Does Your State Have Your Back?

Does Your State Have Your Back?

By Conor Godfrey
This poetic essay by Nigerian professor Pius Adesanmi helped me consider the nature of the citizenship I enjoy.

I may rail against certain U.S. policies and politicians, but I know that Uncle Sam has my back abroad.

If I get hurt, arrested, detained illegally, kidnapped, or otherwise physically or legally incapacitated, my blue passport means that someone somewhere is going to do something about it.

(I am however very sympathetic to the argument that not all citizens are equal in terms of state services.)

Nigerian Professor Adesanmi tells his Canadian students that he has “never experienced the psychological comfort of a citizenship considered sacred and inviolable by a state.”

He continues, “ I have never in my life gone to bed with the psychological comfort of knowing that a state has got my back.”

He uses the Yoruba expression “second calabash” to describe how the elite views the citizenry; the expression connotes someone or something of little import, an after thought.

The most recent and vivid manifestations of this are the U.S. and Nigeria’s respective responses to having nationals kidnapped by Somali pirates.

The U.S. exerted tremendous military muscle to rescue one man – Captain Phillips.

Somali pirates held Nigerian hostages on the other hand for 302 days before releasing them to make room for hostages from countries that would actually pay.

In the professor’s words, “The Somalians broke the number one rule of international hostage taking – the life of your hostage must mean something to a particular state – because they believed that anybody in the rulership of Nigeria was even remotely interested in the lives of Nigerian citizens.”

This is harsh stuff.

Obviously military resources might play a larger role than respect for citizenship in determining these outcomes, but symbolically, the images are still potent.

I don’t know if the majority of Nigeria’s 160 million people are second “calabashes” or not, but his argument was convincing in one other respect – Nigerians are treated horribly all over the diaspora, especially in other African countries.

Negative Nigerian stereotyping was rife in every country I ever visited in Africa, some of it laced with simple envy toward a larger and in some respects more successful neighbor.

Nigerians face legal discrimination abroad, and are often targeted by police and security services.

Are Nigerians treated this way abroad because their own state treats them similarly? Because perpetrators know that no one is going to stick up for Nigerian diaspora communities? Maybe.

Recently, South Africa improperly deported over 100 Nigerians on the unfounded suspicion that their Yellow Fever vaccination certificates were fake.

The Nigerian elite reacted with uncharacteristic outrage at this incident, and South Africa was forced to apologize. The South Africans seemed humbled and surprised by the reaction from Abuja. This proves prove the professors point, offered through an adapted proverb – “If you carry piss in your calabash, so will your neighbors when you lend it to them.”

Memorial Day Holiday

Memorial Day Holiday

Especially for my readers in Africa, I wanted to explain the absence of a normal blog, today. It’s Memorial Day in America, Monday, May 28, 2012.

The holiday is intended to honor the memories of U.S. soldiers who have died in action. It’s similar to the Remembrance Days celebrated in many parts of Africa, and like in South Africa, directed mostly to freedom fighters for independence.

America’s Memorial Day honors all dead soldiers, so in that regards our own revolutionary fighters are to be in our memory as well. But it began as “Decoration Day” right after the Civil War, following a petition by recently freed slaves (mostly who came from Africa) to honor the Union soldiers who had freed them.

After World War I, it was changed to “Memorial Day” and extended as an honor to all soldiers in all conflicts.

As a young boy it was a big red-white-and-blue festival. We decorated our little red wagons and bikes, just as we would hardly a month later for July 4th. And in those days we were remembering mostly the two Great Wars.

Since then my own personal regards for Memorial Day has diminished. The numerous wars my country has begun have mostly been unfair and unjust. And with the end of the draft when I was in university, the military has changed radically. It no longer represents society as a whole.

Today, the military is composed either of young men who can’t get any other kind of job, or who need the benefits once the service is finished, or avowed militarists. We need them both, by the way, but it has drastically altered America’s weapon users, and the military is today more easily manipulated by politicians than it used to be.

I do stop during the day and think of my relatives in the Great Wars. I think of the way the country ultimately came together to fight world tyranny. But in my life time, there is little in America’s wars to be proud of. They are mostly memories I wish we didn’t have.

The Pen..is Mightier

The Pen..is Mightier

By Conor Godfrey
Sex, art, and politics.

“The Spear,” a painting of South Africa’s President Zuma with his genitals hanging out of his pants, has all three in spades.

Go ahead…look at it. It is art, after all.

Provocative South African artist Brett Murray painted the work, in his words, as “an attempt at humorous satire of political power and patriarchy.”

I enjoy the circus surrounding the painting way more than the painting itself.

First, President Zuma guaranteed every South African in the country saw the painting by suing the artist and the gallery, and demanding it be taken down. (When will rulers learn that censoring any particular piece is the only surefire way to make sure everyone sees it?)

He also propagates the most damaging interpretation of the painting by claiming, in his defamation suit, that the portrait “depicts [him] in a manner that suggests [he is] a philanderer, a womanizer and one with no respect. [That] it is an undignified depiction of [his] personality and seeks to create doubt about [his] personality in the eyes of fellow citizens, family and children.”

Talk about an own goal. You might as well just write and pay for the opposition ads yourself.

The de rigueur charges of racism were of course thrown about as well.

The circus moved into its next phase when two Zuma supporters defaced the painting (Don’t worry, they used oil based washable paints), and another artist painted a response work that depicted 5 recognizable naked white figures (including the leader of the opposition) being inspected by a black South African with a clip board.

I agree with the Times’ blogger Alex Perry that the real take-away here is just how thin-skinned Zuma and his coterie are.

The big chair has a big target on it.

Get over it.

Check out the infamous Obama Joker image.

I understand that many South Africans are rightfully sensitive with regard to slurs on African dignity, but this could have been a total non-issue.

