Africa/Germany: Die Afrik-Berliner Ausstellung

 

The catalog reader accompanying the just concluded ‘Who Knows Tomorrow’ exhibition in Germany of works by El Anatsui, Zarina Bhimji, Antonio Ole, Yinka Shonibare MBE, Pascale Marthine Tayou.

Hit the pic for co-curator Chika Okeke-Agulu introduction to the reader and exhibition

Nigeria: Tigritudes and Commited Neutralities

French TV have dug through their archives and dumped a lot of cool '60s post-independence television footage on us through the course of 2010. The BBC is following suit. First up, click on the pic fot Nigeria's first Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa cracking British reporters up a few days after Oct 1st 1960 about the idea of neutrality...



Below, Ina Fr is streaming 26 chunks of a candid conversation with Wole Soyinka, covering his works, the Nigerian contexts that spawned them and everything from Okigbo to the memory of telegrams. Below, a discussion of his famous quote about "a tiger doesn't broadcast his tigritude" - that ultimate take down of "negritude."

Kenya/ China: The Past is also a Natural Resource

China is looking for ...

Irked by accusations that it is the new coloniser of Africa, China is looking to use soft power and historical evidence of its ancient links to the continent to justify its economic embrace of Africa. Chinese archaeologists have been sent to hunt for a long-lost shipwreck off the Kenya coast to support claims that China beat white explorers in discovering Africa....

...this ship?



You gain all this power. Then to ward off the critics, you now generate the knowledge to justify gaining the power. So Foucault.

Nigeria: The Revolution will be Embedded

Sade. 50 concerts. First concert tour in 10 yrs kicks off 06/16 Baltimore, MD - 1st Mariner Arena (on sale 10/16). Details. And look who's back:



H/T: Pyoo Wata

Somalia: Polman on What's Wrong with Humanitarian Aid

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Linda Polman
www.thedailyshow.com

Jon Stewart asks author Linda Polman if Aid projects prolong wars? She refers to the March report of food aid getting diverted in Somalia. World Food Program's side of that story.

Africa: Black Masculinity in Comics

A right-wing take on Luke cage and other Shafts - here. More Sidney Poitier or T'Challas -  here.

H/T: Black Superhero Fan

Africa: Here Come the Russian Funds

This press statement that went with the Russian investment shop, Renaissance Capital, launch of its first pan-African equity fund last week is worth the read. Excerpts below should give African economics skeptics whiplash:

We are sitting here in London, one of the two main capitals of global finance, and the financial centre of Europe, still the world’s largest single economic bloc. We are discussing Africa, a region which has benefited least from the revolution in global finance and is still considered to be among the most risky investment environments globally. Yet if we were to close our eyes for a second and forget the legacy of both regions and focus instead on the hard numbers, we might be a little confused about which is the centre of global finance and which is the risky investment environment. One has an economy which is smaller now than it was five years ago, a budget deficit of 10% of GDP, public debt to GDP of 80%, unfunded liabilities of 200% of GDP, a population which is aging and can’t afford the size of its public sector, industry which is protected and a paralyzed government in the middle of a political crisis. The other has enjoyed average real growth of 6% per annum for a decade, a savings rate of nearly 25% of GDP, debt measuring less than 25% of GDP, a young and growing population, massive internal investment and a political system which is more stable now than it has been in 50 years. A simple question might be where would you like to invest your money? But I guess you are already asking that question.... To me, the answer is clear. When capital is offered the choice between the high growth and low leverage of the new economies driving global growth, or the slow growth, high-leverage and structural inflexibility of the developed world, it will become increasingly impatient with the old model. The developed world will be forced to either restructure its economic model to compete in the emerging global economy, or face an increasingly torrid time of crisis, inflation and rapidly rising funding costs.

...and the why for all this optimism:

So, what is driving the transformation? Basically, Africa stands to become the biggest beneficiary in history of the faster transmission and increased mobility of ideas, economic models, technology and financial and human capital...

...but some reality checks or neoliberal caveats...

Of course, it hardly needs repeating that the African opportunity comes with large associated risks. The sheer complexity and speed of change inevitably brings with it dislocation and volatility. Governance structures are much improved, but they have not yet been fully tested against the sort of volatility and structural change that is likely to characterize Africa’s different economies over the next decade. While markets have proven time and again their astounding ability to create value, they also necessarily involve considerable destruction amidst the wealth creation. It will always be tempting for governments to meddle – to protect domestic champions, to pick winners, to distribute more fairly, or simply to get a slice of the pie. The more they meddle, the less the creative destruction which can drive economic growth.

But some would argue that "the slow growth, high-leverage and structural inflexibility" vs. higher risk, fast growth dynamic between developed and less developed markets is already at play on the continent. The whole thing is worth the read. But, still, what's Chinese for "meh"?

