Where does Africa end and the Middle East begin?

By Sophia Azeb
Azad Essa’s recent article for Al Jazeera, “In Search of an African Revolution” addresses the role of international media in prioritizing the so-called ‘Arab’ revolutions that are taking place in North Africa and Southwest Asia over protests throughout the rest of the African continent. Essa’s take is admirably nuanced. (We assume he was joking with his use of terms like “darkest Africa.”) Perhaps one of the most important observations in the article is Pambazuka Online editor Firoze Manji’s:

 

…people in Africa recognise the experiences of citizens in the Middle East. There is enormous potential for solidarity to grow out from that. In any case, where does Africa end and the Middle East begin?

Heeding these words together with Essa’s arguments on why ‘the Middle East’ has experienced relative success thus far–including the fact that North Africa is “fairly homogeneous compared to sub-Saharan Africa;” or that Barack Obama is more willing to condemn violence in the “Arab world”–I feel it is opportune to ask this question: What the hell is the Middle East?

The arbitrary national borders drawn during the Berlin Conference are not the only relics of colonialism still alive and well in Africa. The mythologies of certain racial, linguistic, and ethnic superiorities and inferiorities are carefully cultivated by the neoliberal order, maintained by oppressive regimes dependent on existing divide and conquer strategies, and perpetuated by Orientalists all over the globe – Arab and non-Arab, African and non-African, black and white.  You get the idea.

Yes – this so-called ‘Arab world’ has its own sets of racial hierarchies. Absolutely. Many in North Africa would bristle at being called African, much less black. And certainly–the treatment of migrant laborers in North Africa and Southwest Asia (from all parts of Asia and Africa) is just as dire as in Europe and North America. However, and this cannot be said enough, Arabs-in-Africa/African-Arabs are not homogenous peoples. This may be facetious, but it is a point that must be made (and has been, by Arabs and non-Arabs in Africa): treating Arabic-speaking peoples in Africa and Asia as “white” or “not African” or non-white but “not black” was conceived to uphold Western colonization of these continents and remains useful for the same cause as well as for African despots antsy about what their own people can do to them.

Those of us–and we are many–who identify as Afro-Arab, acknowledging our diverse racial identities while respecting our multiple (and sometimes conflicting) geographic positionalities and particular cultural traditions, have even more of a reason to continue working against this imperialist narrative. What international media as well as commentary by scholars, politicians and everyday Westerners of all backgrounds makes evident is that we must take to task those on the outside looking in who continue to contribute to the stratification of Africans based on these mythologies.  Where/what is the “Middle East”? And why are we Africans shut out of this discussion?

Once again, a friend hits the nail on the head: “I figured it out! Palestine is the Middle East  – that’s why I can’t find it on any maps.”

* Photo Benedicte Kurzen in The New Yorker.

>via: http://africasacountry.com/2011/02/23/where-does-africa-end-and-the-middle-ea...

__________________________

 

In search of an African revolution

International media is following protests across the 'Arab world' but ignoring those in Africa.

 

Azad Essa Last Modified: 21 Feb 2011 16:24 GMT

Must a revolt be filmed and photographed to succeed? [EPA]

Demonstrations are continuing across the Middle East, interrupted only by the call for prayer when protesters fall to their knees on cheap carpets and straw mats and the riot police take a tea break. Egypt, in particular, with its scenes of unrelenting protesters staying put in Tahrir Square, playing guitars, singing, treating the injured and generally making Gandhi’s famous salt march of the 1940s look like an act of terror, captured the imagination of an international media and audience more familiar with the stereotype of Muslim youth blowing themselves and others up.
 
A non-violent revolution was turning the nation full circle, much to the admiration of the rest of the world.

"I think Egypt's cultural significance and massive population were very important factors in ensuring media coverage," says Ethan Zuckerman, the co-founder of Global Voices, an international community of online activists.

