Sorry for the TMI title, but I just read about this and am a bit flummoxed.

Apparently there are commercials out there for a Proctor & Gamble (the makers of Always pads and Tampax tampons) campaign where they want you to buy their products and in turn they will donate said products to areas of Africa where girls can’t or don’t attend school during their periods. I haven’t seen these myself, only read about them on the internet.

The Crunchy Chicken website discusses the pros and cons of this campaign in better words than I can come up with, so I urge you to read that post for more details. To sum up my thoughts though, I’m suspicious on two levels:

1) I highly doubt that just access to menstrual products is what’s keeping these girls out of school. (After all, haven’t women been dealing with this “problem” since, well, forever?) As with everything in a different part of the world from our own, there are going to be different issues at play here, both economically and culturally. Of course the campaign seems to acknowledge this as building bathrooms seems to be part of the campaign, but still. I’m suspicious.

2) I’m also deeply suspicious of any American corporation setting up a campaign in the third world to try and “help” someone, just because the ultimate benefactor of this campaign is going to be that corporation. After all, American women are starting to become more aware of both health and environmental issues — makes sense that big corporations might have to start looking elsewhere for future revenues.

I realize that partly I’m reacting here based in part on my own reaction of learning there were options besides those Always pads and Tampax tampons and how deeply angry I was that I really didn’t know anything about my own body and how it functions. (Of course most of that information came from a book, Taking Charge of Your Fertility, but I still detest the existence of those damn pads and all the grief they have caused me in my life.)

I am suspicious of the intent to try and hook young girls on products that are both wasteful and full of harmful products in and of themselves. There are, in my mind at least, superior products that are both better for women’s health and better for the environment.

I’m suspicious also of how this will be sold to these girls — Look what Americans use! Be like us! Here are some free ones but be sure to save up your money for the next, oh, 40 years! Hmm.

I’m also suspicious if they intend on distributing tampons — some of my IRL friends know how scaredy-cat I am of tampons anyway, and I just can’t imagine that these girls will be getting an appropriate level of education as to how to properly use these products to avoid health problems. Anyway, my personal belief is that the shedding of blood provides a health service as well and preventing that from happening, even from using a Diva Cup, is maybe not such a good idea.

I love my cloth pads (as much as you can love anything to do with that particular issue, I suppose). They’re comfortable, very easy to deal with, after the initial cash outlay they don’t cost a thing, will probably last as long as I need them, there’s very little trash involved, and just make so much more sense to me.

So.. will I be buying Proctor & Gamble products to support the campaign to distribute P&G products to girls in the third world who currently cannot or do not attend school during their periods? Absolutely not. I want to hear more about why this phenomenon is happening, what these people think will really help them, and only then will I take any action.

Turns out, though, that someone is doing something right now. The same Crunchy Chicken lady has started a website called Goods 4 Girls which plans to work with NGOs to distribute cloth pads. It is a very fledgling organization and I’ll be interested to see what else she will do — will bathrooms be built? Will education be a part of the plan? (Presumably so.) I’ll be watching.

In the meantime, I’ve been meaning to make some cloth pads myself. Perhaps it’s time to actually do so. You know.. after I’ve finished that quilt!

Jason just saw Hotel Rwanda, which reminded me that I want to see it as well.

I generally suck at seeing movies. It’s not because I don’t want to or that I have terrible taste in movies (I hope not!) but I just never quite get there. Then I always mean to rent them and again, never quite get there. I try to keep an ongoing list of movies I want to see to remind myself to catch them eventually and still, I usually don’t quite make it (Erin, can you bring that movie on Tuesday?). So I suck. Which is a shame because I LOVE movies. I’m no artist about them, I don’t know directors or producers or anything particularly special about the genre, I just love the concept of movies. I love the concept of escaping.

I’m totally rambling on about movies when this post actually has a point! The point is, that when I read Jason’s post and remembered that I too want to see this movie, I felt a pang of sadness for the life I used to lead. I have an MA in African Studies, after all. This is my THING. I should be all over this movie. I should have seen it the day it came out, and already written a stellar review, pointing out all the inconsistencies and inaccuracies that our media constantly portrays about Africa. Better yet, since the movies is supposed to be quite good, I should be especially pointing out what was intelligent about this film. Africa in the media is also one of my things.

