"With NEXT, Dele is truly changing the expectations to which Nigerian leaders are held, equipping Nigerians to be active citizens," said Anne McNulty, founder of the McNulty Prize. "The jury was inspired by his courage and conviction in forging new ground, and leading his country toward a better future."
New York — The Aspen Institute and Anne Welsh McNulty, Institute trustee, today announced journalist Dele Olojede as the winner of the fourth annual John P. McNulty Prize. A committee of judges including Madeleine Albright, Olara Otunnu, Shashi Tharoor and Anne McNulty selected Olojede in recognition of his groundbreaking work to deliver unbiased information to the Nigerian public, demand government transparency and advance journalistic standards in the country.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, judge for the 2011 McNulty Prize, said, "Dele Olojede is a remarkable leader operating in a very difficult environment. He is giving the people of Nigeria what they do not have, which is unbiased information. He is standing up for media and government transparency and is a formative figure in building a strong democratic base in his country."
Olojede is the CEO and Founder of NEXT, the leading source for independent Nigerian and African news. Prior to founding NEXT, Olojede attended Columbia University's School of Journalism and spent 16 years at Newsday, where he received the Pulitzer Prize for his "fresh, haunting look at Rwanda a decade after rape and genocidal slaughter had ravaged the Tutsi tribe." After becoming an Africa Leadership Initiative Fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, Dele decided it was time to return to his native Nigeria in 2008 to elevate the public dialogue in a nation characterized by corruption, a wealth gap, and an acceptance of the status quo. The result was NEXT, a venture founded on journalistic integrity and credibility, which is now the most trafficked news site in the country at two million monthly views.
"Our aim is nothing less than to transform the way Nigerians think, to arm the citizen with factual information so that she will make better decisions," said Olojede. "The funding conferred by the McNulty Prize is invaluable in continuing and growing NEXT's operations, particularly as we expand our digital media presence. Ultimately, our real impact will be measured by the changing thinking of the Nigerian people, but to receive the international recognition of the McNulty Prize is immensely humbling."
Running a 24-hour newsroom on diesel generators, Dele and a team of young people work to bring unbiased investigative reporting to a country mired in corruption. To date, NEXT has exposed the role of Nigerian political elite in the Halliburton scandal, uncovered tax evasion by Nigeria's richest tycoon and publicized the pay of Nigerian legislators. After NEXT exposed the concealed truth that Nigeria's President, Umaru Yar'Adua, was seriously brain damaged, agents of the State Security Service attempted to burst into the newsroom and seize the paper. The story precipitated the appointment of a new leader in the country.
The McNulty Prize seeks to galvanize efforts to address the foremost social, economic and political challenges of our time by recognizing the very best in high-impact work by Fellows from the Aspen Global Leadership Network under taken as part of their Fellowship. Projects are assessed on their creativity, impact and sustainability. The 2011 finalists include:
Jay Coen Gilbert & Andrew Kassoy of B Lab (Philadelphia, Penn.), an organization dedicated to redefining business to make solving social and environmental problems as important as generating profits.
Timothy Marquez of Denver Scholarship Foundation (Denver, Colo.), an organization that combats the inequity of college success for Denver's youth by distributing scholarships and helping students navigate the college and financial aid processes.
Ann Lamont of Leadership & Innovation Network for Collaboration in the Children's Sector (South Africa), an organization that facilitates leadership and interaction between actors in the children's sector and innovates new approaches to overcome the systemic problems hindering the delivery of services to children.
Alejandra Poma of Libras de Amor (El Salvador), an organization that ensures thousands of infants a fair start in life by taking on malnutrition in El Salvador's poorest regions.
The winner and finalists will be recognized at a reception that will include a conversation between Dele Olojede and Walter Isaacson to be held on November 2 from 6:00 - 8:00 PM at the Metropolitan Club, President's Ballroom. On November 3, Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will present the McNulty Prize to Olojede at the Aspen Institute Annual Awards Dinner.
About The John P. McNulty Prize
The John P. McNulty Prize celebrates the boldness and impact individuals around the globe are bringing to the toughest challenges in their communities and the world-at-large. Founded in 2008 by Anne McNulty in honor of her late husband John, the Prize aims to galvanize efforts to address the foremost social, economic and political challenges of our time by recognizing the very best in high-impact leadership. Each year, the winner is selected by an international jury that has included Mary Robinson, Bill Gates, Sr., and Sir Richard Branson and recognizes exceptional leadership projects undertaken by the Fellows of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. For more information, please visithttp://www.mcnultyprize.org/ or http://www.facebook.com/TheMcNultyPrize.
About the Aspen Global Leadership Network
The Aspen Institute mission is twofold: to foster values-based leadership, encouraging individuals to reflect on the ideals and ideas that define a good society, and to provide a neutral and balanced venue for discussing and acting on critical issues. The Aspen Institute does this primarily in four ways: seminars, young-leader fellowships around the globe, policy programs, and public conferences and events. The Institute is based in Washington, D.C.; Aspen, Colorado; and on the Wye River on Maryland's Eastern Shore and has an international network of partners.