"International audiences know at least a few facts about Egypt, which makes it easier for them to connect to news there," he says, drawing a comparison with Bahrain, a country Zuckerman says few Americans would be able to locate on a map.

Zuckerman also believes that media organisations were in part motivated by a "sense of guilt" over their failure to effectively cover the Tunisian revolution and were, therefore, playing "catch up" in Egypt.

"Popular revolutions make for great TV," he adds. "The imagery from Tahrir square in particular was very powerful and led to a story that was easy for global media to cover closely."

The African Egypt versus the Arab Egypt
 
Egypt was suddenly a sexy topic. But, despite the fact that the rich banks of the Nile are sourced from central Africa, the world looked upon the uprising in Egypt solely as a Middle Eastern issue and commentators scrambled to predict what it would mean for the rest of the Arab world and, of course, Israel. Few seemed to care that Egypt was also part of Africa, a continent with a billion people, most living under despotic regimes and suffering economic strife and political suppression just like their Egyptian neighbours.

"Egypt is in Africa. We should not fool about with the attempts of the North to segregate the countries of North Africa from the rest of the continent," says Firoze Manji, the editor of Pambazuka Online, an advocacy website for social justice in Africa. "Their histories have been intertwined for millennia. Some Egyptians may not feel they are Africans, but that is neither here nor there. They are part of the heritage of the continent."

And, just like much of the rest of the world, Africans watched events unfold in Cairo with great interest. "There is little doubt that people [in Africa] are watching with enthusiasm what is going on in the Middle East, and drawing inspiration from that for their own struggles," says Manji.

He argues that globalisation and the accompanying economic liberalisation has created circumstances in which the people of the global South share very similar experiences: "Increasing pauperisation, growing unemployment, declining power to hold their governments to account, declining income from agricultural production, increasing accumulation by dispossession - something that is growing on a vast scale - and increasing willingness of governments to comply with the political and economic wishes of the North.

"In that sense, people in Africa recognise the experiences of citizens in the Middle East. There is enormous potential for solidarity to grow out from that. In any case, where does Africa end and the Middle East begin?"

Rallying cry

The ‘trouble’ that started in Tunisia (another African country) when street vendor Mohamed Bouzazi’s self-immolation articulated the frustrations of a nation spread to Algeria (yes, another African country), Yemen and Bahrain just as Hosni Mubarak made himself comfortable at a Sharm el Sheik spa.
 
Meanwhile, in 'darkest Africa', far away from the media cameras, reports surfaced of political unrest in a West African country called Gabon. With little geo-political importance, news organisations seem largely oblivious to the drama that began unfolding on January 29, when the opposition protested against Ali Bhongo Odhimba’s government, whom they accuse of hijacking recent elections. The demonstrators demanded free elections and the security forces duly stepped in to lay those ambitions to rest. The clashes between protesters and police that followed show few signs of relenting.

"The events in Tunisia and Egypt have become, within Africa, a rallying cry for any number of opposition leaders, everyday people harbouring grievances and political opportunists looking to liken their country's regimes to those of Ben Ali or Hosni Mubarak," says Drew Hinshaw, an American journalist based in West Africa. "In some cases that comparison is outrageous, but in all too many it is more than fair.

"Look at Gabon, a tragically under-developed oil exporter whose GDP per capita is more than twice that of Egypt's but whose people are living on wages that make Egypt look like the land of full employment.

"The Bhongo family has run that country for four decades, since before Mubarak ran nothing larger than an air force base, and yet they're still there. You can understand why the country's opposition is calling for new rounds of Egypt-like protests after seeing what Egypt and Tunisia were able to achieve."
 
Elsewhere on the continent protests have broken out in Khartoum, Sudan where students held Egypt-inspired demonstrations against proposed cuts to subsidies on petroleum products and sugar. Following the protests there on January 30, CPJ reported that staff from the weekly Al-Midan were arrested for covering the event.
 
