--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> 'How to write about Africa'
> Binyavanga Wainaina
>
...
>
> Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on
> the cover of your
> book, or in it, unless that African has won the
> Nobel Prize. An
> AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If
> you must include
> an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu
> or Dogon dress.
>
"Tied together in this odd cross-cultural knot, we careered along ice-laden roads in search of the stereotypical godforsaken village inhabited by stereotypical falling-down-drunk bumpkin voters, thus practicing the stereotypical journalistic form, the "vox pop".
"This is a time-honored exercise in mendacity, theoretically based on the sacred notion that "Vox populi, vox dei"; in fact, what a journalist does is turn it around so that "vox dei" can become "vox populi", where the deus is the journalist who creates an imaginary world and, from the crude raw material that he encounters in his travels, selects the populus needed to make it unchallengeably real. Thus, if an aged crone bent over by the travails of her century tells you that she is going to vote for Putin because she considers his economic policy sound and prudent, she is excluded; but one who says he is the ideal president because he has strong eyes, or a nice tie, or is president already, makes the grade as triumphal proof that the average Russian voter has no sense of democratic worth and would vote for a cast-iron pitchfork if it looked sober enough."
http://kirill.onlinefiction.net/AntiPotyemkinVillages.htm
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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