BILLIE HOLIDAY
Call for Papers for
Bandung Spirit Book Series:
Religious Diversity in Africa and Asia
Deadline: 30 October 2012
Following the 55 BANDUNG 55 Seminars of the 55th Anniversary of 1955 Bandung Asian-African Conference held in Indonesia in October/November 2010, a series of books under the label of Bandung Spirit Book Series is in the course of publication.
The first book, on ECOLOGY (under the editorship of Darwis Khudori and Yukio Kamino), has been published in May 2012. See the book presentation in this section. The second book, on RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY (under the editorship of Darwis Khudori and Elikia Mbokolo), is planned to be launched in April 2013.
Those willing to contribute a paper for the publication are invited to consult the following TOR:
AGENDA:
PROBLEMATICS:
- Deadline of submission of the abstract: October 30, 2012
- Deadline of submission of the paper draft: December 31, 2012
- Deadline of submission of the final paper: January 31, 2013
- Editing process: February 2013
- Production process: March 2013
- Book launching: April 2013
65 years after the World War II, 55 years after Bandung Asian-African Conference 1955 and 20 years after the Cold War, wars and violent conflicts still take place, not only between Nation-States, but also inside the Nation-States (e.g. conflicts around ethnic and religious differences).
It seems clear that the common denominator of those conflicts is the diversity (of ethnic groups, religious communities, economic modes of production, ideological stands,…), which is not taken into account or insufficiently taken into account in the governance within and among the Nation-States, so that it generates conflicts instead of well-being. And religious diversity is a potential source if not a
real cause of social conflicts and wars between and inside the Nation-States.So, the question is how do Nation-State, Civil Society Organisations and Religious Authorities deal with religious diversity in the context of globalisation? Do they consider religious diversity as a condition, a motor, an obstacle or a goal of sustainable development?
A collective work of researchers and activists of civil society organisations is needed to answer those questions. Two main “raw materials” are supposed to be the object of reflection. The first one is the “reality” of social life where two or more religious communities live together in peace or in conflict. The second one is the “discourse” of the Nation-State (constitution, law, presidential decree, governmental measures, police operations, army interventions, and other types of concept and practice by the agents of Nation-State), the Civil Society Organisations (NGO and academic world) and the Religious Authorities (Churches, Councils of Ulama, Buddhist Sangha Councils,…) regarding religious diversity.
GENERAL RULE OF PRESENTATION:
Paper is to be sent by e-mail under the following rule of presentation.
Download: guidelines for authors
- Paper size: A4 (kwarto)
- Margins: 3 cm from all the borders (top, bottom, left, right)
- Interline: 1,5 space
- Typography: Times New Roman, 12 points
- Article size: around 2500 words (around 10 pages)
- Language: English, British style, article to be checked by a competent person in language editing
- before submission
- For the paragraph, alignment, heading, sub-heading, and other details, see the CODESRIA Guide for
- Authors in the same page of the website.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
For queries/ submissions: secretariat@bandungspirit.org
Website: http://www.bandungspirit.org
Rutgers University:
Postdoctoral Fellowship in
Critical Caribbean Studies
Thanks to Kelly Baker Josephs (Small Axe) at The Caribbean Commons for announcing this great opportunity for recent graduates: the Rutgers University Postdoctoral Fellowship in Critical Caribbean Studies. The applications deadline is Friday, January 12, 2013.
Description and Guidelines (excerpts): Critical Caribbean Studies at Rutgers, in collaboration with the Department of Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies is pleased to announce a one-year competitive postdoctoral fellowship for a scholar pursuing research in Caribbean Studies. Scholars working on comparative cultural studies especially the Dutch or the French Caribbean, with focus on transnationalism, migration and/or queer feminist studies are encouraged to apply, but we welcome applications from all scholars who feel that their work would benefit from affiliation with Rutgers. The selected fellow will receive a stipend of $65,000 as well as an annual research allocation of $3,000 and Rutgers University health benefits. The successful applicant must have the doctorate in hand at the time of application (defense date no later than May 31, 2013), be no more than three years beyond the Ph.D., and be able to teach one course during their tenure at Rutgers.
The Department of Latino and Hispanic Caribbean studies (http://latcar.rutgers.edu/) was founded in 1973, and offers interdisciplinary courses in Latino and Caribbean studies at the undergraduate level. The department’s mission includes the study of the Anglo, French and Hispanic Caribbean. Department faculty include 12 core, and 32 affiliate members, enriched by specializations in Africana Studies, Art History, Anthropology, Geography, History, Philosophy, Sociology Women’s and Gender Studies, and Comparative Literatures in English, French, and Spanish.
Critical Caribbean Studies at Rutgers http://criticalcaribbean.rutgers.edu/ aims to foster multi-disciplinary research about the Caribbean to allow a better understanding of the region and its people from a variety of perspectives. [. . .]
Candidates should submit their applications, consisting of a CV, a 1,500-word statement and 3 letters of recommendation, electronically to https://secure.interfolio.com/apply/18914
The statement should address the following: (1) the significance of the [candidate’s] research and the specific project that will be developed during the one year postdoctoral fellowship, (2) a brief description of the course the candidate could offer, and (3) how and why Rutgers can advance the candidates areas of research. Applications must be received by Friday, January 12, 2013.
[Image above from the Rutgers Critical Caribbean studies site, see below.]
For original, full post, see http://caribbean.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2012/10/19/postdoctoral-fellowship-in-critical-caribbean-studies/ and http://criticalcaribbean.rutgers.edu/about/announcements/17-postdoctoral-fellowship-n-critical-caribbean-studies
Call for Submissions:
5th Issue of Black Market Review
(international literary journal)
Deadline: 1 December 2012
The Black Market Review, Edge Hill University’s international literary e-journal, invites submissions of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, essays, art, photography, translations, scripts and book reviews for its fifth issue. Our reading period is October 1 to December 1. Unsolicited work outside those dates will not be read. No previously published work. Simultaneous submissions are accepted as long as we are notified of acceptance elsewhere.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
CONTACT INFORMATION:
- Poetry: 3-5 poems.
