Author: Eamon

My friend’s family survived the Westgate attacks. He shares his personal and political reactions.

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Since Saturday, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to my good friend Sachin Gathani about the tragedy at Westgate Mall in Nairobi. This was not only because he is a good friend, a Kenyan citizen, and an insightful analyst of Kenyan affairs. He was also personally affected: his family members escaped from the mall after spending harrowing hours hiding in the parking lot, where they had gone to see a children’s cooking competition. (Sachin currently lives in Kigali, Rwanda, but flew home to Nairobi almost immediately when the attack began.) In light of that, I found particular value in his carefully considered perspectives on the violence, which struck so close to home. We decided to to collaborate on this Q&A so that I could air some of his views.

Q: Your brother, sister-in-law, and 3 year-old nephew escaped Westgate Mall after being trapped for hours during the attack. Can you tell me a little about what happened, and how they got out?

My brother and his family were actually leaving Westgate Mall having taken my nephew to the play area and also to observe a children’s cooking competition. They were in the car park on the top floor when they heard gunshots and instinctively ran with a group of people to a corner where they huddled behind a few cars. They were stuck in this position for a number of hours and witnessed several people who were killed as they tried to escape the indiscriminate hail of bullets and the two grenades that were hurled at others who attempted escape. After about 3 hours, the military personnel managed to fight back the terrorists and formed a protective cordon to enable them to escape through a back entrance of the mall. While I am very thankful that they were unhurt, I know that the searing images of innocent bystanders getting killed in front of them will have left an indelible mark on them. No three year-old should have to witness that.

Q: It is obviously a huge relief that your family escaped, though I am sure they are very shaken up. Four of your acquaintances who were at Westgate on Saturday did not make it out, though. Can you tell me anything about that?

I have a very bittersweet feeling right now. While I am very relieved that my family made it out alive, I know a few friends that did not and were killed immediately during the attacks. I don’t think the details are necessary but as you can imagine it was quite emotional as the news of their deaths slowly trickled in through the course of Saturday and Sunday.

Q: Those of us glued to our computers through this entire episode are seeing a lot of amazing pictures of Kenyans coming together to volunteer, donate blood. I know you’ve been involved in that too. My sense is that you’ve channeled some of the emotional reaction to this tragedy into community action. Do you think the same is true for others?

It has been really humbling to see how the community has come together to volunteer, donate blood, feed the military personnel and medical volunteers, raise money for victims, etc. I can’t recall a similar moment in Kenya’s history whereby I have seen such solidarity except immediately after 1998 US Embassy bombings (which killed at least 212 people), which really shook Kenyans and brought them together as one people. And there are several communities I can refer to here: the Asian community that has mobilized their community volunteer service groups, the Muslim community that has condemned the violence which was purportedly committed in the name of Islam, the broader Nairobian community that responded and waited hours in line to donate blood and our brothers and sisters in cities like Nyeri and Kisumu who also donated blood and money for their fellow Kenyans in the capital. So, yes — and I think it’s an accurate way to frame it – I do think that the Kenyan community has channeled their emotional reaction into community action. My concern is with the aftermath. Once some semblance of normalcy returns to Nairobi after a few harrowing days, how are we then going to channel the lingering emotional reaction of this tragedy? There is a danger of a reactionary response by our government and by our communities.

Q: Kenya has been through so many divisive events in the last few years, among them communal violence linked to the elections in 2007. Do you have a sense of what this moment means for Kenyan national unity? Might the community reaction we’re seeing with volunteers and the like translate into a refreshed sense of purpose for the political class — even a squashing of some differences?

I think it is too early to define this as a watershed moment in terms of Kenyan unity – we have been here before with the 1998 bombings. But let us also recall that less than 5 years ago, our post-election violence pitted neighbors against each other and resulted in over 1,100 deaths. Having said that, there is no doubt that the Westgate tragedy has reawakened Kenya, as one commentator I read put it. The words of President Kenyatta were refreshing when he expressed how humbled he was by the generosity and selfless sacrifice displayed by Kenyans that he felt even more committed to ensure that his government delivers because that is what its citizens deserve. But it is important – and maybe controversial – that we put Westgate into context and examine why this tragedy has had such resonance across the country and the world and what it may mean about a refreshed sense of purpose by the political elites. I am cognizant of the problem of framing this as a tragedy that primarily affected middle-upper income Kenyans and wealthy expats, given the number of Kenyans of various working class backgrounds that also lost their lives. But it is also accurate to say that this tragedy has affected the elite of the Kenyan polity in ways that previous Al-Shabaab attacks in Kenya did not. In 2011, the first known Al-Shabaab attack, was a bombing at a blue-collar bar in downtown Nairobi and at a bus terminal. Other similar attacks occurred through 2012 in the Ngara neighbourhood of Nairobi, a nightclub and sports bar in Mombasa and several other smaller attacks in the predominantly Somali neigbourhood of Eastleigh (Nairobi),  Garissa and Wajir (in the north near the Somali border). While Westgate was much larger and more prolonged in terms of the terror inflicted than previous Al-Shabaab attacks, the reality is that the number and profile of casualties inflicted in the past few days (the list includes President Uruhu Kenyatta’s nephew, Ghana’s most famous poet and intellectual leader, a prominent Australian architect and his Harvard-educated wife, a Peruvian UNICEF doctor, Kenyan businessmen, young Nairobi professionals and several diplomats) will definitely result in a decisive action by the political class. How this reaction manifests itself, I am not too sure but it is something we should be wary of.