Instead, the whole scene just reinforces all the key points of the anti-Zuma narrative. Womanizing, self-indulgent, overly sensitive big man who is intent on crushing media freedoms.

After all, as the Time’s blog mentions, if Zuma has trouble dealing with one bad portrait in a random art gallery, how can he be trusted to react with poise to more strident criticisms of his personality and policies?

Of course, maybe in Western discourse the never-ending stream of lurid affairs and insinuations has desensitized me to sexuality-laden attacks on political figures.

Watching a few hours of the John Edwards trial makes this painting seem rather trivial, but of course the Edwards trial does not have centuries of racial oppression clouding the nature of insinuations.

The BBC’s Andrew Harding pseudo quotes a former South African Chief Justice as saying the following in regards to “The Spear” circus…. “I know we are too thin-skinned. We should just let it go. But we can’t. You must remember where we have come from.”

That sounds about right.

In Africa We Trust

In Africa We Trust

By Conor Godfrey
Musical selection for today’s blog: Sexion d’Assaut, Africain

The experienced traveler or cultural connoisseur must take ever more drastic measures in 2012 to experience something new.

A form of cultural convergence driven by globalization and increased wealth has smoothed out many of the wrinkles that once made Confucius’ sphere of influence look and feel different than Locke’s or Chingus Khan’s.

Cultural differences certainly exist below the surface today, but consumerism and urbanization are the norm, and even music, fashion, and architecture tend toward a global median with regional varieties.

This is why Africa can be so intoxicating.

Even though American R&B often blares from Lagos bars, and East African businessmen wear western style suits, African cultures still feel substantively different than the pseudo-Western global norm that prevails in most corners of the globe.

For everyone plagued by the sense that the current world order is still letting too many people down, or that the structures supporting the current order exclude too many people, the notion that Africa might take a different path makes us hope, in spite of ourselves, that Africa’s rise will give rise to new institutions, and inject powerful new ideas into international conversations on rights, justice, equality, and human potential.

This phenomenon is accelerating as we speak. Africa’s special if not unique needs have already moved the world forward.

Its unique history and demography have created the world’s most progressive constitution in South Africa.

The combination of traditional justice and modern conflict has given rise to various forms of truth and reconciliation as alternative judicial processes to Western inspired punitive justice focused on individual agency and responsibility.

The illogical borders of African states are forcing the continent’s governments to innovate appropriate governmental tools to manage impossibly diverse polities.

The world may soon look to Kenya as a model balance of federalism and social inclusion.

I am most hopeful with regard to how Africa will innovate around social and economic inequality.

Gross inequality is often treated as an unfortunate side effect of the transition to a market economy.

However, in many Africa states and societies, organized labor played a key role in chasing the colonizers out, and historically, many leaders in local traditions maintained their position and prestige by giving away wealth.

Controlling the means of production was only powerful in so far as it allowed leaders in some cultures to bestow gifts on important power brokers in their communities.

How will these deep-seated cultural attitudes toward inequality mesh with the notion that inequality is inevitable?

Perhaps South Africa will square this circle over the next 15 years, and the world will be a much better place for it.

I often hear people compare Africa in the new millennium to China in the 1970s.

Favorable demographics, massively improved governance and stability, filthy rich in natural resources, etc…

The same people will compare Nigeria, or Kenya in 2012 to Indonesia or Malaysia 30 years ago, and in so doing communicate that this is ‘the time’ to invest.

These comparisons are useful to a point, but they assume a common trajectory for all societies. A ladder with the same rungs if you will.

I, for one, hope that Africa’s ladder has new and different rungs. I hope that just as a tourist in Africa today might truly find something ‘new’ in culture or art, scholars of government and society will soon visit Africa to learn how African states and societies innovated to overcome intractable, globally applicable issues.

Deleterious or Dynamic Delta?

Deleterious or Dynamic Delta?

There is no set price in travel. Prices change constantly, and a question I constantly get is “Should I buy now?”

The controversy last month when a Minneapolis television station discovered that Delta Airlines was charging its frequent flyer customers more for the identical booking than (presumably) newer, non-frequent flyer customers underscores how fluid travel pricing has become.

The pricing discrepancy is uncontested. Two different people side-by-side on two identical computers accessed the Delta site and searched for a ticket price in exactly the same way and for exactly the same flights.

The person who signed in as a frequent flyer customer was charged more. In fact, in one case on multiple attempts to confirm the anomaly, a first class ticket from Minneapolis to Los Angeles was $1000 higher to the frequent flyer customer.

Delta insists it was a computer glitch but according to a reputable global travel watchdog, ETN, “Anyone fluent in software development and deployment knows that these kinds of issues [require] careful coding and thorough testing. The fact that Delta admits that this situation has existed for some time suggests that the issue was not a mistake…”

I doubt it was a glitch, and even if it began as such I suspect the IT department began to cultivate it.

“Dynamic pricing” is sweeping the travel market. Even hotels now sell the same room for the same date a hundred different ways, depending upon where the request comes from, how well the hotel is doing that day, and what the competition is doing.

According to American Airlines, there are 100,000 changes in its prices every day.

This is not done by 100,000 different clerks typing in new numbers. It’s done with computer algorithms and artificial intelligence designed to get absolutely the most out of you possible.

Airlines lead all travel pricing. Hotels follow immediate suit. And right afterwards, cruise companies, safari chains, and even amusement parks adjust their business practices to reflect what the airlines do.

Even the cost of a safari.

“Dynamic pricing” is the golden mantra of travel businesses today. And in the unregulated market that we live in, there really is no other way for a travel business to succeed.

Technically there’s nothing illegal about this. Travel is a commodity just like gas and potatoes, and the market demand begins to set the price. Some argue that Delta could be brought to court based on its own advertised commitments, but if you take the time to read the small print, I doubt it.