- Fiction and Creative Nonfiction: We prefer work under 6000 words.
- Translations: Please ensure permissions have been obtained from the author, publisher, etc.
- Art / Photography: Please send file attachments (jpg) or links to an online portfolio.
- Reviews and Interviews: Please query first.
- Response Time: 3-6 months. Do not query until at least six months have passed.
For queries: blackmarketreview@googlemail.com
For submissions: via submittable
Website: http://www.blackmarketreview.com/
bell hooks
New Topics New College presented author, educator and social critic bell hooks in "Transforming Dominator Culture: The Way to Peace," on March 8, 2011. She discussed race and gender and the clash of cultural values that continue to define much of our political landscape.
Dambisa Moyo:
'The world will be drawn into
a war for resources'
The controversial writer and economist on why she believes the economic rise of China, combined with the west's complacency, leaves us facing a future of terrifying global instability
Decca Aitkenhead
The Guardian, Sunday 24 June 2012
Dambisa Moyo: 'I think we'll see more wars'. Photograph: David Levene for the GuardianMassive geopolitical shifts seldom announce themselves with a bang. They tend instead to creep up slowly, until it's hard to be sure exactly when they began. I remember going to buy some steel about six years ago, and being staggered by the price. "Ah," the man in the hardware store explained, "it's the Chinese, you see. They're buying up so much steel, the price has gone through the roof." The last time I visited my brother, all the lead had been stripped from his garden shed – the second theft in two months – thanks to rocketing lead prices. And it must have been around the time of the Iraq war that I recall first hearing someone say the next big war would be fought over water. At the time the prediction had sounded far-fetched; these days, it's a commonplace.
China's Race For Resources and What It Means For Us
by Dambisa Moyo
These sort of random, disconnected events look neither random nor disconnected once you read Dambisa Moyo's account of what's happening to the world's commodities. In 1950 the world's population stood at 2.5 billion; by last year it had reached 7 billion, and is projected to hit 10 billion by 2050. With almost all the population growth occurring in the emerging economies, by 2030 some 2 billion people will have joined the global middle classes. "Put another way," Moyo writes, "in less than 20 years we will witness the creation of a middle class of roughly the same size as the current total population of Africa, North America and Europe." Naturally, they will want mobile phones, fridges, cars and washing machines; 2,000 new cars already join Beijing's streets every day. In 2010 China had 40 cities with populations of more than a million; by 2020 it plans to have added another 225. The implications for the world's commodity resources are stark and sobering: global demand for food and water is expected to increase by 50% and 30% respectively by 2030, the pressure on copper, lead, zinc and corn is already becoming unsustainable, and no one has a clue where the energy we'll need is going to come from.
If Moyo's calculations are correct, we are in big trouble – which makes the central premise of her book, Winner Takes All, all the more arresting. Governments across the world, she writes, have singularly failed to grasp what's coming – with one sensational exception. "Simply put, the Chinese are on a global shopping spree." State-sponsored Chinese corporations are busy buying up commodities across Africa, North America, the Middle East, South America – anywhere they can – in a concerted strategy to seize control of resources before the rest of the world wakes up to the looming crisis. They're striking deals with what she calls the "axis of the unloved" – developing countries rich in commodities but poor in political and economic capital – in return for much needed investment, employment and infrastructure. Extravagant shoppers, the Chinese are happy to pay over the odds, treating their trading partners not as poverty-ridden charity cases nor political pariahs but valued commercial equals. But when the resources begin to run dry, the consequences will be catastrophic. Already, since 1990 at least 18 violent conflicts worldwide have been triggered by competition for resources. If nothing is done now, warns Moyo, commodity wars on a terrifying scale are all but inevitable.
To western eyes, Winner Take All makes for scary reading. Viewed through Chinese eyes, on the other hand, it's an altogether different story. For all its premonitions of armageddon, the book's tone feels more congratulatory than cautionary – reflecting the particular perspective of its author.
Moyo stepped off a transatlantic flight only hours before we meet, but arrives looking like a supermodel, shrugging off jet lag with the indifference of someone who, when asked where she lives, replies: "Oh, on a plane." Born in Zambia in 1969, she spent her first eight years in the US before returning with her parents, both economists, to the capital, Lusaka. At 19 she left again for good, acquiring a masters from Harvard and a doctorate from Oxford, and working for the World Bank and Goldman Sachs, before publishing her first book, Dead Aid, in 2009.
A turbocharged attack on aid, it caused quite a sensation – here was an African denouncing western aid as patronising and counterproductive – earning Moyo the nickname "the anti-Bono" and securing her reputation as a box-office star of the global high-finance circuit. Her second book, How The West Was Lost, was a devastating obituary of America's supremacy, the cause of death diagnosed as a fatal overdose of greed and laziness. With blue-chip western academic credentials, yet a distinctly non-western way of looking at the world, she was named one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time magazine. Yet her latest work, she says, was inspired by her own ignorance.
"I'm pretty savvy; I kind of understand what's going on in the world. So I was quite surprised to learn how little I knew about commodity scarcity. I was very shocked by my own ignorance. It just seemed to me surprising that the only country that seemed to be doing something in a very systematic and deliberate way was China."
Winner Take All is presented as a warning to the west – it's subtitled China's Race For Resources, and What It Means For Us – but the book reads more like a hymn of praise to China. When I ask if she regards its story as scary or thrilling, she doesn't hesitate. "Oh, I think it's fantastic. I think it's fundamentally fantastic – and also in the literal sense of the word. You know, it's fantastic – it's a good thing – but also 'fantastic' as in something really tremendous. They bought a mountain in Peru – half the height of Mount Everest – they bought the mineral rights. I flew in from Canada this morning, where they've done a laptops-for-pork deal. They're importing beef from Brazil, and in return they'll build roads and railways. It's just an amazing display of discipline, and a systematic approach – it's unparalleled. I don't know any other country that does it in this way."
