Oil and blood
In Africa, oil and blood mix like water and water. The utterly shameful and amoral actions of the big oil companies is but the tip of a heavier than usual iceberg. And it also shows how we close our eyes and turn our backs to the rape of Africa. We don’t want to know, and the media has the courage not to tell us (to paraphrase Colbert). As long as we let the big money deal with hard issues on the ground, we don’t care much about the murder and we drive our cars with tanks full of blood. (But we wonder how to deal with the issue of African illegals washing up on our coasts, both dead ans alive, literally).
It’s a bit surprising that the last shameful event got this much media attention. The latest murder, this time by the hands of British oil company Trafigura. Yet, the headlines still read “How UK oil company Trafigura tried to cover up African pollution disaster“. If you read the article you’re left with the sensation that the editor replaced “murder” with “disaster”. One may, of course, deduce from the article how hard it is for newspapers to even report on these atrocities, and if you remember “Manufacturing Consent” it’s even easier to understand why.
One has only to compare the treatment of another “oil conflict”, the one in Nigeria, given by a main stream media outlet, BBC News (here), and an independent (and very well documented, I may add) source, Amy Goodman (here and here).
The “journalist” at BBC (the article is not signed) reports both sides of the story: “In order to raise living standards in the region, the government and oil companies have set up the Niger Delta Development Commission,” failing to see the irony that the living standard is more like a death standard.
Shame on you!
It’s truly incredible how mainstream media are able to deviate world attention from certain topics, being Africa one of the most blatant cases. I hope that posts like this one help get people informed about that part of the world that’s not shown in the everyday evening news (where they only seem to have time for football).
Hmmm, I wish that were true, but not many people read my blog,I’m afraid.
Well, as the English say: 100 pennies make a pound… the small individual actions also have their effect
[...] and blood” update This is an update to my “Oil and blood” post of a couple of days ago: Trafigura has offered £1,000 in compensation to each victim [...]
“Oil and blood” update « Plug In, Plug Out said this on September 19, 2009 at 1:14 |