But the problem with travel is that you generally pay a lot earlier than when you fill your car or buy dinner. And this long delay between paying and getting opens up wide areas of ethical controversy.

The Obama administration’s careful and Congress-motivated increase in airline regulation this year has helped a lot. It’s in fact a miracle in these days of swaggering politicians decrying any regulation whatever.

But new rules no longer allow the airlines to fool you about ticket prices by claiming after market increases are taxes, for example.

That’s what I see is the fundamental problem, today, with travel: too little regulation. The result is utter confusion for the consumer and chaos for the travel business. The start of American deregulation of travel, which began in 1984, is the direct reason for so many large airline bankruptcies and the economic dislodging of the industry as a whole.

Had this regulation not started and never been implemented, we most certainly would have higher airline ticket prices, today. BUT…

The airlines would be more on-time and reliable…
Seating would be more comfortable…
Food would be better…
Information and scheduling would make more sense…

Lots of communities, like Cleveland and Nashville and Flagstaff, would be guaranteed multiple airline services. And smaller communities like Dubuque and Fargo and Centralia would not be at the whim of so many seasonal changes.

And in the end, travel would be more valuable for less money.

So the question, “Should I buy now?” is one that has no pat answer. If you think demand is going to go up with time, then buy now. If you believe we’re headed into a double-dip recession or war that would restrain travel, then wait.

Travel is a leading indicator of the economy, so it usually moves in the direction good analysts predict the economy will move. Although in my long tenure in travel, I still pretty much believe in a certain maxim:

If you know you’re going, buy the ticket!

Great White Fool

Great White Fool

My sarcastic PhotoShop impression of David Simpson.
The Central African Republic is one of the most lawless and corrupt countries on the continent and known mostly today as the presumed home of LRA fugitive, Joseph Kony. Turns out he has some interesting company.

The reason Kony is probably in the CAR, routed from Uganda and being hunted down by a posse of 100 green berets recently sent by Obama, is that the CAR is ungovernable and unmanageable, in part because so much of it is remote, thick jungle. The other part of the reason is because its leaders are thugs.

What a wonderful place to raise a family and run a business, right?

Wrong. Unless… you’re a hunting company.

Hunting companies are extremely small, highly lucrative businesses. Compared, for example, to the overhead of a photography safari company, today, a hunting company of similar size may require a tenth of the capital investment, have about the same operating costs, and yet provide a return ten times or more of a photography safari company with the same amount of assets and staff.

The product sale price, which is ten times or more that of a photography safari company, is justified because of the company’s … “guts.”

Macho. Bravado. Boldness. Courage. Daring.

This is mostly because the service and “plant” (actual tents, food, equipment, and even staff) is of much lower quality than in a photography safari company. In the old days this was reversed, but today a hunting camp is just above OK and maybe even not OK.

Flush toilets, for example, are unusual. Solar lighting or lighting of any kind other than kerosene lanterns is unlikely. Simple spring beds replace four-poster rosewood sculptures. Frankly, I prefer this kind of camp, but I’m old and nostalgic and something of a penny-pincher.

But the food is only so-so because the cooks aren’t well trained. The staff is pulled from a line of relatives in need of work, both African help-staff (always black) and so-called poorly named professional hunters (which are almost always white).

And while the principals may know how to shoot, the younger hunters generally portray hardened biceps and much less, have little upstairs, and generally can’t get any other kind of work. Their resumes are short descriptions of Macho. Bravado. Boldness. Courage. Daring.

And sometimes, simple stupidity.

Such is the story of the erstwhile Swedish hunting company, Central African Wildlife Adventures. (Oh, did I fail to mention that their websites are on par with an eighth grader’s weekend project?)

This brilliant enterprise decided to set up business just about the time that Kony was fleeing north from Uganda, incapable of resting his fugitive soul anywhere in Africa with a teaspoon of stability, so we deduce he’s set up camp in the CAR.

We don’t know specifically what shenanigans the company produced to get its plot of land in the CAR, but we do know that the bribes were apparently not good enough. Because last month the principal and general manager were arrested for the slaughter and murder of somewhere between 13 and 18 people in a situation that reeks of Joseph Kony’s calling card.

According to the 24-year old general manager, David Simpson, who has languished in a CAR prison just long enough to get another cub scout badge of courage and whose brother reported him as being “upbeat” about the situation, he was flying the company’s small plane when he noticed the massacre site below him and so did what every good cub scout is taught to do: report it to the trusted authorities.

Listen, David Simpson, there are no trusted authorities in the CAR. What were you expecting? That they would send you a letter of commendation?

Full disclosure: I am no hunter. But in my long career I have known and worked with good hunters, a very rare breed, rarer than the bongo which companies like CAWA offer to assist making extinct.

But in the main, and especially today, hunting companies are not only bad businesses but directed by if not bad people pretty dumb ones. Bribing is second nature and those who play the game in places like the CAR generally get called out.

The media is filled with sympathetic reports, and I’m a bit surprised by the amount of sarcasm I feel. It would otherwise go without saying that Simpson and the company owner are not guilty of this, and that only the basest and most corrupt justice on earth would dare pursue this case against them.

But read between the lines of the current volume of sympathetic media and you’ll learn that the British Foreign Office is not quite as involved as it was when British tourists were kidnapped by Somalis, or is currently now involved in the great Chinese scandal of the century. And not for want of class, I don’t think.

I prefer to believe that the British Foreign Office, like me, realizes that someone so stupid as to invite their arrest in the CAR is quite likely to do something equally stupid once sprung.

That doesn’t mean Simpson et al should be abandoned. But we’ve got to overlay some reasonable perspective on this story. Not every African country is so barbarous and primitive as the Central African Republic.

