HISTORY: Historian has new take on Civil War: 'Was this necessary?' > The Charlotte Observer Newspaper

Historian has new take on Civil War:

'Was this necessary?'

UNCC professor's new book 'America Aflame,' calls war an avoidable political failure.

By Pam Kelley
Reading Life Editor

  • War was not inevitable. But the prevailing political culture made it difficult to solve issues peaceably. The failure is evident in the deaths of over 620,000 young men, the misery of their families and friends left to mourn their loss, the destruction of homes and personal property, the uprooting of households, and the scenes of war haunting those who managed to live through it. Without gainsaying the individual heroism of those who fought and died, it would have been a greater tribute to our nation had they lived.

  • More info: www.davidgoldfield.us.

In his last book on the Civil War, David Goldfield caught flak from certain Southerners because he criticized those who mythologized the conflict as a courageous lost cause. Now the UNC Charlotte historian takes aim at the other side - the evangelical Christians of the North's Republican Party.

In his new book, "America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation" (Bloomsbury; $35), Goldfield describes the war not as a triumph of freedom but as America's biggest failure - a conflict that cost 620,000 American lives, the equivalent in today's population of 10 million people.

"The question I want readers to ask is, 'Was this necessary?'" Goldfield says.

Though many countries have abolished slavery, America, he says, was the only one to do it with a Civil War. "Was it all worth it?" he asks.

Certainly not in terms of money. For the $6.2 billion that the war cost, the nation could have freed the South's 4 million slaves, paid off their owners and given every former slave reparation wages and 40 acres of land.

"You could have done all this," he says, "without killing people."

As the Civil War's 150th anniversary approaches - Confederates fired on Charleston's Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861 - publishers are releasing dozens of war-related works. In this crowded field, early reviews point to Goldfield's book as a standout.

Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews and Library Journal have all given starred reviews to the 640-page history, praising his writing, research and fresh perspective.

The book, which was published on Tuesday, will likely generate controversy, says Goldfield, who has written 16 books, most on Southern history.

"We've grown up thinking the war saved the Union and liberated 4 million human beings and it was good. I'm saying the results weren't as clear cut and there may have been a better way to achieve those results."

Publishers Weekly says that Goldfield "courts controversy by shifting more responsibility for the conflict to the activist North and away from intransigent slaveholders." Still, the review says, "he presents a superb, stylishly written historical synthesis that insightfully foregrounds ideology, faith and public mood."

Why did America resort to war? Goldfield points to the polarized political system.

Governments work best, he says, when they employ moderation and compromise. But the evangelical Christian wing of the Republican Party drove a wedge between Americans, he says.

Many evangelicals, including abolitionists such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, saw slavery as a threat to democracy. They also saw Catholics as an equal or greater threat, a subversive group loyal to the pope, not America. They wanted to restrict immigration, toughen citizenship requirements and bar Catholics from holding office. (Abraham Lincoln condemned the anti-Catholic wing of his party.)

Evangelical Christianity's influence, Goldfield writes, "was everywhere in the political arena, in discussions about the West, about Roman Catholics, and especially about slavery. What was troubling about this religious immersion was the blindness of its self-righteousness, its certitude, and its lack of humility to understand that those who disagree are not mortal sinners and those who subscribe to your views are not saints."

That self-righteousness poisoned the political process, making compromise impossible, Goldfield says. "If you believe your opponent is not only wrong, but sinful, how can you compromise?"

Some readers may find modern-day parallels in Goldfield's work, as he discusses the problems of political polarization, mixing religion and politics and pursuing wars of choice rather than necessity. That wasn't his goal. "I had no personal contemporary ax to grind," he says. "But it turns out this book I wrote definitely speaks to what we're going through today in terms of the difficulty of finding a center."

Goldfield isn't arguing that the Civil War's death and destruction outweighed the good of abolition, "but there may have been other means to achieve that noble end."

Still, he says he has long found it annoying that the South is always "depicted as the evil empire, and the North was the republic of virtue."

In fact, he says, many Northerners had great reservations about abolishing slavery.

"My book is neither pro-southern nor pro-northern," Goldfield writes. "It is anti-war, particularly the Civil War."

pkelley@charlotteobserver.com.

 

VIDEO: Erykah Badu Coachella 2011 performance (Video) > SoulCulture

Erykah Badu Coachella 2011 performance (Video)

April 17, 2011 by Verse    

9 Comments

 

Erykah Badu hit the Coachella 2011 main stage yesterday yesterday with her full band and backup singers to perform a 30 plus minute set of material spanning her released discography.

Ms Badu’s live offerings has been receiving mixed reviews from critics of late but despite a few sound issues that were out of her hands during this performance she delivered a solid show in my opinion.

Watch the full Coachella performance below.

 

 

PUB: Schoolcraft College - The MacGuffin

The MacGuffin

Quality fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and art since 1984

 Winter 2011 issue now available

The MacGuffin, established in 1984, is a national literary magazine from Schoolcraft College in Livonia, Michigan. Our journal is a 160 page 6” x 9” perfect-bound collection of the best poetry, short fiction, and creative non-fiction that we receive. We also have artwork including black and white photos, prints, and drawings. We publish three issues yearly.

What’s a MacGuffin?

Originating in Victorian England, the moving force and sometimes the solution of a work of mystery fiction was referred to as a MacGuffin. Alfred Hitchcock used the term and stated that, “No film is complete without a MacGuffin” because that’s what “everybody is after.” The MacGuffin might be the papers that everyone is looking for, or the ring that was stolen—in short, the MacGuffin is any device or gimmick that gets a plot rolling. The MacGuffin itself has little, if any, fundamental importance, and, according to Hitchcock, is nothing in and of itself.

Editors
  • Steven A. Dolgin, Editor
  • Nicholle M. Cormier, Managing Editor
  • Carol Was, Poetry Editor
  • Elizabeth Kircos, Fiction Editor
Contests
Submissions and subscriptions
The MacGuffin mission

The mission of The MacGuffin is to encourage, support, and enhance the literary arts in the Schoolcraft College community, the region, the state, and the nation. By fulfilling its role as a national literary journal, The MacGuffin exists to bring national and international prestige to Schoolcraft College and to be the main vehicle for its contribution to literary excellence.

The MacGuffin has six purposes:
  1. To provide opportunities for hands-on literary publication work experience.
  2. To sponsor annual literary events.
  3. To give a voice to deserving newer writers, by publishing their work alongside those of well-known writers.
  4. To provide a vehicle for writers to share their works with a diverse readership.
  5. To provide an opportunity for writers to experiment and innovate.
  6. Attempt to reach as big an audience as possible.
Contact us
Email: macguffin@schoolcraft.edu

The MacGuffin
Schoolcraft College
18600 Haggerty Road
Livonia, MI 48152-2696

Telephone: (734) 462-4400 ext. 5327

=====================

The MacGuffin’s 16th National

Poet Hunt Contest

Judged by Terry Blackhawk

 

First Place Prize $500 *Two Honorable Mentions*

 

Each entrant will receive one FREE issue of The MacGuffin that includes the 16th National Poet Hunt winners.

