Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 689
February 1, 2011
America has 'blood on our hands' in Congo
Author Adam Hochschild interviewed by PBS program, Need to Know, on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Congo's first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba. A conspiracy of American, Belgian and Congolese military and diplomatic operatives played a part in Lumumba's murder. Last week The New York Times published an op-ed by Hochschild on this subject.
Anderson Cooper is in Egypt
Overheard:
"At least he will introduce the Egyptians to the form-fitting black t-shirt."
"If the Egyptians I know in New York City are any guide, the form fitting black t is not going to be a revelation … He should fit right in."
Watch Al Jazeera English instead. Here.
Snake Oil
Chevron knows a thing or two about good PR. Something Shell and BP neglected to their peril. Of course we know the difference between good PR and actual actions. Let's hope these pretty girls' lives won't be devastated by another oil company's exploitation.
Preventing Project Prevention
After years of working in the United States, where they pay female drug users $300 to agree to be sterilized, Project Prevention has begun branching out to other parts of the world. Following a luke-warm reception in Britain, the organisation has now turned its attention to Kenya where it plans to start paying women living with HIV/Aids to accept long-term contraception.
Project Prevention is headed by Barbara Harris, who started the organisation in 1997. It was initially named CRACK (Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity). While her PR has become more sophisticated in recent years, Barbara Harris has famously been quoted as saying "We don't allow dogs to breed. We spay them. We neuter them. We try to keep them from having unwanted puppies, and yet these women are literally having litters of children."
In Britain, human rights groups have been working actively to oppose Project Prevention. Initially it hoped to offer drug users money to be sterilized there too, but faced with the British Medical Association's stringent ethical requirements, it decided to settle for offering payment for long-term contraception instead.
Now Barbara Harris has her sights on Africa, with her first stop in Kenya. There, she claims she has found a doctor who will insert intrauterine devices (IUD) devices into HIV positive women for a fee of $7 a time. She also plans to offer women agreeing to undergo this procedure a one-time cash payment of $40 – bringing the total cost to $47 per procedure.
In a release, the organization says that in addition to working to 'cure' infants of AIDS, there is an urgent need to "prevent future pregnancies that may result in infants born HIV positive who would suffer daily and most will die before age 5."
Of course, we can all agree that "All this human suffering is preventable". That is precisely why treatment activists have been pushing for more widespread adoption of measures to prevent mother to child HIV transmission (PMTCT). The best PMTCT regimes currently recommended (which include putting the mother on full anti-retroviral treatment) have been shown to cut the risk of mother to child transmission to between 2 and 5 percent. If she were really concerned about ending suffering, Barbara Harris would be working night and day to ensure all HIV positive women have access to and benefit from evidence-based HIV treatment and PMTCT services.
But Project Prevention seems to have no knowledge of anti-retroviral medications (ARVs) or PMTCT, since they claim that getting HIV positive women on long term birth control is "the only way" to ensure there are fewer babies born with HIV.
The move to Kenya certainly does not seem like an accident. From its inception, Project Prevention has targeted black women and poor women. And long-time opponents of Barbara Harris and Project Prevention point out that while she and her organization claim to be concerned about scores of unborn babies, they seem to show no similar compassion towards their mothers.
For example, she makes no mention of any need to offer ARV or other medical treatment to women living with HIV. Nor is there any indication of medical follow-up for the women accepting the IUDs, or financial assistance should they subsequently want them removed. Furthermore, the ethics of offering financial incentives to influence what should be carefully considered medical choices, are highly questionable. The $40 dollar being offered to Kenyan women represents a large sum in a country with an average per capita GDP of $315.
Right now a group of HIV positive Namibian women are in court demanding redress and an apology from their government, after they were sterilized against their will and in some cases, without their knowledge – simply because of their HIV status.
