Filed under: football, monocle | Tags: african champions league, football, monocle
The football champions of Africa will be crowned tomorrow as the Democratic Republic of Congo’s TP Mazembe take on Heartland of Nigeria in the final of the African Champions League. But what should be a showcase of the best football Africa has to offer will serve only as a reminder of the challenges the sport faces here. For the players on the pitch, the Champions League trophy is irrelevant. They will be playing for a much bigger prize – the possibility of a move to Europe.
As the continent prepares to welcome the world’s best footballers to next year’s World Cup in South Africa, the local game is suffering. The vast majority of Africa’s best footballers play their club football in Europe. So do a lot of the mediocre ones. The money is far better and the chances of eventually playing for the national team also far greater.
The exodus of African footballers to Europe has had a terrible effect on the local leagues. In Senegal, officials estimate that 80 Senegalese footballers now ply their trade in France and Belgium. Hundreds of Nigerians are believed to be playing in leagues across Europe and Asia. Those that remain are nowhere near as good.
As the standard of football in African leagues decreases, interest from fans has begun to dry up. Satellite coverage of European leagues, particularly the English premier league, has also had an effect on crowds. African leagues that schedule matches at the same time as an English premier league fixture can find just a few hundred people in the stands.
From my latest column in Monocle. The rest is here.
No story about Somali pirates is complete without a suitably bloodcurdling quote from a cutlass-wielding Jack Sparrow wannabe. Luckily for journalists there are plenty of Somalis willing to pretend to be pirates spokesmen for us to choose from.
Following the kidnapping of Paul and Rachel Chandler, a British couple sailing from Seychelles to Tanzania, the pirate PRs have been out in force. By my count 11 people has so far claimed to be spokesmen for the pirates and had their quotes faithfully recorded in the western media.
Here’s your rundown of pirate spokesmen. Must rush, I’m waiting on a call from a pirate spokesman who goes by the name Abu Sharati.
Nor Abdiwali in The Independent
“Anyone who tries [a] rescue will kill the ones they want to rescue,” said Nor Abdiwali, who claims to be the commander of the group holding the Chandlers, in an interview with The Independent yesterday. “Our guns will randomly exterminate them. We are not afraid and we [have] kept them in a safe place,” he added.
Mohamed Shakir in The Independent
According to one report a “pirate leader” called Mohamed Shakir called from Haradheere to say: “We have captured two old British people, a man and a woman in the Indian Ocean. They were on a small boat that we have hijacked. The people are healthy and they are in our hands.”
Abdinor in The Guardian
A spokesman for the pirates, who identified himself only by his first name, Abdinor, said the couple would be moved to a ship anchored off the coast of Somalia. He said it would be safer for the couple to be kept on a ship with other hostages.
Hassan in The Times
A pirate called Hassan said: “We warn them any attack on us, this is a good advice for them, otherwise they will burn their two people’s bones. If warships surround us, we shall point our guns at the British tourists. They are old and we will take care of them — that is if we are not attacked.”
Red Teeth in The New York Times
A Somali pirate boss named Red Teeth said Saturday that his gang of pirates had whisked the British couple kidnapped at sea last month to a lair on shore, and apparently the pirates have begun bickering among themselves about what to do next.
Farah Siad in The Daily Telegraph
A spokesman for the pirates told The Daily Telegraph that the couple are unharmed and promised to treat them well unless a military rescue operation was launched. Farah Siad, speaking from the pirate stronghold of Harardhere town, Somalia, said: “This message should be heard by Britain, we will do many harmful things to them if rescue attempts take place.”
Warmoge in The Sunday Times
“We can defend ourselves and, if there is an attack on us, the captives will die before us,” said Warmoge, a pirate who was in the group that captured Paul, a structural engineer, and Rachel, an economist.
Ahmed Gadaf in The Sunday Times
Yesterday Ahmed Gadaf, who claimed to speak for the gang, accused western vessels of “harassing local fishermen and destroying their nets”.
Mohamed Hussein on Sky News
“We are telling Britain that any bullet of our friends on the yacht will be big cries for the families of the two old people we hold.”
Gedow on Sky News
Talking to a Sky News reporter Gedow insisted he was a voluntary coastguard and the Chandlers were seized as a precaution against “international violators”. Gedow said: “Our naval forces met them in the deep ocean, but it was the Somali ocean. ”They didn’t have permission to sail in the Somali waters, so that is why we captured them.”
