WAR: Rwanda's children of rape > BBC News

Rwanda's children of rape

Many young people live with the mental scars of the Rwandan genocide

Between April and June 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the space of 100 days. Thousands of women were also raped. Sixteen years on from the genocide, Tim Whewell finds the horrors of those months have left their mark on a new generation.

 


Like 20,000 other Rwandan teenagers, Diane Kayirangwa was born out of the murderous chaos that killed so many in her country in 1994.

Her father was an unknown member of the Interahamwe - the ethnic Hutu militia licensed by the extremist government then in power to eradicate the Tutsi minority.

Her mother, Anastasie, was one of the Tutsi women targeted. She survived - but only just.

"I was raped on three occasions in different locations and by many different people," Anastasie says. "With the exception of one person, I didn't know who any of them were."

 

There wasn't even a moment when I didn't love her. I've loved her ever since she was born
Rape victim Anastasie, speaking about her daughter

To compound her trauma, Anastasie was forced to leave her native village after she was threatened by neighbours who had killed the rest of her family.

Since then, like many other rape victims, she has been unable to find a husband. Instead, she provides for her daughter by buying and selling goods in her slum on the edge of the Rwandan capital Kigali.

But, despite all that she has endured, Anastasie says she has never regretted her decision 16 years ago to keep her daughter.

"There wasn't even a moment when I didn't love her. I've loved her ever since she was born," she says.

"My family gave her horrible nicknames like 'hyena'. But I've never wanted anything bad to happen to her."

A difficult bond

One of the most difficult moments, Anastasie recalls, was explaining to her daughter about the circumstances of her birth.

"Diane had already asked me. I told her when she was about 12 years old. She was grown up. I told her when we were alone," she says.

"It pained her. She cried, she stood up and she moved here and there because of anger."

 

I didn't see him as my child. I didn't love him at all
The mother of a boy born of rape

But Anastasie managed to convince her daughter that she loved her enough for two parents.

"[Then] she asked me if she was Hutu," Anastasie continues. "I told her that she was not Hutu, she was, rather, Tutsi because she was being cared for by me, because I was persecuted because of my tribe. But today we are all Rwandans because the issue of tribes is over."

For another mother and victim of rape, who does not want to be named, forming a bond with her child was not quite so easy.

After her son was delivered amid the squalor of a refugee camp, her first thought was to get rid of him down a latrine.

"I didn't see him as my child. I didn't love him at all," she says.

"In him, I saw the image of spears. I saw machetes. I saw very bad things," she continues.

'I've changed'

Like all children born of rape during the Rwandan genocide, her son will soon turn 16. But he doesn't yet know the circumstances of his birth and knows nothing of his mother's struggle.

 

Market in Rwanda
Many women make ends meet by buying and selling goods

But now, thanks to the support of other survivors of rape, his mother has learned to separate her son from the hatred she feels for those who raped her.

"I saw him as a killer, a son of a killer - but, of course, he was innocent, it wasn't him who did these things. I found other women who had similar problems as me. I didn't know that there were others who suffered the same. I thought I was alone," she says.

"So now I've changed. Now he sees that I'm close to him. We go out together. We walk around in Kigali."

However, she knows that one day she will have to tell her son about what happened. But for now, she has great ambition for him.

"I would like to get a sponsor to help him to get education so that when he grows he will be able help himself and others," she says.

Whether Rwanda's children of rape are able to escape its stigma will be, perhaps, a measure of how far the country itself has managed to put its violent past behind it.

For her part, Anastasie is confident her daughter Diane will not be defined by the identity of her father.

"A proverb says, 'Upbringing is better than being born'. Besides, she is a child born in a different Rwanda. I hope that her future will be good," she says.

"Memories of 1994 are not brought back by Diane. 1994 is no longer prevailing in me. Instead of remembering 1994, I think what my children would eat - their education. 1994 is no longer in me."

Watch Tim Whewell's film in full on Newsnight on Wednesday 30 June 2010 at 10.30pm on BBC Two, then afterwards on the BBC iPlayer and Newsnight website.

 

CULTURE: The emerge of the black French - ‘Noirs’ > AFRO-EUROPE

The emerge of

the black French - ‘Noirs’

 

Black British, zwart and Afro-Deutsch is a very normal thing to say when you are not French. But not until recently saying ‘Noirs’ or ‘Blacks’ in France was asking for trouble. Recently black people in France saw that they lived in a condition where the mantra of equality, one of the founding principles of the Republic, didn’t work for them. The black French historian Pap Ndiaye wrote a book about the problem, and titled it ‘La condition noire’, The black Condition.

Ndiaye explains in an interview what that condition means. “The black condition in France is a way to feel French, while being considered as not French. If you are black, most people in Paris ask you all the time, where do you come from. As a way to tell you, you must be from somewhere else. You must be not French.” (Video) 

Pap Ndiaye, French historian and Associate Professor at the Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales in Paris, drew wide attention in the current debate over diversity and representation in France with his book ‘La condition noire: essai sur une minorité française’ ,The Black Condition. An essay of a French minority. Ndiaye (1965), has a Senegalese father and a ‘French’ mother.

Pap Ndiaye is a member of Le Capdiv, Le Cercle d'Action pour la Promotion de la Diversité en France (The Circle of Action for the Promotion of Diversity in France).

