Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 217

When the ‘President of the rich’ met the ‘Black President’

The French President Emmanuel Macron's visit to Fela Kuti's New Afrika Shrine��pilgrimage or desecration?

true

Femi Kuti and Emmanuel Macron at the New Afrika Shrine in Lagos (Associated Press).

On July 8 2018, the day following Emmanuel Macron��s visit to the New Afrika Shrine��an historic cultural place associated with the iconic figure of the Nigerian musician��Fela��Kuti��Nigerians did not seem to realize yet that a French president had spent an entire evening in one of the most emblematic, but also one of the most contested places of Lagos. On the eve of the event, the incredulity was palpable in the streets of the megacity. It took giant advertising boards that read ��Ecobank and TRACE invite President Macron��to the Shrine,�� the refurbishment of the road leading to the club, and finally an official announcement by the Lagos Authorities of the closing of the main axis around the New Afrika Shrine on Saturday from noon to midnight, for everyone to��realize��that president Macron will spend an evening at the mythical club of��Fela��Kuti, surrounded by meticulously selected French, Nigerian and African personalities. Trace.tv proudly announced that the objective of this “night out” was meant to celebrate ��African culture.��

Two days after the event, reactions began to emerge on social networks, first from Nigerian cultural and political personalities, but also from eminent members of African and diaspora artistic and intellectual spheres.��Some artists, particularly those inspired by��Fela��Kuti, were as stupefied by the events that unfolded that night at the Shrine. Take��Qudus��Onikeku��for instance, a dancer who��choreographed��a piece on��Fela��Kuti titled��Africaman original,��who described��being��flabberwhelmed… I��ve written ten posts about last night at Afrika Shrine and I keep deleting them. Still can��t find the words,��he said. For others, such as Serge Aim�� Coulibaly, also a dancer, choreographer and creator of a show on��Fela��Kuti,��Kalakuta Republik, anger quickly replaced stupefaction: ��Emmanuel Macron represents everything��Fela��was fighting against, so the symbol is contradictory. If it was to meet the youth, there are many other places in Lagos to��do so.��On the contrary, the Kuti family, expressed a feeling of pride that the young president of a great Western power had chosen to visit an emblematic Nigerian venue in the frame of his two-day only official visit in their country.

Insert image of advert of the evening with E. Macron at the New Afrika Shrine.

So, for many people in Nigeria, that President Macron��nicknamed in France the ��President��of��the rich�� visited the Shrine of��Fela��Kuti, the self-proclaimed ��Black President,�� was quite exceptional. At the same time, this visit remained relatively unnoticed in French media, mentioned briefly as the president��s visit to a��nightclub��in the Nigerian economic capital. In order to fully grasp the challenges at stake in this presidential visit to the Shrine in July 2018, one must revisit both the history of this mythical cultural and political place, the trajectory of its founder,��Fela��Kuti, and the evolution of the place since the death of its ��Chief Priest�� in 1997. This brief history of the Shrine allows us to understand how this place evolved from an artistic space, emblematic of forms of creativity and contestation conceived by its founder as ��Pan-African�� in opposition to the Western cultural, political and economic hegemony, to the emblem of a globalized ��African�� culture, stripped of its dissenting dimensions to support the political communication of a European president.

Afro Spot, Afrika Shrine, New Afrika Shrine: the many lives of the temple of Afrobeat

In fact,��the New Afrika Shrine that hosted President Macron in July is not the first club founded by��Fela��Kuti. It is rather the third, opened by his son Femi Kuti following the death of his father, after a life dedicated to music and contestation of the Nigerian moral and political order deeply entrenched in 70 years of British colonisation and over 30 years of military dictatorship.

After studying classical music in London at the end of the 1950s and making a promising start as a saxophonist of ��high life jazz�� in Nigeria with his band��Koola Lobitos, in 1967��Fela��Kuti launched a new musical genre, an original mix of jazz, soul, funk, high-life and diverse Nigerian musical influences (such as Yoruba��fuji��or��juju music). He named it ��Afro-beat�� around the same time he opened his first night club,��The Afro-Spot, in The Empire Hotel, located between popular neighborhoods of Mushin, Yaba and Surulere��on the Lagos mainland. At the time, the Biafra war was raging, but��Fela��was not yet involved politically. The seeds of his activism, planted notably during his childhood in Abeokuta by his mother��Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti,��one of the leaders of the fight for independence and women rights at the end of the British colonial period, were still dormant.

Fela��Kuti and his band Koola Lobitos��in��1965.

During his stay in the USA in 1969, and after his intellectual and romantic encounter with the Afro-American activist��Sandra Smith��who was committed in the fight for civil rights,��Fela��developed deep anti-colonialist, anti-capitalist and Pan-African convictions:

It was in America I saw I was making a��mistake.��I didn��t know myself. I realized that neither me nor my music was going in the right direction. I came back home with the intent to change the whole system [��.]. As soon as I got back home, I started to��preach.

And to preach his new engagement through his music,��Fela��needed a shrine. Not long after his return to Nigeria in 1971, while General Yakubu Gowon was in power,��Fela��Kuti renamed his club the Afrika Shrine. He wished to set ��some place meaningful, of progressive, mindful background with roots. I didn��t believe in playing any more in��nightclubs.�� The Afrika Shrine was for��Fela��everything but a night club. It was rather a space for contestation of the current military order, but also for intellectual exchanges and artistic and sensual communion around his music. A sacred space, in the true sense of the term. In parallel,��Fela��started an original communitarian experience in a compound in��Surulere, not far from the Shrine. Baptized ��Kalakuta��Republic�� in 1974, in reference to��Fela��s��first jail cell in��Alagbon��Close (marking the beginning of a long list of cells visited until the eve of his death), the compound welcomed numerous members of his family, including his mother and his partners (many of which were chorus girls and dancers at the Shrine), members of his band and even a recording studio.