Shamum Indhobur to EFE, the Spanish news agency
In one call, a pirate who gave his name as Shamum Indhobur, reportedly told the Spanish news agency EFE that any rescue attempt on either vessel would result in suffering for those aboard the other. ”We have the Spanish ship and this new yacht, and we warn naval forces that they must avoid any military action, because if one is attacked, we will punish those from the other,” he said in a call from Harardhere, a Somali pirate haven.
Ahmed Sheikh to AFP
Ahmed Sheikh, who claimed to be a member of the gang, reportedly told the French news agency AFP that about 60 gunmen had arrived in Harardhere to protect the pirates, adding: “We have made proper contact with the boat and everybody is OK. The hostages’ fate will be discussed when the boat gets here.”
Kudos to the Indy and AFP for using the word ‘claimed’.
Somalia doesn’t get a very good press. If it’s not war, it’s pirates. And if it’s not pirates, it’s a weird story about a 112 year-old man marrying a 17-year-old girl:
Ahmed Muhamed Dhore – who says he was born in 1897, the year that Queen Victoria celebrated her diamond jubilee – already has 13 children by five wives, but said he would like more with his newest, Safiya Abdulle…
“I didn’t force her, but used my experience to convince her of my love, and then we agreed to marry,” the groom said. The bride’s family said she was “happy with her new husband”. Somali adolescent girls are often married off to older men.
This has been a particularly bad week for Somalia’s international reputation. The capture of two Britons, Paul and Rachel Chandler, by pirates in the Indian Ocean has sparked off yet another round of stories featuring wild quotes from alleged pirates.
The Times quoted a pirate called ‘Hassan’:
“We warn them any attack on us, this is a good advice for them, otherwise they will burn their two people’s bones.”
Sky News had a pirate called Mohamed Hussein:
“We are telling Britain that any bullet of our friends on the yacht will be big cries for the families of the two old people we hold.”
Our view of Somalia is based upon what we know about a country. If all we read about is comically bloodthirsty pirates and the world’s creepiest marriage will we care about the fate of Somalia’s people?
Somalia needs peace, regular rains and law and order. But first it needs rebranding. This guy could help:
Following the massacre of more than 150 pro-democracy protestors in Guinea’s capital, Conakry, last month African leaders in the region wanted to send a message. The leader of Guinea’s junta, Moussa Dadis Camara, needed to be told that he couldn’t just take power by force, suppress the population and stand in elections run by his own people.
So the Economic Community of West African Studies (ECOWAS) decided to send Blaise Compaoré, the president of Burkina Faso, to mediate. There was just one problem. Two decades earlier Compaoré had taken power by force, suppressed the population and stood in elections run by his own people.
From my latest column on Monocle.com
Filed under: Kenya, Uncategorized | Tags: 2012, elections, Kenya, kofi annan, post-election violence
Another week, another Africa blog row. This one was set off rather innocently by Shashank Bengali who pointed out a poster for the upcoming disaster movie, 2012.
He wrote:
“An American friend saw this poster in the lobby and said: “Hey, a movie about the next Kenyan election!”
I laughed. Our three Kenyan friends didn’t.
The comments started off supportive but quickly degenerated.
Gee wrote:
“The problem with Kenya is that everyone’s an expert, and usually not Kenyan.”
Then Kenyachick added:
“I’m so bored with foreign comments about Africa. Give it a rest.”
And finally The Patriot weighed in with a 300 words tirade which ended:
“So please shut up and enjoy the suburbs and multiplex movie theaters and the 4 X 4.”
None of them are trying to argue about the message. They are effectively saying: “Yes, our country may be in trouble but who the hell are you to point it out?”
In a way it’s understandable. Kenya is a former colony, which gained independence only after fighting a war of liberation. For the past 40-odd years a procession of foreigners have been telling Kenyan leaders what to do – sometimes for good reasons, often for bad. While I don’t mind having an argument with a Kenyan about British politics I might feel differently if Kenya had drawn the UK’s borders, repressed and killed our people and still gave its opinion on our budget.
But just because it’s understandable doesn’t mean it’s right.
There is a strain of African populism that seeks to pin blame on the West whenever possible. Mugabe regularly rails against “imperialists” and “bloody whites”. Moussa Dadis Camara, the leader of Guiena’s junta, did it last week after the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, had called for an international intervention following the slaughter of more than 150 pro-democracy protesters in Conakry:
“Guinea is not a district of France. When the French foreign minister says something like that, this is a way of denigrating the people of Africa.”
Here in Kenya the US ambassador, Michael Ranneberger, has faced criticism from some members of the Kenyan government after threatening 15 politicians and businessmen with visa bans. One assistant minister, Kareke Mbiuki, said:
“We are a sovereign State and the US must stop its arrogance and let us govern ourselves without undue pressure.”
