Africa/ Haiti: Media Reliance on "Disaster Porn"

One can learn a lot about how Africa gets covered by foreign media organizations from reading Maura O'Connor's write up in CJR on how, for the foreign press, Haiti, cholera epidemic and all, makes for irresistible "disaster porn":

Is America’s news coverage of the cholera epidemic, which has now taken over one thousand lives, yet another example of an industry reliance on “disaster porn”? In the New York Daily News, Haiti-based journalist Ansel Herz pointed out that CNN returned to Haiti for the second time since the January 12 earthquake to cover the cholera outbreak—but in a typically lurid fashion, with little attention to the underlying causes. “With CNN lagging behind its more partisan competitors, disaster porn is now the news channel’s bread and butter,” wrote Herz. “But it has managed to entirely miss the big-picture story: The cholera outbreak itself is a

South Africa: Those Shady Bilingual Speakers, Cont'd

An addendum to the post on a study of bilingual speakers/Whorfian debate on the degree to which language shapes our thoughts; South African opera singer Given Nkosi shares his thoughts on thinking in Zulu but singing in French, Italian and German:



H/T: Reston

Somalia/ United States: Smells Like Teen Spirit, Cont'd

Sky & Soil... thinks American-Somali "Christmas Tree Bomber," Mohamed Osman Mohamud, is a dead ringer for Boondocks' Huey Freeman. We concur.  

Zambia Voice feels the whole "how alienated Somali youth feel in their host countries" (i.e. UK/ Denmark & more/ U.S. ) argument is a cop-out:

It seems that every time stories like this hit the news, we hear about how so and so didn’t feel connected in this new country he/she was living in, and how that anger simmered for years until finally spilling over. If only the schools had paid more attention or if the larger community at hand had been more inviting and welcoming, etc. Granted, some of these arguments are valid but when did personal responsibility end? I find it quite irritating when people make excuses for their inability to make it when they stack the odds against themselves. What do you gain from living in your own insulated community, refusing to speak anything but your native tongue all at the same time pointing fingers at your host nation for not doing enough to make you welcome? It’s a give and take relationship, my brothers and sisters. We need to assume responsibility for our own happiness, successes and failures and not fall into negative mindsets that keep us trapped. What are you doing to ensure your survival and that of your family? Are you making efforts to understand the culture and customs of the new land you now call your own? You were courageous enough to seek a new life outside your home country for whatever reason, why throw it all away by inattention or the lack of will? Nobody owes you anything no matter how much you pay yearly in taxes.

Some Somali youth get with the "give and take" and find ways to function well in both worlds.

Africa: Timid African Fiction and Non-Fiction Writers, Cont'd

Readers comments to the "Timid African Fiction and Non-Fiction Writers" post certainly deserve a separate post, especially since those readers hit on way better points than the one I spouted.

KonWomyn thinks the issue of African writers placing the developed world under a critical lens is a valid observation to make because it's a...:

...question of the purpose of representation and not so much a question of the power to represent. African writers are still engaged in the process of 'writing back' and writing our diverse selves into discourse so representing others or imagining others can be a secondary concern. I don't think it's a question of 'gumption and vision' but if in 2010 you're still having your story told for you through people like VS Naipaul and photographers like David Chancellor you take up the pen to tell like it is.

Perhaps writing back critically remains "a secondary concern" because a large number of writers, as Waffarian notes, are aware of the time, resources and effort it takes to dig and gain insight into other cultures:

I often read with wonder hastily written assumptions by writers who have no business writing anything after a short walk or two. I do think this is one of the problems facing Africans when it comes to writing about the West. You can't be taken seriously if you "assume" what an action you saw in the street is about without any real substance to your observation. They have been many non African writers who have succeeded in "writing back" and it only works when the writers KNOW what they are talking about. Have seen enough, done enough thinking about the subject they wish to explore, read a bit, have some references, etc. Does that mean it should take you years to write anything substantial about another country/land/culture, etc? I don't know, all I know is that it is very easy to see when writers do not really KNOW enough about the culture they wish to depict and hence, can not really be taken seriously... and let's not forget that African writers may not have the same financial means/resources needed to conduct such observations (which I am convinced needs months if not years...)

Method to Madness questions the premise of the whole project:

Besides that, really - why does one need a satirical look at white people? What is that to do? To what end does one write such work? I would argue that it is to the credit of African writers that they keep to what they want to say, and not ramble on in some vain effort to counteract some of Western literature's most myopic excesses.

Trying to wrap my head around all these points, it seems to me that African writers can't just "write back" for the sake of counteracting alone. There must be a more creative solution to the "writing back" puzzle that brings more than just criticism or reverse anthropology to the table. African writers, in the same vein as, say, Truman Capote's research and approah to In Cold Blood, might just have to invent a new postcolonial sub-genre in tackling the problem.