Despite the frequent violent rampages by the Nigerian military,��Fela��and his people lived there until 1977, while preaching his Pan-African ideology several times a week at the Shrine.��Benson Idonije, radio producer and close friend of��Fela, described the politico-artistic-religious atmosphere of the space in these terms:

[Fela] saw it as a place of worship, like the church or the mosque in conformity with his politically motivated music machine and the ideals of his ideological heroes such as Kwame Nkrumah, Malcom X and Marcus Garvey. In pursuit of this avowed objective, the Shrine attracted people of all religions, classes and professions, among whom were university professors, students, foreign diplomats, and all. [��] Relevant books and pamphlets were distributed to devotees by members of the Young African Pioneers to underscore the need for a cultural awareness, revival and economic power for a united Africa and Africans in the Diaspora. [��]. However, as his marijuana imagery heightened, the Shrine began to be perceived by some cynics as a place where lawless people hid and indulged themselves in criminal activities. [��]. It was as though the Shrine was patronised mainly by miscreants, never-do-wells, criminals, prostitutes, school drop-outs and people of dubious character.

It was from this jarring mix of audiences that emanated the originality and the power of the place, one of the few places in the 1970s where the entire Lagosian society could hang out, enjoy music and the good word of��the��Chief��Priest.�� Nevertheless, it was the presence of marginal people, seen as ��troublesome,�� and the practices of illegal activities such as consumption of marijuana, together with the always more��virulent dissenting frond led by Fela in his songs and political diatribes, that signed the end of the first Shrine.

In 1977, after several years of military raids conducted with diverse and more or less fallacious motives against the Shrine and Kalakuta Republic, Fela��s compound suffered an ultimate intrusion when the compound was burnt to the ground and several of��Fela��s��wives violently molested, some of them raped.��Fela��s��mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, was��thrown from the 1st��floor window. Aged 78, she will die of her wounds a couple of months later. Meanwhile, the Afrika Shrine��was closed and destroyed in the years that followed.

But��Fela��Kuti was resilient and his fire still burnt vividly: he declared his candidacy for the��presidential elections of 1979��(which was rejected) and as an umpteenth provocation, set up a representation of his mother��s coffin in front of General Obasanjo��s barracks; an event that inspired the song��Coffin for the Head of State. Then, a year after the wreckage of��Kalakuta��Republic, he married 27 of his dancers and singers, as a claim for a necessary return to the ��African�� values and lifestyle; an event that��caused a stir��in Nigeria.

In 1980, the ��Black President�� opened a second Afrika Shrine on Pepple Street, at the heart of Ikeja,��another popular district on the mainland.��In an��advertisement��published��in��the newspaper��The Punch��to announce the official opening of the place,��Fela��reasserted the sacred character of the Shrine which he compared, with humor and a certain sense of provocation, to churches assiduously frequented by Nigerians:

��The Church is an ideological��center��for the spreading of European and American cultural and political awareness.

The Shrine is an ideological��center��for the spreading of African cultural and political awareness.

The Church is a place where songs are rendered for worship.

The Shrine is a place where songs are rendered for worship.

The Church is a place where they collect money.

The Shrine is a place where we collect money.

The Church is a place where they drink while worshipping (Holy Communion).

The Shrine is a place where we drink while worshipping.

The Church is place where they smoke during worshipping (burning of incense).

The Shrine is place where we smoke during worshipping [��]

The Church is a place where they practice foreign religion. The Shrine is a place where we practice��African religion.��

Indeed, during a stay in Ghana, where he met a ritualist, Professor Kwaku��Addae��Hindu, who subsequently became his ��spiritual counsellor,��Fela��deepened his commitment to what he called��African spirituality.�� The ritual dimension of his music and performances at the Shrine got stronger, while staying as politically engaged as before. Apart from the Tuesday and Sunday evening performances, the Shrine offered a ��Divination night,�� comprising a ritual service followed by the ��Comprehensive show.��Sola Olorunyomi��provided a vibrant description of the atmosphere of these nights on Pepple Street:

At about 10pm on Saturdays, Pepple Street [��] takes on an eerie mood [��]. With only about two artisan shops, the street has bowed to the commercial pressure of the crowd that peaks on three days of the week: only confectionaries and bars dot this single lane bypass [��].

Around the Shrine, contour-lined faces milling around the street corridor betray an unnamed anxiety. Bands of youth in thick-coated lipsticks, baseball caps, fez caps, corduroys and denim jeans sway by, in swagger style. Christian��Dior, Alicia Alonso��irreverent perfumes make frantic efforts to impact on the whiff but get wafted off by a teenager��s single puff of marijuana. The sky of Pepple Street on Saturdays is a momentary overcast of marijuana smoke [��].

It is midnight and there is a sudden eruption at the gate [of the Shrine] as a small cluster of youngsters guide a figure in the direction of the stage, and the charged atmosphere yields to catcalls,��whistlings��and shouts of�� B��b��Kuti��, ��Fela��Baba�� [��], some of��Fela��s��more familiar sobriquets [��]. The crow is querying and accusing��Fela��of omnibus offenses. ��Who the hell are you to keep us waiting?��, ��Any member of your household ever got a wrist-watch?��, ��Serves you right that the government detained you the last time!�� [��].

The band leader is standing on the central stage, slightly elevated [��]. A neon light in blue background reflects a map of Africa in red contrast. Behind the band is inscribed the slogan: ��Blackism-Force of the Mind��. The worship cubicle housing deities in on the left-hand corner, midway between the stage and the audience. [The band leader] seizes the microphone, tells a little anecdote about the African condition [��], and then, ��introducing to you the one and only A-b��-mi-E-da,��Fela��Anikulapo-Kuti,�� coinciding with a spontaneous outburst of percussive rhythm, followed by brass instruments, guitar and all, in no particular order [��] stops! Microphone in one hand, a long wrap of marijuana in the other: ��Everybody say��yee-ye,�� here is��Fela��trying to give prep the night��s performance.��

On the shrine displaying the representations of several Yoruba deities, portraits of Black leaders such as Malcom X, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba and��Fela��s��mother Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti could be also noticed. After singing for a while,��Fela��would leave the stage for the shrine to do some offerings of gin, cola nuts and the sacrifice of a fowl. When this ritual would be over,��Fela��would come back on stage to deliver his famous ��yabbis,�� political and religious dithyrambs, thrown between humor and anger, sometimes ending up as a harangue. They were said to be inspired by the ancestors and the Yoruba entities that had just been honored, and could plead for an election boycott, for the support of a political cause or announce the fall of a military regime on the continent.

