It's Only Africa.

(Picture taken from BBC Newsnight website.)

by Kwaku Osei, Saybrook College, Yale 2010
Accra, Ghana

I don’t blog.

It’s just not something I do. I have never really felt so strongly about something that I feel the urge to write it down and share it with the world. And on the off- chance that something really gets my blood boiling, I have never felt like I have much to say. This has been my philosophy for the better part of the past few years.

So what is it, you ask, that brought me out from hiding and forced me to go against my philosophy on blogging? Oh, only some new developments in the biggest toxic dumping scandal of the 21st century that no one is talking about! I was so pissed off when I read this article; not only because the Ivory Coast is near and dear to my heart (my older brother grew up there) but also because it is yet another reminder of a global attitude towards the African continent that continues to anger, frustrate, and confuse myself, other Africans, and all human beings with any sense of empathy.



If before now, you haven't heard of the Trafigura Scandal, I encourage you to take 10 minutes to educate yourself by watching this video. For those of you with a little more time on your hands, or with more of a need to procrastinate, this video goes a bit more in depth. And if you prefer to read go here.

The initial article that I linked to (and the one that inspired me to hop into the blogosphere) basically says that emails obtained by the BBC reveal that high level executives in Trafigura, the oil company at the center of the case, knew perfectly well about the hazardous nature of the waste that they were dumping in the Ivory Coast and were perfectly aware that it might have dangerous consequences for the population living there. This discredits their previously held stance that the toxic waste couldn't possibly have caused the illnesses and deaths in the affected regions.

"The e-mails obtained by [BBC] Newsnight show that in the months before the waste was dumped the company knew about the difficulties they would face in disposing of the waste. 'This operation is no longer allowed in the European Union, the United States and Singapore" it is "banned in most countries due to the 'hazardous nature of the waste,' one e-mail warns. Another e-mail points out that "environmental agencies do not allow disposal of the toxic caustic."

This new development raises many questions. Why did Trafigura, knowing all of this, and after being prevented from treating the waste in the Netherlands, decide to move it to the Ivory Coast, a country still recovering from civil war? Why is this scandal so underrepresented in the media, and barely even reported on? How would the coverage and handling of the scandal be different if the waste had been dumped in a different country?

I think the answer to one of these “Whys?” is pretty easy to determine: Because companies, and especially oil companies, are out to make profits. This is what happens when corporations focus solely on their bottom line. Stories like just convince me that a lot of right can be done in the world if we set our goals above the bottom line, putting people over profits.

The other reason why this happened and why it's so under- reported is even more frustrating to acknowledge. After telling this story to my friend Drew Ruben (great kid, founder of Blue State Coffee; y'all should check him out) he said as horrified as he was he wasn't surprised. You see a few months ago, he had the opportunity to meet Harold Koh, former Dean of Yale Law School and current legal adviser to the United States Department of State. Ruben asked him "Why isn't more being done or said about the Darfur conflict?"

Koh’s response? "Because it's Africa."

That's the way the world thinks. It should therefore not be surprising that a company like Trafigura would feel that they can get away with injustice. We also should not be surprised that stories like this never make mainstream media.

After all, it's only Africa.

Check out Kwaku's blog, Afropolithoughts, here.

An HIV Remedy in Clowning & Dancing

by Cleo Handler
Yale College, SY 2012

Whenever anyone asked me what I was doing this summer, I had a hard time trying to explain. “I’m taking this class,” I’d say, “that attempts to combine theater and public health into a thorough, psychosocial approach to dealing with the HIV/AIDS epidemic and helping those affected by it.” Blank stares. “Well, uh…” I’d continue, “it’s about trying to use art to help educate people about public health…or at least to try to get a message across.” Cocked heads. “Umm… I don’t totally know yet, but it involves using theater to try to bring people’s attention to certain aspects of the epidemic, in order to allow them to more fully understand it, and possibly get them to change their deeply-rooted outlooks toward this hushed-up, stigmatized disease.” At this point, I’d be met by more looks of confusion, accompanied by glossed-over eyes. “I’m going to Africa!” I’d sputter at last, and then receive wide smiles and enthusiastic nods of approval.

Yet after all of my attempts at describing the course - which was actually called 'Arts and Public Health in Action: Study of HIV/AIDS in Swaziland'- it turned out to be even more impossible to describe than I could have ever expected. And even more incredible. This year, the agenda was to spend three weeks in Durban, South Africa, working with a socially- sensitive dance company and then two weeks in Swaziland, collaborating with groups called 'Clowns Without Borders' and 'People’s Educational Theater.' Our intention was to create and perform various clown shows for the children and, in addition, to lead after- school workshops teaching them how to make up their own plays and to engage their imaginations. And, of course, we would also be providing them with food.

