Skip to main content

South Africa 101 a letter to WGN-TV

Dear WGN-TV Chicago,

With less than a month to the World Cup let me take it upon myself to show you where South Africa really is. You see, that continent south of you is South America. The World Cup will only take place on that continent in 2014, in a country called Brazil. This year, starting next month, the World Cup is taking place in South Africa. South Africa is located on the Southern most tip of the continent of Africa (hence the name 'South' 'Africa'). You know, where all those movies use dodgy rights to tell/sell the stories of icons found in South Africa e.g. Winnie Mandela etc.

If you take your world map, it's located south of Europe which is to your east. Note to self: Now this is why I complain when Western countries report on African countries, if they can't place the said countries on the map, whatever next? Alas, whatever next?

Comments

Anonymous said…
sad story... jaja, just found it by casuality...
If media isn't working right, how can children put effort on school?

Regards from Chile!

Popular posts from this blog

Sweet, sweet Fanta Diallo

The story is told that Alpha Blondy (born Seydou Kone in 1953, Cote d'Ivoire) composed the song "sweet Fanta Diallo" to thank the mysterious nurse who had attended faithfully to his mental health needs as a psychiatric patient in an Ivorian hospital. Well after he was well again, he returned to the hospital to thank Fanta Diallo. No one knew of her or even remembered a nurse named Fanta Diallo as ever having worked there. He left and believing she might have been an angel set about composing the song to thank her anyway. I have had my own Fanta Diallos, many I can't remember; and for those whose composition is not etherial; in case you ever come across this blog, thank you one and all! Here are some my brain can recall: 1. I was a crawling baby when I had wandered on all fours outside of our yard. All my mother remembers from the incident is a very irate man bringing me home. He had found me teetering on a bridge unknowingly facing, as it were, death, a short d

Is it true that only 2 percent of Malawians have Electricity

Is the bee in my bonnet there because the boy who harnessed the wind had his own story written by someone from the country where people know everything? Or is it my my need to verify facts that bothers me? Either way, I hereby vow that if any story needs to be written about my own life, I have enough ink to write it on my own, with my own life experiences and be judged on my own condescending habits towards reality if there shall be any. 'A society which is unable to portray itself according to its own self understanding will inevitably suffer misinterpretation by others (Mugambi). I wonder why a blog and a book for my brother so bright, has to be written/taken over by someone else. Really, is it about the funding? then Nyasa times is right in the title of one of it's news stories, 'Africa politically independent, Economically Colonised'. From this vantage point, indeed, many of us suppose it's wonderful when foreign influences do things on our behalf but it'

Obstacle or Opportunity: the case of the online writings of missionaries and aid workers in Lilongwe

The Back Story There is a "why AID/charity?" question that is attached more frequently than ever to aid and charity directed at Africa and Africans nowadays.  1 Trillion US Dollars have been spent in direct, bilateral and multilateral aid (grants, donations, soft loans etc.) over the years and more is in the works (see link under the second bullet point in the section below).  Yet poverty and life-threatening challenges persist.  Writers like Easterly critique the prevalent aid models in use today...and so do others including Zambian-born Havard graduate Dambisa Moyo in her book Dead Aid. The "why AID/charity?" question resonates with me and has done so since I went to a College in Lilongwe that promoted charity-based approaches to anything from tuition fee support, college trips, village interventions etc. Perhaps I am among the priviledged in Malawi because it was the first time for me to see a structure so comprehensively interwoven with donations.  I wa