Kenya: A Behind the Scenes Look at Matatu Art

AlJazeera's Artsworld gets an insider's guide to the Nairobi cultural scene and meets the artists "souping up" the city's matatus or the taxis that represent a vibrant part of the Nairobi urban landscape and culture.

According to the doc, "matatu" in Swahili actually means "three," indicating 3 shillings, which was the original fare for getting on one. Who knew.

Liberia: Country's First Post War Art Gallery is Open for Business

Leslie Lumeh is a painter and cartoonist. He talks to AlJazeera's Artsworld about the role of art in post war Liberia:

South Africa: African Barber Shop Graphics Morph Into Adidas Ads

Jepchumba posted a sampling of Adidas ads conceived for the just concluded Confederation Cup played for the first time on African soil. The ads are actually African ‘barbershop’ graphics --i.e. renderings of different hair cuts usually seen in barbershops all over Africa--to honor Adidas' galaxy of soccer stars. Adverbox has more

Brought to us by the same guys that gave us the Zimbabwean dollar tear off wall posters ad campaign

H/T: nairobi notes

Africa: An Anthology of New Writing

Book Forum's James Gibbons uses his review of the new Penguin Anthology of Contemporary African Writing, compiled by Rod Spillman, to wax eloquently and beautifully about the state of contemporary Africa and contemporary literature by Africans.

So does a bevy of recent publications suggest Africa is in the midst of its own literary boom? Nah, but it's a nice way of getting the reader to read the article though. Gibbons, however, was on point when he says:

But I don’t think Wainaina is suggesting that African writers shy away from the spectacular themes and subject matter that haunt the continent—its wars, epidemics, colonial legacies, religious clashes, and strongmen. The dilemma for imaginative writers lies in staying faithful to the totality of their experiences while shunning images that simply confirm Western biases. The sporadic media coverage of Africa runs a familiar gamut, broadcasting a continent in perpetual—and, it is implied, essential—peril. The challenge of African writing is to provide some new news.

H/T: Africa Unchained

South Africa: BLK JKS' Full-Length Debut "After Robots" Drops September 8th

South African alt rockers BLK JKS' sound is an afro-futurist mix of township blues, fringe jazz, renegade dub and straight up rock 'n roll all into a total package that neither short changes Africa nor rock 'n roll. State side, one would say they feel and sound like Fishbone.

BLK JKS personnel consists of Lindani Buthelezi and Mpumi Mcata (who grew up on the same block in Johannesburg's East Rand where they taught themselves guitar); bassist Molefi Makananise and drummer Tshepang Ramoba (both from Soweto).

Mololatladi (Rainbow) is the first single off After Robots and the mp3 has been making the rounds on the web:

For more background, Africa is a Country has been keeping track of these cats for some time and the Dig For Fire short doc about the band during a lay over in NYC is still up and streaming:

Uganda: From "Ugandan Discussions" to "Hiking Up the Appalachian Trail"

The British satirical magazine, Private Eye, has a long tradition of appropriating euphemisms which then pass on into general usage.

One of them appears to be "Ugandan discussions", which is a code for illicit sex, usually in the line of carrying out a supposedly official duty. Wiki breaks down the origin of the euphemism.

With the recent "hiking trip" of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, Sullivan, Balloon Juice and TPM can't resist ...

Mali: Tinariwen Live at The Other

Dig for fire vimeo channel and The Other Music Store has a beautiful live session of the nomadic Touareg group, Tinariwen, which forms the perfect supplement to the February 2009 Al Jazeera's "Music of Resistance" episode, featuring the group. Tinariwen, once rebel soldiers training alongside Colonel Gadaffi in Libya, now embrace music has their weapon of choice.

We listen to European and American music. And although sometimes we may not understand what they are saying, there is something that attracts us to that music and that sound. It may be the guitar, it may be the musicians, but there is something. I think it is the same with us. Wherever we go in the world we see people enjoying what we do -- Tinariwen.

Kenya: Truth and Reconciliation Commission -- John Oliver Style

The Daily Show's John Oliver--the love child of Stephen Colbert and Margaret Thatcher--is fast honing his skills as the go to interviewer when it comes to a frank discussion of the subject of British imperialism. 

Remember when he fought the "tea partying" republicans back in April? Earlier this year, he had a chat with the Kenyan ambassador to the United Nations, Zachary Muburi-Muita, on the subject of, um..., British re-colonization:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Oliver's Travels - Kenya
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Jason Jones in Iran

H/T: nairobinotes

Senegal: This Revolution Will Be YouTubed

Automobile Mobile by Wasis Diop. Album: Judu Bék. Label: Indie Europe/Zoom, 2008



The video contains scenes from Badou Boy (1969), Senegalese director Djbril Mambety Diop's first (fiction) film -- he was Wasis's older brother. Mambety died in 1998 leaving behind, amongst other films, Touki Bouki (1973), a film that tried, valiantly, to alter the direction of African cinema. Apart from winning the Silver Tanit award in 1970, Badou Boy gains super significance for haven laid the groundwork for Touki Bouki; both films share similar scenes and themes and Wasis, who had appeared in Badou Boy as kid, would go on to provide the soundtrack for Djibril's 1992 film -- Hyenes. 

