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 Queen Latifah

GO HERE TO SEE VIDEO

1002 Nights

A short story competition sponsored by the Centre for Narrative Leadership and supported by Vala Publishers and the National Centre for the Oral Tradition – Open to all comers – First Prize £500 and to have your story told at a Gala Storytelling Performance on 11th February 2012

Near the end of his book If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller, the author Italo Calvino includes a fictitious fragment of a story that might have appeared in 1001 Arabian Nights (although in fact, it does not).  It sets up a wonderfully paradoxical storyline in which the protagonist, Harun al-Rashid, the hero of many tales in the real 1001 Arabian Nights, is required – on pain of death – to kill himself.

The Caliph Harun al-Rashid, one night, in the grip of insomnia, disguises himself as a merchant and goes out into the streets of Baghdad. A boat carries him along the waters of the Tigris to the gate of a garden. At the edge of a pool a maiden beautiful as the moon is singing, accompanying herself on the lute. A slave girl admits Harun to the palace and makes him put on a saffron-coloured cloak. The maiden who was singing in the garden is seated on a silver chair. On cushions around her are seated seven men wrapped in saffron-coloured cloaks. “Only you were missing,” the maiden says, “you are late;” and she invites him to sit on a cushion at her side. “Noble sirs, you have sworn to obey me blindly, and now the moment has come to put you to the test.” And from around her throat the maiden takes a pearl necklace. “This necklace has seven white pearls and one black pearl. Now I will break its string and drop the pearls into an onyx cup. He who draws, by lot, the black pearl must kill the Caliph Harun al-Rashid and bring me his head. As a reward I will give myself to him. But if he should refuse to kill the Caliph, he will be killed by the other seven, who will repeat the drawing of lots for the black pearl.” With a shudder Harun al-Rashid  opens his hand, sees the black pearl and speaks to the maiden. “I will obey the command of fate and yours, on condition that you tell me what offense of the Caliph has provoked your hatred,” he asks, anxious to hear the story.

Such a story deserves an ending; in fact, it deserves many possible endings. The Centre for Narrative Leadership invites writers to submit original stories (of no more than 3500 words) that begin where Calvino left off and conclude his story. If you would like some inspiration then click on the picture below to read a sample story (not eligible for the competition) The Black Pearl by Geoff Mead.

The ten finalists in the competition will be judged by Canadian author and teacher Barbara Turner-Vesselago, the founder of Freefall Writing (www.freefallwriting.com).  The winner will receive £500 and the winning entry will be performed alongside stories from 1001 Arabian Nights at 1002 Nights, a storytelling event on Saturday 11^th February 2012 in association with the National Centre for the Oral Tradition (probably at a venue in Chepstow)

Rules and conditions

1. The competition is open to writers and storytellers from any country – though all entries must be written in English and comply with all rules and conditions.
2. You may submit more than one story but each one should be sent as a separate entry. All stories must be original and unpublished in any form
3. The closing deadline for the receipt of entries is 12.00 midday Monday 31^st October 2011 (though you may submit entries at any time before that date).
4. Stories must be 3500 words or less.  Word count to be shown on the title page.
5. Manuscripts are to be submitted in hard copy (typed or printed) single-sided, in 12 point font, and double-spaced.  Pages should be numbered but not stapled.
6. There must be nothing on the manuscript to identify the author other than a self-devised code of 8-12 characters/numbers. Attach a sealed envelope (identified with the same self-devised code) to the manuscript containing your full name, postal address, email and telephone contact details.
7. Enclose the manuscript and the sealed envelope containing your details in a large envelope together with entry fee of £10 to cover administrative costs (cash or postal order please to avoid inadvertent identification of entrant).
8. Entries should be posted to The Centre for Narrative Leadership, Studio 19, 19 Broad Street, Lyme Regis, Dorset, DT7 3QE, United Kingdom.
9. Unfortunately, it will not be possible to return any manuscripts.
10. The winning entry will be announced on 1^st January 2012 on the competition website and in writing to the winner thereafter. The judge’s decision is final.
11. A selection of the stories (at the sponsor’s discretion) will be posted on the website for public access. Unless specifically requested otherwise, the authors of these selected stories will be identified.
12. Depending on the overall number and quality of entries received, the possibility of publishing a book containing a selection of the stories will be explored.  If this is the case, authors will be contacted for their permission.

Call for Papers -

African Identities:

Journal of Economics, Culture and Society

Deadline: 30 September 2011

Late Modernity, Locality and Agency: Contemporary Youth Cultures in Africa

More than a decade and half ago, Donal Cruise-O’Brien (1996) had declared that the African youth were ‘a lost generation.’ This fatalistic summation of the fate of the African youth was perhaps for good reason. The enormous socio-economic and cultural forces surrounding the lives of young people in Africa were [and still are] simply daunting. And at the very core of this seemingly insurmountable socio-economic atmosphere are the pervasive unjust protocols of postcolonial regimes under which most African youth live. Indeed, more recent scholarship suggests that there is no respite yet for the African youth as the hopeless situation has escalated (See Abbink, Jon and Ineke Van Kessel 2005 & Alcinda Honwana and Filip De Boeck 2005). On account of the inclement socio-economic and political circumstances surrounding young people in Africa, what we are now witnessing across the entire continent is what Mamodou Douf (2003) describes as the ‘dramatic irruption of young people in both the domestic and public spheres,’ putting young people at the very heart of the continent’s socio-economic and political imagination (Durham 2006).

