Monthly Archives: July 2008
New film : Flaming Crowns, Cooling Waters: Water Spirit Masquerades among the Ijebu-Yoruba
African film
A new Nigerian film is available on DVD: Flaming Crowns, Cooling Waters: Water Spirit Masquerades among the Ijebu-Yoruba. The DVD includes the 22-minute film with and without narration plus a picture gallery. It documents festivals in several Ijebu-Yoruba towns in 1982 that are discussed in two articles that can be used as film-notes:
Drewal, H. 1986. Flaming Crowns, Cooling Waters: Masquerades of the Ijebu Yoruba, African Arts, XX, 1, pp. 32-41, 99-100.
——. 2002. Celebrating Water Spirits: Influence, Confluence, and Difference in Ijebu-Yoruba and Delta Masquerades, in Ways of the River: Arts and Environment of the Niger Delta, M. Anderson and P. Peek, eds. (Los Angeles: Fowler Museum of Cultural History), pp. 193-215, 353.
The film is available from : hjdrewal@wisc.edu for $$50 (personal); $100 (institutional)
x-posted from H-AfrArts list
Mali : 21st Century slavery
Slavery in Mali
The following articles from IRIN NEWS shows that slavery still goes on today. The situation in the north of Mali is particularly difficult. The second article gives some history to the situation and shows how discussions on slavery in Mali is a complex subject.
MALI: Iddar Ag Ogazide, “They like to enslave the children earlyâ€
GAO, 14 July 2008 (IRIN) – Iddar Ag Ogazide, a black Tamasheq, was born in 1973 at Tinahamma near Ansongo in northern Mali, 1350km north of Bamako. His family have been owned by the Touareg Ag Baye family at Intakabarte for several generations. In March this year Iddar finally decided he had had enough and made a dramatic escape.
“I was born into slavery because my mother was a slave. My owner’s family had bought her grandmother, so that made our whole family inheritable slaves.
MALI: Thousands still live in slavery in north
Iddar Ag Ogazide escaped his masters after 35 years of slavery and now works on a building site in Gao.GAO, 14 July 2008 (IRIN) – People continue to be enslaved in northern Mali, according to Malian human rights organisation Temedt, despite a widespread belief that slavery no longer exists in the country.
Africa Economy Mali : Cotton – A tale of woe
Misery in Mali
An article on BBC NEWS about ‘Misery in Mali’s cotton-picking fields‘ reminds us of the woes of Mali’s farmers. These are not the huge cotton companies one sees in the US South, but family units who co-operate together. The work is hard and for very little return.
A Fairtrade article focuses on the story about the Dougourakoroni co-operative in the south of Mali in Kita Region, although it also has a lot of good information about cotton in Mali and some general information about the country. Many small farmers switched from peanuts to cotton as their cash crop following drought and disease in the early 1980s and now, according to the article, 40% of rural Malians are dependent on cotton production.
Global Envision has an article from 2005 referring to cotton in Mali which argues that Africa needs fair trade not charity and that allowing producers to export to a subsidy-free world market will lift many out of poverty.
‘Journey to the Lands of Cotton: A Brief Manual of Globalisation’ on the Open Democracy site is a rather long extract of an article by Erik Orsenna who has written a sort of field diary of a trip to the cotton producing countries of Mali, the USA and Brazil. Of particular interest is an interview with Amadou Toumani Touré, President of Mali.
‘We are condemned for our deficit. But no one looks at the causes of that deficit. Without the subsidies they get from their state, American farmers would produce dearer cotton than we do. Since independence we’ve increased our production by a factor of twenty. For forty years we’ve fought day after day to better ourselves. We’ve gone all out for competition. Without the slightest chance of winning, because the most powerful player is cheating.’
The argument about the role of US cotton subsidies and fair trade will not go away. Is it really a case of Africa blaming its problems on outsiders as the US Ambassador to Mali claims in the above article? Will the privatisation of the Malian cotton industry bring the results the World Bank and others claim or is it just another part of vested interests protecting themselves? The questions remain whilst Malian farmers struggle.
DR Congo : Charcoal in the Mist – an overview of environmental security issues and initiatives in the Central Albertine Rift
Environmental security in Congo
The Institute for Environmental Security is pleased to announce the publication of its report Charcoal in the Mist: an overview of environmental security issues and initiatives in the Central Albertine Rift.
The report can be downloaded at http://www.envirosecurity.org/espa/greatlakes
This report first analyses how insecurity, high population densities and increasing food and energy needs have resulted in a continuously growing demand for land, firewood and charcoal in the region (especially around Virunga National Park in the DR Congo). An overview of current activities by many (inter)national organisations, in the field of mapping and monitoring, diplomacy and law, finance, economics, empowerment, training, nature conservation and eco-tourism, will then be provided. Further, by making some specific recommendations, this report aims to inspire policy makers and organisations, in order to enhance environmental protection, security and sustainable development in the Central Albertine Rift.
Go to www.envirosecurity.org/espa/PDF/IES_report_Charcoal_in_the_Mist.pdf to download the report for free.
For more information or suggestions please visit the website: Â www.envirosecurity.org or contact the author, Eric van de Giessen.
African scholars and the British Library – a warning
The British Library
Earlier this year an eminent African scholar, who, for the best part of forty years, has been using libraries and archives in the UK including the British Library, was refused access to the latter institution since he was unable to provide proof of his address. Fortunately he was able to obtain a temporary card thanks to the intervention of a staff member who could vouch for him personally, but this is not an option for many scholars from Africa, or indeed, from elsewhere.
This is not the first time that this has happened, and the issue is particularly relevant to researchers from Africa and Asia. The British Library requires identification bearing the applicant’s full address, but, as formal addresses (in their European form of street name and number, town) rarely exist in many African states, the address (often just a quarter or village) as it appears on most African (and, presumably, Asian) identity cards IS NOT acceptable for the purposes of obtaining a British Library Reader Pass.
The British Library are aware of the problem and are in the process of drawing up a list of countries for whose residents proof of a postal address (ie a PO Box) is acceptable. This is yet to be formalised, but they have informed me that they are currently accepting ORIGINAL documents bearing a postal address from most African and many Asian countries. For most people this probably means a bank statement.
Please disseminate this message as widely as possible and pass it on to researchers from Africa or Asia who may be heading for London this summer. It is, for many, a long and expensive trip, and to be refused access to the BL for want of a bank statement would be frustrating, to say the least.
Anyone in doubt should contact the library directly.
x-posted from H-Afrarts list