The Aspen Global Leadership Network is a growing, worldwide community of entrepreneurial leaders from business, government and the nonprofit sector -- currently, more than 1,300 "Fellows" from 43 countries -- who share a commitment to enlightened leadership and to using their extraordinary creativity, energy and resources to tackle the foremost societal challenges of our times. All share the common experience of participating in the Henry Crown Fellowship or one of the dozen Aspen Institute leadership initiatives it has inspired in the United States, Africa, Central America, India and the Middle East.
SABC2 interviews Pulitzer Prize Winner Dele Olojede and African Leadership Academy student Belinda Munemo, just after ALA's Grand Opening Celebration on February 6-7, 2009.
In her piece “Breast Cancer: Power vs. Prosthesis” in The Cancer Journals, black feminist lesbian mother warrior poet Audre Lorde wrote: “I also began to feel that in the process of losing a breast I had become a whole person.”
This courageous insight and numerous others—about her mind, body and spirit being sites loaded with meaning, within a broader personal politic of illness as she faced her own death in 1992—were typical of Lorde. She was a woman too cognizant of how structures in the world sought to limit her, yet still hellbent on self-definition. Thus it is only fitting, as queer awareness and breast cancer awareness come to a close today, that we not only remember but revive Lorde for her significant contributions.
The youngest of three daughters, Audrey Geraldine Lorde was born February 18, 1934, in New York City to Linda Gertrude Belmar Lorde and Frederick Byron Lorde, both immigrants from Grenada. Born so nearsighted that she was legally blind, her mother nonetheless taught her to read and write at the age of four. Her affinity for poetry in part came from her mother, yet cast her as rebellious within the strict confines of her upbringing.
In Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, which Lorde labeled a biomythography, she wrote of experiencing racism and isolation at St. Mark’s and St. Catherine catholic schools, where she received her early education before attending Manhattan’s Hunter College High School. It was at Hunter that she began to gain recognition for her skills as a wordsmith and was elected literary editor of the art magazine. Her first poem was published in Seventeen magazine when she was still in high school.
Continuing her studies, she received a B.A. from Hunter College and also spent a year at the National University of Mexico. She went on to earn a masters in Library Studies at Columbia University and worked as a librarian in New York City public schools from 1961-1968. During this period, despite having discovered a lesbian identity, she married Edward Rollins (whom she divorced in 1970) and gave birth to Elizabeth and Jonathon.
This was also a most prolific period in Lorde’s life as a poet. In 1968, the same year she received a National Endowment for the Arts grant, her maiden volume of poetry, The First Cities, was published by Poet’s Press and edited by the famed poet Diane di Prima, a Hunter College High School friend. That spring Lorde became poet-in-residence at Tougaloo College, a small historically black institution in Mississippi. And there she met Frances Clayton, her longtime partner.
Lorde went on to consistently publish works in the next two decades, establishing her lyrical mastery and fierce political awareness. These include her second volume of poetry, Cables to Rage, in which she confirms her lesbian identity in the poem “Martha”; From a Land Where Other People Live, which was nominated for a National Book Award, and New York Head Shot and Museum, in which she embraced more outright political subject matter. Her other publications include:Coal, The Cancer Journals, Chosen Poems Old and New andOur Dead Behind Us. In 1988,A Burst of Light, a collection of prose, won a National Book Award.
It’s not surprising that Lorde’s timeless collection Sister Outsider: Essays & Speeches (1988)is essential reading in feminism, both within and outside of classrooms, and ranked highly in the Ms. Blog readers’ recent 100 best nonfiction books of all time. This work contains her groundbreaking essay “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” that considers lesbian consciousness as a point of departure for other ways of knowing. In an interview with Karla Hammond in American Poetry Review, she said:
Part of the lesbian consciousness is an absolute recognition of the erotic within our lives and, taking that a step further, dealing with the erotic not only in sexual terms.
Sister Outsider also contains her oft-quoted “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House,” a poignant critique of the white feminist intellectual as activist in academia. And in “An Open Letter to Mary Daly” she confronted the philosopher and challenged the racism between feminists in search of a common ground for sisterhood. In my personal favorite, “Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” Lorde insists on the power of speaking out, because silence will not protect you.
Lorde continues to matter today precisely because her consciousness—always so deeply rooted in her multiple intersecting identities—rendered her brand of feminism applicable to anyone who, like her, is determined to fearlessly speak truth to power and walk the path of self-liberation for equality.
Lorde died on November 17, 1992, in St Croix after a 14-year battle with breast cancer. In her poem, “Remembering Audre,” fellow poet Margaret E. Cronin wrote:
Erykah Badu needs little introduction. Her seminal works like ‘Baduizm’ and the ‘New AmErykah’ series have successively upped the ante in terms of what can be done within the soul spectrum. Erykah fuses cosmic b-girl bravado with the forward-thinking sounds of producers like the Soulquarians, Madlib, and more recently, Academy grad Flying Lotus, to create a sonically varied body of work – selling millions of albums in the process. She also heads up her own record label, Control FreaQ, and has even been caught on the ones and twos recently, under her moniker DJ Lo Down Loretta Brown.
