HBO held a contest asking New Yorkers to submit interesting true stories that happened on the subways. The winning stories were then adapted for the film. "Sax, Cantor, Riff" was written and directed by Julie Dash, Featuring Taral Hicks (singer), Kenny Garrett (saxaphone), Dan Rous (Cantor) and Sam Rockwell. Produced by Jonathan Demme and Rosie Perez.
CHECK OUT ZORA'S RENACTMENT OF THIS POEM:
http://lab.wgbh.org/open-call/bi-raci...
Pell City Pens
Submission Manager
General Guidelines -->1. Rule violations will result in disqualification and those entry fees will not be returned.
2. DEADLINE: March 15, 2011.
3. AWARDS: 1st Place: $150. 2nd Place: $75. 3rd Place: $40. Up to 3 HM.
4. Contest Open to all Adult Writers Internationally.
5. Entries must be in English, Original & UNPUBLISHED. That includes Self-Published, eBooks, POD (Print on Demand) and Internet (your website or blog, or anyone else's website or blog).
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9. Winners of money prizes in previous years may enter new work. Other entrants may re-enter a previous submission only if it's been revised beyond the level of pushing commas around.
10. 1st Chapter of a Novel entries: Novels need not be complete.
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Click here to download these guidelines in PDF file for off-line reference. Short Fiction Contest Winner's Lists 1996-2010
FIRST PRIZE $150 increased
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Prize Money & Publication in Choice Works and the revived CWJ.
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Toward a People's Black History
We are declaring an emergency in the North American African community. This is a call to all children of elderly parents, also relatives and friends. Upon the transition of your loved ones, do not throw out the family jewels! The family jewels are not the gold, diamonds, insurance policies, bank accounts, silverware and antique furniture. The real family jewels are the archives mama and dad left, their letters, notebooks, diaries, photos and other items that we rush to throw in the trash upon their transition.We want children to pledge not to throw away anything until a team of black scholars arrive to examine the material you are rushing to throw into the trash. Contained in this socalled trash is the history of a people, how we survived, how we got ovah, how we corresponded with each other from day to day, year to year, from Down South to Up South.
The world wants to know how we were able to survive such a hostile American environment and yet maintain our sanity and some semblance of love for each other. This story is in those letters mama wrote to Aunt Sue in Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, and the replies, the diaries dad kept his entire life, the photo albums, etc.
We are calling upon mortuaries to inform children of the deceased not to throw away anything until our People's History team of scholars arrive. We may need to expand the capability of local museum/libraries such as Oakland's African American Museum/Library to house the archives of common people, the true makers of history.
It is the common people who are the movers of history, leaders only lead, but they cannot lead until the people are ready to make forward motion in their lives. Such information is contained in the archives of Aunt Jane and Uncle James, and even crazy Uncle Joe kept notebooks for years up in his room. Imagine the contents of his narrative from World War II when he came home crazy!
--Marvin X
1/9/11The archives of Marvin X were acquired by the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
What is the Black Atlantic?
My Comparative Perspective
Paul Gilroy’s Black Atlantic (1994) is a difficult read but it’s a very influential book. An author who builds further on Gilroy’s work and who writes very accessible books about blackness is Livio Sansone (professor of anthropology at the University of Bahia, Brazil). His book ‘Blackness Without Ethnicity’ (2003) was a very insightful read that I recommend to anyone interested in the subject. In this book he compares black Brazilian experience and cultural production with the African American experience (check this blog www.afrobrazilamerica.com on the difference between black US and black Brazil experiences). One of the chapters of the book even goes further and is based on his research among black youth in Amsterdam compared to black youth in Bahia and Rio. Generally Sansone has written interesting articles about balckness and Western Afro cultures (check this article) . Below I will give my understandings and perspectives on the Black Atlantic, as an inherent part of the broad social and cultural entity called ‘The West’.There are black people living in all countries of the Americas, in Europe and of course in Africa. The history of all these black populations is interrelated and all in reference to their relation to white European culture. African nations are (unfortunately) a consequence of European history and international affairs. African elites have often Europe and European languages as a reference point for culture, knowledge and social emancipation. The same thing can be said in an even more thorough sense of Latin America. All these cultures, or at least its elites and urban populations are therefore according to me part of the same Western world.
But the black populations of these nations are not all the same, just as all these countries differ from each other although being interrelated in history. Black Brazilians experience race in a very different way than African Americans. Black Britons do not express their identity within the UK in the same way as Black French communities in France. Each country has its own dynamics, history, culture and identity. Still there is also much in common which is all centered around three elements: history, race and Africa.
RaceRace as a social concept has been created through the history of Europe’s self-identification. Not only did Europe create its own identity in contrast to the (predominantly Muslim) East, but also in contrast to the ‘primitive’ black Africans in the South. Creating the concept Europe meant creating ‘whiteness’ and defining it in contrast to all it is not. This history lives on in current societies in Africa, Europe and the Americas. It took different shapes and contents but has kept a common framework in which the lighter one’s skin is, the better the person is perceived (also in Africa).
History
It would be too complex to bring all different forms of blackness in all countries bordering the Atlantic in one post, but the Black Atlantic is definitely an interesting starting point for a whole new historical and social analyses of the Atlantic world with its common history of racism, slavery and colonialism.