If anything, the chief inspiration for Winner Take All seems to have been Moyo's irritation with western attitudes to Chinese growth. "There is this obsession with China being a culprit," she agrees. "Even now, people will still say: 'Oh, the reason why the United States' economy is not doing well is because the Chinese are manipulating the exchange rate,' or, 'The Chinese have human-rights issues,' and, 'The Chinese don't do democracy, and the Chinese cheat.' You know, it's always about the Chinese, and no one actually takes a step back and thinks: 'Gosh, actually, it's our fault that productivity is declining. It's got nothing to do with the Chinese.'"
The hypocrisy of western criticism is, she says, quite breathtaking. We accuse the Chinese government of meddling in free-market capitalism, clean forgetting that US farm subsidy programmes and Europe's Common Agricultural Policy have condemned Africa's farmers to poverty. The US is perfectly happy to take China's money – more than $1tn worth of government bonds – yet expects the emerging markets to say: "No, we don't want Chinese money because there's an issue of human rights." We complain that the Chinese are paying too much for commodities, instead of wondering whether China might in fact have grasped their true value. And we have the nerve, she marvels, to accuse China of neocolonialism, failing to understand that "the rest of the world actually thinks what China is doing is pretty damn clever". It was the west which got rich by invading and plundering the rest of the world, whereas China is engaging with it on respectful, peaceful, generous terms.
"What the Chinese are trying to do – move a billion people out of poverty – is just an unheard-of thing in history. The fact that they have moved 300 million in 30 years is unheard of. It took Britain 156 years to double its per capita income. It took America 57 years, Germany 65 years. It's taken the Chinese 12-and-a-half years."
Moyo stresses more than once: "I'm an economist, not a political scientist," and her writing is full of the maddeningly opaque jargon of commodity trading. Yet the book's fundamental message seems to be as much about the contrasting politics of Washington and Beijing as commodity prices. She is always described as a passionate free-market capitalist, so I ask how that fits with her admiration of China.
"I have to tell you, this is my favourite thing about being raised in Africa; we don't do labels very well, we don't do this, 'Oh, you're a Democrat; oh, you're a Republican.' Because we live in the real world. There's not a single country that actually approaches economics in a pure, free market, capitalist way. I like the free market – but it very much exists only in textbooks. If I had a choice, and we could live in a very pure world, I would be a supporter of the free markets. But because we don't live in that world, I do really admire what the Chinese have done. Having the good fortune of being born in Africa – I absolutely love the fact that I was raised and born in Africa – I love people who deliver results."
Moyo's critics say her predictions of a commodity crisis are alarmist, failing to account for future technological solutions to shortages. People have been worrying about unsustainable population growth ever since Thomas Malthus in 1798, goes this critique, and yet the world always somehow manages to muddle through.
"Right, but the people who are saying: 'We'll muddle through,' are people sitting in the west who get clean water when they turn the tap on. If you're in India, and the Brahmaputra river is being rerouted by the Chinese, you're not muddling through; lives are being lost. Wars are being fought right now. 'Oh, we'll muddle through,' is a very western view, because you're not killing each other yet, and oil prices haven't risen to $1,000 a barrel. If you live in a poor country, where you have to walk miles for water, or you have to fight for water or resources, it is already happening." She invests her money in technology and innovation, she adds. "And my sense is that we're not close to any big discovery in any of the categories – land, water, energy and minerals – that has made me not nervous about the coming headwinds."
Other critics dismiss her predictions of scarcity as miscalculations based upon a flawed assumption that China and other emerging markets will continue to grow at their recent prodigious rate – when in fact, their economies are starting to slow, and have probably already peaked. "People do not understand," she says, with a hint of weary incredulity, "that the Chinese government will and can do pretty much anything to make sure they don't have a recession. They're not going to sit there and do nothing while an economy slows down to 5% growth a year. They will have a political problem; they will have Tiananmen Square, they will have people on the streets. So what do they do? They'll turn the taps on." The notion that African aspirations could now be switched off strikes Moyo as equally laughable. "I go to Africa all the time. You talk to a young person and tell them they can't have Facebook? Seriously? You try telling them that."
It's not hard to see why Moyo is such a hit as a public intellectual. But when we come to the logical conclusion of her thesis, her position seems to become somewhat illogical. She calls for the creation of a global body focused exclusively on commodity issues – but when I ask what it would look like, her only clear stipulation is a central role within it for China. If China is winning the commodity race, its interest in any such body strikes me as doubtful, but Moyo thinks self-interest will ensure their support for a strategy to prevent resource depletion and consequent conflict. "I think the world will be drawn into a war for resources," she says firmly. "I think we'll see more wars."
Yet if all her predictions are correct, at that point surely the Chinese will flex their considerable military might in order to protect the worldwide interests they've paid for. It would be perverse of them not to, wouldn't it? Moyo flatly refuses to see it.
"They have been very deliberate in their speeches that this is about the peaceful rise of China. And by the way, what kind of campaign would they launch? They would go to all those countries and be fighting in all those different countries at the same time? I don't know how they would be able to do it. I can't play that scenario out." Perhaps my scepticism is simply evidence of the sort of suspicious western mindset Moyo scorns, but I wonder if her determination to champion China might not be in danger of tipping over into blind faith.
Moyo is clearly well aware that her critics dismiss her as more of a showy controversialist than a sober-minded thinker. When I ask about the factual errors that have been seized upon in all three books – in Winner Take All, for example, she says Opec stands for Oil Producing Exporting Countries – she bristles defensively. "Well, I wish I had been more perfect. But my book hit the New York Times bestseller list last week, and people seem interested in what I have to say." She considers it "rather cheap" to indict a book because of a few inaccuracies, and suspects critics make so much of her mistakes because they cannot forgive the heresy of Dead Aid. "They think I'm speaking out of my place." As for "the anti-Bono" nickname, "I absolutely despise it. When people make those type of cheap headlines, it takes away from fundamental points."
