Douala, Cameroon Being in central, west Africa for the latest edition of the Organizers’ Forum and, even more excitingly, the first-ever meeting of all ACORN-affiliated organizers in Africa, my eyes immediately caught a piece in the on-line Times touting that “Inspired by the US, West Africans Wield Smartphone to Fight Police Abuse.” For several reasons I thought, well that’s something.
But having just arrived in Douala, Cameroon after a grueling 3-stop flight across the time zones, my real reaction was to reflect on the amazing courage taking videos of the police would require. We had just gone through an episode which could only be described as hapless and almost touristic in our joy to hit the green fields around the airport. My son, Chaco, had taken several pictures of the airport and its surroundings with his phone in celebration. Six of us were together as we left the airport including Toney Orr from Local 100 in Arkansas, Eloise Mallet from Re-Act in Grenoble, and the two local Cameroon organizers along with Chaco and myself.
We were hauling our bags around the long field to a cheaper spot to take a cab into town. I was walking ahead with Josef, one of the Cameroonians, when we turned because there was some commotion after we had crossed the street to meet our cabdriver. The police were converging on Toney and Chaco at the curb. One short policeman grabbed Chaco’s phone, and the look on Chaco’s face was nothing but shock and surprise, as he tried to understand the problem. A policewoman was also there, and our people started asking, and arguing, about what the problem might be. Suddenly, we were in the middle of a mess, and couldn’t help much since it was all conducted in French.
The problem simply put is that we were informed that it was illegal to take pictures of the police. Period. Something everyone presumably in Cameroon knew, but as dumbass visitors we were going to learn. Eventually, with a third policeman who was the supervisor, an agreement was concocted that allowed the pictures to be deleted and the phone returned. If this is what happens to folks within meters of the airport, I can’t even imagine the risks that others might take trying to record corruption or police abuse in West African countries.
Despite the fact that this was a story of hope in the Times, a more careful reading was also cautionary as they wrote:
Human rights workers say that the practice of sharing videos in West Africa is a natural extension of longstanding frustrations with abuse of power in the region. But even with today’s ability to capture and broadcast evidence immediately, the videos have not always produced tangible results. Often the clips are hard to verify, and few prosecutions have followed, experts say. Scenes of police officers seeking checkpoint bribes or beating civilians sometimes amount to no more than a handful of Facebook comments expressing indignation.
My first message back to the rest of the participants coming to the meeting in Douala once we were on the internet, was plain and simple: Don’t take any pictures of police!
Our message this week in Cameroon will be to build strong organizations. Smartphones and Facebook are not going to be enough.
Douala, Cameroon Crossing the world to places where you feel lucky to have internet, rather than thinking it’s as common as air, I follow this hacking thing perhaps more than the average bear.
New Orleans This is scary, and not because it’s the devil trying on a pair of angel wings, but because it’s reads like it is smart, comprehensive and effective. I’m talking about the fact that the Koch Brothers are looking past Trump and 2016, win or lose, and going for the long term victories at the grassroots level by implementing a training program to develop activists and, gulp, community organizers. They appear to have picked up our playbook, financed it, and are getting ready to run way past us!
New Orleans I’ve never been a fan of Wells Fargo. We fought them endlessly over predatory lending practices in mortgages and subprime products. They don’t listen, they obfuscate, stonewall, and hide behind layers of lawyers in stubborn refusal even when faced with evidence of clear misdeeds. We were able to fight Citicorp, Bank of America, HSBC, and a ton of subprimes, even Countrywide, and succeed in reforming practices and achieving decent settlements, but Wells Fargo, even when they settled did so narrowly and without conviction. I was clear for ACORN and our members, you just can’t trust a bank like that with your money.
New Orleans Big news! TV and radio are full of 24 hour commentary on Hillary Clinton feeling the heat and now a doctor’s opinion that maybe her cough is pneumonia, rather than a reaction to allergies, as she has said earlier. Some pundits and editorialists are calling for more disclosures of the candidates’ health records, which in both cases have been somewhat sketchy.
New Orleans Two professors reported on the results of a study they made about the choices people made between time and money. They reported that people were happier and more satisfied with their lives when they chose to value time over money. They led into the piece by mentioning that one of the economists – a man – faced the choice analytically over spending time over a weekend with a new baby. He was offered a reasonably lucrative opportunity to conduct two days’ worth of workshops across the country which would have helped pay for the cost of daycare and other associated expenses of a new child, or he could have chosen to spent the time at home with the child. We were sort of left hanging on this one, but given their survey result and his argument, he clearly chose time over money.