Watch her tell the story to Eothen ‘Egon’ Alapatt at the Red Bull Music Academy 2011 in Madrid.
Asian & African Diaspora Literature, History, and Arts—An Interdisciplinary Symposium
Spring 2012 – 14th Annual McCleary Interdisciplinary Symposium
The Department of English at Texas Southern University will host the Fourteenth Annual Interdisciplinary McCleary Symposium, April 12-13, 2012, Houston, Texas.
The general topic for the presentations is “Asian & African Diaspora Literature, History, and Arts.”
Scholarly research and presentations are invited that cover a wide area of interest, including but not limited to the following: National and Global Influences Exodus Literature: Roads Away, Roads Back Longing for Homeland Lost Generations Translations Women in Art and Literature Following History’s Ariadne’s Thread through the Past New Voices in Adopted Languages Social Impact and Change Literature in New Form—Blogs and Bloggers Cyber Art, Cyber Fiction The Internet’s Impact Modernism and Postmodernism Conflict and Protest Art and Literature Post WW II Considerations The Short Story Expatriate Artists Literature and War Anti-government art and literature Poetic and Artistic Influences
Specific areas of interest include literature and culture, women’s studies, the Internet, drama, music, art, song, painting, historical viewpoints, political economics, and politics. Abstracts of 300 words or less are requested by February 4, 2012. Texas Southern is located at 3100 Cleburne, Houston, Texas 77004. For more information or to submit an abstract to the 2012 McCleary Interdisciplinary Symposium, contact the Department Chair Rhonda Saldivar at 713-313-7667 or Saldivar_rx@tsu.edu. We encourage electronic submissions of abstracts.
Manuscripts will be accepted between October 1, 2011, and the postmark deadline of January 14, 2012. The winner will be announced by May 2012.
The winning book-length collection of poems will be published by the Center for Literary Publishing and distributed by the University Press of Colorado in the fall of 2012. The author receives a $2,000 honorarium.
There is a $25 entry fee, which includes a one-year subscription to Colorado Review (to US addresses only). Make checks payable to Colorado Review. VISA, Mastercard, and American Express are also accepted (include card number, expiration date, and name as it appears on the card).
This year’s final judge is Elizabeth Willis. Friends and students (current & former) of the final judge are not eligible to compete.
Colorado State University employees, students, and alumni are not eligible to compete.
Manuscripts may consist of poems that have been published, but the manuscript as a whole must be unpublished.
Please do not include acknowledgments/publication credits; the judges do not see these.
Include two title pages: top page with manuscript title and your name, address, e-mail address, and phone number; second page with manuscript title only. Your name should NOT appear anywhere else in the manuscript.
Manuscripts may be double- or single-spaced. You may print front and back if you wish.
Manuscripts should be at least 48 pages but no more than 100 pages.
Manuscripts will NOT be returned. Please do not enclose extra postage for the return of your manuscript.
You may enter more than one manuscript. Each manuscript requires the $25 entry fee. You may send multiple manuscripts in one package with one combined check, or you may send each entry separately—whichever method is more convenient for you. If you’d like the additional subscriptions sent to someone other than yourself, include that information (US addresses only). Otherwise, your subscription will be extended by one year for each additional entry.
The theme and style are both open.
Authors do NOT need to be residents of Colorado or the United States. (Note, however, that subscriptions can be sent only to US addresses.)
Writers should enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope for contest results and a self-addressed stamped postcard for notification of the manuscript’s safe arrival.
Send your entry to: Colorado Prize for Poetry – Center for Literary Publishing 9105 Campus Delivery Dept. of English Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523-9105
Questions? Please call us at (970) 491-5449 or send an e-mail to creview@colostate.edu
CFP: Book Project, Edited Volume Still Maids? Still Toms?: Perspectives on The Help and Other White-Authored Narratives of Black Life in the 'Post-Racial' Era"
The last decade has seen several very popular depictions of African-American life created by white writers and directors,including The Help, The Secret Life of Bees, The Blindside, Number One Ladies' Detective Agency, and others. Editors Claire Oberon Garcia (Colorado College) and Vershawn Ashanti Young (University of Kentucky) seek intellectually informed but accessibly written analyses (around 2500-4000 words, around the length of a conference paper or longish editorial) of these narratives that respond to these or other questions:
What do these texts—and their appeal-- have to tell us about American life and culture and/or contemporary race and gender relations, at a time when some claim that we are living in a “post-racial" era?
How are notions of authorial "authority" inflected by crossing racial lines?
How is the history of the Civil Rights movement being revised and rewritten in the age of Obama?
What is the role of women's book clubs in creating best-sellers?
How do The Help and similar texts speak to generations born after the 60s?
What is the role of The Help and other texts in revisionary Southern history?
Is the popularity of such books and films a sign of how far "we" have come— or how much farther American society has to go in the quest for racial equality and justice?
