Ah, Mali. From bad to worse. Monday, “protestors” found a seventy-year old man sitting in his office and beat him unconscious. Preliminary reports had him lying in hospital with head wounds. Apparently he’s been released, but after such a beating, he might never be the same again. Will the country? [Read more...]
Mali’s problem–Not child soldiers, but soldiers acting like children
May 22, 2012 By 6 Comments
Mali–don’t talk about somebody’s mama
April 30, 2012 By 5 Comments
Monday evening, and it’s hard to tell who’s shooting up Bamako, or why. But someone cracks on Twitter “béé b’i ba bolo.” It’s one thing to stage a counter-coup or settle a score (if that’s what’s going on), it’s another thing to talk about somebody’s mama.
Parisian Africa: The artistic intersections of the Métropole
April 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Guest Post by Lara N. Dotson-Renta
Paris has always been renowned for its culture and support of the arts. Yet, as France has grown into an ever more pluralistic society, the traditional image of what constitutes art in France must evolve as well. Younger generations of artists, many immigrants of African origin, are now reconfiguring the arts in France on their own terms. Their artistic production embodies experiences of travel and adaptation via the integration of the cultures and traditions of their respective countries of origins along with aesthetic and quotidian experiences that reflect daily life in France. Particularly in the realm of music and film, the blending of African tradition with French popular culture and youth genres has fostered a vibrant arts scene that, while initially seen as of/from the margins of both society and the arts scene, is actually renewing ‘mainstream’ culture in dramatic ways. You just have to scan the pop music featured in Hinda Talhaoui’s Paris is a Continent Series on AIAC. One proponent of this new artistic vision is Alain Kasanda (Apkass), a Franco-Congolese musician, spoken word artist, and founder of the O’rigines Foundation and the Ghett’Out Francophone Film Festival. I interviewed Alain at the Trinity College International Hip-Hop Festival held in Hartford, CT, in March earlier this year. [Read more...]
Uganda, now you have touched the women
April 23, 2012 By 8 Comments
In October 2011, the Ugandan government sent Ingrid Turinawe to the infamous Luzira Prison–Uganda’s Guantánamo–for the treasonable act of walking to work. This week, the State, again, attacked Turinawe and other women activists for the “crime” of standing, speaking out, driving, and generally being. Big mistake.
Why is so much outside coverage of the Mali crisis so bad?
April 19, 2012 By 10 Comments
Why is so much outside coverage of the Mali crisis so bad? I don’t mean the conventional wallowing in clichés / recycling old images / harkening back to colonial stereotypes kind of bad, although there’s all that too. I mean the kind of bad that comes from being caught in a Beckettian loop of either saying nothing at all or having nothing to say. [Read more...]
Bamako-sur-Seine
April 12, 2012 By 1 Comment
You don’t stand in one place to watch a masquerade, as Chinua Achebe famously said. It moves. You move with it. Same goes for demonstrations. On Saturday a few hundred people marched in Paris for peace in Mali. Mostly Malians, as you’d think, but also a few dozen sympathetic observors, several journalists, a well-received Senegalese woman—“Senegal for the return of democracy and peace in Mali!” read her sign—and me.
The racial politics of Tuareg nationalism
April 7, 2012 By 34 Comments
Like good nomads ought to be, Tuareg desert blues super group Tinariwen are on tour. I hear good things about them as individuals, and I’m sure they’re all fine human beings, but I’m not a big fan. The music is alright, but the politics is rancid. Here’s why.
Tinariwen speaks on the coup in Mali
April 2, 2012 By 15 Comments
Tuareg musicians Tinariwen, on tour in Europe these days, spent some time in Belgium this weekend. Belgian public broadcaster VRT [they’ll do a feature on Mali blues once a year, usually at the end of June, covering the one high-profile ‘world music’ festival Brussels has in summer, squeezing them into a one-minute slot alongside performers from the Balkans, a visiting Soukous star, a French rapper and a Jamaican reggae artist] asked Tinariwen members Eyadou Ag Leche and Mina Walet Oumar what they made of the coup in Mali. It’s a short but useful video interview since most of what we get to read in international media over the past weeks are translations of and interviews with the military commanders of the coup, and then some other wires by foreign journalists based in Bamako. I haven’t read much reports coming from the north, i.e. from the Tuareg front. Below’s a brief translation of the VRT’s interview with Tinariwen’s guitarist and singer: [Read more...]
Mali’s Democracy–Down but not out
March 29, 2012 By 4 Comments
It’s windy in Bamako, says Martin Vogl, a journalist who’s been there for about three years now. Vogl and some of his peers are doing a great job in reporting what’s going on. But with all that wind blowing, and with things happening so fast, it’s helpful too to have shelter from the storm. A little analysis from one step’s remove might be useful. Here’s another attempt to offer that, to try to think clearly and speak plainly, even if everything is provisional. Post-mortems on Mali’s democracy are premature. Why do I think that’s so?
Mali’s coup — ‘Politics is bad’
March 27, 2012 By 4 Comments
Columbia history professor Gregory Mann writes the second of his of posts (here’s the first) on last week’s military coup in Mali for Africa is a Country:
