The Philly DJ/Crate Digger collective, Little BIG Things (Personify, FROZ1 and Case Bloom), drops off their first ever mixtape comprised of Funk, Soul, Disco and Boogie tracks mixed exclusively from 7-inch wax.
We dug deep in our collections to compile a mix guaranteed to have your deck on blast from start to finish. Little records – BIG TUNES. Bang it loud and enjoy.
I’ve been jamming this one most of the day and have heard samples galore of some truly classic records from decades past. This one is a must listen for the true #sampleheads out there.
I’m a little late in posting it though, so the Soundcloud download has already run out but that’s where this LINK comes in to save the day, so you can still get a copy to jam on your commute. Oh and if you need to know what was used for what, I’ve taken the time to link up some of the artist names in the tracklisting too. #youarewelcome
A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a short story on a theme. The winner also receives two tickets to a performance of Selected Shorts, featuring the winning work, at Symphony Space in New York City. This year's theme is "complicated families." Jim Shepard will judge. Submit a story of up 750 words with a $25 entry fee by March 15. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Symphony Space, Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize, 2537 Broadway, New York, NY 10025. (212) 864-1414. Jennifer Brennan, Senior Producer of Literary Programs.
It's that time of the year: The Normal School is accepting entries for the 2013 Normal Prize from 12/15/12 until 3/15/13. We can't wait to spend our winters, holed up in our caves, reading submissions. Are you Normal enough to enter? We think so. Every entrant gets a free two year subscription to The Normal School so, why not? Read on for our full contest guidelines, and send us your best.
All fiction and nonfiction submissions must be 10,087 words or less, double-spaced, 12 pt. font. Poetry submissions should not exceed five pages or five poems total. No identifying information on the manuscript.
Manuscripts should be accompanied by a cover page with the following information: title, genre, word count, author's name, address, phone number, and e-mail address. Of this information, only the title should appear on the manuscript itself.
All submissions must be previously unpublished (print or electronic media).
Simultaneous submissions are allowed as long as you notify editors should your piece be accepted elsewhere. Multiple submissions ARE allowed.
HOW TO SUBMIT
All submissions must be uploaded through our online submissions manager found here.
$20 per submission, paid through PayPal only. One story or essay, or up to five poems per entry fee.
You will receive a confirmation email once your submission has been uploaded.
Submissions will be read between 12/15/2012 and 3/15/2013.
Welcome to the Bristol Short Story Prize - an international short story competition open to all UK and non-UK based writers that publishes an annual anthology as well as presenting cash prizes.
The 2013 Bristol Short Story Prize is now open. Stories can be entered online or by post and the closing date for entries is midnight (BST) on 30th April 2013. Please read the 2013 BSSP rules before entering. The judging panel will be chaired by editor and literary consultant, Ali Reynolds, a former editor at Random House.
The 2012 Bristol Short Story Prize was won by John Arnold (left) for his story Naked as Eve. John is a journalist who is based in Brisbane in Australia.
We interview John about his success, his writing and more here.
John's winning story plus 19 other fantastic stories are available in our latest anthology
2013 Rules and Prize Details
20 stories will be shortlisted for the 2013 Bristol Short Story Prize.
The 20 shortlisted writers will be invited to an awards ceremony in Bristol in October 2013 when the winners will be announced and the BSSP Anthology Volume 6 will be launched. Prizes and anthologies will be sent to any shortlisted writer unable to attend the awards ceremony.
Prizes :
Ist- £1000 plus £150 Waterstone’s gift card
2nd- £700 plus £100 Waterstone’s gift card
3rd- £400 plus £100 Waterstone’s gift card
The other 17 writers who feature on the shortlist will receive £100.
All 20 shortlisted stories will be published in both print and ebook versions of Volume 6 of the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology.
The closing date for entries is 30th April 2013.
There is an entry fee of £8 for each story submitted.
Stories can be on any theme or subject and are welcome in any style including graphic, verse or genre-based (crime, thriller, science fiction, fantasy, romance, historical etc.).
While there is a maximum word count of 4,000 words, it should be stressed that there is no minimum.
PITTSBURGH—African American adolescents tend to have more success in school if their parents instill in them a sense of racial pride, reducing their vulnerability to the effects of racial discrimination from teachers and peers.
Preparing the adolescents for possible bias was also a protective factor, though a combination of this preparation and racial socialization was found to be ideal in moderating the possible damaging effects of racial discrimination by teachers or fellow students. The Pitt study was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
“Our findings challenge the notion that ‘race blindness’ is a universally ideal parenting approach, especially since previous research has shown that racially conscious parenting strategies at either extreme—either ‘race blindness’ or promoting mistrust of other races—are associated with negative outcomes for African American youth,” said lead author Ming-Te Wang, Pitt assistant professor of psychology in education, who coauthored the study with Harvard’s James P. Huguley.
“When African American parents instill a proud, informed, and sober perspective of race in their sons and daughters, these children are more likely to experience increased academic success,” said Wang.
Although previous studies have shown that parental racial socialization is beneficial to the mental health of African American youth, few researchers have looked at how daily experiences with racial discrimination in a school context are related to the child’s educational prospects.
Scholarly research has shown that African American students, males in particular, are at risk for being unfairly disciplined, being discouraged from taking advanced classes, or receiving lower grades than they deserved, all because of their race. Other studies point to negative peer treatment because of race—getting into fights, being bullied, or not being selected for teams or activities.
Wang and Huguley explored how racial discrimination relates to the students’ educational outcomes, specifically grade-point averages, educational aspirations, the sense of belonging to a school, and cognitive engagement, which is the initiative a student takes in his or her own learning. And they set out to determine how the outcomes are affected by parental racial socialization.
Using a combination of questionnaires and face-to-face interviews of both students and parents, the study examines the home and school racial experiences of 630 African American high school students in a diverse but mostly Black urban area on the East Coast of the United States.
Unlike other studies that focus on low-income families, this project involved participants who came from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds. The median household income range was $46,000-$50,000, and 40 percent of the parents or guardians had a college degree.