Fifty years after the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird changed the hearts and minds of millions of white readers, the novel and film adaptation of The Help seems poised to achieve the same canonical and emotional status. For this collection, Garcia and Young invite artists, bloggers, writers, civil-rights activists, cultural critics, journalists, and scholars from all disciplines to provide insight into the hopes, fantasies, fears, and conflicts that inform and emerge from contemporary white-authored narratives of black life.
Michael Martin, a professor of American Studies and Communication and Culture who is director of the Black Film Center/Archive, will host a public interview with Burnett at 3 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3, at the IU Cinema.
“Consummate cineaste and recipient of a prestigious Guggenheim fellowship and a MacArthur ‘genius’ award, Charles Burnett is a raconteur of extraordinary sensitivity and among the most discerning cinematic voices in America,” Martin said. “Having Burnett on the IU campus and featuring a selection of his more notable and recent films at the IU Cinema offers the Bloomington public and campus community a rare and unique opportunity to engage with this world-class filmmaker.”
As part of the “Arriving at the Truth” film series, the IU Cinema will screen Killer of Sheep, My Brother’s Wedding, To Sleep with Anger, The Glass Shield and Namibia: the Struggle for Liberation, as well as a series of short films by Burnett. A complete list of dates and times is available at http://www.cinema.indiana.edu/. As with all visiting filmmakers to the IU Cinema, Burnett will also be visiting film production classes and having informal conversations with faculty and students.
Burnett’s first full-length feature film, Killer of Sheep, was written for his master’s thesis at UCLA’s prestigious film school.
“Subtle and distinctive for its economy, intimacy and understatement, Killer of Sheep dispassionately engaged with the marginality, estrangement and resilience of black life and heralded, in counterpoint to Hollywood’s stereotypical depictions, a ‘new realism’ in black independent filmmaking, earning Killer of Sheep an enviable place in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress,” Martin said.
James Naremore, an emeritus professor with IU’s Department of Communication and Culture, will speak before the screening of Killer of Sheep, at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 4, at the IU Cinema.
“One of the standard things said about Burnett is he’s the best movie director you’ve never heard of,” he said. “I think what makes him so interesting is the great integrity of his work. He has not ever made a film that you feel is calculated to make big money at the box office. And he’s really stayed true to being a filmmaker who makes films for black audiences, but he’s also very socially relevant and educational. He’s something of a poet.”
Burnett will also take part in a special screening of Killer of Sheep at the Indianapolis Museum of Art on Thursday, Nov. 3, at 7 p.m.
“This is a great opportunity for us to share Mr. Burnett with the Indianapolis community while we have him in Indiana,” IU Cinema director Jon Vickers said. “It is also an effective way for us to strengthen our relationship with the museum, support the important work that they are doing and introduce the IU Cinema and Burnett’s work to a broader audience.”
No ticket is required to attend Burnett’s Nov. 3 lecture, which is part of the Jorgensen Guest Filmmaker Lecture Series made possible through the support of the Ove W. Jorgensen Foundation. All other events are free, but ticketed.
The Indiana University Cinema is a world-class facility and program that is dedicated to the scholarly study and highest standards of exhibition of film in its traditional and modern forms. For more information on the facility or programs call 812-856-2503.
On Friday, October, 14 at 2:00 pm, we’re wrapping up our Hispanic Heritage Month program with the 2005 documentary on Afro-Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez, Where is Sara Gómez. Watch an extract of it HERE.
On Sunday, October 16 at 5:00 pm, Graduate Students in African Studies will present Manthia Diawara & Ngugi wa Thiong’o's 1994 documentary,Sembene: the Making of African Cinema. This screening kicks off a week of events celebrating the 50th anniversary of African Studies at IU, culminating with a keynote address by Diawara.
Acclaimed Trinidadian writer Earl Lovelace will deliver the Fifth Edward Baugh Distinguished Lecture on Sunday, November 13, at 11 a.m., at the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts, Jamaica’s Gleanerreports. The lecture is being hosted by the Department of Literatures in English, University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, in association with the West Indian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies.
The Edward Baugh Distinguished Lecture Series is an annual event organised by the Department of Literatures in English in honour of Professor Emeritus Edward Baugh. A distinguished academic and poet, Professor Baugh has garnered an international reputation as an authority on Anglophone Caribbean poetry, in general, and on the work of Derek Walcott in particular. His distinguished record of academic, administrative and public service includes a lengthy stint as the public orator of UWI, Mona, head of the Department of English, and dean and vice-dean of the Faculty of Arts and General Studies.
One of the Caribbean’s most acclaimed writers, Lovelace is celebrated for his evocative lyrical fiction rooted in Trinidadian vernacular culture. Using Trinidadian speech patterns and standard English, he probes the paradoxes often inherent in social change as well as the clash between rural and urban cultures.
Critics describe his work as being firmly positioned amongst the lives and voices of ordinary people, whether the focus is on the poverty-stricken ‘yard’ culture of Port of Spain or the religious Spiritual Baptist traditions of the rural population. From his earliest novels, Lovelace has explored the complex political tensions at work, in an island culture born out of a history of slavery and indenture.
