Passage to Africa

George Alagiah writes about his experiences as a television reporter during the war in Somalia, Africa in the 1990s. He won a special award for his report on the incidents described in this passage.

The primary purpose of George

Alagiah's "A Passage to Africa" is to reflect on and

critique his role as a Western journalist reporting on

human suffering, and ultimately, to challenge the

reader's complacency and encourage them to see the

humanity behind the statistics. It was first published as

a non-fiction book/memoir detailing Alagiah's

experiences as a BBC foreign correspondent in Africa

over many years, including the period of the Somali

famine in the early 1990s.

a thousand hungry, lean, scared and betrayed faces

Alagiah emphasises the

overwhelming scale of the crisis, using images of

thousands of victims to represent the enormity of the

disaster. The list of negative adjectives, especially

"betrayed," suggests the people feel abandoned by the

world. The number "thousand" emphasises the sheer

quantity of suffering, while the later focus on one face

highlights its unforgettable impact. Conversely, Alagiah

implies that witnessing so much suffering usually

normalises the experience and limits his emotional

responsiveness.

but there is one I will never forget.

This clause signals the main focus of

the extract and anticipates the almost direct repetition of

it later on, in the single-sentence paragraph. The

numerical value ‘one’ is contrasted with the ‘thousand

[faces]’, showing the relative importance of that one

face. The reader’s curiosity is piqued, as we are led to

wonder who this person was who had such a

transformative effect on the journalist.

a little hamlet just outside Gufgaduud,

The rest of the paragraph focuses on

the details of the setting, and, especially, the

remoteness of the village. This important because a

journalist’s role is often to uncover experiences that

would otherwise be overlooked.

till the end of the tarmac, turn right on

to a dirt track, stay on it for about forty-five minutes —

The changing state of the road, which

transitions from tarmac to dirt, indicates that this village

is in a state of deprivation and neglect.

like a ghost village.’

Ending the paragraph on this (literally)

haunting simile places the emphasis on the presence of

death and suffering in this village. The reader is

positioned alongside the journalist as he moves towards

this ominously empty and desolate place.

the ghoulish manner of journalists on the hunt

• Alagiah develops a semantic field of death and horror through the use of the adjective “ghoulish’. Here, though, the connotations are more specifically negative or condemnatory, as it suggests a distasteful level of interest in events that involve others’ suffering. A ghoul feeds on the dead, and by applying this to journalists, Alagiah suggests they are preying on the victims' misery for a story. If the journalists are ghouls in this ‘ghost village’, it is the victims who seem to be overlooked.

• This idiomatic phrase has predatory connotations, again implying that the journalists’ endeavour is unsavoury and exploitative.

• 
  

tramped

This verb choice suggests trudging, as

though Alagiah and the journalist are going through the

motions in a detached, almost routine way.

no longer impressed us much. The

search for the shocking is like the craving for a drug:

Commented [10]: The text suggests that the constant

bombardment of terrible images can lead to

desensitisation in both the journalists and the audience.

The fact that some of the people are named

personalises the account and creates a connection

between the writer and the subject. The writer also

supplies Amina’s daughters’ names and ages, which

highlights the shocking fact that young children are

affected by the famine.

Alagiah explores the tension

between a journalist's need to remain professionally

detached and the powerful emotional response of

empathy. The experience forces Alagiah to abandon his

professional shield. Alagiah uses the simile of addiction

to critique the media's hunger for ever-more shocking

footage. This simile suggests that journalists (including

himself) become addicted to finding ever-more shocking

stories, implying that their actions can be exploitative

and morally questionable.

stun the editors one day are written

off as the same old stuff the next. This sounds callous, but it is just a fact of life.

Alagiah juxtaposes the emotive verb

'stun' with the dismissive phrase 'written off as the same

old stuff' to indicate the speed with which emotional

desensitisation occurs, not just for the consumer of

news but for those curating it.

The tone here is detached - Alagiah

currently sees this as an inevitable part of news

reporting, rather than something that he can change.

It's how we collect and compile the images that so move people in the comfort of their sitting rooms back home.

Alaigiah juxtaposes the verbs 'collect'

and 'compile', which suggest a systematic, careful

process, with the verb 'move', which suggests a more

spontaneous or instinctive response. By doing so, he

draws attention to the fact that journalists' processes are

distinctly removed from the emotional reactions that they

seek to elicit.

This rather cosy image subtly implies

the complacency of the reading or viewing public, who

do not think about the possibility that the media they

consume might exploit or capitalise on others' suffering.

in search of wild, edible roots, leaving her two young girls lying on the dirt floor of their hut.

The fact that Amina is searching for

‘wild, edible roots’ draws attention to the lack of food

and the description of the ‘dirt floor of their hut’ shows

the family’s poverty.