Kenya: Michela Wrong at Cato -- "It's the Politics, Stupid"

The video of Michela Wrong's talk at the Cato Institute on Monday about her book on John Githong's fight against corruption in Mwai Kibaki's Kenya is up and streaming. Frank Vogl's comments at the end are also worth a listen.

She says a lot here about Western donors need to lend to Africa more than Africa's need to be lent to, and how that fuels a culture of unaccountability/corruption in Africa as well as complicity and mediocre measures of success in the Western donor community.

John and Michela/ Photo: Peter Chapell

Chris Blattman's review of the book here , Raymond Bonner's here, Carnegie's Matthew Hennessey's interview with Wrong here, and just in case you are wondering what gives Wrong the right to write this book, she might have this to say about herself in contrast to that other league of aspiring, bumptious, white male writers about Africa:

If you're a white westerner writing about Africa, that arrogance reaches dizzying levels. What gives a spoilt bourgeois, who didn't even grow up there, the right to interpret the continent for the world?

The only answer can be: I have devoted years on the continent to listening and learning; I have done my homework as conscientiously as I know how; and it's just possible, because I have spent so much time learning to write accessibly about foreign cultures, that I may be able to serve as a bridge between two cultural viewpoints.

My caller saw no need for any of this. With the chutzpah of the privileged young male, he believed he could bypass it all and still produce something for which the public would be duly grateful. In fact, there's only one way of writing a book in these circumstances: you deliver a manuscript that is all about you, with Africa as a picturesque backdrop to your macho derring-do.

Nigeria: Yinka Shonibare On PBS' Art 21

Yinka Shonibare's retrospective at the Brooklyn museum starts Thursday, June 25, 2009 through September 20, 2009. Below is the trailer for season 5 of the PBS prog Art 21, featuring his unique way of decentering the ideology of eurocentrism by adorning western iconicity in African garb/identity -- the result... An eerie juxtaposition of cultures:

                                            

My great, great grandfather was a Nigerian chief. My father was a lawyer. So I grew up really in a fairly affluent situation. Because I didn't grow feeling inferior to anyone, so I couldn't quite understand the hierarchy of race in this country -- Shonibare

NY Times review and slide show: here

Kenya: Crime Lingo

David Okwembah and Dominic Wabala's article offers a sort of  intro to illegal arms market and crime in Kenya 101. We find out:

• grenades are mahindi (maize)

• An AK 47 bullet is msumari (nail)

Also, when it's time to share the booty, an operation room is not a  finish area.

Ethiopia: Happy Father's Day, Dad

A father's day story from a 2008 article by Michelle Hiskey:

photo: Joey Ivansco

"... Clifton Green waited a decade to become a dad, imagining he would be like the man who raised him and made him feel like the most special kid in the world. That day came in 2005, when Green and his wife adopted daughter Miriam Tigist from an Ethiopian orphanage...

...Suddenly, fatherhood demanded a task few white men ever contemplate: hours of cleaning, combing, twisting and braiding African hair...

...Such skills typically are handed down from older family members and, as this Emory University associate professor of finance discovered, take hours of practice. In the wrong hands, hair like his daughter's can break off."

Find the article on Miriam and her Dad here

Nigeria: Relentless -- Lagos

In his statement, the director Andy Amadi Okoroafor confesses to going for a:

highly stylised, multi-paced film... stylized images inspired by Asian films, combined with the pace and energy of black exploitation movies that is reminiscent of a town like Lagos. We are gunning for a polished film with a unique anarchic aesthetic but with a technical quality comparable with what operates anywhere in the world and a story that is universal and understandable to all.

When he says Asian stylization, and from what I can make of the teaser, I'm thinking Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express (1994) or the grittier looking Happy Together (1997). Also, the choice of topography and site design for the film recalls another document on Lagos -- the coffee table book Lagos: A City at Work, published by The Glendora Review back in 2005.

H/T: Timbuktu Chronicles / African Animation

Iran: You've Come A Long Way Baby

(Photo: A supporter of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi shouts slogans during riots in Tehran on June 13, 2009. By Olivier Laban-Mattei/AFP/Getty.)

