Over at Africamix, Le Monde's Herviaux Olivier reviews (translation) Odiot Alice and Audrey Gallet's new documentary - Zambia: who benefits from copper? Excerpt:
With a keen sense of narrative and didactic explanation, Alice and Audrey Gallet Odiot effectively dismantle the adage all too familiar in Africa: a rich country, poor people. Zambia, a landlocked country in the heart of the continent, holds in his basement one of the largest copper reserves in the world.... First shock: 1973 and the soaring prices of black gold. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB)... advise countries to borrow, the copper revenues allow sustainability repayment of the debt by the young nation. Second shock: in the early 1980s, the U.S. followed by Europe shrug their interest rates sharply. Result: Zambia must repay three times more interest. It's asphyxia. The country seeks the assistance of the IMF and the WB ... that shape their new credit to a privatization of the copper mines. Sell-off of farms in 2000 to multinationals, drastic fall in investment education and health systems ... The descent into hell begins.
For those who argue that the inability of most Afican countries to benefit from their natural resources goes deeper than corruption, technology or the loan policies of the World Bank and the IMF, then sit back and get blown away by the first 48 minutes of Zeitgeist: Addendum, a 2008 documentary by Peter Joseph, which makes a case for the centrality of debt to the creation of money and expansion of the money supply in a fractional reserve system. Coupled with profit maximization, the indenturement of labor, or of those with natural resources, in a monetary system therefore comes across not as some cladestine developed world conspiracy or plot, but rather as something that comes natural to the system itself:
Equatorial Guinea's government will prefer you watch the insightfulaward winning puff piece above about the use of country's oil wealth. Adam Nossiter's piece (+ pictures) in the NY Times, however, explains the flip side the oil wealth - tyranny and zero trickle down economics:
Despite the government’s oil wealth, little has trickled down to the impoverished population. “The interest of the Americans here is money,” said Marcial Abaga Barril, a member of an opposition party. On paper, in per-capita income, the citizens are nearly as well off as those of Spain and Italy, thanks to oil. But in reality, nearly 77 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, according to Human Rights Watch. The sprawling, muddy slums of Campo Yaoundé and Fiston — with their dirt streets, wooden shacks and scarce electricity — have nothing to do with the prim, tropical-Gothic cathedral that is the public face of the subdued island capital, where even critics of Mr. Obiang feel obligated to put his portrait on the wall for fear of the security services. “The oil money hasn’t come here,” said Rosa Loka Moubake, a resident of Fiston. (more)
Francophone artists performing at the Nuit Africaine (African Night) concert at the stade de France on Saturday, June 11, include Gawlo Zandi, Baaba Maal (Senegal), Fally Fally, Jessy Matador Werrason (DRC), Alpha Blondy, Magic System, Meiway (Ivory Coast) Mokobé, Oumou Sangare (Mali), Sekouba Bambino, Mory Kante (Guinea), Manu Dibango, Small Country (Cameroon), Negro Pou La Vi (Ile Maurice) Passi (Congo - Brazzaville) and Patience Dabany (Gabon), 150 dancers and 60,000 people expected.
Ahead of the five hour live broadcast, France Ô' has cut together interesting profiles of:
Cara 'Titilayo' Harshman, a University of Wisconsin journalism student, who studies Yoruba has since moved to Ibadan, Nigeria, to fully immerse herself in the Yourba culture.
YouTube videos of her speaking fluent, authentic Yoruba while reporting on the just concluded elections, getting her hair done or interacting with market women, have since gone viral. A few more months and her intonation will be spot on. More videos - here.
For those who've ever wondered what the nonsensical name of this blog actually means, look no further.
Sugabelly found the gem below: buzzed on nostalgia, some Nigerians in the diaspora cruise down the memory lane of popular Yoruba invectives.
Push - Becca. Feat. King Ayisoba & Trigmatic. EKB Records. 2011. Former IBF welterweight champion Joshua Clottey, the famous Bukom gym in Accra, actors John Dumelo, Yvonne Okoro, and Yvonne Nelson all cameo in this.
