VIDEO: Intended Consequences by Jonathan Torgovnik > MediaStorm

INTENDED CONSEQUENCES

ABOUT
In 1994, in the East African nation of Rwanda, one million ethnic Tutsi people were slaughtered, in a genocide committed by their Hutu countrymen. But the scars left by these murderous militiamen go well beyond the numbers of the dead: they live on, in the lives of the women they held captive, raped - and left pregnant.

Intended Consequences tells the stories of some of these women, victims of the sexual violence used as a weapon of war against them. Some 20,000 children were born as a result. Photojournalist Jonathan Torgovnik photographed and interviewed 30 women and their families, and has produced a piece of incredible complexity: how does a woman care for her child when it's the son or daughter of the man who raped her?

CREDITS
Photography & Interviews: Jonathan Torgovnik
Producer: Chad A. Stevens
Executive Producer: Brian Storm
On-Location Video: Jules Shell
Studio Video: Bob Sacha, Chad A. Stevens, Pamela Chen
Original Music: Pamela Chen, Sherman Jia
Graphics: Tim Klimowicz
Translation: Geoffrey Ngiruwonsanga
Narration: Rosette Adera, Yvette Rugasaguhunga, Hope Kantete
Translation: Portuguese: Leandro Badalotti, Israel Krindges

 
HOW TO HELP
Foundation Rwanda
Amnesty International

 

WOMEN: Rihanna’s “Man Down” - 3 Views

Rihanna's "Man Down"

Reading actress Gabrielle Union’s tweets this morning about her attempt to kill her rapist at the tender age of 19 bought Rihanna’s video for “Man Down” right back to center and in living color for me. Please don’t let the beautiful rural Jamaican backdrop, pulsating beats, or Riri’s rude gyal rumpapapums fool ya, “Man Down” is about rape and more specifically, the very real and possible psychological fallout from such a crime. Rihanna, I feel, should be applauded for giving this subject a platform to be discussed and also for simply keeping it real. Let’s face it, not every person who is sexually assaulted (women and men) seeks out or has access to therapy or counseling and live happily ever after. And let’s not front, we know not every rapist gets his due and serves jail time for their offenses (ahem Dominique Strauss-Kahn and *cough* the two NYC police officers that were charged with raping a very drunk woman whom they “home visited” THREE times). Gabrielle’s tweets move the action beyond the soundstage to flesh and blood-shedding reality:

“Saw ‘Man Down’ by @rihanna. Every victim/survivor of rape is unique, including how they THINK they’d like justice 2 be handed out. Durin my rape I tried 2 shoot my rapist, bt I missed. Over the yrs I realized tht killin my rapist wouldve added insult 2 injury. The DESIRE 2 kill someone whose abused/raped u is understandable, bt unless its self defense n the moment 2 save ur life, just ADDS 2 ur troubles #mandown. I repeat SELF DEFENSE 2 save urself/protect urself, I’m ALL 4. Otherwise victim/survivor takin justice N2 ur own hands w/ violence=MO trouble 4 U!! #mandown video did a GREAT job of getting the ENTIRE world TALKING abt RAPE. I hope tht it leads 2 HEALING & PREVENTS RAPE.”

I loved “Man Down” immediately for its reggae tinged windin’ grind groove. The video just has me going harder for this joint and for Ri because it affirms young women’s desire and right to be sensual and sexy and to shake our grove thang on the dancefloor cuz we love ourselves that much and because we can. But some folks don’t share my enthusiasm. The Parents’ Television Council was outraged that BET would show a video that promotes violence and not show alternatives like counseling as a solution. I have two questions for them: Where the hell were they when Nelly was running Visa cards through the booty cracks of Black women in his music video for “Tip Drill”? And two: Where in the video or lyrics do you hear Rihanna celebrating murder? You would think Riri broke out into the electric slide after shooting her assailant. The song is a remorseful, contemplative rumination on taking back the night. Boom Bye Bye it is not.

Former BET exec and PTC rep, Paul Porter, stated, “In my 30 years of viewing BET, I have never witnessed such a cold, calculated execution of murder in primetime. If Chris Brown shot a woman in his new video and BET premiered it, the world would stop.”

Really Paul? Is there no murder in BET’s primetime series American Gangster? And check it, let me take this point about Chris Brown a step further: What if Chris Brown in real life, in his real rented sports car beat the living ish outta his real life girlfriend and then left her for dead, unconscious and fled the scene, then what would BET, Viacom or the PTC do? Yeah right, not a dayum thing– nary a peep from any of them.

