An Eye on Africa

Michael Winslow: Sound, Comedy and the Origin of Beatbox

2011-07-20T21:48:00.000-07:00

Michael Winslow, man of 10,000 sound effects and the "founder of modern beatbox"

Michael Winslow is like no other modern comedian. His vocal contortions are absolutely amazing, and he astounds his audience at what is possible with the human larynx. I think this story is captivating not only because of Winslow’s path to Hollywood success, but what his comedy style may tell us about sound itself. Winslow has pushed himself to edge of exploration in sound, whether it involves interspecies communication (Winslow has imitated and interacted directly with both tigers and dolphins under scientific observation) or developing his own internal ear by immersing himself in natural environments with no human sounds. As a motivational speaker, Winslow sometimes speaks to audiences about awareness of sound and developing a “feng shui” of sound in one’s home. He believes that kind of sound awareness can improve one's intelligence, educational achievement and overall well-being. Quite something to consider from the man who made millions of people laugh over and over again through 7 “Police Academy” productions. In some ways it's not all that surprising that Winslow was one of the originators of the creative phenomenon known as beatbox.

Michael Winslow is an utterly fascinating comic genius. The man who achieved fame in the 80s as Officer Larvell Jones in the “Police Academy” movie franchise has traveled around the world spreading his unique style of vocal comedy, which can include anything from imitating an entire film soundtrack with his voice, to performing Jimi Hendrix or Led Zeppelin – vocals, guitars, bass, drums and reverb, auto tune, delayed echo, etc. – all with his voice. Or how about watching Winslow execute a fascinating sound performance of a Wimbledon Grand Slam tennis match? Winslow gives new meaning to the truism that the average human being uses only a small fraction of the potential of our vocal cords.

More recently you may have seen Winslow doing the Black Hawk “Cha-ching” Casino commercial, or Geico or Cadbury ads, or on the television program “Robot Chicken.” In addition to having a cult following from his hilarious appearance in “Space Balls,” Winslow’s voice or vocal effects are found in the movie “Gremlins,” Disney’s “Back to the Future" and “Terminator” rides and in the video game “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.” He is truly a prolific entertainer and one of the most unique comedians of our modern age.

After getting his first taste of a successful comedy performance at Tulagi’s nightclub in Boulder in 1979, Winslow dropped out of Metropolitan State College in Denver and decided to move to LA to pursue a career as a standup comedian. A TV appearance on Chuck Barris’ popular “Gong Show” earned young Winslow a grand total of $516.32, which he used to buy a 1969 Mercury Cougar that temporarily solved his homelessness problem. The Cougar also got him out on the California comedy circuit. Eventually Winslow was spotted by director Hugh Wilson and Producer Paul Manslanski, who were so impressed they decided to write him into the script of “Police Academy” as Cadet Larvell Jones, the crazy sounds effects man. It was a stroke of genius - Winslow fit perfectly into the enormously creative role that would endear him to millions of fans for decades. But searching for his big break and finding his place in Hollywood turned out to be an incredibly tense and stressful journey.

“For me it felt like a sword fight. Everybody felt like that,” Winslow told me during a recent telephone interview. His tone changed and there was a certain sadness and humility in his voice. “It was like sword fighting with time itself. You’ve got a hundred folks that want to come in, and you’ve got slots for 40. You have to be there early and you have to fight for those slots. And you get three minutes, so you’ve got to put in 8 hours or 11 hours or however long you’re going to be there and get that three minutes and you hope that it’s a prime period when the audience is there.”

Winslow has some memories of hanging out with the legendary wild man, the late Sam Kinison, which certainly made life in California interesting. Now he looks back and laughs, but Winslow remembers a time when Kinison nearly got the two of them killed.

“We were at this one place, one of the colleges we were playing in, and Sam was going off. He was doing his thing. And I remember the Iranians wanted to kill him,” Winslow said, with a nervous half-chuckle. “And I’m thinking, ‘Man, come on Sam, you’re my ride home. Be cool, please?’ I go to the bathroom and then I come out and then Iranians are rolling on the floor laughing. How did he do this? The Iranians were on the floor – literally, laughing! I don’t know what he did, I don’t know how he did it – all I know is he was picking on this Pakistani guy. And the Iranians thought that was funny. ”

Larvell Jones from "Police Academy"

Many people loved the “Police Academy” movies because of Larvell Jones, the eccentric character whose sounds turned drove people crazy or turned a scene upside-down, always leaving the audience roaring with laughter. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the original “Police Academy” (the franchise was so successful they eventually produced 7 sequels – an extraordinary feat even in Hollywood cookie cutter formula filmmaking) was the Larvell Jones' opening scene. When Mahoney (Steve Gutenburg) sat down next to Larvell Jones, Winslow is imitating a drum machine, pulsating 80s hip hop rhythms and beats with his voice. The vocal gymnastics were an innovation Winslow created and later came to be known in hip hop culture as “beatbox.”

“When Jones and Mahoney met for the first time. Jones was doing beatbox. That was 1983, so that made me the first person to ever to record beat box on film,” Winslow says. “I use the phrase, “the founder of modern beatbox.” There were a lot of folks who came out right about the same time, after Police Academy. But that was the first time anybody had ever seen beatbox – and that was a worldwide release of feature film.

“It’s been what it is ever since. Though now, I have to revisit everything, because everything’s come full circle. I will be putting one of those things out, raising the bar again. We’ll freak everybody out again and we’ll see what happens.”

Hip Hop culture generally recognizes Doug E. Fresh as the pioneer of beatbox; his first popular singles “Just Having Fun (Do the Beatbox)” and “The Original Human Beatbox” came out in 1984, and his first album, “Oh, My God” came out in 1986. The first Police Academy movie was also released in 1984, but production on the film was started in 1983.

Winslow constantly has his eye on the horizon, thinking about his next innovation, something that can make his use of sound accessible to as many people as possible. Talking to him, one gets the sense that the new technical developments in digital communication and technology are tailor-made for a world of possibilities that Winslow is currently experimenting with, although he may not be able to predict the evolution our outcome of his ideas. At his home studio near Orlando, Florida, Winslow has already produced some new I-Phone and Android apps that are available for download from his web site. www.michaelwinslow.net. Like most everyone, he hopes his apps will turn heads or catch on virally.

“If there was a way that I could put it in a bottle, I’d like to give it to everyone. Around 1900, that’s what the guy from Coca Cola decided. 'How do I get this thing from the soda fountain to everybody else?' And some guy told him, ‘bottle it.’ That’s what I’m trying to do right now, is figure out, what’s the best way to contain this and use it as and educational tool – entertainment but education too,” Winslow explained. “That’ll probably be through applications through I-phones. It means I’m probably going to have to come up with games for the phones. But we’ll probably end up putting whole shows on there – people are going to be watching TV on their phones.”

Winslow relishes traveling because “sound is universal” and he finds he can reach new audiences across cultural barriers because everyone understands sound, regardless of the language they speak. A recent performance for a national TV program in Brazil charged an audience of 30 million and put Winslow in a “top 10” Twitter feed. Winslow was surprised at the response.

“You would be surprised at what will set people off,” he said, adding that he loved Brazil and hopes to return soon. “So you try to keep the sounds ready to go.”

In order to fine tune his ear and develop his creativity, Winslow has to immerse himself periodically in natural environments that are completely isolated from man-made sounds. His favorite place is Maui, but he also enjoys traveling to Australia and New Zealand, which have natural sound environs that are “very rich in the potential for the soil of creativity.”

Winslow is bullish on his concept of using sound for education. One of his latest projects is a children’s DVD which explores the world and various locations through sound. The pilot program was funded by none other than America’s favorite family and children’s comedian, Bill Cosby.

“All the animals can talk and the puppets have noises and the animals write the checks and that kind of stuff – it’s just nuts! Winslow says, his voice rising in excitement. “I’m taking it to television. I may have to go to all these other countries to shoot the episodes. None of our kids' shows go anywhere. But we actually go there. And I have no problem with actually asking a tiger questions, and I’m sure that the dolphin can show us which way we should go.”

Winslow says he did a few experiments with a scientist to see if he could communicate with animals. According to her measurements, Winslow’s voice was 93 percent similar to a tiger and a crocodile. But it seems his raw ability to communicate with other species needs some development.

“In order for me to speak to the thing I would have to sit with it for a few weeks, and I’d have to learn routines and mannerisms and what hunger means – basically we’d have to get to know each other,” Winslow says. “I know enough to get in trouble, but not enough to get out of trouble. That’s the part I’m learning now.”

Genius, Vision and Broken Dreams: Remembering Zim Ngqawana

2011-05-25T18:11:00.000-07:00

Jazz maestro Zim Ngqawana playing flute on stage.

I was stunned when I learned that Zim Ngqawana, South African jazz musician extraordinaire, passed away a few days ago, on May 10, 2011. Sometimes with musicians, a death can be especially jolitng, because somehow we expect the music to always be there, evolving into something that will grow even better with age, like a fine Cabernet. Judging by news reports in the South African media, many South Africans are also deeply saddened to lose their beloved 52 year-old jazz "genius." Perhaps now people will appreciate Zim Ngqawana more like a national treasure, a standard bearer of South Africa's fabulous jazz tradition. To experience Zim Ngqawana live on stage was to witness dazzling talent and exuberance, delivered in a captivating spectrum of arrangements and compositions. Zim would masterfully jump between the flute, saxophone, harmonica, piano and vocals, always with a great ensemble of musicians blending seamlessly with his unique stage presence.

I remember Zim telling me that his musical journey was touched off by a small harmonica his father gave him in a Christmas stocking when he was 4. Zim told me that he had a very strong relationship with his father, who taught him through the best of African oral tradition; on his album sleeves and bios Zim would simply say that he was taught the age-old wisdom of Ubuntu. Zim found it very perplexing and distressing that some people were earning masters' degrees and PhDs by doing dissertations on Ubuntu. He felt that making Ubuntu into an academic subject was an aberration and misrepresented the intuitive understanding that comes from centuries of African tradition.

Zim was a great composer and performer; but through all the year's I'd known him Zim's passion was to teach and expound upon South African music to as many earnest students as he could find. He envisioned a new generation of artists that would be multi-instrumentalists like himself, each with their own musical proclivities, but all being taught music theory and piano as a foundation. He wanted to create a musical pedagogy, instead of expecting young people to pick up individual instruments and learn music on their own. Building his audience and touring throughout Africa, Europe and the United States, Zim realized his dream by eventually buying a farm outside of Johannesburg and establishing his Zimology Institute where he trained talented artists. But criminals broke into his farm in December of last year, and besides stealing personal possessions, they vandalized Zim's studio equipment and broke the piano legs to his two prize grand pianos.

"This was an attempt to break us. I was demoralized see the grand pianos worth half a million lying flat on the ground," Zim said. "The souls of the people have been vandalized. What kind of criminal doesn't know the value of a piano?"

The spiteful thieves who broke Zim's pianos, broke his heart and his dream. Beyond anything material, the grand pianos and the Zimology Institute were part of Zim's passion to transmit and preserve the beauty of South African jazz for future generations. Zim may never have fully recovered from this transgression, this deep wound - it was like an attack on his soul and the goodness he was trying to create in the world.

With Zim gone, we have to find more fundis and griots to purvey the oral wisdom and human imagination that our world so desperately needs. Zim always believed that his music was medicine, his music was a kind of healing balm. Zim's 1999 album, was called Ingoma. The Zulu and Xhosa word for song is "ingoma," which also means "medicine;" a "sangoma" is a traditional healer or medicine man. Zim understood that he was a shaman, and his intention was to teach and share in a broad vision for the future. His music will always be with us, but it seems his dream has been mortally denigrated by the banality of jealousy, envy and greed. Hamba kakuhle, my dear bra Zim! Sizabonana kwakhona, umhlobo wam. Kwahkhona.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWjlPiJlihE&w=480&h=292]

Tribute to Zim Nqawana in The Sowetan

http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/entertainment/2011/05/11/jazz-giant-ngqawana-is-no-more

Jazz giant Ngqawana is no more

May 11, 2011 | Edward Tsumele | 47 comments

SOUTH African jazz giant Zim Ngqawana died yesterday morning and was buried last night.

The country has lost a musical genius

Ngqawana, real name Zimasile, died at Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital in Johannesburg after suffering a major stroke.

He was 51 years old and is survived by his wife and six children.

Ngqawana was billed to perform at the Wits Great Hall on Saturday but suffered a stroke and collapsed during rehearsals at his home in Troyeville, Johannesburg.

Prominent South African jazz musicians will now perform at Wits on Saturday to commemorate "The Life and Times of Zim Ngqawana".

The jazz giant, known for his uncompromising attitude, was admitted to the hospital on Monday according to a statement released yesterday by his family.

"While rehearsing for his upcoming concert at the Wits Great Hall scheduled for Saturday, he succumbed to a major stroke.

"He was buried according to Muslim tradition last night at the West Park Cemetery in Johannesburg."

Ngqawana, who took his career seriously, created some of the most-valued and sophisticated pieces of music which was embraced by serious jazz lovers.

Mixing African folklore and complex jazz arrangements, Ngqawana was both a pioneer and originator of a deep-rooted sound that came to be known as Zimology.

Ngqawana is especially respected for his first album called Zimology. The album created raised the bar in South African jazz.

Ngqawana graduated in jazz studies from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

He later organised a group of local musicians who received formal training in jazz studies from universities in the country.

Ngqawana performed in Europe, the US and other countries.

Promoter Peter Tladi told Sowetan that the country has lost more than just a musician.

"Zim was a friend who subsequently became a godfather to my son.

"Just two weeks ago we were together in Cape Town where he performed at the funeral of another prominent musician. He told me that he was working on a proposal for the Joy of Jazz and we were both excited by the proposal, and now this.

"This makes one wonder why our musicians are dying like this," an emotional Tladi said.

Tladi's company, T-Musicman, promotes the popular Joy of Jazz Concert that normally takes place in August. Ngqawana would have performed at the festival.

Gauteng MEC for sport, arts, culture and recreation Lebogang Maile said, "The country has lost a musical genius and the music industry is poorer.

"Zim's passing must serve as a reminder to everyone, especially the youth about the rich heritage we have.

"His music, including masterpieces such as Qhula Kwedini will continue to inspire many in the performing arts. Condolences to his family.''

2011-05-14T00:23:00.001-07:00

Zap Mama, Marie Daulne and 1000 Ways of African Expression

2011-05-04T00:27:00.000-07:00

Zap Mama, Marie Daulne and 1000 Ways of African Expression

In the mid-90s, Vusi Khumalo, one of Africa’s most accomplished percussionists, turned me on to an album that was like nothing I’d ever heard before. Vusi was one of the original South African musicians that Paul Simon collaborated with on his phenomenal breakthrough album, Graceland. Having traveled and performed with some of the world’s most talented artists, Vusi couldn’t say enough good things about a group of female artists playing in a band called Zap Mama. When he played their CD, Seven, I was enamored by a sound that was deeply African yet permeated with experimental jazz, rock, reggae and even hip hop influences, all held together by an incredible female vocal ensemble that fused rhythm and voice into something that blurred the boundaries of music, language, lyrics and beats. It was like beat boxing meets Ella Fitzgerald, Fela Kuti, Ziggy Marley and Weather Report. Truly fresh.

I came to learn that many of South Africa’s top artists – musicians that are attuned to the best that jazz and African music had to offer, loved Zap Mama. It seemed that Zap Mama and the group’s founder and lead vocalist, Marie Daulne, were musicians’ musicians, not particularly widely known or popular with mass audiences, but deeply appreciated for their creative talent and innovative avant-garde African style. Zap Mama evoked many emotional responses in me; their ambient harmonies, danceable grooves, thoughtful lyrics and flashy jazz riffs were soothing and exciting, charming and subtle - yet sometimes downright funky. To hear Zap Mama is to experience Africa’s music in a whole new dimension.

Zap Mama’s founder, Marie Daulne, was born in 1964 in Congo-Kinshasha, to an African mother and a Belgian father who was killed in a Simba tribal revolt during the early turbulent years of Congo's independence. Marie’s mother escaped with her one-week old infant into the jungle, where they were protected by Pygmies before eventually being airlifted to Belgium, where Marie was raised as a Belgian citizen. With interests in painting, gymnastics and martial arts, Marie was growing into a dynamic teenager when she began to feel an inner desire to know more about the mysteries surrounding her birth. At 18 Marie returned to Africa (at that time, Zaire) and she was attracted to Pygmy traditional onomatopoeic vocals and intrigued by cultural experiences that awakened something ancestral in her spirit. She began having “all these voices in my head” and hearing “things I’m not used to.” The strange sounds and voices spawned a creative urge for musical expression that gradually led her to form Zap Mama after she returned to Brussels.

Zap Mama began performing in 1989 and in 1991 released its first album, Zap Mama, in Belgium. A year later the group was performing in New York and met David Byrne, who convinced them to re-release their album as Adventures in Afropea 1, on Byrne’s label, Luaka Bop Records. By the end of 1992 Adventures in Afropea 1 became a top selling album on Billboard’s World Music Chart and the group was basking in the excitement of developing a new worldwide audience. But Zap Mama left Luaka Bop after the success of Adventures in Afropea 1 because of artistic differences and Daulne’s desire to resist being marketed as a pop girl band. Through 6 albums over the next 15 years, Daulne and Zap Mama would evolve their music into a more sophisticated, multifaceted sound with a wider range of instruments and less emphasis on a cappella vocals.

With 2007’s Supermoon Zap Mama is once again in top form, enchanting audiences and new fans with their enticing vision of musical possibilities. Daulne remains determined to follow her own creative path, and is finding her influence and music continues to grow with a new generation of followers. During our telephone interview, Daulne was relaxed and very comfortable talking about her music, even though English is not her first language; her voice glides beautifully, with great warmth and sensitivity, much like her fascinating singing. She was very open about her life experiences, and perhaps is somewhat astonished or amazed that her unique creativity is loved and respected by many well-known musicians around the world.

"Sweet Melody"
Ancestry in Progress
Luaka Bop, 2004
____________________________________________

JA: Can you tell me about what “Supermoon” means for you, and what you would like it to mean for others?

MD: I want people to discover a new way of appreciation. I guess I have always understood jazz as an example of someone, an example of the person who made it. A lot of people focus on what something looks like from what is outside, but what about just feeling what you, personally, are born for? Every human being has their own way to enjoy life and really define by themselves what is true for them. I would call them a “Supermoon.” The word “super” means something that is very good, and is full of life. There is only one Moon, in the middle of all these stars in the sky – being a Moon is being true to oneself.

And also I suppose I want to think of myself as very feminine, very beautiful and elegant and it’s super – I mean my heart. My music never follows one kind of music, one genre. I always feel what I want to feel. Sometimes I play reggae, sometimes I do jazz, sometimes I play funk, and I think people can appreciate each one. My sound is unique, and my sound can speak to a lot of people in different genres, because if you hear with an open mind you can understand completely different genres. My own music is really different and a lot of people like it, because my music doesn’t fit only one description.

JA: What were some of the highlights for you in putting the Supermoon album together?

MD: To be true again, I think I’ve arrive into a maturity, and there is no “way” for me to try to do things. I mean, I’m not saying that I want to hand this to people and I’m going to make this album for them to appreciate. I will do what I appreciate. I really feel that if it is good for me I know it will be liked by others, and others will appreciate it.

We are all the same – we are all human beings, we are reaching for the same things and we want the same things …. And I’m not shy to express my emotions. Sometimes we have feelings in life that hurt you and make you react; sometimes they make you feel personally very nervous about creating a song. I will give you an example. I lost my best friend two years ago, and I was very, very harmed and hurt. As a woman in this society at my age something like this can be very painful. I felt so lonely, too lonely – it paralyzed my life – I couldn’t do anything. And when I decided to get the courage to go into the studio – at the end of the session I just found that it was amazing.

