[kictanet] [Fwd: Pambazuka News 338: Heart of darkness in Western Media]
alice
alice at apc.org
Wed Jan 23 08:45:55 EAT 2008
western media bias...Africa
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Pambazuka News 338: Heart of darkness in Western Media
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:26:13 +0000
From: Firoze Manji <fmanji at mac.com>
To: pambazuka-news at pambazuka.gn.apc.org
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 338: HEART OF DARKNESS IN WESTERN MEDIA
The authoritative electronic weekly newsletter and platform for
social justice in Africa
Pambazuka News (English edition): ISSN 1753-6839
With nearly 500 contributors and an estimated 500,000 readers
Pambazuka News is the authoritative pan African electronic weekly
newsletter and platform for social justice in Africa providing
cutting edge commentary and in-depth analysis on politics and current
affairs, development, human rights, refugees, gender issues and
culture in Africa.
To view online, go to http://www.pambazuka.org/
To SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE – please visit, http://www.pambazuka.org/
en/subscribe.php
CONTENTS: 1. Features, 2. Comment and analysis, 3. Pan-African Postcard
Please note that views expressed in articlea published in Pambazuka
News reflect those of the authors and do not necessarily represent
those of Pambazuka News or the publishers, Fahamu.
Support the struggle for social justice in Africa. Give generously!
Donate at: http://www.pambazuka.org/en/donate.php
/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\
Highlights from this issue
FEATURE:
- John Barbieri on media coverage of the Kenya crisis
- Pambazuka editors on the word “tribe”
COMMENT & ANALYSIS:
- Emma Mawdsley on British coverage of China in Africa
- John Lonsdale on ethnicity, tribe and state in Kenya
- Antony Ong'ayo on the Kenya case and media bias
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: George Ogola on parachute journalism and the
Kenyan crisis
/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\
1 Features
WHAT IS IN THE WORD TRIBE?
Africa Focus, Africa Action and H-Net Africa contributors on Western
media coverage of Africa
Pambazuka editors
Pambazuka editors give you the war on the word "tribe"
What’s in a word? What does the word “tribe” carry? Here below
Pambazuka Editor’s give you a few snippets of what is a long struggle
to get US Mainstream media to stop using a racist and stereotypical
lens in its coverage of Africa. You can find the fascinating
discussion at www. http://www.h-net.org/~africa We end with an
excerpt from an Africa Action essay on the word tribe. You can see
the full essay at: http://www.africaaction.org/bp/ethall.htm
Africa Focus (http://www.africafocus.org/docs08/ethn0801.php)
narrates that Jeffrey Gettleman for the New York Times in his
December 31 dispatch from Nairobi [wrote that the Kenya electoral
crisis], "seems to have tapped into an atavistic vein of tribal
tension that always lay beneath the surface in Kenya but until now
had not provoked widespread mayhem." Gettleman was not exceptional
among those covering the post-election violence in his stress on
"tribe." But his terminology was unusually explicit in revealing the
assumption that such divisions are rooted in unchanging and
presumably primitive identities.
However Africa Focus gives an update that since the Africa Focus
Bulletin that covered Gettleman’s use of language: “Gettleman's
coverage of Kenya in the New York Times has avoided the
indiscriminate use of the word tribe in favor of "ethnic group," and
has noted the historical origins and political character of the
continued violence in the country, as well as its links to ethnic
divisions”.
But Peter Alegi from Michigan State University in an H- Net Africa
posting says and then asks: “While Gettleman (Times' EastAfrica
bureau chief) seems to have toned down his use of "tribe" thanks to
our protests, but isn't substituting "ethnic group" for it a minor
victory?
Also, folks might be interested in this side story: the other day, I
wrote a brief message to Bill Keller, Times' Executive Editor (ex NYT
correspondent from Johannesburg [1992-1995]), alerting him to the H-
Africa thread on his paper's handling of the Kenya crisis.
Mr. Keller's insulting response included the following statement:
"I get it. Anyone who uses the word "tribe" is a racist. [. . .] It's
a tediously familiar mantra in the Western community of Africa
scholars. In my experience, most Africans who live outside the
comforts of academia (and who use the word "tribe" with shameless
disregard for the political sensitivities of American academics) have
more important concerns."
So Gettleman's ignorance about African languages, history, and
cultural identities doesn't seem to trouble his boss one bit. And the
utter disregard Keller seems to have for what scholars is reinforced
in a closing line dripping with condescension:
"If you have a string that has something insightful to say about
Kenya, I hope you'll pass it along."
Kudos to AfricaFocus then, but it seems that the struggle for
accuracy and informed analysis of Africa in US mainstream media is
going to be a long and tortuous one.
Carol Sicherman, a Professor Emerita. at Lehman College underlines
Alegi’s point with the following post to H-net Africa: She says
writes that “On January 12, I wrote to the Public Editor of the New
York Times as follows (I did not get an answer):
Reading recent dispatches from Kenya, I was pleased to notice that
the Times has responded to years of complaints about the biased terms
"tribe" and "tribal," replacing them with "ethnic group" and
"ethnic." This editorial policy, however, seems to be confined to the
news. Roberta Smith's article "Face Time: Masks, Animal to Video" in
the Arts Section on Jan. 11 uses the egregiously offensive phrase "a
tribal, almost animalistic ritual." It is exactly that equation that
makes it necessary to remove "tribe" and its related words. In the
case in question, removing "tribal" would have put the focus on
"animalistic" without designating Africans as inherently animalistic.
It is particularly odd to find such a cliché in a discussion of the
work of Yinka Shonibare, a highly sophisticated, learned, and ironic
artist.
I don't know how copy editors are instructed at the Times, but the
policy adopted for the news section needs to be adopted for all
sections.
And last but not least, in1997 Africa Action said the following of
the word tribe: Tribe has no coherent meaning.
What is a tribe? The Zulu in South Africa, whose name and common
identity was forged by the creation of a powerful state less than two
centuries ago, and who are a bigger group than French Canadians, are
called a tribe. So are the !Kung hunter-gatherers of Botswana and
Namibia, who number in the hundreds. The term is applied to Kenya's
Maasai herders and Kikuyu farmers, and to members of these groups in
cities and towns when they go there to live and work. Tribe is used
for millions of Yoruba in Nigeria and Benin, who share a language but
have an eight-hundred year history of multiple and sometimes warring
city-states, and of religious diversity even within the same extended
families. Tribe is used for Hutu and Tutsi in the central African
countries of Rwanda and Burundi. Yet the two societies (and regions
within them) have different histories. And in each one, Hutu and
Tutsi lived interspersed in the same territory. They spoke the same
language, married each other, and shared virtually all aspects of
culture. At no point in history could the distinction be defined by
distinct territories, one of the key assumptions built into "tribe."
Tribe is used for groups who trace their heritage to great kingdoms.
It is applied to Nigeria's Igbo and other peoples who organized
orderly societies composed of hundreds of local communities and
highly developed trade networks without recourse to elaborate states.
Tribe is also used for all sorts of smaller units of such larger
nations, peoples or ethnic groups. The followers of a particular
local leader may be called a tribe. Members of an extended kin-group
may be called a tribe. People who live in a particular area may be
called a tribe. We find tribes within tribes, and cutting across
other tribes. Offering no useful distinctions, tribe obscures many.
As a description of a group, tribe means almost anything, so it
really means nothing.
If by tribe we mean a social group that shares a single territory, a
single language, a single political unit, a shared religious
tradition, a similar economic system, and common cultural practices,
such a group is rarely found in the real world. These characteristics
almost never correspond precisely with each other today, nor did they
at any time in the past.
Tribe promotes a myth of primitive African timelessness, obscuring
history and change.
The general sense of tribe as most people understand it is associated
with primitiveness. To be in a tribal state is to live in a
uncomplicated, traditional condition. It is assumed there is little
change. Most African countries are economically poor and often
described as less developed or underdeveloped. Westerners often
conclude that they have not changed much over the centuries, and that
African poverty mainly reflects cultural and social conservatism.
Interpreting present day Africa through the lens of tribes reinforces
the image of timelessness. Yet the truth is that Africa has as much
history as anywhere else in the world. It has undergone momentous
changes time and again, especially in the twentieth century. While
African poverty is partly a product of internal dynamics of African
societies, it has also been caused by the histories of external slave
trades and colonial rule.
In the modern West, tribe often implies primitive savagery.
When the general image of tribal timelessness is applied to
situations of social conflict between Africans, a particularly
destructive myth is created. Stereotypes of primitiveness and
conservative backwardness are also linked to images of irrationality
and superstition. The combination leads to portrayal of violence and
conflict in Africa as primordial, irrational and unchanging. This
image resonates with traditional Western racialist ideas and can
suggest that irrational violence is inherent and natural to Africans.