Often oriented against the successive military governments, the long politico-religious speeches of Fela also regularly targeted the Western powers and the foreign multinational companies accused of collaborating to maintain a form of neocolonial exploitation of Africa and of plundering its resources with the help of African leaders. The song��I.T.T. (International Thief Thief), released in 1979, where Fela used the acronym of the American multinational International Telephone and Telegraph, was emblematic of his��anti-colonialist and anti-capitalist commitments.

During the 1980s, Fela acquired an international audience and multiplied tours overseas, while the Afrika Shrine in Pepple Street remained his Nigerian headquarters. He reinforced the political dimension of the place in 1992 by welcoming five activists and first-hand opponents��to the Nigerian political system freshly released from General Babangida��s gaols. Human rights activists from all over the world also came to visit the place regularly and show their support to Fela. Paradoxically, it was probably one of the most relative peaceful periods of Fela��s life, even if he continued to protest fiercely against Shagari (from 1979 to 1983), Buhari (from 1983 to 1985) and��then Babangida��(from 1985 to 1993).

However, harassment from the authorities resumed in 1993. It reached a peak between February and June 1997, under General Abacha, when Fela Kuti was arrested six times consecutively, his last detention being undoubtedly the most inhumane and humiliating of the previous 199 arrests for diverse motives��ranging from possession of marijuana to homicide or pedophilia��he experienced during his life. At this occasion, soldiers invaded the Shrine, shut it down and forbade its access to Fela, even to honor the deities on the club��s altar.

Fela Kuti��died two months later, aged 58, following an HIV infection that he never wanted to admit. Even after the official announcement of the causes of his death by his brother and doctor, the deputy priest of the Shrine, Ayorunbo, argued that the ��Black President�� did not die of AIDS but rather because of the anger of the Shrine��s deities, following its��desecration��by the��military. This explanation seemed perfectly in line with the way Fela originally conceived his Afrika Shrine, both as an artistic gathering, a place of worship and a space for political contestation. It also highlighted the central role of the Shrine in the existence of its ��Chief Priest,��even as a potential��cause of his dramatic end.

The New Afrika Shrine of Femi Kuti

After��Fela��s death, the Afrika Shrine on Pepple Street was��destroyed in 1999. In October 2000, Femi, who took up the musical, and to a lesser extent, political and spiritual torch of his father, opened the New Afrika Shrine, in the same district of Ikeja, this time on Nerdc Road. Inside a wide warehouse converted into a concert hall, everything was designed to recreate the aesthetic and the atmosphere of the Shrine on Pepple Street. Portraits of Fela��s pan-African and Afro-American heroes now adorn the stage, together with his mother��s and a huge map of Africa showing Fela doing his famous ��Black salute��. On the right side of the stage, visitors can see the shrine welcoming the deities of the place, where Femi also regularly makes offerings. Every wall is now also adorned by representations of and emblematic quotes from Fela Kuti, such as ��The secret to life is to have no fear.��

Femi Kuti on stage at the New Afrika Shrine, with portraits of Nelson Mandela and Kwame Nkrumah and the map of Afrika with Fela��s famous ��Black salute,�� April 2016, picture E. Guitard.

From an aesthetic perspective, the New Afrika Shrine seems close to the descriptions of Fela��s past Shrines. As for the atmosphere, the rough acoustic of the place, produced through a tinkered sound system amplified by the metal roofs, reflects the one evoked by the faithful of the Black President��s old clubs. The dampness of the hot air penetrating from the openings��in the roof, then pushed down on the audience by the multiple fans feverishly rotating on the ceiling, enhances the sensual atmosphere of the place. Stripped dancers, adorned with glass beads ornaments, their faces skillfully painted with white dots, are still lasciviously swaying their hips on stage or in one of the two little cage-like podiums encased with a net that are installed on both side of the stage.

Many hawkers navigate between the plastic tables and chairs, trying to draw customers�� attention on their trails full of peppered goat meat, fried shrimps, beef suya or vanilla ice creams that are rapidly melting in the moist and hot air. The whole place is bathed in a cloud of tobacco and cannabis smoke, which makes it one of the only places in Lagos �� to��our��knowledge �� where so many people openly smoke in public. Students from Lagos University��on a spree��hang out next to��area boys��,��petty thugs from the neighborhood��some of them��recruited by the security services of the Shrine, young beggars crippled by polio circulating on skate boards, and expats and members of the Lagosian youth elite removed from their ultra-secured estates of Ikoyi or Victoria Island on the other side of the lagoon. On stage, during several hours of performances organized every Thursday, Sunday and sometimes Saturday (when Seun Kuti, the other son of Fela Kuti who also carries on the family tradition, plays), Femi Kuti often interrupts his band to take over the passionate ��yabbis��of his father. The entrance fee stays modest (few hundred Nairas no more), while some nights are totally free. The atmosphere of Fela��s shrine seems also to be preserved.

But what of the spirit of the place? That is where many things seem to have changed. Many advertisement boards have mushroomed on the club��s walls, associating Fela Kuti��s image with beer brands or phone operators. Also, each October during Felabration, the annual festival dedicated to Fela Kuti,��a crowd fills up the place every night to see new and young Nigerian artists perform. Though all claim to be in line with Fela, very few actually have taken over his musical style and even fewer��his values and commitments. These singers of ��Pop Naija�� or ��Afrobeats�� (), the lucrative Lagosian music industry��flooding the African continent with its production, take turns on stage to sing without auto-tune support, sounding mostly out of tune.

Finally, despite the militant speeches of Femi and Seun Kuti, presented abroad as Nigerian political activists in line with their father��s commitments (while they seem actually relatively uninvolved in Nigerian political life), the New Afrika Shrine has opened its doors to administrative authorities, starting with the former Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, otherwise very contested for his management of the megacity, which seems more oriented toward the��elite and foreign investors��(see for instance��the emblematic Eko Atlantic��project) than toward infrastructures and primary public services development for the more than��12 million��Lagosians. Indeed, Ambode was first seen at the New Afrika Shrine in October 2017,��dancing on stage with Femi Kuti to celebrate the 79th��posthumous birthday of Fela, before being joined by President Macron on this evening of July 2018.

