Burundi: A Nation Trapped By A Crocodile

Charles Onyango-Obbo writing in Naked Chiefs:

The Big Man in Burundi is a former rebel leader, Pierre Nkurunziza. He is another contradictory figure. An election cheat and tormentor of his opponents, Nkurunziza has managed to bring a modicum of stability to Burundi. In a move you can’t begrudge him, he shamed many bigger, richer, and stable African countries when he sent troops from his poor nation to the African Union’s Peacekeeping Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), at a time when only Uganda had the stomach (or was mad enough) to do so.

As the US diplomatic cables leaked to the whistleblower website Wikileaks revealed, Nkurunziza calculated that plunging into Somalia fray would give his little ignored country huge diplomatic oomph. He has reaped benefits beyond his wildest dreams. Nkurunziza is a complex bloke. He is obsessed with the avocado fruit. He spends a lot of time in the village digging with peasants and growing avocado. He waxes grand about how Burundi can become an important world player in making avocado oil. Diplomats who go to see him in the capital Bujumbura (and a lot of them do these days that he is a kingmaker in Somalia) often find themselves driven to the bushes where he is digging. And to get his attention, they have to roll up their shirtsleeves, pick a hoe, and join him in tilling the land.

More here

The 'To Egypt with Love' Exhibition

In Design Magazine:

We Changed Egypt by Hossam Hassan

The recent popular uprising and resulting democratic revolution in Egypt inspired many people around the world. Many visual artists who’s work focus on the everyday living conditions in transforming societies have actively participated in the historical evens and through their creative work ensured that it was captured for generations to come. One such artist is Hossam Hassan who took to the streets and documented the trying and tense moments of the revolution...[continue reading]

Compelling Read - "You Lazy (Intellectual) African Scum!"

From Mind of Malaka. A bracing must read for everyone who cares about Africa:

They call the Third World the lazy man’s purview; the sluggishly slothful and languorous prefecture. In this realm people are sleepy, dreamy, torpid, lethargic, and therefore indigent—totally penniless, needy, destitute, poverty-stricken, disfavored, and impoverished. In this demesne, as they call it, there are hardly any discoveries, inventions, and innovations. Africa is the trailblazer. Some still call it “the dark continent” for the light that flickers under the tunnel is not that of hope, but an approaching train. And because countless keep waiting in the way of the train, millions die and many more remain decapitated by the day.

“It’s amazing how you all sit there and watch yourselves die,” the man next to me said. “Get up and do something about it.”

More here

Eskinder Nega | Prisoner of Conscience

Jason McLure of the Committee to Protect Journalists writing in the Ethiopian review

It would be hard to find a better symbol of media repression in Africa than Eskinder Nega. The veteran Ethiopian journalist and dissident blogger has been detained at least seven times by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s government over the past two decades, and was put back in jail on September 14, 2011, after he published a column calling for the government to respect freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and to end torture in prisons.

Eskinder Nega (Lennart Kjörling)

Eskinder now faces terrorism charges, and if convicted could face the death sentence. He’s not alone: Ethiopia currently has seven journalists behind bars. More journalists have fled Ethiopia over the past decade than any other country in the world, according to CPJ...[continue reading]

Onye Anyanwu's "Narcocorrido"

Shadow and Act highlights an Onye Anyanwu production Narcocorrido:

Narcocorrido Trailer 1 min from Narcocorrido on Vimeo.
In the film, Nicki Michaeux plays "Naija Dillion a Yuma county Sheriff’s deputy, an outsider and minority in her community. Gravely ill, Naija robs a notorious cartel shipment in a last-ditch scramble for survival. When the robbery spirals out of control, Naija finds herself caught up in a Narcocorrido made real."

Entrepreneurship key to escaping poverty

Reuben Abraham writing in CNN:

image courtesy of Business Edge

Entrepreneurship and business are rarely accorded a serious place in discussions around drivers of economic development. A cursory look at the numbers makes this seem very surprising. China has pulled approximately 600 million people out of absolute poverty since Deng Xiaoping unleashed market reforms in the late 1970s. Never in human history have so many people been pulled out of grinding poverty is such a short span of time.