Truth is Rihanna is a victim of domestic abuse and she is also an artist who gets paid to entertain (just like Farrah Fawcett did before her in “Burning Bed”) and she made this point crystal clear last week when she defended “Man Down”: “This is the REAL WORLD!… The music industry isn’t exactly Parents R Us! We have the freedom to make art, LET US!” And besides people, if you’re going to go after Rihanna for “Man Down” then you better go after Bob Marley for his “I Shot The Sheriff” too. Until then, man-up and kill the noise!

__________________________
In the Future,
We Kill Our Attackers:
Rihanna’s “Man Down”
as Afrofuturist Text
Posted on June 9, 2011 by Kismet Nuñez
Rihanna’s video for “Man Down”  dropped last week and set the web on fire.  The way justice and rape, innocence and violence work in the video–and the non-sensical responses to it–have already been outlined by better writers than me.

I’m writing this post to take the video to its logical conclusion:

In the future, do we kill our attackers?


 ~*~*~

This description of the plot is by Akiba Solomon, writing for Colorlines:

“The video begins with a tense Rihanna perched in the upper balcony of a crowded train station. When she spots a tall man with a “buck 50” scar on his cheek (in this context, visual code for “badman” or gangsta) she shoots him in the back of the head then winces. Toward the end of the clip, we learn why the tearful singer “shot a man down, in Central Station, in front of a big old crowd”: Because the night before, at a sweaty dancehall, she sets physical limits with him and he retaliates by following her home and raping her.”

Solomon’s description is the best I’ve seen for all it doesn’t take for granted and for all it explains.  The video was shot in Jamaica but the signifiers of “place” are actually quite unclear (even less so to an African-Americanized audience).  There are no Jamaican flags waving.  The name of the train station in the beginning is not shown.  Ads for things like Vita Coco proliferate but globalization has made such things international staples from Miami to Accra.  English decorates signs and insignia, distinguishing this as a particular diasporic space but there are few other markers of Anglo-ness.

Instead, the “place” of the video is steeped in symbols from across the global African diaspora.   It is ambiguous but familiar, universal but distinctly (global) Southern.  Warm sun.  Linen hanging on the line.  Young boys hanging out at the corner store.  Young women throwing themselves into the wide, swinging grind of a dancehall beat.  Children running around in backyards.  Elder women shopping or fanning themselves in the canopies of shops.  Elder men on bikes.

Black bodies, all ages, all genders, going about their work and their lives.  Black bodies everywhere.

Rihanna like a blazing yellow light, fierce-skinned, flame-haired, drifting between.  Happy.  Innocent.  Spirited, sensual and laughing in their midst.

This isn’t heaven.  The young boys at the corner store have guns.  And this isn’t some primitive past.  The music, the clothing, the technology don’t point us back to another time.   But this also isn’t any one place.  It is Dakar and Lagos and Cape Town.  It is Paris and Marseille and Liverpool.  It is New York and Miami and parts of Chicago.

It is Port-au-Prince, B.t.E. (Before the Earthquake).

It is New Orleans, B.K.  (Before Katrina).

The press of dancehall, which, like hip hop, is more global than local, only adds to the meta-africana setting presented.   Even Rihanna, a Bajan born, internationally known superstar, shooting a video bound to be a mega-hit on a neighboring island, and writing a song whose lyrics are set in New York is a part of this diasporic narrative.

 
This is now.  And…this is the future.

In the May/June issue of the Boston Review, Junot Diaz wrote:

“I suspect that once we have finished ransacking our planet’s resources, once we have pushed a couple thousand more species into extinction and exhausted the water table and poisoned everything in sight and exacerbated the atmospheric warming that will finish off the icecaps and drown out our coastlines, once our market operations have parsed the world into the extremes of ultra-rich and not-quite-dead, once the famished billions that our economic systems left behind have in their insatiable hunger finished stripping the biosphere clean, what we will be left with will be a stricken, forlorn desolation, a future out of a sci-fi fever dream where the super-rich will live in walled-up plantations of impossible privilege and the rest of us will wallow in unimaginable extremity, staggering around the waste and being picked off by the hundreds of thousands by “natural disasters”—by “acts of god.” “

He was speaking of Haiti.  And of tipping points.  And of can’t-turn-back-nows.

But he was also speaking of everywhere.

This is now.  And this is the future.

And in the future, we kill our attackers.

~*~*~

So is Rihanna’s video a post-apocalyptic (in other words, afrofuturist) ethnoscape with an alien #comecorrect black girl?

