Love the tune, love the look. Must see. HT to Africa is a Country.

Brendan Bannon and Mike Pflanz are the Nairobi based journalists behind Daily Dispatches, a month long documentary project that explores the ins and outs of Nairobi - a city known to some for its crime and poverty, to others for its art scene and tech bubble. This in-depth project does an amazing job contextualizing all the different ways an urban hub like Nairobi works and doesn’t work. Spend some time exploring the archives and follow along for the last couple of days. Projects like this one, with such amazing breadth and commitment, can really contribute to a more nuanced understanding of places usually only shown from one particular angle.

Happening this Wednesday at SIPA in New York brought to you by the Committee on Global Thought. Looks very interesting. Register here, and see you there!

As the extractive sector has come to play an increasingly important role in the economies of sub-Saharan Africa, attention has turned to the media. Many hope that the media will play an important role in framing the policy agenda and educating the public and so support efforts to boost transparency, promote good governance and help ensure that revenues from the extractives are used well to reduce poverty and promote development. But in many of the countries where the extractive sector is important, the media is unable to play a forceful and active role. The problems the media faces include reporters and editors who lack the expertise to adequately cover this important subject, lack of resources to hire and train staff who could do the job, lack of political will and pressure from government and companies not to do tough investigative reporting.

At the same time, an increasing number of NGOs (both foreign and domestic) have begun to look at how to ensure the continent benefits from the revenues that are generated from the extractive sector.. The stated aims of groups like Publish What You Pay, the Extract Industries Transparency Initiative and Revenue Watch Institute (among others) include boosting transparency in order to prevent the funds being stolen or squandered. They hope that the projected revenues from oil, gas and mining can be used to improve the economic development of extractive countries and the income of ordinary citizens.

To this end, many of the efforts of the NGO community are aimed at capacity building and educating members of civil society, government and the media. They hope that by educating and empowering citizens, parliamentarians and the press they will be able to boost transparency and help ensure funds are well spent. A panel hosted by CGT/IMAC could discuss the role of the media in covering the extractive sector in Africa, talk about where some of the stronger reporting is taking place currently, look at digital media (sites like saharareporters.com) and its ability to get around the restrictions faced by reporters in the legacy media and outline areas for future coverage.

Check this page as the event approaches for more information about panelists.

Tentative Agenda:

1:15PM
Welcome and Opening Remarks
Anya Schiffrin

1:30PM-2:30PM
Media and the Extractive Sector
Arvind Ganesan, Angelo Izama, Peter Rosenblum, Ramata Soré
Moderator: Rachel Boynton
This panel will look at the role that African media is playing in covering the extractive sector. Panelists will examine how the media contributes to promoting good governance and the constructive use of revenues, as well as discuss the line between journalism and advocacy.

2:30PM-3:30PM
Transparency and Governance in Africa: The Work of NGOs
Kobina Aidoo, Ian Gary, Alexandra Gillies
Moderator: Eamon Kircher-Allen
Transparency and governance in many African countries, particularly in those that rely heavily on extractives for revenues, is notoriously lacking. Citizens, the media, and even government officials know too well the opportunities this creates for corruption, and the obstacles it presents to democratic engagement. In this panel, experts from the Revenue Watch Institute and Oxfam discuss the root causes of these problems -the politics of poor governance, the legal frameworks behind relationships with oil companies, and institutional unaccountability- and the work their organizations are doing to address them.

3:30PM-4:30PM
African Media, Social Change, and the Politics of Representation
Ben Akoh, Dayo Olapade, Saskia Sassen
Moderator: Karen Attiah
This panel will look at the role of the African media during periods of social, political, and cultural change in Africa. Panelists will discuss their experiences with the media in various African nations, as well as explore the media’s role in the changing landscape of cultural representations of Africa around the globe.

4:30PM-5:00PM
Tea and Coffee Break

5:00PM-6:00PM
How Do Changes in the Media Sector Relate to Economic Development?
Michael Behrman, Sanjukta Roy
In this session, Internews Network will present its new research that looks at how changes in the media sector in the region of Sub-Saharan Africa relate -or not- to other key aspects of economic development. Panelists will also address the issue of whether media development precedes certain aspects of economic development or vice versa.

6:00PM-7:00PM
Closing Remarks
Joseph Stiglitz

In January, I went back to the King George Home for the Elderly in Eastern Freetown, a place I’d visited in 2010 and taken many photos. It’s a strange place — it’s rare for the elderly to live in group homes in sub-Saharan Africa, but most of the people at King George’s lost their children during Sierra Leone’s civil war. There’s a word for children who lose their parents — orphans — but no word for parents who lose their children. King George’s is, in some senses, a place of deep sadness and isolation. And yet, it’s also a place where people have made friends, cut each others hair, and spend the day chatting and listening to the radio.