Yet violence anywhere has both rational and irrational components.
Just as particular conflicts have reasons and causes elsewhere, they
also have them in Africa. The idea of timeless tribal violence is not
an explanation. Instead it disguises ignorance of real causes by
filling the vacuum of real knowledge with a popular stereotype.
Images of timelessness and savagery hide the modern character of
African ethnicity, including ethnic conflict.
The idea of tribe particularly shapes Western views of ethnicity and
ethnic conflict in Africa, which has been highly visible in recent
years. Over and over again, conflicts are interpreted as "ancient
tribal rivalries," atavistic eruptions of irrational violence which
have always characterized Africa. In fact they are nothing of the
sort. The vast majority of such conflicts could not have happened a
century ago in the ways that they do now. Pick almost any place where
ethnic conflict occurs in modern Africa. Investigate carefully the
issues over which it occurs, the forms it takes, and the means by
which it is organized and carried out. Recent economic developments
and political rivalries will loom much larger than allegedly ancient
and traditional hostilities.
Ironically, some African ethnic identities and divisions now
portrayed as ancient and unchanging actually were created in the
colonial period. In other cases earlier distinctions took new, more
rigid and conflictual forms over the last century. The changes came
out of communities' interactions within a colonial or post-colonial
context, as well as movement of people to cities to work and live.
The identities thus created resemble modern ethnicities in other
countries, which are also shaped by cities, markets and national states.
Tribe substitutes a generalized illusion for detailed analysis of
particular situations.
The bottom-line problem with the idea of tribe is that it is
intellectually lazy. It substitutes the illusion of understanding for
analysis of particular circumstances. Africa is far away from North
America. Accurate information about particular African states and
societies takes more work to find than some other sorts of
information. Yet both of those situations are changing rapidly.
Africa is increasingly tied into the global economy and international
politics. Using the idea of tribe instead of real, specific
information and analysis of African events has never served the truth
well. It also serves the public interest badly.
*Please send comments to editor at pambazuka.org or comment online at
http://www.pambazuka.org
******
THE POVERTY OF INTERNATIONAL JOURNALISM
John Barbieri
John Barbieri writes about the pervasive and dangerous myths that
have characterized the coverage of Kenya's post election crisis in
the US and elsewhere
First, let me honorably mention that the title of this piece is
borrowed from Kenyan journalist Rebecca Wanjiku [1]. As most others,
I have watched in dismay and outrage at the events in Kenya following
the announcement on Dec. 30th of the (manipulated) election results.
I have been equally, if not more so, dismayed, outraged and disgusted
by how the situation and violence there has been depicted and framed
in the international media, especially here in the United States. In
almost all of the recent coverage and commentary on Kenya in the
mainstream U.S. media there have been three particularly dangerous
and pervasive myths and misrepresentations that have appeared. All of
these myths have been previously commented on by much more eminent
figures than I, but perhaps it will help to restate and further
comment on all of them in one place.
Three Pervasive Myths and Misrepresentations
First, this is not ‘ethnic conflict.’ Similar to the way that most
African conflicts get reported, there is the ubiquitous framing of
the situation as conflict solely being driven by ethnicity. This is
most profoundly seen in the statements of ‘tribal conflict’; it must
be made clear that this is an extremely racist, antiquated and
inaccurate depiction of the situation. Though there has been an
ethnic factor to some of the conflict, this factor is largely
overemphasized at expense of the more pervasive factor of the rich/
poor and the gross inequities in resource distribution across and
among ‘ethnic lines’ (that is as if such lines could be so clearly
drawn). As many have more articulately said elsewhere the situation
must be re-framed as a political conflict.
More specifically, the organized violence following the elections
must be framed as political elites manipulating their supporters
(including paying and equipping armed militias and using the armed
instruments of the State) to inflict violence on their behalf; it is
so-called leaders fomenting hatred among their supporters all for
their own personal benefit; and it is power-hungry politicians
willing to do whatever it takes, literally willing to throw Kenyans’
lives away in their attempt to do it, and to be so disgustingly eager
to use that violence as a mere pressure point on the national and
international community to get/retain power. Both parties were guilty
of this, but in particular the man sworn in as President has employed
the disproportionate brutal force of the police and military,
especially the General Service Unit.
The repercussions of depicting the situation as solely ethnically-
driven can be seen in the distorted sense of history and context for
all conflicts in Africa and elsewhere. One of the most pervasive
historical misconstructions is especially evident in the popular
writings and collective memory of the Rwandan genocide, which
continue to frame the genocide as being simply the result of
primordial ‘tribal conflict.’ In so doing the context and history of
the genocide is obfuscated by neglecting the ongoing role played by
the brutal legacy of the colonial power (Belgium in the case of
Rwanda) and of national, regional and international politics
following ‘independence.’
Second, this is not a ‘shock.’ We need to attack the myths and claims
being reported that the developments in Kenya are a great ‘shock,’
and that this is a great blow to a ‘beacon of stability, democracy
and economic growth in Africa.’ For anyone who knows the history of
Kenya, the history of colonialism and the history since
‘independence,’ they know that these developments are not a shock and
that they have been long in the making. The developments are directly
connected to the inability of the Kenyan government to come to terms
with the brutal legacy and power distributions inherited from British
rule, including the constitution itself. And specifically the
developments were written all over the wall leading up to the
election to anyone who was paying attention to the fomenting of
ethnic tension by Kibaki/PNU and Odinga/ODM, yet too few seemed
willing to acknowledge it. Anyone who claims that this is a ‘shock’
is either blatantly ignorant, dishonest or practices mere wishful
thinking to be so naïve. And anyone who claims that Kenya is a grand
‘beacon of stability, democracy and economic growth in Africa’
misrepresents the hardships and injustices that the vast majority of
Kenyans desperately face on a daily basis; they also inaccurately
depict the past five years of the ‘booming economic growth’ witnessed
under the Kibaki regime, which through exorbitant amounts of
corruption and increasing income inequality has ensured that the
benefits from that robust economic growth has by-and-large reached
only the very elite.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, is the role of the U.S. It must
be made clear and people must fully understand the large role that
the U.S. has been playing in Kenya and throughout eastern Africa. The
U.S. has keenly been trying to build up allies in East Africa and the
Horn of Africa to counterbalance other perceived ‘threat’ countries
in the region. These key U.S. allies include Kenya, Tanzania,
Ethiopia, Djibouti, Uganda and the Transitional Federal Government of
Somalia. These allies are meant to act as a counter-balance to the
‘threats’ of Sudan (the Bashir regime), Eritrea and the Union of
Islamic Courts (UIC) in Somalia. The Bush administration has clearly
supported incumbent Kibaki due to the fact that his government has
been one of these key allies in the ‘war on terror’ in the East and
the Horn of Africa. The Kibaki administration has allowed and worked
closely with the U.S. on supposed ‘terrorist’ raids along the coast
of Kenya. The Kenyan Anti-Terrorism Unit (with American and British
support) has conducted these extralegal anti-terrorism operations
along the Kenyan coast, targeting the sizeable Muslim population
there. According to human rights organizations in Kenya these anti-
terrorism operations have included the roundup, torture and
extradition of Muslims (to Somalia, Ethiopia and elsewhere) without
being charged or given a trial, similar to ‘war on terror’ operations
elsewhere. The people, nearly all of whom are Muslims, being targeted
are dubiously claimed to be Al Qaeda operatives or a part of other
subversive terrorist organizations.
Similarly, Kenya was an ally during the U.S.-supported invasion of
Somalia by Ethiopian forces to overthrow the Union of Islamic Courts
(UIC) in southern Somalia exactly one year ago. What was, and still
is, routinely missed in the story of the UIC is how they helped to
implement order, stability and social services that had not been seen
in southern Somalia for nearly 15 years; and how the UIC was
primarily an effort to depose corrupt warlords (many of whom were
being backed by the U.S.), not to impose an international Al Qaeda-
like jihadist movement as many claim(ed). Kenya’s (i.e., the Kibaki
administration’s) role in the military operations included working
with U.S. forces along the Kenya-Somalia border and the ubiquitous
sharing of ‘intelligence,’ but they also played a more direct role as
well. At the onset of the invasion, the Kenyan military, seemingly at
the behest of the U.S., closed off its border with Somalia and
refused entry to all Somalis, including refugees, trying to flee
southern Somalia. Soon after, the U.S. conducted air strikes in
southern Somalia killing at least 30 people, most, if not all, of
whom were probably fleeing civilians, not ‘Al Qaeda operatives’ as
was alleged. In short, the Bush administration had clear ‘national
security’ ambitions in seeking that Kibaki, as a key ‘war on terror’
ally in eastern Africa, stay in power. Also, add to this the vested
American, UK and other European business interests in Kenya as well,
who likely did not care for Odinga’s ‘social democratic’ platform
which was posing the threat of more taxes and redistributive wealth.