While the US have had in the 20th century a dominant place in the culture, economy and political arena of the world, their concepts and expressions of race have had a big influence on the black populations from Kenia, France till Peru. But we can not only focus on appearance and jump to conclusions. Black populations found American elements of blackness and incorporated it in their local culture. Although black urban culture form the US has influenced black kids from Paris, Cape Town, Dar-es-Salaam, Berlin, … it has often shaped the form, not always the content.
Africa
Africa has played a major role in the creation of the African American identity. This happened in retrospect, i.e. the black populations of America rediscovered their African heritage in the 20th century and used Africa as some kind of reservoir of symbols from which to draw inspiration to create an identity. Why creating an identity? As we can read in the works of Booker T. Washington or W.E.B. DuBois and later Césaire , blacks in the West wanted to be accepted as an inherent part of the cultures they inhabited and had assimilated. Unfortunately the racism that Europe had created in the creation of its own identity didn’t make this possible. Being black meant not being fully American, not being really French, not being accepted as a full member of the nation … (Brazil’s political leaders incorporated the concept of "raça mestiça"’ (mixed race) as an inherent part of its identity starting in the 30’s, in Cuba it only started in the 60’s while the rest of Latin America only recently acknowledges its mixed identity, still Africa keeps a marginal place in this mix). In a world where blacks felt home but rejected by the white reference they felt the need to rethink their identity. This rethinking has resulted into African American culture with its Harlem Renaissance and Dubois as its most important intellectual. This American experience dripped down to all black populations in the world, and has put a mark on the form of many black communities throughout the Atlantic world (as the experience of exclusion through racism works essentially in the same way throughout the Western world).
The Black Look, The Local Style
While black kids in Brazil wear the same sneakers, caps and golden chains, and even greet each other the same way as their black contemporaries in Alabama and Marseille, they do not all consume the same culture as such. While French urban youth listen massively to rap music, their rap music is not the same thing as rap in the US, ‘funk’ in Brazil’s big cities, reggaeton in Panama or dancehall in Kingston, Jamaica. All this cultural expressions look the same, are dominated by dark skinned, often poor, urban youngsters, but they are all very much rooted in the local culture and mentality.
Today black French or black Brazilian also look directly at Africa, directly and not through the US spectrum only. They look at the content, but mostly take the forms (the masks, the symbols, the colours, rhythms, styles …) for inspiration and self identity. While e.g. the Jamaican Rastafarian movement drew its inspirations from Ethiopian symbols it gave it another content. This new Rasta culture was picked up by Africans afterwards and given again a new content, while black French mixed other African symbols from West-Africa with Jamaican symbols and North American ones to create yet again a new identity. And this goes on and on.
On the surface you might be tempted to think that being black in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Chicago or Sao Paulo is the same thing. Well it looks the same thing, its rooted in a common historical and social framework but it is not exactly the same thing. It’s a constant dialogue between cultures. They all wear the same clothes and their music is all rhythmically based and mixed with rapping styles and soul vocals. The form is definitely based on the American example and reference for the whole Atlantic world. The content though, is determined by the local social dynamics, the local history, language and culture. You can’t just transplant black experience in the US on the life of blacks in the whole world. Although all black people of the Atlantic world share a common framework of racial stereotypes. The way these stereotypes are played out locally is often very different.
Examples
Still, the Black Atlantic exists and is most ‘visible’ in musical productions and all expressions surrounding it. I was stunned to hear the champeta music in Cartagena, the black capital of Colombia, and realize it sounded just like the soukous and ndombolo styles of Kinshasa and nowadays most parts of black Africa (which was inspired in the 70’s by Cuban rumba). I was just as surprised to see how Central American youngsters re-interpreted dancehall music from Jamaica and called it reggaeton . I was amazed to see how the black crowds of South Africa incorporated techno and house into their local kwaito music . I was charmed to see how street kids in Nairobi imitated US rappers but mixed it with the traditional rhythmic story telling style of their forefathers. I fell in love with the mix of techno, reggae and hip hop that resulted into the British scenes of UK garage , jungle , drum&bass and ultimately grime/dubstep and 2step. And most recently I experienced how Angolan kuduro (itself an interpretation of US hip hop) became a new style of techno in Lisbon through the productions of Buraka Som Sistema. This kuduro sound is right now influencing Brazilian funk. There is so much to experience and tell.
Dialogue in Black and White
There is a constant dialogue between populations of the Atlantic, a dialogue dominated by its black populations is what is called the Black Atlantic, a dialogue that existed before internet and only intensified since then. This dialogue isn’t exclusively black in a racial sense. Blacks have always incorporated mixed race people within their communities, blackness is in a way a cultural expression of mixing and hybridity. It is those parts of Western culture which Western culture rejects as being part of its own identity. It therefore becomes ‘black’ or ‘world’.
The Black Atlantic doesn’t exclude white people, on the contrary. Many whites are and were important actors within the cultures of the Black Atlantic, but it is a culture dominated by the poorest and predominantly dark skinned peoples of the Atlantic, a culture of bricolage and mixing, meeting and creation.Often, once great many people with no biological dominant African ancestry adopt the cultural expressions of the Black Atlantic, the mainstream (white) establishment is prepared to integrate it into what is called ‘Western culture’. Then it becomes colorless, i.e. just French, American, Western, … and the term black is faded out. Examples are today found in house music , techno, electro and rock, but also in the way painters such as Picasso integrated African elements within the high culture of Europe. If Picasso would have been a mixed race person of African or black Caribbean ancestry I guess his paintings would have been defined as ‘afro’.
