Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 428

Mamphela had a Party

A star that shone too brightly has been snuffed out before its time.

On Tuesday, not even a year since its launch, and months shy of contesting its first – and South Africa’s fourth – democratic election, Agang has announced that it will merge with the Democratic Alliance (DA), and its leader, Dr. Mamphela Ramphele, will lead the DA’s campaign as its presidential candidate.

It all appears somewhat farcical… and make no mistake, it is.

A visitor from out of space, locked in a room with nothing to read but the South African press from the last year, would have been forgiven for thinking that Agang represented some kind of fundamental realignment in South African opposition politics, and that Mamphela Ramphele – former World Bank executive director, former mine magnate, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, former lover of Steve Biko, anthropologist, and occasional political activist – was the veritable embodiment of a new class of black political leadership that would steer a gullible electorate through the precipitous abyss into which the African National Congress had herded it.

It was not to be, and was never to be.

Mamphela rejected overtures on the part of DA in “the middle of 2012” for her to join the party. In her autobiography A Passion for Freedom, published TWO MONTHS AGO, she stated that the DA “[does] not understand the transformational challenges facing the country”; “They [the DA] were afraid of white racism”; and, critically, that “[Nothing] would be achieved by my joining the DA”. The book quotes her son, Malusi, as saying he “would rather die” than vote DA.

A political novice, motivated by extreme hubris has walked a short road to DAmascus, and is now warmly ensconced in the botoxed embrace of Helen Zille.

“Citizen Mamphela” is now “honoured” to lead the DA in the 2014 election. Distastefully, and entirely disingenuously, her statement announcing this change of tack implies that she is somehow motivated by “The death of Nelson Mandela” which “has changed many things for South Africa”.

We said a year ago that:

Ramphele has never enjoyed widespread grassroots support as a political figure in South Africa and hasn’t been active in any political movement for at least 30 years… Ramphele’s political authenticity is premised on a largely symbolic association with the [Black Consciousness Movement] BCM, a movement with which she has had no practical connection since the early 1980’s.

It is a matter of deep historical irony that Ramphele’s natural constituency is precisely that against which Biko–before he was assassinated–railed in his days leading the fleetingly powerful BCM… While Agang will stir the hearts of liberal newspaper editors, and lead to excited chatter in the old age homes of Constantia and Houghton, it is unlikely to draw significant support or break the existing mold of South African politics… Don’t watch this space.

But we will defer to Ramphele for the final word: “So what would be achieved by my joining the DA or even joining a rebranded DA?”

Oh god, let us quote you… “Nothing.”

Amen.

Allegedly, it is already messy.

Born Free Films

In a few months, South Africa’s “born free generation” will cast their ballots in the country’s fifth democratic election for the first time. It’s been 20 years since the apartheid government lost power, and yet the country remains among the most unequal in the world. In Khayelitsha, Cape Town’s fastest growing township, residents are faced with poor sanitation, service delivery and infrastructure, in addition to increasing gang violence. These circumstances–paired with an inadequate education system that fails to prepare students for a future their parents fought for–begs the question: were they really “born free”?

Equal Education, based in Khayelitsha, is a movement of students, parents, teachers and community members working for equality and quality in the South African education system through activism and analysis.

Their youth filmmaking program, Amazwi Wethu (which means “Our Voices” in isiXhosa), teaches student members how to advocate for themselves through film and photography. Students reflect on and self educate around issues that they face directly, and produce films to spread awareness and advocate for change. Their recent film, “Siwe’s Journey: Sanitation in Khayelitsha,” follows 17-year-old Siwe as she explores issues of sanitation and service delivery with other young people living in the township. You can watch the film below, and read more about how Amazwi Wethu uses film as a tool for activism in their film guide. Also, read more about Equal Education and Amazwi Wethu here, and visit their Facebook page.

Note: the video is temporarily down.

The “Apartheid-era Robin Hood”

I wrote a long piece on Zola Mahobe, a Soweto businessman who died last December (two weeks after Nelson Mandela) and who is credited with transforming Mamelodi Sundowns. The team is currently one of the “big three” South African football clubs and is owned by Patrice Motsepe, the best example of a postapartheid oligarch: he owns a football club. I had a lot of fun writing this and talking to friends about it.  The piece was published on The Far Post, a co-production between travel site Roads and Kingdoms and Sports Illustrated to publish a new feature on global soccer culture every other week until the World Cup in Brazil

Here are the first few paragraphs:

On December 5th of last year, South Africans bade farewell to Nelson Mandela. In general, the new republic’s founding father was remembered as a principled, but pragmatic political leader. Some media coverage, however, reduced him to a one-dimensional figure, at odds with the larger South African struggle. That Mandela advocated armed struggle and formed alliances with communists was downplayed by all sorts of political causes and personalities whose politics Mandela would have opposed while he was alive, but who now claimed him as one of their own.

