Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 442

Diagnosing the World’s Data

The previously self-elected spokesperson for the world’s ‘most and least racially tolerant countries’, The Washington Post’s Max Fisher and his touch typing team of Google searching researchers and writers, have now turned their attention to diagnosing the world’s mental health. Scouring the infinite chasm of the internet’s published research they present their data-led stories with a photoshopped artificial gloss. The conveniently social media friendly article written by Caitlin Dewey, is easily shared, generating web traffic for the website and its advertisers. At a time when mental health stigma is slowly beginning to be eroded and challenged around the world, it appears that journalists are still keen to seize the opportunity to prod the soft spot of its readers interests and insecurities, with the fear mongering undertone of ‘it could happen to you’.

Presented with a map — credited to Max Fisher – generated from an Australian study which sought to quantify the ‘prevalence, incidence, remission rates and duration’ of a major depressive disorder (MDD). This being a clinical depression defined by the Western dogmatic canon of diagnosing mental ill health. Using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM) MDD is described as ‘an episodic disorder with a chronic outcome and an elevated risk of mortality’ which involves ‘the presence of at least one major depressive episode, which is the experience of depressed mood almost all day, every day for at least two weeks’.

The study relies entirely on pre-existing data reviewed from ‘literature’ between ’1st January 1980 and 31st December 2008′, adding limply, with ‘continued perusal of the literature until 31st December 2011.’ During which time the DSM had been revised five times. The map presents the highest alleged records of clinical depression in ‘The Middle East and North Africa’, continuing that the burden is most prevalent in ‘Eritrea, Rwanda, Botswana, Gabon, Croatia, the Netherlands (!) and Honduras.’ The author finalizes this assumption didactically ‘See some patterns here? The researchers did, too.’

This is all despite the inherent contradiction of the study cautioning ‘that reliable depression surveys don’t even exist for some low-income countries — a common issue with global studies — forcing the researchers to come up with their own estimates based on statistical regression models.’ This sentiment had been numerously repeated and is even mirrored in the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) last review of the African continent. Conducted through the distorted lens of the Western theoretical framework of diagnosing mental ill health; the review was reduced to ‘estimates’, adding it is ‘difficult to get a clear picture as data collection was patchy’.

Professor Ndetei, a mental health expert working in Kenya, and founder of the African Mental Health Foundation delivered a key message during his talk at the University of California, Berkeley on October 18th (2012); commenting ‘All indicators from the available epidemiological data suggest that the patterns and prevalence of mental disorders in Africa are similar to those found in High Income Countries (HIC) such as the USA, but that is as far as the similarities go.’

According to Emmanuel Akyeampong, a Professor of History at Harvard University, ‘several African countries, including Nigeria, Sudan, Senegal, and Ghana, have had strong psychiatric traditions beginning in the 1950s.’ Yet the only thing this study, article and map is indicative of is a horrifying symptom. The imposition and seemingly impervious arrogance of the Western understanding and classification of mental illness. A psychiatric imperialism that is being exported around the world discounting entirely: country of birth, ethnicity, culture, context, language, personality, childhood or any meaningful ethnographic considerations. In alignment with this homogenised perspective, the mind will continue to be reduced to an object — merely consistent of component parts — as drug companies and the market persist with its commodification. With a DSM under one arm, this model left unchallenged will move freely between countries, advertising the remedies for this ‘chemical imbalance’, to only then sell you solution.

For a healthcare system that has been designed to help people, it is clear that it can only function if the human is sterilised and removed.

The increasingly shaky edifice of Luanda

Two weeks ago at the Lisbon Urban Roots music festival the afro-electronic group Batida, in collaboration with Angolan artist Ikonoklasta, called for solidarity with Angola’s youngest political prisoner, Nito Alves, who is fast becoming a symbol of the Angolan regime’s repressive attitude towards its critics. On the 12 September 2013, seventeen year old Manuel Chivonde Baptista Nito Alves was pulled off the street by police and detained under charges of defamation. His crime? He had requested the printing of twenty t-shirts with the following written on them: Zé-De fora. Nojenta. Ditador (Zé-Dú get out. Disgusting dictator) with the back reading Povo angolano, quando a guerra é necessario e urgente em Angola para mudarmos o governo ditador (People of Angola, when a war is necessary and urgent in Angola for us to change the dictatorial government). Whether or not one agrees with these slogans is not relevant to the essence of this article. Zé-Dú is the nickname for the aging President José Eduardo dos Santos who has been in power for 34 years and shows no intentions of leaving. Alves was arrested when going to the printing service to pick up the t-shirts that he ordered. He has been detained since then, with almost no access to family or lawyers. Much of his detention has been in solitary confinement due to fears that when placed with other prisoners he was politicising them.

While the detention might be written off as yet another example of the authoritarian nature of the Angolan regime, the Alves case has taken on a growing symbolic significance due to his age, his political affiliations, and oddly enough, his name. The extended detention without trial of a minor is enough to perturb even those who do not align themselves with Alves’ views or his manner of expressing them. In a heartfelt letter entitled “Nito Alves: His Courage is Our Salvation” published on the Angolan website MakaAngola, José Eduardo Agualusa, a well-known Angolan author who has often been critical of the Angolan regime, voiced the thoughts of many when he compared Alves to his own sixteen year old son and then wrote: “I cannot agree, and I do not agree, with the terms in which young Nito Alves expressed his rebellion. Nevertheless, his rebellion is mine. His courage, however, is his alone. While the cowardice of José Eduardo dos Santos shames all us Angolans, the courage of young Nito Alves saves us and uplifts us. Nito Alves, my son, our son – thank you!” The truth is that Alves has become the symbol of a slowly emerging movement that has shaken the Angolan government’s narrative of post-conflict stability.

