radio freedom sessions
who speaks for africa?
“The time has passed when Europe decided things on its own and Africa fell in line,” said Senegal’s Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio to Reuters reporters “on the sidelines” of a meeting from Dakar today.
What appears above to be a critical African voice on the illegal migration issue, actually serves to assert Europe’s control over Africa. I’m going out on a limb here, so bear with me…
Maybe I’m trying to do too much with this post, but there are so many things going on in this Reuters article. I can’t find other online coverage of the story either…so I’ve taken the liberty of including sub-texts (what I think the article says by not saying) in parentheses and further comments inserted as you’ll see – I hope…
Here is how the story goes according to Reuters.
Gadio and other “senior African officials” were responding to an EU decision made in June that says illegal immigrants could be detained for up to 18 months and be banned from re-entry for five years.
When the EU agreed upon the detention rule in June this year, the response from Latin America promptly “sparked outrage”: Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez said it recalled “times of xenophobia” and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Europe had “legalised barbarity.”
(This is articulated in the kind of left rhetoric expected from Latin America. And where was Africa?)
…Africa, from where thousands of would-be immigrants risk their lives each year trying to reach Europe in rickety boats, had so far been largely silent on the new EU measures.
(So Africa missed the rickety boat. The EU decision was made in June and Africa responded weeks later. Further substantiation in ‘Africa’s’ voice):
“It’s a pity that Africans did not react more quickly to this situation,” Dominique Guerematchi, an ambassador from Central African Republic, told Reuters.
A pity?
The article contains more quotes from ‘Africa’ as being “surprised”, “outraged” and “shocked” – all of which in the framework of the article itself can only come off as laughable. Africa really, is laughably naive.
Finally, the piece concludes with information on a “migration pact” between EU states that will be concluded in October this year, the intention of which is to:
expel more illegal immigrants while promoting legal migration and a policy by 2010. These common asylum initiatives are the latest steps by EU members to address voter concerns over immigration and they follow efforts to set up joint border patrols and biometric police databases.
And finally we are told that all of this is really a “sensitive issue”.
The markings in bold above mean to highlight the innocuous-sounding words chosen to describe Europe’s legalised brutality and the criminal treatment of people.
According to the article, Africa agrees that “illegal migration must be fought”, but it’s unhappy with how it is being fought. The EU doesn’t respect “pledges” nor does it respect the “human dignity” of (African) people.
So what is ‘Africa’ saying exactly, according to the journalist: that EU states must keep out unwanted (“illegal”) Africans, but they have to be nice about it?
The news piece represents the position of Africa essentially as a non-position. Africa is like a naïve, recalcitrant employee (read “official”) who turns up late for a meeting with the boss (EU); agrees to the terms of the boss-policy but then shows a little cheek because it would like for the boss to be a nicer boss.
Finally, in the article, who speaks for Latin America? Presidents do. Latin America is the voice / pigeonhole of the rhetorical and bullish left-leaders.
Who speaks for Africa? Officials; and don’t we know how prone African officials are to “persuasion”. Africa is referred to as one borderless and ‘poor’ mass – as far as the EU is concerned, making it much easier to penetrate. Amongst Africans, borders become important suddenly, but in the global / EU context, a homogenous ‘Africa’ will do nicely thank you. Compare this to how the EU is referred as the EU states – united, but separate. Bordered, patrolled, monitored – and impenetrable.
Who speaks for the EU states? Nobody – or so it seems. In fact it is the voice of the author, the writer/s, the article itself that speaks for Europe. The voice of God.
I’ll assume that readers here accept the notion of fortress Europe and its sometimes patriarchal relationship with ex-colonies. The implications of the detention rule and all the other “steps” being taken to seal Europe’s borders from hordes of poor Africans is of course xenophobic and barbaric. But that is not even what I’m concerned with here.
What I’ve hoped to show instead is how a popular news article on the issue of legality/illegality with regard to the free movement of people across national borders – is able to insidiously entrench Europeans as free to move, and Africans (and others) as permanently illegal.
