"Don't read the newspapers!" That was one of the many provocative statements made by independent journalist Keith Harmon Snow Saturday night, in a two-hour multi-media presentation arranged by the Refugee Action Project (RAP) as part of their Refugee Awareness Day programming.
A self-described "nomad" journalist, Snow has reported from over two dozen countries in his nearly two decades in the field. He is the recipient of three Project Censored awards for his reportage on Africa as well as a Pushcart prize for his work on Tibet.
RAP runs an after-school tutoring program for middle-school-aged refugees who have resettled in Baltimore.
Some RAP volunteers also mentor high-school-aged refugees in Baltimore.
Snow's talk was billed as "The Refugee Business in Africa's Great Lakes Region and Sudan." While a significant portion was devoted to what he described as the "political economy of Genocide" and the "contestation of official narratives of war crimes," his lecture ranged from corporate influence on the media and politics to encouraging the audience to use the right half of their brains and not the left in seeking to understand their place in the world.
"You might walk out of here hating me, but hopefully that will be short lived," Snow said as he began his lecture.
"What I want to ask is 'what is our spiritual position?' and 'how does it affect our capacity for caring and action [towards others in the world]?"
Snow did not parse his words when it came to his criticism of the New York Times and other mainstream media outlets.
"We consume them like a chocolate bar. The Sunday Times is a ritual, a tool of the ruling apparatus." Snow contended "it's not news folks, it's propaganda with occasional subjective pieces of the truth."
He also cautioned the audience to critically evaluate his statements and analysis.
"Don't trust me more than anyone else," he said.
Regarding the conflicts in the Congo and the Sudan, Snow contended that the United States government has long colluded with American corporations and businesspeople to foment political instability and warfare so as to more fully secure access to valuable raw materials found there.
He charged that the refugees created by these conflicts have become the single biggest business in Africa, with camps, medical and other services costing $450 billion a year.
Under this situation, he contended, the Western funded charities and non-governmental organizations which ostensibly serve these distressed individuals are a mere placebo which do nothing to address the root causes of instability in the region.
"Refugees are a commodity for the NGOs which are in the business of people," Snow said.
Despite the sparse attendance, the talk provoked strong feelings from many of those who did attend. At one point, a member of the audience threw down her note pad in disgust.
Overall the consensus of students who attended was that Snow was overly provocative at the expense of what they understood as facts, particularly in reference to his claims that the United States is providing covert assistance to the forces of now Rwandan president Paul Kagame in perpetrating mass murder there.
"He talked to us like children. I have done extensive reading on the Rwandan Genocide. Essentially he was promoting a revisionist Hutu myth [about the Genocide]," senior Pam Lachman, a political science major, said.
In the question and answer session after his talk, two individuals of Rwandan origin both thanked Snow for his insights into the atrocities that occurred in their homeland in 1994.
One identified himself as Leopold Munyakazi, formerly a professor of French at Goucher College, who was suspended in February after it was disclosed that he had been officially charged with participation in the Genocide by the Rwandan government.
Those charges have been criticized by some as politically motivated. In 2006.
Munyakazi gave a speech which he raised some of the same points raised on Saturday.
Rwandan law stipulates that there is a "Single Truth" to the grotesque events of 1994, namely that it was a genocide carried out by Hutu extremists against Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Another man of Rwandan origin rose and made a statement after the lecture.
He said that he has been in the United States for 21 years but wished to remain anonymous because he currently works for the U.S. government.
"Thank you for raising these issues," the man said, "tonight you confirmed a lot of suspicions we have had for a long time."
