By ignoring Africa, is our media showing that it is racist?
In this era of 'new-age media' and sophisticated news-gathering methods, onewould expect catastrophes occurring at various parts of the globe to getdeserving prominence in the media. But what has been happening is just the opposite.
There is selective omission when it comes to reporting certainissues and events that take place in some parts of the world. This is especially true about the conflicts occurring in central Africa. An objective analysis would reveal that the level of murder and sufferings in Africa makes all other world problems fade in comparison, including the gory tales emanating from Iraq, Palestine or Afghanistan. Mass murders in countries like Uganda, Rwanda, Congo and Somalia happen with such regularity, but the media tends to play them down. This blatant trivialisation or virtual blackout of the bloody happenings in this part of the world is indeed intriguing. Why is it that these conflicts receive so little or no attention of the world at large?
A search for an answer brings out some unpleasant truths; truths that wouldquestion the very moral bearing and the so-called progressive outlook of the mainstream media. The majority of the Western media portray these conflictsin a simplistic vein.
For them, it is "tribalism" that foments troubles in what they call the "Dark Continent"; here the same old colonial yardstick is used. So, in this fight among "various tribals", hundreds may get killed on a daily basis, which then need not be displayed on the front pages or in the main news. That is why when "rebels in Congo kill 100 civilians", all we have would be just a one-paragraph report by the Associated Press.
In the course of this cursory reporting, there would be a cache of clichés like "rebels", "civilians", "internal strife", and "civil war". See how the media has been trivialising these cold-blooded killings by using some sugarcoated words like these. What is 'civil' in a war?
The point is, for the Western media, the life of a Black African is hardlyimportant. For them, the Africans might as well be savages constantly at thethroat of each other; what happens to these savages will in no way changethe destiny of the world and its rulers. The poor Africans are also not a ready consumer of multinational goods. They are merely--as occasional TV footages show us-half-naked, bony men and women jostling with each other each time food packets are air-dropped.
The under-reporting of the African crises is a prime example of callousnesson the part of the Western news agencies and newspapers. These agencies have not thought it fit to have enough reporters stationed in the Africancontinent to cover the crises.
So, we don't get any comprehensive analysisof the turmoil there, not even the ones seeping with Western prejudices asin the case of Iraq. In short, in the sidelining of the African Story, whatwe have is another instance of Western racism.
Bosnia and the events there — be it mass rape or anything else — get immense coverage because, after all, it is in Europe. But the world gets to know only a smattering of the horrendous happenings in Congo-a country the size of Western Europe. In one rare instance of reportage, the US left-wingweekly,
The Nation, recently carried a comprehensive story on Congo byjournalist Jan Goodwin who reveals that the country witnesses whole-scalerape-from three year olds to those of over 70 years. Goodwin describes howMaria, a 70-year-old woman, was gang raped before her three daughters andfive sons were murdered. The report also quotes a human rights worker whonarrates the tale of a 30-year-old woman whose ears and lips were cut offand eyes gouged out after she was raped so that she would not be able toidentify her attackers. Doctors testify that 30 percent of the rape victimshad their private parts pierced usually with spears and gun barrels.
Whilebestiality reigns in Congo's rural areas, the report adds, diamond dealers and businessmen from Tel Aviv and New York are feted and fawned upon by Congo's armed group representatives in luxury hotels. Goodwin reminds us how these businessmen and armed groups foment chaos in this Central African country for their private gains.
The armed groups have been plundering Congo of numerous natural resources on behalf of their masters sitting in the citadels of democracy. Those richminerals that are being siphoned off go directly to Western markets andoutside to whet consumer appetites. Diamond, gold, cobalt, copper and coltan are the primary minerals being taken out of Congo; the jewelry you justbought may have in it raw materials that came from Congo (or perhaps SierraLeone or Angola, two other African countries whose wars provide the Westwith cheap minerals). And the main component of your cell phone or laptop isthe "pinhead capacitor", which is made from coltan, a mineral found inCongo. The business and vested interest is in keeping the conflict raging,as then the minerals can be shipped off dirt cheap.
Here's the cruelty of it all: while Congolese blood flows, the outsideconsumer revels in luxury goods without even knowing that it is all taintedwith blood. And the consumer in Mumbai or Texas can't be blamed because his newspapers or television have never told him that what he is using has gory origins. He will never know about the kind of politics being played out inthe African badlands; the kind of stakes involved there; and about themultinational powers that whip up trouble there.
One of the oft-offered journalistic justifications for the poor coverage ofthe African crises is that it is far too remote, and does not at all influence world events. So the media would, without any compunction, play down a massacre where about 200 people got killed in Angola or Congo. On theother hand, if some 10 or 20 people are killed in a bus accident, say in NewYork, it would be front-page material, and even editorials would follow.Such is the relative worth of life of an American and an African.
Another justification for playing down such events is that the readers wouldbe less interested to know the happenings occurring miles away. This is justabsurd. Here media acts under the skewed theory which explains the relationbetween distance and news value. What is being taught in journalism schoolsabout the relation between distance and news value is illogical and shouldbe reviewed as it contravenes the cardinal purpose for which the mediastands for.
The African Story is indeed a glaring instance of the lack of social commitment of the Western media. The problem is also one of presupposing the interests of the readers and the powers-that-be in the media establishment deciding what is important for the reader and what is not. So, while the death of an American soldier in Iraq is 'news', the deaths of hundreds in any part of Africa seem to have no news value at all.
The Indian media too is guilty of aping its Western counterparts when it comes to news selection. Here is an instance among hundred others: "Ugandan rebels kill 120", read a headline in The Hindu (February 23, 2004) of a one-column AP report.
And it did not appear in the front page but among news briefs in the international section. But at least The Hindu carried it,while the same cannot be said of other national newspapers nor of theregional ones. Exactly two weeks after the Ugandan incident, the same paper(of course all other papers as well) cried out in banner headlines, on thefront page, the blasts at Madrid which claimed 180 lives. So why is it thata blast in Spain becomes the lead news, while a similar disaster in Ugandais non-news? What is the criterion used here? Are the people in Uganda nothuman beings or are their lives not worth enough to be reported? Doesn't itpoint to the obnoxious fact that our media is racial? These are questionsbegging to be answered. There's something seriously wrong here, and is a reflection of the power imbalance in world
affairs.
The media's marginalisation of the African crises reinforces the skewedassumption that these events have little to do with world politics in general. Whatever is taking place in this continent, it is assumed the average reader is not disturbed. Here, the very edifice of the term 'news' comes under the spotlight. What is news? Can a particular incident be considered news purely on the basis of the 'interest' of the 'customers' (readers)? And by the same yardstick, some other event may not be news at all, like the starvation deaths in Somalia.
By the selective omission of certain events especially in Africa, the mediahas created an unsavoury precedent. While acting out the role of amarket-oriented establishment giving out what pleases and attracts the reader, the news media is failing in its cardinal duty of telling the truth to the world. The media is abdicating its social responsibility by overly depending on glamour. What is needed is a change of conscience. Will the Western media as also the Indian kind, which boast of progressive leanings, take a hard look at this issue and re-think their policy? Will there be a change in their outlook on Africa?
(Written for MEANTIME magazine in 2004 and re-published in The Hoot)