The biggest blow to U.S. credibility and neutrality in the matter,
though, came immediately after the election results were announced.
Incredulously, the U.S. State Department quickly came out and
congratulated the man sworn in as President on his ‘victory.’ This
was done despite the fact that every diplomat in the country clearly
knew of the irregularities in the election and the hastily swearing
in process of the President. Realizing its mistake the State
Department quickly moved to retract this congratulatory statement,
and then issued a statement calling an end to the violence and for
the situation to be resolved through ‘constitutional and legal
remedies.’ However, it is quite clear that these ‘remedies’ are
blatantly weighted in the incumbent’s favor and thus will merely
support the status quo: Kibaki and corruption. Since January 4th the
U.S. has been pursuing the diplomacy route with Assistant Secretary
of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer, who has now departed,
and Ambassador Michael Ranneberger leading these attempts. However,
it is was disturbing that despite Frazer’s close watch and ongoing
separate talks with both sides, she (and therefore the U.S. in
general) was not able to prevent Kibaki from disastrously going ahead
and filling the most critical posts in the President’s cabinet.
More recently it should be no surprise that the few Heads of State
who have come out and congratulated Kibaki on his ‘victory’ are also
key ‘war on terror’ allies of the Bush administration. These Heads of
State include: President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda (who has received
much aid from the Bush administration and has been crucial in
supplying troops for the AU force in Somalia), transitional President
Abdullahi Yusuf of Somalia (who the U.S., Ethiopia and Kenya helped
reinstate after the overthrow of the UIC), Sheikh Sabah of Kuwait,
King Mohammed VI of Morocco, and Prime Minister Themba Dlamini of
Swaziland. An excerpt from Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf’s
congratulatory message to President Kibaki is worth quoting: ‘…both
our countries must remain strong partners on the global war on terror
and steadfast Allies in protecting freedom.’ Further still, Uganda’s
starch dependence on Kenyan supply routes and Museveni’s close
relationship with Kibaki must be stressed, and therefore the
widespread reports that the Uganda People’s Defense Force is
masquerading as police, destroying property and killing people in
western Kenya must be seriously addressed!
As others have already made clear (e.g., Mukoma wa Ngugi [2], Wandia
Njoya [3], etc.), it should not be assumed that Odinga/ODM is somehow
inherently antithetical to the interests of the U.S. and of
international capital; the extravagant fuss over Odinga’s Hummer was
perhaps one highly illustrative example of his true nature as an
elite who gladly enjoys connections to the West and living well above
the rest of Kenyans. Also, it should not be believed that U.S.
support for corrupt and autocratic Kenyan leaders started with Bush-
Kibaki, it is well-documented how the U.S. had been keenly supporting
and arming the preceding 24 year dictatorship of Daniel arap Moi
during the final years of Cold War geopolitics and beyond. Lastly,
all of this is not meant to suggest a direct U.S. connection to the
manipulated election results, but still the overall interests and
role of the U.S., and other international actors, in Kenya must be
made clear. (For more facts and figures on the U.S.’s military ties
to Kenya and incumbent Kibaki see Daniel Volman’s excellent short
article <http://www.concernedafricascholars.org/080110_volman.php> [4].)
The Poverty of International Journalism
In all, it has been disgusting how reporters have been so eager to
energetically document and provide inaccurate and inhumane commentary
on the bloodshed, but have been too unconcerned in trying to actually
understand the situation and report what Kenyans are really saying
and thinking; although this should certainly come as no surprise. The
inspiration and title for this article comes from Kenyan journalist
Rebecca Wanjiku’s blog ‘The Poverty of International Journalism,’ and
this excerpt about a broadcast on CNN is worth quoting at length:
Understanding the local language is very important when reporting
from foreign countries. For instance on Sunday [January 6th 2008],
there was on television an injured man and those carrying him said in
Swahili "tunampeleka hospitali" (we are taking him to hospital?) But
the journalist's translation was that he had been asked "are you shot
or cut?" with the response coming back that he was actually the
victim of a shooting. It is unlikely that this was an innocent
mistake, the journalist may simply not have cared what was true and
what was not, and it is unlikely either that the world audience would
have noticed, but using video like this to underline a story you are
making up is dishonest reporting. I have faith that Kenyans will soon
be embracing each other, and that we will soon get back to the urgent
yet more mundane tasks of kujitafutia riziki – putting food on the
table. I hope CNN will be around to cover that and not simply rush on
to the next big story. By the way, how comes CNN does not cover
American soldiers or civilians bleeding and writhing in pain, yet has
no second thought for the dignity of the dead and dying from other
countries?
It has been Kenyan journalists and bloggers, like Rebecca, and other
local reporters who have been the real champions of correctly
depicting and analyzing the situation, and who are actually raising
the real desperate concerns of Kenyans. Rather than condescendingly
prescribing analysis and treatment from London, New York or even the
U.S. embassy in Nairobi (which is, although not as geographically
removed, as cognitively removed from the concerns of Kenyans), the
mainstream media needs to listen, understand and make clear the
history and context of the current situation, and stop speaking so
ignorantly and arrogantly about it.
And good journalists need to call out fellow journalists who are
perpetuating the pervasive myths and stereotypes (e.g., Canadian
journalist Arno Kopecky’s Daily Nation article [5]). I would like to
take this opportunity, then, to call out CNN reporter Zain Verjee.
Miss Verjee, as someone who grew up in Kenya, and therefore should
know better, it is despicable how you have been playing up the
‘ethnic conflict’ angle in your TV reporting. Why are you doing this?
Are you callously using the plight of your countrymen/women to simply
boost your career ambitions? Why is it that you so seldom let other
Kenyans actually speak, and rather choose to just speak ‘on their
behalf?’ Why is it that as someone who has worked on campaigns to
spread awareness of violence against women have you not been more
vigorously reporting the disproportionate effect that the violence
and displacement has had on women in Kenya? Why is it that I have not
once heard you mention the role the U.S. is playing in Kenya? Miss
Verjee I am sorry that you were hit by a teargas canister during your
recent reporting (although it should not have been a surprise given
your attempt to ‘get the story’), but perhaps you might now feel some
of the brutality that so many Kenyans have endured and perhaps now
you may start honestly speaking on their behalf and letting their
voices be heard.
The situation in Kenya, like all political conflicts (e.g., eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Darfur, eastern Chad, Iraq,
Pakistan, Burma, Sri Lanka, etc.), should be vigorously reported, but
it must be framed and depicted accurately by incorporating a proper
historical context and the perspective of the people there. The
perspectives/stories of people there must be told, but they must not
be simply trivialized and sensationalized, as is so often done,
particularly in the simplemindedness of televised ‘reporting.’ It is
so sad that in the business that is U.S. TV reporting we seldom
actually hear the voices of people telling their stories from around
the world; rather we too often get a voice-over by some clearly
intelligible Western (i.e., ‘white-sounding’) reporter. Why not use
subtitles!?! Why must these people be robbed from having their voices
heard, why must we be robbed from hearing them?!? Or why not find
articulate English speakers (there certainly are an abundance of them
in Kenya) to speak on their own behalf, and not demean their
‘foreignness’ by using unwarranted subtitles? And why do we have to
wait for ‘crisis’ situations to hear these voices? Why do we hear, or
rather really just see, only the bad? Why do we not hear and see
good, fun, silly, playful, uplifting and empowering stories being
told every day? Why do we not hear and see stories with depth about
love and dreams as often as we superficially see stories about loss
and despair?
In conclusion, news without a proper sense of history and context is
just a list of jumbled half-truths, and news without a proper respect
for and input from the people who are actually affected is just a
list of callous stereotypes. In the past week, now that the violence
has slightly eased, the U.S. media seems to be losing interest in the
situation in Kenya. Forgive the extreme vulgarity, but the mainstream
U.S. media appears to send the following double message: we are not
interested in Africans or African politics, that is unless there is a
full out Rwanda-like bloodbath (with pictures of gruesome machete
attacks and all, of course) so we can stereotype all Africans as the
savages we think they are. I hope that all journalists, reporters and
editors may heed these calls and start acting responsibly and start
reporting the truth coming ‘out of Africa.’