In this Black Atlantic, Africa and its history functions as some kind of reservoir of symbols, from which we all draw inspiration to create and re-create our identities. That is what blacks in Paris, Berlin, Rio, New York, Amsterdam all do, that is what the Black Atlantic actually is. Today this re-interpreting of our African heritage within the Western world is still in full swing and it’s still a struggle to make the West (or at least our home countries) aware of their African heritage.
Drum&Bass and Jungle
For me personally Jungle music and the culture surrounding it expressed in a perfect way the symbiosis of black and white within my world. This is/was music that brought all together, all styles and all colours. It was the 90’s, it was fresh, it was ‘black’, but it was immediately assimilated by white youth too. It’s urban, and it definitely has its roots among the poor urban minorities of the UK. But it’s music for all. Therefore I want to end this post with 3 video’s: first an interview of Goldie in 1996 (and check his very LAST WORDS), second a video of Congo Natty, junglist nr1. Who emphasizes the black nature of jungle music and finally a track (Brown Paper Bag) from the best selling jungle album (and a must have) from Roni Size, which was out in 1997. Still so fresh!
Trailer watch – “Mother Country”
Here’s the trailer for a rather intriguing and beautifully photographed feature film Mother Country, produced, written and directed by Maria Breaux. The film is about a young brother (Thomas Galasso), who, after committing a murder, goes on the run on a cross-country journey of self discovery, to find a former teacher who was an inspiration to him before he went astray. The film no doubt will be making the film festival circuit before, hopefully, an eventual theatrical release. For more info about the film go HERE.
'We either live together, or we die together"
—Mohamed El-Sawy
Thousands of
Egyptian Muslims
Show Up as "Human Shields"
to Defend Coptic Christians
From Terorism
Saturday 08 January 2011
by: Zaid Jilani | ThinkProgress | Report
On New Year’s Day, a devastating terrorist bombing at a Coptic church in Egypt killed 21 people and injured 79 others. Although the identity of the culprits was not known, it was assumed that they were Muslim extremists, intent on targeting those they saw as heretics. Religious tensions immediately rose in the country, and angry Copts stormed streets, battled with police, and even vandalized a nearby mosque. The riots and heightened tensions between the Muslim and Coptic communities was likely what the terrorists wanted — to divide the Egyptian community and create sectarian strife between different religious groups.
Yet by Coptic Christmas Eve, which took place Thursday night in Egypt, things had changed completely. As Egyptian Copts attended mass at churches across the country, “thousands” of Muslims, including “the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak,” joined them, acting as “human shields” to protect from terrorist attacks by extremists. The Muslims organized under the slogan “We either live together, or we die together,” inspired by Mohamed El-Sawy, an Egyptian artist:
Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside. From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.
“We either live together, or we die together,” was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon whose cultural centre distributed flyers at churches in Cairo Thursday night, and who has been credited with first floating the “human shield” idea. Among those shields were movie stars Adel Imam and Yousra, popular preacher Amr Khaled, the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak, and thousands of citizens who have said they consider the attack one on Egypt as a whole. “This is not about us and them,” said Dalia Mustafa, a student who attended mass at Virgin Mary Church on Maraashly. “We are one. This was an attack on Egypt as a whole, and I am standing with the Copts because the only way things will change in this country is if we come together.”
Al Jazeera English covered the attacks and reported from the site of one of the solidarity events where Muslims and Christians stood side by side, protesting discrimination against Copts and calling for an end to violence. Watch it:
Thousands of Coptic Christians have defied threats to their church in a bid to attend midnight mass in Egypt.
For Copts, Friday marks Christmas Day, exactly a week after the tragic bomb blast in Alexandria that killed 23 people. The attack exposed the vulnerability of Christians in Egypt and evoked soul-searching across the nation.For many, what happened in Alexandria was not an isolated security incident. The community say it is symptomatic of wider political failures that have exacerbated the plight of the Coptic in Egypt.Al Jazeera' Rawya Rageh reports from Cairo===============================
It is a frequent complaint among opinion makers in the United States that the global Muslim community does not condemn and prevent terrorism. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has even said that Islam needs a civil war similar to the one the United States fought in order to deal with its extremists. But the truth is that moderate and progressive Muslims all over the world are battling extremism. Here in the United States, one-third of al-Qaeda related terror plots have been broken up thanks to intelligence provided by Muslim Americans. It is up to the press to report these positive stories and not exaggerate the sway that extremists hold over the global Muslim community.
via truth-out.org________________________________
Mohamed El Sawy: Wisdom at “The Wheel”!
Written by Sabrine Assem Friday, 20 November 2009 17:13 Mohamed Abdel Moneim El Sawy, founder of “Abdel Moneim El Sawy Culture Wheel”, inspires the YoVenturers in an interview that goes beyond business and revolves about LIFE!