Mandela was also favorably compared to his former wife, Winnie Madikizela. His time in prison, presented as character-building, was contrasted with her increasing radicalism and criminal actions in the 1980s. Most black South Africans, however, were not scandalized by Mandela’s one-time celebration of violent struggle or his communist leanings, or by Winnie’s complicated, but flawed, legacy, which was formed in a more compromising, violent outside. As Stephen Smith concluded in the London Review of Books recently: “If any one person can stand in for the country, it’s surely Winnie, half ‘mother of the nation’ and half township gangsta, deeply ambiguous, scarred and disfigured by the struggle.” Most South Africans get this full, complicated understanding of their recent history.

Zola Mahobe is another such complicated figure, part gangster, part hero. Mahobe, a legendary soccer club owner in South Africa during the 1980s, died nine days after Mandela. While his death quite rightly did not receive the same attention that Mandela’s did, his life was shaped by many of the same forces. For some, Mahobe was a symptom of what was wrong with South African professional soccer. Others viewed him (and still do) as a brilliant entrepreneur, a sort of Apartheid-era Robin Hood, and a visionary that would help reshape the dimensions of South African soccer.

Keep reading here.

The public television series on contemporary life in the African Diaspora that’s in its 6th season

For at least six seasons now the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC), in conjunction with American Public Television (APT) has presented AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange, on “contemporary life throughout the African Diaspora.” Past seasons have brought the films “Welcome to Nollywood” (a good introduction Africa’s largest homegrown film industry) “10 Days in Africa” (an African-American filmmaker travels to West Africa), the post-quake “Haiti: One Day, One Destiny,” “An African Election” (Dennis Laumann reviewed it here), “Calypso Rose,” “Stolen” (about slavery in Polisario Front refugee camps and which the Front, unsuccessfully, tried to censor), “A Lot Like You” (a beautiful piece of introspective filmmaking; definitely a highlight for me) and “Dear Mandela” (I’ve written about it here). The films are premiered on the WORLD channel and usually comes with a highly visible actor as host.

This season it’s the actor Anthony Mackie. (Past hosts include Idris Elba, in the inaugural season, Gabourey Sidibe and Wyatt Cenac.) I’ve previewed at least three of this season’s six films: “Boys of Summer” (about a youth baseball team from the Caribbean island of Curaçao competing in the Little League World Series in Pennsylvania almost every year since the early 1990s–also a tale of small island nationalism), “Doin’ It in the Park: Pick-Up Basketball, NYC” (writer, DJ and former athlete Bobbito Garcia’s fast-paced ode to playground basketball in New York City) and tonight’s film “War Don Don” (premiering tonight 8 pm Eastern / 10 pm Pacific; check your local listings). 

“War Don Don” revolves primarily around the case of Issa Sesay, a former Sierra Leonean rebel leader put on trial by the United Nations at one its “special courts” post-civil war. Sesay committed horrific human rights abuses during the war. The case is complicated since Sesay’s defenders describe him as a key player in the peace process. But more than Sesay’s guilt, “War Don Don” (the title means “war is over”) is really about how the international justice system works. It is also a timely film.  Here’s the trailer:

More information here.

 

How to say Lupita Nyong’o

Right now everyone seems to be obsessed with the stunning Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o. And for good reason. Her heart-wrenching performance in the film “12 Years a Slave” has won her critical acclaim, while her humility and beauty have won countless hearts. She’s been on most major talk shows and is lighting up every magazine cover possible. Yet for all the attention, many just can’t say her name right. Quite a few don’t even seem to care enough to try. With the Oscars just weeks away, please do your research, stretch your tongue and practice saying Lupita’s name. After all the butcherings of her name, Lupita posted a video on instagram of herself to guide you with the pronunciation, even saying it in an American accent. Look out for that soft “g”.

Ok, now that you’ve heard it direct from Lupita’s mouth and you’ve mastered it for yourself, let’s see if any celebrities and hosts did their homework before saying her name. Lupita has a tendency to kindly let poor pronunciation slide (she’s trying to not embarrass her host), but you can tell who gets it and who doesn’t. We’ve got some videos all cued up:

Craig Ferguson–he has a talk show on CBS long after most people have gone to bed–messes up Lupita’s name twice when she came to visit him on his show before asking if the name is African. Then he admits he’s never been to Kenya. We trust him on that one.

