Senegalese imams take issue with nearly naked display of power
Oh dear, here comes another African Big Man. Senegal has been one of West Africa’s more stable countries, but now Muslim clerics are campaigning against a statue being built in the capital Dakar, which they say is idolatrous and a waste of money. Idolatry aside, at $27 million it’s certainly a waste of money. The monument is being constructed in honour of the African Renaissance (Thabo must be pleased), and is inexplicably (or not) being built by the North Koreans, depicting a man holding a child aloft with a woman traipsing along behind him The project is the idea of Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade, and will be bigger than the Statue of Liberty. The imams are worried that a statue of a near-naked man and woman will send the wrong message to the world at large, but the real irony is that Wade wants to charge visitors because he says he helped design the statue and so should benefit from some of the takings. Let’s hope he gets booted in the next election, and is made to polish the statue for the rest of his life. Read more: BBC, Nation Media
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