EFFORTPOST African Renaissance Monument Drama

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Renaissance_Monument

Greetings Dramatards!

A lot of Africans who want to show off their spiffing new mega statue to try and have a peepee measuring contest with places like Italy and their Roman Coloseum stuff, often find themselves devolving into internet slapfights regarding corruption. That's because from start to finish, the African Monument was a colossal shitshow.

The statue in question is called the African Renaissance Monument, and you've gotto admit it looks pretty fricking epic.

It was constructed in the Capital Dakar, in the country Senegal. The monument was constructed to celebrate independence from the French, and to celebrate a new age African excellence in the hope that from this point forward that future generations of Africa and Sengalese would carve their own path & shit. This fricker took almost 5 years to build, the foundation got pounded in 2006, and the actual statue's construction began in 2008, only to be finished in 2010.

Unfortunately protests among the inhabitants of Dakar began almost immediately. You see Senegal is brokenshit poor, and the colossal expenses accompanying this mega project was something the denizens of Dakar wasn't too fond about, considering the basic needs of things like water and electricity was still not omnipresent for all civilians. They felt the money could be better spent on other necessities.

https://web.archive.org/web/20131224113712/http://www.polity.org.za/article/senegal-plans-quotafrican-renaissancequot-monument-2008-04-04

It didn't help that the President Abdoulaye Wade, was a very Trump like dude, in that he regularly said batshit african leader things all the time

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8435805.stm

Muslim Imams of Senegal didn't like the idea of a huge statue as they felt it was very idolatrous, while Christians were pissed at prez Wade cuz he compared the Renaisance monument to Jesus Christ, and they also felt like their faith was being made light off. You dramatards have to understand that much of Sub-Saharan Africa is very very religious, and even inane comments would set off major controvesies in religious communities, and prez Wade did not have a lot of Charisma in this regard.

CONSTRUCTION:

The drama started immediately when our favorite Best Koreans were contracted to build the statue. I'm not pooping you guys, North Korea's biggest export was statues and being contracted to build Giant Statues for other nations. I cant read French, but Nigerian colleagues who worked in Senegal told me there were already drama about working with North Korea, as since per usual not all african are commies or fans of commies.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35569277

But especially since a heapload of statues built by North Korea can be found all over africa, and most of them were paid without the input of their local poplulations, and often for those other countries also with accompanying drama that the locals would prefer the extravagant funds to be better spent on local infrastructure. And this new gargantuan 50m statue would be the largest and most extravagant of all statues yet built

https://qz.com/459784/photos-a-brief-tour-of-north-korean-statues-in-africa

UNVEILING & NUDITY:

3 April 2010. The big ceremony was underway. 19 African leaders were invited to the great unveiling. Big gasps of oohs and aaahs were followed by death threats from muslims. Even during the big fanfare lots of Senegal peeps were protesting. And boi was it a shitshow.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8601382.stm

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2010/4/3/senegal-unveils-statue-amid-protest

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8353624.stm

1. Once the statue was unveiled, our boi prez Wade went full diplomacy Skyrim Speech 100 mode, and reportedly claimed that Senegal’s intellectual property laws entitled him to 35% of tourism revenue from the monument. That's right now his administration, but him personally, as in after his term, he would get to pocket 1/3 of the tourism money in perpetuity. The crowd wasn't happy reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

2. Additionally when the mega conservative mostly muslim (92%) population of senegal Dakar residents saw the actual statue, there was less than ecstatic Enthusiasm. The statue depicted a "near-naked" man, aka a dude with no shirt on, and a woman with her booby exposed. It was very Haram

3. From article lol: “We have issued a fatwa [religious ruling] urging Senegal’s imams this Friday to read the holy Quran in the mosques simply to ask Allah to preserve us from the punishment this monument of shame risks bringing on Senegal,” Imam Massamba Diop told followers at his central Dakar mosque. The sculpture of a muscular man pulling a scantily clad woman has also been labelled as sexist and the female’s “naked legs” caused a controversy with the architect offering to remodel the sculpture.

4. When the locals found out that the statue had been build by 50 North Korean dudes, they were even more angery, as that meant none of the expenses were even used to pay local labourers, in a country where employment was scarce.

WHERE MONEY:

From articles :Thousands of people protested against "all the failures of President Wade's regime, the least of which is this horrible statue" on the city's streets beforehand, with riot police deployed to maintain control.[3] Deputy leader of the opposition Ndeye Fatou Toure described the monument as an "economic monster and a financial scandal in the context of the current [economic] crisis".:

The hunk of metal cost 27 million bucks, which is a shit load of money for piss poor Senegal, and their conversion rate was equally atrocios, so their had pretty good cause to b-word. It was very similar to 2014 Brazilian protests, where a very pro soccer country went mad and protested countrywide against the immense expenses of hosting the cup, and building their new staduims , which were also an expense which the relatively not wealthy brazil could not actually afford.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jun/12/anti-world-cup-protests-brazilian-cities-sao-paulo-rio-de-janeiro

Thousands of protestors would march and demand that prez Wade resign, saying that the statue was an expense the country could not afford where 20% of the people of Senegal lived below poverty line, and this is by africa standards, so this was like a starving trailer trash buying expensive wine when they were starving.