US President Barack Obama (C) and First Lady Michelle Obama greet International Monetary Fund's Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn (L) for the G-20 official dinner September 24, 2009 at the Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. International Monetary Fund Photograph/Stephen Jaffe/ IMF flickr
A while back at Huff Po, columnist Peter S. Goodmanmade an interesting comment about DSK, the Guinean hotel maid and the IMF chairmanship:
Why was DSK the one stepping out of the shower and headed for an elegant lunch in a Manhattan restaurant? By dint of many reasons, to be sure, but surely in part because of his good fortune of being born in the capital of a wealthy nation and being the son of parents able to reinforce their own good fortune by sending him to the most exclusive schools. And why was this woman from Africa here on this day? Every life is complex, but one can assume that her decision to come to the United States, rent an apartment in the Bronx and ride the subway to Manhattan so she could scrub the toilets of the global elite amounts to her calculation that this was the best economic opportunity available to her. This is not a broadside against the World Bank and the IMF, whose histories and world views are far more complex than they are often made out to be by its legions of critics. The two institutions are full of dedicated and well-intentioned people who spend their days trying to build a more equitable economic order and spread the fruits of innovation to more parts of the globe (though the same cannot always be said about the leadership). Rather, it is a recognition that the inequalities that divide nations and the classes within nations are so deep and self-reinforcing that it is going to take some real doing to transform the centers of power into forces for greater good. That, and the recognition that it would be disgusting to fill a vacancy created by an alleged sexual assault of an African immigrant maid by a European master of the universe with another European -- yes, even a woman -- through the same secret, clubby process that has been used to staff the place since its inception. read the rest.
Responding to the excuse that Europe's current economic crisis makes it imperative that the next IMF chair be a European, FT's Edward Hadas says--and we paraphrase--"bullshit."
WSJ checks in onthe push for South African for finance minister Trevor Manuel, but also notes that the developing world need to get their act together and come to a consensus quickly:
The IMF has requested that its 187 member states send in nominations for candidates before June 10, after which a shortlist will be issued. The organization hopes to fill the post by June 30. European officials appear to have swung support behind French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde. If appointed, she would be the fifth French citizen to take up the post since the IMF's founding in 1945. Unlike Europe, emerging economies, such as China and India, have not yet rallied behind a candidate. Russia has expressed its support for Kazakhstan's central bank governor, Grigoriy Marchenk, and Brazil has said it would consider a European candidate.
Telegraph's Harriet Alexander (Ousmane Barry in Guinea and Amady Khalilou Dieme in Senegal) journey to Tchiakoulle, Guinea: to dig up the origins of the former IMF chairman's alleged victim:
Deep inside the Guinean countryside, 300 miles from the capital Conakry, the dirt track peters out before reaching the hillside village. Buses are swapped for motorbikes, and then travel by foot, climbing three miles across the rolling hills until, in a clearing in the scrub, a cluster of small mud huts come into view. And yet it is here that the story began of the African woman whose testimony could result in the jailing of one of the most powerful financiers in the world.... (more)
Above, Africa Film Library trailer for Ousmane Sembebe's La Noire (Black Girl) 1966. Story of a young Senegalese woman who moves from Senegal to France, to work for a rich French couple. Often considered the first Sub-Saharan African film by an African filmmaker to receive international attention - wiki.
... @ the 360th Harvard Commencement Thursday, May 26, 2011. Full speech. Excerpt:
...In preparation for this Address, I was pleasantly surprised to learn how far back Liberia's connection to Harvard goes. The establishment of the Liberia College (now the University of Liberia) in 1862, the second-oldest institution of higher learning in West Africa, was led and funded by the Trustees of Donations for Education in Liberia. Simon Greenleaf, the Harvard College law professor who drafted Liberia's Independence Constitution of 1847, was the founder and president of the Trustees of Donations for Education in Liberia.The first Liberian graduate of Harvard did so in 1920, and since then there has been a steady trail of Liberians to Cambridge. Most of them returned home to pursue successful careers.
Read Institute of Commonwealth Studies senior fellow Susan Williams' "Ways of Seeing Africa" ...
.... an intro to the Journal of the International African Institute's annual African Bibliography 2010 published by Cambridge University Press. Excerpt:
Who would dare make generalizations about Asia based on Bangladesh? Or about Europe based on Greece?’ The late Polish journalist and writer Ryszard Kapuscinski, who first went to Africa in 1957 and then returned again and again over the next forty years, makes a similar point. ‘Africa is too large to describe’, he observes in his preface to The Shadow of the Sun. ‘It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say “Africa”. In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist.’ Samson Kambalu, a Malawian author and artist,
A while back at racebending.com, Catherine Bugayong compared two actresses coming out of obscurity to win best actress Oscar nominations, and their careers since - the comparison makes the case that, apart from the fact that "the number of roles written for white women far outstrip those written for women of color," you also have:
Because roles that are written for women of color or ethnically ambiguous women...often come with a “She should be Caucasian” note on the casting call, regardless. Because white women will be considered for roles written for women of color, but women of color are much more rarely considered for white roles.