Similarly, South Korea has gone from a per-capita income of $291 in 1970 to $20,000 today. Even reform laggards like India have managed to pull a couple of hundred million people out of grinding poverty since economic reforms were initiated. Across the world, we find countries that created an entrepreneurship and business friendly environment were successful in reducing poverty drastically.

Despite the evidence, there are strong lobbies in emerging markets that make the claim that business friendly policies are anti-poor. Personally, I am in favor of redistribution, like these lobbies claim to be. However, what do you redistribute? One cannot, after all, redistribute poverty. One can only redistribute wealth, and to redistribute it, you have to create the wealth first...[continue reading]

The AU and the Tragedy of a New Headquarters

More on the vacuous institution called the African Union, Chika Ezeanya writes:

The New AU Building Courtesy of Chinadaily.com.cn

On the 28th of January, 2012 African countries will collectively descend to a new low on the global index of state sovereignty, territorial integrity and actual independence of nations. On that day, Chinese President Hu Jintao will be in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to commission the new $124 Million African Union Headquarters built and donated to the continent by China. Termed “China’s gift to Africa”, the edifice was constructed by the China State Construction Engineering Corporation with over 90% Chinese labor.

According to Zeng Huacheng, a special councilor to the AU headquarters project from China’s Ministry of Commerce, “The panoramic view of the conference center is like two hands holding each other, signifying the strengthening friendship between China and Africa.”

It is to the discredit of the African Union and therefore, every individual and country within that regional body that in 2012, a building as symbolic as the African Union Headquarters is designed, built and maintained by a foreign country, it does not matter which country...[continue reading]

The Music of Ablaye Ndiaye Thiossane

Clyde Macfarlane writing in Think Africa:

Released this month, the debut album of veteran Senegalese musician Ablaye Ndiaye Thiossane has been a long time coming. Now 74 years old, his story - and the story of modern Senegalese music - begins in 1960, with independence and the emergence of Star Band.

Star Band formed as a celebration of Senegal's independence, taking as its symbol the green star of the new flag. The resident band of Dakar’s Miami Club, it found its defining sound a decade later in the rousing Wolof vocals of a teenage Youssou N’Dour.
Watch related video after the jump.

More here

Fury in Senegal as president seeks third term

Al Jazeera reporting:

Protesters in Senegal have clashed with police after a court approved President Abdoulaye Wade to seek a highly disputed third term, but barred music icon Youssou Ndour from running.
Senegal's constitutional court approved late on Friday a list of 14 candidates who had met the requirements to run for president in the February 26 election, and among them was the 85-year-old Wade...[more]

Issues of Informality

A Design Indaba preview of the recently concluded South African Informal City exhibition:

Informal city. Photo: Tanya Zack.

The South African Informal City is an initiative of the Architects’ Collective and forms parts of the technical site visits offered by the Local Government Programme for COP17...Looking at South Africa’s most relevant and innovative design and research projects in terms of urban migration issues, the 20 works featured in the exhibition aim to promote dialogue around informality and urban development.
Inner city informality, in-situ upgrading, catalytic projects, un-built projects and backyard interventions are the five categories in which the projects are presented.

Cooperation, information sharing and positive action between policy makers, practitioners, academics and civil society is what the exhibition aims to promotion, together with taking a critical look at informality and urban development. “The exhibition will provide opportunities for peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, and for existing research and realised projects to become part of a greater public debate,” says Karen Eicker, Architects’ Collective director.

More here

Dyana Gaye | Filmmaker

In Shadow and Act:

French/Senegalese director Dyana Gaye, whose short film, the vibrant, unorthodox musical Saint Louis Blues, was one of 5 projects selected, financed and produced under the Focus Features Africa First program (she was part of the very first class, announced in 2008), will be making her feature film directorial debut with a project titled Des Etoiles (or, in English, Stars). Watch related interview after the jump

Commodity Resource - African Footballers

We have highlighted the commodity resource characteristics of football players within the continent.I would like to ask, why cant we build up an African football space comparable to South America's professional leagues with all its consequent non-material and financial benefits? John Wilson expands on the African state of affairs in the Guardian:

Image courtesy of orble

...there's something distasteful about an economic system that means the best players from Africa, if they're to be properly remunerated, have to move to a different part of the world to perform for western Europe's benefit. That's true of other parts of the globe, of course, but the economic imbalance isn't as stark and, elsewhere, doesn't have the same awkward echoes of colonial exploitation.

Talk of a new slave trade is unhelpfully emotive, but there is an unpleasant traffic in vulnerable and often naive young players, and it seems hard to deny that the demands of the European market have shaped the tactical development of African football. Tom Vernon, who runs an academy near Accra in Ghana and scouts for Manchester United, speaks of the "Pape Bouba Diop" template: having seen the success of big, muscular west African players, clubs go to west Africa looking for more big, muscular players and so that sort of player is prioritised, something that in part explains the dearth of west African creative players in the decade between Abedi Pelé, Jay-Jay Okocha and Kanu and the emerging generation of Kwadwo Asamoah, Dede Ayew and Gervinho.

It even suits the football administrations of individual countries within Africa to pretend that all is well, that things are developing. Not to do so, after all, would be to admit failure, and to do that would be to risk the sinecures that bring wealth, prestige and influence. The myth of Progress is sustained by a conspiracy of the complacent and the self-interested.

More here

John Akomfrah | Filmmaker

SCAD speaks with John Akomfrah:

Niger Delta: a quiet resistance

In Red Pepper:

Sokari Ekine meets women’s movements in the Niger Delta and discovers that in this militarised country even small acts take courage
The Niger Delta has been at the centre of Nigeria’s post‑independence military project from the first coup in 1966 through to the present. To the outside world it remained a forgotten outpost, however, until the 1990s and the rise of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). Since then, unequivocal evidence has emerged of how the region and its commerce – primarily the oil industry – has been systematically militarised, with violence by the state, multinationals and local militias deployed as an instrument of governance and intimidation to force the people into total submission...[continue reading]

Ike Okonta | Analyst

An Open Society Foundation profile:

© Jeff Hutchens for the Open Society Institute

Nigerian political analyst and writer Ike Okonta examines the failure of democratic and civic institutions in Nigeria four decades after the end of the bloody civil war in Biafra. As an Open Society Fellow, Okonta, an expert in ethnic identity and resource conflict in West Africa, is looking at the lingering effects of the war and the increase in oil revenues on the formation of the post-war Nigerian state.

More here

Spoek Mathambo | Musician

In Boing Boing:

Johannesburg’s Spoek Mathambo (real name: Nthato Mokgata) makes music that blends traditional African sounds with very current electronica, goth, rock and dubstep elements. He’s described it as “township tech” and the result is extremely weird and addictive.

More here

Ndere Dance - Uganda

The Eye's profile of the Ndere Dance troupe :

Image courtesy of building tomorrow

The word “Endere” means flute. Ndere Troupe, therefore, means Flute Troupe. The flute was chosen as a symbol of beauty and unity. All peoples of the world have a flute in their cultures; it is a most versatile instrument that can express all our moods love, sorrow, happiness, anger and hope.

But the Ndere Troupe itself is not only a dance and performance group, the goals are as well in social education. The Troupe Members are mainly young people who are artistically talented but socially disadvantaged, so the Troupe provides them an opportunity to break the vicious cycle of poverty and realize their full potential, personal goals and ambitions.

Mr. Rwangyezi Stephen who founded the Troupe in 1984 is convinced that art is one of the most powerful ways of transforming Ugandans to be proud of themselves.

More here

Being Garifuna | A Question of Identity

A follow-up of sorts on the Neo African-American conversation within the US.The Garifuna contest that "When Roots Are Complex, Census Boxes Don’t Fit" 

Celebrating Women Scientists

SciDev highlights the OWSD awards that support female scientists.In their own words:

..."[Winning the award] gave me a huge push forward to write research proposals, mentor new graduate students and spend more time in the lab," Lubna Tahtamouni, chair of the department of biology and biotechnology at the Hashemite University in Jordan, and a recipient of an OWSD award, tells Times Higher Education.
She says that, in Jordan, smart women are "labelled as unattractive, not feminine enough or even masculine," and told to prioritise their family and household, adding that "many times over the years I thought of leaving academia because of the frustrations".

"It is important to highlight that women, even from developing countries, are doing great things: making breakthroughs, contributing to advances in medicine, science, chemistry and engineering — becoming leaders and experts in their fields," says another researcher honoured in the 2011 awards, Denise Evans from South Africa.

More here

'The Nile Project'

Support Meklit Hadero's Nile Project on Kickstarter: