Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Which is Africa's Remembered War?

Just channel surfing and The Hour was on CBC Newsworld. George was interviewing someone and the heading "Africa's Forgotten War" was on the screen. Having tuned in late, I wondered which of the wars currently occurring in Africa that nobody talks about was the "forgotten" one. It turned out that they were talking about Uganda. But my interest was piqued. I googled "Africa's Forgotten War". It turns out that Africa has or recently had 'forgotten wars' in Uganda, Burundi, Western Sahara, Darfur, Angola, Southern Sudan, Ethiopia/Eritrea, Congo-Brazaville and DR Congo. The term has also been used to refer to the war on AIDS.

So might I recommend that next time Africa has a war that the media sees fit to talk about all the way through to the end, they refer to it as "Africa's Remembered War" and for the rest of them they can use a heading along the lines of "It's far away, you've never heard of it, it's probably tribal" (with the obligatory Heart of Darkness reference when it's DR Congo).

Done. Climbing down off soapbox.

1 comment:

Martyloo said...

I must have tuned in at the same time as you. I thought the same thing as you. I knew you were going to post. I AM YOU. (I also won't lose an opportunity to write DR Congo.)