Read:
Black Worlds University
Le Cran

Read more:

This intro explains the French background.

Racial and ethnic categories were until recently officially taboo in France, though in camouflaged forms they circulated widely in media and political discourse on the "integration" of immigrant minorities. In recent years, men and women of color have begun mobilizing as "Noirs" (Blacks) in ways that are hitherto unprecedented in France. Pap Ndiaye argues that the official invisibility of French Blacks, rather than being the logical and peaceful consequence of their integration into French society, can be analyzed as a consequence of discriminatory processes.

On an academic level, the situation is rather similar. In France, there are more books and articles published on African-Americans than on African-French or Carribean-French peoples. Indeed, African-American history is a well-established field in France. By contrast, studies on African immigrants, African students, Guadeloupean civil servants, etc, are scarce, and there is practically nothing on "French Blacks", as if this figuration had no legitimacy or meaning to describe past and contemporary social situations.

The situation is slowly changing, as more and more French acknowledge the existence of a sizable Black minority with specific problems and needs. Professor Ndiaye studies the reasons why this history has been so neglected, emphasizing ideological, political and academic reasons. He also discusses the legitimacy of the notion of "French Blacks" and analyzes the recent rise of Black organizations in France.

 

 

VIDEO: Stevie Wonder Performs "Sketches of a Life"

Stevie Wonder

  on Mar 7, 2011

Singer/songwriter Stevie Wonder, the awardee of the second Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, premieres "Sketches of a Life," a sprawling, hybrid pop-classical concerto, written between 1976 and 1994. The work was unveiled through a commission for the Library of Congress in the Coolidge Auditorium.

Speaker Biography: Born in Saginaw, Michigan in 1950, Stevie Wonder became blind shortly after birth. He learned to play the harmonica, piano and drums by age 9. By the time he was 10, his singing and other musical skills were known throughout his neighborhood, and when the family moved to Detroit, impressed adults made his talents known to the owners of Motown Records, who gave him a recording contract when he was age 12. His early hits included "Fingertips," "Uptight (Everything's All Right)" "For Once in My Life," "My Cherie Amour," "Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours," and "If You Really Love Me." He undertook the study of classical piano, and later, music theory, and beginning in 1967, he began writing more of his own material. In the early 1970s, Wonder toured with the Rolling Stones and had major hits with the songs "Superstition" and "You are the Sunshine of My Life." In the mid-70s, his album "Songs in the Key of Life" topped the charts for 14 weeks. Over the years Stevie Wonder has garnered 25 Grammy Awards, as well as the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996. He collected an Academy Award for the 1984 hit "I Just Called to Say I Love You" from the film The Woman in Red. In 1989, he was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. In 1999, Stevie became the youngest honoree of the Kennedy Center Honors. He was inducted into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame in 2002, and in 2004 he won the Johnny Mercer Award in recognition of a lifetime of outstanding creative work. In 2005, the Library of Congress added Stevie Wonder's 1976 double album "Songs in the Key of Life" to the National Recording Registry, which recognizes recordings that are "culturally, historically or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States."

 

VIDEO: Bobby McFerrin Shows the Power of the Pentatonic Scale > Open Culture

Bobby McFerrin Shows

the Power of

the Pentatonic Scale

The jazz vocalist and ten-time Grammy winner Bobby McFerrin turns 61 today. To celebrate, we’re posting this clip from the 2009 World Science Festival, in which McFerrin leads an impromptu audience sing-a-long in order to demonstrate the power of the pentatonic scale. We bet you’ve never seen music theory taught quite like this.

McFerrin, by the way, is sharing the stage with several scientists, including Daniel Levitin, McGill professor and author of the book This is Your Brain on Music. If this clip happens to awaken your inner crooner instead of your inner neuroscientist, you can also check out a short singing lesson with McFerrin on Qtv.

Sheerly Avni is a San Francisco-based arts and culture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Weekly, Variety, Mother Jones, and many other publications. You can follow her on twitter at @sheerly.

 

PUB: The 2011 Muslim Writers Awards (for Muslim writers across the world) > Writers Afrika

The 2011 Muslim Writers Awards

(for Muslim writers across the world)

 

Deadline: 31 July 2011

The 2011 Muslim Writers Awards welcomes submissions from Muslim writers across the world. We have a broad range of categories from screen play to novel writing to journalism. Our awards ceremony is an opportunity to showcase talent from both published and unpublished writers. We also work with a number of literary agents and publishers who are eager to read and review writing submitted to us.


The Muslim Writers Awards 2011 is calling submissions from over 16 writers for the following categories:

* Unpublished Novel Award
* Unpublished Short Story Award
* Unpublished Poetry Award
* Unpublished Children’s Story Award
* Screenplay Award
* Young Journalist Award (16-25)
* Blogger’s Award
* Published Novel Award

To submit work for unpublished categories at the Muslim Writers Awards 2011, please click here. To submit for the Unpublished Novel or Blogger Award catergories, please download and complete the Entry Form below.

Terms and Conditions

ELIGIBILITY

1. All entries must be submitted in the English language.
 

2. All entries must be original and the authors own unaided work.
 

3. Submissions must not infringe any copyright or contain defamatory or otherwise unlawful matter.
 

4. All entrants must be over the age of 16. Entrants for the Young Journalism award must be aged 16-25 at the time of the closing date.
 

5. Entries submitted in previous Muslim Writers Awards competitions will not be accepted.
 

6. The closing date for the competition is midnight on the 31st of July 2011 and submissions will not be accepted after this date.

7. Entries into unpublished categories must not have been previously published.

8. Entries for the Screenplay award will not be accepted if they have been optioned, sold or produced.

9. Entries for the Published Novel award will be accepted if they have been first published after the 30th of January 2009.

10. Entries for the Unpublished Short Story award must not exceed 8,000 words.

11. Entries for the Unpublished Novel award must be a minimum of 8,000 words.

12. Entries for the Unpublished Children’s Story award must be a minimum of 8,000 words.

13. Entries for the Screenplay award must be no shorter than ten minutes screen time.

14. For both the Young Journalist award and the Unpublished Poetry award, entrants may submit up to three articles/poems. All articles/poems must be placed in one Microsoft Word document, with each article/poem clearly labelled.

15. For the Blogger award category, entrants must have the at least 30 postsin the period of the last twelve months up to the submission entry date.

16. For all other categories, only one entry per category will be accepted.

 

SUBMISSION PROCESS

1. All unpublished entries can only be submitted electronically through our online submissions managers, Submishmash, unless already submitted by post before 16th June 2011.
2. Entrants should complete all the required fields on Submishmash when submitting their work.
3. Unpublished submissions should be typed in font Times New Roman, font size 11, in a Microsoft Word document format, with numbered pages.
4. Unpublished submissions must bear the title of the entry in the ‘Header’ of each page.
5. Unpublished submissions must not bear the authors name on the copy of the submission.
6. Five copies of each book, accompanied by a completed Entry Form available to download online, must be sent to Muslim Writers Awards, E1 Business Centre, 7 Whitechapel Road, London, E1 1DU.
7. Entries must be a in a book form. Books published between January 2010 and November 2011 may be submitted in proof form if necessary after obtaining permission from Muslim Writers Awards.
8. The submission of an authors work by the publisher will be taken as agreement by the author that he/she is willing for the submitted work to be considered.
9. Entries received for the 2010 competition will automatically be re-entered for MWA 2011.
10. Once received, entries cannot be amended.
11. For the Unpublished Novel award, the Unpublished Short Story award, and the Unpublished Children’s Story award please include a short synopsis of the work (up to 500 words).
12. The closing date for the competition is 23:59:59 on 31st July 2011.

SELECTION PROCESS

1. Judging for the Muslim Writers Awards will be as follows:
2. Stage 1: A team of readers will read all submissions and select the top entries.
3. Stage 2: The top entries will be put to the judging panels which will assess the entries, giving each a score.
4. Stage 3: The judging panels will convene to discuss the winner of the award.
5. The decisions of the judging panel are final and binding, and Muslim Writers Awards will not enter into correspondence or negotiation regarding the results.
6. Due to the high volume of submissions, the organisers are unable to contact all entrants to inform them of their progression through the selection process. Only shortlisted entrants will be contacted.
7. Young Muslim Writers Awards winners will be announced at an awards ceremony to be held in London during November 2011. More details will be available closer to the time.
8. Details of winners will be made available on the Muslim Writers Awards website after the Awards ceremony.

PUBLICITY

1. Each winner will agree to take part in publicity for the promotion of the Awards which will include - but is not restricted to- his/her name and photograph being used. Writers will not receive payment for this.
2. Winners will retain the copyright to their work but grant Muslim Writers Awards the right to publish their work in the anthology and excerpts on the Muslim Writers Awards website.
3. Submissions do not need to be centred on topics of Islam or Muslim identity, however this is equally welcome.
4. The submission of an entry will be deemed to imply the acceptance of these conditions of entry.

Download:

Contact Information:

For inquiries: click here

For submissions: click here

Website: http://muslimwritersawards.org.uk

 

 

PUB: Student Essay Contest 2011 > Foreign Affairs

Sponsored by APSIA - The Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs

Foreign Affairs publishes articles by today's leaders and thinkers that tackle the most pressing issues in international relations. We want to give tomorrow's leaders the opportunity to demonstrate innovative thinking on the issues that shape their world. In the second annual Foreign Affairs Essay Contest, a panel from the Foreign Affairs editorial staff will select one undergraduate's essay to be published on the Foreign Affairs Web site. The winner will also receive a prize of $1,000, and five honorable mentions will receive a free year-long subscription to Foreign Affairs.

Entries must be submitted by August 1, 2011.

ESSAY TOPIC
Is the decline of the West inevitable?

WRITING GUIDELINES
Submissions should be between 1,200 and 1,500 words. All quotations or uncommon facts should be appropriately cited. Entries must be original, unpublished work written by contestants themselves.

ELIGIBILITY
Open to all undergraduate students of accredited colleges and universities graduating no earlier than May 2011.