By the time Amina returned, she had only one daughter. Habiba had died. No rage, no whimpering,

The sentence starts with an

adverbial of time, emphasising how quickly Amina's

life has changed: she has gone from having two

daughters to having just one in the space time it took

her to go and search for food.

The use of short, blunt phrases and

the anaphora emphasise the silent, pervasive nature of

the suffering and the lack of energy left for typical

human reactions.

Habiba had died

The text confronts the commonplace

nature of death in the famine, highlighted by the quick,

blunt three-word sentence used to report the death of a

young girl. This convey how this event was

commonplace and seems to imply a lack of sensitivity.

the smell of decaying flesh. Where her shinbone should have been there was a festering wound the size of my hand

collection of experiences we call context.

It was rotting; she was rotting.

[24]: The parallel structure emphasises

the transition from the 'rotting' leg to the old woman as

an entire 'rotting' being, a shift in focus signalled by the

shift in pronouns. Alagiah switches from describing the

woman's wound in some detail to perceiving as her as a

whole, suffering person, a shift that sets up the big

readjustment of his perspective that occurs in the next

line.

see it in her sick, yellow eyes and smell it in the putrid air she recycled

Alagiah uses visual and olfactory

imagery to evoke the atmosphere of decay and

suffering in a visceral way.

And then there was the face I will never forget.

This single-sentence paragraph acts

as a narrative hook, building suspense.

My reaction to everyone else I met that day was a mixture of pity and revulsion. Yes, revulsion

The diacope and the use of a minor

sentence indicate Alagiah's anticipation that the reader

would feel disbelief and shock about his feelings of

disgust when witnessing disease and death on this

scale. These devices also indicate a shift in the degree

of honesty with which Alagiah is expressing his

personal responses. The reader is now able to observe

something more complicated and troubling than more journalistic detachment

Note that visceral images of bodily fluids and rotting bodies would not necessarily

be shown in all their horror on the evening news because of the concern of offending

viewers' sensibilities - Alagiah offers a new windown on the appalling realities of the

scenes he has witnessed.

sucked of its natural vitality by the twin evils of hunger and disease,

Hunger and disease are given life

and agency of their own, almost personified as two

parasitic beings preying on the body.

a disgusting thing. We never say so in our TV reports. It’s a taboo that has yet to be breached.

Alagiah uses two short sentences to

acknowledge that he has just addressed something

usually unsaid: the repulsive nature nature of human

decline. The reference to how unprecedented this

remark is (such feelings are 'never' referenced on TV,

as this is an enduring 'taboo') signals the fact that, in his

book, Alagiah is covering new emotional ground.

to hear and smell the excretion of fluids by people who are beyond controlling their bodily functions

Again, Alagiah compels the reader to

imagine the horrors of such a scene on a visceral

sensory level.

To be in a feeding centre is surreptitiously to wipe your hands

This subtle gesture indicates the

reporter's awareness of their own personal hygiene

needs in the midst of far greater and more dramatic

suffering. The adverb 'surreptitiously' indicates Alagiah's

understanding that such a preoccupation is

inappropriate. The feeling of guilt or embarrassment,

here, adds a greater sense that the reporter's role is

becoming complicated: he cannot ever be a pure

observer, since he is implicated in the scenes he

witnesses.

The journalist goes from being, figuratively

speaking, a pair of observing eyes to a full human

body experiencing the scene with his other senses

(smell, touch, sound) as an individual, as opposed to a

representative of the media. This shift is part of the text's

structural transition towards Alagiah's eventual realisation.

An old woman will cover her shrivelled body with a

soiled cloth as your gaze turns towards her.

Note how the victims strive to retain

their self-respect even when stripped of everything.

as if he means to go out and till the soil once all this is over.

There is a sense of pathos in this

image of personal dignity. Following on from the

woman's attempt to retain her modesty, Alagiah

highlight's the old man's pride in his work and his desire

to continue doing it. This is made all the more poignant

by our awareness that 'once all this is over' (a wryly

minimising and casual phrase), the man will be dead.

fleeting meeting

The use of two rhyming words one

after the other emphasises the sense of

unexpected connection that the reporter experiences.

it was not a smile of greeting, it was not a smile of joy

This mode of reference

dehumanises the smiling man, as his distinctiveness is

a direct product of his smile.

but it was a smile nonetheless

The man's "smile" is initially

confusing, as a smile is a positive gesture. Alagiah later

realises the smile was one of embarrassment at being

"found wanting" and stripped of dignity. This moment is

the turning point of the text. The juxtaposition of the

man's physical weakness and his mental

strength/dignity forces Alagiah to re-evaluate his own

position, as he is standing there "so strong and so

confident."

It touched me in a way I could not explain. It moved me in a way that went beyond pity or revulsion.

[36]: The bicolon emphasises how

Alagiah attempted to make sense of the smile in this

context, but could not, adding to the reader's feeling of

curiosity.

Again, Alagiah uses bicolon to

explore the complexity of the situation and of his

response to the smile. The verbs 'touched' and 'moved'

indicate another shift. Previously, at the end of the first

paragraph, the recipients of the news stories back at

home feel 'move[d]' by them, but here, the journalist

himself goes beyond his position of relatively detached

observation and forms his own emotional response. The

phrase 'in a way' forms part of Alagiah's attempt to find

the right word to articulate what he 'could not explain'.

What was it about that smile?

Alagiah is a seemingly hardened

journalist, describing horrors and critiquing the media's

"craving for a drug." The encounter with the man who

smiles, marked by the rhetorical question "What was it

about that smile?," signifies a major shift. The piece

moves from external observation to internal questioning.

And then it clicked. That's what the

smile had been about.

These two short, monosyllabic

sentences, the first one beginning with a conjunction,

signal a moment of rapid realisation.

Normally inured

to stories of suffering…accustomed

Alagiah structures the piece to take

the reader on a journey from professional detachment

to profound personal reflection. The text uses the first-

person perspective ("I" and "we").This makes the

account highly personal and reflective, lending it

authority and sincerity. He shifts from an early, slightly

detached journalistic tone to one of deep introspection

and guilt, making the piece feel like a confession or a

profound lesson learned.

The routine nature of the verbs

'inured' and 'accustomed' contrast with the description

of 'suffering' and 'deprivation'. These first two clauses

built up to the writer's different and unusual experience

of feeling 'unsettled' by a 'smile'. It is is counterintuitive

for Alagiah to feel used to misery but somewhat

disturbed by a facial expression typically associated

with good humour or happiness (even if it signals

embarrassment, here).

the journalist observes, the subject is observed. The journalist is active, the subject is passive.

These two sentences set up simple

binary oppositions across parallel structures ('observes'

versus 'observed'; 'active' versus 'passive'). Alagiah

outlines the usually straightforward delineation between

the journalist's and the subject's roles, only to upend

this in the next sentence, which begins emphatically

with the conjunction '[b]ut'.

turned the tables

Alagiah uses this idiom of a radical

reversal alongside another, similarly dramatic one (of a

question that 'cut to to the heart' of the differences he is

noticing) to suggest how profound this moment of

realisation was.

between me and

him, between us and them, between the rich world and the poor world.

[45]: Alagiah uses an ascending

asyndetic tricolon to indicate how swiftly this man's

smile forced him to interrogate the most fundamental

elements of this gap between rich and poor. Note how

each pair in this list gets larger in scale, going from the

immediate relationship between Alagiah and the smiling

man to the wider cultural gap between those suffering

and those observing, to the whole of the 'rich world'

versus 'the poor world'. The use of this tricolon indicates

the dramatic impact of the encounter on Alagiah, and

how it forced him to draw connections between his

immediate experience and much wider questions of

inequality.

If he was

embarrassed to be found weakened by hunger and ground down by conflict, how

should I feel to be standing there so strong and confident?

The man's smile demonstrates an

internal strength that contrasts sharply with the

journalist's physical strength, forcing Alagiah to question

who is truly "strong" and "confident." The multiple

questions ("how should I feel...?") show Alagiah

wrestling with his guilt and moral dilemma, forcing the

reader to question their own role as a consumer of this

news.

power and purpose

The forceful plosive alliteration

suggests a sense of determination and resolve.

I have one regret about that brief encounter in Gufgaduud. Having searched through my

notes and studied the dispatch that the BBC broadcast, I see that I never found out

what the man's name was.

Alagiah feels profound guilt over his

role, taking pictures while being unable to help, and

then benefitting from the suffering. His final regret at not

knowing the man's name underscores his desire to see

victims as individuals rather than objects for a news

story.

the gradual collection of experiences we call context.

Structurally, this echoes the end of

the first paragraph, when Alagiah refers to journalism as

a process where reporters 'collect and compile' images

that 'move' news consumers back at home. Here,

though, there is a difference: Alagiah no longer refers to

mere images and instead explores the 'collection of

experiences we call context', a more abstract and subtle

idea. This semantic shift suggests that a transition away

from visual sensationalism and towards a more

profound and complex reckoning with the the ethics of

journalism. This is reiterated in the contrast between

'easy' and 'harder' in the subsequent sentences, as well

as in the juxtaposition of '[f]acts and figures' with the

breadth and complexity of 'the great scheme of things'.

collection of experiences we call context.

The conclusion is informal and

unconventional for a journalistic piece. The informal,

colloquial phrasing ("I owe you one") reinforces the

profound personal connection he felt with the man,

treating him as an equal and a "friend" rather than just a

subject. The oxymoron of "nameless friend" perfectly

encapsulates the irony of his situation: the man

remained anonymous to the world but had the biggest

personal impact on the writer.