Senegal: Sabar Stripper Battles

Assanatou Baldé in Afrik News clues us in on videos of women communities who practice the more sexually explicit and revealing version of the traditional dance, "Leumbeul," in Sabar contests that seem to be missing only a stripper pole and have taken on the intensity of dance hall battles - videos of which have been surfacing online and drawing criticisms from lots of Senegalese. Oops. Forgot to add. Sabar bou graw video below so, so, so NSFW:

sabar bou graw Uploaded by Saparalati

In a similar vein, a while back  reports surfaced about Bobaraba, a similar butt convulsing dance and craze luring young girls in Burkina Faso off to seedy clubs to compete. But the Senegalese "Leumbeul" feels more flirtatious and steeped in a tradition of female one-upmanship and, perhaps, was what Senegalese director Joseph Gaï Ramaka was going for in the opening credits of his 2001 masterpiece, Karmen Gei, which saw Djeinaba Diop Gaï, in an unforgettable debut, show us how it's done:



An ancient post on Karmei Gei and other adaptations of Bizet's opera to the Africa terrain - here.

Libya: The Other Wikileak

As though the wikileaks about Qaddafi's "voluptous [Ukranian] blonde" (NYT) or his botox regimen (El Pais) weren't titillating enough, Max Fisher, writing at The Atlantic, also got his hands on a different set of leaked U.S cables detailing the frantic U.S-Russian diplomatic effort to negotiate with Qaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam al-Qaddafi (the reformer) and wrangle the last containers of enriched uranium unto a plane out of Libya:

Libya agreed to remove its weapons-grade materials and equipment shortly after a 2003 incident in which the U.S. government intercepted a ship bound for that country with Pakistani-made black-market centrifuges. For six years, Libyan officials complied with U.S.-led international efforts to dismantle the program. In November of last year, when officials without notice halted the dismantling process, the Libyans were down to their last 5.2 kilograms--still enough to make a bomb. A few days later, the U.S. embassy was contacted by Saif al-Islam al-Qaddafi. The son of Muammar al-Qaddafi, Saif is widely seen as Libya's great hope for reform should he win out against his more conservative brother, Mutassim, and succeed their father. But on that day, Saif told the U.S. ambassador to Libya that he was "fed up" with the U.S. He warned, "Slowly, slowly, we are moving backward rather than forward." Saif, according to the State Department cables reviewed by The Atlantic, told U.S. representatives that he could "fix" the nuclear crisis--if the U.S. met his demands. His list included military equipment, assistance in building a nuclear medical facility, relaxation of trade embargoes against Libya, and a sum of money that he implied would be in the tens of millions of dollars. But Saif made clear that what he sought most was respect. He suggested that the United States and Libya end their decades of enmity with a grand gesture of détente, even recommending that the senior Qaddafi and President Obama hold a joint summit. The incongruity of demanding friendship from the U.S. while simultaneously blackmailing it with the risk of loose nuclear materials does not appear to have bothered Saif. He concluded with a bit of American vernacular, telling the ambassador, "The ball is in your court." The U.S. ambassador warned Saif that the Libyans had "chosen a very dangerous issue on which to express its apparent pique about perceived problems in the bilateral relationship," as an embassy official later put it in summarizing the meeting. According to that official, whose cable to Washington was among the 115 pages reviewed by The Atlantic, the ambassador added, "By its actions, Libya was jeopardizing its relationship with the whole international community."

It's ironic how all these Cablegates as well as the prior Afghan and Iraq wikileak dumps show the digitization and increased access to intelligence, coming out of calls in the wake of  9/11 for governmental agencies to share their information with each other, now comes back to bite them in the ass:

The US embassy cables are marked "Sipdis" – secret internet protocol distribution. They were compiled as part of a programme under which selected dispatches, considered moderately secret but suitable for sharing with other agencies, would be automatically loaded on to secure embassy websites, and linked with the military's Siprnet internet system. They are classified at various levels up to "secret noforn" [no foreigners]. More than 11,000 are marked secret, while around 9,000 of the cables are marked noforn. More than 3 million US government personnel and soldiers, many extremely junior, are cleared to have potential access to this material, even though the cables contain the identities of foreign informants, often sensitive contacts in dictatorial regimes. Some are marked "protect" or "strictly protect".

Africa: Discovering the Middle Class, Cont'd

This feels like an update to the '09 FT report - below, ABND reports on the increasing spending power of an expanding African upper class:



And at the heels of any emerging or expanding middle and upper class comes foreign fast food chains. KFC talks about plans to feed the South African and Nigerian middle class.



Those obesity numbers are not going to know what hit them.

