Thursday, March 15, 2007

Ishmael Beah on American News Coverage of Africa



(image via laprenshan)

The Corsair was fortunate enough to attend a talk at The New School on Monday night given by red-hot author Ishmael Beah, the former Sierra Leonean child soldier who was written up, favorably, in the Times on Saturday. It is heartening to see that Ishmael has come out of an horrific childhood relatively well. We asked him a question about the concept of War as he sees it. Ishmael is a pacifist against the present war ("I do not support war ... the whole idea that we are fighting for peace is an oxymoron").He is also a serious fan of Shakespeare. But his most interesting comments were on the media:

"I believe that newspapers have been unwilling to report on Africa unless it is something that's really shocking ... people don't see the Africa that I know, that before the war people lived there.

"It's not newsworthy until it is bad. For example, there is no more amputation (in Sierra Leone), ... that is not newsworthy."

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