Kenya is in a bad shape. It is ranked number 14 in a list of global failed states, there have been no political reforms since the last election, and militias are allegedly rearming in the Rift Valley.
I fail to see what’s wrong about pointing that out whether you are Caroline Mutoko or Kofi Annan, Mwalimu Mati or Shashank Bengali.
What’s most depressing about this debate is that no one has looked at that poster and said “don’t be ridiculous, that could never happen.”
Filed under: Kenya | Tags: Kenya, mtv, kofi annan, wyclef, luis moreno-ocampo
Kenya is welcoming a procession of international visitors this month that indicate both the depths it has fallen to and the heights it could once again reach.
Kofi Annan arrived at the start of the month to gently remind Kenya’s president, Mwai Kibaki, and prime minister, Raila Odinga, that they still haven’t reformed Kenya’s constitution, electoral system or land disputes.
As Annan left, Wyclef Jean and Akon swept in for last Saturday’s MTV Africa Music Awards, a glitzy event which saw Kenyan artists, Nameless and Amani win two of the top awards.
Bumping into the hip-hop stars on their way out will be Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), who is expected in Nairobi later this week.
From my latest Monocle column: Politics, protests and pop music
The inevitable consequence of refusing to follow the rules of the road.
As frustrating as traffic jams are, you have to admire the beauty of the ‘Nairobi special’.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Writers won’t believe they have made it until they get commissioned by the New Yorker or Rolling Stone.
If you’re a blogger who writes about human rights or development issues then you haven’t made it until Wronging Rights say something nice about you or ask you to write a guest post.
I’m still waiting for the call from the New Yorker but the lovely people at Wronging Rights had no such qualms. More fool them. My piece on what the Abu Sharati case says about the state of journalism is here.
Rob Crilly has a bee in his bonnet about a story I wrote on Darfur in July 2007.
In response to the Abu Sharati saga on Wronging Rights he wrote:
“[Steve] has reported on “reports” that “foreign” Arabs moved into land once home to African tribes two years ago. There was no independent verification of those reports and investigations by researchers at Tufts Uni published this year have shown that those reports were not true. Yet because they agreed with the lopsided analysis, the black and white view of Darfur that we have all swallowed, these unsubstantiated rumours (spread by the side of the conflict that we have decided are innocent victims) appeared in print in 2007.”
He then followed this up with a couple of tweets:
And then mentioned it again in a post of his own on Sharati:
“…dubious claims and rumours that support the accepted wisdom are often offered as news, without any checking and which later turned out to not be true, such as areport in The Independent which claimed that foreign Arabs were moving on to land cleared by the Janjaweed.“
To be fair to Rob at least on this occasion he was willing to say: “I don’t blame the reporters involved. I’ve done it too.”
Before I get into why I think Rob is wrong, here are the first three paragraphs of the story in question:
Arabs from Chad and Niger are crossing into Darfur in “unprecedented” numbers, prompting claims that the Sudanese government is trying systematically to repopulate the war- ravaged region.
An internal UN report, obtained by The Independent, shows that up to 30,000 Arabs have crossed the border in the past two months. Most arrived with all their belongings and large flocks. They were greeted by Sudanese Arabs who took them to empty villages cleared by government and janjaweed forces.
One UN official said the process “appeared to have been well planned”. The official continued: “This movement is very large. We have not seen such numbers come into west Darfur before.”
Rob accuses me of having “no independent verification”, printing “unsubstantiated rumours” and writing “without any checking”. As the story makes clear in the intro this is based on an official internal UNHCR report which a contact had passed onto me. Having re-checked my notes I can confirm that I spoke to two other aid officials in the region who also believed the story was true.
For the past year I have been working on a book about football while Rob has been working on a book about Darfur. My Darfur contacts certainly aren’t as good as they used to be. I hadn’t heard of the subsequent Tufts University research he refers to but I have no reason to doubt that it is accurate. I believe the original story was fair and based on strong sources. Since it now appears, two years later, to have not been true I would be happy to recommend that The Independent runs a clarification based on the Tufts University research.
However, I completely disagree with Rob’s assessment that this was an “unsubstantiated rumour” written with “no independent verification” and ”without any checking”. It’s unfortunate that Rob didn’t do any checking of his own and ask me about this before he launched into his criticism.
I’m signing my book contract today. It should have been sorted several months ago but… I won’t bore you with the details.
Anyway, this line caught my eye:
“No royalties shall be paid on copies destroyed by fire, water, enemy action, in transit or otherwise.”
It doesn’t say whether the enemy is a rival publisher or Al-Qa’ida.