Staff members and their families are not eligible to participate, nor are friends, family members, or students of the judge.

 

An entry consists of five poems. Poems must be typed on sheets of 81⁄2 x 11 paper. Clean photocopies are

acceptable. DO NOT place name and address on submissions.

 

Each entrant must include a 3 x 5 index card that includes poem titles and the contestant’s name, address, daytime telephone number, and email address.

 

There is a $15.00 entry fee. Please send check or money order payable to “Schoolcraft College.” Do not send cash.

 

Poems must not be previously published, and must be the original work of the contestant. Poems may be under consideration elsewhere. The MacGuffin reserves the right to disqualify a work that is accepted elsewhere.

 

8. 9. 10. Entries must be postmarked between April 1, 2011 and June 3, 2011.

No entries will be returned. Entrants wishing to receive a list of winners should send a stamped SASE.

 

Mail entries to:

The MacGuffin/Poet Hunt Contest

Schoolcraft College

18600 Haggerty Road

Livonia, MI 48152

 

Winners will be announced in September 2011

 

First Place and Honorable Mention poems will be published in a future issue of The MacGuffin. All non-winning entries will also be considered by The MacGuffin staff for publication in upcoming issues. The MacGuffin reserves the right not to award any Honorable Mentions.

 

www.macguffin.org

 

PUB: The Pen Competition for Young Muslim Writers|Writers Afrika

The Pen Competition for Young Muslim Writers

Deadline: 1 August 2011

The Pen Writing Competition is an international short story writing competition designed to find talent within our Muslim youth. This competition encourages creative writing that includes elements of Islamic morality. This unique opportunity will allow our young Muslim writers to use their talent in positive ways, encouraging them to create healthy alternatives to fairy tales and secular fiction that have little benefit to readers aside from diversion and cheap entertainment.

We are pleased to announce that there are valuable prizes for first, second and third place winners in each of our topics. Also, we will publish an anthology of all the winning stories! This once in a lifetime opportunity that should not be missed. We encourage teenagers of all writing ages and capabilities to enter this contest, and look forward to reading everyone's stories!

The deadline for the entries is August 1st 2011.

Each contestant may submit a maximum of two entries. If more than two entries are received the competition committee will only consider the first two.

There are three age groups: the junior group, the senior group and the adult group.

Junior group: ages 9-12, word count: (700-1500) words

Senior group: ages 13-17, word count: (2000-4000) words

Adult group: ages 18-23, word count: (5000-8000) words

The categories for this competition are: strength, beauty and hope. All stories submitted must go under one of these categories.

Entries will only be accepted via email.

Each contestant must submit an entry form, found here.

Stories must relate to Islam and should not go against the values that govern a Muslims life.

The story must be original work that has not been published previously.

The competition committee claims the rights to publish any story that wins.

Submit your stories to: thepen_competition@yahoo.com

Remember to include your name and title on the story itself.

How to Enter

Please fill in the entry form here. Then email your story as an attachment to: thepen_competition@yahoo.com.

Contact Information:

For inquiries: thepen_competition@yahoo.com

For submissions: thepen_competition@yahoo.com

Website: http://www.thepencompetition.com/

 

 

 

PUB: Announcements | Advocating for people affected and infected by HIV and AIDS

Announcements

Win R2000 In Our Essay Competition

Starting March 4, 2011 - Ending July 27, 2011

We are looking for a prize essay/short story about HIV

Southern Anglican and CABSA (Christian AIDS Bureau for Southern Africa) have joined forces to celebrate the bureau’s 10th anniversary by offering two of our readers the opportunity to win R2000 each.

You are invited to submit a short story that highlights the realities of the epidemic and   submissions to Southern Anglican need to be in English and no longer than 1800 words. (Should you prefer to write in Afrikaans, Lig magazine is running the same competition.)

Entries are invited in two categories, previously published and novice authors and the winners of each category in English will be published in Southern Anglican and receive a cash prize of R2000.

Visit the CABSA website www.cabsa.org.za for more information on HIV or the organisation.

Competition Rules
-        Stories should have HIV as the theme
-        Stories can be in Afrikaans or English and a prize will be allocated in each language for novice or previously published authors.
-        Winning entries in the English competition will be published in Southern Anglican.
-        Entries should specify the category and that the work has not been previously published.
-        Stories become the property of CABSA
-        Stories should be no longer than 1800 words
-        The competition will be adjuducated by representatives of CABSA and Southern Anglican, and the decision of the judges is final.
-        CABSA and Southern Anglican reserve the right not to award a prize if entries do not meet the publication standards of Southern Anglican.
-        The closing date for the English competition is 29 July 2011.
-        Winners will be announced in the November 2011 issue of Southern Anglican and on www.cabsa.org.za.

Entries can be sent by emailwith subject line: Short Story Competition to Ms Lucinda Leppin support@cabsa.co.za or post entries for her attention to Short Story Competition, CABSA, PO Box 16, Wellington, 7654.

 

REVIEW + AUDIO: THE DEAD YARD - Hopes Unrealized In Independent Jamaica : NPR

Hopes Unrealized In Independent Jamaica

Ian Thomson won the prestigious Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize in 2010 for The Dead Yard. He is also the author of Primo Levi: A Life.
Laura Fleminger

Ian Thomson won the prestigious Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize in 2010 for The Dead Yard. He is also the author of Primo Levi: A Life.

 

April 16, 2011

At midnight on Aug. 5, 1962, Jamaicans hauled down the Union Jack for the last time, and raised the new colors — black, gold and green — of independent Jamaica.

In the capital, Kingston, 20,000 people gathered in the newly opened National Stadium to bid farewell to British rule. It was a grand and hopeful time. Britain's Princess Margaret attended the festivities, along with Lyndon B. Johnson, then the vice president of the United States.

But almost 50 years later, "a lot of Jamaicans feel that since the Union Jack came down, there has been largely disappointment," writer Ian Thomson tells Weekend All Things Considered guest host Noah Adams. Parts of Jamaica are a vacation paradise, but much of the country is crippled by violence and corruption.

The Dead Yard
The Dead Yard
 By Ian Thomson
 Paperback, 392 pages
 Nation Books
 List price: $16.99
Thomson traveled all over the island, and everywhere he went, people asked the same question: What has Jamaica done with its independence? Thomson chronicled his search for the answer in his new book, The Dead Yard: A Story of Modern Jamaica.

