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Ms. Landmine Angola 2008
WTF?
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Angolan women compete in beauty pageant for prosthesis
Ten Angolan women are competing for pageant's grand prize: a prosthesis
Mary Vallis, National Post
Published: Thursday, November 22, 2007
Ana Diogo stands on a beach lit with the col-ours of sunset in Luanda, the capital of Angola, wearing a simple white dress and bracelets on both wrists.
Her right foot is buried in the warm sand. What is left of her left leg, which she lost in an explosion in 1984 while tending fields, is hidden beneath her knee-length skirt. Leaning on a cane and with her head tilted left, she poses for the camera with a shy smile and a "Miss Landmine" sash.
The beauty pageant is the work of Morten Traavik, a Norwegian theatre and film director who sees it as a way of empowering disabled African women and delivering some much-needed attention to the land mine issue. Ten Angolan women are competing in the pageant for the grand prize: a leg prosthesis direct from Norway.
The controversial project is raising the ire of some activists and international aid agencies, who criticize the artist's depiction of African women as sensationalist and even exploitative.
The images are certainly jarring. The women are shown in typical fashion-industry poses -- lounging poolside, smiling on beaches, posed in chairs -- but all are missing legs, or parts of legs, or legs injured in land mine explosions.
The photographs now appear in the project's Miss Landmine magazine and are also travelling through Europe as an exhibition. Visitors to www.miss-landmine.orgare encouraged to learn about the contestants and vote for their favourite. Each woman's profile contains her age, favourite colour and dream job (Ms. Diogo's: "Anything"). They also feature details of the women's American Apparel dresses and the types of land mines present in Angola, along with the cost of both. More than 2,000 online ballots have already been cast. Two of the land mine survivors will ultimately be crowned: A people's favourite and another selected by a jury in Luanda on April 4, the United Nations' Inter-national Mine Awareness Day.
Mr. Traavik, 36, first travelled to Angola four years ago. He was immediately struck by the number of people missing limbs in the southern African nation, where land mines still lurk in every province after 27 years of civil war. The conflict ended in 2002.
His inspiration for the project came, in part, from his experience judging a neighbourhood pageant on that first trip. Afterward, he approached land mine survivors from around the country about taking part in his project. The women flew to Luanda on military airplanes for the photo shoots.
"Most of them were a bit skeptical at first. They thought this was too good to be true," Mr. Traavik said in an interview. "But once they realized this was a genuine undertaking, then they were very, very enthusiastic."
For Ms. Diogo, a 32-year-old mother of three, the experience must have been a far cry from selling tomatoes on the streets of Benguela. The women, who are aged 19 to 35, were paid US$200 a day and kept the shoes and dresses. None are professional models; most are unemployed.
The project has received funding from Norway's arts council and the Angolan government, through the Inter-sectoral Commission on De-Mining & Humanitarian Assistance. But Mr. Traavik is struggling to find representatives of aid organizations willing to sit on the jury for the beauty contest.
A blogger at Black Looks, which focuses on the treatment of African women, wrote: "If you are wondering how low some people will sink then this is just about it. ... And who the hell is going to be buying these glossy magazines and wearing these fancy clothes? Certainly not the women survivors who are poor, unemployed women?"
A spokeswoman for Oxfam Canada questioned how North Americans will receive the project.
"While we do feel that promoting the fact the land mine survivors are still capable of being beautiful is correct, one should question that value of a beauty contest as a valid form of female empowerment," said spokeswoman Alexandra Lopoukhine.
"We recognize that beauty contests are conceived of differently depending on the culture and the demographics ... but if the goal is to promote empowerment, I am not sure North Americans would see a pageant as a space to empower women.
"However, the subject is controversial enough that the very nature of creating space to discuss the subject of land mine survivors is a positive in that it does raise awareness of those living with the consequences of land mines."
For his part, Mr. Traavik is taking the controversy in stride.
"The way I see it, those pictures radiate a kind of pride, dignity and control," he said from Oslo this week. "Maybe that's what provokes at least some people -- that this is so different from how disadvantaged people are usually portrayed."
Angola is considered one of the countries most affected by land mines worldwide. An untold number of unexploded weapons still lurk in the soil throughout the countryside, planted during decades of civil war and still claiming victims five years after its official end. Mines and booby traps have been found in agricultural fields, beneath roads and in schools.
In its latest Landmine Monitor report, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines said at least 134 people in Angola were injured or killed by land mines and other unexploded weapons last year.
The report notes rehabilitation services are located far from affected areas of the country and estimates facilities meet only 25% of the need.
About 80,000 people were injured by land mines during the civil war, according to some estimates.
Paul Hannon, executive director of Mines Action Canada, which helps produce the Landmine Monitor, said the Miss Landmine Project seems to be achieving its purpose: "It is highlighting the significant impacts that land mines have in Angola, one of the most mine-affected countries in the world, and generating discussion," he said.
"It is challenging what the standard of beauty is and provoking an exploration of our attitudes towards disability.
"Providing that the women freely choose to participate in this initiative, we would view this type of initiative positively."
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If you can't be good, be careful.
"Hey look, I can make a heart-shape with my hands!!!" So Fucking what? Stop it. You're a douche.
When life gives you lemons, squirt the juice in the eyes of your enemies.
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haha
