Time unveiled its “Top 10 Photos of 2011″ online last week. At least four of the photographs cover African topics: they’re all from “conflict” situations–two in Libya’s civil war (view it here and here), one in Egypt’s Tahrir Square and this one, below, taken by photographer Dominic Nahr in Mogadishu, Somalia on August 9, 2011:
Here’s the caption: [Read more...]
Occasionally we have to promote our day jobs. Here an op-ed that occasional AIAC blogger Herman Wasserman and I wrote last week for a South African publication on the latest manufactured scandal by the opposition Democratic Party (not to say that the ANC can’t avoid scandals):
Helen Zille and the Democratic Alliance’s media office are well schooled in the fine art of dictating the news cycle. In a media environment in which political reporting relies heavily on soundbytes, stage personalities and bedroom antics, they know a gap when they see one.
Such a gap presented itself this week when the Independent Newspaper Group sent out a letter inviting the DA to advertise in a (presumably paid-for) supplement it will be running next year to celebrate the ANC’s centenary . She has reported Independent for political bias to the Press Ombudsman.
The tone of Zille’s letter suggested she uncovered some type of fraud.
14-minute clip from a recent TV profile by Norwegian television of a visit by Somali novelist Nuruddin Farah to that country. I never imagined book TV could look this good and informative.
Three Kenyan videos to remember today’s Independence Day. Three popular tunes for our Independence meme. A ‘celebration’ of sorts turned out to be a useful lead for the first two. Madtraxx’s ‘Ida Waiter’ (with a nod to South African kwaito and that Prodigy video):
In May 2000 The Economist ran a cover story: “Africa. The Hopeless Continent.” People couldn’t stop talking about it for a long while afterward. It spawned countless op-eds about Afro-pessimism and -optimism. It even became the basis for “Contemporary African Politics” college courses for a while. Now last week, they ran this feature cover (above) –complete with silhouetted boy with kite running across the savannah– where the magazine predicts a more hopeful scenario for the continent’s 54 states. [Read more...]
You won’t see or hear a more exciting song by a South African rapper this year than Kanyi’s ‘Ingoma’. Produced by Mananz, with Teboho Semela (sister of Ben Sharpa) on violin. From Gugulethu, Cape Town:
In a recent video interview (first spotted on film blog Shadow and Act), Kenyan film director Wanuri Kahiu revealed her participation in an exciting new film initiative ImagiNations. Under the helm of South African producer Steve Markovitz, the producer of hit Congolese film ‘Viva Riva!‘ (2010) and producer of Kahiu’s own sci-fi short ‘Pumzi’ (2009), ImagiNations is a “pan-African project,” with “a series of six feature films based on contemporary African literature.”
In the Shadow and Act interview, Kahiu explains that each director will adapt a different book from the cannon of African literature. She will take an East African story, the implication being that each story will be from a different part of the continent. BTW, at a New School event in Manhattan, where Kahiu was interviewed by Sean–more on that later–she added that one story would originate from “each region” and her film would be “a love story.”
About a week ago, the International Criminal Court announced that Fatou Bensouda would succeed Luis Moreno Ocampo as Chief Prosecutor. This could be big news, but you wouldn’t know it from The New York Times, who barely reported the announcement.
Fatou Bensouda is from Gambia. And she means business. Some people think she may be exactly what is needed to set things right.
The Dutch ‘Stop Aids Now!’ campaigns have a long tradition of appealing to potential donors in Holland’s streets. November and December are the months the posters and TV ads pop up (around World Aids Day on December 1, coinciding with the arrival of Saint Nicholas and his Black Petes, and the ensuing spending spree) — staple NGO tactics this time of year. With governments slashing their international aid budgets, the street is where NGOs will need to scrape their money together. So you tell the Dutch that African kids “Mary and Neema don’t know how to prevent AIDS, but you do.” Or you show them (as in the video above) that while Dutch Alex wants a video game and Esther and Kim want a skippy ball, Themba wants to know “whether kissing will make you HIV positive,” and that “Ayanna wants a long and healthy life.” A reader suggested it was a rather patronizing and regressive campaign. She’s being too kind.
We like stylish Rwandese-Brooklyn singer Iyadede‘s take (in French) on the Theophilus London song “Flying Overseas.” His verses (in English) are retained unchanged in Iyadede’s cover. The video also visits some of the sites of Brooklyn. (Yes, there’s some Manhattan in there.) The Brooklyn tourism bureau should pay the makers of the video. And if you’re wondering: no, French is not the lingua franca in Brooklyn (unless you speak Creole).