Since March 2011 an eclectic group of urban youth inspired by the events of the Arab Spring have been organizing anti-Dos Santos protests identifying the President’s long rule as one of the root causes of corruption and human rights abuses in the country. Unlike their North African counterparts, the protests have not been large in size. Sometimes they are as small as fifteen, but are not usually more than a few hundred people. However, it is their symbolism as the first organized form of public resistance against the MPLA regime since the late 1970s that has surprised Angola watchers and the government. Despite often facing extreme police brutality and attacks from plain-clothed thugs these protests have not only continued for the last two years, but have spread. Protests, which began as Luanda phenomena, have occurred in Benguela and even the diamond province of Lunda-Norte. In theory, there is a little the government can do to officially prevent protests as Article 47 of the constitution states that people wishing to protest have only to notify the relevant authorities, they do not have to necessarily receive permission. Given that simply banning protests is not technically possible, the government has tried a variety of tactics to prevent them. Government actions have included claiming that alternative events are being held in the same spaces that protestors wish to use, holding youth concerts at the same time as the protests, accusing the participants of being frustrated layabouts, or more recently, performatively pretending to show concern for the Angolan youth by holding official youth conferences across the country under the auspices of a newly instated program entitled Diálogo Juvenil (Youth Dialogues). The government is concerned, and it should be, because one date hovers as a shadow across all these activities, and it is one, which, ironically enough, is encapsulated in Nito Alves’ name.

The major historical trauma of post-independence Luanda was the brutal repression of an urban uprising and attempted coup against the Neto regime on 27 May 1977. The leader of the uprising was, as history would have it, Nito Alves, a charismatic young member of the MPLA who had been the Minister of Interior until his differences with Neto led to his expulsion from the party and his arrest. With Cuban support, Neto crushed the uprising and arrested its leaders who were then executed. The violence did not, however, stop there. The following months would see a brutal purging of dissidents and intellectuals as Neto’s MPLA sought to consolidate its political control. From 1977 until the outbreak of protests in 2011, organized non-party based protest against the MPLA was almost unheard of. However, now a new group of youth with hopes for the future, and ironically, a new Nito Alves, have come to the fore. The comparisons to be drawn between the previous critical moment in Angolan history, and the present one are only too obvious. If some Angolans believe 1977 was a crucial turning point in Angolan history, many are beginning to see the present one as another potential such moment. The MPLA’s loss of a municipality in Luanda in the 2012 election, despite its overall victory (72% of the national vote) is a small indication of an increasingly shaky urban edifice.

If the first Nito Alves was the sacrificial symbol of the Angola that could have been, the young Nito Alves is fast becoming the symbol of an Angola that could be. As the yields of more than a decade of peace become increasingly unclear, especially to those who cannot remember the war, dissatisfaction amongst Luanda’s poor and even many of its wealthy is growing. But the issue is reaching beyond Angola, acting as a testing ground for the efficacy of international sympathies in mobilizing around African civil society causes. Amnesty International has launched a letter writing campaign in solidarity with Nito Alves, and MakaAngola, Mãos Livres, and Club-K are circulating a petition calling for his release. Nito Alves then, as Agualusa suggested, is not alone, but representative of growing changes in Luanda and perhaps Africa more generally, which point the way to a different future to that assumedly imagined by many of the continent’s political elites.

UPDATE: At the time of the publication of this article, the President of Mãos Livres, Salvador Freire dos Santos, announced that Nito Alves had been released from detention. Although released, he must report to a police station once a week until he is tried.

Football and Dictatorships

World and European champions Spain will play Equatorial Guinea in a friendly in Malabo on November 16th.

We can only speculate as to why Spain is playing this match.

There’s of course history: Spain once colonized Equatorial Guinea; it was its only African colony (Spain’s African colonies consisted of this, a coastal enclave of Morocco and Western Sahara). And there’s diplomatic and economic considerations. Equatorial Guinea is the third largest oil producer in Sub-Saharan Africa.

As for the football; we’re less sure about that.

Yes, former Spanish national team center-back Andoni Goikoetxea is Equatorial Guinea’s coach and some of the national squad players are registered with Spanish clubs. Actually most of them are Brazilians, but’s another story.* However, Equatorial Guinea is ranked 119th by FIFA (Tajikistan, Latvia and Kenya has a better ranking); have never qualified for the World Cup; and only qualified for the African Cup of Nations because they co-hosted the continental tournament in 2012. How serious Spain is taking this game is reflected by the fact that the Spanish FA (La Real Federación Española de Fútbol) gave Equatorial Guinea about 10 days notice to schedule the game.

And it is not like Spain needed the match practice: Spain already scheduled a match against South Africa in Johannesburg on November 19th–two days after the Equatorial Guinea game. The South Africa match sorta make sense. While South Africa’s national team is terrible–they are ranked 61st by FIFA and only qualify for tournaments when they host–at least the match has sentimental value ahead of 2014: South Africa where Spain won their first ever World Cup title in 2010.

Reports suggest that before deciding to play Equatorial Guinea, the Spanish FA had first considered Angola (ranked 93rd) and Gabon (84th).

An odd coincidence is that all three countries mentioned in the previous paragraph are ruled by politically repressive and corrupt regimes, which is why we flagged the November 16th game as dodgy.

Equatorial Guinea specifically is a kleptocracy and a dictatorial regime; the kind of African state the Daily Mail likes to tell its readers about. Teodoro Obiang, President since 1979 (he took power in a coup and regularly wins elections by wide margins), is the longest serving ruler in Africa and the country’s richest man. He is also delusional. Obiang claims he personally runs the country’s treasury “to prevent others falling into temptation.” But instead, this gives him carte blanche to treat the public purse as his family fortune. For example, an investigation into a collapsed US bank discovered that Obiang controlled $700m in deposits there alone, reported Ian Birrell in The Guardian this September. Right before the African Nations Cup, Birrell accompanied a group of British politicians and lobbyists on a junket to Equatorial Guinea. Birrell described the country “like something out of The Truman Show” where per-capita wealth exceeds Britain but three-quarters of its 675,000 citizens live on less than a dollar a day, infant mortality rates are among the worst in the world and political opponents are jailed or driven into exile.

