Beck describes Kingo as 'a sophisticated example of the ‘urban survivor’: a scrounger, apparently a lazy bone, a drunkard, a womanizer, a sly fox!' These character traits of Kingo—like those of the macho, dare-devil and carefree ones of the matatu (public transport) touts in Kenya—appear to attract rather than repel the public from Kingo. And the ‘angelic’ school girls to the ‘devilish’ matatu touts and truck drivers. This is similar to the admiration and laughter a market square clown draws from the public but without any one of those laughing wishing for their own children to become market place clowns or comedians. The East African comic, Beck contends, is primarily supposed to entertain. She adds that the Swahili comics are oriented towards straight-forward storytelling, with little background information. In this case, HIV/AIDS provides the story-teller with the chance to tell a dramatic and suspenseful story; HIV/AIDS is not the reason why he tells it. Though the Sara comic may have a consistent story line directed towards a happy conclusion, Dr Beck argues, it appears ‘bloodless’ and shallow'... The Sara comic, Beck says, “shows no profound knowledge of the potential of the comic in general, or the East African comic in particular.”
...this thing happened abroad where they don't make that kind of mistake. If it's in Nigeria, I will say maybe it is possible. But Oyibo people are usually thorough when it comes to something like that. The truth of the matter based on what I have read is that genetics have something to do with the birth of that white baby. Genetics is something that can behave in such a funny way that you can see two very black couple giving birth to a light complexioned baby or even children. I have seen it happen...". But a parliamentarian by name Solomon had immediately pooh-poohed the explanation. "Abeg, leave that matter. Which kind gene is that that will make black people to give birth to Oyibo? They should asklol. Naijablog gave a possible explanation for the early sexual contact supporting the dormant gene theory. And speaking of "early sexual contact" but not so dormant genes, a reader who came across the Siddis of India, sent a link to the piece on a Kenyan village claimed to be inhabited by descendants of shipwrecked Chinese seamen 500 years ago:
the mother of that baby some questions; she's the one to tell us what happened; how she take waka," he submitted. Alfred readily agreed with him, saying: "Yes O, it's the woman that should tell us what happened because I strongly suspect that she must have played an away match with an Oyibo man who pregnanted her in the process. Let them return back to Nigeria. By the time the mother-in-law starts asking her questions the truth will come out.
...the Abyssinian Fund would not function as a traditional charity, as the farmers would share the responsibility for the project’s success.“We are going to try to the best of our ability to provide the highest level of training and the most necessary equipment that the farmers need,” he said. “But it will be the farmers’ responsibility to reinvest. Reinvestment is going to be critical.” Instead of providing financial aid or food to the farmers, the Abyssinian Fund will hire coffee experts who are specialists in the processing and quality standards of companies like Starbucks that are the chief buyers of Ethiopia’s beans. Substandard processing has vexed the farmers’ efforts to command higher prices. The trainers will also teach planting and harvesting techniques that help farmers grow and select only the choicest coffee beans, and the fund will provide equipment like scissors, shears and mechanized pickers to ensure that the beans are properly harvested. Many of these farmers still harvest their crops with their bare hands, Mr. Richards said. Mr. Richards said the goal was for the farmers to double their income in five years. Helping to improve the livelihoods of the 700 farmers in the co-op, he said, could result in better conditions for as many as 3,000 people.The fund has had to tread delicately in Ethiopia, where the government has been skeptical of the motives of some foreign aid groups (more)The idea of social business/ entrepreneurship continues to catch on.
After that, [the U.S. Department of Justice] launched a nine-month investigation into Kosmos and EO operations. This June, the DOJ told both companies it had completed investigations and would not pursue a prosecution. However, Mould- Iddrissu says she has enough evidence to prosecute EO....Under pressure from both detractors and promoters of the ExxonMobil deal, Mills has formed a committee to examine the options and report back within the month. Some insiders claim that setting up the committee is a tactical defeat for GNPC but others say Mills wants to spread the blame for the final decision by taking the widest possible soundings. Whatever he decides, he will face organised opposition. If he approves the Kosmos-EO sale, his own NDC supporters will slam him for rubber-stamping a Kufuor-era deal which might hugely benefit his political opponents. Yet if Mills rejects the deal, he will face opprobrium from the NPP and many business people, who were hoping for substantial commercial gains if ExxonMobil comes to Ghana. Mills and his government would have to be convinced that any alternative strategy to the Kosmos-ExxonMobil sale would generate more revenue and contribute more effectively to the integrated oil and gas industry the government wants. In turn, this pressures the committee to produce a convincing conclusion and strategy to break the impasse.
