Who Guards the Guardians?

“Emergency, which service?”

“The World.”

“The World, sir?”

“Precisely. The World must act to stop the collapse of Somalia.”

“Is that Mr Vava Tampa?”

“That’s right. This is an emergency.”

“Sir, you have been calling emergency services a lot. Recently you requested assistance from Africa.”

“If my memory serves me correctly, I said that Africa needs to rein in Tanzania’s anti-vaxxer president. But that’s old news, he’s dead now.”

“You want ‘Africa’ to do that? The WHO assured Mr Magufuli that no Covid outbreak in East Africa justifies a lockdown. Look at the mess in Kenya and Uganda, with their ‘emergency’ powers and indefinite curfews.”

“Africa must intervene. Magufuli is not the only leader who is off message on Covid.”

“Africa must oppose the WHO? My mistake, I thought the WHO and Africa were working together on this. Oh well, perhaps Africa can turn their attention to Sweden, now. Before that you asked for the global community to intervene in the DRC?”

“I did, that’s my country.”

“You also criticized Barak Obama for not delivering for Africa in 2020, having called for him to assist in 2014?”

“Yes! He’s a son of Africa and he turned his back on us!”

“So, you now want Joe Biden to sort everything in Africa out?”

“Well someone has to.”

“Perhaps I was off the day you called on Donald Trump to help. Shouldn’t Joe check with ‘the global community’, or with ‘Africa’, before sorting everything out? They’ll all work together, right?”

“I don’t think it’s your place to question headlines that appear in a renowned liberal media outlet.”

“You’re right. Just to check, did France stop supporting Paul Biya?”

“Is Africa on its way or not? I mean The World.”

“Can you confirm that you are based in the UK?”

“What’s that got to do with it? I’m an Africanist, activist, anti-imperialist, globalist, liberal…eh…journalist!”

“We had a call from Belgium recently, someone claiming to be the rightful president of Tanzania. He seemed to think we could put him through to the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam.”

“He got more than 10% of the vote. If it hadn’t been for those nationalists, with their slogans about Tanzanians deciding who to elect as president, he might have got 15%.”

“Please toe the line, sir.”

“Besides, Europeans are not able to travel anywhere at the moment. That’s because they CARE!”

“I’ve been reading some of your articles since you started making calls to Emergency Services. You once wrote: ‘Black people are overmedicated, pathologized and overpoliced. The profession needs to work to dismantle racist power structures.’ ‘The profession’ being social workers.”

“And?”

“Would these power structures include the US, the UK, some parts of ‘The World’, perhaps even certain African countries? In fact, the UN, IMF, World Bank, global media, multinationals and other groups could also be dubbed ‘power structures’.”

“This is an emergency. How dare you question my credentials! I’d like to speak to your manager, please.”

“Your Twitter account says you’d like ‘@POTUS to back an International Criminal Tribunal to end violence/famine/impunity in #DRC. Where do you think imperialist oppression comes from?”

“YOUR MANAGER! NOW!”

“You have quite a record of calling on non-African people and institutions to overthrow African ones. Yet, you don’t like being questioned. Is it because I’m a woman?”

“How dare you, I write for The Guardian! No newspaper is more pro-woman than The Guardian. And I’m pro-woman, too, so long as they are not already in the thrall of their oppressors.”

“Maybe it’s because I’m black, or working in a menial position?”

“You sound like you’ve got a chip on your shoulder.”

“Not yet, sir, but there are plans for that.”

“If you came from a country that had been oppressed for centuries you would have more respect for the work I do. Besides, you sound like you’re from Ireland.”

“Give the man a cigar! What do you get for this, a bounty?”

“History will judge you for the time you tried to frustrate the attempts of a true African to find fit leaders for each great African nation.”

“We had another of you journalists on this morning, environmental correspondent. Tried to lurch to the right on a bypass, got stuck on the central reservation. Police blocked the traffic on the other side thinking he wanted to do a U-turn. But no, he wanted to go against the oncoming. Did a lot of damage to the central reservation. Especially considering he wasn’t even driving a car.”

“I’m not going to ask AGAIN…!”

“I may have forgotten to say earlier, calls are recorded for quality and training purposes. With the help of @God you’ll be a great leader, one day. Just putting you through, now.”

“Good morning, Guardian Global Development Desk, how may I help you?”