Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 687

'50 Pounds and a Chicken'

NEWSWEEK [magazine]'s Christopher Dickey chats with [Nawal El-Saadawi]the octogenarian author and activist who refused to go home when protests in Cairo turned violent [when Mubarak's thugs attacked protesters].

Looting Egypt

Earlier this week, Sophie Azeb posted an incisor-sharp piece about the focus on the "destruction of invaluable mummies" in a time when Egyptians are not only actively engaged in protecting their artifacts from government thugs, but giving up thier lives to have a say in their political present.

Rewind to the 24th of January this year:

Egypt's top archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, formally requested the return of the 3,300-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti that has been kept in Berlin's museums for decades. The bust is high on Egypt's wish list of artifacts desired for repatriation; they are intended for display at the Grand Egyptian Museum, scheduled to open in 2012 at Giza.

Germany has declined past Egyptian requests for the bust's return, saying it was acquired legally and is too fragile to move; however, the bust had to be evacuated from the Neues Museum when a Royal Air Force air raid during World War II ruined most of the complex of buildings. When the museum reopened – restored by the British architect, Sir David Allan Chipperfield, who kept the bullet holes and WWII scars intact – the bust became the central attraction, with thousands lining up to see that glorious long neck and almond eyes. But though the close up images distributed for press show her in warm tones, Nefertiti is actually isolated in a prison-like glass tube, looking more like Lenin in his mausoleum.

Hawass' campaign has returned some 5,000 artifacts to Egypt from museums and private collections the world over since its launch in 2002. The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees museums in Berlin, stated that its policy towards Nefertiti's return remains "unchanged." No wonder: one million visitors now go to see it every year.

"They don't like me for making these requests," said Hawass. "But I don't care; I am doing this for Egypt."

Read the story here.

No Laughing Matter

We know that Egyptian dictator has a macabre sense of humor: ""I am fed up. After 62 years in public service, I have had enough. I want to go [but] if I resign today, there will be chaos … I don't care what people say about me. Right now I care about my country." But we also know that his people have laughed at him for a while. There's a great piece by blogger Issandr El Amrani (The Arabist) in Foreign Policy Magazine–on the jokes Egyptians tell about their dictator. Like the one above.

Here's two more (on Mubarak) mentioned by El Amrani:

"What will the Egyptian people do without me?" His advisor tries to comfort him: "Mr. President, don't worry about the Egyptians. They are a resilient people who could survive by eating stones!" Mubarak pauses to consider this and then tells the advisor to grant his son Alaa a monopoly on the trade in stones.

The second joke:

Hosni Mubarak, Barack Obama, and Vladimir Putin are at a meeting together when suddenly God appears before them.

"I have come to tell you that the end of the world will be in two days," God says. "Tell your people."

So each leader goes back to his capital and prepares a television address.

In Washington, Obama says, "My fellow Americans, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I can confirm that God exists. The bad news is that he told me the world would end in two days."

In Moscow, Putin says, "People of Russia, I regret that I have to inform you of two pieces of bad news. First, God exists, which means everything our country has believed in for most of the last century was false. Second, the world is ending in two days."

In Cairo, Mubarak says, "O Egyptians, I come to you today with two pieces of excellent news! First, God and I have just held an important summit. Second, he told me I would be your president until the end of time."

On the Road with Ebo Taylor

Following the release of "Love and Death", Ebo Taylor is touring in Europe these days. Although the album was recorded with the Berlin-based Afrobeat Academy, during this tour he is backed by Bonze Konkoma. Don't miss it. The above video was shot in January 2010 during a string of performances with the Afrobeat Academy in Ghana. - Tom Devriendt

My Brother's Keeper

Zimbabwean rapper/MC/poet UpMost aka My Brother's Keeper shares his 'Lost for Words', recorded in Harare by Magee McIlvaine for Nomadic Wax. - Tom Devriendt

Edouard Glissant est mort

The writer Edouard Glissant has died. Glissant, a native of Martinique, citizen of France, was known for his work on African identity in the Caribbean and on French colonialism. He was also a poet. He died yesterday, aged 83, in Paris. The video, above, is an extract of a film, "Making History," with Glissant and Linton Kwesi Johnson, discussing Caribbean identity politics. It is also a good place to get a start on his ideas. You can watch the film here.

More recently, following the 2005 riots by mostly black and immigrant youths in working class Paris "suburbs," Glissant and fellow Martinican author Patrick Chamoiseau wrote a letter to then-French Minister of the Interior, Nicolas Sarkozy. (At the time Sarkozy used racist language to denounce local "thugs" and vowed to "cleanse" the projects of troublemakers.) Glissant and Chamoiseau's letter, which was reproduced in media worldwide,

… described the riots as direct consequences of slavery and European colonialism. It also criticized a new law requiring schools to teach the 'positive role of the French presence overseas, particularly in North Africa.' Glissant and Chamoiseau wrote: 'Memory faces off with the world's truths, and the act of living together is now located within the balancing acts of the world's truths …'

R.I.P.

Music Break

The video for the Dominican merengue singer, Rita Indiana's "El Juidero," the title track of her October 2010 release. The video for the song (a narrative about escaping to Puerto Rico), "… plays like a short film, a 1970s crime movie fantasy with heavy doses of "El Malo"-era Fania style, real-life Dominican political intrigue," wrote New York City journalist Carolina Gonzalez (in "The Daily News" last December). It features a cameo by merengue elder Johnny Ventura and was directed by Indiana's frequent collaborator and girlfriend, Puerto Rican filmmaker Noelia Quintero.

Google's Art Project

Google's new Art Project makes use of the street-view technology to take us by the hand through some of the better known museums around the world. There's the Tate Britain and The National Gallery in London, the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, the Uffizi in Florence. There's Prague, Berlin, Washington DC, Madrid, Amsterdam… Marvelous. The Museum of Marrakech, The National Museum in Lagos and The Nairobi National Museum? The museums in Cairo or Johannesburg? Not just yet. Street View works fine in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town, so it can't be too hard to pay a visit to one of their museums, can it? Which ones do we want to see included? - Tom Devriendt

The Endgame

The End is near. I have no illusions about this regime or its leader, and how [Hosni Mubarak] will pluck us and hunt us down one by one till we are over and done with and 8 months from now will pay people to stage fake protests urging him not to leave power, and he will stay "because he has to acquiesce to the voice of the people". This is a losing battle and they have all the weapons, but we will continue fighting until we can't.

–Egyptian blogger Sandmonkey.

'Promised Land'

The Institute for Retired Professionals

Fridays@One

A Screening of PROMISED LAND with filmmaker YORUBA RICHEN and commentary by SEAN JACOBS, GPIA

Friday, Feb 11, 1 PM,

Wollman Hall, 66 West 12th Street

Yoruba Richen's powerful documentary, Promised Land, offers us an inside look at the story of land reform and racial reconciliation in the new, post-apartheid South Africa. The screening is followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker and Sean Jacobs of the New School Graduate Program in International Afairs. Sean Jacobs, a native of Cape Town, South Africa, holds a Ph.D. in Politics from the University of London and is an Assistant Professor at GPIA.

Cosponsored with the Graduate Program in International Affairs and the Global Studies Undergraduate Program.

Admission is free of charge, but reservations are a MUST:

212 229-5682 or irp@newschool.edu

Reservations for New School students may be placed after December 1; for all others, reservations will be accepted after January 5.

For some background. Here and here.