South Africa: Move Over Zombies. Here Comes...

...vampires. SA gets its TruBlood on. Behind the scenes.

African zombies stashed here.

Egypt: The Revolution will be Embedded

Natacha Atlas covers a classic - Nick Drake's "Riverman". Below, she spills her thoughts on her 9th album's jazz-Arabic fusion.

Cameroon: Purple Reign - "Diva Fierce," Cont'd

AP/Getty/Gawker

Michelle Obama welcoming  you-know-who to the United Nations General Assembly spousal luncheon last Friday.

Chantel should dump Biya, paving the way for Africa's two "fashion evil geniuses" (you know who the other is) to get together.

The Revolution will be Embedded

Cubic Zirconia's Tiombe:

A lot of people told me they have sex after our shows...

South Africa: Photography of Zwelethu Mthethwa, Cont'd

VOA offers a look at the Harlem exhibition discussed - here.

Sudan/ South Sudan: Referendum - T Minus 103 Days

Sudan 360 "drums for peace"/"we are the world" video doesn't suck.



Obama's Sudan  speech from UNGA on friday didn't suck either - even with its Prendergast-Ocampo addendum :)

Indeed, there can be no lasting peace in Darfur -- and no normalization of relations between Sudan and the United States -- without accountability for crimes that have been committed. Accountability is essential not only for Sudan’s future, it also sends a powerful message about the responsibilities of all nations that certain behavior is simply not acceptable in this world; that genocide is not acceptable. In the 21st century, rules and universal values must be upheld...

Nigeria: And the 2010 Gish Prize Goes to...

photo: Reuters

...that dude.

Egypt: Mubarak as Genre

almasry alyoum's Noha El-Hennawy talks to cartoonist Saleh Abdel Azeem and explores the publishing and market of books critical of the Mubarak incumbency.

... within despotism, what protects the commerce of dissent? partly the state avoiding its squelching powers turning dissent into bestsellers.

East Africa: New Journalism

...a new magazine focusing on East Africa.

South Africa: Friggin' "Zef," Cont'd

More Afrikaner angst and pseudo profundity from the shores of Die Antwoord.

H/T: Boing

Kenya: Githongo on U.S. Aid and Afghan Corruption

John Githongo talks to Beth Dickinson about development aid enabling corruption:

The idea that corruption and growth can coexist and eventually lead to some form of liberal democracy is nonsense. A highly heterogeneous population, fledgling governance institutions (judiciary, legislature, security services, civil service, etc.), and a fragmented elite (i.e., they can't even agree how to steal together without disagreeing) leads to dysfunction, instability and undermines democracy fundamentally. It is partly responsible for the democratic recession under way in Africa at a time of economic growth! [Corruption] is unsustainable when you have an informed population and/or a fragmented armed populace. It becomes a black hole for dollars... But I think the key, and I think the Obama administration has nailed this quite well, is that you have to study each context individually; one template cannot fit all. [Re-establishing] a policy capacity within USAID, [for example] -- I think that's very, very timely because what it does is allow [the U.S. government] to understand the specificity of a particular situation and therefore understand the pressure points a lot more clearly in a fragile context like Afghanistan.

According to Oxfam, the prior USAID model kinda looked like this:

Prior to the mid-1990s, USAID engaged directly with grantees in defining their agenda and providing services. Changes came about in the early 1990s as budget cuts forced economizing within USAID. As a result, USAID cut back in-house staff and scaled up the use of contractors to do everything from developing projects to implementation and evaluation. By 2008, USAID had a staff of 2,200, compared with a staff of 4,058 in 1980. According to former USAID officials, the decreasing capacity at USAID “has transformed USAID from a creative, proactive, and technically skilled organization focused on implementation to a contracting and grant-making agency. This, in turn, has translated into less policy coherence, reduced flexibility, diminished leverage with other donors, and an increasingly risk-averse bureaucracy.

Nigeria: "Dancers on the Edge of the Cliff..."

Goodluck Johnathan campaign promo (En version), Sept 2010

... but never falling off" were John Campbell's words for Nigeria's politics in this month's issue of Foreign Affairs. But word on the street is Campbell's "Nigeria on the Brink" analysis of the upcoming 2011 elections rankled hairs across the pond. The article is wiki-deep and filled with words like "fraught" and "danger":

...Logistical preparations for the 2011 elections have not started. There is no voters roll, and despite the president’s signing of an electoral reform bill, some of these reforms remain unimplemented four months before the election. The election therefore will almost certainly lack legitimacy, especially in the eyes of the losers. This will further drive the country to the brink, especially if winners and losers are defined by their religious and ethnic backgrounds. There is at the moment no standoff between northern and southern leaders, at least nothing comparable to that between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe or between Kenya’s Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga in the aftermath of the 2007 elections. Nevertheless, the danger of Nigeria plunging into postelection violence is a real possibility.

