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Egypt

ARABICA - A Daily Shot Of What the Arab World is Saying/Hearing/Sharing

ARABICA - A Daily Shot Of What the Arab World is Saying/Hearing/Sharing

A R A B I C A ارابيكا

By Kristen Gillespie


WE ARE ALL...
Two police officers were convicted of torturing and killing the young Egyptian activist Khalid Said, 28, who was arrested while at an Internet café in Alexandria last July. Pictures of Said's tortured body post-mortem circulated on the web and inspired Wael Ghonim, who later said he saw himself in Said, to start the "We are all Khalid Said" Facebook group that ultimately served as a precursor to the January 25th revolution. The egregious killing of Said, and the government's version of events, which held that Said choked on a bag of marijuana, was the final straw for many young Egyptians.

After the verdict was read, relatives of the convicted police officers reacted with "anger and resentment," CNN Arabic reported, "which led to a verbal argument between the officers' relatives and those of Khalid Said." Armored vehicle and a contingent of soldiers quickly arrived at the scene. The officers were convicted of "arresting a person without reason," the "use of cruelty" and "physical torture."

ASSAD AND ARAB LEAGUE
BBC Arabic was reporting simultaneously: "Syria: Assad meets with Arab League delegation, 9 soldiers reportedly killed in clashes." The League's Ministerial Committee, comprised of foreign ministers from Qatar, Egypt, Oman, Sudan and Algeria met with President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. The opposition is being excluded from the talks, which opposition leader Hassan Abdul Azim told the BBC is "unacceptable."

GENERAL STRIKES
The Syrian Revolution Facebook group declared the "Wednesday of General Strikes, for your Houran province where protest epicenter Daraa is located." The group is urging Syrians to strike across the country, and reports a series of strikes in the Damascus suburb of Douma. Here, a small evening demonstration attended only by women. In Deir a-Zor, young men walk through the streets chanting, "Freedom, freedom – whether you like it or not, Bashar."

STOLEN H2O
Jordanian news website Khaberni.com reports that 70 million cubic meters of water are stolen every year by farmers in tribal areas who illegally drill wells. The Ministry of Water announced that the stolen water costs the government nearly $2 billion every year in lost revenue, despite measures requiring a permit before drilling. Jordan is one of the world's 10 most water-deprived countries.

October 27, 2011

photo credit: illustir

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Society

Business, Racism And Censorship: The Saga Of Chinese Influencers In Africa

A ban last June from Beijing of live-streaming from Africa followed a BBC report on a TikToker producing racist videos. Though explicit racism is the exception, a deeper look at Chinese influencers in Africa finds the content shows a general lack of interest in the continent and its people. Some of the TikTokers are leaving, either for Southeast Asia or back to China.

Screenshot of the feed of ​Hang's Extraordinary Life's account on Douyin, TikTok's version for the Chinese market

Feed of Hang's Extraordinary Life's account on Douyin, TikTok's version for the Chinese market

Douyin screenshot
The Initium

BEIJING — Last June, BBC News' Africa Eye aired a documentary called Racism for Sale that included a Chinese TikToker nicknamed "Luke" who filmed children in Malawi chanting racist slogans about African people. Luke was subsequently arrested by local police in Malawi.

Though Chinese influencers have been making short videos in Africa for years, the incident brought unprecedented attention in China to the world of online content about Africa. Statements were released by the Director General of the African Department of the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the Malawian Embassy stating that there would be zero tolerance for racist content, with Beijing officials placing new restrictions on the kind of content platforms can publish, in order to avoid similar offensive and embarrassing incidents.

The explicit racism in the Luke video, it turns out, is largely the exception in the crowded space of Chinese internet content coming out of Africa. The life presented on TikTok is instead largely about the Chinese people who live in Africa, including businessmen who run hotels, mines, factories and farms, as well as employees of state-owned Chinese enterprises working on local infrastructure projects in Africa. The content of the videos typically chronicles their daily lives, and has become widely popular, and in the past was quite lucrative.

"When times were good, I had no problem making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month," says one Africa-based Chinese content producer. The income has dropped notably, report most TikTokers, but the videos coming from Africa remain popular in China. A survey of the content shows that there are hardly any overtly racist videos. Instead, there is a clearly shallow understanding of — and general lack of interest in — African culture.

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