“Habit weakens everything, so what best reminds us of a person is precisely what we had forgotten. That is why the better part of our memories exist outside us, in a blatter of rain, in the smell of an unaired room.” - Marcel Proust

Elite Cleaners in Minneapolis helped over 2,000 unemployed workers that couldn’t afford dry cleaning. Owner Don Chapman estimated that it cost his company $32,000 dollars.
Source: Buzzfeed.com

Okay, so I know we’re all products of media hyperbole in both conscious and subconscious ways. But still, I was shocked to find Zimbabwe ranked 5th in this year’s Foreign Policy Magazine Failed State Index. That’s 5th as in fifth most failed. Fifth worst off. Sure, we’ve got our problems. Things aren’t perfect. There’s a lot of room for improvement. But fifth worst in the World?!

Countries ranked worse than Zimbabwe for 2011 are Somalia, DRC, Sudan and Chad. Granted, I’m also a product of this media hyperbole, but do you really mean to tell me that things were better in Libya (50) and Syria (23) than they were in Zimbabwe?

Maybe we need a better index, a less blunt way of measuring these things. The Postcards From Hell feature that goes with the index shares representative photographs from “the world’s most fragile countries.” There’s the bloody bodies of a suicide attack in Kabul, a bloodied political protestor in DRC, and a bombed out vehicle in Sudan. It’s telling that the worst image they could find for Zimbabwe was a torn election poster. Seeing as how the last election was in 2008, it’s no wonder the poster was torn.

Things aren’t great here – and with an election or constitutional referendum on the way, they’re sure to get worse. But that’s exactly the point. What disservice is done by crying wolf about Zimbabwe now? If you’re already ranked 5th worst there’s not a lot of room to demonstrate if things really do get worse.

Kubatana got support for our Freedom Fone project from the Knight News Challenge back in 2008. Today we’re excited to let you know who this year’s competition winners are. You can check out the six groovy media projects here.

Banner at the World Refugee Day commemorations in South Africa.
Photo credit: PASSOP

“Every story, every incident, every bit of conversation is raw material for me.” – Sylvia Plath