And I think I could count on one hand the number of colleagues in African tourism that would have done something so stupid as report a Kony massacre site in the CAR to CAR officials. David Simpson and CAWA owner, Erik Mararv, are apparently two. I won’t name the other three. There’s always hope.

Play with the pyre and you generally get burned.

Old Bones Age Well

Old Bones Age Well

Mostly praise for PBS’ brilliant production “Bones of Turkana” with only a few important criticisms.

It was specially good to see Richard Leakey so relaxed and forthcoming. He is a man who has lived much of his life under attack or siege and a significant part of his non-paleontological public life remains clouded and unexplained. And until now, anyway, he has been withdrawn and reticent to assume such a grand public mantel.

In the darker days of Kenya under the dictator Daniel Moi, Leakey held two important government posts. The first was head of the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and the second was head of an anti-corruption unit created in conjunction with the World Bank to rid Kenya of enough back room dealing that aid organizations would feel comfortable working with the country, again.

Both public positions ended in disaster, although there’s little doubt Leakey’s tenure at KWS was enormously good.

I do take issue with the documentary’s claim from Leakey that his pyre of ivory fire almost single-handedly ended the ivory market, thereby saving elephants.

It was much more complicated than that, and certainly Leakey’s strong-man tactics in the KWS, using every power given him by an exceedingly powerful and corrupt dictator, did enormous good to stop the extinction of elephants in Africa.

Before Leakey came to power in the KWS, Kenya had lost 90-95% of its elephants. There was wide speculation that the wife of the first president, Mama Ngina, was involved in the most massive poaching operation.

Leakey definitely stopped this, and the pyre episode was more than emblematic. But Kenya was not the only place in Africa where the problem existed; it was continent-wide. And the largest share of the credit goes to the CITES convention and treaty, initiated by the U.S. and Kenya well before Leakey’s involvement.

And Leakey’s abrupt dismissal (actually, his resignation just prior to dismissal) from the KWS was primarily caused by his stepping on the toes of one very powerful man, Ntimama, who was an ally of the president. And it just shows you, you don’t act like your boss to your boss.

Later Leakey would become the much celebrated head of the “Dream Team” set up to stifle corruption in Kenya. A version of that agency still exists in Kenya and isn’t doing too badly. But his brief tenure there and abrupt departure left many wondering:

(A) Was he just too frustrated without the authority denied him to clean house, or worse (B) was he corrupt, too. Did the head of the snake come round to bite the tail?

That damning accusation remains unanswered and many close to Leakey insist he won’t address it for fear of legitimizing an absurdity. I think that was wrong. Leakey never explained why he left the Dream Team and the accusations remain unanswered.

Leakey was never the affable and sometimes flamboyant star that his father, Lewis, was. From the beginning he was much shyer, assuming I believe the shadow that most white Kenyans lived under during his generation. After all, remember that he lived not just through a global era of emancipation, but in a newly independent country previously ruled by a twelth of the population of which his ancestry played a significant part.

It was actually his mother, Mary, who was the discoverer of Zinj. Yet it was not until after her death in 1980 that scientific publications credited her, rather than her husband, Lewis, with the find.

And to be white, in a newly independent black country, must have been difficult.

And the family was one of the most dysfunctional on earth. There were three feuding sons. One fled to Europe. One became an idiot politician in Kenya on the side of the dictator. And that left Richard as the only publicly sane figure. When Richard needed a kidney to stay alive, the idiot politician balked for months before agreeing to the operation.

I first met him at Jane Goodall’s second wedding in Dar-es-Salaam in 1981. Later I got to know him better when I was working with a Chicago filmmaker, Dugan Rosalini, who tried unsuccessfully to make an early documentary about him. I then lost touch with him until meeting him again at a reception in Chicago honoring the 100th birthday of his father.

Throughout these many years he remained withdrawn, terribly scarred I felt from the two public disasters in Kenya. Yet also during these years his successful scientific battles became legend, and his several books and other publications baseline studies for all paleontologists, today.

So another slight criticism I have with the film is that Leakey’s own explanations of our human origins suggest to the less informed that humans evolved in some linear fashion, from say Australopithecus to habilis to erectus to ourselves.

That had never been Leakey’s position. It was the position of his arch-rival, Donald Johanson, the discoverer of Lucy. Lucy was the closest rival to Turkana Boy in terms of completely found anatomy.

It brewed a terrible and bitter fight between the two men, finally resolved when Johanson conceded in Time magazine’s millennium edition that he had been wrong, and Leakey right.

About what? That human evolution is not linear.

I don’t really think that Leakey intended to imply linear evolution, but the film failed in this regards to highlight how important his opposite view is and was.

There is no doubt in my mind that Leakey is a great man. And not just as a paleontologist. His love of Kenya and attempts to become a valuable civil servant and later politician there were perhaps ahead of his time. And the actual service he provided was probably necessary and beyond realism to suppose anyone else could have performed, then and there.

But the sum total of his life made him an inward man. And this film may have changed that.

Some good wines improve with age. Particularly when left in the dark for a while.

Similiar Social Circles

Similiar Social Circles

Charles Taylor’s demand that the World Court try George Bush is neither hair-brained or facetious and demonstrates the growing globalization of justice.

Shortly after Liberia’s former strong-man was sentenced by the World Court yesterday to 80 years for “crimes against humanity” he remarked to the press:

“President Bush… ordered torture and admitted to doing so. Torture is a crime against humanity. The United States has refused to prosecute him. Is he above the law?”

Well, the answer of course is, yes.

The World Court is playing increasingly pivotal roles in African justice, and thereby, African politics. Taylor was the strong-man now found responsible for the long blood diamond and blood resource war that devastated much of West Africa in the 1990s. His apprehension and prosecution in The Hague was fundamental to West Africa’s current fragile peace and stability.