To see photos from my previous trip, check this out, or visit the whole series on my homepage.

It was so wonderful to be back – I was greeted with such warmth and kindness, hugs and laughs. The article in BBC’s Focus on Africa had made it to Freetown and the residents, for once, didn’t feel ignored.

Like many unfortunate Sierra Leoneans, Fatu Sesay Maya lost both of her hands during the civil war to fighters who asked victims if they wanted “long sleeves” or “short sleeves.” She speaks no English or Krio, a language common in the capital and elsewhere, but still spends her days saying “Hawa, hawa,” meaning yes, yes, in Limba, a language from Northern Sierra Leone. Despite her disability, she is still relatively self-sufficient.

Prince Jarret, 80, shaves his friend Daniel Koroma’s head on a sunny morning in February. Though both men lost their children and their families during the war and were alone and rejected by their communities, they’ve found each other at King George’s.

Charles Doe rests quietly one afternoon. He spends most days playing his guitar and harmonica, alone in the corner where he lives and listens to the radio. “It is my best friend,” he says of the guitar. “It can’t lie.” He once dreamed of being a musician.  During the war, all of his children died and he lost track of his other relatives. King George’s has been his only home for the last decade.  He says he would like his guitar to decorate his coffin.

Onike Williams, 71, has lived at the King George home for more than fifteen years. Her family, who tolerated her speech impediment before the war, abandoned her as soon as they could. She never had any children, and mutters that people say, “I an ugly woman-o.” Despite what others may think, Onike smiles all the time and is quick to laugh.

Thomas Daniels is younger and more able than many of the residents at the King George home, but he is no less alone. He was working for an iron ore company in Liberia when war broke out in there and in Sierra Leone and he was never again able to locate his wife or children. He assumes they died in the war.

Daniel Williams lost his family and his vision during Sierra Leone’s civil war. He plays harmonic, recorder, and he sings. His best friend lives in the bed next to him, and is also named Daniel.

“In the name of the Lord I greet you! I am the most stupid fool in the world!” is the way Egbert E. Emens greets most people, most days. He lost his wife and several children during the war. His son put him at King George’s because he could not care for Egbert while he was working during the day, and Egbert had been wandering off and exposing himself to children in the neighborhood. There’s a huge range of mental and physical capacity among the residents at King George’s.

Remie Edwards sits outside on the porch of her building one afternoon. On some days, she is talkative and friendly, offering blessings and laughing with the other residents. On other days, she is combative and quiet and prefers to be left alone.

Mamie Ballay was once a beauty — and she still is. She goes to great lengths to keep up her apperance at King George’s, getting her hair plaited regularly and asking the care takers to paint her toe nails. She didn’t like the first photo I took of her because her dress was red, and she said she looks better in pink. I think she looks nice in both.

Tim Hetherington, Sleeping Soldiers

A lot has been written about Tim Hetherington as a war photographer. Here’s David Carr in the New York Times:

Tim Hetherington was a war photographer in every regard. Tall, brutally handsome and modest, he had a British accent plucked from a Graham Greene novel and the body fat of a Diet Coke.

I actually disagree. From my limited personal knowledge of Tim, and from extensive time thinking about and looking at his work, I don’t think he was a “war photographer in every regard.” While his photos of conflict in Liberia and Afghanistan are truly excellent examples of war photography, so many of his photographs are examples of something else. His series Sleeping Soldiers certainly isn’t straight war photography. It’s a look at the people fighting wars – vulnerable, young, human.

When I interviewed him, I specifically asked him about war photography. Here’s what he said:

I’ve never seen myself as a war photographer. This is about narrative. I’m very open to any visual conceits and any possibilities at my disposal to better explain to people the ideas I’m exploring. I like art photography, I like still life, I like war photography. I like to include everything to weave a tapestry to explain to someone, “What happened?”

A lot of the pictures are metaphorical, and the combination of pictures is metaphorical. This piece of work is almost like a novel. I use narrative book techniques, and I think they’re a more powerful approach than having a lot of war photography.

He said this type of thing other places too — he told @Zoe_Flood:

“I’m not a war junkie – I don’t go to places like Liberia because I get off on it. Whilst war photography is the most extreme in terms of it being pure photojournalism, taking place right on the edge, what I am interested is how people are touched by the story, and if they are, that they become aware of something they hadn’t previously known about.”

