The Burden of Caring for Haiti's Disabled Children

Feb 2, 2010 – 11:17 AM

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Emily Troutman Contributor

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Feb. 2) -- On a small piece of cardboard just footsteps away from Haiti's crumbled presidential palace, Lucienne Kabatis kneels by her son Kimberly, swatting the flies away from his face, one after another. The 12-year-old boy is severely disabled, unable to talk or walk.

"After the earthquake," Lucienne says quietly, "everyone told me to leave him behind."

She could not.

The Kabatis family is among the estimated 200,000 families left homeless since the earthquake struck this island nation three weeks ago. The challenges faced by Kimberly's mother foreshadow what lies ahead for many parents of disabled children in Haiti.

Emily Troutman for AOL

Kimberly Kabatis, 12, developed mental and physical disabilities when the meningitis he contracted as a baby went untreated. His parents are struggling to care for him after Haiti's devastating earthquake.

Kimberly appears to be only 6 or 7. He contracted meningitis as a baby. The illness went untreated, and he developed profound mental and physical disabilities. He visited the hospital more than a dozen times but never received an MRI, nor a diagnosis, his mother says.

"They never told me what he has, and I had to pay for everything they used to examine him, even the gloves," Lucienne says.

Continuing care, such as physical therapy or regular assessments of Kimberly's health, were simply out of reach. Lucienne isn't sure if Kimberly can see or hear.

"I think he can't see at all. Or maybe, he can see," she says, then pauses. "But when he looks at me, it's like. ... He looks so far away."

Dr. Colleen O'Connell, a Canadian physician and rehabilitation specialist, works with Healing Hands for Haiti. She estimates at least 10,000 Haitians were disabled by the Jan. 12 earthquake, including 4,000 amputees, half of whom may be children. There are no exact numbers, but many of the disabled are also orphans.

"Before the earthquake," O'Connell says, "it was no secret that orphanages were filled disproportionately with the disabled."

Still, she notes, many parents like Lucienne Kabatis have shown a great deal of commitment to their disabled children, even though they create a survival disadvantage for the entire family in a country where poverty already was acute. In 2001, the most recent year for which data is available, the United Nations estimated almost 55 percent of people in Haiti lived on less than $1 a day.

Emily Troutman for AOL

Lucienne Kabatis, Kimberly's mother, isn't sure whether her son can see or hear. "When he looks at me, it's like. ... He looks so far away," she said.

The burden of caring for children, and particularly the disabled, falls almost entirely to mothers. Lucienne is the primary caregiver to four sons. Kimberly lays on a piece of cardboard and small carpet in this camp of nearly 1,000 in Champs de Mars plaza. Lucienne erected two makeshift walls to protect him during his seizures and to prevent him from being stepped on by others.

The men in Lucienne's life provide little help. Her husband, who survived the quake, spends his days on the streets but doesn't contribute significantly to the family. "He's always on the streets, doing nothing," Lucienne says. Peterson Kabatis, one of Lucienne's other sons, was briefly employed as a custodian but lost his job.

Feeding, cleaning and protecting Kimberly is more complex now than ever before. Lucienne knows it would have been easy to abandon him after the earthquake. "No one would have noticed if he was there, crying in the rubble with all the others," she says. "I could have left him so many times, but I never did it. I never did."

The societal stigma is usually worse for disabilities that began in infancy like Kimberly's, O'Connell says. However, she is hopeful that the increase of disabled people in Haiti could mark a sea change in the nation's cultural response to the handicapped.

Emily Troutman for AOL

Lucienne, holding Kimberly, is the primary caregiver for her four sons. Feeding and cleaning Kimberly have been especially difficult since the quake.

"This may be an opportunity for better integration," O'Connell says. "But meeting the needs of the disabled is going to require a massive effort on behalf of the international community."

Healing Hands is working in partnership with Handicap International to build a sustainable infrastructure of continuing care for the disabled. Their primary challenge will be training local staff to provide the quantity and quality of assistance that Haiti has never seen before.

For now, Lucienne struggles just to acquire enough food and water for Kimberly. But in some ways, she says, caring for him is easier now that the family is living in the streets. Like many mothers of disabled children, Lucienne was essentially forced into the isolation of their home for the past 10 years.

"At least," she says, "we're not alone anymore."

 

7 More Great Reads on Libya

by Josh Dzieza 

 

 

As the first week of U.N.-sanctioned airstrikes comes to an end, The Daily Beast rounds up some new perspectives on the situation in Libya. Plus, this week’s must-read general interest journalism.

The Economist gives an overview of the military intervention so far, Stewart Patrick writes on what the decision means for humanitarian foreign policy, Elizabeth Ferris points out the impending refugee crisis, and Mohammed ElBaradei and Yoweri Museveni give their impressions of Moammar Gaddafi.

 AP Photo (3); Getty Images

  1. Into the Unknown, The Economist

The Economist has a rundown of the Libya intervention so far and all the disagreements that threaten to stymie it. There's disagreement over whether NATO or a Franco-British command will lead the coalition, disagreement within NATO over what the objectives are, and disagreement among the rebels over whether they ought to push for Gaddafi's ouster or accept a temporary stalemate and partition. Many questions remain open, including whether the rebels have access to oil reserves, whether Col. Gaddafi has huge amounts of gold stashed away in Tripoli, how determined the army is to support Gaddafi, and how determined the rebels are to take him down. But the place to watch seems to Misurata, where Gaddafi's forces are currently entrenched. If airstrikes and rebel assaults can't dislodge loyalists there, it would show the limits of the coalition and the rebel forces, and effectively draw the line of partition—unless Gaddafi's government collapses from within.

2. A New Lease on Life for Humanitarianism, by Stewart Patrick, Foreign Affairs

Stewart Patrick lauds the decision to intervene in Libya for its revival of humanitarian foreign policy, but he says the allies are now obliged to see their intervention through. He writes that the U.N. resolution resuscitated a moribund policy called the “responsibility to protect,” a norm endorsed in the 2005 World Summit that “makes a state’s presumed right of nonintervention contingent on its ability and willingness to protect its citizens,” but which repeatedly failed to stop mass atrocities like those in Darfur and the Democratic Republic of Congo. “In invoking 'the Libyan authorities’ responsibility to protect its population' in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973, which prompted Operation Odyssey Dawn” writes Patrick, “the Security Council has seemingly given RtoP a new lease on life.” But how long that lease is good for depends on Odyssey Dawn's success, and to succeed, you need clear goals. On this count, “the United States and its partners’ dithering over Operation Odyssey Dawn’s aims is disturbing.” Patrick thinks the coalition ought to stop dithering and decide that “The “responsibility to protect” implies a responsibility to rebuild once the shooting stops.” Despite the U.N. resolution's explicit rejection of an occupation of Libya, Patrick says stabilization will require a longterm multinational peacekeeping force.

With Odyssey Dawn, Bruce Ackerman argues, Obama has taken the precedent of unilateral executive action even farther than George W. Bush.