In the 1.11 PM post, Sullivan is struck by the number of Iranian women in the trenches of this revolution. NY Times' Roger Cohen, who is on the ground, concurs:

I also know that Iran’s women stand in the vanguard. For days now, I’ve seen them urging less courageous men on. I’ve seen them get beaten and return to the fray. “Why are you sitting there?” one shouted at a couple of men perched on the sidewalk on Saturday. “Get up! Get up!”

Another green-eyed woman, Mahin, aged 52, staggered into an alley clutching her face and in tears. Then, against the urging of those around her, she limped back into the crowd moving west toward Freedom Square. Cries of “Death to the dictator!” and “We want liberty!” accompanied her.

Already the pictures/video of the woman shot by the Basij has iconic written all over it--think Killing at Kent State or Accidental Napalm --and whatever becomes of this revolution, Ahmedinejad, Khamenei, the Sepah and the Basij's days are numbered. As one of Sullivan's readers puts it, "...way I see it, that truly horrific footage of the conservatively dressed woman bleeding out...

... will do more damage to Ahmadi and Khamenei than any military strike ever could."

The role of iconic images in the way people relate to the idea of the state or any collective identity is well captured in this essay by Robert Harriman and John Lucaites, where they argue:

We want to go a step further to suggest that the public sphere depends on visual rhetorics to maintain not only its deliberative "voices," but also its more fundamental constitution of public identity. Because the public is discursively organized body of strangers constituted solely by acts of being addressed and paying attention, it can only acquire self awareness and historical agency if individual auditors "see themselves" in the collective representations that are the materials of public culture. Visual practices in the public media play an important role at precisely this point. The daily stream of photojournalistic images, while merely supplemental to the task of reporting the news, defines the public through an act of common spectatorship. When the event shown is itself a part of national life, the public seems to see itself in terms of a particular conception of civic identity.

Twitter and YouTube afford the protesters, unlike no other time in the history of human communication, the ability to create the necessary "collective representations" that instantaneously add up their individual acts into an identity and is constantly feeding that identity being constituted into the discourse of a growing rhetorical shift we see transpiring right before our eyes. What is, however, trippy about these images is how they serve as legitimating and constitutional materials for not only the Iranian protesters but for the Obama age of foreign relations and for Obama supporters in America -- the interdependency and coexistence of this new and old bloc is fueling the creation, consumption and distribution of these visuals and, hand-in-hand, creating the hunger for the overall rhetorical exertion still in progress.

On this side of the ocean, the West welcomes and have technologically enabled the visual rhetoric coming from Iran, which oddly turns out to be the affirmation of the fight--and continuing liberal struggle--for the new identity American voters rolled the dice on less than a year ago. On the Iranian side of the fence, the images they are creating and which their leaders want suppressed, also feed into that particular conception of Islam, modernity and of the collective identity they desire and are in fact dying for right now on the streets of Tehran.

Africa: Looks Like Everyone Has Given Up On The Doha Talks

Fat Africa?

The AgriBusiness Forum 2009 was held in Cape Town, South Africa, this past week. West Cape News' Steve Kretzmann writes that African governments tired of seeing prices for their crops undercut by US and European producers who receive billions of dollars in government subsidies each year--while those same governments tie anti-subsidy conditions to aid and loans given to African farmers--appear to increasingly favour implementing their own subsidies.

There is nothing new about this. In a 2007 article , Seattle Times' Chris Tomlinson tabled out how crop subsidies make a world of difference for African farmers:

...Bangoti says all it would take is a little training and a few supplies for Africans to grow all the food they need. They once did, in the 1960s. Now, Africans import 25 percent of what they eat. Their share of the global agricultural market is down from 8 percent to 2 percent. And theirs is the only continent where food production per capita has fallen — roughly 22 percent since 1967, according to the World Resource Institute....

One reason, experts say, is the loss of subsidies. In exchange for foreign aid, debt-saddled African countries agreed to cut subsidies. Less than 4 percent of government spending in sub-Saharan Africa now goes to agriculture.

African farmers are left on their own because of decades of antisubsidy policies pushed by the World Bank and others as a condition for aid money. Now Africans are fighting back. Some African countries are considering subsidies for their own farmers — Malawi has started providing discount vouchers for seed and fertilizer to farmers and is seeing such a bumper crop that it now sends emergency corn to neighboring Zimbabwe. African nations have also joined in lawsuits opposing American subsidies, resulting in a World Trade Organization ruling in October that the U.S. could face billions of dollars in sanctions.

With the passage of the 2008 farm bill (which Obama voted for and Bush tried to veto) through the U.S congress--approving a whopping $288 billion in subsidies-- capsizing the already sinking Doha round of global trade talks, it seems African countries have nothing holding them back anymore. And if there was something holding them back before, the global financial crisis has struck such a blow to capitalism and free market policies that instead of fiscal belt tightening the call now is for more stimulus spending for everybody and that translates into more food subsidies in my book.

But the bottom line remains this: the days of cheap food produced by an agricultural system based on cheap oil (and large farm subsidies) has to change. In the capitalist framework, cheap food, not religion, is the opium given to the masses. It has been said that what American presidents do when they appoint their agriculture secretaries is to tell them to produce cheap food abundantly by whatever means necessary. As Michael Pollan explained in a long ass NY Times memo to the incoming president last October:

Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration — the last time high food prices presented a serious political peril. Since then, federal policies to promote maximum production of the commodity crops (corn, soybeans, wheat and rice) from which most of our supermarket foods are derived have succeeded impressively in keeping prices low and food more or less off the national political agenda. But with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close.

Complicating matters is the fact that the price and abundance of food are not the only problems we face; if they were, you could simply follow Nixon’s example, appoint a latter-day Earl Butz as your secretary of agriculture and instruct him or her to do whatever it takes to boost production. But there are reasons to think that the old approach won’t work this time around; for one thing, it depends on cheap energy that we can no longer count on.

Doha is dead; subsidies for all. The fact that there is no more cheap oil is reflected in the ridiculous size of the 2008 farm bill.

In Africa, ministers emboldened by the success of government subsidies in Malawi, for example, are now throwing caution to the wind. Uganda’s state minister for Agriculture, Bagire Henry, at the forum in South Africa let it be known that:

The US and Europe are saying ‘don’t subsidise’ and (yet) they (continue) subsidising (their own farmers), why? The World Bank is saying ‘don’t subsidise’, we’re telling them ‘you go away, this is our country" -- he adds, "30 000 [Ugandan] farmers would receive subsidies this year and the numbers would increase until there would soon be “a million farmers” receiving state subsidies.

Friday -- 4 Iran

Alabama by John Coltrane. Album: Live at Birdland. Label: Grp Records, 1966. Personnel: John Coltrane (sax), McCoy Tyner (piano), Jimmy Garrison (bass) and Elvin Jones (drums).



"In the early morning of Sunday, September 15, 1963, a gaggle of malcontents planted 12 sticks of dynamite in a window well outside the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The dynamite exploded eight hours later killing Denise McNair, 11, and Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collins, all 14, in the process galvanizing the Civil Rights Movement. 

Three months later, on November 18, 1963, John Coltrane stepped up to the microphone in fabled Englewood, NJ studio of one Rudy Van Gelder and over a McCoy Tyner Tremolo, blew his searing and definitive statement on the subject of the bombing-- 'Alabama'" -- C. Michael Bailey

Africa: Travel Warning Lifted -- Mature Media Coverage Comes To Africa

Hulu is streaming the hour long CNBC special "Dollars and Danger: Africa, The Final Investing Frontier." (Earlier previews here and here). It features CNBC's Erin Burnett on the ground in Africa in an attempt to penetrate the heart of mainstream media darkness and negative stereotypes with the light of new facts, statistics and positive stories about what it's like investing in Africa's emerging markets.

Extra video motherload here; CNBC's Fuzzy Slideshow here. Nigerian Curiosity reviews the show for Global Post here; Eric Edmonds thoughts here:

I am all for giving everyone a ‘fair shake’, suffice is it to ask at what point does the asinine stereotypes about Africa give way to a pragmatic evaluation of the continent’s economic potential? CNBC presents a fascinating program tonight, “Dollars and Danger” to answer a fraction of these intriguing questions. I may verywell be putting the cart before the horse, but Africa may very well be the ‘final investing frontier’, and just in case you don’t buy it, ask the Chinese.

For so long, the images which dominate the headlines about Africa have been the same ‘whack’ 1970’s documentary with half naked women roaming through the streets, the late night infomercials for ‘Feed the Children’, to the scary images from Leonardo Di Caprio’s “Blood Diamond”. There is also the chilling pictures from ‘Hotel Rwanda’, and just when you are about to dismiss all of them for Hollywood propaganda, presidents Omar al Bashir (Sudan) and Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe) gives you a good reason to doubt the criticism. The point is that some of the bad press that Africa has earned is not completely unfounded, and that is precisely what makes pitching the continent a tough sell.

H/T: Mayor of Bracketville

Iran/ Kenya/ Nigeria: A Pattern of Dubious Election Results

A bloggingheads session on president Obama's response to the ongoing protests in Iran and a sundry of other issues. In this excerpt, Dayo Olapade (The Root), who is of Nigerian descent, compares Iran's election and its dubious results to recent elections in Nigeria and Kenya.

Africa: It Was Only A Matter of Time

"... a page turner" -- Bono

"...read it on my flight from London to Malawi and just couldn't put it down" -- Madonna

"...surely this book will help bring the end to poverty in Africa" -- Sachs.

