Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 439

That New York Times column about Cape Town

Let me be clear, because some responses suggest I was not in my recent column for the International New York Times: from just about every assessment, the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape are consistently rated among the top performing South African metros and provinces respectively in terms of governance and levels of service delivery. That said, if the Democratic Alliance [which governs the city] had its way, this should be the only basis by which the metro and province it governs are to be assessed: relative to other metros and provinces. If the African National Congress had its way, Cape Town and the Western Cape are to be assessed independently, with no reference to the other metros and provinces the ANC itself governs.

This is a political gambit I, as a thinking, observant, politically unaffiliated resident of Cape Town and a citizen of South Africa, am under no obligation and have no desire to play. None of us, really, are under an obligation to play this game, yet we do because many of us support political parties like we do soccer clubs: blindly.

I should be able to look at Cape Town or the Western Cape — the city and province where I live — independently and relative to the rest of the country and say: if they are exemplars of how socioeconomic rights are to be realized and social justice achieved in South Africa, then we are in trouble as they fall woefully short of what should be considered good enough in a society founded on human dignity. This was one of the central arguments in my column; an argument some responses have taken issue with.

Over on his blog, Stellenbosch University economist Johan Fourie coined the comically prejudiced word “sangomanomics” (yup, a portmanteau of ‘sangoma’ and ‘economics’) to say:

It is perhaps slightly ironic that Mr Molefe uses Cape Town as the setting for his attack against capitalism. The Western Cape is one of the fastest growing regions in South Africa, where poverty levels have fallen most significantly (but also where migrants are moving to, which suggest that conditions and opportunities must be better there than elsewhere, right?)

In her acerbic, paean-to-the-DA-laden response, Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille says:

But the main point Molefe explicitly ignores is that both the City of Cape Town and the Province of the Western Cape are governed by the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) which is setting a new South African benchmark when it comes to social justice.

Not so, Ms de Lille. Best-performing Cape Town and the Western Cape — like the rest of South Africa — have not made enough progress and remain unjust. Take sanitation, for example, where “in Cape Town there is 100% access to adequate sanitation in informal settlements,” according to Ms de Lille.

This statistic presumably comes from the Report on the Status of Sanitation Services in South Africa, which the departments of human settlements, and performance monitoring and evaluation released last year. According to this report (page 37), all of the 185,000 households in Cape Town in informal settlements have access to adequate sanitation.

This sounds fantastic until you begin to interrogate what is meant by “access” and “adequate”. The report notes (page 11):

There is…confusion at municipal level regarding the interpretation of “access” to basic sanitation services, and current sanitation policy does not provide sufficient guidance on the interpretation of “access” to basic sanitation.

Despite this confusion, the report in its assessments used a ventilated improved pit (VIP) toilet — basically a “long drop” toilet where the pit is aerated — as the minimum requirement for a sanitation facility to meet the definition of adequate. And while not completely clear, the report appears to have used 1 “adequate” toilet to every 5 households (or some other communal toilet ratio) as the minimum before a household is considered to have access.

Considering that average household size in Cape Town is 3.5, this means that potentially, 17 people sharing a ventilated pit toilet would be considered adequate access to sanitation. Looking at it clinically, from the perspective of sanitation as a means to prevent the outbreak and spread of disease, this definition might seem like enough.

However, firstly, access to adequate sanitation isn’t only about health and hygiene; it is germane to human dignity, as the courts have consistently held. So far, the courts have avoided saying explicitly that communal toilets for households violate human dignity, though judge Nathan Erasmus came close in the Makhaza open-toilet case (he rejected the City of Cape Town’s use of the 1:5 ratio for settlements that are not temporary).

And the government has tied itself in knots between policy and practice in this regard, with the national sanitation policy saying that communal facilities and chemical toilets should not be used for longer than one month. This while the City of Cape Town (and other municipalities) and the report above on the status of sanitation services in SA consider facilities shared between households and chemical toilets (portable flush toilets) as medium to long-term solutions that meet the definition of adequate access.

Secondly, the definitions of “access” and “adequate” become more complicated (and more realistic) when you factor in issues such as whether the facilities are clean and properly maintained, safe to use at all hours of the day, accessible to the disabled and acceptable to the people affected. These issues that give a more realistic assessment of what constitutes adequate access formed the basis for the Social Justice Coalition’s clean and safe sanitation campaign, which the mayor has in the past characterised as “misinformation”. I highly recommend David Harrison’s photo essay ‘Cape Town’s dirty little secret’ for a glimpse of how glib and unconsidered such responses from Ms de Lille really are.

I have spoken to people who use portable flush toilets in their homes. In addition to issues of poor maintenance and cleanliness, they consistently say that they do not consider them a dignified way to relieve themselves and are appalled that they are expected to live with the contraptions in their homes, seemingly with no other permanent solution on the way.

The above considerations render Ms de Lille’s “100% access to adequate sanitation in informal settlements” utterly meaningless. The 100% is measured against too murky a standard that is not consistent with what you or I, or anybody, should consider adequate. It’s no wonder then that Ms de Lille is puzzled and cries political conspiracy when people show up at her door to say they do not have access to adequate sanitation (or other basic services). In her closed-off mind, the City of Cape Town has met its obligations.

Ms de Lille’s claim that I created a caricature of Cape Town lies in her (intentionally?) conflating where I say the majority of the city’s residents do not live in the Cape Town of marketing bumf (Gardens, City Bowl, Atlantic Seaboard) with where I point out the service-delivery and socioeconomic problems in the areas where most of the city lives (Khayelitsha, Gugulethu, Nyanga, Langa, Mitchell’s Plain) and where most of the protestors were from. It’s not all extremes of wealth and deprivation, but there are stark and rapidly graduating differences between, for example, Khayelitsha, where 55% (i.e the majority) of households live in informal dwellings, and the much smaller (by population) Camps Bay, where only 1% of households live in informal dwellings (though I have yet to see a single shack in Camps Bay). And these differences manifest in the same geographic pattern and locales (and correlate with race) whether you’re looking at crime statistics, household income, housing, substance abuse or access to basic services.

It’s based on data, not caricature, to say that despite the efforts of Ms de Lille and the post-1994 administrations that preceded it, Cape Town presently still stands as a spatial monument to apartheid and colonialism; a monument that’s taking far too long to dismantle because politicians are patting themselves on their back for the little progress there has been. A similar spatial pattern presents itself in other municipalities around the country. Play around with Adrian Firth’s dot-maps of South Africa for an indication of how profoundly universal this problem is.

Ms de Lille, like Mr Fourie, also hauls out rural to urban migration as justification for why, independent of what others have done, the metro she is in charge of has not yet attained universal access to basic sanitation and housing, two of the most prominent issues raised in the protest march I wrote about. She writes:

The city’s population grew by 28 percent between 2001 and 2011. Post-apartheid South Africa is generally experiencing high levels of urban in-migration, both a consequence and a driver of the economic growth that Molefe finds so scandalous.

and

Census 2011 shows that access to the major urban services – water, flush toilets and electricity for lighting has improved in advance of the curve despite in-migration, and is indeed the best in the country.

However, this justification is weak on two levels.

Firstly, let’s look at the data and trends, which are scant at an inter-municipal migration level and subject to interpolation. Between 2001 and 2011, an estimated 480,000 people moved to the Western Cape and an estimated 245,000 left, according to StatsSA’s 2011 mid-year population estimate. Cape Town’s population over the same period grew by 850,000. The two aren’t necessarily comparable but they indicate that even if all in-migration into the Western Cape flowed to Cape Town (and those who departed left from elsewhere), there’s still a fair chunk endemic population growth (as a result of having a young female population) not explained in Ms de Lille’s analysis. The city’s own population projections estimate that only towards the end of the 2001 to 2021 projection period will migration begin to exceed fertility as the primary contributor to population growth.

Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, the national budgeting process takes migration and population growth into account when allocating the municipal share of expenditure for basic services. So unlike how Ms de Lille presented it, in-migration should not present an additional burden if the budgeting and planning processes – which are government’s responsibility as citizens of this country are free to move within it as and when they please – are done properly.

Again, like Mr Fourie, Ms de Lille reads me as being anti-growth and anti-jobs, which I am not, and assumes redistribution has no effect on growth. She writes:

Readers will have to make up their own minds about whether jobs and growth are, contra-Molefe, a good thing. Molefe’s appeal to a policy of redistribution, in the absence of growth (which he explicitly condemns) is founded on an appeal to some sort of South African exceptionalism. India and Indonesia ‘do not have the same progressive founding ethos of social justice and human dignity’, he writes.”

I’m usually the first to warn of exceptionalism, but in so far as an explicitly stated founding commitment to social justice, human dignity and recognising the wrongs of the past (as expressed in the Constitution), South Africa is exceptional. The Constitution explicitly recognises that Black people were oppressed, subjugated and denied their dignity, and opens a path towards creating an equal society. If any other country were to look into its history, it would find, with varying degrees, similar patterns of historical injustices that created the unequal global society we see today. Few countries (and South Africa is among these few) have explicitly recognised and made a commitment to fix this in the highest law of their lands.

The South African Constitution is broad and can be interpreted conservatively, as it has thus far. It can also be read as laying the groundwork for a massive redistribution of income and wealth in order to create an egalitarian society.

Contrary to Mr Fourie and Ms de Lille’s claims, redistribution can (and in South Africa will) spur growth. The demand for healthcare, land and housing, water and sanitation, education, food, land and such is massive and going unmet. Those with the greatest demand for these things lack the means (primarily as a result of historical injustices) to acquire them. The state has put itself as the primary means by which this demand will be met, however, it remains dogged by capacity constraints, which too have their origins in this country’s history of racial injustice. As a result, there are backlogs, bottlenecks, waste and people siphoning resources that should go to meeting this demand.