In an effort to promote dialogue and commemorate the United Nations Declaration of 2011 as the International Year or People of African Descent, the afrolatin@ forum has announced a three-day transnational conference on Black Latinos and Latinas in the United States to be held November 3-5, 2011 in New York City.
A number of institutions have partnered with the afrolatin@ forum to produce the conference, including the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The Center for the Humanities of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, El Museo del Barrio, and the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. The conference will open November 3 at the Schomburg Center, with the opening plenary from 6:00 to 9:00pm. Then it will continue November 4 at the CUNY Graduate Center and will conclude November 5 at El Museo del Barrio. Guest speakers include James Counts Early of the Smithsonian Institution, urban policy analyst María Rosario Jackson, activist-scholar Evelyne Laurent-Perrault, and scholars Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and Silvio Torres-Saillant. The conference is open to the public, but registration is required at www.afrolatinoforum.org.
Description: While some attention in academia and in the general public discourse has focused on Blacks in Latin America, the Black Latin@ population in the United States is largely overlooked and generally misunderstood. The conference, the first of its kind to focus on this population, seeks to promote dialogue and mutual understanding among and between Afro-Latin@s, the broader Latin@ and African American populations, and the general public of all backgrounds. The afrolatin@ forum and other participating organizations aim to expand and solidify the widening network of educators and activists working on related themes, and to begin defining the key educational and policy issues that bear on the recognition and empowerment of Black Latin@s in the U.S.
Invited participants include educators, community activists, cultural workers, scholars and policy advocates from different parts of the country, and from African-descendant movements in Latin America and the Caribbean.
In anticipation of the Conference, the afrolatin@ forum has been offering film screenings every Friday at various locations throughout the city during the month of October. The film series—¡Aqui Estamos! Afro-Latin@s Now!—features documentaries on Afro-descendant communities in Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States and includes works-in-progress as well as completed films. For more information, see below.
[Many thanks to Vanessa K. Valdés for bringing this item to our attention.]
I wrote this essay immediately after watching the film Aramotu with a colleague from work, that was months ago. I delayed posting because I wanted to learn more about the gelede masks in Yoruba tradition (and I won’t lie, also because I grew distracted with other things).
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Aramotu is an amazing movie that has a lot to say not only about feminism and women’s rights among the Yoruba, but the film also manages to criticise colonialism and despotic leaders. Aramotu tells a great story and features wonderful acting that made my friend and I burst out laughing in the cinema at some of the things said that do not translate fully into English but were hilarious in Yoruba. Were I to summarise Aramotu in a sentence it would be; ‘popular uprising initiated by a woman, spread to the community through song and amplified by the supernatural forces surrounding Aramotu’s death’.
While watching the movie I kept on wondering about the gelede tradition, I finally wrote about my knowledge of gelede, which you can read here. Initially, when I learnt of gelede masquerade and how they are worn in celebration and praise of female elders, I assumed the gelede masks were worn by women. However, the truth is that gelede masquerades are men in women’s clothing, these men cross dress as women to praising womanhood and femininity, along with the ‘power’ that women hold.
Aramotu, the movie asks questions and seems to criticise the gelede and events surrounding the wearing of the gelede masks as allowing women to be praised and celebrated only within the patriarchal framework. Hence, while we have events that are supposedly in favour of women, concepts that supposedly empower women, they are actually thriving in an environment that seeks to limit and control women. As director Niji Akanni, says;
“Yoruba women from time immemorial are very hard working. They were actually the pillars of the society but being a patriarchal society, their contributions have always been underplayed, understated or even never acknowledged at all. At the same time, our myths give prominence to women. We venerate our women in myths but in actual history we tend to downplay their contributions to society, we tend to oppress them. So, that inconsistency between history and myth was what struck me about Aramotu. How can a culture venerate its women so much in myth, in stories but contemporary history tend to downplay them. Look at Moremi Ajasoro, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti and all that.
Osun, Yemoja, they were living human beings, they actually made immense contributions to the society at the period they lived but we tend to relegate those figures to mythical proportions. We never really acknowledge what they did. Even Moremi, she is known more as a mythical figure than the activist she was in her time.” Read more.
Aramotu, the eponymous character is a mother of two and a successful trader who regularly travels outside the village of Agesi to acquire goods that she sells in the marketplace. (Thus it is already clear that boundaries mean very little to her). She is married to a man, Akanmu who apparently cares for and loves her despite the taunts and jeers of his fellow men, women and family who believe that he is being cuckolded by Aramotu. He is called the ‘wife’ while Aramotu is called the ‘husband’, you can see glimpses of the way Akanmu is treated in the movie trailer (which sadly does not have English subtitles).