On Jimmy Kimmel’s show (for those who don’t live in the US, it’s another late night show), Jimmy repeatedly mishandles her name and seems not to care, even after she tells him how to say it:

The actor Matt Damon (remember when he saved South Africa in “Invictus”) just sounds clueless announcing Lupita’s win at the Screen Actors Guild Awards:

Jonah Hill’s corruption of her name at the Critic’s Choice Awards is so egregious it’s impressive.

Queen Latifah is so enthusiastic about Lupita’s visit that she taints the name with a hard “g”.

On ABC’s The View’s Sherri Shepherd gets Lupita’s fellow cast member Chiwetel Ejiofor’s name but gets rough with “Nyong’o.”

(BTW, remember when Matthew McConaughey either forgot Ejiofor’s last name or forgot how to say it?)

Finally, Jimmy Fallon admits to Lupita that her name can be tricky. She nods in agreement and tries to mask her fatigue before playing along and saying it once more for Jimmy to hear. Jimmy gives it another try and surprisingly he actually nails it. From Lupita’s shocked reaction you can tell that doesn’t happen very often.

* Stay tuned for more coverage of Lupita Nyong’o and the Academy Awards coming soon.

A Visitor’s Guide to India

Last weekend in Khirki Village, Delhi, a late-night mob led by the Aam Admi Party (AAP) leader and Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti went looking for “some Nigerians or Ugandans.” They pulled four young African women out of their home, held them captive in a taxi for hours, probed their “private parts”, forced them to urinate publicly, hustled them to a hospital against their will for “tests”, and reluctantly let them go the next morning.

In lieu of an apology, the AAP and the Delhi Government have dug their heels in. Their bizarre “evidence” appears to hinge on four grainy videos, one of which was charmingly titled “Naked in front of police” where a shirtless man—African, of course—is fighting off the police. That video has since been retitled. In the days since the late-night “raid” both Somnath Bharti and his party have been near-universally  in Indian , and by civil society, for their racism, sexism, and unconscionable egging on of hysterical middle-class vigilantism. Some of the media criticism coming their way is being opportunistically lobbed by rival political parties—from left, right and centre—who are threatened by the AAP’s dramatic rise. The AAP has used this to their advantage, but it neither negates the reprehensible actions of the party that night in Khirki, nor excuses its frighteningly unrepentant stand in the days that followed.

In the light of this event, and given black peoples’ fondness for suspicious activities like studying, working, breathing, etc., many foreigners wish to know if India is worth visiting. This is an inclusive website, so here is a handy guide for potential travellers of all races.

***

Are you white?

Welcome!

Are you brown? Yellow? Any other marginal pigment we disdain?

Don’t worry. Most likely, it’s not your fault.

Are you rich?

Welcome!

Are you from the first world?

Welcome!

Are you poor and/or from the third world?

Thanks for your support. Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

Are you black?

Worry. It is almost always your fault.

Are you Oprah?

Welcome!

Are you the world’s biggest movie star?

Welcome!

Are you a major sport star?

Welcome!

Are you a major, or minor, pop star?

Welcome!

If you’re still here, we’ve established that you are not white, not even a passably intermediate colour, and not noteworthy in any way we recognise and respect.

Now, ask yourself these simple questions:

Are you gay?

Which part of “criminal offence” do you not understand? Go away; take your disposable income to South Africa or Brazil.

Do you plan to study?

You might seriously want to consider the repercussions of studying while black in India. Again. And again.

Do you plan to work?

You might seriously want to consider the repercussions of working while black in India.

Do you expect justice?

You might seriously want to consider the repercussions of expecting justice while black in India.

Do you expect to go to bars and restaurants?

You might seriously want to consider the repercussions of going to bars and restaurants while black in India. Again. And again. And again. And again.

Do you like living in a house?

You might seriously want to consider the repercussions of living in a house while black in India.

Do you like walking?

You might seriously want to consider the repercussions of walking while black in India. Again. And again. (Yes, it’s been going on a while.)

Do you like being considered human?

You might seriously want to consider the repercussions of watching television while black in India.

No, really: do you like being considered human?

You might seriously want to consider the repercussions of watching movies while black in India. (The upside to representing the nadir of our ancient civilisation? If there’s anyone who can set a desperate drug-addicted model’s career back on track, it’s you.)

Do you enjoy staying alive?

You might seriously want to consider the repercussions of wanting to stay alive while black in India.

Do you know what a Shobhaa De is?

You might seriously want to consider the repercussions of being subjected to Shobhaa De’s stray thoughts on anything.

