I have often noticed that whenever one hears about "Africa," whether on the news, or in music, or in arts, or in literature, the inevitable focus is always the portion of the continent that is geographically south of the Sahara desert. For instance, the "plight of Africa," that favourite headline of European and American newspapers, usually refers to AIDS or child soldiers or foreign debt or whatever new cause hipsters find fit to embrace at the moment. When African music is written about outside of the continent, it is usually in terms of Youssou N?Dour, or Fela Kuti or Miriam Makeba. African art, as curated in places like The Metropolitan Museum in New York, means only artwork produced south of Senegal to the west and Sudan to the east.
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During the most recent African Cup of Nations, a soccer tournament held this year in Ghana, Arab audiences were able to watch Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Sudan (all members of the Arab League) compete for the title of best soccer team in Africa. All games featuring any of these nations were dutifully broadcast in the United States by the Saudi-owned TV station, ART.
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When Patrice Lumumba was assassinated, my father, then still a teenager, went out to demonstrate in front of the Belgian Consulate General in Casablanca. Thousands of students joined him, and were severely beaten by the riot police.
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