I have something to tell you: Your ten-year-old son is a rapist
I love it here. It is home and it is the only place I know. I want to visit New York one day but just for two weeks, because I want to see a streetball game in Brooklyn and catch a jazz concert, but then I'll come right back.
Now, some Africans complain about what they call a negative portrayal in the Western media.
"Why only bad news about Africa ? The idea you get of Africa from watching the news is that this is a desperate land. Full of disease, poverty, corruption, and war. But as I sit in Café Pap sipping my cappuccino and surfing the net on my wifi-enabled laptop, I think: 'I live in Africa . I don't see poverty, disease or civil war and I haven't given a bribe in weeks. My life is great. My life is gorgeous. Therefore CNN is lying.' "
Okay, sit down. I have something to tell you. You are the one who is wrong. CNN is right.
There are 26 million Ugandans and you can't see them all from Café Pap, so you don't realise how many of them are not living a life of Capuccinos and wifi. It is easy to forget that they exist, but they do. The number of poor people in this country, on this continent, far far outweighs the miniscule fraction of privileged spoilt bourgeoise Ivory Tower brats who sip Cappuccinos.
I have been looking at statistics all week. Ask Rev. And though I am glad to see that things are getting better (Less civil war, coups are less frequent, more stable on the whole, AIDS, water, malaria, malnutrition, communication, education on the up, generally speaking) but the picture of the runny-nosed barefoot kid who needs foreign aid is still a typical one.
Men Lie, Women Lie, Numbers Don't.
The numbers are staggering. I started off with trying to get an idea of how tiny the Cappuccino constituency is. Or at least how misled we are in thinking that everybody is like us. I got this far. There are 26 million Ugandans. In 2004 DSTv had 6000 subscribers. On a great day, the Sunday Vision, Uganda 's best selling paper, sells 40,000 copies. The number of people whose lifestyle does not include reading Angela Kintu right after watching Desperate Housewives on Series, and then calling up their buddies on their cellphone and be all like, "What proggie? Mateos? Kawa!"?
25 and a half million.
Then my doddering office computer finally loaded the page and the stats appeared. Internet users per 1000 Ugandans- Four. Number of mobile phones per 100 inhabitants- 2.
25 and a half million with no cellphone number. 25 and a half million without a fucking clue about all this blogger dot com nonsense.
A quarter of the children who die under the age of five die of malaria. I get malaria like three times every year. I just run to AAR and get a jab. Meanwhile 3 million kids have died of this shit in that year. Us Café Pap guys have our choice of a dozen different doctors at AAR , so for one of you there are 12 doctors.
But Uganda as a whole, there is only one doctor for every 12,500 people. You first count 12,500 people and see how many they are.
Meanwhile, there is one doctor for every 170 Cubans. Cuba
Now that those numbers have served their purpose: i.e. getting you alarmed, I will tell you that these stats are five years old. Things have been improving drastically and fast. Mobile phones: we all know that those are like 3 million in Ug now, and those stats were taken before they started their massive anti-malaria drive, but you get the picture. You guys, we are not Ugandans. We are a tiny, miniscule, tiny, infinitesimally minute, colossally tiny (if you'll excuse me), fraction of Uganda . Of Africa .
We are the ones with all the money, yes, we are the economy, so we are not insignificant; we are actually very important, and our greed and avarice are what keep this nation alive, but numerically speaking? How does 0.02 percent speak for the whole? How does 0.02 per cent even speak for the part? 0.02 per cent needs to shut the hell up.
So, when someone outside this land asks you what Africa is like, tell them you also don't know. You just read about it on jackfruity's blog.
Acknowledge Africa people. Recognise where your place in Africa really really is. Feel a bit of shame and a bit of guilt. Café Pap my ass.
Comments
And I am suddenly in the throes of another economic debate about an inverted economy. Then I go off a tandem and say that African leaders need to be assassinated as punishment for the mess we are in. Then I get arrested and 'morganed' in more ways than one.
Welcome to Africa. And yes. CNN cannot be righter than now. Balanced? How can you ask for Balanced reporting? Did you not see the statistics? Nothing is balanced. Did you not know that history is written by the victors - and Statistics are numbers without the blood?
The idea you get from watching Western TV is that latté-sipping you-and-I don't exist. Yet when the Americans arrive, they ask you and I for directions to `where the real Africa is'. You get the drift?
CNN is lying, because I exist. If it is a lie that 1 is equal to 100, it is also a lie that 99 is equal to 100.
Those who pretend Africa is like their affluent selves are also lying.
CNN doesn't know any single African kid who isn't a child soldier or who isn't dying of marasmus. But is that all there is? Are those kids the more-important kids? Well, is that why all we see on CNN Biz is the private jet-owning American oligarchy? Is all of America working at the New York Stock Exchange? Frig it.
There are 1.5 million people dying of malaria every year. These same people are selling stuff to the USA, right? But the treatment for malaria costs less than one friggin' dollar. Yet they can't afford it. Because they are selling to the USA. That government, after plundering the rest of the world, takes the world economically-hostage. The subsidies and all. So, where does CNN note that these 1.5 million Africans dying of AIDS are babies whose parents are being cheated by the Evil Capitalist called America?
I mean, if it is the truth we should be seeing, and therefore seeing Africa as the horrible dystopia it really is, why do we see plump Americans in New York, and never the evil devils?
Believe it or not, there is a controlled (utopian, saintly) image of the West being fed to the rest of us (whether intentionally or not) and a controlled (dystopian, evil) image of Africa being fed to the rest of the World (whether intentionally or not).
Looky, man. I know Africa. It consists of me, as well as some other broker people. Just because they out-number my kind doesn't mean I should be non-African. If Africa is what is shown on CNN, what is this I see?
The Africa on CNN (mbu we are all coup-leaders who go back home to tortured women with flat boobs) is false. The Africa in the minds of urban yuppies (mbu we all live on Wi-Fi Apple MacBooks) is false.
The America on CNN (mbu everyone is thinking about how the Iran `crisis' will affect his/her business) is false.
The only true pictures are America as (among other things) the cause of almost all the suffering in the developing world, and Africa as (among other things) a dynamic place of an urban middle-class that actually sips capucinos as the sun retires.
The only true pictures of America and Africa are not on TV.
some child is suffering or will die from the effects(maybe hiv/aids) of being abducted, today, somewhere in northern uganda. if his situation can be used or misused to bring attention to kids like him and not the cafe pap bourgeoisie then more power to CNN!
Then again, someone called me a ditzy blonde....
But first of all, who cares what's on CNN? I certainly don't, and I doubt very much that CNN cares that I don't care. My point ties in with your previous post: we (this small non-CNN-acknowledged minority) sit and whine about our invisibility and general fabulousness but we don't do a damn thing to address the issues of gross inequality and just poverty, dammit, that surround us. Instead, some rosy-cheeked Brit doing her "gap year" is the one trying to dig boreholes while her American Peace Corps boyfriend gives out mosquito nets.
And us? The non-runny-nosed kids? Oh, we go on blogs and bitch about the fact that CNN's ignored us.
Give me a break.
Ish, it isn't about guilt. In fact I would rather the rich stayed rich so that they can keep paying the poor. If 100 Kireka yuppies walked out to dig boreholes, that is the rolex maker, the dobbi, the bodaboda, the washerwoman... all losing income.
Anon, about balance, like Dennis said, how can we balance when we are outnumbered. How can thr
TwentyReventh says: "If it is a lie that 1 is equal to 100, it is also a lie that 99 is equal to 100." Pithy. Succint.
Everybody else, happy easter.