Translated by Gannat El Bahnassawy and interviewed by Sabrine Assem
When I knew that I’ll get to interview Mohamed El Sawy, I thought I’ll be interviewing a social entrepreneur. That’s why he represented for me the perfect candidate to present to our readers the idea of social entrepreneurship. During the interview I discovered, however, that not only did I get to know a great social entrepreneur who founded – in my opinion – the most innovative cultural establishment in Egypt but also that I was interviewing a great thinker and philosopher which made the interview an enlightening experience.
Proud of his upbringing phase which was marked by the touches of his late father “Abdel Moneim El Sawy”, the great Egyptian novelist and thinker, Mohamed El Sawy is now putting his own signature on the cultural life in Egypt. If you haven’t visited “Abdel Moneim El Sawy Culture Wheel” yet, you must have heard of it. Since its establishment “The Wheel” has become one of the main highlights of the Egyptian cultural life. A place people became attached to because of its simplicity, integrity and creativity. As El Sawy says, It simply belongs to the people and no one else.
We have here Mr. Mohamed El Sawy the initiator of “El Sawy Culture Wheel”. He will tell us how that brilliant idea arised. Mr. Mohamed, please introduce yourself.
I’m Mohamed Abdel Moneim El Sawy. I’m an ordinary person who believed that any ordinary person can make extraordinary things only by some effort, persistence, and logic thinking. I never really believed that there are intelligent and stupid people. But, there are some people who use their minds significantly, while others prefer not to; some act positively, while others don’t. Those who walk backward will lag behind, and those who walk forward will eventually make a breakthrough. I believe that one must try to walk forward and benefit people with no sacrifices. I don’t feign sacrifice. Some people praise me saying: “Well Done!” thinking I’ve sacrificed, but I haven’t. I live properly, taking care of my hygiene, playing sports, making sure to keep fit. I care to spend quality time even when fully engaged in work. Back to your question, so I was just saying that I’m just an ordinary person who was brought up in Egypt. I was so lucky that I was brought up by my father, Abdel Moneim El Sawy, as well as my mother who took the responsibility of nurturing seriously.
I went to the German Secondary Evangelical School in Cairo. This school was very accountable for education. So, I had the chance to encounter different developed cultures and have an education based on developing a human and not only stuffing minds with information just to pass the exams. I lived a childhood where both home and school wanted genuinely to bring up a real human being. I took all these elements and made my choice. I really knew how to choose right and carefully.
For instance, I’ve chosen to do sports. I’ve been running long distances since I was fifteen years old. I never longed to be a champion, but I believed that it would grant me a better life and would make my relation with life better because of the balanced health.
I’ve chosen to deal with a tasteful art which is the marionette because it was performed in school. The Marionette embraced all other arts i.e. writing, music, vocal and physical performance, as well as all kinds of fine art. It was an advantage to deal with all these arts in an early stage.
When I joined university, I studied architecture which is yet another valuable art and science that affects human life. It is the complementary environment i.e. there’s the natural environment and another that the human creates by himself and that’s architecture. To design a shirt for someone, you need to take his measurements, while to design an apartment for that someone, you need to take his internal and external measurements e.g. psychological aspect, way of thinking, ambitions, and every incorporeal and physical aspects. It was a rich and an amusing study for me.
Then, I lived as a businessman. According to the job categorization, we were classified as an advertising agency, although my brother and I were convinced that we were working in a company that was founded by our father, Abdel Moneim El Sawy, who believed in the message of man in life. So, we worked as an advertising agency in a way that serves the society. Alameya Publishing & Advertising Co. was known for its art and sport activities in all special events. Alameya escorted the time with all the events it brings along such as occasions and feasts. It even created events for itself such as the Autocross. There has never been a car racing in Egypt before. We were convinced that racing is the only way to reduce road dangers. No one can stop youth from racing. It’s as ridiculous as believing that one can stop the wind from blowing. The wind will blow no matter what. However, we can take advantage of it in improving weather conditions, cultivating, and generating energy. This is considered a good use of the wind.Otherwise, we can build a barrier, which will eventually collapse, and we’ll have to build another and so on without achieving any positive results. No way to prevent youth from racing. Autocross came to absorb their energies and transform it into a way that allows them to deal with technology carefully by teaching them what motor and suspension mean and finding out what the different cars technologies are in addition to electricity and other sciences which they might have hated if they had been obliged to learn them through scholar syllabuses. However, they yearned for them out of interest and hobby. We have made many events of that sort.
We’ve been working since 1980 which means that next year we shall be celebrating our 30th anniversary. That is no negligible phase of our work towards the society. We have never thought of financial income and we didn’t have any intentions to be immoral tradesmen with no principles. We believe that earnings are fixed factors. Those who abandon their morals and abase themselves imagining that they’d make more revenues are fools.
After that, we entered an important phase which was Abdel Moneim El Sawy Culture Wheel. People might think that that was extraordinary, but, I believe that that was the ripen fruit of what Abdel Moneim El Sawy had seeded inside us. I grew up with art, creativity, culture, enlightened thinking and the freedom of expression. Those were the terms that I had heard from my father who died in 1984 i.e. 25 years ago. He used to talk about the environment and the risks of neglecting the environmental issues. Those issues, that became topical issues nowadays, Abdel El Moneim El Sawy used to discuss it with us profoundly.