Something like a comprehensive basic income grant funded from making the tax system more progressive and dismantling non-cash transfers that are not effective will put money in the hands of the people demanding these goods and services and give them the freedom to choose how and when their demands will be met.

Relying on growth, even if equitable, only serves to maintain the status quo and does little to transform our society into that envisioned by the likes of Steve Biko, whose arguments, at the risk of hubris, were also dismissed as those of a “radical” intellectual.

Organic Moonshine Roots Music and Fela Kuti: An Interview with Valerie June

Valerie June is the stuff of magical, star lit Tennessee nights. She is a dreaded, animated woman with a lilting Deep South accent doing music that flows out alternately between blues, soul, and country. It’s fitting then that her self-named genre is “organic moonshine roots music.” The aching pangs of love, and the ancient roots of the routes of her melodies echo even after a playlist has ceased. The Memphis area and Mississippi Delta have produced some of the finest musicians in American history, most of whom spent a massive amount of time cultivating their art and their relationship to it. June’s first label album, ‘Pushin’ Against A Stone’ came out this year, a new phase for an incredibly talented solo musician who began a little over a decade ago in a small, but nurturing, Memphis coffee shop. We spoke with her via Skype last week while she was in Rouen, France.

Can you introduce yourself and ‘Pushin’ Against a Stone’ briefly?

My name is Valerie June and I’m from Memphis, Tennessee but I live in New York now. I’ve been on the road all year. So I can’t wait to get home and eat Thanksgiving food. It’s going to be great, and pumpkin pie is going to be on the list. And then sweet potatoes, and then sweet potato pie.

No collard greens?

I just bought a juicer and when I was home at the beginning of this month, my mom — the first thing when I came through the door — she had hot water cornbread and collard greens and BBQ there. I said, ok! I am at home! I just dived right in and started eating it up. Because we don’t have it the same in New York. It’s very difficult to get them cooked that way when you’re on the road too.

How did you develop your music? How did you get to organic moonshine roots music?

It started a long time ago. About a decade ago. When I was playing shows, people would come up and be like, that’s blues. And other people would be like, that’s hillbilly music. Everyone had their own name for what it was that I was doing and I said, well…I think it’s just playful music or emotional music or whatever. It’s really just roots. So me and my friend — she’s a poet — we were just messing around and we said: we should give it a magical name! And we thought organic moonshine roots music sounds really magical and people would have to wonder: “what is that? What kind of music is it?” So it gives a curiosity to people because even if you don’t like the name, it does make you think about what does it mean? It’s really a mixture of all the music that I was exposed to. I look at the music that I love as the root of many different genres of music. So, calling it roots music is the best way to put it. Or American music.

As a roots musician, how do you trace your music through past artists? Who are some of the people who had a dramatic influence on your style and did any of them actually become hands on mentors for you?

I am not fortunate enough to have met any of my really, really admired mentors like Jessie Mae Hemphill and Elizabeth Cotten. They have since passed — which is sad but I’m so glad that they made music and that I can find them through song.

Another mentor I have is Mr. Robert Belfour. Mr. Belfour has never been like, “yes, let’s play some songs together!” When I actually wanted to play music with him, he told me no. Just no. “I don’t play music with other people; I just do what I do. And sometimes,” he told me, “I have my drummer come in. Sometimes it’s just me.” But he said “yeah, I don’t do it with other people. I do my music.”

That was a really big lesson for me because I sat with him several times, followed all of his shows in Memphis, Mississippi and really just absorbed everything about him. It’s really important for people to realize what artists do and to hold it as a sacred thing. Mr. Belfour is not interested in doing what anyone else wants him to do. Period. If you went to him and said, “hey Mr. Belfour, sing over this track or sing with this rap song or whatever,” he’d be like, “No, I do this straight up hill country blues, that’s what I do and if you want anything else, then go talk to somebody else.”

I needed to learn that. A lot of people would often ask whether I ever see myself doing music that’s more modern or anything, and I might do something that you might think is more modern, but most of all, the most important thing for me to do, is what I do. And to be true to myself. I just did a cover of a Christmas song. It doesn’t sound like what a Christmas song normally sounds like — it’s a traditional standard song — but it just sounds like me doing a version of a song. So, I think it’s a big lesson to me to be myself. “Hey, just be yourself in this world. Don’t be trying to change or trying to learn my little tricks.” Doing my little thing.

Mr. Belfour said, “I’ve been to your shows and I love your music. But it ain’t blues. There’s a hint of blues in every single song. But it’s not blues like my blues.” And I said, “You’re right. I want to play the blues like you do.” And he was like, “Well you just keep watching my fingers.”

It’s kind of wonderful to be around the older musicians like that, even those in their seventies. I’m soaking up everything every time I can be around somebody like that. Just soak it up and listen to what they say because there’s all kinds of lessons in it.

One of our readers suggested that I ask you what your feelings in general towards Africa is? And if you had a favorite African female vocalist?

African female vocalist? No, I don’t have a favorite. But as far as my feelings for Africa, it is one of the first foreign places I visited — well, Nigeria is. You’re saying Africa is a country, is that what you’re saying?

Yes, the blog is called ‘Africa’s A Country.’ It’s a play on words.

Oh no! It’s a continent! (Laughing) It is funny though, because a lot of people do treat it like it’s a country versus a continent. There’s so many different kinds of people in Africa. But I think it’s a beautiful thing to say that and to get people to think and guess. But, I wanted to go to Lagos and I wanted to go see where Fela Kuti played music. And so I went but they wouldn’t let me go to the club because they said it was too dangerous for me. I didn’t really get to do what I wanted to do there. But I got to go to Africa and experience life in Nigeria, go to Abuja, and meet friends and eat great food and walk around and look at awesome trees with fruit on it. It was just great. I’m glad I got to go.

Do you have a couple of African female vocalists that you look up to? Or that you admire?

Not female vocalists. The biggest one that I love is Fela Kuti, and I love Ali Farka Toure as well. With the female vocalist from Africa, I know Miriam Makeba but I couldn’t say that she’s a favorite. So, I’m pretty in need of some kind of African female vocalist education. The reason I don’t know anybody is because when I go to a friend’s house and I hear something I like, I just download it to my computer. When driving in my car — the radio doesn’t work so I keep my laptop next to me — I put the music on random. So once, this beautiful, beautiful African female voice comes across and I was like what is that? And I had to pull over the car because it was so good, because I didn’t want to be driving and looking across at the screen. So I looked at what it was, but it didn’t have the name of the artist. It starts out with someone playing the lute, and then it goes and then the voice just starts chiming in. (Question for our readers: it’s the first track on this Africa & the Blues record, a Nigerian garaya plucked lute song.) And it is just beautiful. I don’t know who it is, but that’s one of my favorite records.

Have you noticed a difference in the level of support you receive overseas versus the United States?

I receive quite a bit of support in France. So yes, I see a difference (laughs). I was walking in the parking lot of a gas station yesterday and this guy pulls over, and I’m like, Oh hell no! I’m not about to go in that car with you! You’re not about to take me nowhere! And he was speaking French to me, and I did not know what he was saying. I was like, o no sir, English! And he then said, chanteuse? Are you a singer?, finally in English. And I said, yeah! And then I got what he was trying to do. He asked if he could take a photograph with me and I was so shocked! I was like: how do you know me?

My record came out about three months later in the States, so it’s building slowly over there too. But it’s really fun. It’s fun how people are touched by my music and when they say, hey! We like your music! That makes me feel good.

What’s it like being a person of color in all the genres you’re associated with? I think it’s pretty awesome that you’re doing what you’re doing, but you’re one of the few visible people of color doing it.

You’re the first person to ever ask me that question really and I’m surprised. Mostly what people do is project. So, that’s kind of neat. I mean, it’s something that I try not to spend so much time explaining because when I said that Africa is a continent, and people really see it as a country, I feel the same way about me. And the music that I make.

A lot of times, because of the way I look, people look at me and they stamp me with one thing. And that’s why I wanted to name my music something magical and something opening to the mind. Questioning. When you think about what organic moonshine roots music is you have to come ask me what? I don’t get it. You don’t instantly say: there’s a black girl with dreads and it’s going to be reggae before I even open my mouth. You kind of have to allow me to just be a human being first when you hear the title. I like to keep that door open right there.

The other thing is that it always shocks me — and this comes back to the Africa is a continent thing — it shocks me how the world sees black people in particular as loving only one thing. We are so vast. We love so many different types of things. There are so many different types of Africans in Africa. I mean, not all of them are black even. I have black folks playing in my band that play fiddle, and they like to sing punk rock music on the side. They do everything! It’s not just all soul or hip-hop. They do that too! But they do so much. We can do anything we want to do, and I think a lot of times we stop ourselves too from enjoying certain things because we don’t want to be seen as “what are you trying to do?” That’s not something we normally would get into. I just feel that people are vast.

I hope and pray that the world becomes what Martin Luther King wanted it to be when he said he imagined a world where everyone is not judged by the color of their skin and what that stereotype is for the color. And what world I live in, in my mind, we all judge each other by what we have done to enrich our character. Oh that’s cool! You’re into fairies and elves and you like the Gospel queen of the Bible Belt and you like dirty dancing at the hip-hop club! All of that! You know what I mean? Whatever it is, just do you! And don’t worry about the color.

New book opens a window to a little known era of South Africa’s jazz history

A new book, Keeping Time, celebrates the public emergence of an extraordinary visual and audio archive begun by Ian Bruce Huntley in Cape Town fifty years ago. In short it challenges a long-held belief that jazz in South Africa went silent after Dollar Brand, Miriam Makeba, Bea Benjamin and the Blue Notes left South Africa in the early 1960s. Produced in a limited edition of 500 copies the publication features some of the first full colour photographs of the underground jazz scene left behind by the exiles.

The book gives lovers of South African music, scholars, musicians, artists, anyone who is fascinated with the achievements of a generation of South African jazz musicians, a small but invaluable means towards maintaining memory and articulating lost stories.

