All Africa: Egypt, Tunisia & Gabon

All of this is Africa, and all the people born here are from Africa

By the time I'm done with this blog post I hope it doesn't read as a jumbled rant but I'm raging about so many issues all at the same time. First off I just want to say the media's full of sh!t. I don't swear often but this time I feel like it and I meant it. They're all full of sh!t. Even my beloved Al Jazeera and The Guardian. Why? Because they suck. There have been protests going on in Gabon since the 29th of January and up till now they've not picked up on the story, they've been busy with Middle East and North Africa coverage that the demonstrations in a small West Central African nation aren't worthy of media attention.


Julie Owono of Global Voices reports that this is the result of a long running dispute over the 2009 elections that Ali Bongo (son of Omar Bongo) is said to have won. Gabon's opposition leaders along with former presidential hopeful Andre Mba Obame then formed a breakaway government on January 26 and Mba Obame swore himself in as President of Gabon. Ministers were appointed to Mba Obame's cabinet, even though its unclear how the Minister of Foreign Affairs would take up the position as he is currently resident in France. Supporters of Mba Obame in the capital, Libreville marched to the UN offices and demanded that the UN recognize him as President. It has since emerged that the base of the unofficial government is in the the UNDP offices. On January 29, thousands of supporters marched in the streets of Libreville, but were violently crushed by the army. Fast forward to 10 February, students at the University of Omar Bongo added their voices to the dissent but for different reasons. Owono writes that:
"According to website La Voix du Peuple Gabonais (Voice of the Gabonese People - LVDPG) [fr], an online newspaper managed by Gabonese living abroad, students were demonstrating [fr] because they have not received their 100 Euros (66,000 Central African Francs) monthly scholarship money since July 2010." 
The student grievances are also about the poor conditions at the university, police brutality against student demonstrators and they demand the 'reinstatement of three professors' who are aligned with the opposition. There's a protest scheduled for the 21st of February calling for Ali Bongo's departure (Ali Bongo Degage) and although SMS-es have been sent out to people, the authorities have in the past done a good job of ensuring the message does not spread across the country so there is a possibility that this march could be crushed too (as were those on 5 & 8 February). 


But all this political drama in less than a month and not one headline from a major news outlet? Would it help if it was known that during all this unrest, on 9 February, Nicolas Sarkozy sent birthday wishes to Ali Bongo? Or that one of the chants is 'Ben Ali Gone, Ali Ben Degage' making the clear connection to Tunisia? Isn't this also one of those social media uprisings and domino-effect revolutions that are oh-so trendy right now? The Gabonese have used Facebook, SMS, YouTube and Twitter just like the Egyptians, Algerians, Libyans and Bahrainis. So why have they been ignored? An unofficial government housing itself in a UNDP building is pretty significant one would think. Does Ban Ki Moon not give a hoot that the UN's premises are being occupied by potential revolutionaries? Even his standard 'we strongly condemn violence blah blah respect human rights blah blah blah' is needed, just say something! African Union, same ting! Maybe Gabon needs self-immolating martyrs so they can go mainstream and Anderson Cooper can be sent in to do coverage in the 'heart of Africa.' Or maybe Sarkozy should explain that when he says France supports Gabon in his birthday message to Bongo he actually means he'll send teargas and live ammunition, in the tradition of what Chirac and Mitterand used to do for daddy Bongo - that would get tongues wagging, wouldn't it? Or even better, a few people can burn themselves and the Muslim minority in Gabon can invent ties with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt then Al Jazeera will come running. Good, no?


Sadly this lack of attention isn't only from leading Western or Arab media, but leading African newspapers as well like South Africa's Mail and Guardian. Their coverage on South Africa is pretty good, but being the frustrated critical reader that I am living in this digital era of information-obesity where stories break by the minute, I find the Africa coverage very disappointing and even moreso when compared to other mainstream global media. If it's not a story on Kenya, the Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Cote d'Ivoire or Zimbabwe it doesn't get coverage until AP (Associated Press), Reuters or the Guardian UK does a story on it. And if they don't copy n paste from AP and Reuters it probably won't get covered. I'm not surprised they've not covered it, but I'm irritated that they've missed out on an important story. Yet again. (Yes, their coverage of Wikileaks Africa cables hasn't been great. Its slanted towards Assange, the moral ethics of Wikileaks and the big stories, but very little analysis (!!!) or reportage on the Africa cables outside of the big gossip and corruption stories from the usual countries, yet Morocco, Djibouti, Mauritius, Madagascar and Diego Garcia were pretty important cables that got missed.)

But back to the subject of the role of new social media in protest. Yesterday at the New Statesman Laurie Penny wrote this: 

"The instant dissemination of camera and video footage and reportage from citizen journalists means that the truth can travel around the world before government propaganda gets its boots on."

To which I responded:
"But what happens when that truth gets ignored by mainstream media? Oppressive regimes will continue to oppress people so inasmuch as it's great that social media helps communicate a message if the influential people aren't listening then what? Can we really speak of 'social media revolutions' and even speedy dissemination of truth when it took over a month before mainstream media picked up on Tunisia? There have been anti-government protests in Gabon since 26 January, influenced in part by events in Tunisia, but there's been NO Anglophone media coverage, apart from Global Voices and the Daily Maverick (S.A). As with Tunisia, it's alternative outlets that have been leading on this story esp Global Voices, while the rest of mainstream media are still looking for different angles to reproduce the headline stories. If anything, the more popular something is the more coverage it gets and calling things 'social media revolution' is much nicer and more palatable for the masses than things like brutality, poverty and unemployment, so the truth of oppression spread through social media becomes masked again."

I don't know if Laurie Penny saw my post and even if she did, then what? Will she actually write about Gabon or more likely pass it onto on of her colleagues at the New Statesman more knowledgeable in African affairs? Yea, keep hope alive. Maybe the Guardian will keep their promise to follow up on my comment today about lack of Gabon coverage, but if they did it won't make them any less sh!t. They were late.

And despite the brilliance of my beloved Guardian and Al Jazeera, they've also been a bit disappointing because their analysts have had little to say about the very real impact of Tunisia, Egypt, Lybia and Algeria on Africa. The Arab uprisings have been looked at mainly from a pan-Arab and Arab-West perspective and yet these events have had a global impact. Citizen-State power relations aren't just shifting in these two spheres but on the Afrian Continent as a whole and in many other parts of the world too. Alongside the Graun & Al J, I've also watched and read the BBC, The Atlantic and NY Times and they all do the same thing. I'm not sure why this recent series of events has only been seen from a Arab-Middle East lens and not through a Arab-Africa lens as well. Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Sudan and Algeria are all Arab nations in Africa. But expert upon expert writing or talking to the media has looked at this from a Middle Eastern/North Africa/Arab perspective as though these protests would have no effect on the land below the Sahara. Or as though North African / Arab Africa, doesn't mean African or Africa (see map above). Pity the poor writers across the Continent who've enthusiastically written about this from an African perspective and pity the Gabonese who've found inspiration from 'the Arab World' but whose voices aren't being heard. Even more frightening though, is the five men who've been abducted in Zimbabwe for celebrating Mubarak's downfall, Zimbabwean state tv censorship of Egypt news and in Malawi, protesters against the recent fuel price hike were detained for several hours by the police because their demonstration was illegal and Bingu Mutharika warned Malawians not to copy Cairo. (But they're not listening) Mutharika, Mugabe, Mubarak, Gadaffi, Bongo were/are all strong men in Africa. Too bad everyone's busy reporting this as 'the Arab revolution' to also notice its many faces. The ripple effect of a rock thrown in a pool of fury doesn't flow one way, but in concentric patterns so that even those on the southern most tip of the continent will feel what is happening on its most northern tip. 

#rantover

much thanks to Julie Owono, Ethan Zuckerman and many other silent bloggers for caring enough to write about this.

UPDATE: GABON: A 38 year old woman, mother of two and anti-Bongo protestor, Marie Mendome has died as a result of injuries from a police beating. She died on Sunday but the story's only started circulating in my spheres, today. Read about it here. How many more deaths will it take before this story gets a headline?

Where Are The Women? Cont'd

Here are a few more pictures of Tunisian women in protest, they're still under-represented but at least there are a few pictures and stories starting to come out now.

jacked from Al Jazeera (Front Page Image!)

jacked from coalitionofresistanceuk

Tunisian women take part in a protest calling the former ruling party the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) to withdraw from the newly formed interim government in Tunis, Tunisia, 19 January 2011.

from Novinite

From the BBC:
Switzerland's foreign ministry has confirmed that a woman who had dual Swiss-Tunisian nationality was killed in the north of Tunisia. Swiss Radio said she was hit in the throat by a stray bullet while watching a protest late on Wednesday in the town of Dar Chaabane.

A foreign ministry statement said the Tunisian ambassador had been summoned, and called on the Tunisian government to "respect dialogue, fundamental liberties and human rights", including freedom of assembly.
French diplomats have also reportedly informed the family of a French-Tunisian academic, Hatem Bettahar, that he was one of two protesters killed by the police on Wednesday in the central town of Douz.

Also see:

Suicide sparked Tunisia revolution - Africa - Al Jazeera English

Clip with Mohamed Bouazizi's mother

Where Are Tunisia's Women?

foto credit: Beirut Spring

Since the Tunisian uprising became global news in the last few days, I've wondered to myself where are the images of protesting Tunisian women across Tunisia? This is not a man's uprising, it is a people's uprising so why are the voices and pictures of women absent from this significant political process? Despite the fact that Tunisia is a modern society where gender equality is legislated by law, women are still marginally represented within the political sphere, because of the patriarchal nature of Arab and Berber culture. However the marginalisation of women from the public and the political does not mean that their voices as citizens of the nation are non-existent, thus as this story of national transformation unfolds, everyone in the country is a part of that story. Everyone has some experience of it, whether as a demonstrator, a bystander, a member of the armed forces or a child. 
Why is it then that the pattern of reporting by dominant international media sources tends to focus on the voices of men ranging from about 21 and upwards, while very little is heard from women, children and the elderly? On Twitter I rely on male and female tweeters in Tunisia for updates and most of the tweets are genderless because most of them are describing what they see or they're calls for solidarity among Arabs. I can understand that. 
But what I can't understand is why the media has focussed on a masculinist narrative? In times of civil unrest it's often the case that because women are not on the front-lines of the battle, their voices are silenced and because they are vulnerable (but not necessarily weak) their bodies become the battleground for discipline and control by warring factions. Their experiences often go unreported or untried by courts of law - and Tunisia has been no exception.
The Guardian reports of police raping women in the poor areas in and around Kasserine, west-central Tunisia:

"Sihem Bensedrine, head of the National Council for Civil Liberties, said: "These were random, a sort of reprisal against the people. In poor areas, women who had nothing to do with anything, were raped in front of their families. Guns held back the men; the women were raped in front of them." A handful of cases were reported in Kasserine and Thala last Monday. Rape was often used as a torture technique under the regime; opposition women report they were raped in the basement of the interior ministry, as were men, too."
In these protests, rape has been used as a tool to cow women and men into fear, to enforce the power of the state and to destroy the community. Whether the perpetrators will be punished or not, remains to be seen. But if the rapists are part of the police that are crushing dissent sanctioned by the newly-forming government then the chances of them being brought to justice are not that high, in my opinion. And how can the stories of women being physically or mentally abused by a variety of rogue and state forces in Tunisia be told if men’s faces and voices dominate the discourse? To what extent is the international media being implicitly complicit with the silencing of women?

Little has also been said about women working as part of the state's security or as government officials, although Leila Ben Ali Trebalsi has become a world reknown femocrat (female autocrat). There have been other female figures important in shaping the events in Tunisia. It was a police woman who mocked and slapped Mohamed Bouazizi as he was refused a permit to sell his vegetables. To date not much is known, within international mainstream media, about the policewoman or Bouazizi's mother, to whom he wrote a suicide note. Only  his sister  has given an interview to a local paper but for non-Arabic speakers, making sense of this Google translated script is somewhat difficult.

 These voices, like the other female voices are absent from most of the news reports outside of Tunisia. From the Middle East to Europe to North America and it's all the same. Men tend to dominate the footage and narrative. What’s surprising is that journalists on location in Tunisia who've had training in equal representation, continue to build on this narrative by letting the stories and images of men become the voice of the people in their reports.

Frustrated by the lack of coverage, I did a search on Google for 'protest Tunisian women' and all I've found so far is the picture above of Tunisia's Revolution Babes (yes, babes, young, pretty ones too!) and this commentary by Tasnim that compares how Neda Soltani became the face of the Iranian movement and how women are absent from this 'jasmine revolution.' The author suggests that this is due to an over-reliance on social media for information:

"What explains this disparity? This was very much a media event, and perhaps this in itself was part of the reason. In the Arab world, and to a lesser extent in French media, there has been a month of in-depth coverage of a developing story, but in English-language media, the real coverage began only as Ben Ali began making concessions. Consequently, there was no narrative to frame events, so a disproportionate amount of the analysis has focused on the new media’s role in the uprising, from Wikileaks to Twitter." 

To me, this is unconvincing. Foreign reporters from all parts of the world have flow in and are booked up in hotel rooms across Tunisia reporting, photographing and tweeting each day’s events. There’s been an overnight role change since the demonstrations have caught mainstream global attention. The 'professionals' have become the primary and the citizen journalist reports published through social media has become a secondary source for news agencies and many international readers.
 The truth is, inadequate coverage of women is a negative symptom of a construction of masculinity embedded in the media that within a male-dominated situation like that of civil protest and political change, tends to silence women.

Rioters carry a woman crying during clashes with the police in downtown of the capital Tunis January 14, 2011. (REUTERS/Zohra Bensemr)

Apart from women, I also wondered about the Black Tunisians (less than 1% population), but I don't know how I'd even begin framing such a question if in Tunisia itself everyone's seen as Tunisian. Having said, that I know that the likelihood that many of the Black migrants and citizens are among the poorer people of Tunisia, so race becomes implicated in class. Perhaps the issue will emerge if there are reports of state violence against Black Tunisian men and women and prejudice is part of the cause for that violence. Other than that I don't know how thinking in terms of race would enrich my understanding of this situation. I've only heard of Mohammed Bouazzizi being referred to as Black on one Rasta website but, I don't know if he identified himself as such. Also, class-race dynamics in Tunisia don't necessarily work the same way as in other parts of Africa or the Arab world so I wouldn't jump to label someone a 'Black Moor/Muur' without knowing how they're perceived in their society and championing his protest immolation as a 'Black thing' yet it's a 'Tunisian struggle thing'. I think I'd prefer to assume that in times of collective stuggle against political oppression, everyone's united across racial, religious, tribal, generational and social lines.

Our Dear Brotherly Leader

pic jacked from the interwebs...y'know how it go

Colonel, Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution, King of Africa:

Mummar Gadaffi

"I am very pained by what is happening in Tunisia...Tunisia now lives in fear ... Families could be raided and slaughtered in their bedrooms and the citizens in the street killed as if it was the Bolshevik or the American revolution ...What is this for? To change Zine al-Abidine? Hasn't he told you he would step down after three years? Be patient for three years and your son stays alive."

Gotta love him! He's just the funniest isn't he?

What a pity though! Now that Ben Ali's been ousted, Our Dear Brotherly Leader must be quaking in his camel skin boots, feeling all feverish and begging for his big boobed Ukranian nurse to wipe the sweat of his brow. Now that his very own pesky plebs have decided to go on the rampage and have housing riots for three days running now, Our Dear Brotherly Leader must not get much sleep at all. 'Will they be coming for me next?', he mutters in his sleep...or so they say. But no one threatens the Leader and get away with so, so, so there goes your YouChoob Libya! Try having your riots now with nowhere to upload your narcissistic videos of anarchy. And if anyone thinks of burning themselves like the other plebs next door, the Brotherly One will be there in a flash with his water canon! Zey do not him Big Brozzer for nuzzin'! And if any of the nation's wannabe heroes think to piss on his statue, deface a government building or even think of kicking a lamppost with thine Leader's image, may the curse of a thousand pins and needles sting them in the soles of their feet and may they leap around the city like a thousand lepers in a marathon with live bullets to make the slow ones go faster.

Yeezey Moment on #Sidibouzid

Jacked from Reuters

FotoCredit: Gulf News

Yo, Tunisia I'm really happy for you that you've kicked out Ben Ali n all and the world's started paying attention to you. I'm even a li'l jealous that we couldn't do the same thing with our Robert Mugabe, minus the 65 and rising deaths (condolences to those who perished in Tunisia)...But uhmmm I'd've preferred it if the expulsion of Ben Ali had happened without all this attention and only the forward thinking bloggers, Al Jazeera, SBZ News, Global Voices readers, connected tweeters, North Africans and Arabs in my timeline were tweeting about Ben Ali. Even though most of the non-journalists and non-bloggers who retweeted the violence, hardship and frustration experienced by Tunisians were basically ignored and the story didn't make it into mainstream Anglo Western media till the 11th hour, it was way better that way. Better when there were no self-congratulatory tweets and armchair disciples cloaked as liberal columnists writing the gospel of St Julian of Assange who released the cables that sparked a revolution. The revolution was not ignited in Sidi Bou Zid where a frustrated graduate set himself aflame in protest to the hardship and humiliation he'd suffered as a vegetable seller, no it all began because of a US embassy cable released by a suave, international man of mystery and his secret organisation. Apparently Tunisians were completely oblivious to their own government's corruption and weren't frustrated enough by the economic situation to do something about it that it took St Julian of Assange's leaks to rile up the masses. Why didn't Elizabeth Dickinson et al, jump to the broadsheets when the self-immolation of Mohammed Bou Azizi happened? What about on Day 10 when the government cut off most forms of digital communication in Sidi Bou Zid? Surely these were the moments to start tweeting and writing the New Testament of the Great Wikileaks Revolution, the Fall of the Emperor of Carthage. 


Day10 might have read: Verse 1 - The twitterwhale wept. Verse 2 - The wicked Emperor of Carthage hath declared there shall be no internet for the townspeople of Sidi Bou Zid. Yea the hand of the ruler hath been chief in this threat upon thy sons and daughters. Verse 3 - We fall upon our knees in despair and mourn with thee twitterwhale, Lord why hast thou forsaken us, our social media revolution shall surely fail! Verse 4 - Hath the Lord forsaken the scribes and journalists in bondage? The terrible Emperor hath declared not another word 'gainst him shall they write. St Julian of Assange's revelations hath made the people revolt, but the world shalt not know of this.
Verse 5 - HTTP Error 403 Access Forbidden.


 ...But that isn't what happened, St Julian of Assange's revelations weren't the main catalyst of what happened Sidi Bou Zid, so there was no interest. As Max Fisher of the Atlantic tweeted at the time, the spat between Glenn Greenwald and Wired.com over the contents Bradley Manning files was far, far, far more compelling than reporting on some unknown Arab journalists in a small North African town that had been under siege for ten days. When Anonymous Ops attacked the website of the Tunisian government, it raised a few eyebrows, but that was all, nothing to sustain long-term interest in those now falling over themselves to congratulate social media and Wikileaks on 'leading a revolution.' 

Obviously they can't explain why in this Twitter-led 'revolution', the tweeters on my followers list didn't care much for the few tweets I posted on Tunisia or RT'd, but now the #Tunisia tweets are coming thick and fast because the anglophone media corporates finally decided on Day27 that Tunisia's turmoil was worthy of serious attention as Ben Ali was on the brink of demise. If the revolution is going to be tweeted, it will only be tweeted because there is a big enough political machine behind it to make it happen. If the revolution is going to be tweeted and retweeted it is going to happen because the politically minded do it, as was the case with (forgotten) Iran, not to wait +20days until The Guardian, CNN or BBC give the go-ahead. 

During the post-Ben Ali power vacuum things seem so unpredictable. In less that 24 hours there have been 3 leader changes and the militia, looters and police are having their way harassing citizens and foreign reporters while witchunts for the most supportive members of Ben Ali's regime are being carried out in haste. It feels like an Animal Farm/Night of the Long Knives situation where Mr Jones of Manor Farm is replaced by Snowball. It happened before in 1987. President Habib Bourguiba ceded his presidency to Ben Ali after a coup supported by the military. Twenty-five odd years later, same thing different scenario. The expulsion of Ben Ali is led by the people but the army and Presidential guard now have control over Tunis, Tabarak is on the verge of food riots and according to one tweeter, @rafik from Tunis: 'trust me people of kasserine,thala ou sidibouzid (semi-arid areas) are unlikely to see jasmine [revolution], and they paid the price.' 
This is why I feel it's inaccurate to call this a 'revolution' as though things have changed and to speak of it in the past tense. Tunisia's story is still unfolding. The army wields power against defenceless citizens. Fouad Mebazza a member of the Old Guard has been interim President for less than a day, but some in the ivory towers of Foreign Policy, NY Times and elsewhere had already declared this a revolution past by Friday evening. It's also impossible for them to think that decades of poverty, unemployment, activism, state corruption and censorship could  have driven people into protes because it's too hard to give credit to the ordinary people who rose up in solidarity and to commemorate Bou Azizi's death...Wikileaks and St Julian of Assange in Tunisia make a better gospel. It does, doth it not?  


For the record, I'm team Julian Assange & Wikileaks, and I'm not mocking him, but those who are desperately trying to spin this as a Wikileaks story. And yes I do acknowledge the role all forms of social media played in this, but I think it's impact is over-emphasized and dismisses the events that took place on the ground and it also fails to understand the process of events on the ground. And there's also an over-emphasis on Twitter, it wasn't just Twitter that people used to send out messages. I've concentrated on the level of public response to critique the notion that this is a social media revolution because often when people speak of social media revolutions the scale of impact is always key determining factor and the fact that no amount of tweets, Facebook postings and You Tube videos got massive global attention yet in comparison to the Iran Green Movement of summer '09 recieved worldwide attention and Neda Soltani became the face of the cause.