Independent media coverage of borders and the movement of people is important as is critically reading the popular media’s news. And if the standard for free movement is “legality” as determined by EU rules, pacts and decisions – maybe we should all be illegal.
Link: pic from Indymedia Ireland
a question of power: remembering bessie
(The circumstances of my birth) seem to have made it necessary to obliterate all traces of family history… I have always been just me with no frame of reference to anything beyond myself. — Bessie Head, quoted in Drum Magazine, 1982.
Born on this day, 1937, in Pietermaritzburg’s Fort Napier Mental Institution, Bessie Head was the offspring of an “illicit” union between a wealthy (white) Scottish immigrant mother and a still-unidentified and poor (black) “stable hand” father.
Succumbing to hepatitis in 1986 at the age of 49, Head died in relative poverty just when she was beginning to achieve acclaim for her writing. Courageous and poetic, her writing (and life) challenges the effects of colonialism on the psyche of the oppressed, prejudice and always questions power.
From Maru, 1971:
“When people of the Masarwa tribe heard about Maru’s marriage to one of their own, a door silently opened on the small, dark airless room in which their souls had been shut for a long time. The wind of freedom, which was blowing throughout the world for all people, turned and flowed into the room.
As they breathed in the fresh, clear air their humanity awakened. They examined their condition. There was the fetid air, the excreta and the horror of being an oddity of the human race, with half the head of a man and half the body of a donkey.
They laughed in an embarrassed way, scratching their heads. How had they fallen into this condition when, indeed, they were as human as everyone else? They started to run out into the sunlight, then they turned and looked at the dark, small room. They said: ‘We are not going back there.’ “
Link: A Skin of Her Own
Link: A short biography & bibliography
half-caste
Excuse me
standing on one leg
I’m half-caste
Explain yuself
wha yu mean
when yu say half-caste
yu mean when picasso
mix red an green
is a half-caste canvas
explain yuself
wha u mean
when yu say half-caste
yu mean when light an shadow
mix in de sky
is a half-caste weather
well in dat case
england weather
nearly always half-caste
in fact some o dem cloud
half-caste till dem overcast
so spiteful dem dont want de sun pass
ah rass
explain yuself
wha yu mean
when yu say half-caste
yu mean tchaikovsky
sit down at dah piano
an mix a black key
wid a white key
is a half-caste symphony
Explain yuself
wha yu mean
Ah listening to yu wid de keen
half of mih ear
Ah looking at u wid de keen
half of mih eye
and when I’m introduced to yu
I’m sure you’ll understand
why I offer yu half-a-hand
an when I sleep at night
I close half-a-eye
consequently when I dream
I dream half-a-dream
an when moon begin to glow
I half-caste human being
cast half-a-shadow
but yu come back tomorrow
wid de whole of yu eye
an de whole of yu ear
and de whole of yu mind
an I will tell yu
de other half
of my story
– by john agard
amandla: a reading list
The placard caught my eye; I’d not seen this message brandished in a very long time: Knowledge is Power. It’s the one pic i took a month ago at the anti-xenophobia march in joburg, and now it seems an appropriate preface to what’s been “distracting” me from “other work” I’d rather not do tonight… I’m stealing time, or procrastinating, or both or neither – I don’t know yet. This post is an attempt to organise disparate thoughts, to make sentient what’s been swimming beneath; on what to do about power…maybe it leads somewhere.
So here’s a list of news threads & on-line material I’ve set the task of reading over the next week…
Link: Conditions remain dire in xenophobia camps, Surika van Schalkwyk, M&G online: “More than a month after xenophobic attacks shook Gauteng, the feeling of desperation among thousands of foreigners housed at temporary shelters in the province seems to have worsened.”
Link: Police intimidate/assault Delft-Symphony Pavement Dwellers, Anti-Eviction Campaign Press Statement, Sunday 29th June, 2008: “Last night at 22h00, three police vans pulled up to Symphony Way dressed in riot gear. Without warning, they began pepper spraying people in the settlement and attempted to arrest a 58 year old resident named Auntie Tilla. When it was all over, the road’s pastor had been assaulted, beaten and abducted and five residents had been pepper sprayed multiple times.”