On the surface, offering HIV+ women money to accept long-term contraception may not seem quite as bad as coercive or forced sterilization. But both practices stem from the same root–the belief that certain women, including those with HIV, have no right to have children. This is a pernicious belief that is founded on nothing but ignorance and prejudice. Instead of working to restrict women's reproductive choices, surely we should be fighting to ensure that all women have access to the medicines and health care they need for themselves and their families.–Brett Davidson
January 31, 2011
Common Language
"Idioma Comum" is a new exhibition at the Fundação PLMJ in Lisbon, Portugal. It features some of AIAC favorites such as Kiluanji Kia Henda, Lino Damião, Mário Macilau, Mauro Pinto, Celestino Mudaulane, René Tavares (see video above), Jorge Dias and Yonamine. Also listed are Abraão Vicente, Délio Jasse, Flávio Miranda, Ihosvanny, Pinto and Julia Kater. From the press release:
The collection focuses on young artists, mostly Angolans and Mozambicans, but also other nationalities of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (…) The exhibited works are characterized by a contemporary language, marked by a world vision of a cosmopolitan matrix, covering both the local cultural reality and the global social order in a post-colonial era. It is therefore the common artistic language of the young artists to which the title of this exhibition refers …
The exhibition runs until March 26.
Address: Rua Rodrigues Sampaio 29, Lisbon.
- Tom Devriendt
Music Break
Last month, Alex Dende aka Lexxus Legal was awarded the 'African Renaissance Prize' at the Black World Festival in Dakar for his long-time commitment to and support of the rap scene in Kinshasa. We think it's much deserved. - Tom Devriendt
5 Things the US Mass Media Get Wrong on Egypt
From Kabobfest, a website run by one of my former students, Will Youmans:
1. Social media did not play a major role in the uprising. Sorry CNN, I know I'm dissing your only source for international news, but you keep trying to create a story where there is none. CNN anchors even made the assertion that the net is playing such a huge role in the uprising, especially when compared with the uprising in Iran last year. Really? If i remember correctly, the whole world was in touch with Iran via social media, and many activists in the west, some paid by governments, where setting up hack patches and relocating IP addresses to throw off the Iranian regime. I don't see any of that in Egypt's case. The internet was shut off on Thursday, a day before the large demonstration, it's true the organizers used the internet to disseminate announcement, and bloggers have been fomenting the uprising towards regime change for some eight years. But for the context-less mass media who thinks this uprising was delivered by a stork on Friday morning, Google analytics shows that internet activity in Egypt is virtually zero since then. So yes, this great western invention helped a little with the uprising, but to put it in perspective, this uprising movements is over 10 years old, that's roughly twice the age of Facebook or Twitter.
2. Mohammed Elbaradei is not the leading opposition figure. He's a great and honest individual, and perhaps makes a good president, but there are many others who actually led the opposition to the regime and the demands for freedom and democracy for many years and enjoy far more credibility and street credentials. Those include Mohammed Badii, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, and more prominently, Ayman Noor, founder and leader of the progressive Ghad Part and the Kifaya (Enough) movement. Noor challenged Mubarak, ran against him in elections. He was jailed by Mubarak for five years on drummed up charges of forged signatures on the petition to register the party. So please media, stop appointing leaders for Egypt that suit you.
3. Mubarak regime is not moderate. Just because it's somewhat "westernized", allows alcohol and bikinis on beaches, and no Taliban-style street floggings, does not mean the regime is not a brutal, oppressive dictatorship. It allows virtually no freedom of speech, no equality under the law. It tortures in its prisons and on behalf of the CIA in black sites, it has rampant corruption and concentration of wealth and country resources in the hand of the elite few. The country's economic independence has retarded greatly so that the land of the Nile is not hostage to wheat shortages due to insects in the US or floods in Australia.
4. Looting is not being carried out by protesters, so stop highlighting in an attempt to discredit the uprising. Reports came out on Thursday that thug gangs loyal to Mubarak security forces have been unleashed onto the streets and began reeking havoc to spread fear and lawlessness. At the very least, the government intentionally pulled police from areas where they should have been kept to preserve order and prevent looting like the National Museum and some banks, hoping some thugs would take advantage of the situation, and ultimately reflect badly on the protesters.
5. Asking the 30 year old dog to learn the new reform trick is naïve at best, and insulting to the entire people's intelligence at worst. I believe it is the view of those protesters that anything short of complete departure of the Mubarak and all his insiders is too little to late. Too much blood has been spilled to settle for status quo. The important thing here is that the protestors remain vigilant and do not allow consolidation of power in the hands of army generals and regime insiders. Omar Suleiman, the new VP, is no better than Mubarak, if anything, he has served as his Rottweiler for many years, and he has worse bite. Elements of the current regime will renege on change promises if they are kept in for the transition period.