There certainly seems to be more than a hint of subtle prejudice in some of the comments she has attracted – both positive and negative. Nigel Lawson called her "confused" and "muddled" in a BBC radio debate, while his son Dominic has praised her as "a very serious lady indeed", and I can't imagine him describing a white male equivalent as a "very serious gentleman indeed".
She has homes in New York and London, but is anxious to point out: "That sounds all very glamorous, but it's just where I throw my stuff," and insists: "My core, core, core: I'm an African." I ask to what extent she suspects her work is viewed through the prism of her identity as an African woman. "Woman? Zero. African? 100." Given her own emphasis on the influence of African origins on her work, I can't work out if she considers this unfair or not.
"I think," she reflects with an elegant shrug, "I'm kind of a hard bird to figure out."
via guardian.co.uk
Young, Black & Gifted:
Marine Biologist
Danni Washington
Turns Passion Into
Budding Career
Daniell “Danni” Washington knew ever since the age of six that she wanted to dedicate her life to saving the environment.
Washington’s parents gave her the chance early on to travel the world and see that there’s more to it than human life.
According to her mother, by age nine, Washington designed and drafted a plan for a marine mammal retirement center where she could save marine mammals kept in captivity at aquatic parks and facilities.
As an African-American child who grew up with both parents in her life, something that’s still becoming increasingly uncommon, Washington knew that she didn’t want to take those experiences they shared for granted. Washington, an only child, especially appreciated those experiences, because they introduced her to her love for the sea.
“A lot of women of color don’t have the opportunity to explore the ocean,” Washington said.
According to DoSomething.org, the most exposure any African-American gets to the environment involves living near pollution and waste facilities.
The site says the majority of those living in neighborhoods within 1.8 miles of America’s hazardous waste facilities are people of color, and that African Americans are 79 percent more likely than white Americans to live in neighborhoods where industrial pollution may cause the worst health risks.
Regardless of such facts, Washington continues to promote environmental education and awareness.
She said she knows many minorities don’t take advantage of marine biology, but having people question her work actually fuels her drive.
“I like to be unique, and I want to be different,” Washington said. “I’m acting as a trailblazer.”
Washington encourages people to always follow their passion. Doing so is what led to her graduating from the University of Miami after double majoring in Marine Science and Biology.
While at the university, she acted as a team leader in the South Florida Student Shark Program and served on the executive board of the UM Marine Mammal Stranding Team.
Also while attending school, Washington entered and took first place in the ROXY Follow Your Heart competition presented by Schick® Quattro for Women®. Using the funds from the competition win, in 2008 Washington and her mother created The Big Blue & You, a nonprofit organization seeking to inspire and empower youth about the environment and ocean through the arts, service learning and media.
Washington said it’s important that ocean and environmental awareness start with the youth, because young people are so ready to learn and act immediately off of new knowledge.
Still, Washington said she isn’t just targeting younger people in her quest to spread knowledge about the ocean and keeping it clean and safe.
“My biggest goal is to bring awareness to the public,” Washington said. “What is unseen is kind of forgotten. If [people] don’t understand what’s happening out there and how what we do every day impacts the ocean, we’re going to lose the battle.”
Washington said the fact that the ocean is so vast and so much of it is unseen draws her to it. In fact, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the ocean contains 99 percent of living space on the planet and supports the life of about 50 percent of all Earthly species.
“It’s so mysterious,” Washington said about the ocean. “It’s really the last frontier on the planet that humans haven’t fully researched.”
Washington so wants to expose and advance oceanic research; she’s committed to protecting and spreading awareness about it for as long as she can.
“It feels like something I can study for the rest of my life,” Washington said.
Such passion is what makes people like Vilma Sooknanan, chairperson of the Big Blue & You youth board, want to work with Washington.
“Her passion for the ocean is the biggest driving force for the Big Blue & You,” Sooknanan said. “We feed off of her spirit.”
Sooknanan also admires Washington’s dedication to everything she does. Sooknanan said that even when Washington has her hands in other projects, she somehow relates everything to the ocean or the environment as best as she can.
Some of the projects Washington has taken on include working with Untamed Science and the One Water Workshop.
According to the Big Blue & You site, Washington acted as an on-camera host and science filmmaker with Untamed Science for two years. The project produced more than 200 educational science videos for Pearson Publishing textbooks.
And the One Water Workshop is a five-day filmmaking workshop, put on by the Miami World Cinema Center, in which high school students make public service announcements regarding water conservation issues.
Washington said being on camera is something that she’d like to do for many years to come. A fan of filmmaking, Washington hopes at least within the next five years to have a television show educating children. She also just recently started working with a team on a project to do a short video series regarding the ocean.
Regardless of how Washington addresses conserving the ocean, those who work with her support her many methods and persistence in accomplishing her mission.
One person who has really seen Washington grow and has been impacted by Washington’s love of the ocean is her mother, Michelle Swaby.
“I am extremely proud of my daughter and I know that she has really made an impact on the children of this community,” Swaby, executive director of the Big Blue & You, wrote in an email. “For someone so young, she has accomplished more in her 25 years than a lot of people have in their lifetime! For that we are grateful and I am proud!!”
Like others who associate with Washington, Swaby also loves Washington’s drive and personality.
“Danni has been truly blessed with the gift of a great spirit,” Swaby wrote. “She brings light to any room that she enters and people love to engage in conversation with her about her passion for the ocean. My fondest memories of working with her will always be watching how she interacts with the children and young adults in our programs.”
For Washington, everything she does goes back to the youth and positively affecting the lives of those she encounters.