The ‘president of the rich’ at the New Afrika Shrine: pilgrimage or��desecration?

On the evening of the French president��s visit at the New Afrika Shrine, the event co-organized by Nigerian owned EcoBank, the self-proclaimed ��Pan African Bank�� and��TRACE, a French media group oriented toward ��afro-urban entertainment,�� billed it as a memorable cultural, political and economic event. President Macron was to announce the organization of the ��Season of African cultures�� in France in 2020, with the objective ��to promote in France the image of an Africa in��move and mutation.��A��myriad of renowned artists��were��supposed to represent the musical diversity of the continent, from the Beninese Ang��lique Kidjo to the Senegalese Youssou NDour. TheTRACE��CEO,��Olivier Laouchez,��also��stressed how President Macron��s visit at the New Afrika Shrine symbolized��the latter��s respect for the Nigerian cultural identity. However, despite all these efforts,��it was rather an evening when a so-called ��African culture��, in its most essentialist acceptation, was celebrated.

To match the expected standards of an��official presidential visit, the place was ��sanitized��, to recall the expression of Sola Olorunyomi, lecturer at the University of Ibadan��and author of��Afrobeat! Fela and the Imagined continent,��one of the must-reads on Fela��Kuti��(see also the detailed description of the evening by��Oris Aigbokhaevbolo). The waiters were dressed in pink shirts and bow ties. A new sound and light system were set up on stage. Large black boards exhibiting Nigerian artworks, selected��by Art X Lagos, an annual contemporary art fair, were installed alongside the walls, hiding some of Fela��s quotes. Similarly, the portraits of the Pan-African political icons were masked by a huge digital screen set up at the back of the stage. Last but not least, the toilets were entirely renovated.

Concerning the narratives mobilized during this evening, the recurrent slippage by President Macron from Nigerian culture to an ��African�� culture seems to please the Nigerian audience, whose cultural industries, through cinema (Nollywood) or music (Pop Naija), have sought for several years now��to represent the entire continent on the international scene.

But one can also notice how Macron recycled, behind the recurrent mobilization of the term ��Africa��, the themes of ��unity�� and ��Pan African independence�� dear to Fela Kuti, to use them for completely different purposes. On the one hand, the Nigeria youth was invited to build Africa by staying there (or going back there), a statement which sounded quite contradictory coming from a young president who, on multiple occasions during his public interventions, highlighted how his stay in Abuja as an intern of the French National School of Administration (ENA) was precious and impactful in his outstanding political career.

On the other hand, the ��Season of African cultures�� announced for 2020 will represent according to President Macron a major innovation, because these events organized in France will be exclusively funded by African entrepreneurs, who will therefore show the ��face of African culture in Europe, but organized by Africa, with Africa, [proposing] what you like, what is important to you here.��A statement which can seem quite cynical, considering the lack of investment from the public sphere and from African entrepreneurs into the artistic and cultural scenes of their own countries.

Finally, from a political perspective, President Macron also knows how to use for his benefit the dissenting dimension of the New Afrika Shrine. He doesn��t fail to point it out at the��beginning of his��speech, only to better position himself in line with Fela Kuti by reminding the ��young�� Nigerians, as a ��young�� president,��that it is important to get into politics. On the Nigerian side, and especially for the Kuti family, a French President��s visit in the history of the successive Shrines is seen as long-awaited recognition of Fela, both as an artist and an activist: ��the presence of E. Macron tonight at the Shrine gives justice to my father��s fight,��declared Femi to the��press, ��it justifies the reconstruction of the Shrine after his death. Back then, many criticized us stating that the Shrine was only a place for hoodlums and weed smokers. The fact that a French president is here today is a very strong symbolic and political statement.��Femi Kuti called also��Emmanuel Macron ��as the rest of the world, to stop to sustain corruption and injustice in the all of Africa to support progressive forces in this continent.�� For the Kuti family, as for many Nigerians,��living��in an ultra-liberal context��while being��maybe little aware of��French politics, the ideological and political positions of E. Macron, notably on social questions or migration, were considered as��very progressive.” Hence, they are not seen as contradictory with the anti-colonialist, anti-capitalist and Pan African principles of the ��Black President.��

An ‘African’ symbol rendered meaningless

President Macron��s visit to the New Afrika��Shrine, invited jointly by the Kuti family and two French and Nigerian companies, cannot be reduced to a simple diplomatic-fashionable party for African and Afrophile artists and cultural operators. On the contrary, this event, together with popular phenomena such as the global box office success of��Black Panther,��showcased how cultural ��African�� symbols are gaining ground and legitimacy in the globalized imaginaries, conveyed notably by international media. As a space for artistic, but also political expression well-known by African or Afro-descendant intellectuals and artists, but relatively little known by the international general public, Fela Kuti��s Shrine, and through it, the emblematic figure of the ��Black President�� gained a new resonance with the French president��s visit. But at the same time, the attempts of political recovery of this symbol by President Macron marked the culmination of a long attenuation process of the space��s ideological and dissenting dimensions that started since the opening of the last Shrine by Fela��s heirs, eighteen years ago.

Moreover, on the occasion of this presidential visit, the Shrine was denied its particular history, intrinsically linked to that of its founder, itself so representative of the political, economic and cultural upheavals of Lagos and Nigeria postcolonial history. The reinvestment of this artistic, religious and political symbol, originally built as an emblem of pan African unity by Fela Kuti, to represent an ��African�� culture essentialized for political communication ends by President Macron, doesn��t signal the ��beginning of a new fight around the ��African sign�� (as analyzed by��Achille Mbembe), but rather its re-actualization to a new global scale. At its heart, the defense of��the plurality of the world,��and notably of the African continent, to think a truly universal horizon, as championed by the philosopher Souleymane Bachir Diagne, appears now more than ever a colossal challenge.

This was��originally published in French on the blog��Les carnets de Terrain.

View more on Sean Jacobs's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on June 01, 2019 18:00

Decolonizing the museum

How should Belgium's Africa Museum address its colonial past?

true

Image credit R��gine Debatty via Flickr (CC).

Since reopening in December 2018, after five years of renovations, Belgium��s Central-Africa museum has again sparked controversy. Internationally and domestically, critics have pointed out how the collection is still largely based on stolen art work, which is especially striking given recent actions in neighboring France to return stolen art.