The government is really run like a family-run business. Obiang’s family fills the Cabinet. There’s Obiang’s son, also Teodoro, Vice President (!) who is Minister of Agriculture and Forests (while he buys up properties and pursues a career as a rap producer in Hollywood), while another relative is Minister of Mines, Industry and Energy (meaning oil).

It’s clear why the Obiangs want this match to happen. Equatorial Guinea’s ruling family has been hard at work lately to burnish their reputation, hiring PR consultants (a former Clinton advisor was on its payroll for a while) and trying to have Obiang’s name connected to “human rights” and “good governance” awards (at one point he succeeded in having a UNESCO Prize named for him).

It’s inconceivable that no one at the Spanish FA asked about Equatorial Guinea and the Obiangs’ reputation when the national federation discussed the offer to play in Malabo.

Similarly, why hasn’t there’s been any public outcry or debate over this in Spain, whether by trade unions, social movements, human rights groups or Equatorial Guinean exiles? Yesterday I asked  Pablo Medievilla Costa, one of my former students and a journalist from Barcelona, whether he had heard or read any dissent or debate about this: “Not a word.”

There’s still one week to the game, but we’re not holding our breath.

A quick search online and on Twitter (both in English and Spanish), just yields summaries of the game announcement, though here and there, there’s more. An unlikely source such as Al Ahram (staunch supporters of first Mubarak’s regime and now of the Egyptian military dictatorship), did feel compelled to editorialize:

Considered one of the world’s most corrupt countries, according to Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index, oil-producing Equatorial Guinea’s soccer team are ranked 119th in the world by governing body FIFA.

UPDATE: We found an angry post by Barcelona-based exiled blogger Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel.

Now that the selection of Spain will play with a combination of Brazilian, African and other Latin Americans is just proof that to get children out of bed to hold up a poster against racism in big games is hypocritical, because FIFA is not interested in the fight against inequality, … This goes out to you, tío Vicente del Bosque.

So, here’s a question for the Spanish media (since their counterparts in Malabo would risk their lives by asking): how much of the Equatorial Guinean public purse did the Obiangs pay to the Spanish FA to make this match happen?

… Meanwhile, in South Africa, the country’s largest trade union federation has called on that country’s national team not to go play Swaziland (ranked 183rd by FIFA) in a friendly on November 15th so as to send a message to the country’s autocratic ruler, King Mswati III.

* BTW, Equatorial Guinea’s national team has been mockingly referred to as the “United Nations” of football for the number of naturalized Brazilians and other foreigners–with no apparent connection to the country–selected for the national team. As the South African football journalist Mark Gleeson has summarized FIFA’s policy: “… in order to qualify for international football players must be born in the territory of the relevant team, have a biological parent or grandparent from that territory, or have lived continuously in the country for at least two years.” Equatorial Guinea doesn’t care about those rules.

 

Anthony Bourdain goes to South Africa

In a recent episode of his CNN “Parts Unknown,” the American chef and writer Anthony Bourdain traveled to South Africa. In my mind at least, this episode was long overdue and in fact, I’ve even said so on this blog in the past. The episode focuses on Gauteng Province (Johannesburg and Pretoria), signaling to a desire on the producers’ part to focus on emerging and predominantly urban black South African sensibilities and avoiding the pre-packaged, proto-European sensibilities and more superficially palatable aesthetics of Cape Town and the Western Cape altogether. The result is at once an imperfect and incomplete, yet compelling glimpse into one of the most complicated and confusing places in the world.

Bourdain seems to consciously acknowledge this illogical and indecipherable quality from the very opening sequence, as he stands in Pretoria’s Kruger Square mocking statues of 19th and early 20th century white Afrikaner war heroes (Paul Kruger among them). He harps on the surrealism that these statues haven’t been torn down and what’s more, that the square is filled with black South Africans posing for photographs in front of these monuments of apartheid rule and Afrikaner imperial wet dreams.

Bourdain’s commentary here sets the tone for the rest of the episode: he seems uncharacteristically defeated or confounded by this place and its people. And that is fine.

More than fine–good even. Bourdain has made a name for himself through his cynicism, little ironic quips, and humorously biting zingers. This time however, these signature narrative devices are almost shockingly absent. He appears to be aware that such reporting is inadequate in a place like South Africa. At times, the show on some level almost conveys a collective sense of PTSD that leaves the host and viewer rattled.

He covers all his bases, maneuvering through a variety of issues and locales that typically dominate conversations of the region: African immigrants in Yeoville, Hillbrow’s notoriety, the fundamentally aspirational nature of today’s black urban youth cultures in South Africa, the demands and desires of the ‘born-frees” (the children born after freedom or too young to experience Apartheid), the “Soweto (soccer) Derby” between Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs, urban revitalization projects (through a visit to the Neighborgoods Market in Braamfontein), the shortcomings of the ruling ANC. Though he does not identify them, members of Julius Malema’s new party the Economic Freedom Fighters (they’re shown protesting) even make an appearance.

Given that the episode was filmed while Nelson Mandela was in hospital and conversations of life after Mandela were at a fever-pitch (well in the western press at least), Bourdain unsurprisingly falls into the trap of equating all of South Africa’s achievements (“the country he freed”) and successes with the former leader. However, in the few instances when Anthony Bourdain asks about what happens when Mandela dies outright, his South African interlocutors (members of BLK JKS and then journalist Percy Mabanda) do a very good job of gently setting him back on the right track. While politely acknowledging the appeal of the tendency to think of the man as representative of South Africans’ collective better intentions as a nation, they all make sure to emphasize that the country and the man are not one in the same. Though his death will be a great loss, the people and the country will go on, they offer.