3. Libya: The Humanitarian Emergency We See and the One We Don't, by Elizabeth Ferris, The Brookings Institution

As everyone focuses on the armed struggle between Gaddafi's forces and the rebels, a new humanitarian crisis is developing, warns Elizabeth Ferris. Around 350,000 people have fled Libya in the last month, most of them Egyptian and Tunisian migrant workers trying to get home. But other groups are trying to escape as well, including large numbers of African migrants who report being attacked by rebels who mistake them for Gaddafi's mercenaries. A similar humanitarian crisis is developing inside the country, where reports say tens of thousands of Libyans have left their homes in search of safety. How has the international community responded to this less visible crisis? Aid organizations have done what they can to help refugees, positioning supplies in neighboring countries and helping transport migrant workers back home, but they haven't yet figured out how to operate safely within Libya's borders. Meanwhile, Europe regards the impending influx of refugees as a security threat. Italy's foreign minister warned about “a wave of 200,000 to 300,000 immigrants,” and France, in Ferris' words, has “called on the Italian government to act responsibly—and prevent the migrants from moving out of Italy into, say, France.”

4. Libya's Ragtag Rebels: Why They Fight, by Bobby Ghosh, Time

Time's Bobby Ghosh sizes up the rebels and finds them to be a ragtag band of amateur and poorly armed soldiers following a handful of different leaders—or none at all. Civilians use megaphones to rally people at the front, where people come to watch the air raids and talk about suicide missions, though they have no explosives. “The next attack will take place when the driver of one of the vehicles gets a rush of blood to his head and roars off in the direction of Ajdabiyah,” writes Ghosh. There are a few professional fighters among them, but they seem unable to rally and direct the partisans, who distrust them for once fighting for Gaddafi and worry they may change sides once more.

5. Qaddafi Unplugged, by Mohamed ElBaradei, Vanity Fair

Mohamed ElBaradei, the former director of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency and leading figure in the Egyptian revolution, thinks back on his past meetings with Gaddafi, and the impression the ruler gave of being out of touch with international politics. In one meeting, Gaddafi asks ElBaradei whether he's a Nasser fan and, “Why does the Egyptian government hate you?” But it's when Gaddafi whips out a notebook and pencil to take notes on how NATO works that ElBaradei “realized that Qaddafi was less than fully informed on global security alliances and structures.” ElBaradei touches on some of Gaddafi's quirks, like his ban on barbershops and penchant for meeting world leaders in tents, but mostly he sticks to anecdotes that show the gulf between how the world sees Libya and how Gaddafi and his son Saif would like to be seen.

6. The Qaddafi I Know, by Yoweri Museveni, Foreign Policy

Yoweri Museveni, the president of Uganda, lists the things he likes and dislikes about the Libyan ruler. Dislikes include Gaddafi's backing Idi Amin against Uganda, pushing for a United States of Africa instead of a less formal economic community, interfering with other country's politics, ignoring the crisis in Sudan, and being too close with terrorists. On the other hand, Museveni likes that Gaddafi is “independent minded” rather than a “puppet.” He also likes that Gaddafi raised the price of oil, built infrastructure within Libya, and is secular. Calling the rebels “insurrectionists” rather than demonstrators, Museveni goes on to list the reasons why the U.N. was wrong to get involved, arguing, among other things, that it's hypocritical not to impose a no-fly zone over Bahrain or Yemen (or China), that the airstrikes have prevented an African Union mission from arriving, and that the rebels were doing fine on their own. “I only had 27 rifles. To be puppets is not good,” writes Museveni.

7. Obama's Unconstitutional War, by Bruce Ackerman, Foreign Policy

With Odyssey Dawn, Bruce Ackerman argues, Obama has taken the precedent of unilateral executive action even farther than George W. Bush. Obama may have secured a U.N. Resolution, “But the U.N. Charter is not a substitute for the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress, not the president, the power 'to declare war.'” After the Vietnam War, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution, which allows the president to act without congressional approval for 60 days in response to a "national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces." But no U.S. forces were attacked by Gaddafi. Because the Libya campaign is being run with existing funds, Obama goes even further than the precedent set by Clinton in 1999 when he bombed Kosovo on the argument that Congress' approval of funding was tacit approval of the war. Obama could argue, as Truman did with Korea, that the president has the right to wage war without congressional approval, but Ackerman finds this argument dubious, and thinks Congress should deny funding after three months and launch an investigation into presidential power.

Josh Dzieza is an editorial assistant at The Daily Beast.

Toward African freedom in Libya and beyond

March 26, 2011

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by Molefi Kete Asante

In addition to the large numbers of Africans who come to Libya to work, many native Libyans, such as the nomadic Tuaregs of southern Libya, are Black. – Photo: Luis Sinco, Los Angeles Times

The fundamental stimulus of the attack on Libya is greed, not the protection of the Libyan people. In fact, the people of Libya have suffered more during this bombardment by Western powers and their allies than during the entire 41 years of the leadership of Muammar al-Gaddafi.

There are several rationales that have been advanced in the public for the reason for the assault on Libya. The attackers have said that Gaddafi has used force against his own people. They say that they are trying to prevent revenge attacks on the people who have risen against the leader of Libya. They also say that Gaddafi’s government has lost its legitimacy. None of these arguments make much sense in reality, and they conceal the attempt at exploitation, appropriation of Libyan petroleum and colonial incursion to demonstrate the will of the West in Africa.

We have yet to have a clear view of the attacks made upon the Libyan people by their government. If anything, the actions of the Libyan government in Tripoli appear restrained despite the agitation caused by a vocal minority. In the United States in 1965, when I was a young college student, I witnessed the actions of the National Guard on the streets of South Central Los Angeles. Nearly 40 people were killed in a confrontation with American government authorities.

Governments fight to maintain their legitimacy; this is the law of sustaining power. When President Bush reached the lowest point of his popularity among the American people, he was still considered the president. Gaddafi has not lost any legitimacy because groups of his people, influenced by social media, went to the streets to demonstrate against him. Popularity has rarely been the standard by which governments must be overthrown.

Furthermore, there were no African mercenaries fighting against the people of Libya as reported by the media; the Black people that the Western media experts saw were Libyans.

Although we can and should argue about the need for what Ron Daniels calls the “act of internal criticism” in African governments, there can be no argument about the necessity for Africans to solve their own problems. We must be clear that the attack on Libya is an attack on Africa.

One of the reasons that the French, the Americans and the British could not reach an agreement with the African Union to bomb Libya is because the political intelligence of African leaders has grown tremendously since the crises in Sudan, Côte d’Ivoire, Tunisia and Egypt. The African Union knows that Gaddafi’s leadership on questions of African unity is among the most prominent.

We must be clear that the attack on Libya is an attack on Africa.

Few African leaders have been as active in assisting the continent economically and administratively as Gaddafi. He has used his country’s wealth to create a strong economy in Libya as well as to support civil servants in other African nations. We must not be beguiled by the Western media in its rush to remove one of the strongest African leaders from his post.

