Interview with VOA’s Shaka Ssali on Problem of Child Soldiers, Parts 7-8

Part 7: Shaka Ssali – the importance of education click here
Narrator:

Dr. Shaka Ssali

Former child soldiers require above all the opportunity for education. Shaka Ssali is living proof of the transformational power of knowledge. Through education, Ssali has himself become a positive role model for others. Born in Uganda, Ssali was enlisted in the army when he 16 years old as a cadet officer. After almost five years he had risen to the rank of lieutenant. But even as a young child, he says, he had a burning desire for knowledge.
Shaka Ssali:
I was a news hound, and from the time I was a kid interacting with the cinema I developed an interest in reading magazines. I would about humor, you know, about Vietnam, and that kind of stuff.
Narrator:
The 1960s in Africa were times of political and social change. Through magazines, Ssali was able to become an observer of this change and develop understanding. He learned about events and issues such as apartheid in South Africa and the role of Nelson Mandela, the revolution in Rhodesia and Ian Smith, and the other key players and struggles of the time.
Shaka Ssali:
I sort of looked at them as if in fact they were like a bible. One of them was called Africa magazine; another was called Drum magazine. Drum was published out of Soetto in South Africa, and Africa magazine was published out of London. I would do anything in the world to make sure I had unfettered access to a copy. To know what was going on. Through that, my mind was able to be carried you know, throughout the continent basically. And in the process, I started developing an interest in some day becoming a journalist. I loved the idea of having a byline, by so and so…
Narrator:
After his time in the Ugandan Army, Ssali came to the United States in 1976, where he sought and received political asylum. He attended the State University of New York to pursue his studies.
Shaka Ssali:
Eventually, when I come to the United States, I have made up my mind. I really want to be a journalist. So I go to the State University of New York. They didn't have a journalism major, but they had a communications and rhetoric major. Then I start studying about Africa. I developed a passion for Africa.
Narrator:
During his journalism studies, Ssali authored stories in a student magazine containing harsh criticism for the African leaders of time – such as Uganda's Idi Amin, Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta and Mobutu of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Shaka Ssali:
So I found myself somehow associating myself with those forces frankly that were promoting change. And in the process, I realize that each time I wrote an article, I got very, very positive feedback from a lot of people, and that encouraged me enormously.

Narrator:
After a disappointing experience as an intern at Newsday in New York, Ssali went back to school, this time in Los Angeles at the University of California, or UCLA.
Shaka Ssali:
For me I was very ambitious in the sense that I looked at myself someday as someone that would be like a research reporter on Africa, analyzing Africa. I sort of reasoned that if I went to graduate school, picked up higher degrees and what have you, developed my writing skills, that New York Times or Time magazine would find me irresistible. I went into some classes of history and philosophy and I became extremely bored. So I went to go check out some of the courses in the film school. And they had some of the courses which they called non-Western films. And I started attending those courses because I thought that coming from where I do, you have very high rates of illiteracy. And therefore, the best really medium of communication for my people, I reasoned, would be using the moving picture. So I felt that yeah, this was going to be a great opportunity for me. I was going to do documentary film making, to empower those people that can neither write nor read – that's how I looked at it.
Part 8: Shaka Ssali – thanks and contribution
Narrator:
Today, Ssali is a popular radio talk show host with Voice of America. His programs have loyal followings across Africa, Europe and the United States.
Shaka Ssali:
I have two programs that I host. One is called Straight Talk Africa, a weekly, live, international call-in talk show. It is a program that is really designed to empower the audience. It empowers the audience in the sense that the audience has the opportunity to call in, give their telephone number, especially from Africa where they do not have the collect facility, then the operator calls them back and they ask a question, they ask it live. That is one of the real opportunities for example that, even in Tanzania, one can actually call into the show and get the opportunity to interact with his President, something that is very rare. It is also live and therefore most of the interaction really is something close to being authentic, you know, it's not predetermined and what have you, and so it really makes a lot of difference, especially with the latest technological developments of the cell phone. You can literally go anywhere, in the villages, you know.
Narrator:
Ssali's contribution to understanding, by telling his own story through his writing and radio shows have given him a special place in many African communities. He himself tells us that the children in Africa, where he came from, have the potential to make great contributions themselves. He told us how he sees that potential through an example.  
Shaka Ssali:
And then I was in Kenya, I went to visit former Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi. And he's a guy who used to tell me that – whenever I would ask him what is the single most important decision that you have made during your presidency, you know things like that, he would tell me education, education. How he has built many schools, he has contributed land for people to build schools in their communities, and so I took him on. I said: you know you used to tell me, Mr. President that you were the education president. I want to get the opportunity now to see some of those schools that you built. We went around – we went to one of his, a secondary school near the place where he was born – one of the remotest parts of Kenya. And I was talking to these kids, and it became immediately clear to me that a lot of these kids could one day actually go to places like MIT, CalTech. It was amazing to find that they were so familiar with my work. And I said “how?” They said: we listen to you on the radio. We never miss your program. Why? They said, well because of the things you do, you're like a teacher, it's like you're teaching us about Africa. And it's amazing, they would say, that you've stayed in the states for many years but you have never lost your accent, your intonation. We identify with you very easily. You never try to become what you are not, you know stuff like that. So, it's amazing what it has really done for me and it's incredible, it's incredible…

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