The voracious appetite of Africans for news of the Iraq war has sent sales of satellite dishes and transistor radios soaring, even in the remotest corners of the world’s largest continent.
In the northern Nigerian city of Kano, where the mainly Muslim population is vehemently against the US- and British-led ”aggression” against Iraq, sales of satellite dishes have trebled since the war broke out on March 20, said shopkeeper Qassim Nasiru.
Most people in Kano who acquire satellite receivers want to be able to watch reports from the war in Iraq by Qatar-based Arabic-language al-Jazeera television.
Never mind that few Nigerians speak or understand Arabic, ”they think (al-Jazeera) gives more exact information than CNN or the BBC,” Nasiru said.
Al-Jazeera has also seen its viewer base grow in the north African country of Morocco, where televisions have been installed in shops and government offices to allow people to follow the war in Iraq.
A shopkeeper in Rabat said orders for satellite receivers had sky-rocketed since the start of the war. And he was out of stock of decoders.
In the tiny east African country of Djibouti, the homes of people who have satellite television have become gathering places for the TV-less, hungry for news on the war. Again, the station of preference is al-Jazeera.
In Mogadishu, capital of Somalia, which has been without a central government and prey to clan warfare since 1991, people tend to remain indoors after sunset because of the high level of lawlessness.
Those with televisions follow events in Iraq — usually on al-Jazeera –and then relay the news to friends by telephone.
In Tunisia, satellite dishes adorn the facades of houses and huts from Tunis to the most remote of hamlets.
Even the most out-of-pocket Tunisian usually finds a way to procure a satellite television receiver, usually by purchasing the equipment from back-of-a-lorry salesmen.
In the west African country of Gabon, even children are not spared reports from the Iraq front, as private station Tele African abruptly cuts into the day’s cartoons to give the latest update of the war.
But all this constant coverage from the Gulf region has taken its toll on local news.
”It’s become difficult to get Ugandans to take an interest in their own society,” said a journalist from Uganda’s East African weekly newspaper.
”The power of television … is such that international topics easily take priority over local issues.”
By the magic of satellite, ”all the channels are available in the tiniest of video-clubs — places where you pay a few shillings to get in, take a seat on an overturned carton and then stay all day if you feel like it,” he lamented.
In similar makeshift clubs for war coverage addicts in
Guinea-Bissau, news bulletins from international television networks have taken pride of place, supplanting US-made B-movies or the latest offering from Bollywood.
For the equivalent of around 25 cents a day, conflict-hungry viewers in the former Portuguese colony in west Africa can spend all day glued to the news from Iraq as reported by Portugal’s RTP channel or France’s TV5 and Canal France International.
An open-air cinema in the Senegalese capital Dakar offers nightly sessions dubbed ”News of the World – TV zapping”, where for one hour, viewers can watch a pastiche of reports from TV5, CNN, Euronews and other networks.
And in the Malian capital Bamako, the traditional dusk-to-dawn card games have fallen by the wayside, as erstwhile players’ eyes are fixed on screens and therefore unable to concentrate on getting a pair of aces or full house.
Residents of the suburbs of the Guinean capital Conakry would dearly love to be able to follow the latest events in Iraq on television, but the sporadic supply of electricity — the suburbs only have power from midnight to 7:00am — has put paid to such hopes.
Instead, suburban dwellers and villagers keep their ears glued to transistor radios, and avidly soak up reports on Radio France Internationale and the BBC World Service.
Indeed, be it shortwave, FM or satellite radio, the humble transistor remains the preferred means for most Africans to keep in touch with the world beyond their continent.
Even in the relative affluence, by African standards, of the Nigerian city of Kano, the sale of transistor radios has easily kept pace with satellite receivers.
After all, unlike all the paraphernalia required to pick up satellite television, you can take a transistor radio anywhere and keep in constant touch with happenings in Iraq. – Sapa-AFP