Right now the Court is negotiating conducting a similar prosecution against Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, the son of Moammar. Seif is being held by a remote militia group in the south of the desert country, and they refuse to surrender him to current Libyan authorities. But they might just surrender him to The Hague.

Also right now, the Court is trying four prominent Kenyans – two of whom may become presidential candidates. Remarkably, the four are willingly traveling back and forth to The Hague for their trial, although there is wide speculation that as soon as proceedings become threatening to them, their schedules might just become too tied up for further international travel.

So it is really not just banana republic hyperbole regarding Bush. (Important to note, of course, that America is one of the minority of countries in the world that doesn’t recognize the World Court.)

Both Bush and Cheney have canceled multiple trips abroad in the last few years for fear of global prosecution. So even if we don’t recognize this new global justice, it does impact us.

Bush first found his travel restricted on what seemed like an innocuous trip to Canada in October, 2009. While speaking in Calgary, Canada, a warrant for his arrest was issued, but higher courts vacated the warrant allowing him to leave.

Bush then laid low for a couple years before trying, again, in October, 2011. He returned to Vancouver in the company of Bill Clinton. Once again the warrant was issued, and this time he snuck out of Canada by the skin of his teeth. An unusual “higher intervention” stayed the British Columbia’s court action hours before he left.

Bush has made no trips since.

But it was in neutral-grounded, ideologically-bereft Switzerland where both Bush and Cheney faced the most serious possibility of actual arrest. Both canceled previously announced visits when it became apparent authorities would actually apprehend them.

Cheney’s last cancellation was only two months ago, once again testing the presumed friendship if obsequiousness of our nearest neighbor and dearest ally, Canada. The mounting evidence of Cheney’s involvement in torture may have breached the threshold of “higher authorities” power in Canada to prevent his apprehension.

The growing evidence against Bush and Cheney specifically with regards to Guantanamo torture, as well as torture abroad during the Iraq war may not rise to the level of slaughter that Charles Taylor conducted in Sierra Leone.

But this isn’t a body counting analysis. Some actions like torture are no less wrong once than a thousand times. Taylor’s ordered massacres of tens of thousands may indeed be more horrible than Bush and Cheney’s torturing a hundred terrorists. And within that perspective the World Court has sentenced Taylor to 80 years, one of the greatest sentences ever levied by the Court.

So perhaps George Bush should be sentenced to 10 and Cheney to 20. Or something like that.

The point is that the world is developing a sense of global justice around a few top human rights’ issues like torture and innocent massacre about which there is little debate. Africa is taking the lead using the World Court, thereby contributing in a fundamental way to defining exactly what justice means in our increasingly compacted world community.

Whereas we, in America, risk global conflict by berating China for its poor stewardship of human rights, while our former leaders tiptoe across the world careful not to breach the lines of decency. It would be terribly embarrassing were Bush or Cheney arrested for torture, wouldn’t it?

Great Power. Greater Hypocrisy.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Be Careful What You Wish For

Lion road kill, baby lion attack … two examples this week that we must stop thinking of Africa’s wild animals as human incarnations.

Like a hundreds of other tourists daily, at dozens if not hundreds of similar sites throughout Africa, Madelein Querk was looking forward to that special moment this past weekend when she could actually pet a wild animal. The lion cub bit her in the neck threatening her life, not just her holiday.

A proactive organization studying and promoting lion conservation in northern Kenya called for more “speed bumps” or road impediments on the relatively new Samburu-Marsabit highway after a one-year old lion cub was killed trying to cross the road this weekend.

The two incidents are in some ways dissimilar. The cub attack is the epitome of poor judgment, the logical extension of anthropomorphizing a wild animal into a pet and maybe even a cute little furry baby. The second incident is an excellent example of human/wildlife conflict, but with an error on the side of human.

But they are also strikingly similar in illustrating how we unsuccessfully try to commercialize the wild at great risk to both the wild and us. The wilderness, wild animals and spaces with little or new human intervention, can be protected and conserved to be sure, and generating revenue from those tourists fortunate enough to be able to pay to experience them is a legitimate way of doing so.

But both these examples show this dynamic going too far.

A lion cub is cute in part because we project babyness onto it, the same cuteness of our own experiences with human infants. Sensing helplessness especially is a strong effusion of empathy, and a cynic might even argue an elixir of personal power.

But why don’t we feel the same way when a baby snake hatches? It’s just as helpless. Or a baby shark or baby black widow. Because they’re deadly? So’s a lion. Ask Madelein Querk.

For some reason our non-Maasai culture has codified lions as cuddly but pythons as not. Point is, neither are.

But we commercialized the cuddliness into Teddy Bears and Lion Kings with this haughty notion of generosity filled with forgiveness and redemption until there are piles of childrens’ books affirming the true goodness of Aslan.

Well, lions are good. But not because they obey their mothers and do their homework and help invalid ladies across the street. Their goodness is affirmed when they tear apart a baby wildebeest and eat it alive.

The second example this week is bit harder to understand, and I concede before trying to do so that you need to share my bias first that humans are more important than wild animals. And that is not a bias I came to quickly or easily, and I respect those who differ. Nor am I saying Buddhism be damned. But in the competition of natural selection, I route for man.

The Samburu-Marsabit highway was built by the Chinese to get oil from the desert. They pay well for that privilege and Kenyans welcome the revenue which significantly exceeds the sales of entrance fees into Samburu National Park.

It is also a dangerous place, particularly since the conflict in Somalia came closer. The Northern Frontier has become quite lawless in the last few years. From one sanguine point of view, putting speed bumps on this highway would exponentially encourage shifta, bandits that are notorious in the area.

If Ewaso Lions can demonstrate that this is an integral crossing for lion in the area (as they implied in the article linked above), then build an over- or underpass tunnel as is regularly done for wildlife crossings worldwide. Slowing down the flow of traffic is routing against humans.