We were both interested in the issue of domestic employment in the Latin American context, and over time we created this platform to show the points that these women have in common as they share the domestic environment in a hierarchical work relationship... For the photos the employers and maids wore the same thing: a white shirt and no jewelery or decoration. With the images made under these "equalising" conditions, the artists leave it up to the viewer to guess -- using one's own cultural codes -- which woman is which.... Each pair had a different relationship; some were much closer, lasting 30 years or more, and others knew each other just three or four months," said Graham. But for all of the pairs, it was difficult to be photographed looking each other in the eyes, she said
After conducting several field researches and verifying the rules and procedures of the resorts, activists went to the resorts identified as the most racist accompanied by an activist of the Madagascari citizenship. The woman was denied entry by the administration of the resort and no valid reasons were provided. "We have monitored more than 15 resorts that follow the same traditions and practices of racism against non-whites in Lebanon, reminiscent of the era of apartheid in South Africa, blatant racism in the United States," said the campaign's spokesperson at IndyACT, Aimee Razanjay. "The action today is the beginning of a series similar actions to monitor and document such practices and to inform the Lebanese society of the extent of their contribution to perpetuating the racist system in Lebanon," added Aimee.Egyptian Chronicles asks if the black lady would have been treated differently if she were, say, Naomi Campbell. A commenter at Ethiopian Suicides recounts a similar tale, this time on a Lebanon beach, involving a lifeguard.
Fifteen films opened in Egyptian cinemas, including four last week: "Nour Eini," "Tilka Al-Ayam," "Asafir Al-Jana" and "Heliopolis." Production companies face limited time constraints this season. Films have less than 60 days to earn revenue—the period between the end of the year exams at universities and high school and the beginning of the month of Ramadan, which starts at the beginning of August.
It is, therefore, sacrilege for anybody to fire at, let alone assault, an AU Force on a capacity building mission in Africa. Who are these who dare to fire at an AU Force? They can only be agents of external, non-African forces trying to impose a new colonialism on Africa. We defeated European colonialism and we are going to defeat this new form of colonialism. The Somalis are part of the ancient African peoples, such as the ancient Egyptians - the ones that built the Pyramids. They are a Cushitic people - part of Nilo-Saharan group of languages. Some of their words are even to be found in the Bantu dialects. Africans believeLol. Pre-July 11, I thought al-Shabaab sooner than later would end up threatening business interests in the EAC, hence, kicking EASBRIG into high gear. Post-July 11 though, they are now everyone's problem and Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni's speech at the AU summit in Kampala doesn't just want to show other African leaders the al-Shabaab middle finger that's grown out from the horn of the continent and pointed the AU's way for a while now, but the crazy speech about pork, giving away chickens, and his lack of time to even research thoroughly what ails Somalia, is also rhetorically brilliant. With all its comedy and disdain for Shabaab, it still manages to set up Africa and Africans as non-imposers of ideology by nature and, on the other hand, al Shabaab as the "other," alien and impostor in Africa and also the C-word -- "colonizer." A steeper rhetorical climb for al-Shabaab? Their spokesperson, according to The Citizen, is also trying to spin this faster than Museveni can:
in a philosophy of live and let live. They never try to impose anything on anybody if they are really acting in the African traditions. There are many symbiotic groups in Africa, living side by side. Some of the groups from outside Africa talk of "haram" - abominable items. They do not know (and they do not bother to find out) that among the indigenous African people, there are even longer lists of haram (ebihagaro). In part of my community, for instance, we do not eat pork, chicken, sheep, fish etc. Many of our neighbouring communities, however, eat many of these foods, especially fish. The Banyankore, for instance, would not eat chicken. They would keep the chicken only for divination (kuraguza). A Munyankore, therefore, would be happy to surrender one of his chicken to a visiting Muganda or Mukooki. That is how the Africans lived. Even today, you can see the sort of freedom we enjoy - trans-night dances etc. I am a tee-totaller, but I further most vigorously the interests of our drunkards by exceeding all previous records of beer production. Africans, therefore, reject chauvinism. We want freedom.
He added that the AU had worsened the situation by endorsing what he said was Ethiopia's occupation of Somalia, and accused the continental body of presiding over the "massacre" of innocent Somalis by Ethiopia and later Ugandan and Burundian troops operating under the auspices of the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom). "Amisom peacekeepers are shelling the Somali people day and night," said Sheikh Bilal adding: "They are acting with the express approval of the African Union." He said AU leaders should draw lessons from the deadly blasts that rocked Kampala a fortnight ago... "This is an American project, implemented through the AU," Sheikh Bilal said. "Our reaction will make people in other African capitals cry like those in Kampala."The conceit is simple. Shabaab wants to paint the AU as Ethiopia. Like the American sponsored Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, it wants that equation fueled by the perception of the AU as a U.S-occupying force by proxy. But in the wake of the Ugandan bombing and with the Somali diaspora in East Africa feeling the heat of growing discrimination, will potential recruits really buy Shabaab's stretched algebra? Also, it behooves al-Shabaab to take a second to realize they are not threatening just Somalia's neighbors; they are sorta threatening the face or body the entire continent presents to the world. Last time the AU felt its legitimacy threatened in the Comoros, it struck back - hard. All that said, I'm sure everyone is breathing a sigh of relief that you-know-who isn't the head of the AU at this crucial time.
Africa is the other fast-growth region and I'm expecting the region's share of active Facebook users to rise sharply over the next year.To which a commenter adds:
Africa will certainly continue to be a growing segment. I was chatting on Facebook with a friend from Kenya and he said that wireless Internet access and cell phone coverage is generally more available than electricity. Keeping your devices charged seems to be more of an issue than access, especially in remote villages...
So where are we with humanitarian design? I know almost all of my Gen Y students want to do it because their value system is into doing good globally. Young designers in consultancies and corporations want to do humanitarian design for the same reason. But should we take a moment now that the movement is gathering speed to ask whether or not American and European designers are collaborating with the right partners, learning from the best local people, and being as sensitive as they might to the colonial legacies of the countries they want to do good in. Do designers need to better see themselves through the eyes of the local professional and business classes who believe their countries are rising as the U.S. and Europe fall and wonder who, in the end, has the right answers? Might Indian, Brazilian and African designers have important design lessons to teach Western designers? And finally, one last question: why are we only doing humanitarian design in Asia and Africa and not Native American reservations or rural areas, where standards of education, water and health match the very worst overseas?Looks like the folks behind Ghana Think Tank saw this coming.
Flipboard mines your Twitter and Facebook friends for interesting articles and videos to show in a swipe-friendly magazine format. It also takes mundane status updates from your friends and turns them almost into magazine articles, with blown-up pictures (where possible) and headlines... what's intriguing about Flipboard is the message implicit in the product: News today is more and more about sharing and less and less about broadcasting, and even a device as inventive and popular as the iPad isn't going to reverse that trend.And if this becomes the preferred approach to laying out content for the Ipad, then it's easy to project a magazine future where everyone is reading a form of blog or writing for one.
The World Cup was supposed to be a celebration for Somalis, too, as one of the tournament’s official songs was performed by a popular Somali-born rapper, K’Naan, making him a hero to many young Somali men. But then, in the second half of the final game, three explosions ripped through two popular sites where fans were watching. The Shabab claimed responsibility a day later, and for Uganda’s Somali community, a new reality was soon ushered in. The police stopped registering new refugees immediately after the attacks. The process has since reopened with new regulations and there has been a surge in registrations, but community leaders said they believed that there were many who were too timid to come forward. more
...44% of Africans living in the US have a college degree, compared to 23% of the US population, making them the community with the highest rate of academic achievement in the States.This earlier post already scrutinized the above fact, and, below, TVAfrica's cameras follow a member of this "self selecting group":
...an employee of a call center in Morocco is paid between 400 and 450 euros a month against a minimum of 1.320 euros gross in France (including bonuses and 13th month).With that kind of wage disparity, France is fighting the forces of capitalist nature. Regulating such huge gaps simply creates black markets and deviant economies.
The victims do have protection under the law, as long as the matter is reported within a few months, lawyer Buba Ndefiembu says. If a medical doctor determines that damage has been caused to the breasts, then the person responsible can go to jail for up to three years. This does not always deter mothers who see their daughters hitting puberty earlier and earlier thanks to better living standards.
In a world where Photoshop has outed the photograph to be a liar, one can now allow artists to return to their original function — as reporters.
...I spent a few hours one night at my graduate student flat in Norwich, England, writing to the editor of Granta. I was responding to its “Africa” issue, which was populated by every literary bogeyman that any African has ever known, a sort of “Greatest Hits of Hearts of Fuckedness.” It wasn’t the grimness that got to me, it was the stupidity. There was nothing new, no insight, but lots of “reportage” — Oh, gosh, wow, look, golly ooo — as if Africa and Africans were not part of the conversation, were not indeed living in England across the road from the Granta office. No, we were “over there,” where brave people in khaki could come and bear witness. Fuck that. So I wrote a long — truly long — rambling email to the editor. To my surprise, Granta wrote back right away. The editor, Ian Jack, disavowed the “Africa” issue — that was before his time, he said. A year or so later, another Granta editor called. They were doing a new “Africa” issue, and they wanted my perspective. Sure, sure, I said. And then forgot. And then remembered, felt guilty, felt the weight of a continent on my back. I was blocked and more blocked. I drank a Tusker. Finally I wrote something about Bob Geldof. It was shit, said the editor — not his words, but he meant to say that, and he was right. So I went back to work. The deadline came. The deadline went. I was busy working on a short story, busy working on my novel. A cold Tusker. The new Kwani. The beach, in Lamu. The editor called with an idea — why don’t we publish your long crazy email? An extract, that is. Sure, I said, absentmindedly. He sent me a draft. Phew, I thought, absentmindedly. Cut, paste, cut, paste. A few flourishes here or there. Send. It took an hour. The issue came out, my article went online. It became the mostforwarded story in Granta history. I started hearing from friends, from strangers; started getting my own words forwarded to me with a cheerful heading, as something I might be interested in, as though I hadn’t written it. I went viral; I became spam.
