CENSORED!
Journalists gets censored in many different ways. Sometimes I wonder what has happened to the spirit of Ubuntu, especially if you are in Africa? People have this feeling that they can't help other people except there is something they stand to benefit from their gestures. But is this really 'helping?' I mean if it comes with strings attached? I personally dont think so.
I just got denied access to a story because I could not answer the question: "whats in it for us?" I was asked this question by a manager of an NGO. I could not be angry with her. I just felt sorry for journalists who have to grapple with issues like these. And I pitty you if as a journalist you will be brought as low as to accepting a 'bribe' of any sorts for the sake of having a story. Don't feel condemned just because your sources tell you "you journalists are the same, you make promises and you don't keep them". No! we never made them out of our own wills. We were coerced into making them. We are not even supposed to promise you anything. Don't ask for it. Don't make us make empty promises just because we want a story, because you will be blamed for that.
To you journalists out there...stop it! Don't pretend to be "The Messiahs" if its not in your power to. Just do your job and get the heck out of trouble. You are costing the credibility of our industry if this is how you are going to represent us.
Get me right. If you can help, please with all sicerity do, and do it because you want to, not out of obligation.. Prove yourself credible..let our generation of journalists be a force to be reckonned with.
The Truth: how should we present "The Gospel Truth"?
The truth is something that most people are dying to tell but many can’t speak the truth in love. Truth without love is at most equivalent to a mere pronouncement of judgement but as we all know, not only are we not fit to pass judgement onto our brothers but we are above all else commanded not to judge others, because that task is reserved for the only one true judge, the Christ without any wrongs whatsoever. I have been chatting to some folks about such issues but it came to my attention that a lot of us don’t even know or do they see any wrong in doing what they do, as long as they think they are onto something…but wait a minute. Who are you to tell me what I should or should not do? This is quite a fitting question to ask. It should be one question that guides and governs our interactions and relations with other people regardless of what we think of them or how we have classified them according to the standards God knows where we get them… perhaps we ought to realise and be aware that all that we do whether good intentioned or bad will one day be judged for what it was worth. One thing I have realised is that through our love of truth we have destroyed a lot than we have actually preserved, so what’s the use? Shouldn’t we rather work on our methods then if these are the types of results we are getting after all the labour we put into it?
Of course we possess the truth! This is truly an undoubt-able fact. There is definitely no contesting its validity. However what is at stake is the packaging and ultimately the way we then present our truth to those that we think need it. As much as we want to give it to them we should also realise that these people also reserve the right to be heard and for their opinions to be respected no matter how skewed to our perceptions such views might seem. It is love beyond all else that straightens these perceptions other people have about certain things that we hold so dear to us and have such a conviction of, to the extent that we just want to shove all of it into their mouths even if they don’t want it or don’t understand why their views, but not ours are wrong. This is quite a psychological issue if you come to think about it…and the only way to win this battle is to go the psychological way and of course with God’s wisdom because whether you like it or not He created psychology and He wants it to be used to convict and to shed some light to His truth to those whose minds and thinking are shaped and bear an inclination towards psychological fact.
The Proverbial Woman
Proverbs 31:10 simply asks: "who can find a virtuous woman,for her price is above rubies?" We don't have to look far away to find the "proverbial woman. The lady who makes it all worth your while everyday is indeed more precious than rubies. She needs to know that. You can't expect her to somehow osmotically (by osmosis) know that. She might think/imagine it, but she really need to hear it from your own mouth. This month in South Africa is a "Women's"month..guys please take time out to appreciate those women who put/add a smile to your faces, who lightens the burden off your shoulders.. I am talking about your mother, your sister your helper at home, your granny, your wife most especially...this is the time to overtly express your appreciation of her. Tell her how much she means to you and see her world light-up! We need to know how much other people value us in life do it to someone and see what I mean. Its a human instinct to feel loved and appreciated. Ladies, happy women's day to you all! especially my mother!
Pathetic!
I recently came across the following
quote on
blogswana blogsite which I thought was so pathetic to say the least!:
"In a very significant way, we (the west) don’t consider people in the third-world to be real people. Their problems exist as abstractions, always behind the comfortable barrier of the TV screen or the printed page. We don’t empathise with their problems because we don’t know these people. They don’t seem real to us, so their suffering does not feel real. What we need to do is make these people seem more real. It’s the only way to affect our gut responses".