Q: You also told me you are hearing a lot of “scary, reactionary” comments from people. It reminds me of some of the things that we heard in the United States after 9/11. Can you explain that more and give some examples? As someone who was directly affected by this tragedy — lost friends in it, had a near miss with your own family — can you empathize with such reactions? What do you have to say to people are advocating retaliation?

I understand where these reactions are coming from. I may have been guilty of it too when I first heard of my family’s ordeals and later about my friends. I’ve heard reactionary comments denouncing the Islamic faith for such barbarism, calls for ‘smoking out the Somalis’ from Eastleigh, demanding a final military solution to the Somalia problem, building walls along the border, etc. And this brings me back to my earlier point. I hope that we do not quickly forget the solidarity we have demonstrated and revert to nationalistic jingoism or religious persecution that targets and vilifies people of Somali origins or Muslims. Similarly, I also hope our political class use this as a moment of reflection as they consider a sober and strategic response.

Q: After 9/11, grief-stricken Americans reacted with anger and many supported military actions which later seemed to have questionable effectiveness, or turned out to be huge mistakes, as in the case of Iraq. At the same time, it caused many Americans to become a bit more engaged and aware of their country’s role in global politics, and the way they were perceived in many parts of the world. Do you think there are any analogies to be made with Kenyans — especially as regards to their country’s role in Somalia?

With all due respect, I think Kenyans were already a very politically-engaged people and I don’t think the Westgate episode will have the same effect of political engagement that 9/11 did for Americans. Kenyans, and many other people from the developing world, cannot afford the luxury of ignoring our country’s role in geopolitics because we are probably affected more directly by geopolitical machinations than other Western countries. With regards to 9/11, there is a danger of using history by analogy but the comparison – and lessons learned from the reaction – to 9/11 is fair. Firstly, I do hope there is a better and more nuanced understanding of our role in Somalia and the history of radical movements like Al-Shabaab, starting with the removal of the Islamic Courts of Union in Somalia by Ethiopia/US and the subsequent radicalization of the extremist elements that sought to defeat the intervening foreigners through any means necessary. Understanding the history and context of these problems will allow us to chart a political solution, and not only a military solution. Secondly, what we can learn from 9/11 is that Kenyans need to be more vigilant about the over-reach of the executive on security-related matters, which is understandable and likely given what has just taken place.

Q: What can people do to help at this point, both inside and outside of Kenya?

For people outside Kenya, I would say continue supporting people you know who are dealing the loss of loved ones or are dealing with trauma that they may have faced. I personally have been touched and overwhelmed by the support of so many friends and acquaintances around the world who have reached out to check in on how my family and I are doing. For people inside Kenya, I know that the hospitals and Kenya Red Cross blood banks are at full capacity given the remarkable display of generosity over the past few days. We have also raised more than Ksh 57million [around US$ 700,000 and counting] via M-pesa donations for the victims. Going forward, I just hope that we can remember this moment of what makes Kenyans Kenyan as we enter into this critical period of reacting to Westgate and demonstrate our ability to move beyond reactionary responses.

Q: Any links you want to share to things you’re reading/watching/paying attention to as you follow this crisis?

There are plenty of articles and blogs on the internet and newspapers recounting blow by blow accounts of survivors’ ordeal that demonstrate the horror inflicted at Westgate. But these are a selection of the items that I think are some of the best reflections of what happened and implications for the future:

Kenya Reawakened by Gathara — one of the best pieces I’ve read on our response and patriotism

What Next for Kenyan Policy on Somalia by Ken Opalo — one of Kenya’s best political analysts summarizing future Kenyan policy on Somalia

Senseless [and Sensible] Violence: Mourning the Dead at Westgate Mall by Mahmood Mamdani

Nairobi Westgate Mall Terror Attack, and the Folly of “Otherness” — What Al-Shabaab Revealed about Us by Charles Onyango-Obbo — Ugandan writer on framing the Westgate tragedy

Making Sense of the Chaos in Kenya by Nanjala Nyabola — Kenyan grad student’s initial reflections on the crisis

Sachin, thank you so much for taking time to answer these questions, not all of which can be easy to ponder with the situation so fresh. 