Overall, the study found racial pride to be the most powerful factor in protecting children from the sting of discriminatory behavior. It directly and positively related to three out of four academic outcomes—grade-point averages, educational aspirations, and cognitive engagement—and was directly related to resilience in the face of discrimination. Preparation for bias was directly related to only one outcome—the sense of belonging to a school.
“Our study provides empirical evidence that the longstanding practice in the African American community of cultivating racial pride and preparing children to face racial bias in society should be considered among appropriate and beneficial practices in parenting Black children,” said Wang, who plans to conduct the same kind of research with Latino and Asian American teenagers.
This post is part of the series "Roots of Resistance: 25 year retrospective on the first intifada." Read the entire series here.
The poster tradition is an exceptional element of Palestinian cultural heritage, and the posters themselves are important repositories of primary data. Palestine posters created by artists at the time of the first Intifada provide a unique lens through which today’s audiences can gain insight into the attitudes and aspirations of people directly involved in the resistance as it emerged. The Palestine Poster Project Archives contains 230 posters in its “Intifada” Special Collection (posters that contain the word “Intifada” or obvious visual references to the Intifada). Below is a selection of twelve posters from around the first year of the Intifada that provide a representative history of that watershed event.
Created by the Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour, this poster references one of the many grassroots organizations that helped coordinate Intifada activities. It combines iconographic elements common to earlier Palestine posters—the kaffiyeh, barbed wire, raised arm—with a new element, the stones. The most impressive feature here, however, is the expression of sumud (Arabic: steadfastness) in the human figure. He (or she) stands alone, but the barrage of stones signifies an entire population. The fact that the text appears in both English and Arabic indicates that the poster was meant to be understood by both Palestinians and the international community.
Published by Fatah, this poster reveals how the mainline Palestinian resistance organizations were quick to honor their compatriots inside the Israeli occupied territories and in fact to lend full support to the Intifada, making it among the first pan-Palestinian actions. The caption underneath Yasser Arafat states, “Realization of statehood is within a stone's throw.”
The poster’s slogan, a quote from Khalil Al Wazir (Fatah’s founder, also known as Abu Jihad), provides an unequivocal endorsement of the resistance. The niqafa (Arabic: slingshot) emerges here as another iconographic symbol of the Intifada. After 1988 Palestinian poster art also increasingly incorporated the Palestinian nationalist colors and flag, which were banned by Israel inside the occupied territories until the Oslo Accords of 1993.
Published by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), this poster provides further evidence that the Intifada quickly erased the distinctions separating diaspora Palestinians from those living under the occupation. The white horse, symbol of revolution in Palestinian iconography, is seen here in outline, having broken free and rearing its head in defiance. The horse straddles a destroyed Palestinian village, pushes past barbed wire, and tramples on the Star of David (a religious symbol self-selected by Israel as its political symbol).
The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) is another major political faction that immediately and unconditionally embraced the Intifada. Words and phrases such as "unceasing", "steadfastness", and "revolution until victory" are hallmarks of the Palestine poster tradition before, during and after the Intifada. The Intifada expanded the modes of resistance and so continues to this day in many forms, including among others Palestinian civil society’s call for a campaign of boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) of Israeli goods and institutions.
The emergence of nonviolent resistance tactics against the Occupation is captured in this image of a young boy holding up his hand against armed Israeli soldiers and a tank. The steady gaze is a visual reference to the core Palestinian concept of steadfastness. Created by Vladimar Tamari, a Palestinian artist living (then and now) in Japan, this poster reflects the solidarity between Palestinians in the diaspora with those living under the occupation. The use of Japanese as well as Arabic and English text signifies an awareness of and connection to international solidarity.
This poster was published by the Progressive List for Peace, a political party in Israel formed from an alliance of both Arab and Jewish left-wing activists (A Hebrew version of the same poster carries the caption, “Let’s Talk to the PLO”). The dove is a frequent icon in Palestine posters.
Published by the Komite Internazionistak in Basque Country, this poster demonstrates the degree to which liberation movements around the world identified with and were inspired by the Intifada. The extreme youth of the child, whose fist barely encircles the rock, honors the role of young people as leaders of the resistance. The boy in this picture is Ramzi Aburedwan, now known as “Al Kamandjati” (the Violinist), who established The Kamandjati Association in 2002, which encourages young Palestinians to make music and so to transcend the hardships of the occupation.
Prior to the Intifada, the heroic figures depicted in Palestine posters were the fedayeen (Arabic: militants) who engaged Israel in direct armed combat—usually men and, rarely, female militants such as Leila Khalid or Dalal Mughrabi. By contrast, the hero in this poster is a woman in traditional dress without a firearm. The use of the term “frontline” acknowledges both the dangers faced by Palestinian women participating directly in the Intifada as well as the expansion of the modes of resistance. The tatreez (Arabic: embroidery) decorating the stone heroicizes the participation of Palestinian women in the Intifada.
The bayonet piercing the orange and the bayonet broken by the rock highlight the contrast between the crushing violence and refugee flight of Al Nakba (Arabic: the Catastrophe) in 1948 and the mass resistance to the occupation via the Intifada in 1989. This poster serves as a commemoration both of the first anniversary of the Intifada as well as of May 15, the date in 1948 of Al Nakba, also known as “the Day of Palestinian Struggle” and, as referenced here, “the Usurpation of Palestine.”
As with the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, a key strategy of the Intifada was to make the occupied territories ungovernable for Israel. The boy brandishing his slingshot and the burning tire indicate that a year into the Intifada, the Palestinian people were showing no signs of having been pacified.
The Intifada opened a new day for Palestine. A population that been forcefully violently repressed and censored burst free in a unified effort for self-determination. It was also a new day for American artists, who were inspired by Palestinian acts of courage to take creative action in solidarity. This poster was included in a 1989 exhibit in Berkeley, California, titled In Celebration of the State of Palestine. Although nominally the exhibit’s theme was a subsequent event—Yasser Arafat’s declaration of the State of Palestine on November 15, 1988—its true inspiration was the Intifada itself. This can be inferred from the visual elements in many of the exhibit’s posters such as those seen here: the defiantly unarmed figure, the flag, and the kaffiyeh.