Link: Western Cape Housing Crisis: Writings on Joe Slovo & Delft, Martin Legassick, Feb 2008 (PDF).
Link: Wikipedia on the Abahlali baseMjondolo: “In the run-up to the 2010 World Cup, shack dwellers have been considered by some in government as a blight. City Hall has promised to ‘clear the slums’ by 2010 and there are real fears that in Durban, as in other South African cities like Cape Town, shack dwellers will face forced removals and evictions on a major scale in the run up to the World Cup. These fears have escalated greatly with the June 2007 passing of the Prevention of Slums Bill in the Provincial Parliament. The Bill compels landowners to evict on the threat of arrest and criminalises resistance to evictions. The provincial Department of Housing, that brought the Bill to the Provincial Parliament, has repeatedly stated that ‘the slums will be cleared by 2010 in KwaZulu-Natal’. Abahlali is planning mass mobilizing against the Bill and is also taking the matter to the Constitutional Court with support from a pro bono legal legal centre in Johannesburg.”
Link: Change the world without taking power, John Holloway, libcom: “In the beginning is the scream. We scream. When we write or when we read, it is easy to forget that the beginning is not the word, but the scream. Faced with the mutilation of human lives by capitalism, a scream of sadness, a scream of horror, a scream of anger, a scream of refusal: NO.”
Link: Change the world without taking power?…or…Take Power to change the world?, IIRE: A debate on strategies on how to build another world…
Link: The Big Outcome of the ’60s: The Triumph of Capitalism, By Slavoj Zizek, June 27, 2008: “After the social tumult of the ’60s capitalism usurped resistance itself, turning attempts at subversion into commodities.”
music live and direct
Not wanting to set a precedent for this site becoming a gig guide, here are nonetheless two live music gigs this weekend worth some listener-support. Feels like too long since we’ve had music for the masses. It’s also good to see the doors of independent venues opening up to musicians and artists with mental muscle.
Make Some Noise! A Concert For Freedom In Zimbabwe
On Saturday 21st June Jo’burg will see another explosion of MAKE SOME NOISE! The Concert aims to raise awareness about the crisis in Zimbabwe and the suffering that South Africa’s neighbours are going through.
The Concert seeks to intensify the drive in galvanizing the South African public into putting pressure on their government to help make sure that the Presidential Run-Off in Zimbabwe on 27th June is free, fair and that the results are released without delay. The Concert further hopes to challenge xenophobia by bringing Zimbabweans and South Africans together on one stage, building unyielding solidarity and making them realise the predicament that their respective governments have put them in.
The event will take place at the House of Nsako, Joburg’s popular, new live music venue, on 21 June 2008 from 19:00 until late, R50 will get you in.
MAKE SOME NOISE! will feature some of Zimbabwe and South Africa’s most explosive artists. From Zimbabwe there will be Comrade Fatso and Chabvondoka, Zimbabwe’s leading protest band. Comrade Fatso has performed his rebel poetry across the world and has built up a following in South African poetry circles. The controversial poet will be performing with his band Chabvondoka which is stirring up the dance floors of Harare with their insurrectionary blend of poetry, hip hop, chimurenga and jazz. Their album has been banned by the Zimbabwean state but is receiving airplay now all over the world.
Herbie Dangerous is a Harare born hip hop/ragga MC based in Jozi. Herbie’s fast paced hip-hop/dancehall riddims is a unique trademark and is what differentiates the artist from many in his field of craft.
The event will also be graced by two other Zimbabwean poets: Outspoken, a rising voice in the Zimbabwe poetry scene, and Godobori, a powerful poet who chants revolutionary Shona poetry.
From eMzansi, Pops Mohamed will lead the pack, sharing the stage the industrious Kwani Experience. DJ Bionic who will be supplying wicked beats for Herbie Dangerous; Steadyrock!; the rap master supreme Lesego Rampolokeng and DJ Kenzhero will all add their weights to this good cause.