JA: Does pain or deep emotion drive a lot of your musical creativity?

MD: Yes; in the beginning I didn’t like that. People want to buy my music, and that’s nice, but why would I put my personal life in public – everybody has their own personal life. But then I started to realize that maybe I am more like a songwriter; songwriters write songs and people can identify themselves in the sound of their music. My personal life can be an example through music. If people like my music and can identify their emotions through my emotions, then why not? “Moonray” was that way. That was very hard, going back to this sadness – it was so hard. I would have to stop and I would start crying, and I was very embarrassed because the engineer was there.

A lot of songs come to me that way, like “Hey Brother.” It was 4 in the morning when Michael Franti and me went into the studio and we planned to do a song called “Bodia,” about people taking time to improve their lives. And we said forget about the audience – what about us, who are you and me, what happens between us? And the song became “Hey Brother” – it was just happiness, like when you receive an ice cream and it’s very hot outside. You have an ice cream and it’s something simple and fresh; there was real emotion there, accompanying the song. That song is deep, it is a real thing we have between us. Mike and me, yes, we are friends – and beautiful friends – and we did this song “Hey Brother, Hey Sister” and we really enjoyed it.

JA: Yes that’s a very nice song and I can feel the friendship and the feeling of a man and a woman supporting each other. How would you describe your creative process in terms of how your compositions come to you and how you write and create your music?

MD: I have no idea! Songs come in my head, music, melodies, harmonies – I feel it. And it’s like my melodies are turning in my head, turning around and around and around and they want to go out. They say, ‘Can I get out of here?’ And I say, ‘Okay, okay, okay’ and I run into the studio and whew – I get the melodies out like they are. It’s like I have a conversation with my own music. I started music at a very early age and I had so many ideas. I have this music in my head and I keep struggling and then Monday morning a song is there with a melody and the words. I have no idea how the music comes to me, because I’m just born like that.

JA: When was the last time you were in the Congo and how often do you travel there? Do you have a strong feeling for the music scene in Kinshasha and other parts of the Congo?

MD: No, not especially. For me it was important because I wanted to know who my father was, because he was killed when I was born, and I wanted to go back there to see where I was born. I was 18, and I said, “Bye bye now, it’s my time.” And after this I went back to Belgium and I decided to discover the world. And I asked, “What do I have? I have Belgian culture, I have European culture and I have received African culture through my mom, and I said, ‘I have this, what can I do with this?’ Play with what you know, what you received.” And that’s it. From there I opened myself to the rest of the world. For me Congo is not especially my nation – I don’t feel nationalist at all. I’m really an internationalist. I don’t really know my family in Congo. My family is in Belgium and my home is Belgium. But if all my family moved to the United States, I would feel home is the United States. But I don’t feel like I fit in one place.

Sometimes people want to see where they are born and they are very attached to their land. And I can understand that people are attached to land and that kind of beauty, but I don’t feel that. I think we human beings can attach ourselves anywhere. I’ve always tried to find the perfect place to live. Like when I’m in New York, I saw, “Oh wow, I love to live in New York.” And when I’m in Brazil, I say, “This is a place I would like to live.” I love the Earth. I need nature; I need very beautiful scenery around me.

JA: How often do you travel between Belgium and the US?

MD: I’m here every month.

JA: Really? I didn’t realize it was that often.

MD: Yes, I moved here to the US two times and I lived here for three years, and then I went back for my kids to be able to stay with their grandma, and their auntie and uncle. That was an easy decision for me, to tell you the truth, because I travel a lot and my kids need to know their cousins, and they are attached to their family. And then I decided to come and produce my music in the US, and my record label, Telarc is here. I’m like a businessman or a businesswoman traveling between Europe and New York.

JA: When I first heard of Zap Mama, I heard about your music through musicians from South Africa. Your music is one of the most respected music among Black artists or African-influenced artists. But maybe I’m behind on these things, but I don’t get the sense that many Americans know about Zap Mama. Maybe in New York City they know Zap Mama more. Maybe you can describe the difference between your audience in the United States and your audience in Europe?

MD: I think I have audiences everywhere – underground audiences everywhere. I don’t have a place where I’m especially bigger, maybe in some cities, places in California and New York. According to what the label said, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco are the main places; and Brussels, Belgium and Paris for sure – I have a little bit of an audience everywhere. But it’s always underground in certain cities – not countries – like Paris, Amsterdam and London. I can always keep traveling and there is an audience that is always following me, always discovering me.

JA: Do you find that your audience is growing rapidly by this underground contact and word of mouth?

MD: Yes. But the only problem with underground audience is they give (away) copies of my music – they don’t always buy music if they like it. But if they like to have art they should support artists and buy their music.

JA: I think some people from Congo might see your music as being more mainstream, while other people would see your music as more complex, blending different genres. I find that difference of perception interesting.

MD: I think my music is more avant-garde than mainstream. Some of the ideas we’ll think of 10 years after now, when we see what Timbaland introduced into hip hop music – he used sounds from world music – will be finding its way into the mainstream. I remember being in the beat box world, and what I brought 10 years ago - finally now I see its meaning. My music is advanced reality because I’m like Timbaland, or David Byrne – we can hear new music and we produce that work, and the way we present it to the audience is special. I’m really serving art and culture and people are inspired by what I do. Even Erykah Badu told me, “You’re an inspiring woman.”

JA: And do you do see your influence reflected in Erykah Badu’s music? Or did she just tell you that and you didn’t see your influence in her music before?

MD: Erykah said, “It’s because of you and your concept that helped me find something in me.” And yes, after she explained to me why she got certain parts of her songs, then I said, “Okay, now I get it.”

JA: I think my musician friends in South Africa felt that you have a kind of deep influence on very talented musicians. Would you agree?

MD: Yes. I didn’t know I was influencing them, but now I see it and it’s true, I agree. People listen to other famous people for examples, and music is supposed to be like that. You give a young person this dream to follow what they want to do. I focus on my way, and it works; after all these years I’ve been successful all over the world and then I realize that, Bobby McFerrin, Herbie Hancock, Al Jarreau and all these big names from the jazz world, they appreciate my music. I realized that I had something special because I didn’t just go to them; they come to me and appreciate what I do.

JA: What artists or musicians do you like to listen to, and who gives you inspiration?

MD: There are so many… The first music I was listening to was jazz, the second music was funk; and when I say jazz, I would say Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, people who are very classical, basic jazz music, and Louis Armstrong and doo-wop. I identified myself with American jazz themes because as a Black European I didn’t really compare myself to the African community; I think I was attracted more by the Americans, maybe because of the Western mentality. I like old movies and musicals. I also listened to Neil Young and Graham Nash, Supertramp, Genesis and other things; with the guitar we were influenced by Bob Marley and Cream. And then later I was attracted by again by jazz, but more modern jazz like Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. I also listened to Kraftwerk, Art of Noise, and then later James Brown and hip hop.

JA: When would you say you discover James Brown?

MD: When I was an acrobat and I when I was in my 20s we would go out to parties and dance. James Brown was my man! And when I started to do a capella things I realized that I could do funk with my voice. And I started thinking, what can I find in funk – it’s fun, it makes you dance and it grooves – and I thought, how can I do that with a band, with all these voices? My second album (Sabsylma), for me that was funk. And people would say, “There was no funk in there.” But it’s my description of funk –t’s fun, fresh and it grooves. I can’t move like James Brown, but I can do that with my voice.

Barack Obama: America's Savior or Judas Goat?

2011-04-17T14:10:00.000-07:00

President Obama and members of his administration observe the U.S. attack on Osama bin Laden's compound (AP)

The May 1, 2011 assassination of Osama Bin Laden has conferred new prestige to Barack Obama's presidency and of course, his poll numbers are bound to go up. His ‘gutsy” decision and the success of the Navy SEALs operation has become a history-making moment defining his presidential legacy, much to the chagrin of his Republican detractors and right-wing pundits. It’s quite interesting that the covert action has taken place within a week of the President releasing his "long form" birth certificate, as the wild cacophony of the “birthers” and Donald Trump the “carnival barker” became an increasingly absurd distraction. Many of Obama’s supporters felt the birth certificate decision was needless capitulation to crazy conspiracy theorists who will never accept the legitimacy of Barack Obama simply because he is African-American. The cloud of fabricated propaganda and distortion was so extreme that even CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schiefer stated that there was an“an ugly strain of racism” underlying Trump's courting of the birther movement.

Many Americans seem unable to move beyond seeing Barack Obama through a compulsive reactive filter of race. Rush Limbaugh may not be a birther, but he can’t bring himself to give Barack Obama any credit for his leadership or any role he played in bringing Osama Bin Laden to justice. The bold decision to target Bin Laden inside Pakistan is certainly confounding birthers, as they will be forced to spin more elaborate conspiratorial delusions to ease their own cognitive dissonance. Their (temporary) silence is deafening right now. On the other hand, many of Obama’s supporters on the left are confounded by their own perception of Barack Obama as a symbol of change. They feel deeply betrayed on progressive causes like a public option or single-payer national health plan, extensions of the Bush tax cuts, gun control, environmental regulation, expansion of the war in Afghanistan and many other issues. (To be fair, Obama expounded his views on Afghanistan during the 2008 campaign, but current critics probably didn't listen carefully enough to his speeches.) It seems on both sides of the divide, Obama has become an enigma, as identity politics obfuscates the realities of a human personality attempting to navigate powerful special interests that inevitably weigh on the office of the President and his administration.

Barack Obama: America's Savior or Judas Goat?

Judas Goat: noun 1) A goat that is trained to lead other animals to being slaughtered, to the point where the Judas goat is allowed to pass safely

Since his historic inauguration on January 20, 2009, I’ve observed Barack Obama’s presidency with a perceptive analysis that has almost felt like unveiling a mysterious prophecy. Two years into his term, Barack Obama’s public persona, gravitas and his poll ratings look vastly different than what most of us might have expected from the exultant optimism surrounding his election. With tremendous criticism and disillusionment from liberal and progressive supporters and a mid-term election “shellacking” by Republicans and the Tea Party movement, Obama seems to be operating from an obscure no-man’s land where no one seems to know or recognize the charismatic leader who made so many grand promises in the name of hope.

In 2008 my friend Andrew P. Jones published his brilliant book, Barack Obama: America’s Savior or Judas Goat: The Diary of a Mad Black Voter. He wrote the book while living as an expatriate in South Africa, keenly observing the elections and being fascinated by the prospect of America electing its first Black President. While the concept may have seemed unlikely in 2005, Obama’s 2008 campaign awakened many people to the idea that the United States is changing and perhaps entering into a new “post-racial” era. Indeed, the inauguration itself was a mass event that the vast majority of Americans openly celebrated as a historic transformation. But Andrew’s book was written as something of a warning to Americans to not confuse Barack Obama as a symbol of racial achievement with the actual constraints of Barack Obama as a human being contending with overwhelming forces beyond his control. Barack Obama the man could end up inadvertently compromising and selling out key aspects of his own progressive agenda, because in the euphoria of electing a Black President his followers could be caught unaware of the dangerous pitfalls of politics and pragmatic policy decisions.

In 2011, the question of whether Barack Obama is really “America’s Savior or Judas Goat” is more prescient than ever. So many people, liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, feel deeply betrayed by Obama on many issues. From health care and a public option to gun control, the environment and energy, Obama has disappointed vast numbers of his supporters and abdicated many of his campaign promises. It seems that Americans – and perhaps African Americans in particular – are gradually awakening to dealing with Obama apart from being a symbol of change, but as a real politician, with personal weaknesses and actions that belie his lofty rhetoric. During the 2008 campaign, Andrew Jones was trying to get Americans to ask these very questions, even before that extraordinary historical inauguration day. He was encouraging everyone to be a mad Black voter - to pressure their elected representatives and to demand the changes they seek.

A remarkably far-sighted thinker, Andrew sought to stimulate a broad-based discussion with his ideas, so he sent copies of his book to a wide range of people on all sides of the political spectrum, including John McCain, Rush Limbaugh, Jesse Jackson, Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and of course, Barack Obama. He didn’t really have an agenda; he simply wanted to cut through illusory public perceptions and elevate the dialogue around the potential and meaning of an Obama Presidency.

Barack Obama: America's Savior or Judas Goat
Diary of a Mad Black Voter
Andrew P. Jones © 2008. Black Earth Press, Johannesburg.

Andrew was a brilliant journalist and television producer, a truly insightful, talented and intelligent man. But the world has lost a great light, as sadly, Andrew committed suicide on October 20, 2010. I believe something has died in all of us who knew Andrew, and something deep and profound in our humanity. Andrew is not with us to help raise the right questions as we confront the paradoxes of Obama’s presidency and the challenges of a world reeling from oil spills, nuclear contamination, economic uncertainties and revolutionary conflicts.

I cannot explain in words what my extraordinary friend Andrew meant to me. Shortly after I first met him, Andrew scooped the South African media and international press agencies with an interview with Dr. Wouter Basson, detailing the CIA’s involvement with South Africa's apartheid chemical and biological warfare atrocities. Beyond his serious political views, Andrew was bright, funny and warm, a great pleasure to be with. He was a virtuoso violinist who played heavenly music daily for the pure joy of his art, and it was oddly beautiful to see a Black man so thoroughly entranced in the classical genre. On certain beautiful, clear sunny days Andrew would take me on short flights around Johannesburg, as he was thrilled to share his skill as an aviator after earning his pilot’s license. His son Cochise and my son Morris were the same age and played together and became childhood buddies. Andrew's wife Kubeshni was a very kind friend who worked together with me in designing media promotional material for the South African Gender Commission. Andrew and I worked on scripts and treatments for SABC (South Africa's main public broadcaster) and we spent hours in his home editing suite or at the Congress of South African Trade Union's (COSATU) media department. I knew Andrew for more than 10 years and I often sought his advice about virtually all of the personal challenges, achievements and setbacks I experienced.

In honor of Andrew, I would simply ask that people continue to confront the questions and paradoxes of Obama’s presidency, as these questions really represent are our own American paradoxes, our own dilemma in this rapidly transforming world. Our leaders are an extension our active involvement with government, and the voices of democracy are precious, whether in America or the Middle East or Tibet or Cote d’Ivoire or Zimbabwe. If a movement toward more critical, grass roots participation in politics were to manifest in 2012 and coming elections, I know my friend would be smiling, as if his cautionary message was received and understood. I would also ask that we open our hearts and extend loving compassion to everyone who may cross our life path, because we never know what someone may be struggling with, or what difference we personally can make.
___________________________________________________

Shocking and tragic end to activists' incredible life

by Brian Wright O’Connor

Andrew Philemon Jones didn’t just play the violin, he made it sing. Horsehair bow flying over the strings, resin rising like smoke, he’d walk around the room, coaxing notes and chords from the fragile shell that came at you in a wall of sound.

Throughout the performance, his eyes would peer out over the lacquered wood, gauging the effect of his solo symphony as his digits ran up and down the fingerboard. A wry smile completed the picture of Andrew in his glory, provoking with music before setting down his beloved violin to provoke you with ideas.

In all the years I knew Andrew, he was a gentle soul – angry at injustice towards humanity but possessing a great love towards humans. News of the manner of his death in South Africa came as a shock. In late October, after an argument with his estranged wife – the mother of their three young sons – Andrew left their office, returned with a handgun, and fired one bullet. The shot went through her shoulder. He pulled the trigger a second time. The gun jammed. Andrew killed himself after she fled from the room. He was 58 years old.

Andrew had battled demons but demons could hardly explain or condone such a violent end.

Friends and family who attended his funeral in Johannesburg, the city where Andrew had started a new life after leaving Boston in 1995, were similarly shocked. His wife, Kubeshni Govender Jones, was sufficiently recovered to attend the services, as were their boys – Cochise, Sicelo, and Ayanda.

Many Bostonians may remember Andrew as the driving force behind the Greater Roxbury Incorporation Project (GRIP) – the movement for the secession of Boston’s African American neighborhoods into a new municipality. The 1986 referendum campaign attracted national attention and embarrassed the Flynn administration, which mounted an aggressive campaign to defeat a ballot question seen as a vote on the quality of City Hall’s governance of Boston’s black community.

The idea for black self-governance was not a rebuke, however, to the South Boston-born mayor who made racial reconciliation a theme of his administration. It came to Andrew during a stint as an ABC News field producer covering a town hall meeting in Vermont, where the notion of self-determination, deeply stamped into the character and landscape of rural New England, struck in Andrew a resonant chord.
It just seemed to Andrew like the right thing to do. “The right of a people to self-determination cannot be denied,” he often said. “It’s as American as apple pie.”

Working with urban planner Curtis Jones, Andrew launched the campaign in 1985. By the following year, the pair had come up with the name “Mandela” for the municipality in honor of the imprisoned South African leader.

Faced with the hope of self-rule on one hand and predicted financial disaster on the other, voters rejected the question by a 3-1 margin in the midst of national news coverage of the bid for black self-determination.

Andrew was “crushed” by the loss but acknowledged that GRIP should have been hatched at kitchen tables in Roxbury rather than over linen table cloths at the Harvard Faculty Club. Joyce Ferriabough, who ran the opposition campaign, respected Andrew’s passion but questioned his judgment. After hearing Andrew grumbling about Flynn’s “plantation politics,” Joyce confronted him.

“How do you want your ass-kicking?” she asked. “Over easy or well done?”

Andrew just laughed. “You had to hand it to him,” said Joyce. “He had a sense of humor.”

Andrew had first come to New England as a child of the segregated Creighton Court projects in Richmond, Va. – a violin prodigy plucked from the banks of the James River and sent by the program A Better Chance to the elite Phillips Exeter Academy, where he was a varsity football player and wrestler and played in the school orchestra.

Andrew loved competition. He thrived on full contact – physical and political. In music, it probably explained his love of Beethoven, the sweeping contrasts and plunging moods of a score in constant struggle.

After graduating from Exeter in 1970, he studied at the New England Conservatory of Music, but concert halls and recording studios couldn’t contain his searching mind and restless spirit. He got a master’s degree in journalism from Boston University in 1982 and set out to use the media to change the world. Or, as a more seasoned Andrew put it later, “I switched from one form of entertainment to another.”

The inevitable clash occurred when ABC sent an executive to the network’s Prudential Tower suite to advise bureau employees, who had long complained about strange fibers in the office air, not to talk to the press about asbestos dust falling from the ceiling. Andrew laughed at the man in the suit and denounced the network in public.

The end of Andrew’s network producing career gave rise to a successful run as an agent provocateur seeding intellectual sedition through documentary films. In segments for public television stations around the country, including many first aired on Boston’s WGBH-TV, Andrew told the story of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, captured the growing pains of Russia in the first gasps of post-Soviet life, and conducted pioneering interviews with the reclusive leaders of North Korea.

He broadcast reports from Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, Jordan, Malawi, Angola, Mozambique, Brazil, Mexico and Zimbabwe. He picked up a New England Regional Emmy and scores of film awards along the way. His segments aired on NBC, Black Entertainment Television, the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the PBS Network and Russia’s TASS News Agency.

When leaving Russia after his last trip to Moscow, security stopped him at the airport gate, suspecting that the black American with the Homey the Clown haircut had illicitly obtained the expensive, 19th century violin in his possession. A burly guard came to escort him to a private room for questioning.

Andrew held up his hand. “Now wait a minute, fellas,” he said. “Just give me a chance.” Andrew removed the instrument from its battered case and tightened up the bow. Cascading notes from Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major spilled from the strings. Andrew smiled his smile. A crowd of spectators, drawn by the bravura performance, applauded. The apparatchiks shook his hand and let him board.

In all his travels, Andrew did not just report history, he participated in it as an unabashed advocate, unafraid to show his political stripes. Hours before filming the first salvo of bombs falling on Baghdad during the first Gulf War in 1991, he was playing violin as a guest musician with Iraq’s national orchestra.