When I first came to the location of Abdel Moneim El Sawy Culture Wheel, I only came to document media rights and to see panels. Establishing a cultural center was not on my mind that day. So, I went through Abu El-Feda Tunnel because we were asked to cover it by marble according to the instructions given by Cairo Governorate. When I entered, I felt as if I was in an enormous cave full of rubbish, drunkards, drug addicts, and outlaws. Anyone, who would have entered, would have easily noticed the scattered syringes, a pillow, a blanket and everything else that revealed bad abuses in the center of Cairo, El-Zamalek, by the Nile Coast. At the very first sight, I pictured the stage of the culture wheel as if it was real. I saw a stage with a light system and a curtain which was about to open. I wanted to embark on this idea because I couldn’t resist it.
So, I made my calls with the governor of Cairo. To my surprise, he welcomed the idea, on the contrary to what people had told me. They put me down saying “Don’t even try!”, “No one will pay attention to this”. Later on, when the culture wheel began its activities, the governor of Cairo declared that he has always been weak in front of the name, Abdel Moneim El Sawy, and that he couldn’t reject a project holding his name. They knew each others personally, so, since the project was named after Abdel Moneim El Sawy, it had to be approved.
Also the issue of naming it Abdel Moneim El Sawy Culture Wheel was yet another challenge. Generally, I love to think and to feel the burden over my head. It’s as if my mind gets happy every time there’s an issue that needs to be solved, or a sealed door that needs to be unlocked. So, one of the mind tasks was to find an extraordinary name for that place. I would have never chosen names like “Abdel Moneim El Sawy Culture Center”, “Abdel Moneim El Sawy House for Art and Culture”, or “Abdel Moneim Art Academy”. I couldn’t be traditional in a time in which I wanted the people to break the barriers and lighten the spark of culture - a real culture that differs from those dark TV programs in which some cold people with thick glasses utter some unfathomable words to force the spectators to change the channel. We want to make culture an interesting issue, make people love it, discern its importance and make it one of the top priorities. I think if one should organize his priorities in a society that seeks development, he has to put culture as a first and foremost priority. Don’t say “when we find something to eat first” or “when you find something to wear first”. It’s like buying good shoes first before learning how to walk.
Anyway, I mulled over the possible names for that place. I remembered that Abdel Moneim El Sawy named his most important novel “Waterwheel”. So why not revive Abdel Moneim El Sawy by employing this name? Then, I thought “will it be ‘Waterwheel’ only”? I was afraid his name might get buried as time elapses, so, I named it “Abdel Moneim El Sawy Culture Wheel”. I was so careful that people say it “Abdel El Moneim El Sawy Culture Wheel” and not only “El Sawy Culture Wheel”. I always ask them to say my father’s name so that it remains a commemorative plaque. I believe that it all goes for my father because he had always loved to see me involved in such activities that serve art, culture, and the freedom of speech.
This is one of the most beautiful replies I’ve ever got. What’s your future vision regarding Abdel Moneim El Sawy Culture Wheel?
My ambitions have escalated now after the appreciation we received in the past period. I want a small panel with “Abdel Moneim El Sawy Culture Wheel” written on it in every corner, behind every wall. It can only be a 3 × 4 room with two bookshelves and a serious person who can welcome the visitors, guide them and help them read. It can be a large room with a projector displaying one film monthly. It can be a place that is five times bigger than this place or even a floor that can take in 10.000 people. What’s important is to make people have a sense of belonging to everything that serves and introduces cultures. I mean it is never about the dimensions of the place. People always ask me “how would we find a place like this?”, and I always reply that even if someone has a roof that he can spruce it up to receive the residents of the building, then he is doing a great job for his country. One does not need to get involved in zillions of matters to be recognized as an active citizen. People should appreciate any number of people who benefit from any wisdom, thought, word, or change in the prospect of life. That’s our aspiration. Nowadays, I’m writing a manual, which I call “The book of Death”. I don’t want to sound melancholic, but I feel as if I am in charge of the idea. If this idea was wasted, I’d be guilty towards the people. So, I’m writing this handbook so that anyone can take it and work according to Abdel Moneim El Sawy Culture Wheel protocol if he wants to cooperate. He can take a small panel and we can support him for a year by printing the printouts for them. We can send him someone who can assist him i.e. if the unit is a bit big, we can send him a manager for 6 months till he gets acquainted with the way of operating. We’re ready to support any unit till it becomes financially independent. We can even support them by our contacts and sponsorships so that they can give him fund directly. I don’t want to have many branches that might make me lose control. I want to have the freedom of choosing whoever I can see committed enough to take Abdel Moneim El Sawy Culture Wheel’s name. Even one might want to work with the same model of Abdel Moneim El Sawy Culture Wheel but he wants to name it “The Light” or “The International Culture”, he can do whatever he wants. We won’t forfeit someone’s right to benefit from our protocol even if he has no intention to use our name.
Was it easy to find sponsors?