"...the chapter on foreign aid is ridiculous" -- Dambisa Moyo

H/T: Nairobinotes

Internet/Media: Google and YouTube -- The White Paper Sequel

Just read Ramp Rate's white paper rebutting the Credit Suisse’s report from back in April, projecting Google’s video related (YouTube) losses at a walloping $470M, unleashing a slew of “YouTube is doomed” or “online video is doomed" postings all around the blogosphere. 

This new report (comments here, here and here) acknowledges the thouroughness of the prior Credit Suisse report but makes the case that Google is not like "most big companies," and while the April report puts Google's bandwidth expenses at $360.4M, this new report low balls it to $48M, saying "no bandwidth cost analysis for Google is credible without including peering" which accounts for 73% of Google's video traffic...

While using a peering approach has its own costs, such as connecting to a peering hub, managing complex and often contentious peer relationships, dealing with SLA-less best efforts service, and even occasional payment to powerful peers, the bulk of these costs are fixed – that is, you hire the same team and run the same fiber whether you are pushing 1 Gbps or 100 Gbps. 

According to Renesys, nearly 3/4 of Google’s traffic is delivered via peers – and it is probably higher considering that YouTube is known to have some peers such as AT&T8 that Renesys does not list for its corporate parent. The top two providers of bandwidth for which Google does appear to pay transit fees are notorious for leading the charge in the price wars9 that helped push IP transit prices down by at least 20% annually even as other infrastructure markets such as co-location stabilized. 

When dealing with low-value content, some RampRate customers have found paths to sub-$1 / mbps bandwidth through oversubscribed connections, best-efforts SLAs and other practices straddling the borderline between paid peering and low-cost transit. Combined with the sheer amount of business that Google brings to the table, these nontraditional approaches can, if leveraged properly, reduce bandwidth costs to the $0.50 / Mbps mark.

If this is true, why did Google stay mute and let YouTube be portrayed as a bust? 

Ramp Rate speculates that "... in the dangerous waters of online content, a whiff of potential profit is an irresistible lure for predators such as copyright lawyers circling user generated content monetization and content partners that are all too ready to turn on their distributors in a feeding frenzy."

Ethiopia: This Revolution Will Be YouTubed

Megemeria by Wudasse. Album: Selam. Label: Wudasse, 2006. Personnel: Fasil Wuhib (bass), Jorga Mesfin (sax & keyboard), Teferi Assefa (drums), Ahsa Ahla (percussions), Dale Sanders (guitar) and David Bass (Baritone sax, alto sax and flute).



Sound: Malatu Astatque meets Weather Report meets Mahavishnu Orchestra meets a little Bitches Brew. Album reviews here and here

Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe International Book Fair -- July 27 to August 1

A US$10 000 grant received from the Culture Fund reports the Zimbabwean Standard is likely to inject life into this year's Zimbabwe International Book Fair -- July 27 to August 1.

Even if the grant does not bring the fair to life, it will at least make it possible, says the fair's Acting Executive Director Greenfield Chilongo, "for us to ensure that the visitors to the Book Fair are admitted free of charge."

South Africa: The Art and Process of William Kentridge

San Francisco's MoMa has an interactive feature (+ videos) on South African artist William Kentridge.



...at 24fps, the frames of charcoal drawings, cut together, look like they feel; or rather, I should say they look like charcoal must feel -- ephemeral, volatile, fragile, reminiscent, and obsessed with trace. As Philippe Moins points out here, Kentridge's combination of charcoal and animation shows that:

What interests Kentridge is Time; its passing, the traces it leaves, the memory that events, beings and objects leave when we close our eyes on our past. What technique besides frame-by-frame could better render an account of this phenomena?

Nigeria: Ikebe Super -- Wale Adenuga

While at the University of Lagos in 1971, Wale Adenuga honed his cartooning skills working on the campus magazine. In 1976, he launched his own magazine -- the raunchy, risque but always humorous Ikebe Super.

In this interview with Next, he talks to Akintayo Abodunrin about Ikebe Super, translating his characters and titles into TV shows over the years, and the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission's recent move barring terrestrial television stations from showing foreign programs between 7 to 10 pm prime time.

Western Sahara: Faitim Says Tomato; Filmmakers Say It's A Very Complicated Tomato

Faitim Salam

"Stolen," Violetta Ayala and Dan Fallshaw's low-budget documentary, tells the story of Faitim Salam, a 34-year-old mother of four and one of the thousands of refugees living in camps run by the Polisario Liberation Front in the Western Sahara Desert.

Ayala and Fallshaw portray Salam as a black slave to the camp's white Arabs, a depiction Salam is now saying is wrong -- "practically everything in the film is not true, that (I am) a slave, that (my) mother is a slave," says Salam. More here.