In my long career in the wild I’ve grown more and more fond of it. But at the same time I’ve grown more and more angry with attempts to commercialize the wild by either pretending that it is less wild or actually making it less wild against its own nature. And I get particularly furious at efforts to exploit our fantasy empathy at the expense of man’s preeminent needs.

Enjoy the wild for what it is, not what you wish it could be.

Big Gay Brother

Big Gay Brother

Many African reactions to Obama’s gay marriage statement focus on the hypocrisy of the “small government” stand taken by so many conservative Americans.

Social issues like marriage percolating to the top of a political campaign for president of the world’s yet most powerful country confuses many in Africa. America is among all known for “freedom” and “small government.” But you can’t have a small government that enforces laws on social habits like sexual orientation or marriage.

Consider the strong anti-gay forces in places like Uganda, that among many other legislative attempts are still trying to criminalize knowing that someone is gay and not advising authorities.

This is government intrusion of the greatest sort, of course, yet it is supported whole-heartedly by America’s right: AIM’s Cliff Kincaid argues that Ugandan is simply trying to “create a Christian society.”

Enlightened Ugandans see forcing any social ideology onto society as too much government:

Religious intellectual, Ugandan Kizito Michael George, argues that emphasis on social issues like gay rights is not the purvey of the government. He goes further: keep the church out of the state, at the church’s peril.

But Kizito and many other pro-gay rights’ advocates recognize that the current Ugandan regime is publically pro-big government. It’s one of the only ways that the dictator president Yoweri Museveni can stay in power.

So it reveals the incredibly irony of America’s right that argues for “small government.”

Many Africans see additional hypocrisy in America’s constant push for human rights in China and elsewhere, with such forceful attempts by America to limit the rights of gays and women.

“Africa is hardly what we consider a progressive continent at the forefront of human rights,” says one person commenting on South Africa’s News24. “However we seem to be far ahead of the USA.”

The Africa that is maturing through its Spring Awakenings is forcefully for small enough governments that human rights are aggressively protected. Universal suffrage and freedom of expression are considered no more important than freedom of expressing one’s sexual orientation.

Both the new South African and Kenyan constitutions replaced “man and woman” as the definition of marriage with “spouse.”

Those youthful societies have little intolerance of sexual orientation left. South Africa has been tolerant of gays for centuries. Its famous early politician and Prime Minister of the Cape, Cecil Rhodes, was openly gay.

Kenya is newer to the opening and so there is still some vocal resistance, although its fading in the face of the public’s wide-spread support for gay rights.

As a result analysts in both countries see Obama’s move as political:

John Ngirachu reporting this weekend from Kansas City explained to Kenyans back home that Obama’s move “boils down to the electorate.. Both candidates know the issue can cost them the election in states where the conservative Christians are influential.”

Ngirachu and others in Kenya and South Africa see the whole episode as a scripted ploy that began with Biden’s announcement. It’s particularly poignant in Kenya where the presumed successful candidate for President next year has begun to disassociate himself from the man who had been presumed the successful candidate for Vice President.

I think it fair to point out, too, that many in Africa see America’s religious right as something akin to a social flash-in-the-pan, and that with less time than many African societies took to become truly free, America’s right will fade into history.

The hypocrisy is just too stark.

Leave It To The Kids!

Leave It To The Kids!

A 13-year old Maasai boy (genius) who rigged up an electric light device that seems to successfully protect his boma from lions is no longer herding his family’s cows. He’s got a scholarship to one of Kenya’s best private schools!

Richard Turere like all young teen Maasai boys was principally responsible for taking care of the family stock. Fortunately, he found time to go to a local school as well, and the little time he had uncorked his genius.

He put what he learned about electricity and lighting to work for himself! Lions are becoming an increasing bother throughout Kenya, as their habitat dwindles, as agriculture explodes and as prey diminishes. They are more and more often preying on cattle and goats.

The traditional Maasai response is to kill the lion, and in fact that’s happening quite a lot. I’ve written about the horrible poisons that are sometimes used in bait traps, and simple gang spearing is turning into something of a national sport.

In Richard’s own area near Nairobi national park, cattlemen had lost 18 cows, 85 sheep and goats and 14 donkeys since November. Their response was to kill three lion in a single week.

Richard didn’t like that idea, because school had also taught him the importance of wildlife to Kenya’s economy. So he rigged up a series of lights around the kraal in which the stock spent the night, which flashed intermittently and were powered by the same solar panel that ran the family’s TV.

Guess what? No lion! Even while neighbors were still being bothered.

Richard began his experiments when he was 11. He told teachers that he noticed that the lions never struck when people were walking about, including at night with flashlights. Lion won’t come near stock when people are active, so Richard concluded that he could fool the lion into thinking people were around his stockade all night long!

He wired four then five sets of flashlight bulbs around the stockade and connected them to a switching box powered by an old car battery charged by the same solar panel that runs the family’s TV.

The result was a random flashing of lights throughout the night. It seems Richard was right: the appearance is one of people being awake in the area. And while six neighboring farms were attacked by lion in the last several years, the Turere farm was spared!

Richard’s successful and very practical science project got immediate attention country-wide. When the National Geographic Big Cats Initiative found out about it from Wildlife Direct in Kenya, Richard became an instant celebrity. And his genius was doubly rewarded. Not only did he save his family’s lions, but enough patrons came together to send him to one of Kenya’s finest private secondary schools.

The plight of wildlife in rapidly urbanizing Africa looks dim at best to me. But with enough Richards lighting up the darkness, who knows?

Down Now Up Later

Down Now Up Later

Americans increased their travel to all parts of the world for the first few months of this year, except to Africa. Africa stood out like a sore thumb, declining about 5%. Why, and what does the future now look like?

Two months of a statistic does not a trend make, but what is critical is that Africa was the only sector to decline. Even volatile areas like the Middle East increased (19%).

