Africa and the Nightly News

Last night, a month after it started, the first African World Cup ended in Johannesburg. I know I promised no more World Cup postings, but it serves only as a point of reference. This World Cup was meant to be a celebration of Africa. Even if their players could not advance, the focus would remain on South Africa, highlighting a forgotten continent. From the beginning, there were concerns about what that image would look like. For many people, Africa remains an unknown, painted only with the news stories of wars, poverty, crime, and disease. While these stories reflect the sober reality of the continent, they do a disservice by portraying Africa as one, homogeneous and static. In the coming months and years, football fans will remember this World Cup for the sights and sounds. The vuvuzelas and expansive South African sunsets. The penalties and the upsets and the questionable officiating decisions. Hopefully, they will remember South Africa more fondly than before, and seeing the good, they will travel more. They will begin to realize that it is not all tragedy, and it is not all dangerous, and it is not all the same.

Unfortunately, these will not be the only legacies for Africa. One month ago, on the eve of the games, Nelson Mandela’s great-granddaughter was killed by a car accident. This is not a uniquely African tragedy, but it cast a shadow on the opening match. Last night, during the closing match, two bombs went off in Uganda. The news of the bombs struck me deeply, having spent last summer in Kampala. One of the blasts was in Kabalagala – the busy neighborhood between our office and my friends’ apartment, which we walked each day. Had I been in Uganda this summer, I most likely would have been watching the match at the Rugby Club, the site of the second blast. We learned about the bombs through a text message that Joan, our Ugandan roommate, received from a friend at home. After a few minutes, CNN provided a short update: 40 people have died following twin blasts in Uganda’s capital. Then they returned to their discussion of the oil spill and the World Cup highlights. Even the ticker was restricted to World Cup highlights, although Aljazeera picked up the story on their news ticker. After nearly an hour, between phone calls and text messages, Aljazeera – the only network which had someone on the ground – gave us an updates from the sites and the hospital.

This morning at 8am, the networks finally provided a proper report. The death toll had risen to 64, with casualties estimated around 100. If a bomb had killed 60 people – or even 30, or even 15 – in the United States or London, the networks would have stopped their regular programming to cover the story live. Even a failed bomb in Times Square was breaking news. Hundreds are killed each week in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the media barely mentions the attacks unless there are high numbers of American casualties. I understand the reasons – they are war zones and it would be impossible to highlight each individual tragedy. But Kampala is not a war zone. Kampala is one of the safest cities on the continent, in one of the safest countries.
Over the next few days, we will learn more: who is responsible, why did this occur, and who was targeted. At the moment, blame is being placed on Al Shabab, a Somali terrorist group, as retribution for Uganda’s leadership in the AU mission to Somalia. Alternative theories include election-related violence or the Lord’s Resistance Army, the Ugandan rebel group now hiding in the DRC. Either way, the message is a clear attack against the Ugandan government and people. And yet they selected the final match of the World Cup – partly due to the crowds, but partly because it would make the news. And they targeted locations likely to be frequented by expats and wealthier Ugandans, because it would provoke international outrage and international attention. They knew that without these elements, their message would be relegated to the news ticker and perhaps short blurbs. Because conflicts and wars are part of the image of the one Africa and terrorist groups have bombed the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. But the world should be outraged and shocked by such an attack. My thoughts are with Uganda this week, as they struggle to recover and face what could be a drastically new reality.