Interesting doodads

Stumbled across this three part monolouge by Binyavanga Wainaina (he of "how not to write about Africa" fame) who talks about a wide range of africa related subjects, from the role of foreign NGOs in the present condition of most african countries, to the context in which the violence that marred Kenya's last elections... which I'm going to have to rewatch and think about a lot because a lot of the talk about the problems Kenya's democratic process is currently facing have quite obvious western parrallels - and it's interesting to hear someone talk about a low voter turn out and blaming the politicians, for running crappy elections and crappy, money grubbing, corrupt governments that disuade voters from bothering to vote.

Which is very interesting for those who remember the unintentionally ironic and ignorant rants by whatshisface on The Now Show after the last set of local elections here in england, where that silly silly white man berated english people for not getting out the vote and at the same time held up iranians as bastions of what a responsible citizenry should be like (not aware of course that one of the major signs of election fraud earlier in the years was the inexplicably high voter turn out in a country where turn out was usually really really low). Though obviously the kenyan politicians hiring armed mercenaries to go kill ethnic groups who vote for the Other Guy was mostly unfamiliar. Only mostly unfortunately.

Here's part one of three of Binyavanga Wainaina's monolouge at Youtube:( Read more... )