In 1989, Andrew interviewed members of Manual Noriega’s government hours before Special Forces troops assaulted the Panama leader’s barracks headquarters. Leaving Panama City with his precious video, he came upon American soldiers engaged in a firefight and barely escaped strafing machine-gun bullets when they turned their weapons on his approaching vehicle.

In 1995, Andrew left behind his U.S. producing career and a teaching post at Northeastern to move to South Africa, Nelson Mandela’s homeland and a society busy re-inventing itself.

He was one of the first black men to earn a pilot’s license in the republic. On the media front, he turned his critical eye to the faltering promises of the ANC government, which brought political but not economic empowerment to the masses of poor blacks still living in townships. He produced programs for South African television and in the course of his work met Kubeshni Govender, a talented media professional who helped launch their own company, Black Earth Communications.

After marrying and starting a family, Andrew and Kubeshni ran a successful media and production business, interrupted at times by Andrew’s focus on a crusade to protect “reproductive choices for men.” His “Fathers Bill of Rights” campaign grew out of his own bitter experience as a father forced to pay child support for a daughter born in the 1980s whom the mother and the courts would not allow him to see.

Andrew’s decision to force the issue in a 2003 Massachusetts Probate Court appearance led to a 40-day sentence at the Suffolk County House of Corrections for refusing to pay arrearages. Typical of Andrew, jail-time proved to be more educational than punitive, opening up his eyes to the reality of the prison-industrial complex and the sometimes whimsical power of the law.

In the dedication to his provocative 2009 book, “Diary of a Mad Black Voter,” Andrew offered special thanks to the judge and prosecutor who put him behind bars “and ignored everything I had to say about freedom of choice, justice, liberty, father’s rights, the illness of my sons, the safety of my family, and dignity. For had you not done so I would have been cheated out of the most special 40 days and nights of my life.”

The book, a searing examination of the Barack Obama candidacy as either a redemptive opportunity for black America or a cruel illusion, was based in part on his perceptions of the ANC’s failure to bring real change to the struggling poor of South Africa. In writing the book, Andrew thought back to his cameo role playing boxing promoter Don King’s aide in the movie “Ali.”

Zelig-like, Andrew was in Maputo, Mozambique, at the time of the 2001 filming and found himself in front of the cameras.

“One night, Michael Mann the director decided to replace 30,000 black Mozambicans, who were supposed to be spectators watching the ‘Rumble in the Jungle,’ with cardboard cutouts flown in from Hollywood,” wrote Andrew.

“My thought was ‘This is deep.’ All these people replaced just like that by cardboard figurines that actually looked better than the people did in the final movie. So that’s when it hit me that all of us regular people – black, white, yellow, whatever – walk a tightrope between what is real and what isn’t in our media-drive society. And at any time ‘mediarchical’ forces can replace any of us with cardboard cutouts.”

Andrew struggled against forces most people took for granted. He questioned everything.

Reflecting on Andrew’s life, Kubeshni recalled her husband’s belief in “Gaia,” the concept of Earth as a living organism on which mankind has become a threatening rather than benign and integrated presence. “Despite his reverence of Gaia – the living spirit of the planet – he came to believe that his way in life was to fight for everything all the time,” she wrote.

“In adopting this stance, he missed out on the blessings that were his from the start. I pray that our boys are always able to pause and still their emotional beings long enough to hear the tone of the universe, to realize the sound of peace and love that we are born with despite the trials that life will bring us.”

The last major work of Andrew’s long career as a political and media gadfly was a feature film completed just weeks before his death. The final scene was shot in the same cemetery where his body was cremated.

The film left Andrew frustrated because he had no luck finding a distributor willing to release it.

That failure came after he had come close to fulfilling a long-held dream of media self-determination. Black Earth Communications had won a valuable satellite TV license from the Botswana Telecommunications Authority to launch Black Entertainment Satellite Television.

But financing troubles scuttled the effort. “Andrew,” said a friend, “was a visionary but not a businessman.”

Meanwhile, Andrew’s marriage had faltered.

Darkness closed in. The end came after Andrew penned a final message.

“The illusion of death is that it’s final,” he wrote. “It isn’t. There is life after death. Life’s greatest illusion is that the conscious mind resides inside the body. It doesn’t. The truth is that we are avatars.”

If so, then Andrew is still playing that violin, sawing out notes for heavenly hosts, mortals, and avatars alike, his eyes peering across the strings, provoking, searching, and ever restless.

Brian Wright O'Connor's article was reprinted in its entirety from the Bay State Banner .

Polygamy, a President and a Crisis of Sexual Relations

2011-04-16T20:34:00.000-07:00

South African President Jacob Zuma

I like South African President Jacob Zuma far better than his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki. At least Zuma doesn’t question the basic link between HIV and AIDS and he seems to show some rhetorical interest in addressing the massive poverty and inequality that plagues South Africa. I’m definitely not trying to deal with South African politics here; in my mind the public life of Zuma and his four wives brings to light a more fundamental issue about the nature of polygamy and its impact on Africa and the Diaspora. Polygamy is intriguingly real and very complicated in Africa, and perhaps Zuma's dilemma raises important questions about the nature of certain polygamous behaviors and their implications, even for African Americans.

Polygamy, a President and a Crisis of Sexual Relations

One of the most bizarre stories to unfold in 2010 was virtually unknown in America and has barely been noticed by the Western media in general. South African president Jacob Zuma – who is married to four women – created plenty of controversy in his country when it was discovered that he fathered a “love child” outside the circle of his official wives. In the Motherland – where polygamy is openly practiced as a part of traditional African culture – the love child infidelity might not be considered unusual. However, the woman's father, wealthy businessman and soccer entrepreneur Irvin Khoza was a family friend and was said to be livid when he heard the news. The friendship has apparently never quite recovered from this betrayal, and the act seemed especially egregious considering that the 67 year old Zuma had just barely escaped conviction after being put on trial for allegedly raping another young female “family friend.” The rape trial – which occurred in the period leading up to Zuma’s presidential inauguration – cast more aspersions on Zuma’s character when Zuma acknowledged that he knew the girl was HIV-positive and had unprotected sex with her anyway. Zuma told the court that he took a shower after the act, believing that it would keep him from contracting the HIV virus, forever sealing his image as a complete fool in the eyes of many South Africans.

Of course, to an American or a European accustomed to Western style democratic elections and intense public scrutiny, the Zuma saga would seem unfathomable. Even with the common acceptance of the diverse cultural and sociological influences that meld into modern South African society, many South Africans themselves – regardless of racial or ethnic background – find Zuma’s presidency somewhat surreal. Beyond his sexual dalliances – in a country that has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world, where nearly 1 in every 5 people are HIV positive – Zuma brought even more personal baggage to the presidency. Zuma’s financial advisor, Schabir Shaik, was convicted of having a “generally corrupt” relationship with Zuma, paying for Zuma’s residences and extravagant lifestyle in exchange for being awarded large government contracts and preferential treatment for his business interests. While Shaik was sentenced to 15 years, Zuma was charged separately and claimed that he looked forward to having his day in court to vindicate his name. But Zuma evaded a trial when a lower court ruled that his predecessor and political foe, former South African president Thabo Mbeki, tried to influence the prosecution of Zuma for his own purposes.

In a country where the vast majority of the population is African and poor, Zuma has a populist appeal as a leader who has risen to presidential power from humble beginnings in rural Zululand. Zuma has definitely demonstrated skill as a coalition builder and diplomat working on some of the most challenging issues in Africa, including the regional conflict in the Congo, which engulfed 7 nations and led to 6 million deaths and unspeakable atrocities. But Zuma’s rise as a politician is complicated by the fact that his personal actions inevitably lead to serious questions about his judgment and intelligence, regardless of the fact that he managed to secure the highest office in South Africa.

Outside of South Africa, the extraordinary dynamics and questions surrounding Zuma’s presidency are rarely discussed, After all, they are not mentioned AC 360 or Larry King Live, and hence for insular Americans, the news barely raises an eyebrow, especially considering the obscurities of South Africa itself. But inside South Africa polygamy is known and practiced – in overt and covert ways – and is discussed and debated in various public forums, in talk radio and other media, especially among Black and African populations. I can remember a particularly fascinating radio show, where one of the female callers spoke emphatically about wanting to be the second wife, because the second wife has the benefits of the first wife without many of the same constraints. She argued that the second wife has more freedom, has to do less work and has to put up with less irritation from the husband’s idiosyncrasies. The telephone dialogue was sincere, animated and fascinating, and I could not believe my ears that a woman was actually saying that she preferred to be a “second” wife! But then again, this is perhaps why some women in the United States or in other Western societies might enjoy having an affair with a married man; they might like the companionship and sex, yet still maintaining a certain distance, freedom and independence.

At a party in Johannesburg, I was once approached by a very beautiful and intelligent South African woman who had earned her Master’s Degree in the States. This sophisticated, professional sister told me that even with her experience in the America, she believed very strongly that there were many things about African traditional culture that were superior to Western society. And this included the idea that a man should have his freedom to be with several women. “There should be one rooster and many hens,” she said.

Another woman I knew told me flat out that she did not believe in traditional monogamy. She thought that polygamy, the way it was practiced by her ethnic group, Zulus, was more functional, if the women knew each other and had an understanding about their relationship with the same man. When I talked about this with an African American friend of mine who had lived in Southern Africa for many years, he just grinned and said, “Yea, those Zulu women – they sure know how to share a man!” And when I broached the subject with a Sotho friend of mine he told me of a traditional Sotho saying that “A man is an axe and he must be shared.”

There are many aspects of African traditional culture that are profound and offer a much-needed balance and wisdom to dominant Western culture. A sense of community, unity and interrelatedness, respect for elders, sharing, gentleness, harmony and peace are African values that at times seem wholly absent from European cultures. African cultures have never demonstrated the aggressiveness and acquisitiveness of Europeans and some people might make the argument that these very qualities allowed Europeans to colonize the parts of Africa where they had significant contact. The differences are palpable, and perhaps hard to fathom without some direct experience in such divergent cultures. Many people who have traveled to or lived in Africa – regardless of their racial background – speak of the love, kindness and humanity of Africa, the consideration children show for elders, and how people treat each other as if they were all part of one family. It is hard to doubt that we would have a more balanced global society if America, Europe and the Western world could manifest some of these positive expressions of African culture.

The Jacob Zuma saga may be an extreme reflection of the need to have a broader dialogue about polygamy and Black relationship patterns within Africa and among African people in the Diaspora. HIV/AIDS is decimating Black populations globally, and one has to wonder about what part monogamy, fidelity or the acceptance of multiple partners plays in the overall picture of what is happening to African people and their future. Please don’t misunderstand me – I like Jacob Zuma, his leadership style and many of the initiatives and policies he is trying to implement. Zuma has the unenviable task of trying to do something about the gross inequities in his nation, appeasing White elites and the business class to attract global trade and investment. In the meantime South Africa faces widespread poverty, not to mention a massive influx of immigrants and refugees from many countries and regions throughout Africa. But regardless of what I think about Zuma’s domestic and foreign policies, my mind keeps wandering back to his personal escapades and the effect they have had on his public image.

On surface appearances, I must admit – polygamy has a certain appeal to me, as a Black male. Why wouldn’t I want to have several wives/girlfriends/lovers, if each of the women was willing to accept my relationship with the others? Maybe the reason why so many marriages fail is because it isn’t natural for a man to just have one partner, and if more people practiced polygamy or an “open marriage” then perhaps that would stem the divorce rate. As someone who has tremendous respect for African traditional culture, it seems reasonable to question some of my own assumptions and societal conditioning about different kinds of relationships, and try to see things from a non-ethnocentric perspective.

Oddly enough, I a neighbor of mine in Denver was from Cameroun, and he married a woman from Wyoming and immigrated to the United States. He explained to me that his father was a chief, and had four wives and 36 children. Before I knew him well I would hear him talking on his cell phone, waving his arms emphatically while talking to his family in Cameroun; it seemed his conversations had a tone of anger and frustration. He later told me that his father had been ill and passed away; he was very sad, and he felt bad that he was not able to do more for his father in his final days. But he also was disenchanted with the internecine conflict between his father’s wives, as they vehemently fought over land and property as he was dying. I never had the chance to ask him in more detail about his personal feelings about polygamy and what it was like growing up in his father’s home; but he was clearly upset by the conflicts between his father's wives.

With regard to African Americans, I can’t help wondering to what degree polygamy or infidelity may be part of deep cultural conditioning that stems from African culture or our more recent cultural history relating to the strain of slavery on the Black family. I like asking this as a rhetorical question, because there are quite a few brothers and sisters who are sharing partners. But in the broader picture of Africa – and perhaps among African Americans – the problems of HIV/AIDS, sexual promiscuity and multiple partners should be considered in the context of polygamy. While some aspects of polygamy are very much a part of African tradition, it could be something that needs more evaluation and dialogue regarding its social impact and the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS.

I certainly don’t have an issue with Jacob Zuma having four wives (although I’m sure some Black women and feminists would). It seems to me that a man who has four wives in a socially-sanctioned polygamous arrangement would have every satisfaction of his whims and fantasies taken care of. Why would Jacob Zuma need to have sex with women outside of his four wives? Perhaps polygamy simply does not offer a solution to a dilemma between the sexes, but simply provides a superficial veneer that encourages more imbalanced and dysfunctional sexual relations. It may also be that polygamy, in whatever form we label or describe it, is one of the patterns that is ultimately harming Africans and African Americans in the new millennium.

Incognegro: A Journey of Transitioning Apartheid

2011-03-18T23:47:00.000-07:00

Run for life... A member of Self Defense Unit (SDU) runs for cover as an army truck gives a chase in Thokoza township, east of Johannesburg. Thousands of people were killed in Thokoza, during the violence before the first South African Democratic Elections. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Once

It is true.
I’ve always loved
the daring ones
like the black young man
who tried to crash
all barriers
at once,
wanted to swim
at a white beach (in Alabama)
Nude.

Alice Walker

In 2011 it is commonly accepted that South Africa is a democratic multi-racial society, with one of the most inclusive and progressive constitutions of any nation on our planet. Fresh from hosting the world’s greatest sporting event - the 2010 Soccer World Cup - and increasingly visible in regional and international politics, South Africa has captured the world’s imagination in the realm of new possibilities for social change. But during the early 90s, South Africa’s future and fate was far less certain, and the road to full “one person – one vote” democracy was perilous, strewn with violence, conflict and danger.

The April 10, 1993 assassination of the charismatic communist youth leader Chris Hani traumatized South Africa and nearly plunged the nation into an all-out race war. The tensions erupting in that single event and the appeal for calm by Nelson Mandela eventually forced the National Party and South Africa’s ruling elites to establish a date – April 27, 1994 – for all inclusive, democratic elections. But Hani’s death and Mandela’s tendency toward compromise and reconciliation created uncertainty and conflict for the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). Foot soldiers and activists of Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK) – “the Spear of the Nation” – suddenly found themselves being asked to demobilize and turn in their weapons, when only weeks before they had been seen as protectors against the excesses of apartheid security forces and right-wing white militias. It was a particularly bitter pill to swallow, as their beloved iconic leader had been gunned down in cold blood, perhaps with the complicity of apartheid operatives. Even though many apartheid laws and practices were being repealed, the ANC and other political parties had only been unbanned three years earlier, and the level of suspicion between the opposing sides was high.

It is at times like these that history moves in quantum leaps, societies change and certain events are burned or ensconced into our collective memory and subconscious. In hindsight one remembers media images of a peaceful and joyous election, with long lines of Africans standing in the sun for many hours waiting to cast the first vote of their lifetimes. Yet it is all too easy to forget that the steps leading to the historic April 27, 1994 elections were precarious, painful and unnerving in ways that non-South Africans can hardly imagine.

Frank Wilderson – a compassionate teacher, brilliant writer and beloved friend – was one of the few African Americans who lived in apartheid South Africa during the transition period of the late 80s and the early 90s. His memoir, Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid, is a vivid and uniquely perceptive account of a time period when it was just beginning to be clear that the world’s most famous political prisoner, Nelson Mandela, would be released from prison.

What makes Wilderson’s account so remarkable are his radical communist sympathies and an extraordinary affiliation he makes with underground operatives of an MK cell in Johannesburg. In addition union activism and political organizing on the University of Witswatersrand campus, Wilderness finds himself drawn into deadly conflicts in the volatile East Rand townships of Thokoza and Katlehong, where the apartheid government has formulated a “third force” by distributing weapons to Inkatha Zulu nationalists, who routinely terrorize local African communities. Through these fascinating encounters Wilderson provides an inside view of the struggle against apartheid and some of the interpersonal strains and conflicts of activists as they cope with South Africa’s rapidly changing social and political climate.

Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid is a collection of flashbacks to this powerful turning point in South African history, interwoven with Wilderson’s memories from a growing racial consciousness rooted in his childhood experiences in the United States. The result are eloquent ruminations on race and class that connect the South African experience with the African American experience, and vice versa. In a broader context, as Wilderson’s cadres contemplate demobilizing their arms in Mandela’s pursuit of reconciliation and the issues of class conflict play out, one can glimpse competing world views among factions of the ANC power structure. Hani’s assassination and the consolidation and ascendancy of Mandela’s supporters may explain why the South Africa of today looks politically and socially more like Argentina, Chile or Costa Rica, rather than Cuba, China, Venezuela or Brazil.

Through the whole journey, Wilderson is much like the “Black man who tried to crash all barriers at once” – teaching young Africans at Vista University in Soweto; observing life from the streets and taxis used by the common poor in ‘Jo-burg’; humbly appealing for calm in a hopelessly polarized and dangerous Black ghetto township; seeking grass roots political change through the ANC and MK. Wilderson's prose is engaging, funny, angry, hip, cerebral and sensitive; he is brutally honest and vulnerable about his personal emotions, relationships and family conditioning. Indeed, Incognegro is more than just a memoir of apartheid in transition, it is Wilderson's life journey, told in all kinds of textures, temperatures and temperaments.

I had the pleasure of meeting Frank on bright, sunny day in May 1994, at Rumours, a trendy Yeoville café in Johannesburg, where many activists, musicians, writers and actors gathered in the heady days after the election. Although Frank and I became close friends - and I certainly knew and understood his politics - Frank never hinted or revealed any of his underground affiliations; I was completely unaware of his MK activities until I actually read his astounding memoir 15 years later. I understand now, of course, that my soft-spoken friend could not have breathed a word of any of his secretive activities, because lives and operations were at stake.

Incognegro gives readers a certain breadth of vision as Wilderson strives to touch South Africa’s outer boundaries of race, power and oppression, thereby coloring the edges of our understanding through his wild and precarious proclivities. But just as Incognegro probes the obscure, frantic and violent dimensions of South Africa's social transformation, Wilderson explores with equal depth and eloquence his internalization of America’s battle with its own racial psyche. His memoir is a rare gem that gives us many vantage points to inform the fate of sons and daughters of Africa; beyond the shackles of apartheid, colonialism, slavery and the rugged extremes of those battles, there may be a little “incognegro” in every Black identity, and every African American who touches Africa.

Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid
Frank B. Wilderson III, ©2008. South End Pess, Cambridge.
www.icognegro.org

JA: From what you can tell at this time, what kind of readers are reading Incognegro, and what has their response been?

FW: I’m very surprised – there are a wide range of readers. I will say that at the moment the readers are basically people who are interested in race relations in the United States and/or the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. As time has evolved (the first store release was August 2008) another kind of readership is coming to the book – that would be readers who are interested in literary memoirs.