The publication opens a window to a little known era of South Africa’s music history, documenting a generation of jazz musicians in 120 selected and carefully restored images. Ian’s pictures and 56 hours of audio recordings capture the jazz scene that persisted in creative defiance of all that grand apartheid threw at it. Many of the photographed live performances are indexed and the entire book — photographs, essays and discography — will be available for open access via the Electric Jive website, continuing the tradition Ian established.

Below are some of the images featured in the book, with a short description of the artists performing, and a link to where you’ll find some of their recordings.

Dennis Mpale (trumpet), Barney Rachabane (alto), Ronnie Beer (tenor). Room At The Top, Strand Street, Cape Town 1964. The brass engine room of Tete Mbambisa’s Jazz Disciples played various Cape Town venues for close on two years, including The Room at The Top, Ambassador’s School of Dance, and the Zambezi in District Six. The recording featured here has Dudu Pukwana playing with the Jazz Disciples in one of his last gigs before leaving the country with Chris McGregor and the Blue Notes in July 1964. (Image © Ian Bruce Huntley)

The master plays on: Ebrahim Kalil Shihab (Chris Schilder). Zambezi Restaurant, Hanover Street, District Six, Cape Town 1964. In addition to his impeccable bop jazz pedigree, Chris Schilder was the creative force behind the highly successful Pacific Express. He played the Cape Town International Jazz Festival in 2013. The recording linked here features 84 minutes of live jazz recorded at the Zambezi Restaurant in 1966. (Image © Ian Bruce Huntley)

Winston Mankunku Ngozi, Cape Town 1966. The Bellowing Bull revered John Coltrane. Here Ian Huntley’s recording captures Mankunku and Morris Goldberg going “free”, along with Chris Schilder, Selwyn Lissack, Midge Pike and Philly Schilder at the Art Centre, 20th August 1966. (Image © Ian Bruce Huntley)

Kippie Moeketsi, Langa Community Centre, Langa, Cape Town, September 1971. Nearly ninety minutes of Moeketsi playing in public again after years of recluse. Victor Ntoni and Nelson Magwaza, along with Danayi Dlova produce something special. Weeks after this recording Ntoni, Magwaza and Moeketsi caught the train to Johannesburg to record the now legendary albums Peace and Dollar Brand +3. (Image © Ian Bruce Huntley)

Keeping Time is published by Chris Albertyn and Associates in partnership with Electric Jive. In addition to a biographical sketch of Ian Huntley, the book offers a substantial essay by Jonathan Eato, a full discography of all 56 hours of the recordings Ian made, and a comprehensive index. South African artist Siemon Allen is responsible for the design and layout. Photographer Cedric Nunn has painstakingly restored the images. The limited print edition of the book has been produced with significant voluntary contributions of time and has been privately published and sold at the price it cost to produce.

All details here.

File under: Dutch Liberalism

In the Netherlands, many people convince themselves that racism is something that exists elsewhere — in South Africa, for example, or in the United States. For this is a ‘tolerant,’ liberal nation. To maintain the facade, often blatant acts of racism are downplayed, rationalized or swept away. As an exercise, see some of the comments on our Facebook page whenever we post something about racism in the Netherlands.

We have written before about the Dutch blackface tradition of Zwarte Piet (in English: Black Pete), and what passes for ‘debate’ on the topic at this time of year every year. This year though the debate about Zwarte Piet — dressed in a golliwog-style wig, pronounced red lips and gold earrings — has reached new levels, confronting in the process what many for a long time have tried to address: racism in Dutch society.

In September, activists pressured the Amsterdam municipality to have a public hearing into whether to give permission for Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas) festivities in which Sinterklaas’ “helper” Zwarte Piet would be prominent. (The public hearing was a first, though the municipality eventually granted the permit.) Then Verene Shepherd, chairperson of the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, told a TV program, “she would object to the character of Zwarte Piet if she lived in the Netherlands.” The result was a nasty racist backlash followed. Nearly 2 million people “liked” a Facebook page that expressed support for Zwarte Piet. Racist remarks in traditional and on social media were common and, as CNN reports, death treats were also made against anti-Zwarte Piet activists.

Dutch, and often also international media, create the impression that there currently is a debate on Zwarte Piet and racism. This is simply not true. Instead, what we see is that the ‘debate’  has been hijacked by white Dutch intellectuals who dreadfully downplay the racist nature of Zwarte Piet by arguing that he would be an archetype not related to slavery and thereby overlook how this contested figure is embedded in the racist colonial legacy of the Netherlands. (There are exceptions, with — remarkably — mostly non-Dutch media picking up the ‘debate’ and critically looking at Dutch race relations. Have a look, for example, at the reporting by the New York Times and the BBC in the last few days.)

Often people argue that they don’t feel Zwarte Piet is racist but understand that some black people might feel offended. Yet, what they fail to grasp is that it is not about feelings, but institutional: that the Netherlands upholds, celebrates and exploits a racist caricature, something that should concern every Dutch citizen.

Discourse of ‘race’ and ‘racism’ rarely enter the discussion. Racism is seen as too strong a concept, sullying a celebration associated with a children’s party and a national holiday (see the reaction of a grown man in blackface telling the BBC reporter, at the link above, how he’s only trying to make the children happy). Another frequently used argument by the pro-Zwarte Piet camp is that people should be looking at ‘real racism’ rather than interfering with a longstanding innocent festivity for children. In doing so, the perceived innocent experience of children is understood as neutral while the experience of black people is being infantilized and dismissed.

Opposing Zwarte Piet equals an inauthentic citizenship. Imagined tolerance is used as an excuse to utter personal racist attacks and to uphold a superior position towards black citizens. If you can’t adapt, leave and go back to Africa or the Caribbean, they shout. “Reverse-racism” charges by white Dutch people are common, with some even filing complaints at anti-discrimination bureaus arguing that ‘others’ want to take away their national blackface hero.

Yet no less an authority than the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) of the Council of Europe has expressed itself clearly on how racism is woven into the fabric of Dutch society. ECRI details how:

… certain politicians and media often portray Islam and Muslims, as well as the arrival of Eastern Europeans, as a threat to Dutch society. The criminal-law response to some of these statements has been criticised. There is no national inclusion strategy for Roma. Bills with discriminatory implications have been announced to regulate the settlement in the Netherlands of Dutch citizens from parts of the Antilles. The integration tests have several questionable aspects.

The Commission was explicit about how Dutch law fails to attack racism and racial discrimination:

The acts listed in the criminal law provisions against racism and racial discrimination are not prohibited on grounds of citizenship and language. There is no provision explicitly establishing racist motivation as a specific aggravating circumstance in sentencing. There is concern over the interpretation given to the provisions prohibiting racist insults and incitement to hatred, discrimination and violence, particularly when applied in the context of political discourse. The authorities have cut the funds of the Complaints Bureau for Discrimination, which receives complaints about racist offenses committed through the Internet.

The report also calls upon all political parties to take a firm stand against racism.

So far politicians have dismissed the severity of the ECRI report and brushed off arguments against Zwarte Piet. Prime Minister Mark Rutte couldn’t do any better than to state that Zwarte Piet “just happens to be black” and that he could do nothing about it. Eberhard van der Laan, the mayor of Amsterdam, responded to the complaints made at the public hearing via a public letter. In his response Van der Laan stated he would not call the festivities racist and that it would be good to strive for an inclusive festivity in the course of five to ten years.

Van der Laan aligned himself with Hoofdpiet Erik van Muiswinkel (basically the national chief of the Zwarte Pieten) who wrote that Zwarte Piet must of course stay but that the figure must become “less black” and be less of a servant. Needless to say, such responses of politicians are offensive and degrading. Sinterklaas is now protected by nine armed police officers dressed as Zwarte Piet to protect him from those who supposedly mean him harm. It doesn’t seem to matter that the racist remarks and death threats were targeted against those who oppose Zwarte Piet.

Critical voices, such as Egbert Alejandro Martina and Zinhi Özdil, who have offered intellectual insights with regard to Zwarte Piet and Dutch racism, have been swiftly put aside as Allochtone Twitter Intellectuelen (Allochthonous Twitter Intellectuals) merely concerned over futile issues. The descriptor “allochtoon” meaning “other tone” is used to describe black and non-Western Dutch citizens, residents and immigrants and point to racial hierarchies in the society.

In response to the racist backlash and serious threats against black people and critical voices, some activists have circulated a public statement. Among the organizers were Martina and Özdil. The statement clearly explains and links Zwarte Piet to anti-black racism and other forms of dehumanization that are taking place in the Netherlands:

We would like to reiterate that Zwarte Piet is racism and the protests against Zwarte Piet are not a deviation from a wider struggle against all forms of oppression. In addition, the protests against Zwarte Piet are not new. There are and have been countless others who have inspired this struggle and cleared the path long ago.

Zwarte Piet is on par with other forms of dehumanization through racialization, such as racial profiling, racism in the labour market, and the violence inherent in Dutch asylum policy. Our protest against Zwarte Piet is situated in a broader ongoing decolonial anti-racist project.

Within the mainstream Dutch public sphere the tone is that people are ‘getting tired’ of the debate on racism and Zwarte Piet. Racism has become something to laugh about. Predictably someone’s already made and posted a Hitler-parody video on YouTube.

Racism is deeply imbedded in Dutch society and should not be viewed as the exception but rather as part of the normative framework in which society operates. The ‘debate’ on Zwarte Piet and racism has shown how black bodies are systematically oppressed, critical voices are silenced, and how the normativity of white power continues to determine the rules of engagement.

Rob Ford and Canada’s “Somali Problem”

No matter where in the world you are, by now you have likely heard about Toronto mayor (to some a human trainwreck) Rob Ford and the infamous video in which he appears to smoke crack cocaine while making racist and homophobic remarks.

