88%

Virgil Hawkins does a good job pointing out the pretty obvious and pure discrepancy in between media coverage and death tolls per region, highliting the fact that African conflicts are responsible for 88% of deaths from all world conflicts. Neither the New York Times, nor Le Monde, nor BBC, nor CNN seem to care in a way that is proportionate, as African coverage represents less then 10% of the content published. With proportion comes purpose and perception, as one tries to avoid anything but the most rigorous interpretation of why fashion remains a matter of political life or death:

“The death toll from conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is literally one thousand times greater than that in Israel-Palestine, yet it is the latter that is the object of far greater media coverage … [and where] the intricacies and nuances of the conflict, political situation and peace process are almost obsessively analyzed and presented.… [African] conflicts are frequently brushed off and dismissed as being chaotic, or worthy of some vague pity or humanitarian concern, but rarely of any in-depth political analysis.” (Hawkins)

While a global consensus continues to state, rather ironically, that the biggest problem in Africa remains “education,” and though war has been around for a very long time in Africa, optimism lives in the increasing reach of the internet to communicate powerful messages freely and distill complex histories in visualizations that just make learning more fun and easy (Council on Foreign Relations).