Because Incognegro was published by South End press, I knew a lot of people who were involved in organizing and radical politics would be interested in it. I spent $63,000 on a Master of Fine Arts degree at Columbia University because at the time it was the number two MFA creative writing program in the country. What I wanted at the level of ego, was for this book to be acclaimed and recognized as a good piece of literature. With the issues of publishing with a small political press, I thought maybe that wouldn’t happen, because South End Press is known for books by Bell Hooks and Noam Chomsky – it’s not known as a literary press. So I’ve been really thrilled that my integrity has been satisfied by people who normally read South End press picking this up, but my ego has been satisfied by the literary people having said it’s okay. The kind of crowning glory in that was being awarded the NEA fellowship and the Kristin Wright Award as well as the American Book Award. Those three things really helped expand the readership and made me feel good.

JA: How has the response been from African American writers and intelligentsia? Have they gotten much exposure to the book and have you gotten the response you wanted to receive?

FW: I’ve done radio shows in LA and New York and DC through the Pacifica Foundation - Democracy Now is one of their big shows. In DC, there’s a show called Myndtalk –it’s a Black mental health show, and another show called Jazz and Justice was using the show as part of a fundraising gift, and those shows garnered lots of responses and e-mails. In New York City I’ve done about 5 presentations.

I did a presentation at Medgar Evans College in Brooklyn, last November. I was a bit worried because I thought that my political views would be too extreme and too anti-American for a crowd that was very excited about Barack Obama’s election. I remember that there were 70 people in that auditorium and it was very interesting because it was one of the largest crowds that I had spoken to. Now the average size is about 50 to 60, but then the book wasn’t very well known. Every single person in that room was Black and what I found was that Democrats, communists and radical trade union activists were all disagreeing on whether Obama was good, was he not good, etc. They were able to speak about their rage and antagonism towards America as a project without having to feel constrained or inhibited by other members of the audience. This kind of “no holds barred” private conversation between Black folks hadn’t happened before because all my audiences had been mixed audiences, and in those situations Black people kind of hold back their point or pull their punches. I felt that the things I was saying in the book provided a catalyst for people in the room to actually say what they felt.

At one point someone asked me something about my own feelings and I quoted Malcolm X and said, “I’m not a Democrat or a Republican and I’m not an American and I’ve got sense enough to know it.” And everyone started cheering. Afterwards a nurse came up to me when I was signing books, and she said, “What you’ve been saying I’ve been thinking all my life, I’ve just been afraid to speak like that.” I’ve actually found that people have said things to me about the book that the book has allowed them to not try to figure out how White people or other immigrants are going to respond to what we think about this country – that the book has allowed them to say what they think without worrying if other people are going to peg them as being to hateful or radical or what have you. One woman even told me that she was using parts of the book in her therapy sessions!

I think that part of what’s good about the book is it doesn’t try to solve any problem; and I’m very careful in my writing not to offer solutions to the problems that I pose. I think that the solution is bigger than we can possibly imagine, and what happens to Black people is that when we start trying to think about solutions we inhibit our ability to imagine the actual complexity and breadth of the problem. So what we try to do is we work on how do we make it through the day, which is fine on some level. But that’s not what I’m trying to do in my work. I’m trying to say that the slave trade created an ontological problem – a problem of existence – not just a political problem. So many of us go crazy when we get into our older years because one of the things that we just can’t face squarely (and when I say we, I mean the bulk of us, and me on a bad day) we cannot face the fact that the country does not discriminate against us – the country is against us in its very formulation. Part of the reason we don’t want to do that is because if we say that the country is fundamentally anti-Black, then we say, “Well shit, what do I do with my life?” I don’t have an answer to that question – I can’t answer it myself. It would be really foolish for a Jew in Nazi Germany to say, “What we have here is a problem of discrimination.” What they would have to say is “What we have here is an anti-Semitic state.” As a result I think it would be foolish for us to say “What we have here is discrimination” instead of saying, “What we have here is an anti-Black world.” I’m trying to understand that through literature. If I want to really go to the depths of that understanding I have to be willing to not be so anxious along the road so that I start offering stop-gap measures.

I don’t think that the people in the audience in Brooklyn would necessarily want to take me home with them, but I think for that brief moment on that night it was refreshing for them and me to be able to have this kind of no holds barred conversation and not have to worry about ratcheting down the problem to fit what we can think of as solutions. Some problems there aren’t solutions in your life that you can bring about in your life.

I do believe that revolution will bring about a structural change, but I don’t have an idea on how to that and I don’t think we’re at a revolutionary moment.

JA: I was very impressed with the brutal honesty and personal exposure you put into your memoir, particularly in trying to write about how you were coming to terms with growth in your marriage and relationships.

FW: Let’s say there’s two tiers here. On the lower tier there’s grassroots people and activists and there’s tremendous buzz about this book, generated by people who’ve gotten a copy and by people who have not read it but know what it’s about. However at the tier above that – the mainstream and even progressive publishing industry – they’re still kind of idling up to the book, they’re still checking it out. It was rejected by three publishers a couple of years ago in South Africa and now that it’s won all these awards, there’s been some interest. I think publishing world will do this book in South Africa, I’m not sure which one or when; I’m just speculating. I just saw Patrick Bond – a major economist in South Africa – a few weeks ago and he said to me, “You know, there’s just no critique of Nelson Mandela that is this straightforward that’s been published.” People might be treating that unabashed critique as a taboo; but the moment a publisher in South Africa breaks through their inhibitions –if that’s what it is, I’m not sure about that – that’s the moment when my publisher here and I think that it should be wise for me to return. You want to be in a room where everyone in the room is able to have a book, and right now that’s not the case.

Is it good or bad for me to go back – I think it’s good… I don’t hold out much hope for Jacob Zuma’s regime, but at the least the verb of “progressive struggle” is something that his regime espouses. That might give me more wiggle room when I get back there.

JA: Why did you use the term "Incognegro" in your title? What does "Incognegro" mean to you in general as well as in the context of your memoir?

FW: Incognegro was a word I first heard when I entered Dartmouth College in the fall of 1974. I did'nt know how common it was among Black people because I came from Minneapolis and though my high school’s Black population was 10%, Minneapolis was a pretty isolated place. So, folks would wake up in the morning and as they joked about leaving the El Haj Malik El Shabazz House, or the Malcolm X House, or the Afro Am House simply, the AM — which is how we generally referred to it — they would say, “going out to meet these White folks [I’m going to class or I’m going to the Dean’s office]. I’ll be traveling incognegro.” It came to be a catch-all phrase to describe any kind of masking activity that was necessary to negotiate our encounters with the White world — and Hanover, New Hampshire in the 1970s was a white, white world.

JA: Your first encounters were pretty violent and you laugh at them now. How much of that was you being on edge and not wanting to back down, and how much was just the pervasive atmosphere of repression and racism?

FW: It was probably a bit of both. I don’t know – that’s an interesting question. That’s an impossible question to answer… One shouldn’t have to negotiate to get into a bed and breakfast place or a restaurant or for a taxi. It’s true that I’m not someone who will accommodate himself to those types of things, but I wouldn’t put the blame on me.

JA: Well I guess the question is getting into how much of that sort of thing has changed since that time?

FW: Those attitudes didn’t change, but the access changed. By the time I left many of places that wouldn’t let me in had become, you know, almost all Black – the cafes in Hillbrow, for example. So that was a kind of a concrete change. On the other hand, you could say that what happened was more of the same. Yeoville was a place of White flight at one time, and the White flight just went further north, giving up that base in Yeoville to the Blacks. Yes, concretely, those places changed, but on the other hand, it wasn’t an overall improvement to Black life that we had fought for, just because Black people got access to a few social services and restaurants that they hadn’t had access to before. The structure of oppression unfortunately hasn’t changed with a Black government, but we thought it had changed.

JA: What about just overt levels of blatant racism?

FW: Well yes, that left, for the city, anyway. You know, it’s hard to say, James. You can’t be accosted by the police just for being Black anymore. On the other hand, there’s not a tremendously large White population that’s impoverished, so in a sense the blatant racism on the individuated level has shifted over into something else. It’s intensified in poverty and structural oppression.

JA: What do you think South Africa might be like today if Chris Hani were still alive? How do you think South Africa's history might have unfolded?

FW: Right now there are really only two camps in the ANC. There are the Western-oriented moderates who are really now no more than sheepdogs for the global neoliberal consensus; people who are remnants from the Thabo Mbeki regime. Then you have the fiery, but ultimately empty, populists: the Jacob Zuma folks who are now in power. They have captured the imagination of many lumpens and working class people but only in a superficial way. They have not been able or even willing to facilitate a dialogue among the people about how to change - much less socialize - the economy. Chris Hani was not a god; and he wasn’t tested as a statesman. But he would have allowed two things to develop: the first would have been a healthy spirit of antagonism toward the US and Europe. This would have scared large scale and small foreign investors away from the county and allowed local people to struggle to make economic connections between neighboring African states instead of pandering to the trade needs of Western countries.

Concretely, this would have meant that the South African farming economy would shift from cash crops (like grapes) to subsistence farming that pays attention to the food consumption needs of the people in South Africa and in the region. Such a farming practice is much better for the soil because it is based on crop rotation, as opposed to the cash crop system which plants the same high value export crop year after year and erodes the soil. The next thing Chris Hani would have facilitated would have been a sense of pride in the revolutionary history of Black South Africans: concretely, he would not have continued with Mandela’s project of reconciliation and he would not have allowed the higher ups from the old apartheid regime to go unpunished. Finally, if amnesty was given it would have been linked to a radical reparation program that involved real economic transfers to Black victims, a program that would work in tandem with the radical redistribution of wealth across the board.

JA: Let me ask you about Etienne Murenick. I don’t know if you remember the day that it came out in the papers that he committed suicide. We were doing something that day, and I said to you, “Hey did you see this thing in the paper about this law professor who committed suicide?” And we sort of gave each other five. It was sort of because we have this understanding of complex levels of racism within liberal whites that is very dangerous and sometimes it’s more problematic because it is less conscious and less able to be identified. I figured at some point the whole thing had gotten too much for him and he committed suicide.

FW: The long and the short of it is that we were involved in what could be called psychological warfare. There’s a large context in which our ultimate goal was to take power and we were going to give that power to a new board constituted of representatives from various organs of peoples power like the civics and student organizations, Self-Defense Units of the ANC and the Communist Party. If we think about the large dream, globally, there is capitalism of an entire sector inside of the economy – not to cooperate with it, but to rob it of the university industrial complex. Once we did that, we would be able to turn the university into a machine and an organism that would use its knowledge and resources for the fomenting of socialism. This is based on various models – one model is what I saw in Cuba after I went there. People were writing different things and all kinds of ideas. For what we needed to do – the liberals at Witswatersrand were our strongest collective nemesis.

JA: In the book at one point you’re talking with Kanye about relationships, and Kanye says something like, “Those people? Are you kidding me? You think they can possibly have decent relationships with what they’re doing?” What do you think about their capacity to be in a relationship or a marriage?

FW: I’m hearing what you’re saying and I would say that capacity varies from person to person but there’s probably a general kind of similar difficulty that everyone has with everyone else who has had to live a double life in fear of the state’s violent reaction for so long. That activity is going to something other than what we might think of as a positive effect. It’s going to vary from person to person. It’s a hard one to answer. I would look for ways to blame the context that made it such that people had to choose armed struggle more than blaming the people with those sets of choices.

There’s a kind of silent pride with this sort of thing that I don’t agree with. Perhaps if someone didn’t do that kind of work and was Black they would be able to have constructive, loving relationships. What I try to explain in my book is that’s not necessarily true. The hydraulics of abuse and the day-to-day existence of living as an ordinary person in what Lorraine Hansberry called ‘the funny house of the Negro” makes everyone of us a bit strange in some ways. It’s really difficult to say. I didn’t know the people except Trevor – most of them I didn’t know very well – and I wouldn’t comment on his life or his wife. There’s a very big difference (for someone who is white). He chose it; he could have left at any moment. But whether you fight against apartheid or not, whether you fight with the South African Council of Churches or with a secret cell with MK you’re confronted with the same dynamic, which is, ‘you don’t belong in the world’. And I think that there’s something to what you’re saying – perhaps if you didn’t become a part of a small group of highly secretive people who were going to make the entire system pay – and if you step back and were simply part of something else or nothing else – then you would have time and the ability to generate more psychic energy towards a family and perhaps in a more holistic way than if you were living a bifurcated, secret life. I can see that. I wouldn’t say that that’s absolutely true, because there are a lot of people who respond to anti-Blackness without fighting against it and are just as fucked up in their private lives.

This thing that you do in a struggle like this – it’s not like changing jobs, it becomes who you are. I used to be a stock broker and now I’m a professor; that seems like a radical transition to a lot of people in the United States. I used to be a stock broker and then I became a radical insurgent – that’s a very different change – that changed my life forever. One changed my life forever; I’m not qualified to comment on how, but I can see that if you go into something like that and you come out the other side and the people who were running sell you out. You go into with dreams of marching past the Vortrekker Monument and changing the world, and they say “Oh no, wait a minute we just got elected, go home now.”

JA: I know what you mean. They might as well have said “We’ve got our bourgeoisie in place now so you’re not necessary; in fact you’re getting in the way…”

FW: Mandela went to MK (Umkhonto we Sizwe, the paramilitary wing of the ANC) in those years after Chris Hani’s death and said, “Everybody cease and desist. I don’t care what Chris Hani said. Yesterday was ancient history. Today is April 11." He said the people who don’t tow the line are not going to be in the intelligence services or the military, right? The people I worked with gave him the middle finger, metaphorically speaking. Why? Because they were all earning BA’s and graduate degrees. “Don’t tell us – we don’t need to go into the army. We’re college students.” Elected officials were mainly educated people but MK was made up of educated people but MK was made up of the non-college graduates and most of them were non-high school graduates. And those people were not in a position to just say, “Go to hell, I’m not doing this.” All they could do was be a soldier or a spy – what else could they do?

JA: Well, some of those guys actually went and became bank robbers, using their military training.

FW: One thing I learned in South Africa – not that I learned it well or that easy – it was partly from coming up as a bourgeois negro growing up in all white neighborhoods, I had never really thought of intensely. People around you die and they get killed and they hate you the day after they love you and they leave you forever. It’s a radical break in relationships in life that seem to be the kind of standard there in South Africa.

JA: I’m not sure I follow you.

FW: Susan Sontag went to Sarajevo during the Sarajevo war, and she wrote back in one of her essays, “Two weeks in Sarajevo is like a month in New York.” Shit just happens with such intensity and such velocity that the dynamic encounters between people are much more traumatic and often earth-shattering than she could imagine they could be living in the States. And that’s how I thought about South Africa. People were damaged in ways and things happen – you could be riding in a combi, and having an argument with the driver and all of sudden he pulls out an automatic weapon on you.

Invictus: Perceptions Cast upon a Moment of Time

2009-12-13T13:41:00.000-08:00

Invictus is an inspiring film with fascinating historical content. Clint Eastwood’s latest cinematic production provides an intriguing glimpse into the some of the endearing moments that changed engrained prejudice and helped cement South Africa’s social transformation. Based on John Carlin’s book, “Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game the Made a Nation,” Invictus casts light on Mandela’s brilliant strategy for using the 1995 Rugby World Cup to make the Springboks national rugby team a moral force for change. Through deft moves, love, personal character and a sense of inclusiveness, Mandela was able to prevail against a history of fear, hatred and violence. (Check out John Carlin's article in the Telegraph, "How Nelson Mandela won the rugby World Cup.") In retrospect, it is all too easy to take for granted that South Africa’s political transformation was a matter of destiny, rather than the aspirations of individual personalities who found within themselves the ability to lead by example and reconcile past injustices.

Nelson Mandela and Africa have much to share with a world hungry for revelation and new ideals. Hopefully we can learn much more of the authentic wisdom, beauty and challenges Africa has to offer us, without getting lost in the commercialization of the storytelling process. The way African stories are told and how African American actors are accorded certain roles because of their box office celebrity status is part of an ongoing dialogue that I was having the late John Matshikiza. I wish you were still here with us, bra John; your grand crooked smile, your hilarious sense of humor, your sharp insight and intelligence are deeply missed... With time, I imagine that we’ll get it right, bra John, and more African screenwriters and African actors will claim their place on the world stage and garner international audiences. Films like Invictus are an evolution in the process.

Invictus: Perceptions Cast Upon a Moment of Time

Everyone has an opportunity for a moment of transcendence, the potential to experience unity and humanity beyond intransigent definitions of race, class and culture. The film “Invictus,” starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, portrays a powerful moment in the evolution of the New South Africa when the Springbok national rugby team – against extraordinary odds – won the 1995 World Cup and unified a nation that was still emerging from the painful reverberations of apartheid. In his inimitable way, Clint Eastwood has fashioned this true story into a well-crafted, intricate narrative that gives viewers an inspired picture of history.

Sport, in many ways, is a profound force in human society and popular culture, at times intimately bound with politics. When Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947, it foreshadowed the momentous social changes of coming the civil rights movement and greater visibility of Black culture in mainstream America. In an inverse way, the Springboks victory in the 1995 Rugby World Cup shattered cultural barriers between white elites and the African majority, boosting the nation through a quantum leap toward a greater sense of unity.

Such moments in sports history are the stuff of legends. At the highest level of professional sports, in Olympic competition, international soccer, the NBA, NFL, track, boxing and tennis – exceptional athletes amaze us with the will power, strength and endurance they summon in their phenomenal feats. “Invictus” documents a time when sport reaches a transcendent moment on the world stage that means much more than high fives around a glistening trophy or the fever pitch of an incredible last minute game-winning score. Like Jackie Robinson changing America through baseball, Jesse Owens uniting his nation against Nazi ideology, Joe Louis defeating Hitler’s champion Max Schmeling or aboriginal Cathy Freeman taking the 400 meter gold on her home soil at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the Springboks presence in the 1995 World Cup Final captured the world’s imagination with South Africa’s aspirations for a new identity.

In the early years of his Presidency, Nelson Mandela showed an enormous capacity to reach out to both black and white South Africans, navigating cultural minefields and finding ways to compel them to work together. Indeed, Mandela began his mission to bring South Africans together by first retaining the previous white staffers from former President Willem de Klerk’s office, and boldly asking both white and black bodyguards from the African National Congress (ANC) military wing and the South African security forces – formal mortal enemies – to serve together as one racially integrated Presidential Protection Unit. Mandela forced the issue and suddenly South Africa had a very visible contingent of body guards – both black and white – surrounding him in all his public appearances. (That didn’t stop Mandela from at times slipping away from his handlers to wander among the exultant street crowds in downtown Johannesburg, but the image change with his new multi-racial charges was palpable.) In countless ways Mandela used his will power and personal magnetism to undermine South Africa’s polarized racial tensions, from saving the Springbok logo and colors (a despised symbol of Afrikaner domination) to easing fears among high-ranking generals in the white military establishment.

Mandela built a profound relationship with Springbok captain Francois Pienaar, encouraging Pienaar and other members of the team to see themselves in a broader vision as sports role models working to bring rugby into South Africa’s black townships. By the time South Africa reached the quarterfinals game with Western Samoa, black South Africans had become enamored with the Springboks success and the sudden possibility that despite conventional expectations, the Springboks might advance to the and perhaps even win the Rugby World Cup. Attitudes were indeed changing among sports commentators, government officials, journalists and political leaders, and the film deftly portrays the genius of Mandela’s ability to inspire, provoke, goad, question and persuade blacks and whites to this new vision. (The converse of Mandela’s ideal – not quite addressed in the film – is that many activists in the ANC felt that Mandela ‘sold out’ and gave up too much in the name of racial reconciliation. But the danger of a military coup was very real, and it seems some sacrifice was necessary to produce accord on all sides.) Like “The Miracle on Ice,” the outcome is known and expected; the Springboks emerge victorious, World Cup champions after 13 years of international boycotts and isolation. But the journey to the climactic triumph in “Invictus” is an emotional testament to how ensconced attitudes and hard prejudice can be changed by positive intentions.