“The youth are the key to protecting the environment in general,” Washington said. “And I like to be a light in this world, no matter what the circumstances are.”
Journey to Justice :
Running Time: approx. 28 min.
Haunani-Kay Trask is one of the most important and influential Hawaiian nationalist leaders of our times. Known for her formidable intellect and razor sharp analysis, especially on US imperialism and its 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and its continued colonization of the islands, Trask reflects upon her life, politics, and the Hawaiian sovereignty movement.
A retired professor of Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, she is also an accomplished poet. Among her numerous writings including her the path-breaking book of essays, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaii are two books of poetry, Light in the Crevice Never Seen and Night is a Sharkskin Drum.
Her official website: haunani-kaytrask.com/
Interview recorded June 18, 2010, Center for Hawaiian Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Historical footage courtesy of Na Maka o ka Aina.
via vimeo.com
__________________________
As a Hawaiian, a long-time outspoken defender of my people’s claim to nationhood, a scholar, and a Native who knows her history and people, I found Roger Keesing’s (1989) article in your first issue a gem of academic colonialism. Knowing old-fashioned racism too crude to defend but bitterly clinging to his sense of white superiority, Keesing plows the complaining path of the unappreciated missionary who, when confronted by ungrateful, decolonizing Natives, thinly veils his hurt and anger by the high road of lamentation: Alas, poor, bedeviled Natives “invent” their cculture in reaction to colonialism, and all in the service of grimy politics!
Keesing’s peevishness has a predictably familiar target: Native nationalists- from Australia and New Zealand through the Solomons and New Caledonia to Hawai’i. The problem? These disillusioned souls idealize their pasts for the purpose of political mythmaking in the present. Worse, they are so unoriginal (and, by implication, unfamiliar with what Keesing calls their “real” pasts) as to concoct their myths out of Western categories and values despite their virulent opposition to same. Thus the romanticization of pre-European Native pasts (the “Golden Age” allegedly claimed by the Maori); the assertion of a common Native identity (eg, Fijian “culture”); the “ideology” of land as spiritually significant (supposedly argued by Hawaiians, Solomon Islanders, Kanaks, and Aborigines). The gospel, according to Keesing, is that these claims are “invented.” To be specific, there never was a “Golden Age,” a common identity, or a spiritual attachment to the land.
Proof? Keesing supplies none, either on the charge that Native nationalists have made such claims or that their claims are false. He merely asserts fabrication then proceeds to belabor, trought the mumbo jumbo of academic “discourse” the crying need for Natives (and academics) to face “our” pasts with “skepticism,” while pursuing a “critical deconstruction of conceptualizations” to achieve “dialectical confrontation.” The final intention should be to “liberate us” from our pasts.
Well, my answer to Keesing has been said by modern-day Natives to would-be White Fathers many times: What do you mean “us,” white man?
Among Hawaiians, people like Keesing are described as maha’oi haole, that is, rude, intrusive white people who go where they do not belong. In Keesing’s case, his factual errors, cultural and political ignorance, and dismissive attitude qualify him perfectly as maha’oi. Unlike Keesing, I cannot speak for other Natives. But regarding Hawaiian nationalists, Keesing neither knows where of he speaks, nor, given his maha’oi attitude, does he care.
Example: Keesing only cites works by haole academics on the current situation in Hawai’i. Obviously, he hasn’t bothered to read our Native nationalists and scholars, including those, like myself, who have been very critical of these same haole academics. Indeed, most of his comments on Hawaiian nationalists come from one problematic and contested article (contested by Natives, that is) by anthropologist Jocelyn Linnekin (1983), hardly a sound evidentiary base for sweeping claims that we invent our past.
Beyond his poverty of sources, there is Keesing’s willful ignorance of solid evidence from Native forms of history-genealogy-which reveal that in pre-haole Hawai’i our people looked on land as a mother, enjoyed a familial relationship with her and other living things, and practiced an economically wise, spiritually based ethic of caring for the land, called malama ‘aina.
Contrary to Linnekin’s claims, and Keesing’s uncritical acceptance of them, the value of malama ‘aina has been “documented historically,” and “recorded ethnographically,” (as Keesing might learn if he read Native sources), two of the criteria Keesing cites as central to any judgment of the accuracy of “ancestral ways of life being evoked rhetorically” by Native nationalists today.l If Natives must be held to Keesing’s criteria, why should he be allowed to escape them?
The answer is that Keesing, with many Western academics, shares a common assumption: Natives don’t know very much, even about their own lifeways, thus there is no need to read them. (The only “real” sources are haole sources, hegemony recognizing and reinforcing hegemony).
Kessing’s racism is exposed here. Not only he refused to read what we Native Nationalists write and say, he has refusedd to look at our sources of knowledge. But then, Keesing believes, Natives are so colonized, why bother?
Example: Keesing has also failed to distinguish between what Hawaiian nationalists say about our ways of life and what the mammoth tourist industry advertises “Hawaiian culture” to be, including “hula dances, ukuleles, and pineapples.” Because he is totally ignorant of modern Hawaiian resistance, he is also totally ignorant of the Native criticism of the tourist industry, including the myth of happy Natives waiting to share their “culture” with tourists. In fact, after years of Native resistance to tourism, the churches in Hawai’i (with the push of Native nationalists and international ecumenical groups) sponsored a conference on the impact of tourism on Hawaiian people and culture in I989. At that conference, Hawaiians from each of our major islands spoke eloquently of tourism’s damage to Hawaiian sites, dance, language, economics, land, and way of life. The declaration issued from that conference listed ways to halt this damage, including a ban on all resorts in Hawaiian communities. Keesing should be reading this kind of primary evidence if he wants to learn what Hawaiian nationalists think about tourism and our culture. (2)
Example: Keesing claims that Native nationalists hark back to an “authentic,” “simple, unambiguous reality,” when, in fact, “there were multiple ‘realities’-for commoners and chiefs, for men and for women …” in cultures where “genealogies, cosmologies, rituals were themselves contested spheres.”