Another major criticism relates to how the museum has dealt with Belgium��s colonial past. This has most recently arisen with the visit of a UN working group, which criticized the museum for perpetuating racist imagery. Interestingly, this criticism also reveals that there are diverging opinions on how to deal with colonial propaganda works, even from a shared perspective of decolonization. While some argue that all works need to be removed, others say that such images should be maintained, and explained, to confront visitors with the colonial past and its legacies.

Belgium��s Africa museum was established in 1897 under the auspices of Leopold II to glorify his, and later Belgium��s ��civilizing mission�� in Congo. The collection consisted of masks and other artifacts collected during often brutal expeditions in the Congo, a large collection of taxidermized animals, and statues depicting black Africans as wicked and barbarian with white colonizers as welcomed saviors. Until 2013, the collection and museum lay-out had largely remained unchanged.

After the renovation, many offensive statues appear together in a separate room within the museum, with the notification that they are no longer part of the actual collection. Others are an integral part of the museum building. These are kept in place, yet are accompanied by a short text explaining their history. The museum also has a thematic area documenting Belgian��s colonial history as well as its colonial propaganda.

The renovated Africa museum hence certainly displays racist imagery. There is little discussion on this matter. The question to ask is whether the purpose of decolonization is best fulfilled by removing these depictions or keeping them in place with��certainly better�� contextualization. For instance, while many statues have been taken out of the collection, it is not clear why they are continuing to be displayed separately. If sufficient explanation were provided, there would perhaps be no reason to exclude them from the exhibition as such. Furthermore, colonial propaganda images (posters, articles, drawings), which are part of the collection, are now only visible if one opens drawers in which they are stored, risking the impression that one can forget about the country��s colonial history by hiding it away.

There is a need to actually offer colonial propaganda works a more prominent place in the museum, to highlight how Belgians depicted and treated black Africans in the colonial past, and to alert new generations to the dehumanization of fellow men and women. The same objectives lie behind many museums documenting the treatment of Jews in Nazi-Germany. This position on decolonizing the museum differs from that of the UN expert group, which argued that all racist imagery should be removed.

The UN group��s view also deserves reflection, in particular with regard to the wider societal context in which the museum operates. A strategy in which colonial propaganda is presented as a lesson may simply not work when racism and racist imagery have not yet sufficiently been discredited by public policies and wider societal norms. Perhaps the current milieu in Belgium is like that. If that is the case then the purpose of decolonization may be best served by removing all propaganda images from the museum.

How best to practice decolonization in this matter is a debate worth having, especially with Belgians of African descent, who are ultimately in the best position to assess contemporary racial relations in the country. For the current exhibition the museum has cooperated extensively with diaspora communities to bring their stories to the fore. It has also bought and commissioned works from African artists. The extent to which the presentation of colonial propaganda material is the result of a similar consultative process is less clear, however, as the museum does not make note of this in the exhibition.

The debate on how to address Belgium��s colonial past is not restricted to the Africa museum. Statues of Leopold II are still present in public spaces and the names of many streets and squares continue to be reminiscent of the colonial period. While certain municipalities have recently taken actions of redress, discussions on the colonial past only surface occasionally. Nevertheless, a consistent and widely accepted approach requires a transparent and public debate with all societal stakeholders.

View more on Sean Jacobs's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on May 30, 2019 17:00

The complicated political legacy of Jerry Rawlings

Jerry Rawlings is widely cited by working class people as one of Ghana's best presidents. But his legacy is complicated by his association with political violence as a military dictator, and by his ushering in of neoliberalism.

true

Jerry Rawlings in Somalia with AMISOM. Image credit Stuart Price via AMISOM Flickr (CC).

Jerry��John��Rawlings has long held a complicated place in Ghanaian popular politics and historical memory.

On May 15, 1979,��the then-flight lieutenant��led a group of junior Ghanaian army officers in an attempted overthrow of the military government of General F.K. Akuffo and the Supreme Military Council. Rawlings, who insisted that he should be held responsible for the coup, was imprisoned and court-martialed. Soon after, on June 4, he was released from prison by junior military officers in another takeover, seizing power in a successful ��housecleaning exercise�� that sought to purge the country of corrupt political and business leaders and recalibrate Ghana��s national moral compass. Over the next three months, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (under Rawlings�� leadership) executed eight senior military officers, including��three former heads of state��Akwasi Afrifa, Ignatius Acheampong, and Akuffo. The purge was supposed to clear the way for new democratic leadership under President��Hilla��Limann, a former diplomat. Rawlings, however, remained concerned about accusations of persistent corruption within the��Limann��administration. Rawlings�� second coming�� on December 31, 1981,��was widely perceived as an indictment of the entire political class.��Condemning��Limann��and his associates as ��a pack of criminals who bled Ghana to the bone,�� Rawlings vowed to ��organize this country in such a way that nothing will be done, whether by God or the devil, without the consent and the authority of the people.��

Many of Rawlings�� criticisms rang true for Ghanaians who, by the 1970s were suffering the effects of a decades-long economic decline. A series of military and civilian governments promised solutions. While some of those solutions��like��Acheampong��s��Operation Feed Yourself�� or ��Operation Keep Right��were marked by local successes, national-level interventions were unable to fundamentally alter the structural economic conditions that hampered economic growth in Ghana. By the late 1970s, actions of questionable legality��like smuggling��and profiteering��had become so commonplace that few people were immune from accusations of corruption. Entire classes of people��soldiers, market women, drivers��were labeled as criminals and increasingly targeted through legal and social sanctions that sought to identify the cause of Ghana��s problems.

While��his political interventions sought to address the economic hardships experienced by the vast majority of Ghana��s population, Rawlings�� rhetoric was ultimately moral rather than economic.��Rediscovering and reasserting national morality was the only productive way forward,��he��argued. Those same moral arguments, however, were used to justify the executions in 1979 and the widely-condemned assassination of Supreme Court justices who had ruled against the��People��s National��Defense��Council (PNDC) after Rawlings�� second coming.�� Rawlings and the PNDC further empowered Local��Defense��Committees (LDCs) to root out corruption at the community level. The result was a form of democratic authoritarianism��to which all citizens were subject.