While the journey to the World Cup championship is masterfully portrayed, Eastwood may perhaps be forgiven for not quite capturing the raw emotion and jubilation of the crowds pouring into the streets, from Johannesburg and Soweto, to cities, suburbs and black townships across the country. Glued to their TV sets, the streets were eerily empty and quiet while everyone watched the incredibly close and intense game, which went into overtime and was finally won by an amazing drop-kick by fly half Joel Stransky. The underdog outsiders – absent from years of international competition – had become the unexpected world champions.

After watching the game live in Johannesburg, I couldn’t contain myself and had to take a drive around the city to gauge people’s reactions. I joined a crowd commencing on Rocky Street, which in sheer numbers and energy extended far beyond the wonderful celebrations surrounding the amazing 1994 national elections. It seems that whites who had been sitting on the fence or were quietly reticent about the New South Africa had come out of the woodwork to be part of a dynamic new unity and identity. As I watched the informal parade of crowds shouting and singing, an Irish immigrant who owned a photography shop on Rocky St. turned to me and quietly said, “It’s a great country, James.” I suddenly realized how the power of sport can trump the power of politics, and it felt like I was witnessing the true birth of the New South Africa, on July 24, 1995, more than a year after Nelson Mandela’s Presidential inauguration at the Union Buildings on May 10, 1994.
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The performances in “Invictus” are compelling, and the film has a natural flow that gives one a tremendous feel of history leading up the to the World Cup match. Typically however, many South Africans have mixed emotions and almost ambivalent reactions to films like “Invictus,” which flatter them by bringing their extraordinary history and culture to the world stage and then mangle the languages and accents enough to leave them feeling like their seeing a American B-versions of their nationhood. In a country with 11 official languages and most people are bi-lingual -and many Africans speak 4 or more languages - outsiders are often numb to linguistic nuances and complexities of a society that has a profoundly rich culture with its own celebrated literary, music and theatrical traditions.

Films like “Invictus,” “Cry the Beloved Country,” “Drum” and “Cry Freedom” can be particularly vexing for black South Africans, who feel as if their culture is being exploited while they are passed over in favor marquis African American actors like Morgan Freeman, Taye Diggs and Denzel Washington. I wrote about this before in response to John Matshikiza’s With the Lid Off column, where he hilariously berated “black Yankees being cast in roles that African actors can fulfill with ease, grace and, dare one say it, the whiff of authenticity...” Films are an investment, and studios and producers want the international celebrity status and bankable box office appeal of Matt Damon or Morgan Freeman to reach a wide audience, preferably paying in dollars and euros. In the meantime SABC and Channel Africa are busy exporting their own soap operas, sitcoms and television productions to Africa, in their own bid for a certain kind of pop culture hegemony over growing expansion of entertainment media in Africa.

Nelson Mandela is a particularly hard character to portray, because his voice is distinct apart from the difficulties of emulating his Xhosa accent. But Terrance Howard is set to play Nelson Mandela alongside Jennifer Hudson as Winnie, and from the early trailers, it seems that both accents are horrible, even to an insular, insensitive American ear. We love the stories and we need the stories; but something gets lost and a little warped in translation. Oh well, I’m so sorry, my dear bra John, but it seems this change may take some time...

Susan Taylor: Essence Icon and Mentoring Motivator

2009-05-01T11:39:00.000-07:00

It was a great honor and pleasure to meet Susan Taylor. She is something of an enigma – a bold, driven, ambitious “type A” personality, and yet very down-to-earth, soft-spoken and easy to talk to. Maybe this is partly a function of walking away from Essence magazine and all its ventures after 37 years, and her decision to focus on changing the African American community through her National Cares mentoring movement. I got the distinct sense that she made everyone and everything around her slow down and move gracefully; she is definitely not an executive in the fervent style of Donald Trump and "The Apprentice"... I believe much of what we can learn from Susan Taylor comes from her character and presence – that a person can be a leader and care about people around them, and that women can move up in their chosen careers and fields and not feel like they have to be cold, hard, calculating martinets. Susan is a visionary, and hopefully more and more people will answer her call for understanding the power of mentoring relationships.

There's no real direct connection between Susan Taylor, the National Cares Mentoring Movement, this article and Africa, except that Susan had her epiphany on Pemba island, off the coast of Zanzibar and Tanzania. (Some people believe Africa inspires such moments, especially for African Americans who touch the Motherland and return to their Source.) I took the opportunity to write this article because I felt it was important to talk to Susan. More and more African Americans are traveling to Africa and living in Africa, especially celebrities and folks with financial means. The involvement of African Americans - and particulary prominent Black cultural leaders, activists and media personalities - in the Motherland, will be one of the defining trends of Africa's future. More brothers and sisters will discover the vast beauty of Africa and what it has to offer, and will have their own moments of inspired revelation.

Susan Taylor: Essence Icon and Mentoring Motivator

Susan Taylor, builder of the legendary Essence magazine empire, is virtually the embodiment of Black womanhood in full force.

She has a small frame, but is stunning in her physical presence – she is graceful and elegant, perhaps all that you would expect from a woman who was the driving force behind the most successful Black woman’s magazine on the planet. Moving into its 39th year, Essence has evolved from a small monthly magazine into an icon of African American culture, including the Essence Music Festival, the Essence Literary Awards, Essence hosiery, Essence eyewear and a vast array of topical conferences and forums.

Taylor herself is ever active, always searching the horizon to anticipate changes in society that effect Black women and African Americans as a whole. Her visionary leadership has inspired Essence’s extraordinary growth and influence, and has transformed her into one of the most recognized and admired African Americans of our contemporary era.

Yet in person, what is perhaps most striking about Taylor is her gentleness, her warmth and accessibility. As we sat down for our interview at Loews Hotel in Denver, she spoke softly, in an unassuming and direct manner. Her friendliness and charm caught me off guard, as she seemed completely unrushed by the outside world. One has the sense that Taylor focuses on her goals, yet is also sensitive and responsive to everyone around her. It is hard to imagine that this diminutive, easygoing woman is also the same dynamic publishing and media mogul whose name has become synonymous with an industry powerhouse. But Taylor moves with a natural smile and grace that does not relay impatience, haughtiness, detachment or ego-driven ambition.

At the apex of her career and personal achievements, when others might be considering retirement, Taylor has other things on her mind. With all that her wealth, status and fame can bring her, she is not preoccupied with quietly easing into a life of comfort from the well-deserved fruits of her 37 years at Essence. She is concerned that “the situation in Black America is continuing to decline” and has devoted all her time and energy to building the National Cares Mentoring Movement, which has now taken root in 55 cities throughout the country.

Taylor was in Denver with National Cares Chairman Tommy Dortch and President Rustin Lewis to launch the Greater Denver Mentoring Movement at Infinity Park last month. Seeing a profound need for guidance and wisdom in the growth of African American youth, particularly in urban and inner-city communities, Taylor’s new passion and mission emerged from the aftermath of the August 2005 Hurricane Katrina catastrophe. But it took time for her ideas to evolve and her vision to take form.
While Taylor started at Essence as a fashion and beauty editor, while editor-in-chief she always made sure Essence covered a wide range of social issues from changing stereotypes of Black women to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Given that the three-day Essence Music Festival – one of America’s premier festivals of Black music – takes place in New Orleans, it was inevitable that Hurricane Katrina would evoke a response from Taylor and Essence.

The Essence Music Festival temporarily moved to Houston that year, and Taylor felt an urgent need to bring artists, celebrities and political leaders together to address the audience and talk about the impact of Hurricane Katrina. The energy and spirit of the festival was forward-looking, as people like Danny Glover, Mary J. Blige, Monique, Common, Run DMC, Terrence Howard, civil rights activist Marian Wright-Edelman and Urban League President Mark Morial all spoke about volunteerism and getting engaged in the lives of the disenfranchised, disconnected young people. After the festival, Taylor took a sabbatical to Africa, and while on Pemba Island, off the coast of Zanzibar, she had an epiphany.

“Giving it critical thought and taking quiet time, the Holy Spirit just said, ‘Mentor.’ Mentoring creates miracles and transforms lives,” Taylor explained, with great feeling and emotion. Months of grappling with the issue led to her revelation on Pemba Island. “You don’t need lots of money. I had looked at the Urban League’s programs and the NAACP’s and a whole host of others to see the work that they were doing in communities. Looking at Boys and Girls Clubs and Job Corps, we’re talking about billions of dollars it would take to serve young people and those who are most vulnerable. So I thought mentoring is what we need.”

After returning to the United States, Taylor organized a meeting with many national activists and organizations, hosting them for lunch with Essence, as part of the “Essence Cares” initiative, and in turn she learned about the nonprofit sector. Eventually Essence Cares became the National Cares Mentoring Movement, based in Atlanta, and they relied on Tommy Dortch –an author, entrepreneur and prominent leader in the Georgia Democratic Party – to develop a template for mentoring. Dortch, who is the chairman of the 100 Black Men mentoring organization, also became chairman of National Cares Mentoring Movement. Along with National Cares President Justin Lewis, Dortch and Taylor travel to various cities across the country, drawing crowds, speaking at launches and galvanizing communities into action.

Taylor believes mentors are essential to help bridge a growing class separation that is having a destructive impact on the African-American community.

“There’s a complete divide between middle-class Black people and poor Black people that didn’t exist 30, 40 or 50 years ago and that gulf is widening and deepening. And so that was the original idea for the Essence Cares movement,” Taylor said, becoming more animated as she talks about the implications of these changes.

“We got into the American dream of having more – more of anything. We want a bigger house, a bigger car, more clothing, more, more, more – and there’s no ceiling to the more. And that more has focused us on getting and not giving,” Taylor pointed out, saying these changes are reflected in our church communities, which have now become preoccupied with a “prosperity gospel” rather than the “social gospel.” “When you look back and see what we did with what we had during the civil rights movement – people who had resources always took care of others.”

Beyond the class issue, Taylor expressed concerns that some people are unwilling to work with ex-cons and felons, while she feels the institutions of American society and the Black community have actually failed these individuals. Taylor acknowledged that some individuals are completely out of control and need to be kept behind bars, yet she is passionate about taking collective responsibility for young people who have poor reading skills and have not been given the proper tools for success.

“There’s nobody with a gun in his hand, who’s out there mugging someone, who has a high school diploma or who has a job and is capable of taking care of himself and his family. There’s nobody out there who’s gang-banging, who has those things,” Taylor said emphatically. “The challenge in this country and in our community is public education. Failed schools are pipelines to prisons. And when you have youngsters who are 17 or 18 years old reading at a third-grade level, when you’re handed a broom to do a lot of sweeping, you don’t want to do that – you feel like your grandfathers did that and that’s not what you want to do.”

According to Taylor, the National Cares Mentoring Movement intends to identify and recruit as many “able and stable” Black men and women as possible, and then channel them into local mentoring organizations that are already vetted and prepared to establish mentor relationships. When local organizers have done enough groundwork and are ready, they setup a launch for a local mentoring organization, and Taylor, Dortch and Lewis work to motivate and draw as many people as possible.

Taylor spoke highly of Denver organizers Gerri Howard and Rhonda Jackson, who have “gathered an amazing circle of people who care about community – politicians, business people, people who work for nonprofits and people who do mentoring things.” Taylor said that the launch of the Greater Denver Cares Movement at Infinity Park, which drew an estimated 500 people, was the National Cares Movement’s most successful launch in any of its current 55 cities. People who are interested in the program can log on to the Movement’s web site at www.caresmentoring.com and be directed to specific organizations in their home communities.

Taylor believes that effective mentoring can be essential for young people who are “falling through the cracks” and at risk. For a short time commitment, mentors can have a very real and immediate influence in turning someone’s life around.

“All we’re asking for is an hour a week to speak life into a young person,” she said, pointing out that a mentor can talk to a young person in need and make options and opportunities real for them. “Oh, you dropped out of high school – don’t worry, you can fix it. There’s a GED program over here; let’s get you in it. Come on, you can go to community college – you can do it! And even if they don’t go to college, maybe you need some kind of industrial training. You can become a bricklayer, you can become a nurse’s aide or you can become a plumber. Unions are now opening their ranks to people who have come out of incarceration. You can make $50 or $60 an hour as plumber or a carpenter.”

At 61, Taylor has been on a remarkable journey, and she realized late last year that she had to leave Essence to devote herself full time for the National Cares Mentoring Movement to succeed. When she started at Essence in the early ‘70s she was a single mother, earning a salary of $500 a month. Her rent was $368, and the magazine had a circulation of 50,000. Today, Essence has a monthly readership of 1.1 million, not to mention the reach of the Essence brand’s subsidiary ventures.

While new editors have stepped up to fill her shoes, for several years Taylor has maintained a “long arm” on the publishing empire she created. Then, last year, it was clear the time had come to devote herself completely to her mentoring movement. In December, Taylor sent an emotional e-mail to all her professional colleagues, informing them that she would be stepping down, in effect formalizing the end of an era and the changing of the guard at Essence.

“I couldn’t grow the National Cares Movement. It is an answer – it is THE answer. And it needs galvanizing force – it needs pushing. It needs somebody who can be in Denver today, and Atlanta yesterday and Greensboro next week. It needed that, and I realized my tentacles – that I am connected to a lot of people in the political world, I’m connected on the grassroots level and I have the respect of my community,” Taylor said. “People who know me know that I’m not about being in another photograph, or being on television, or anything like that. I belong to my community. And that’s the conversation I was having with myself.”

But if you ask Susan Taylor and push a little deeper, you’ll find that there are aspects of her life that remain unfulfilled. At some point in the future, perhaps Taylor will feel that the National Cares Mentoring Movement is well established and enough change is occurring that she may withdraw into a more introspective and personal phase of her long and storied life.

“I want to build my house in St. Croix. I want to put my feet up and have a peppermint tea in one hand and a book in the other hand. That’s what I really want to do, but the level of suffering I see in our community is too high,” she said, with a touch of sadness. “I’m a high-energy person, but I also want to read, I want to be still, I want to be quiet, I want to think… That’s what I want, but I’m doing this now. I’m putting everything I have into it – financial resources, and of course, my energy and the ideas that I have. Anybody who knows me knows that when you’re with me we’re going to talk about our children.”

Postscript for a New President and the Precession of Ancestors

2009-04-28T23:19:00.000-07:00

President Obama's first press conference, February 9, 2009

I normally don’t write about politics, but Barack Obama’s election and inauguration as President are almost impossible ignore in a blog about Africa, African Americans and African descendants and their cultures. In December 2006, when Obama’s candidacy was still in question, I wrote “Barack Obama and the Dreams of an African Ancestor,” to explore what his election might mean from the perspective of his father and his Ancestors – and our Ancestors, as African people. But that was about two and a half years ago, and since then I’ve focused on many other things like broadcasting, technology, the environment, genetics, film, music and entertainment; I never felt compelled to write about the primaries, the Democratic Convention in Denver or the excitement of election night and the inauguration in January. But just as millions of Americans made the pilgrimage to Washington, D.C. to witness the historic inauguration of our first African American president, all across Africa, and especially in Kenya, people were celebrating. To be sure, in Kogelo, Obama’s grandmother’s village in western Kenya, they were slaughtering cows and observing traditional African ceremonies. These distant events are now symbolically linked to observances of power in the White House.

But don't get me wrong - Barack Obama as the symbol of African and African American aspirations is one thing, and Barack Obama as a president who faces constricting realities and political exigencies is someone else. Obama has varying support groups and constituencies, and he is bound to disappoint some. From the favorable treatment to banks in the economic recovery stimulus package to lack of support for gay civil rights, and now possibly wavering on a public option in national health care, President Obama has come up short of what I and others expected of his leadership. We have to live with these practical political realities and see how Obama navigates them, pressuring him at times - while still assessing the mass movement that put him in office and what his presence means to the progression of African-American history.

In my mind, “Dreams from My Father” should be required reading for all Black middle school or high school students throughout the world, as Obama’s book has lessons about Africa, tribalism, corruption, community, the urban inner-city experience, Black and white perceptions and identity, family bonds, education and excellence. I say this not out of hero worship or because of Obama's historic election; rather, "Dreams from My Father" is a lens and a focal point for exploring multi-facted dimensions of these issues in one lucid, well-written memoir. Now, 100 days into Barack Hussein Obama Jr.’s Presidency, it seems fitting to look for the signs of fate, intuition and providence in this prominent event and the Precession of Ancestors.

100 Days of Change

We’re not amazed anymore, not really. The glamour of the inauguration has worn off, and we’re no longer stunned to see a Black man commanding attention at a White House press conference, although a lot more of African Americans – and Americans in general – are paying close attention to the process of government and the actions of Barack Obama’s Administration. After 100 days in office Obama is receiving generally strong reviews from pundits, and for most of mainstream America the issue of race has faded into the background and the focus has been on the recession, the economic stimulus package, bank and auto industry bailouts, budget deficits and spending on education, health care, energy and the environment. Internationally, Obama has been inspiring the people around the world with charismatic, dynamic leadership – reaching out to Muslims, seeking dialogue with adversaries and having a palpable effect on world leaders from Russia’s Dimitri Medvedev and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, to China’s Wen Jiabao and the Summit of the Americas. Naturally, Obama has made mistakes and gaffes; at times he or his administration has stumbled, but his overall performance has been strong and he has the highest public approval ratings of any president in recent history. Obama has inspired hope with a new image of America as a country where people previously bound by slavery and segregation can transcend their history and reach a pinnacle of power. All this from a candidate people said was too young, too inexperienced and could not win - and that Americans would never elect a Black President.

Back in December 2006 I wrote “Barack Obama and the Dreams of an African Ancestor”, during the buzz period when Obama was initially contemplating whether he should even run for President. I predicted Obama would run and win. I see the United States as an idealistic nation, and when someone is able to strike the right chord, the idealism of America shines forth, and Americans turn in that direction. I knew Barack Obama could strike the chord, with a Kennedy-like charisma and leadership style, pulling America toward a Democratic, progressive agenda.

After the 2004 elections, I remember talking with a brother at my neighborhood gym who was depressed about politics, and I told him to watch Barack Obama. Then after Obama threw his hat in the Democratic Party primaries, I made a game out of betting Denver taxicab drivers – most of whom seem to be from Ethiopia or Sudan – that Obama would not only win the Democratic nomination, but he would actually go on to win the presidency. Much like many African Americans in the early stages of the Obama campaign – they could not imagine that a Black man could actually be elected to the highest office in the land. So I would bet these guys – at $50 a pop – that Obama would go all the way. Now mind you, had Obama lost any stage in the campaign, I’m sure a few of those brothers would have driven to my house to collect their winnings. But somehow, not one of them has been honorable enough to acknowledge I was right all along, and pay their due. There are various African cab drivers out there who owe me a total of about $250, and I can certainly use that cash in this recession. Well, I’m glad that Obama is President if for nothing else than I don’t have to pay off any of those Africans.

Part of my vision about where we were going with this election and my view of Obama was based on a feeling that our country was ready for this seismic shift in leadership and America’s image of itself – and part of it was based on something inner, something intuitive. Reading Obama’s memoir, “Dreams from my Father” and following his life story, I had a feeling about the forces of fate, of destiny, of what Africans refer to as their Ancestors, whose presence and guidance is a part of the fabric of their lives – particularly their good fortune and blessings. I came to see Obama’s path as a fulfillment of his father’s unrealized ambitions, and a natural foundation for Barack Hussein Obama Jr.’s fascinating emergence into America’s national political scene. The sense of connection, guidance and providence between the living and African ancestors, is vibrant in African life, in African dreams, ceremonies and everyday society.

Along with Obama’s election, I felt like there was a passing of the old guard for African people as a whole as many of our artists, musicians, writers and cultural leaders made their transitions this past year. I’m thinking of Miriam Makeba, John Hope Franklin, Eartha Kitt, Odetta, Isaac Hayes, Norman Whitfield, Bo Diddley, Freddie Hubbard, Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, Es’kia Mphahlele, John Matshikiza and even Marpessa Dawn and Bruno Mello from the beautiful classic film, “Black Orpheus” who oddly enough, died 42 days apart, both from heart attacks. Well, maybe it’s just me and my sentimentality. Maybe it’s just that more information is being channeled through more kinds of media, and I'm just seeing a natural progression of generations moving through their corresponding phases of growth, youth, maturity and death. Maybe that’s what makes the loss of these exemplars stand out in my mind.

Reflecting on these beautiful souls I see struggle, pain, victory, divine direction, guidance, providence; I see people who rose often from poor or obscure backgrounds to find a path of creativity, intelligence and influence that somehow advanced all of us, all African descendant people. Perhaps every year we will look back at those who have passed and have become our Ancestors, and we’ll be more astounded at what they have taught us, the distance we have traveled with them and the phenomenal tapestry of who we are as a people.

I believe Obama has the makings of a great president because of his fascinating journey as an African American. Obama demonstrates extraordinary intelligence, wisdom and judgment because he looked for his mind, his heart and identity in the South Side of Chicago, in the inner-city urban experience, through his family and African roots in Kenya – in addition to pursuing his education at Columbia and Harvard. His life and consciousness embodies the duality of the reasoning and concrete knowledge of the Western world and the imagination, intuition, feeling, creativity, celebration, spirituality, struggle and strength of being Black, of being African American, of being African. This is why Obama is proving to be such an extraordinary leader; he demonstrates a remarkable wholeness, a synthesis of these different minds and identities.

As African Americans and Africans, we can all find the same synthesis, and we can build a bridge between two worlds, and we have the Precession of Ancestors. We have The Souls of Black Folk. We have those souls who guided us, who showed us the way, who carried light in overwhelming darkness, who took pain, anguish and strife and fashioned it into beauty, jazz, blues, gospel, hip hop, style, dance, art, literature and aesthetics. We have souls that shined a light under the weight of a civilization that has thrown the whole planet – not to mention Africa itself – out of balance. Obama is obviously a milestone in our journey, and his election represents a sea change in America’s consciousness. But where we go from here and what his presidency really means for Black people is another question. There are still vast overwhelming forces that contrast the experiences of Africans everywhere, from cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles or London, Johannesburg and Nairobi, to many little-known villages scattered throughout Africa and the Americas. There are deprivations and poverty, lack of resources and educational opportunities and obvious brazen disparaties. I think we will still need to turn to those Ancestral voices to find the essential truths that will carry us through complexities of our evolving global civilization.

The great African writer Es’kia Mphahlele passed away on October 27, 2008; I had the honor of meeting him and interviewing him in August 2005 in Denver, when he made his last visit to the United States, where he spent a good number of years as an English professor at Denver University. I was deeply saddened by his passing, because I understand what a towering figure he is in South Africa and Africa as a whole. The breadth and depth of his life work as a novelist, academic and arts activist is astounding as a vision of African ideas and possibilities. Even if Obama's position symbolizes that we may be entering into an era of new possibilities, we still must heed the voices of our Ancestors, which gives us perspective on who we are, where we have come from and where we are going. Es’kia understood this, spoke about it, wrote about it, and lectured about it often.

“Yes, Africa speaks to me, because I listen too much to the wild voices of now, of present day politics and ethnic problems and conflicts. I listen to the subterranean voices, the voices coming from the past, from my forefathers and our ancestors. That’s how Africa speaks to me. Never mind the political noises that one hears, this way or that way. I’m talking about something much more solid, as well as spiritual… But if you stop and listen to the voices of ancient wisdom—and you hear the voice in the metaphors of our languages and in the mannerisms in which we as Africans approach each other... If we listen to the voices of those forces, you get somewhere. You realize that you have some protection from other kinds of foes and forces that work on you.”

Tamara Banks and the Long Journey of 21st Century Slaves

2009-04-28T21:11:00.000-07:00

Newly freed slaves in southern Sudan wave their arms in joy, celebrating their freedom.

I try not to write about “crisis” news in Africa, like the war in the Congo, pirates and anarchy in Somalia, Darfur, AIDS/HIV, etc. because there are enough of these reports in the mainstream media, so much so that it creates decidedly negative ideas and perceptions of Africa for those people who haven't visited the continent. Generally, I’ve looked for stories that convey more of the richness and complexity of the Motherland, trying to focus more on culture and less on politics. But being objective and truthful about difficult conflicts and problems is also part of being a responsible journalist. Slavery is a very real problem in Sudan, and more people need to be informed about it so that activists, human rights organizations and abolitionists can get the support they need to help end it.

To answer the question of how ongoing practice of slavery can exist in the 21st Century in Sudan, one has to examine the nexus of race, culture, religion and ethnicity that fuels the problem. Historically, Arabs have been practicing slavery and human trafficking in East Africa for centuries, using a perversion of Islam to justify the tradition by “converting” the infidel slaves into Muslims. Perhaps leaders like Omar Bashir will say that there is no slavery in Sudan, because someone owed a certain family cattle or some other debts, and the “servants” are repaying those debts. Of course, we must remember that Bashir has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in Darfur, and he has been shrouding his government's activities there. The reality is that a cruel form of slavery and human trafficking is happening in Africa, in the new Millennium, just beyond our peripheral vision of Darfur.

Tamara Banks' experience and her documentary, "The Long Journey Home" is a story with many intersecting dimensions. Everyone should see this documentary, because slavery is a terrible affront to human dignity and decency. In our global society, this kind of repression is a test of our humanity and compassion.

Tamara Banks and the Long Journey of 21st Century Slaves

In the midst of trying to grapple with the question of modern slavery in Sudan, Tamara Banks has unwittingly found herself drawn into the eye of a horrendous storm. The former Denver KWGN Channel 2 news anchor has been traveling to southern Sudan for two years and quietly documenting terrible human rights abuses and crimes against humanity that the rest of the world has somehow failed to notice.

With her bright, sunny face and disarming smile, the 5 foot 1 inch Banks has a kind, cheerful disposition that you would not expect to find in a region of nefarious slave hunters and armed militiamen carrying out unspeakable cruelties. Despite the overt dangers of a nascent war and an age-old conflict between Arabs and Black Africans is evolving with new mutations, Banks clearly feels compelled by her conscience to shine a light on slavery in the 21st Century.

While the international media has heightened awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, very little has been reported concerning the ongoing conflict between the Muslim north and Christian south in other parts of Sudan. After 23 years of civil war, the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), representing the south, negotiated a peace settlement in 2005 with President Omar Bashir’s government in Khartoum, forming a coalition government of national unity. But with large numbers of returning refugees, arms flooding the region, inter-tribal conflicts and lack of adequate water, infrastructure and health care facilities, southern Sudan is drifting into chaos. Moreover, the ongoing practice of slavery is undermining any potential for stability in the region.

For most Americans, slavery is something that was eradicated through the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation; the notion that slavery can exist in the age of Barack Obama, flat screen TVs and the Internet is implausible and mind-boggling. Yet a volatile mix of history, racism, religious hatred and greed for oil is the back story to the reality of an ongoing slave trade in modern Africa. With the south holding up to 80 percent of Sudan’s oil reserves, the stage is set for further hostilities. Many observers believe that Bashir’s government is supplying arms and fomenting ethnic conflict in the region while turning a blind eye toward human trafficking, thus ensuring that southern Sudan will remain in turmoil. While a referendum for independence for the south is scheduled for 2011, the ineffective regional government and as many as 2 million refugees are becoming a looming humanitarian crisis that would dwarf the catastrophe at Darfur.

During our interview at a local coffee shop, Tamara Banks conveys a sense of urgency as she relays dramatic stories of human suffering at the hands of oppressive forces in Sudan. Banks is using the footage she shot during her 2008 and 2009 visits to Sudan to produce “The Long Journey Home,” a feature-length documentary that she plans to enter in film festivals and present to potential broadcasters by the end of this year. “The Long Journey Home” is a vivid portrait of victims, perpetrators and activists caught up in the modern day abolitionist movement. The documentary was shot by entirely by Banks on High Definition video, because the region was too dangerous for a camera crew. As a journalist, the production carries Banks beyond the her traditional role as a news reporter, pushing her emotions to their limits and testing her ability to remain detached as she witnesses the brutal effects of genocide.

“This is a crisis situation. People are being killed and being enslaved – if they’re not being physically killed, they’re being spiritually killed and emotionally killed,” Banks says. “All those bright minds, all those bright futures are just going down the drain in a pool of blood and it’s not right. Somebody has to speak up about that.”

Tamara Banks interviewing a Christianity Solidarity International abolitionist.

Banks became involved in Sudan through her work as a board member of the Colorado Coalition for Genocide Awareness and Action. Fellow board member Pastor Heidi McGinnis introduced her to Christian Solidarity International (CSI), an abolitionist organization that has been working on the slavery issue in Sudan since 1995. Typically, CSI negotiates to buy slaves using Nvidia, a cattle vaccine that ironically is more valuable to the slave owners than their slaves, because Arabs in the north are completely reliant on their cattle for their livelihood. After their freedom is secured, CSI offers each former slave a “Sack of Hope” survival kit, which includes a tarp for shelter, a mosquito net, sorghum, fish hooks and a sickle for farming and building shelter. They then seek to integrate former slaves into existing communities, helping them rebuild their lives, or where possible, returning them to their original villages.

Banks pointed out that slavery in Sudan is a legacy of a scorched earth policy practiced by the north during the civil war, where soldiers and militiamen would destroy entire villages with all of their crops and cattle, and those who were not killed were taken as slaves. Returning slaves to their ancestral homes is often difficult if not impossible, because many of the slaves were captured as children and converted to Islam, and they may not remember the village they came from or even their own Christian names.

“The abolitionists interview them about when they were taken, how old they think they are, their Christian names and so on, because once they are taken into slavery, they are forced to become Muslims,” Banks said, describing the process CSI uses when they begin working with newly freed slaves.

“They take their pictures and photos and get their height and weight, just about everything you can think about. There are several reasons for that – one is to show the United Nations and other organizations that these people actually exist. It’s not some fantasy that people have made up some place. They also try to monitor the ongoing situation to see if some of the same people are being captured again.”

While Banks is determined to expose television and film audiences to slavery in Sudan, she also seems overwhelmed by the historical, political and cultural complexities underlying the slave trade. Banks sees herself as traveling back to Sudan in the future, and learning more with each visit. She says that her very first trip was a stark and haunting experience; after flying in 6 or 7 planes and driving for many miles, she had her first encounter with a group of former slaves waiting to be liberated.

“That was pretty mind-blowing. There were 106 men and boys who were sitting and waiting and they were slaves, and I’m thinking, ‘Slavery now, today, really?’ Banks said with disbelief, remembering the shock of those emotions. “On top of that I had to have my wits about me to film this video, because I can’t lose sight of why I’m here. That was overwhelming – to be thinking about so many things at once, the emotional side as well as the production side.”

Banks pointed out that the Janjiweed (literally translated, meaning “devils on horseback”) militia from the north are carrying out a form of slavery that has been traditionally practiced by Arabs for centuries, involving Black Africans. On the surface, both Janjiweed and the southern Sudanese seem to be Black Africans, but cultural and religious differences fuel a geographic and psychological divide that has devastating implications. As Banks is African American, the racial dimensions of the slavery issue are particularly disturbing, beyond the fundamental injustice of slavery itself.

“Many if not most of the Janjiweed are Arab, but many were Black, like African indigenous Black, but they were Muslim. So there’s the Black Muslim and there’s the Arab Muslim. In this part of the world there’s a false sense of camaraderie, or a (false) common denominator,” Banks maintained. “Sometimes there are Blacks killing Blacks, which is heartbreaking. When you see it, you’re thinking, ‘Wait a minute – he could be Dinka, he could be Murle, he could be from the Nuba Mountains – and they’re killing some people of their own.’ But in their mind they’re Muslim, and they believe in their Koran and they’ve practiced it and studied it and they think that it’s okay to do this. And it’s frightening - so it’s a religious war and it’s a racial war and it’s a political battle, and it is genocide.”

Banks says her presentation to African American groups is slightly different and more personal, although she believes that everyone – regardless of their race or background – should become involved in the Sudan slavery issue. She also feels that African Americans and Black people in Africa can learn from the strong response of the Jewish community, as they understand the exigency of slavery ang genocide because of their recent history with Holocaust. Furthermore, Jewish people have a connection to Israel, and they also feel a connection to anywhere there is a Jewish community. Banks would like to see Africans Americans and Africans have a similar bond with Africa and each other.

At one point in “The Long Journey Home,” Banks sits on a small sand dune at dusk, and speaks softly to the camera, barely being able to contain her emotions after hearing about some children who were forced to witness other children being decapitated as a punishment for trying to escape. The dead children's heads were put up in tree branches, and the children were forced to look up at the trees.

“For a child to go through that, how does one recover? How it impacted me, is it made me cry – not at that moment, because I understand that if they see us crying and upset, they will lose all hope,” Banks explained, as she spoke about navigating her own vulnerabilities to human suffering, while maintaining her role as a journalist. She concluded that journalists are “activists for the truth” and for “people who can’t defend themselves or speak for themselves.”

“When I started wrapping my mind around that then it made sense to me; it made sense to me when I would get choked up, or when I just felt my heart was in such sadness and pain for these individuals,” Banks said. “I think it’s okay to be a human being as a journalist.”

Banks described another traumatic experience where an enslaved man defied his slave master and said he was not going to be treated like the animals he was caring for. His owner pierced a wooden stake through is his lip and tied to rope to the stake, to painfully humiliate him and keep him tied like an animal, leaving him with a ghastly scar across his face.

“We hear about women and children being sodomized, and we forget about the men. How indignant - here is a grown man – a beautiful Black man – being treated like a farm animal,” Banks said, with both sadness and anger. “It just really pissed me off.”

Banks has also been inspired by the strength and fortitude of the Sudanese people, seeing former slaves triumph over demoralizing traumas and rebuild their lives. She was deeply moved by the personal experience of a chief who was overseeing the integration freed slaves into local villages. One of the women looked vaguely familiar to him, and to his surprise he discovered that the woman was actually his own daughter who had been abducted from his family years ago, as a child.

“So there are sometimes actual family reunions – and I was filming that at the time – and they just giggled and squealed that they found each other,” Banks said with a smile, yet still somewhat incredulous. “Can you imagine if your daughter was taken from you at age 7 or 8 or 10 and you don’t see her for 10 or 15 or maybe 20 years, and then there’s this reunion? You don’t know if your mom or dad died, or if your child died – and every once in a while there’s reunion that’s a real joy to see.”

Banks says there are a number of ways that people can get involved in the slavery issue, and she encourages her audiences to do their own research and educate themselves on what is happening in the region. Banks points out that there are several organizations founded by Denverites that are active in Sudan and need support. Project Education Sudan works on building schools and the Nuba Water Project provides engineering skills and resources to help people in the Nuba Mountains build dams and capture water. In addition to Christian Solidarity International, the Arab Dinka Peace Committee is an anti-slavery organization composed of Muslems who are working to free slaves and eradicate the practice.

Banks also spoke about the 1-800 GENOCIDE number, which facilitates calls to Members of Congress; the number primarily for Darfur, but callers can also engage the issue of slavery on the same number. Legislation specifically addressed to the slavery issue, House of Representatives bill HR 3844 (which former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo helped initiate) was introduced in the last Congress in 2007 and has subsequently stalled in the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Public phone calls, letters and e-mails to Congressmen and Senators will help create political pressure for moving the bill during the current Congress.

Banks believes that with enough collective pressure, the moral imperative of these issues will eventually force action, much like a comparatively small group of vocal activists and abolitionists helped turn the tide on slavery more than a century ago during the Civil War. Although Banks is somewhat reluctant to describe herself as an abolitionist, she feels inexorably drawn to tell the story of the suffering she has seen.

"If the definition is working efforts to free those who are enslaved, then yes, I am an ‘abolitionist.’ I guess I’m hesitant about it because it’s such an honorable thing to do, when I think of Harriet Tubman and Wilberforce and Pastor Heidi and people who are just really doing the work on a daily basis,” Banks said. “As great as they are – I’m not sure I fit in that company of excellence. But when I hear that I’m quite honored, because I’m just doing what I do as a journalist, and if that helps free people, then I guess I’m an abolitionist.”

A Peacemaker in Africa's Brave New World

2008-03-12T20:07:00.000-07:00

Jendayi Frazer greeting Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos as Angolan Ambassador to the US H.E. Josefina Pitra Diakite looks on.

I first met Jendayi Frazer 15 years ago when she was completing her PhD. At that time I thought of her as someone who was a deep source of knowledge and insight on Africa, and primarily as an academic and an activist. I saw her as a college professor, and not a policy maker. I think this article is interesting in that it shows multiple perspectives of what working through diplomacy and United States foreign policy can mean.

Jendayi Frazer's work is also very relevant from the perspective of being the Bush Administration's top diplomat in Africa. Bush, of course, has been and will be criticized for many things, particularly his foreign policy and the Iraq war. Nonetheless, the Bush Administration developed the most engaged and progressive Africa policy of any President in US history. Obama will naturally have an even stronger knowledge of and interest in Africa. His Africa policies will focus much more on nation building, while intensifying humanitarian aid and maintaining the same military and strategic security interests.

A Peacemaker in Africa’s Brave New World

First as the US Ambassador to South Africa and then later as the Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Jendayi Frazer has found herself in a remarkable position of power and influence regarding the daunting challenges of Africa’s new millennium. Her small stature and soft voice belies her passion and intensity for uplifting the African continent on multiple fronts through diplomacy, development and conflict resolution.

At a time when the Iraq war has made many people hyper-critical of the Bush Administration’s foreign policy, Frazer is proud to point to any of a number of success stories in the Motherland. She unapologetically views Bush as a bold leader with a strong vision for Africa, a president who is playing an unprecedented role in meeting Africa’s most pressing needs and development imperatives. As an African American woman, her work with the Bush administration has been especially edifying, as her ties to Africa transcend the purview of standard career ambitions.

“I’m especially proud of the fact that during his administration there have been 6 wars (in Africa) that have essentially been ended,” Frazer said in a telephone interview from her office in the State Department in Washington, D.C. “I’m very proud of the North/South agreement in Sudan that ended a conflict that killed 2 million people. In 2000 people were still being killed and hacked in Sierra Leone. In 2001 we helped put in place a more robust peace-keeping operation – specifically the Pakistanis – who took the diamond territory away from the RUF (Revolutionary United Front), ending that conflict.”

As the State Department’s top diplomatic representative for Africa, Frazer is especially concerned about peacemaking and conflict resolution. Frazer emphasizes that the Sierra Leone effort was a stark deviation from the Clinton administration’s policy of no military engagement in Africa, given the disastrous mission of landing marines in Somalia in 1992.

“Clearly one can look at what’s happened in Sierra Leone where we sent marines in and we broke from the Clinton administration’s policy that there would not be any ‘American boots’ on the ground,” Frazer said. “We sent marines in there and we helped transform that area into a democracy and hold accountable the individuals who were responsible for that conflict, including Charles Taylor.”

Beyond Sudan, Sierra Leone and Liberia, perhaps Frazer’s most personally rewarding work has been in Kenya. Early in her academic career as an undergraduate at Stanford, Frazer chose to specialize in Kenya, developing a heartfelt connection to the land and the people since first traveling to the region in the early 80s. It seems that her decades-long road of varied experiences and personal and professional contacts prepared her for a time when Kenya would face its worst crisis since the end of the British colonial era. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice (her former academic advisor at Stanford) and President Bush placed a great deal of confidence in Frazer when it became evident that issues surrounding Kenya’s recent elections would lead to terrible unrest. The elections were held on December 27, 2007, and by January 3, Frazer was in Nairobi.