Your hosts for the evening will be Aviwe and Godobori.
For enquiries, please contact langa@lnmentertainment.co.za
Published Jun 17 2008, 08:53 AM by OppikoppiKrew
The Number Blue jazz quartet is going to funk you at 7 Sundays starting at 3pm on Sunday.
The band features singing sensation Nandi Mnyani who graduated from UCT jazz school a few years back and has been on the Cape Town circuit. We also have Dave Ashworth who runs the Drum Institute of South Africa and Ike Omwuagbu who has been playing in the Sun City house band for a long time is now based in Johannesburg. The keyboards are handled by able keys man Arran “Tex” Valkin aka Vulcaniser who lives and dreams music.
The Number Blue plays the big time western and African jazz standards and also composes their own music that is South African through and through.
Brixton cemetry on Right, turn Left into Krause, drive till you find Katjiepiering on Left. 0826001984
an afternoon with bell hooks
The Dead Revolutionaries Club are showing a video on bell hooks tomorrow for anyone interested in the power of culture in social transformation.
Here’s info on the video and see below for details on the screening by DRC:
bell hooks is one of America’s most accessible public intellectuals. In this two-part video, extensively illustrated with many of the images under analysis, she makes a compelling argument for the transformative power of cultural criticism.
In Part One, hooks discusses the theoretical foundations and positions that inform her work (such as the motives behind representations, as well as their power in social and cultural life). hooks also explains why she insists on using the phrase “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” to describe the interlocking systems of domination that define our reality.
Part One: On Cultural Criticism Why Study Popular Culture? / Critical Thinking as Transformation / The Power of Representations / Motivated Representations / Why “White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy? / Enlightened Witness
In Part Two, she demonstrates the value of cultural studies in concrete analysis through such subjects as the OJ Simpson case, Madonna, Spike Lee, and Gangsta rap. The aim of cultural analysis, she argues, should be the production of enlightened witnesses – audiences who engaged with the representations of cultural life knowledgeably and vigilantly.
“The issue is not freeing ourselves from representations. It’s really about being enlightened witnesses when we watch representations.” -bell hooks
Part Two: Doing Cultural Criticism Hoop Dreams: Constructed narrative / Dealing with OJ / Madonna: From feminism to conservatism / Spike Lee: Hollywood’s fall guy / KIDS: Whose gaze? / Rap: Authentic expression or market construct? / Black Female Bodies: Color caste systems / Consuming Commodified Blackness
THE DEAD REVOLUTIONARIES CLUB would like to invite you to join them for
AN AFTERNOON WITH BELL HOOKS.
Video screening of “CULTURAL CRITICISM AND TRANSFORMATION”
DATE: Saturday, 21 June 2008
TIME: 3pm
VENUE: House of Nsako, 101 High Street, Brixton, Jhb
We are asking all attending to please bring along an item or two that can be donated to persons affected by the recent xenophobic violence.
Food will be provided. Drinks for sale.
the radical (re)generation: more than just a fling?
” When young people turn to radical doctrines and movements, whether in 1952, 1962, 1968, or 2008, they are apt to bring with them a mixed collection of motives and impulses: simultaneously craving autonomy and validation, guidance and self-definition. For their radicalism to be anything more than a youthful fling, they need to find within it both a meaningful sense of personal identity and a sustainable vision of how to bring about social change. They can learn from their elders, but they also need to bring a critical scrutiny to bear on received wisdom.”
Link: The Chronicle Review: Will the Left Ever Learn to Communicate Across Generations?
Link: Banksy’s Grannies
crash: the conflagration of be(com)ing
“You think you know who you are? You have no idea.”
I saw Crash on DVD recently, the 2005 treatise on racism in L.A. which will now be made into a 13-part TV series on American paid-TV.
I’ve also done a quick scan of reviews on the film…mostly unflattering: many say Crash is melodramatic, excessive (over-plays the race card), condescending, prescriptive, contrived, too much of a polemic – and so on. (Click on the links for a synopsis of the film…there are no spoilers below just my general reflections).