The Sydney Film Festival has refused to reclassify the doc as a fictional film and Ayala and Fallshaw got a chance to defend themselves on Australian radio. Their theory is that the PLF, which is locked in a dispute with the Moroccan government over control of the Western Sahara, has coerced Salam and her husband into she is not a slave:

Zambia: Wilbur Smith

Born in 1933, in what was still Northern Rhodesia , best selling novelist Wilbur Smith talks to Robin Curnow about writing stories set in colonial Africa/Victorian times, charges of male chauvinism and African stereotypes in his early work, growing up a white colonizer, Africa as a buffalo, hunting game instead of golf balls, and his intention to charge, foot on the gas, head long into the wall at the end of his life.


hat tip: African Loft

Western Sahara: The Film Festival in “the Desert of the Desert.”

Here is another feeble attempt to do something about the 33 year occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco; an occupation denying sovereignty to the region's inhabitants -- the Saharawi people. Morocco's annexation of Western Sahara has left 165,000 indigenous Saharawis to languish in camps in the Algerian desert for over three decades...

... while Morocco, in violation of countless UN resolutions, continues to illegally plunder Western Sahara's natural resources...

Uruguayan writer and journalist Eduardo Galeano asks why it is okay to talk about the Berlin Wall and Israel's Wall but no one talks about the Moroccan Wall... Stefan Simanowitz on his blog at the Prospect talks about how he quit is job to help get the story of the Saharawi refugees "off the culture pages of our newspapers and on to the international pages where it belongs" and the Sahara International Film Festival (FISahara) in Dahkla, South Western Algeria, which took place from May 5th to 11th this year, plays a huge role in bringing the world to Saharawi people and they, in turn, getting their story out to the world.



Simanowitz's reviews the 09 festival here and here.

Angola/Morocco/South Africa...: Thoughts on Contemporary Art

I'm exploring not only geological rifts but the inner rifts within us all. I'm South African. I come from a rifted society and I'm very interested with the idea that you can take a geological divide and conceptually close it and heal -- Georgia Papageorge (South Africa)

Here is Christopher Knight's LA Times blog review skewering the art of Georgia Papageorge (Here is Sarah Neele-Smith's review) , along with Alfredo Jaar (Angola/New York), Yto Barrada (Morocco/France), Cláudia Cristóvão (Angola/London) and Berni Searle (South Africa) making up the 5 artists whose works were brought together for the exhibition titled “Continental Rifts: Contemporary Time-Based Works from Africa” showing at UCLA's Fowler Museum.

I'm not the most avid fan of contemporary/video art. However, I think the key word in the quote above is the term "conceptual" as it opens up the question of what contemporary art renders to Africa and its relation to an African audience.

From the demand side, I guess it is safe to say that the exciting world--depending on who you are--of African contemporary art is more or less an extension of the West's overall installation/ institutional /legitimation powers and exhibition spaces and not so much the function of any strong demand from Africa's own exhibition spaces or audiences. That equation is grossly unbalanced though on the supply side. The fact that Africa is a massive global/glocal-ization experiment and her societies are brimming with so much to express means, on the supply side, the continent is potentially bursting at the seams with art and artists.

In terms of Africa's demand for contemporary art, it will be wrong to say the predisposition or aesthetic attitude of its populace is not as developed as the West's. Rather I would say that politics, fragile economies, infrastructural decline, and so on, all conspire to to render such a predisposition untapped. The aesthetic attitude summoned by contemporary art lies in the human power to allow for oneself to be disconnected from the logic of the everyday in order to experience the pleasure of the chaos of where meanings bend; where definitions are in a flux; where contradictions emerge, merge, and submerge; where our attempts to re-define ourselves and our surroundings are communicated in inspiring ways. The fact that this kind of art is the staple of modernity proves we live in times wherein the power of art to forecast and speculate is held in higher regard rather than its value to simply portray, represent and thus stabilize.


With respect to our powers of appreciation, I've always liked the commonsense of the Wilhelm Wundt's curve: that we remain unengaged by the facile (bored) and sated by the "overly complex" (alienated), and i think contemporary art often tends towards the later. If we go by the curve, then all "great" art should fall somewhere in the middle, right? But even if all great art fall in the middle of the curve where our appreciative powers are at their max, there is still the question of growth and of that middle annexing the territory of what used to belong to "overly complex." For human powers of appreciation aren't static; they grow; our brains don't stay still, they roll along gathering moss; the cognitive maps they bear beef up and the ability of our maps to orientate or make things familiar strengthen, rendering what was once "overly complex" accessible. And even though it may require more work, contemporary art is highly sought after because its capable of rendering a kind of reward and pleasure that's uniquely its own.