The exhibit’s catalog text asserts the critical importance of poster art both to the Intifada and to the broader Palestinian struggle as it continues to this day: “While politicians shuffle from one foot to another, we create on rectangles of paper, a place where the Palestinian flag flies freely. We prefigure in the realm of the imagination, the end of the bloody journey while we honor the suffering that will be necessary to bridge the distance between imagination and reality.”
Garifuna Women Marlene Castillo and Marjorie Casimiro of The Sandy Beach Women’s Cooperative (Sandy Beach Lodge) in Hopkins, Belize; hold up a version of the Garifuna Flag in the Carlos De Jesus documentary, GARIFUNA NATION. Image courtesy of Carlos Productions
Copyright 2012 by Teofilo Colon Jr. (a.k.a. “Tio Teo” or “Teofilo Campeon”) All Rights Reserved.
New York City — New York University Associate Professor of Film and Television, Carlos De Jesus has been screening his latest effort, a documentary about the Garifuna ethnic group called GARIFUNA NATION. Ten years in the making and filled with multiple perspectives, this stirring work is an insightful investigation of contemporary life as a Garifuna.
The Garifuna people are black people of mixed ancestry (African, Carib Indian and Arawak Indian) from the island of St. Vincent. In 1797, After warring with the British, they were exiled from St. Vincent to Roatan; a small island off the coast of Honduras in Central America. After finding Roatan uninhabitable at the time, the Garifuna people quickly migrated to the Honduran mainland and settled in villages along the Caribbean coast of that country. They eventually also migrated and set up villages along the Caribbean coast of neighboring countries Guatemala, Belize (formerly British Honduras) and eventually Nicaragua.
Director of The Garifuna Nation Documentary, Carlos De Jesus taking a question from the audience after a screening at the Bronx Museum of The Arts in October 2011. Photo by Teofilo Colon Jr. All Rights Reserved.
The Garifuna Nation documentary begins with the director Carlos De Jesus detailing his background (he is Afro-Puerto Rican from New York City) to viewers and explaining how he came across the Garifuna ethnic group (it was while vacationing in the northern part of the multi-cultural / multi-racial Central American country of Belize, where a diving instructor told him about a poor, black community in southern Belize). Thus setting the stage for Mr. De Jesus to essentially ask, “WHO and WHAT are you?”. As he unforgettably explains,
“no sooner do I step out of the van (after a grueling day-long drive along the Caribbean coast to southern Belize) and I look out and see, old people and young people and their interaction, and I feel this instant sense of well-being, that I say to myself, ‘Hey! They are black, I am black, but we are two completely different people. How come?’ ” — Carlos De Jesus, Director of the documentary, Garifuna Nation
It’s that story that opens the Garifuna Nation Documentary, a documentary that not only serves to share the story of the Garifuna people but also is a parallel self-examination of director Carlos DeJesus as he explores his connection to the Garifuna ethnic group.
A viewer hearing the title Garifuna Nation might expect to see and hear from Garifuna people from the countries that make up the ENTIRE Garifuna Diaspora, that is, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, Nicaragua and St. Vincent. However that isn’t the case in this instance. As it’s set up here, Mr. Carlos De Jesus has Belizean Garifuna (and the Garifuna village of Hopkins, Belize) serve as the focal point of his questions regarding the Garifuna People as well as stand as a model of the Garifuna Community. That, along with a considerable portion of the documentary devoted to Honduran Garifuna Singer Percussionist Bodoma (Carlos Norales) showing his life in the United States and in Honduras is what makes up this cinematic inquiry or study of the life of Garifuna people as it is lived today.
Subjects Mentioned in The Garifuna Nation Documentary
Through a series of interviews of Garifuna people as well as exclusive footage providing a glimpse of Garifuna rituals and ceremonies; Director Carlos De Jesus investigates Garifunas relation to (a partial list):
Garifuna Spirituality (Pro and Con)
Lure of Western Influence
Race
Work
Class Struggle
Ecology/Environment
Conflicts Related to the Retention of the Garifuna Language
Dance
Tourism
Future
Various people of Garifuna descent are interviewed and given the opportunity to provide their perspective on many aspects of Garifuna Life and they do so in a spirited yet sophisticated manner.
Garifuna Man Felix Miranda (Secretary General of The World Garifuna Organization) being interviewed in the documentary, Garifuna Nation. Image courtesy of Carlos Productions.
Garinagu (plural for Garifuna) like Felix Miranda (Secretary of The World Garifuna Organization), Conrad Lewis (Deputy Clerk of The National Assembly of Belize), Ethlyn Lewis (Principal of The Holy Family Primary School in Hopkins, Belize), Mary Castillo (Schoolteacher in Hopkins, Belize), The Women of The Sandy Beach Cooperative in Hopkins, Belize and others all talk about (and in turn, shine a light on) Being Garifuna. In their interviews for the Garifuna Nation documentary, they insist on the viability, vitality and humanity of the Garifuna Experience. They also slyly suggest the self-determination and projection of ethnic identity that must take place when you declare who (and what) you are. Note the Garifuna Flag held up by two women from the Sandy Beach Women’s Cooperative in Hopkins, Belize in the photo at the top of this posting. It’s something that wasn’t bought in a store. It was sewed and manufactured personally. Like the prideful photo of the Women of the Sandy Beach Women’s Cooperative (which is a progressive Tourist Lodge in Hopkins, Belize which caters to lovers of nature and the environment as well as introduce visitors to Garifuna culture) that’s shown near the end of The Garifuna Nation documentary (we see one of the women posing with rollers in her hair), this is an example of self-determination and self-worth if there ever was one. Damn it if you can’t be who you are!!!
I was struck by seeing these Garifuna take advantage of the rare opportunity to express their pride in Being Garifuna. You can hear it in the gentle, Caribbean lilt in the voice of schoolteacher Mary Castillo as she patiently talks about Garifuna history and among other things, the African influence on Garifuna culture. You sense it when Felix Miranda alternatively glances into the camera while being interviewed by Carlos De Jesus offscreen, or even Anthony Castillo (a restaurant owner in Hopkins, Belize) who with a fixed gaze in his eyes, talks about the subtle racial and class conflicts between Garifunas and Kriols / Creoles (while noting the irony that they are both Black) in Belize; they all clearly relish the opportunity to give of themselves and share the story of the Garifuna people.