More than anything else, the episode offers a glimpse into the world of a very specific socioeconomic demographic in South Africa: that of the young, predominantly black, educated, and upwardly-mobile urban middle class. (Bourdain hangs out with eclectic Yeoville-based chef Sanza Sandile, the BLK JKS in a Soweto shebeen, and Mabanda at Maboneng.)

However, there are awkward moments. Aside from two truly bizarre segments where Bourdain hunts eland on the sizable game farm of Prospero Bailey, the descendant of a rich, white Johannesburg family and eats at a very white butcher’s in Pretoria adorned with Apartheid South African flags (which we won’t go into here since it could make for an entire post on its own), the two most awkward interactions in the episode involve individuals that do not fall neatly into the small subset of upwardly mobile black South Africans. Rather, these interactions are with people who could more conceivably be seen as members of the South African “masses.”

The individuals I’m referring to are the Hillbrow-based DJ Les, and the minibus taxi driver, Mdu–both of whom Bourdain struggles to relate to and he therefore comes off as awkward and uncomfortable in these scenes. We get little sense of their world, except disjointed scenes. This is not to say that choosing to focus on the aforementioned demographic was a good or bad thing overall. Such monolithic judgements would be inaccurate, it is simply an interesting aspect of the episode to be aware of.

Anyway, the episode is available to watch for free online (some kind person posted it on YouTube), so view it and decide for yourselves whether or not Anthony Bourdain does an adequate job portraying Gauteng to American (and global) audiences:

Against the Gospel of “Africa Rising”

Almost ten years ago, Binyavanga Wainana mocked the relentless bashing of Africa for what it is: ignorance. Nowadays, however, a new gospel could use similar deriding: “tell them six of the ten fastest growing economies in the world are in Africa; drop names like Aliko Dangote and Isabel Dos Santos alongside Magatte Wade and Bethlehem Alemu; point to the 300 million middle class Africans; showcase the bustling cafes and glossy shopping malls with the latest products; spotlight the growing cities with towering structures; and always summon technology as your solution for everything. If they mention conflict, disease or poverty, chastise them for their antiquated colonial ways and refer them back to your points above.”

What’s the problem? In the interest of tackling the distorted and singular narrative of Africa as a continent of need, the “Africa rising” discourse is reinforcing its own one-dimensional story. Bolstered by recent advances in economic growth rates, Africa has been turned into a brand, a product to be packaged and sold on the merits of its financial worth. Its value is discussed and negotiated yet conversations too often exclude the context and implications of the current economic growth or the policies and institutions that sustain it. Africa is certainly rising, but how is it rising? And who is or isn’t rising with it?

The continent’s burgeoning middle class has driven much of that discourse. Stories about its growth, increasing wealth and expanding expenditure have contributed to portray an Africa on the ascent. Prospects are so promising that Mthuli Ncube, chief economist of the African Development Bank (AfDB), suggested that we recalibrate our development priorities:

[Aid and development strategy] will have to concentrate less on the bottom of the pyramid and move to the middle, which means it has to be supportive of private sector initiatives, which then are the way middle class people conduct their lives.

This sentiment is echoed regularly by development institutions.

Never mind that the middle class is a precarious and expansive category lumping together people spending $2 to $20 a day. Let’s also ignore that the so-called “floating class” at the bottom end of the spectrum represent almost 40% of said middle class, people who contend with questions like affording school fees and medical treatment on a regular basis. If we cherry pick the middle, what happens to the rest? It is one thing to use the middle class to unpack singular depictions of the continent, it is another to pivot all development policies and priorities towards them.

The economic model of the United States has informed much of the growth-oriented policies that international institutions prescribe and developing countries follow. But is that model any good? Over the last 25 years, the US economy boomed and collapsed, options in consumer goods grew exponentially while the number of consumers able to afford them shrunk. Despite political discourse on America’s middle-class, inequality increased. In the last four years, 95% of all income gains have gone to the top 1%. Inequality is a choice, as Paul Krugman argued recently, and

…the United States provides a particularly grim example for the world. Because, in so many ways, America often ‘leads the world’, if others follow America’s example, it does not portend well for the future.

On the continent, despite improvements in national economies, technology, and certain human development indicators, almost 2 Africans out of 3 remain affected by poverty. The number of poor people has doubled since 1980s and among the world’s 10 most unequal countries, six are in Africa. In a recent survey of more than 50,000 people in 34 African countries about current economic conditions, half say they struggle to meet daily needs like food, clear water, and medicine. The problem with the “rising Africa” narrative is that it isn’t creating a space for their voices and struggles to come to the surface. In centering the discourse on those who are doing well, the resource-poor are written out of mainstream narratives.

Beyond narratives, I am concerned about the dismissive tenor towards the structures capable of expanding the benefits of growth and of addressing inequality — government and the social sector. The state is often presented as a barrier, a liability ripe with corruption and inefficiency that can be leapfrogged by technology and enterprise. At most, the state’s value is to facilitate an investment-friendly environment for business. Where there is a problem, business can resolve it.

The World Bank and IMF have waged a sustained assault on African public services over several decades, and have never been called to account for the profound and lasting damage they have done.

With corruption, repression, and leadership failures in many countries, it’s hardly a mystery why the state has earned such a bad reputation. However, the implicit exclusion of governments absolves them from their responsibility and undermines the potential role of the state, further endangering the prospects of just and equitable societies. With a weak government, who will hold the private and social sectors accountable? And if the state is as irrelevant as the discourse is rendering it, then why does it occupy so much of the critique in the first place?

Increased investments in the private sector may in fact continue to strengthen the GDP’s of countries, as Tony Elumelu highlights, but they won’t address growing issues of inequality. Who will provide the social services needed to establish safety nets and protection for those at the bottom? Despite the creative offerings of essential services by the private sector, the fundamental needs like access to roads, clean water, energy, education and health must still involve the state. Business interests may flourish with or without a state, but countries can’t make progress without good governance. Leadership, transparency, civic engagement, organizing and advocacy must therefore remain central in the “Africa” dialogue.