Aramotu is also a woodcarver, a profession that is forbidden for women to practice. Aramotu secretly carves wood usually in the middle of the night and in private room separate from the one she shares with her husband. Aramotu is centred on her craving a gelede mask to be worn by her fellow artist friend, Gbegiro for the festival in which the gelede masquerades dance during the Efe night. Aramotu is shown to be an innovative artist, she carves two faces onto her mask as opposed to the regular one face. Because of her innovation, she is chosen to become a member of the elusive yet powerful Cult of the Spider, a women’s secret society that is supposedly dangerous.
As the movie progresses, we see that things are not particularly good for women in the village. The men, spurred by the council of elders, have seized farmlands belonging to their wives so as to grow cash crops, such as banana and rubber, which they can sell to European traders. The women are distraught because they consider the farmland to be theirs to grow food on. The council of elders are only interested in generating wealth for themselves and though her husband warns her against it, Aramotu leads the women in a revolt against these self-serving ideas. Meanwhile, Aramotu’s husband grows frustrated with what he believes is his wife’s lack of submission to his authority, he takes another wife (a woman that Aramotu provides shelter for in her home due to her running away from her own home).
Along with her fellow artist friend, Gbegiro, Aramotu plans to use the gelede mask she is carving and selected songs to taunt the corrupt leaders of Agesi. She wants to use this vehicle to let encourage the leaders to do the right thing and to stop oppressing women in Agesi as Aramotu cannot openly challenge Iyalode who considers herself to be the voice of all the women in the village and represents them in the council of elders. Eventually, when it is discovered that Aramotu carves she is ostracised by her community. I found it extremely ironic, that a woman was severely punished for carving masks for a masquerade that is supposed to celebrate femininity and womanhood. I always had this image of gelede in my mind as something fascinatingly feminist in pre-colonial Yoruba culture.
While I could not see anything so abominable about Aramotu’s carving (I did not even initially understand why she crept out of bed with her husband to carve by a small flame in a secluded room), but of course society did. In the scene before Aramotu is killed for being a witch, she tells the Chief Priest that all she wanted to do was to utilise her God-given gifts, her arts to speak out on what she considered to be the ills of the Agesi society. She wanted to challenge the maltreatment of women within the community and provide a better life and education for the children. And the reply from the council of elders (all men and one woman) was, yes Aramotu’s intentions were honourable but were ultimately against tradition. She was accused of going against the Mother Earth when in only a few scenes earlier, she dreamt of the messenger from the Cult of the Spider telling her that anything she does was in line with the Mother Earth and would please Mother Earth. This raises questions, who had/has it right?
Gelede masquerades in action
I cannot help but think of traditions from other cultures that began as female only, these traditions were nurtured by women before tables turned and they became the domain of men. Examples include kabuki, a classical Japanese form of drama which started out as an all-female type of dance drama begun by a woman Izumo no Okuni. In the era of female kabuki, women played both male and female roles, eventually it was banned for being too profane and erotic. Women were banned from performing in kabuki plays and now kabuki seems to be entirely the domain of men who play both male and female roles (onnagata) today. Kabuki was introduced to me as an exclusively male form of stage play, thus I was really surprised to learn about Izumo no Okuni.
Interestingly, in Aramotu after the gelede mask with two faces appears and openly calls out the council of elders for their selfish and oppressive laws, the leaders outlawed the gelede festival. Even the villagers found it strange, the festivities surrounding the gelede masquerades had never been interrupted previously. Nevertheless the leaders, removed the masquerades that placate female elders to replace them with masquerades that drive everyone indoors and can kill on sight.
I wonder if gelede could have started out like kabuki. Women using masquerades to celebrate womanhood before it became men using masquerades to celebrate womanhood, while women were sidelined within the very communities and cultures that claim to celebrate them. Of course, I could be wrong and this may all be wishful thinking.
Only certain kinds of womanhood and femininity are celebrated within a patriarchy, in the movie the character of Iyalode represents the celebrated woman. Aramotu is the woman that challenges tradition and mores, she symbolises change that the oppressive elders/leaders are scared of. On the other hand, Iyalode does not challenge anything or anyone. Iyalode is the leader of all the women in the community and she has some power as the only woman to sit in the council of elders with other men. She does not challenge her fellow power holders, she too seeks to benefit from the gains they will achieve. It is not until Aramotu is dead and her restless spirit brings omens upon the community that Iyalode is exiled from the community along with the other corrupt elders.
However in reality, when innovative people are wrongly killed there is no magic to bring justice to them and to ensure that their visions are upheld. Aramotu ended on a somewhat positive note as before Aramotu died, almost as if she knew she was going to be killed, she hid her wealth and instructed the women of Agesi to take all the fortune she had amassed in her life.
Sometimes watching a Yoruba movie feels like reading a work of speculative fiction. A lot of Nigerians I know seem to detest the ‘supernatural element’ in several Yoruba movies, in fact I came across a review of Aramotu that basically said the movie would have been great if not for the distressing inclusion of the supernatural element. I love watching Yoruba movies where things caused by magic happen and in which evil is resolved by priests of the traditional religion. Excluding the fact that movie centres around masquerades, Aramotu includes such gems as The Ritual of the Death Wish, the Cult of the Spider, the Ritual of Appeasement…I enjoyed watching the movie doubly because of things like this. The masquerades really, I didn’t know about the Oro mummers, ‘the masquerades that sometimes kill’ my colleague whispered to me in the darkness of the cinema. I mean I always thought masquerades beat and kill people but the only Yoruba masquerades I know a few things about are the gelede.