The above critiques are adequately justified filmically, but then I’ve no desire to be a “film critic”. I enjoyed the film. The beauty of Crash (which is sometimes irreverent and wryly funny) is that it lends itself to an existential analysis of how an exploitative order not only relies on racism to make it work, but insidiously fuels the systematic escalation of racism and eggs on individual compliance in it – yours and mine.
Don Cheadle’s cop character premises the film thus: “It’s the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We’re always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.”
From this point on, Crash is relentless in showing us how systemic racism reproduces this urban alienation. The hierarchies in the system, the haves and have-nots, abuse and the abuse of power (however fleeting a reign of power may be), greed, addiction, bigotry, violence and fear – these are symptoms of a system that sever us from each other and are propped up by racialised thinking. Hispanics are gang-bangers. Mexican women are easy. The Chinese can be sold into slavery.
This is only in the geographical microcosm that is L.A. How have we imbibed such racialised thinking globally? Here in South Africa? Both negative and positive racialist stereotyping is nonetheless racist. And hyper-capitalism needs us to be racist because it makes the system work.
Systemic racism means that we are all complicit in sowing seeds of hate and fear, some consciously – most of us not. And here’s where I think Crash gets it right. It shows plausibly how the victim of prejudice can also be the perpetrator of discrimination. Throughout the film, racial stereotypes are reinforced, then undermined; or undermined then reinforced.
Within this logic of unpredictability however, also lies the hope, because as the film reveals, the villain today can be the hero tomorrow. It’s the eternal human paradox. We are the sum-total of our actions and choices, every day. What we say and do now, has a knock-on effect (it carries weight and consequence) and more than this it defines irrevocably who we are and what we will become.
The “crash” or “the accident” is a metaphor for the conflagration that brings these interconnected realities to a head. It is also at this conflagration – at the very site of the crash – that our “highest” selves surface or where we begin to carve out who we are. Where language reveals our intent, actions sculpt our identity. The invocation is: What will you do when your back’s against the wall?; What will you choose when the shit hits the fan? When you crash, will you choose the sublime or the vile? Or something else? With each action, with every choice, we chisel a notch into our profile, we scar a cheek or heal a wound; until the self-portrait is complete and irrevocable.
This resonates for me on many levels of the political and personal right now…where my neighbour becomes my persecutor because the system is indifferent to our common struggle, where my lover becomes my foe because the system sanctions duplicity and abuse, where my comrade turns on me in the trenches because the system tortures the fragile beyond the sanity of self. Or, where my worst enemy is the one I reach for in order to be saved, in spite of the system. Where in spite of racialised props, its mechanisms and firewalls (all too painfully real), a need unites us and we touch, before we see (and simply discard) the ‘other’. We crash into each other and become more than what we were before.
xeno-love concert
Am currently niteflying in the mother city of cape town and tonight the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) have organised an anti-xenophobia benefit concert in the city…details below:
Xeno-Love-Here Benefit Concert – Fundraiser for crisis relief work
Venue:St Georges Cathedral
Date: June 2008
Time: 8pm
Tickets: R50 (Tickets available at the door from 7pm, unreserved seating)
Duration: 2 hours
Artists: Tina Schouw, Natascha Roth, James Scholfield, Denis Moses, Ernestine Deane, Gavin Minter, Brian De Goede.
Donations: Food, blankets and clothes can be brought to the concert and dropped off at the Cathedral for further distribution.
All monies from ticket and refreshment sales, plus 40% of book sales will be donated to TAC to support their crisis relief work of foreign nationals in and around Cape Town. TAC was the first Civil Organisation that responded to the call for assistance by collecting donations, blankets and food distributing it to the various places of safety.
Refreshments will be sold during the break.
CREDITS:
- TAC for their immediate response to the crisis
- St Georges Cathedral – for venue
- 02Designs – for email poster of show
- Eastern Acoustics for sound system
- Africa Equations – for refreshments and marketing
- Shuter and Songololo – for 40% donation of book sales
niteflyer's pozi 