SUBMISSIONS

  • Only one essay is allowed per participant. Please send entries to FAEssay@cfr.org. For your essay to be considered, it must be both pasted in the body of the e-mail and attached as a Word document. Your entry should include your name, phone number, e-mail address, institution of enrollment, and a scanned copy of your student identification or other proof of enrollment.
  • Students enrolled in institutions outside the United States should also include in their submission the full address and phone number of the academic department in which they are currently enrolled.
  • Every person who submits an essay to FAEssay@cfr.org will be entered in the contest. All entries must be received by 11:59 PM on August 1, 2011, and entries must be completed in full to be eligible. Submissions shorter than 1,200 words or longer than 1,500 words will be automatically disqualified.
  • Submissions sent by mail will not be accepted.
  • No purchase necessary to enter.

 


About our sponsor:

 

The Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA) comprises more than 60 member and affiliate member schools around the world dedicated to the improvement of professional education in international affairs and the advancement thereby of international understanding, prosperity, peace, and security. By combining multidisciplinary, policy-oriented, intercultural studies with career development, APSIA member schools are preparing students for the global workplace of the 21st Century and have become the primary sources of education for international affairs professionals in their respective countries. www.apsia.org

 


SELECTION OF WINNER

Entries will be evaluated and chosen by the Foreign Affairs editorial staff using the same evaluation methods and quality control standards required of authors. Decisions of the editorial team are final.

COPYRIGHT
All materials submitted for the contest become the property of Foreign Affairs and may appear on www.ForeignAffairs.com. By submitting his/her work to FAEssay@cfr.org, the contestant permanently transfers to Foreign Affairs and the Council on Foreign Relations all rights, title, and interests therein, whether or not copyrightable or legally protectable or established as forms of property and whether or not fulfilled or put into practice, together with all rights under copyright and the exclusive rights to print, publish, distribute, and sell the contestant's essay in all editions and formats in any form or medium throughout the world, which contains, but is not limited to, all formats of print, electronic, digital, optical, magnetic, or laser-based media, alone or in combination with other contributions, in whole or in part, in any language, throughout the world, together with the right to make such changes as Foreign Affairs deems appropriate. Foreign Affairs assumes no responsibility for lost, late, delayed, damaged, incomplete, illegible, unintelligible, inaccurate, or misdirected entries.

NOTIFICATION OF A WINNER
All decisions made by Foreign Affairs are final and binding. Foreign Affairs will not be held liable for late, lost, or misdirected notifications. If Foreign Affairs is unable to contact the prospective winner and a prospective honorable mention within ten (10) business days of the first attempt, or if it is found that the prospective winner or a prospective honorable mention has failed to comply with the official rules, that individual's prize will be forfeited. Prizes left unclaimed ninety (90) days after notification will be forfeited, and Foreign Affairs shall not be held responsible for contacting a prospective winner or prospective honorable mention who did not supply an address or provided an incorrect one. Any prospective winner or prospective honorable mention who fails to notify Foreign Affairs with any complaint or problem within ninety (90) days after prize notification, forfeits the right to do so.

The prospective winner and prospective honorable mentions may be required to sign (or the chosen contestant's legal guardian or parent if such a contestant is not of legal age in his/her state/country of residence) a publicity release within thirty (30) days of notification, which will allow Foreign Affairs to use their names, biographical information and/or pictures for the purpose of advertising, trade, or promotion without further compensation or consideration in any and all media throughout the world, unless prohibited by law. If required by Foreign Affairs, the prospective winner and prospective honorable mentions must sign (or the chosen contestant's legal guardian or parent if such a contestant is not of legal age in his/her state/country of residence) and return a release of liability, declaration of eligibility within thirty (30) days of receipt. If a chosen contestant is not of legal age in the state of residence, the prize will be awarded in the name of a parent of legal guardian.

ADDITIONAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS
By completing the essay and sending it to FAEssay@cfr.org, the contestant is submitting his/her information to Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs will not be contacting the contestant except to notify him/her if he/she is the winner of the contest. By submitting an essay, the contestant fully and unconditionally agrees to and accepts these rules. This contest is void where prohibited.

Foreign Affairs reserves the right to, without prior notice and at any time, terminate or cancel the contest, in whole or in part, or modify the contest in any way. Foreign Affairs is not accountable for (i) any events beyond its control that may cause the contest to be interrupted or corrupted; (ii) any injuries, losses, or damages of any kind occurring with or as a result of the prize, or from participation in the contest.

Contact Foreign Affairs with your contest questions at FAEssay@cfr.org.

ACADEMIC SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS
Educators: With this subscription offer,  you qualify for a complimentary subscription if more than five students subscribe.

Students: You are eligible for a one-year subscription to Foreign Affairs for $19.95 -- a nearly 70% savings. Prefer a paperless edition? Check out our new digital subscription.

 

PUB: United Planet Day Contest Information

United Planet Day Contest

Information about submitting writing, photography, or video

To celebrate United Planet Day, we hold a contest every year to seek written and visual submissions that exemplify our mission from all world community members and friends. The deadline is on the equinox: September 23, 2011.


How to Enter: We are accepting all submissions through our online community: www.upcommunity.org

  • When you join and create a profile, indicate that you are on the community to submit to the contest; and check the box to indicate you agree to the terms.
  • If you have already joined, please edit your profile, and check the box to indicate you agree to the terms.

If you have questions, please email us. Download an entry form if you like. Download the Contest Guidelines (hard copy version of information on this page). Read more about United Planet Day.