It's a difficult question for an outsider to answer. One woman challenged Thomson directly at a meeting of the Jamaican Historical Society. "You visitors are always getting it wrong," she told him. "Either it's golden beaches or it's guns, guns, guns. Is there nothing in between?"

Thomson says that despite the grim picture he paints of conditions on the island, he also did his best to depict the good alongside the bad.

"One of the things that I set out to do in writing this book is to look at the fabulous variety of this country," Thomson says. "It's a whole kind of bewildering melting pot of different skin colors, different peoples, different religions, different creeds ... so I was looking at that aspect of Jamaica in particular and celebrating it as much as I could."

Excerpt: 'The Dead Yard'

The Dead Yard
The Dead Yard
 By Ian Thomson
 Paperback, 392 pages
 Nation Books
 List price: $16.99

I began my journey in south London, where James Fairweather had lived since 1947 after serving in the RAF. His Peckham house stood in a Victorian terrace which had been occupied once by horse omnibus inspectors and bank clerks; now, increasingly, by refugees from Africa. On greeting me, Fairweather led the way down a dimly lit corridor to the kitchen. Above the fridge hung an oilskin map of pre-independence Jamaica and, next to it, an out-of-date Page Three girl calendar. In his pinstriped waistcoat, Fairweather was prepared for the interview.

Another man was seated at the table, drinking white rum ('the whites', he called it). He introduced himself as George Walters, a building contractor. Walters had left Jamaica in 1966. Like Fairweather, he was natty, dressed in a pork-pie hat and a tie with a Top Cat motif. 'So when are you off to Jamaica?' Walters asked me, interested. 'Next week,' I said. He winced slightly. 'Mind how you go out there,' he said.

Fairweather's Jamaican childhood, as he described it to me, seemed very remote, a golden age when Jamaica had been an outpost of Britain's sovereignty. He loved Britain, he said, and the British royal cult with its fripperies and rituals (increasingly meaning less to young Jamaicans). On display in the kitchen were a Union Jack sweet tin and a 1952 coronation mug, as well as souvenir shire horses. Fairweather's wartime service was prompted by the anti-Nazi film In Which We Serve starring Noel Coward. The film inspired him to join the RAF. 'We all thought Hitler would bring back slavery and repatriate us to Africa if he won the war.' In 1943, after training in the United States as a wireless operator, Fair weather was transferred to Scotland, where his white superiors showed him a soldierly respect. 'There was no place for prejudice back then,' he explained. 'A war was on, and it was to be fought by black and white alike.' Some 8,000 Jamaicans served in the RAF during the 1939-45 conflict.

While on leave in wartime London, Fairweather joined white servicemen at the Hammersmith Palais, and in the smoky night clubs off Jermyn Street. He was filled with patriotic zeal and felt a pride in being a citizen of the Empire. In 1947 he returned to Jamaica for ten months. The island was recovering from the hurricane of 1944 and many Jamaicans were tempted to book a one-way passage to Britain in search of a better life. Fairweather, who was now an important source of knowledge about jobs and money in the so-called mother country, encouraged them to go. Britain, he told his Jamaican friends, 'was the best place for a black man to be'.

George Walters, who had been listening to the conversation, turned to me. 'But hear me now on this, my friend. England was a bad disappointment for me at first.' He could not believe that London could look so old and dead and poor — so plain different from the way it was depicted in the posters back home. In the grey, inner-city streets lined with scruffy, bay-fronted houses he desperately looked for somewhere to live. His biggest surprise was not the glum clothes or the shut-in, unsmiling faces of the landladies, but the cockney they spoke. 'After the high-class English they taught me in Jamaica, cockney sounded low class,' said Walters, 'it sounded bad and coarse.' Saying this, he sighed heavily.

Understandably, Walters had expected British people to be exactly like the white missionaries and colonials he had known in Jamaica. So the spectacle of white people doing menial work shocked him. 'Road-sweeps? I nearly died.' It was a quite astonishing reversal of roles: Caucasian hands doing a black man's work. Other shocks were in store for him. Englishwomen wore their hair in rollers in public; dogs came to sniff the packets of bread left by the milkman on the doorstep. What kind of life could spring from such squalor?

Inevitably as a West Indian 'room-seeker' Walters experienced a degree of racism. He was surprised to find himself categorised as 'coloured'. ('Room to Let: Regret No Kolored' ran the typical advert.) In Jamaica the term 'coloured' applied to people of mixed race; in England it was one of the basic words of boarding-house culture and of polite vocabulary in general. Usually, there was no violence: the aggressors, once stood up to, turned on their heels. Walters was prepared to fight back, though. 'First try rebuke by tongue,' he told me, 'then fists.'

Fairweather, like Walters, had family responsibilities in Jamaica, and routinely sent remittances. Would I take out a sum of money to his older brother Roy? Roy was a farmer who lived twelve miles outside Kingston in Spanish Town, the capital of Jamaica when Spain ruled the island. 'He talks a bit raw-chaw — rough, you know — but he's arright.' I agreed and later, with the money in my pocket, I caught the bus back home from Peckham.

Excerpted from The Dead Yard: A Story of Modern Jamaica by Ian Thomson. Copyright 2011 by Ian Thomson. Reprinted with the permission of Nation Books.

via npr.org

 

__________________________

 

Paradise Is Only Half the Story in a Complex Caribbean Nation

Ian Thomson’s book “The Dead Yard,” a bleak and prickly survey of Jamaica’s past and present, takes its title from one of that country’s funeral practices. When someone dies, those who loved him or her gather around the dead person’s house for a wake that can last as long as nine days. These events are often ecstatic; they’re akin to reggae versions of a New Orleans jazz funeral. People dance, the author writes, as if possessed by ghosts.

Laura Fleminger

Ian Thomson

THE DEAD YARD

A Story of Modern Jamaica

By Ian Thomson

370 pages. Nation Books. $16.99.

Related

Mr. Thomson’s book is its own murmuring convocation of ghosts. He works his way through Jamaica’s blighted history — notably its three centuries under England’s colonial thumb, an epoch during which many Jamaicans were bound into slavery on sugar plantations — only to describe a present that seems almost equally grim.

This is not a book travelers will wish to place in their rucksacks, along with a Lonely Planet guidebook and an iPod stuffed with Bob Marley’s greatest hits. “One Love” is not on the playlist here. This is a book that might, if read on a flight to Kingston, tempt you to open — and then leap from — the nearest emergency exit.