In addition, in the Malian film Taafé Fanga, there was a certain buzzing sound that announced the coming of the Albarga masquerade. This buzzing sound was also present in Aramotu and announced the coming of the Oro mummers, so that people would have ample time to run and hide in the their homes. I found this fascinating.
The acting was superb, Idiat Shonibare who played Aramotu delivered her role excellently. It was due to her acting that I found Aramotu’s character even more inspirational. Though Idiat Shonibare is apparently a newcomer, there are other faces in Aramotu that any Yoruba movie aficionado would recognise such as Ireti Osayemi-Bakare and Kayode Odumosu.
Despite my obvious love for Aramotu, I have the same old issues with this movie that I have with other Yoruba historical films that are otherwise awesome. While the special effects were nothing to write home about, they were not tragically horrible.
The clothes worn in the movie were pretty awesome. There was aso oke and some outfits made with wax print which makes sense considering the history of Dutch wax prints in West Africa. It comes as no surprise to me that Aramotu won an award in the ‘Best Costume Design’ category at the African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA). I also adored Aramotu‘s depiction of men playing ayo to pass time and to joke around. Furthermore, there was a scene in which Aramotu was using a washboard, this may seem insignificant but I think it is awesome as I believe that scene challenges the notion that everyone in pre-colonial Africa washed at the stream instead of in the convenience of their homes.
The use of wigs and hair extensions will usually solve this problem. To be honest, I would prefer even thread to the all-back and chuku they like to give female characters in the Yoruba historical movies I have seen. Igbo historical movies seems to have more creativity on this side.
The houses shown in Aramotu had corrugated iron sheet roofs…my colleague rightly said that people are still living like that today. At first I wondered if Yoruba villages in 1909 had roofs made of corrugated iron but a quick search online let me know that it was possible (corrugated galvanised iron was invented in the 1820s). While I cannot speak much on the history accuracy on this part, I can say that if houses from villages that stand today were used in shooting Aramotu I would be dissatisfied.
As a lover of most things related to African history, especially fiction and films, I long for the days that African historical movies on the level of say my favourite Korean historical dramas, Queen Seon Duk or Hwang Jin Yi, will come into existence. In those productions, it is pretty clear the amount of care that was taken into building settings and wardrobe (costume and hairstyles). Perhaps if more money was spent on Aramotu the people working behind the scenes would have produced an elaborate story, this backed with a good storyline, excellent moral message and a healthy does of magic in the ‘supernatural element’ would be awesome.
Aramotu is a film that attempts to understand the tendency to erase strong women in Yoruba history, relegating them and their contributions to myths. The film tells the story of a female woodcarver with forward thinking ideas and the price a patriarchal society forces her to pay for thinking and acting ‘out of her place’. While few issues detract from the film, overall Aramotu is a movie with a very important message.
[The] Yoruba people are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. The majority of the Yoruba speak the Yoruba language. The Yoruba constitute between 30 and 50 million individuals throughout West Africa and are found predominantly in Nigeria with around 21 percent of its total population
I am a Yoruba woman from Nigeria and I have been the ‘weird’ girl for as long as I can remember. Simply call me eccentricyoruba, or if you’d prefer, Anike which is one of myYoruba names, my oriki. If you already know me on first name basis, I’d prefer you didn’t reveal my first name online.
I started this blog as an outlet for all the random words bouncing around in my head. Note that I hardly go back to read old posts because I find them embarrassing. These days, I keep this blog limited to posts on history, culture and random book and movie reviews. All the fore mentioned topics including personal and music posts are relegated to my page on Dreamwidth.
I am a Muslimah; a proud lover of all things Korean pop related (I used to be mildly obsessed, now K-pop has become quite simply a part of my life); a voracious reader with a penchant for ebooks and speculative fiction; a history geek (in particular African history and herstories); multi-lingual (if I get serious I will be able to speak six languages fluently); a ‘global beats’ enthusiast; a feminist; a globe-trotter and a writer.
I have spent most of my life in Nigeria as someone with a reasonable amount of privilege that comes from my middle class background. As can be expected the perspective I write from is Nigerian with considerable Western influences, still for the most part Nigerian. Keep this in mind while in my space.
I spend more time on my Dreamwidth journal. You can also find me over at The Blasian Narrative. If you’re interested in reading fiction written by me, check out my page onNigerianFiction, before clicking on that link; I apologise that my stories are for the most part incomplete and unedited.
Banner image credit: EchiEchi.com, Echi is a South Korean illustrator that draws images of a young girl, her bunny and life in the countryside.