Travel is a fickle thing, and a leading indicator of the economy. 2009 was a robust travel year by statistical analysis, but that was because 2008 was so dismal. 2010 was what we call a correction year, but that was rudely uncorrected by increasing instability of Europe. So these statistics are hard to analyze.

Since most travelers to Africa from the U.S. come through Europe, Europe’s situation constantly effects African travel from North America. This year saw an increase in European instability. I believe Africa would be in the black if it weren’t for Europe.

But not by much, and certainly not as high as the 19% increase to the Middle East or the winner, Central America, with nearly a 25% increase. My conclusion is that Africa is definitely under performing most world tourism sectors after all outside considerations (like Europe’s economic health) are factored out.

It’s likely that Africa will end 2012 with overall tourism down about 10% from 2011.

Why?

Africa has had some bad press this past year, particularly from East Africa with widely reported droughts and wars, an unsettled Sudan, and intense civil turbulence in Uganda. Some of this is set to turn around if the March election in Kenya goes off quietly, and if Somalia continues to improve.

And because we aren’t looking at a huge fluctuation I think at least some of the decline in African tourism can be explained by what I call the ping-pong effect. In volatile economic times we tend to see a back-and-forth, year-to-year, in travel statistics. If Year 1 is better, Year 2 tends to be worse, and so forth.

Moreover, American travel is trendy, particularly to exotic destinations like Africa. So if 2011 relative to 2010 is better for Indonesia, it will likely be worse for Greenland. Because Africa was the lone winner (excluding the MidEast) in 2011, it may be the lone loser in 2012. Does this mean it will bounce back for 2013?

(The Middle East’s linear progression over the last decade bucks this analysis and is specifically linked to the rapid growth in MidEast airlines like Qatar Airlines and Emirates Air, and to the rapid development of their main cities. Excising the MidEast from long-range statistical analysis, and the ping-pong effect holds true.)

IF (and it’s a big IF) there are no disruptive events like Kenya’s scheduled March election and South Africa’s rumbling strikes, and provided the aftermaths of the Arab springs continue on relatively positive directions, African tourism should improve in 2013.

So keeping in mind those big IF’s, I project the following growth in American tourists to these African sectors for 2013 relative to 2012:

North Africa: +12%
West Africa: +6%
East Africa (excluding Uganda): +8%
South Africa: +10%

This is tricky stuff, folks. Weather, politics, European economies and even the outbreak of whooping cough in Washington State can effect the fickle flights of U.S. travelers. But we all need a baseline, and above is mine.

Hola Hollande! Following Africa?

Hola Hollande! Following Africa?

Africans are generally pleased with Sarkozy’s defeat by Hollande. To them it suggests that right-wing western policies are on the decline. Virtually all of free Africa is to the left of most western countries.

Africa’s incredible economic growth, now an astounding 2-3 times the west, is likely to remain 1 or 2 points higher than world growth for the foreseeable future, making it among the best areas in the world to invest.

But the growth comes not from the austerity that the Sarkozy-Merkel alliance has thrust on Europe with disastrous consequences, but rather from aggressive infrastructure development and stimulus. Once working the economies were polished up with modest tax increases that nonetheless reduced corporate taxes while redistributing tax burdens onto the wealthy.

This is not a westerner’s right-hand cup of tea.

And this is hardly “socialist.” The widely respected conservative business quarterly, McKinsey, was among the first to notice Africa’s working formula for economic success:

McKinsey acknowledges that the resource revolution mostly spurned by China in Africa, with new technologies that dig deeper and probe further, account for nearly a third of Africa’s growth. And this is what westerners constantly highlight: Africa’s newly rich commodity markets.

But the other two-thirds is twice as important! And according to that McKinsey report, is linked to social policies that include “government action to end armed conflicts… trimming foreign debt…shrinking budget deficits… and privatizing state-owned industries.”

This was accomplished initially by additional government spending and debt, stimulus. The cash for this stimulus came mostly from China. As the recession pulled China back from its high investment in Africa, governments turned to luxury items, in particular cars, for increased taxes. Even as free trade agreements were being negotiated, new tariffs were smacked on imported alcohol and cigarettes, for example.

The result was an increased tax base, even as middle class individuals felt taxes go down and growth continued right through the west’s recession.

This all began more than a decade ago when Africa was sucking up aid like a dry sponge. I remember the forlorn remarks in those days regarding Africa’s “black hole.” But it was precisely this added spending in a time of no growth that ultimately produced the economic powerhouse Africa seems to be, today. Growth, unlike Sarkozy and Merkel (and Romney and Paul) claim, comes not from austerity but from stimulus.

Everything always seems to begin with economics, but sooner or later social ramifications are inevitable. Sarkozy like Romney is an anti-immigrationist, so to speak. And France has no fewer immigration problems than America. For generations France welcomed Africans from its former colonies with wide abandon. But in the last decade exacerbated by the recession immigrants have become the same whipping boys they are now in the U.S.

In 2007 Sarkozy dropped a nuclear bombshell during a speech in Dakar, the capital of one of France’s former most important colonies, Senegal. He was arrogant, patronizing and insulting, and it marked the start of his anti-immigration policies.

“There’s talk that Hollande will give a rebuttal to Sarkozy’s infamous Dakar speech of 2007.” writes an influential African blogger in Paris, but “the essential point is that Sarkozy is gone.”

Social ramifications will take longer to measure. But Hollande has already called Merkel to aggressively advise her of his public’s serious message: stimulus not austerity.

It’s the Africa way! Perhaps Hollande could make a call to Obama, now? Would Bernanke take the call?

Better Visit The Selous Soon

Better Visit The Selous Soon

Bruised but recovered from the embarrassing loss of the Serengeti Highway project, Tanzania looks truly set on creating one of Africa’s largest dams over currently one of its largest game parks.