The Nigerian military still regards itself as the ultimate guarantor of the state’s security, and most political elites agree. In the event of postelection sectarian violence and a political breakdown, it could intervene if the civilian government loses control. The army, given its history, could move quickly, and unlike in Kenya following the 2007 postelection crisis, there would probably be little time for the international community to try to facilitate a political settlement. Only if the military itself fragments would there be space for the international organizations such as the African Union to intervene in search of a political solution. (more)

Wouldn't say INEC officials read this and decided they needed more time to update voters' registers. But on reading it, one does get a sick feeling that these are the kind of internet cut-and-paste research cum blog posts masquerading as security briefs prepared by Washington think tanks for Obama and Congress to read. Lord have mercy.

Kenya: Ory on Technology's Agnosticism

...billionaires on this Clinton Global Initiative plenary got schooled.

Africa: Microcredit Civil War

This particular plenary from Clinton Global Initiative from Tuesday vividly illustrates the schism in the world of microcredit. Old school microcredit institutional ownership as social business model of Muhammad Yunus, Founder and Managing Director, Grameen Bank, versus the microcredit as profitable private ownership of Vikram Akula, Founder and Chairperson, SKS Microfinance.

Basically, Yunus is saying, if you want to make money out of this for yourselves. Don't call it microcredit. Call it something else.

Africa: The 9th MDG?

Rather than reduce Gay rights to an health issue and squeeze it under MDG6, Gilbert Obgachi makes the case for a 9th MDG - here.

Friday

The primordial soup of mind and how ideas cook. Watching this gives u an idea of what Malcolm Gladwell's mind must look like on crack.

Friday

Miguel Atwood-Ferguson Ensemble "Drips/Take Notice" feat Flying Lotus from Miguel Atwood-Ferguson on Vimeo.

Miguel Atwood-Ferguson Ensemble featuring Flying Lotus

DRC: Why Africom Should Go After the LRA?

Over at Wired's Danger Room blog, David Axe thinks Africom should drop the "partnership with Africa" act and put themselves to tactical and better use as Navy SEAL type units, parachuting themselves into the forests of Eastern Congo in the dead of Hollywood night, take out Kony and the LRA leadership Mossad at Entebbe style. The Congolese are happy, credits roll... a Hollywood ending:

Africom is not designed to mount Afghanistan-size wars. It’s all about brief, targeted intervention, influence and the Pentagon’s new favorite word, “partnership.” “Admittedly, this is an indirect and long-term approach,” Maj. Gen. William Garrett, then-commander of Africom’s land troops, told me earlier this year. Recently, U.S. Special Forces helped form a new “model” Congolese army battalion. And earlier this month in Kinshasa, Congo’s sprawling capital, a hundred U.S. Army doctors and medics teamed up with 250 Congolese personnel for a couple weeks of training. “The U.S. has determined it wants to be more involved in Africa,” explained Army Lt. Col. Todd Johnston, the exercise commander. So why not get involved where it can really help? That’s what advocates of U.S. action in Congo are asking. After all, this is a mineral-rich country that takes millions and millions in foreign donations, mostly from America. So find the LRA, and kill or capture the chiefs before they make an already desperate country even worse.

But do it the Africom way. No massive troop deployment. No occupation. No drawn-out conflict. No headline news in the U.S. Just a few spooks, a few commandos, some airplanes and choppers and the permission of Congolese president Joseph Kabila. By American military standards, it wouldn’t take much. But it would make life a lot safer for millions of

Egypt: Ad Love

A sweet reel collecting all the "Don't fuck with the Panda" ads (or here). According to Boing, the ad is-- or was-- popular in Egypt and the Middle East. Speaking of ads from Egypt, after all these years, this Arabic ring tone ad still elicits a chuckle.

Algeria/France: Can You Sketch Journalism? Cont'd

Continuing a series of posts abt the emerging field of "comics journalism" and examples of comics been used journalistically to tackle African issues. Below are pages from Albert Drandov and Franckie Alarcon's Au Nom de la Bombe (Delcourt, released back in January 2010), a graphic novel looking at incidents and lives surrounding gerboise bleue (blogged here) or France's nuclear adventures in the Algerian desert.

 Here - the authors were asked about the research and journalism that went into the comic book. Drando (google trans) on the comics-journalism connection:

 I worked with a research center, the Observatoire de Lyon weapons. I spent three days searching the archives, reading the letters from veterans and trying to get in touch with some of them, I've found the documents. Obviously, the vast majority had been discovered by the journalist of Le Nouvel Observateur, but there were also those who regularly arrived in the mail. Some even landed in my mailbox, because word of mouth spread of this comic strip being written by a journalist. There is still a somewhat negative image of comics, but as I am a journalist, some thought to send me documents, in case I would be interested. Other guys contacted me by offering me internet files they often downplay their importance. Thus we sometimes we found nuggets.