But I also agree with Joseph Margolis' defense against Breadsley's Kantianism and categories of apperception, and i'm drawn more towards the lens of his implication which sees the pleasures of contemporary art as having less to do with an elitist or privileged sense perception per se, but more to do with everyone's search for affirmations for their own individual politics and contested identities. I feel the idea that it takes "a privileged sense perception" to appreciate contemporary art owes more to the role other factors play in conspiring to make an individual's quest to seek such affirmations irrelevant. And that is a universal problem, not just an African one. But in Africa's case it's easy to see how that the problem is exacerbated.

And where does contemporary art--from video to installation--fit into all this? Marshall McLuhan once said the artist is indeed a “prophet” because:

Art at its most significant is a Distant Early Warning System that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it. As the unity of the modern world becomes increasingly a technological rather than a social affair, the techniques of the arts provide the most valuable means of insight into the real direction of our own collective purposes.

From the supply side, again, the contemporary artist subverts the logic of the everyday to conceptualize, make meanings bend; put definitions in a flux; highlight where contradictions emerge, merge, and submerge, and as a result uses the power of art to forecast and speculate rather than simply portray, present, affirm and stabilize established ideas and accepted meanings. A society that lacks such "prophets" or whose artists are not using the language of art at this particular extreme to engage with ideas, such a society leaves a world of ideas untouched; the society forecasts nothing. Without artists-prophets to poke Africa's technological, economical, religious, cultural and traditional assurances for the beauty of their cracks and contradictions, dogma and the worst traditions have to offer continue to reign, nothing gets investigated, societies remain disengaged from their futures to the detriment of the continent's collective present.

The dream of sustainable development, i guess, is for African economies to grow to empower and expand an Africa bourgeoisie, and to see, in terms of art, Africa's institutions and exhibition spaces grow in response to this growing bourgeoisie, their increased buying power and thirst for new affirmations and identities. Until then, Africa's artists will forecast the weather of their societies in response to and as an extension of the exhibition spaces and appreciative centers of West.

Morocco: Africa's Only International Animation Film Festival

It appears North Africa continues to be the cradle of animation film and exhibition in Africa.

Starting in Cairo in 1936 with the adventures of the mouse Mish Mish Effendi in the Frenkel brothers' Mafish Fayda; then to Niger and the works of Moustapha Alassane, who is regarded as the father of African animation; and now to Menkes, Morroco, home to Le Festival International de Cinéma d'Animation de Meknès (FICAM) -- the only international animation film festival held on the continent. Trailer for the 2008 edition of the festival:

The 9th International Animated Film Festival Meknès took place from May 07 – 15, 2009, in the city of Meknes, in the heart of Morocco. It is organized by the Institut français de Meknès and according to this Philippe Moins' review from 2006, the festival "is neither a competition nor a market; the festival puts a lot of emphasis on retrospectives, without neglecting current production.... The heart of the festival undoubtedly lies in its programming for children."

Highlights of the 2009 edition of the festival are featured in the middle of this episode of "The Week in the Magreb" from France 24.

Friday

A Case of You by Diana Krall. Album: Live in Paris. Label: Verve, 2001.

... listening to a lot Diana Krall lately... Here she plays a Joni Mitchell classic -- "A Case of You" from Joni's album, Blue. When she gets to the "oh Canada...," you can so tell from her expression that she hails from there.

Morocco/France: ...Rife With Symbolism

Pensioner Georges Gumpel survived the Holocaust because he was hidden from the Nazis by the French Resistance. He is now sort of returning the favor by offering shelter in his Lyon apartment to Alae-Addine, a teenage Moroccan immigrant threatened with deportation by French officials. 

The irony in the fact that Gumpel is a Jew and Alae-Addine is an Arab isn't lost on anyone. AFP report here.

Egypt/South Africa: Performing Race -- Postcolonialism Style

South Africa Ad for Ford trucks


A banned South African Broadcasting Corporation Ad


An Egyptian Ad in Arabic and English

Each ad in some way attempts to disrupt and denaturalize dominant ways of seeing racial identities -- our identities are performed and negotiable. In other words, all the ads have in common an investment in diversity and strive to undermine racial homogeneity, articulating instead a discourse of the contested and perpetually unresolved nation state. 

hat tip: K.Gabel

South Africa: This Revolution Will Be YouTubed

Qula Kwedini by Zim Ngqawana. Album: Zimology. Label: Sheer Sound, 1998 - Personnel: Ingebrigt Haker Flaten (bass), Paal Nilssen Love (drums), Andile Yenana (Keys).

Here Ngqawana talks about jazz in SA and why he quit academia , and here, on the track Ebhofolo, Andile Yenana keeps up a rhythmic pace that borders on the uncanny.