Ethiopia: Gerima on Teshome @ UCLA

Ethiopian director Haile Gerima (class of'72, MFA and ’76),  returned to UCLA back in September to screen Teza (2008) at a benefit for a memorial scholarship fund named for the late Ethiopian and UCLA Professor Teshome Gabriel (MA '76, PhD '79), who died unexpectedly in June (blogged here). He talks abt Teshome below and a reference to him in Teza:



At the screening were other UCLA alumni Charles Burnett '69 ("Killer of Sheep"), Billy Woodberry MFA '82 ("Bless Their Little Hearts"), and Julie Dash MFA '85 ("Daughters of the Dust"), all popularly referred to in African American film circles as the LA Rebellion. Below, Haile spouts more Fanon, English vs. Amharic, Ethiopia's cultural foundations, pan-Africanism, dogmatism as a poor response to ideology and more:

Kenya: Female Husbands. "Social Males"

Watching the KTN report above, we recalled that the chapter Woman-Woman Marriage in Africa by Joseph Carrier and Stephen Murray from Boy-Wives and Female Husbands: Studies in African Homosexualities (edt. Stephen O. Murray, Will Roscoe/ H/T: M2TM) quotes a 1980 study, "Is the female Husband a Man," by Evans Pritchard, which nails to a T on pg 285 the description of 87 year old Elizabeth Chemasunde depicted above. Let's just say it has a lot to do with cows - you can read it here.

For those wondering why a woman would want to marry a female-husband, Carrier and Murray cite
1980 study and '85 book by Regina Oboler, which offered enough reasons to make anyone do a quick rethink:

Oboler suggests several motivations for females marrying female husbands: (1) the somewhat higher bridewealth paid by female husbands; (2) greater and more casual companionship; (3) somewhat greater participation in household decisions; (4) sexual autonomy; (5) less quarreling with and physical violence than with male husbands; (6) and a dislike of men (76, 78). In her 1980 article, Oboler concluded that the Nandi wives are under the control of their female husbands and are not promiscuous. In her 1985 book (based on the same 1976-77 fieldwork), however, she wrote that the wife of a female husband 'is free to engage in sexual liasons with men of her choosing'... 'Today, sexual freedom is cited as one of the advantages of marriage to a female husband.' (p 261)

Zimbabwe: "Government, as Copyright Holder"?

A few weeks back, Getrude Gumede in the Zimbabwean Telegraph pointed a flashlight at a WTF amendment bill that got its first reading in parliament. Clause 16 of the proposed "General Laws Amendment Bill" seeks to make the government copyright holder of legislation, notices and other material in the Government Gazette, court judgments and certain public registers - documents, which under section 10 of the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act, are not suject to copyright and should be in the public domain.

In other words, the government "will have a complete discretion in deciding whether or not the documents should be published and disseminated, after their initial publication in the Gazette; and the Government will be able to dictate the terms and conditions under which the documents are published and disseminated. In the Zimbabwean Independent today, Paidamoyo Muzulu sees, among other bottlenecks the amendment introduces,  ZANU-PF putting taps on flow of information ahead the upcoming elections:

..."The intention of the Bill is political rather than administrative. They are seeking to control the flow of information. This should also be read in the context of electoral language as Zanu PF braces for elections next year. They are trying to manage the flow of information and this is contrary to democratic principles," [Takura] Zhangazha said. The activists said if government was granted copyright in statutes and judgments, then the state would control how they are disseminated. Human rights and legal activists believe that the amendments in clause 16 are a great departure from other jurisdictions in the region citing examples from South Africa, Zambia and Botswana. In all three countries no copyright subsists in official texts of a legislative, administrative or legal nature. Statutes and judgments are not subject to copyright. The amendment will have profound effects on private organisations that would like to publicise electoral laws prior to an election as they will have to seek government permission first, in addition to any permission they may require from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. Human rights orgainsations that want to disseminate a court judgment would have to get permission from the Minister of Justice while organisations that want to print and issue a statutory form enabling women to apply for maintenance will have to get permission too and may also have to pay a royalty to government for each form printed and distributed.

H/T: Boing Submitterator

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

More like self ad love - with balls. Click to enlarge another addition to a series of posts on tapping the humor in racial tragedy. Notice Adebola's letter is addressed to the German tutor Niklas Frings Rupp. But apparently it worked - he got in.

Advertising Agency: DDB, Lagos, Nigeria
Creative Director: Ola Olowu
Art Director: Ade Ideen
Copywriter: Babatunde Adebola
Illustrator: Ola Olowu
Released: May 2010

Nigeria: The Revolution will be Embedded

Shot with all the bells and whistles or shot in rough and tumble Lagos using cleverly thought out transitions, music videos in Nigeria have come a long way. Many argue that they are the training labs for the next generation of Nollywood filmmakers.



The Way You Are - Darey. Label: Soul Muzik. Dir. Mark Hofmeyr



E ni Duro - Olamide. Label: Coded Tunes, 2010. Dir. DJ Tee.

H/T: DJ Mighty Mike

Ethiopia: The Making of...

... Johnnie Walker's Just Keep Walking commercial featuring World Record marathon runner Haile Gebrselassie. Shot on location in Ethiopia for advertising agency: King James by Giant Films, Cape Town, South Africa.



Also worth reading is Elshadai Negash article in Addis Fortune abt Gebreslassie's u-turn on retirement + the NY Times sticking to its story that "his emotional decision to retire might have stemmed in part from political pressure he was feeling in Ethiopia. His phone has been tapped by government officials and he has faced some sort of blackmail attempt."

South Africa: Can't Fight the Vuvu, Cont'd

We thinks the vuvuzela has shown its true colors - its slipperiness or ability to occupy that gray area where the lines between protest, cheering and activism seem to blur. Parisians protesting the Sarkosy govt. plans to raise the retirement age and the ban of Harvard's "Silence Yale Campaign" at this year's Harvard vs Yale game are two cases in point.

Africa: Timid African Fiction and Non-Fiction Writers

John Mwazemba thinks aloud in the East African that African writers are terribly timid when it comes to writing about other people and cultures:

Prof Charles Nnolim, a fierce Nigerian literary critic once infuriated many when he once famously remarked about African literature: "I say that we have challenges, and the challenges are that we write timidly. "I note that we don't have the gumption and vision that the white man has. The white man came to Africa and wrote Heart of Darkness, Heart of the Matter, King Solomon's Mines and others. "But our writers go there, live there, marry them, they marry us, and they rarely write about Europe and Europeans the way they write about us. We are limited on our soil as writers. We don't have that inventive aplomb to write about other people." Neither the old writers like Ngugi wa Thiong'o, nor the younger generation the likes of Binyavanga Wainaina, Chimamanda Ngozi, Chika Unigwe and Petina Gappah have written anything substantial about the white man. They have done a good job in satirising African dictators -- for instance caricaturing the Robert Mugabes of this world and making fun of all of us in our poverty. However, they have not dared to strongly criticise the white man. There must be many disappointed readers out here who have been waiting for years for fictitious full-length works about the white man, critical and satirical of his ways so we can also laugh at him.

Nigerian journalist Tolu Ogunlesi, against the backdrop of V. S. Naipaul's recent book: The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief, made the same case for Africans writing non-fiction over at 3 Quarks a few weeks back:

Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul, already in his late seventies, set out to visit half a dozen countries in Africa. His mission, to compile material for a new book on traditional religious beliefs on the continent. He must have spent no more than a few months in total – but has gone ahead to write a book that will, by virtue of its author and subject, automatically take a place of importance in any Serious Conversation concerning literature about Africa. So Naipaul comes to Africa to write about Africa. Now let’s ask ourselves this question: what is the likelihood of an important

Egypt: Youth Underground

At the National, Ursula Lindsey reviews Ahmad Abdalla's [dir. Heliopolis (2009)] new film, Microphone (produced by Mohamed Hefzy and Khaled a. Naga), which delves into Cairo's underground youth and music spaces:

It's common to hear laments regarding the decline of Egyptian cinema and music. Both fields reached iconic heights in the 1950s and 1960s, but today, or so the story goes, they are mired in the derivative and the commercial. Yet those interested in seeing a successful example of Egypt's growing independent film industry, as well as a galvanising portrait of its homegrown musical scene, should consider Microphone..... Microphone started out as a documentary about Aya, an 18-year-old female graffiti artist in Alexandria, whose work had come to Abdalla's attention. Through Aya, he discovered the city's lively collection of bands, in particular its burgeoning hip-hop scene, and decided to make a documentary about youth culture in Egypt's second city, featuring musicians, filmmakers, artists and skateboarders. Because documentary films are rarely shown in Egyptian theatres, Abdalla gave a fictional framework to his footage of musicians and kids hanging out (more).

Nigeria: The Revolution will be Embedded

Crazy - Gnarls Barkley. Performed by Asa. More unplugged sessions over at Bella Naija

Next up, Ceelo's f**k you

Africa: Slum Report

UN-Habitat - The State of African Cities 2010: Governance, Inequalities and Urban Land Markets

Just released UN-Habitat 2010 report paints a breathtaking vista with a multifaceted view of contemporary African city life - and survival. These cities, like other cities in the world, have their slums and according to the UN, "199.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live in [them], the highest number in the world." Roving Bandit thinks slums come with urbanization and urbanization remains a good thing whether it looks like an American suburb or not. Aid Thoughts begs to differ slightly. I see possible synergies and hybrids btw planned and unplanned (read: slums) parts of the city . UN-Habitat sees the root of slums in:

Until recently, most Western African govts tolerated informal land markets, as it was assumed that they would eventually give way to modern, formal land markets. It was further assumed that only secure private property could provide adequate incentives for investments in land, and that tenure security could only be achieved through land titling and registration. In the vast majority of Western and Central African cities, the urban poor and large shares of low-and-middle-income groups cannot access public or formal private land markets. Except for Burkina Faso, public provision of urban land and housing is steadily declining throughout the sub region due to lack of resources, lack of political will, widespread corrupt practices, and administrative and technical bottlenecks. The formal private sector does not provide for low-income households, unless heavily subsidized. This situation makes informal land markets more attractive because customary and informal land delivery is more flexible, delivery time is short, transaction costs are low, and tenure is perceived as secure enough to encourage limited investment in land and housing (p. 123).