Miles would have been 85 on Thursday. Jazz Video Guy's new short film stays in the electric Miles era to, with the help of Sonny Rollins and Gary Bartz, laud the "Picasso of Jazz." The filmmaker drops his meetings with Miles music below:
Check out the "Chomsky versus Foucault face off" over Miles fusion/electric years - here.
The first area of contention revolves around strategies for developing Chinese soft power. Some (Gan 2008) insist that China should concentrate on the ‘commonality of humanity’ rather than the ‘particularity of Confucian values’ in extending its ‘soft appeal’. Others focus on the approach to soft power, accusing state cultural management bureaucracies (entrusted by the CCP to do soft power development) of constraining China’s soft power with their conservative attitudes towards artistic innovation and creation (Zheng 2008). Politicising cultural management, they argue, suffocates China’s cultural creativity. Furthermore, it is contended that soft power development should not rely on state-centric, bureaucrat-led grand projects; rather, the state should help foster a favourable socio-political environment in which arts and culture can truly florish. In a similar vein, some critiques focus on the official confusion over external communication to (dui wai xuan chuan) to soft power projection, maintaining that soft power lies in the content, rather than the form (Ding 2008). A more radical view, however, questions the whole idea of soft power lies in the content, rather than the form. A more radical view, however, questions the whole idea of soft power projection. claiming that Western soft power is strong that China does not stand a chance when it comes to a truly equal dialogue with the West (Du 2010). The soft power concept itself, it is argued, was designed in the US as a strategy to contain the civilisations’ in the same way as Huntington's 'clash of civilizations'and Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’ theses.
... for American television that is. Someone recently pointed out to us this out-of-no where reference Roger the alien drops in a 2009 episode of American Dad in which he is caught cheating on his adopted American family with other families. The reference is to Eritrean soccer and national team captain, Debesai Ghierghis Ogbazghi.
You can add to Faustin Titi's An Eternity in Tangier (see 2nd slide) and Joe Sacco's recent look at the tide of African immigrants pouring into Malta, another graphic novel look at North Africa-Europe immigration - Italian Paolo Castaldi's recently published graphic novel, Etenesh (BeccoGallio). Like Faustin Titi's book, it also follows the North Africa-Europe journey of one immigrant.
Etenesh, landed on the coast of Lampedusa almost two years after starting from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He wears the memory of a hellish journey, undertaken in the hope of a better future. He traveled to Sudan, the Sahara desert, ended up in the hands of human traffickers in a prison in Libya and has crossed the Mediterranean sea in an inflatable boat thinking at every meter, that everything was futile.
Also with strong ties to Ethiopia is the life and work of another Italian comic artist - Hugo Pratt. In fact when Pratt died in 1995 it’s said the reknowned artist was holding an Ethiopian cross to his chest. His intense relationship with Africa was explored in this 2009 documentary, Hugo in Africa, dir by Stefano Knuchelm - trailer here.
Pratt's African bio included in "Corto Maltese in Africa" says, "from the age of of 10 to 16, Hugo Pratt was in Ethiopia with his family. He became friends with Brahan, a young Ethiopia who had fought the Italians and was forced to become a servant in the Pratt household. Thanks to this important friendship, Hugo learns Abyssinian, Swahili and his initiated into the customs of the country. Despite the war, he made friends amongst those who are supposed to be the enemy soldiers, shepherds, wise men, princes and tribe chiefs. In doing so, he developed an important characteristic of Corto Maltese: respect for different cultures... Thus did he become attached to African mythology. Those years in Ethiopia marked the beginning of Hugo Pratt's nomadic years."
You get the feeling that the relationship between the young Pratt and Brahan had aspects of the relationship between Cush and the young prince in this page from "In the name of Allah the merciful" (from Corto Maltetese - Les Ethiopiques):
Back in February, Scarlett Lion pointed out a Guardian report that the National Archive (UK) was posting online thousands of colonial era photographs they did not have captions or any information for (like the one below) on to its Flickr account in case anyone out there had the information they were looking for.
Scarlett Lionon making available this kind of historical material for crowd-sourced researc:
The idea of “crowd sourcing” captions is certainly an interesting proposition in this kind of context. I’m sure many people are excited to see what bits of information and background come out of the wood work. On another level, this large trove of photos points to two interrelated points: the Africans are rarely named though the colonizers frequently are, and the photographs present a “sanitized” view of Africa.