Gabon: Someone Recently Discovered Omar Bongo's Rare and Abandoned 1979 Stutz IV Porte in his Garage

A 1979 Stutz IV-Porte -- wiki

Turns out recently deceased president of Gabon, Omar Bongo, who owned a fleet of Stutz cars, including a Strut Royale of which only 2 were ever made, had specially ordered a rare 1979 Sturt IV Porte for his son Ali-Ben Bongo Ondimba on his 20th birthday. The young Bongo was a student in the United States at the time.

But Ali-Ben eventually returned to Gabon and his $74,000 birthday present has been sitting under covers in a garage belonging to someone who neither knew what the car was worth nor could hazard a guess who the original owner was. The story of how the car was recently discovered --  here.

Zimbabwe: Either Way, Mugabe Can't Lose

Tsvangirai/ Photo: Zim Daily

The Dutch said "no aid" and now there are those that feel the West is turning its back on Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC after getting them into this power sharing mess by encouraging them to fight for the reins of Z-land. The hesitation on the part of donors implies any money given to the MDC and Zimbabwe will eventually end up in the hands of Mugabe and Zanu-PF. Meanwhile Tsvangirai and the MDC's political capital is undermined if they cannot funnel in funds, which is a win for Mugabe; but if they do get the funds, Zanu-PF is still in a good position to hijack those funds and, again, Mugabe wins. 

Third option: Greg Mills and Jeffrey Herbst feel development assistance can be allocated directly to measurable and defined projects but channeled through Tsvangarai's office instead of to ministries that may be run by Mugabe partisans. Timothy Burke thinks not:

“Development assistance can be allocated directly.” Not to be a wet blanket, but how? Unless, of course, the government (still effectively dominated by ZANU-PF and Mugabe) gives permission for development assistance to be allocated directly. Which, particularly in the case of hospitals and schools, it is unlikely to grant, since that would involve surrendering some measure of control over state institutions. This is like saying, “Freedom of the press can be practiced by distributing publications freely”. Sure! If the government which suppresses freedom of the press allows that to happen.

Nigeria: Nature Versus Nurture -- A Pidgin English Scenario

Video of an American, via Colorado, who grew up in Jos, Nigeria, dropping Nigerian pidgin English (and Hausa) with a flow you'd have to see to believe. Listen to everyone around him flip their lids in amazement. Some mind bending acculturation to say the least.



As a language, pidgin or "broken English" bridges different regions and dialects and enables interaction across class divisions. In Nigeria, there are purer--i.e. nativized-- forms of it that operate like creoles, but, overall, a large part of those who speak it are not native speakers and speak a more diluted form of it which essentially operates as a social leveler or lubricant. I should differ to my sister on the topic -- she wrote her dissertation on this in 1992.

Via Oyekole

Gabon: El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba -- A Postmortem

El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba died in a hospital in Spain after ruling Gabon for 41 years. As we speculate on who will succeed him and whether or not they will tear the country apart in doing so, Akin, a commenter over at African Loft, paints the bigger picture eluding us here:

The greatest indictment of his lamentable regime of 42 years is that Gabon does not have hospitals that could treat either himself or his wife. What kind of leadership is one that cannot bring any appreciable benefits to its people whilst the leaders jet off to foreign lands for the slightest sign of discomfort?

This is an indictment that applies to probably the whole of African leadership, the inability to raise the standards of infrastructure, education, health and opportunity. When would we be able to make all leadership really accountable for their years of disservice?

Compare this situation to blockaded Communist Cuba where they have the best healthcare in the Western hemisphere and export doctors to many countries - it can be done if leadership is committed and knows their core responsibility. The morale of this sordid tale is unAfrican in its context, the king shall not die in his palace surrounded by his subjects who “adore” him but in a non-descript expensive hospital room surrounded by strangers. A king that fails to rule with probity will die in a distance in disgrace with everyone breathing a long sigh of relief - Good riddance! To them all.

Akin makes an apt comparison. In the 50 years Fidel Castro ruled Cuba, I'm sure he put in place a medical school system and the health care infrastructure that can produce doctors he could entrust his life to.

hat tip: E. Zuckerman

Nigeria: 190 Days of School

Photo: Chi Modu

Some want to get rid of the long, idyllic Huck Finn like summer holidays American high school students enjoy from the beginning of June to the end of August. They argue that U.S. students can't compete with the rest world if they are in school for only 180 days in the year.

Tamim Ansary and Conor Clarke used the table below to show where America ranks in the amount of days spent in school. Nigeria is the only African country on this partial list.

If you've ever wondered why U.S students trudge through the snow to go to school in winter but get 3 months off in summer, read Juliet Lapidos' explanation here and William Fischel's here.