***

That’s all folks! But take heart. Exactly one year ago, our renowned Indian hospitality was warmly extended towards four ordinary visitors from the African continent. Thousands jostled to see them, dignitaries queued up to get a glimpse, the media went crazy, and it was no wonder. These continental guests were the very model of good manners—cool, calm, and unflappable, impeccably poised and immaculately polished. Surely there’s a lesson in here for the modern African traveller? Indeed. With a little advance planning, despite being black, you too can have a nice time in India—just as long as you’ve made the effort to be dead for 3000 years.

A version of this piece first appeared in Mint Lounge on January 24th.

When Steven Van Zandt convinced AZAPO to take Paul Simon off a hit list and what Paul Simon really thought of Nelson Mandela

Later today in Cape Town Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band start off a four-date concert tour of South Africa–the first time ever Springsteen and his band will perform in South Africa. The Cape Town dates are in Bellville, which looks and feels a lot like New Jersey, BTW. The tour will end with a concert in Soweto next Saturday. To coincide with this historic moment, Backstreets.com, a site focusing on New Jersey music, posted the transcript of a radio interview with Steven Van Zandt (Little Steven), Springsteen’s longtime guitar player. In the interview, Van Zandt recalls his longtime involvement with South Africa, and his role in uniting American musicians against Apartheid. The highlight of the campaign was the 1985 song “Sun City,” which featured at least 50 odd musicians, including Springsteen, Run-DMC, Pete Townsend, Joey Ramone and Afrika Bambataa, and which–via MTV and BET (radio didn’t want to play it: “It was too black for white radio, too white for black radio”)–introduced a whole new generation of Americans to what was going on in South Africa. A lot of this is known from a book, Sun City: The Making of the Record (1985), written by Dave Marsh, a Van Zandt collaborator. But it is when Van Zandt starts talking about Paul Simon that it gets interesting. I’ve embedded that section below.

Basically, the set up is this: In the early stages of the project, Van Zandt traveled to South Africa, where he met with black activists and experienced the effects of Apartheid first hand. In one scene, he goes to Soweto (check his description of 1980s Soweto: “… you’d see, like, two or three feet of fog all over the ground. No lights”) to meet more people and talk about the cultural boycott. Paul Simon, meanwhile had defied the cultural boycott, and traveled to South Africa to record with South African musicians for his Graceland album. The interviewer, whose contributions are in bold, is Marsh:

So I snuck in and met with AZAPO, the Azanian People’s Organisation, who were like a more radical, violent version of our Black Panthers. They were actually on the front lines blowing shit up and stuff like that. And I had to plead my case to them, because they were sort of the hard line. And I said to them, “Look, all due respect, man, you’re not gonna win this fight. I don’t blame you for picking up guns and defending yourselves.” Because it was brutal; the regime down there was brutality. “I don’t blame you, but you’re not gonna win. You cannot win this way. Let me please try my idea, and I’m gonna win this war for you in the media, on TV.”

Now this already would’ve been a stretch for most people, but when you’re trying to tell this to people who don’t have electricity, that you’re about to win their war on a box that you plug in somewhere, they looked at me like, “This guy is really nuts.” [laughter]

If you thought Stevie’s kidding… the truth of the matter is that South Africa, for a very, very long time, well into the ’70s or early ’80s, did not have television for exactly this reason. There was no television if you’d been talking to a white South African.

Yeah, because when you’d go into Soweto, which was this huge area — I mean, it’s huge — you’d see, like, two or three feet of fog all over the ground. No lights. And it just had this very, very surreal feeling to it, because that was all from the coal-fires and whatever they were burning for heat. So it was like a really interesting movie-scenario sort of thing.

And I met with AZAPO, who had a very frank conversation — I was talking to the translator — about whether they should kill me for even being there. That’s how serious they were about violating the boycott. I eventually talked them out of that and then talked them into maybe going kinda with my thing.

They showed me that they have an assassination list, and Paul Simon was at the top of it. [NOTE: In 1986, Paul Simon recorded tracks for his Graceland album in South Africa, in direct violation of the cultural boycott.] And in spite of my feelings about Paul Simon, who we can talk about in a minute if you want to, I said to them, “Listen, I understand your feelings about this; I might even share them, but…”

I was with you the first time you saw Paul and talked to him about this, at [entertainment attorney] Peter Parcher’s 60th birthday party.

That’s right, that’s right, that’s right! I’m glad you were a witness, because wait’ll you hear the latest on that. Anyway, I said to them, “Listen, this is not gonna help anybody if you knock off Paul Simon. Trust me on this, alright? Let’s put that aside for the moment. Give me a year or so, you know, six months,” whatever I asked for, “to try and do this a different way. I’m trying to actually unify the music community around this, which may or may not include Paul Simon, but I don’t want it to be a distraction. I just don’t need that distraction right now; I gotta keep my eye on the ball.” And I took him off that assassination list, I took Paul Simon off the U.N. blacklist, trying to…

You mean you convinced them to take him off…

Yeah, because this was a serious thing…

Because this was gonna eat up the attention that the movement itself needed.