Appreciating the photography of Edward S. Curtis

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This week, the website of the Atlantic published 34 photos by Edward S. Curtis, the tireless documenter of American Indians who did the bulk of his most famous work at the beginning of the 20th century. Whatever else these images may be, they are stunning. Have a look.

The gallery got me thinking. In anthropology — the discipline in which I majored and which I took quite seriously in my undergraduate studies — Curtis is, like many of the first Americans who tried to document rather than annihilate Native culture, a contentious figure. You can get a sense of the controversy on Wikipedia, but the gist of it is this:  Curtis’s stage-managed, idealized photos disguised the abysmal material conditions of many Indians at the time, and did damage to the spirit as well, promoting the suffocating, one-dimensional trope of the Noble Savage.

There really is no legitimate  refutation of these criticisms. They are accurate. They also probably describe how the photographs were consumed at the time they were published. One imagines a Euroamerican in an Edwardian parlor thumbing through the glossy prints from The North American Indian with a kind of false respect, looking out a window where children play Savages beneath a tree, and where acres of rich, verdant, utterly stolen land stretch in every direction. Such a dishonest empathy for vanquished peoples on the part of their tormenters can seem almost like the final insult after centuries of holocaust. Now that we have done the dirty deed of your subjugation, we will soothe our own souls with a distant and abstract appreciation for the idea of your existence — on our terms, and twisted to our satisfaction.

And yet, I find the photos not only beautiful, but also precious. The faces in them do not lie, and with the proper eye we can read lives in their lines and creases. Not just tears as non-Indian audiences usually presume Indians of this and most eras were shedding, but also love, laughter, wisdom, anger, and all the normal experiences and emotions of humanness that owe nothing to race, state, tribe, tradition, fixed culture, or any of the other deceitful notions cooked up by expanding empires in the modern era.

Take, for instance, this image of Sitting Owl.

In this man’s eyes I see a sense of humor, and also a gaze that is considering the photographer — and somehow, even the viewer deep in the future — with all the scrutiny and interest the camera is directing at him. I also see someone who knows how to play his cards close to his chest, and who can be hard when necessary. When we are reminded that the costume is likely at least partly contrived for the photo, that Curtis probably asked for a particular expression, and that a small pox epidemic reduced the Hidatsa people to just 500 individuals two generations before this image was made, then we begin to imagine the life of Sitting Owl in great detail, and we begin to see this face as being composed of stories, personality, creativity, and the brilliant vitality of a kindred human mind.

It’s in viewing these images with a sense of context that I think they have value. It makes me thankful that Curtis took them, and even more so that their subjects agreed to avail themselves. It also makes me sad to think of the deeply corrupt social circumstances in which the pictures were taken.

If I could design an exhibit for these images, they would not just be accompanied by a short caption, or a placard with a bit of information on when and where they were taken, or even a pamphlet with a few essays. They would be mounted on big walls with text surrounding them, spiraling out from the edges and filling the gallery. Biographies, memories, screaming criticisms, quiet poetry — it would all need to be there.

Then, maybe we could say that enough time has passed that we can appreciate this photography, as we try to understand the often hideous history that surrounds it.

Hope and many obstacles in Mali

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On Tuesday, I had the chance to listen in on historian Gregory Mann and French researcher Roland Marchal discuss the situation in Mali, in a panel on the Columbia campus. Some of the big questions about Mali’s future and the road to stability there remained unanswered, but the discussion, which extended long past its scheduled hour, underlined the fact that the situation in Mali is exceedingly complicated, and far from resolved.

That may not seem like a revelation worth reporting. But for those trying to fit the Malian tumult and French military campaign into the convenient narrative of a preexisting framework — whether as an obvious case of the benevolent deployment of European force to stop a state from failing, or just another instance of neocolonial intervention disguised in humanitarian garments — this statement has to be the starting point of the discussion. The disintegration of Malian internal affairs is begging for fresh ideas, and challenging some of the best-equipped thinkers on Africa. One surprising result is that some voices hardly known for being pro-intervention have taken less rigid positions — or even endorsed the French campaign, albeit with major caveats.

Whatever one’s reaction, one comment Gregory Mann made on the panel seemed especially important to me. “Intervention is not a solution,” he said. “It changes the problem — hopefully in a way that makes it easier to deal with.” He’s written more on that here.

This is another statement that might seem pretty obvious. As self-apparent as it should be though, the thinking of drone-happy US strategists ignores this. Too often, the American approach is to smash a problem with missiles and hope that’s the end of it — or to invest an infinitesimally smaller amount of resources in feeble diplomatic efforts after the fire stops raining.