United Planet reserves the right to use any submitted materials for promotional purposes.


Media Categories

There will be winners for each category of the contest:

  • Writing
  • Photography
  • Video

All entries should aim to illustrate the ideas of cross-cultural understanding, friendship, and supporting one another in their own community or abroad.


Prizes

The winners of each category will be granted the choice of either one United Planet Volunteer Abroad Quest for up to two weeks to selected short-term locations around the world; or the monetary compensation of $300. The winning pieces will also be published on United Planet's website and in an upcoming newsletter.


How to Submit an Entry

Submissions are due by United Planet Day, September 23, 2011.

  • Please upload your file onto the United Planet Online Community.
  • You need to join the community first; look for “Sign up Now” on the homepage and go through the brief sign-up process.
  • When you join and create a profile, indicate that you are on the community to submit to the contest; and check the box to indicate you agree to the terms.
  • If you have already joined, please edit your profile, and check the box to indicate you agree to the terms.
  • Once a member, you can upload your photo, video or file (writing piece) into the community.
  • Please make sure to title your file as the contest type and your full name.  For example: VideoJohnSmith

Some Guidelines

Contestants may enter any or all of the three portions of the contest. Each contestant may enter one submission for the written portion, one for the video portion, and up to five for the photo portion. (United Planet reserves the right to collapse the photo and video portions of the contest into one portion if target submission goal is not met in either of the categories).

Written Portion

The maximum length for a written submission is 2500 words. Examples include any fiction, creative non-fiction, or poetry piece inspired by volunteer work, community service, travel experiences, or other personal interactions that deal with the subject of intercommunication and friendship.

At the end of your written submission, please give a brief description about yourself. Include your full name, full address, telephone number, and email address in the top right hand corner of your submission.

Photo Portion and Video Portion

In addition to the photo or video, the contestant should include a brief description of the photo or video and what the experience means to them. Please be sure to include the following information:

  • The city and country where the photo or video was taken.
  • The best estimates of the date (month and year) when the photo or video was taken.
  • What is taking place in the photo or video?
  • Any applicable historical/cultural context.

While the submissions will not be judged based on the description, the explanation should offer enough information to capture the essence of the photo or video for other viewers to understand. This should be approximately 1-2 paragraphs long.

Photos must be in the jpeg format and be at least 440 pixels wide in order to guarantee the highest quality in its display on our website. 


Language

Submissions may be made in any language as long as the English translation is provided with it.

Thank you and good luck!


United Planet Day Contest: Winners in 2010

United Planet was delighted to received many worthy submissions in 2010. After much deliberation, we chose the winners.

  • Teijna Pickrell of British Coumbia won the writing contest for her piece Breaking the Wall.
  • The grand prize went to Sourav Karmakar, of Calcutta, India, with his photograph 'Give Me Red.'

international volunteer photo contest winner 2010

  • The honorable mention in the photography and video category went to Melissa Malfavon, of Wisconsin.

international volunteer photo winner

  • And one of our favorites:

international volunteer photo contest 



Previous Contest Winners

2009 Winners:

Grand Prize Winner: Antonine Cassar
Honorable Mention Photography Winner: Alex Budak, Joni Lohr
Honorable Mention Writing Winner: Jess Noble

 

INFO: Mandela: His 8 Lessons of Leadership > TIME

Wednesday, Jul. 09, 2008

Mandela:

His 8 Lessons of Leadership

 

Nelson Mandela has always felt most at ease around children, and in some ways his greatest deprivation was that he spent 27 years without hearing a baby cry or holding a child's hand. Last month, when I visited Mandela in Johannesburg — a frailer, foggier Mandela than the one I used to know — his first instinct was to spread his arms to my two boys. Within seconds they were hugging the friendly old man who asked them what sports they liked to play and what they'd had for breakfast. While we talked, he held my son Gabriel, whose complicated middle name is Rolihlahla, Nelson Mandela's real first name. He told Gabriel the story of that name, how in Xhosa it translates as "pulling down the branch of a tree" but that its real meaning is "troublemaker."

As he celebrates his 90th birthday next week, Nelson Mandela has made enough trouble for several lifetimes. He liberated a country from a system of violent prejudice and helped unite white and black, oppressor and oppressed, in a way that had never been done before. In the 1990s I worked with Mandela for almost two years on his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. After all that time spent in his company, I felt a terrible sense of withdrawal when the book was done; it was like the sun going out of one's life. We have seen each other occasionally over the years, but I wanted to make what might be a final visit and have my sons meet him one more time.

I also wanted to talk to him about leadership. Mandela is the closest thing the world has to a secular saint, but he would be the first to admit that he is something far more pedestrian: a politician. He overthrew apartheid and created a nonracial democratic South Africa by knowing precisely when and how to transition between his roles as warrior, martyr, diplomat and statesman. Uncomfortable with abstract philosophical concepts, he would often say to me that an issue "was not a question of principle; it was a question of tactics." He is a master tactician.