This is important to remember, especially now as Duckrabbit insightfully, and fearfully, points out, that the romantic myth of the war photographer is stronger than ever.

Here’s Sebastian Junger, remembering Tim, and deeply invested in the romance of war:

You and I were always talking about risk because she was the beautiful woman we were both in love with, right? The one who made us feel the most special, the most alive? We were always trying to have one more dance with her without paying the price. All those quiet, huddled conversations we had in Afghanistan: where to walk on the patrols, what to do if the outpost gets overrun, what kind of body armor to wear. You were so smart about it, too—so smart about it that I would actually tease you about being scared. Of course you were scared—you were terrified. We both were. We were terrified and we were in love, and in the end, you were the one she chose.

Debating his legacy is an important part of remembering him and how he contributed to the way we all understand the world.

I hope Tim isn’t only remembered as a war photographer.

***

“Could Have,” by by Wislawa Szymborska, and translated below from the Polish, via CJ Chivers.

It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened earlier. Later.
Nearer. Farther off.
It happened, but not to you.

You were saved because you were the first.
You were saved because you were the last.
Alone. With others.
On the right. The left.
Because it was raining. Because of the shade.
Because the day was sunny.

You were in luck — there was a forest.
You were in luck — there were no trees.
You were in luck — a rake, a hook, a beam, a brake,
A jamb, a turn, a quarter-inch, an instant …

So you’re here? Still dizzy from
another dodge, close shave, reprieve?
One hole in the net and you slipped through?
I couldn’t be more shocked or
speechless.
Listen,
how your heart pounds inside me.

Two weeks ago, I boarded a plane in Monrovia and flew back to New York via Atlanta. I arrived in Atlanta in an exhausted daze. The work I’d be doing for the past couple of weeks was physically and emotionally exhausting, and while transitioning between the USA and Africa is never, ever easy, this time it felt especially hard. As I walked around the Atlanta airport, I saw people from my photos, Ivorian refugees superimposed on the friendly Americans buying a coffee at Seattle’s Best, standing among piles of identical and immaculate brightly colored Lacoste shirts.

I thought of Tim Hetherington’s personal video diary.

Diary (2010) from Tim Hetherington on Vimeo.

He chronicles the difficult transition with disquieting grace and salience.

I often thought about his work while I was working. There are few people who I admired as much, whose way of doing journalism made so much sense to me, whose focus on individuals and on ideas translated visually with such poignancy and meaning. I was lucky enough to meet him in Liberia in early 2009 and interview him for a blog post. He recommended me for a couple of great assignments. While I was happy to have the work, I was even more pleased that someone whose work I admired so much had remembered me and recommended me.

I had a copy of Long Story Bit by Bit at my apartment in Monrovia. I showed it to friends and acquaintances often. When I left Liberia last October, I left it, along with a couple of other photo books, at a new art school.

When I visited in February, I flipped through the book while I was at the art school. The spine was creased and the pages  showed signs of being handled. I was glad to see that – to see the students had been looking at this amazing book, and looking often.

The students loved some of the gorier photos, but not just those. We spent awhile talking about his still life of an orange, how that could tell part of the story too. And I remembered, again, what a masterful storyteller and journalist he was.

There was a drawing posted on the wall by one of the students,  based on one of Hetherington’s photos. I intended to email this image to Tim, but hadn’t yet gotten around to it.

Tim Hetherington died today in Libya. To say that he will be missed is an understatement. He was a visual pioneer, a dedicated story teller, and someone I deeply, deeply respected.

Since a disputed election in Ivory Coast at the end of 2010, more than 100,000 Ivoirians have fled to Liberia.

Ivory Coast, once West Africa’s economic powerhouse, is now a shambles. Laurent Gbabgo, the incumbent president, lost an election declared fair and free by the United Nations and other international observers, but he has refused to step down. He’s currently locked in a power struggle with the winner of the election, Alassane Outtara. While the conflict hasn’t yet been labeled a civil war, it has all the trappings of one. Outtara’s forces quickly took most of the countryside and are now besieging the financial capital, Abidjan. Gbabgo’s gun men are struggling to maintain control, and Ivorian civilians are caught in the brutal crossfire. More than 500 have died since the conflict began, and recent massacres have claimed the lives of at least 800 others.

In rural Liberia, things were already quite dire. There’s rarely enough to eat, few water and sanitation resources, fewer clinics, and little to offer to the sudden influx of people. But the borders remain open. After all, just a decade ago, people fled in the opposite direction when Liberians took refugee in Ivory Coast.

Photos commissioned by UNHCR. See additional photos on www.glennagordon.com.