The tragic robber-hero. The mystical gunslinger. The cerebral crime-lord, drawn into events beyond his control. One of the most straightforwardly literal ways in which popular culture is able to challenge official ideology is in creating complexity and human drama around criminals that the state would rather have seen as villains whose only wish is evil. From […]
Remember when Law & Order: Criminal Intent did a two-hour season premier on Erik Prince’s anti-pirate private militia in Somalia? Prince (founder and frequent re-namer of the infamous mercenary company, Blackwater) became a celebrity by escalating and deepening armed conflicts. His intervention in Somalia was just as disturbing as it is anywhere else, but it […]
By Abdourahman Waberi* Jeffrey Gettleman will not run the risk of being seen as ‘a nobody, a cockroach, a gangster,’ unlike the Somali pirates he depicted in the columns of the New York Times Magazine last weekend (‘Taken by Pirates‘, Oct 5, 2011). In that particular piece of reportage, a totally asymmetric treatment is set […]
Last week Congo’s government announced it would pledge $2.5 million to relief efforts in Haiti. As Texas in Africa noted, pledging is not the same as actually handing the money over. Just ask the Western governments. (Incidentally to those worried whether Congo can afford to do that, that money is apparently small change compared to the […]