Ethiopian media have also reported that police there detained the well-known journalist Eskinder Nega for "attempts to incite" Egypt-style protests. In Cameroon, the Social Democratic Front Party has said that the country might experience an uprising similar to those in North Africa if the government does not slash food prices.

"There are lots of Africans too who are young, unemployed, who see very few prospects for their future in countries ruled by the same old political elite that have ruled for 25 or 30 or 35 years," says CSM Africa bureau chief Scott Baldauf.

"I think all the same issues in Egypt are also present in other countries. You have leaders who have hung onto power for decades and who think the country can only function if they are in charge. A young Zimbabwean would understand the frustration of a young Egyptian."

Divide and rule
 
Sure, the continent is vast and acts of dissent and their subsequent suppression are the bread and butter of some oppressive African states. But just as self-immolation was not new in Tunisia, discontentment and rising restlessness is not alien to Africans. In the past three years, there been violent service delivery protests in South Africa and food riots in Cameroon, Madagascar, Mozambique and Senegal.

But whether the simmering discontent in Africa will result in protests on the scale of those in Egypt remains to be seen.
 
"All the same dry wood of bad governance is stacked in many African countries, waiting for a match to set it alight," says Baldauf. "But it takes leadership. It takes civil society organisation," something the CSM Africa bureau chief fears countries south of the Sahara do not have at the same levels as their North African neighbours.

Emmanuel Kisiangani, a senior researcher at the African Conflict Prevention Programme (ACCP) at the Institute of Security Studies (ISS) in South Africa, believes the difference in the success levels of protests in North and sub-Saharan Africa can be attributed in part to the ethnic make-up of the respective regions.

"In most of the countries that have had fairly 'successful riots' the societies are fairly homogeneous compared to sub-Saharan Africa where there are a multiplicity of ethnic groups that are themselves very polarised. In sub-Saharan Africa, where governments have been able to divide people along ethnic-political lines, it becomes easier to hijack an uprising because of ethnic differences, unlike in North Africa."

'Where is Anderson Cooper?'

Egypt and Tunisia may have been the catalysts for demonstrations across the Arab world, but will those ripples spread into the rest of Africa as well and, if they do, will the international media and its audience even notice?

"What the continent lacks is media coverage," says Hinshaw. "There's no powerhouse media for the region like Al Jazeera, while European and American media routinely reduce a conflict like [that in] Ivory Coast or Eastern Congo to a one-sentence news blurb at the bottom of the screen."

Hinshaw is particularly troubled by the failure of the international media to pay due attention to events in Ivory Coast, where the UN estimates that at least 300 people have died and the opposition puts the figure at 500.

"With due deference to the bravery of the Egyptian demonstrators, protesters who gathered this weekend in Abidjan [in Ivory Coast] aren't up against a military that safeguards them - it shoots at them.

"The country's economy has been coughing up blood since November, with banks shutting by the day, businesses closing by the hour and thousands of families fleeing their homes," he continues. "And in all of this where is Anderson Cooper? Where is Nicolas Kristof? Why is Bahrain a front page news story while Ivory Coast is something buried at the bottom of the news stack?"

The journalist is equally as disappointed in world leaders. "This Friday, Barack Obama publicly condemned the use of violence in Bahrain, Yemen and Libya. When was the last time you saw Obama come out and make a statement on Ivory Coast? Or Eastern Congo? Or Djibouti, where 20,000 people protested this weekend according to the opposition?

"The problem is that most American media compulsively ignore everything south of the Sahara and north of Johannesburg. A demonstration has to be filmed, photographed, streamed live into the offices of foreign leaders to achieve everything Egypt's achieved."
 
Nanjala, a political analyst at the University of Oxford, suggests this journalistic shortcoming stems from journalists' tendency "to favour explanations that fit the whole 'failing Africa' narrative".

Filling a void

So with traditional media seemingly failing Africa, will social media fill the void?

