Here’s the quotation from Erik, and the link to the interview:

“They caught on to the idea immediately, and were really helpful and full of ideas from the beginning. We also wanted to cooperate with some of SAIH’s partners on this, so we got in contact with Edmund Mhlongo at K-Cap (or Ekhaya Multi Arts Centre) and asked if they would be interested to play a part by linking us up with actors. And they were! They have really done a great job, and I think part of the reason for why the video is doing so well is the positive energy that comes from all the actors in the video.”

http://africasacountry.com/2012/11/26/africa-for-norway-the-interview/

As I tried to express in the blog, my concern is that while the group makes the claim that they are seeking (in part) to address the negative consequences of Western interventions in Africa, the kinds of issues I identify in the list are NOT identified by the group either in the video, the website for the video, or the website for their organization (as best as I can determine using Google translation). Certainly, the video and its website do not provide the audience with information regarding these causes and conditions for poverty. Their work is very clearly geared toward aid to education in certain African countries, which does not specifically address unfair trade policies, debt, European subsidies to agriculture, etc. Indeed, I do not list education as one of the causes of poverty in my list, as you suggest. Rather, I would argue that absent or ineffective education is a symptom of poverty rather than a cause, and historically education has been one of the Western interventions that has had negative consequences.

I understand that they are trying to highlight European stereotypes of Africa, and I have published a number of articles on this very subject. Indeed, I begin the blog with an example of the prevalence of degrading stereotypes of “Africa” in mainstream canadian pop culture. For the satire to work though, and to show that Africa is diverse, then they wouldn’t reproduce the homogenizing idea of Africa in the song. If they are inverting European representations, than shouldn’t Europebe homogenized (the example of Norway coming to stand in as all of Europe, as famine in one region of Ethiopia became all of Africa in the band aid single; the website identifies that they are spoofing that song and video), and shouldn’t the song come from a specific context, like a particular country? If Africans made such a song, it would be from a local context, just as it is for SAIH. So, ultimately, the image of Africans in the video is not dissimilar to other development ads that homogenize Africa, like the poster I critique in the blog.

Check out Binyavanga Wainaina’s essay “How to Write About Africa” http://www.granta.com/Archive/92/How-to-Write-about-Africa/Page-1 Chimamada Adichie’s lecture, “The Danger of a Single Story” is also great. Each provide a satire/critique of Western representations of Africa that I find much more effective.

Finally, if you have evidence that this video was a collaboration between Norwegian and African students (were the African students in a country, a community, perhaps one that SAIH works in?) then please let me know. According to the website for the video, the lyrics were written by a white Norwegian country band, Bretton Woods, and there is no indication that there was a collaboration; for instance, no group in Zimbabwe or South Africa is mentioned as a collaborator on the website. The only credits go to Norwegian development organizations and to a South African, who wrote the music to the song (but not the lyrics). Unfortunately, I could only engage with what the organization has presented publicly, and in part that is my aim – to critique what the video and website do, rather than the intentions of the organization.

Thanks

To object to the very name “Africa for Norway” is ludicrous! That’s part of their point, they’re trying to highlight that Africa is much more diverse than usually portrayed in media and aid campaigns. I guess you’re just too far away to get enough information and context.