Johannesburg - Dead white people sell newspapers, an old news man once told me. It was an observation based on decades of experience, and the burden of pragmatic journalistic processes.
As difficult as it is to believe, even in South Africa, it is relatively rare for white people to be murdered on any large scale, and so when such a killing does occur anywhere in the world we sit up and take notice. And rightly so. Violent deaths are shocking and our reactions should be commensurate with the magnitude of such events. But that magnitude has proved to impossible to measure.
Why is it that the demise of black and poor people on a daily basis is barely reported beyond the cold statistical record-keeping of police stations and court records. Why, when a country is on the brink of genocide, do media houses and news wire services wait to count corpses rather than lament the loss of an African father, mother or child?
Daily we in the media assign value to lives lost due to crime, conflict or circumstance. We make a decision based on “news value”, public interest, and of course revenue potential. “News value” is also code for “will our readers care?”
The harsh reality is that black people are murdered every day in South Africa – and that alone is not considered news anymore, not just by the media but by you, the readers. Crime is not unusual, it is the victim and the circumstance that determine its value on news sites. In a society as violent as ours, “if it bleeds it leads” is not good enough. It needs to bleed a “special” type of blood.
We live within a Western framework, even here at the tip of Africa. Our economies and justice systems are inherited. The way we consume commodities and experience life is based on a set of ideals and standards predetermined centuries ago by the slave trade, colonialism, and yes, apartheid. Our bias has been bought and paid for. It is the reason we stay riveted to our timelines on social media, crying digital tears in solidarity with the people of Paris, but say nothing about Beirut and Baghdad, even when the strong, common Islamic State thread runs through them. It is the reason we’re ignorant of the impending genocide in Bujumbura. Our empathy extends no further than what the media allows and our own pigeon-holed experience of life through Western eyes.
More than 40 people were killed in Beirut, Lebanon, on Thursday in twin suicide attacks claimed by Islamic State. A national day of mourning was declared, and that’s where the story is likely to end. We’ve learnt nothing about the victims. We haven’t been told whether Shia families and friends were outdoors enjoying the last days of autumn at the markets and restaurants. Were they happy and enjoying a degree of normality in their lives? We don't know.
Genocide stalks the people of Burundi while we #PrayforParis, and just like we did in 1994 when nearly a million human beings were slaughtered in Rwanda and Burundi, we’ve taken our eyes off the ball. Don’t believe me? Then just Google “Bujumbura” and then “Paris” – and play Spot the Difference. In Africa we’re used to these double standards, and the African media and reader is as complicit in this as anyone else. The news agencies know this about us and assign their resources according to our priorities, hence the gaping hole of information around Burundi.
We’re more obsessed with the race for American president than we are with the fact than Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza has overstayed his tenure and is now snuffing out voices of dissent. Experts have reported that that dissidents arrested by the security forces have been found dead, many with signs of torture. Last week, Welli Nzitonda, the son of a well-known human rights activist was found dead after being arrested earlier that day.
By now, your eyes have already glazed over these facts, because they’re meaningless to our current reality.
If it's numbers that we crave then how about the 147 Kenyan students who were massacred at Garissa University earlier this year? Still nothing?.
Here are more facts. In Baghdad, 26 Shia were killed in two separate suicide bombings – again by Islamic State. We don’t know who the 26 victims were or what their names are. We do know that 21 of “them” were killed while burying a militia fighter who died in battle against IS.
Dignity for the dead is in the details, and sadly there are none if you’re not Western. In the Middle East and Africa the dead have no story to tell. There certainly won’t be iconic buildings around the world bathed in the light of the colours of Lebanon or Iraq. Or Yemen, or Afghanistan (remember them?). We won’t be watermarking our Facebook profile pictures in the red, black, white and green of Palestine or the Burundi flag.
Our Western sensibilities and selective grief afford us no more than perfunctory gestures and feigned interest when we know the world is watching – and we can feel a hashtag about to trend. And then we move. Armchair activism is an obscene phenomenon which we in the media will use to storify, analyse and fill front pages.
We know that on Friday the 13th, Parisians were dining out in the City of Lights. Others were watching the France national football team take on Germany in St Denis. Hundreds more were revelling in the sounds of Eagles of Death Metal at Bataclan concert hall.
Under the guise of development, progress and (crudely) civilization, we surrender our own narrative and those of the poor and downtrodden to a minority of voices in government, media and the private sector – men, mostly white, who influence public opinion, gender roles and the flow of capital.
But do not blame them alone. Blame yourself too. A media company that gives equal coverage to all atrocities would be a brilliant news platform. It would also be out of business, because no one would buy it.
* Adrian Ephraim is managing editor of IOL.
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