Much has already been written about the plethora of social media networks that both helped engineer protests and, crucially, amplified them across cyber-space. Online-activists, sitting behind fibre optic cables and flat screens, collated and disseminated updates, photographs and video and played the role of subversive hero from the comfort of their homes. Of course, not all Tweets or Facebook uploads came from pyjama-clad revolutionaries far from the scene of the action - an internet-savvy generation of Egyptians was also able to keep the world updated with information from the ground.

"It's not clear to me that social media played a massive role in organising protests," says Zuckerman. "[But] I do think it played a critical role in helping expose those protests to a global audience, particularly in Tunisia, where the media environment was so constrained."

So, could the same thing happen in Africa?

"I think it's important to keep in mind that African youth are far more plugged in than most people realise. The spread in mobile phones has made it possible for people to connect to applications like Facebook or Twitter on their telephones," says Nanjala, adding: "At the same time, I think most analysts are overstating the influence of social media on the protests.

"The most significant political movements in Africa and in other places have occurred independently of social media - the struggles for independence, the struggles against apartheid and racism in Southern Africa. Where people need or desire to be organised they will do independently of the technology around them."

Baldauf concurs: "In every country you see greater and greater access to the internet and greater access to cell phone networks. I remember getting stuck on a muddy road in Eastern Congo, out where the FDLR [Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda] controls the mining industry. We had to stay the night in a village, the guests of a lovely old man in his mud hut. It was [at] the end of the world, but to get a phone call off to my wife and my editor, I just had to walk out of the hut and use my cell phone."

An important year

2011 is an important year for Africa. Elections are scheduled in more than 20 countries across the continent, including Zimbabwe and Nigeria.
 
But as food prices continue to rise and economic hardship tightens its grip on the region, it is plausible to imagine Africans revolting and using means other than the often meaningless ballot box to remove their leaders. 
 
"What people want is the democratisation of society, of production, of the economy, and indeed all aspects of life," says Manji. "What they are being offered instead is the ballot box."

But, Manji adds: "Elections don't address the fundamental problems that people face. Elections on their own do nothing to enable ordinary people to be able to determine their own destiny. "

This, according to Kisiangani, is because "the process of democratisation in many African countries seems more illusory than fundamental".
 
Gabon, Zimbabwe, even Ethiopia may never have the online reach enjoyed by Egyptians, and the scale of solidarity through linguistic and cultural symmetry may not allow their calls to reach the same number of internet users. But this does not mean that a similar desire for change is not brewing, nor that the traditional media and online community are justified in ignoring it.
 
Screens were put up in Tahrir Square broadcasting Al Jazeera’s coverage of the protests back to the protesters. It is difficult to qualify the role of social media in the popular uprisings gaining momentum across the Arab world, but it is even more difficult to quantify the effect of the perception of being ignored, of not being watched, discussed and, well, retweeted to the throngs of others needing to be heard.
 
Ignoring the developments in Africa is to miss the half the story. 

"The protests have created the 'hope' that ordinary people can define their political destiny," says Kisiangani. "The uprisings ... are making people on the continent become conscious about their abilities to define their political destinies."

Follow @azadessa on Twitter.

 

Source:

Al Jazeera

__________________________

• David Smith in Johannesburg
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 22 February 2011 18.28 GMT
• Article history

Protesters chant anti-government slogans in Tobruk, Libya. Photograph: Asmaa Waguih/Reuters

There are widespread reports that Muammar Gaddafi has unleashed numerous foreign mercenaries on his people, in a desperate gamble to crush dissent and quell the current uprising.

Their origins vary according to speculation: Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Mali, Sudan and possibly even Asia and eastern Europe.

The claims are hard to pin down but persistent. Ali al-Essawi, the Libyan ambassador to India, who resigned in the wake of the crackdown, told Reuters on Tuesday: "They are from Africa, and speak French and other languages."

