From A Passage to Africa
George Alagiah writes about his experiences as
a television reporter duri ng the war in Somalia,
Africa in the 1990s. He won a special award for
his report on the incidents described in this
passage.
I saw a thousand hungry, lean, scared and betrayed
faces as I criss-crossed Somalia between the end of
1991 and December 1992, but there is one I will
never forget.
I was in a little hamlet just outside Gufgaduud, a
village in the back of beyond, a place the aid
agencies had yet to reach. In my notebook I had
jotted down instructions on how to get there. ‘Take
the Badale Road for a few kilometres till the end of
the tarmac, turn right on to a dirt track, stay on it for
about forty-five minutes - Gufgaduud. Go another
fifteen minutes approx. - like a ghost village.’ …
In the ghoulish manner of journalists on the hunt for
the most striking pictures, my cameraman … and I
tramped from one hut to another. What might have
appalled us when we'd started our trip just a few
days before no longer impressed us much. The
search for the shocking is like the craving for a drug:
you require heavier and more frequent doses the
longer you're at it. Pictures that stun the editors one
day are written off as the same old stuff the next.
This sounds callous, but it is just a fact of life. It's
how we collect and compile the images that so move
people in the comfort of their sitting rooms back
home.
There was Amina Abdirahman, who had gone out
that morning in search of wild, edible roots, leaving
her two young girls lying on the dirt floor of their hut.
They had been sick for days, and were reaching the
final, enervating stages of terminal hunger. Habiba
was ten years old and her sister, Ayaan, was nine.
By the time Amina returned, she had only one
daughter. Habiba had died. No rage, no whimperi ng,
just a passing away — that simple, frictionless,
motionless deliverance from a state of half-life to
death itself. It was, as I said at the time in my
dispatch, a vision of ‘famine away from the
headlines, a fami ne of quiet suffering and lonely
death’.
There was the old woman who lay in her hut,
abandoned by relations who were too weak to carry
her on their journey to find f ood. It was the smell that
drew me to her doorway: the smell of decaying flesh.
Where her shinbone should have been there was a
Comment [p1]: I is used to make it seem personal and intimate,
autobiographical. Note it is foregrounded to stress the importance of the the
personal
right from the start
Comment [p2]: The triad is used here to emphasize the sense of them being
isolated, forgotten and abandoned.
Comment [p3]: The ‘but’ emphasizes that it is an important journey, not just
an ordinary one. Structurally, with this coming at the end of the paragraph, this
also intrigues the reader as we are left wondering what the journey was and
what was so significant about it.
Comment [p4]: It is a life changing journey, important experience, it stands
out.
Comment [p5]: This evokes pathos as it emphasizes the abandonment and
the fact that these people are alone, left behind by the rest of the world.
Comment [p6]: Again, evokes pathos as it accentuates how abandoned the
people are. The word “ghost” helps paints a picture of how they have been
abandoned or forgotten by the rest of the world. It may also reflect their state of
near
-
death or the half
-
life that they have been living
Comment [p7]: The word “ghoulish” signifies how they are feeding off
despair in an almost repulsive manner (ghouls eat dead human flesh) and how
the journalists are trying to find the most interesting story and being completely
apathetic to the situation and the people (subjects).
Comment [p8]: Makes it seem as though the reporters and news telecast
agencies are predators and are out to “hunt” for prey which are the subjects of
the telecast.
Comment [p9]: Again, emphasizes how the news telecast team are unmoved
by their subjects. The word “tramped” makes it seem harsh and makes the
manner that they carry out their work seem heartless and unsympathetic.
Comment [p10]: Shows how the news industry are just trying to get the
most “Striking pictures” and trying to make people at home feel shocked.
Comment [p11]: Compares it to drugs which shows that the search for a
more shocking picture is almost addictive – something destructive perhaps, or a
need carried out in the heat of the moment without a full realisation of the
consequences … also like drugs perhaps the brief ‘high’ of finding the perfectly
shocking image is quickly replaced by the need to do it again
Comment [p12]: Accentuates how these journalists are heartless and only
care about producing a report.
Comment [p13]: Evokes pathos as the women is out to find “edible roots”
which isn’t even proper food and it is their only source of food. There is
something bestial / desperate about this
Comment [p14]: Again the conditions that they are in further evokes
sympathy from the readers.
Comment [p15]: Evokes pathos as it shows that suffering as been prolonged
for a long time, it is continuous.
Comment [p16]: Evokes pathos because “terminal” suggests helplessness.
Comment [p17]: This intensifies the pathos as the death of her daughter is
described very calmly and without drama which shows that losing a life is so
common and so normal that people don’t cry or mourn about it.
Comment [p18]: The word just emphasizes how the “passing away” is so
common in this part of the world that it’s no longer a dramatic event.
Comment [p19]: “Half-life” shows that the conditions these people are living
in before death is extremely horrible that it is not considered to be "life".
Comment [p20]: This again evokes pathos as a suffering and lonely death is a
cruel and painful way to pass on.
Comment [p21]: Vivid imagery is created here to further evoke pathos.
