African Radio

BBC Radio is a world-wide institution. Here in Mozambique, for some amazing reason, we get BBC Africa radio in English and the absolute lowest point on the radio dial. Sometimes I have to hold the knob on the radio down past where it's supposed to go to get it to tune in. I think we get the English version because BBC Africa broadcast only in English and French, and on account of being surrounded on three sides by English speaking countries (and on the fourth side by water, which is Indian) we get lumped in with the English, which is fine by me.

What makes it BBC “Africa” is that for an hour in the morning and afternoon we get African-centric news. Due to political instability, most of the last two years has revolved around the Arab states (lumped in with Africa). Oh, there was also a hostile takeover in Mali and something about Somalia but I, along with most the world, stopped paying attention to them after 1995.

But on the weekends, the often have more opinion laden, opinion pieces from originating from South Africa or Ghana or Kenya, some of the continent's more progressive (read: not so superstitious and witchcrafty) locales. Often, they are about how well Africa is advancing and about the unsavory elements that hold it back. For example, in Ghana when an old lady is accused of witchcraft she is sent to a witch internment camp until it can be determined by the head witchdoctor there is no more witchcraft in her and she poses no threat to society.

There is also an insane level of candidness that would make even a klan member blush at the bluntness and offensiveness of some things people say.The things people say pass for about as un-politically correct as you can get. The kind of things that if you say in America count as hate crimes. Such as seeing people on the sidewalk shout at women driving cars saying, "Get out of the road. Who let you have a drivers license. You're going to kill someone."

Now that the olympics are over, the BBC is heavily promoting the para-olympics (because they're contractually obligated, I'm guessing). Despite the fact that there is an enormous disparity between first and thirld world athletes in terms of funding and training, BBC Africa seems determined to marshal as much support as they can for the games.

One such interviewer was in Kenya, doing a man-on-the-street type interview just getting whatever info he could about the public perceptions and excitement for the para-olympics. He usually started by asking if the interviewee was excited about the upcoming para-olympics. The typical responses were, “Am I excited for the what? What is the para-olympics? So it is like the olympics but for people with disabilities, or amputees? That's preposterous. I've never heard of that before? And they take it seriously? Why, that's an affront to the real olympics. It's an insult. How degrading that these people should be doing that? It is an insult to all the real athletes that train their entire lives for a sport and now they'll just let anybody do it. I'm offended by the very thought of that? Who would watch a bunch of people hobble around in front of everybody.”

Full disclosure, this is one of these issues where most people reading this are going to be saddened and offended by it, but I on the other find their views hilarious just for the sheer absurdity. I even asked the kids here what they thought about it. They, like the people on the radio, had never heard of the para-olympics and didn't take me seriously. Then they wondered why even bother.

Most of the reluctance to accept an idea such as the para-olympics comes from the stigma of what is means to be disabled. And I'm not talking about the whole “it's an ability and not a disability” cup half-full/half-empty debate. I'm saying that when you say disability most will imagine a person who has lost a leg to a landmine, a polio victim, or a lame person, many of whom either stay in their home or can be seen begging in the city's streets. So they imagine a bunch of invalids running the 100m dash and just shake their head.

What they don't know about is the sheer coolness of spinal cord injury victims playing the sport of murderball (which unfortunately now referred to as indoor rugby—a name that is simultaneously not as cool nor as accurate a description as the old one).