Sadly, it’s a thing that’s been on the backburner for quite a long time. My website, Africa in Sight, has data that is now FIVE YEARS OLD. That’s disgusting. I’ve just never got around to updating it. I had plans, people! I have an entire ‘Africa in the Media’ project that will take an entire year to document and another year to analyze and write up that I’ve never gotten around to doing. I don’t even read my BBC African emails anymore. I have no plans to do my Ph.D. I’m totally out of touch.

When I was teaching World Civ at UofL, some students said I was African obsessed. The irony there was that Africa doesn’t even get a mention in the book I was using, thus I had to actually write my own lectures for that portion and people had to *gasp* pay attention. It was evenly weighted with any other section of the world, as I took great care to make the syllabus even (it drives me nuts that some World Civ classes are Europe plus whatever part of the world is that teacher’s specialty). God forbid Africa get a mention as a legitimate part of the world beyond the wars and famine that reach our ears. For this, I was labelled “obsessed”.

So, Note to Self: WATCH HOTEL RWANDA. And don’t forget these ideas. This stage in life, while I’m loving it, is also temporary. I’ll get around to it someday. I swear.

Newsforge Article

Henri sent me this gem about life as an African programmer. Nothing too shocking here, in fact some of the comments below it are more shocking. But then comments usually are.

Anyway, this generated some discussion amongst ourselves. For example, the grass is definitely greener over here (the US), I’d say. No matter how bad our economy gets, no matter how many blackouts California suffers from, we still have to be infinitely better than IT companies in most of Africa. The brain drain is definitely a real phenomenon. We do not suffer from the lack of education and opportunities, basic needs such as electricity and transportation, not to mention money, that Africa and other parts of the world do. This is pretty much a given.

What I think is interesting though is the general assumption that the grass is greener EVERYWHERE. I certainly don’t expect Africans to think about this, but more as a side note, I’d venture a guess that there are plenty of places in America, Europe, and elsewhere in the western world where it’s difficult to get even a good slow modem connection, much less a job. It’s quite a specific job market. I’m not saying that’s worse than Africa, but I am saying that in some respects it’s the same idea. The same problem. Kentucky suffers from brain drain. Everyone moves to the bigger cities. We have better educational opportunities but everyone is seeking that greener grass. The problem now for us is that we haven’t moved from Kentucky because the job market is so crap. Does Seattle or San Francisco look greener? Oh yah. But we can’t afford to lose the jobs we have right now, so we’re not going anywhere. I suspect that if the economy keeps going the way it’s going that the brain drain cannot continue at the rate it used to, especially for international opportunities. Take HP, or whoever it is that is starting to ship programming out to India. They’re not bringing them here, they’re going there. Plus, there have to be people that want to return home and help out. There always are, in every culture.

So, with less places to go and more US companies looking overseas, combined with improvements made at home, there is hope for Africa and other less developed continents. It will remain greener here, but the grass is growing there. I really think Africa will be okay. There are hurdles but they will be overcome. It will require indigenious solutions and even new technology to do so, but they will get there.

http://www.d128.com/wireless/

This website details a project by an Egyptian Internet Cafe owner to get a wireless broadband connection at his hand using self-developed line-of-sight technology.

This site makes me very very happy because it reminds me of two things. 1) That I should not take my broadband connection at home for granted and 2) come the apocolypse, I wonder if people in countries where they actually have to invent something that they want will survive better than those of us in ‘developed’ coutnries.

There’s a quiz at the BBC about some notable events in Africa in 2002. Most of them are quite funny, such as about killer rogue giraffes, and not overly depressing! Hurrah!

In other news, whilst Togo’s parliament has amended the constitution to allow their president, currently the longest serving man in the continent, to run to re-election yet again, Kenya has elected someone new with a peaceful transition.