For Mali’s sake especially, I hope the French are a little smarter. There’s no real reason to think they are. At least for now, though, we can acknowledge one positive outcome: the march of an unpopular and tragically destructive takeover of Mali’s north has been reversed. A Malian friend spells out the hope and obstacles the country now faces (things in brackets are my additions):

I share [the] principle that Africa (or any other region) should be policed by neighbors helping each other out.
That being said…. I think the French were extremely courageous to come help the Malian forces. For one thing, the African Union and the regional organization (ECOWAS) have been doing little to help Mali out… The country was under embargo and was being pushed to negotiate with Al Qaeda affiliated groups. It has received so little help that the army doesn’t even use blank or real bullets during training exercises (you have to see it to believe it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkFBjBqWzAc). The Malian state is still very unstable with the former coup leaders holding on to power.
Over the past year or so, this only allowed militant groups to recruit/train to subdue the rest of the country. They have millions of dollars in ransom money. When they started their new offensive, the (still!) ill equipped and trained Malian army was losing the war, and if not for the French, the Jihadists probably would have been in the suburbs of Bamako by now. This would have been an even bigger humanitarian disaster and probably turned Mali into another Somalia and Al Shabab. Right now +500,000 Malians are refugees or internally displaced people. [See UNHCR figures here.] Bamako has close to 2,000,000 people.
Another thing is that most of the West African countries are as troubled as Mali was a year ago. To this day, the African forces have not made it to Mali. In my opinion, it took a lot of courage for the French to jump into this mess. Mali is not much of a geo-strategic country and not an oil/uranium producing one either.
The French clearly didn’t want to be involved and waited until the very last moment. People see them as liberators, not a colonizing force. [….] This is a country where +95% of the people are already Muslims but they are still having their cultural heritage destroyed by Islamist movements. [….]
Now that there is a clear air superiority, I think the long term solution should reside with the Malian and African forces. It should be relatively easy to liberate the cities. [….]
There is so much left to do… We still don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. Nonetheless, this past week was a good week for Malians (the post D-day equivalent for one of the poorest countries on earth).
EDIT: Some technical snafu resulted in a draft version of this post being published yesterday. I’ve made some changes, based on conversations I’d earlier had with the emailer quoted above, and the realization that I had probably severely overstated the connection between the Libyan intervention and Mali’s crisis. For more on that, take a look at this post on Sahel Blog and especially the comments below it.

Thomas Friedman teaches us history

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Imagine trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube that actually has three too many red pieces and not enough blue and green. Tedious, time-consuming, enraging when you realize there is no solution. Increasingly, this is what I feel like trying to mount an organized rebuttal to — or analysis of — Thomas Friedman’s columns on the Middle East.

His latest gem, “Iron Empires, Iron Fists, Iron Domes,” takes us on a lurching tour of the Levant, from Antakya to Syria to Tel Aviv. There are sentences to agree with and to disagree with here, but in general I’ll bet its Rubik’s Cube of metaphors is a tile or two short, and I’m not going to fiddle with it for too long.

But the part where he talks about the history of ethnic and religious coexistence in the Middle East does warrant a closer look.

At first glance, his account looks like a step up from his classic Beirut to Jerusalem, in which he mostly ascribes modern Middle East conflict to the cultural vestiges of primal desert society. Ultimately though, the step is not a big one. After explaining how the “iron empire” of the Ottomans, with their “live-and-let-live mentality” made minorities comfortable enough not to rock the boat back in those days, Friedman describes the post-Sykes-Picot scene:

When Britain and France carved up the Ottoman Empire in the Arab East, they forged the various Ottoman provinces into states — with names like Iraq, Jordan and Syria — that did not correspond to the ethnographic map. So Sunnis, Shiites, Alawites, Christians, Druze, Turkmen, Kurds and Jews found themselves trapped together inside national boundaries that were drawn to suit the interests of the British and French. Those colonial powers kept everyone in check. But once they withdrew, and these countries became independent, the contests for power began, and minorities were exposed. Finally, in the late 1960s and 1970s, we saw the emergence of a class of Arab dictators and monarchs who perfected Iron Fists (and multiple intelligence agencies) to decisively seize power for their sect or tribe — and they ruled over all the other communities by force.

This sort-of-right passage includes a fundamental misconception about Middle Eastern (and African history) that I hear repeated all the time, everywhere from casual conversations to the mainstream media. Friedman is right that colonialism royally screwed up the region, and created problematic states. But the reason these states didn’t work well is not that they included different ethnicities and religious groups. That idea suggests that people of different backgrounds are incapable of living together in a functioning, stable polity.

The diversity of the Middle East’s nascent states in the 20th Century was a strength as much as a liability. As Friedman correctly notes, Muslims, Jews, Christians, and a mosaic of languages and cultures coexisted in relative harmony for many centuries before European colonialism. The problem with the new states was that the political model they inherited from European colonialists — winner take-all nationalism in which political power was tied to ethnic and religious identity — was contrary to the region’s longstanding diversity. (It is not surprising that Europe, in the wake of centuries of religious wars and ethnic consolidation, foisted such an inappropriate system onto the Middle East.) The subsequent failures have little to do with borders cutting across supposedly more deeply ingrained tribal or religious identities. Much more important to failure has been the inadequacy of the architecture of the state (see Lebanon), and the factors of foreign occupation, military intervention, and oil politics. 