* John Barbieri is an independent reporter who lived in Kenya from
Jan.-June 2007, and is the founder of the US Coalition for Peace with
Truth and Justice in Kenya. He can currently be reached at
kenyanpeace at gmail.com
*Please send comments to editor at pambazuka.org or comment online at
http://www.pambazuka.org
* Please click on the link for the article notes
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/45590
******
/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\
2 Comment and analysis
FU MANCHU VERSUS DR LIVINGSTONE IN THE DARK CONTINENT?
How British broadsheet newspapers represent China, Africa and the West
Emma Mawdsley
Emma Mawdsley examines the coverage of China's growing influence in
Africa by the British print media
The words and images we use do not describe ‘reality’, they create
it. Language (terms, metaphors, and analogies) and images (such as
films, news photos, maps and cartoons) are caught up in struggles
over interpretation – which means that the language and images of the
powerful are important tools in creating and maintaining particular
points of view amongst politicians, policy-makers and the public.
This paper explores the way in which six British broadsheet
newspapers have covered China’s growing role in Africa over the past
seven years. China’s impacts in Africa are complex and varied by
country, sector and context, and most of the newspaper articles
reflect that. Whether more critical or approving in tone, the
articles invariably point to both benefits and problems associated
with China’s rise. Even those which focus on specific issues or
countries, tend to open or conclude with at least a sentence or two
outlining a broader assessment of the prospects and problems
associated with the growing relationship. Even so, a detailed
analysis led us to identify five narrative tropes that recurred
consistently and frequently, which tended to systematically endorse
images of African weakness, Western trusteeship and Chinese
ruthlessness:
1) a tendency to refer to ‘the Chinese’ or ‘China’, as if the various
Chinese actors all shared the same interests;
2) a tendency to focus excessively on China’s interests in oil over
other commodities;
3) a decided preference for focussing on China’s negative impacts on
the continent, and within that, on issues and places of violence,
disorder and corruption (e.g. Zimbabwe, Sudan, Angola) over other
negative issues (e.g. trade imbalances, undermining domestic
manufacturing sectors);
4) a tendency to portray Africans as victims or villains; and
5) a frequently complacent account of the role and interest of
different western actors in Africa. Representations of Africa, China
and the West First, most press reports tend to refer simply to “the
Chinese”, often overlooking the fact that Chinese communities and
actors in Africa are diverse in origins, roles and interests. The
Chinese in Africa include longer standing and more recent diasporic
communities, often engaged in small and medium business, but with a
range of histories and relations with China and with their adopted
African homes. Media accounts tend to focus much more strongly on
Chinese state firms and agencies, as well as the more recent wave of
large private enterprises (although the distinction can be blurred).
But interests differ – longer term Chinese diasporic populations, the
managers of Chinese companies, Chinese labourers employed by those
companies, and different elements of the Chinese Government may have
very different views on, for example, political stability, corporate
transparency or democratic accountability. Different Chinese firms
may have competing interests over what constitute desirable
conditions for import/export trade or commodity extraction/
manufactures. The following quote indicates competing interests that
are otherwise rarely reflected in the media accounts that were
analysed: “Venturing into Africa is a superficially attractive option
for Chinese enterprises with limited global experience, as they can
avoid the kind of competition and rules they face in markets such as
the US or the European Union. But Chinese companies are also under
great pressure to invest in Africa to fulfil political commitments
made by China’s leaders, who provide financial incentives, including
cheap loans, for them to go overseas. “First we must listen to what
the country says, but we have our own company considerations” says Mr
Wang of Chico, an enterprise controlled by the provincial government
of Henan …[Mr Wang says] they “get criticism” from officials back
home if they miss business targets, which often involve expanding
overseas investment” (Financial Times, 20 June 2006: “China ventures
on rocky roads to trade with Africa”).
Allied to this is a tendency to isolate Chinese firms as nationally
discrete entities. In fact, joint enterprises with both African and
western firms are becoming more common.
The second theme identified is the focus on oil and, to a lesser
extent, natural gas and ores, over other commodities. This reflects a
wider focus on the geopolitics of oil, a subject that the Iraq war
and massive oil price rises have brought to the fore of western
public attention. Although oil is undeniably an important issue, and
a major component of Sino-Africa trade and economic growth, this is
concentrated in Angola, Sudan, Nigeria, Gabon and Guinea. For many
African countries, exports of fish, timber and grain, or imports of
relatively cheap manufactured goods are just as important. The focus
on oil lends itself to a discourse of resource competition rather
than the recognition that China and the West have a range of
interests and relations in Africa, including potentially
complementary ones. Third is a very uneven focus on China's interests
and impacts in different African nations. More positive elements tend
to get less attention (debt cancellation, investment, lower commodity
prices for consumers, support for a greater international voice etc),
with a preferred focus on problem issues. Moreover, we find that
there is a preferred focus on zones and subjects of violent conflict,
corruption, genocide and authoritarian leadership, rather than, say,
the less gripping images of China’s impacts on trade imbalances or
under-cutting of African manufacturing sectors. The overwhelming
balance of articles is on Sudan, Zimbabwe and Angola, with far less
attention paid to, for example, Lesotho, which is experiencing
immense hardship competing with China in textile production; or Kenya
which is struggling to compete with China in the manufactured goods
sector.
Fourth, within these accounts, Africans, tend to be reduced to
villains (Mugabe, the Sudanese government) and victims (African
populations, Darfur, the poor), an observation that fits with the
findings of many other critical evaluations of the media. African
agency, as leaders or ordinary citizens, workers and consumers, is
rarely emphasised. Allusions to adolescence or childhood are common.
Thus, discussing China’s effects on Chad:
“Chad was supposed to establish a model of good practice. But, as a
western observer in the country puts it: “The risk is [following
China’s oil deals] it will become an example for the worst [African]
pupils” [emphasis added]. (Financial Times, 23 January 2006: “The
‘resource curse’ anew”.)
The paternalistic line that the West needs to save Africa from China’
depredations is something reflected elsewhere in the media. An
extended Channel Four news report which was widely circulated and
repeated, started: “To Tony Blair, Africa is somewhere which needs
healing or saving and Sierra Leone gets a lot of British aid. But the
Chinese are looking at the continent through different eyes. They see
it as a source of raw materials, especially oil, which they need for
their own development. And somewhere like Sierra Leone, fresh out of
war – they think it’s ripe for trade and investment” (Lindsey
Hillsum, Channel Four, 4 July 2005)
Finally, Western actors – businesses, governments, national and
international development NGOs – are typically portrayed as benign
within the majority of these articles and accounts. Many articles
imply or state that while the West did in the past have supported
authoritarian leaders, or were party to corrupt business practices,
it has learnt its lesson and reformed. While colonialism was
economically exploitative and morally wrong, according to many of the
articles exploring China’s ‘new African safari’ or ‘new scramble for
Africa’, western colonialism is claimed to at least have had a
paternalistic/developmental dimension and well-intentioned elements -
an attitude that has translated into an ethical concern for Africa in
the postcolonial period.