And the question of names dovetails into another project, the African Origins Project, which is seeking help from theAfrican Diaspora in identifying to which languages the original names of tens of thousands of African slaves belong to. These are International Court registers of slaves liberated between 1819 and 1845 from slaving vessels and their original African names taken down:
Theresa Traore Dahlberg's 2011 documentary Taxi Sister is about:
Boury, a female taxi driver in Dakar, Senegal. As a woman behind the wheel she leads a busy life filled with everyday drama, and constantly grapples with society’s view and expectations on women. The film is based on the Taxi Sister project, which was started by the Senegalese state in 2007 with the aim of encouraging female entrepreneurs. Ten women were offered the opportunity to get a drivers license and buy a car on credit. Today there are fifteen women taxi drivers in Dakar, which is nothing compared to the fifteen thousand male taxi drivers.
An older look at one of Egypt's few women cab drivers - here.
"Nguiropo" from Mariama Ba (big shoes to fill with that name). Below, Viviane Ndour, Youssou's sister-in-law, brings out all the royal colors for "Kumu Neexul"
Even though the rest of the world does not recognize Somaliland--Somalia's more peaceful, prospering breakaway cousin--FT's Katrina Manson writes, "so what..." :
Somalilanders have also become technologically savvy, transferring money across the world, making calls on solar-charged smartphones and shopping with debit cards. Their thriving business acumen may be the best way to effect de facto recognition. (more/ video report)
VOA on Somaliland @ 20. Older looks - here and here. One half of the Mire twins, the archeologist Sara, in a profile earlier this month on CNN's African voices walks Becky Anderson through Somaliland's past and ancient trade connections to Egypt:
Youssou N'dour along side film director Martin Scorsese and author Joan Didion received Yale honorary degrees over the weekend during the university's 310th Commencement ceremony. Citations - here.
Considering this in light of its importance within numerous African cultures, we must conclude that an exploration of the place of music remains a desideratum in the study of African cinema. For the first five decades of African cinema, music’s significance was understood with reference to certain programmatic ends, as when Ousmane Sembène and Djibril Diop Mambety devoted themselves to constructing the image of their newly created nations.... But over time, music’s import has grown, and today one may find, in the work of certain auteurs, a notable maturity in the treatment of diverse musical traditions that defies easy categorization. In the works of both Abderrahmane Sissako and Moussa Sené Absa—not to mention the musicals of Flora Gomes, Joseph Gaï Ramaka and Mark Dornford-May—music plays an essential role in understanding of the meaning of the directorial process. Their films are at once critical and artistically significant in their experimental nature—with respect to form as much as to content—and they exemplify the impossibility of reducing the role of music to a set of indiscriminately applicable generalities. (more)
Generation Bass posted South African house dj Culoe de Song live 5 hour set @ Djoon Paris!
Over at Pitchfork, .Nicolas Jaar's cover of South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim's classic, Ishmael:
Live at Maida Vale BBC Studios in London. Organ - Dave Harrington, Sax - Will Epstein, Percussion - Ian Sims, Electronics - Nicolas Jaar - first take, never rehearsed (more)
Excerpts from some IPS Women development reporting we thought deserved some more eye balls:
From Talia Whyte's look at Somali women entrepreneurs carving a niche in Boston:
Statistically, Somalis have struggled more than nearly any other immigrant group in the United States. The American Community Survey estimated just over 100,000 Somalis lived in the U.S. in 2009, with almost 30,000 living in Minnesota, although other sources suggest 60,000. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income for Somalis is among the lowest, with 51 percent living in poverty. But that could be changing. Jibril's enterprise is not only an example of the evolving multicultural dynamic within the U.S. workplace, but also the role of women. According to Joyce Stanley, head of the Dudley Square Main Streets Program, a city initiative to support business development in the community, there are nine businesses that were started up by African women in the area, many of them in the last four years alone. "In the immigrant community, anyone who comes here to America is motivated to achieve," Stanley said. "Somalis are one of the fastest growing immigrant communities in Boston, but it is simply amazing to see the Somali women take charge."(more)
You won't know from watching thetrailer, but the PBS excerpt below from Dawn Shapiro's documentary,The Edge of Joy, is unlike lots of development documentaries we've seen. The filmmaker takes the pacing, life drama and narrative style of Discovery channel medical reality shows and updates the old, stale development reporting or documentary format, mainly by making the ensemble cast of Nigerian doctors, midwives and families in a Kano specialist hospital--said to be one of busiest child delivering centers in West Africa--the heroes of the piece. And maybe that's why the piece helps one process the developing world reality of millennium development goals 4 & 5: reducing child mortality rates and improving maternal health:
Zukiswa Zimela's IPS piece was on how women’s issues were missing from election manifestos in the just concluded South African local elections and Fidelis Zvomuyawrote on Victoria Zanele KaMagwaza-Msibi, who after 30 years in the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) left to form the National Freedom Party (NFP), insisting "on the idea that democracy and women’s advancement must be promoted within a political organisation":
''When a woman tries to move on to higher office, she risks losing the advantages of her super- volunteer status at the local level. She becomes perceived as personally ambitious rather than a high- minded, dedicated public servant. You are caught in the bind of your femininity," she explains.KaMagwaza-Msibi has embraced her feminine virtues, edging into the old boys' network, cutting deals in smoked-filled rooms and promoting the economic and social causes affecting women."It’s true, the best man for the job is always a woman. It is women who experience sexual harassment on the job, violence in the home, (and) who are still the primary care givers. If we are going to have a representative government, we have to have women in high office," she says (more)
From Sam Olukoya's piece on a woman from Lagos sprawl of Makoko, a loan from a small women's cooperative and lots of dirty charcoal:
(Latifat) Agboola got the money from a local savings and loan cooperative. The Gumi cooperative pools money from its members to make loans on which it charges as little as 15 percent interest."The group is made up of small women who are into small-scale business, says Tosun Jimoh, head of the group. "We deal mainly in small loans of between 20,000 naira and 40,000 naira ($270) and members can pay within six months. Members don’t require require any collateral, so long as they can get a guarantor we can trust."Gender analyst Emem Okon, says Agboola's rapid progress is exactly the kind of transformation microcredit can enable in the lives of poor women like Agboola. "Where microcredit is properly managed, it helps to improve the income of poor women, whether they are involved in petty trading or farming it provides the money to acquire the much needed inputs," says Okon, who is the head of the Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, a non-governmental organisation based in southeastern city of Port Harcourt. Agboola says her choice of what to invest the loan in was crucial to her success. "Charcoal business is a dirty job and that is why many people are reluctant to do it, but the secret is that it is a very lucrative business if you are determined." It is the right business to get into in Makoko, with its high poverty and dense population. "With the high price of kerosene, many of the residents here are too poor to cook with [other kinds of] stoves, thus charcoal is a very cheap alternative for them," says Agboola. "There is a high demand for charcoal in this neighbourhood, but no one sells it.(more)
BBC World Service asks if it would make a difference if an African was picked as the next IMF chairman. Answer? Yes and no:
Over at the blog Empty Sky,
...Claire Hawk explains whySouth Africa's former finance minister, Trevor Manuel, would be a great pick to lead the IMF:
His term as finance minister saw an expansion of the South African economy coupled with social welfare policies that brought about, at least on paper, the realisation of the developmental state model. His greatest frustration - along with many South Africans - was the fact that the money he worked so hard to allocate to pro-poor spending was wasted by so many government departments. Pro-poor budgets did not translate into pro-poor delivery. When the former president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, was recalled by the ANC, Manuel graciously stepped down, coincidentally just before he got on a plane to travel oversees. In the time he was on the plane, South African markets and currency took such a tumble that, on getting off the plane, he had to reassure everyone that he'd be happy to remain finance minister under the new president...(more)
UPDATE -Julian Borger in the The Guardian(22 May):
The challenge to European control of the IMF came in the form of a joint statement by Australia's treasurer, Wayne Swan, and South Africa's finance minister, Pravin Gordhan. "For too long, the IMF's legitimacy has been undermined by a convention to appoint its senior management on the basis of their nationality," it said. "In order to maintain trust, credibility and legitimacy in the eyes of its stakeholders, there must be an open and transparent selection process, which results in the most competent person being appointed as managing director, … regardless of their nationality." Swan and Gordhan are co-chairs of the G20's IMF Reform Working Group, and their statement reflect the claims of emerging powers, developing countries and champions of institutional reform that the post-war status quo by which Europe chose the head of the IMF and the US ran the World Bank, was no longer legitimate in a changing world half a century later. Switzerland also declared on Sunday it would not necessarily back a European for the managing director's job, and there were signs last night of a surge in support for South Africa's Manuel as an "outsider" candidate. (more)
The poster, trailer and the 'making of ' (in Dutch) for Gust Van den Berghe's "Blue Bird", screening at Cannes 2011 - an adaptation of "L'Oiseau Bleu", a play by Maurice Maeterlinck, the only Belgian Nobel Prize winner for Literature. The play has already inspired five films, but Van den Berghe's African reinterpretation promises a unique approach.