But the challenges facing African youth are not peculiar to them. All over the world, the new sociology of youth points to a growing concern about the ramifications of globalization, late modernity and general global social and economic restructuring for the lives and futures of young people. But amidst the lingering fears of the future of the young, scholars have also called for a deep reflection and rethinking of young people’s own resilience and agency in the midst of these turbulent times. This special issue of African Identities, tentatively entitled Late Modernity and Agency: Youth Cultures in Africa, seeks to reflect on the varied contours of youth responses to social change in Sub-Saharan Africa. While young people in Africa continue to face extraordinary social challenges in their everyday lives, what are the unique ways in which they have reinvented their circumstances to keep afloat in the midst of seismic global social changes? Papers are solicited on a wide range of topics on the African youth that may unravel young people not only as victims but also as active social actors in the face of a shifting global modernity. The themes may include amongst others,

- African Youth and Globalization

- Late Modernity and Social Change

- Youth and Media—Film, Television, Video, Internet, etc

- Hip-hop, Club Cultures and other forms of Popular culture

- Mobility and Social Media

- Gender and New Economies of Youth

- Democracy, Power and Youth Activism

- Youth and Conflict in Africa

- New Subjectivities and Agency

- Neo-Pentecostalism as Subculture

- The Informal Economy and Invented Pathways

- Lifestyles and Identity Constructions

- New Spatial Politics in Public and Domestic Spaces

Abstracts of not more than 500 words (including name, position, institutional affiliation, and email contact) may be sent to P.UGor@bham.ac.uk

no later than September 30th, 2011. This special issue of African Identities will be published in the summer of 2012.

Paul Ugor, PhD
Newton International Fellow
Centre of West African Studies
University of Birmingham, UK
P.UGor@bham.ac.uk

Contact Information:

For inquiries: P.UGor@bham.ac.uk

For submissions: P.UGor@bham.ac.uk

 

Free to enter,

The Mary Dillow Stewart Prize/ Editors' Choice, prize: $250

Deadline: 31 July 2011 (fall), 31 January 2012 (spring)

The Mary Dillow Stewart Prize is awarded annually for a story, poem, or essay published in either the fall or spring issue by an emerging writer. Award is $250 and a subscription.

Kestrel publishes fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by established and emerging writers. We are especially happy to publish work by West Virginian and Appalachian writers. Kestrel features a visual artist in each issue; submission guidelines for art are below.

Send hard copy (regular post) submissions during our reading periods: November 1-January 31 (spring issue) and May 1-July 31 (fall issue); these are postmark deadlines. Submissions received outside our reading period will be returned unread. An SASE is required for response. Submissions received without an SASE will be committed to the shredder. Submissions should be typed, double spaced, in a conventional font. Only previously unpublished work will be considered. Contributors receive two copies. Additional copies may be purchased at a discount.

Address your submission to the appropriate editor (fiction, poetry, nonfiction). Electronic submissions are accepted only with prior arrangement by the appropriate editor. Simultaneous submissions are grudgingly accepted; immediate notification of a manuscript accepted elsewhere is expected.

Allow three months for our response before inquiring about your submission. Do not send additional work before receiving our response to your first submission. Multiple submissions will be returned unread. Submission Services are discouraged. Restrict yourself to one submission per calendar year unless we request additional work.

Poetry: Kestrel welcomes poems of all genres, styles, and traditions, including experimental and hybrid forms. Send 3-5 of your best poems that work well together during one of our reading periods and restrict yourself to one set of offerings per calendar year.

Fiction: Kestrel is open to any genre of short fiction that questions assumptions and moves us to reconsider everyday life. We enjoy stories with believable plots, developed characters, consistent points-of-view, vivid and symbolic settings, true dialogue, and thought-provoking themes, though we also enjoy experimental writing that makes new the expected conventions. 5,000 words maximum; the author's name and contact information must appear on page 1.

Non-Fiction: Creative non-fiction, memoir, literary essay are preferred. Subject matter may vary but attention to writing as craft and art is paramount; the attention to diction, syntax, detail should delight and surprise. We appreciate writing that makes a subject's complexity understandable and its familiarity new. We expect non-fiction to be non-fiction. Reviews and scholarship are rarely published and only when solicited; you may query.

Visual Art: Submissions to Kestrel may be made in any medium. Artists must send, electronically or by disk at least twenty (20) works for consideration. Please include a selective bibliography for each submission. Image resolution should be at least 300 dpi. This will enable our staff to view and to reproduce the work in the most professional manner possible.

Thematic works or series are acceptable and should be labeled as such when submitted. If written material is routinely included with the work when it is exhibited, please include this for our staff. We will also need an artist’s statement. It may be possible to publish some or all of the written material with the works, but if this is not possible, it will, at the least, serve as a means for the staff to make selections of work for publication.

It should be understood that Kestrel may use images for publicity purposes. Copyright of visual examples remains with the artist. Although color reproductions will occasionally be selected, budgetary constraints requires the staff to give precedence to black and white works.