In the beginning, it was difficult. What really helped was my broad history in the field of advertising in addition to my public relations. The first one who gave us support was Naguib Sawiris. He visited us twice in five years. Whenever he sees me, he tells me “You’ve done the best thing ever in Egypt…You have no idea how happy I become, when I come to this bridge and get stuck in traffic just because there’s a crowd coming out of Abdel Moneim El Sawy Culture Wheel…It doesn’t annoy me at all because I feel how successful this project is.” Naguib gave me sponsorship before we even began; just because he has seen something in the project that Egypt really needs. The Arab African International Bank responded to our request willingly. Also, Juhayna joined the sponsors list. Mr. Safwan Sabet is never late whenever we’re in need of support. Egypt Air joins us for two or three months then quit and join back again. The same goes for some companies. We don’t want to fall for any governmental support that might interfere in our business. We’re in a good relation with all authorities and especially the ministry of culture. The minister of culture himself has come to Abdel Moneim El Sawy Culture Wheel twice and whenever it is mentioned, he praises it. We have never had any troubles with any authority but I don’t want to get into that trap so that I don’t lose my people. People deal with the place as if it is theirs, and this is true and this gives it a spirit that I don’t want to abandon. I don’t want people to feel that this place is Mohamed El Sawy’s. I don’t want them to feel that this place is related by anyway to politics. Last year, we organized “The Year of Rights” where we discussed political rights and talked about the most critical issues. However, I’ll never let any party neither democratic nor another do anything that points that we’re related to any party. We’re a totally independent intellectual place that discusses any issue freely, respects everyone, never despises anyone, and never offends anybody. Anyone can criticize anyone without offence. You can’t simply say “X is a robber”, but we can say “X couldn’t succeed in executing so and so”. We can’t say “X is a conspirator and he aims at ruining policies in the country”. We can’t open his mind and see what’s inside. However, we can say that “after X had been in authority, he didn’t satisfy the aspirations of his people, and he could have done so and so”. I always say that criticism is beneficial and that there’s nothing called noxious criticism. This should be considered a swearword. Criticism is a great thing and I always ask people to say the demerits before the merits to help us develop.
Do you have a yearly schedule for the events?
We have two-month schedules. We can’t make a more extended one although I wish we could. When I went to the Canadian Center and Carnegie Hall in New York, they were finalizing the events of 2009. We are incapable of doing the same due to many factors. People in Egypt are not organized enough; most artists are not a stable formal entity e.g. companies or corporations. They are usually a group who can’t take the responsibility for signing any contract in fear that they might not continue together. If one of them had the opportunity to go to the Emirates, he’ll cancel any other commitments. He’d say “I will get paid twenty times more than here”. So, no one can schedule with us for more than two months except for the foreign institutions such as Goethe. Today we were arranging with an American an event that will take place next year. But that cannot be applied to Egyptian or Arab artists. We put the features of the year so that we organize the events with regard to the exams period, national holidays, and feasts.
Let’s get out of Abdel Moneim El Sawy Culture Wheel range and talk about a wider scope which is Youth. If one has an idea, and he is persistent enough to carry it out, what about the barriers that might come in their way?
Of course, there’re a lot of obstacles. The solution is to form youth entities so that they have a solid ground and power. For instance, why can’t it be a group of 15 people who have a vision of who’s in charge, know how to work, how to distribute tasks among them and how to take their decisions? Not only a weak entity that collapses as soon as any disagreement comes in their way. There’s nothing in this world without obstacles. You have to find logical access to what you want, what capacity can you afford and how to advance. It isn’t a great deal if you failed once, and start all over again. As we worked on that project, people used to ask me what if the license was withdrawn. I used to reply that if one day I woke up hearing that there are some military units at the place and that the place has been closed, I won’t have a nervous breakdown and bash my head into the wall. My mind immediately will think for something else by which I can help people. We can make home-made marionettes and tour houses. I don’t have any problem doing this and I won’t be upset. I’ll just commiserate with the fact that this unit is no longer functioning. I won’t be happy, but I won’t die and I’ll search for anything else to do. It’s like playing a game; you can’t just quit because the other team has scored a goal. So what I want to say to the Youth is that there’s nothing too hard and that we can be stronger by number, financial status, or human skills. We need patience. Patience is a very important factor in solving problems. One should determine the right time; for instance, like in agriculture, if one missed the rain season, he will have to wait for the next cycle.
Then, there’s hope.
Definitely! It feels good to know that there’s hope. Failure should not be hated as much as dereliction of duty. I’ll get upset if I couldn’t accomplish my mission. That should make me totally depressed, yet careful as not to repeat that mistake. If I’ve done everything I can and still failed, then I should try again. It’s not a demerit.
I wanted to know the theme that you plan for every year. Last year, you planned for “The Year of Wisdom” and this year it’s “The Year of Minds”. How many years have you put theme visions for?
We’ve made “The Year of Arabic Language” in 2006, “The Year of Rights” in 2007, and this year we’ve been celebrating “The Year of Minds”. I’ve suggested that the people working for the magazine give us their ideas for 2009. It’s no longer a secret that I want to quake the society by the word “Neighborhood”. Sorrowfully, people have refrained from valuing neighbors. Wise is the one who makes good relations with those who surround him. The notion of a good society is to respect neighbors by regarding their rights, caring for them, and helping them out in their needs as much as we expect them to do the same for us, too. It’s ridiculous to say “I want my children to come and live next to me”. What if you don’t have any? What if they died? I may not have any brothers, sisters, children, or a family, but I have a neighbor. I must value my neighbor. Terrorism managed to find a shelter for every illegal act just because people are no longer aware who their neighbors are. In the past, such criminals had to retreat to the mountain and the society called them “El-Matareed” which means the pariahs. Nowadays, those people can live in El-Zamalek without anyone knowing what they’re planning for. Earlier, the notion of neighborhood didn’t refer to being nosy, but at least being friendly with them to create a hale of amiability and comfort.