Like many right wing populists, Ford’s racial insensitivity is, for a certain segment of his supporters, part of his blue collar “down home” appeal. (Of course, like many politicians of his ilk, Ford isn’t actually blue collar at all.) Whether intentionally or not, however, Ford’s critics are also guilty of racism. In their attacks against the mayor, they have played on the prejudice against Somalis that is prevalent in Toronto and other major Canadian cities

Fleeing civil war, over 55,000 Somali refugees, arrived in Canada between 1988 and 1996, more than doubling the country’s Somali population. More than half of these new arrivals settled in Toronto, many in the high rise apartment buildings on Dixon Road—now often referred to as “Little Mogadishu”—where the Ford crack video was allegedly shot. There are also significant Somali populations in cities such as Edmonton, and in my hometown of Ottawa.

What followed is, regrettably, a familiar story: Alarmist media reports about the “swarms” of Somalis arriving on Canadian shores. A small segment of the Somali community, mostly young men, responding to their socio-economic marginalization by becoming involved in ethnicity-based criminal gangs. Media sensationalism and police profiling which exaggerated the scope of Somali criminality. And lastly, but most of all, the age old truism that, when presented with a group of people who look, speak, and think much differently than we do, many of us tend to fall into the seemingly comforting embrace of stereotyping and prejudice. It is difficult, here, to pull apart cause and effect.

I feel the need, at this point, to admit my own complicity. When I was in eleventh or twelfth grade a number of new students, many of Somali background, arrived at my high school. Faced with an unfamiliar group that we couldn’t immediately understand, some of my friends and I succumbed to stereotyping. One day, a friend who was particularly adept at impressions saw a group of Somali students loudly mocking one another for wearing counterfeit brand name clothing and turned it into a comedy bit. I soon joined in. We would walk up to one another in the halls and, sucking our tongues between our teeth, make a show of examining one another’s polo shirts, jackets, backpacks. “Yo, dis is fake!” we would shout in exaggerated accents, sometimes snapping our limp index fingers against the side of our hands for effect. “This is the fake one!”

As racism goes it was mild, Saturday Night Live sketch type racism, but it was racist all the same. I’m completely ashamed of it. Our youthful shenanigans, however, didn’t begin to approach the ugly, biting racism that I frequently heard directed at Somali Canadians: A friend who is normally a big fan of hip-hop dismissed my recommendation that he check out K’naan by saying, “Isn’t he a f*cking Somalian?” An inebriated older acquaintance who encountered Somalis frequently in his work referred to them as “chocolate covered q-tips.” And all of this is before we get to the structural and institutional racism faced everyday by Somali immigrants and refugees.

A 2011 article in Taki’s Magazine, titled “Canada’s Somali problem” provides an extreme example of such attitudes, which are nevertheless more widespread that one would like to believe. In a few paragraphs, the author manages to invoke nearly every stereotype commonly affixed to Somali Canadians, painting them as khat-chewing, female genital mutilating criminals sucking at the government teat all the while destroying Canadian society from the inside. She concludes with the following: “No offense, guys, but we’d rather you stuck with murdering your own kind—and doing it somewhere else.”

All of which brings me back to Rob Ford. The first newspaper to report the existence of the crack cocaine video this past May was The Toronto Star. (The Star article followed an earlier report on the website Gawker.) The Star justified its decision to publish the allegations against the mayor on the grounds that the information was in the public interest. By doing drugs and getting “mixed up” in “the underworld of Toronto,” Ford had “opened himself up to blackmail.” His actions “called into question his judgment, his state of mind, his health.”

All of this is true. A look at the text of the original Toronto Star article, however, reveals something more insidious. The sub-headline of that article reads: “A video that appears to show Toronto’s mayor smoking crack is being shopped around by a group of Somali men involved in the drug trade.” The article goes on to use the descriptor ‘Somali’ so many times that, a few weeks later, the paper felt compelled to print an apology.

And it wasn’t only The Star. Time and again, in the weeks that followed the allegations against mayor—in the news, on social media, and in conversation—the ethnicity of those supposedly in possession of the crack video came up in way that it simply wouldn’t have if Ford’s drug dealer friends had been, say, Irish.

In short, I think that many of the people who claim to be disturbed by the fact that Rob Ford does drugs are, on some level, actually disturbed by the fact that Rob Ford (allegedly) smokes crack with Somalis in Little Mogadishu.

If the Ford video showed him snorting powder cocaine in the back of a fancy restaurant with white guys in nice suits (which, incidentally, Ford is now also alleged to have done) would people still think that it was as big a deal? (I am reminded here of André Boisclair, a Québec politician who admitted snorting cocaine while a provincial cabinet minister and was subsequently elected leader of his party.)

Would the initial reports of Ford’s illicit activities have been as alarming had they not been accompanied by the photo (above) of a glassy-eyed, red-faced Ford posing with three young black men? (Those shopping the video provided the photo, which shows Ford with three accused gang members, one of whom was later murdered, to Gawker and The Star. It remains the visual most closely associated with the crack allegations. The video itself is in the hands of the Toronto Police and has not, as of yet, been made public.)

Would the violence allegedly linked with attempts to recover the video before it became public be of more concern if those affected were less “typical” crime victims? If the public wasn’t already conditioned to think, on some level, that shootings and assaults were “the kind of thing that happen” in Little Mogadishu, and to Somali Canadians, anyway?

Of course none of this is to say that Ford is even a little bit in the right. And the attempts by Ford and his city councilor brother, Doug to evade accusations about the mayor’s activities by painting those making them as racists have been transparent and self-serving.

Make no mistake about it, though. Racism against Somali Canadians is a real problem. It is present not only on the right, but the left as well. And it is playing an important role in conditioning the public response to the mayor’s actions.

As someone is hopefully telling Rob Ford right now, the first step is admitting you have a problem.

Africa and the Future: An Interview with Achille Mbembe

Within a short period of time, the global, corporate discourse on Africa has swapped a refrain of hopelessness with a near eschatological discovery of a new el dorado — a place of gold from which global capital hopes to regain its lost mojo. Africa is a Country has debunked the discourse of an ‘Africa Rising’ in several postings, and collectively they make it quite clear that a future in Africa worth striving for is beyond the growth of the GDP, the rise of the ill-defined African middle class or the increase in return on investment.

In the following interview, Achille Mbembe reflects upon the category of the future for Africa, the consequences of global capitalism on the continent, and on Africa’s contribution to an emerging world in which Europe has provincialized itself.

Since 2008, when you initiated the Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism (JWTC), you were very much concerned with thinking about the future — why and why now? Is there something about our current epoch that requires us to think about the future?

Mbembe: There were two reasons. The first was that the category of the future was very central to the struggle for liberation if only in the sense that those who were involved in it had constantly to project themselves towards a time that would be different from what they were going through, what they were experiencing. So the political, in that sense, was about a constant engagement with the forces of the present that foreclosed the possibility of freedom, but it was also the political, closely associated with the idea of futurity. And what seems to have happened after 1994 [in South Africa since the first democratic elections after apartheid], is the receding of the future as a temporary horizon of the political, and of culture in general, and its substitution by a kind of present that is infinite and a landing. This receding of the future and its replacement by a landing present is also fostered by the kind of economic dogma with which we live; to use a short term, neoliberalism. The time of the market, especially under the current capitalist conditions, is a time that is very fragmented and the time of consumption is really a time of the instant. So we wanted to recapture that category of the future and see to what extent it could be remobilized in the attempt at critiquing the present, and reopening up a space not only for imagination, but also for the politics of possibility.

At a recent colloquium in Avignon, you said that in order to have an open future, to be emancipated, meant in the past to separate the object from the subject. Why is this no longer possible and could we imagine another route to emancipation since this avenue seems no longer available to us?

It is true that in the tradition of Western, critical theory, emancipation consists fundamentally in the making of a clear distinction between the human subject and the object, on the one hand, and the human and the animal, on the other hand. The idea being that the human subject is the master, both of himself, and of the natural and animal world. The natural and the animal worlds, he subjects to his use. And that freedom is really the result of that capacity to master oneself and to master the universe and to act rationally. So the argument I was making was that in an age when capitalism has become somewhat of a religion — a religion of objects, a religion that believes in objects having become animated, having a soul of which we partake through the operations of consumption which means that capitalism has become a form of animism. In such an age the old division between subject and object is no longer as clear as it used to be and that in fact, if we look carefully at the operations of consumption world-wide today, we might observe that, many people want to become objects, or be treated as such, if only because becoming an object one might end up being treated better than as a human. All of this creates a terrible crisis in the foundational theories of emancipation we used to rely on in order to further a kind of politics of openness and equality. So that was the point I was making and my thoughts on this issue have not gone further.

Let’s move more directly to the African continent. Since 2008, also because of the economic downturn in the West, there is much talk about ‘Africa rising’. People now talk about all these possibilities that are on the continent. Is this about global capitalism searching for more places to exploit? Is capitalism attempting to advance into places that have not been properly penetrated before? Is this what is happening now, or is there perhaps something more positive that is coming out of this recent turn of global capitalism on Africa?

It is true that there is a huge shift in the global discourse on Africa — a shift from the discourse of crisis and emergency that dominated the last quarter of the 20th. Century and the current kind of optimism that is predicated on a few hard facts. For instances, the highest rates of economic growth we have witnessed over the last ten years have happened in Africa; that the continent is somewhat on the verge of major demographic transformations; that the continent is experiencing higher rates of return on investments and is therefore attracting the attention of foreign investors at a speed we had not witnessed before, and that the middle class that has been decimated during the use of Structural Adjustment Programmes, is reemerging as an economic force. So there is a whole set of indicators that seem to suggest that something is going on which is different from what we used to witness in the past. The fact is also that a huge number of the investments being made are made in the extractive sectors of the economy and therefore subject to the kinds of volatilities and shifts which characterizes not only the economic cycle in general, but especially that sector. So there is a mineral boom the extent of which is quite important, the length of which we are not quite sure of. And clearly, a number of people are getting rich, both locally as well as those who come and invest in the continent. But the result — or the paradox — of this type of growth is that, as we know, it is not creating many more jobs, it involves a process of deepening social inequalities, and Africa is still facing massive challenges in terms of investment in basic infrastructures, in roads, in communications, airports, highways, and railways. Moreover, the continent is still threatened by political instability, either in the form of localized wars, or in the form of social disorder. While the overall picture has to be balanced, it seems to me that Africa does indeed represent the last frontier of capitalism. The question is under what conditions will these new forms of exploitation be conducted, by whom, and for whose benefit.