Africa: The Future is Female, Cont'd

Girl Effect has an awesome new ad. Let the boy parodies begin....

Africa: Obama's Anticolonialism? Cont'd

1:17 mins in, Glenn brings it.

Earlier thoughts.

Algeria: Hors-la-loi Rehash, Pt 2

Rachid Bouchareb's Hors-la-loi (2010) is back in the news:

Africa: Dude, What's Wrong with the MDGs? Cont'd

BBC asks Deborah Doane, Director of the World Development Movement, about Africa's MDG chances, and she gives a frank explanation about MDGs in a post-9/11 world and the structural problemslike unfair trade, subsidies, climate change and speculation on food prices--i.e. those elephants in the room no one wants to talk about--which all combine to undermine gains made towards the MDGs. For example, speculation and food prices. On Democracy Now a few weeks back, author Raj Patal was explaining how such speculation, added to the forest fires in Russia, combined to spike food prices killing any gains you might have recently made on, say, MDG #1 in Mozambique or Egypt:

Nigeria: Super Villians of the Modern Age, Cont'd

Recently on Fox, a discussion on the United States postal system went postal. Flippant GOP strategist Jack Burkman uses terms "Nigerian" and "Ethiopian" for what he considers "thoroughly underskilled" labor and post office workers imported into the U.S., and all of whom he feels need to be bumped down to driving cabs.



But surprise, surprise. Fmr. NY Senator Al'D Amato takes the snug so called GOP strategist into a punditry back alley and rips him a new one - on camera.

The "Super Villians of Modern Age" title keeps track of how Nigerians are perceived by others across various media (mostly American ads, films, television etc), and especially how various rhetorical uses of the Nigerian repute and stereotype shifts, adapts, and might even be evolving depending on who is doing the depicting and what their needs are.

Africa: Sustainable Development - Aid and Capacity Building

Oxfam on U.S. foreign aid:

...limitations inherent in how the US provides aid for capacity building reduce the ability of US foreign aid to build lasting, sustainable capacity that is of use to recipients. In particular: 1. The US tends to be too supply driven in its support of capacity building. Often what the US funds reflects the capacities and constraints of the US assistance delivery system rather than the support people across civil society and governments really need. 2. USAID tends to overrely on a contractor model that’s associated with rigid contracts, skewed accountability, high costs, and missed opportunities to support more local actors. 3. The US tends to underutilize country systems. By working outside country systems, USAID misses opportunities for countries to learn by doing.

And in cases where countries don't have the systems, but another country in the region does? Below South African defence industry proponents argue that in the case supplying peace keeping hardware, aid donors work outside regional systems too:

We've just seen with the mission in Darfur -- the international community provided that mission with over 1000 vehicles. You know what happened with those vehicles? They were all written off. Because when the mission was finished all these vehicles were basically donated to the African Union with no logistical support packages. So when the vehicle breaks down there's no support," Henri Boshoff, of the Institute for Security Studies

South Africa: Photography of Alf Kumalo - Role of the Iconic Image, Cont'd

Kumalo talks about the importance of images to nation building. More on iconic images, nation building and collective identities - here & here.

Rwanda: Kagame - Season 2, Cont'd

The spat over the UN leaked report continued at the Q&A after president Paul Kagame's Sept 16th Oppenheimer lecture at IISS in London. Full lecture + Q & A - here. In the Q&A, Kagame pointed out:

...that the UN's failure to stop the genocide against the Tutsis in 1994 should invalidate any criticism of his forces.

I wouldn't say it invalidates criticism of his forces, but that prior failure goes a long way in invalidating the UN's authority to even make those criticisms in the first place.

Africa: From Wakanda to New York

Below, G4 TV dropped a comic book scoop last week: starting in December, Marvel's king of the fictional African kingdom of Wakanda, otherwise known as T'Challa or the black panther, will be the mysterious super hero filling in Matt Murdock's crime fighting shoes in New York city

Africa: Dude, What's Wrong with the MDGs?