The deficiencies in Friedman’s analysis remind me of those in much writing on African conflicts, such as Mali’s. Africa Is a Country’s criticism of that reporting earlier this year could apply here,  too:

Al Jazeera … has been the place not to go for Mali coverage … [there have been] a few weak pieces of analysis, including one that trots out some of the same clichéd thinking that we try to smother in the cradle when we teach African Studies 101 to American undergraduates (e.g., conflict is due to colonial borders that “split tribes [and] lumped incompatible ethnic groups together…”; what are “incompatible ethnic groups”?). What gives?

This misconception is fundamental because it treats ethnic and religious variety in the Middle East as inherent incompatibilities — ancient, unquenchable hatreds — rather than social differences that the politics of the last century have turned into potential fault lines.

This is important because if we accept that diverse Middle Eastern peoples can only live together under an iron fist, then the only logical future for democracy in the region is some preliminary segregation and ethnic cleansing along the lines of Friedman’s “ethnographic map.” (Maybe someone can locate that map for me in some exhibit on passé anthropological concepts?)

I don’t accept that this is the only path. Cosmopolitan societies are just as viable in the Middle East as they are in North America. Their history of diversity is the proof of this potential, and a vision that stands a chance of taking us past the impasses and killing of today must recognize this.

The Case for Reentry Courts in California

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California needs solutions to its unconstitutional prison overcrowding. One part of the response is realignment — in which responsibility for nonviolent offenders, among others, is shifted from the state to the counties.

The problem is, counties don’t have the jail space either, and they are scrambling trying to figure out ways to either accommodate more inmates or keep people out of institutions. For the November issue of California Lawyer Magazine, I reported on the reentry courts in California. It’s a system that some hope will provide alternatives to jail time for parolees. Have a look here.

Image 

The void at the center of the anti-Islam video crisis

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The irony of the uproar connected to the now infamous anti-Islam video is this: almost everyone who has involved themselves in it has voluntarily taken on a role as grotesque, poorly scripted, vacuous, and disconnected from reality as the absurd characters in the cheap YouTube clip that is nominally at the heart of the crisis.

The video itself is the kind of sordid but forgettable drivel that gunks up plenty of corners of the Internet, and would be utterly inconsequential in another context. Having forced myself to watch the clips — they are certainly hateful but also less than mediocre, far less — it’s plain that the real story is not the video, but how it has been promoted by rabble-rousers like TV presenter Sheikh Khalad Abdalla (who has been called a sort of Egyptian Glenn Beck), and those like his dependable foil, Islam-hating Florida Pastor Terry Jones. John Hudson of The Atlantic Wire explains this well here, and also makes the excellent point that the mystery of the day — the identity of the real producer of the clip — is a sideshow barely related to the uproar.

And yet the main question murmured around American water coolers today seems to be, “Why are they so angry about a movie?” The answer has little to do with the clip itself, or with belief. What we’re likely seeing is the savvy manipulation of public sentiment, under the guise of religious dignity, mostly for domestic political gain in the countries where there are demonstrations or worse. It’s too early to ponder the particular details of how this is happening — and commentators everywhere are venturing opinions at the risk of contradictory revelations in the next days and weeks — but in broad strokes, it is clear that these originated as political actions, not spontaneous faith-based responses.

There is lots of raw anger toward the U.S. in the Middle East still, despite what your tour guide at the Statue of Liberty told you about America being the inspiration for the Arab Spring. It may have something to do with, say, 10 years of a bloody war on terror that has fractured societies and occupied countries and … well, a lot of other things besides a 15-minute video with mind-bogglingly crappy production value. That anger is an amorphous commodity that is available for use at the hands of skillful populists.

Thus, the out-of-control flag-burner is one role that people have taken on in the crisis, and the amateur provocateurs who made the movie are undoubtedly thrilled and surprised at the impact of their handiwork. (They may or may not realize that they are essentially in league with their supposed nemeses — other extremists who would also like to move us all irrevocably toward a worldwide war on religious lines.) 

But other responses have been equally one-dimensional. If you’re an American, a perusal of your Facebook feed will show that at least a few of your acquaintances are freshly astonished with the “barbarity” of Islam. Others condemn the filmmakers as the real cause of the violence. Still others respond that, however bad the video is, what’s really on the line is our free speech. Shouting matches erupt; accusations are thrown; positions become more polarized.

While the movie is undoubtedly condemnation-worthy, and also protected in the United States by the First Amendment, all of this gives the producers(s) far too much credit. The abject inferiority of their project is apparent to anyone remotely familiar with contemporary media. This is how, one must guess, they wanted us to react.

It’s all a bit sad. People everywhere are retreating into caricatures of themselves and fulfilling each other’s worst stereotypes. In doing so, the protesters, their denouncers, their apologists, and most especially those who would cast this as a clash of religious values, have become poor players acting out a script written by idiots.