Africa is known for violent conflict that holds the continent back – do you think there is the possibility that Africans will be able to overcome this kind of violent politics?

I don’t know. It might be that we will have to live with violence. Just as we have seen other political communities living with it for a very, very long time. Colombia has been at war with itself for a very long period of time now. In Mexico, it is more or less the same thing. Violence in Mexico is taking different forms. In places such as Brazil, India or Pakistan, there is a level of social violence that is pretty high and it goes hand in hand with institutions of civil politics, if one wants to use such a term. So, if you look from a historical point of view, there will never be a moment when we are at peace with ourselves and our neighbours, and that the kind of social, economic and political formations that are emerging in the continent and elsewhere too, will always be a mixture of civil peace and violence. But having been said this, it seems to me that one of the main challenges in the continent has to do with the demilitarization of politics. The project of the demilitarization of politics is a precondition for a regime of economic growth that might benefit the biggest number of people. For the time being, the combination of militarism and mercantilism in places such as the Congo, even in plutocratic regimes, such as Nigeria – that combination of mercantilism and militarism is only benefitting predatory elites and multinationals.

You have also been critical of the role of Europe, and the continued colonial relationships that are maintained. At the same time, Europe is almost shutting itself off, and as you wrote, even provincializing itself. Is this newly-emerging Europe in stark contrast with Africa and other developing countries that are steaming ahead, advancing economically, socially, and politically thereby creating their own world?

In relation to the continent, Europe has developed over the last 25 years or so an attitude of containment in sense that the biggest preoccupation has been to make sure that Africans stay where they are. The fixation with the question of immigration has jeopardized to a large extent the development of more dynamic relations between Africa and Europe. The obsession with boundaries and visas, the emergence of racism in most parts of Europe, the strengthening of right wing parties in the context of an economic crisis that is quite obvious — all of that has been detrimental to the development of productive and mutually beneficial relations between Africa and Europe. Europe has tended to withdraw into herself while still playing an important role in world politics, especially when it comes to waging imperialist wars. Meanwhile, we have seen the extent to which new actors, such as China, India, Turkey, Brazil and a few others have tried to play a role in the on-going geopolitical reconfiguration that is on the way. The ultimate challenge, however, is for Africa to become its own centre. In order for Africa to become its own centre, it will need, as I said earlier, to demilitarize its politics as a precondition for the democratization of its economy. The continent will have to become a vast regional space of circulation which means that it will have to dismantle its own internal boundaries, open itself up to the new forms of migration, internal as well as external, as we see happening, to a certain extent in Mozambique , and Angola where some Portuguese are coming back. As Europe closes its borders, Africa will have to open its borders. So it seems to me that only in becoming that vast space of circulation that Africa might benefit positively from the current geopolitical reconfiguration of the world that is going on.

Within that reconfiguration, what is perhaps still holding back Africa is the stereotypical image that Europeans and Americans have of Africa and her people. Recently, when sociologist Jean Ziegler launched his book about global hunger crisis, a Swiss journalist asked him whether the low productivity of agriculture in Africa was because of the laziness of African farmers – this is a very stereotypical, if not racist proposition to make, but it seems to me that such prejudice is common among Europeans. Should Africans be worried about this image or should they just ignore it?

I think that we should leave it to Europeans to deal with their own stupidities because we have far more urgent tasks and projects to attend to. We cannot afford wasting our precious energies dealing with the kind of mental illness that Europe has caused in Africa and elsewhere. So Europe will have to deal with its own mental illnesses, racism being the first of these. What I was saying is that the African agenda in the world that is shaping up in front of us, a world in which China is emerging as a very major player, a world in which the only proposition coming from the dying American empire is more militarism, a world in which the only idea coming from Europe is a retraction and building a fortress around oneself. What Africa needs to pursue is becoming its own centre, and putting its people to work for this. As I was saying, re-imagining a new policy of mobility which implies internal migrations, formations of new diasporas, linkages with old ones, and a redirection of energies in order to tap into energies coming from other places in the world, such as Brazil, India, and China. All of that seems to me more exhilarating than the old and failed attempt at bringing Europe to see itself more than just a province of a broader planet.

What is then the African contribution to a future world? Especially with the idea in mind that we move away from a world in which Africa is dependent on others. What different ways of doing things, you mentioned earlier the existing modes of circulation can Africa offer to the world? What role would indigenous conceptions of humanity, such as Ubuntu, play in this movement?

From a theoretical perspective, there are a number of possibilities. When we look at the cultural history of the continent, it seems to me it is characterized by at least three attributes that can be conceptually deemed creative. The first one is the idea of multiplicity. Look at any single thing on the continent, it always comes under the sign of the multiple: the idea of one God is totally foreign to the continent, there have always been many Gods; the forms of marriage; the forms of currencies; the social forms themselves always come under the sign of multiplicity. One of the tragedies of colonialism has been to erase that element of multiplicity which was a resource for social development in pre-colonial Africa and which was replaced by the paradigm of ‘the one’, the kind of monotheistic paradigm. So how do we recapture the idea of multiplicity as precisely a resource for the making of the continent, its remaking, but also for the making of the world? Another important concept that we haven’t explored much, but which comes from the African historical cultural experience is the modes of circulation and of mobility, of movement. Almost everything was on the move. It was not at all true as Hegel, and those who rely on him, intimated that Africa was a closed continent — not at all. It was always a continent that was on the move. So that concept of circulation is something that can also be mobilized to show what it is that can come from this experience. I spoke first about multiplicity, second about circulation, and the third concept is composition. Everything is compositional — in the way the economy is lived on an everyday basis. You mentioned Ubuntu: meaning the process of becoming a person, a certain proposition, not about identity as a metaphysical or ontological category as in the Western tradition, but as a process of becoming as a relation; a relation in which the ‘I’, meaning the subject, is understood as being made and remade through the ethical interaction with what or who is not him. In fact, the idea that other is another me, the other is the other only to the extent that he or she is another me. That the other is not outside of myself, I am my own other to a certain extent. So there are a whole set of areas where Africa’s contribution to the world of ideas and praxis can be highlighted for the benefit for the world with implications for all sorts of things: theories of exchange, theories of democracy, theories of human rights, and the rights of other species, including natural species, in this age of ecological crisis. It is work that has not been done, but it is time that we are doing it.

This is an edited version of an interview first published in Swissfuture 03/2013.

Kwame Nkrumah’s team are going to the World Cup

Despite coming in for plenty of criticism from European and American journalists, Africa’s high-stakes, winner-takes-all World Cup qualifying system once again threw up an enthralling set of matches. The most remarkable result was Ghana’s whopping 6-1 win over Egypt, and “BaGhana BaGhana” confirmed their tickets to Brazil yesterday in Cairo. There has always been something special about the Black Stars.

What gives football its meaning in England is largely its representative capacity: fans rally around a club, of their city, of their class, seeing the team and the institution as a projection, in many ways, of themselves. This is almost always a regional, not national, phenomenon. Since England was the coloniser rather than the colonised, national representation through football was largely unnecessary. Even today, very few English people identify with the national team. We’ll support them, sure, but we don’t see ourselves in them (thank God).

Much the same dynamic obtains to another colonial power in decline, France, whose players have developed a long-standing tradition of ambivalence towards their national anthem, La Marseillaise. The recent outburst against various figures within the establishment of French football by Les Bleus’ current captain, Dakar-born Patrice Evra, had many causes and doubtless personal scores are being settled through the ensuing row, however it was also symptomatic of the fact that the national team in France are deeply unpopular (though maybe yesterday’s big win with starring roles from the likes of Mamadou Sakho and Paul Pogba will help matters a little).

In West Africa, however, the cultural and historical milieu is reversed. Football is still representative, but the focus of that representation shifts. Football was brought to countries like Nigeria and Ghana, after all, when they weren’t ‘countries,’ but were essentially fiefdoms of the British. It was new. But God was it popular.

That this growth coincided with the growth of national independence and anti-colonial movements changed everything. African football and African nationalism were brothers—twins, even—growing up together. The national team thus became the focal point for, firstly, ‘normal’ Africans, but also for leaders like Amílcar Cabral, who recognised in football a revolutionary potential. In the absence of an established league system, and in the presence of a burgeoning national identity, the African passion for international football was born. It was to be central to nation building and the consolidation of pan-African solidarity.

Nowhere was this more evident than the Gold Coast, now Ghana. Both before and after independence, Kwame Nkrumah, the first President, set about using football as a weapon against the colonial powers. Football in Ghana would be independent, like the nation itself; indeed, it would help build that nation. In the words of the sports sociologist Dr Paul Darby, it was seen as ‘invaluable in building a sense of Ghanainness that [the government] felt would transcend all divisions.’

During the 1957 independence celebrations, football was placed front and centre. Sir Stanley Matthews was invited to play in a number of high-profile friendly matches for Accra club Hearts of Oak and was given the title of Soccerhene, meaning ‘King of Soccer,’ by Nkrumah’s administration. (It wasn’t the first time African football had expressed its admiration for Matthews—the Sierra Leone club Socro United renamed itself Mighty Blackpool FC in his honour—nor was it the first time Matthews had reciprocated that affection: the England winger toured Africa every summer for 20 years after his retirement, and set up an all black team in Soweto, South Africa during apartheid.) More important, though, were the exploits of the Ghanaian national team.