Never in my entire life have I been exposed to so much ignorance. This is really pathetic and if there is indeed some truth to this quote, then really, the west should be ashamed of themselves. This kind of ignorance cannot be excused! How can the west not consider people in the third world as real people? who is the west anyway to think that what they think of other people is what should be considered normal and right?
What can come out of a small rural village?
I have been to this area for a number of times now.In fact I just got back from Hamburg last night. But everytime I go to Hamburg, I feel like I am visiting the place for the very first time. Hamburg is a unique place in South Africa. It is a place with a story to be told.It is a place rich in History and love. It is a place that brings you closely in touch with true nature. People here know how to love and care for one another. Hamburg resembles those places that we only hear about and read about in novels, it is too good to really accept its existence. But there is indeed such a place somewhere in South Africa. Such a place exists. I really fall shot in trying to describe this unique,indeed a very anthological village that welcomes all and offers more than just love and support to its dwellers but to all who care to visit. Hamburg a village of hope, of love, of sharing and a village full and well renoun for its creativity. It is the mother of the famous
ALTERPIECE which is touring the world as I write.A home of many colours.A home of everything. A home that woke-up and said to Africa and the rest of the world: "we can and we are alive with oppprtunity, and yes something can come out of our village, out of Africa. Hamburg defies the odds!
Heart Issues: Are you the Dating or Courting type?
If you are the dating type, chances are your heart has been broken on several occassions already. If not, your chance is coming. If you are the courting type. Fact is you will (if not alread)battle with feeling about girls. But your restraint will be do you believe there is "the good and perfect one" for you?
Dealing with Heart Issues.
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Child Soldiers
Unlike Angola, this documentary was a direct eye-witness account chronicling a heartlessly inhumane,behaviour demonstrated by the “lord resistance army” on children. I really find it hard not to blame colonialism and its exploitative practices for this legacy of brutality and the consequent evils perpetrated agains children and other civilians in countries affected by civil wars. These wars are economic wars other than just political wars.
"Angola Saudades from the one who loves you”
Angola is a documentary that tells the story of the people of Angola as they grapple with coming to terms with their new "peace" following years upon years of civil unrest. It is very clear and worth noting that the civil unrest that threatened to destroy this country, which is rich in natural resources were deliberately perpetrated by evil colonial forces:" Unlike Portugal's other African possessions, which had made relatively peaceful transitions to independence months earlier, by November 11, 1975, Angola was in chaos". See
ANGOLA:INDEPENDENCE AND THE RISE OF THE MPLA GOVERNMENT for more on Angola.
In attempting to make sense of the events highlighted by this documentary, I find myself having to grapple with the question of meaning making. In other words what “truth” if any was the director trying to communicate to us the viewers when he set out to making this documentary? There are of course numerous compartments that ultimately make an “ideal” called “truth”. But over the years the notion “truth” has seen different debates reducing it to a mere relativity. “The truth” as a concept is now considered a relative concept. I don’t agree, but I will not deal with this phenomenon here. My basic endeavour here is to extrapolate themes running through or addressed by the director of this award-winning documentary which to the best of my convictions is indeed a brilliant documentation of such issues as the one here addressed.
The documentary "Angola Saudades from the one who loves you” is based on Angola’s struggle to recover from a 27 years of civil war. Angola is just one among many African countries which have just emerged from a devastating legacy of atrociously inhuman sufferings at the peril of civil wars. The documentary does extracts or represents in a kaleidoscopic way different strands of causative forces that can rightly be implicated in the face of these national atrocities. To capture and utilise this filmatographic art of story-telling, the director uses an anonymous voice that reads letters chronicling the events of the war, in a way that takes the viewer on a journey. These letters sample different realities of life in this oil producing country in ways that creates a dichotomy of livelihoods, between rich and poor, street kids and their squalor versus the duality of the lives that the fashion models of that country live under. Through this medium we encounter yet another kaleidoscope of aesthetics emanating from the juxtaposed differences in livelihoods.