With Lagos on track, according to UN-Habitat, to become "Africa's largest city in 2015 with 12.4 million inhabitants," here's an old look at how the formal private housing market actually works and how the outdoor advertising agency plays an integral role in the city's efforts to urban-plan and de-slum . UN-Habitat also gives looks at land shortage, urban planning in Coutonou, Benin, plus ongoing housing registration efforts, and rather than bulldozing slums, attempts to make them work in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Malawi/ South Africa:The Revolution will be Embedded

Call this post - "The Very Best" overload  - Below, performing Angonde (Johan Hugo RMX)  back in September with new addition, MC Mo Laudi reppin' SA:



Next track easing in at the end there - Julia - The Very Best. Album: Warm Heart of Africa, 2009.



Performing it on Craig Ferguson on Monday night:




H/T: Poprocks/ Fader

South Africa/ Canada: District 7 and a Half?

Gawker chides what they call the montauk monster sighting in what Slash film suspects is a clip-made-to-go-viral from District 9 director Neil Blomkamp's next sci-fi film, which no one seems to know anything about. But we recall pt 2 of this interview (blogged here) with LA Times' Hero Complex from '09, where he gave some vague pointers abt his next project:

And now MRC is another finance group and they’re putting together the cash for my next film based on a treatment I wrote. I had the idea in my head for about a year. I wrote it within a month of finishing “District 9,” so July or something I suppose, or May. It was May. So I wrote it in May and I sent it to them and they agreed to do it. So now I’m writing....Not much. I’m trying to keep it to myself at this point. But it is science fiction and it has many sociopolitical ideas that interest me. Those ideas are wrapped up inside something that is like a Hollywood action film...This next movie will cost more than “District 9” but it will cost much, much less than the big summer films. You can do a lot for less now. It’s all about process, too. If go into it knowing what you want to accomplish, you can save money. If you go into it trying to figure out what you want, it’s going to cost a lot of money. The other aspect is trimming it down. It’s like a diet. Instead of 2,000 effects shots, you can probably do with 1,000. Those kinds of sacrifices are worth it if you get to make something that is not in any way generic.

Actually, "montauk monster" sighting reminds us--if it chose to wake up-- of the ass creature in the wonderful, sick and disturbing NSFW teaser to the incoming movie, Roid Rage:

Africa: Those Shady Bilingual Speakers

In the Harvard Gazette, Maya Shwayder writes up the broad brushstrokes of a study by Oludamini Ogunnaike, Mahzarin R. Banaji, Yarrow Dunham that suggests you can shift the responses of bilingual people by simply changing languages:

The researchers administered the Implicit Association Test (IAT)in two settings: once in Morocco, with subjects who spoke Arabic and French, and again in the United States, with Latinos who spoke English and Spanish.In Morocco, participants who took the IAT in Arabic showed greater preference for other Moroccans. When they took the test in French, that difference disappeared. Similarly, in the United States, participants who took the test in Spanish showed a greater preference for other Hispanics. But again, in English, that preference disappeared.“It was quite shocking to see that a person could take the same test, within a brief period of time, and show such different results,” Ogunnaike said. “It’s like asking your friend if he likes ice cream in English, and then turning around and asking him again in French and getting a different answer.”

We wonder how this plays in with code switching. Whatever side of linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf's line in the sand you belong [i.e. language is so powerful that it can determine thought vs. language may affect thought processes, but doesn’t influence thought itself], some weeks go on BH, Stanford University's Lera Boroditsky was discussing the influence of the structures of different languages on how we process thoughts about the same event:

Egypt: "The Egyptian Political Path is an Orwellian One"

Egyptian govt. spokesperson, Karim Haggag, on AlJazeera spouts the same quotes in Jay Solomon's WSJ piece about why Mubarak is not allowing foreign election monitors in. A Foggy Bottom person, however, quips:

Egypt's refusal to allow international election monitors goes against what has been a positive trend of more-transparent votes across the Arab Middle East, said democracy activists. Last month, the Jordanian government allowed monitors for the first time to observe legislative elections. And more-transparent votes have also been conducted in Morocco, Yemen, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories in recent years.

Zeinobia spots the contradiction:

This can be applied to the media crackdown , why there are so much restrictions on the media during this election if it is transparent and democratic !!? If you do not want to have international poll monitors , then you must stop your media crackdown to show good intentions to the world !! Also how dare these regime officials are speaking about the Egyptian sovereignty when our real sovereignty is being desecrated day and night !??

Meanwhile NPR starts its series of looks at the Egyptian economy.

South Africa: The Sinful Legacy of Advantage (and Disadvantage)

Above, NY Times rides the third rail of affirmative action politics down to University of Cape Town, offering us a look at the legacy of black disadvantage and how one of the continent's best universities plans to, or not to, make up for it. It's best to play the NYT sample next to Eusebius McKaiser's analysis in Times Live last month of Free State's VC Jonathan Jansen's (who's no stranger to the combustible mix of race and education) take on the matter:

...no senior ANC leader has rehearsed the pain and frustration of younger white South Africans who have to experience the impact of policies, like affirmative action, that flow from the contestable concept of inter-generational justice. Classic retorts to affirmative action the world over, such as that timeless question, "Why should I inherit the sins of my father?" have never been engaged by the ANC, let alone engaged sensitively or empathetically. An important reason why Jansen's message resonates more deeply than it should is because very few prominent black leaders (not just within the political space, but also within civil society and academia) have taken time to engage the born-free generation. And, since we are emotional creatures and not just cerebral ones, the importance of both listening and understanding the head space and arguments of young white South Africans, as legitimate members of this new South Africa, cannot be underestimated. Doing so would be callous and unjust. The ANC has yet to come to this realisation. However, while Jansen can be credited for demonstrating empathy, that does not mean his arguments against the use of race categories are convincing. They are not. ....We must separate the need to be empathetic towards young white persons (which is spot on) from the question of whether race categories are, indeed, inherently bad. I would say to a young white South African, "Yes, you did not inherit the moral sins of your Master Verwoerd. However, because you continue to be an unjust beneficiary of Master Verwoerd's sins (even if you benefit against your will, Hendrik), policies that are aimed at reversing that history's impact, like race-based affirmative action, are morally justified."

Africa: "Steampunk Values." Bushpunk Slums

Boys toys in Mathare Valley Slum Nairobi - Afrigadget

Over at Beyond Victoriana (a blog dedicated to steampunk diversity and exploring all those suppressed and underrepresented multicultural tributaries flowing in and out of it), Ay-leen in a preamble to her review of David Edgerton's  book The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900, looks past the tragic for a second and sees "steampunk values" at the core of African slum living:

Another example that brought up steampunk, technology and the non-West was during the Great Steampunk Debate, where the poster Piechur pointed out an African slum as a “real-life DIY steampunk community” that he thought was quite tragic:... while most of the steampunk community would identify as middle or upper class from highly industrialized nations, many people who actively incorporate those “steampunk values” — re-purposing junk or found items, the importance of tactile-based technology, ingenuity based on

South Africa: Retro Futuristic Cape Town

Full trailer for Michael Matthews' retro futuristic film noir thriller, Sweetheart, just dropped. Synopsis here. Backstory - here. We chose the still below of the protagonist for all the beautiful Little red Riding Hood/ Alice in Wonderland allusions and vibes it's throwing our way.

H/T: 10 to 5

Zambia/ China/ Senegal: Failure to (Interculturally) Communicate

Barry Berak in the NY Times went back to "shaft 3" at the Collum mine in Sinazongwe, Zambia, and retraces the factors that led, last month, to Chinese owners of the mine unloading their shotguns on workers protesting working conditions, killing two, injuring 11. Like other prior analysis, he noted the role played by all that was missing in translation:

Most of the Chinese know only a few words of English and Tonga, languages commonly spoken in this part of the country. On occasion, they tell the miners, “Tomorrow, job takwi,” using the Tonga word for “nothing,” meaning there will be no work. Such unexpected days off were at the root of the dispute.... Xu Jianrui, the brother who operates

Nigeria: The Revolution will be Embedded

Tobafejo - Fragrance. Feat. Brace. Album: Honey sweet, Sep 2010.

Africa: Black Dandies

Eccentric Yoruba over at Beyond Victoriana looks at all the coverage--in the wake of Daniele Tamagni pictures--of the Sapeurs of the DRC (we stashed our favorite links here) and reminds us the roots of black dandysim--from zoot suits to Sapeurs--reach back to slavery:

The special relationship between black men and dandyism arose with slavery in Europe particularly during England’s Enlightenment period. In early 18th century, masters who wanted their slaves to reflect their social stature imposed dandified costumes on black servants, effectively turning them into ‘luxury slaves’. As black slaves gained more liberty, they took control of the image by customising their dandy uniforms and thereby creating a unique style. They transformed from black men in dandy clothing to dandies who were black. This style also served to differentiate black dandies from other dandies, most notably, the Macaroni dandies whose fabulous style of dress was thought of as obscene (more)

video link H/T: Steampunk Sharia

Mozambique: The Revolution Will Be Embedded

Moza girl - Dama do Bling, feat. Ras Haitrn. Album: Differente mas igual, 2010.

H/T: Method2Madness

Africa: T'Challa, Cont'd

photo: John Davenport/ Express News

René A. Guzman writes a detailed profile of historical novelist David Liss, who will be taking over the writing duties on Daredevil post-issue 512, which finds  the black panther--a T'Challa who is no longer the king of the African kingdom of Wakanda and is rebuilding his life in New York city and adjusting to being a superhero w/o all his tech and vibranium--stepping into Matt Murdock's shoes as the guardian of hell's kitchen. Black Superhero fan, via the S&A crew, also caught the premier of the New Avengers animation series, which ties into the destitute T'Challa storyline in a different way - watch:



We've already covered the whole black panther taking over the Daredevil mantle and how it fits into the larger case some have made of racial politics of regressive storytelling in American superhero comics.