Director Carlos DeJesus talking about his Garifuna Nation documentary at New York University in March 2012. Photo by Teofilo Colon Jr. All Rights Reserved.
In the midst of his study of Garinagu in Belize, New York City and Honduras; Carlos De Jesus explores various aspects of The Garifuna experience, particularly the challenge of dealing with western lifestyles and modern technology while trying to uphold the long-held values regarding their community. The practical reality of assimilation and acculturation are alluded to but not fully explored. In fact, in one moment of the documentary, the flip side of assimilation and acculturation is briefly mentioned.
There’s a moment in the documentary where a Garifuna woman is dancing and singing in a chugu (a miniature version of the sacred Garifuna ceremony, dügü) and Felix Miranda declares that,
“you would have never seen her dancing Punta if she was in Honduras. There are many of these people who came here not speaking Garifuna, (yet) they come into the United States and end up speaking more Garifuna now than Spanish.” — Felix Miranda in the GARIFUNA NATION Documentary
Now what Mr. Miranda is referring to is a VERY complex set of circumstances. But in that instance, the filmmaker doesn’t dig deeper into Mr. Miranda’s declaration. The lack of follow-through in that instance is representative of a lost opportunity to go into identity politics and get to the bottom of what it is about The United States and in particular what it is about people of color living in the United States that causes this projection of ethnic identity to occur? However, that may be quibbling as the documentary covers so much ground that it is dizzying. With globalization a mighty reality in this world, this documentary suggests America’s place and influence in the world, particularly as it relates to the Garifuna people. How so?
America’s Influence On The World and on Garifuna People
While watching the Garifuna Nation documentary, I couldn’t help but notice the American iconography on display and wonder about Western influence in Central America and be curious about it’s effect OR affect on Garifuna People. Whether it’s the Coca-Cola logo being plastered on basketball backboards (and walls all over Belize), or watching Marine Tour Guide Norlan Noel Nunez being interviewed while wearing T-shirt decorated with the Newport (a cigarette company) logo and tagline (“Newport With Pleasure!”), or even Young Garifuna Belizean men Fenton Lino and Agustin Lino being interviewed while dressed in the typical hip-hop clothing (A Chicago White Sox baseball hat, Baggy Jeans, an oversize Denver Nuggets basketball jersey and oversize shorts) common among black youths in the United States; the American influence is almost omnipresent, something the director Carlos DeJesus notices as well and that he expresses in a clever, cinematic matter.
About thirty minutes into the documentary, after some Garifuna people are interviewed about the environment in Hopkins, Belize; the camera cuts to a television set on the dresser. The television is already on and electronic images flicker on the screen. The images begin to change demonstrating that the channels are being changed. Eventually, the changing of the channels is stopped upon a music television show. The music video to the rap song “4, 5, 6″ by Sole featuring JT Money and Kandi (from the R & B group Xscape) is playing on the television.
JT Money is rapping while seated at a strip club and Sole is in a nurse outfit (and various other outfits) stripping and working the pole in front of JT Money. At the point in the music video when Sole’s leg is touching JT Money’s shoulder, the camera begins a slow ZOOM IN on the television.
In the music video, JT Money holds stacks of dollar bills while rapping and this is alternated with shots of Sole looking up at the Camera. In other shots, she continues dancing in her nurse outfit (and other outfits designed to tease and rouse any guy watching) while JT Money nods appreciatively.
In film school, this shot (photographing a television playing a music video–or any shot that is somewhat OUTSIDE the world of the characters in a movie or the subject of the movie) is called a Non-Diegetic Insert shot. While it is a bizarre and odd shot, in this context, it’s a undeniable sign that this documentary is being made by a savvy, smart filmmaker who knows what is going on in the world. To use street parlance, Carlos DeJesus, “knows what time it is”. Not only Mr. DeJesus, but so do the Garifuna people who are the subject of this documentary. This is crystalized in a quote by Conrad Lewis (Deputy Clerk of The National Assembly of Belize), who when talking about Crime, explained,
“Crime does not exist or happen in isolation. Crime is a function of some malady in society. As we are exposed to more foreign influences. As more of our children graduate from school and are unable to get jobs, etc. The chance of crime will increase. Jobs are not only very difficult to come by but the traditional way of living, the farming, subsistence living, fishing, have been challenged by globalization.” — CONRAD LEWIS in the Garifuna Nation Documentary.
People, I am not aware of another documentary that similarly explores the context of living in such an intelligent manner. Another example of the cinematic savvyness at display is a simple shot of Mr. Conrad Lewis talking about education in Belize, British Hegemony and it’s impact on Belize and Garifuna People in general. To underscore his point, while Mr. Conrad Lewis is talking, the camera cuts to a pan movement across the wall. We see a Chart of The National Assembly of Belize / House of Representatives, the camera then pans past a Garifuna flag that is hung on a wall. That, ladies and gentlemen is CINEMA at work.
Those looking for a by-the-numbers listing of different aspects of the food Garifuna people eat, the clothes Garifuna people wear or the history of the Garifuna people will be disappointed as that is not what this documentary is about. What it IS about though, is something people interested in learning about a marginalized culture may want to pay attention to. That is, life as a Garifuna and investigation as to the meaning of the lives of Garinagu (plural for Garifuna).
The Garifuna PUNTA Dance: Traditional vs. Contemporary Way of Dancing It
Aspects of Being Garifuna that have gotten considerable acclaim and notice internationally is Garifuna music and the popular Garifuna dance, Punta. Especially so in the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala, Belize and Nicaragua, where you can find most Garifuna people. Traditionally a dance performed at funerals and wakes, the Garifuna Punta Dance has been evolved into a erotic, suggestive dance that through its current popularity has produced a conflict amongst Garifuna people. Namely, while enjoying the spiritual, physical and sexual aspects of the Punta dance, has the manner in which Punta is now performed / danced bastardized the form? Has the dance now been prostituted?
Garifuna Percussionist and Singer BODOMA interviewed in the Garifuna Nation Documentary. Image courtesy of Carlos Productions.