“Secretary Rice asked me to immediately go to Kenya both because she knew that I knew people in Kenya because I spent so many years there and secondly because it is such an important country for the United States,” Frazer explained. “We couldn’t stand by and watch it descend into further chaos and watch people be killed without trying to act.”

Kenya has long been considered one of Africa’s most stable nations, an important economic and political leader that seemed somewhat immune to the ethnic and political strife that at times has afflicted its neighbors Uganda, Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. While many people around the world were perplexed at the post-election violence, Kenya’s problems were especially demoralizing for Frazer, given her personal friendships and long involvement with Kenya’s development.

“I think the thing that was most disheartening for me was the hatred that I heard in how people talked about each other’s communities. I’ve’ been living in going to Kenya for many years, since 1981, and I’ve never heard so much stereotyping between the communities,” Frazer said. “Obviously the violence and the killing were indescribable. But the heartening thing was the way that civil society was coming together, demanding something more of their leaders, calling for reconciliation, calling for a government of national unity.”

Frazer said that one could see “the best and the worst of Kenya on display” in the early days after the election. She described an emotional and inspiring “Save Our Beloved Country” media campaign that aired on television and in newspapers shortly after the outbreak of violence. Frazer was particularly proud of these efforts, as Kenya has a relatively strong tradition of civil society non-governmental organizations and associations that are active in promoting democracy, governance, education and development in Kenyan society.

Frazer had known both Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and the opposition leader and new Prime Minister Raila Odinga long before the current crisis. She met with several times with both sides independently and then worked behind the scenes to brief former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as he led the negotiations that resulted in the current power sharing agreement. Frazer feels confident that the current power sharing agreement will hold, as it represents an evolution of reforms that helps balance and reduce the concentration of power in the Presidency. Nonetheless, she feels the future of the agreement will in large part be determined by “good faith and good will,” and the ability of Kibaki and Odinga to work together.

In contrast to her mentor – Condoleeza Rice – who tends toward a rigid personality and professional persona, Jendayi Frazer is prone to quick laughter and a friendly, welcoming temperament even when elaborating upon serious policy issues. Frazer recalls being a teenage sophomore at Stanford when she took selected Rice as a faculty advisor and took her course on the Soviet Union and the Third World. Frazer later watched Rice leave Stanford over the years to work in both government and academia, and eventually ended up using Rice’s career path as a role model. Frazer says that her love for Africa has led her to see her work in government as an extension of her academic career, as Rice showed her that both pursuits were “always available.”

In addition to Rice, former Secretary of State Colin Powell helped shape Frazer’s career by suggesting that she consider taking an ambassador post in Africa. At the time Frazer had been working as for Rice at the National Security Council as a Special Assistant and Senior Director for Africa. When the South African Ambassadorship became available, Frazer believed her 20 years of academic background and expertise would be valuable in a country where “US foreign policy is critical.” The position in South Africa also seemed to be a natural progression from her work at the National Security Council.

“Because of that position I spent a lot of time working on South Africa and working with the principals – the Cabinet ministers, the Secretary (of State) and the President. So they came to know me based on the work that I was doing and when opportunities became available they would mention those opportunities to me,” Frazer explained. “I had been in the NSC for about 3 and half years and I thought it would be good to get another experience. I wanted very much to serve in the field actually implementing policies – not just designing them in Washington, but implementing them on the ground.”

As the first woman U.S. Ambassador to South Africa, Frazer found herself following the legacy of Ed Perkins, the first African American Ambassador to South Africa, who quietly worked to support African National Congress activists during the Reagan Administration. Frazer believes that American Ambassadors have been appreciated in South Africa “for standing for the right things.” While she feels that she was very well-received, she acknowledges that it can be a very difficult position because of the complexities of South African society.

“It’s a difficult place to operate in. You have South Africans that felt that even while the Ambassadors were helping on the ground our policies weren’t there fast enough for them. They didn’t feel that America took on the apartheid regime as quickly as we should have in terms of supporting sanctions,” Frazer pointed out. “So you have this very mixed feeling among the population, and then there are others who feel we abandoned them as well.”

Frazer said she felt very much at home in South Africa during her year-long tenure as Ambassador, although at times she engaged in heady arguments and disagreements about US foreign policy.

“They don’t particularly care for some of our policies – I’m talking more of our global policies – they would have more of what I would call “a European” dispensation,” Frazer said, with hearty laughter. “I enjoy fighting and arguing with the South Africans and I learned to ‘agree to disagree.’ I enjoy trying to help them get a better understanding of America.”

After finishing her stint as Ambassador to South Africa in August 2004, Frazer was appointed to her current position as Assistant Secretary of State for Africa. She has worked tirelessly on a wide range of initiatives for Africa, and she feels very strongly that the Bush Administration has promoted progressive, positive changes for Africa, particularly with regards to HIV/AIDS.

“I think that some of the areas where we experienced tremendous success were the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa and how the President and Secretary Powell and Condi Rice came together to work out the $15 billion PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) program,” Frazer points out. “It wasn’t just them, it was also Tommy Thompson at Health and Human Services. But it was really Secretary Powell who was first to suggest a Cabinet level council on HIV/AIDS.”

Frazer also pointed out that President Bush has dedicated unprecedented resources to fighting malaria in the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), a $1.2 billion program that targets 15 countries with the goal of reducing mortality rates by 50%. In addition to the PMI program, Frazer says that the current Administration has exceeded expectations by raising American development assistant to $5.6 billion, while some international aid organizations have been pushing to get development aid to the $1 billion level. The Bush Administration’s development initiatives also include the Millennium Challenge Account, which provides debt relief to nation’s demonstrating good governance practices.

“Today 19 countries have benefited from debt cancellation, providing about 34 billion that can be put back into their economies for health and education of their people,” Frazer said. “So I’m very, very proud of all those initiatives.”

A woman with a soft voice and a big agenda, Jendayi Frazer pushed herself to the frontiers of diplomacy and development in the brave new world of Africa’s new millennium. Surely a future generation of African-American academics and leaders will build upon her notable work, with even more and greater achievements yet to come.

At the Edge of Time in Zimbabwe

2007-09-15T22:11:00.000-07:00

Robert Mugabe and Canaan Banana, Prime Minister and President respectively, at a signing ceremony for the Lancaster House Agreement on Zimbabwe's independence, April 18, 1980.

Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe have become such controversial catch phrases for fearful demonization that few people remember the history and context out of which Zimbabwe became a nation, and Mugabe its early hero. Of course, recent events in Zimbabwe are very disturbing, and this prompted me to finally have a long and heartfelt talk with a friend of mine who has a powerful and intimate connection with Zimbabwe. While Sulieman Dauda and I are pretty good friends, I had never really talked with him in detail about what drew him to Zimbabwe in the early 80s. From a journalist's perspective, I thought it would be a good idea to try to examine some of Zimbabwe's current issues through the eyes of a unique person who has experienced a lot of history there. From a personal perspective, our conversations affirmed that Africa is often about mysterious connections, synchronicities, heart and soul, patience and intuition; I would say that Sulieman Dauda knows this very well. Those kinds of associations interest me...

As to the future of Zimbabwe, the repression of civil liberties and human rights, the effect of Mugabe's leadership on that nation and political opposition and popular uprisings, I cannot speculate. I am watching, just as everyone else.

At the Edge of Time in Zimbabwe

I first met Sulieman Dauda in Yeoville, a hip Johannesburg neighborhood that was a favorite hangout for journalists, actors, musicians, activists, travelers and just about anyone who was looking for a good time. My good friend Jim Harris, a jazz musician, labor organizer and a respected elder of the African American expatriate community surprised me when he said he had an old friend from Denver who was coming into town for the April 1994 elections. African Americans were a novelty in South Africa back then, few and far between, and I could hardly expect to find someone from my home town.

Jim’s friendship with Sulieman went way back to 1981 and the early years of Zimbabwe’s independence. They both owned beautiful homes in Zimbabwe, and they both seemed intimately caught up in the vortex of energy that birthed the new nation. In Jim’s modest flat, just one block beyond the raucous vibe of Yeoville’s infamous Rocky Street, I was captivated by Sulieman’s easy going manner and his wealth of knowledge and experience in Africa. Often into the wee hours of the night, Sulieman, Jim and I would ramble on about African culture, race, politics and spirituality as we watched news of the national elections and waited for Nelson Mandela’s inauguration ceremony. Jim and Sulieman especially savored the moment; just like years before in Zimbabwe, they once again had their front row seats to witness African history in the making.

Tall and lanky, with a graying beard, wearing a simple T-shirt and jeans, Sulieman Dauda was humble, non-assuming brother, not someone you would expect to be a property owner in the lush and stately suburbs of Harare. His ear-to-ear grin and bright smile seemed to reflect the unbounded joy of the Motherland itself. On the street, Dauda blended in with ordinary South Africans, and you could tell that he could party with the best of them. Somehow I wasn’t too surprised when Jim and Sulieman told me how they befriended Richard Pryor in Zimbabwe and how their hilarious adventures became part of the material for Pryor’s legendary “Live on Sunset Strip” performance. (Jim Harris even went so far as to suggest that Pryor unabashedly stole a few of his choice lines, but I digress…)

Sulieman Dauda had many friends throughout Johannesburg and Soweto, and the three of us all ended up “jowlin” – as they say in Joburg – partying heartily throughout the massive celebrations and elation that permeated the weeks leading up to Mandela’s inauguration. Sulieman went back to Denver after a few weeks, and not long after that Jim and I ended driving across the Limpopo Province and over the border, through to Bulawayo and Harare. Crossing into Zimbabwe at that time one felt a sense of peace that was not present in South Africa, a feeling of calm, patience and ease. In June, 1994 exchange rate of the Zim dollar to the US dollar was 7 to 1; now the exchange rate has exploded beyond the realm of hyperinflation and speculative fiction to an incredible 30,723 to 1.

Times have obviously changed in Zimbabwe. A litany of human rights abuses, a crackdown on freedom of the press, a failing economy, new refugees and displaced communities have marred the reputation of president Robert Mugabe as a hero of the liberation struggle. After reading news reports from Southern Africa, I have often thought about Sulieman Dauda and his extraordinary bond to that beautiful and struggling nation, which not long ago seemed to have all the promise in the world. As a busy landlord, Dauda spends most his time – usually from early mornings until evenings – tending to the duties of his many properties in Denver and his hometown of Gary, Indiana. Recently, in between his demanding schedule, I finally caught up with him to have in depth, detailed conversations about his adventures and exploits in the Motherland. I found his stories compelling, and his experiences and perspectives were refreshing and insightful.

"I knew at the age 16 that I was going to travel to Africa, and I knew I was going to live there,” Dauda said, as we strolled through City Park, taking in the sights and sounds of the Denver Black Arts Festival this past summer. “I had to go and see the truth for myself, and I could see from the books that were available in the late 60s, that they weren’t telling the truth – everything that should have come out wasn’t coming out.”

After a period of radicalization with the Black Panther Party at Wilbur Force College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, Dauda left college and joined the Navy in order to get GI Bill education benefits. Through a long series of events, Dauda ended up at Metropolitan State College in Denver, where he chose to major in marketing and minor in Black Studies. In 1978 Metro offered its first ever educational travel program to Africa, and Dauda was the first student to sign up. While the trip was cancelled for lack of student participation, his teacher and mentor, Dr. Akbarali Thobani, arranged for Dauda to continue his trip with another tour group. Once he was in Africa Dauda could barely contain himself and decided he had to extend his travels beyond the limits of the tour.

“I said to myself I would get off at the furthest point (of the tour), and find my way back to the first point,” Dauda said, his smile reflecting the vivid dreams of his youth. “That’s what I did for three months. I went from Lagos, all the back up to Senegal.”

Perhaps his most important and telling experience in West Africa happened in Jos, Nigeria, where he met a blind spirit medium who told him, “Go to Zimbabwe, and all your dreams will come true…” The message was confusing, because at the time the name “Zimbabwe” was relatively unknown, as the country was still in the midst of its brutal independence war, and was then known as Rhodesia. But in late 1979 Zimbabwe grabbed more international headlines as the United Nations and the British government brokered an uneasy coalition government agreement that paved the way for free elections. Suddenly Dauda had a sense that destiny was calling him to a mysterious new country with a fascinating name.

At an African Liberation Day rally in New York City in 1980, Dauda listened to Robert Mugabe give a speech about his new country and its new government. Mugabe wanted African Americans to help in building the fledging society, and he told the crowd, “Be ye Africans, come home! Bring your skills to Zimbabwe!” The speech and the event so impressed Dauda that nearly 30 years later he still has the original brochure. Mugabe’s idealism and charisma sealed Dauda ‘s conviction that his future lay in Zimbabwe.

By the time Dauda embarked on his Zimbabwe sojourn a year later, he had taken two more trips to West Africa, and as a veteran traveler had learned how to make friends and barter, sell and trade his way through the region. Not long after arriving in Zimbabwe, he became friends Sam Mashata Paweni, a businessman that needed his marketing and management skills, and Dauda found himself writing proposals and tenders for to provide supplies and requisitions for various businesses, government agencies and the military. Their partnership was so successful that Dauda describes their business alliance as a “Halliburton” of Zimbabwe.

Paweni became one of Zimbabwe’s wealthiest men, and Dauda was responsible for 350 employees and an array of companies, departments and divisions. While Africans were sometimes a little suspicious or wary of African Americans, Dauda was able to turn his unusual circumstances to his advantage in affecting the way he was perceived by Africans.

“A lot of times they are just as ignorant about us as we are about them. It’s kind of difficult to overcome that, knowing that ‘here I am in Africa, and I’m completely at their mercy,’ ” Dauda said, adding that his personality and his accent helped him transcend awkward situations. “The street part of me came out over there. Without that, no telling what would have happened. I know that a lot of times you just gotta talk until they tell you to shut up. They just want to hear you talk.”

Dauda took a few cues from Jim Harris, and parlayed his job and earnings (and fall in property values due to white flight) into purchasing the home of his dreams, a lovely 3 bedroom dwelling with a cozy fireplace, perched on the edge of hill in cove, with a panoramic view and a river running through it.

“It looked like a golf course when I first saw it. It was beautiful,” Dauda says, and then suddenly his tone of voice changes, pausing after his stream of consciousness descriptions of the path leading to his early years in Zimbabwe. A brief silence overcomes him, as we watch people moving to and fro through the various Black Arts Festival booths and stalls, eating, laughing and meeting old friends.

“Man, now you’re gonna sit up here and make me cry,” he says, smiling, with a touch of joy and sadness. “You know why? I’m remembering all these good times about Zimbabwe and how much fun we had. I never laughed so hard in my life at all the funny stuff that went on.

“Meeting new people was my favorite thing. Every time you meet somebody new they invite you over to their house, and then you’ve made a friend for life. You sit down at their house, eat their cooking, and spend the day with their family…”

But the good times and the good feelings had their limits. The goodwill and lack of recrimination that had manifest during Zimbabwe’s early years was doomed to evaporate in the face of South Africa’s hostility and repeated attempts to destabilize its democratic neighbor. Towards the end of the “independence hangover,” racism from South Africa seemed to spill over into Zimbabwe, poisoning the atmosphere and creating a sense of fear and distrust.

“(In the early days) everybody had money, and gasoline was plentiful, and food was plentiful. You could take a dollar and buy a steak as big as this plate, and that would be enough to feed 5 or 6 people,” Dauda said, adding that in 1980, the Rhodesian dollar was stronger than the US dollar, and the two currencies traded almost one to one for about four or five years. “Then everything started going backwards. The first time I ever experienced a petrol shortage in life was in Zimbabwe. But it wasn’t because of Mugabe – it was because of the white South African blowing up the oil pipeline.”

The South African apartheid government organized a number of bombings, including the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) party headquarters in Harare. The failed assassination attempt on Mugabe killed mostly innocent civilians. Yet the most notorious event was the covert operation that resulted in a plane crash and the death of the popular Mozambican president and revolutionary leader Samora Machel. Dauda said the insidious South African attacks resulted in open clashes between Blacks and Whites on the streets in Zimbabwe.

“With the people in Zimbabwe, oh man, there were riots! They burned down the South African embassy, they burned the South African Airways building,” Dauda explained. “They were running up and down the streets slapping White people. Man, they knocked the sh-t out of them. White people were scared at that time, and that’s when things started to change. White people started leaving, after the death of Samora Machel.”

In his personal experience of Zimbabwean history, Dauda has as very different perception and understanding of President Robert Mugabe than the current media stereotype. Dauda speaks of Mugabe with reverence and respect for leader who faced a daunting task of building a new nation in extremely hostile and antagonistic conditions. He describes Mugabe as a man who had a lot of enemies and had to worry about his safety. Dauda is keen to point out that the vast majority of the Rhodesian forces were Africans, and thus the nature of the Black-on-Black conflict in the heart of the independence war was more complex than surface appearances.

“You see, it was actually a civil war, Africans fighting Africans. So Mugabe didn’t know who was who or what was what. The only thing he knew about Rhodesian forces was the soldiers had uniforms,” Dauda says, emphatically, his voice rising in emotion. “So his safety was paramount. That’s why he moved around in a large entourage. He had cars in front of him, cars in back of him, soldiers in back of him, driving around in 5 series Mercedes. They called him “Bob Marley and the Wailers” because everywhere they went they had these loud sirens.”

Dauda says his view of Mugabe has not changed, although he believes at times Mugabe has been ill-advised. He also saw some people’s lives and careers ruined by misinformation given to Mugabe. Nonetheless, he remains a staunch defender of the controversial leader, and sees him “as a true comrade and a revolutionary.”

Dauda concedes that Zimbabwe has changed, and has become less secure and more crime ridden. On a recent trip he was mugged for the first time in Harare, which was a far cry from the time when Dauda walked down all the back streets of the capitol city without incident. He also feels that South Africa, like Zimbabwe, is not as safe as it used to be. Ironically, Dauda claims that he had the best time of his life in apartheid South Africa in 1987. He remembers a White South African border guard saying, “You’re going to have so much fun you’re going to want to move here.” He didn’t believe the guard, but the guard invited Dauda to come back and speak to him after his trip.

Hanging out with Black journalists, Dauda moved through Johannesburg’s racially-mixed neighborhoods like Yeoville and Hillbrow, and through Soweto’s neighborhoods like Dube and Pimville, and the vibrant but deeply impoverished township of Alexandra. A one month trip turned into three, and when he returned he told the border guard that South Africa was everything he said it would be, only “ten times more.”

“I still lay in the bed and think about that. What’s the difference between then and now? It’s nothing like it used to be. I don’t know what to say – I still had the time of my life,” Dauda says, as he reflects on his adventure under apartheid. “I can’t go there now and have the time of my life – it’s not safe. I couldn’t go to the same border crossing and see that same border guard, because the whole border crossing has changed. It went from being all White to all Black. The people are very ornery…”

Such ironies have not escaped my remarkable friend.

The Bold Magic of Afro-beat Master Femi Kuti

2007-06-18T17:58:00.000-07:00

Femi Kuti, inheritor of the Afro-beat tradition, will bring the bold magic of his music back to American audiences this summer, as he tours in promotion of a new 2 CD set, Definitive Collection: Femi Kuti.

When I read about brutal excesses of repressive regimes across the African continent, I can't help admiring the conviction and courage of Fela Anikulapo Kuti, a musician who dared to defy some of the most ruthless dictators of Nigeria's dark, post-colonial rule. Inspired by the Black Power movement and heavy sounds of James Brown, Sly Stone and soul music of the late 60s, Fela Kuti brought some of that fire back to Africa when he formed his own band and stage show that transformed him into Africa's most popular artist. But Fela seemed to care less about his comfort as an artist than becoming a voice for change in Nigeria, and he paid a terrible price in terms of endless beatings, harassment and imprisonment by the ruling authorities. When Fela Kuti died of AIDS in 1997, Africa was left with a huge hole in its heart. We are fortunate to have Fela's "Afro-beat" tradition live on in his son Femi, who in his own way, has expanded it and taken it to new heights.