Thus, in the contemporary setting, Western companies supposedly
operate under a different ethical regime because of their own high
convictions; labour laws; voluntary agreements as part of wider
government and third sector pressure to improve business with Africa;
consumer demands for more ethical production and trading; and/or
shareholder pressure. None of these are said to apply to state-run or
private Chinese companies. Above all, the dominant (although by no
means universal, narrative) that runs through many of the articles is
that the mistakes of the past have been addressed, and the West is
now the architect and energiser of a new drive towards good
governance and development, with aid now accompanied by ethical
conditionalities, while reformed commercial practices promise
investment, extraction and trade that will enhance development rather
than line the pockets of kleptocratic elites. These faltering steps
forward, which will be of mutual benefit to western companies and
ordinary African people, are under threat from the unscrupulous
Chinese. A few quotes give a flavour of these arguments: “But while
the meeting [2006 FOCAC] is intended to fuel China’s global drive for
resources, raw materials and markets, concerns are growing that the
boosters of Beijing do not have Africa’s best interests at heart and
that western countries will be cut out of future business”. (The
Guardian, 1 November 2006: “Beijing’s Race for Africa”)
“There are concerns too about soft loans leading to unsustainable
debt and generous aid programmes that undermine efforts to improve
governance, transparency and accountability. If the World Bank and
IMF say no or attach conditions, Beijing always says yes…. The [2006]
Beijing Summit is a big deal for China, a deliberately showy monument
to its value-free strategy. It would be absurd to claim that western
greed and interest did not do enormous damage in an earlier scramble
for Africa. But the age of colonialism is over. It should be accepted
today that global power brings global responsibilities. Tyranny,
inequality and corruption offend universal values. In the countries
where it now has the ability to make a difference, China should think
twice about offering its help with no strings attached”. (The
Guardian, 4 November 2006: “Scrambling to Beijing: China and Africa”)
“That virtuous circle of increased assistance and better governance
has been the hall mark of the approach taken, with varying degrees of
success, by the West and Japan since the end of the Cold War. China
now threatens to blow apart that consensus”. (The Telegraph, 26 April
2006: “The dragon in Africa”)
“Soft Chinese loans to vulnerable and corrupt African regimes,
arranged outside the painstakingly agreed Equator Principles for
responsible lending, risk reversing progress towards extricating such
regimes from debt. … And misconceived or badly executed civil
engineering projects risk irreversible environmental damage … Such a
critique is valid. Coming from the West it also has a hint of the
hypocritical. China’s current scramble for African energy and
resources is modest compared with Europe’s scramble for African
territory a century and a half ago. And China’s sometimes reckless
spending only mirrors gambles by Western banks and governments in the
postwar era. But now Beijing risks repeating the West’s mistakes …
when it allowed massive increases in overseas aid and investment with
no commensurate adjustments to its foreign policy”. (The Times, 2
November 2006: “China and Africa”)
There are undeniably elements of truth in some of this – some western
companies are indeed bound by their charters, public pressure and
voluntary agreements to abide by standards that can reduce their
competitiveness with companies not thus circumscribed. Bilateral and
multilateral initiatives on debt, trade and aid have made some
advances towards greater equity and reparation of injustices. These
efforts and advances should not be belittled. However, there are
three main sets of problems with the imagery of a benign west being
undermined by a ruthless and unscrupulous China. The first is that,
despite advances, many western companies remain mired in corrupt and
exploitative business practices. Without losing sight of the
importance and achievements of incremental improvements in western
accountability and transparency, they remain inadequate. The second
problem is that of scope and scale – the West’s impact on Africa
cannot be reduced to the efforts of NGOs, aid agencies or companies.
We must look beyond these limited horizons to debt, unjust trade
regulations, uneven power in the institutions of global governance,
the ‘war on terror’, and increasingly, perhaps, climate change, to
develop a better understanding of the West’s impacts on Africa.
Third, ‘development’ is almost invariably coded as apolitical and
positive in these articles – although interestingly such partiality
and complacency tended to be situational, apparent when framed within
the specific China-Africa story. Newspapers and even individual
journalists who in other reports may be very critical of, for
example, the halting, late and inadequate provision of medical
supplies, or debt, or trade inequalities, appear to become less
critical when the West is framed in the same article as China. Thus,
while the Australian, French and South African companies may also be
condemned for working in Zimbabwe, in none of the articles analysed
were these framed in the same space as a critique of China’s business
interests.
Running throughout, we can identify recurring words and phrases which
are indicative of the images outlined above: China is ‘guzzling’,
‘aggressive’, an ‘economic juggernaut’, ‘insatiably’ ‘thirsty’ for
oils and minerals, and ‘voraciously’ capitalist. “China is prowling
the globe in search of energy sources” (Declan Walsh, 9 Nov. 2005,
The Guardian, emphasis added)
“As a voracious China scours the world for minerals, no regime is off
limits” (Financial Times, 12 Jan 2006: “Insatiable Beijing scours the
world for profit and power”)
“[China] is ravenous for raw materials”. (The Telegraph, 26 April
2006: “The dragon in Africa”)
In an article headlined “China’s goldmine: Tony Blair and Bono see
Africa as a moral cause; China sees it as a business opportunity. But
is Beijing’s interest based on economic partnership – or ruthless
exploitation?”, we find:
“The resurrection of Chambishi [a major Zambian copper mine] is just
one small example of China’s explosion into Africa. From the barest
foothold a decade ago an army of diplomats, technicians and
entrepreneurs has kicked the continent’s door wide open, making
Beijing a heavyweight investor and political player” (The Guardian,
28 March 2006: “China’s goldmine”, emphasis added)
This position and language stands in contrast to accounts of western
FDI, which is only presented as an unambiguously positive flow.
Unlike the West, the Chinese have ‘insinuated’ their way into the
continent. For example:
“Quietly, while the attention of the world has been elsewhere, China
has become a major player in Africa”. (The Independent, 7 September
2006: “The benefits and dangers of those gifts from the east”)
“China, which now foresees annual trade with the world’s poorest
continent totalling $100 billion (£50 billion) by 2010, began
stepping up its presence stealthily in Africa in the early
1990s” (The Times, 25 April 2007: “From favoured patron to target of
dissenters”, emphasis added)
Dan Large, at SOAS, argues that these images are indicative of
western defensiveness about ‘it’s backyard’, and can be seen as part
of a wider reaction to an emerging power. The language of red dragons
in the continent takes us back to the geopolitical discourses that
characterised the Cold War.
Conclusions To retiterate, amongst the database of articles reviewed
there were alternative perspectives and stories, critical accounts of
western roles and histories, and a recognition of the complex but
also positive possibilities of greater Sino-African relations.
However, the themes identified above emerged as strong and pervasive
scripts in British reporting on the contemporary relationships
between Africa, China and the West. Africa is one place in which
China and western nations, notably the US, are likely to find
themselves in a position of competition, and these images and
languages, both popular and policy, are significant. In a recent
analysis, Andrew Still (2005) urges the importance of maintaining
moderate, pragmatic and respectful language and diplomatic ‘signals’
on both sides, if we are to avoid hardening ideological dividing
lines between China and the US in particular – Still talks in terms
of a potential degeneration of relations that could usher in the next
Cold War. He suggests that:
“ … some of the most difficult issues [between China and the US/West]
lie in the realm of ideas and identity rather than the narrow
economic and political interests, making them far less tractable. Not
least of these will be the way in which the debate over ‘the rise of
China’ is conducted in the public sphere. The limited repertoire of
historical analogies on which it currently draws … creates a
distorting prism through which the issue is viewed and provides a
thin basis for more thoughtful analysis of how to ensure a peaceful
power transition” (Still, 2005, p.3-4)
In the context of what is certain to be growing economic and
political competition between China and the US (with the UK and other
nations playing bit parts), including over Africa, media images and
representations will play an important role in shaping public
understandings, debates and political pressures. These in turn will
have consequences – however negotiated or contested – for different
countries, actors and interests in Africa.
* Dr. Emma Mawdsley is a lecturer in geography and Cambridge
University. This article is a short version of a paper to be
published in Political Geography in 2008. For a copy of the longer
version, please refer to the journal, or contact the author on:
eem10 at cam.ac.uk
*Please send comments to editor at pambazuka.org or comment online at
http://www.pambazuka.org
******
KENYA: ETHNICITY, TRIBE, AND STATE
John Lonsdale
John Lonsdale argues that key to the post-election crisis in Kenya
lies in the changing role of the post-colonial state in relation to
the country's ethnic terms of political trade
The extensive commentary on Kenya's troubles has tended to blame
ancient tribal rivalry, cynical political calculation, or a
combination of the two; with the corrupted electoral process seen as
providing the unintended catalyst - or worse, the deliberate
instigator that awakens latent tribal hostility. British imperialism
has also received its expected share of criticism, for inventing the
now-indigenous Kenyan practice of divide and rule (see Caroline
Elkins, "What's Tearing Kenya Apart? History, for One Thing",
Washington Post, 6 January 2008).
While all such explanations have some merit they may also mislead the
unwary, since they underplay the always slippery relations between
ethnicity as a universal human attribute, politicised tribalism as a
contingent process, and the state - any state, colonial or otherwise
- as a cockpit of variously contested but always unequal power. How,
then, can a focus on such factors illuminate Kenya's continuing turmoil?
A colonial formation
In the 19th century the area that became "Kenya" was stateless. Its
peoples' civility, their ethnicity, was shaped by their subsistence:
farming or herding, or some mixture of both. Such ethnic groups were
not teams, not "tribes". Loyalties and rivalries were smaller than
that - patriarchal lineages, marriage alliances, age-groups, trading
partnerships, client-clusters, and the like. Ethnic groups were
constituted more by internal debate over how to achieve honour in the
unequal lives of patron or client, than by solidarity against
strangers. Ethnic economies indeed were as often complementary as
competitive, with different specialisms. But such inter-ethnicity -
which was not without its frictions - was facilitated by the absence
of any central power that might arrange groups in hierarchical
relations. Sustained "tribal rivalry" could not exist under such
decentralised, underpopulated, conditions.