Mr Ihegboro said the couple's son was even more confused than them. He added: 'Our boy keeps coming to look at his sister and sits down looking puzzled.' We are a black family. Suddenly he has a white sister.
For many travelers it's a big surprise to discover a slick city crammed with architectural gems, a showcase of the Art Deco, cubist,expressionist,functionalist, futurist and neoclassical architectural styles. Mussolini and his fascist government who aimed to annex the neighboring country of Ethiopia developed Asmara between 1934 and 1940, expending enormous funds. The city, which is situated at an altitude of 2400 m, even called itself "Piccola Roma". The most developed city of the continent emerged as a result of large scale urban planning and the latestBelow, I couldn't resist rehashing this old post of MIT student John Ellis taking us behind the scenes of the sheer scale of Italian urban planning carried out in Asmara in the 1930s:
architectonic inventions built by talented young Italian architects. The Italian population was increased from 4000 to 70 000 at this period and the native population doubled to 200 000. Isolated for nearly 30 years during its war against Ethiopia; Asmara escaped both the trend to build postcolonial piles and the push towards developing world urbanisation. Today Asmara remains a model Art deco town. Since 2005, an official application for status as part of the Unesco World cultural heritage programme has been under assessment.
In South Africa the pool of people buying serious art is even smaller. Most are white businesspeople. The country's emerging black middle class and wealthy have not yet started buying South African contemporary art in the same way the newly monied classes snapped up art in China and India. Ross Douglas organizes the Johannesburg Art Fair. He told CNN, 'What we saw in China and India was that they suddenly got very rich and they started buying contemporary art at the same time the international art market started buying it. And one supported the other. 'In Africa there is very little local buying of contemporary art and that's why artists go abroad. But that will change, slowly.'It is apparent South Africa, in terms of the push-pull tensions of its post-Apartheid society and emerging middle class, occupies a unique nexus of culture and politics that's boon for artists and art consumption. Below, China Contemporary gallery owner, Ludovic Bois, explaining back in '06 how China's occupation of its own nexus of political and cultural tensions works as a catalyst to fuel its contemporary art scene:
It is very simple. You have a society [exemplified by] rapid consumerism and a system that's authoritarian. The 2 co-habit, mingle, co-exist in each other. The artist witness this and the art that they produce obviously is extremely powerful as a result, and it has never been done at such a magnitude and it will be never be done at such a magnitude again because there are no other Chinas.
This flow between France and South Africa can thus be explained by several reasons: firstly, it is obviously an absolutely necessary prelude, by a substantial pool of talent and the presence of dynamic and enterprising publishers of books and magazines. However the clinching factor has been the presence in the region of a French department endowed with a genuine comic books tradition has also played an important role as a link and a conveyor between the two countries and, finally, the European origin of most of the illustrators has enabled them, undoubtedly, to benefit from contacts with Europe. The South African success can also be explained by the existence of an autonomous graphical current, which is underground, satirical, violent and insolent, in step with post-apartheid society and the bearer of a genuine alternative discourse which is open to other exterior currents (more)H/T: Thx Lorraine & Jason Kibiswa
Of course, in a democracy, the majority are permitted the right to their fantasy. The belief that this is our candidate and the shared responsibility of propelling him to victory is the reason for this almost cult followership. Unfortunately, there is no experience to learn from. Abiola didn’t make it. Perhaps, Ribadu would, and it is for Nigerians – those who will make his presidency possible -- to hold him accountable every minute of his time in office. There are those who may argue that Ribadu has little or no political experience. I counter that by saying it is the least of our problems as a nation. We are living in exceptional circumstances and the ability to confront the challenges we face has nothing to do with having decades of experience in our brand of politics. Some people have also argued that it is too soon for Ribadu to run for president. I say now is the time. By 2015, he will be 55 years, and considerably young. But then his appeal will not be anything close to what it is now. There certainly will be new faces, and perhaps new icons. If he loses, it can only make him a stronger candidate in 2015. (more)On the Ribadu-MKO comparisons. I'm amused by the thought that if MKO were alive, Ribadu would probably try to investigate him as well.
It is time for the international community to know that Somaliland cannot wait any longer. It is amazing [that they chose] to support a government in South Somalia, in Mogadishu, which doesn't rule more than 2 or 3 streets in Mogadishu. And ignore completely a country like Somaliland where the administration is responsible for the whole of Somaliland.