Submissions may be mailed to:

Kestrel
Language and Literature
Fairmont State University
1201 Locust Avenue
Fairmont, WV 26554
Attn: [genre] Editor

 Contact Information:

For inquiries: kestrel@fairmontstate.edu

For submissions: Kestrel, Language and Literature, Fairmont State University, 1201 Locust Avenue, Fairmont, WV 26554, Attn: [genre] Editor

Website: http://www.fairmontstate.edu/kestrel

 

The Tragic Life of

Barack Obama’s Father

Leaving behind his son, his divorced wife, and an unfinished degree from Harvard, Barack Obama Sr. returned to his native Kenya, where women, booze, and work problems got the best of him. An exclusive excerpt from 'The Other Barack' by Sally H. Jacobs.

by Sally H. Jacobs | July 9, 2011 9:45 PM EDT

 

Barack Obama Sr. left behind his young son, Barack Obama Jr., and divorced wife in Hawaii, and an unfinished economics degree from Harvard. He returned to a Kenya that had just achieved independence after a lengthy and violent contest.

When Barack Obama returned to Nairobi, he found his homeland almost unrecognizable. In the five years that he had been gone, Kenya had been transformed from a beleaguered colony choked by imperial regulations and restrictions into a proudly independent nation churning with excitement as the transfer of political and financial power into African hands was finalized.

Obama was swept up into a surge of young men and women who returned from schooling overseas and were confronted with the task of creating a nation of their own. Although it would take years to alter some of the social and economic structures that were colonial legacies, thousands of the 56,000 Europeans who were in the country at the time of independence had already fled, apprehensive about how the new government might treat them. So too did a large portion of the city’s nearly 177,000 Asians, who had long dominated the local business scene.

With college and immigration officials no longer keeping an eye on his doings, Obama reveled in the city’s burgeoning social life as never before.

Even among the Nairobi men, Obama stood out. Dressed in elegant silk ties and tailored suits from Peermohammed, one of the city’s finest clothing shops, Obama was careful that no upcountry dust dull his perennially polished shoes. The Sportsman cigarettes of the old days had been replaced with the more refined Benson and Hedges, and Johnnie Walker Black was now his drink of choice. Obama made it no secret that he preferred the company of educated men, and he referred to those he considered inferior as “intellectual dwarfs,” only partly in jest. If one dared to speak Swahili in his company, a swift reprimand would often be forthcoming.

336 pages, PublicAffairs, $27.99

 

Only English—and proper English at that—would do. “You had to meet certain criteria,” recalled Obama’s childhood friend Peter Aringo, a former member of Parliament who served six terms. “Obama wanted you to rise up to his standards.”

Plunging into conversations about the latest government proclamation or political promotion, Obama often found a way to refer to his Harvard training. He insisted on being called Dr. Obama, despite his incomplete dissertation. Few were aware that Obama was a Dr. in his imagination alone. Anyway, it was more than sufficient that he had any Harvard degree at all. Only a handful of Kenyans could claim such a distinction, and Obama played it frequently, demanding, “Where were you when I was getting my training at Harvard?” He was, as Aringo recalls it, “the big voice from Harvard, and he let everyone know that.”

When he arrived at the dim bar at Brunner’s Hotel or pulled up a chair at the trendy Sans Chique, where he was a regular, he routinely trumpeted his standard order. “A double round of scotch,” he would say, lingering over a word he seemed to relish. He would then promptly order a chaser of another round of the same—two more shots of scotch. And thus did Obama earn himself the nickname “Double-Double.”

Even in Nairobi’s hard-drinking culture of the time, Obama was at the head of the pack in his alcoholic intake. By the count of some of his bar mates, Obama could down four “double-doubles”—or sixteen shots—at a sitting and still walk out of the bar. Never a big eater, Obama would reluctantly put down his glass for a plate of ugali and roasted meat or, one of his preferred dishes, sukuma wiki, a mix of leafy greens and tomatoes. “We drank quite often together and we went home not in a very nice condition. Sometimes he had trouble getting home at all,” recalled Philip Ochieng, then a columnist for the Nation. “Barack was always outspoken, very jocular. He liked people. But he was a lot about himself. He was arrogant, but it was a very seductive arrogance. Not unpleasant at all. He had big ambitions, big unrealistic dreams. He just needed to dominate, and that is what caused so many problems for him.”

For some, the newly minted Obama was an acquired taste. Like many African men of the time, he did not traffic much in personal talk. Only a handful of his closest associates knew of his son in Hawaii or much about his children back in Kogelo. Although he craved social interaction, he held himself apart, as though unwilling to be known or to know too much. It was as though the booming interrogations and prideful claims were intended to set a listener back, to keep him from coming too close. But those who understood Obama’s style knew that the thumping bravado and interrogatory dialogue was his particular way of engaging. And once the cross-examination was done, there were drinks for all. Obama was famously generous at the bar, and he frequently ordered rounds for everyone to be put on his tab, even in later years when he could ill afford to do so. His favorite barroom prank was to send his bill to someone else at the bar, particularly if he spotted someone of high rank. Obama took particular pleasure in sending his tabs to [government minister] Tom Mboya himself or to [politician] Mwai Kibaki.

That his targets paid up was a good measure of the tolerant fondness with which many regarded him.

The city’s beckoning barrooms were not the only new development that won Obama’s attention. He was equally smitten with the sleek sedans cruising the city’s streets, often available for bargain prices from departing colonists eager to shed their belongings. For a while after he returned, Obama proudly ferried a large green Mercedes from his Rosslyn home to Shell’s downtown offices. Ed Benjamin, a Boston lawyer who had been impressed by Obama’s sophisticated repartee when he met him at a Cambridge cocktail party in the spring of 1964, wound up in Nairobi on a business trip not long after Obama returned to Kenya. When Benjamin called him on the phone from his room in the posh New Stanley hotel, Obama promptly offered to give him a tour of the city. “He said he would be by in an hour and to look for him in a brand new Mercedes,” recalled Benjamin.