In Durban, we worked with one of the first performance companies to be racially integrated at the end of the apartheid, a very talented group of dancers called Siwela Sonke (meaning “going across together” in Zulu). Together, we did a project called ‘Secrets,’ in which we interviewed local people about their secrets, especially in relation to health issues, and the embarrassment, stigma, and shame associated with being HIV- positive. We created four separate pieces involving dance, music, and poetry, based on what different people had told us about their secrets, and then performed them on the streets of Durban, as people got on and off buses all around us and gathered into an attentive, ever-growing crowd.

In Swaziland, we spent our days clowning, our evenings reading about epidemiology and public health, and our nights writing in our journals. As the country with the last remaining absolute monarchy in the world, and the country with the highest rate of HIV, Swaziland was quite an adjustment for us all. Swazi women have very limited rights and are considered perpetual minors, which means that they go from being wards of their fathers to financially, legally, and socially dependent brides. They cannot buy property or make important decisions without their husbands’ approval. The country also still places large value on the traditional notion of the dowry, or “lubuli”- the typical matrimonial price is 17 cows. Yet, while these different customs and gender- related attitudes interested us and raised many questions, they were not our main focus.

After performing our clown shows at different schools in the mornings, we led our workshops with certain students who had been identified by communities as OVCs (orphans and vulnerable children) in the afternoons. This classification was given to kids who had been seriously affected by the AIDS epidemic and, as a result, were either living with incredibly overworked and underpaid caretakers, many of whom were unrelated to them, or in child- headed households.

Being with the kids, teaching them songs and theatrical games that made them laugh, gave me a mixed feeling of hope and futility. Our project only lasted two weeks. How much could we really do? Even though we gave them food at the end of each session, how useful really were our chants and “zip-zap-zop” exercises, when they would get home and probably not eat again for the rest of that day? Although it was great to see them smile, it was hard to keep up my own smile as we drove away. One thing that gave me hope was the knowledge that, despite the fact that our program had an end- date, Clowns Without Borders would come back multiple times a year. In addition, other local organizations would do their best to help. And even if it was only for a brief amount of time, I felt sure that we had helped to make their lives a little easier, and a lot more fun.

This experience with clowning and teaching the kids made me start thinking about something that had happened a few weeks earlier, at the beginning of the trip. We had visited an HIV clinic in Durban and had gotten the chance to talk to one of the head doctors about her job. Extremely passionate, yet understandably embittered, she explained to us that the situation was grim. The epidemic had hit southern Africa hard, and did not seem to be letting up any time soon. After presenting these statements, she started to get really riled up. Her life would be a lot easier, she went on to say, if it weren’t for “that damn human rights problem.” In her opinion, the HIV epidemic could be stamped out in a few decades if the government started regulating automatic screening and treatment of all those who tested positive. “However,” she said, “there are those damn human rights issues: the right to not know your status, the right to not take medicine, the right to die, blah blah blah. This is what really stands in the way and makes the virus virtually unbeatable.”

Shocked, we stopped her right there. Was that really how she saw it? Did she truly believe that, given the rampant prevalence of the disease and the powerful stigma associated with not only having, but even just talking about being HIV positive, people really didn’t have the right to not pay it a lot of attention? And, if that were the case, was she actually advocating that, in this situation, the inalienable human right to decide whether or not to know the full facts or to take action based on individual preferences and comfort levels, be stripped away? Was she really telling us that, given the severity of the epidemic, as a contagious, ever-spreading, unchecked, and indiscriminate attacker, no one really had the right to not care?

“Yes,” she said emphatically. “Or as we say in Zulu, ‘yebo.’” I have been mulling over this doctor’s thought- provoking statements ever since. In the service of public health, is it actually justifiable that the rights of the individual get sacrificed on the altar of the bigger picture? Is there a point at which personal liberties become less valuable than more global considerations, and, as a result, must bow down to them?

Well, I never thought of it that way before. Maybe this is something I need to think about some more? Yebo. Yebo, indeed.

Article 25

THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, Article 25, Part 1: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well- being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

In the on- going American debate over public health care a variety of negative opinions have been espoused (the economic crisis makes public health care untimely, America is heading towards socialism, creating universal health care essentially legalizing death panels, "when Obama lies grandma dies"), and these opinions have been expressed in constitutional ways (protests and unruly behavior define freedom of expression, town hall meetings are the epitome of freedom of association, and bringing loaded guns to talks by President Obama are the American citizens' realization of the infamous Second Amendment: the right to bear arms).

Throughout the debate, the health systems of Canada and Great Britain have been referenced as examples of government- healthcare failures. One British European member of Parliament even went on FOX News to explain that NHS (National Health Services, the name of the Great Britain public healthcare) was a national disaster. He was later rebuked by many Members of the British Parliament, including David Cameron, the leader of the opposition party in British parliament, who called his views, "eccentric."

Additionally, this article in British paper, 'The Times,' which is about the National Healthcare System in the United Kingdom, could give Maureen Dowd of 'The New York Times' a run for her money.