The development community/industry descends on New York next week for the MDGs Review summit (Sept 20-22) to basically agree that with five years left to go they are definitively behind schedule, but they will also end up agreeing that the MDG train is the right train and with little tinkering here and there they can get it back on the right track. The just released Lancet–LIDC Commission report on the MDGs begs to differ. It looks at the way forward after 2015, arguing that the MDGs, in their present conceptualization, were busted to begin with:

We have already considered how different elements of the MDGs are compatible with, and indeed are derived from, different conceptualisations of development. The MDGs are fragmented not only in their implementation but also in their underlying conceptualisations of development and overlapping of means and ends. Thus economic growth is considered in MDG 1 (or at least in the dominant concept that economic growth is the key driver of poverty reduction); MDGs 2–6 are more concerned with basic needs and human development (although MDG 3 focuses on a particular end regarding one aspect of equity); MDG 7 is concerned with both environmental sustainability and basic needs (of sanitation and urban dwellings); whereas MDG 8 mainly addresses structural issues in international trading and financial systems and relations (although targets measure these in terms of Offi cial Development Assistance [ODA] flows, tariffs and subsidies affecting trade, and debt relief). While this approach captures a range of development perspectives, it generates a poorly aligned mixture of means, ends, and sometimes competing ideas about normative aspiration (eg, economic growth vs sustainability), which has made the MDG project less useful than it could have been, since opportunities to link the goals together coherently have been missed and a rigorous approach to assessment has been overlooked. Building on both our cross-sectoral analysis of the MDGs and other multidimensional understandings of development concerned with economic growth, livelihoods, entitlements and capabilities, equity, environmental and ecosystem services, and institutions, we put forward an overarching conceptualisation of development that derives from an assessment of existing choices, and a clearer articulation of the relation of ends and means. (p. 10-11)

How would this new multidimensional understanding tackle, let's say, global health development?

In application of our development principles to health elements of wellbeing, we would envisage future health development goals that are focused on sustainable health systems, built around delivering health objectives across the life course. This objective would involve close linkage with learning, economic, social, and environmental elements necessary to achieving these objectives, which themselves could involve other goal development processes based on elements of improved wellbeing. From a procedural perspective, these health objectives would be agreed by international consensus, and how they were then developed into goals would be a process led at the national level, building through dialogue to a set of regional and global goals. We suggest that such goals avoid threshold-based targets and indicators that might increase inequity and instead aim to generate wellbeing for all, while taking a proactive, pro-poor approach. Global cooperation would emphasise supporting countries to achieve goals in more diverse ways than simply donor funding. Sustainability would be incorporated through a high degree of national ownership and ongoing investment in human, social, and physical capital. (p.31)

Friday

Damn! Tyler Perry shuts us up; Oprah too.

Friday

Best Entourage outros

South Africa: New Post-Struggle Literature

In the shadow of new stifling media laws, Wits university Leon de Kock leads South African authors, Deon Maas, Chris van Wyk, Thando Mgqolozana and Zukiswa Wanner, in a discussion about...

...writing after the struggle, defining masculinity and literary groupies (hit the cap).

Africa: "The Future is Female..."

 

... at the big MDGs review summit taking place in NY next week as the UN announces its global strategy for women's and children's health. Making MDG 4 [reducing by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five] and MDG 5 [reducing by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio and achieving universal access to reproductive health by 2015] the handle on achieving all the other MDGs - i.e. MDG 3: gender equality

Kenya: Obama's Anticolonialism? Cont'd

In response to that d'Souza article, a reader at the "Dish" is befuddled:

In a country founded by Washington, Adams, Paine, Hale, and Jefferson, how can we have reached a point where it has become a slur to call someone an "anti-colonialist"?

Nice. But, of course, d'Souza knows Washington, Adams, Paine, Jefferson and many other founding fathers were staunch "anti-colonialists." Isn't the stain of the "slur" itself crucial to being a "founding father"? And if one were making a list of the flaws the founding fathers had, and they had many, and if d'Souza thinks anti-colonialism is so bad, perhaps we should add the signing of the declaration of independence to the list then. I think it's safe to say d'Souza isn't a wee bit interested in the substance of "anti-colonialism" as he is in the Third World etymology of the term. Even though nothing could be more "anti-colonial" than starting an American revolution to gain independence from the British Empire. Yet, d'Souza, in describing Obama's own flawed father, labels the guy's worldview as "Kenyan anti-colonialism," emphasizing an aspect of any anti-colonialism over the whole in order to paint it as "Other"; as a different "anti-colonialism"; as though the mere conflation of the 2 non-American terms "Kenyan" and "anti-colonialism" are so alienating that we should forget that it also defines a founding father in Jomo Kenyatta, a Mau Mau uprising and a Kenyan revolution to gain independence from, hey, guess who - the British Empire.

The "why" to D'Souza rhetorical maneuvering in labeling Obama an anticolonialist is obvious, frustrating and boring. But the "how" and what it teaches us about the politics of generating difference is worth pondering.

pic: "Jazzcats crossing the Hudson".

Africa: X-Rays of Joseph Conrad's Heart

Swedish/Kenyan artist Catherine Anyango talks to the BBC about her graphic novel adaptation of the one and only Heart of Darkness. Yep, Achebe still hates the book - my old thoughts here. Anyango's take on it is not technically an adaptation. Thank God. Rather, it strips away most of the text from Joseph Conrad's hugely influential and criticized masterpiece, leaving us with foggy recollections of Marlow's mind and how surreal Africa seemed to him and his boat.