The Museum Will Be Open
By Sophie Azeb
Guest Blogger
The entry on Egypt in satirical news agency The Onion's atlas, Our Dumb World, reads: "Free Admission on Sundays. Located in the Smithsonian, the Louvre, the National Gallery in London, and countless other museums throughout the Western world, the nation of Egypt lies behind thick glass displays in climate-controlled rooms." Its history? "Currently on loan to the British Museum." No surprise then that a quick Google search for "Egypt looters" turns up 803 news articles, blog entries, and videos – all posted within an hour. Watching Al Jazeera on Saturday, I was struck by the lament uttered by an anchor at the news of looting. "Tragic," she remarked as images of damaged artifacts from the Egyptian Museum were displayed onscreen. Her reaction is echoed by many reporting on Egypt in the media, ultimately at the cost of ignoring the real news in these tense hours: that Egyptians, inspired by years of brutality and violence, inspired by Tunisians, inspired by the rest of the world disregarding their needs, have begun and maintained a popular and leaderless revolutionary insurrection against a Western-backed, 30-year long violent dictatorship. They are dying for this.
But wait – back to King Tut.
Egyptians care more about their history and antiquities than the Western world gives us credit for. There is a reason that thousands of Egyptians created a human barrier around the Egyptian Museum in Cairo once "security forces" retreated. Our antiquities are our history too (Okay, Egyptologists?). We have a deep pride in our culture, and a deep love for our country. But Egyptians are not only joining together to protect museums and libraries. They are guarding neighborhoods, taking shifts to sleep between protests and prayers, distributing food, and directing traffic.
It is important to be concerned with the looting or potential looting of Egyptian antiquities. I would like to repeat, however, the assertion of Mona Eltahawy and the many Egyptians I've corresponded with over the past few days: I believe that these looters are working with Mubarak's regime in an attempt to drive protestors to turn on each other or instigate a police attack on civilian protestors. I believe that Western media outlets are focusing on the looting in order to minimize the true significance of this mass movement (I'm looking at you, CNN). I would also like to emphasize that Egyptian antiquities, as The Onion sharply satirizes, have already been looted. In a former colony of Great Britain that is economically dependent on the United States and tourism, Mubarak's dictatorship was no happy accident. The Orientalist rhetoric that has long facilitated the removal of Egyptian artifacts to more "capable" institutions goes hand in hand with upholding the Mubaraks of the world.
Egyptians will not stand down now. No matter what comes in the next few days or weeks, Egyptians have ensured their future will change. Let us imagine, build and protect a democratic Egypt first. Then we can work on protecting our antiquities.
Don't worry. The museum will be open from Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
* Sophia Azeb is a graduate student and instructor in African & African American Studies at SUNY-Buffalo. You can follow her on Twitter.
Rain Man
This is novelist Chinua Achebe on The New York Times op-ed page earlier this month, writing on Nigeria's recent history:
This is how I see the chaos in Africa today and the absence of logic in what we're doing. Africa's postcolonial disposition is the result of a people who have lost the habit of ruling themselves, forgotten their traditional way of thinking, embracing and engaging the world without sufficient preparation. We have also had difficulty running the systems foisted upon us at the dawn of independence by our colonial masters. We are like the man in the Igbo proverb who does not know where the rain began to beat him and so cannot say where he dried his body.
Achebe's solutions are unoriginal:
What can Nigeria do to live up the promise of its postcolonial dream? …I foresee that the Nigerian solution will come in stages. First we have to nurture and strengthen our democratic institutions — and strive for the freest and fairest elections possible. That will place the true candidates of the people in office. Within the fabric of a democracy, a free press can thrive and a strong justice system can flourish. The checks and balances we have spoken about and the laws needed to curb corruption will then naturally find a footing. And there has to be the development of a new patriotic consciousness, not one simply based on the well-worn notions of the "Unity of Nigeria" or "Faith in Nigeria" often touted by our corrupt leaders; but one based on an awareness of the responsibility of leaders to the led and disseminated by civil society, schools and intellectuals. It is from this kind of environment that a leader, humbled by the trust placed upon him by the people, will emerge, willing to use the power given to him for the good of the people.
Among those not impressed is Naijablog:
Its hard to avoid a sense of reading what we already know, without learning anything in the process. The deep tectonic shifts brought about by technology and demography are not mentioned, nor is the slow change in the nature of politics in Nigeria really addressed. Its not surprising when you are commenting thousands of miles away from the action.
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