Over the past week more than 2,000 people were reported to have been killed in one state while 17 were killed in another country’s major capital city. Unfortunately the thousands who were massacred by Boko Haram militants were African and happened to be in boring, dusty Borno state, Nigeria. Lucky for the global media the other 17 murdered were in the sexy French capital of Paris and everyone can connect to Paris: the Eiffel Tower, croissants, wine, romance and now this very unfortunate shooting.
Any murder is abhorrent and the shooting of the brave journalists at Charlie Hebdo and innocent shoppers in the Parisian kosher supermarket is a tragedy. But why did the global media focus a thousand times more on France than they did on Nigeria? Well firstly, if you haven’t realized, white lives matter more than black or brown ones to the Western media. Especially European ones. So get with the programme. I mean did the Taliban shootings of over 100 Pakistan school kids in December 2014 get the same global spotlight? No, but we will let you know as soon as there is one European who contracts Ebola.
Secondly Borno state has nothing going for it. It’s just not photogenic. I mean would you rather see footage of villages and markets or reports with the backdrop of the Eiffel Tower and the Place De La Republique? Exactly! Paris just lends itself so well to 24 hour news coverage and, while not busy reporting on the news, journalists can stay in a comfortable hotel and have pain au chocolat for breakfast. Borno state is apparently a no-go area for journalists but even a report from Lagos seems too much for the global media at the moment. Plus the traffic in Lagos is simply atrocious.
Thirdly, if our own African leaders and our African media organisations don’t talk about the Borno state massacre why should the global media? There was very little coverage by African media compared to coverage of the Charlie Hebdo killings. Meanwhile Nigeria’s president Goodluck Jonathan last week spoke in solidarity with the French shooting victims but said nothing about those murdered by Boko Haram in his own country. I guess we, as Africans, have internalized the concept that black lives matter less.
Finally, Africa is the dark continent and we should be used to massacres, civil wars, AIDS, famine and stuff. It’s been the same Western narrative since the days of colonialism and it plays right into the global media (read mainly Western-controlled). We’re the helpless continent where people die from Ebola. What’s a few thousand killed by some crazy Islamist militants? So yeah, sorry to crowd cyberspace with talk of African lives. Please do tell us when the next atrocity is Europe happens and we’ll join you in a global outpouring of sympathy.