Comments on: Judging a magazine by its cover

By: ngum

ngum — Sun, 25 May 2008 01:12:16 +0000

“Bono (and his like) has a great passion for what he does concerning Africa…but just imagine if few of influential Africans could muster a fraction of his passion and creativity.”

So many already are. They’re just not as famous as Bono.

By: year-end list.redux.

year-end list.redux. — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 00:25:10 +0000

[...] the new african literary renaissance. as heralded in the bono-edited “africa” issue of vanity fair. personal highlights: chimamanda adichie wrote about Biafra in 60’s nigeria so vividly one [...]

By: Bashing Bono's Africa | Human Security Review

Bashing Bono's Africa | Human Security Review — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 05:00:25 +0000

[...] you read one blog post this week, make it Ethan Zuckerman’s Judging a magazine by its cover. Ethan makes a point which I wish to scream from the rooftops: Bono’s Africa is not the real [...]

By: Creative Evolution » Ideology, Celebrity and Philanthropy

Creative Evolution » Ideology, Celebrity and Philanthropy — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 12:36:37 +0000

[...] Judging a magazine by its cover [...]

By: Oh the things that people do… « Being Bloggalicious: The Mishri Someshwar Story

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 13:51:15 +0000

[...] Addendum: someone else articulates what’s wrong with the Vanity Fair issue better than I ever could. [...]

By: stillhaventfound.org » Occasional Links 52

stillhaventfound.org » Occasional Links 52 — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 00:30:56 +0000

[...] 1) International Development and Bono have again once hit the headlines. The recent TED conference was all on Africa – where some saw another side of Bono. The influential presence of Bono was felt at the recent G8 Summit. And there’s been lots of negative response to Vanity Fair’s Africa issue which was guest-edited by Bono – e.g. here, here and here, though there’s a more positive take of the whole thing here. [...]

By: On Bono, Vanity Fair and paternalism in foreign aid « Ramblings of an African Geek

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:18:23 +0000

[...] On Bono, Vanity Fair and paternalism in foreign aid 22Jun07 I’ve been meaning to write this post since I was asked what I meant by connecting the OLPC program to paternalism. What really got me going though, was this series of posts by Ethan, Sokari and the Afromusing blog on Bono’s Vanity Fair issue. Kameelah at Black Looks writes another one of her great analysis pieces on it. Thanks to them we shall be talking about my issues with a lot of the kind of aid that comes to Africa and what it tends to say about how we are seen by a lot of those who claim to be here to help us. [...]

By: AltNigeria Blog / Best Of The Week Ending June 22nd.

AltNigeria Blog / Best Of The Week Ending June 22nd. — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 13:27:17 +0000

[...] Related Content Post a comment — Trackback URI RSS 2.0 feed for these comments This entry (permalink) was posted on Friday, June 22, 2007, at 9:27 amby omodudu and categorized in Opinion, Nigeria,Africa. [...]

By: Djterasaki

Djterasaki — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 04:38:07 +0000

[...] Interesting Insight from Ethan Zuckerberg Thursday June 21st 2007, 7:09 am Filed under: Uncategorized This is taken from a blog from aninteresting blogger: [...]

By: Erik

Erik — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 06:36:26 +0000

As a person who at one point spent several years on the African poverty-alleviation/economic development conference circuit, my feeling is that the one thing African doesn’t need is more poverty-alleviation/economic development conferences, even good ones.

All these yakking festivals really do is reinforce the notion, so spectacularly common in Africa, that social and economic progress is driven by meetings of big-talking VIPs. They also inevitably strengthen the local begging and patronage economies wherever they take place.

What Africa really needs is a period of near-total benign neglect from the West and its infantilizing honkey guilt complexes, and a massive influx of hard-eyed, even brutal capital and managerial expertise from Asia.

Drive the NGO-niks and conference-wallahs into the forest and let a hundred thousand Chinese-owned sweatshops bloom in their place.

By the time Vanity Fair does a cover story about the medieval horrors of Chinese colonialism in Africa, we’ll know we’re actually on the way to making it a continent rather than a cause.