As usual, the critical reader finds not a single reference here to a single Native nationalist statement. More haole sources follow, especially Keesing on Keesing. But where are the Natives? In the dark, naturally.
The truth is that Keesing has made a false charge. Those of us in the current Hawaiian nationalist movement know that genealogies are claimed and contested all the time. Some of the chiefly lineages have legal claims on lands taken by the United States government at the American annexation of Hawai’i in I898, which means that genealogies have an impact beyond the Hawaiian community. Cosmologies are also contested, with nationalists citing and arguing over accuracy and preferability. (3)
Finally, at the Center for Hawaiian Studies -which generates nationalist positions, sponsors nationalist conferences, and teaches the historical background and political substance of nationalist arguments- students are required to take a course on genealogies.
Given Roger Keesing’s shameless claims about us Hawaiian nationalists, I invite him to take this course, or any other offered at our center. We Natives might teach him something.
Example: Keesing asserts that “cultural nationalist rhetoric often depicts anthropologists as villains who appropriate and exploit.” In a note, he adds that anthropologists are “imagined to be appropriating and profiting from other people’s cultures ….”
In Hawai’i, contract work is a major source of funding for archaeologists and anthropologists. These people are hired by investors and state or private institutions to survey areas and deem them ready for use. In highly controversial cases regarding removal of Hawaiian bones and destruction of Hawaiian temple and house sites, many archaeologists and anthropologists have argued for development and against preservation while receiving substantial sums of money. At its worst, these controversies have exposed the racist paternalism of anthropologists who pit (in their own words) emotional Hawaiians who try to stop disinterment and development against scientificanthropologists who try to increase the store of (Western) knowledge.
Of course, these haole anthropologists would be outraged were we Hawaiians to dig up theirrelatives for osteological analysis, search for evidence of tuberculosis and other diseases, and, not coincidentally, get paid handsomely for our troubles. To my knowledge, no anthropologist has ever dug up missionary bones, despite their plentiful presence. Nor has any haole “expert” ever argued that missionary skeletons should be subjected to osteological analysis, despite historical evidence that missionaries did bring certain diseases to Hawai’i. White colonialism in Hawai’i ensures that it is the colonizers who determine disinterment. Since we are the colonized, we have no power to disinter the bones of the colonizer.
Thus, Native remains are dug up and studied. Missionary and explorer remains are sacrosanct. Apart from contract work, anthropologists make academic careers and employment off Native cultures. Keesing may not think this is “profiting,” but anthropologists who secure tenure by studying, publishing, and lecturing about Native peoples are clearly “profiting” through a guaranteed lifetime income. Of course, Keesing is disingenuous, at best. He knows as well as Native nationalists that anthropologists without Natives are like entomologists without insects.
For Hawaiians, anthropologists in general (and Keesing in particular) are part of the colonizing horde because they seek to take away from us the power to define who and what we are, and how we should behave politically and culturally.(4)
This theft testifies to the stranglehold of colonialism and explains why self-identity by Natives elicits such strenuous and sometimes vicious denials by members of the dominant culture. These denials are made in order to undermine the legitimacy of Native nationalists by attacking their motives in asserting their values and institutions. But motivation is laid bare through the struggle for cultural expression. Nationalists offer explanations at every turn: in writing, in public forums, in acts of resistance. To Natives, the burst of creative outpouring that accompanies cultural nationalism is self-explanatory: a choice has been made for things Native over things non-Native. Politically, the choice is one of decolonization.
The direct links between mental and political decolonization are clearly observable to representatives of the dominant culture, like Keesing, who find their status as “experts” on Natives suddenly repudiated by Natives themselves. This is why thinking and acting like a Native is a highly politicized reality, one filled with intimate oppositions and psychological tensions. But it is not Natives who create politicization. That was begun at the moment of colonization.
In the Hawaiian case, the “invention” criticism has been thrown into the public arena precisely at a time when Hawaiian cultural and political assertion has been both vigorous and strong willed. Since 1970, Hawaiians have been organizing for land rights, including claims to restitution for the American overthrow of our government in 1893 and for forced annexation in 1898. Two decades of struggle have resulted in the contemporary push for Hawaiian sovereignty, with arguments ranging from complete secession to legally incorporated land-based units managed by Hawaiians, to a “nation-within-a-nation” government akin to Native American Indian nations. The US government has issued two reports on the status of Hawaiian trust lands, which encompass nearly half the State of Hawai’i. And finally, a quasi-governmental agency-the Office of Hawaiian Affairs-was created in 1978, partly in response to Hawaiian demands.
This kind of political activity has been accompanied by a flourishing of Hawaiian dance, a move for Hawaiian language immersion schools, and a larger public sensitivity to the destructive Western relaati0nship t0 the land compared to the indigenous Hawaiian way of caring for the land.
Non-Native response to this Hawaiian resistance has varied from humor, through mild denial that any wrong has been committed against the Hawaiian people and government, to organized counteraction, especially from threatened agencies and actors who hold power over Hawaiian resources. Indeed, representatives of the dominant culture-from historians and anthropologists to bureaucrats and politicians-are quick to feel and perceive danger because, in the colonial context, all Native cultural resistance is political: it challenges hegemony, including that of people like Keesing who claim to encourage a more “radical stance” toward our past by liberating us from it.
But Keesing obviously knows nothing about Hawaiians. He has failed to distinguish land claims from cultural resurgence, although both have nationalist origins. And he has little or no background regarding the theft of Hawaiian domain and dominion by the American government in the nineteenth century. Given this kind of ignorance of both our recent and distant past, Keesing would do better to take a “radical” look at the racism and arrogance of his culture which originated anthropology and its “search for the primitive.”