According to the Center for Disease Control, U.S. high school students surveyed in 2009 that 46% had sexual intercourse, 34% had sexual intercourse during the previous 3 months and, of this specific group, 39% did not use a condom the last time they had sex and 77% did not use birth control pills or the Depo-Provera shot to prevent pregnancy the last time they had sex. Additionally, 14% had sex with four or more people during their life.
Here’s the bad news:
Nearly half of the 19 million new STDs each year are among young people ages 15 to 24 years old. More than 400,000 teen girls ages 15-19 years old gave birth in 2009. And approximately 8,300 young people ages 13-24 years in the 40 states reporting to the CDC had an HIV infection. (Sexual Risk Behavior: HIV, STD, and Teen Pregnancy Prevention, CDC, 2009)
Here’s the good news:
During the past two decades, the teen pregnancy rate has plummeted 40%, the teen birth rate is down by one-third, and both rates declined among all racial and ethnic groups. In particular, the pregnancy rate for black teens declined 44% and the teen birth rate went down an impressive 47%. Across all ethnic groups, the teen pregnancy and birth rates declined because more teens delayed sex longer, and those who did have used contraception more often and more effectively. (Under Pressure: What African-American Teens Aren’t Telling You About Sex, Love, and Relationships, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, 2011)
The bottom line is while most adults pray for youth to abstain from sexual activity until adulthood, young people are exploring their sexuality and need our guidance. Admittedly, it’s scary. The above statistics certainly make most adults think of strapping chastity belts around their sons and daughters, but frankly, that’s not the smartest or most effective move to keep our young people safe, conscious, and healthy.
It’s not abnormal for our youth to have sexual desires, even in their early teens. With the onset of puberty comes the release of all sorts of hormones, not to mention our sex-saturated media landscape that our youth consume each day. So long as there is free speech and capitalism, there will not be a cultural shift toward more modest media programming. And so long as children physically develop into adults through puberty, those hormones aren’t going anywhere.
For the past two decades, it seems that sex educators have taken the lead in talking to our youth about sex and relationships. In high school, I remember the herpes and crabs pictures plastered on the overhead projector and the manner in which my face contorted into disgust. I remember the rumors of a condom demonstration in the near future with bananas as props; it never came. And I remember the brief introduction to birth control, but I never really understood how any of the products worked to prevent pregnancy in my body or its side effects. Therefore, I didn’t use a routine hormonal birth control until I was 20. Instead, I stuck to the basics, condoms and occasional Plan B pills.
I began having sex at the age of 15. All of the sex education mentioned above occurred my junior and senior year, after my first time. But my condoms and Plan B pills “solution” came from my father’s early recommendation during my pre-teen years: don’t get pregnant or else “the baby stays and you go” and make sure your partner always wears a condom. Thankfully, my 16-year-old boyfriend knew how to put on a condom because I certainly didn’t have a real clue. And when it came to additional contraception, I didn’t start using the Plan B pill until I got to college. I learned it was an option because of the political hoopla surrounding the new legislation that would allow it to be sold over the counter. But I was still fearful of other hormonal birth controls, primarily due to watching my girlfriends go through horrible experiences on the pill or after getting the Depo-Provera shot.
Admittedly, I turned out fine. Yet, I’m still amazed that scare tactics are the primary foundation of sex education without any real lessons on the power of sex in general. It’s certainly helpful to know all of the horrible things that could happen if you engage in oral sex or sexual intercourse, but what about the positive aspects? What about the pleasure? What about any consequent emotions? What about same-sex desires? I was taught the basics of how to take precaution and preserve my (hetero)sexual health. I never received guidance on how to get in touch with my personal sexual desires and learn pleasure’s relationship to my body.
Understandably, there are parents and youth that still feel uncomfortable initiating conversations on sex with each other. I never wanted to ask my parents about sex. My stepmother acted as if it didn’t exist until I was in college, but my father made a conscious effort to make sure I knew enough to prevent him from being a grandfather. Lucky for me, my family went to church, but my father never preached the “sex after marriage” narrative, he called it unrealistic. But I know plenty of friends that did experience the majority of sex education at home with their parents quoting religious doctrines. Frankly, it wasn’t effective and there were unfortunate consequences from that approach. We can’t tell people how to raise their children, but one thing is for sure: sex is an individual choice. The individual decides, the individual engages in the act, and the individual gets the experience.
To paraphrase the words of sex educator and author Jaclyn Friedman, the reality is that we have to trust people, we even have to trust young people. Instead of telling our youth, “this is a productive way to express your sexuality and this is a degrading way to express your sexuality,” we have to equip our youth with the tools to assess risk and reward, and then let them make their own choices.
If we love our youth, the best thing we can do is honor their individuality and humanity, prepare them for sex with as much information as possible, and be open about our personal experiences.
After all…if you won’t be a resource, a teacher, an elder…can you really blame our youth for a collective failure?
Be open. Be truthful. Don’t withhold information. Talk.
October is Let’s Talk Month, but it doesn’t stop after 31 days. What are you doing to guide our youth on sex, sexual health, and sexuality? Speak on it.
Dele Olojede, Founder of NEXT and the 2011 McNulty Prize Winner