It was European rivalry that imported that modern Leviathan, the
state, in the late 19th century. It was, like all states, assembled
by force and driven by self-interest. Its British officials allied
with African leaders too weak to be rivals; and occasionally did a
little to rein in the otherwise self-destructive excesses of those
potentially overmighty subjects, the white settlers. The colonial
state, responsible to Westminster and at the same time nervous of
India's viceroy and then (at independence) the country's first prime
minister Jawaharlal Nehru - since British Indians far outnumbered
white Britons in Kenya - stood to some extent athwart both Africans
and settlers, trying to mediate the contradictions between them. Both
settlers and Africans colonised the state and the facilities it
provided. What had previously been a multi-polar mosaic of scattered
nodes of socially productive energy became, within Kenya's new
borders, a layered pyramid of profit and power, unequally divided
between two key centres - one "white", one black - and many
marginalised peripheries.
White settlers got 20% of Kenya's high-potential farmland. As these
settlers failed to provide enough state revenue and blocked African
opportunity, the British increasingly encouraged African farming on
the other 80%. So the second economic centre became Kikuyu-land: home
of 20% of the population; close to the capital, Nairobi; cool and
attractive to missionaries, with more schools than elsewhere. By
geographical accident, then, Kikuyu had a head start in making money
(essential to advance political ambitions) and in acquiring modern
managerial skill.
Most nationalisms start among those subjects who do best out of, and
are most useful to, an ancien regime; their frustrations are keenest,
their opportunity greatest. Yet while that may explain Kikuyu
leadership of Kenya's anti-colonial nationalism, it does not account
for their involvement in Mau Mau, its secretive, violent, offshoot.
To that point I will return, as it is a key to understanding the
present.
A social transformation
In the new circumstances, other and not-so-well-placed ethnic groups
made the most of what they had. They were often driven by a local
patriotism inspired by vernacular, mission-translated, Bibles that
told of an enslaved people who became a tribal nation. They embarked,
in combinations of hope and desperation, on chain-migrations out of
pauper peripheries (not unlike the Scots or Irish in comparable
circumstances) to colonise particular niches of employment: on the
railway; on white farms and plantations; in domestic service; or in
the police and army. Yet others came to dominate the livestock trade.
Officials and employers exploited these various tendencies and
stereotyped the supposed ethnic qualities of the group concerned. The
British helped to harden ethnic divisions made greater by differing
potentials for social mobility. Britain did not simply divide in
order to rule.
The emergence of ethnic consciousness also arose from local debates
about how the genders, generations, rich and poor should relate, as
older inequalities were transformed into new differentiations less
sensitive to existing moral audits of honour.
Nowhere was such differentiation so sharp as among Kikuyu. Its
effects became politically acute after 1945 when settler employers in
the Rift Valley's "white highlands" mechanised production, and the
extensive Kikuyu diaspora of tenant-workers in the region refused the
worsening conditions they were offered. These "ex-squatters", failing
to recover a home in their increasingly populated, and property-
protective, "reserves", had to make shift in Nairobi's slums. The
insistent question, "how then can I live as an honourable Kikuyu?"
was what separated the militants of Mau Mau from the politically
conservative, propertied, patrons - led by Jomo Kenyatta - who first
inspired them.
A political competition
The horrors of the Mau Mau "emergency" war of the 1950s that ensued
proved the repressive potential of a colonial state too closely
allied to the settlers, its strongest clients. But the relative
calmness of decolonisation in 1963 similarly proved the advantages of
an outgoing state power that was not solely dependent upon its local
roots - a clear contrast with Rhodesia's fiery end. The post-colonial
state - rooted in a competitive society, for good historical reasons
- is once more different. For the state has been the sole agency by
which Africans could aspire to climb the commanding heights of the
economy against racially entrenched interests - in land, commerce and
finance. In recent years it has continued this role by ever more
devious means, to meet external demands for "liberalisation". Access
to its power matters. It is concentrated in an executive presidency,
now directly elected, capable of manipulating all public
institutions, including a parliament elected from single-member
constituencies that either singly or in contiguous groups coincide
with what have become tribal territories.
In consequence, the competition for a share in this power became
governed by internal ethnic accountability and tribal rivalry.
President Kenyatta and his Kikuyu elite soothed the frustrated honour
of their Kikuyu poor with settlement schemes in the former "white
highlands" (of which the bulk, historically, had belonged to less
favoured Maasai and Kalenjin groups). His successor Daniel arap Moi,
finding less room for the poor of own Kalenjin, did more to create
for them an ethnic elite.
Politicians generally justify their privilege by carving ethnic
benefits from state largesse. But (in Kenya as elsewhere) this
extractive approach faced increasing pressures. The ferocity of
competition for a share of state power rose over time - as population
has grown, as the fertilising rains of the post-colonial
Africanisation of opportunity long ago dried up, as the terms of
trade for primary commodities turned sour. It was fairly easy for
Kenyatta to ensure that all, more or less, enjoyed a turn "to eat" in
the ethnic coalitions on which a parliamentary majority relied. It
was more difficult for Moi. As the political stakes rose, so it
became more tempting to attract and reward one's ethnic followers
with officially-deniable opportunities for thuggery at the expense of
those who were now tribal rivals in land, urban property, or petty
trade. With every "bought" election, popular anger grew among Kenyan
citizens - to an extent that they created pressure for a
constitutional change which would strengthen parliament at the
expense of the presidency.
A national transition?
A new president, Mwai Kibaki, was elected in 2002 to clean the Aegean
stables. But in that effort he has disappointed all but his Kikuyu
cronies. Now, in the presidential election of 27 December 2007, he
appears to many to have broken the tacit rules of national
competition - the last straw. That the opposition was, it seems,
merely less successful in rigging the ballot will not make
reconciliation any easier. Some of the subsequent opposition violence
is politically directed. But the worst, by Kalenjin "warriors"
against Kikuyu "immigrants" into the Rift Valley, may have outrun
such elite-engineered tribalism to become an eerie echo of Mau Mau -
in being an internal, generational, ethnic revolt against the
compromises by which its own recently-manufactured Kalenjin elite
came to terms with the "old wealth" of Kenyatta's Kikuyu.
There are, then, two very different dynamics currently at work in
Kenya: internal ethnic dissidence and external tribal rivalry.
Neither can be disarmed without rewriting the rules of political
competition for the power of a rather different ("post-post-
colonial") state. It would have to be less closely allied to its
strongest clients, and offer its services more disinterestedly to all
Kenyans. These might in consequence come to think of themselves more
as citizens, less as ethnically-defined clients. It is a very great
deal to ask.
Kenya faces two possible futures. On the one hand, the normal inter-
ethnicity of most daily lives may have been poisoned by the recent
violence, forecasting a broken state. On the other, the shock may
have persuaded Kenyan elites of the old, Burkean, truth that a state
without the means of some change is without the means of its
conservation. There is perhaps a glimmer of hope in the opposition's
success in getting its man elected as the speaker of the new parliament.
* John Lonsdale is emeritus professor of modern African history and
fellow of Trinity College Cambridge. This article was first published
in OpenDemocracy
*Please send comments to editor at pambazuka.org or comment online at
http://www.pambazuka.org
******
THE KENYA CASE AND MEDIA BIAS
Antony Otieno Ong'ayo
While the whole world is aware of the crisis is in Kenya, thanks to
the international and local media, most of their reporting is
accurate, however, there is need for an honest analysis of the
situation in Kenya
The media
It is sad at this moment in time to apply outdated tactics of
muzzling the people who are expressing a democratic right. In the
case of Kenya, gagging the media would not help Kibaki and his
cohorts, since the level of awareness and resolve among Kenyans not
to return to the dark days of dictatorship is so high. The courage of
the Kenyan media and journalists despite setbacks initiated by
Internal security Minster (Michuki) is worth noting, but more so the
way in which they reported events during the campaigns and eventful
day of vote counting. However, there are problems with headlines
(both local and international) that have appeared since the outbreak
of post elections violence.
The ethnic dimension is appearing to be the main focus of
international press and they are also reporting that it is a Kikuyu-
Luo issue but that is not true. Besides the fighting in the slums in
Nairobi, Nakuru and Mombasa whose inhabitants are from all
backgrounds though dominated by communities from western Kenya,
Killings taking pace in the Rift Valley; Coast provinces are not
perpetrated by the Luos. The fact that Raila is a Luo is not a
justification enough to tag a whole community, just because one of
them is a leading personality in the current stalemate.
Such bias will direct attention in the wrong direction, and could be
used to gang up against other communities, as has been the case in
the past. There is no mention of killings taking place in Nyanza
province especially in the Lake Town of Kisumu where Police has been
shooting protesters at the orders of the internal Security Minister
(Michuki).