Yes, and the European unions were serious about this stuff, man. You were on that [U.N. blacklist], you did not work, okay? Not like America, which was so-so about this stuff, man. Over there, they were serious about this stuff, you know? Anyway, so yeah, this was in spite of Paul Simon approaching me at that party saying, “What are you doing, defending this communist?!”

What he said was, “Ah, the ANC [African National Congress, the organization of which Mandela was President at the time of his arrest and imprisonment], that’s just the Russians.” And he mentioned the group that [murdered black South African activist Steven Biko] had been in, which was not AZAPO …

Was he PAC [Pan-Africanist Congress]?

It doesn’t matter [for this story], but [Paul Simon] said, “That’s just the Chinese communists.”

Yeah, yeah. And he says, “What are you doing defending this guy Mandela?! He’s obviously a communist. My friend Henry Kissinger told me about where all of the money’s coming from,” and all of this. I was, like, all due respect, Paul…

I remember it very vividly, because it was aimed at everybody standing in the general direction.

Yeah, but mostly he was telling me.

Well, yeah, you were the one… Everybody knew who to get mad at first. [laughter]

He knew more than me, he knew more than Mandela, he knew more than the South African people. His famous line, of course, was, “Art transcends politics.” And I said to him, “All due respect, Paulie, but not only does art not transcend politics… art is politics. And I’m telling you right now, you and Henry Kissinger, your buddy, go fuck yourselves.” Or whatever I said. But he had that attitude, and he knowingly and consciously violated the boycott to publicize his record.

Well, to make his record. That’s the violation of the boycott — to make his record.

Yeah, and he actually had the nerve to say, “Well, I paid everybody double-scale.” Remember that one? Oh, that’s nice… no arrogance in that statement, huh? [laughter]

Now, the punchline. Cut to 30 years later, or whatever it is. He asked me to be in his movie [Under African Skies, the documentary on the making of Graceland, included as a DVD in the album's 25th anniversary boxed edition]. I said, “Alright, I’ll be in your movie, if you don’t edit me. You ready to tell it like it is?”

He says, “Yep.”

“Are you, like, uh, apologizing in this movie?”

“Yep.”

“Okay. I’m not gonna be a sore winner. I’ll talk to you.”

I did an interview. They show me the footage. Of course, they edited the hell out of it to some little statement where I’m saying something positive about Paul. [laughter] And I see the rest of the footage, where he’s supposedly apologizing, with Dali Tambo [founder of Artists Against Apartheid and son of late ANC leaders Adelaide and Oliver Tambo]. He says, “I’m sorry if I made it inconvenient for you.” That was his apology.

In other words, he still thinks he’s right, all these years later!

You’re the only person who’s ever met Paul twice who thinks that’s surprising. [laughter]

I mean, at this point, you still think you were right?! Meanwhile, that big “communist,” as soon as he got out of jail, I see who took the first picture with him. There’s Paul Simon and Mandela, good buddies. I’m watchin’ CNN the other day. Mandela dies, on comes a statement by Bono and the second statement’s by Paul Simon. I’m like oh, just make me throw up. You know, I like the guy in a lot of ways, I do; and I respect his work, of course. He’s a wonderful, wonderful artist, but when it comes to this subject, he just will not admit he was wrong. Y’know, just mea culpa. Come on, you won! He made twenty, thirty million dollars at least, okay? Take the money and apologize, okay? I mean, say “Listen, maybe I was wrong about this a little bit.” No.

Well…unfortunately we live in a country where the money means you don’t have to apologize, and let’s leave that there.

Source.

A Ton of New African Films Screening at The International Film Festival Rotterdam

This year’s International Film Festival of Rotterdam has a big selection of new African films scheduled. The festival runs until next weekend so if you’re anywhere near, go check it out. I’ve embedded the trailers and clips I could find, plus the screening dates. Thankfully, most of the films (documentary, short, long fiction) have more than one screening date. The introductory blurbs come courtesy of the festival’s website.

Walk With Me (Johan Oettinger and Peter Tukei Muhumuza). Uganda, Denmark. “This complex, sometimes dark short film skilfully combines animation and feature film techniques. The two directors were brought together as part of the Copenhagen documentary festival’s Dox:Lab project. Walk with Me was shot in Uganda and completed in Denmark. A young girl in Uganda dreams of being a ballerina…” Thu 30 Jan, 19:00.