The Ghana Football Association (GAFA) had set up, with Nkrumah’s express permission, exhibition matches against some of Europe’s premier club and international sides. Between 1958 and 1962, Ghana played against, either at home or abroad, Austria Vienna, Fortuna Düsseldorf, Blackpool, Dynamo and Locomotiv Moscow, West Germany, Real Madrid, and Italy. The latter two matches, against the then European Champions and the then two-time World Cup winners, respectively, were particularly notable. Against Real Madrid, Ghana managed a draw, and against Italy (in Italy), a scarcely believable 2-5 win.

Their performances in competitive cup competitions were even more impressive, and owed much to Nkrumah’s influence. The President personally appointed Charles Gyamfi, the first African footballer to play in Germany, as national coach. That the coach was Ghanaian was crucial; in colonial times, and even at the time of Gyamfi’s appointment, football coaches were always white, never African. This was a political move, a nod to Ghanaian independence. And under him, the team went on to dominate the continent. In 1963, Ghana hosted and won the CAN. They won it again two years later, the players starring, Gyamfi excelling in his new role, and Nkrumah always somewhere in the not too distant background. In fact, the players had direct access to the President. Centre forward Wilberforce Mfum recalled how ‘I could always go to him without even making an appointment,’ and houses were given to the squad for winning in 1965 (the star of that team, Osei Kofi, gave a fascinating interview to the BBC earlier this year). Football was being politicised by Nkrumah, and not without good reason: besides the economic prosperity enjoyed by Ghana post-independence, the sport was about as potent a symbol of national achievement as could be found.

More than narrow nationalism, though, Nkrumah’s political philosophy was one of pan-Africanism and African solidarity. Independence from the colonisers would have to come first, naturally, but thereafter, continental unity was to be sought. As he outlined in one famous speech, ‘Independence now, tomorrow the United States of Africa.’ And, in another, ‘The independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the whole continent of Africa!’ The national team was again Nkrumah’s chosen outlet for the expression of his pan-African ideology. He chose to nickname them the Black Stars, both in homage to the great pan-African pioneer Marcus Garvey and to symbolise their role in fostering black, i.e. African, pride. Benjamin Koufie, a former player and manager with the Black Stars, told of how ‘Nkrumah was telling the whole world that there is a continent called Africa which could compete with any other continent in the game of football.’

If African football was to compete, thought Nkrumah, it must however act in concord. One tournament summed that belief up more than any other: the aptly named Kwame Nkrumah Gold Cup. It was a competition between West African national teams, but ‘competition’itself was perhaps the least important thing about it. Rather, it was an enterprise to strengthen the ties between West African nations. One Ghanaian football administrator told fans that they should ditch their petty prejudices and support ‘all the visiting teams as brothers.’ Nkrumah himself, in the aftermath of the 1960 final (a 6-2 win for Ghana against Sierra Leone in the Independence Stadium (again, note the name), Accra), said that the tournament was special ‘not for its intrinsic value, but rather because it is symbolic of the sound foundation upon which we can build the unity of West Africa and of the great value I attach to the success of this movement.’

And there were successes. Take the African boycott of the 1966 World Cup, a pan-African response to the overwhelmingly Eurocentric FIFA, which led to the guaranteed inclusion of at least one African team in World Cups starting from 1970. Victories were hard fought, and by no means total, but Nkrumah’s pan-African politicisation of the game was tangible and it was good for the continent. Like his heroes, Garvey and the Trinidadian intellectual C.L.R. James (another who saw sport and politics as indivisible and who had also seen Nkrumah’s training in Marxist thought), Kwame Nkrumah was a true pioneer.

As the successful boycott shows, however, Nkrumah wasn’t the only African leader who thought in these terms. For countries like Cape Verde and Nigeria, too, were guided towards independence by anti-imperial, pan-African leaders who recognised football as a means of strengthening their nation and continent. In the case of the former, this was Amílcar Cabral; in the latter, it was Nnamdi Azikiwe, or ‘Zik.’

Azikiwe had long been a proponent of government intervention in sport. As early as 1938, he formed Zik’s Athletic Club (ZAC), a Lagos-based sports club that, like Nkrumah’s sporting ventures, sought to demonstrate that Africans had the ability to manage and organise their own affairs. Such actions continued into wartime, with Zik conducting two football tours, in 1941 and 1943, to mobilise support for Nigerian independence. Almost 20 years later, when he became the country’s first president, it was a theme to which he would return. Just as there was an Nkrumah Cup, so too would there be an Azikiwe Cup, consisting of annual matches between Nigeria and Ghana. Like his comrade, he saw football as being able to play a part in the reclamation of African sovereignty from the imperialists. That the home of Nigerian football team Enugu Rangers was renovated in 1986 and renamed the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium in his honour was an appropriate, if tiny, gesture.

Amílcar Cabral was different. Whereas Nkrumah and Zik went on to become their nation’s first President, Cabral was assassinated before the liberation of Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau could be achieved. He was a leader and a pan-Africanist theorist, yes, but he was also a guerrilla: the driving force behind a decade-long liberation struggle. With regards to football, Cabral was different, too. Nkrumah and Zik, as we have seen, co-opted football once in positions of power to further their nationalist and pan-African agenda, and they did it with great success. Cabral, however, was a genuine football fan. As a young agronomy student in Lisbon, he excelled at football. Upon graduation, he was even offered the chance to play for Portuguese titans Boavista and Benfica (imagine if Cabral had joined the likes of Mozambican greats Eusebio and Mario Coluna in the all-conquering Benfica team of the 1960s). Manuel Alegre, the Portuguese poet and politician and then a member of the anti-imperialist Portuguese Communist Party, recalled recently that Cabral’s ‘greatest wish’ was at one time to take up Benfica’s offer, but that the necessity of armed struggle had led him to refuse. The world should be grateful that he did.

Nevertheless, Cabral did leave his mark on West African football. The Amílcar Cabral Cup, again an all-West African affair, serves as a reminder of those liberation struggles fought by Nkrumah, Azikiwe, Cabral, and others; that football on the continent owes as much to these men as it does to any player. For without independence, what would football in Africa look like?

This is not to say that all ran smooth after the chains of colonialism were broken. Just as there were benefits to come from the period’s politicisation of the sport, so too were there drawbacks and failures. In Ghana, particularly, Nkrumah’s interference couldn’t ultimately curb the inevitable tribalism that comes with competition. Pan-African sentiments were expressed, and strengthened, through football, but Ghanaian supporters remained hostile to rival teams. This was hardly Nkrumah’s vision for an independent Ghana. In a study of the rivalry between Ghanaian football clubs Hearts of Oak and Kotoko, Kevin Fridy and Victor Brobbey found that fans of each club were divided along ethnic and political lines that remained even in the post-colonial nation state: Hearts of Oak fans tended to be for one political party, the centre-left National Democratic Congress, and Kotoko fans another, the centre-right New Patriotic Party.

In fact, Nkrumah might be said to have worsened the problem of club tribalism during his time in office, with the football club he established, the Real Republikans, being seen as the party of the establishment rather than the people. As Darby notes, ‘What appears to be forgotten from Nkrumah’s experiences with football… is the capacity of the game to generate unpredictable emotional attachments and counter-hegemonic currents that can breed disunity and threaten those in power.’ Furthermore, because of the personal investment Nkrumah made in football, there was left a vacuum upon his deposition by military coup. Ghanaian football, so dominant in the first part of the 1960s, was to fall into disarray.

Nkrumah, however, showed how much could be achieved by co-opting one of Africa’s premier cultural expressions; others took that lesson, but applied it in an altogether more sinister manner. The chief culprit here was Mobutu Sese Seko, the Congolese dictator and kleptocrat.

Ultimately, of course, the relationship between competitive sport and pan-Africanism was bound to be somewhat paradoxical; one is predicated on superiority, the other on unity. This doesn’t mean that the two are incompatible, however. Difficulties are had, as with the game between Ghana and Zambia, when sport trumps solidarity. But when the two work in tandem, as with the Nkrumah Gold Cup, or with the 1966 World Cup Boycott, football can serve justice in a way that few other cultural forms can. And though much has been made here of the role of leaders (if not elites), that’s essentially because football is still the sport of the masses.

*

The last thing to mention about the Black Stars is that they love to sing. Check out this video of the team singing together on the pitch at Cairo International Stadium before their huge game yesterday.

Photo credit: Eliot Elisofon at Accra Stadium, 1959, held at Smithsonian.

New Film about the New Type of Senegalese Social Movement

‘Boy Saloum: La Révolte des Y’en a Marre’ is a film by French director and producer Audrey Gallet that documents the Y’en a Marre movement in Senegal which took place from early 2011 through early 2012. The film opens with a Franz Fanon quote: “Every generation must, in relative opacity, discover its mission, accomplish it or betray it.” Through this documentary it becomes clear that hip-hop, new media technology, globalization and youth energy and idealism inspired the Y’en a Marre protest movement.

The film is titled Boy Saloum because the founders of the movement all hail from Kaolack, the biggest city of the Saloum province some 200 kilometers from Dakar. People from the Saloum Kingdom were all called Boy Saloum and they are known for their revolutionary spirit.

The Y’en a Marre collective (“We’re Fed Up/Enough is Enough”) emerged as a new political force in Senegalese politics in early 2011. The founders of the movement first organized protests to denounce injustice and inequality and then against the controversial bid by Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade for a third term in office. 85-year-old Wade proposed constitutional changes that would have ensured his success in the next elections by reducing the number of votes needed to win an election from 51 percent to 25 percent. The changes would have also established the post of vice president to which many claimed he intended to nominate his son, Karim, thus creating a family dynasty. The citizens of Senegal, various sectors of civil society and youth organized by Y’en a Marre said enough is enough. They were simply fed up with years of unemployment, regular electricity outages, increasing inequality and excessive corruption at the hands of President Wade.