OR

Is it a post-apocalyptic (in other words afrofuturistic) ethnoscape where the #comecorrect black girl is still an alien?  In other words,

“In the future, we kill our attackers”

OR

“Even in the future, black girls who own their sexuality, who demand justice, who are in process, who are not walking vaginas to be touched, fondled, kissed without permission, street harassed, followed, honked at, beaten or raped are aliens?”

From some quarters, it would seem that black girls owning their sexuality is still alien, foreign, dangerous, toxic behavior and gawd forbid it spread to your daughter.

Otherwise known as, gawd forbid she not spread, for the next man/boy/child/uncle/adult who decides she is too uppity for her own good.  God forbid she own the place between her legs.

“ ‘Man Down’ is an inexcusable, shock-only, shoot-and-kill theme song. In my 30 years of viewing BET, I have never witnessed such a cold, calculated execution of murder in primetime. Viacom’s standards and practices department has reached another new low.”

In the future, apparently, to walk through the world at peace with yourself, secure, loved and loving, kissing grandmas, hugging little sisters, teasing the boys, wearing clothes that let the sun touch your skin, let the wind rush past the skin of inside your thighs–all of this will still mark you as a being from outer space and out of bounds, subject to immediate discipline.  A sentencing and a silencing.

“Once again BET has chosen the low road over the high road. Violence is a pervasive problem in all corners of our society and today’s youth need more positive strategies for dealing with conflict than those portrayed in the Rihanna video. This video is one among several frequently played on Viacom music video networks that lyrically or graphically glorifies violence and other behavior inappropriate for teens and youth….”

Because the only positive role for black girls is quiet, is cornered, is clothed, is virginal and vaginal and covered.

And this sun-kissed, pink-haired alien, just dropped right from outer space, just all wrong and inappropriate, just all incorrect because–

she let her heels ride high above the ground (extra-terrestrial) walking tall and taller and didn’t walk with her arms hidden,

she didn’t hang her head when HE passed,

she didn’t divert her eyes when THEY looked (and she winked back),

her head is lifted and unafraid,

her #HairFlips smoke and smoulder and glitter,

and she shook HIM off when HE tried to bend her back.

Good lord!  We need to bottle up that kind of incorrect, parcel it out and SELL it on the streets, on the shelves of Black Girl Power shops EVERYWHERE.  That kind of incorrect could forever tilt the world on its axis.

The violence she did to the fabric of respectable behavior was complete BEFORE SHE PUT A GUN IN HER HAND.

But on top of that, she is incorrect because she ran for the gun (instead…what?) and then cried when she used it (cold, you say?).

~*~*~

Because in the future, we are still raped.

In fact, rape plays such a central role in the speculative fiction imaginary, that campaigns have been started to raise awareness of the phenomenon.  Not because rape should not be used as a literary device, per se, but because it is often used without critique and without analysis, particularly by (older) (white) (straight) male authors in the same way murder is.  SQT wrote:

“Whenever this topic comes up, it’s inevitable that someone will say something along the lines of murder is worse than rape and walk away from the subject as if that was some kind of conversational coup de grâce. End of discussion. I win. You lose. …

The thing with rape is that it is primarily a crime against women. There are still cultures that blame the woman if she is victimized. Even worse, there are societies that know women will be rejected by their family if they are raped, so it becomes a very effective tool of war. Women know that every man has the power to victimize her in a very particular way and that we cannot know when this threat will surface. We can’t walk to our cars at night free of worry and we have different standards for safety when it comes to our sons and daughters because of it–how many sons have to be told to guard their drinks when going to a bar against date-rape drugs? This is the bogeyman of a lot of women’s nightmares. “

This is more than a matter of how hard it is to imagine a future where women are safe, are whole, are healthy, wear pink and white, kiss boys, kiss girls and touch themselves without violence.

This is about the widespread, pervasive acceptance of a particular brand of gendered, sexual violence–so widespread, so pervasive, so accepted, that this violence is timeless, is automatic, does not require critical, is knee-jerk, does not need to be explained or justified, ISN’T EVEN SEEN when we are looking DEAD AT IT.

This violence is also ancient.  Rihanna’s “Man Down” black girl isn’t alien or futuristic because she is assaulted.  This already happened.  The Magical Negro solved all of our problems before we knew they existed but the Magical Negress was raped with impunity and a new modernity built from the ruins of her broken womb.  Society can wipe its hands off.  This has already been done.

No.

She is an alien because black girls who #comecorrect are still aliens.  And aliens need to be probed.  And quarantined–a desperate Now to contain the Future.

And she is walking through a black futurist dystopia, because in the future, black girls who #comecorrect are still aliens AND we kill our attackers.