South Africa/Nigeria: Adapting the Nollywood Model

Steve Kretzmann writes in West cape News:

...The Nollywood model that emerged from Nigeria, however, sees thousand of low-budget local stories filmed by small multi-tasking teams, with the profits coming from DVDs sold on the street and in markets. Scriptwriters and trainers Tess Fairweather and Vicki Bawcombe, frustrated with the constraints facing South African filmmakers yet aware of the wealth of talent available, combined with the fact that stories dealing with the majority of the country's population were not being told, this year decided to adapt Nigeria's model.... They got scriptwriters together in July, gathered a production team through word of mouth, and shot the first episode in Gugulethu over four days in August with what was pretty much a R0 budget. The first 30 minute episode of Amagwinya was released late last month.

Cameroon/ Netherlands: The Revolution will be Embedded

In Need - Ntjam Rosie. Album: Elle. Nov, 2010.

H/T: soul bounce

Friday

Architect Andrew Berman's 2007 design for a private library. sweet. but, minus the desk, best private library design i've come across still is...

Friday

Spike Lee's main man, Terence Blanchard, breaks down for jazz educator Dr. Bill Taylor, how he went abt the score for Malcolm X (1992).

That score, for me, always brought down the quell and stamp of the epic that made Spike's opening credits for Malcolm X a monument to a specific time in 90s' America.

Zimbabwe: Mugabisim Revisited

Interview With Ian Scoones On Zimbabwean Land Reform On Bbc Ws by Ids (Uk) on Mixcloud

The British press are cooling their anti-Mugabe jets for a few seconds to listen to a major new study by UK's Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University's Ian Scoones with Nelson Marongwe, Blasio Mavedzenge, Felix Murimbarimba, Jacob Mahenehene and Chrispen Sukume. Published this week, the report challenges the view that Mugabe's land reform--wherein most of the country's 4,000 white farmers (then the backbone of the country's agricultural economy) were forced from their land, which was handed over to about a million black Zimbabweans--was an unmitigated disaster.

BBC parses the report/book - here. Ian Scoones and Blasio Mavedzenge's Guardian Op-Ed - here. Over at Aids Thoughts, Ranil Dissanayake links back to some land reform and Mugabe context going back to disastrous Structural Adjustment reforms of 1991 and then back to land distribution injustices and deals rooted in the Landcaster House agreement of '79. We've also attempted to find what ails Mugabe - more Landcaster house agreement and land reform context - here. Mix and matching, for Scoones the bottom line now is:

...our studies showed that over half of the 400 households sampled are accumulating and investing, often employing labour and increasing their farming operations. And their activity is having a positive impact on the wider economy, stimulating demand for services, consumer goods and labour. Others were finding the going tough. Joining the land invasions and establishing new farms in what was often uncleared bush was not easy. It required commitment, courage and much hard work. It is true that some new farmers have made it due to political connections and patronage. Yet, despite their disproportionate influence on local politics, in Masvingo they make up less than 5% of households. Remember too that since 2000 these new settlers have received very little external support. The government was broke and often focused its efforts on a few of the elite. Meanwhile, aid organisations shied away from the resettlement areas for political reasons... If the new resettlements are to contribute not only to local livelihoods, but also national food security and broader economic development, they unquestionably require external investment and support - just as was done from the 1950s for white agriculture.

Chad/ Cameroon/ France: The Revolution will be Embedded

Veuillez Veiller Sur Vos Reves by Les Nubians, featuring John Banzaï. Album: Nu Revolution, 2010. Dir. Kantarama Gahigiri

H/T: Mimi

Uganda: B Boys

Segueing off what Sergio over at S&A  said, I think the producers should make another trailer for the non-bleeding hearts crowd. In this one, they should just let the kids dance and let that do the talking:

Gambia/ Norway: Haddy N'jie on Haddy N'jie

musician journalist...

Africa/ China: 1.44 Billion Dollar Map

Click on RFI (French) embedded link to its interactive map that tries to visualize China's 1.44 billion dollars in direct investment in Africa since 2009 and where these investments--Chinese presence, economic and human impact--are concentrated.

more.

H/T: Sahel Blog

Kenya: Needles and Political Haystacks

AlJazeera catching up with heroin addiction in Mombassa and religious organizations who think the idea of needle exchanges to stem the tide of HIV-Aids infections further legitimizes the problem. Back in January, VJ Movement posted Stephen Digges' look at the drug scene in Nairobi through the eyes of a pusher:

Nigeria: Nollywood Brooklyn, Cont'd

A press statement from Nollywood NYC with links to news coverage and a list of organizations and film distributors that worked in concert with the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office in the investigation into pirated Nigerian movies, which culminated in a recent raid on stores in the Brooklyn area. This part of the presser though makes the case that the low-budget, low-production values of Nollywood movies isn't due to some cultural or innate pulp aesthetic but rather to the rule of limited and diminishing compensation:

Nollywood aficionados rightfully complain about the production values of Nollywood movies. One of the primary reasons for this issue has been the activities of counterfeiters. Compensation and return on investment by all involved in a film production are minimal at best and stakeholders are denied their just due by these bootleggers resulting in avoidance and caution in further investments. The vicious circle needs to be stopped.

And if we add the rule of limited and diminishing compensation to the structural adjustment program economic origins of the industry, which Indiana U's Akin Adesokan explains here, we end up with the big yet more nuanced picture of Nollywood. Full presser after the jump:

Kenya: The Making of...

... Safaricom's epic "Proudly Kenyan" ad for those of us outside Kenya who aren't bored with it yet.



See Inspiration Room for Gabriel Omondi's lyrics and ad credits. Some Kenyan blogs, however, point out that the ad is a rip off of--and Inspiration Room noted the ad contains themes echoing back to--the Quantas "I Still Call Australia Home" ad. But I think choirs surrounded by vistas or tapping mountain acoustics are classic recurring themes, and the makers of the Safaricom ad (check out the making below) have jacked the theme and used it masterfully. In fact, if the Safaricom ad was ripping off anything, it might as well be this Kenyan entry for Pangea Day 2008.

Ghana: Wiggin' Out, Cont'd

Conceptual artist Doug Fishbone on the interesting representation-can of worms he opens up in playing the unexplained white Ghanaian villager in the film Elmina (2010):



We cultural/critical/performance studies junk heads have been all over this.

Africa: Stefan Wolff on the Declining Trend of Ethnic Conflicts in the World

The continued importance of leadership (local and global), diplomacy and institutional design.

South Africa: Casting Winnie, Cont'd

It's here, dodgy accents and all. Given their limitations--especially Howard's--no acting surprises here. Hope there's a story to distract from all the baggage Hollywood stars bring with them.



Old thoughts about casting Winnie - here. Earlier brouhaha over Hudson's casting  - here + thoughts here.

H/T: AIAC/ S & A

Kenya: What's Swahili for Porn?

With the recent HIV-Aids scare in the U.S porn industry, IRIN Plus peeks underground at Kenya's  burgeoning local porn industry.

Kenya's local porn industry, once limited to photography, has grown in recent years. DVD peddlers surreptitiously hawk films on street corners while some producers and distributors have created adult web sites and even clubs where audiences can watch films or witness live sex acts. More profitable than street- or bar-based sex work, acting in porn films is an attractive option for many young men and women struggling to make ends meet in the capital, Nairobi... "Many of the people who take part in adult films are commercial sex workers from what we know..."

A Citizen TV report from last year after the jump:

Africa: Child's Play - Advertising Development

Advertising Agency: MacLaren McCann Toronto, Canada
Creative Director: Sean Davison
Art Director: Robert Kingston
Copywriter: Wade Hesson
Account Executive: Ryan Timms
March 2010

Africa: Hitchhiker's Quick Guide to the Mothership

Africa is a Country flags the current issue of Good Magazine for the Colors  22-page guide  to 53 unreported, awesome things to try, see, hear, eat & learn about in Africa’s 53 countries:

Colors for Good Magazine

Eritrea: The Revolution will be Embedded

Mondomix profiles the Asmara All Stars debut album, "Eritrea's Got Soul." Asked what the local music scene is like, album producer Bruno Blum says:

Almost the entire population is employed by the state, in a country wholly governed by the military. And that includes musicians. So professional musicians are paid a salary (from £5 to £20 according to their grade), and they play all the time at huge nationalist functions, especially at military camps where the army is posted. They also play in nightclubs to supplement their income. So they are not often available, and I had to have authorisation from their employer, the state, for everything. So there were always long delays because of bureaucracy and the various Party committees who had to approve everything. But they really enjoyed playing something a bit different where they could be more creative.

Algeria/Tunisia: Films

"Edawaha"/Buried Secret/ Anonymes (2009) and dir. Raja Amari won the special jury's prize as well as "tomorrow's film" prize at the just concluded 37th Brussels International Independent Film Festival.



Adding to recent musicals from Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, above, Algerian dir. Dahmane Ouzid talks about his musical "Essah" (Public Space) (2010), which looks at social and gender issues surrounding the loss of public spaces in Tunisia, where, according to France 24, the musical is a bonafide hit.

South Africa: Urban Myth Busting, Cont'd

A nice segue to this urban myth, hoaxes and mass hysteria post from earlier this week. Vice TV hooks up with   Die Antwoord's Vi$$er and Ninja to do a bit of investigative reporting or anthropology in their search for, and sift through the layers of urban myth surrounding, the tokoloshe featured in the Evil Boy video.

H/T: 10 to 5

Friday

The bittersweet topic of Miles Davis' fusion years (1968 -1975) gets its Chomsky versus Foucault face off. Jazz critic Stanley Crouch has been discrediting Miles' electric-psychedelic era for, like, forever? James Mtume, a percussionist with Miles from '70 to '75, breaks a long silence on the subject, agrees to a sit down and unloads. For some background to this particular beef, check out the first 7 mins of Murray Lerner's fab doc - Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue (2004).



H/T: Ta-Nehisi