2006.06.05: June 5, 2006: Headlines: COS - Cameroon: Journalism: The Nation: Cameroon Journalist Alice Tatah says she had been taught to read and write by a Peace Corps volunteer who, as she put it, had left the comforts of a luxurious home to go to a hot, insect-infested jungle to give a little girl the tools to open up a new life
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2006.06.05: June 5, 2006: Headlines: COS - Cameroon: Journalism: The Nation: Cameroon Journalist Alice Tatah says she had been taught to read and write by a Peace Corps volunteer who, as she put it, had left the comforts of a luxurious home to go to a hot, insect-infested jungle to give a little girl the tools to open up a new life
Cameroon Journalist Alice Tatah says she had been taught to read and write by a Peace Corps volunteer who, as she put it, had left the comforts of a luxurious home to go to a hot, insect-infested jungle to give a little girl the tools to open up a new life
What none of the journalists brought up was how long people around the world will continue to separate the American people from their government and its policies. In the end it is the American people who install those who run that government and make its policies. Of course, many of the journalists come from nations where the people do not rule and so cannot be blamed. What is the American excuse?
Cameroon Journalist Alice Tatah says she had been taught to read and write by a Peace Corps volunteer who, as she put it, had left the comforts of a luxurious home to go to a hot, insect-infested jungle to give a little girl the tools to open up a new life
As Others See Us
Nicholas von Hoffman
A few days ago I found myself at a meeting of journalists from around the world. They had been brought to the United States by Harvard's Nieman Fellowship Program and were giving presentations to a small group of mostly older Americans in a Maine Congregational Church.
It was a chance to hear what is on other people's minds. So much of what we get is Yankee-centered, it's easy to believe there are no people elsewhere with other desires and other points of view.
The program was kicked off by Mary Ann Jolley of the Australian Broadcasting Company. Without bitterness and without anger, she discussed the Iraq War and the mountainous lack of enthusiasm for it in her country. Though she didn't allude to it, you could not listen to her without meditating on the number of times the people of this far-off land had shouldered arms to take part in remote slaughters engaged in by Britain and the United States.
[Excerpt]
Alice Tatah of Cameroon Radio and Television was not reticent about describing the corrupt authoritarian government under which she must live, nor of the poverty of the people. As with several of the others, Tatah spoke of the international debt weighing on Cameroon and the impossibility of ever discharging it. Again, as with some of the others, she talked about the trade imbalance resulting from American export barriers.
Tatah discussed the effect of American TV and movies on her nation's young people. She said in a very nice way that the nudity, the open sex and homosexuality were offensive to her people, their culture and their ways of life. She might have but didn't talk about the inherent conflict in American notions of diversity as opposed to respect for other people's ways of life.
As with her fellow journalists, Tatah was careful to make a distinction between the American people and their government. She said that she had been taught to read and write by a Peace Corps volunteer who, as she put it, had left the comforts of a luxurious home to go to a hot, insect-infested jungle to give a little girl the tools to open up a new life.
What none of the journalists brought up was how long people around the world will continue to separate the American people from their government and its policies. In the end it is the American people who install those who run that government and make its policies. Of course, many of the journalists come from nations where the people do not rule and so cannot be blamed. What is the American excuse?
When this story was posted in July 2006, this was on the front page of PCOL:
Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
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Story Source: The Nation
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Cameroon; Journalism
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