He said their presence had prompted some army troops to switch sides to the opposition. "They are Libyans and they cannot see foreigners killing Libyans so they moved beside the people."

In a separate interview, Essawi told al-Jazeera: "People say they are black Africans and they don't speak Arabic. They are doing terrible things, going to houses and killing women and children."

Witness accounts seem to bear out the claims. One resident of Tripoli was quoted by Reuters: "Gaddafi obviously does not have any limits. We knew he was crazy, but it's still a terrible shock to see him turning mercenaries on his own people and just mowing down unarmed demonstrators."

Saddam, a 21-year-old university student in Bayda, claimed mercenaries had killed 150 people in two days. "The police opened fire at us," he said. "My friend Khaled was the first martyr to fall and seven others died with him.

"The next day, we were shocked to see mercenaries from Chad, Tunisia, Morocco speaking French attacking us ... We captured some of the mercenaries and they said they were given orders by Gaddafi to eliminate the protesters."

Amid the chaos gripping Libya, the volume of foreign mercenaries and much else remains confused. Some believe they could be veterans of civil wars in the Sahel and west Africa.

Ibrahim Jibreel, a Libyan political activist, told al-Jazeera that some had been in the country for months, based in training camps in the south, as if in anticipation of such an uprising. Others had been flown in at short notice, he said.

Some reports suggest white mercenaries have also been spotted fighting on Gaddafi's behalf. White South Africans who left the national army after the end of racial apartheid have been in demand for their expertise in various war zones, including Afghanistan and Iraq, but there is currently no evidence that any have joined the conflict in Libya.

Experts suggest that Gaddafi has plenty of options in the region. "He has traditionally had a network of skilled soldiers from all over west Africa," said Adam Roberts, author of The Wonga Coup, the story of a failed attempt by Simon Mann and other mercenaries to overthrow the president of Equatorial Guinea in 2004. "There are lots of Africans, particularly from west Africa or Sudan, who go to Libya because it's wealthier."

Mercenaries remain a potent weapon against civilian populations, despite the African Union's 1977 Convention for the Elimination of Mercenarism in Africa. Liberian civil war veterans have been hired by Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo to terrorise protesters following his widely acknowledged election defeat.

Roberts added: "Gaddafi and other dictators tend to surround themselves with fighters who will be loyal to them rather than to a local faction. Foreign mercenaries are likely to be less squeamish about shooting at local people.

"They are likely to better trained – a small unit that can be relied upon. They might also have experience of fighting battles and therefore be more capable if push comes to shove."

The view was echoed by Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch. "It's hard to get your own people to shoot your own people," he said. "In this kind of situation, you can see why mercenaries would be an advantage because it's easier to get foreigners to shoot at Libyans than to get Libyans to shoot at Libyans."

Gaddafi can offer mercenaries what they want more than anything: money. Sabelo Gumedze, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in South Africa, said: "Mercenaries are purely driven by profit. As long as they make money, they're going to do it, and leaders like Gaddafi have money at their disposal."

There is a constant supply of willing recruits, he added. "In Africa the process of demobilising rebels is poor. The only thing they know is how to fight. If someone can turn the barrel of a gun into profit, they jump at it. They have few other employment opportunities."

José Gómez del Prado, chair of the working group on the use of mercenaries at the UN human rights council, said: "You can find, particularly in Africa, many people who've been in wars for many years. They don't know anything else. They are cheap labour, ready to take the job for little money. They are trained killers."

Del Prado said he has heard the reports of mercenaries in Libya from a number of sources and is "very worried".

But some analysts urged against jumping to conclusions in Libya, noting that the country has a significant black population who may simply be serving in the regular army and could be mistaken for mercenaries. These include Chadians who sided with Gaddafi in his past conflicts with Chad and were rewarded with houses, jobs and Libyan citizenship.

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said yesterday it had received "alarming reports" that Libyans were turning on African refugees whom they accused of being mercenaries.