Find 4 excerpts from the film over at S & A. Basically the plot goes like this:
Bafiokadié and his sister, Téne, two poor woodcutter's children, at night in their bed, are visited by a fairy who instructs them to find a Blue Bird to find her daughter who is seriously ill and wants to be happy. To help them in their quest they get a green hat with a diamond on it. With this hat on, they leave on their quest. After a long journey they succeed in capturing the bird, only to lose it. The feature takes us through the strangest worlds and experiences - the Land of Memory, The Palace of Night, The Forest, The Palace of happiness, the cemetery and the Kingdom of the Future.. The Belgian tale is a universal story about children who grow up without being aware of the fact. In their quest for the mythical bird, they learn important issues of how the adult world works. ‘It’s my intention to create a surreal painting in which we can maintain the magic of the original work,’ the director says. Van den Berghe has described his second feature as the second part of a ‘triptych’ – a series of movies about birth, the road and death. ‘The first one (Little Baby Jesus) is about permanent innocence. This one is more about the road and losing that innocence… and, at the moment, for the third film, I am working on guilt.’
"Blue Bird" was shot in Togo, particularly in the Northeast region of Koutammakou. For the cast and partly for the crew, Berghe worked with local people from that region: the Batammariba or Tamberma.
Another 'making of' clip - here. An excerpt from the 1940 American adaptation of Maeterlinck's play, starring Shirley Temple below:
You have to give it to Jadakiss - the dude's a business man. In April, Swaziland opposition groups called for musicians invited to a concert organised for Prince Lindani, the eldest son of Swaziland's King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, to boycott the concert in solidarity with those protesting budget cuts and austerity measures imposed on the Swazis while the royal family gets to live it up. While the South African musicians heed the call (and ANCYL threat) to ditch the concert, Jadakiss took his check and took the stage, performing, according to the AFP, for the less than 500 people that attended.
But this is business, and knowing there will be a public curious for a peek behind the seams at the royal family's lifestyle, it looks like Jadakiss has a documentary of his time in Swaziland in the works. The trailer just dropped.
Namib-Naukluft Park, Namibia - Tinted orange by the morning sun, a soaring dune is the backdrop for the hulks of camel thorn trees/ Photograph by Frans Lanting, National Geographic, June 2011 - "Africa's Super park".
The "open toilets election". As of 10am on Thursday, the ANC remained in pole position in the 2011 local election race, taking 62.52% of the votes across the country - TimesLive. ZA News' special preview to today's elections includes a drop dead funny Julius Malema timeline that spans the course of... time:
Part 1 of 4 of South African film director Tarryn Crossman's 3 Days in Dimona. A look at the African-Americans who traced their roots back to the original Hebrews and have since settled in 'the Holy Land' as an African Hebrew community - Part 2, Part 3and Part 4.
Cue to 4:26 for their interesting take on polygamy.
Two certified club bangers laying waste to speakers from Lagos to Lisbon:
Portugal kuduro specialists, Buraka Som Sistema's new album drops in June. On the Luandan influence behind Hangover(BaBaBa) :
‘BaBaBa’ hook originated when the group were in Rangel ‘City’ in Luanda, Angola, visiting some of their favourite Kuduro producers including DJ Znobia. As Buraka’s Kalaf Ângelo remembers, “He played us one of his tracks featuring Nacobeta, a local MC, where he used this hook and it immediately got our attention! We then used it in some of our early shows and the crowd loved it because of its simplicity and raw energy. While working on the new album, the beat we produced with Stereotyp had that same energy so it made perfect sense to bring it back for the chorus and close the cycle.” (more)
Below, Komole (Get Down) - first single from T.I.V. Features music video director Akin Alabi on the mic and behind the lens.
On hearing the report that the 32-year-old hotel maid accusing IMF chief, Dominique Strauss Khan, of sexual assault and rape is an African immigrant (from Guinea), the Daily Show's Jon Stewart did not miss the metaphor(cue to 3:51):
Are you kidding me.. What! That's like a live action metaphor... ...the IMF allegedly trying to fuck an African...
