Monday, November 06, 2006

This is Lagos?

http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/articles/061113on_onlineonly01

This is one of the most annoying things I've ever seen or heard (and given the rate of my annoyance, that's saying a lot). This woman is mad and ignorant, even more so because of her lack of understanding despite the fact that she seems to be so well-traveled. I'm not naive enough to say that everything she said was a lie; after all, she managed to capture A truth (one, singular truth) from A perspective (one, singular perspective). To turn around and blanket an entire nation, even an entire city, with this one truth and one perspective is irresponsible and appalling. And annoying. Maybe the people were obstructing your photography because they don't appreciate a random white woman coming and taking pictures all willy-nilly without permission.

That being said, Nigeria and her people need to wake the hell up. That these people can still find living situations like this to focus on in our very wealthy nation is a disgrace. That these people still have the opportunity to speak ignorantly and derogatorily and that we don't have a sufficient rebuttal is a disgrace. Thus rubbish heaps are older than some of us, and they're still sitting there. Does nobody care??

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hell yeah, its lagos. the problem with nigeria is that our people want change but do nothing toward achieving it. We are all expecting a mesiah to come in and sweep the nation in one wave of righteousness, removing everthing bad about it. Well, guess what that isn't going to happen. Its good that you feel passionate about this situation, but posing rhetorical questions to strangers on the web wouln't do much to change the situation. In response to your question, does nobody care? YOU CARE!! SEVERAL OTHER NIGERIANS CARE!! but unless someone gets up to do something about it, those rubbish dumps will still remain there 20 years from now. so, please do not blame the woman. If we cannot raise awareness about the things wrong with our country, the least we can do is to let someone else do it.

Anonymous said...

We claim to have $42 billion dollars in reserve, the government won't allow us hear word. Now they want to pay off another $2 billion to the London club before December 2006. After already paying 18 billion dollars to the paris club. The question is this, why do we have to satisfy the outside world when the masses are suffering ... they lack basic amenities, infrastructure is almost non exsistent ... people are tired of hoping, they can not be bothered after all the goverment does little or nothing for them. We need change but who is willing to change to enable change ... we need a shaking of the system but who is willing to go against the system. We all know that what we have is grave but what are we willing to do. We send our dollars to our immediate family members and say hey the rest will find there level. We all need to do something but we are all waiting for something to be done. Shame. The woman did will let us stop the CNN adverts " heart beat of Africa" and show the world what we really are. We owe the lady a big thank you, for she did us well.

Anonymous said...

pretty cool presentation ....


http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=hans_rosling&flashEnabled=1

kulutempa said...

that was not a pretty cool presentation...that was an ULTRA cool presentation! the man actually had me feeling excited about statistics!! totally loved it

Chxta said...

DAMN! I found myself applauding at the end of the presentation. Excellent...