Over at the publisher site, she breaks down some of the tricks used to portray Marlow's spiral as well as how the transitions work as bridges over disparate time and space, and as sutures allowing the reader to occupy the space of those tears in the fabric of Marlow's mind:

Here we see Marlow seeing clearly what the odd balls on posts outside Kurtz's hut really are. At this point his appreciation of the 'subtle horror' that separates 'pure, uncomplicated savagery' from the darker effects of colonial rule makes him understand that his position in the Congo may be on the wrong side of good and evil. In this moment, he and the head are not so unlike - he has also reached the end of something, he is also is doomed, and damned. They have been brought to this point by the same forces and he recognises himself in this thing. The match cut bring them together and we can sympathise and feel horror at both.

South Africa: Rainbow Crime

Above, the Institute for Security Studies' Gareth Newham goes over the new South African crime stats released last week by police minister Nathi Mthethwa: murder rate down 8.6%... number of murders below 17,000 first time since national statistics started being complied in 1994 or in comparason to almost 27,000 in 1995-96. Street robberies and sexual offenses down 10.4% and 4.4% respectively. Carjacking down 6.8 %, Violent robbery down 7.5%, but house burglary is up by 2.7% ("affirmative shoppers"? :) and 65% of murder victims know their attacker. Before you ask, BBC notes the latest figures cover the year up to March 2010 and so do not include the World Cup-good behavior period when hundreds of thousands of foreigners visited the country. Picking apart the stats, ISS ponders the puzzling relationship btw assaults, attempted murders and murders:

The reduction in murder is particularly good news given that this is the most accurate statistics for interpersonal violent crime. The decrease of 7.2% in the absolute numbers of murders is the third largest year-on-year decline since 1995. it is not clear why this is the case. Since most murders occur between people who know each other it is likely that the decrease is a s the result of the social factors, However, the large 10% decrease in street robberies may have also contributed to the decline. While murder has decreased significantly, there hasn't been a notable change in the trends for assault. Although incidents of assault decreased by well over 20% between 2002/3 and 2009/10 the figures have now stabilized, showing slight increases over the past year. Research is necessary to understand why, when both murder and attempted murder have decreased, we have not seen a corresponding decrease in assault, since both murder and attempted murder often start out as an assault.

Looks like a police win, and Carver was right. But seriously, over at the Mail & Guardian S.A artist David Goldblatt's new project (hit pic below), capturing criminals return to the scenes of their crimes, puts faces & stories on all those stats and numbers:

Kenya: Maruge the First Grader

Justin Chadwick's First Grader (2010)--the true story of a mau mau vet, in his 80s, return to school--hits the festival circuit, bringing tears and raising thumbs way up. Trailer - here. Trailer addict has a slew of clips.



One hardly comes across production notes for African shoots, so this one's worth a browse - some details abt the casting process and camera approach. Someone needs to now make the true life female version - look no further.

South Africa: Humor in the Context of Black Modernity, Cont'd

Continuing a series of posts looking at all kinds of attempts, from within the context of black modernity, to milk the tragic cows of race and underdevelopment for humor. NPR has another review of South African dir. Jann Turner's White Wedding (2010). Check clip above for the scene described in the excerpt below:

...Like most grooms, Elvis (Kenneth Nkosi) thinks he has all the time in the world — five whole days to cover a few hundred miles — but he's not counting on buses that leave without him, a best man (Rapulana Seiphemo) whose girlfriend slashes their tires, and a granny who decides she'll skip the wedding but send a goat instead. Oh, and then there's the hitchhiking English tourist (Jodi Whittaker) the groom and best man reluctantly rescue in the middle of nowhere. Having just discovered that her fiancé slept with her best friend, she launches into a lengthywhy-would-anyone-get-married? rant before discovering her rescuers are heading to Elvis' nuptials. This white English girl traveling with two black men raises a few eyebrows in rural South Africa. And as it happens, that was a good part of the inspiration for making the film. Director Jann Turner, who is white, and her leading men came up with their screenplay after taking a cross-country trip of their own along much this same route. Finding "whites only" signs more than a decade after the end of apartheid had them thinking about the transitions the country was still in the process of making.

Africa: Obama's Anticolonialism?

Finally got round to reading Dinesh D'Souza's cover story in Forbes titled, "How Obama Thinks." What we find in Obama, D'Souza writes, is the reincarnation of his father's worldview; floating the theory that this worldview is not so much socialism, as it is anticolonialism. Excerpts and lots of nonsense commence:

...Notice that his title is not Dreams of My Father but rather Dreams from My Father. Obama isn't writing about his father's dreams; he is writing about the dreams he received from his father. So who was Barack Obama Sr.? He was a Luo tribesman who grew up in Kenya and studied at Harvard. He was a polygamist who had, over the course of his lifetime, four wives and eight children. One of his sons, Mark Obama, has accused him of abuse and wife-beating. He was also a regular drunk driver who got into numerous accidents, killing a man in one and causing his own legs to be amputated due to injury in another. In 1982 he got drunk at a bar in Nairobi and drove into a tree, killing himself.