Issaka Souare, a senior researcher at the ISS's Africa conflict prevention programme, said: "In the south of Libya you do have people of sub-Sarahan origin, including Hausa speakers. Some might have integrated into the Libyan army and these would probably be among the first to be deployed. It will then be easy for people to say they are foreign mercenaries.

"People started talking about this issue on the third day, but I think Gaddafi should have had sufficient resources to deal with the protests before resorting to mercenaries. How long would it take Gaddafi to get mercenaries together and deploy them? Maybe a week. So I see it as unlikely at this stage, but it could happen if army defections continue."

>via: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/22/gaddafi-mercenary-force-libya?CMP...

 

__________________________

 

TUESDAY, 22 FEBRUARY 2011

About Those 'African Mercenaries', An Open Letter to Al Jazeera From Africa

Dear .......... (Insert name of media organisation and modify letter as you wish)

Dear Al Jazeera

 
I have decided to write this letter to you as you've been the channel I watch the most for informative coverage on events in the Middle East and North Africa. In many ways your coverage has been amazing and I sincerely applaud the unbelievably brave efforts of your journalists who had to work under very difficult conditions to cover events in North Africa. However I now write to you with concern at international media's coverage of events in Libya, particularly concerning 'African mercenaries'. I honestly don't have a problem with the term 'African mercenaries' because this is how Libyans probably refer to Black non-Libyans, but what bothers me is the way some of your tv anchors and field journalists continue to push this meme on air. For example on Sunday the anchor on Al Jazeera English, David (I didn't get his last name, he was an older man with an English accent hosting the news around 6 p.m GMT) said 'mercenaries are coming from Africa' ...but Libya is in Africa. As correction perhaps, the Al Jazeera website had an excellent Features article, 'In Search of an African Revolution' the very next day on Monday (21 Feb) addressing this very issue. 


And yet your other journalists continue to refer to 'Black African mercenaries coming from Africa' (as with the 1p.m broadcast at the Egypt/Lybia border on 22 Feb with the courageous and brilliant Jamaal Elyshayyal) yet some of those mercenaries are also reportedly Arab and European. (RE: David Smith's column in Guardian UK) Understandably this may have been an unintentional oversight on the part of the news network as this is what Libyans on the ground are reporting, but I think continually pushing a singular narrative about a more complex story has the danger of reinforcing an African and Arab narrative that has an uncomfortable racial connotation to it. I am not accusing Al Jazeera of having a racial bias, far from it. I just feel its important for the network to be sensitive to how this issue plays out to an international audience of both Black Africans and Arabs when the full story is untold. 


Elsewhere, other Al Jazeera and international journalists who although tweeting in their personal capacity, tweet the news and again they repeat this 'mercenaries are coming from Africa' line. One has to wonder whether we're looking at the same map when we speak of Africa or is this some journo code-speak ordinary people are not privy to?


 
As reports are emerging, it seems to be that the 'mercenaries from Africa' are most likely from Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Tunisia and Guinea as well as South Africa and parts of Europe. So they are White, Arab, European and Black, not all Black Africans. They may not be from the Congo, maybe not from Somalia but almost certainly not Zimbabwe as some wild speculations claimed. Yes, there was no plane full of soldiers dispatched from Harare to Tripoli at 1 a.m (!) on Sunday morning - any well-educated Zimbabwean could have told these international journalists tweeting in their personal capacity that this 'witness account', as dubbed by Al Jazeera, was untrue. Of course AJE is only the messenger so you can't be blamed for what you can't verify and I don't blame you. But since this is an open letter I may as well post some info for other inquiring minds who'll stumble on my blog. For starters soldiers are not mercenaries, our history of mercenaries is mainly from the apartheid era, Mozambique's civil war and the Angolan war when White South Africans and White Zimbabweans (some of them were former Rhodesian soldiers) would use Zimbabwe as temporary base but they did not operate in Zimbabwe. Secondly today in Zimbabwe we have thugs (don't often use guns but often beat and rape) not mercenaries (skilled hit-men like Simon Mann (Equatorial Guinea plot)) that are busy with their own electoral campaign of violence, thirdly Zimbabwe's thugs* have no knowledge of Libyan terrain and finally Zimbabwe doesn't speak French. Sadly no amount of @'ing international journos on twitter could kill this rumor. But as untruths die in time, I sincerely hope that this untruth will die sooner rather than later. (see David Smith'scolumn in the Guardian UK)