As such, we’d all do well to take the whole conflagration with a bit of skepticism, and recognize the real political aims — both domestic and international — of those who are fanning the flames. 

Because if everyone buys into this tale’s sound and fury, things could get a lot uglier still.

My op-ed from the weekend on the globalization of protest

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It was published last weekend, but I was too busy to post it! Here’s “The Global Imagination of Protest,” by me and Anya Schiffrin, my co-editor for From Cairo to Wall Street: Voices from the Global Spring. Take a look:

NEW YORK – When graffiti appeared last spring on a wall near Tunisia’s interior ministry reading “Thank you, Facebook,” it was not just praise for a social-media company that had facilitated the country’s uprising. It was also a celebration of the sense of shared experience that defined the Tunisian revolution – and the many other historic protests and revolutions that erupted in 2011.

As we discovered collecting essays for our new book From Cairo to Wall Street: Voices from the Global Spring, one of the defining characteristics of the new age of protest is the dovetailing of the desire and the ability to connect – across neighborhoods, cities, countries, and even continents. In every contributor’s country, a new awareness of shared destinies and of a global community permeated protest movements. Social-media technology was one tool that advanced it; but so was a reconceptualization of the meaning of public space, and the view that a plurality of ideas is superior to dogma – that the act of collaboration is as important as the outcome. Read more.

Sunday Night Oldies Show: I love NYC edition

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Today I spent the afternoon at Rockaway Beach, one of the most “natural” places you can reach on the subway in this crazy city. Once you get over the stifling heat, the interminable ride on the 2-A-S, and the infernal racket therein (excited beach goers escaping hot apartments can be rambunctious), the broken glass and occasional condom in the waves… Wow. New York is amazing, and nowhere do you see the vivacity of this city more distilled than on this strip on the edge of the Atlantic, a kind of collective front stoop for a city with not enough space.

Pregnant ladies in bikinis, back handsprings, tattoos both stylish and ill-advised, I’ve seen it all today.

But to be honest, it wasn’t until late in the afternoon that I remembered just how special Rockaway Beach is. I had just walked back to the subway shuttle that runs, Spirited Away-style, through the middle of Jamaica Bay and some rather grody marshes. The day was turning to evening, and high cumuli that had spat rain and made blue penumbrae above the apartment blocks were clearing. I ran into the last car of the train, where a policewoman was holding the doors. I set myself up in the opposite door with my duffle bag and the djembe I was caring around (long story). The car was hot and still — kids whose days had been too long, and their parents, whose days had been even longer.

Then the policewoman left, the doors closed, and the train lurched forward. A dad in the corner seat leaned forward from his family.

“Yo, turn that radio on!” he shouted. And the car was flooded with music. Specifically:

1. Dile (aka Otra Noche) by Don Omar

Within 30 seconds, people throughout the car stood up and began dancing, from middle-aged men in t-shirts and jean shorts down to their calves, to someone’s grandma across the aisle. Some younger women stayed in their seats and moved their shoulders to the beat. The dad who gave the call for the radio started passing styrofoam cups full of something that made people suck air through their teeth. He walked over to talk to “Mr. DJ” to exchange a handshake; DJ explained that a guy owed him money but he had him load up his iPod with 30 gigs of music instead.

I couldn’t help bobbing my head just a little. Actually, I didn’t even know it until the dad called me out.

“Hey, when you gonna play that drum?” he asked.

“No man, I’d just mess it up!” I smiled sheepishly.

“But I saw you moving — you feel the music in your veins, huh?”

Ha. I did.

Yes, New York, your rhythms are in my veins somehow, and this decidedly non-lowrider-influenced Sunday Night Oldies Show is dedicated to you, and all your fine people. Here’s what else I’m listening to tonight.

2.  No Woman No Cry by The Fugees

Sure, The Fugees are no Bob Marley, but when I listen to their version of this song, sitting in an apartment with a fan on trying to fight the 80+ degree Manhattan heat at 1 a.m., I hear the heartbeat of this vast metropolis and the yearnings of 10 million apartment lights on its ragged edges; the breath of the city:

“I remember when we used to rock/in the project yard in Jersey./And little Georgie would make the firelight/as stolen cars passed through the night.”

3. 911 by Wyclef featuring Mary J. Blige

I love this city. That doesn’t mean it’s good for my health. Even in its gentrified form, it’s crowded, polluted, lonely — the individual is so dwarfed — and instills one with the dangerous and absurd illusion of being at the center of the universe. Watch this video and realize that this collaboration between two singers from Yonkers and Brooklyn-NJ, respectively, is as much about the painful love for a sprawling serpentine city as it is about a cursed romance. Maybe they’re one and the same.

Here’s one more for the road:

4. Dile al amor by [the Bronx’s own] Aventura

Ooh, a hot debate on journalism in Africa!