An odd choice, certainly, as an inspirational hero. But to his son, the elder Obama represented a great and noble cause, the cause of anticolonialism. Obama Sr. grew up during Africa's struggle to be free of European rule, and he was one of the early generation of Africans chosen to study in America and then to shape his country's future. I know a great deal about anticolonialism, because I am a native of Mumbai, India. I am part of the first Indian generation to be born after my country's independence from the British. Anticolonialism was the rallying cry of Third World politics for much of the second half of the 20th century. To most Americans, however, anticolonialism is an unfamiliar idea, so let me explain it.

He then paints a jaundiced picture of anticolonialism, signing it with the names of Fanon, Nkrumah and Edward Said, before leaping to make the following connection:

It may seem incredible to suggest that the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. is espoused by his son, the President of the United States. That is what I am saying. From a very young age and through his formative years, Obama learned to see America as a force for global domination and destruction. He came to view America's military as an instrument of neocolonial occupation. He adopted his father's position that capitalism and free markets

Senegal: Can You Sketch Journalism? Cont'd

Walshe/Getty Images/ESPN

Continuing a series of posts on how "comics journalism" might tackle African issues and representation, below are pages and interviews from Aurélien Ducoudray and artist Eddy Vaccaro's 2010 graphic novel about Senegalese-French boxer Louis M’barick Fall a.k.a "battling Siki."

The book, Championze (ed. Gallisol, 2010), a play on the words 'champion' and 'chimpanze' by the french press of the time', tells how Siki, in 1922, defeated the European light heavyweight champion, Georges Carpentier (wiki summarizes the fight - here; Siki's bio - here)...



... but his feat has since been relegated to the annals of fight fixes and we are left of him the media image of "a simple-minded drunken savage."



In his review, Fabian Ortiz remarks on writer and former journalist Aurelien Ducoudray's use of the medium of comics, this time as a way to visualize, critique and fill in those gaps left in an African's biography by the skewed colonial journalism of the past:

According to his research, historical records quote Louis Fall only very briefly (as a mere footnote in most boxing encyclopedias) and news articles essentially deride him by making tasteless wordplays, either glossing over his proverbial "dark side" or distastefully making fun of his physical features. Moreover, the white journalists of the time had only retained the least glimmering aspects his of persona, namely his penchant for alcohol and proclivity for street fights. Due to the lack of historical data, the two Frenchmen revisit Battling Siki’s story with subtle creativity, thereby offering the readers not a historical but a fictionalized biography.... To those who know about comic books, “Championzé” may call to mind other historically-charged comics such as Art Spiegelman’s Maus (on the holcocaust) or Joe Sacco’s Gorazde (on the war in Bosnia). Perhaps not as historically dense as the two other quoted works, "Championzé" is an invitation to rediscover racism in colonial early twentieth-century France, a hideous facet of the country’s history.

South Africa: Friggin' "Zef"

Cover for Die Antwoord's incoming shitstorm. Over at Boing Boing, designer Sean Bonner goes on about how the cover came together.

South Africa: De-Freakin' Sarah

Africa is a Country hipped us on to the bio-pic of Saartjie “Sarah” Baartman back in April and the good folks at S&A have kept tabs on it  till the teaser dropped:

South Africa: This Revolution Will Be Embedded

Yiy by Muhsinah + the animation of Phetogo Tshepo Mahasha.

Africa: Manga Tackles Museums as Plundered Art or Global Cultural Encyclopedias?

The Economist talks with the British Museum about the work of Japan's leading manga artist, Hoshino Yukinobu, and his character professor Munakata. The Indiana Jones-like professor takes up residence in the British muesum, reflecting, investigating and drawing his own conclusions on plundered art, art repatriation, cultural patrimony, or museums as accessable encyclopedias.

Africa: The Making of...

... of the Louis Vuitton ad, featuring Bono and wife Ali Alison emerging from some small plane on an African grassland, shot by Annie Leibovitz. Tag line, “Every Journey Begins in Africa." If aid advocates donning high end luxury products are irreconcilable things in your book, this WWD article from last month lists the organizations Bono and his wife donated their fees to.



Some prior thoughts on this intricate balance between celebrity, advocacy, advertising and advanced capitalism - here.

Kenya: Should the Church be Hip?

For some time now, an ongoing debate at the highly traffiked Atlantic blog, The Daily Dish, asks, "can the church be hip?" (here, here, here etc). In other words, in an attempt to stay relevant to the current generation can the church, litugically, speak this generation's language--especially its music--without losing its, er, soul? Recently the BBC took on the "can/should the church be hip" question, looking at the gospel music scene in Kenya:


From what the BBC piece, one gets the impression culture--i.e. everything from hip hop to genres sch as vampires and zombies etc--essentially boils down to various intersecting modes of message delivery and the Christian message isn't immune to changes in these modes of delivery. All they ask is while the modes change, the Christian message shouldn't get watered down. It seems to me their opinion assumes the gospel is medium agnostic; which in other words begs the question whether the gospel stays conservative even if its delivery doesn't?



Maybe in Africa it does. Above, two American religious scholars on recent BH chat agree that the church in Africa tends to be theologically conservative. But they imply that the continued relevance in African societies of older traditions means the church is also litugically open. At any rate, below is teeth clenching illustration of how so not to be hip below:

Africa: The Making of...

...of the Ford Brothers' The Dead which is certain to hit theaters soon.



2 of 3 video diaries from the Ford brothers about the making their African Zombie road flick." I wouldn't for the life of me try to guess what the directors and their crew endured in Burkina Faso--i.e. the police check points and bribes, the lack of infrastructure etc. But tapping into all the African stereotypes and trying to frame this for horror audiences as the "toughest film shoot ever"... Bitch, please!

Kenya: Ethnography of the Young and the Restless in Nairobi, Cont'd

Incoming documentary on the evolving urban youth culture in Nairobi. Feels like the continuation to this earlier post.

H/T: Kenyan Christian

Rwanda: Kagame - Season 2

The "screw the NGOs" portion from his inauguaration speech:

There is no doubt that we face many problems in Africa, and the biggest one of all, is not the lack of democracy, but poverty, and the dependence that comes with underdevelopment. It is this situation of dependence that allows some governments, and even NGOs – who are not accountable to anyone – to think they have a right to dictate the conduct of legitimate state actors. African governments are often accused of being corrupt and not responsive to the needs of our populations. But when we do what every government is expected to do – deliver services; instil accountability, transparency and efficiency; build social and economic infrastructure; and raise living standards – the goalposts change, and we are then accused of forcing progress on the people and of being repressive. Furthermore, these external actors turn around, and promote the ideas of adventurers who have no legitimacy, and who do not relate to the majority of the people, and deserve nothing more than to be ignored. This duplicity cannot be construed as confusion or lack of understanding. Rather, it is evidence of hypocrisy and a patronising attitude towards our entire continent, which perpetuates the cycle of poverty and underdevelopment, continues to deprive our people of their dignity, and which Africans must continue to stand up against.

danm! & lol

Africa: Miles Davis' Psychedelia. Mati Klarwein's Dreamscapes

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Mile Davis' Bitches Brew - the so called "shock heard around the world" and the official crossover of jazz, according to Miles, into psychedelia. Starting with Filles de Kilimanjaro in '68 (or maybe even Nerfetiti in '67), was a definite use of an Afrocentric mystique or packaging to Miles' own 60's mystique, which will continue with Bitches Brew and Live-Evil mainly due to Mati Klarwein's cover art. Sony's 40th anniversary box set cover settles for a synecdoche of Klarwein's original '67 cover.



Klarwein, influenced by Dali, Fuchs and sojourns in Morocco, Niger, Kenya, Senegal, Gambia, feels like he was using the suspended rules of dreamscapes for his own take on negritude, especially on the cover for Bitches Brew. Rob Young, in Klarwein's obituary, talks about the cover's African connection and recalls what Klarwein had to say about it:

"I hooked up with Miles the way I hooked up with everything else in life: through the women I've known. be they friends or lovers, they are all mothers with excellent taste. Without them I'd be a dead spermatozoid in a dry puddle, and Miles saw that in my paintings. The only time he discussed subject matter was for Live-Evil. He asked me to paint a toad for the 'Evil' side. So I painted J Edgar Hoover as a toad in drag—which turned out to be another one of my prophetic insights'... the original painting from Bitches Brew remains lost: sold to an unknown buyer, although Klarwein claims he's not troubled by the loss of an original—the important thing is the image itself. Klarwein's pictures re-ignite dialogue between ancient tribal history and contemporary civilisation. Paintings such as 1964's 'Crucifixion (Freedom Of Expression)', whose multiracial orgies on a backdrop of holy sites and lush jungles caused 'outrage' (as paintings seem to do) when exhibited in New York. You can almost read them like one of Cheikh Anta Diop's histories of Africa as the cradle of civilisation. In Klarwein's world, culture is a perpetual-motion machine where hierarchies are overturned and history collapses into itself, tunnels open up through the Earth allowing cultures, creeds and symbols to project themselves on each other's irises, male and female. Forms are melted through sex into a hermaphroditic anthropomorph.