Imagine that.  Imagine that the abduction, doesn’t stop there.  If instead, after the probing and the drugging, there wasn’t a quarantining and a silencing and the machinery of the press and courts and judges and a global prison industrial complex.

Imagine, instead that there was an alternative justice, there was an alternative court, and an alternative violence that could occur.

What would we do then?

What could we do?

If Darryl A. Smith’s elucidation of afrofuturist rage and pain and zombie apocalypse is the “Pit” to mainstream (read: white) science fiction’s “Tip” (read: final frontier, better pastures beyond, brave new world, Columbus-complex), then violence against women of color is the Pit’s rotting core.  And we would do well to listen to the screams coming from the cellar instead of reacting to fantasies of invasion from above.

Because in the future, we RUN for our guns.

And we kill our attackers.


 

EDIT:  Normally Zora Walker holds my footnotes.  But this is Sable Fan Gyrl week.  For a list of readings related to afrofuturism that helped inform this post, click here.

__________________________

One ‘Man Down’;
Rape Culture Still Standing
by Mark Anthony Neal | @NewBlackMan

 
Art should disturb the public square and Rihanna has done just that with the music video for her song “Man Down,” directed by long-time collaborator Anthony Mandler. The song and video tell the story of a casual encounter in a Jamaican dancehall, that turns into a rape, when a young woman rejects the sexual advances of the man she has just danced with. Much of the negative criticism directed at “Man Down” revolves a revenge act, where Rihanna’s character shoots her rapist in cold-blood.

Some have found the gun violence in video’s opening sensationalist and gratuitous. The Parents Television Council chided Rihanna, offering that “Instead of telling victims they should seek help, Rihanna released a music video that gives retaliation in the form of premeditated murder the imprimatur of acceptability.” Paul Porter, co-founder of the influential media watchdog Industry Ears, suggested that a double standard existed, noting that, “If Chris Brown shot a woman in his new video and BET premiered it, the world would stop.” Both responses have some validity, but they also willfully dismiss the broader contexts in which rape functions in our society. Such violence becomes a last resort for some women, because of the insidious ways rape victims are demonized and rapists are protected in American society.

Part of the problem with Rihanna and Anthony Mandler’s intervention, is the problem of the messenger herself. For far too many Rihanna’s objectivity remains suspect in the incidence of partner violence, that was her own life. As a pop-Top 40 star who has consistently delivered pabulum to the masses, minus any of the irony that we would assign to Lady Gaga or even Beyonce, there are some who will simply refuse to take Rihanna seriously—dismissing this intervention as little more than stylized violence in the pursuit of maintaining the re-boot. Porter, for example, argues that BET was willing to co-sign the video, which debuted on the network, all in the name of securing Rihanna’s talents for the upcoming BET Awards Show. It’s that very level of cynicism that makes public discussions of rape so difficult to engage.

I imagine that much less criticism would have been levied at Erykah Badu, Marsha Ambrosias or Mary J. Blige for the same intervention, in large part because they are thought to possess a gravitas—hard-earned, no doubt—that Rihanna doesn’t. This particular aspect of the response to Rihanna’s “Man Down” video highlights the troubling tendency, among critics and fans, to limit the artistic ambitions of artists, particularly women and artists of color. Rihanna’s music has never been great art (nor should it have to be), but that doesn’t mean that the visual presentation of her music can’t be provocative and meaningful in ways that we nominally assign to art. Additionally, responses to “Man Down” also adhere to the long established practice of rendering all forms of Black expressions as a form of Realism, aided and abetted by a celebrity culture that consistently blurs the lines between the real and the staged.

Ultimately discussions of “Man Down” should pivot on whether the gun shooting that opens the video was a measured and appropriate response to an act of rape. Perhaps in some simplistic context, such violence might seem unnecessary, yet in a culture that consistently diminishes the violence associated with rape, often employing user friendly euphemisms like sexual violence—as was the case in the initial New York Times coverage of a recent Texas gang rape case—rather than call a rape a rape. As an artistic statement, intended to disturb the public square, Rihanna’s deployment of the gun is an appropriate response to the relative silence associated with acts of rape, let alone the residual violence that women accusers are subject to in the denial and dismissal of their victimization with terms like “she deserved it,” or “she was asking for it” because of her style of dress.

One wishes that as much energy that was expended criticizing Rihanna’s video for its gun violence was expended to address the ravages of the rape culture that we live in. One man may be down, but rape culture is still standing.

***

Mark Anthony Neal, a Professor of African-American Studies at Duke University, is the author of five books, including the forthcoming Looking for Leroy and the co-editor (with Murray Forman) of That's the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader (2nd Edition) which will be published next month.  Follow him on Twitter @NewBlackMan

 

VIDEO: Aretha Franklin (with Bishop Paul Morton) - "Precious Memories"

"Precious Memories"

Aretha Franklin with Bishop Paul Morton & Choir sings "Precious Memories".

" Her gospel number was GREAT! GREAT! GREAT! (...)". 
M. E. Ladd.

"What is wonderful about Ms. Franklin is that when she sustains a note indefinitely, embarks on long and winding melismas or pushes a run of notes far into the upper register -- feats that would tax most singers' capabilities -- it all comes naturally to her voice (...)" NYTIMES.

 

VIDEO: "High Class" - Bupe feat. Kerah & Jaya (Kenya)

High Class - Bupe feat. Kerah & Jaya
BUY AUDIO - http://www.Kenyandownloads.com/Bupe

Written by Christopher Bupe, Githiomi "Kerah" Kirangi, Patricia "Jaya" Awinja
Produced by Desmond "Big Boss" Bosire
Mixed and Mastered by Desmond "Big Boss" Bosire
CTA - Cleaning The Airwaves

Buy Audio - http://www.Kenyandownloads.com/Bupe

Lyrics
I know this they know this even deep in your heart you confess this/ The church knows this, the world knows this, even atheist around they've confessed this/ There is none, only one who deserves to be called three in one/ like a supermarket all in one, He's all that you need He's the One!...../ He got class, no money in the bank He can stash/ 'cause He owns all the bling and the cash, He can give and take life in a flash/ He's the image of what you don't see, yeah the coolest dude on the street/ wait, He was slain on a tree? (huh?)Just for you and for me?/ that's the reason I look up and see, all the birds in the sky and the trees/ feel the fresh air blow as a breeze, yes yes yes this man knows me/ He's the Lord of mercy mercy mercy, the King that made Diana/ I'ma stand and worship worship worship Him and raise His banner.

Chorus
Ninakujua wewe (wewe ni High Class)
Huhitaji bling bling, ching ching (wewe ni High Class)
Nimeroll na wewe, vile we huvutia ni High Class
Nimeyaota na wewe, Maisha haya na wewe
High Class, High Class, High Class, High Class
High Class, High Class, Vile wanivutia kweli (wewe ni High Class)

Tell me do you know this God/ do you really know who He is/ ever heard about God the Father the Holy Son and the Holy breeze/ He's so so fresh and fancy so cool He could make you freeze/ so stylish and so classy I praise Him on my knees/ this God I talk about got swag, look at everything that He has/ He owns all types of music hip hop, reggae, rap and jazz/ He's bigger than Tupac, Notorious, Timbaland, Jay Z and Nas/ more class than your Gucci, Gabbana, Prada and Adidas/ God rocks more than diamonds He glitters more than gold/ He's the image on True Love the front page, back page and inner fold/ but His humility kills me He doesn't really have to brag/ I desire Him He's so beautiful so fly He's got me jet lagged/

Yeah I really wanna make you happy put a smile on your face/ but I know that its not easy si rahisi as I run this race/ kuna times when I wake up na sahau that I've been saved by grace/ would you wash me yes cleanse me, would you take away this bitter taste/ kuna times when I wanna do right najipata nime fail kama driving test/ and there are times when I wanna go back and I feel like crap you do the rest/ Oh Lord I forgot who you are, you're more than a superstar/ you roll on a different level your standards have raised the bar.

MWAPI Entertain/Meant
Music With A Positive Influence
http://www.Kenyangospel.com/mwapi

 

PUB: Nigerian Film Corporation Essay Competition

 

Nigerian Film Corporation 2011/ 2012

Film Essay Competition

Deadline: 1 July 2011

TOPIC of the 2011/2012 Film Essay Competition, organised by Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC) is Re-emergence of the Cinema: Impact on the Local Industry and National Economy.

Organisers announced this in a statement issued recently. 2011/2012 marks the sixth edition of the essay competition which began in 2005. Entries begin June 1 and closes on July 1, 2011.

Interested members of the public, who must be 18 years and above are eligible to enter their essays. However, members of staff of the NFC, their spouses and wards are not eligible to participate. Also, winners in the immediate past three editions of the Film Essay Competition are not eligible. Entries must have a minimum of 10 and maximum of 15 pages, double space typed, with the Calibri font type, 14 point size and on A4 paper.

The essays should be forwarded to the following addresses of the Corporation: Nigerian Film Corporation Headquaters, in Jos Plateau State; NFC Office, in Lagos; NFC Office in Wuse Zone 5, Abuja; NFC Office, Kano State Secretariat, Kano or preferably through the Corporation’s e-mail addresses: md_nfc@hotmail.com or contact @nfc.gov.ng

Winners will be contacted through their official addresses while their certificates of participation and prizes will be presented during ZUMA Film Festival 2012 in Abuja.

Via: 
compassnewspaper.com

Contact Information:

For inquiries: md_nfc@hotmail.com or contact@nfc.gov.ng

For submissions: md_nfc@hotmail.com or contact@nfc.gov.ng

Website: http://www.nfc.gov.ng

 

PUB: The Astounding Story Contest

"The Astounding..." Story Contest

Prize Details

One winner’s original story will be published in the Simon & Schuster paperback edition of the novel “The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown,” by Paul Malmont.

Contest Instructions

Finish the story begun by one of the characters in the new novel. Start your version with “The robot felt…” Finish with “In the end, the robot felt nothing. He wasn’t programmed to.” The up-to-2000 words in between are all yours.

Then get friends and fans to vote for your story. Paul Malmont and a panel of industry judges will choose the winner from the top five vote-getters. The winning story will be published at the end of the paperback edition of “The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown.”

The winner grants Simon & Schuster and Paul Malmont a royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide license to use the story in all versions of The Astounding, The Amazing, and the Unknown and associated media including advertising and the author’s website.

The Winner will be announced at Comic Con International in San Diego!!

Prize Eligibility
Only persons residing in United States who are at least 21 years of age can enter.
Contest Starts
May 21, 2011 @ 12:01 am (EDT)
Contest Ends
July 04, 2011 @ 11:59 pm (EDT)
Need more Details?
Read the Official Rules

PUB: call for papers - AFSAAP home page

34th AFSAAP conference

"Africa 2011"

Flinders University, City Campus, Adelaide
November 30 - December 2 2011

Call for papers
 

From the African continent to the African diaspora in Australasia, understanding Africa is of increasing significance. "Africa 2011” is the theme of the 34th Annual Conference of the African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific, with the conference to provide a forum in which to bring together academics, scholars, the African Community and service providers working with the African community, NGOs, government agencies, foreign embassies and high commissions, to debate and discuss where Africa is situated politically, economically, socially, environmentally and historically. 2011 has seen dramatic protests in North Africa and will see the formation of Africa’s newest state – “South Sudan”, suggesting that our knowledge of Africa must encompass those countries North of the Sahara – more often included in Middle Eastern area studies. Australia is currently expanding its interests in Africa – in trade, aid and defence. A new Australian embassy in Addis Ababa highlights the importance of diplomacy with the African Union, and comes at a time when domestic budgetary pressures have sparked debate about increasing aid to Africa. 2011 will also see the introduction of scholarships under the Australia Awards for Africa Program, and the report from the Parliamentary Inquiry into “Australia’s Relations with the Countries of Africa” will be presented. The United Nations has proclaimed 2011 as the International Year for People of African descent, “with a view to strengthening national actions and regional and international cooperation for the benefit of people of African descent in relation to their full enjoyment of economic, cultural, social, civil and political rights, their participation and integration in all political, economic, social and cultural aspects of society, and the promotion of a greater knowledge of and respect for their diverse heritage and culture”. It is from this theme that the “Africa 2011”conference will draw inspiration.

You are invited to submit an abstract of 200 words by the deadline of August 12011 for either a paper presentation or a proposal for a panel forum. Paper presentations will be for 20 minutes, with question time to follow. All abstracts and papers will be peer reviewed by AFSAAP and, if accepted, published in the Conference Proceedings.

The Postgraduate Workshop will be held on November 30. A prize of $3,500 for the best postgraduate paper(s) delivered at the conference has been kindly donated by Monash University and the University of South Australia. Click here for further details.

The contact person for the Conference is David Jolley. Please email africa2011@afsaap.org.au with your abstracts before August 1 2011, and with any other queries.

The Conference Convener is Dr. Tanya Lyons – tanya.lyons@flinders.edu.au
 

Go to the conference site


Other AFSAAP news

  • The AFSAAP President announces the participation of AFSAAP in the delivery and management of the Australia Awards for Africa Program in conjunction with GRM International. The President's announcement is here.
  • The Proceedings of the 33rd Annual AFSAAP conference hosted by Victoria University and held on December 2 - 4 2010 are now available at the conference site.
  • The African Studies Association of India have become an organisational member of AFSAAP.
  • Congratulations to Samantha Balaton-Chrimes, whose conference paper "The Nubians of Kenya and the emancipatory potential of collective recognition" has been awarded the 2010 AFSAAP Postgraduate Prize. AFSAAP appreciates the generosity of Monash University in sponsoring the award.
  • Membership fees for AFSAAP are now payable online via credit card. For more details please go to the Join AFSAAP page.

REVIEW: Book—'Africa - Altered States, Ordinary Miracles,' by Richard Dowden > NYTimes.com

Bright Continent

Candace Feit for The New York Times

Published: May 1, 2009

Mention Africa in polite company, and those around you may grimace, shake their heads sadly and profess sympathy. Oh, all those wars! Those diseases! Those dictators!

Skip to next paragraph

AFRICA

Altered States, Ordinary Miracles

By Richard Dowden

576 pp. PublicAffairs. $29.95

Naturally, that sympathy infuriates Africans themselves, for the conventional view of Africa as a genocide inside a failed state inside a dictatorship is, in fact, wrong. In the last few years, Africa over all has enjoyed economic growth rates of approximately 5 percent, better than in the United States (although population growth is also higher). Africa has even produced some “tiger cub” economies, like Botswana and Rwanda, that show what the continent is capable of. (A new Web site, See Africa Differently, specifically aims to present a more positive image of the continent.)

The bane of Africa is war, but the number of conflicts tearing apart the continent has dwindled. The murderous old buffoons like Idi Amin are gone, and we’re steadily seeing the rise of highly skilled technocrats, who accept checks on their power and don’t regard the treasury as their private piggy bank. The Rwandan cabinet room is far more high-tech than the White House cabinet room, and when you talk to new leaders like Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia you can’t help wondering about investing your 401(k) in Liberian stocks.

Richard Dowden’s “Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles” aims in part to correct the negative stereotypes. Dowden, a veteran British journalist who now heads the Royal African Society, has been bouncing around the continent since 1971 and covers a great deal of ground. Much of the text is travelogue that I found a yawn. But Dowden is at his best when looking at grand themes — like the degree to which Africa is more promising than journalists or aid workers often acknowledge.

“The media’s problem is that, by covering only disasters and wars, it gives us only that image of the continent,” Dowden writes — and 90 percent of the Africans reading this are now nodding at that line. “Persistent images of starving children and men with guns have accumulated into our narrative of the continent.”

“The aid industry too has an interest in maintaining the image of Africans as hopeless victims of endless wars and persistent famines,” Dowden continues. “However well intentioned their motives may once have been, aid agencies have helped create the single, distressing image of Africa. They and journalists feed off each other.”

In particular, Dowden lets loose at celebrities like Bob Geldof and politicians like Tony Blair with their “messianic mission to save Africa.” As Dowden writes: “That set teeth on edge. It sounded like saving Africa from the Africans.”

I’ve thought a good deal about these issues, partly because I’m often a purveyor of columns about war and disaster in Africa, from Darfur to Congo to AIDS in southern Africa. And frankly, it’s discomfiting to feel that I’m helping Africa by exposing such catastrophes, and then have African leaders complain — as they do — that such reporting undermines their access to foreign investment and their ability to expand their economies and overcome poverty.

My own take is that we in the news media and in the aid world can and should do a much better job providing context and acknowledging successes. Yet the problem surely isn’t that the news media have overdone coverage of the disasters. Congo is the most lethal conflict since World War II, costing about five million lives since 1998, and it has dragged on partly because journalists haven’t done a better job propelling it onto the international agenda. You’ll never persuade me that we’ve overcovered the slaughter in Congo — our sin is that we didn’t scream enough, not that we screamed too much.

I agree more with Dowden’s point that Africans must be more central to the narrative. As he writes: “Aid agencies, Western celebrities, rock stars and politicians cannot save Africa. Only Africans can develop Africa. Outsiders can help, but only if they understand it, work with it.” It’s true that the most successful and cost-effective interventions are typically not those started by a grand conference in a capital; rather, they are the grass-roots efforts started by local people with local knowledge addressing local needs. We could do much more to support such efforts, with us Westerners serving as aides and financiers to African social entrepreneurs.

After discussing these themes in the opening of his book, Dowden takes us on a wearisome sight-seeing excursion through Somalia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda. But then the journey abruptly livens up when, hidden in a chapter on Senegal, there is a thoughtful discussion of why Africa is poor. Dowden chronicles the problems of colonialism and geography, but he also bluntly points the finger at wretched leadership. He quotes Jerry Rawlings, the former Ghanaian ruler, as acknowledging that outsiders were not to blame and adding, “We broke the pot.”

One of Africa’s problems to this day is that there is very little manufacturing of the kind that is powering Asia’s industrial revolution. The sweatshops of Asia look unpalatable to Westerners, but it’s sometimes said that in a poor country the only thing worse than being exploited is not being exploited. Employment opportunities in Africa are meager and rarely involve wealth creation.

“Many African friends who tried to get a business enterprise going,” Dowden writes, “all reported the same problems: workers did not turn up on time, they had no urgency and they delivered sloppy work. Often they found themselves blocked by rivals. The elites who made money out of importing and exporting had an interest in preventing the development of local manufacturing or processing.”

One of the best American aid programs is almost unknown but addresses this problem. It’s called AGOA — the African Growth and Opportunity Act — and it offers duty-free import of African manufactured goods into America, to encourage the rise of a vibrant business sector in Africa.

Dowden tends to be skeptical about the benefits of aid. “It is significant that none of the most passionate advocates of aid for Africa are African,” he says. He acknowledges that aid can help with vaccination programs and emergency relief and in some kinds of development but adds that “aid from the outside cannot transform whole societies.” This is also the argument of a controversial new book by an Oxford-educated Zambian, Dambisa Moyo, called Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $24).

Dowden would like to see Western countries help in ways other than simply offering aid. Ending agricultural subsidies in the West, for example, would be a huge benefit to the many African farmers who have to compete. West African cotton farmers suffer not only from droughts, corruption and wretched roads, but also from America’s cotton subsidies.

I’m more sympathetic to aid (while acknowledging its myriad shortcomings) than Dowden is, but he’s on target in most areas. In particular, I think his basic optimism is well founded, with the caveat that climate change may wreak particular havoc in Africa.

We journalists tend to cover Africa in stark and simple contrasts, but countries live and grow and falter in grays. So it’s refreshing to encounter not only Dowden’s hopefulness, but also his reliance on shading and nuance, on the recognition that the world does not have to feel sorry for Africa to care about it.

Nicholas Kristof is a Times columnist and the co-author, with Sheryl WuDunn, of the forthcoming “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.”

HISTORY: Marcus Garvey's Influence > Geoffrey Philp's Blog

Marcus Garvey's Influence

Even as I write this someone in the world is singing along with the lyrics from "Redemption Song" by Bob Marley: "Emancipate yourself from mental slavery," without being aware that they are the words from a speech given by Marcus Garvey in Nova Scotia  during October 1937 and published in his Black Man magazine:
We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. Mind is your only ruler, sovereign. The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind ...
The words of Marcus Garvey have influenced nearly every prominent reggae songwriter, including Peter Tosh, Burning Spear, The Mighty Diamonds, Steel Pulse, Garnett Silk, Lucky Dube, and Culture. To go back even further, Marcus Garvey is regarded as a prophet of Rastafari and a pillar of the Pan-African movement. Marcus Garvey Life and Lessons aptly describes Garvey's influence in the early twenties:
Garveyism as an ideological movement began in black Harlem's thirty or so square blocks in the sping of 1918, and then burgeoned throughout the black world--nearly a thousand UNIA divisions were formed, and tens of thousands of members enrolled within the brief sapn of seven years. the reign of the Garvey movement, as Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Sr., wrote "awakened a race consciuosness that made Harlem felt around the world."  (xv)
 In fact, it was Marcus Garvey's UNIA that designed the Pan-African flag, which has become a part of our visual vocabulary of Pan-Africanism. Whenever you see the red, black, and green or you see the Pan-African flag, realize that it is visible proof of Marcus Garvey's influence.
Garvey's ideas, whether accepted or rejected, have played an important role in shaping our modern world. Here is a partial list of some of the writers, leaders, and artists who have been influenced by Marcus Garvey:
Kwame Nkrumah
Nelson Mandela
Julius Nyerere
Alhaji Ahmed Sekou Toure
Jomo Kenyatta
M. L. T. De Mena  
Paul Robeson
Malcolm X
Steve Biko
Patrice Lumumba
Frantz Fanon
With even a cursory examination of the list, it could be said (without being accused of hyperbole) that without Marcus Garvey and his contributions, the world as we know it would not exist.

 

Yet, sadly, many remain in ignorance about Garvey's work and he is still officially a convicted felon. It is for this reason that my fellow co-signees and I are urging President Barack Obama, based on H. CON. RES. 44 by the 111th Congress in in the House of Representatives to issue a full pardon EXONERATE (Give thanks Don Rico Ricketts ) Marcus Mosiah Garvey.

 

Here is the link to online petition to President Barack Obama to clear Marcus Garvey's name of the felony conviction on one count of mail fraud.

 

 

If you have benefitted directly or indirectly by Marcus Garvey; if you feel that Marcus Garvey was unjustly accused or if you just believe in justice, please add your name to the petition.

 

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