In the first scene rapper Thiat of Keur Gui Crew is writing lyrics in a dark apartment by candlelight. The scene quickly shifts to a concert where Thiat and Kilifeu’s lyrics call attention to the worsening poverty, inequality and generational tensions in the country. The concert ends with Thiat telling the audience, “This is a solemn time, the government has abandoned us.” The two scenes, the viewer later learns, are critical because it is Keur Gui’s history of social engagement, an extended power outage and Wade’s increasing corruption and trampling on democracy that inspire the formation of the movement.

Sofia Denise Sow, the narrator, is also a founding member of the movement who has preferred to stay behind the scenes. It is no coincidence that Sofia tells the story of Y’en a Marre because she was primarily responsible for maintaining the internet presence of the collective. She regularly uploaded music videos, interviews and video clips showing the arrest of several members. She also posted to Facebook and sent out mass text messages informing the population of protests dates and times. The film crucially allows this woman who played an essential role in the movement to take a place at center stage right next to her male comrades.

The musicians of Y’en a Marre often play a central role in the coverage of the movement particularly as discussions of the role of hip-hop in social movements became popular in the wake of the Arab Spring and youth organizing in general. Boy Saloum introduces the backstory of Fadel Barro, the journalist who urged the rappers to use their popularity among fans to affect change in their country. Barro, the national coordinator of the movement, was an investigative journalist for a weekly newspaper and regularly wrote articles about Wade’s presidency and growing corruption in Senegal. Since his engagement in Y’en a Marre he is no longer on staff with a newspaper and his apartment became the headquarters for the movement.

While there have been numerous articles describing the origins of Y’en a Marre, the film lets the founders describe in their own words how the movement was started. The film moves past flashy headlines that continually assert that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media platforms are the primary organizing tools of modern day social movements. Gallet’s film shows that the collective built the movement first through personal social networks with other rappers and journalists and then by taking the message directly to the people. The bulk of their time was spent in communities around the country explaining that the goals of the movement did not solely include getting Wade out of office but also encouraging a “New Type of Senegalese” (NTS), basically a new socially engaged citizen.

Gallet explained that she did not make this movie by chance. She had been filming Keur Gui concerts, speeches and their active efforts to engage youth from 2006. When Y’en a Marre emerged, she was in a prime position to document the creation and growth of the movement. The access she was granted proved essential for allowing audiences to witness the coming together of a movement.

One critique of the movie is the sole focus on the founders from Kaolack while not including the other rappers who were integral to the movement from nearly its inception. This however is not an issue among the collective as Fou Malade, one of the core Y’en a Marre members, noted at a conference at New York University, “I became involved in Y’en a Marre for a lot of reasons but one of the main reasons is because when Thiat calls, you pick up your phone.” If there were anything else missing, it would be a soundtrack to accompany the film since music and specifically hip-hop played such a critical role in the Y’en a Marre movement.

Ultimately, Gallet’s film gives audiences an insider’s view into the inner working of a contemporary social movement.

Watch the film here:

A version with English subtitles will be available to the public soon. We’ll remind you when it is.

The Big Boss

“I would like to dedicate the [2013 African Cup of Nations] trophy to all African coaches. We’re not yet there, this team has taken just months to build. We will continue building.”

It was a surreal moment on the night of 10 February 2013 when Stephen Keshi, the coach of Nigeria’s national football team, uttered those words inside the packed press conference at Soccer City Stadium in Soweto, on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Scores of journalists were waiting for a great, perhaps triumphal quote from this man who had charmed the continent over the three weeks of the Africa Cup of Nations tournament, with his team of rag-tag soldiers, three-quarters of whom were serving the national squad for the first time. Instead, Keshi said something anti-climactic: “We’re not yet there.”

After conquering the continent’s biggest teams and lifting the trophy as only the second-ever individual to win it both as a player and a coach (following in the footsteps of the Egyptian, Mahmoud El-Gohary), much more than a report on gradual progress was expected from the multilingual Nigerian who had turned press briefings into language classes. The 51-year-old Anioma native’s ability to converse in both English and French made attending his briefings during the competition a delight. At once friendly and jovial, he could also be aloof and angry; Keshi showed all the emotions that coaches go through when competing at top level.

Only a small circle of people had believed that he could lead the Nigerian team to victory in the 2013 competition. Many Nigerian fans – forever optimistic about their team but always disappointed at every tournament – had long given up hope. Still they had watched.

The “Big Boss” (as he’s fondly called by admirers) knew he had a major task to achieve with the team he took to South Africa. In that squad, only six men – John Obi Mikel, Joseph Yobo, Vincent Enyeama, Austin Ejide, Elderson Echiejile and Ikechukwu Uche – had ever appeared at a previous senior team tournament. The remaining members were hungry lads who had come into the team following its failure to qualify for Afcon 2012 under former coach Samson Siasia. Keshi built the team for 2013 by injecting new blood – young, agile lads who were not afraid to literally break a leg. He also experimented by bringing in six players from the Nigeria Premier League – something that had not been done since the Eagles last won the title under Dutchman Clemens Westerhof in 1994. It was an experiment that worked for the Zambians in the 2012 tournament, when coach Hervé Renard chose a large contingent of African-based unknowns who went on to defeat the mighty Black Stars and Elephants to win the title.

Keshi’s squad was experimental at best. Like many of his predecessors, he told the country that the team was in a rebuilding process and would need some time to become a really great squad. However, there was pressure on him from the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to deliver the title or face the sack, like his predecessors who had won a cupboard full of sub-par medals since 1994, when the team last won gold.

Every time Nigeria participated in a tournament, the team was expected to win it. Notwithstanding the circumstances surrounding their preparation, if the team didn’t win, the coaches were deemed failures and fired. This had pushed many Nigerian coaches to explore avenues to circumvent the system, like using over-aged players in age-grade competitions.

The country has since won many youth titles, but with very few structures on the ground to transfer that victory to senior competitions. Cheating can only get you so far; it is exposed when all teams have to be at the same level. Many Nigerian youth stars failed to make the grade at senior level after excelling at underage tourneys.

Keshi himself had come through the youth teams before making the senior national team his abode for almost two decades, captaining the squad for 14 years (the longest term in Super Eagles’ history). In 1994, at the age of 32, he finally won the Africa Cup of Nations title and, in the same year, the national team qualified for its first World Cup. Like no one before him, he had tasted incredible success as a member of the widely acclaimed Golden Generation of Nigerian footballers. It was expected that he would make the transition to an equally successful coaching career.

But things don’t usually work that way. Early success with Togo – a small country that he led to qualifying for the World Cup and Africa Cup of Nations in 2006 – gave way to acrimony and despair when he got involved with player transfers, which created disharmony in the small West African country. He subsequently lost his job after failing to win any match with the squad at Afcon in Egypt in 2006, thus missing the opportunity to sit in the dugout at the world showpiece event in Germany that same year. In his place, the Togolese hired an expiring German traveller, Otto Pfister, to take the Sparrow Hawks to the Mundial, where they lost all three their matches.

At home, Keshi was regarded as a hero for his achievement with the Togolese because even the mighty Nigerians had lost their World Cup ticket to Angola that year. But he never got called up to the Nigerian job for many reasons, including being perceived by the establishment as stubborn and uncontrollable. After spells in Mali and Togo, he was eventually brought back home after the Eagles failed to qualify for the 2012 Afcon tournament, jointly hosted by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. Taking over in November of 2011, Keshi had only a few months to prepare a squad for the next qualifiers.

His problems were enormous: he had inherited a squad that was low in confidence after failing to beat Guinea to the Afcon ticket. He experimented by giving more opportunities to players who had been neglected by many of his predecessors. He reduced dependency on Europe-based players, making the few he did invite to camp fight for starting places alongside their glory-hungry, locally based team mates.

His experiment paid off when, on that evening in early February 2013, Sunday Mba from Enugu Rangers scored the lone goal that led the team to victory over Burkina Faso, and their third African title. It was the same Mba who scored the winning goal against Ivory Coast earlier in the quarter finals. As has happened previously, the fight to win the African title became racially tainted toward the end of the tournament in South Africa. Journalists and pundits were quick to highlight the racial mix among coaches as the competition in its more than 50-year history: Egyptian Hassan Shehata with a hattrick of titles from 2006 to 2010 and, before him, Yeo Martial in 1992. Otherwise, winning teams had all been trained by Europeans.

Going into the all-West African semi-finals of the 2013 competition, the ratio of African to European coaches was 2:2. Ghana and Nigeria paraded local coaches, while Mali and Burkina Faso were led by a Frenchman and a Belgian respectively. From a coaching perspective, it was interesting to see which way the pendulum would swing this time.

Were the Africans capable of holding their own against their European counterparts? Were African coaches able to find the tactics to deliver victory to their teams? For Keshi, this part of the race took on a life of its own. He was battling to keep his job in the face of arguments about his ability to handle the national team. After two opening draws – against Burkina Faso and defending champions Zambia – his tactics had come into question from many quarters, not least the officers of the NFF.

He was also being criticised by the press for making late changes, as well as for his team’s disciplinary record, which in the first two matches had seen a player sent off and a penalty conceded. The NFF had reportedly begun to shop for a white coach to replace Keshi, were the Eagles to crash out. Officials had begun contacting a few of the European trainers that were at the tournament. This Keshi got wind of.

In their third game, against Ethiopia, who had returned to the competition after 31 years, Nigeria struggled and won by scoring two goals from the penalty spot. This was not good for confidence going into the quarter-final clash against Ivory Coast, who were perennially tipped as favourites for the title, even though they had not won it since 1992. With their poor form going into that game, many Nigerians had given up on going past the Ivorians, to whom they had lost by narrow margins in two previous tournaments in 2006 and 2008.