As for nationalist Hawaiians, we know our future lies in the ways of our ancestors, not in the colonial world of haole experts. Our efforts at “liberation” are directed against the colonizers, whether they be political agencies, like the American government, or academics, like Keesing himself.
We do not need, nor do we want to be “liberated” from our past because it is the source of our understanding of the cosmos and of our mana.
In our language, the past (ka wa mamua) is the time in front or before; the future (ka wa mahope) is the time that comes after. In the words of one of our best living Native historians, Lilikala Kame’eleihiwa (whom Keesing did not read), “The Hawaiian stands firmly in the present, with his back to the future, and his eyes fixed upon the past, seeking historical answers for present-day dilemmas. Such an orientation is to the Hawaiian an eminently practical one, for the future is always unknown whereas the past is rich in glory and knowledge” (1986, 28-29).
In her article, Linnekin writes, “For Hawai’i, ‘traditional’ properly refers to the precontact era, before Cook’s arrival in 1778″ (242). But later on the samepage, she admits that “tradition is fluid …”Despite this confusion she criticizes Hawaiians for a “reconstruction of traditional Hawaiian society” in the present.
But what constitutes “tradition” to a people is ever-changing. Culture is not static, nor is it frozen in objectified moments in time. Without doubt, Hawaiians were transformed drastically and irreparably after contact, but remnants of earlier lifeways, including values and symbols, have persisted. One of these values is the Hawaiian responsibility to care for the land, to make it flourish, called malama ‘aina or aloha ‘aina. (Regarding the “traditional” value of malama ‘aina, see Kame’eleihiwa 1986). To Linnekin, this value has been invented by modern Hawaiians to protest degradation of the land by developers, the military, and others.
What Linnekin has missed here-partly because she has an incomplete grasp of “traditional” values but also because she doesn’t understand and thus misapprehends Hawaiian cultural nationalism-is simply this: the Hawaiian relationship to land has persisted into the present. What has changed is ownership and use of the land (from collective use by Hawaiians for subsistence to private use by whites and other non-Natives for profit.) Asserting the Hawaiian relationship in this changed context results in politicization. Thus, Hawaiians assert a “traditional” relationship to the land not for political ends, as Linnekin (and Keesing) argue, but because they continue to believe in the cultural value of caring for the land. That land use is now contested makes such a belief political. This distinction is crucial because the Hawaiian cultural motivation reveals the persistence of traditional values, the very thing Linnekin (and Keesing) allege modern Hawaiians to have “invented.”
2. For an example of tourist industry apologists and their claim that tourism encourages and exemplifies “Hawaiian culture,” see Smyser 1982, and my reply (1982). Also see the 1989 Declaration of the Hawai’i Ecumenical Coalition on Tourism, available from the American Friends Service Committee, Honolulu.
3. In Hawai’i the Kawananakoa line contests the loss of governance, since they were heirs to the throne at the time of the American military-backed overthrow of Hawaiian Queen Lili’uokalani. The Salazar family lays claim to part of the Crown lands for similar reasons. Regarding land issues, the Ka’awa family occupied Makapu’u Point in 1988 in protest over its current use. Their argument revolved around their claim to ownership because of their genealogical connection to the Kamehameha line. Among nationalist organizations, ‘Ohana 0 Hawai’i, led by Peggy Ha’o Ross, argues claims to leadership based on genealogy.
These examples illustrate the continuity of genealogy as profoundly significant to hawaiians in establishing and thus, the power to command recognition and leadership. Keesing obviously knows nothing about any of these families or their claims.
4. The United States government defines Native Hawaiians as those with 50 percent or more Hawaiian blood quantum. Those with less than 50 percent Hawaiian blood are not considered to be “Native” and are thus not entitled to lands and monies set aside for 50 percent bloods. Hawaiians are the only human beings in the State of Hawai’i who are categorized by blood quantum, rather like Blacks in South Africa.
While bureaucrats are happily dividing up who is and is not Native, the substance of what constitutes things Hawaiian is constantly asserted by anthropologists against Native nationalists. Of course, the claim to knowledge by anthropologists is their academic training applied to the field. Native nationalists’ claim to knowledge is their life experience as Natives.
The problem is more serious than epistemology, however. In a colonial world, the work of anthropologists and other Western-trained “experts” is used to disparage and exploit Natives. What Linnekin or Keesing or any other anthropologist writes about Hawaiians has more potential power than what Hawaiians write about themselves. Proof of this rests in the use of Linnekin’s argument by the US Navy that Hawaiian nationalists have invented the sacred meaning of Kaho’olawe Island (which the US Navy has controlled and bombed since the Second World War) because nationalists need a “political and cultural symbol of protest” in the modern period (Linnekin 1983, 246). Here, the connection between anthropology and the colonial enterprise is explicit. When Natives accuse Western scholars of exploiting them, they have in mind the exact kind of situation I am describing. In fact, the Navy’s study was done by an anthropologist who, of course, cited fellow anthropologists, including Linnekin, to argue that the Hawaiian assertion of love and sacredness regarding Kaho’olawe was “fakery” (Keene 1986). Far from overstating their case, Native nationalists acutely comprehend the structure of their oppression, including that perpetuated by anthropologists.
References:
Hawai’i Ecumenical Coalition on Tourism 1989 The 1989 Hawai’i Declaration of the Hawai’i Ecumenical Coalition on Tourism Conference. Available from American Friends Service Committee, Honolulu.
Kame’eleihiwa, Lilikala 1986 Land and the Promise of Capitalism. PhD dissertation, University of
Hawaii.
Keene, Dennis T.P 1986 Kaho’olawe Island, Hawai’i Ethnic Significance Overview. Copy in Hawaiian/Pacific Collection, Hamilton Library, University of Hawai’i
at Manoa.
-Keesing, Roger I989 Creating the Past: Custom and Identity in the Contemporary Pacific. Contemporary Pacific I:I9-42.