For those that consider democracy a good thing, this is a good example for other countries, like Togo and Zimbabwe, whose presidents look more and more like dictators every day.

Another sweet example of miscommunication: My friend just asked in an email if Zimbabwe was “waxing white christian men” and wasn’t most of Africa Muslim and hate Christians?

Well, no, I think it’s about 50/50 in the Muslim/Christian arena, and the Zimbabwe problem is about Mugabe holding onto power and playing the race card. Nought to do with religion.

And it’s another pet peeve of mine anyway.. Why on earth should all of Africa agree? Americans can’t agree on anything so why should an entire continent of people agree just because they’re halfway across the world and all we hear about in the news is strife against Christians? Doesn’t that sound the least bit suspicious as a version of the truth?

Re: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200212/26/eng20021226_109106.shtml

Libyan leader Omar Muammar Ghaddafi may abandon the ‘Arab world’ in favour of African ties. Ghaddadi asks, “Why should we remain as a member of an ineffective organization.”?

What’s interesting is why he’s doing it. Does he truly believe in Africa’s potential for unity and growth than in the Arab’s world apparent disunity? Or will his depth of power merely be greater in the African context than the Arab?

It’ll be interesting to see…

RE: Famine and the GM Debate

This article reminds me of one of my peeves: The GM Debate and Africa. It discusses the refusal of Zambia and other countries to accept genetically modified food in aid of famine relief. The thing that bothers me the most about this subject is some people’s attitude of disbelief that Zambia and other countries are not accepting food in the midst of a famine.

But what sort of precedent are we setting when the number of people (in the US and UK for example) buying organic food is growing daily so we ship off our GM food to starving people in Africa? What does this say about our morals? It signals deeply about a superiority complex that no one is willing to admit out loud.

It is ludicrous to damn Zambia and others for not accepting food in a time of need yet at the same time not deem the same food to be suitable for us to eat as well. Of course no one has said this out loud, as far as I can tell. But this is the tone I’m picking up from the news pieces I’ve read and heard lately.

What complicates the issue further is my concern about agricultural technology moving backwards. This cannot be good for the world’s ever-growing population. The fad for ‘organic’ agricultural products is in fact a step backwards. There are health risks associated with organic farming as well as chemically-enhanced agriculture, but you don’t hear about those. You hear about how bad chemicals are for you; how chemicals harm your health. How GM isn’t natural and therefore must be bad.

What people don’t seem to consider is that our population, in fact our entire human history, only exists because of evolution. If the plow, for example, had not been invented then the population could not have been increased. If farming had not been invented, communities could not have diversified their jobs to permit some people to not have to grow their own food. If we did not have chemical fertilizers and pest control we could not support the world’s population. It would be devastating. And now to suddenly say ‘this is bad’ and move backwards?? How can that be a rational move?

Furthermore, I don’t see how GM Foods are really so terrible. Yes they are scientifically produced, but what do you think bees do? How do you think nature diversifies and creates new species? How do you think we got bananas and new species of roses and iris every year? It’s cross-pollination, it’s human interference in the natural process of cross-breeding plants. Plants do it naturally and humans have been messing with the system since agriculture began. It’s not new. Science has only taken the process one step further.

Nevertheless - regardless of how you feel about GM food’s safety, the position that it’s okay for Africa but not for us is still ill-conceived. Human compassion and standards would be helpful here, instead of hazily covered economic bigotry.

There’s an excellent article on the BBC about why Africa suffers from annual famines.

I very much like the author’s points about factors behind the famines. Not only is there the lack of food due to crop failure, but “armed conflict, corruption and the mismanagement of food supplies, environmental degradation, trade policies that harm African agriculture and the long-term economic effects of Aids,” and especially poverty are to blame as well.

As an addendum to this, I would add the factor that African countries in general are working on a model introduced either directly or indirectly (as a reaction against) colonialism. Taking this stance, it shouldn’t be any wonder that famines come as often as they do. They are working on a model that works for certain European countries and the US and Canada precisely because those countries can afford to import their food and/or afford to grow it using modern technology. (I must admit I’m not completely certain about that last bit but it seems logical to me).

Countries like Ethiopia cannot meet this minimum requirement, yet people seem surprised and concerned when famine occurs. Not to mention that under present trade terms, Africans are generally locked into a lose-lose situation, colonially inspired. They mainly export agricultural goods which carry a low price, which are bought by richer countries. Chocolate, anyone? The simple fact is that they cannot afford to feed themselves because of the cycle of low prices for exports yet high prices for imports. They export agricultural goods like cocoa and coffee but have to import staples which they then cannot afford.

It seems to me like we should be looking for new and better ways to work through Africa’s problems instead of trying to fix a broken system based on a faulty premise (that these famine-prone countries are somehow comparable to the economic situation of the US, for example). They’re in a different situation; a different time and place. I don’t know what the solution is, but it can’t be running to the rescue every time. Money has to be diverted into education. It simply has to be.

Today there’s an article on the BBC about the economic crisis in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe’s troubles are different from the areas I’ve studied in that Zimbabwe was a ’settler’ colony - i.e. people from colonising countries actually moved there instead of just controlling it, like in West Africa. So I don’t entirely understand the history behind the problems in Zimbabwe.

The BBC states that:

Zimbabwe’s crisis has seen unemployment rise to close to 70%, and the inflation rate soar above 100%. More than half the country’s 12 million population are thought to be at risk of famine.

This is apparently a result of the ‘land reform programme’ that’s been going on for the past year or two. There could be other underlying rational for this problem, and their probably is. But the disenfranchisement of the nation’s farmers, who are for the most part white, seems to have sent Zimbabwe, which was once a model for prosperity in Africa (ior so I’ve heard), into immediate and devastating economic decline. Furthermore it seems to be a political battle with President Mugabe blatantly playing the race card in his attempt to maintain control of the country. It’s another example of politics being the source of famine, not simple lack of food.

It is true that there’s been drought in the region. This coupled with the farmers being unable to farm because of the government is certainly part of this problem. Bear in mind though that, I believe, the farmers of Zimbabwe were in fact commercial farmers who exported most of their crops. What their demise has caused, then, is the economy to falter. They didn’t necessarily feed the country. So it’s another case of people in post-colonial Africa being unable to feed themselves because of lack of capital in a system that was not organically developed but imported.

What I find most disturbing about the problems in Zimbabwe right now is how bold Mugabe is being. He’s vocally attacking Britain and his own commercial (albeit white) sector (which was obviously a mainstay of the economy) in a bid for power. He’s sacrificing the economic health of his country for his own mortal presidency. Has any president withstood the economic decline of their country when they were so obviously at fault? I have no idea but it’s troubling. Blaming Britain for Zimbabwe’s problems is merely diverting attention from the fact that Mugabe’s attempt to protect ‘traditional’ land rights is in fact starving the very people he seeks to protect. It’s disturbing that this partially legitimate agenda is the facade for his own power struggle.

I don’t know where I stand on the issue of how much colonial powers owe to their former colonies. Mugabe is holding Britain responsible for the fate of the white farmers that have been there for literally generations and have legal right to the land (however you define legal) . But it was land that was taken illegally in the century before, even if it was at some point sold legally. And who’s law are we addressing, anyway? That of an illegitimate colonial ruler? It’s obviously a sticky issue. I tend to believe in what I call ‘cultural responsibility’ which is that a culture or country does have some responsibility for current events, but individuals do not. You and I are not to blame for our ancestors but there has to be some sort of accountability and willingness to help solve problems as a result of past events. Otherwise it seems that we’ll never get anywhere. So while I disagree with Mugabe’s tactics and baldfaced twisting of the facts, I also understand where he’s coming from and what he’s trying to achieve with the land issue. I also think that what he’s trying to achieve is unrealistic and all parties should compromise.

I doubt Mugabe wants to compromise when his power is also at stake though. And do I need to add that this version of democracy and corruption was also learned and adapted from somewhere. It’s one of Africa’s more complicated trouble spots with no clear answer and definitely no clear winners.