Mandela is no longer comfortable with inquiries or favors. He's fearful that he may not be able to summon what people expect when they visit a living deity, and vain enough to care that they not think him diminished. But the world has never needed Mandela's gifts — as a tactician, as an activist and, yes, as a politician — more, as he showed again in London on June 25, when he rose to condemn the savagery of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe. As we enter the main stretch of a historic presidential campaign in America, there is much that he can teach the two candidates. I've always thought of what you are about to read as Madiba's Rules (Madiba, his clan name, is what everyone close to him calls him), and they are cobbled together from our conversations old and new and from observing him up close and from afar. They are mostly practical. Many of them stem directly from his personal experience. All of them are calibrated to cause the best kind of trouble: the trouble that forces us to ask how we can make the world a better place.

No. 1
Courage is not the absence of fear — it's inspiring others to move beyond it
In 1994, during the presidential-election campaign, Mandela got on a tiny propeller plane to fly down to the killing fields of Natal and give a speech to his Zulu supporters. I agreed to meet him at the airport, where we would continue our work after his speech. When the plane was 20 minutes from landing, one of its engines failed. Some on the plane began to panic. The only thing that calmed them was looking at Mandela, who quietly read his newspaper as if he were a commuter on his morning train to the office. The airport prepared for an emergency landing, and the pilot managed to land the plane safely. When Mandela and I got in the backseat of his bulletproof BMW that would take us to the rally, he turned to me and said, "Man, I was terrified up there!"

Mandela was often afraid during his time underground, during the Rivonia trial that led to his imprisonment, during his time on Robben Island. "Of course I was afraid!" he would tell me later. It would have been irrational, he suggested, not to be. "I can't pretend that I'm brave and that I can beat the whole world." But as a leader, you cannot let people know. "You must put up a front."

And that's precisely what he learned to do: pretend and, through the act of appearing fearless, inspire others. It was a pantomime Mandela perfected on Robben Island, where there was much to fear. Prisoners who were with him said watching Mandela walk across the courtyard, upright and proud, was enough to keep them going for days. He knew that he was a model for others, and that gave him the strength to triumph over his own fear.

No. 2
Lead from the front — but don't leave your base behind
Mandela is cagey. in 1985 he was operated on for an enlarged prostate. When he was returned to prison, he was separated from his colleagues and friends for the first time in 21 years. They protested. But as his longtime friend Ahmed Kathrada recalls, he said to them, "Wait a minute, chaps. Some good may come of this."

The good that came of it was that Mandela on his own launched negotiations with the apartheid government. This was anathema to the African National Congress (ANC). After decades of saying "prisoners cannot negotiate" and after advocating an armed struggle that would bring the government to its knees, he decided that the time was right to begin to talk to his oppressors.

When he initiated his negotiations with the government in 1985, there were many who thought he had lost it. "We thought he was selling out," says Cyril Ramaphosa, then the powerful and fiery leader of the National Union of Mineworkers. "I went to see him to tell him, What are you doing? It was an unbelievable initiative. He took a massive risk."

Mandela launched a campaign to persuade the ANC that his was the correct course. His reputation was on the line. He went to each of his comrades in prison, Kathrada remembers, and explained what he was doing. Slowly and deliberately, he brought them along. "You take your support base along with you," says Ramaphosa, who was secretary-general of the ANC and is now a business mogul. "Once you arrive at the beachhead, then you allow the people to move on. He's not a bubble-gum leader — chew it now and throw it away."

For Mandela, refusing to negotiate was about tactics, not principles. Throughout his life, he has always made that distinction. His unwavering principle — the overthrow of apartheid and the achievement of one man, one vote — was immutable, but almost anything that helped him get to that goal he regarded as a tactic. He is the most pragmatic of idealists.

"He's a historical man," says Ramaphosa. "He was thinking way ahead of us. He has posterity in mind: How will they view what we've done?" Prison gave him the ability to take the long view. It had to; there was no other view possible. He was thinking in terms of not days and weeks but decades. He knew history was on his side, that the result was inevitable; it was just a question of how soon and how it would be achieved. "Things will be better in the long run," he sometimes said. He always played for the long run.

No. 3
Lead from the back — and let others believe they are in front
Mandela loved to reminisce about his boyhood and his lazy afternoons herding cattle. "You know," he would say, "you can only lead them from behind." He would then raise his eyebrows to make sure I got the analogy.

As a boy, Mandela was greatly influenced by Jongintaba, the tribal king who raised him. When Jongintaba had meetings of his court, the men gathered in a circle, and only after all had spoken did the king begin to speak. The chief's job, Mandela said, was not to tell people what to do but to form a consensus. "Don't enter the debate too early," he used to say.

During the time I worked with Mandela, he often called meetings of his kitchen cabinet at his home in Houghton, a lovely old suburb of Johannesburg. He would gather half a dozen men, Ramaphosa, Thabo Mbeki (who is now the South African President) and others around the dining-room table or sometimes in a circle in his driveway. Some of his colleagues would shout at him — to move faster, to be more radical — and Mandela would simply listen. When he finally did speak at those meetings, he slowly and methodically summarized everyone's points of view and then unfurled his own thoughts, subtly steering the decision in the direction he wanted without imposing it. The trick of leadership is allowing yourself to be led too. "It is wise," he said, "to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea."

No. 4
Know your enemy — and learn about his favorite sport
As far back as the 1960s, Mandela began studying Afrikaans, the language of the white South Africans who created apartheid. His comrades in the ANC teased him about it, but he wanted to understand the Afrikaner's worldview; he knew that one day he would be fighting them or negotiating with them, and either way, his destiny was tied to theirs.

This was strategic in two senses: by speaking his opponents' language, he might understand their strengths and weaknesses and formulate tactics accordingly. But he would also be ingratiating himself with his enemy. Everyone from ordinary jailers to P.W. Botha was impressed by Mandela's willingness to speak Afrikaans and his knowledge of Afrikaner history. He even brushed up on his knowledge of rugby, the Afrikaners' beloved sport, so he would be able to compare notes on teams and players.

Mandela understood that blacks and Afrikaners had something fundamental in common: Afrikaners believed themselves to be Africans as deeply as blacks did. He knew, too, that Afrikaners had been the victims of prejudice themselves: the British government and the white English settlers looked down on them. Afrikaners suffered from a cultural inferiority complex almost as much as blacks did.

Mandela was a lawyer, and in prison he helped the warders with their legal problems. They were far less educated and worldly than he, and it was extraordinary to them that a black man was willing and able to help them. These were "the most ruthless and brutal of the apartheid regime's characters," says Allister Sparks, the great South African historian, and he "realized that even the worst and crudest could be negotiated with."

No. 5
Keep your friends close — and your rivals even closer
Many of the guests Mandela invited to the house he built in Qunu were people whom, he intimated to me, he did not wholly trust. He had them to dinner; he called to consult with them; he flattered them and gave them gifts. Mandela is a man of invincible charm — and he has often used that charm to even greater effect on his rivals than on his allies.

On Robben Island, Mandela would always include in his brain trust men he neither liked nor relied on. One person he became close to was Chris Hani, the fiery chief of staff of the ANC's military wing. There were some who thought Hani was conspiring against Mandela, but Mandela cozied up to him. "It wasn't just Hani," says Ramaphosa. "It was also the big industrialists, the mining families, the opposition. He would pick up the phone and call them on their birthdays. He would go to family funerals. He saw it as an opportunity." When Mandela emerged from prison, he famously included his jailers among his friends and put leaders who had kept him in prison in his first Cabinet. Yet I well knew that he despised some of these men.

There were times he washed his hands of people — and times when, like so many people of great charm, he allowed himself to be charmed. Mandela initially developed a quick rapport with South African President F.W. de Klerk, which is why he later felt so betrayed when De Klerk attacked him in public.

Mandela believed that embracing his rivals was a way of controlling them: they were more dangerous on their own than within his circle of influence. He cherished loyalty, but he was never obsessed by it. After all, he used to say, "people act in their own interest." It was simply a fact of human nature, not a flaw or a defect. The flip side of being an optimist — and he is one — is trusting people too much. But Mandela recognized that the way to deal with those he didn't trust was to neutralize them with charm.

No. 6
Appearances matter — and remember to smile
When Mandela was a poor law student in Johannesburg wearing his one threadbare suit, he was taken to see Walter Sisulu. Sisulu was a real estate agent and a young leader of the ANC. Mandela saw a sophisticated and successful black man whom he could emulate. Sisulu saw the future.

Sisulu once told me that his great quest in the 1950s was to turn the ANC into a mass movement; and then one day, he recalled with a smile, "a mass leader walked into my office." Mandela was tall and handsome, an amateur boxer who carried himself with the regal air of a chief's son. And he had a smile that was like the sun coming out on a cloudy day.

We sometimes forget the historical correlation between leadership and physicality. George Washington was the tallest and probably the strongest man in every room he entered. Size and strength have more to do with DNA than with leadership manuals, but Mandela understood how his appearance could advance his cause. As leader of the ANC's underground military wing, he insisted that he be photographed in the proper fatigues and with a beard, and throughout his career he has been concerned about dressing appropriately for his position. George Bizos, his lawyer, remembers that he first met Mandela at an Indian tailor's shop in the 1950s and that Mandela was the first black South African he had ever seen being fitted for a suit. Now Mandela's uniform is a series of exuberant-print shirts that declare him the joyous grandfather of modern Africa.

When Mandela was running for the presidency in 1994, he knew that symbols mattered as much as substance. He was never a great public speaker, and people often tuned out what he was saying after the first few minutes. But it was the iconography that people understood. When he was on a platform, he would always do the toyi-toyi, the township dance that was an emblem of the struggle. But more important was that dazzling, beatific, all-inclusive smile. For white South Africans, the smile symbolized Mandela's lack of bitterness and suggested that he was sympathetic to them. To black voters, it said, I am the happy warrior, and we will triumph. The ubiquitous ANC election poster was simply his smiling face. "The smile," says Ramaphosa, "was the message."

After he emerged from prison, people would say, over and over, It is amazing that he is not bitter. There are a thousand things Nelson Mandela was bitter about, but he knew that more than anything else, he had to project the exact opposite emotion. He always said, "Forget the past" — but I knew he never did.

No. 7
Nothing is black or white
When we began our series of interviews, I would often ask Mandela questions like this one: When you decided to suspend the armed struggle, was it because you realized you did not have the strength to overthrow the government or because you knew you could win over international opinion by choosing nonviolence? He would then give me a curious glance and say, "Why not both?"

I did start asking smarter questions, but the message was clear: Life is never either/or. Decisions are complex, and there are always competing factors. To look for simple explanations is the bias of the human brain, but it doesn't correspond to reality. Nothing is ever as straightforward as it appears.

Mandela is comfortable with contradiction. As a politician, he was a pragmatist who saw the world as infinitely nuanced. Much of this, I believe, came from living as a black man under an apartheid system that offered a daily regimen of excruciating and debilitating moral choices: Do I defer to the white boss to get the job I want and avoid a punishment? Do I carry my pass?

As a statesman, Mandela was uncommonly loyal to Muammar Gaddafi and Fidel Castro. They had helped the ANC when the U.S. still branded Mandela as a terrorist. When I asked him about Gaddafi and Castro, he suggested that Americans tend to see things in black and white, and he would upbraid me for my lack of nuance. Every problem has many causes. While he was indisputably and clearly against apartheid, the causes of apartheid were complex. They were historical, sociological and psychological. Mandela's calculus was always, What is the end that I seek, and what is the most practical way to get there?

No. 8
Quitting is leading too
In 1993, Mandela asked me if I knew of any countries where the minimum voting age was under 18. I did some research and presented him with a rather undistinguished list: Indonesia, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea and Iran. He nodded and uttered his highest praise: "Very good, very good." Two weeks later, Mandela went on South African television and proposed that the voting age be lowered to 14. "He tried to sell us the idea," recalls Ramaphosa, "but he was the only [supporter]. And he had to face the reality that it would not win the day. He accepted it with great humility. He doesn't sulk. That was also a lesson in leadership."

Knowing how to abandon a failed idea, task or relationship is often the most difficult kind of decision a leader has to make. In many ways, Mandela's greatest legacy as President of South Africa is the way he chose to leave it. When he was elected in 1994, Mandela probably could have pressed to be President for life — and there were many who felt that in return for his years in prison, that was the least South Africa could do.

In the history of Africa, there have been only a handful of democratically elected leaders who willingly stood down from office. Mandela was determined to set a precedent for all who followed him — not only in South Africa but across the rest of the continent. He would be the anti-Mugabe, the man who gave birth to his country and refused to hold it hostage. "His job was to set the course," says Ramaphosa, "not to steer the ship." He knows that leaders lead as much by what they choose not to do as what they do.

Ultimately, the key to understanding Mandela is those 27 years in prison. The man who walked onto Robben Island in 1964 was emotional, headstrong, easily stung. The man who emerged was balanced and disciplined. He is not and never has been introspective. I often asked him how the man who emerged from prison differed from the willful young man who had entered it. He hated this question. Finally, in exasperation one day, he said, "I came out mature." There is nothing so rare — or so valuable — as a mature man. Happy birthday, Madiba.

 

VIDEO: Malcolm X at Oxford, 1964 > Open Culture

Malcolm X at Oxford, 1964

I enjoy replaying this vintage gem every now and then  - Malcolm X debating at Oxford University in 1964. In this classic video, you get a good feel for Malcolm X’s presence and message, not to mention the social issues that were alive during the day. You’ll hear X’s trademark claim that liberty can be attained by “whatever means necessary,” including force, if the government won’t guarantee it, and that “intelligently directed extremism” will achieve liberty far more effectively than pacifist strategies. (He’s clearly alluding to Martin Luther King.) You can listen to the speech in its entirety here (Real Audio), something that is well worth doing. But I’d also encourage you to watch the dramatic closing minutes and pay some attention to the nice rhetorical slide, where X takes lines from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and uses them to justify his “by whatever means necessary” position. You’d probably never expect to see Hamlet getting invoked that way, let alone Malcolm X speaking at Oxford. A wonderful set of contrasts.

“I read once, passingly, about a man named Shakespeare. I only read about him passingly, but I remember one thing he wrote that kind of moved me. He put it in the mouth of Hamlet, I think, it was, who said, ‘To be or not to be.’ He was in doubt about something—whether it was nobler in the mind of man to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune—moderation—or to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. And I go for that. If you take up arms, you’ll end it, but if you sit around and wait for the one who’s in power to make up his mind that he should end it, you’ll be waiting a long time. And in my opinion, the young generation of whites, blacks, browns, whatever else there is, you’re living at a time of extremism, a time of revolution, a time when there’s got to be a change. People in power have misused it, and now there has to be a change and a better world has to be built, and the only way it’s going to be built—is with extreme methods. And I, for one, will join in with anyone—I don’t care what color you are—as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth.”

 

VIDEO: the mirrior boy > afroklectic

the mirrior boy

 

Released mid last year, The Mirror Boy is about London born 12 year old Tijani who's mother takes him back to his roots to The Gambia. It's the case of the naughty child taken back to Africa to learn some discipline and it's not a good afro-movie without some juju sprinkled into it. 

I remember my Mum saying to me a few years ago that she was contemplating sending me to Ghana when I was about 5 or 6 years old for a few years to learn life the hard way. From her list of fears, juju was one of them. Still is today, when I tell her I am going to Ghana by myself!

Makes me want to watch this movie even more. I know it's the movie, but this movie is like my mother's fear translated into something I can view. It's quite unfortunate that Australia is so far and we miss out on watching or getting the films to us. I am determine to find this movie and watch it!