thoughts on martin ssempa

A bit of a graduate school application essay that was too snarky to keep (and also works better with accompanying illustrations):

Ssempa is wildly popular in Uganda, revered for his admittedly successful work to stem the country’s tide of HIV/AIDS. Liberal thinkers, however, see him as prone to radical conservatism, which extends to vitriolic attacks on the homosexual community and the public burning of condoms in order to encourage abstinence. I see him as the kind of man who has divided each page of his web site evenly in half: text on the left and a variety of large, softly-lit portraits of himself on the right.



Ushahidi: report acts of violence in Kenya

Via Pernille:

White African and Kenyan Pundit are presenting a new tool to chronicle the incidents of violence happening around Kenya. Check it out here: www.ushahidi.com. Ushahidi means witnessing in Kiswahili, and the website itself is quite and interesting way of using the Internet.

Report Acts Of Violence In Kenya

RSF 2007 Press Freedom Round-up released

Yesterday Reporters Without Borders released their Press Freedom Round-up 2007. Some highlights for Africa:

  • 12 journalists killed
  • 162 arrested
  • 145 attacked or threatened
  • 1 kidnapped

Eight of those killed were in Somalia, where violent conflict between U.S.-funded Ethiopian troops and supporters of the Islamic Courts Union has caused hundreds of deaths in the past two years.

Also worth noting are the statistics on online journalism: 37 bloggers arrested, 21 physically attacked, 66 cyberdissidents arrested and 2676 websites shut down or suspended.

In other news, Uganda’s ranked 97th in the worldwide press freedom index, above Rwanda (147) and Burundi (127) but below Tanzania (55) and Kenya (78) — I’m curious to see how that changes in light of the media blackout surrounding the Kenyan elections.

GVO Uganda: Is Uganda mentally, intellectually and creatively broke?

My next piece is up at Global Voices Online:

An interview with a Kampala City Council official has blogger Tumwijuke wondering if Uganda is “mentally, intellectually and creatively broke”:

What else would explain the near absence of public art in the city? Rich men and women in Kampala are opening new hotels, shopping centers, office blocks and apartments every month. These are well traveled and widely read (I hope) people who are exposed to things like good architecture, art and culture. So why is the city so bland?

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