The current discourse on Africa’s future also touts the end of aid and the rise of business as the continent’s savior. Aid agencies and NGOs are often viewed as relics of an old era, marked by need, charity and dependence, a stain on Africa’s history that has corrupted our collective stories. It is clear today that aid is not an engine of growth: the mistake of the past two decades was relying on it as a development tool. Many aid agencies and charities continue to offer much fodder for critique, of which Invisible Children’s public hunt for Kony has become a symbol. Still, the blanket rejection of this sector is a disservice to critical dialogue and necessary improvements.

The discourse on the role of aid too often lacks nuance and context. Efforts must be made to distinguish humanitarian intervention from development action, aid agencies from civil society actors, international organizations from local ones and, most importantly, the ineffective ones from those that are innovative and transformational. Demands for greater efficiency, accountability and impact are essential drivers of change but they shouldn’t come at the expense of the entire social sector. We must find ways to promote promising and effective models while eliminating those that are failing.

In doing so, Africans should remain vigilant. The concept of “African-led development” seems to have bridged many past divides, bringing under the same banner institutions like the World Bank with African advocates. Platforms that were once closed are now open to African voices, be it TED or the New York Times. It isn’t uncommon to see Africans represented on high-level panels organized by the likes of USAID. As the priorities and spaces of activists and institutions converge, we should however ask ourselves: which Africans are gaining entry to institutional and mainstream development spaces and why? Is this change indicative of tangible shifts in power or is it simply a cosmetic facelift? On the continent or in the diaspora, we have insights into a different and constantly shifting picture of our communities, and that complex mosaic is still missing from most narratives.

The conversation on Africa’s rise will likely continue to grow as various African nations climb the income ladder. Integral to that conversation are definitions and measures: is success defined by how much GDPs grow, how many phones Africans own, tech hubs they start, investments they attract or billionaires they count among their ranks? Or is it measured by the inequality gaps that are reduced, the livelihoods that are strengthened, and the freedoms expanded? In the prevailing “Africa rising” discourse it is all about the former. If we want meaningful and transformative change, we need to pursue the latter as well.

Image: from the series “The Forgotten” by Hahn + Hartung.

The #BullshitFiles: Expedition (Joseph) Kony

Another case of: Please Stop This Now. After Invisible Children’s Kony 2012 campaign to stop Joseph Kony’s violence waned and flamed out, a new hero has finally arrived to save us from the warlord. Journalist, author of the book The World’s Most Dangerous Places and rugged man’s man, Robert Pelton, has taken it upon himself to find Kony … with your (financial) support. Pelton is currently raising money on a crowd-sourcing platform for “Dangerous Magazine,” a show (and magazine) that seeks to not only deliver excitement to audiences by taking them where the problems are located—but also deliver solutions! And Pelton will make our journey entertaining, wandering into dangerous places on simple barges, and walk all alone through picturesque rivers framed by jungle ferns (despite the fact that armies of camera, luggage, and security personnel are accompanying him), as the promotional video—with its attendant stereotypes of Africa/Third World Jungle-Gone-Wrong—demonstrates.

The concept is as simple as ordering take-out: pick your adventure from the convenience of your home by giving money and telling Pelton where to go and what to do, and Pelton and his team will “deliver the product.” To demonstrate just how skilled Pelton and his team are and what they are able to accomplish, their first mission will be to find a man that US Special Forces and others have failed to locate. Others who’ve tried the same “have limitations to what they are prepared to do, and they after a while start to benefit from the existence of Kony,” Pelton told Foreign Policy. “It becomes a self-licking lollipop.” We assume he is talking about Invisible Children. His team, however, is different, he claims. The righteous are coming to finally solve Africa’s biggest problem. BTW, that Foreign Policy post as a bonus also includes this neat summary of Invisible Children:

… the group has raised millions of dollars off Kony’s back for an organization with deep ties to anti-gay, creationist groups and was co-founded by a man whose celebrity took on a life of its own after he suffered a breakdown and paraded naked through the streets of San Diego.

We always insisted that the evangelical basis for their campaign was weirdly ignored when the whole thing blew up.

But back to Pelton. In his promo video Pelton says he won’t use the plight of people in Africa to entertain us: “What we’re trying to do is not to use people’s misery as entertainment, but we’re trying to solve their problems.” Of course, we hear him saying this right as the camera shows starving children and a boy with his hand cut off. While there is an overt dissonance between images and rhetoric in the video, that’s part of the game; if anyone accuses him of the very thing he’s doing, he can say that it’s our fault for interpreting his intent incorrectly. The promotional video is also a great example of how journalism aimed at Western audiences has become entertainment masquerading as activism, with little to do with the people whose problems they claim to be solving.

Then: Finding people is simple, he adds. And the UN people know where Kony is: they intercept his satellite phone convos. So, it’s not like the NSA doesn’t know where he is. So why does this genius need to take people from the NGO world (you know, they are known for good investigative journalism) to go on a picturesque trek through stream beds framed by jungle ferns?

Of course mainstream media (BBC, NPR, Monocle, etcetera) jumped on it–writing borderline PR puff pieces–they’ll claim they’re curious–about the project. Chances are Pelton won’t make it. He is still way off his intended fundraising target. We could go on and on about this, but it will suffice to say: This is the newest example of activism as adventurism, in which Africa is a just a picturesque backdrop for TV entertainment. We don’t need any more of this.

 

* Neelika Jayawardane contributed to this post.

Kwadwo Asamoah makes it 150 appearances in Serie A

Last Saturday Kwadwo “Kojo” Asamoah played his 150th Serie A match (vs Parma). Currently with Juventus (since June 2012), the Ghanaian midfielder started his Serie A career at Udinese (2008-2012, 114 matches, 8 goals), before he moved to Juventus. He first came to Italy as a youth team player at Torino earlier in 2008, after a short stay at a Swiss club and before that an even briefer career in Ghana.