“He was obviously quite proud of that car. He drove us around, showed us the sights and told us where to have dinner. He was very gracious. Very charming. He was obviously an extremely bright and elegant guy.”

On his return to the villages of his childhood, Obama came laden with gifts. There was colored fabric, bags of potatoes and guavas, and, for the luckiest child of all, a pair of shoes. In the eyes of the villagers, Obama was one of the biggest men around, and they anticipated his visits with excitement.

His message was always the same. “He always, always talked about education, that was the thing he valued most of all,” said Ezra Obama, a first cousin whose own education Obama paid for in large part. “Later he would tell me, the best thing you can do for your children is get them an education. Don’t save the money for them for later. Get them an education. If you give them that, you’ve given them everything.”

Obama may not have entirely expected that his Cambridge girlfriend would follow him to Kenya, but only five weeks after he left Cambridge, Ruth Baker made up her mind to take him up on the invitation that he had laid before her. Her decision was a most improbable act of faith. Since graduating from Simmons College as a business major in 1958, Ruth had trod a conventional path. As befitted her role as a member of the school’s honor board, she had always been keen on doing the right thing—or at least trying to figure out what that was. She had worked as a legal assistant for a Boston lawyer for a couple of years and then tried her hand teaching the sixth grade in a suburban school. A tall young woman with a straightforward manner, “Ruthie” was not a particularly adventurous sort as far as her friends were concerned. But she was nothing if not determined. Her doting parents in nearby Newton kept a close eye on their well-mannered daughter who lived with some girlfriends on tony Beacon Hill. And although she embarked on a number of blind dates, Ruth was neither a dreamer nor a romantic. And so when Ruth announced to her elementary school friend Judy Epstein that she was considering following her African lover to Nairobi, Epstein was shocked.

Obama was immensely proud of his bride-to-be. Mzungu [foreign] wives were still rare, and in general only those of advanced education and means could claim such a trophy. He took her around town and dropped in on some of his most prominent associates to show her off. Visiting his old Kendu Bay friend Samuel O. Ayodo, a member of Mboya’s inner circle who served as Minister of Natural Resources and Wildlife, Obama clapped him on the back and excitedly insisted, “‘Tell Ruth that my father is a king and my family is very, very important.’ We just laughed,” recalled Ayodo’s widow, Damaris Ayodo. “He really wanted to impress her.”

He also wanted to use her to impress other people. As with his Harvard degree, Obama did not hesitate to brandish his pretty white wife with the Boston accent. At times Obama jokingly refused to let a friend pull up a stool next to him at a bar, saying, “You can’t sit next to me. Don’t you know that I’m married to a mzungu, you stupid African.” And when he encountered a colleague who was married to a white woman, Obama would throw his arm around his shoulders, exclaiming that he was “my in-law.”

The couple moved into a stately home in Rosslyn, a predominantly white neighborhood in Nairobi that was lush with sprawling purple jacaranda trees and trim green hedges. Like many of the spacious estates located northwest of the city, Rosslyn had long been the exclusive province of Europeans. Now a handful of Africans were trickling in. Not all family members were so pleased with Obama’s new domestic situation, however. Hussein Onyango [his father] stormed into the house one morning and adamantly insisted that Obama take his first wife, Kezia, into his home along with their two children. If his son could not respect his first wife in such a way, then at least he could establish a separate home for her as any good Luo would do.

But Obama refused. Obama was an educated man now, and though he was eager to have his children join him, he told his friends he had no intention of living “like an African” with multiple wives at a time. Although Ruth agreed to have the children live with them, as she had promised Obama she would back in Cambridge, she was horrified at the notion that his first wife would join them as well. She would just as soon not meet Kezia at all. But the proposal was only one of many aspects of life in Nairobi that she was finding difficult, as did more than a few other white women who had met their African husbands in the West.

These young women were quickly learning that husbands who had seemed highly Westernized back home soon reverted to deeply ingrained tribal customs when back on African soil. Kenyan men generally went out drinking at bars or nightclubs without their wives and were absent for long periods of time. They did little in the way of domestic chores, and many presumed broad sexual freedoms, taking mistresses or even second wives as due course. Young women, who had expected a position of some respect in their new marriages, suddenly found that they had quite lowly status. As Celia Nyamweru, a young British graduate student doing field research in Kenya in the mid-1960s, wrote in an essay on her experiences, “Often these young women received fairly rude awakenings when marital relationships that had started happily between graduate students or young professionals had to be renegotiated under circumstances where most of the power lay on the husband’s side.”

Nor were these young wives the only ones who found the situation stressful. For the Kenyan men, the demands of their new lives were also profound. On the one hand, they were urban professionals under pressure to provide for a vast extended network of family members back home who still had very little. But they were also still deeply rooted in the culture and ways of the bush, and what their role was in either locale or exactly how to bridge the gap was not always clear. Were they Kenyan villagers or downtown professionals? With one foot firmly placed in Luoland and another on Harambee Avenue, Obama in particular struggled to find his balance.

In their first few months together Obama and Ruth lived much as they had in Cambridge. Ruth got a job as a secretary at the Nation newspaper while Obama applied his new econometric skills to the job at Shell. After work, they often went dancing at the new Starlight nightclub, the city’s hotspot, featuring Congolese music and an eclectic crowd reflecting Nairobi’s increasingly diverse population. Well aware that his moves were electrifying, Obama could not resist twirling Ruth extravagantly across the center of the dance floor as a small crowd clapped in appreciation. Some nights the couple danced until the early hours of the following morning.

So bleary-eyed was Ruth by the time she got to work that her bosses let her go after only three months. “We were out all night so I wasn’t getting any sleep,” sighed Ruth. “I was exhausted. Oh, God, I was in a mess, you know. I could not focus on anything.”

However, Ruth began quite quickly to notice changes in Obama. Some nights he drank so much he could barely make it to the car and Ruth was afraid to let him drive them home. As he worked increasingly long hours, he often did not come home from work until well after midnight, stumbling to the door reeking of whiskey and perfume. At times he shouted at her with rage, calling her slow and stupid. And one night he astonished her with the news that he not only had been married a second time, but had a young son in Hawaii. “He just said he had a little son there and he was very proud of him,” said Ruth. “He had a little picture of him on his tricycle with a hat on his head. And he kept that picture in every house that we lived in. He loved his son. He never mentioned the wife, though. I knew nothing about her. But none of that bothered me. As I said, I was in love with a capital ‘L’ and that was that. I didn’t know anything about anything.”

Despite Ruth’s growing misgivings and Obama’s own ambivalence, which he shared only with a handful of friends, the couple decided to get married by the end of the year. Propelled by the turbulent currents of their love affair, for either one of them to turn back would have been difficult.

Ruth could hardly face returning to America and the failure that would have signified. Nor could Obama easily surrender the wife who had given him such cachet. And, in at least some respects, they still shared the intense passion that had consumed them back in Cambridge. So on Christmas Eve of 1964 they stood before a justice of the peace in the city registrar’s office as two of their friends looked on. The service was strictly bare bones. There was no ring, no gifts. As she reached out to take Obama’s hand before the ceremony began, Ruth hesitated for an instant. “I was thinking, should I really marry this guy?” recalled Ruth. “I mean, how long was this going to last? I just had a feeling it was risky. But, you know, I went ahead with it.”

July 9, 2011

 

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© Copyright 2001-2009 Shaebia.org

The Duality of Ra-Ra Bands

Posted on June 26, 2011 by blackdiplomacy

As do so many of the best stories, this one begins with rum sours and good times. A few months ago Samuel Darguin (a close friend, fraternity brother, and a relentless Haitian-American) and I found ourselves in the unique experience of being in a ra-ra band.  Perhaps it is because we began the night with rum sours and good times that the experience carried significance, perhaps moreso for myself since this was my first time taking part in such an event.

A ra-ra band is a uniquely Haitian phenomenon, as far as the Caribbean goes, and is an outgrowth of that same uniqueness that bears witness to the Haitian experience. It’s a congregation of people, in the simplest terms, who come together to play music and dance in the street.  In all reality it’s so much more. It’s a collection of Haitians who express themselves in a way that takes over streets and stops traffic. They wear colorful costumes and invent musical instruments out of nothing and march down the street, dancing relentlessly. It’s a simultaneous political movement and artistic outburst. During the presidential elections, ra-ra bands took to the streets to protest preliminary results and to support their favored candidate, all at the same time.  Haitians in America even took to the streets in ra-ra form to support president Obama’s campaign efforts. Ra-ra bands can form anywhere at anytime for any reason, even without an overt political or social cause  as its support.

Sam and I had jumped into one such band.  There was no pressing political agenda to be found, no particular social injustice that needed addressing.  Instead, dozens of Haitians filled the streets late on a Thursday night simply to express themselves, with homemade vuvuzelas and brightly adorned costumes that shimmered even in the dark. Given this scenario, and the few rum sours from earlier, Sam and I had no choice but to join in the revelry.

We marched for what felt like hours with the band, stomping our feet, flipping our heads back until our eyes gazed at the stars. I placed my ear at the round end of  a nearby vuvuzela, attempting to absorb the sound of the ra-ra into my blood stream (these were really good rum sours). In truth, our entire participation maybe lasted 15 minutes.  It ended shortly after the group recruited the local voodoo priestess, who then led the charge to some other unknown destination.  The hour grew late, and Sam and I had our fun.

Ra-ra bands also take on another form. While some artists spend restless nights perfecting a single brush stroke on a canvas so as to truly capture the painting’s essence, others can’t seem to crank out enough of the same wooden giraffe to meet tourist demand. Whether or not it is tourist demand that fuels this second branch of art or if tourists are merely drawn to it, ra-ra bands hold no exception to the pattern.  I spent Easter weekend in the town of Jeremie with some colleagues and, though Jeremie is normally a small, picturesque town with not much in the way of entertainment, we ran into a few ra-ra bands.  Apparently Easter weekend is the time ra-ra bands come out to play in Jeremie, but not in the same manner as what Sam and I experienced in Port-au-Prince.  While the bright costumes and vuvulezas remained, the ra-ra band seemed less focus on self-expression and more on self-monetization. Every ra-ra band we came across was intent on earning a tip, to the point that each band stood dormant until a group of passersby came into purview. Once we came into sight, though, the trumpets blared and the dancers came to life.  Each group systematically transformed into the same energetic group that Sam and I took part in back in Port-au-Prince. However, after a few minutes of performance, each group in Jeremie also systematically demanded a tip. I left the experience a little flustered, not because I begrudged giving artists a tip (though admittedly the first group left me woefully unprepared and themselves equally under-tipped, as seen in the video below), but because I had already seen what a ra-ra group was supposed to be.

