Tuesday Congress

Today started off much cooler and over-cast after last night’s spectacular sunset. Day two of the Congress was very full with a number of films and speakers. The first session was on gender justice with Joanne Sandler giving a great discussion on media and gender justice. Pretty hard for women to get a fair shake in the media, when over 80% of reporters and commentators are men. She had a whole series of clips from TV about Hilary Clinton, and how she was portrayed in the media. She also had a collage of print images of Hilary that made her look anything from stupid to viscous. I’m not a Hilary fan, but when a TV commentator says he automatically crosses his legs when he sees her on TV, (and that’s one of the milder segments) it’s a bit over the top. Thank you Fox.

The second session was a film and discussion, based on the film “Shock Waves.” It profiled the work of Radio Okapi in Democratic Republic of Congo that was challenging the actions of the government and uncontrolled militia that were barricading traffic on the Congo river and extorting money from the locals for traveling along the river. The use of advocacy journalism combined with broadcast media put pressure on the government and military, but also helped mobilize the people into effective resistance; at huge risks to radio-jouranlists. The film was really well done, won numerous awards and was produced with support from the CBC and TeleFilm Canada; something we Canadians can be proud of!

The other film was supposed to be followed by a discussion, but that didn’t really happen because the film literally left most of the audience speechless. “Sometimes in April” chronicled the Rwandan genocide through a fictional family, from the ethnic tension created when the Belgians colonists left, through the rising hatred and mistrust to the eventual massacre of close to 100,000 people. Many parts of the film were taken from authentic sources, but woven together into a narrative. Julienne M. who works at WACC and is from Rwanda, introduced the film and told a bit of her own story of escape and loss of many friends and members of her family.