/ Eamon / 1 Comment

A hot debate is raging about the quality of journalism about Africa. So we’re told in this summary of the now thoroughly personalized fight. In April, Laura Seay, an assistant prof at Morehouse, wrote a piece for Foreign Policy criticizing journalists covering Africa, and this week Global Post report Tristan McConnell wrote about why she’s wrong. (It’s a bit more juicy than that, so go ahead, take a look.) While mud slinging is never very interesting for me, I’m sort of glad this long festering debate is coming to a head, because it’s an important issue with a lot of misunderstandings. I sympathize with points in both essays, but I think there are problems with both as well. To wit:

On the whole, journalism on Africa is crappier than on other regions

There’s no doubt about it: coverage of the continent of Africa is way behind other regions, involves more of the parachute journalism that Seay criticizes, and employs fewer people covering larger areas. And more reporting on Africa contains hackneyed story lines, predictable clichés, glaring errors and oversimplifications. I am sure there are content analyses out there that show this, but as an intelligent (I hope) reader who has spent some time on the continent and a great deal more studying it, I can tell you it jumps out at me every day I read the paper. This is why criticism of media on Africa is such a popular topic on Twitter and everywhere else: people, especially in African countries, are fed up with the shoddiness of reporting, and tired of the tiresome and predictable representations of Africans. What other continent could be erroneously referred to as a nation in The New York Times, an error that still stands two weeks after this icky article was published?*

But for the most part, this is not the fault of individual journalists

For as much as all the above is true, I appreciate McConnell’s bristling at the broad brush with which Seay paints. First, it must be said that professional journalists, particularly in print, and in Africa as much as anywhere, are by and large an excellent group of people who genuinely care about their subject matter, who are deeply inquisitive, and who are willing to work harder for less money than skilled workers in an array of other professions. The industry tends to attract humanists, and people who believe the truth can set the world free. Not to say you don’t have your egotists and adventure-seeking hacks in the mix, but in my experience these are a minority.

And thank goodness, because if concerns like a career, saving money to raise a family, being close to your loved ones, and having health insurance were the primary motivations for working as a foreign correspondent or as any other kind of journalist, believe me, we’d have nearly none at all. I often wonder whether those who demand such high standards and insist on such a sense of responsibility from reporters have any idea just how little money they make, and how insecure their careers are. Even many established by-lines who seem constantly to be on assignment  live check to check, and make big personal sacrifices to be where they are.

Don’t get me wrong, I think we should demand high standards from our journalists, no matter what they’re paid. I hold the profession on an almost sacred pedestal, and can’t suffer its abuse by its practitioners, even from someone who writes for free or for a pittance. But from a much more rational, behavioral-economics perspective, it is simply unrealistic to expect a stellar level of professionalism and critical thinking from people who are underpaid and unsure about their future prospects.

Journalism has never been an industry for those who want to strike it rich — at most it may attract glory-seekers — but it’s shakier than ever now, with a 30% surge in newspaper cuts last year. Some 1 in 3 newsroom jobs have reportedly been eliminated since 1989 (see previous link). Salaried foreign correspondents have been especially hard hit, because for American rags that are having trouble covering the local mayor’s office, that’s the simplest place to trim some fat and let CNN — or freelancers paid a couple of hundred dollars a story — to pick up the slack.

Africa seems to have been particularly neglected, partly because of the American public’s lack of deep interest in it. (If I had a dime for every awful time someone has cited Blood Diamond or Hotel Rwanda to me in a serious discussion about African politics… Really? Do you watch The Ides of March to decide whom to vote for for Congress ? Wait, don’t answer that!) Sloppy reportage on Africa that would cause an outcry if it was about a domestic subject raises no ire from most Americans, and thus is not changed.  Africa is also extra neglected because even many otherwise intelligent editors, intellectuals, etc. still consider it an economic and political backwater, largely irrelevant except for the humanitarian questions it raises and the stunning inspiration it provides for fashion. Those working against this tide of ignorance have to spend so much time correcting misperceptions that there’s not much of a chance to pioneer different approaches. Meanwhile, the fact that a lot of Africans are rightly pissed off about how different media represent their continent does not have a major effect on what gets covered, since even though they are the subjects of the reporting, they are not its main consumers.

Seay’s criticism of reporting on Africa may be on point, but she doesn’t resolve this final paradox in the least. Journalists may be in love with lofty ideals, but that doesn’t mean the industry is a social service, even if we talk about it like is — for the most part, it’s a business, albeit a frighteningly underperforming one. Writing and reporting on Africa aren’t likely to improve based on business pressures. For-profit outlets have much bigger fiscal fish to fry than a few smart, disgruntled people who know better about Africa; and ad sales are made to companies in rich countries.

Journalists still need to listen to the criticisms 

McConnell paints U.S.-based academics with the same broad brush that he says Seay uses on journalists, accusing her of casting stones from an “ivory tower.” This is really silly — if anything a cheap solution to the strains on correspondents in Africa is to regularly consult academics, whose expertise is free, and cultivated through years of careful study of history and theory, something Seay points out in her Twitter riposte.

The fact is that the street credibility of “being there” that puts a swagger in the gait of many a foreign correspondent — I’m not gonna lie, maybe me too — is really no proof of the legitimacy of their work. If you didn’t ask the right questions, talk to the right people, understand the history, then who cares if you witnessed the blood, sweat, and tears first hand, recorded the sound and the fury? Understand I am not pointing at anyone particular here, but it’s not a point of logic I follow. Absurd arguments throughout recent history have often been based on street cred — think of the colonial officer who has spent years at his post and returns to London to report on the savagery of the natives, or the white southerner of the 1950s who says folks up north “can’t understand the race problem down here because they don’t live it.” Or OK, for an example closer to home, think of Thomas Friedman, who almost always mortars together his glib arguments with some anecdote assuring us he’s physically been to the place under discussion (even if it was to take a taxi from the hotel to the golf course). He spent years in Beirut and Jerusalem and wrote a fine narrative of his experiences there which however totally misdiagnosed the underlying causes of the conflicts he witnessed (in my view, at least).

Unfortunately, the credibility-of-being-there argument seems to be the point in McConnell’s essay that has been most celebrated on the web, if the summary linked to at the beginning of this post is any indication. As journalists, if we think what we do is noble, we need to listen to these criticisms, whether they are from near or far, and see how we can improve our work. Clearly, there is room for it.

Solutions

I mentioned that journalism is not a social service, but maybe it should be. As the business model crumbles ever further, it would be interesting to have Seay evaluate, say, work funded by the Pulitzer Center or another organization that is devoted to upholding excellent journalism in all its ideals, rather than struggling to get accidental hits from readers who were searching for vacation tips or for a review of The Last King of Scotland. From what I’ve seen, her criticisms do not hold up against much of the excellent work that has been funded in this way, which is telling. What if even more resources could be marshaled for such projects? It’s not impossible or unprecedented — philanthropic or idealistic investors have provided the foundation for entire newspapers and outlets in the past (think The Bay Citizen and the Hellman Family Foundation).

Involving more African journalists in Western outlets is another great and ultimately essential idea, but as McConnell points out this is not as simple as Seay makes it sound. Foreign correspondents are not just reporters but also interpreters (as are, for that matter, financial journalists and other specialists). Assuming the primary audience for American publications remains American, the task of foreign correspondents will continue to make issues distant from the reader accessible and interesting. This will require training — I know that I would need training if you assigned me the task of reporting on American affairs in a way that was engaging and accessible for, say, Rwandans. Luckily, there are many good training programs out there for African journalists, though I’ve not heard of many aiming to train foreign correspondents for international publications. Willing and available talent exists, and it needs to be cultivated just as American journalists are.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Would love more thoughts on how media on Africa can be improved — preferably by addressing it as the systemic problem it is.

*NB: Throughout this post I am essentially discussing the work of American correspondents in Africa, since that country’s media scene is the one I am most familiar with. I suspect similar points could be made about media in most other rich countries.

Music break: Your Sunday Night Oldies Show — reminisce and saudade

/ Eamon / 1 Comment

They Reminisce Over You by Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth

Sunday nights are all about reminiscing. Here’s a jam that makes me think of East Coast summer nights — and also San Francisco, because I used to cue up my tape recorder waiting for this one circa 1992-1993. Here in Harlem the trees are green, the days are pushing 80, people are on the stoops and barber shops late into the night, and the shrill roar of local motorcycle buffs tearing down the avenues is coming through my windows. Take it slow, guys…

Ooh Baby Baby performed by the San Francisco TKOs

Speaking of slow, let’s slow it down and take some calls from the request lines. I give you “Ooh Baby Baby” as performed by the San Francisco TKOs, an old fashioned group I only recently became acquainted with. Love the cover art — who else remembers 107.7 KSOL? I like this grittier version better than The Miracles’, which sounds like LA to me, whereas the TKOs sounds like Telegraph Avenue, distant bridge lights, the Emeryville mudflats, the dry season on San Francisco hills.

Rather Go Blind by Etta James

No comment — just please turn this one up. And if you need more check out Beyonce’s surprisingly good Cadillac Records rendition.

Sodade by Cesaria Evora

Finally, a tune from elsewhere — and about elsewhere, the eternal Elsewhere. Because as I understand it, this song is about having a rift between where you are and where you wish to be: pain for the passage of time, separation from loved ones. Saudade (sodade in Cape Verdean Creole), according to Wikipedia, “describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves.”  This song drips with it.

I was lucky enough to see the late Cape Verdean legend Cesaria Evora perform this one several years ago in Berkeley. In the middle of the show, barefoot, she took a break to have a drink and a smoke. It was part of the performance but convincing nonetheless.

This may be the ultimate song for Sunday evening.