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Curiously absent in this story is the role radio played in the Rwanda massacre.

kragen 5y ago
How is the Rwandan genocide relevant? Rwanda is 1000 km away from the area this book is about, populated by unrelated ethnicities, speaking unrelated languages, and was colonized by different European powers, and (except for the Apartheid struggle) the independence struggles the book is about culminated in 01975, 19 years before the Rwandan genocide. This is like complaining that the role of cannon in Guatemalan independence from the Federal Republic of Central America is "curiously absent" from a book about the role of cannon in the US Civil War, which similarly happened 1000 km away and 19 years later. There's nothing curious about it! (Yes, Virginia is a lot more than 1000 km away from Guatemala. And Cape Town is even further from Rwanda. 1000 km is roughly the shortest distance between the regions in question, to be maximally charitable to your thesis.) I think the main thing these different events have in common is that you know almost nothing about them.
- sparky_z 5y ago
  I think because the tone of the article and headline portrays radio technology as some sort of moral force for good, when really it's just a tool that increases human capability and can be used for good or evil (or neutral!) ends. I think the relevant comparison would be an article about how the cannon was "a force for ending slavery and liberating oppressed groups" and then only talked about how the Union Army in the Civil War used cannons, while ignoring any other ways they've been used over the years.
  - kragen 5y ago
    Sure, but anyone who's ever listened to talk radio knows that radio can be used for evil ends. Why Rwanda? What about Hitler's propaganda broadcasts in World War II? Or Stalin? Or walkie-talkies used to coordinate war-crime operations by whichever armies you're willing to condemn the war crimes of? I think the more likely explanation is that the commenter didn't know the difference between Rwanda and Southern Africa. I mean, I guess Zimbabwe is also mostly Bantu-speaking? But Guatemala and Virginia are both mostly Christian and also both largely speak Indo-European languages.
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    - imwillofficial 5y ago
      You seem to make assumptions that aren’t charitable and come off as overly defense. It doesn’t matter “why”, His point still stands.
      - kragen 5y ago
        What do you think I'm defending? Rwanda? Radio? Guatemala? Hitler? I'm not defending any of those. I'm not even defending the book, which I haven't read. I'm attacking baseless whataboutism that seems, on the face of it, and possibly incorrectly, to express an "all look same" attitude about Africa, treating its enormous diversity of peoples with histories going back millions of years as if they were a single village. (Though, as I said, there's a lot of Bantu languages spoken in Southern Africa; it's not totally unconnected from Rwanda. But then both Guatemala and a substantial part of Confederacy territory used to be part of México.) I'd welcome either alternative explanations or a mea culpa. (I'm guessing verytrivial has gone to bed, though; I think they posted that in the wee hours of the morning.)
        imwillofficial 5y ago
        You want a mea culpa for a reference somebody made of two “not totally unconnected things?” Are you serious?
    - verytrivial 5y ago
      I am aware of these differences. I was referring to at least two documentaries I've seen on Rwanda where the makers said radio was used by the people in power to foment discord in 1994. It was the only media that was basically universally accessible to the population. That seemed relevant. Both these documentaries made a point of this dynamic. I will assume you've seen similar evidence but disagree with the relevance and not that you are in fact ignorant, which seems to be all you will assume of me.

How is the Rwandan genocide relevant? Rwanda is 1000 km away from the area this book is about, populated by unrelated ethnicities, speaking unrelated languages, and was colonized by different European powers, and (except for the Apartheid struggle) the independence struggles the book is about culminated in 01975, 19 years before the Rwandan genocide. This is like complaining that the role of cannon in Guatemalan independence from the Federal Republic of Central America is "curiously absent" from a book about the role of cannon in the US Civil War, which similarly happened 1000 km away and 19 years later. There's nothing curious about it! (Yes, Virginia is a lot more than 1000 km away from Guatemala. And Cape Town is even further from Rwanda. 1000 km is roughly the shortest distance between the regions in question, to be maximally charitable to your thesis.) I think the main thing these different events have in common is that you know almost nothing about them.

sparky_z 5y ago
I think because the tone of the article and headline portrays radio technology as some sort of moral force for good, when really it's just a tool that increases human capability and can be used for good or evil (or neutral!) ends. I think the relevant comparison would be an article about how the cannon was "a force for ending slavery and liberating oppressed groups" and then only talked about how the Union Army in the Civil War used cannons, while ignoring any other ways they've been used over the years.
- kragen 5y ago
  Sure, but anyone who's ever listened to talk radio knows that radio can be used for evil ends. Why Rwanda? What about Hitler's propaganda broadcasts in World War II? Or Stalin? Or walkie-talkies used to coordinate war-crime operations by whichever armies you're willing to condemn the war crimes of? I think the more likely explanation is that the commenter didn't know the difference between Rwanda and Southern Africa. I mean, I guess Zimbabwe is also mostly Bantu-speaking? But Guatemala and Virginia are both mostly Christian and also both largely speak Indo-European languages.
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  - imwillofficial 5y ago
    You seem to make assumptions that aren’t charitable and come off as overly defense. It doesn’t matter “why”, His point still stands.
    - kragen 5y ago
      What do you think I'm defending? Rwanda? Radio? Guatemala? Hitler? I'm not defending any of those. I'm not even defending the book, which I haven't read. I'm attacking baseless whataboutism that seems, on the face of it, and possibly incorrectly, to express an "all look same" attitude about Africa, treating its enormous diversity of peoples with histories going back millions of years as if they were a single village. (Though, as I said, there's a lot of Bantu languages spoken in Southern Africa; it's not totally unconnected from Rwanda. But then both Guatemala and a substantial part of Confederacy territory used to be part of México.) I'd welcome either alternative explanations or a mea culpa. (I'm guessing verytrivial has gone to bed, though; I think they posted that in the wee hours of the morning.)
      - imwillofficial 5y ago
        You want a mea culpa for a reference somebody made of two “not totally unconnected things?” Are you serious?
  - verytrivial 5y ago
    I am aware of these differences. I was referring to at least two documentaries I've seen on Rwanda where the makers said radio was used by the people in power to foment discord in 1994. It was the only media that was basically universally accessible to the population. That seemed relevant. Both these documentaries made a point of this dynamic. I will assume you've seen similar evidence but disagree with the relevance and not that you are in fact ignorant, which seems to be all you will assume of me.