In his short time with Juventus, Asamoah has already won a Serie A medal (2012/2013) and the Super Cup. Though he forged his reputation as a high-energy central midfielder, Juventus manager Antonio Conte has used Asamoah as a wing-back in his unusual retro formation, which involves two strikers, three centre-halves and a pair of marauding wing-backs, of which Asamoah is one. This has made him a key figure in debates about tactics and tactical innovation in a period where all but a very few top level managers are firmly set into a 4-2-3-1 orthodoxy in the mode of Mourinho or Wenger.

Asamoah is not shy about publicly sharing his good fortune. He is a relentless tweeter, sharing pics of teammates including one of his son with Giorgio Ciellini (“Beauty and the Beast“), meeting the king of the Asante or — that staple of West African footballers — professing his love of Jesus (serial hashtag: #BecauseofHim).

But back to his Serie A exploits: Asamoah is clearly a favorite at the club (he takes center-stage in the club’s promotions, remarkable given how racist Italy and Serie A is). And the fans love him. One fan-made video is simply titled ”Too Fast, Too Strong” (set to a Linkin Park remix yes):

It is now a thing with football blogs to reduce the game to video highlights of goals, something we’re trying to break with. Yet the goals he has scored in Italy are spectacular. In total, he’s scored 10 goals in Serie A. Here’s some of them as well as that debut goal for Juventus in the Super Cup in the summer.

(1) Overhead goal for Juventus vs Pescara in November 2012:

(2) One year into his Udinese career, he scored this goal vs Cagliari:

(3) Or this goal for Udinese vs Fiorentina in April 2009:

(4) Finally, though not a Serie A goal, I had to include this mid-August 2013 Super Cup goal for Juventus vs Napoli — on his debut for the club:

* Asamoah, who has had 57 national caps since 2006, can also make history with Ghana this summer in Brazil as the first African team to make it beyond the quarterfinals of the World Cup–they still have a second play-off match against Egypt coming up (he almost scored in the first leg which the Blacks Stars won 6-1).

The most superficial and platitudinous politician in South Africa

If leaked reports to local media are to be believed, Mmusi Maimame is one of the two young turks vying for the future leadership spot of South Africa’s ‘official opposition party’–the Democratic Alliance. The spot will open once their current strongwoman Helen Zille finally relinquishes her position after next year’s national election. The other candidate is DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko.

Maimane is the leader of the DA in the Johannesburg City Council and is running for Premier of South Africa’s political and economic center–the province of Gauteng (where Johannesburg is located). If DA hubris means anything, it is that they honestly believe they have a chance of wresting Gauteng out of the hands of the ruling African National Congress (ANC).

Maimane, despite his apparent reputation in DA circles as a “man of the people,” appears to possess a rather limited political imagination. Or rather he comes off as being perhaps the most superficial and platitudinous politician in South Africa. A highly coveted award, when one is competing with the high standards set by the likes of Mamphela Ramphele.

He and his campaign team have shamelessly pilfered from the inspirational vagaries of the Obama 2008 campaign. From their official campaign slogan #BelieveGP to the fact they have a campaign bus decked out in the conservative blue of the DA with a decal of the above hashtag to cruise around the recently e-tolled highways of Gauteng. His team even called his campaign launch event last Saturday “the Believe in Change rally.” This is his and the DA’s rather lame attempt to reach out to the young black voters they desperately hope to capture in order to make a serious dent in the ANC’s share of the electorate.

Maimane described himself in a recent op-ed in the (Johannesburg) Sunday Independent as “a communicator by profession.” What this means is that he worked as “consultant on transforming private companies”–a suitably vague career–and later as a “motivational” speaker.

In the same op-ed, he failed to articulate a politics beyond an opposition to the “dictatorial” tendencies of the ruling party and being against the usual enemies: “corruption,” “inefficiency” and for all the usual things like “sustainable land reform.”

This however isn’t his greatest sin against those who view politics as a business to be kept out of the greedy hands of advertising executives. No, indeed in an interview with the same Sunday Independent published last Saturday, he showed us all that he has the personality of a self-help guru (‘motivational speaker’) and the politics of a Hallmark gift card. We now know which celebrities he aspires to meet, his taste or lack thereof in literature and other such things for the cynics among us to mock on social media.

Take this for example:

What makes you proudly South African?

The people of this great nation, their strength in overcoming obstacles, their humility and forgiveness and their determination to make our future bright.

Zero content, perfect form. Maimane presents no opportunity for gaffes or anything of remote interest to anyone unconvinced by focus group tested answers. He presents the post-racial in the form of the values of “humility and forgiveness”, or in other words blacks must suck it up and forget the past in order to “make our future bright.”

Another example of this can be found here–in which Maimane outlines the DA’s vision of the post-racial “open opportunity society.” A society in which race doesn’t matter, a hallmark card vision of the rainbow nation in which all the social strife and stratification which currently muddies the waters is suddenly washed away by the power of the platitude.

What do you hope for your children and the children of South Africa?

I hope for a place where skin colour no longer matters, where everyone has a chance to make the best of their lives, a chance to be something, go somewhere and provide for their families.

His taste in dinner guests is inoffensive and rather dull.

 Who would you invite to your dream dinner, dead or alive?

Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama, Denzel Washington

Who doesn’t like Denzel?

His life can be reduced to three words ideal for the self-help guru’s cheap Infomercial.

Describe your life in three words?

Live, love, learn

And his taste in literature.

What are you reading?

Zuma Exposed (by Beeld editor Adriaan Basson) and A Team of Rivals, about former US president Abraham Lincoln

Maimane mentions bestselling US pop historian and serial plagiarizer Doris Kerwin Goodwin’s A Team of Rivals again, later in the interview. Goodwin is described by Salon.com’s Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenburg as an inspired cheerleader masquerading as a professional historian. Guilty of recycling old stories in a popular book or outright theft from more academic work and passing it along to the punditocracy as a New York Times bestseller.

Maimane wants the reader to know not only has he read the aforementioned book, but it has played an important role in his own political development along with the Bible.

Which book changed your life?

Man. These vary from the Bible, to inspirational books on management, leadership and politics. If I had to choose one A Team of Rivals would be one of my favorites.

A Team of Rivals is a wholly unoriginal work of popular history that tells the tale of how US president Abraham Lincoln managed to bring his political rivals into his wartime cabinet. This ‘team of rivals’ after many mishaps was eventually able to win the civil war for the union team.

The book played a key role in Obama’s 2008 campaign and supposedly influenced his political development greatly. Asked what book he would take with him if he were to be hypothetically exiled to a desert island, Obama replied quickly “A Team of Rivals”.

In US politics to boast about reading Goodwin’s book, is to hint that one is committed to the ideal of “bipartisanship.” Bipartisanship means in the discourse of US politics that you’re willing to work with the other team for the greater good. This is closely linked to highly coveted reputation of being a “pragmatist”, something most Democrats value enough to support invading Iraq or to come out in favor of cutting social security.

Obama embraced ‘bipartisanship’ from the beginning, when he appointed his rival in the primary campaign Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State and giving Bush’s man Robert Gates another stint as Secretary of Defense or more recently giving republican ‘moderate’ Chuck Hagel Gates’ old position.

Bipartisanship, as the late great Alexander Cockburn pointed out, actually means:

Really big decisions about the nation’s economic destiny are considered much too important to run the risk of any popular, democratic input. When you see the word bipartisan, know that the fix is in and democracy out of the loop.

Bipartisanship is a cherished ideal of pundits, who yearn for elites to come together and unite to push a moderate agenda free of ideology and accountably to the masses–because they can’t be trusted at all.

The same applies to foreign policy and imperialist war of course. But why on earth would Mmusi Maimane boast about reading this particular book as part of his carefully crafted script used to cultivate an appealingly bland public persona? Surely he could have followed the usual route and waxed lyrical about Mandela’s The Long Walk to Freedom? This would have continued the DA’s official tradition of pretending that they are the true representatives of Mandela’s legacy.

And if he was reaching out to the liberal right faction within the DA–who apparently don’t like him too much because he talks about ‘Ubuntu’–he could have just said that Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton (the holy text of South African liberalism). No, Maimane is clearly obsessed with US politics and in particular the figure of Barack Obama and his ‘inspirational’ 2008 campaign. That 2008 campaign seems to have happened an age ago, before Obama showed us how dedicated he is to sucking up to Wall Street at home and imperialist war abroad.

To return to Cockburn again, he summed up Obama’s politics:

Abroad, Obama stands for imperial renaissance. He has groveled before the Israel lobby and pandered to the sourest reflexes of the cold war era. At home he has crooked the knee to bankers and Wall Street, to the oil companies, the coal companies, the nuclear lobby, the big agricultural combines. He is even more popular with Pentagon contractors than McCain . . . He has been fearless in offending progressives, constant in appeasing the powerful.

The vapid rhetoric of ‘change’ compromised with policies, which are more than anything, a continuation with what the other team has been doing and continues to do. In the case of the DA their fundamental policies aren’t too different to the ANC’s in terms of the economy, both are dedicated to a firmly neoliberal economic path premised on bringing in austerity and limiting worker’s rights under the guise of a ‘social compact’. Whilst proposing tepid ‘solutions’ to our national malaise including and not limited to the youth wage subsidy. That particular policy has been put into practice by Zuma’s ANC. Irvin Jim of NUMSA (National Union of the Metalworkers of South Africa)–South Africa’s largest and most radical union–has even gone as far as to term the ANC’s new National Development Plan–the supposedly be all and end all of future ANC policy–as partially lifted from the DA’s policy book.

In the aforementioned op-ed, Maimane failed to articulate a politics beyond an opposition to the ‘dictatorial’ tendencies of the ruling party and being against the usual enemies; ‘corruption’, inefficiency’ and for the usual things ‘sustainable land reform’ and being for initiatives “that enhance socio-economic development and create jobs.” What these things are, beyond creating a pleasant and temperate investment climate for foreign investors and loosening up of labour laws, is left to the imagination. These are all things which the ANC claims to support and can be found in even vaguer language in the NDP. He even came out in favor of previous DA bugbears ‘social grants’ and ‘broad based black empowerment’. In essence what the DA and Maimane seem to be claiming is that the DA can do the ANC’s job and policies better than the guys currently in power.

At his “rally for change” in Kliptown in the sprawling township of Soweto, 7,000 blue-shirted persons were entertained by endless videos of Maimane visiting places and a DA hip-hop crew encouraging voters to register for a “better life.” When Maimane finally took to the podium, the best he could offer was that he was for change and jobs and against corruption. A crowd sick of the ANC’s arrogance, corruption and general indifference to the plight of the poor or perhaps motivated by “gifts”–a common feature in South African politics–cheered him on. But as those witnessing from the DA’s model of governance in the crime-ridden slums of the Cape Flats in such places as Nyanga and Manenberg can tell you–”change” means more of the same under the DA.

Maimane more than anything represents the rebranding of the DA’s solid neoliberalism through promoting a black face capable of connecting to the masses with vacuous rhetoric and cheap political stunts.

In that he mirrors his political idol Obama.

Reimagining Ghana’s Cinemaspace

A thread that runs through all creative mediums from fashion to architecture to cinema is that cultural icons of the bygone days can be fertile inspiration for the contemporary creative imagination. It was in this spirit that Ghanaian-American filmmaker Akosua Adoma Owusu wrote and directed her short film, Kwaku Ananse. Starring rising talent Jojo Abot, palmwine legend Koo Nimo and film veteran Grace Omaboe, the film is a reimagining of the classic Ghanaian tale of the spider. Supported by the Africa First film program, Kwaku Ananse went on to win an African Movie Academy Award and screened this year at the Durban and Toronto International film festivals.