(lol) We recall a BigThink clip in which Raj Patel does the same for the World Bank. And with DSK gone, cartoonist Kroll in the Belgian daily, Le Soir, (via The Arabist) gives us a glimpse inside the Obama Sarkozy situation room:
Bobo America just came up with the best used-tee shirts and Africa project ever. VOA takes a closer look at Project Repat:
Retro, funny, ironic, sports-themed, place- and event-specific t-shirts are bought in African markets, cleaned up, stamped with date and location and the Project Repat logo, and sold back to U.S. consumers for $25, of which $20 goes toward funding non-profits.
Our guess as to why Americans will buy back used stuff they gave away for free? Karlyn Crowley, analyzing David Brooks' much panned elite America category, the "Bobos", wrote:
...Bobo bohemianism is reduced to purchasing goods with hippie aesthetics but a yuppie price tag. In Bobo morality there is no contradiction between spiritual seeking and accumulating wealth. Heaven is the perfect home filled with anti-material material goods.
The last tee shirt themed dumb ass aid idea was when the NGO World Vision was about to send a truck load of preprinted “Pittsburgh Steelers 2011 Super Bowl Champion” t-shirts donated by the NFL to Africa -- coveredhere. History of used clothing coming to Africa - here. Purtzel's classic tee-shirt travels and how used clothing from the developed world decimates textile markets in the developing world - here.
A look at Lauren Beukes's documentary Glitterboys & Ganglands, about Cape Flats' transgender scene:
14 contestants battle it out for the title of Miss Gay Western Cape in South Africa’s biggest female impersonator pageant, we follow three contestants through the prelim rounds, into the back-stories of their lives, all the way to the outrageous spectacle of the night.
Visit the documentary's funding/kickstarter page -here. And in case you missed it, recently Africa is a Country and S&Ahad posts on Nerina Penzhorn's Waited For,
...which also interweaves three stories, this time of South African lesbians who adopt--mostly black children--across racial lines, exploring ways in which queer families challenge and are challenged by the traditional hierarchies of race and heterosexism that are still deeply entrenched in the South African psyche:
Since 2006, Vlisco, the Holland based maker of quality Dutch Wax print fabrics, has moved itself and its signature prints into the world of high fashion and haute couture. The company's 100-year + history of trading with Africa plus glamor advertising targeted exclusively at the African buyer...
... speaks to the long standing purchasing power of Africa's middle classes, whom an AfDB study released last week referred to as "global consumers" whose spending remained resilient during the global recession, reaching $680 billion in 2008 (pgs 14-15). In the '09 behind the scenes look at the relationship between Africa and the wax print manufacturer below, the company's spokesperson...
People tend to think we produce only for the African market, but they are wrong. Vlisco produces for African consumers wherever they live in Africa, London New York or Tokyo.
Also, when you consider that ads and all forms of marketing, in one iteration or another, make up a considerable portion of representations Africans receive about themselves on a day to day basis, Vlisco's high glamor ads targeted at, and designed to flatter, African consumers (more pics - here/ more ads - here) becomes ample proof that a marketing landscape responding to growing black economic muscle and clout automatically has a whole lot of positive and glamorous things to tell kids about blackness.
Kagame appears to closely monitor Twitter for any mentions of Rwanda. His official feed is dominated by notes of thanks to others who have tweeted Rwanda-related developments. "It is great (Kagame) engaging with a critic like me on Twitter," Birrell noted. "Just shame he doesn't allow such debate in Rwanda with his own people."
But you have to give credit to a man who feels so passionate about his country that he is willing to take on any critic of his on the ground, at home, away from home and in the air (read cyber space).... You begin to see the reason why PK behaves the way he does. He has been made to believe that he is Rwanda’s savior, Stephen Kinser even referred to him as the Man Who Dreamed Rwanda’s Rebirth. Bill Clinton has showered him with all sorts of prizes for excellently guiding Rwanda out of the rubble to a respectable status as a nation...
Rwanda needs to look at NGOs as partners and address their criticism with valid points. Saying everyone who dares speak against the regime and its president is "out of touch with Rwanda and Rwandans" does not address any of the problematic issues. If you tell me that I'm not a professional photographer because you see me using a point and shoot camera, I won't just point out your being out of touch with photography, I will tell you why I chose to use that particular camera. Might be its features, need for subtlety, etc. Same with Kigali, they need to say, for example, that the tabloids were banned because of A, B, and C. That the investigation into the murder of Rwisereka is ongoing, closed, or in some other phase. That Ingabire and other political prisoners are held because of plausible reasons. Based on what I have observed, however, the reasons given by the Rwandan regime don't add up so they seek to attack and marginalize whoever dares raise questions about them. If this is what progress for Africa is, I don't want it and there are many who don't want it either. True progress will come from empowering the people and not hoodwinking them.
Kigaliwire...on the technology, the exchange and Rwanda's soft skin:
I can’t recall seeing a similar Q&A exchange between a head of state and a journalist on Twitter. I’m not sure Twitter is the ideal place for tit-for-tat arguments on substantial questions – 140 character messages leave little space for nuance or depth. In addition, while I see engagement in general as a largely positive step on Rwanda’s behalf, I do worry that Rwanda spends an unusually large amount of time responding to critics across social networks, blogs, newspapers and other media. Criticism aside, the geek in me likes the fact that both the President and the Foreign Minister tweet from Blackberry phones… It’s also worth noting that since April, 2011, you can tweet in Rwanda from SMS text message. It’s been surprisingly useful in traffic jams, during power outages and Internet downtime in the capital.
Kagame didn't actually answer any of the questions posed by Birrell about his government's silencing of political and media opposition. Instead it was a slinging match in which the foreign minister, Louise Mushikwabo also got involved. In a rather strange move, she protected her tweets the very next day as if it was an act of self-protection from a threat, but its an act of hiding. Doesn't she know protecting your tweets only restricts who can see them, but those already following you, can still interact with you and retweet your tweets for others to see? Restricting dialogue won't stop truth-seekers and critics, nor does it advance the democracy and openness which Kagame claims his government does, in the YouTube interview.
More links over at View from a Cave+ Kagame actually said the exact same thing in a Q&A after giving the Oppenheimer lecture at IISS in London last year and this was what we thought.
Head to KMBA for some pics from British photographer Simon Weller's book “South African Township Barbershops & Salons” More pics - here.
Against the backdrop of barbershops as remnants of social spaces that still foster interactions in our increasingly wired townships and cities, Timbuktu Chronicles recently posted Nigerian TED Fellow Olatunbosun Obayomi of the BMW Guggenheim Lab sharing his thoughts on how to forge new urban systems that cater for interaction and interdependence yet preserving individual comfort:
Over at the Atlantic, James Kirchick pounces on South Africa's opposition to Bin Laden's killing, pointing out that South Africa's ruling party, the ANC, joins Hamas "as the only governing part[ies] in the world to oppose the assassination of Osama bin Laden." He then counters the ANC's statement on non-violence by reminding the party of its own violent struggle against apartheid:
The ANC may or may not have been morally justified or strategically vindicated in deciding to take up arms against apartheid (and there remains serious debate over the extent to which the ANC's violence was aimed at bringing down the white regime as opposed to eliminating potential black rivals and preparing the way for the near-unchallenged political status it has long enjoyed in post-apartheid South Africa). Regardless, the ANC has never recanted its launching the "armed struggle." How, then, to explain its statement that, "world problems cannot be resolved through violence?" The ANC's position on bin Laden's demise is illustrative of a disturbing trend: South Africa's transformation, under its tutelage, into an increasingly anti-Western power. Supported by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the ANC's alliance with the communist bloc was more than just a tactical alignment for an exiled, decimated, and desperate liberation movement....
Below ANC's enfant terrible, Julius Malema, clarifying--if you can call it that--South Africa's position on Bin Laden's assaination. Listening to Malema, it seems to us the South Africans' beef is not so much about Bin Laden. Rather, their concerns are with the economic inequality among nations and thereby an exceptionalism or entitlement that gives the American government a carte blanche to pursue their interests whenever justified... or whenever they think they are justified.
Saheela Ibraheem [is the] 15 year old daughter of a Nigerian immigrant family living in New Jersey, United States. The Harvard University new intake is the latest media sensation. Since news broke about Saheela's incredible acceptance to 13--i.e. Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, Cornell, Brown, Williams College, Stanford, University of Chicago, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Washington University in St. Louis and Harvard--of American's prestigious Universities, local and International media have taken interests in the teen's success story. A source at Wardlaw-Hartridge high school, who fears that media interests in the young Nigerian-American is fast becoming overwhelming and could be a distraction during her upcoming exams said that about a dozen media organizations are schedule for possible interviews with Saheela. According to the source "She [Saheela] is amazing and because she is well spoken, media organizations wanted to have live interviews with her". (More)