Stand back and witness the bonfire Mr. Thomson makes from the kindling of modern Jamaican society. He calls it a place with “no recorded ancient history, religion or civilization of its own.” It is “a nation built on violence and morose vendettas.” It is “vexatious” and “fear-ridden.” It has a low literacy rate and is “one of the most violent countries in the world.” It has no credible justice system. Eight of 10 children are born to unmarried mothers.

It goes on. “The doctor-to-population ratio in Jamaica is currently 1 to 5,240, one of the lowest in the world.” He suggests it may be a “failed nation,” in a state of “moral decomposition; a hating and hateful place” and “a kind of corrupted Eden.” About its capital city, he declares: “Everyone in Kingston — uptown, midtown, downtown — seemed to be frightened of everyone else.”

It’s little wonder, as he writes in a preface to this edition (“The Dead Yard” was first published in England in 2009) that most bookstores on that island have declined to stock his book.

Mr. Thomson is a British journalist and critic whose previous books are “Bonjour Blanc,” about Haiti, and a biography of Primo Levi. “The Dead Yard” arrives in the United States having picked up some snowballing acclaim. The book’s dust jacket informs us that in Britain it is already the winner of the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and was named the Dolman Travel Book of the Year.

I wish I could join in this stately applause, but I am puzzled by it. On a purely aesthetic level, this book is a grind — it has no through-narrative, no argument, no grease. The author spreads out his research not in any kind of linear fashion but like a man having a rummage sale, inviting us to pick through it with him.

“The Dead Yard” has the jumbled personality of a Wikipedia entry. Mr. Thomson tells us almost nothing about himself beyond the fact that he has a “soft, educated face” and that his father has recently died. He does get hilariously stoned once or twice, but he does not enjoy this experience as much as we enjoy reading about it. For all of his negative assessments, he’s not even agreeably cranky. He’s a blank.

For a critic, his descriptive prose groans under comatose adverbs and adjectives. About a band, he writes: “The trombonists played soulfully, then picked up rip-roaringly.” People at another concert wear “spiffy” tracksuits and “glittery” jewelry.

More fundamentally, you never feel that Mr. Thomson has gotten particularly close to contemporary Jamaica. He does get out and about. He drops into churches and a whorehouse and a Rastafarian community and a leper home; he goes fishing; he visits Noël Coward’s old house. But not much happens during these desultory outings. Each is over in a couple of pages.

Most of this book is taken up with interviews; Mr. Thomson swings from one to the next as if from vine to vine. Most are so static that he could have done them over Skype. More problematically, nearly all these interviews are with people who are quite old.

I have nothing against old people and hope to become one myself. But by focusing on them so relentlessly, he gives us a skewed and brittle picture of Jamaica. These are people whose glory days are behind them. It’s no surprise that they think the country’s glory days are in the rearview mirror, too. It’s as if he’d written a book about modern Japan by interviewing the living World War II veterans.

Among those Mr. Thomson interviews are Errol Flynn’s ex-wife (Flynn spent a good deal of time at his home in Jamaica); Perry Henzell, the director of the 1972 film “The Harder They Come”; the 95-year-old mother of Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records; and aging musicians, politicians and gallery owners. A few of these interviews are a hoot. Blanche Blackwell, it turns out, was one of the writer Ian Fleming’s lovers in Jamaica and was supposedly a model for his character Pussy Galore.

Still, where are the street kids, the young politicians, the rappers, the hackers, the idealists, the groupies, the schoolteachers, the chefs, the narcotics kingpins, the bloggers, the wilyentrepreneurs?

I fear I am being as hard on Ian Thomson as he is on Jamaica. I did like many of his crisp observations. He writes: “Slavery runs through island life like the black line in a lobster.” In a storm, he notes how the palm trees “banged their heads on the lawn,” as if they were bass players in a metal band.

He’s got a sweet ear for dialogue. “It vex me — cos I always flew the Union Jack in my heart,” a woman says. Her husband adds: “It nah matter how you go; dead’s dead.” When the author buys toilet paper from a dreadlocked man on the street, the man says, “Arright, man, rispeck.” Mr. Thompson notes the way that “Jamaicans can have a cockneylike difficulty with their aitches.”

There’s a bit of nice humor here too. “No problem; when Jamaicans say that,” Mr. Thomson reports, “invariably there is a problem.”

Still, his take on Jamaica is similar to mine about his book: “I was in no hurry to go back to it.”

>via: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/books/ian-thomsons-dead-yard-a-story-of-mod...

__________________________

Golden beaches and guns, guns, guns

A tour of Jamaica reveals beauty and brutality but overlooks ordinary life. By Decca Aitkenhead

The first time I went to Jamaica, in the mid-90s, it was with a British boyfriend whose mother had returned to the island of her birth. A pack of ravening dogs patrolled her yard in downtown Kingston and it required quite a dash to get from the front gate to her security-grilled veranda without being savaged. Miss Mac, then in her 70s, was illiterate, but all over her unrendered living room walls were hand-painted quotations from the Old Testament. To my surprise, tacked between the apocalyptic premonitions were very hardcore pornographic posters.

  1. The Dead Yard: Tales of Modern Jamaica
  2. by Ian Thomson
  3. Find this on the Guardian bookshop

Miss Mac approved of her son's choice of partner, purely on account of my not being black. "Nothing good ever come of black," she'd been telling him ever since he was a young boy - even though black is what both she and he unmistakably were. In Miss Mac's view nothing much good ever came from Jamaica, either - at least, not the Jamaica she'd come home to.

Staring out at Kingston through security bars, with her lower lip set in a permanent jut of suspicion, she would inventorise at great length the wicked worthlessness of her compatriots - a more dangerous bunch of violent thieves you could never, she insisted, fear to meet. Worst of all, her application for a gun licence had been rejected - an affront about which she was inexhaustibly exercised. Quite why she was so angry about it I could never quite fathom, as a gun sounded like a questionable solution. According to Miss Mac, the moment you got one in Jamaica, burglars would be breaking into your house to steal it.

I was reminded of Miss Mac's gun problem by a quote in The Dead Yard, from a housekeeper who'd moved to Kingston from rural Jamaica in the mid-70s. "If you didn't have gun," she told the author, "the drug men kill you. If you did have gun, them kill you even worse." In fact, I was reminded of Miss Mac by lots of Ian Thomson's book, and would have been less startled and bewildered by much of what I found on that first visit had the book been available then. It is a comprehensive, unsentimental examination - part travelogue, part historical analysis - of why Jamaica is the way it is today.