He is widely cited by working class people as one of the country��s best presidents. Commercial drivers who lived and worked through��his military rule until 1992 and then his two terms as the country��s democratic president,��for example,��often held up both Nkrumah and Rawlings as the country��s most effective leaders because ��they made people fear the law.�� Authoritarianism, in other words, is not necessarily antithetical to domestic popularity in Ghana.

In some ways, this popularity��reflects��the success of a shrewd political strategy.��Rawlings has been able to successfully shift blame for the executions on junior officers, arguing��that he had no actual authority or ��force��only moral authority��in the context of the revolution. The execution of senior officers, he claimed, was done to quell the protests and anger of the people, while the murder of Supreme Court Justices reflected the impertinent action of overzealous junior officers. Their deaths��were, in other words, unfortunate consequences of a popular revolution over which he had limited control��a claim he has consistently asserted over the decades of interviews that followed. This epistemological, juridical, and moral distance seems galling in light of the violence.

Of course, Rawlings�� popularity is not universal. The country remains split over his legacy��those who are willing to forgive the violence and human rights abuses as necessary steps to achieve lasting change and those who suffered under his rule. For some, his shift to neoliberal structural adjustment reform represented a selling out of his early ideals, which had profound consequences for Ghana��s economic future.��For others, the violence of the period left lasting scars,��none��the more poignantly demonstrated than when Acheampong��s daughter protested Rawlings�� 2006 attendance of��Ghanafest��in Chicago, publicly��condemning Rawlings as a murderer. Interrupting Rawlings�� speech��about the morality of his ��lifestyle��at a Chicago church, Victoria Acheampong reportedly held a photo of her father in front of Rawlings, saying ��You killed my father. What about us?��

Yet, in transitioning to democratic rule, Rawlings was able to preserve and re-brand the legacy of his ��revolution�� as part of an ongoing battle, rooted in the democratic process��a revolution��of the people. Within Ghana, Rawlings continues to hold enormous influence over national political discourse.��Although��the political party that he founded��the National Democratic Congress��continues to compete in national-level elections and celebrate the anniversaries of the revolution, Rawlings��has recast himself as a political gadfly and elder statesman, keeping the revolution alive and supporting the political ambitions of his family members, including his wife Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings and his daughter��Zanetor��Agyeman-Rawlings. When his former��vice��president, John Evans Atta Mills, was elected President of Ghana in 2009,��popular rumors��suggested that Rawlings was operating a shadow government in order to manipulate Mills. In the 2016 elections, Rawlings publicly criticized NDC flagbearer John Mahama for failing to curb corruption, telling a group interview,��that I was a part of,��that Mahama ��deserved to lose��and throwing at least some support behind Nana Akuffo Addo, even as he (ironically) condemned the leaders of the National Patriotic Party as ��murderers.�� Meanwhile, international organizations��seem to completely ignore the violent history of his political rise (see his biography��on the InterAction Council website��as an example).

These charismatic and self-confident contradictions have long played a role in��Rawlings�� success within and outside of Ghana.��In both calling for a revolution��and��achieving a successful transition to multiparty democracy, Rawlings seems to have paradoxically created a political role for himself that is beyond politics. ��All African leaders who took power by coup should learn from Ghana��s ex-president Jerry Rawlings,��one Twitter user declared.��In April, Rawlings emerged as a powerful influence over conversations about corruption, democracy, and development in Nigeria.��Rawlings himself has spoken out publicly in support of the Buhari government, while also urging that national leaders respect the will of the people.��Nigerians, however, took to Twitter��to call��for��a Rawlings-style coup��to��respond to corruption��in��the Buhari government.

A few months before,��Rawlings��was��trending on Twitter��across the continent after getting out of his car to direct traffic in Accra.��The acclaim for ��Papa J�� was overwhelming. ��This should be an example to all African presidents. You can serve your people, leave power with dignity, still live free and respected amongst your people,��one Twitter user stated. For many this was another example of Rawlings�� humility as a ��man of the people��a phrase repeated often during and after the dictatorship to highlight the differences between himself and the average political leader.

Rawlings seems to thrive in the midst of these contradictions,��which only further highlights how complicated of a historical and political figure he is. But it also says something about national and international political cultures��what we��re willing to ignore in the pursuit of multiparty democracy and the elimination of corruption; how little we understand the commitments necessary to achieve true revolution; the (im)balance of pragmatism and morality in contemporary political discourse.

In other words,��Rawlings��might��be the best example of the very things he complains about. His constant reinvention is a condemnation of the public cultures and political institutions he claimed to reform.

View more on Sean Jacobs's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on May 29, 2019 17:00

Senegalese activists persevere despite setback

Beyond national elections, the Y��en a Marre political movement is changing Senegalese civic and political life for future generations.

true

Dakar. Image credit Rachel Tanugi Ribas via Flickr (CC).

In late 2011 and early 2012, the collective known as Y��en a Marre (We��re fed up/Enough is enough) emerged as a dynamic force in Senegalese politics. Founded and led by rappers��Fou��Malade (Malal��Talla),��Thiat (Cheikh��Oumar��Cyrille��Toure),��Kilifeu (Mbess��Seck) and journalists��Fadel��Barro,��Aliou��Sane and Denise Sow, the movement focused on ensuring the legitimacy of the��2012 presidential elections��there. The collective, along with other political and civil society groups, organized mass protests against the candidacy of Abdoulaye Wade (who was running for an unconstitutional third term). They encouraged youth to vote out the 85-year-old incumbent.��One of the trademarks of the movement was their use of hip-hop and rap as a means to voice their discontent and��to��mobilize youth. Although��Y��en��a��Marre��did not succeed in preventing Wade from participating in the elections, their activism played a role in Wade��s defeat by��his former prime minister,��Macky��Sall.

Y��en a Marre (YEM) again returned to the spotlight during��the recent 2019 Senegalese elections, when they took to the streets to advocate against the re-election of Macky Sall. They argued��that��Sall��had��not been an effective leader, having done little to improve the lives of ordinary Senegalese. In particular, complaints lodged against Sall focused on the misallocation of resources: investing in cosmetic changes to the country, such as building glitzy parliamentary buildings and bridges, without addressing social needs like education. Despite the efforts of YEM, on February 24, 2019, Macky Sall was re-elected with 58% of the vote.��In a recent conversation with the authors of this article, Thiat, a leading YEM member, said he was “disappointed, but not surprised.”��Some in Senegal, like Thiat, question the validity of��Sall��s��victory, accusing him of suppressing competition and cheating “upstream” through advanced access to voter information.