Condemnation of violence should be applied across the board. Victims
of the violence are from all over especially in the slums, but where
it is perpetrated by the state in a selective manner, condemnation
should be focused on security forces and those who give such orders)
These kinds of statements misinform the world of the actual facts on
the ground and hinder insights that could help get Kenya out of the
situation.
Secondly reducing the current post election conflict to a Kikuyu-Luo
affair is cheap analysis that is devoid of facts and reflections of
what happens on the ground. Most of the current Western media
analyses do not taken into account the underlying factors such as the
failure of institutions of the state, such as the electoral
commission of Kenya whose mediocre performance has plunged the
country into bloodshed, a draconian constitutional framework that has
been at the service of ethnic chauvinists and jingoist in power since
1963, the centralised power and networks that benefit from it, whose
abuse and actions have led to marginalisation of certain groups from
national resources, equitable public appointments, and the grand
scheme involving local and international elites who exploit Kenya
under the “old order”, interests/forces that want to keep the status
quo and their role in the current problem.
Bias and partisan analyses are also observed in the local media
especially the media owners association, Kenya broadcasting
corporation, Kenyan citizens in the diaspora through various blog
sites and debaters in the local Newspapers where intellectuals,
opinion and church leaders have taken sides, instead of guiding the
debate in a more honest way so that all Kenyans can identify where
the problem lies (draconian laws, out-dated political system,
poverty, inequality, corruption, unequal distribution of resources
countrywide and lack of access to essential services among others).
Kenyans suffer under these conditions regardless of their tribe, and
that is why those who live in the slums are from all tribes, even
though previously marginalized by earlier regimes such as the Luo,
Luhya and other minority groups make up the majority in those dwellings.
Leadership and national interest
The question that people need to ask is why did Kibaki sought to be
Kenya’s president, in 1992, 1997, and finally became one in 2002? Was
it because he lacked money? Was he someone with an agenda for the
“whole “ nation?
And if he had one, what was the agenda? Was that agenda realised
between 2003 and 2007? Why are Kenyans having a problem with his
agenda presented during the campaigns and the people around him
majority of whom have been rejected in their own backyards? Why did
most Kenyans have a problem with giving him another mandate? Why
would someone who is a billionaire and aged 76, not want to leave a
legacy that would be remembered in positive terms? What is so painful
to forego that Kibaki would not want a clean election? More important
to ask is why the current “elite” and morons around Kibaki are afraid
of change of the current system and/or leadership to go into the
hands of “lesser” communities? And lastly, why was the current regime
rejected by majority of provinces and communities? Even though there
are arguments that Kenya’s economy has grown at 6% over the past two
years, the gap between the rich and poor has widened, with more
people falling below the poverty line. The slums did not get smaller,
nor did North Eastern and North-Eastern provinces get piped water
from lake Victoria, the Samburus did not receive hospitals and tarmac
roads, no fish industry was built along Lake Victoria and loans given
to fishermen. 40 years is a long time for the Samburu, Turkana,
Rendile and Somalis to wait for basic and essential services to reach
them, it is a long time for Kamba people to wait for water and
receive food hand outs during starvation, it is a long time before
the fishermen along Lake Victoria receive funding through a fishing
Board to take care of their interests in agriculture as done to
coffee, tea, pyrethrum and dairy farmers; it is along time to wait
for any major industry in Western Kenya; it too long time for
Mijikenda to have resources from Coastal investments recycled back to
alleviate their poverty, thirst for water, better schools and hospitals.
Obstacle to dialogue
In my view Kibaki is hostage to a number of factors that seems to
contradict his call for putting the nation first. First and foremost
are the networks of buddies and business comrades and elite form Mt
Kenya who have been on the Gravy train since 2003. For what explains
the refusal to find a middle ground while knowing so well that the
outcome of the elections are not acceptable to everyone including
their own people? The people holding Kibaki hostage are the ones
Kenyans need to address in their quest for finding a peaceful
solution to the current crisis. These people have a lot to loose if
the man goes, thus the reason they are against recount, judicial
review or re-run of presidential elections. Kenyans regardless of
their ethnic background come distant in their priority of needs and
actions. The opposition also has a role to play in the process and
that will depend on the kind of proposal they put on table, which
should be scrutinised by Kenyans since the issue at hand is about how
Kenyans are governed and therefore Kibaki or Raila are just but
people they expect to govern them through their mandate which
includes listening to their views and respecting their will as
expressed through the social contract via the vote and representative
democracy.
A Government of National Unity, or a recount of ballots papers will
not solve any problem. It is a well-known fact that ballot papers
especially those used for tallying presidential votes were already
tampered with and might mot be traced. Secondly Keep never keeps any
promise. He did not keep his promise to Kenyans after he made
promises upon election in 2002; he never honoured agreements with his
comrades upon enthronement, he renegade on the fight against
corruption, poverty and tribalism. He does not have the will to keep
his promises therefore arrangements such as a government of national
unity will just be a soft landing for him, it will be a process that
legitimises his hold onto power at the expense of democracy and the
will of Kenyans who came out to vote on the 27^th December 2007.
Kibaki and his handlers, do not care about democracy, it is a word
they use at their convenience. The best arbitrator in this case is
the voter. All mediators coming to Kenya should not let Kenyans down
by proposing frameworks that will maintain the status quo. It will be
a mockery to democracy and great betrayal to the many Kenyans who
have lots their lives since the 50s, to liberate the country from
colonial yokes but also from the yokes of fellow Kenyans such as
Kenyatta, Moi and Kibaki.
The Killings
Kenyans should stop Killing each other. The culprits are few people
who are out busy with self-aggrandisement at the expense of a whole
nation.
Although the current killings are unacceptable since they are an
outcome of a stupidity of failure by Kenyan politicians to grasp the
communality interest, Kenyans and more so those who abuse the
political system and state institutions and resources should know
that "Kenya belongs to all who belong in it" and all should be given
equal treatment. There is no justification for the minister of
internal security to use outdated and counterproductive tactics of
targeting specific ethnic groups with paramilitary force and orders
to kill. The images on television screens, shows that most of these
people could be apprehended and taken to court.
Senseless beating and shooting based on orders of a politician with
colonial hangovers will exacerbate acts of revenge instead of
resorting to the rule of law to settle disputes or address acts pf
violence that are currently being perpetrated by some Kenyans who
exploit the chaotic situation. The paramilitary police used by
Michuki on the Luo (historical tactic, used by Kenyatta, in the 60s
and early seventies) is selective and directed in one direction
towards a group of people but that too will create more anger and
feelings for revenge.
Struggles in the Rift Valley are also about past wrongs against the
minority communities like Ogieks who were chased out of the forest
and the places given to the central province groups. Maasai and
Kalenjin whose prime land were taken by the British, and later by the
elite around Kenyatta. These grievances have never been addressed and
due to the complex nature of ethnic blend in those regions, Moi for
instance exploited this mix to cause chaos in order to vilify the
onset of multiparty in Kenya. Ethnic clashes in 1992 and 1997,
produced suffering and anger which have been kept low, but now fully
exploited in the face of a dashed hope for change. These people
thought there could be some equity with change of government but that
hope is gone, so we expect anger, but also revenge as result of past
clashes that were instigated by Moi prior to 1992, and 97 elections.
Democratic test What I fear most is that if Kibaki is allowed to
rule, Kenya will return to the dark ages, all the democratic gains
will be lost. They will know that they can always rig elections and
get away with it no matter what people do including protest, they
don’t mind whether people die or not, since they will be able to get
away with it.
Kibaki’s behaviour in relation to vote tallying and results in the
2007 elections makes democracy look sick in Africa. It brings to mind
the question whether there are free and fair elections? Or whether
franchise or high voter turn out as witnessed in Kenya can turn a
regime out of office? What about the role of institutions to support
such a process like an independent police, electoral commission,
judiciary and a parliament that is sensitive to the needs of the
country, free and non-partisan media, respect for the rule of law by
all parties involved in the electoral process? Even though democracy
has never been perfect although being adopted by nations and peoples,
its institutionalisation depend more on local history, culture and
geography and not analyses and prescription as it is applied in other
contexts. In the case of Kenya, the political, economic and social
systems are complex and full of nuances, combined with other forces/
vested interests/pressure groups that exert more power, thus making
the ordinary voter appear to be a pawn rather than a "king" maker.
Therefore if Kenya is to build on the already made gains on the
democratic front, a solution to the current crisis must be found in
tandem with the reality on the ground. The reality that the
“presidential election was rigged” and the incumbent is hell-bent on
hanging to power no mater what cost, but also the reality that the
opposition is making claims which have been proved right by the
electoral commission itself and the various poll observers that
Kibaki did not win the elections”. Although, calling for peace or on
the major players to urge their supporters to clam down is a first
step, but the call for peace should not water down the main cause of
the problem which is “rigged elections” which is a threat to
democratic gains. Being soft on this point would embolden the
antagonists especially the “winners” and based on their history of
arrogance and lack of decorum in addressing national issues, they
will brush aside the issue at stake and this will fuel anger which is
not only expressed by the opposition, but the very people the winners
want to “rule” at all cost.
Way out
Asking Raila or Kenyans to forget this and forge ahead, and wait for
another 5 years by many partisan authors in various local dailies and
international blogs is not sincere and honest since such calls are
directed at one party and not the other two. Why are people not
asking Kibaki to resign? Why not ask for recount and audit of the
votes? If the Electoral commission is not honest, how sure can we be
of the courts in Kenya? Kenyans know that the system is rotten thus
the overwhelming vote and a clear message that they want something
different. They should not be denied this difference by hiding behind
discourses that keeps on mystifying the problem. If Kibaki goes on
without the approval of Kenyans, he is not making it better for those
already hurt in one way or the other through killings and destruction
seen in the past days. These things will haunt the nation after he is
long gone and people around him or groups supporting him will not
escape blame and demands to be held accountable. Peace can only come
when the two parties agree to talk, engage and get into a process
that will heal wounds on both sides of the divide (the people, the
Opposition and PNU politicians). Allowing Kibaki to go ahead and bury
his head as if nothing serious has happened will only exacerbate the
arrogance of the group around him as witnessed during a recent press
conference and the exchange between PNU Ministers and the press. Such
one sided approach and attack on the opposition will only help
strengthen the status quo, the exploitation, discrimination and
inequality along tribal lines, which will exacerbate problems even if
calmness would return today.
What is urgently needed are; Curfew in Opposition areas to be lifted
and regular police patrols with a humane face be initiated in hot
spots to give people confidence in the state institutions for their
safety. The general service unit has no role in the process since it
is a catalyst instead of providing safety.
The Kenya Pipeline Corporation should immediately resume pumping oil
to western Kenya and Uganda. Cutting this supply is not different
from scorched earth policy and if someone in the government has
ordered such action, which was observed already before the election
days then he/she or they are fueling the crisis instead of solving
it. This should apply to other services like electricity, food items
among others Kenyan civil society organisations, Law Society, The
Kenya National Human Rights Commission and invited institutions to
help in the process of reconciliation and putting in place a
framework that would bring back the credibility of the electoral
process and an acceptable conclusion A re-run of presidential
election supervised by a team of independent observers and
representatives of the two parties (ODM and PNU) within an agreed
time frame. It is now clear from ECK that they did not know who won.
The ECK had put aside funds for a run off, and that money can be used
to SAVE KENYA.
* Antony Otieno Ong'ayo is a Researcher in the New Politics Programme
at the Transnational Institute
*Please send comments to editor at pambazuka.org or comment online at
http://www.pambazuka.org
******
/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\
3 Pan-African Postcard
PARACHUTE JOURNALISM AND THE KENYAN CRISIS
George Ogola
George Ogola decries the simplistic western approach to covering news
on Africa, as exemplified by the reporting of the Kenyan post-
election crisis
They were probably the longest days of my life. Red-eyed from lack of
sleep and desperate for updated information on the Kenyan elections,
I meticulously watched international TV networks and spent hours
surfing the net for relevant sites covering the elections. I could
sense curiosity turn into anxiety then fear before an unprecedented
implosion. Kenya was at war with itself.
The Economist called it ‘a very African coup’ while Raila Odinga
called it ‘a civilian coup’. Both PNU and ODM claimed victory.
Confusion reigned as chaos erupted. Months of excitement had turned
into uncertainty for some and distress for others. But as I agonised
with my people, there was a parallel drama unfolding.
When controversy over the presidential elections threatened to
destroy our fragile nation-state, ‘parachute’ journalists descended
on Nairobi eager to cover yet another ‘trouble spot’ in the blighted
continent. As the country went to the polls, Africa collectively had
no more than tickers in the major international news channels.
A week prior to the election, only Al-Jazeera had taken some trouble
to tell the Kenyan story. Reuters Africa proved another notable
exception. But the familiar would soon follow, vicious and unrelenting.
When protests met the announcement of the presidential results, CNN,
BBC 24 and Sky News sent some of their finest to Nairobi. But the
frame of reference had been pre-determined. A narrative had been
established. Kenya had descended into tribal anarchy reminiscent of
the Rwanda genocide.
Neighbours had turned onto each other just because they belonged to
different tribes. ‘Tribal violence’ became the definitive mantra and
was the basis for reports across the world.
I recall a BBC 24 news anchor asking a reporter when the results were
announced whether a military coup was an immediate possibility.
Meanwhile, pundits were carefully selected. As a rule, they were
middle class white folk mostly ex-diplomats previously based in
Africa and ‘respected’ London-based Africanists working with the
city’s many ‘Think-Tanks’. There was the occasional African
interviewed on a late night show. The frames of reference could not
be destabilised.
People were being targeted and killed indiscriminately by tribal
mobs. The savagery both in the deed as well as coverage was taken to
new heights when a Church was set ablaze in Eldoret killing more than
40 people.
International reporters flew to the town and milked the tragedy. They
reconstructed the gory scenes, the savagery unbeknown to man since
Rwanda. Footage of rotting corpses in maize fields and overflowing
morgues were aired without reservation. The dead were denied dignity.
If you were Kenyan, you cried; and I wept. But I cried for my country
as well as the job I love.
The kind of coverage I saw on Sky, BBC 24, Euro News and a host other
channels was not magnanimity. I was convinced it was not a desire by
a section of the international media to tell the world the true story
about the conflict that was slowly consuming Kenya. This was about a
good story; it was about the exploitation of a people crying out for
help.
It was equally about a western anthropology that figures conflict in
Africa only in tribal terms; an Africa whose existence is so basic it
must not be understood beyond the discourse of the tribe.
I witnessed the power of a selective morality that tends to view
Africa from a paradigm of difference, a unique rationality that
embraces the kind of savagery the world was witnessing.
Feature stories, commentaries and editorial pieces revelled in
descriptions of gore; of eyes gorged, bodies burnt beyond
recognition, of limbs severed with machetes. The description sounded
more like a sport. Context and detail was ignored as the number of
deaths became fodder for good stories.
Highbrow newspapers suddenly became tabloids with pictures of fleeing
Kenyans, children sleeping rough and lines of women with bowls
queuing for food making the cover pages. TV news anchors asked
reporters on the ground how many were starving, how many more had
been killed, and how many more villages had been razed.
Helicopters were more useful flying over burnt out villages to
capture footage of frightened villagers than provide assistance. When
many news channels heard whiff of planned protests, the question was
not what it was about but how violent it would be. The threshold of
death was continuously being revised, indeed rewritten.
Amid this, the obvious was deliberately being negated. Why was
violence in Nairobi largely restricted to the slums of Kibera and
Mathare? Was it possible that the Kenyan poor were at war with the
rich and with themselves, though speaking in a voice that is anathema
to a revolution? Why was violence so seductive? Why were the middle
classes marooned in their suburbs, silent and invisible?
Why was the violence so vicious in the rural areas and especially in
the Rift Valley? Was it really possibly that because of disputed
presidential elections, Kenya would suddenly implode? Was there a
historical trajectory to this conflict? No, the unambiguity of Africa
as a problem continent could not be challenged at a time when it was
such a good story.
The assumption that informs the continent’s interpretation is that
this is a continent whose civilisation cannot be so sophisticated as
to have class wars; neither can it justifiably fight for anything
remotely democratic. I’m still torn between weeping for my country
and an institution I still love dearly.
* Dr. George Ogola teaches at the University of Central Lancashire
*Please send comments to editor at pambazuka.org or comment online at
http://www.pambazuka.org
******
/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\/\/\//\
Fahamu - Networks For Social Justice
http://www.fahamu.org
© Unless otherwise indicated, all materials published are licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative
Works 3.0 Unported License. For further details see: http://
www.pambazuka.org/en/about.php
Pambazuka news can be viewed online: http://www.pambazuka.org/
RSS Feeds available at http://www.pambazuka.org/en/newsfeed.php
Pambazuka News is published with the support of a number of funders,
details of which can be obtained at http://www.pambazuka.org/en/
about.php
To SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE go to:
http://pambazuka.gn.apc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pambazuka-news
or send a message to editor at pambazuka.org with the word SUBSCRIBE or
UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line as appropriate.
The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not
necessarily represent those of Pambazuka News or Fahamu.
ISSN 1753-6839
More information about the KICTANet
mailing list