Friday, Energy and Minerals minister William Ngeleja announced during a visit to the area that “This is not a ghost project…Tanzanians will see it kicking off this July.”

The visit was perfectly timed. Heavy rains throughout East Africa have been flooding large agricultural areas and destroying many smaller villages. Not only would the dam produce more than twice the electricity Tanzania projects needed within the country, it would control the devastating flooding that seems on the increase with global warming.

When first proposed in the 1980s the project had a price tag of a half billion dollars. Today the cost is $2 billion, and most of this will come from Brazilian banks.

Environmentalists seem resigned to the project finally happening. The huge outcry raised when the project was first proposed, equally as vociferous when rebirthed the first time in 2002, is today totally lacking.

The best environmental study for the area was conducted by FAO in 1981. At that time there was concern that the large project would seriously disturb the water ecology of the area.

Other studies focusing on the then developing Tanzanian tourist industry in The Selous Game Reserve in particular were more equivocal. The impact area is so large, and the tourist area so small, it’s very hard to predict how these will intersect.

But there’s no question that the area effected will be huge, greater than the Colorado river basin that was effected by the construction of the Hoover Dam. The flood lake itself could exceed 100 sq. miles. The controlled water flow that would absolutely benefit area agriculture and provide stability for dozens if not hundreds of area communities would likely drain another several thousand square miles of wetlands.

Such an impact in the 1980s was deemed too consequential, and the World Bank pulled out of the project in the 1990s. The Norwegians stepped in, then fretted over the impact for several years before also stepping aside after pouring about $25 million into environmental studies.

The uncertainty of how the project would impact Tanzania’s inland fishing industry was the basis for local political opposition that when then allied with environmentalists worldwide effectively eviscerated local support. But it seems now that even while there could be catastrophic impacts to freshwater fishing, local sentiment has swung in favor of more power and less flooding.

Although the World Bank and western agencies remain cautious about resupporting a project they once ditched, Brazil, China and South Africa (the new “BRAC” countries) have no such qualms. The money is there.

It remains unclear how the project would effect the relatively small area where nearly 80% of all tourists visit, the “Lower Selous.” It’s possible this area will see little change other than the greater fluctuation of the Rufiji River along which most of the camps are built. This is something camps in Zambia’s Lower Zambezi have been dealing with for years, as the great Kariba Dam performs similarly.

But the half dozen or so new camps in the “Upper Selous” near Stiegler’s Gorge will likely be drowned away. This includes Serena’s new and popular Mivumo River Lodge.

The world has changed considerably in the last 40 years since the Stiegler’s Dam was first proposed. Global warming was not well understood then and even though development has lagged last century’s predictions, growth is accelerating, today.

A project of this magnitude could have enormous local benefit. What concerns me is that the Tanzanian government and parastatal authorities managing electricity remain corrupt and unprofessional. Yes, there will be new power, but will anybody get it?

But if the Tanzanians can get their own disheveled house in order, then I think it would be unconscionable to trade off the social and economic benefits of the project to save the beautiful, wild and otherwise unmanageable Selous. Unlike with the Serengeti Highway, there is no alternative.

Food and jobs.

YouTube Won’t Believe

YouTube Won’t Believe

The combined viewers of YouTube videos mocking Invisible Children’s video about Joseph Kony has now exceeded the viewership of the original video. What an infamous mess.

But has YouTube corrected a terrible wrong or simply added more wrongs? I really don’t know how to parse my feelings of disgust, anger, sadness, confusion ….

I was first attracted by a heavily viewed parody on YouTube by TheJuiceMedia. This hilarious video is funny and right to the point: Invisible Children’s million viewer video was a scam and essentially racist. Hopeful there were other creative attempts, I started the YouTube search.

But there weren’t any others as professional and poignant, which satirized facts but that were real facts. I moved quickly into tunnels of the pathetic to the dungeons of absolute horror.

There are the namby pamby self-appointed talking heads like ThioJoe who apparently has a regular following of thousands and who is principally known for his recently rediscovered bedroom closet where he “found a bunch of military gear that I had bought at military surplus stores over the years.”

Thio just talks to you about everything he doesn’t know, among that tome of ignorance Joseph Kony. Easily dismissed if it hadn’t received over 20,000 views of which I of course contributed. Did I watch the entire 2:18 hoping for something worth watching, or just to reenforce a world view of an apocalyptic society?

In ThioJoe’s expressionless face are millions of faceless people, whose brains have been replaced by nonsense videos.

But ThioJoe’s and dozens others like him are not particularly offensive per se, more of a curiosity to me. I kept wondering if he were real or a robot. But the list of offensive videos is actually greater. I can’t even bring myself to link them here for you. Just make your own YouTube search of “joseph kony spoof.”

They include Finish productions that are the most racist photoshoped pieces I’ve every seen, British private school projects that would have been banned when I was in high school for gross indecency much less intellectual bottom feeding, and actual attempts at selling grenade launchers!

I’m flabbergasted. Has Marshal McLuen’s “the medium is the message” gone viral, too? At least restricted to the demographic of people who watch YouTube, does nothing mean nothing anymore?

But we’re talking about more than 10 million people, conceivably many more, who have watched junk, nonsense, idiocy or whatever you want to call it featuring Joseph Kony! Kony, Invisible Children, the LRA, African wars and misery and our responses to it should not be junk, nonsense or idiocy.

This is incredibly troubling. The Joseph Kony/Invisible Children story is not yet well understood. It’s driving American foreign policy and using my tax dollars in ways I don’t approve. It’s harnessing the generosity of millions with bad ideas and falsehoods, essentially exploiting good intentions rendering them pointless if destructive.

But how on earth do we untangle this mess when the intellectual attention span of the world can get no further than these unbelievable YouTube videos?