I would like to consult your opinion as regards to a different matter that’s been on my mind for a while. When the insulting caricatures were published in Denmark and when the Holy Koran was incinerated, the Egyptian and the Arab society protested against those acts and burnt up the embassies. On the contrary, when a terrorist act is committed, they stay as silent as the grave. What do you think of this?
That was a faux pas. We’re still an undeveloped country that retort in a way that pleases others. I mean if we really love our prophet and we want to defend him when being insulted; we should have manifested the glory of Prophet Muhammad’s deeds and sayings instead of riposting “We’ll kill you” or “We’ll take vengeance”. That sounded naïve and ludicrous. That really deprived them of their liberty and demonstrated what they thought is true. I believe in the freedom of religion and I’m certain that Islam is innocent of the fallacies around apostasy and killing converts. This has happened only in the time of Abu-Bakr El-Siddiq when people suspended the Zakah. Abu-Bakr waged war on them to take the Zakah and returned back and not to make them stand in a row to declare that “No God but ALLAH, and Muhammad is His Prophet”. I don’t agree with the concept that says whoever convert from Islam must be killed. This underrates the value of Islam and makes people think of espousing Islam just to escape punishment. Why not let them long for Islam instead, if they really believe in it? Actually, I wish people could understand that the greatest thing is to let aside people’s beliefs and deal with their deeds and reactions. That’s what really matters. But we as Egyptians always look to people’s beliefs and political attitudes. In schools, they used to tell us that Muhammed Ali Pasha was a bad leader and that he used to do things for his own interests. But if we looked to what he’s done for his own interests, we’ll find the barrages, the army, the cotton agriculture, and the missions. Even if we looked closer into the families’ cores, we’ll find that the reason beyond the cracked relations, divorce, and other problems were all incited by the interference of people. Everyone wants to shape others’ minds to match his. We should all cooperate and discuss every matter and reach resolutions. Problems arise from doubt and false guesses. The simplest of Man’s rights is to keep his thoughts liberated.
I like that question. What I’m saying here is that when we threw stones at the embassies and burnt the flags that made Europeans think that Islam resembles terrorism saying “if Muslims do such things, then we’re right”. If Muslims had simply showed up with a confident smile saying “you really don’t know that man. That man commanded that during warfare no trees are to be cut down and no women are to be attacked. When he was attacked by El Ta’ef tribe, the mountain guardian angel told him that he can crush them and get rid of them. But he refused telling the guardian angel that there might be someone among them who can benefit others and worship ALLAH. That man was a lovable and tolerant person. He was a man of justice and integrity. He was never an engineer, a scientist, or a doctor. He was the person who said that he was only sent to accomplish the mission of passing on good ethics.”
As someone who got inspired by all the answers of Mr. Mohamed Abdel Moneim El Sawy in this interview, I encourage you all to go visit Abdel Moneim El Sawy Culture Wheel if you haven’t done so before and know more about this Egyptian achievement which I regard as one of the greatest achievements in the last 10 years. Mohamed El Sawy marked his name with golden letters in the book of great Egyptian social leaders.
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In Sudan, a Colonial Curse Comes Up for a Vote
Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNEW BORDER A Sudanese supporter of secession wears his allegiance on his wrist.
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Published: January 8, 2011
More than any other continent, Africa is wracked by separatists. There are rebels on the Atlantic and on the Red Sea. There are clearly defined liberation movements and rudderless, murderous groups known principally for their cruelty or greed. But these rebels share at least one thing: they direct their fire against weak states struggling to hold together disparate populations within boundaries drawn by 19th-century white colonialists.
Related
Sudan’s Leader Reaches Out Ahead of a Vote (January 5, 2011)
News Analysis: Peaceful Vote on Sudan Appears More Likely (January 3, 2011)
That history is a prime reason that Africa remains, to a striking degree, a continent of failed or failing states. And it helps explain why the world is now trying to stand behind southern Sudan as it votes, starting Sunday, on cutting its ties to the Sudanese government in Khartoum.
Voters are expected to approve independence, and if it does, South Sudan will become a rare exception in Africa — a state that is reorganizing its colonial-era borders. It might even set a precedent for others.
In any case, it has already set off an agonizing debate, a half-century in coming, over the wisdom of trying to hold together the unwieldy colonial borders in the first place.
Even though many of those frontiers carelessly sliced through rivers, lakes, mountains and ethnic groups, few of the leaders who shepherded Africa to independence a half-century ago wanted to tinker, because redrawing the map could be endless and contested. So, on May 25, 1963, when the Organization of African Unity was formed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, it immediately recognized the colonial-era borders.
In hindsight, it is clear that the old boundaries often hurt prospects for state building. But back then, and even today for many Africans, the alternative of tiny ministates seemed even worse.
“In 1963, the O.A.U. did something very important: they sanctified the borders,” said Sadiq al-Mahdi, one of the grandfathers of Sudan’s politics, a vibrant man in his 70s whom I recently interviewed in a gazebo along the Nile near Khartoum, with bowls of dates at his fingertips.
“But now this sanctification is gone,” he said. “The borders have been polluted. And to resort to self-determination to solve your problems will break up the Sudan, will break up Ethiopia, will break up Uganda, will break up all of Africa, because all African countries are made up of such heterogeneous elements.”
“Pandora’s box is now open,” he declared.
Mr. Mahdi is understandably grumpy. For starters, he was an architect of the most brutal phase of the north-south civil war in Sudan in the late 1980s, and is widely blamed for unleashing tribal militias against southern civilians, an accusation he denies. (The tactic was repeated in the last decade in Darfur in the west.)
Eventually, the southerners won. And now he, like many northern Sudanese, is as fearful and depressed as a patient about to undergo an amputation. If the southern third of Sudan is lopped off, with it goes most of Sudan’s oil. Even though much of that oil still must flow through the north in pipelines for export, northern Sudan is in for a rough patch, and Mr. Mahdi knows it.
But divorce will also be messy for the south. It’s not as if there is a knife-sharp cultural line where northern Sudan ends and the south begins. The British colonizers did draw an administrative border. But many communities, like the Misseriya nomads, drift back and forth across that line to graze their animals, and the Misseriya are now refusing to be categorized as northern or southern. One of their areas, Abyei, is considered a likely flashpoint of any potential dispute over where to divide the country.
Most Africa hands agree that there was considerable international pressure on the African Union, the successor to the Organization of African Unity, to make southern Sudan an exception to the rule about preserving old borders.
“Recognition is seen as a very, very bitter pill” at the union’s headquarters, said William Reno, a political scientist at Northwestern University. And Phil Clark, a lecturer in international politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, said that until last year, “the A.U. mantra was that independence for the south would lead to further conflict.”
But the African Union, which needs the West to finance its peacekeeping missions, yielded in the face of enormous American and European support for the southern Sudanese — support rooted in perceptions that southerners have long been Christian victims of Muslim persecutors.
There was also the matter of Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who was indicted by the International Criminal Court on genocide charges for atrocities in Darfur. He is also suspected of reviving old contacts with the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda to destabilize southern Sudan.
“Could it be that Bashir’s support for the L.R.A. and other rebels has made countries exhausted” with him, wondered Maina Kiai, a Kenyan human rights advocate. “Or could it be self-interest among the neighbors hoping to cash in on a new, unformed state that has plenty of natural resources?
“I do think the oil could be a major factor,” he added, especially for Kenya, Uganda and perhaps Congo. (There has been talk of one day building a new pipeline through Kenya and Uganda that could let the south’s oil exports bypass the north.)
Letting southern Sudan break free could also set a wide and unpredictable precedent — including for the Western Sahara, the Ogaden region in Ethiopia, the Cabinda enclave in Angola, and Congo. There is also Somaliland, the only functioning part of Somalia; it recently held elections followed by a peaceful transfer of power.
Michael Clough, who directed the Africa program at the Council on Foreign Relations in the 1990s, said he thought that the African Union did not play the same influential role it once did. He expects that local balances of power, more than anything else, will determine whether a putative state like Somaliland actually becomes independent.
When the union was founded in the 1960s, “there were a number of strong and articulate African leaders,” he said. “Today, I just don’t think there are many leaders left in Africa who have political/moral authority.”
In other words, maybe Africa is moving toward an understanding that smaller units can be better — that the Pandora’s box should have been cracked open long ago and the colonial-era borders adjusted to carve out smaller, more governable units.
Mr. Clark doesn’t buy it. “Africa doesn’t need a new map,” he said. “It needs new forms of leadership. In particular, it needs leaders who use national resources to benefit all citizens.”
With that, Mr. Kiai agrees. In the end, the Kenyan human-rights advocate said, Africa’s problems are about governance and “the narrative of the state.”
“No country becomes a nation without a common accepted narrative that goes beyond individuals,” he said. “Hence the U.S. and its Mayflower, Tea Party, the War of Independence, the Wild West stories. When there is a narrative that provides a sense of sharedness, then the sense of nationhood cements itself.”
By that standard, though, maybe an independent South Sudan won’t be a struggling nation-state either. True, it’s poor, even by African standards. Many children go to school under trees. Many local officials can’t read. But if it has anything, it is a sense of “sharedness” — of shared sacrifice and shared struggle. Maybe that means more than roads. Or oil.
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Thousands of southerners turned out across Juba this morning to begin voting in a long awaited independence referendum. I am, to some degree, a bit surprised by how calm things have been in recent days. In the months leading up to the vote, pro-separation activists were tremendously active in the capital. I expected the streets to be packed up independence supporters in the days before the referendum. Oddly, this was not the case.
Voting got underway this morning with few reports of disorder or irregularity. The registration issues that plagued last April’s parliamentary, presidential and gubernatorial elections seem to have been adequately addressed.
I am dismayed a recent reports of clashes in Abyei, Unity State and Jonglei. I hope that spoiler groups can be convinced of the importance of a peaceful vote.
I am quite exhausted, having been up early and gone to bed late for many recent nights. There is excitement in the air, however, and that is giving me strength.
Here are some snaps from the last 24 hours in Juba.
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