Linnekin, Jocelyn I983 Defining Tradition: Variations on the Hawaiian Identity. American Ethnologist IO:24I-252.
I985 Children of the Land: Exchange and Status in a Hawaiian Community. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Smyser, A. A. I982 Hawaiian Problems. Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 30 June.
Trask, Haunani-Kay I982 A Hawaiian View of Hawaiian Problems. Honolulu Star-Bulletin, I5
July. I986 Review of Linnekin I985. Hawaiian Journal ofHistory 20:232- 235.
Trask, H. 1991. Natives and Anthropologists: The Colonial Struggle. The Contemporary Pacific 3 (1): 159-67
Marie-Jeanne Lamartiniére
“Let those with the courage to die free men stay here with me,” said Dessalines.
A cheer went up: We will all die for Liberty! The doctor noticed that Marie-Jeanne, Lamartinière’s wife, cried the affirmation as loud as any man. She was a tall and striking colored woman; he was rather astonished to see she was still here.
Madison Smartt Bell, The Stone that the Builder Refused (2004)
«… De loin, les Francais surveillaient leur œuvre de destruction quand, stupéfaits, ils virent, sur les murailles du fort, une femme qui excitait les combattants. C’était Marie-Jeanne, la compagne de Lamartinière. Le sabre au côté, la carabine à la main, elle partageait tous les périls des héroïques défenseurs de la Crête-à-Pierrot.»
Dr. J.C. Dorsainvil qtd. in Jasmine Narcisse, “Marie-Jeanne,” Mémoire de femmes (2002)
General Lamartinière was defeated in Port au Prince. General Maurepas was defeated near Port de Paix. Toussaint himself was defeated at a point known as the “Ravine à coulèvre” and after a memorable siege the famous fort of “La Crête à Pierrot,” commanded by Dessalines, Magny, Lamartinière and Marie Jeanne (wife of Lamartinière) was captured thus bringing to a close the first struggle for complete Independence, but due credit must be given the ex-slaves for the wonderful fight they urged for their independence against the well organized veterans of Napoleonic French Army.
“History of Haiti,” Haiti, 1919-1920: Blue Book of Haiti (1920)
Image: Postal stamp of commemorating the 150th anniversary of Haiti’s independence. Source: Smithsonian National Postal Museum.
__________________________
A brief account of the rule of
Jean Jacques Dessalines
The rule of Dessalines was a sanguinary, but, on the whole, a salutary one. He began his government by a treacherous massacre of nearly all the French who remained in the island trusting to his false promises of protection. All other Europeans, however, except the French, were treated with respect. Dessalines encouraged the importation of Africans into Hayti, saying that since they were torn from their country, it was certainly better that they should be employed to recruit the strength of a rising nation of blacks, than to serve the whites of all countries as slaves.
On the 8th of October, 1804, Dessalines exchanged his plain title of governor-general for the more pompous one of emperor. He was solemnly inaugurated under the name of James I., emperor of Hayti; and the ceremony of his coronation was accompanied by the proclamation of a new constitution, the main provisions of which were exceedingly judicious. All Haytian subjects, of whatever color, were to be called blacks, entire religious toleration was decreed, schools were established, public worship encouraged, and measures adopted similar to those which Toussaint had employed for creating and fostering an industrial spirit among the negroes. As a preparation for any future war, the interior of the island was extensively planted with yams, bananas, and other articles of food, and many forts built in advantageous situations. Under these regulations the island again began to show symptoms of prosperity.
Dessalines was a man in many respects fitted to be the first sovereign of a people rising out of barbarism. Born the slave of a negro mechanic, he was quite illiterate, but had great natural abilities, united to a very ferocious temper. His wife was one of the most beautiful and best educated negro women in Hayti. A pleasant trait of his character is his seeking out his old master after he became emperor, and making him his butler. It was, he said, exactly the situation the old man wished to fill, as it afforded him the means of being always drunk. Dessalines himself drank nothing but water. For two years this negro continued to govern the island; but at length his ferocity provoked his mulatto subjects to form a conspiracy against him, and on the 17th of October, 1806, he was assassinated by the soldiers of Petion, who was his third in command.
Image: Dubroca (1757 – ca. 1835), Portrait of Jean-Jacques Dessalines wearing a cocked hat with cockade holding the severed head of a European woman. In the background is a military encampment and severed hand. Vida de J. J. Dessalines, gefe de los Negros de Santo Domingo (1806). Source: John Carter Brown Archive of Early American Images.
Abdullah Ibrahim
Jazz Bonus Break
October 19, 2012ByUploaded in mid-August on YouTube, this 1968 clip may be the earliest known clip of Abdullah Ibrahim. In the video, a wiry (all arms and legs) Ibrahim is performing with his band at the time — consisting of John Tchicai, Gato Barbieri, Barre Phillips and Makaya Ntshoko — on German television:
If you haven’t had enough of Ibrahim, it was also his birthday last week Tuesday — we Storified an Abdullah Ibrahim Birthday Edition.
Tchicai, the tall, thin man playing saxophone on that 1968 live set in the video above died last week. Tchicai (Congolese father, who has an interesting story of his own, and a Danish mother) also collaborated with the South African bassist Johnny Dyani. RIP.
Here’s Tchicai performing in April this year (fast forward to the 6.23 mark):
Hugh Masekela performs a live version of Louis Armstrong’s “Rocking Chair” for The Guardian at Womad this past summer:
Drummer Tete Mbambisa, who doesn’t say much, has a new album. Buy it.
Now for the younger cohort. First up the Belgium-based, South African-born vocalist Tutu Poeane and her band:
Then Chicago’s Hypnotic Brass Ensemble.
From London, Soweto Kinch and Shabaka Hutchings:
French double bass Stéphane Kerecki talking about his new record:
Finally, though not strictly classified as jazz (but what is jazz?), check out this trailer for a new film about chaabi musicians from Algiers:
Read more here.