Shoeshine (Amil Shivji). Tanzania. “A colourful and light like a comedy, but the maker also provides social commentary on Dar-es-Salaam’s society and his country, Tanzania. The story is set in a street where a shoeshine man and a bar owner symbolise the rest of the world.” Sun 26, 22:15 / Mon 27 Jan, 14:15.

Salvation Army (Abdellah Taïa). Morocco, France. “A young Moroccan writer filmed his own book, telling his life’s story. About a boy in Casablanca who finds out you can earn money through homosexuality and about a student who, poor, cold and alone, knocks on the door of the Salvation Army in Europe.” Tue 28 Jan, 19:00 / Wed 29 Jan, 21:45 / Thu 30 Jan, 12:45 / Fri 31 Jan, 21:45.

B For Boy (Chika Anadu). Nigeria. “A drama that bucks the familiar Nollywood trend. A contemporary, detailed narrative about a woman who takes extreme measures to give her husband a son.” Sun 26 Jan, 12:30 / Mon 27 Jan, 19:30 / Thu 30 Jan, 21:45.

Berea (Vincent Moloi). South Africa. “Long after friends and family have moved away from a notorious Johannesburg suburb, Jewish retiree Aaron Zukerman lives there in his ever smaller, darkening world. An unexpected visit on Friday breaks Aaron’s routine and sets off cautious assimilation.” Sun 26 Jan, 14:15 / Tue 28 Jan, 17:00 / Sat 1 Feb, 12:00.

Chigger Ale (Fanta Ananas). Ethiopia, Spain. “People are dancing at the neighbourhood bar Fendika in Addis Ababa, but it goes quiet when Hitler walks in. Only briefly, mind you, as it’s soon time to play a practical joke, like pulling the fake moustache off the little guy in uniform. He’s not amused.” Yes, that sounds far-out. The trailer doesn’t reveal much more. Sun 26 Jan, 16:45 / Mon 27 Jan, 17:30 / Sat 1 Feb, 14:15.

A Hole in the Sky (Antonio Tibaldi and Alex Lora). Somalia, France. “A document providing insight into the mind of a rural Somali girl. She accepts that tradition demands that she has to make a great sacrifice. The boundary between fact and fiction dissolves thanks to the poetic voice-over.” Sun 26 Jan, 22:15 / Mon 27 Jan, 14:15.

A Letter to Mohamed (Christine Moderbacher). Tunisia, Austria, Belgium. “A Personal report from Tunisia two years after the revolution. Many people are disappointed, but they still hope that they will gain freedom and justice and that the tourists will return. What is freedom actually like? Traces of revolutionary zeal about to ignite against this background.” Sun 26 Jan, 19:30.

Rags and Tatters (Ahmad Abdalla). Egypt. “January 2011: Egypt is in the grip of revolution. Asser Yassin escapes from jail only to end up in a country he no longer recognises. Rags and Tatters does not feature mass protests on Tahrir Square, but rather a general sense of threat.” Mon 27 Jan, 18:30 / Wed 29 Jan, 13:00 / Fri 31 Jan, 10:00.

It’s Us (Nick Reding). Kenya. “Convincing proof that an educational, political film made in Africa (Kenya) can also be good fun. Even comical. A nonchalant mix of film and theatre, inspired by the election riots of 2007: on mistrust in a fragile community.” Sun 26 Jan, 15:30 / Mon 27 Jan, 09:15 / Thu 30 Jan, 13:00 / Sat 1 Feb, 13:45.

There’s many more, including some older ones that haven’t been shown all that often in the Low Countries. Check the full programme (neatly sorted per continent).

How The Atlantic Can Do Better, Starting with Malawi

“Confronting a Sexual Rite of Passage in Malawi”, published by The Atlantic last Monday, is misleading and continues a long tradition of ethnocentric, sensationalist reporting on Africa. The article tells the tale of a 14-year-old girl, Grace Mwase, of Chiradzulu District in Malawi, saying that she defied a tradition of sleeping with an older man after she went through an initiation ceremony at the age of 10. I am not an expert on culture and customs in Malawi, but one doesn’t have to be to get the story straight on customs and their impact on a community. 

You might ask (especially if you’re unfamiliar with Malawi), what’s wrong with The Atlantic’s story? A lot. But I’ll limit myself to the errors and shortcomings I think are the most egregious and can be corrected easily. Below I select passages, point out errors of fact or representation, and then suggest a solution for fixing the system so such an error is not repeated.

In many villages across Malawi…custom dictates that both boys and girls as young as eight attend a rite of passage known as ‘initiation’.