Gaddafi has minced no words about his support for and belief in the United States of Africa. Indeed, he knows that if Africa is divided between Northern and Southern states, or if Africa keeps existing as 54 independent states, the Western nations and the North American nations of Canada and United States will eat each part of Africa alive. They will not be able to swallow a continent that is united, firm in its convictions and dedicated to the liberty of its territory.

If Africa is divided between Northern and Southern states, or if Africa keeps existing as 54 independent states, the West  will eat each part of Africa alive.

No one has shouted any louder than Gaddafi that Africa must be for the Africans. In this he reminds us of the clarion voice of Marcus Garvey.

With the fall of Tunisia, Libya and possibly Morocco and Algeria, France will have succeeded in its major plan to bring those states, especially oil-producing Libya, into a grand Mediterranean Basin clique. In such a scenario, the northern part of Africa will be declared the southern ridge of the European nation to the north. Gaddafi has been one of the major opponents of this neo-hegemony over African territory.

A United Africa would be a step toward overcoming disease, transportation problems, famine and land disputes. In our judgment we should not be so fast to criticize Gaddafi just because Western governments call for such an action. If they say that he is punishing his people, denying them free speech and keeping them from education, this must be proven.

Furthermore, why hasn’t the Western world rolled into Israel or the West Bank and saved the Palestinian people who suffer true slaughter and discrimination at the hands of Israel? What is Gaza, if not the pits of hell? When shall we hear high-sounding words from the leaders of the Western world in support of those Arabs? Africans must beware of the gifts of Europe.

Professor Asante speaks at a conference in Paris. His son is the author and filmmaker M.K. Asante Jr.

Since Kwame Nkrumah, Africa has rarely had a visionary as broad in thinking and as dedicated in commitment as Gaddafi. Perhaps in his desire to strengthen the continent and to make Africa powerful he went too far with his donations to the governments of Senegal, Chad, Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe and did not do enough for the Libyan people.

No African nation was among those who came out to attack Libya on March 19. President Sarkozy of France has reported that some Arab nations supported the campaign against Libya, but even if that proves to be so, one must not read too much into this without some appreciation of the Arab distress with Gaddafi’s pro-African stance.

Transformations are produced by those who are focused on long-term goals, not by those who make convenient alliances with the enemies of their people. As Nkrumah was fond of saying, “We face neither East nor West; we face forward.”

It has been Gaddafi who has made Nkrumah’s mantra his own: “Africa must unite or perish.” Why would this language threaten the West? The Libyan leader has encountered, and continues to encounter, attempted setbacks and hurdles.

The work of the Brother Leader, as he is sometimes called, has been to raise African consciousness to the point that some of the nations on the continent of Africa begin to reject the loyalty they hold for their colonial masters. Some African leaders seem to fear other Africans.

Gaddafi has proposed that Africa do away with travel restrictions, create a common currency and ease trade tariffs and barriers. This African solidarity is not only a threat to the West – some who identify as Arabs have a difficult time accepting the Africanity promoted by Gaddafi.

With the proper safeguards and cooperation of the African world, the Libyan people can sort out their own internal squabbles. The great danger of the attacks on Libya is that they are being used by the U.S. to test the effectiveness of AFRICOM, the African Command, and this adventure will open the door to direct military intervention in Africa. We already know that the U.S. and the former colonial powers of France and England are re-inventing Cold War policies to enlarge and protect their economic interests on the continent.

The great danger of the attacks on Libya is that they are being used by the U.S. to test the effectiveness of AFRICOM, the African Command, and this adventure will open the door to direct military intervention in Africa.

The attack on Libya is also a challenge to Brazil, Venezuela, China, Iran and Russia for influence on the continent. However, beyond the economic argument is the moral argument for African people.

Why should a group of dissidents be able to challenge their state and cause international hegemonic forces to invade their land? Who is to blame for this political folly? We do not see the collapse of the Libyan government, and we support the masses of Libyan people against the tyranny of a minority.

When Africa needed Gaddafi, he was always present. Now that Libya needs Africa, let it be said that Africa will be present on the side of the legitimate government of the people of Libya.

Molefi Kete Asante is international representative of Afrocentricity International, professor of African American studies at Temple University, and author of “The History of Africa” and over 70 other books. He can be reached through his website, http://www.asante.net. This story previously appeared in the New York Amsterdam News, a legendary Black newspaper founded in 1909.

>via: http://sfbayview.com/2011/toward-african-freedom-in-libya-and-beyond/

 

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Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links

Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi's regime.

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he had earlier fought against 'the foreign invasion' in Afghanistan Photo: AFP

By Praveen Swami, Nick Squires and Duncan Gardham5:00PM GMT 25 Mar 2011

In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he had recruited "around 25" men from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he said, are "today are on the front lines in Adjabiya".

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters "are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists," but added that the "members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader".

His revelations came even as Idriss Deby Itno, Chad's president, said al-Qaeda had managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone and acquired arms, "including surface-to-air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries".

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he had earlier fought against "the foreign invasion" in Afghanistan, before being "captured in 2002 in Peshwar, in Pakistan". He was later handed over to the US, and then held in Libya before being released in 2008.

US and British government sources said Mr al-Hasidi was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG, which killed dozens of Libyan troops in guerrilla attacks around Derna and Benghazi in 1995 and 1996.

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Even though the LIFG is not part of the al-Qaeda organisation, the United States military's West Point academy has said the two share an "increasingly co-operative relationship". In 2007, documents captured by allied forces from the town of Sinjar, showed LIFG emmbers made up the second-largest cohort of foreign fighters in Iraq, after Saudi Arabia.

Earlier this month, al-Qaeda issued a call for supporters to back the Libyan rebellion, which it said would lead to the imposition of "the stage of Islam" in the country.

British Islamists have also backed the rebellion, with the former head of the banned al-Muhajiroun proclaiming that the call for "Islam, the Shariah and jihad from Libya" had "shaken the enemies of Islam and the Muslims more than the tsunami that Allah sent against their friends, the Japanese".

>via: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8407047/...

 

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The women fighting, organising, feeding and healing Libya’s revolution

Sarah Birke

Last Updated: Mar 25, 2011

 

In a bare, shabby side room in Benghazi's central courthouse, the hub of pro-democracy Libyan operations, Salwa Bugaighis talks animatedly, hardly flinching as gunshots ring out from the raucous crowds outside. They, like her, are in a mood that veers between celebration and defiance to anxiety. They flood the area of the seafront, which is littered with boards displaying caricatures of the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Qaddafi and stalls selling souvenirs since the eastern part of the country was liberated on February 20.

The 44-year-old lawyer, an elegant woman dressed in black trousers and jacket, her eyes neatly lined with kohl, was on the steps of the courthouse at the first protest on February 15, when a group of legal professionals and academics gathered to protest the arrest of a colleague and to call for legal reforms, including a constitution. She has barely left the building since. By February 17 the government's vicious reaction had led to calls for regime change, and just three days later rebels claimed control of the city, Libya's second largest after the capital Tripoli.

