ALISSA WISNIEWSKI
City Times
Rwanda. The Democratic Republic of Congo. Uganda. Darfur. The war and suffering that dominates these areas will soon be on display at City College.
Keith Harmon Snow, a photojournalist and war correspondent, has explored these places and will host a presentation highlighting their strife Oct. 18 at 11:30 a.m.
Snow will share his experiences with working in Africa and his views on the portrayal of Africa in Western media. He will analyze the plights of Central Africa and the Horn of Africa by considering the perspectives of the combatants and power parties entangled in the conflicts.
Through “unpacking and deconstructing Western media and Hollywood productions” he will try to reveal how Western media depicts Africa in a way that sustains the “exploitation, suffering and Western corporate plunder” prevalent in the region.
Snow is also an advocate for human rights and a genocide investigator. He spoke at a 2001 congressional hearing in Washington D.C. regarding genocide and U.S. covert operations in Africa after investigating war in Central Africa and the genocide in Rwanda. In this address to Congress, Snow spoke of what he interprets as the degradation of Africa by globalization and, in particular, the “multinational corporations . stripping the resources and leaving pollution, disease, and environmental disasters in their wakes.” Snow explained that he “witnessed profound human suffering amidst huge multinational profits.”
Snow attended the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and has given more than 30 lectures at universities and public forums regarding human rights, neocolonialism, and the political economy of mass media in relation to Africa.
Snow has appeared in numerous publications in the U.S., U.K. and Japan, including “Newsweek” and “Japan International Journal”. He has published three award-winning reports recognized at the 2003 Project Censored Awards.
Since 2004, he has covered the war and Western involvement in the struggles of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