This is an error of misrepresentation. A nationally representative survey of adolescents conducted in 2004 in Malawi estimated only 43% of adolescent girls participated in an initiation ceremony. There is variation within Malawi, with only 26% of girls in the Central Region reporting to have participated in an initiation ceremony, compared to 57% of girls in the Southern Region. Adherence to the custom also varies by ethnic group, with only 20% of Sena girls reporting to have participated in initiation, compared to 75% of Yao girls. Note, however, that there is no group or region of residence where every girl reports having gone through initiation. Even in places where initiation is popular, children are certainly not “dictated” to participate. When the writer uses words like “many” and “across,” it creates a mischaracterization that all Malawian groups are strong adherents to the custom.

Editors when reviewing submissions can look for words like “many” and “across” and ask for corroborating evidence (how common is the practice? is it practiced in all regions of the country?), or if unavailable or if deemed to be misrepresentative during the editing process, the editor can advise the writer to be more specific and avoid misleading their readership. Then this:

In fact, girls in Malawi are often told that if they don’t have sex upon concluding initiation, their skin will become dry and brittle. This will mark them for life, and they will be ostracized if they don’t complete the custom as their mothers and grandmothers did before them. These guardians often force their daughters to go through with the ritual for fear of breaking with tradition.

This is plain false. In my eight years studying Malawi, I have read and heard a lot of rumors, gossip, and old wives’ tales about sex (it used to be my job!), and I have never heard this. Though initiation in Malawi is practiced somewhat differently dependent on the cultural group to which one ascribes, and it is true that during initiation there are discussions about sex, it is not the custom in any group with which I am familiar that parents force their young daughters to have sex following initiation ceremonies.

BTW, it is unclear which group The Atlantic’s article is accusing of forcing young girls to have sex following initiation, because the article only refers to Grace Mwase as coming from Chiradzulu District, but does not identify the cultural group in which she was initiated. Based on location, the girl is likely from either the Yao or Lomwe group, though there is sufficient diversity in Chiradzulu District it is also possible she is from the Nyanja or Ngoni group.

There are many ethnographies on initiation rites in Malawi and her neighbors, so I leave readers to delve into the works done by experts to learn more about what these ceremonies often entail and what they mean for the societies in which they are celebrated. Initiation ceremonies have actually been regarded (by two prominent, Malawian social science and public health researchers – in an open-access article analyzing survey data and in-depth interviews of Malawian adolescents) as a great opportunity to prepare young people for responsible sexual and reproductive behavior, since the topic of sex is already being broached, and initiation is specifically tasked with transmitting knowledge.

If the story in The Atlantic was right to ring the alarm bells on the vulnerability of young girls in Chiradzulu because of this harmful cultural practice, then we might see certain patterns in population-level data.

The 2010 Malawi Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) found the median age of sexual debut among girls in Chiradzulu District is 16.8. That age is much higher than Grace Mwase’s reported age at initiation: 10. Age at sexual debut among girls in the Southern Region generally was 16.8, and it was 17.4 in Malawi overall. (There are other relevant indicators that are inconsistent with the story in The Atlantic. For example, among girls aged 15-19 in the Malawi DHS, 0 in Chiradzulu reported ever having sex with a man who was 10+ years older; 0.1% in Southern Region; 0.6% in Malawi overall.)

If there is some sort of epidemic of young girls being forced to have sex after initiation ceremonies, we should see – in fact – girls living in this place to have sex at much earlier ages.

To put this in perspective, in a representative sample of American high school students (aged 12-18), 54% of female students reported to have never had sexual intercourse. In Malawi’s DHS, 71% of never-married women aged 15-24 reported never having had sexual intercourse; the figure was 65% in both Chiradzulu District and in the greater Southern Region of Malawi. Why does the article on Malawi not provide this kind of relative perspective?

The claim above accuses a people of acting inhumanly – of “forc[ing] their daughters” to “have sex upon concluding initiation,” which could be when girls are as young as 10, as Grace Mwase was when she was initiated. Such an indictment requires careful consideration by an editor.

If true, there could be some normative value in reporting on the practice, in hopes of raising awareness and action. If false, however, The Atlantic is actively participating in the defamation of the character of a people, who are already struggling – as the article points out – “in a country where nearly three-fourths of the population lives below the poverty line.” Before making such an inflammatory accusation of a people, how could a writer (or an editor) familiarize herself with initiation in Malawi?