"There is so much to do," Bugaighis says as she strides down the corridor lined with graffiti, her jacket flying out behind her. "We had no idea we would get rid of Qaddafi in just a few days and we were left with nothing, no institutions at all. We had to quickly work out how to organise everything for ourselves."

For her, that means an amorphous job running logistical operations and acting as a liaison between the street and the National Transitional Council, the interim governing body led by Qaddafi's former justice minister, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, that heads a number of city councils around the east. This morning she has been talking to young people on the street, relaying their messages to the council's members. Later, she will meet with the military committee to discuss how to prepare Benghazi against an attack - government forces were then quickly heading east, though the new UN-imposed no-fly zone has lessened the threat - while fielding calls about arriving food shipments.

Bugaighis, a mother of three, is just one of a group of women who have been at the vanguard of Benghazi's uprising. Away from the front lines where the east's men are battling to hold off pro-Qaddafi forces, women work side-by-side with men to keep the rebels fighting, society and the economy functioning and the uprising visible.

Day jobs have been shed, replaced by a spirit of volunteerism that has led to ad hoc committees and fledgling democratic institutions. Some, like Bugaighis, are members of the organisational institutions centred in the courthouse. She is joined by her sister Iman Bugaighis, a professor-turned-spokeswoman for the rebels, and by Salwa el Deghali, the women's representative on the council. But, as was the case in Egypt and Tunisia, women were involved in the protests from the start, and Libyan women across all classes and levels of education are now playing a role from providing food to keeping up numbers in the streets, regardless of the outcome of the rebellion.

The uprising of which Bugaighis was part began with calls for protests on February 17, leading to the pro-democracy Libyans being dubbed the "February 17 rebels". But it sparked two days earlier when Fathi Terbil, a fellow lawyer, was arrested. He is representing the families of the victims of the massacre in Abu Salim, a notorious Tripoli prison where human rights organisations say some 1,200 people, mainly political prisoners, were killed after they rose up in 1996 - yet many of the wives and mothers weren't told of the deaths until 2009.

This, says Bugaighis, was the final straw. "For 42 years we have not been able to say what we want," she says. But small fires - fuelled by Benghazi's lawyers, many of them women - were burning long before. In September last year, Bugaighis and others took to the streets when the head of the legal union - a Qaddafi appointment - failed to step down long after the end of his term.

"We took chairs and tables outside and held our meeting there," says Bugaighis. "Everyone in Libya was talking about it because such actions are - were - rare here." Now the lawyers are trying to give some semblance of order to the vacuum that resulted, guiding the formation of a governing structure. "We are presenting our services to the population," she says. "We have no political experience, but I think we are doing a great job."

Liberating Benghazi was no easy task. According to Benghazi's medical committee at least 228 civlians were killed and 1,932 wounded in the struggle for this city of one million people. Many were shot by snipers from the Kateeba barracks, the base of one of Qaddafi's extensive groups of security and military apparatus. Rebel fighters rapidly filled Benghazi's hopitals as the fighting intensified.

Doctor Jasmine Sherif, 27, says she never imagined she would be treating patients with such extreme injuries a year after she graduated from Garyounis University in Benghazi. For several days and nights she has not left Benghazi's Al Hawaree Hospital. When her duties as a doctor end, she volunteers to do nursing care, changing dressings and running bags of blood between wards.

Many of the nurses were foreign and fled the country as the violence broke out, leading to a shortage of staff. Today Sherif is treating Ibrahim Imraja, a young man of 21. He came in with a bullet in his head and one that went through his back, cutting his spinal cord between two lumbar vertebrae. He will never walk again, Sherif says. Others have come in with limbs missing. She fears something similar - or worse - will happen to her brother, who is fighting, but says she encouraged him to go.

"We have broken through the fear barrier," she says. "I see people my age dying every day. It is so hard, but we must keep Libya free and that involves sacrifice."

Engaged to a fellow doctor, she has no idea when or if they will wed. When she went to study medicine, it was a path to a better life.

"There is some discrimination against women in our personal life, but at work I am equal," she says. "This means I can at least help to make people strong and hope we have enough people to face Qaddafi's forces. I am sure there is worse to come."

Thousands of Libya's women such as Sherif are in position to help after having received a good education thanks to people such as Mufeeda al Masri, a rotund, jovial 50-year-old. Back in 2008 al Masri decided that girls needed more access to education, and she founded Al Irtiqua ("progress" in Arabic) school. Today that school, located in a sunny central courtyard in Benghazi, has been transformed into a mass kitchen churning out over 1,000 meals a day to feed the rebels on the front line. The school's clinic has become a food store where sacks of potatoes slump against the wall, and classrooms have been turned into makeshift kitchens with desks used as work surfaces. Huge metal pots dot the floor as children run around the women's legs. Since the first delivery on February 20, the school has been full every day with more than 100 women peeling, chopping, cooking and packing rice, chicken and salad into aluminium containers. Others slice rolls, as many as 4,000 a day, passing them along a human conveyor belt to be filled and wrapped. From school pupils to widows of the Abu Salim massacre, the women work from morning until late afternoon when trucks arrives to ferry the food to the front.

"The day I saw the bloodshed at Kateeba I decided I had to do something to support the revolution," says al Masri. Her husband was a colonel in the air force and defected, refusing to fight for Qaddafi against the rebels. Support has been easy, she says: a steady flow of people come with food and monetary donations. Businessmen hand over wads of cash, she says, pulling a fistful of banknotes from her pocket, and small children proffer the remains of their savings. Preparations are interrupted by phone calls. One woman receives a call from her son at the front - the rebels have pushed back Qaddafi's forces. Trilling breaks out as the women celebrate the news. But they are aware the victories may be only temporary, though the no-fly zone now has renewed their hopes.

"We will do this until we die," says Najwa Sahly, a 51-year-old biology teacher whose husband, a professor of chemistry, was killed in Abu Salim. "I have lost my husband, what more do I have to be afraid of?"

Others who have sons and husbands on the front lines know they have a lot to lose. Khiria Abdul Salam, 42, spends half the day protesting and praying outside courthouse - flooded with as many women as men - and the other half propped up against a cushion in her living room glued to the Al Jazeera news channel. In her simple house on the fifth floor of a run-down area a 10-minute drive along the sea front from central Benghazi, there is a semblance of normality: her two daughters play, she cooks, relatives come in to ask for news. But she is afraid. Her husband went out on the first day to protest and she knew he would join the fighters. Abdul Salam says she has not heard from her husband since he left for the front three weeks ago.

"He worked for 20 years for the army before becoming a guard for a company. He earns 250LYD (Dh735) a month and his two grown-up sons have no work. That is why he went," she says. The couple wed through a traditional, arranged marriage 21 years ago, then the norm in Libyan society. They have three sons and two daughters.

"He was good to me, a good person," she says, crying softly. She knows soon her two elder sons - 18 and 19 - will go, too. So far they haven't as they have no military expertise. But as the rebels lose bodies they are becoming an increasingly ragtag bunch. Young boys have been heading to the front lines, eager to help counter Qaddafi's superior firepower with sheer numbers.