"Slavery runs through island life like the black line in a lobster," Thomson writes. "Violence was central to the system of slavery, and the spirit of this violence continues to haunt modern Jamaica." Travelling around the island he finds modern-day overseers everywhere, in the form of "party bosses, armed badmen and corrupted police". He quotes Karl Marx - "Jamaican history is characteristic of the beastliness of the true Englishman" - and the legacy of colonial rule is everywhere, in the divisive preoccupation with social rank, the self-loathing of black skin, the pointlessly officious bureaucracy, and the ultra-Victorian homophobia. The more recent malign influence of America is also well documented, with its soulless malls and unaffordable, hyper-sexualised bling, as well as the corrupting power of the international drugs trade.

"You know Jamaicans hate each other," a Catholic priest tells him bluntly. "What's more, they're fearful of each other." Having lived in Jamaica for a year, and returned countless times, I can confirm the truth of this sad statement. My only quibble with Thomson's observation that "Nearly every Jamaican knows someone who has been threatened with a gun or a knife - or murdered," would be the prefix "nearly", for I don't know a single Jamaican who doesn't.

The Dead Yard is in one sense quite a brave book, for while Jamaicans may be highly critical of their country they can be very sensitive about foreigners joining in. "You visitors are always getting it wrong," one tells him. "Either it's golden beaches or guns, guns, guns, guns. Is there nothing in between?" Given that almost all Jamaica's problems can be traced back to self-interested exploitation by foreign powers, such indignation is understandable, and Thomson does an excellent and long-overdue job of exporting blame back to its rightful Anglo-American shores. The book's substantial shortcoming, however, is its failure to illuminate everything else "in between".

Thomson's travels introduce him to lots of wealthy white Jamaicans, foreigners, returnees, politicians, churchmen and business people, but disappointingly few of the ordinary poor. "The frequent appearance in The Dead Yard of white and upper-echelon Jamaicans might suggest a skewed image of island society," he admits, but his excuse - "white Jamaicans still wield huge (if not uncontested) power" - omits the more honest explanation. Poor Jamaican society is notoriously impenetrable to an outside reporter, and Thomson didn't allow the time - which in fairness could mean years, maybe decades - to access a complex and elusive culture suspicious of strangers with notepads.

As a consequence, he misses all the energy and hilarity and wit - the ingenuity and unpredictability, the melodrama and entertainment - which give the island its magnificent charm. When he does venture into the Kingston ghetto he's a bit scared, and his account is impressionistic, lacking depth or character, while most of rural Jamaica is missed altogether. His encounters are often surprisingly dull - the anecdotes flat, the dialogue wooden - and though I know a lot of the people he meets in his book, I'm not sure I would recognise any of them from his descriptions.

Had I never been to Jamaica, I'd undoubtedly understand the country a lot better having read The Dead Yard. But I would have perplexingly little sense of what it feels like to be there. 

>via: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/may/16/dead-yard-tales-modern-jamaica-ia...

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTERVIEW: M. NourbeSe Philip > Caribbean Literary Salon

Written by David B Dacosta

Social Justice is not exactly a focus you’d typically associate with your average Caribbean author. That’s not to say that others within the genre have not incorporated this cause in their work. Being a former lawyer seems to have added that extra fire to Poet and Essayist M. NourbeSe Philip’s activist pursuits. The Toronto based, Tobago born transplant, has made a name for herself in academic and artistic circles, both in Canada as well as internationally.

Philip won Cuba’s prestigious Casa de las Americas prize for the manuscript version of her poetry book, She Tries Her Tongue in 1988. Her latest collection, Zong! (2008), is a meditation on an 18th century legal decision regarding a slave ship.

 

What is the significance of the capital “S” in your name?

The name is from Benin in Africa. When words have an ‘se’ at the end it usually points to some involvement with things of the spirit. That’s where it comes from. 

So that’s not your birth name?

It’s not my birth name. I chose it several years ago when I first began writing. It’s part of the long tradition of artists and writers naming themselves or renaming themselves.  

Is Tobago just an extension of Trinidad or does it possess its own unique cultural imprint?

Tobago is an entirely different island culturally from Trinidad. The first, and most obvious aspect, would be in terms of the population. The population of Trinidad is, by this point, probably evenly split between Africans and South Asians, with some other groups thrown in there. And also people who might define themselves as mixed. Tobago is primarily African. That’s one of the first things that one is struck by. Because the two islands constitute one political unit, you will have influences. Another way they’re very different, is in terms of speech patterns. There is a very distinct Tobago vernacular or dialect that is actually very similar to the Jamaican vernacular.  

You were formerly a lawyer. What area of Law was your expertise, and why did you stop practicing?

I worked in a variety of areas, but the majority of my cases were in Family Law. I also did some Immigration Law and I also did some, what is now called, The Young Offender, back then it was called Juvenile Delinquent Law. That was Criminal Law. I left Law to devote more time to writing. I think I entered Law because I was finishing a family business. My father had always wanted to be a lawyer, so I think I decided that I would fulfill what he didn’t accomplish. He was a primary school principal.  

 

Your poetry book “Zong!” touches on an 18th century legal decision pertaining to Slavery. With all the grand accomplishments of African people over thousands of years, is the discussion of Slavery not a tired subject?

I don’t think the discussion is tired at all. We didn’t begin in Slavery, but certainly our entry into this part of the world came through the vessel of descendants of slaves. I shouldn’t say slaves. I prefer to say enslaved Africans. Capitalist society, I think, functions best in a context of amnesia. The desire to erase that particular aspect of our history; which I might add, we have nothing to be ashamed of. While there’s a great deal of pain, it ought to be something that we can take great pride in. In terms of how we survived. What we brought out of that experience. The dignity with which we survived, and what we have given to the world, given how much was removed from us. Those who need to be ashamed of it, in terms of what it means for them, I think, are often served by those of us who want to say, “Let’s sweep this under the mat, and let’s pretend it didn’t happen.” As in any individual’s life, there comes a time when we begin to reflect on our parents, and where we came from, and how did we get shaped in this way. I think if we are to understand some of our pathologies today, to better heal them, we need to see how those pathologies got started.  

How would you define yourself, Tobagonian, Canadian or African?

I’m first and foremost, a Tobagonian. That’s why you see on the back of my books, I identify myself as being born in Tobago. Tobago tends to get confused under Trinidad, and there’s been a long resistance to that by Tobagonians. The two islands are very interconnected, families marry, and a lot of people went into the government in Trinidad, and so on. But there’s also a very long and deep sense of pride and identity among Tobagonians. Both my parents are from Tobago. My father was a long time advocate of Tobago [laughter]. In addition to that, the island is the place that I write from, although I don’t necessarily write about. It remains very central to my writing life. That is my foundation.

 

 

Copyright 2011

__________________________

by rob mclennan

 


 
Zong!

by M. NourbeSe Philip. (Toronto, ON: Mercury Press, 2008, 128 pp., $22.95.)
 

 

Zong! # 26

was the cause was the remedy was 
the record was the argument was the 
delay was the evidence was overboard
was the not was the cause was the was 
was the need was the case was the
perils was the want was the particular 
circumstance was the seas was the costs
was the could was the would was the 
policy was the loss was the vessel was
the rains was the order was the that
was the this was the necessity was the 
mistake was the captain was the crew
was the result was justified was the 
voyage was the water was the maps
was the weeks was the winds was the 
calms was the captain was the seas
was the rains was uncommon was the 
declaration was the apprehension was
the voyage was destroyed was thrown
was the question was the therefore was
the this was the that was the negroes
was the cause

 What is this thing called Zong! by Toronto writer M. NourbeSe Philip, as told to the author by Setaey Adamu Boateng? As Philip begins in her essay, “Notanda,” at the end of the collection:
 

There is no telling this story: it must be told:    

     In 1781 a fully provisioned ship, the Zong, captained by one Luke Collingwood, leaves the West Coast of Africa with a cargo of 470 slaves and sets sail for Jamaica. As is the custom, the cargo is fully insured. Instead of the customary six to nine weeks, this fateful trip will take some four months on account of navigational errors on the part of the captain. Some of the Zong’s cargo is lost through illness and lack of water; many others, by order of the captain are destroyed: “Sixty negroes died for want of water … and forty others … through thirst and frenzy … threw themselves into the sea and were drowned; and the master and mariners …were obliged to throw overboard 150 other negroes.”
     Captain Luke Collingwood is of the belief that if the African slaves on board die a natural death, the owners of the ship will have to bear the cost, but if they were “thrown alive into the sea, it would be the loss of the underwriters.” In other words, the massacre of the African slaves would prove to be more financially advantageous to the owners of the ship and its cargo than if the slaves were allowed to die of “natural causes.”

 
     And so begins the story of Philips’ complex quest, to rework the language of the court case of the captain against his insurers, to salvage a poem as a wake for those lost souls, working to salvage some kind of humanity against its own inhumanity. Her lengthy essay at the back of the collection provides a rich context to the work and where it came out of, the language she began with, a story ending with the deliberate murder of slaves at sea, and continuing with a court case that provided an impetus for change to slave traffic across the Pacific. 
           

     I have brought two legal texts with me to Vermont, one on contracts, the other is on insurance law — a branch of contract law. The boredom that comes with reading case after case is familiar and, strangely, refreshing, a diversion from going somewhere I do not wish to go. I find out what I knew before: that essentially a contract of insurance or indemnity provides that a sum of money will be paid when an event occurs which is adverse to the interests of the person who has secured insurance. But I am hunting for something — anything — to give me some bearing, since I am, metaphorically speaking, at sea, having cut myself off from the comfort and predictability of my own language — my own meaning.

 

     What intrigues is just how she wrestles a kind of “found” language, incorporating such into a workable poetic text, tearing the language apart and reassembling it; turning the violence of what the words discuss back in on itself, making the act of writing a violence in itself, to reassert its own power. This material of poems found in or created out of an outside text is something Canadian poetry has been tinkering with for years, whether Lisa Robertson reassembling the scientific language of weather in her poetry collection The Weather (Vancouver BC: New Star Books, 2001), Michael Holmes playing the language of professional wrestling in Parts Unknown (Toronto ON: Insomniac Press, 2004) or Rachel Zolf reworking “office speak” in her third collection, Human Resources (Toronto ON: Coach House Books, 2007). As Philip writes in her essay, “Law and poetry both share an inexorable concern with language — the ‘right’ use of the ‘right’ words, phrases, or even marks of punctuation; precision of expression is the goal shared by both.” Perhaps this has even been a long time coming, for the self-proclaimed “poet, writer and lawyer,” merging the overlap of all her concerns in a single self-contained project.
 
Zong! # 15
 
defend the dead
 
                     weight of circumstance
 
ground
 
             to usual &
 
                              etc
 
                              where the ratio of just
 
is less than
 
                  is necessary
 
                                          to murder
 
the subject in property
 
the save in underwriter
 
                                   where etc tunes justice
 
                                   and the ratio of murder
 
                                   is
 
                                   the usual in occurred
 
     Part of what Philip, among some of these examples, works is in rehumanizing a language set to do exactly the opposite (as in Zolf). Philip’s poems work a scatter and a violence, fragmenting in the waves of the page in a way difficult to replicate properly in the confines of a review. Is it the sweet of water, the waves, and the song the water sings? Is it the violent tearing apart of a language expressly meant to dehumanize, after a series of dehumanizing acts, from slavery to murder, turning back into a poem written out as a wake, an acknowledgement for some one hundred and fifty human beings, writing “there is / creed there is / fate there is / oh / oh oracle / there are / oh oh / ashes / over,” writing “we act the part but ration / the facts”? Broken up into various sections, the poem builds, the language tears, sweeps and expands across the page, finally fragmenting and even fading over itself, replicating a black or white out (as she suggests), a fading into the white of the page itself, sinking, singing, deep into water.
     This poem makes its way through water, witness and song; and is it any accident that the final word of her text is “reason” (p. 182)?
 
>via: http://www.antigonishreview.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article... 

 

 

VIDEO + REVIEWS: Benazir Bhutto - You Can't Murder A Legacy

Bhutto: You cant murder a legacy

I watched this documentary...

 

BHUTTO is the definitive documentary that chronicles the life of one of the most complex and fascinating characters of our time. Hers is an epic tale of Shakespearean dimension. It’s the story of the first woman in history to lead a Muslim nation: Pakistan. Newsweek called it the most dangerous place in the world, and the home of nuclear war heads and the Taliban.

Benazir Bhutto was born into a wealthy landowning family that became Pakistan’s dominant political dynasty. Often referred to as the “Kennedys of Pakistan,” the Bhuttos share a painful history of triumph and tragedy, played out on an international stage.

Educated at Harvard and Oxford, and with an eye on a foreign service career, Benazir’s life changed forever when her father, Pakistan’s first democratically elected president, chose Benazir to carry his political mantle over the family’s eldest son. In the late 70’s, when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was overthrown and executed by his handpicked Army Chief, Benazir swore to avenge her father and restore democracy — or to die trying.

Benazir Bhutto may have broken the Islamic glass ceiling, but she was wed in a traditional arranged marriage to then-Karachi playboy Asif Ali Zardari. Her two terms in power saw acts of courage and controversy as she eradicated polio and stood up for women, while fighting the male-dominated political elite, and a nervous military leadership, while battling accusations of corruption and scandal.

In 2007, with the South Asian country rolling in turmoil and under the thumb of yet another military dictator, Benazir was called back onto the world stage as Pakistan’s best hope for democracy. With her assassination she transcended politics, but left a legacy of simmering controversy and undeniable courage that will be debated for years.

(from the documentary website)

Bhutto: You cant murder a legacy

I watched this documentary last week at a screening hosted by WHYY and a short discussion with Trudy Rubin (Philadelphia inquirier who was scheduled to interview Benazir day she was assasinated) that followed the viewing.

I would recommend the documentary to all, but I must forewarn you that it is dangeroulsy one sided. It’s narrated mostly by Benazir herself and has the most amazing archival vintage footage.

 A definite must see, Indpenedent lens  (PBS) airs this on May 10th.

Here are links to well written reviews of the film (that i obviously agree with):

A one-sided film about Benazir Bhutto

Bhutto: Benazir’s legacy is ill-served by bias in an otherwise admirable film

=================

>via: http://katebomz.tumblr.com/post/4690826359/bhutto-you-cant-murder-a-legacy-i-...

 

__________________________

A one-sided film about Benazir Bhutto
By Irfan Husain
June 16, 2010


Invited to a showing of the new documentary, `Bhutto`, at BAFTA (the British Academy for Film and Television Arts) by my friend Robbie Delmaestro, I was happy to make the journey from Devizes to London for the event. Robbie is a member of the Academy, having been nominated for its prestigious annual award for directing many episodes of the popular TV series, The Bill. 

The documentary has gathered a lot of archival material that has never before been screened. Many of Benazir Bhutto`s speeches and conversations have been retrieved, casting fresh light on the charismatic figure and her turbulent life.

Director Duane Baughman has woven the historical video and audio clips with interviews with many figures who either knew Benazir Bhutto, or offered their analyses of her life and times. The result is a film of considerable power and relevance.

For Pakistani audiences, there is probably little that is unexpected or new, except for some footage that has been retrieved from various archives. However, Western viewers unfamiliar with the drama and the tragedy that seems deeply embedded in the Bhutto DNA, can learn a lot about a divisive political dynasty as well as a deeply troubled era in an unstable country.

The film opens with a sequence showing BB`s return from years of exile to Pakistan on Oct 18, 2007. Many of us saw the lethal suicide attacks that nearly succeeded in assassinating the former prime minister and slew around 150 of her supporters, wounding hundreds of others.

But to watch the episode again was to refresh the question so many asked at the time why was she not provided with far more security, given the many threats she faced? When asked this question in the film, then president Pervez Musharraf callously responds “She was given more security than was her due”, or words to this effect. This contrasts starkly with the findings of the UN commission that investigated the crime. According to its report, her security was woefully inadequate, and the investigation that followed was unprofessional to the point of being a cover-up.

The story then goes back to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto`s rise and fall. His judicial murder propels his daughter Benazir into the eye of the storm imprisoned and isolated, she finally escapes into exile from Zial-ul-Haq`s harsh dictatorship. Then her dramatic return in 1986 to an adoring Pakistan, and after Zia`s departure due to a fortuitous plane crash, she is elected in 1988, only to have her tenure cut short after a disastrous 20 months during which she was in office, but not in power.

As I said earlier, this is a story every Pakistani is familiar with, but even then, when the end comes on that fateful day in December, it has all the elements of a Greek tragedy. Writing in Maclean`s, Brian D. Johnson has this take on the film“Imagine what Shakespeare could have done with Benazir Bhutto. In his world, her story might go something like this. A beloved king breaks tradition and decides his eldest child, not his eldest son, can inherit his throne. She is brilliant and beautiful. The king is toppled by a cruel despot, and hanged. His daughter is imprisoned. Her younger brother is found dead, presumed poisoned. She comes out of exile to win the hearts of her people and becomes their queen.

“The older bother rebels against her rule and is killed. His daughter accuses the queen and her husband of plotting his murder. The queen loses her throne. Her husband is jailed. And after eight years of exile in a desert kingdom, she comes home to vie for the throne, and is assassinated.”

There is no question that Benazir Bhutto`s life and death carries deep resonance in the West where she is viewed as a brave, modern woman who broke the barriers of tradition and gender to become the Muslim world`s first woman prime minister. And despite her deep belief in her faith, she moved easily between the two worlds, assuring her global audience that reconciliation was possible between the Islamic and Judeo-Christian civilisations.

Among the audience at the BAFTA auditorium were members of the Bhutto family, as well as a number of her friends. In scenes showing the violent deaths of her father, her brothers and her sister, Sanam Bhutto sobbed quietly in the seat ahead of mine. I can only imagine the effect of the movie on young Bilawal, who was in the front row.

In the discussion that followed the documentary, Mark Siegel was present in his capacity of producer, while Duane Baughman was there as the director. I found it odd that Baughman is far better known as a Democratic Party member than a film-maker he was a senior member of Hillary Clinton`s election campaign team.

I have known Mark Siegel for 20 years, and apart from being a Washington lobbyist, he has been a close and devoted friend of Benazir Bhutto. Given his association with the project, it is hardly surprising that there should be so little critical evaluation of the subject of the film.

Although there were brief clips of Fatima Bhutto who expressed her old, totally unfounded accusations against her aunt and Asif Zardari of being behind her father Murtaza`s murder, and John Burns of the New York Times on his investigative report of corruption allegations against BB and Zardari, these short critical interjections were glossed over.

I left the auditorium deeply moved. But while I liked and respected Benazir Bhutto as a human being, I retain enough of a sense of scepticism and objectivity to have seen her flaws. For this reason, I found the film oddly unsatisfying. It was Robbie who put his finger on the central problem. He said he had never seen such an openly one-sided exercise in propaganda. In fact, the film was almost hagiographic in its adulation of its subject.

The account of Benazir Bhutto being a modern democrat while retaining her traditional Muslim values smacked heavily of an official line. While she was all these things, there were many other aspects of her personality that should have been explored.

Certainly the allegations of corruption that dogged much of her life after being elected in 1988 needed to have been thoroughly discussed. The reality is that Zardari`s nickname of Mr 10% has stuck to him, even though no allegation has been proved in any court. Nonetheless, this is hardly something a serious film can so easily overlook. I understand that in its release in Pakistan, even these brief critical clips have been removed, making the film even less balanced.

This is a great pity as Benazir Bhutto deserved better than a propaganda film to remember her by.

__________________________

Bhutto: Benazir's legacy is ill-served by bias in an otherwise admirable film

A documentary about Benazir Bhutto, which premiered in London last night, makes for gripping but troublingly partial viewing

Bhutto
Compellingly emotive … a still from Bhutto

"Zulfikar Ali Bhutto: Executed, 1979. Shahnawaz Bhutto: Murdered, 1985. Mir Murtaza Bhutto: Assassinated, 1996. Benazir Bhutto: Assassinated, 2007."

  1. Bhutto
  2. Production year: 2010
  3. Country: Rest of the world
  4. Runtime: 115 mins
  5. Directors: Johnny O'Hara
  6. Cast: Benazir Bhutto, Diana Aveni, Fatima Bhutto, Tariq Ali
  7. More on this film

 

This chilling roll call, which appears on the front cover of Fatima Bhutto's politicial memoir,Songs of Blood and Sword, reads like a trailer for a Hollywood thriller – so incredulous, that it couldn't possibly be true. But you can't make this stuff up.

 

Murder, corruption, assassination, exile and family feuds: if ever there was a political story that makes for superbly gripping viewing, it's definitely the Bhutto story. And now it's finally been translated to screen in Bhutto, adocumentary film put together by an American political-consultant-turned director and production team.

 

At a time when both Pakistan's flood calamity and precarious politics dominate the global media landscape, Bhutto provides a condensed and comprehensive glimpse into the complexities of a nation with a chequered, chaotic history which the West has for so long struggled to understand. But even more rare, it gives a personal, detailed insight into the public and private life of one woman and her family's political and personal legacy.

 

It's certainly easier to comprehend the Bhutto story by watching it than reading about it (Fatima Bhutto's book is no light read). The film, which screened last night as part of the Indian Film Festival of London, has been painstakingly compiled from hours of interviews with Benazir Bhutto's friends, family and rivals and rare archived footage that makes you feel like you're witnessing history as it happens. There are commentaries from her husband, children, niece Fatima and also her sister, the only one of Benazir's siblings not to have been killed (a surreal accomplishment, if you can call it that). Political insights are provided by top journalists, including Tariq Ali and Reza Aslan; even Condoleeza Rice, and former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf make appearances. Eerily, most of the narrative comes from Benazir herself, her voice telling the story of her own doomed fate.

 

As far as a history lesson goes, it's very neat; anyone who's struggled with keeping up to speed with the many twists and turns of Pakistani politics will appreciate the chronological development which captures the pivotal turning points (clashes with India, Zulfikar's rise to power and subsequent downfall, the General Zia years, Benazir's first term as prime minister, Nawaz Sharif – and so on) that ultimately come to explain how President Zardari got to where he is today.

 

But it's hard to ignore the very obvious fact that this is one history lesson which is far from objective; put simply, the film is very pro-Bhutto and very pro-Zardari. After all, every thriller needs good guys and bad guys; here, the Bhuttos are the goodies (well, all but Murtaza, who is cast as temperamental jealous sibling), and the army generals the baddies.

 

For every one anti-Bhutto sentiment that Benazir's critical niece Fatima (Murtaza's daughter) utters, there are at least two pro-Bhutto comebacks; suffice to say, Fatima doesn't appear on screen all that much.

 

Meanwhile, Zardari in particular is cast in a disturbingly angelic light. The film paints a picture of a doting father and supportive husband (we learn how he wooed Benazir with chocolates), cruelly separated from his family and unfairly thrown in jail as a victim of the press and his wife's political opponents.

 

Mark Siegel, a close friend of Benazir's who appears frequently in the film (he helped write her autobiography and also happened to be one of the documentary's producers), also shrugs off Zardari's infamous "Mr 10%" nickname as nothing more than unfounded media victimisation (this bit particularly had some audience members shifting uncomfortably in their seats).

 

It doesn't take a genius to tell that Zardari, who banned the Pakistan press from screening any footage of the shoe-throwing scene earlier this month, has been somewhat airbrushed to perfection in this particular film. Naturally, this footage is something he wants to be seen – top politicians were invited to the Islamabad premiere held two months ago.

 

As a film about Benazir's life and family legacy, Bhutto is compellingly emotive. It's hard not to be touched by watching her young daughters, sitting side by side, talk about the last time they saw their mother, or indeed by hearing Benazir's voice crack as she herself talks of the last time she saw her father before he was hung, or how she found her younger brother, Shahnawaz, dead. As a portrait of a daughter, a mother, a sister and a wife, it's certainly quite a moving tribute.

 

But as a documentary film, should it be so blatantly one-sided? While to call it propaganda, as this Pakistani columnist did, might be taking it too far, it is nevertheless unashamedly biased. Perhaps that's only to be expected of a film called Bhutto made by and featuring Benazir's friends.

 

Either way, as anti-Zardari sentiment continues to grow, this film is sure to spark yet more Pakistani controversy – but it would be disappointing to let his presence shadow the fact the film ultimately tells a remarkable story of one woman's rise to power in an Islamic country; something that's never been done since.

>via: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/aug/27/benazir-bhutto-film

 

EDUCATION: England’s Smartest Family is African > AfricanTrumpet

England’s Smartest Family

is African

Meet twins Paula and Peter Imafidon - they've just passed the University of Cambridge Advanced Maths A level and they are just 8 years old! They chat to GMTV's John Stapleton

Peter and Paula Imafidon, 9-year-old twins from Waltham Forest in northeast London, England are a part of the highest-achieving clan in the history of Great Britain education. The two youngest siblings have made  British history as the youngest students to ever enter high school. They astounded veteran experts of academia when they became the youngest to ever pass the University of Cambridge’s advanced mathematics exam. That's on top of the fact they have set world records when they passed the A/AS-level math papers.

  

Dr Chris Imafidon, their father, said he’s not concerned about his youngest children’s ability to adapt to secondary school despite their tender age. “We’re delighted with the progress they have made,” he said. “Because they are twins they are always able to help and support each other.”

To Peter and Paula’s parents, this is nothing new. Chris Imafidon said he and his wife have been through this before: they have other super-gifted, overachieving children.

Peter and Paula's sister, Anne-Marie, now 21, holds the world record as the youngest girl to pass the A-level computing, when she was just 13. She is now studying at arguably the most renowned medical school here in  the United States, Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore.

Another sister, Christina, 18, is the youngest student to ever get accepted and study at an undergraduate institution at any British university at the tender age of 11.

And Samantha, now age 13, had passed two rigorous high school-level mathematics and statistics exams at the age of 6, something that her twin siblings, Peter and Paula, also did.

Chris Imafidon migrated to London from Nigeria in West Africa over 30 years ago. And despite his children’s jaw-dropping, history-making academic achievements, he denies there is some “genius gene” in his family. Instead, he credits his children’s success to the Excellence in Education program for disadvantaged inner-city children.

"Every child is a genius," he told British reporters. "Once you identify the talent of a child and put them in the environment that will nurture that talent, then the sky is the limit. Look at Tiger Woods or the Williams sisters [Venus and Serena] — they were nurtured. You can never rule anything out with them. The competition between the two of them makes them excel in anything they do."

– Courtesy, terry shropshire, RollingOut.com