Akosua’s current project is also a reimagining of sorts. This time, she hopes to add social relevance to Ghana’s iconic Rex Cinema house. Once a central element of entertainment in Accra, the Rex has fallen into disrepair and is at risk of being sold. The idea is to transform the now dormant structure into a vibrant multimedia artspace in the middle of Accra. To bring about this transformation, Akosua has started a kickstarter campaign called “Damn the Man, Save the Rex”. If funded, the campaign plans to renovate the building as well as install new projection and sound systems, creating a meeting place for members of Ghana’s growing arts community to showcase their talents.

The project will only be funded if it reaches its target by November 15th. If you want to contribute, click here to visit the campaign’s kickstarter page. Read our interview with Akosua below to learn more about the project and find out who her favorite classic and contemporary Ghanaian artists are. But first, the campaign’s trailer:

What inspired you to revive the Rex Cinema?

After winning the Africa Movie Academy Award for Ghana earlier this year, I wanted a place to premiere Kwaku Ananse, which was about preserving a Ghanaian cultural fable. I wanted to simulate the experience of listening to stories outdoors by a fireside, but couldn’t find a venue that worked. I was always fascinated by Ghana’s creative cultural spaces, specifically our cinema houses – which have long been inactive. Eventually, Alliance Française and Insitut Français premiered my short film at outdoor events at their venues. Following those successful events, I decided it was time to revive Ghana’s cultural spaces and use them to promote emerging Ghanaian artists and alternative cultural production.

What led to the Rex Cinema falling into disrepair?

There are a lot of reasons why The Rex is falling into disrepair – everything from politics to lack of resources and interest. The Rex Cinema is just one of many cinema houses that are deteriorating. Ghana’s cinema culture flourished during its independence days. The first president, Kwame Nkrumah, envisioned using the arts to promote our culture to the world and built many cultural institutions including West Africa’s largest movie production house, and Ghana’s film school NAFTI. As Ghana began to compete internationally in video and television production, it became less of a cinema culture and more of a television culture. Today, the needs of Ghanaian creatives are not being met. As a result, we are losing our cultural landmarks and unique creative expressions.

What kinds of activities do you envision for the space once it’s renovated?

I envision using the Rex to screen work from Africa and the African Diaspora, and to create relevant public programs. I intend to borrow ideas from one of my favorite theorists, Paul Gilroy, and foster a radical transnational dialogue between Africans and Africans in the diaspora. Resurrecting the Rex Cinema is part of a larger vision to stimulate a creative culture that appreciates Ghanaian perspectives and stories in the context of contemporary Ghanaian society. Someone recently suggested that I feature FELA! The Musical at the Rex. I’m also interested in exchanging cultural programming with youth in Harlem and street kids in Ghana.

How do you plan to ensure the art space is maintained for years to come?

Since launching the Save the Rex initiative, I heard from several potential investors who shared their concerns about sustainability. Though my concern is about the immediate needs of the Ghanaian art scene, I plan to curate monthly cultural events that will help sustain the Rex and our creative culture. I believe the only way we can grow as artists is if we collaborate, and I look forward to collaborating with my creative peers and the various institutions that have supported me in the past, like CalArts in California and the Studio Museum in Harlem in New York. I believe the Rex Cinema can be a great space, where Ghanaians can screen their films, rehearse for concerts and simply hang out. I also want to help develop a movie-watching subculture.

What are some examples of classic Ghanaian cinema and theatre that you admire?

Examples of classic Ghanaian cinema that I admire are “I Told You So” (1970) and Kwaw Ansah’s “Love Brewed in the African Pot”. Few people know that I reached out to him as a potential producer for Kwaku Ananse, because I knew the kind of film I wanted to make. It made me so happy when people who viewed the trailer told me it reminded them of his films. As for theater, I would have to say Efua Sutherland’s “The Marriage of Anansewaa” is a very successful piece of classic Ghanaian theater that I read for inspiration while researching Kwaku Ananse. Sutherland’s play inspired me to take a traditional oral story and translate it into a playful cinematic art form.

What are the most exciting elements of the contemporary cinema/arts scene in Ghana?

Many of my close friends in Accra are musicians, and there is an openness in their collaboration. Africans and Africans in the diaspora are also collaborating – coming together to inspire and create with each other. Some of the most exciting events of the contemporary arts scene in Ghana are the Chale Wote Street Art Festival in Jamestown, Accra and IndieFuse – a music festival. Both are organized by Accra dot Alt. And, then there is Ehalakasa poetry slam, which showcases the best up-and-coming poets like Mutombo the Poet, Nana Asaase, and Jahwai. I want to help foster a new wave of Ghanaian experimental filmmakers who promote Ghanaian creative culture in innovative ways. If I can use my knowledge to inspire other Ghanaian creatives, I would love contribute to their creative experience. The Rex Cinema could be the mecca for African artists to unite.

Borussia Dortmund coach Jürgen Klopp says out load what a lot of people think

We may not agree with his preference for English football–we hope he is talking about Sunderland vs Hull when he talks about “rainy day, heavy pitch, everybody is dirty in the face and they go home and can’t play football for the next four weeks.” But he definitely has a point about FC Barcelona’s one-sided wins:

If Barcelona’s team of the last four years were the first one that I saw play when I was four years of age … with their serenity, winning 5-0, 6-0 … I would have played tennis. Sorry, that is not enough for me. What I love is that there are some things you can do in football to allow each team to win most of the matches … It is not serenity football, it is fighting football – that is what I like … The important thing is new ideas, not money,” he says. “It is important to make the next step. You always want to be the team that can beat the one with more money.

The Guardian