In front of the Benghazi courthouse, Abdul Salam is joined by many like her. A small area of the pavement is cordoned off for women, with men milling around behind. In a covered area, older women sit huddled in blankets, and some pray on rugs with the tricolour - the national flag from before Qaddafi took power and that now flies proudly across the east - laid out at the head. Women wander over to the wall of photographs of those killed in Abu Salim, or at posters of Mahdi Ziu. Ziu is one of the heroes of Bengahzi's liberation, however long it may last. A father, he drove his car loaded with gas cylinders into the Kateeba gates on February 20, breaking the government forces' protection; a pivotal moment in the battle for the city.

The mood changes almost daily. During protests, the women are defiant, some speaking from the window on the upper floor of the courthouse to the crowds below. On days when the rebels advance, they approach journalists in panic, telling stories of the children they fear Qaddafi's forces will kill if they retake Benghazi. Threats are going round. Text messages - the two mobile phone companies are owned by the Qaddafi family - have been received saying only "Soon".

Around the crowds, marshals in fluorescent jackets distribute water and food. One, Rosanna Ramadan, 23, thrusts bottles into outstretched hands. An English student at Garyounis University, she is now volunteering in order to keep the women on the streets.

"Women want to have their voice heard so we have a special area to make sure everyone is comfortable enough to come out," she says. But the protests have broken down barriers in a way never seen before. Girls say they are allowed out until late and are working together with men. "We all have the same ideas and are one right now," says Ramadan. "I think this will transform the lot for women afterwards when all of Libya is free."

The transformation has occurred in the home, too. Suzanne Himmi, 35, says she has found her voice and her way of helping the revolution. The former housewife and mother of five came out to protest on the first days because "my father-in-law died in prison and many more of my relatives have been hurt by Qaddafi". Living close to the courthouse, she was witness to everything that was happening. "I decided to write it down and collect people's stories," she says. Now she writes daily for the newspaper Libya, one of the new media outlets to pop up in Benghazi.

"It is important that people know what is going on so they are not scared," says Himmi. From tales of what the rebels are facing on the front lines to how locals in Benghazi are reacting, writing came naturally to her, she says. "I had, like everyone else, a fire inside. And writing is my way of letting it out."

Women have also assisted media that have flooded in. Journalists arriving in Benghazi were met with a slick operation: within hours they were registered and paired with a local fixer equipped with a car and a command of English.

"When journalists started coming we realised we had a responsibility to look after them because they were key to telling the world what was going on," says Najla el Mangoush, a 35-year-old divorced mother of two who switched jobs from being a legal adviser to working as a media assistant in the Ouzu Hotel, a hub for rebels and journalists. Born in the UK, she and a number of colleagues gathered together to form one of Benghazi's many volunteer committees, this one to work with the media. Manghoush says she has barely seen her two daughters, Gaida, 10, and Raghad, five, since the uprising. But they are used to it, she adds. A lawyer like Bugaighis before the uprising, she worked mornings as a legal adviser at the Benghazi Medical Centre, a public hospital, and afternoons as a lecturer in criminal law at Garyounis University. Poverty, she says, is one of the reasons why so many of Benghazi's women work - and why so many joined the uprising. Earning just 300LYD a month at her regular job, she had to take a second.

"This is one of the reasons Benghazi fell," says Manghoush. "Both men and women, educated and not, were being humiliated. Now we are all rebuilding it together."

 

The comments and developments described here are representative of the situation in Benghazi before the UN-imposed no-fly zone began on March 19. They may not reflect the current, changing climate.

 

For more stories from M magazine, visit www.thenational.ae/m

>via: http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/africa/the-women-fighting-organising...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

London sees red

 at large scale protest

Image: eastlondonlines

Organisers claim that over 200,000 people have taken to the streets of London on Saturday to protest against the UK government’s public spending cuts. Though the protest has been largely peaceful scuffles have broken out near Oxford Circus and Picadilly Circus as breakaway groups target Topshop, HSBC and the Ritz, amongst other locations, with paint bombs and smashed windows.

The protest march, organised by the Trade Union Congress, started at Embankment leading to Hyde Park, where a number of speakers, including Labour leader Ed Miliband, addressed the crowd.

Updated about 8 hours ago

People starting a fire in the middle of Oxford Circus. 1830GMT #26marchhttp://twitpic.com/4dlag4

Tweet by @photojournalism

Updated about 8 hours ago

Police now say 5 police officers injured so far today, one taken to hospital with a minor injury.

Tweet by @KeirSimmonsITV

Updated about 8 hours ago

Police now say 28 casualties from public, 7 admitted to hospital, some suffeering shortness of breath and someone with a fractured hip.

Tweet by @KeirSimmonsITV

Updated about 8 hours ago

Police protecting Boots store on Piccadilly from protesters.

Image: eastlondonlines

Updated about 8 hours ago

TUC March and Rally over, but closures remain in place because of break away groups. Only Embankment , P Square & W'minster Bridge re-opened

Tweet by @BBCTravelAlert

Updated about 10 hours ago

Protesters are staging a sit-in at luxury department store Fortnum & Masons at Picadilly. Direct action group UK Un-Cut have stepped up claiming responsibility for the sit-in, arguing that Associated British Foods, which owns the store along with Primark, Ryvita and Kingsmill has dodged £40m in taxes.

Hundreds of #ukuncut protesters occupy Fortnum & Mason http://twitpic.com/4djz6l

Tweet by @UKuncut

Updated about 10 hours ago

Image: UKuncut

Updated about 10 hours ago

Someone knocked over a stack of chocolate bunnies. Other protesters sternly ask them to pick it all up. 'That's just unnecessary' #march26

Tweet by @PennyRed

Updated about 12 hours ago

There have now been two significant incidents of violence towards property and police away from the march #march26march #march 26 #TUCnews

Tweet by @CO11MetPolice

Updated about 12 hours ago

Direct action protesters estimated by police on ground to number in excess of 500.#demo2011

Tweet by @KeirSimmonsITV

Updated about 12 hours ago

HSBC Cambridge Circus Black Bloc #march26 #26march #ELLhttp://twitpic.com/4dih4w

Tweet by @eastlondonlines

Updated about 12 hours ago

Small by number of anarchists ruining an otherwise very peaceful and inclusive march along picadilly. Explosions and smashed window #march26

Tweet by @AnnaWinston

Updated about 12 hours ago

TUC march continues to be peaceful and well stewarded #march26march #march 26#TUCnews #sukeyData

Tweet by @CO11MetPolice

Updated about 11 hours ago

One HSBC branch at Oxford Circus became a major target for anarchist groups.

Updated about 12 hours ago

Police block door to HSBC #march26 #26march #ELL http://twitpic.com/4dihfk

Tweet by @eastlondonlines

Updated about 12 hours ago

HSBC Cambridge Circus under attack #march26 #26march #ELLhttp://twitpic.com/4didey

Tweet by @eastlondonlines

Updated about 11 hours ago

Sir Philip Green’s flagship Topshop store on Oxford Street also had paint bombs hurled at it and windows smashed by protesters. Green has made headlines in the UK for dodging tax on his business’ revenue.