But for a group who rose to prominence in response to a specific political crisis,��Y��en��a��Marre��s��strength has turned out to be its longevity and ability to continually define itself outside of the narrow purview of official politics. For YEM, the elections were battles in a larger war to��reshape the role of citizens in Senegalese politics, and��Sall��s��victory in no way undermines YEM��s day-to-day activism in-between elections. Instead of focusing on short-term goals, the movement has been working to change the issues that underlie the behavior of Senegal��s political leaders.

Since 2011, YEM��s approach has been rooted in the idea of the New Type of Senegalese (NTS). NTS is a bottom-up approach to inspire citizens to be involved in local politics. This ideology centers individual and collective behavior of citizens as the primary impetus for effecting change in the way the country is run, and aims to tear down the barrier between governing rulers and their constituents. YEM��s approach has been about a principled resistance to alignment with any political party or candidate; that is, they see themselves as occupying an independent watchdog role fully outside of official politics. They understand that changing the mentality of an entire nation will take time, and therefore their efforts are necessarily focused on the youth of Senegal. Thiat sees himself and his comrades, who are mostly in their late 30s, as part of the ��sacrificed generation,�� who may not live to see the results of their work: ��Change is going to come from the population when they are ready. We understand that the fruits of our fight��we will not benefit from it�� We are the sacrificed generation. We have to sacrifice the rest our lives to changing the situation.��

What is dynamic about YEM is that the shared overall vision of NTS allows for individual activists to drive forward specific initiatives within the framework of the broader movement. One of their ongoing projects,��Dox��ak��sa��Gox��(roughly translated from Wolof as ��walk with your community��),��focuses on connecting the residents of Senegalese communities to their local officials. The program creates space for unique interactions through forums mediated by members of YEM, which give citizens the opportunity to express their opinion on local governance, to set out their priorities so that they can be better taken into account by their elected representatives, and also offer the opportunity to pressure elected representatives on agreed deadlines. YEM have also developed a monitoring website, which details the political activities of local administrators. It is a people-based approach to politics, decentralizing the political elite and giving agency to citizens in contributing to policy development, the allocation of resources, and access to public goods and services.

In addition to this, YEM has taken on environmental initiatives to create more green spaces not only in Dakar but also around the country. Members have similarly rehabilitated abandoned buildings, painting the walls with art and graffiti, and planting flowers on the exterior. In these renovated centers they have built rehearsal rooms, recording studios, and meeting spaces as a resource for young Senegalese students.

Other projects are run individually. Thiat is in charge of��Mboka, an initiative attempting to bridge the divide between Gambia and Senegal. The two countries are ethnically and culturally very similar, but the international borders (the result of colonialism) create divisions not only in social interaction but also in its economic and commercial relationships.��Mboka��is about cultivating a sense of brotherhood between the two nations by easing border crossing procedures and organizing forums that address issues of inequity between the residents of the two countries.

Fou��Malade��has been working with the formerly incarcerated, providing them with art materials and a space to express themselves visually. Aspiring MC’s coming out of prison also have access to studios where they can record and then release their own albums.

Simon has taken on Citizen Mic��a competition that encourages young rappers to write music about democracy and the people. Last year there were 300 participants at the month-long series of workshops leading up to the competition, and the winner received a home studio, in addition to a year��s worth of rent payments.

The recent presidential elections were a reminder of the challenging circumstances YEM operates in. High-level political machinations, a patrimonial conception of public affairs, layers of bureaucracy, and the weakness of local-level institutions all constantly threaten to undermine the impact of YEM��s initiatives. However, by taking aim at underlying issues rather than just the country��s political leadership, YEM is trying to restructure the foundations of Senegal��s civic life. As Thiat argues,��We are wasting our time comparing ourselves to the United States and to Europe, those Western countries�� We will never catch that train. We have to create our own tracks, our own train, and take our own way. This is a long process of change.��

It is not surprising that YEM leaders like��Thiat��find inspiration in��Steve��Biko, the South African black consciousness leader murdered by Apartheid in the late 1970s.��Like Biko, Y’en a Marre activists insist on the primacy of developing confident and politically engaged young Africans who can challenge injustices that run deeper than��changing��elected officials��even if they don’t see the fruits of today’s organizing for years to come.

View more on Sean Jacobs's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on May 28, 2019 19:00

How the left can rescue Nigeria

The last 20 years of liberal democracy in Nigeria have been marred by crises. The next election should be the Left's target.

true

Nigeria��s President, Muhammadu Buhari on a visit to Benin in October 2018. Image via office of the President of Benin via Flickr (CC).

On May 29, 2019, the Nigerian state will roll out the drum to celebrate two important milestones: first, the inauguration of President Muhammadu Buhari, who just won re-election through a keenly contested presidential election. That coincides with the 20th anniversary of the transition from military authoritarianism to liberal democratic practice in Nigeria.

The last 20 years of liberal democratic practice in Nigeria have been marred by economic, social and political crises. The country has witnessed oil-induced insurgency in the Niger Delta as a result of many years of neglect. It has also been bedeviled by the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast of the country, the resurgence of agitation for the revival of a defunct Biafran republic in the east of the country, incessant cases of kidnappings for ransom and the constant clashes across the country between farmers and herders. Added to these crisis/conflicts are the overall instability in the economic and political space, with the majority of Nigerians becoming worse off with each succeeding political regime.

While many analysts would ascribe the precarious economic conditions of Nigerians to whichever political regime is in office, you hardly see or read any analyst postulate about the economic and political system that constantly produces a form of conflict under which each succeeding regime thrives. What is prevalent is a system where the elite often organize themselves months before elections in order to determine who gets to continue the plunder of the commonwealth. The last presidential election held in February is no different.