 
 Anyway about these mercenaries and Al Jazeera's role in coverage. As there have also been suggestions that it is likely the 'African mercenaries' are from Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Tunisia and Guinea. I'd like to know why an investigative journalist couldn't be dispatched to these countries to find out how the mercenaries work - surely Chad, Tunisia and Niger are not as hostile to international journalists as Mummar Gadaffi's Libya. If not, could a Chadian Ambassador or Activist could be invited to Al Jazeera studios to share their view? How can the story of mercenaries be reported to the exclusion of Chad, yet Chad is the French and Arabic speaking nation where some of these hitmen are allegedly coming from?  


 It bears repeating that Chad is an Arab African nation. It is Libya's neighbor. As your coverage is mainly centered on the 'Arab World' its tempting to think that Chad is perhaps not Arab enough that it should be spoken of and not spoken to in news reports and analyses. I appreciate that this is a fast-developing story and there are many angles to cover, but the impact of events in Libya on security and political relations between these two countries cannot be so insignificant that it's not worthy of mention, can it? At the very least one would think, Idriss Deby must be having sleepless nights while the Arabs next door are revolting. He could very well be the next Arab dictator to go. Does the Chadian government not have an opinion on the fact that the Brotherly Leader, King of Kings of Africa is said to be using Sub-Saharan Arab Africans and Africans to kill North Africans? Oops I'm sorry, I meant Chadian gunmen are allegedly crossing the border to help murder protesting Libyans? And Niger? Is it too poor to mention? 0.12% of the people speak Arabic if that helps. 


UNHCR is becoming increasingly concerned at the displacement and violence experienced by foreigners living in Libya, including the other one million plus legal and illegal migrants from different parts of Africa other than Egypt. In the interests of humanity, its only fair and right that Al Jazeera to report on the fate of these people as well as they have reported Egyptian, Turkish and Italian migrants returning from Libya. There are another one million plus legal and illegal migrants from different parts of Africa otherthan Egypt. What is their fate? Surely their welfare is important enough to be covered by the media?


This isn't just an Arab story, its an African story and it's a World story too. It must be told as such, with its multi-layered, complex, tragic and heartwarming narratives including the all too-often forgotten voices of poor migrants and refugees of all hues, tongues, nationalities and faiths.  


Al Jazeera's code of ethics states that the organisation aims to: 
 
1. Adhere to the journalistic values of honesty, courage, fairness, balance, independence, credibility and diversity, giving no priority to commercial or political over professional consideration.
2. Endeavour to get to the truth and declare it in our dispatches, programmes and news bulletins unequivocally in a manner which leaves no doubt about its validity and accuracy.


To me, this suggests that Al Jazeera strives to be impartial, give a voice to the voiceless and empower people to hold their governments and institutions to account. As the media organisation is becoming a leading player in international affairs, Al Jazeera has the chance to re-shape political and social discourses of our time, it has the potential to shift the centers of power from the traditionally empowered to the historically marginalized. Given that Al Jazeera wields this potential influence to enable a plurality of voices to speak, as a viewer, I don't understand why the Libyan Uprising being covered from a largely singular perspective. I feel that the story is still told from a West v Middle East perspective. Granted it is thankfully being told from the Middle Eastern side, but the speakers still remain the same. You promise to uphold 'fairness, balance' so it's fair to ask when will other voices be invited to speak on this matter? Here's a suggestion, just for a day, in between field reports, you could have ongoing satellite conversations with diplomats from the UN, AU and Arab League battling it out with Libyan activists and bloggers who want to know where the real help is for Libya is, rather than going through a never-ending list of London and Washington's political and financial experts. I think that would be an 'unequivocal' display of 'fair and balanced' ethics, non?  


If the Arab League, the EU and United Nations are being interrogated for their role in stopping the carnage in Libya, then the AU should be in the spotlight too. Its shameful that they have been silent on this issue and yet they, under Article 4 of the Constitutive Act, have a humanitarian responsibility to intervene in the affairs of a member state of the African Union when a crime against humanity is committed. Its funny but sad and infuriating that Al Jazeera spends more time discussing what the Arab League must, can or will do yet it can only issue condemnations and suspensions of Libya. None of these things will stop the carnage. The African Union has a peace keeping force that could help Lybia, that is why John Kerry of the Obama administration suggested this tonight (at about 7 p.m GMT 22 Feb), but the Al Jazeera anchor and Libyan analyst in the studio glossed over this and went back to discussing the Arab League and UN. 
The news broadcast then switched to gathering views from around the world and South America, North America and Europe all had opinions. Nothing from Africa. Nothing from Asia. I laughed out loud, but inside I died a little and it hurt a bit. Is the Africa beneath the Sahara that irrelevant? Have African leaders, diplomats and UN representatives not been asked? Perhaps your Africa news desk is aware that the African Heads of Missions (AU) might be meeting in South Africa today. If its taking place it would be great if one of your correspondents in S.A could ask senior AU figures about the possibility of sending Lybia some of the peacekeeping troops that are partly funded by Gadaffi? As an African member-state, this is Libya's security investment so the AU should be pressured to get in there and save Libyans from the terror of this mad man and his sons. Please don't let the AU escape from responsibility because it doesn't fit the 'Arab World Revolutions' narrative. Right now Libyan lives matter more than pondering about 'new pan-Arab uprisings' and decoding Hillary Clinton and William Hague's diplo-speak.


I honestly don't mean to offend, but I'm a frustrated viewer who enjoys Al Jazeera's coverage and believes that the network has the ability to be the champion of the people. All people. As an African I was raised to see to the Continent as a whole with all its differences, contradictions and multiple identities, not to the exclusion of others. We are all Africans. The countries below the (sometimes imaginary) Saharan line may be the North's poorer half, but we matter too. In solidarity, the Lybian, Egyptian and Tunisian struggles are mine too as a young-ish person who lives under an oppressive regime. Including the Sub-Saharan Africans in this conversation would only further the North Africans cause as both the AU like the Arab League is a mixed club of despots and liberals all of whom have a case to answer to oppressed peoples on the whole Continent.


 
You can see a slightly longer version of this letter posted on my blog. A number of people have read it, shared it on twitter and some people, North Africans included, have commented on the post. I have also shared it on Twitter and have gotten a positive response thus far. I hope that despite, my cheekiness you will address my concerns. You may perhaps take comfort in knowing that I'm not singling out Al Jazeera, it's an across the board progressive media non-engagement with Africa as a whole and I will be writing open letters to the few revolutionary-inclined print media organisations that I've relied on for coverage as well.  

I look forward to receiving a response from you regarding the concerns I have raised. 

Thank you for reading my letter.

Yours Sincerely

A. Viewer

*'Zimbabwe's thugs' is not to imply that I am covering or defending for their brutality but a clumsy way of saying that their violence has been unleashed out on innocent, often defenceless people within the borders of Zimbabwe.
** This is the modified (supposedly better) version of a letter that I have now sent to AJE.

-------------------

By KonWomyn

>via: http://konwomyn.blogspot.com/2011/02/about-those-african-mercenaries-al.html?...

__________________________