Updated about 12 hours ago

What exactly have they achieved from this?? "Topshop surrounded by riot cops. Paint & smashed windows"  #march26

Tweet by @mylimem

Updated about 13 hours ago

Topshopbeing protected by around 30 police maybe if they paid their taxes they wouldn't need to sponge off our force for protection #march26

Tweet by @GreatAuntVi

Updated about 12 hours ago

Protesters are now throwing missiles at The Ritz hotel in central London. #march26

Tweet by @wackywace

Updated about 12 hours ago

Direct action protesters target Santander Branch and Lloyds branch piccadilly. Paint and smashed windows. #demo2011

Tweet by @KeirSimmonsITV

Updated about 12 hours ago

Organisers of direct action group try to smash windows of McDonalds Shaftesbury Ave#demo2011

Tweet by @KeirSimmonsITV

Updated about 12 hours ago

Protesters attacking a police van on Shaftsbury Avenue with police inside

Image: semisara

Updated about 13 hours ago

Be aware that police have had light bulbs filled with ammonia thrown at them in the Oxford Street area. #march26 #TUC #sukeyData

Tweet by @CO11MetPolice

Updated about 12 hours ago

Police van attacked by vandal #march26 http://twitpic.com/4dih3n

Tweet by @eastlondonlines

Updated about 13 hours ago

Anarchists, the Black Bloc, at Picadilly Circus:

Image: eastlondonlines

Updated about 12 hours ago

Forty cops in full battle armour marching up Oxford street. #march26

Tweet by @PennyRed

Updated about 12 hours ago

Kettle broken by crowds of people running in front and back. Lines of cops don't seem to know what to do #march26

Tweet by @PennyRed

Updated about 12 hours ago

Choppers over oxford st #march26 #26march #ELL http://twitpic.com/4di4to

Tweet by @eastlondonlines

Updated about 11 hours ago

And ever so politely – the Metropolitan Police looking for comments on their handling of the protest march.

>via: http://www.storyful.com/stories/1000001998-london-sees-red-at-large-scale-pro...

__________________________

Anti-cuts march:

Tens of thousands at London protest

Click to play

 

Watch: The BBC's Sophie Long spoke to some people taking part in the march

Continue reading the main story

Related Stories

• Police clash with splinter groups
• Eyewitness: Anger and fun
• Anti-cuts march: Your pictures

 

More than 250,000 people have attended a march and rally in central London against public spending cuts.

Labour leader Ed Miliband addressed crowds in Hyde Park and the main march organised by the Trades Union Congress passed off peacefully.

But small groups attacked shops and banks with a stand-off in Piccadilly. There have been 214 arrests and 66 people injured, including 13 police.

Ministers say the cuts are necessary to get the public finances in order.

In the largest public protest since the Iraq war rally in 2003, marchers from across the UK set off from Victoria Embankment to Hyde Park, where TUC general secretary Brendan Barber was first in a line of speakers.

"We are here to send a message to the government that we are strong and united," he said.

"We will fight the savage cuts and we will not let them destroy peoples' services, jobs and lives."

At the scene in Oxford St

Tom Symonds BBC News UK affairs correspondent

---

A very small group of protesters, maybe three to four hundred people, stopped outside Topshop.

The police are being careful to communicate with people on the ground using social media, knowing many are young. One update is that there are no kettles so far.

Protesters are very worried they will get caught within police cordons - so there is a bit of a game of cat and mouse.

Lots of these protests are very fast-moving. We walk miles with these protesters as they try to keep out of police cordons.

We saw some scuffles with police. Watching all the time are shoppers - this is Saturday afternoon. It is not a violent atmosphere, but it's certainly a lively atmosphere.

Mr Barber was followed by Mr Miliband, who said: "The Tories said I should not come and speak today. But I am proud to stand with you. There is an alternative."

The march began at 1200 GMT and it took more than four hours for the protesters to file past the Houses of Parliament on their way to the park.

The TUC, which organised the event, said more than 250,000 people had taken part, and the Metropolitan Police confirmed the numbers.

BBC political reporter Brian Wheeler, in central London, said there were lots of families and older people, and the atmosphere was good-natured but the anger was real.

"The noise in Whitehall was deafening as thousands of protesters banged drums, blew whistles and shouted anti-cut slogans, slowly making their way towards Trafalgar Square.

"The crowds were booing as they went past Number 10, but the demonstration was good-natured and friendly.

"There are hundreds of trade union banners, but we have also spoken to public sector workers who have come to make their voices heard."

One of those protesting was Peter Keats, 54, from Lowestoft, Suffolk, who works for Jobcentre Plus.

Organisers estimated at least 250,000 people attended

He said: "Personally, I think it's wrong the way we are hitting the poor.

"I'm not so much worried about myself but the customers I deal with are vulnerable and I'm worried about them and I'm worried about the kids of this country."

Demonstrator Christine Nugent, a university research fellow, said: "The size and scale of it, and the range of people here, is great."

The veteran of anti-Margaret Thatcher demonstrations in the 1980s said protesters came from all walks of life, adding: "There are a lot of trade unionists here, but it's not just the usual suspects."

There have been separate incidents involving a number of protesters, some with their faces covered by scarves, away from the main march:

• A sit-in organised by the campaign group UK Uncut took place at Fortnum & Mason department store in Piccadilly. The group has previously mounted protests against tax avoidance measures by big businesses
• A bonfire was lit by protesters at Oxford Circus, where earlier police said light bulbs containing ammonia were thrown at officers
• Topshop on Oxford Street had its windows smashed and was doused with paint

• Missiles were thrown at the Ritz Hotel, Piccadilly

• Bank branches including the Royal Bank of Scotland were attacked with paint and had windows broken, while branches of HSBC and Santander were broken into.

Scotland Yard said there had been 202 arrests for public order offences, criminal damage, aggravated trespass and violent disorder.

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

"I agree with the protesters, they are fighting for the future.”

  —Bonnie, Tunbridge Wells

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

• Have Your Say

Commander Bob Broadhurst said: "The main TUC march has been going well. We have had more than a quarter of a million people with hardly any problems.

"Unfortunately we have had a group of approximately 500 criminals committing some disorder including throwing paint at Topshop in Oxford Street and at the police, and scaring the public who are trying to shop."

Policing minister Nick Herbert said the government was "committed to supporting peaceful protest" and blamed the violence on "a small minority of individuals".

A stand-off between police and splinter groups took place in Piccadilly

Mr Miliband condemned the violence, saying: "There is no excuse for it. It is unlawful and wrong."

Civil rights group Liberty said the march had been "infiltrated by violent elements" who attacked buildings before "melting into the demonstration once more".

Earlier, the largest union involved, Unite, said so many of its members had wanted to take part that it could not find enough coaches or trains to ferry them to London.

Its general secretary Len McCluskey said the scale of the deficit had been exaggerated.

Outlining his economic plan to the BBC, he said: "Our alternative is to concentrate on economic growth through tax fairness so, for example, if the government was brave enough, it would tackle the tax avoidance that robs the British taxpayer of a minimum of £25bn a year."

Education Secretary Michael Gove said he could understand the disquiet and anger.

"But the difficulty that we have as the government inheriting a terrible economic mess is that we have to take steps to bring the public finances back into balance," he said.

Mr Miliband is attending the march but is yet to sketch out an alternative, he added.

Click to play

 

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude on cuts

Matthew Sinclair, director of the Taxpayers' Alliance which lobbies for lower taxes and greater government efficiency, said: "It's understandable that people feel upset...

"But in the end it's not valid and what politicians should be doing is not encouraging this rally but saying look, you've got to be more realistic about the options facing this country."

Did you take part in the march? What is your reaction to Saturday's events? Are you currently in Trafalgar Square? You can send us your views and experiences using the form below.

Siji

Siji's chart-topping "Ijo" gets a potentially award-winning new video

No doubt you grabbed your copy of the 8-track Afro House remix of Siji's Ijo after we brought it to your attention back in November, and now you can enjoy the playful, stunning and potentially award-winning new video interpretation of this chart-topper.

Ijo means "Dance" in Yoruba, so what could be more fitting than a celebration of the different styles of dance you are likely to see if you were to hit one of the clubs in Nigeria's bustling Megacity?

Shot on location in Lagos, where Siji has been rediscovering his childhood past following a 20-year plus absence, the visually arresting vid showcases an open audition held for dancers drawn from the metropolis.

It features cameo appearances from a colourful cast of characters including Afrobeat Singer, Ade Bantu, the delightful songstress, Ms. Yinka Davis, radio impresario Tintin ‘The Koolness’ as well as a royal prince, all of whom play out the lyrics with quite amusing results. How much fun must this have been to make, eh? Brilliant.

WHERE TO BUY
iTunes
Traxsource

SIJI ONLINE
Siji Music

 

Siji - Nigerian Soul

Born in London, raised in Nigeria, and now living in New York City - Siji truly represents a global soul sound.

Siji's talent for performing became apparent at an early age, when he would entertain at family gatherings or for guests who stopped by the family home in Nigeria.

After pursuing music in the London scene as an adult, he moved to New York in 2001 and began his association with hugely popular house music producer Osunlade.

After a recommendation from a friend to use elements of the music of his youth, which included music from Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti, and music from the Yoruba culture, Siji incorporated these influences into his songs. Siji described his musical style as Afrosoul, and he fused together elements of Afrobeat, jazz, and soul music with touches of house music.

Here is his Afrosoul jam, Yearning for Home, a song that expresses the universal longing for home.

>via: http://globaile.blogspot.com/2010/11/siji-nigerian-soul.html

Baloji

"Cha Cha Cha!"

 

Another killer video versioning off the original. Thanks to WUA for the links.

 

Competition 2011

 

Closing date 15th May 2011 The suggested (not obligatory) theme for all categories is 'Stone' Prizes: overall winner: Silver Wyvern and €400 Please note: the overall winner will be chosen from the winners of all three categories (not just from the Open category as in previous years).  Two prizes of €200 each to winners of other two categories. Three runners-up prizes (one in each category) of €100 each Prizewinners who come in person will also receive, besides the cash prize, an object of design awarded by Alessi Panel of adjudicators: Don Paterson will choose the winners of all three categories from lists drawn up by Kevin Bailey, Anne Stewart and Oz Hardwick. Categories: Open (max 60 lines) - Formal (max.40) - Short (max 10) Send two copies of each poem, one anonymous, second with contact details, email. No entry form required. Fees: postal entries postmarked March/April : £5 (€7) per poem.           postal entries postmarked May            : £6 (€8)   "      "           email entries : add £1 or €2 per poem           Under 18s: two poems FREE Cheques: UK (not Irish, sorry) payable to G.Griffin-Hall Euro, US dollars: notes only, wrapped in silver foil or pay Paypal (easiest) on Contacts page. Critiques: £5 or €10 per poem (written, no tick box). Do not send SAE. We will send results email July at latest. Those who wish printed results please add £3. Rules usual competition rules apply. Poems must not have been printed or published (including on internet) or have won a previous prize. Send entries to: Poetry on the Lake 2011 Isola San Giulio 28016 Orta NO Italy or email to : poetryonthelake(at)yahoo.co.uk Closing date (postmark) 15th May 2011

 

Short Story Competition

THE PRIZE

The Fine Line’s inaugural short story competition is now open for entries.  Whatever your taste, style or inspiration, submit your tale and you could win £200 ($320/€230) and publication in The Fine Line Short Story Collection.  A percentage of all entry fees goes to charity so you’ll be doing good while getting your work out there.

Email your story with contact details and the name of the charity, from those below, to which you would like the donation to be made to editorial.consultancy@gmail.com.  Click here to add your competition entry to your cart, and proceed to checkout.

THE RULES

The competition is open to anyone.   Only employees of The Fine Line or The Fine Line Editorial Consultancy may not enter.

Maximum word count for each entry is 5000 words.  There is no minimum word count.

Entries must be entirely the work of the entrant and must never have been published, self-published, published on any website or public online forum, broadcast nor winning or placed in any other competition.

The entry fee is £5 ($8/€6) per story.  Payment is made online via credit/debit card or PayPal.  Entries will not be read until payment has been received.

£1 of every entry fee will be donated to charity.  Entrants should specify the charity to which they wish the donation to be made in the email accompanying their entry: Irving House, Cricket for Change, or Home-Start Worldwide.

Entries should be sent as email attachments to editorial.consultancy@gmail.com.

Entrants may submit as many stories as they wish.

Worldwide copyright of each entry remains with the author, but The Fine Line will have the unrestricted right to publish the winning and runner-up stories, in the short story anthology and any relevant promotional material.

First prize is £200 plus publication in The Fine Line short story anthology.  Twelve runners-up will also be published in the anthology.

The judges’ decision is final and no individual correspondence can be entered into.

The deadline for entries is the 31^st of May, 2011.

Winners will be notified by the 30^th of June, 2011.

FOREIGN FLAVOURS ANTHOLOGY 2011

We are seeking submissions of short stories and non-fiction pieces on the general theme of  food, drink and cooking from around the world. This year Writers Abroad will be donating any profits made to The Book Bus  charity.  Well-known author, Alexander McCall Smith,  will be writing the foreword for the Anthology. To see our first Anthology (2010) see our Books Page

Title: Foreign Flavours

Genre:Short Stories and Non-Fiction

Theme: Food, drink and cooking - around the world.

Contributions: Expat writers, or those writers who have been an expat at some time or another

Word Count:  Fiction – up to 1700 words (flash fiction is welcome) Non-Fiction – up to 1000 words

Click here for Full Submission Guidelines.

QUERIES

If you have a query, please email us

SUBMISSIONS

All Submissions will be via Submishmash where you will be required to set up a username and password and will be able to track your submission. Please click on the icon below to be taken to the Submissions Page. 

