Excluded Headlines: The untold, excluded context of the Libya floods
Stay up to date on the global news stories the US- and Eurocentric media overlooks, with journalist and author, Tamara Pearson.
Dear readers,
Thank you for sticking with this newsletter for the past year. The aim of Excluded Headlines is to provide you all with Global South news that mainstream global news outlets have downplayed or ignored, but it is also meant as a small act of resistance - a statement of dissent that draws attention to the racist and unequal media coverage of Africa, Latin America, and Asia and the Middle East. In that light, I encourage you to share the newsletter and ask for people to subscribe, so that its impact can be just a bit bigger.
This week, as usual, I’m overwhelmed. Freelance journalists have abysmal working conditions; uncertainty, financial insecurity, extremely low pay, and very long hours. I was going to have to skip this week’s newsletter in order to meet a deadline, but the enormity of what happened in Libya won’t let me. Hence, a shorter newsletter than normal, with some information about the floods that I hope serves you, or your conversations with others.
Libya
What happened: One official figure now puts the death toll at around 20,000. On Sunday, in Derna, Libya, Storm Daniel caused torrential rain and the collapse of two dams, that then swept multi-storey buildings and people sleeping in them out to sea. Derna had a population of 90,000.
What the mainstream media has focused on: Mainstream coverage has focused on what will get clicks: the images of destruction, and emotional moments like the doctor crying during a live interview. When the media has attempted to look at the causes of the flooding and the damage, it has focused on the dams and on vague references to “political instability” and placed the blame on authorities for not evacuating people. Despite the enormity of the tragedy, CNN today, for example, did not feature Libya among its top world stories (see the screen shot below). Instead, it focused on UFOs, Botulism, strange lights in Morocco, and the Putin and Kim meeting.
The important context the mainstream media has left out:
In 1950, oil was found in Libya, and British and US oil companies were the main beneficiaries.
Now, Libya’s oil is technically controlled by its National Oil Company, but it collaborates with a lot of foreign companies, and Italian oil giant ENI alone produces almost a quarter of the oil in Libya. ENI also produces most of the gas in Libya and exports it to Italy. This sort of pillaging leaves Libya with little income.
Italy colonised Libya from 1911 to 1943, and that process included concentration camps and massacres.
In the immediate term, the dams failed due to poorly maintained infrastructure, which the mainstream media is attributing to competing political interests and corruption. While that is true, the real, deeper cause is a lack of financial resources.
As an oil-rich country, Libya should be wealthy, but those profits were not kept in the country. Libya has also faced sanctions.
In 2011, NATO forces intervened in Libya, killing Gaddafi and causing instability and attempting to shift the country over to an economic and political system that backs their oil interests. Over the past 10 years, Libya’s GDP has halved, and there is a humanitarian crisis. It isn’t just the dams that weren’t repaired; there are regular power outs, food is expensive, and banks don’t have money. The pandemic and inflation only worsened that.
The Global North is responsible for 92% of greenhouse gas emissions and for the climate change behind the current flooding in Libya, Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria.
Source, source, source, source, source, source.
Helpful analysis
The urgent global climate revolt we need
How climate colonialism affects the Global South
Libya Flood, A "Natural" Disaster Made Of Climate Change And Colonialism
It’s time for climate justice- A Global South perspective on the fight against the climate crisis
Imperialism in Libya: Implications for the African continent
Climate change is devastating the Global South - It is high time for rich countries in North America and Europe to step up and help.
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