Director Carlos DeJesus offers a number of perspectives on this matter, from Garifuna Percussionist Bodoma who gives a nuanced and thorough breakdown of the Punta Dance to Garifuna Women offering their take on how Punta is danced while the viewer sees footage of Garifuna dancing at Heckscher State Park during annual Garifuna gatherings there over the summer. From noting the influence of the West Indian style of dancing on Punta and debating whether that influence makes the dance X-rated or raunchy to commentary on the Punta dance’s impact on relations between the sexes, there’s PLENTY of intelligent opinions to mull over. In fact, there’s criticism of the Punta dance and how the vulgar nature of how it’s danced currently affects relations between men and women by a young Garifuna woman that is breathtaking in its eloquence, insight and poetic lyricism. Frankly, that young Garifuna woman’s monologue is a funny (and applause generating) highlight of the Garifuna Nation Documentary and alone worth the price of admission.
It’s in watching these Garifuna people talk, explain, chat, or articulate their feelings about this subject that lift the conversation out of the stuffy world of academia. It’s also in some of the priceless footage demonstrating various ways in which Garifuna people respond to the world around them in a distinct and humane manner. One example of this is seeing Garifuna Percussionist Singer Bodoma at work in the United States, negotiating with contractors in Honduras and performing with International Superstar Garifuna Singer Musician Aurelio Martinez in Spain. Seeing this multi-dimensional portrait offers a glimpse of the life of a Garifuna Man as he mediates and moderates his professional, personal and spiritual life.
An associate professor of film and television at The Tisch School of The Arts at New York University; Mr. Carlos DeJesus’s cinematic proficiency is evident throughout Garifuna Nation. Whether it’s in the deliberate postponement of text on the screen announcing just who it is that is being interviewed, or the use of voiceovers to link shots, subtly introduce a person before they appear onscreen or to serve as a transition from one scene to the next (a classic technique used in fiction films), Garifuna Nation is clearly the work of a professional. Kudos to Post Production Sound man Ryan Fagman for his subtle Sound Work on this documentary as well as to Editor Edgardo A. Parada for his smooth as a baby’s bottom editing. While at times, the image suffers from meager resources (some of the interviews are overexposed–too light), also the text on the screen is hard to read; the passion these Garinagu display in sharing the story of the Garifuna people transcend whatever limitations the off-and-on filming of this documentary imposed on the production.
As a result of filming the documentary being made intermittedly over the course of ten years (Mr. DeJesus filmed whenever he was able to save enough money), a viewer also gets to witness the evolution of video technology of the years. While watching these Garifuna people in different video formats like Hi8 or Mini DV, it’s touching to see their beauty and humanity shine through, despite the rough circumstances.
While it is disconcerting and disappointing to note that there is very little Garifuna spoken (relatively speaking, of course) in the Garifuna Nation documentary. This is more a reflection of the ability of Garifuna people to communicate in languages of Majority or Dominant culture, namely English and Spanish. However, it would have been nice to hear more of the Garifuna Language in the documentary. Why is this important? Well, when talking about the conflicts related to the retaining the Garifuna Language in Belize, Mr. Conrad Lewis explains,
“I certainly subscribe to the idea that our culture is our language. If the language disappears, how can we readily say, that we are this or we are that, without our language? Language transmits values, Language transmits ideas. You know, Values and ideas are how people are able to identify itself and that creates a uniqueness of a people.” — Mr. Conrad Lewis (Deputy Clerk of The National Assembly of Belize) in the Garifuna Nation documentary
That is an example of the wisdom and the philosophical inquiry consistently on display in the Garifuna Nation documentary. And the idea that Mr. Conrad Lewis expressed is certainly up for thinking about and debating.
Audience at Screening of Garifuna Nation documentary in the Bronx in October 2011. — Photo by Teofilo Colon Jr. All Rights Reserved.
Reaction to the Garifuna Nation has been mostly approving from what I can tell. Being that there are currently few documentaries on the subject of Garifuna people, it’s fair to say that many hopes and aspirations are invested onto any non-fiction (or fiction) project on Garifunas. Mostly, we all want to see the subject done right and reflective of our experience as Garifuna people. As I have discussed with the director of the Garifuna Nation documentary, Mr. Carlos DeJesus; there truly is a LOT to cover. It is a broad yet singular subject.
One criticism raised at a screening of The Garifuna Nation documentary was that while Guatemala is mentioned, the perspective of Garifuna people from Guatemala is missing; which for a documentary titled Garifuna Nation IS a fair criticism. I don’t know if Mr. Carlos DeJesus had the resources to travel to each main Central American country of the Garifuna Diaspora for his documentary but it’s important to keep in mind what Mr. DeJesus DID get. That is, multiple insightful accounts of what it is like Being Garifuna. Perhaps this documentary can serve as some sort of starting point on future documentaries exploring the contemporary aspect of life as a Garifuna. Also it’s worth mentioning at this point that as far as I know, there is not a documentary on the Garifuna People that covers the Garifuna Diaspora (the Central American countries of Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua and for discussion’s sake, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and The United States of America). All the documentaries that I know of mainly focus on one or two countries, namely Honduras and Belize. Exploring the entire Garifuna Diaspora is a big challenge that one can’t take for granted.
Director Carlos DeJesus has explained that he was inspired by his meeting of the Garifuna people. That his learning of a people who by way of their successful resistance to slavery and their eventual exile from their ancestral land of St. Vincent to Central America; can not only trace their customs, language and culture back over 200 years but also EMBRACE their blackness was exciting and was something he felt that Black and Latino people in America and all over the world could learn from. It was that excitement that helped galvanize and energize his efforts into making this documentary over the years.
As the documentary progresses, we see less of the director’s self-examination (at times, rigorous and devastating) and philosophical statements as he reflects on what he has learned. After a while, his declarations take a back seat to the commentary of the Garifuna people that are the subject of this documentary. Perhaps the documentary needed more on-screen self-investigation from the director as he revealed more of what he’s learned about himself and the Garifuna people.
I suspect that it’s in the Embracing of Blackness by the Garifuna People where the director’s inspiration and connection lies. It’s something that truly is missing amongst Latinos especially when you look at the considerable number of Black people in Latin America, specifically Mexico, Central and South America. The notion of having Black people in your family tree is one that is troubling to many Latinos and perhaps upon uncovering an ethnic group of Black people in Central America who clearly embraced being Black was something the director found irresistible.
It’s taken a couple of months for me to write this review of the new documentary GARIFUNA NATION. In short, it’s been somewhat of a challenge for me to properly write about this work. So much is discussed and so many ideas worth sharing are introduced in this documentary. I didn’t want to reveal too much, yet at the same time there was so much to write about. Needless to say, there is much to discover in the new documentary, GARIFUNA NATION. I hope I have struck the right balance when writing about this new work.
Overall, the Garifuna Nation documentary is an personal and spiritual inquiry into the contemporary lives of the Garifuna people. It is also subtly about the soul connection that takes place between an intrigued outsider and members of an obscure ethnic group upon a chance meeting. Garifuna Nation should not be missed.
The Garifuna Nation Documentary is 82 minutes long. It is in English, Spanish, Garifuna with English subtitles. The documentary includes some graphic footage of a elderly woman dancing topless.
Those interested in seeing this documentary can leave a comment underneath this review or underneath this posting on Facebook.
Attendees approach Director Carlos DeJesus after the screening of his documentary, GARIFUNA NATION at New York University in March 2012. Photo by Teofilo Colon Jr. All Rights Reserved.
Readers of this review may be interested in other documentaries on various aspects of Being Garifuna. Other Garifuna documentaries out there that I am aware of include:
Garifuna Journey — Andrea Leland and Kathy Berger February 1998 (I have not seen this).
Aniha Dan (The Time is Now) — 2011 (I have seen this)
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What constitutes a dictatorship? Haiti had an election in 2006, which the popular candidate won. It had an election in 2011, which had one of the lowest turnouts in recent history and which was subject to all kinds of external manipulation. Given these elections, is it unfair to call Haiti, a country that suffered 30 years of classic dictatorship under the Duvaliers from the 1950s to the 1980s, a dictatorship today?
When the institutions that govern Haiti today are examined, it is clear that the label ‘dictatorship’ applies. Haitians have no effective say over their own economic and political affairs. Their right to assemble and organize politically is sharply limited. Human rights violations are routine and go unpunished. Popular political parties are effectively banned from running. How is Haiti Governed?
Since 2004, the armed force in Haiti has been controlled by the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH. Haiti's police are trained, and effectively supervised, by a subset of MINUSTAH, a mission called CIVPOL (usually commanded by Canadians). The current president of Haiti, Michel Martelly, wants to bring back the Haitian Army, but when that army existed, it was also an instrument of another country (the U.S.) and its foreign policy – bringing back the Haitian Army would be no boost to sovereignty or democracy in Haiti.
Force is controlled from outside. What about finance? MINUSTAH has a budget of about $676-million. Since the 2010 earthquake, the big charities have spent about the same (around $600-million) in 2010 and 2011. Haiti's own government budget this year is based on $1.1-billion in aid and $1.25-billion in taxes. Perhaps most importantly, Haiti's economy is also supported by about $1.5-billion in remittances from the Haitian diaspora, year after year, one of the largest contributions to Haiti's $7.3-billion GDP.
These figures contain a few surprises. In terms of taxes and GDP, most of the contribution to Haiti's economy is by Haitians. Presented as an international basket-case, Haiti is actually more self-sufficient than its donors believe. And the aid – whether in the form of budget support, relief and reconstruction aid, or NGO expenditure – buys control. By contributing a fraction of what Haitians contribute, foreign donors purchase control over the direction of Haiti's economy, including the determination of an export- and foreign-investment driven model that keeps wages low and denies any protection to the country's agriculture, let alone any local infant industries. Haiti's private sector is a subcontracting sector, featuring low-wage assembly plants and import-export monopolies, but little prospect of increasing productivity or long-term development.
Haiti's social services sector is controlled by non-governmental organizations. These NGOs are better described, using Peter Hallward's phrase, as “other-governmental,” since they are financed by, and beholden to, foreign donor countries. With daily welfare in the hands of a totally decentralized NGO economy, there is no prospect of any sort of national or regional coordination. This has real, and deadly consequences. Hurricane Sandy in 2012 provides an example. Cuba's early warning system and national government enabled that country to evacuate a huge hurricane-affected area before the storm hit, with hundreds of thousands of people being efficiently moved out of danger and back to their homes after the storm passed. With every NGO in the world, and half of the world's countries participating in MINUSTAH, the international community could not manage such an orderly evacuation in Haiti. This is one of the reasons Haiti, under international tutelage, loses more lives than sovereign countries do every hurricane season and why it lost more lives during the 2010 earthquake than countries like Chile or China (that were hit with severe earthquakes around the same time).
A final feature of dictatorships is impunity, a situation in which crimes committed by the regime go unpunished. There is now irrefutable scientific evidence that the United Nations brought cholera to Haiti, and that cholera has killed over 7500 people since it was introduced. MINUSTAH's initial position was to claim that there was no proof. Now that there is proof, MINUSTAH insists that it is not to blame because it was not done on purpose, even though no one ever claimed it was. But if the effective government of a country causes thousands of deaths and insists that no one is to blame, shouldn't it raise questions about how the country is governed? The Coup and Canadian Intervention
The story of how Haiti's new dictatorship was imposed is also appalling. The MINUSTAH-international donor regime was imposed after the elected government was overthrown in 2004. That government, of Lavalas, saw its president, Jean Bertrand Aristide, kidnapped and flown to the Central African Republic, where he was held until he was basically rescued by an American delegation. The coup against the Lavalas government was accompanied by many claims that Aristide was a great human rights violator and participant in corruption. The factual basis for almost all of these claims has since collapsed, but the government that replaced Aristide engaged in real political cleansing, killing hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people since 2004, and the aid economy wastes more money than most classic-mould dictators could dream of stealing.
The 2004 coup in Haiti followed a script, parts of which were used in 2002 in Venezuela (unsuccessfully), in 2009 in Honduras (successfully), and in 2012 in Paraguay (successfully). Studying the record of how the ‘international community’ has governed Haiti in the eight years since the coup should be important for those who are wondering where the next coups will be.
In 2005, a Canadian official told me that Haiti is a practice ground for how the ‘international community’ might handle the ‘Cuban transition.’ After securing key sites in Port au Prince to help the coupsters in 2004, Canadian missions have trained and supervised Haiti's police throughout the worst periods of human rights violations since the coup. So when Canada's minister of international cooperation Julian Fantino, a former police chief himself, went to Haiti at the end of November, it is perhaps unsurprising that he spoke about what Canada expects from Haiti: “The Government of Canada and Canadians expect transparency and accountability from the Government of Haiti given Canadians significant level of generosity. I will be expressing this expectation in my meetings with senior officials.” If only Haiti could expect the same level of transparency and accountability for what Canada has done in their country. Imagine how different the world would have to be for a Haitian to be able to say such words publicly.
When Fantino was in Haiti, I was on a book tour sponsored by the Canada Haiti Action Network (CHAN), a network that has tried to raise the issue of what Canada has been doing in Haiti since 2004 – tries to demand, in other words, some “transparency and accountability” from the government of Canada for its support of the coup and its role in post-coup governance. Mostly, crowds were small, but there were interesting people who found their way to events: the physio-therapist in Halifax who went on a two week medical mission only to discover that such missions aren't all that big a help and that the mission organizers made the medical volunteers afraid to leave their walled compound in Port au Prince; the young Haitians in Montreal who said it was refreshing to hear their own history told in a respectful way, as opposed to a contemptuous one; the black Canadian Forces soldier who answered an audience question about racism among international forces by telling a story of how French soldiers joked that Haiti needed to be recolonized by France.
Cuban Medical Worker, Haiti.
In the 2004 coup, these kinds of people, people interested in helping Haiti, were the targets of propaganda. They were told that Haiti was faced with the stark choice between local corruption and international control. But the record shows that the government that was overthrown wasn't all that corrupt and that international control was a catastrophe. This is something people who want to help Haiti badly need to know.
There are other ways, real ways, to help. The Cuban medical missions managed to train Haitian doctors and keep providing health care through every disruption; Venezuela provided oil at lower than the global market rate. NGOs like MSF and Partners in Health do great work in the health sector, and CHAN tries hard to stay in touch with grassroots Haitian organizations in the democratic movement. International solidarity, as opposed to aid, will require working around the structures of the dictatorship, something that can only be done if we see them for what they are. •
Justin Podur is the author of Haiti's New Dictatorship (Pluto, Between the Lines, and Palgrave-Macmillan 2012).
Late Ken Saro-Wiwa…. Abacha and his team murdered him and his colleagues to prove the regime was no coward
In November 1995, while an overwhelming international outcry mounted against the execution of the Ogoni leader, Ken Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues, defiant military dictator, Sani Abacha, backed by a small band of military officers, convinced themselves that executing them, swiftly, was the best way to resolve the Ogoni unrest “once and for all”, and to make it clear to Nigerians and the world the authoritarian regime was no weakling.
A recording of the final meeting, where the decision to hang Mr. Saro-Wiwa and eight of his associates was taken, said, two days before the execution, Mr. Abacha told members of the Provisional Ruling Council, PRC, the regime’s highest decision making body, that the activists deserved no sympathy, and that hanging them would stem further discontent and prove to the world the regime was bold and courageous.
“He was of the view that no sympathy should be shown on the convicts so that the sentence will be a lesson to everybody. He stated that the Ogoni issue had lingered on for a very long time and should be addressed once and for all,” Mr. Abacha was quoted in the document now available exclusively to PREMIUM TIMES.
We obtained the memo from highly placed sources familiar with the proceedings and who requested not to be named so the Nigerian government does not hound them. We took further measures to ensure the documents are authentic including checking with other sources knowledgeable about the matter.
The former head of state said Mr. Saro-Wiwa was a foreign agent used to destabilize Nigeria, and a “separatist” who cloaked himself as an environmental activist, but whose true intention was to split the country and subvert its authority.
Members of the PRC at the time were Mr. Abacha; Maj. General Patrick Aziza (Minister of Communications under Abacha); Major Gen. Tajudeen Olarenwaju (GOC); General Abdulsalami Abubakar (Chief of Defence Staff); Lt. General Oladipo Diya (Chief of General Staff); Maj. Gen. Victor Malu (GOC); Ibrahim Coomasie (Inspector General of Police); Mike Akhigbe (Chief of Naval Staff); Maj. General Ishaya Bamaiyi (Chief of Army Staff); Nsikak Eduok (Chief of Air Staff); Lt. Gen. Jeremiah Useni (Minister of the Federal Capital Territory) and Michael Agbamuche (Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice).
Mr. Saro-Wiwa, a respected writer, activist and environmental campaigner, had been sentenced to death by a military tribunal set up by the regime. He was accused of masterminding the killings of four prominent Ogoni leaders – charges he forcefully denied.
The charges were widely viewed as framed to silence Mr. Saro-Wiwa’s campaign against the exploitation and degradation of the Ogoni land by international oil majors, especially Shell.
But while a global campaign to block the implementation of the tribunal’s verdict intensified, the regime, on November 10, 1995, two days after its meeting, staged a fast-tracked execution of the ruling, with a gruesome hanging of the nine leaders.
The killings sparked international outrage. While the European Union and the United States placed economic embargo and other restrictions on the country, the Commonwealth promptly suspended the country from its fold.
Shell, at the centre of the unrest, was accused of complicity in the killings, with allegations it sponsored the military junta’s onslaught on Ogoniland.
The company denied the allegations despite testimonies stating otherwise, and a $15.5 million out-of-court settlement it agreed in favour of the families of the victims in 2009. Shell said the payment was not a concession of guilt, but a gesture of peace.
The minutes of the military council meeting preceding the executions, a four-page memo, kept secret for years, document the behind-the-scenes moves, at the highest echelons of the Abacha regime’s decision-making organ, as it hurried through with the executions.
The details shed light on how the junta, accused of rights violations and fierce brutality, considered an unprecedented domestic and international calls to suspend the killings.
Besides deciding to forge ahead with the execution, the document states, the PRC offered frantic justification for the killings, planned broad state-sponsored propaganda against the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP; considered the proscription of MOSOP; and how to further divide the group’s ranks, and “neutralize” its members.
Mr. Abacha chaired the meeting on November 8, 1995, and led junta officials through a deliberation that sought a speedy implementation of the death verdicts-which was implemented less than 48 hours after the meeting.
Ignoring pressure
While a global campaign pushed for the rulings of the Kangaroo tribunal to be shelved, the minute shows, the 11-member PRC, comprising service chiefs, top military commanders, the Inspector General of Police and the Attorney General of the Federation, never considered backing down.
Instead, junta officials warned that a reversal would portray weakness. They accused the international community of double standards; choosing, for economic reasons, to look the other way when similar state decisions were taken elsewhere.
“The council was advised not to yield to pressure from the West, championed by the United States of America. The council was reminded that the Arab countries visited crimes with measurable punishment for which the West saw nothing wrong because of their economic interest,” the minutes said.
“It was therefore advocated that minimum time be wasted between the council decision its implementation,” it adds.
The junta described Mr. Saro-Wiwa‘s alleged crime as “heinous” and accused the media of attempting to whip up sympathy for him and the other accused.
“It was cautioned that if members soft-pedaled, the administration would be regarded as a weakling,” the document states.
The ‘Ungrateful’ Ogoni’s
With the backing of the council members, Mr. Abacha then declared that “anyone who killed his fellow citizen did not deserve to live”.
Mr. Abacha believed the Ogonis were asking for too much, and were ungrateful for “sizeable federal investment” located in the area- possibly a reference to Onne port and Eleme petrochemicals, both near Port Harcourt.
Despite the extensive considerations, barely did the meeting brook counter-opinion not in line with Mr. Abacha’s.
A suggestion by an unnamed member that in future such trials should be conducted by civil courts not to unnecessarily rile the international community was promptly overruled by Mr. Abacha who spoke of his preference for military tribunal for its speed.
“On whether the military tribunals should be replaced with civil courts, he expressed preference for military tribunals which he said considered and decided cases with dispatch,” the minutes said of Mr. Abacha.
The tribunal that convicted Mr. Saro-Wiwa turned out amongst the most controversial. Headed by Justice Ibrahim Auta, the current Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, the panel delivered a speedy, but severely criticized verdict on October 31, 1995, barely nine months after it was convened.
The panel faced severe criticism for alleged high-handedness, prompting defense lawyers, led by late Gani Fawehinmi, Femi Falana and Olisa Agbakoba, to stand down after accusing the Auta-led tribunal of violating all known judicial ethics and rules.
Mr. Auta, then a mid-career judge, turned down two key requests from the defence team, namely, two weeks of access to Mr. Saro-Wiwa and the rest, (having been denied access to their counsels); and an order transferring the accused from a military cell in Port Harcourt to a civil prison.
Mr. Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues were condemned to death without legal representations.
In years, Mr. Auta has risen to become a Chief Judge while the lead prosecutor, Joseph Daudu, is the immediate past chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association.
Praising Justice Auta, others
As the military brass met that November 8, 1995, the severely-castigated tribunal came up for a decent dose of praise for its “painstaking consideration” of the facts.
Mr. Saro-Wiwa’s campaign dated decades, but peaked in the 1990s as he struggled to draw national and international attention to the deprivations the Ogonis faced while Shell and American firm, Chevron, degraded their land and carted away billions of petrodollars.
Arrested and released repeatedly, the crisis took a fatal twist after four Ogoni leaders – accused of selling out to the government and Shell- were mobbed to death by some youth.
Mr. Saro-Wiwa denied the youth carried out his order; a claim countered by the military government, which, before then, had endured devastating restiveness the activist led to cripple oil production.
In turn, the military was accused of staging the killings as a way of eliminating the activists.
As the Abacha government faced the Saro-Wiwa episode in 1995, it had its hands full with a coup’detat case in which former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, and others were indicted.
Amid international condemnation against the coup indictments, an allegation also viewed as staged to hound opponents, the regime backed down from its initial plan to execute the alleged coup plotters. But it later regretted that compassion, feeling it acted feebly.
The Saro-Wiwa case presented an opportunity to right that wrong and proved a strong point, the document said.
“Council was reminded that the government’s decision on the plotters had sent wrong signals to the generality of Nigerians and that the current case should be used to correct that wrong impression,” the minute said.
That concern turned up repeatedly in the meeting, according to the recordings, with some members appearing to compare the relatively mild response to the alleged plotters to the draconian reaction that trailed the Ogoni’s case.
Mr. Abacha laid that concern to rest as the meeting wound up, declaring that while the Ogonis’ case was a “premeditated murder”, the alleged coup plotters had yet to carry out their plot.
The Ogoni’s have a case
In a brief humane consideration, the council conceded that the trouble in Ogoniland was a result of years of neglect, failure and pent-up anger.
But members also swiftly argued that agitators like Mr. Saro-Wiwa were mischief makers who cashed in on a genuine grievance to seek selfish motives.
“It was therefore not surprising that a few mischievous individuals could exploit the situation for their selfish ends,” minute said. “Council was therefore urged to approve the judgment of the tribunal and ensure its expeditious implementation.”
UPDATE: This post was updated with the paragraph below:
“We obtained the memo from highly placed sources familiar with the proceedings and who requested not to be named so the Nigerian government does not hound them. We took further measures to ensure the documents are authentic including checking with other sources knowledgeable about the matter.”
Another great uncirculated audio recording from our friend NicNouille in Paris (the same man that brought us the first full recording of D’Angelo‘s 2012 tour).
Roy Ayers April 11, 2011 Paris, France @ New Morning
06 – Can’t you see me – Doobiboo run run run (running away) – Evolution
07 – Don’t stop the feeling
08 – Please don’t ask me why
09 – Give it to me Baby
10 – Love will bring us back together
11 – unknown + Drum solo
Roy Ayers (Claviers, Vibraphone, Voix) Donald Nicks (Basse) Lee Pearson II (Batterie) Ray Gaskins (Claviers, Saxophone) Tony Smith (Guitar) John Preston (Voix) Chief Udoh Essiet (Percussion)
The 2012 Bristol Short Story Prize was won by John Arnold (left) for his story Naked as Eve. John is a journalist who is based in Brisbane in Australia.