CLOSING DATE 9TH SEPTEMBER 2011

Atlantic Creoles in the

Age of Revolutions

 

 

Jane Landers book, Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions, is an excellent overview of the relationship between the bourgeois-democratic wave that swept across Western Europe, United States of America, and the Spanish American colonies and the populations of African descent. Atlantic Creoles, or peoples of African descent who were creolized, responding to the Age of Revolutions in varying ways. Blacks from Florida, the Carolinas, Cuba, and Haiti responded to these tumultuous times by allying themselves with forces of revolution, counter-revolution, monarchism, republicanism, and in some instances, with indigenous groups, such as the Seminoles of Florida. By choosing to fight for monarchism, as represented by Spain, France, or Britain, or liberal republics such as Revolutionary France, peoples of African descent in the years between 1776 and 1848 fought for their own interests and parties that they believed would best preserve their freedom. 


One thing I enjoyed in this book is how Landers shows how related and transnational the worlds of African Creoles truly were during this period. The widespread use of black militia units in the Spanish colonies and the development of cofradias and cabildos de nacion promoted black corporate identity. Black militia units were exempt from civilian courts because the fuero militar was extended to them. This made joining the militia more prestigious for blacks and offered them tangible opportunities for social mobility. The cofradias evoled from the associations blacks and pardos developed through the Catholic Church and the all-black militias. Cabildos, or associations developed for both slave and free blacks based on African ethnic groups. Membership in both types of organizations often overlapped and both supported the fusion of African and Spanish cultures and religious traditions. However, the cofradias and cabildos were stronger in Cuba than elsewhere.


 However, Biassou and Jean Francois, the early slave leaders of the Haitian Revolution, who sided with Spain and served as royal black auxiliaries against the French and British, were dispersed in the late 1790s when France and Spain made peace. Some were dispersed to Florida, which remained a Spanish colony until the 1819 Adams-Onis Treaty sold the territory to the US by 1821. Then when the Americans took over Florida, many blacks who had served in Florida's black militias for Spain, chose to come to Cuba where they joined free black militias of Cuban descent in Matanzas and Havana neighborhoods. So blacks from Saint Domingue/Haiti, Florida, the nascent US, and Cuba mingled, intermarried, and fought for revolution and counter-revolution simultaneously. 


When one takes into consideration the fact that the republican US wanted to expand slavery and US territory in North America, it makes sense that free blacks in Florida allied themselves with Spain and the Seminoles to resist US expansion. Spanish colonies' looser race relations made life easier for free blacks if they accepted Catholicism and took Spanish names. Indeed, prior to the 1790s and even into the early antebellum period, Spanish Florida was a sanctuary for runaway slaves, which obviously infuriated southern elites. Furthermore, one can understand why Biassou and Jean Francois, the early slave military leaders of the Haitian Revolution, would remain allies of Spain instead of Toussaint L'Ouverture, who switched to Republican France. Spain provided the slave rebels with arms, food, and protection from slavery while Britain attempted to occupy the colony to restore slavery and the situation in revolutionary France probably seemed to precarious. Besides, people of African descent across the Americas often identified with kings, even Louis XVI or the kings of Spain, since the metropolitan governments issued slave codes and were more likely to protect slaves from the excesses of white colonists. Indeed, as Macaya, one of the African-born slave leaders of the Haitian Revolution said, "I am the subject of three kings: the King of Kongo, the king of France, and the King of Spain." Slaves and free people of color in Cuba also identified with kings, which makes sense when one remembers that the US and Britain were still pushing for slavery, although both officially ended the slave trade.


The paradox of free black Floridians choosing Cuba rather than staying and becoming African-Americans lies in the increasingly racist society that was developing in Cuba at the time. For instance, between 1790 and 1820, over 300,000 enslaved Africans were imported to toil on sugar plantations and sugar mills for white elites. Prior to the 19th century, Cuba possessed a large free black population with access to social mobility through militias. They played a vital role defending Havana from the British in the 1760s and because of their military service, the special status it conferred on black men, and free black representation in many trades, free people of color in Cuba were socially superior to free blacks in most Caribbean islands. However, the rise of sugar, which is made with blood, depended on the Africanization of Cuba. 


As one can probably imagine, the horrible spectacle of an independent black state to the east (Haiti), a large free black population used to some social mobility and independence, and massive numbers of enslaved Africans with little knowledge of the Spanish language and culture frightened white Cubans. This entailed the effective curtailment of military exemptions and autonomy for free blacks. So its interesting that free blacks from Florida chose exile in Cuba in 1821 while the colony had already turned to African slave labor for the growth of sugar plantations. Free blacks and mulattoes still had cofradias and cabildos to increase social cohesion and for mutual aid, but they could no longer expect the old 3-tiered racial system. In fact, Cuba became similar to the 2-tier racial order extant in the United States. Blacks could no longer move as freely, associate with others autonomously from the Church or white authorities, move freely, carry arms, associate themselves with abolitionist sentiments from Britain or the US, etc.

Jane Landers 

In summation, Landers book is a success. She efficaciously elucidates black actions and reactions to the wider world around them during a revolutionary phase in world history. In fact, she demonstrates the importance and historical agency of Afro-descended groups in resisting American expansionism in Florida, slavery in Haiti, Cuba, and Florida, and their multiple tactics for doing so. Blacks from the American South fled to Florida since it was a southern underground railroad, and they defended and fought for Spanish colonial officials and indigenous groups to preserve their liberty. However, one should never assume these free blacks and maroons always fought as subaltern groups for Indians and Spaniards. Black men such as Abraham formed their own villages and towns in the midst of Indian villages and often led indigenous groups because of their relationships with chiefs. For example, Abraham led Indians against Andrew Jackson in the Seminole Wars, and played a huge role in the eventual resettlement of the Seminoles and their black allies to Oklahoma in the Trail of Tears. Of course American records from the 1810s and 1820s refer to powerful black leaders like Abraham as "slaves" of the Indians yet the writers don't seem to notice the contradiction of black "slaves" leading Indians. Landers's coverage of the Haitian Revolution was unfortunately incomplete, but she does get across the importance of recognizing other lesser-known heroes and leaders of the movement. Men like Biassou played a huge role in organizing the early revolts in 1791 into a larger movement in the northern plains of Saint Domingue. His decision to fight for Spain against France and Britain was pragmatic, given the chaos of the times. 


All things considered, kudos to Landers for writing this good overview of black Creoles in the circum-Caribbean area during this time. Fighting for the US was irrational to most blacks since they all knew their only role in American society was slavery. Therefore blacks took the initiative and chose allies who would best protect their interests and liberty. This entailed violent revolution in Haiti and fighting for distant monarchs who were counter-revolutionary. However, some blacks embraced aspects of the Age of Revolution, such as abolitionism and liberalism. Abolitionist newspapers and letters were read by literate blacks in Cuba, for example, who would become targets of repression by the Cuban government after several slave revolts and conspiracies shook the island.

 

Posted by Robert Figueroa