“Idioma Comum” is a new exhibition at the Fundação PLMJ in Lisbon, Portugal. It features some of AIAC favorites such as Kiluanji Kia Henda, Lino Damião, Mário Macilau, Mauro Pinto, Celestino Mudaulane, René Tavares (see video above), Jorge Dias and Yonamine. Also listed are Abraão Vicente, Délio Jasse, Flávio Miranda, Ihosvanny, Pinto and Julia Kater.
Music Break
January 31, 2011 By 1 Comment
Last month, Alex Dende aka Lexxus Legal was awarded the ‘African Renaissance Prize’ at the Black World Festival in Dakar for his long-time commitment to and support of the rap scene in Kinshasa. We think it’s much deserved. - Tom Devriendt
5 Things the US Mass Media Get Wrong on Egypt
January 31, 2011 By 2 Comments
From Kabobfest, a website run by one of my former students, Will Youmans:
1. Social media did not play a major role in the uprising. Sorry CNN, I know I’m dissing your only source for international news, but you keep trying to create a story where there is none. CNN anchors even made the assertion that the net is playing such a huge role in the uprising, especially when compared with the uprising in Iran last year. Really? If i remember correctly, the whole world was in touch with Iran via social media, and many activists in the west, some paid by governments, where setting up hack patches and relocating IP addresses to throw off the Iranian regime. I don’t see any of that in Egypt’s case. The internet was shut off on Thursday, a day before the large demonstration, it’s true the organizers used the internet to disseminate announcement, and bloggers have been fomenting the uprising towards regime change for some eight years. But for the context-less mass media who thinks this uprising was delivered by a stork on Friday morning, Google analytics shows that internet activity in Egypt is virtually zero since then. So yes, this great western invention helped a little with the uprising, but to put it in perspective, this uprising movements is over 10 years old, that’s roughly twice the age of Facebook or Twitter.
The Museum Will Be Open
January 31, 2011 By 4 Comments
By Sophie Azeb
Guest Blogger
The entry on Egypt in satirical news agency The Onion’s atlas, Our Dumb World, reads: “Free Admission on Sundays. Located in the Smithsonian, the Louvre, the National Gallery in London, and countless other museums throughout the Western world, the nation of Egypt lies behind thick glass displays in climate-controlled rooms.” Its history? “Currently on loan to the British Museum.” No surprise then that a quick Google search for “Egypt looters” turns up 803 news articles, blog entries, and videos – all posted within an hour. Watching Al Jazeera on Saturday, I was struck by the lament uttered by an anchor at the news of looting. “Tragic,” she remarked as images of damaged artifacts from the Egyptian Museum were displayed onscreen. Her reaction is echoed by many reporting on Egypt in the media, ultimately at the cost of ignoring the real news in these tense hours: that Egyptians, inspired by years of brutality and violence, inspired by Tunisians, inspired by the rest of the world disregarding their needs, have begun and maintained a popular and leaderless revolutionary insurrection against a Western-backed, 30-year long violent dictatorship. They are dying for this.
But wait – back to King Tut.
Rain Man
January 31, 2011 By 2 Comments
This is novelist Chinua Achebe on The New York Times op-ed page earlier this month, writing on Nigeria’s recent history:
This is how I see the chaos in Africa today and the absence of logic in what we’re doing. Africa’s postcolonial disposition is the result of a people who have lost the habit of ruling themselves, forgotten their traditional way of thinking, embracing and engaging the world without sufficient preparation. We have also had difficulty running the systems foisted upon us at the dawn of independence by our colonial masters. We are like the man in the Igbo proverb who does not know where the rain began to beat him and so cannot say where he dried his body.
So what is Achebe’s prescription?
A Lion in Winter
January 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment
By Peter Alegi
A stalwart of the anti-apartheid sport boycott movement, Isiah Stein, has passed away in the UK. After serving time in prison … in the mid-1960s, Stein left South Africa for Britain where he worked tirelessly for the exiled South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC). Three of his sons became professional footballers in England; Brian had an illustrious career at Luton Town and earned an England cap in 1984. Playing for Chelsea, Mark once scored in seven consecutive matches (a record which stood until 2002); Edwin meanwhile played for Barnet. It is little-known stories like those of the Stein family from [the coloured township of Athlone in]Cape Town that remind us of the dignity, humility, hard work, and sacrifice of individuals who fought relentlessly to advance the cause of sport and human rights in South Africa and beyond. Rest in Peace Isiah.
* Cross-posted from Football is Coming Home. The image is of his son, Mark, after Luton’s most famous victory against Arsenal in the final of the 1988 Litlewoods Cup. In that match Brian Stein, my childhood hero, scored twice. Mark came on as a substitute and won a freekick that set up the winning goal. Relive it here.
Music Break
January 30, 2011 By 1 Comment
Video for “Hamdulillah” by Narcicyst featuring Shadia Mansour. The video “… is a global collaborative effort by 10 photographers- from London to Lebanon, Cairo To Canada, Abu Dhabi to America- to create a portrait of the New Global Citizens.”
The New Black Atlantic
January 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The writer EC Osondu’s first book, Voice of America, was published this month. He won the 2009 Caine prize for African Writing, and currently teaches at Providence College in Rhode Island. He wrote about his top 10 list of immigrant tales for The Guardian. For him, “… in-betweenness–that state of neither fish nor fowl, mortal nor spirit–is also fascinating, and is of course the existential state of the immigrant. He is not fully of this place yet he is no longer of that.” As for the list, it includes “My Odyssey: An autobiography” by Nnamdi Azikiwe, who was Nigeria’s first post-independence president (“… It was a shock to me therefore on coming to Zik’s autobiography to discover that he had been quite despondent and had come close to suicide in his student days in America”), “On Black Sisters’ Street” by Chika Unigwe, “Harare North” by Brian Chikwava (“… this novel tears away the veil and allows us see immigrant/exile life in its nakedness”), “The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengetsu, and “Becoming Abigail” by Chris Abani.
Read Osondu’s full list here.
–Neelika Jayawardane.
Fela In The Low Countries
January 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The “Fela! The Musical” craze hasn’t reached the Low Countries (yet), but that doesn’t stop Dutch ZAM Magazine from including in its latest issue some old, but previously unpublished pictures, of Fela in Paris shot by Anton Corbijn.
The Revolution Will be Televised
January 30, 2011 By 4 Comments
This could all still go terribly wrong (no one can predict how the Egyptian army will respond) , but it has been heartening watching Egyptians taking to the streets for the last five days to free themselves from oppressive, US-friendly dictatorships. (We can say the same for events in Tunisia and now it seems in Sudan). However, it is not so heartening (or informing) trying to follow these events on American cable news channels like CNN or MSNBC (the less said about Fox News the better). On these channels anchors and guests mainly discuss what the protests mean for secure oil supplies to the West, the security concerns of the United States and its allies (like neighboring Israel), or trying to dictate who should lead a post-Mubarak government (that they “pro-US, pro-Western” mainly). That’s where I have tuned to Al Jazeera. The channel has played an admirable role reporting from the ground and showing up the more familiar global news channels.It’s importance is underscored by news on twitter–out of Egypt–this morning that Al Jazeera’s bureau and its signal on NileSat was briefly shut down. Everyone acknowledges Al Jazeera’s impact on the spreading insurrection; some of Al Jazeera’s competitors are still coming to turns with the network’s fearlessness. (Some even figured it out a while ago.) For now you can only stream Al Jazeera (both its English and Arabic channels) live online or on your iPhone (they have an app) since the major US cable networks refuse to carry the channel.–Sean Jacobs
UPDATE: Al Jazeera English is apparently available on some cable providers in the US. For example, if you’re in the Washington D.C. area, you can see it on Mhz5 on basic broadcast, or channel 275 on Comcast digital. (information via Ann Eveleth)
