Why do you think that there is so little coverage of the awful wars in African nations?

Question

There are plenty of newspaper stories, tv coverage, books and articles about wars in the middle east, or Afganistan, or eastern Europe, and even now people are still asking about the Vietnam war. How come there's not a similar interest in the wars in Africa?

Answer 1

As so many others have said, Africa is not newsworthy to Western media. Whether this is because of not being able to understand or not being willing to understand is open to debate.

The same question could be asked of the political situation in Burma or the occupation of Tibet by China, two more long-term situations relegated to the "in other news" sections, if at all reported. Western media are only interested in stories that they can 'spin' for increased readership or political favour. News nowadays is a multinational business run by global giants. By controlling the media in a country you can affect its fortunes. This is why the media giants are known as media 'empires'. They write and rewrite the news for different markets every day and by doing so create more news.

Only one more word remains to be said



Rosebud

Answer 2

As a European who lived in Africa as I child, I have a tremendous love for Africa, where I was happy. Sadly, Africa has always been "the dark continent" in that so much of its ways and culture are unknown and so different from the Western world that it is difficult for anyone who has not been there to have any understanding.

Tribalism still rules, as it did in pre-Colonial times. It was only under colonial rule that tribalism was suppressed. Now that the countries are left to their own devices, they have reverted to where they were two or three centuries ago.

As an example, when I lived in beautiful Zimbabwe, it was a rich country, which exported beef and wheat and maize to the rest of Africa. It was peaceful. Although there were isolated incidents of individuals harming members of other tribes, it did not happen on a large scale. Today, there is a ruler who oppresses and suppresses and punishes anyone who disagrees with him. the farms that were so productive have been taken from their owners, their tenant farmers evicted to starve, but since the new owners are rich from stealing all the foreign aid that is coming into the country, they have no interest in farming. Consequently, the population is starving, able bodied people are trying to leave the country to find employment elsewhere, but until the present ruler either dies or is deposed there is little hope for the population.

Should an outside force intervene? Probably, but if it was the British they would be accused of trying to recolonialize. The French and Spanish and Portuguese won't because some of their former colonies are also having problems. If the US was to even consider it they would be condemned. The UN seems to be unwilling to concede that Africans or Asians are in any way at fault for any of the misdeeds so they continue to remain mostly silent.

So although I am sure that there are many individuals world-wide who DO care about the horrors of Darfur or Zimbabwe, the chances that very much will be done by the international community is unlikely. It is only by the efforts of a few private organizations and aid groups that anything at all is being done to ameliorate the horrendous situation that prevails in Africa.

The western media unfortunately has an agenda which is more directed towards trying to make the West look bad for both past and present events that it ignores anything that won't help that agenda. I'm quite sure that if they could find a way to blame President Bush or PM Blair for the problems in Africa we would hear nothing else.

In fact, President Bush has set aside billions of dollars towards the fight against AIDS in Africa but it is rarely mentioned because the media hates him. AIDS is a serious problem but many African governments won't even acknowledge that it is a problem and won't encourage their citizens to try and prevent the spread of the disease.

Although many African countries are theoretically democracies, lack of education prevents most of their citizens from understanding or even knowing what their rulers are doing. They struggle from day to day just trying to get enough to eat and stop their children from dying from dreadful diseases that Westerners don't have to worry about.

Therefore, many in the West, much as they regret the situation, feel that Africa is pretty much a lost cause and that there is nothing to be done. It's a sad situation all around.

Answer 3

This is an easy one. There are no books or big news reports about it, because western nation don't care. It part of the colonial master model. It didn't matter back in the days, so why should it matter today? In most cases the white people aren't involved in it anyway.

It's also because history is written by the victor and those wars tend to have no victors. In some cases they do but the intellectuals who survived the war are to afraid to write anything about it. A wrong word might cause a horrible death. And even if you write only the right words for today, they might be wrong next week and your name will still be next to those soon-to-be-wrong-words.
There are only a few easier ways to commit suicide...

Answer 4

Wars in Africa aren't newsworthy because most African countries have perpetually been in civil war ever since they received their independence. For example, Sudan, where the "human rights" groups are calling for America to invade, has been in a Civil War for all but 4 years of its history. Somalia overthrew their Communist government and replaced it with nothing about 15 years ago and were perfectly fine without a government in most of their country until the Islamic Courts Union decided to try to eliminate its secular competition (Somalia was doing perfectly fine under semi-Anarcho-Capitalism, where even law was privatized, but the sharia courts were unhappy that secular courts were outcompeting them and so they decided to form a cartel called the Islamic Courts Union and institute a government over the country; which shows us clearly how governments are instituted) and then the Neo-Conservatives sent their army into Somalia to replace the cartel of Islamic fanatics with a "democracy" (Neo-Cons worship democracy and believe that it is the infallible end of history and should be instituted universally; see Bush I advisor Fukuyama's works for more information).

If peace is to be achieved in Africa and the wars are to be ended, either each tribe must be permitted to form their own country or Rothbardian Anarcho-Capitalism must be universally instituted there.

Answer 5

Because as awful as they`ve been ,no-one is interested in the internal strife taking place in African nations unless it affects them directly.The wars you quote that are "interesting" are also ones in which the war could easily have escalated into WW3 ,no war in Africa has been close .

Answer 6

Because the wars of foreign nations are not priority over the wars involving the United States.

I care more about American soldiers being killed by terrorists in Afghanistan and in Iraq than any person being killed in their own wars.

I'm sure they feel the same way towards us. Does an African tribesman care about U.S. deaths in Afghanistan?

Answer 7

Its not as interesting to the average person as say some star getting drunk or arrested for dog fighting or the season opener. People who are really interested in news do not go to the traditional media for information. The media know who their consumers are and pander to them.

Answer 8

So many reporters,medics.Red Cross people have been kidnapped murdered and tortured by waring internecine factions.It becomes useless and dangerous to try.

Answer 9

Maybe because our boys are out in those countries getting killed? Are there any of our troops in Africa?

Answer 10

it's not politically correct to speak about Africans killing Africans since the Western Colonial Masters withdrew and left them to their fates.......