Confounding the pundits, Keshi’s team rose to the occasion and played their best match – easily the best game of the tournament –  to save their necks. It was a David and Goliath affair and the Nigerians triumphed 2–1 to send shock waves through the continent. It was an unbelievable sight inside the Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg as the Eagles outpassed, outplayed and outscored their more fancied opponents.

Keshi’s confidence rose thereafter. His mission henceforth was to use every opportunity to confound his detractors and to make a statement for African coaches. Ahead of the semi-final tie against Mali (coached by Frenchman Patrice Carteron), the Nigerian stoked the fires of race that had been smouldering throughout the tournament. Asked at a press briefing ahead of the game about a pre-tournament statement he had made about white coaches coming to Africa only to make money, Keshi restated his belief that many African countries are too quick to offer big contracts to European coaches who may not be as qualified as Africans. But because of their skin colour, they get preferential treatment.

“I’m not against a white coach in Africa because I have worked with white coaches. What I’m against is, do not bring a mediocre coach, a carpenter coach from Europe and tell me he is better than me. I will not accept [that],” Keshi said.

To underline this, Keshi’s team pummelled Mali 4–1 in a one-sided encounter the next evening at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban. It was a victory emphatic enough for everyone to feel that the Super Eagles were going to win the tournament, as long as they didn’t implode as they had in times past. Keshi’s game plan was working and he rode the waves of the team’s newfound confidence. At the post-match press conference, he didn’t need to say anything; his face expressed the great satisfaction in having defeated another European coach. As the Nigerians awaited their final opponents – Ghana and Burkina Faso were yet to play – one African coach had already been assured of a place in the final. Former Black Stars player Kwesi Appiah led the Ghanaians against the Stallions, who were trained by Belgian Paul Put. The Burkinabe proved too tough for the Black Stars, winning on penalties after the game ended 1–1. The final stage was set: Keshi vs Put.

Football itself can transcend race. It’s an emotional sport that can take on any tint. And football has been used to rally people. In Nigeria, the national team is one of the few points of convergence for the country’s more than 250 ethnic identities. When the Super Eagles play, everyone, regardless of tongue or religion, gets behind the team. I was only 14 when the last title was lifted by Keshi. On 10 February, I watched from the press box as Nigeria returned to the pinnacle of African football, 19 years after their last victory. Seeing the national team triumph at a continental competition was overwhelming; nineteen years of failing was banished by that lone Sunday Mba strike.

Keshi’s choice of players and his decision to be his own man had paid off handsomely. In the press conference later that night, with sweaty brows and a strained voice after lots of joyous shouting with his team, Keshi spoke about what his victory meant for Africa and African coaches. This, he said, was proof that African coaches are able to create winning teams if they are given the resources to excel by their federations. Despite the victory, however, Keshi would unceremoniously announce his resignation on South Africa’s Metro FM during an interview with Robert Marawa the following day. His decision to quit in the middle of celebrations was due to much wrangling in the course of the tournament. The federation had interfered so much in his activities and worked so to undermine his confidence that he thought the best thing to do was to quit while the ovation was at its loudest.

But such outrage emanated afterwards that the coach was forced to rescind his decision after long meetings with Minister of Sport Bolaji Abdullahi, as well as with officials of the NFF.

The battle was not for Keshi alone; it was a fight for the souls of Nigerian and African coaches who are treated like dirt at the local level. In Cameroon, for example, months after Keshi’s drama, the local coach of the Indomitable Lions – the once feared national team of that country – was sacked in the press, when his job was advertised to European coaches. Although Nigeria has made progress in recent years by employing locals as coaches of the national team, no Cameroonian coach has taken the Lions to any major tournament and, in fact, the team’s fortunes have dwindled seriously over the last three years. Keshi’s actions, however, brought attention to the plight of African trainers and he used the opportunity to secure the support of Nigerian politicians, who overrode any plans the NFF may have had to dump him or bring in a European technical adviser as his boss.

While Cameroon has brought in another European to perhaps help them return to the pinnacle of African football, Ghana’s Kwesi Appiah continues to be in charge, despite failing to get the team past the semifinal in South Africa. It is a statement that the West African side want to grow their football with local talent after accusing former Serbian coach Goran Stevanović of, among other things, never taking the time to watch players from the Ghanaian league during his reign.

Although Egypt have opted to hold on to Bob Bradley from the US, who failed to lead them to the 2013 Afcon, South Africa have chosen to go with local coach Gordon Igesund, who has made Bafana Bafana play with belief once again. Tiny Cape Verde were led to their first-ever Afcon appearance, and to the quarter-final, by local trainer Lúcio Antunes. Kenya’s Algerian coach, Adel Amrouche, praised Keshi during a recent World Cup qualification match: “Keshi’s achievement is a statement. There are many ghost coaches coming to Africa but I think Keshi has sent out the right message by winning the Africa Cup of Nations.”

Keshi’s success and determination will perhaps encourage more African countries to look closer to home for coaching salvation. The Big Boss has shown that it can be done.

* This article first appeared in the print issue of Chimurenga’s Chronic. It is reposted here with the kind permission of the editors.

Aidan Hartley’s Africa

In journalist Aidan Hartley’s Africa, the progress of the continent is measured by its hospitability to white people and animals. Hartley was a war correspondent turned Wild Life columnist for The (British) Spectator magazine. A white Kenyan, he was born in 1965 and raised in East Africa for a time before moving to England for about a decade. He returned to Kenya as a Reuters war journalist, apparently hoping that by finding “a war that I could call my own,” he would find a place he belonged.

It at first seems an odd jump from war to wildlife writing, but the same fundamental view of Africa informs both types of commentary. For Hartley, they are both ways to focus on the corruption, greed, mismanagement and savagery of post-colonial states and their failure to take care of their most vulnerable citizens: white people and animals, bound together by their contemporary struggle to survive in the place they belong and are needed.

Take, for example, Hartley’s contribution to the hordes of articles about South Africa prompted by the 2010 World Cup, “South Africa World Cup 2010… and the shooting’s already started,” which he wrote for the Daily Mail. In it he describes the danger white farmers face in post-apartheid SA and the measures to which they must go to protect themselves. The article’s terse tone is not matched by the numbers Hartley himself provides: 2500 white farmers killed since 1994; 61% of farm attacks target whites. But the article insists that these deaths are of the utmost importance:

Most victims are poor blacks in South Africa’s cities: reported deaths last year totalled more than 18,000.

But among the casualties of the violence are white farmers, whose counterparts in Zimbabwe are singled out for international press coverage; here in the ‘rainbow nation’ their murders, remarkable for their particular savagery, go largely unreported.

The deaths of white farmers merits reporting and analysis, but there is no sense of proportion in Hartley’s writing. He explains that white farmers are symbols of past oppression, but whitewashes failures of post-apartheid land reform and how land is still the site of struggle. His articles are overwhelmed by the need to show that, actually, white people are the victims of Africa’s history.

South Africa is not Hartley’s usual stomping ground. Kenya gets that honour, including its own version of the same narrative Hartley put forward about white SA farmers. In What future for Kenya’s white tribe?, he uses the trial of Tom Cholmondeley, a man convicted of killing a poacher on his property, to start outlining the various attacks on Hartley’s own farm and describe how Kenya’s 100 white-owned farms are the strength of Kenya’s economy. Reading it, you can vaguely wonder at the relationship between racial and national identities; the limits of historical responsibilities; the structure of rural farm life. These are all valid questions peripherally evoked by Hartley, and all silenced by the same persistent stance: white victimhood.

The timing of this is of course no coincidence. Hartley’s version of Africa, and Kenya specifically, is highly appealing at a time when the UK government has just had to pay out compensation to thousands of elderly Kenyans for brutalizing them in the 1950s. Chauvinist publications like The Spectator and the Daily Mail, as well as the Daily Telegraph, are the main organs of empire nostalgia, though basic assumptions about the virtues of Britain’s imperial history remain ingrained across the mainstream political spectrum, still defining the core of any “common sense” understanding of British history and identity and continually expressed by means of endless jingoistic celebrations of the British army. The atrocities committed by the British in Kenya in the 1950s have been utterly laid bare — little wonder that Hartley’s consoling myths are now so welcome as a soothing distraction.

No victimhood is greatest in Hartley’s work, however, than that of animals. In the last decade, Africa’s (most often Kenya’s) wildlife has been Hartley’s main concern. He describes an elephant’s experience of being poached, various conservation efforts and his own experience with poachers while living on his farm in Kenya.

In wildlife he finds the convergence of corrupt officials, unfeeling natives and greedy foreigners, namely the Chinese. Hartley’s articles demonstrate the revived red scare: what will happen if China supplants the West as Africa’s patron? One article, titled Will China kill all Africa’s elephants? accuses the Chinese of “…eating Africa.” It’s dogs, tortoises, and donkeys. “China is ripping out Africa’s timber, the sandalwood, rhino horn, the fish, the seahorses, the sea slugs. Now Asia’s tigers are almost gone, Africa’s big cats are next: their claws and their vital organs being turned into medicines.”

Underlying Hartley’s compassion for wildlife, his fear of China and his concern for white farmers is a crisis of belonging. Hartley rarely disguises that he is seeking to carve a place for himself in the land of his birth. Conservation is why he is needed there; China (if it does, indeed, kill all Africa’s elephants) would make him redundant (and makes him even more necessary now); and white farmers are his brethren, locked in the same battles as he for all things good in Africa.

A sense of “morbid nostalgia” informs Hartley’s commitment to Africa as he understands it, paired with his martyr-journalist persona in which he constantly faces the limitations that Africa puts to him as a forward-thinking reporter and farmer. All things good in Africa rarely includes black Africans in Hartley’s articles, as they figure into his work most often as killers: war-mongers, poachers, politicians. This is what wild life writing and war journalism on Africa has in common: the savage native and its noble targets, be they elephants or white people.