The February 2019 election, contested by over 70 political parties, marked the fifth time presidential elections have been conducted since 1999 and the fourth time��in the current republic by a civilian administration. The election was largely determined by an elite coalition that cut across all the ethnic groups in the country. These elite have a shared interest that is completely at variance with the aspirations of a majority of Nigerians. The specific interest of these elites at every election cycle is to strategize about which platform best serves their personal interest and the interest of their groups.

In the last two electoral cycles��2015 and 2019��the interest of these elite groups seems to have been served by the All Peoples Congress or APC (Buhari was its presidential candidate), which for all intent and purposes cannot be called a political party. The APC and other elite organized ��political parties�� (for example, the Peoples Democratic Party or PDP, All Peoples Grand Alliance or APGA) are at best associations of friends with shared interests. The shared interests are mainly the sustenance of members of their groups in power in order to continue to partake in the sharing of Nigeria��s commonwealth at the detriment of the masses.

This practice is embodied by the ease with which these elites move from one party to the other during periods of election. The best way to understand this point is to look at the membership of these ��political parties�� in the last ten to twenty years. A cursory look will show that same individuals keep traversing all the ��political parties�� looking for the best platform within which to realize their political ambition. For example, the presidential candidate of the PDP was once a leading member of the APC before decamping to the PDP. The current senate president, Bukola Saraki started as a PDP member, decamped to the APC in 2014 only to return to the PDP few months before the last election. Such practice of constantly shifting back and forth in-between ��political parties�� is what defined a system where political parties are not anchored on any idea of governance that benefits the people.

Many of the political parties in Nigeria today lacks a clear-cut political manifesto. The only manifesto the elite members have is a tokenistic neoliberal economic policy that takes from the poor to give to the rich. How else can you explain the statement credited to two former presidents, Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan, that during their time, Nigeria produced more billionaires some of whom are listed in the Forbes list of world��s richest people. Of course, many of the so-called billionaires produced were those that the regimes in power sold Nigeria��s commonwealth to at a giveaway price��e.g. oil, gas, state owned enterprises and other natural resources.

The question then becomes, what hope for the majority of Nigerians who are yearning for genuine change? The simple answer to this question is the fact that the current socio-economic and political crisis that the Nigerian elite have brought upon the nation becomes an important moment that can be used to bring about the desired change by Nigerians. It has become absolutely clear that the Nigerian elite are incapable of governing the country; it explains why there is so much crisis and conflict in Nigeria. The inability of the Nigerian elite to resolve all the socio-economic and political crisis of the Nigerian state presents the broadly defined Nigerian left with the opportunity to craft an alternative platform that could help transform the state from its present predicament to a hopeful and result-oriented nation-state.

One important lesson learned from the 2019 presidential election is the fact that if there is proper organization, the progressives/left can win elections in Nigeria and redirect the political and economic structure and organization of the Nigerian state in ways that work for the majority of the population. Some of the candidates with a left/progressive tradition��Omoyele Sowore, Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim and Tope Fasua��showed clearly how the landscape of politics in Nigeria can be changed if the left or progressives are united. The time is now for such unity. In 2023, there will be another election cycle, which is why it becomes an imperative for the left to begin to craft an agenda that emphasizes coalition building across a three-dimensional political organizing platform. A three-dimensional political organizing that is based on a people��s manifesto centered on making life better for every Nigerian.

The first dimension is to move away from the mode of NGO politics, whereby all progressive-minded people in Nigeria are turned into election observers rather than participants. As we have seen in the last two decades of liberal democratic practice in Nigeria, many of Nigeria��s best minds��particularly those from the left��have shied away from contesting for power by becoming advocates of NGOs under the precarious notion of being ��non-partisan.�� At this historical moment, the left and other progressives in Nigeria must shake-off the toga of non-partisanship to become actively partisan in rescuing Nigeria from the predicament of retarded growth.

The second dimension is to begin organizing now and not wait until 2023 when the marauding elite will have gotten together again to determine the future of the country. This form of organizing should be based on a common agenda��to rescue Nigeria��and the agenda must be clearly defined in ways that set the left and other progressives apart from the current elite. If it is about taking power from the elite, then there has to be a program that clearly defines how the new coalition will rule differently from those that have been at the helm since 1960. A breadth of fresh air will suggest concrete programs that uplift the masses.

The third dimension will be a complete shift from rigidity to flexibility in ways that emphasize compromise and constructive engagement within a broad coalition. The landscape of politics is changing globally and anti-democratic forces across the world seem to be tapping into people��s disillusionment with the current situation. The left and all progressives can seize the moment by pointing out correctly two of the devastating effects of neoliberal economic and political practices of the last three decades��the largest transfer of wealth to fewer people in generations and the complete political disenfranchisement of the people. It is this economic and political disempowerment of the people that some elites and ��ultra-nationalists�� are tapping into to continue the same ruination that those elite have been part of for generations. As the ��ultra-nationalists�� use economic and political nationalism in ways that divide populations in places like the United States and Europe, the elite in Nigeria use religion and ethnicity as tools that divide and turn Nigerians against each other. Today, a majority of Nigerians seem to blame those who do not belong to their own religious or ethnic group as the force behind their unfortunate economic predicament. This ethnic and religious divide takes attention away from the real and present danger that the people are daily confronted with��economic and political practices that create social inequality. The Left are in a better position to mobilize the people��s anger against these neoliberal economic policies to the advantage of the majority of the people.

Finally, the gains made by left leaning (broadly defined) groups and candidates made during the 2019 presidential elections must be consolidated if real progress is to be made in Nigeria. The pathway towards consolidation of these gains revolves around some level of flexibility in political organizing. A flexibility that combines the dexterity of existing Marxist-leaning individuals and groups with individuals and groups who identify as social democrats is needed to form a broad coalition with a common agenda��to rescue Nigeria through a democratic process from the marauding elites who are bent on using religion and ethnicity to stay in power and plunder Nigeria��s commonwealth. These individuals��Marxist, socialists, social democrats and progressives��currently exist within and outside the two major political parties��PDP and APC.

While we don’t know what will happen over the next several years, there is no doubting the fact that 2023 presents the left and other progressives with a clear opportunity to take power.

View more on Sean Jacobs's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on May 27, 2019 17:00

How the left can rescue Nigeria in 2023

The last 20 years of liberal democratic practice in Nigeria have been marred by economic, social and political crises.

true