In that same vein, I have already seen what Haiti can become.  Haitians are defiantly determined. At the same time, an abundance of well-meaning NGOs, missionaries, and expatriate volunteers have left many Haitians the same as the ra-ra bands in Jeremie; brightly dressed and ready to go, but only motivated when foreigners venture nearby with pockets potentially full of cash.  The situation is a two-way street. For every international actor that arguably adds to the “standby” mentality personified by Jeremie rara bands there’s another that actively provides resources and opportunities. How does one then determine the impact of these actors as a whole? I suppose one has to stand back and look for the dancing.

++++++++++++

About Myself

Who am I? I’m a 27 year old U.S. diplomat who is more than excited to be serving at the embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.  This will be my second assignment; I spent my first two years as a diplomat working in the U.S. Embassy in Asmara, Eritrea as the political officer. Needless to say, Haiti will be quite different.

I am an avid comic book collector (Spider-Man, X-Men, Iron Man, Deadpool, Cable, Avengers, Black Panther), and an intense fan of cartoons.

I love poetry, specifically Langston Hughes and Nikki Giovanni.

I love Africa and I love the Caribbean (my parents are from Barbados).

I love policy, but can do without politics.

And at one point I was a concert violinst.  Perhaps I will be again, one day.

Juana Majel Dixon

Laws "Not Enough"

to Tackle Violence Against

Native Women

Sunday 31 July 2011

by: Kanya D'Almeida, Inter Press Service | Report

Juana Majel Dixon, first vice president of the National Congress of American Indians, said earlier this year that, "Young women on reservations live their lives in anticipation of being raped…They talk about 'how I will survive my rape‚' as opposed to not thinking about it at all."

"We shouldn't have to live our lives that way," she added. 

But this is the harsh reality that a majority of all American Indian and Native Alaskan women face. 

According to the Indian Law Resource Center, one in three native women is raped in her lifetime, while one in six will be domestically abused by a husband, boyfriend or intimate partner. 

The National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) estimates that the average annual rate of rape and sexual assault among American Indians is 3.5 times higher than for all races. 

Several studies, which rely on statistical data from the Bureau of Justice, indicate that Native American women experience the highest rate of violence of any ethnic or racial group in the United States. 

Furthermore, nearly 65 percent of American Indian women surveyed for the National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS) reported experiencing rape or physical violence. 

Although the high rates of violence in Indian Country have long been the concern of a handful of community organisations, a series of recent gestures by the U.S. federal government suggests that the crisis has become sufficiently dire to merit national attention. 

Addressing the press and the public in a conference call Thursday, Thomas Perrelli, associate attorney general with the Department Of Justice, said that the White House and its partners are engaged in consultations with tribes across the country about how best to protect Native women from violence. 

He added that domestic violence in particular has reached "epidemic" rates in many Indian communities, and stressed the need for swift action. 

Tribal leaders across the country have for decades lamented the limitations of existing legal structures for prosecuting perpetrators of both physical and sexual abuse, as well as stemming the escalating violence on reservations. 

Under current law, tribal governments lack the necessary authority to impose punitive measures against perpetrators; in fact, tribal courts can only sentence Indian offenders to one year in prison. 

The landmark Tribal Law and Order Act, which celebrates its one year anniversary later this month, extended possible sentencing of offenders from one to three years, but failed to grant tribal governments the authority to put non-Indians behind bars – even if the men in question live on the reservation, are part of the community or are married to tribal people. 

Given that 50 percent of Native women have non-Native husbands, according to Kimberly Teehee, White House senior policy adviser for Native American Affairs, these limitations pose huge challenges for tribal governments. 

The legislation currently before Congress will address some of the most gaping legal holes in the justice system, including recognising tribes' power to exercise criminal jurisdiction over domestic violence cases regardless of whether the offender is Indian or non- Indian and allowing for harsher sentencing for severe acts of violence such as spousal intimidation, strangling or suffocating. 

"The highly complex legal framework in Indian Country - often referred to as a 'jurisdictional maze' - is the key factor creating and perpetuating the disproportionate violence against Indian women," Katy Jackson, a staff attorney at the National Congress on American Indians (NCAI), told IPS. 

"[Therefore] the DOJ's proposals to restore tribal authority to hold on-reservation perpetrators - both Indian and non-Indian - accountable for these heinous crimes are by far the most critical piece of the puzzle at this point in time," she added. 

Judicial changes alone, however, will not be sufficient to tackle the problem. Many experts see the escalating violence as a diffuse and far-reaching plague that must be tackled at various different levels. 

"The judicial system is only one component of this crisis and can only help those people who choose to participate in the criminal justice system, which many women do not want to do," Monika Johnson Hostler, president of the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, told IPS. 

"So while judicial strides are necessary, we must remember that prevention is the only way to end the actual cycle of violence," she added. 

Jackson added that resources for treatment were also sorely needed. 

"Too often, Native victims find themselves going without access to critical, lifesaving services and treatment programs that are more easily acceptable to other victims of domestic violence and sexual assault," she told IPS. 

"That is why the NCAI Task Force on Violence Against Women continues to advocate for increased funding to support tribal coalitions and victim services programmes on tribal lands," she said. 

Another obstacle to justice for Native women is the fact that violence in Indian Country is stripped of its historical background and presented in isolation of its socio-political context, which is perhaps part of the reason why the crisis has received so little attention in the mainstream. 

"Colonisation is one of the root causes of violence against Native women," Lucy Simpson, executive director of the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center, told IPS. 

'In order to effectively respond to and prevent such violence, we need to address colonisation and its impacts. We need to restore women to their traditional role as sacred within our communities by turning to Native cultures and traditions that already recognise this." 

"We also need to address the poverty and lack of employment and infrastructure in Indian country that prevents adequate responses when violence occurs," Simpson added. 

"We honour the voices and perspectives of American Indian and Alaska Native leaders who speak out about the devastating and lasting effects of colonisation on American Indian and Alaska Native communities," Anna Marjavi, a project manager at Futures Without Violence, told IPS. 

"Many domestic violence and sexual assault advocates who work in Indian Country also believe that violence against Native women is rooted in the colonisation of tribal nations when an unnatural worldview brought a level of violence not seen before by tribal peoples. The path of non-violence and respect for women is the natural life way of indigenous people," she added. 

Furthermore, while punitive actions generally only impact individual survivors and offenders, broader measures such as education and awareness programmes could reach whole communities. 

"Not just colonialism and institutionalised racism, but other factors such as the boarding of Native American school children and adopting them en masse out of the own culture perpetuates this violence," Hostler told IPS. 

"Now more than ever people need to understand that words matter, that media matters, that the method of reporting on this issue matters, if society is really going to change its perceptions of women," she added. 

 

Showing 12 comments

• 
  Scribe74 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand

  Why must women grow up every generation and hear about rape, experience it, fear it? Why can't education begin in the schools about this issue as opposed to courses on who crossed what alps hundreds of years ago?

  
  Why can't men admit their own impotence in the societies they live in, their anger, their frustration, deal with it instead of doing the most cowardly thing they can do is to hurt something so much weaker than themselves physically. 

  
  Why didn't our government address this issue long ago? Where are men who DEFEND women, feel it an honorable thing to do? Do we ever hear our politicians talking about protecting women and children? Decrying publically the abuse to women? Calling upon the churches to teach men right behavior?

  
  We can blame the heightened vulgarity in the movies, Tv,online
  where boy meets girl, next scene they're 'getting it on' as the vernacular goes today.

  
  How grateful I am I was raised where there were chaperones everywhere, few had cars, and dating and friendship stressed before getting close. In the long run women think they're 'liberated' jumping in the sack everytime a man puts the pressure on? I've met many. You learn the scarring of your soul and emotions for you are different then a man in your spirit.

  
  The unreal world of media shows men they can get sex whenever they want it, and then they learn reality and when they don't get what they want they get angry and hurt a sensitive soul who can't fight back.

  
  These sexual attacks create a scarring in the spirit that affects women the rest of their lives. Punishment should be far more severe than 1 year in jail. My heart cries when I hear of the rapes in Somalia, Haiti, here, everywhere. How cowardly. How sick. How utterly sad, where are the churches to speak out? Our officials?

  
  I swear, with the gov't shutting down Planned Parent Hood Centers, funding for low income women, accusing them of murder if they miscarriage because of ingesting a drug for , it would almost appear there is innate hatred that men have for women inborn. Or, is it the soft side in themselves they hate more? As a race will we ever become honorable and high-minded?

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  travelergtoo 3 comments collapsed Collapse Expand

  This is what sometimes happens when everything is taken away from a man and he has no self respect. The Europeans murdered the Indians and stole their land. The remaining Indians were discriminated against.

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  PhatGirl7 2 comments collapsed Collapse Expand

  Bite me.

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  keeperofthefire 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand

  phatgirlplease read "bury my heart at woundedknee and after you wipe your tears away,you will understand what this evil nation did to a much superiative,caring of their woman&children while living in harmony with grandmother's nature!!! what native men do to their familys,the females in their lives and their children horrible and without excuses,yet unseen to outsiders,these males,in context to what our government and in many cases u.s. citizens have done to natives, these men are no longer human biengs with a spirit or soul!!! if you compare these natives to any of the poor, downtrodden males living in the white, black, brown, yellow ghettos of america,you will find the same problems for men&wemon living there!!!time to rise up and take down our evil,heartless,corrupt,murderous gov. before it becomes unlivible for all of us!!!!!! hokahey/it is a goog time to live

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  Ttobbar 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand

  This story doesn't mention the role of alchol in these crimes. When they get drunk, Indian men get beat up and robbed and the women get raped.

   

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  Frostfire 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand

  Another wonderful program, brought by the Europeans. :)

   

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  Elaine Mack 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand

  I think that these men who marry Native women do so because they see these women as vulnerable, and it makes the men feel powerful to have control over them. It's just like men who marry foreign women, bring their new wives to their country, then abuse them. Its the mark of a weak man. I don't know how laws will really protect Native women when they have no means of defending themselves in their own homes.
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  Jackwillmore2003 5 comments collapsed Collapse Expand

  As is not untypical of writers (female) of these types of stories and subject matter it is full of holes and unanswered questions that it could only have been written by a woman. Firstly 65% experience physical violence ? I think men will tell you that they experience 100% over their lifetimes at one time or another. Half of spouses are non-native ? Are they white ? black ? hispanic ?Asian ? Why not answer this question and shed some light on why this would make sexual assault more prevalent ? There are no jail sentences longer than a year for the crime of rape ? Really ? When did legislators or village elders decide that was a punishment that fit the crime ? There are so many non-sequestors and non-supported postulations in this article that it is nearly meaningless and this one of at least a half dozen per year that make their way through TruthOut. I'm dissapointed that editors don't draw a line somewhere regarding responsible writing.

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  Black Wolf 4 comments collapsed Collapse Expand

  You need to work on your reading comprehension and retention skills; go back and read it again. The figure of 1 in 3 rapes for Indian women comes from surveys of self-reporting native women. There is no comparison of violence against men because that is not the topic, and it is irrelevant in this context. Ethnic/racial makeup of non-Indian spouses is not an issue here; the issue is that Indian law and order has no jurisdiction over non-Indian spouses. The word is non-sequiters, and it is irrelevant in this context as well. There are no non-supported postulations in the article if you read what it says accurately and completely. Nor is the article irresponsible: in fact, it is long overdue, and provides some small glimpse of forgotten cultures and peoples, victims of conquest, continued abuse by government, and virtual total ignorance and lack of concern from the ruling culture and people. Few non-Indians have any clue about real life on the rez, nor do they care.

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  uptownmanhat 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand

  Sorry Black Wolf, but I really hardly, if ever hear anything about the rez. Sometimes I hear some beef about the native Americans are making too much gambling profits, or the likes. But, nothing other than items of this caliber ever pops up in the news, MSM or otherwise. Hate to say it, but it appears that the people living on reservations are treated like some kind of a sect, instead of the value of the people they really are!!! And to think, those same non caring oblivious people of this country have used American Indian names for their state names, their car brands, commercial products, and many, many other labels. And not even caring (or sometime even knowing) about the source, description, or meaning of such. Goes along with non-retentive comprehension of historical facts and understanding them. I Guess.

• 
  C Hale 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand

  It is a little-known fact that rape is common in black and Hispanic American homes, both male and female rape of youngsters by siblings and fathers. Cause? Perhaps rage due to supression.

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  Jackwillmore2003 1 comment collapsed Collapse Expand

  You're basically correct, and I have gone back and reread the article. I have driven through and spent short term interactions in the American southwest and was alway deeply offended by the lack of support afforded the Indian communities there. I do not look down on nor blame any woman for being a victim of rape or assault or of being in fear of it. I wrote my response in haste without proof reading it. There are many errors I regret. My reaction was that of a person who has read similar articles on this website that were written by women about womens issues and many of them were not well vetted or had major logical holes in them. The thing that rankles me is when the point of view of the author takes on a Thelma and Louise perspective. Like most men I resent being grouped as the one guilty (by gender) in such stories. for I have spent a lifetime abhoring social injustice. I also agree with you that I was reading way too much into it. Your points are fairly and honorably made and I wish to retract my earlier comments. jack willmore

Jake Price in Japan:

The Road Back

 

PLEASE GO HERE TO SEE SLIDESHOW

July 26, New York

As I get ready to return to Tōhoku, Japan, I am thinking about being there three months ago following the earthquake, just after the tsunami’s black waters receded and left in their wake a crisis not seen since the atomic attacks of 1945. In substantive ways, the decimated landscapes I witnessed in March were similar to the singed, flattened scenes from Hiroshima and Nagasaki sixty-six years ago. And while man bears responsibility for the nuclear bomb attacks, while the shifting plates beneath the restless Pacific Ocean brought on the tsunami, both events raise crucial questions about modernity, our relationship to one another as human beings, and the future we are to inhabit.

In Tōhoku, I walked through towns and villages, trying to account for and absorb their colossal devastation. Soon, I found my experience transforming into a meditation on modern existence—not just that of the Japanese, but of humanity in general. All around me lay Japan’s ancient rice fields—collective efforts that had helped nurture its citizens to a highly advanced point in a complex society. These fields are now tainted by oil and radioactive fallout. The tsunami’s forces blasted the land, but humanity’s toxic inventions in the form of oil, nuclear waste, and countless other chemicals have poisoned the soil for many more years than the tsunami ever could. What started as a natural disaster became a man-made one. In moving forward, the question then is not how to innovate (we are both victim and beneficiary of our creative minds), but how to innovate without such destructive consequences.

These questions swirl about, and the immediate task of rebuilding in Tōhoku is monumental. Fishing fleets and thousands of acres of farmland were obliterated—soaked first in saltwater and then with radiation. Oil from overturned cars, ships and trucks has compound the problems. For the elderly farmers whose work revolved around their property, many of them will die without a return to what formed and sustained them all their lives. The young searching for employment will depart for the cities with more opportunities, thus leaving their small towns and communities barren. This trend was well established before the catastrophe; the tsunami has just accelerated it.

For much of the past fifteen years I’ve covered environmental catastrophes in Pakistan, Haiti, New Orleans, and Kenya, among other places. Photos of aftermath serve an immediate need to get the public involved in sending aid, but in many other ways, I’ve also come to see how disasters also reveal complex portraits of the societies they so violently assault. The identity portrait that revealed itself in Japan had a strongly ingrained sense of individual responsibility that operated on two levels: It empathized with individuals in need and also responded to the society at large with an abiding duty and pride. As plans are made to rebuild communities, I wonder if that sense of duty and pride will come to include planning for a more sustainable future.

–Jake Price

PHOTOGRAPHS by JAKE PRICE

This is the first post of a series that will examine how the people of Tōhoku are going about recovering their lives and making decisions for the future. See Jake’s previous post from the disaster: Dispatch From The Quake Zone.