For once we are transferred into a state of psychological engagement with the documentary. Our political, anthropological, economical and linguistic strands of reasoning are pulled into “excruciating” and laborious actions. We begin to reckon with the mechanisms of exploitation laid bare before our eyes by the documentary. We try to make sense of it in the “normal” way of making meaning of such activities but this one betrays in many ways our normalised ways of reading our world. Personally, I am stretched beyond what I have experienced before. I am forced to read the situation from a political point of view, but no, that is not entirely what it is. It’s an economical battle. But also not in its entirety. There are more forces to reckon with here than meets the eye, but I am only equipped with just a little knowledge to grapple with the aforementioned issues.
I feel a bit overwhelmed by circumstances these people had to grapple with. I want to make sense of these happenings in an objective way that journalists should approach their subject matters with. However, the pain these people had to go through, affects me so bad I can’t stand the colonial exploitation the African continent had to reckon with. I see clearly the devastating effects this system left on our poor continent. It’s painful to even think about it. Here is a country, rich in natural recourses but very poor in any other means possible. I see the poverty in the art and skill of leadership. I see the ignorance perpetrated by this lack. Black people against black people. Colonialism is over in theory but still deeply imbedded in the way things are run and systems articulated on the ground in most of Africa. For most of the black folk as was indicated by one of the characters, we have lost hope in not only our leaders but also in those systems: humanitarian systems that are supposed to be protecting us. The system is now bought and initiated into the western colonial patterns now unfortunately propagated by the leaders African people elect to represent them. Greed and exploitation is now a new definition of a truly democratic democracy in Africa. The only thing that remains to the people on the ground is to ‘act’. The fashion models carry this painful metaphoric re-enactment of life-after-colonialism with such fervency that betrays any kind of illusion by which the political and economic realities of the Angolan problems can be evaded.
It is so clear in this documentary that outside we appear happy and jovial, but the truth is: it’s just an act and the sad thing about it is this happiness is momentary and it keeps office hours, that’s it. Beyond the office it’s over—completely non-existent. The models who brings this reality to bear in our minds, after acting in the world that exploit and mines their talents for selfish gains do go back to the squalor to which they were born, after office hours. This is how I read the events of this documentary and to me it makes much sense that way. Meaning it is said is a re-enactment of our on socialisations and I think my social upbringing gave me such spectacles by which I read through the events chronicled in this documentary.
This collage of events is effectively presented rather descriptively through a clever and catchy usage of very symbolic sound tracks that make the thematic journey through the documentary one that hooks and engages the audience with almost the same convictions as the makers of the documentary themselves. Together, the film and the music create a vivid extrapolation of the enigma that is Angola. Coupled with the soothing poem and the soul piercing music and pictures that for once makes one’s heart skip a beat, the film is given a poetic and yet a very strong feel, that it almost speaks loudly to the reformer in each audience whose motivation is to do just that. The constant recitation of the phrase “He wrote” resounds with an air of determination and a vehement spirit, painting with the rigour of the strokes of a rough textured paint-brush in the hands of an amateur painter, the immediacy and accuracy of the events chronicled by the documentary. This anonymous voice reads or should I say recounts and rubs-in the question that is in everyone’s mind: “will Angola (or Africa) rise from the ashes and rebuilt again?”
Furthermore, by the beautifully sound-tracked journey through the documentary, the director seems to take us through a cul-de-sac of impossibilities. He paints descriptively quite a world of contrasts presented through a kaleidoscope of visuals sampling the diverse experiences of Angolans: from wealthy oil barons to street children, with mansions and malls juxtaposed against rubble and decay. By painting such a landscape of dichotomous events, the award-winning documentary seem to suggest that a prosperous future is still out of reach for the majority of Angolans in this theoretically rich but practically anguished land. And the politics and colonial exploitation re-lives yet again…
The Nuba People
I recently watched a documentary on the Nuba people: The Nuba people are made up of ninety-nine black African tribes living in the Nuba Mountains situated in the Sudanese province of South Kordofan. Like most if not all of African people, these tribes have lived for decades as forgotten people.But it wasn't long before they became part of the political and economic concerns of their country, including the west. However, it is most amazing, in fact it is disheartning that these people only became important in as far as their natural resources could be exploited for the enrichment of the powerful west and the greedy leaders of the African continent.For 15 years the Nuba mountains which had for long been their (Nuba people) own were besieged by the regular Sudanese Army. However, "the genocide perpetrated on the Nuba people, which is obviously the result of the world powers’ struggle over Sudanese natural riches, remains concealed from the world public" See
Nuba a pure people by
Tomo Kriznar for more on the Nuba people.