I found the public-access article mentioned above by simply going to Google Scholar and typing “initiation” and “Malawi” in the search box. And, to examine patterns in the population more broadly, the Malawi Demographic and Health Surveys can be referenced. Yes, Demographic and Health Surveys are collected regularly in multiple developing countries around the world, not just in Malawi. The DHS is a widely used data source available publicly online in an accessible (non-jargonized) format. Even if a writer has no data analysis skills, so long as they can read a table in a PDF, they could have learned for themselves everything I’ve written in the preceding paragraph. The editorial team at The Atlantic should have a series of reliable, country-specific resources such as the DHS so that when writers submit stories like these, someone can fact-check against patterns in the population, or at least encourage the writer to do so.

 We speak over dinner beside the glittering but parasite-ridden Lake Malawi.

I’ll just share what Malawian commenter Peter Nkosi wrote in a comment below the story about this terrible, terrible line:

There may be bilharzia in a few parts of the lake, but it is journalistic hyperbole to call it parasite-ridden. Anyway what is the relevance of the alleged parasites to the story?

Exactly. I want to blame the author, but what editor let that get through?

Perhaps the hardest part for me to stomach about the article was that it links to a few of the resources I’ve pointed to in this post.

How could it be that the writer and I can be reading the same works and coming to entirely different conclusions on initiation ceremonies? The writer even managed to find and cite a report prepared by the Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC) on how cultural practices impact human rights, particularly the rights of women and children. (It should be noted, BTW, that the MHRC report draws on a non-representative sample – which doesn’t even include respondents from Chiradzulu District, where Grace Mwase is from, and upon whom The Atlantic article largely rests.

Whereas I read these things in their entirety, the writer of the article in The Atlantic cherry-picks from the MHRC report, the Rasing book on girls’ initiation in Zambia, and the Munthali and Zulu paper primarily those details that support a negative perception of initiation ceremonies. On this, I have no advice for The Atlantic. Perhaps readers with more journalism expertise can offer suggestions for how an editor can identify a writer who has been selective with evidence, only to include that which supports her argument/narrative.

Finally, The Atlantic aren’t the only ones to have picked up Grace Mwase’s story. It was also published (by different writers) in The Star (from Toronto), the Huffington Post, and in the online Malawi news agency, Nyasa Times (those versions, however, left out the “parasite-ridden lake”).

Why are we seeing this same story of this Grace Mwase across multiple outlets? Because it was an NGO set-up.

The NGO brings a girl with a sensational story, invites reporters to come and hear the story, and then these reporters who know little to nothing about the context take as truth what’s being told to them and essentially write a press release for an organization competing to win a $10,000 prize. The writer’s bonus: one more stamp in the passport, one more country she can say she’s reported from.

The Atlantic and other agencies should be careful of accepting stories that have been generated by the NGO-seeking-funding machine. In my mind, the real story is in the making of this story. Who is Grace Mwase really? And what of this NGO in Malawi that has been parading her in front of foreign journalists to try and tell a sensational narrative in exchange for attention and potentially cash? And what do ordinary Malawians think of this story being told of their people? I doubt anyone is inviting reporters on junkets to do that kind of reporting, though. (But this guy managed to keep a critical perspective.)

Through this look at one bad article in The Atlantic, I have offered here some resources specific to Malawi. But the strategy of finding reliable, publicly available information can be applied to other places with which a writer or editor is not terribly familiar. It is imperative that The Atlantic and others reporting stories from far-away places be careful in representing others. In Grace Mwase’s own words: “You’re like a visitor so you don’t know anything.”

Weekend Music Break 66

10 new music videos from Tanzania, Senegal, South Africa, Cameroon, Mali, Congo, and Ghana. But first, Nigeria. Seun Kuti and Egypt 80 have a new record coming out next month. Here’s a first single, with help from Dead Prez’s M-1. In case you were unsure what Seun Kuti thinks of the “I.M.F.”:

Young Senegalese singer Ouzin Keita had people talking this week, mostly confusing the hell out of them. What we see is just another great mbalax tune though:

Also from Senegal, but in a different gear, is P.P.S the writah:

“Chef de Famille” Sango’a Mboa is joined on this track by fellow Cameroonian MCs Bashiru, Djess Panebo, O’Willer and Moustapha:

South African Yugen Blakrok releases a first animated video for ‘Darkstar Animatron’, off last year’s Return of the Astro-Goth:

Former Salif Keita backing singer Mamani Keita also has a new album coming out later this month. Here’s a first track:

A Pan-African video for Congolese rapper Teddy Benzo:

South African sounds by VaalSow on ‘Unga Tsheli Muntu’ (Don’t tell anyone” — clearly looking for trouble):

The next track, ‘Tumesimama’, by Tanzanian MCs Tycoon Shah, Fid-Q and Inspector Haroun was recently picked up by the African Hip Hop blog (who you should follow):

And the Taxi Diaries have officially arrived in Accra, Ghana. M.anifest knows how to present his music: