African coast by an Indian Ocean Tsunami.
The event provided an explanation for the plague of respiratory infections, mouth ulcers, abdominal hemorrhages, malformed babies, unusual skin diseases and radiation sickness currently affecting Somali communities.
Mysterious ships from foreign nations have for the last three decades exploited the lack of a central government in Somalia to use the coastal waters as a cheap dumping area for deadly toxic waste.
A U.N report estimates that $300 million worth of tuna, shrimp, lobster and other seafood is stolen from Somalia’s coastline each year by trawlers illegally sailing the East African coast. The report called out the use of all prohibited methods of fishing: drift nets, under water explosives, killing endangered species like sea-turtles, orca, sharks and baby whales while destroying reef, biomass and vital fish habitats in the sea. Illegal fishing has rendered under-equipped Somali fishermen unemployed and left their families deprived of much needed protein.
To protect their waters, fishermen formed highly organized vigilante groups to patrol their waters and protect their nation’s territorial integrity. Some of these groups come complete with a structured naval hierarchy — a fleet admiral, admiral, vice-admiral, a head of financial operations, a spokesman and a name — ‘Central Region Coast Guard’.
When Januna Ali Jama, a spokesman for one of the groups demanded an $8m ransom for the return of a Ukranian ship his group had captured, in “reaction to the toxic waste that has been continually dumped on the shores of our country for nearly 20 years”– one couldn’t help but view the requisition as modest and justifiable. To the international community, the media and its audience – the entire world – they are collectively referred to as ‘Somali pirates’.
Onshore, Somalians appreciate the revitalizing effect of pirate ransoms on increasing liquidity and creating employment that was lost when fishermen went out of business. Small but significant signs improvement in standards of living are visible in tiny coastal towns – a rambling generator at a local grocery store and young boys donning footwear they have never worn before in their lives.
The total annual receipts from Somalia’s ‘piracy’ industry is US $ 100 million, a third of the US $ 300 million worth of seafood that is poached by European and Asian vessels from Somali waters every year - the long-term health, social and environmental costs of dumping and illegal fishing not factored in.
An independent Somali news-site, WardherNews, conducted a study that found 70 percent of Somalis “strongly support the piracy as a form of national defense of the country’s territorial waters.”
Despite this, on October 6, 2008, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution calling on nations with vessels in the area to apply military force to repress the acts of ‘piracy.’ Britain, USA, Russia, India and two dozen other member nations of the EU and NATO are deploying warships and unleashing military surveillance planes capable of carrying missiles.
For three decades the pricey seafood, rich in protein, served in the finest restaurants of London, Paris and Rome came looted from Somali waters – it is hard to miss the irony when the international community suddenly becomes determined to protect waters it ignored over the last twenty years with military warships – a belated attempt to save the lucrative channel through which 20% of the world’s oil sails.
Decades from now, the social and environmental consequences of dumping toxic waste will continue to plague Somalis. Good governance, restoration of rule of law and economic stimulation programs are all needed to bring sanity back to Somalia. But for a country that has been on the failed state index for the last thirty years, and constantly appears to be sinking deeper into its own anarchy, it is overly optimistic to assume that we shall see any positive signs soon.
Until a time when the root causes of piracy are addressed by the international community through taking action against the criminal organizations and countries involved, pirates will continue to pillage the Indian Ocean waters with the full blessing of Somalis.
Popularity: 100% [?]
Darfur - Food Security will result in actual security.
I am starting to think you only have to be Rwandan, to fully understand what it feels like to repeatedly receive insults on your human conscience and intelligence.
Only two weeks after he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and less than one week after World Food Day, President Barack Obama, today, unveiled his strategy on Darfur.
Obama’s new policy aims to resolve the Darfur crisis with a conciliatory tone that contradicts his election campaign promise. He hopes to ‘normalize’ relations with President Omar al-Bashir – one who was charged with war crimes earlier this year.
The new policy appeases US envoy to Sudan, General Scott Gration, who suggested awarding “cookies” and “gold stars” to the government in Khartoum.
The same general who seeks to have the region’s attrocities downgraded from “genocide” to “the remnants of genocide”.
Why does this stink like Rwanda in 1994 when then Secretary of State Warren Christopher did not authorize officials to use the term “genocide” until a time hundreds of thousands were dead.
Even then, U.S. officials waited another three weeks before using the term in public.
‘Nobel’ standards notwithstanding - 400,000 mostly civilian lives, 2.5 million refugees, widespread use of sexual violence, gang rapes of women and girls, castration of men and boys with thousands of peacekeepers on watch – Darfur remains, the world’s most misunderstood conflict – a protracted struggle for the most basic human need. Food.
Right before the conflict escalated in 2003, the region expected a bumper harvest but grasshoppers descended on key millet-producing areas and ruined everything.
Grain prices shot up as high as 10 goats for one sack of millet – yes, barter trade was the medium of exchange. Prior to this the rate was a more reasonable two goats per sack of millet.
The combination of conflict, drought and pests became very overwhelming on the population and led to social disruption.
Young men with no food raided villages and looted livestock in the droves while farmers tried to sell their cattle at a giveaway prices before it got looted. Market systems and seasonal labour opportunities were lost due to insecurity, and commercial transport was at a standstill.
“Survival in Darfur is a delicate balance with limited room for margin. While most communities have developed complex coping mechanisms to deal with a single bad season of drought or failed harvest, a second failed, ruined, burned or looted harvest can push families to the edge of survival,” HRW warned. For the last two decades, the Darfur region has been experiencing drought and desertification.
Otherwise intelligent young Darfurian males are left with no option but to grab Kalashnikovs and join a rebel forces when faced with the option of watching themselves and their families starve to death.
For lack of a better option, girls find themselves in early marriages and their children will be the rebels of tomorrow should the conflict protract.
This highlights a clear relationship between hunger, drought and the increment in numbers of militias.
The most crucial elements to resolving the Darfur crisis must start with addressing the basic needs of Darfurians. Providing adequate food, proper nutrition and access to education to make youth less vulnerable to recruitment by rebel forces.
‘Ensuring that no child goes to school hungry is the single greatest investment we can make in building prosperous, healthy and stable societies.’ Samuel R. Berger, a former national security advisor to President Clinton comments in an opinion piece in the L.A Times, published on World Food Day.
Equally important, a focus should be put on micro-economic activities to give the elderly population occupation and self reliance. A continued dependence on humanitarian assistance will leave communities even more disorganized once the aid is cut.
There are many other factors that have fueled Darfur crisis like crucial interests in oil investments, lucrative weapons trade, land pressure and more importantly, the marginalization of the southern region.
Only time will tell if Barack’s new policy will bear fruit but one thing is for sure — General Gration will be surprised to find that Darfurians prefer the cookies to the goldstars.
Popularity: 58% [?]
The Nobel Prize affirms intriguing realities.
By Babu Emile
In 1936 a young man was born in Kanyadhiang village, Rachuonyo District on the shores of Lake Victoria, Kenya. At age 23, he fathered a son with a beautiful young lady from Kansas named Ann Dunham. The two, now deceased, would have been very proud to know that their son, Barack Hussein Obama II was last week announced winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
It did not come as a surprise that seven of the 2009 Nobel prize winners are American. What many did not notice is that four of the seven are actually immigrants - born outside of the United States yet hold US citizenship. As newcomer in the country, I have experienced, first hand, the anti-immigration trend that is sometimes blamed on the recession. The rationale being - everyone who is born outside the United States is in the country to take away American jobs.
Among the realities that this year’s Nobel prizes brought to light is the fact that the United States is a nation made up of immigrants who drive its innovation economy. Statistics indicate that foreign-born science and engineering students earn one-third of all Ph.D.s awarded in the United States.
Perhaps no one acknowledges this better than Nobel laureate Barack Obama in his inaugural speech after being sworn in as president, ‘…For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth…’
It is this unifying tone that built on the momentum that led him to win this year’s Peace Prize. While naysayers will cry foul over the irreversible fact that he won the award – and that it was a well deserved win – President Obama is and will continue to be the greatest beacon of hope and the most important human symbol of charismatic leadership and positive change in this decade.
The prize also signals America’s return to global leadership after a Bush era that was defined by rigid adherence to blunders in foreign policy, atrocious human rights abuses, reckless disregard of the international community and a shoe – one that was thrown at the head of state during an official press conference.
As the Nobel prize comes of age, it is also important to note that the world is not the same since the time Alfred Nobel’s will was read in 1896. Being the ironic chemical engineer who invented the dynamite and ballistics only to later create a ‘peace prize’, he would have been cornered to overlook current global problems like greenhouse gases and climate change.
Many fundamental breakthroughs in technology and science do not receive recognition from the Nobel Foundation. In terms of sciences, the Nobel committee only rewards physics, chemistry and medicine: leaving out genetics, engineering, computer science, environment and public health.
It is important for the prize to evolve in a way that enhances the contribution of scientists that are struggling to meet the most important challenges of the 21st century like climate change.
It is equally important for the Oslo committee to wake up to the reality that, years back, Obama would have to wait for a telegraph or handwritten letter to receive notice of his award and world would wait several days for the news to circulate into the print media before knowing.
This year, he, like the rest of the us, caught the event in real time on high definition television while others caught it on cable and internet through new media channels like Facebook and Twitter. By the time the news got to print, it was history.
‘It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.’ W. Edward Deming
Popularity: 73% [?]
A new look at HIV/AIDS in Africa
According to a 1999 World Health Organization (WHO) report, the total number of actual diagnosed AIDS cases on the African continent is about equal to the total for AIDS in America and yet Africa today is cited as the worst example of HIV/AIDS in the world.
In order to successfully fight HIV, it is important to dispel the common myths and negative portrayal of the ‘developing world’ because gives the impression that Africa is world’s away from the west. According to a 1999 World Health Organization (WHO) report, the total number of diagnosed AIDS cases on the African continent is about equal to the total in America and yet Africa today is cited as the worst example of HIV/AIDS in the world.
Last week Rwanda’s National Aids Control Commission (CNLS) conducted a two-day workshop to determine appropriate ways to implement evidence-based HIV prevention measures during which they discussed results of innovative research and programs that have contributed to HIV prevention. As is the norm, the press were reminded by a release that read, ‘Rwanda has a 3 percent prevalence of the epidemic, which remains a major challenge to the entire world, especially sub-Saharan Africa.’
The highest HIV rate in the world can be found in Africa but closer scrutiny indicates, that every country in Africa has its own HIV statistics and some are not as damning as portrayed in the global media. For instance, Senegal has the same rate as the United States while Madagascar’s rate is as low as the rest of the world.
‘[There is] a terrible simplification that there is one Africa and things go one way in Africa. It is not respectful and it is not clever to think like that,’ commented Dr. Hans Rosling, a professor in global health at a May 2009 TED conference in California.
In order to successfully fight HIV, it is important to dispel the common myths and negative portrayal of Africa because gives the impression that Africa is world’s away from the rest of the world. Contrary statistics indicate that most of the third world is on the same trajectory toward better health and many countries in Africa are moving twice as fast as the west did.
This negative portrayal is promoted by corrupt African government officials with an aim to appeal to the sympathy and charity of foreign donors and thus prefer the continent to be defined by hopelessness. The international press has also contributed to this prejudiced perception through its persistently biased coverage of Africa that focuses on civil wars, hunger, famine and epidemics despite the reality that the there are many success stories on the continent.
‘Africa has immense opportunities that never navigate through the web of despair and helplessness that the western media presents to their audience,’ remarked Andrew Mwenda, a Ugandan journalist who addressed the same conference.
Non profit organizations that provide treatments for HIV have reported a dire need for newer HIV/AIDS medications due to a shortfall in funding as a result of the current global economic crisis. HIV/AIDS funding is stagnating and the prospect of universal access to treatment may be withering – millions of people are in immediate need of treatment, but are not receiving it.
More resources are needed but throwing money at the HIV problem may appease the many in the developed world but will not be a solution. While it maybe offensive to the sensibilities of the developed world towards giving aid to “poor Africans”, donors should critically asses the individual nations and communities that are most affected and apportion funds in a way that empowers communities towards self reliance, gender balance and better HIV/AIDS education.
Progressive African leaders, donors and global health experts need to look more closely and track the progress of the epidemic at a micro level and thus apportion help where it is most needed. If this is not done, Africa’s bureaucracies will continue to expand, the prospect of free markets will continue to shrink and we shall continue to diagnose the HIV crisis incorrectly — at the expense of people who really need help.
Popularity: 93% [?]
Copenhagen: What climate change means for Africa
Between December 7 and December 18, 2009, Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen, will be arguably the busiest city in the world. Heads of government and over 8000 representatives from 170 countries will descend on the Scandinavian capital to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference at Bella Center - a conference that will lay down the global framework for climate change control beyond 2012.
On a continent where the leading causes of death is HIV, followed closely by Malaria, Africans - governments and populace alike - struggle to fathom the true implications of climate change and its impact on their everyday lives.
For many African politicians, Copenhagen will be just another opportunity to receive handsome par-diems and take spouses on shopping sprees, and, bless their souls, African’s back home will not bother to hold them accountable. Simply because the cause of climate change is assumed to be too foreign - ‘Leave that to the Al Gores of this world,’ many will suppose.
Africa is economically and socially dependent upon its high abundance of natural resources and ecological diversity. About 60 percent of African workers are employed by the agricultural sector. No continent on the planet reflects a closer dependency of people on natural resources than Africa. The United States contains 4% of the world’s population but produces about 25% of all carbon dioxide emissions. By comparison, Britain emits 3% - about the same as India which has 15 times as many people.
Despite the fact that Africa is least responsible for causing the current changes in global climatic conditions since it emits the lowest amount of greenhouse gases, it is at the highest risk of facing the most dire effects of the changing climate conditions due this over dependence on natural resources. There is a need for the continent’s representatives to take a more proactive and united position at the Copenhagen summit.
Tackling climate change is not just a responsibility, but also an opportunity - one that Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame is eager to seize. Addressing a recently concluded special United Nations session debating climate change in New York, the head of state suggested a ceiling for carbon emission per person/per year for all nations. He further proposed that nations with higher emissions could ‘offset’ their emissions by trading off with less emitting nations.
This, he suggests, will provide a financial incentive to developing countries to maintain low levels of greenhouse emissions by trading with developed countries that exceed their quota. He adds that “the global trade in this ‘commodity’ would eventually yield a carbon dioxide global value in the region of one trillion dollars.”
However, carbon trading is not a harmless attempt at carbon stability. Offering financial incentives to developing countries will strip their governments of regulatory authority over this sensitive issue. Wealthy nations are likely to capitalize on cash strapped low developed nations treating them as carbon offsets while corrupt African officials continue to turn their backs on the basic rights of their communities. turning their backs on the basic rights of communities… The developed countries are capitalising on cash poor countries only to treat them as carbon offsets!!!
Either way, the use of sound economic science to leverage limited global resources in order to achieve the most good for the continent’s economy and the planet’s preservation is what Africa will need to realize at the Copenhagen summit.
With only three months left for it to take place, there is a need for a stronger continental process that will prepare Africa to engage the world not only as an equal partner but as the most important stakeholder - a victim of pollution by more developed nations and continents.
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The challenge for the burghers
Published in the NewTimes - September 24th 2009
I wish to welcome you all to the maiden ‘Letter to the motherland’. Every week I will share with readers the perspective of an African, born and raised, currently living in the Midwest of America - Detroit, Michigan.
When I first came to Rwanda, in May 1994 and by the time I left Rwanda, fourteen years later, I had traveled through every corner of the country.
Not once did I go a mile without seeing a human being. This was all in sharp contrast to what I experienced driving here. On the road from Knoxville, Tennessee to Detroit, Michigan – an eight hour drive - I drove past hundreds of miles of vast empty lands without seeing a single person.
Now, I am put off by shameful comparisons between the richest country in the world and Rwanda, but I still feel that Rwanda’s population statistics are untenable.
The Population Institute, an NGO that seeks to promote access to family planning information, estimates that by 2050, our population will have reached 21,800,000.
But are these just crunchy numbers or do they have a significant bearing on Rwanda’s future? Foreign Policy and the Fund for Peace publish an annual ranking of failed states, all of which - without exception - have high population growth rates.
The top ten countries in the 2009 Failed States Index have total fertility rates substantially higher than the global average of 2.6.
High population growth rates make it more difficult for less developed countries to provide adequate schooling, nutrition and immunization. Population pressure if not addressed aggressively will pose a significant challenge to economic advancement and the attainment of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals in Rwanda.
Population pressure is a challenge that needs to be addressed by every citizen of the country. There is a need to weave crucial partnerships between the media, education, public sector and government to send a strong message that Rwanda’s prosperity may well depend on her ability to curb her population.
Providing universal access to family planning, empowering women and modifying school curricula to include information on population control are some suggestions put into consideration to avert this looming challenge.
The blueprint for Rwanda’s medium term prosperity, ‘Vision 2020’ predicts that the population is expected to double to around 16 million by 2020 – with a tiny annotation on the same page that anticipates a more reasonable 13 million projection, ‘[if] family planning improves’.
As we draw closer to 2020, it is important that the fourth estate plays the crucial role of sending a message to the country that population control is everyone’s business.
Rwanda as a country achieves everything it sets its eyes on, from scoring accolades as a leading African tourism destination to being the best performer in this year’s Doing Business Index.
If this is equally addressed as an important item of the nation’s agenda of reforms, there is no doubt that the country will mitigate the long term impact of an ever rising population pressure.
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