The Bold Magic of Afro-beat Master Femi Kuti

It’s hard to imagine anyone bringing more of the bold magic of Africa to a musical stage than Femi Kuti. A distinctive master of the Afro-beat sound – heavy African drumbeats and bass lines interweaved with jazzy, blaring, powerful horns – Femi Kuti projects a whole new meaning into the words “funk,” “soul” and “rhythm.” Femi Kuti is once again touring with his band Positive Force in the United States, and will be performing at Belly Up in Aspen on Monday, July 30, and at the Boulder Theater on Tuesday July 31st.

Femi inherited the head of the Afro-beat mantle from his father, the late Fela Anikupalo Kuti, perhaps the greatest musician and activist voice to emerge from the African Motherland. With his undeniable magnetism and electrifying stage presence, Fela Kuti orchestrated a fabulous stage show with more than 30 dancers and musicians, who blazed their audiences with color, energy, sexiness and sublime artistry. Fela used his musical success and popularity as a platform to speak out against oppression, corruption and injustice. For many years Fela dared to criticize the brutal, repressive military rulers in Nigeria, and as a result he was continually harassed, beaten and imprisoned. Yet Fela never faltered in his criticism of the tyranny of the ruling elite and he became an icon to the Nigerian masses and West Africa as a whole; at his funeral in 1997, more than a million common Nigerians crowded the streets around his nightclub “The Shrine” and his home, to pay their respects.

In 1984 the Nigerian government arrested Fela on phony currency trading charges and jailed him for two years, which inadvertently thrust Femi into limelight as he unexpectedly was forced to assume leadership of his father’s band. Femi had only been playing with his father for a few years, and as a young man in his early 20s, Femi suddenly had to carry on his father’s legacy. He proved he was equal to the task, and after his father was released in 1986, Femi felt he had to establish his own band, and for a while he fell out of favor with his father. But with time Fela came to approve of Femi becoming a musical force in his own right.

Femi’s band, Positive Force, was originally formed in 1986, in the early years after Fela’s release from prison. Like his father, Femi played the Afro-beat sound, with a large stage ensemble of 17 people, including a six-piece horn section, two percussionist, guitar, bass, drums and keyboards, and four singer-dancers. After several European tours and two Nigerian albums, Femi and Positive Force debuted in the United States in 1995, captivating audiences much like his father did years before him. Femi sings about many of the injustices that his father decried, and his music and lyrics bear the same sense of compassion and humanity. Femi won a record contract with MCA as a result of the success of his 1999 release Shoki Shoki. One of his hippest grooves, a playful song about sex called “Beng, Beng, Beng” – which is actually intended to promote awareness about AIDS, was banned by the government for its supposedly lewd lyrics. Perhaps with the democratization of Nigeria the political authorities have moved away from the overt repression that plagued his father, but the “Beng, Beng, Beng” episode still leaves one to wonder if the government will ever allow Femi and his musical tradition to exist in the spirit of free speech.

I was fortunate to catch Femi in between performances in Nigeria. Femi had a great deal to say about Nigeria and Africa in general, and is keen on taking his tour back to the United States. His tour is promoting a new two-disc CD compilation set of his some of his best works with Positive Force called Definitive Collection: Femi Kuti. Femi also has been working on a studio album, which is due to be release later this year or in the beginning of next year.

JA: How did your father’s death affect you personally, artistically, emotionally and in terms of your career?

FK: It was devastating, he had been ill for a bit but we didn’t realize how ill. My father was a great man very strong and man ready to die for his beliefs. I still miss him for all reasons, chatting about music, personal problems and normal guidance a father can give. He made me the individual I am today, one day I asked him to teach me to play a saxophone and he said do it yourself, at the time you get annoyed but you realize he was teaching you to be a stronger person. The death of his 10th anniversary is coming up and we are going to have a huge party at the Shrine – a good way to celebrate his life.

JA: What was it like for you, as a young man, to take over your father’s band in 1984 when the government jailed him on trumped up charges? You must’ve been in your early twenties back then, and it must’ve been a great responsibility.

FK: My father was always getting into trouble with the authorities; he was often hounded harassed & jailed for his outspokenness. In 1977 his compound was attacked by 1000 soldiers and my father was injured. My grandmother was thrown out of a window and later died due to her injuries. So when in 1984 he was jailed for 10 years for currency smuggling by the authorities we couldn’t believe it. I then took over the band from 1984 – 1986, it was quite a daunting task because I had not performed by myself in front of so many people but I could not let my father down, once I started though it kind of came naturally to entertain the crowd. When my father came back I then decided to head up my own band which as you know he wasn’t happy with, but ultimately we made up.

JA: How has your band Positive Force evolved from its formation in 1986 to it current state now, 20 years later?

FK: We have changed many members, my ex wife is no longer in it or my sister Yeni. We have three dancers one of them was originally in my father’s band but the other two girls auditioned for the part and got it. With regards to the band only the lead trumpeter and the trombonist are from the original band everyone else has changed.

JA: Tell me about your song “Beng, Beng, Beng” and the government’s reaction to it. Is it still banned, or has there been a change in policy with the new democratic leadership?

FK: It is a bit of fun really and the authorities took it too seriously. I was trying to tell them that the whole issue of Sex has to be addressed and not hidden. One minute there is a huge campaign on AIDS and the next minute they are banning my song. The two go hand-in-hand, don’t they? We need to be more open about sex then the whole issue of condoms can be discussed. I also wrote a song about AIDS – “Cover your Bamboo!” – to try and make people aware of the problems of having sex. As we know AIDS is decimating Africa and unless we all become more open it will carry on at a rate it is. And yes it is still banned.

JA: How do you feel about the political and social changes in Nigeria in the past decade, with the coming of democracy and Obasanjo’s presidency?

FK: There have been no changes; if anything life has got worse. Where do I start… Nigeria is Nigeria… Nigeria is full of corruption and nothing has really changed since my father’s time. There is even more disparity of wealth. Nigeria being oil rich the young people do not understand why they are poor, and crime increases all over. And then there is the issue of religion and the fighting between the Christians and the Muslims, there is a lot of tension and Islamic fundamentalism has grown because of the larger worldwide issues going on. The only way is for the Africans to help themselves. We have to get over our colonialist/slavery mentality and start to change things for the better. Every country has corruption but there are now corrections in place to find out who the people are who are involved and therefore hopefully over time corruption will get better. Also if other countries could alter their foreign policies such as fair trade then yes, this will make a difference. But the reality is strong countries are not going to help weaker countries; they will only play at it. If they become fair-minded they will lose their next election! We live every day with limited electricity and water. We make the most of it. A new president was voted in recently – Umaru Musa Yar'Adua – but to be honest things are not getting better, just worse. When these people get into power they never fulfill their promises. You see them with their big cars, they buy houses in England or America, they give their kids the best education, but the crop of the people, the masses themselves, they lose. Nigerians are used to being let down by their governments. We are Africa's biggest oil exporter, then how is it that we have fallen far behind other developing countries? Here is a nice figure for you: since independence from Britain in 1960, an estimated $400 billion of oil revenues have gone missing, presumed stolen, by the military and political elite.

JA: Do you feel a strong need to face and challenge some of the same political problems and forces that your father spoke out against?

FK: Of course I do, but it is difficult to change anything unless there is a radical complete overhaul of the existing people in government. I sometimes want to stop talking about the issues because nothing will change. Fela accepted a lot of beatings and still nothing changed. Being a spokesperson for Nigeria will hopefully at least make people sit up and notice the problems we face on a daily basis.

JA: Tell us about your new 2CD set “Definitive Collection: Femi Kuti” – what makes this collection special?

FK: The first album is a good retrospective of my past albums Shoki Shoki and Fight to Win; I have also got two tracks from an earlier album. The second album I have put just my remixes, I think it is such an honor for someone to love your music so much to remix tracks. Finally a track I really love was a track we recorded for Red Hot and Riot – “Water No Get Enemy” – which was a favorite of my father’s, this was recorded with Macy Gray and D’Angelo

JA: How do you feel about how your music has been received in America since you first toured here in 1995?

FK: I get a great reaction every time I come over to America which is great.

JA: It seems that hip hop and Afrobeat are an unlikely combination. What was it like for you to collaborate with artists like Common and Mos Def on your “Fight to Win” album (2001)?

FK: It was fantastic, you have to keep on experimenting with your music, I think it really worked well.

JA: A friend of mine traveled to Nigeria and had the good fortune of being taken to some fabulous clubs and music scenes along the Nigerian coast, where she had the most incredible music and party experience of her life. She saw a side of Nigeria that very few hear about or know about, and she felt that there was great undeveloped potential for tourism there. Can you comment on this?

FK: I agree… Nigerians love music and it is a hotbed of musical talent. We know that Nigeria has a lot of tourist potential as the Shrine gets loads of tourists as well as local trade.

JA: Is there anything special you want people to know about your band and this upcoming tour?

FK: Just come and be prepared to enjoy yourselves

JA: Beyond this double CD set, do you have any plans for upcoming albums?

FK: Yes I have already recorded a new album, and my son is playing on it, I think the plans are to release it the end of this year, or early next year.

A Governor's Missionary Experience in Africa

2007-03-24T17:39:00.000-07:00

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter and wife Jeannie on the campaign trail.

It's very unusual for an American elected politician to have experience living in Africa and doing Christian service work. When Bill Ritter - Colorado's new governor - was in high school, he thought he might want to be a Catholic priest. Years later, he found a way to express his Christian ideals at a Catholic Mission in Zambia, outside of the seminary and the path to priesthood. In doing this interview with Ritter, I found that he was very easy to talk to, and he has far more depth to his personality beyond public role as a politician. It is clear to me that Bill and his wife Jeannie have an usually deep and abiding love for Africa.

A Governor's Missionary Experience in Africa

Father Bill Morel believes it was divine intervention that led Bill Ritter and his wife Jeannie to become lay missionaries at the Mongu nutrition center in Zambia, Africa in August 1987. As an administrator of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Father Morel was responsible for the religious order’s missions in Africa and other parts of the world, and yet his organization had never accepted a lay couple as part of their work before. But the future Colorado governor and his wife would prove to be an extraordinary exception.

Father Morel first met Ritter when he was an idealistic high school student coming to San Antonio, Texas, to study at St. Anthony’s, a special Catholic high school for young men considering becoming missionaries and priests. Ritter stayed at the school for his freshmen and sophomore years, and while he eventually decided to follow a secular path in his career and education, Ritter had been deeply impressed by his mentors at St. Anthony’s. Nearly twenty years after his seminary experience, married and with a one year-old son, Ritter felt a strong spiritual urge for service, and he called Father Morel with a special request.

“He called and said, Father Bill, but I don’t know if you remember me, but you taught me as a sophomore. I don’t want you to interrupt me, because I have something to say all at once, or I won’t have the courage to say it,” Father Morel said, recalling Ritter’s nervous voice over the phone. “I’m married to Jeannie and we have a one year-old child and we want to work as lay missionaries in Zambia, with Oblates of Mary Immaculate.”

Ritter didn’t know that the Oblates of Mary Immaculate did not work with lay couples; he also had no idea that Father Morel had received an unusual letter from the Bishop of Zambia that very day. The Bishop’s letter explained that a very important nutrition center in Zambia needed new leaders, and the Bishop requested a lay couple. Father Morel was stunned.

“To me it was perfectly clear – I had never in my life seen such a clear example of God intervening in kind of a coincidental way,” Father Morel said. After he told Ritter about the letter, Father Morel declared that the Oblates of Mary Immaculate were going to change their rules, despite their usual concerns about the complications of housing and accommodating lay missionary couples. Bill and Jeannie Ritter were going to see their wish come true.

While going through a year of training and evaluation, the Ritters sold their house and most of their possessions in preparation for their three-year missionary service in Africa. It would prove to be an indelible experience. Witnessing crushing poverty, the onset of the AIDS epidemic, horrible diseases and malnutrition, as well as experiencing beautiful traditional cultures and the great love and dignity of the Zambian people, Africa had a profound impact on the Ritter family.

The Oblates mission was in the town of Mongu, the capital of the Western Province of Zambia – but the provincial “capitol” was really little more than an isolated back-country hamlet.

“The paved streets were probably only a mile long through Mongu town. Most of the people there lived in villages with thatched huts,” Ritter recalled, adding that there were only a few other expatriates in the area. “We were saturated by Zambian friends, Zambian workmates and Zambian culture.”

Ritter describes the mission as having 45 “bush depots” that been established for distributing food to rural villages; he and Jeannie created more depots, and worked on diversifying the mission’s activities to stimulate economic development and help the mission achieve sustainability. In addition to running a nutrition education program for village mothers, they set up a poultry program, expanded a fisheries project and sold fishing nets to fishermen along the Zambezi River.

Ritter estimates that the mission moved 60 tons of agricultural commodities per month between Mongu, the rural village depots and Lusaka, Zambia’s capitol. Through buying and selling, Ritter was able to raise a cash fund that was eventually used to build rice mills, which was a significant expansion of a rice project that Japanese aid workers had introduced 10 years earlier. Between the fisheries, the poultry project and the rice mills, Bill feels that he and Jeannie were able to achieve modest success in expanding the mission’s profile from a nutrition center to aiding economic development in the region.

“Today it functions as a cooperative and outpost that helps in agricultural economic development and that was part of our vision,” Ritter says. “We began thinking about it in broader terms than just feeding people; we began thinking about it in terms of economic development. That was a really important part of us doing the right thing.”

Despite Ritter’s success with the Oblates mission, he was dismayed by many of the overwhelming development needs of Africa. Ritter arrived at a time when the AIDS epidemic was just beginning to make an impact in Africa, and the rapid spread of the disease was disheartening. The Oblates also ran Zambia’s only leprosarium – a special hospital for lepers – and Ritter worked closely with two lepers who were eventually able to return to their communities.

“The interesting thing about sub-Saharan Africa is you can work really hard on health and nutrition issues, but with something like AIDS, as much as you wind up doing, you are keeping the score down, unless you engage in other kinds of prevention work,” Ritter points out. “But what I always, say and this is absolutely true – what may be even more clear to me than the devastating affects of poverty, disease and AIDS is the grace with which these people handled all that.”

Beyond fulfilling Christian service work and providing tangible aid to the region, the Ritters’ experience in Zambia has had a unique and lasting affect on their family. When they arrived in Mondu, Ritter’s eldest son, Augustine, was a year and four months old, while their second son, Abraham, was born in Zambia in June 1988, and by the time the left in June 1990, Jeannie was pregnant with her third son, Sam. Young Augustine – who was four years old by the time the Ritters left Zambia – played almost exclusively with Zambian children and was deeply affected by his environment on a subconscious level.

Ritter loves to tell a story about how his oldest son was somewhat confused when they returned to Colorado from Africa.

“I have 10 brothers and sisters, and they all have children, so he has all these cousins who came in the first few days we were home and they just mauled him. And he looked at me after we had been home three days and he said, ‘Dad, are we white?’” Ritter said with a chuckle. “It’s great story if you think about it. It speaks to the innocence of childhood. It never had occurred to him that in spite of the fact that he was white – he was blonde haired and blue-eyed, with a light skin tone – it hadn’t occurred to him that he was different from all of his (African) playmates.”

By the time the Ritters returned from Africa, young Augustine had acquired a British accent with a hint of an African Bantu dialect. While Augustine lost his accent over time, Bill believes that all of his children were affected by the family experience in Africa, which had “some kind of positive impact on the breadth of their thinking.” Abraham, who was born in Zambia, recently returned to Africa, visiting Ethiopia with the Four Quarters for Kids program, run by Noel Cunningham, the owner of Strings restaurant.

Ritter keeps up with political events in Africa, particularly the situation in Darfur, Sudan, civil unrest in Zimbabwe, the ongoing conflict the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the International War Crimes Tribunal in Arusha on the genocide in Rwanda. Beyond his faith and concern for Christian social justice issues, governor Ritter feels that his experience in Africa has also affected his view of political leadership.

“I think that with all that I’ve seen in the way of devastation and the really serious crises that I’ve witnessed, I have some perspective. We have serious issues here I’ll have to handle as governor,” he says. “But I think I have some perspective and it gives me some ability to remain calm as we walk through some of the difficult issues we face as a state,”

Ritter also feels he’s learned some important lessons from the Zambians themselves.

“Zambians are people who have a different pace than the Western pace. While I work hard and work long days, there is something I think to being more focused on trying to do the right thing rather than the quick thing. And that I think has always been a help and a benefit to me.”

Pathways to Africa's New Information Age

2007-01-13T16:51:00.000-08:00

The regional operating center of WorldSpace, the satellite radio company founded by African visionary entrepreneur Noah Samara. WorldSpace was the progenitor of XM satellite radio and a seminal force in the satellite radio industry; it has two geostationary satellites broadcasting to all of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and most of Western Europe.

Pathways to Africa's New Information Age

Among the pantheon of digital media revolutionizing pop culture and entertainment – the Internet, iPods and iPhones, Blackberries and PDAs, laptops and game consoles, TIVOs and DVRs – Americans are just beginning to warm up to the notion of satellite radio.

Multi-million dollar contracts, massive PR campaigns and bidding wars between satellite radio giants XM and Sirius, drawing in the likes of Howard Stern, Bob Dylan and Oprah Winfrey, are driving much of this growing interest. In high-stakes bids for the satellite radio market, both XM and Sirius have moved beyond recruiting high profile personalities and into establishing powerful alliances with automobile manufactures. The result: virtually all new cars come equipped with satellite radios as a standard feature.

In 1990 – years before Americans had even heard about satellite radio – an African engineer was on his way to becoming a major force in developing the technology and making the concept commercially viable. Today, Noah Samara remains relatively unknown. The Ethiopian of Sudanese heritage sought to establish satellite radio as an economic and technological force initiating in Africa and spreading to Asia, Europe and the developed world.

“In the mid-1980s, I read something that changed my life,” Samara said at a commencement speech at his alma mater, Stroudsberg University of Pennsylvania. “It was an article in the Washington Post about AIDS in Africa and how it was spreading because millions of people had no information or the wrong information. It became clear to me that people weren’t simply dying of disease; they were dying of ignorance. Something had to be done.”

His idea was to launch a satellite over Africa that would broadcast digital radio to inexpensive portable receivers. He quit his job.

At an international convention in 1992, Samara convinced 127 developing countries to grant him satellite bandwidth on the L-band, outmaneuvering competing proposals put forward by the Canadian and Austrian governments. He secured $1.1 billion in financial backing from powerful Saudi interests, and won approval from the Federal Communications Commission for the first U.S. satellite radio license. Samara’s brainchild, WorldSpace – the world’s first satellite radio broadcaster – launched its AfriStar satellite from French Guiana in 1998. The launch of the AsiaStar satellite followed in 2000. WorldSpace currently broadcasts satellite radio to over 130 countries including India and China, all of Africa and the Middle East and most of Western Europe – an area that includes five billion people and more than 300 million automobiles.

“We needed around $1.5 billion to make it happen,” said Samara, who was a successful lawyer with the International Telecommunications Union in 1990 when he experienced his epiphany and literally sketched out his ideas on a napkin in a restaurant.

Samara and WorldSpace were prime movers in the creation of XM – the first satellite radio broadcaster in the United States. They developed the proprietary microchip technology used in XM receivers and financed a 20 percent stake in the initial venture. Eventually WorldSpace sold its stake in XM, and the latter concentrated on the North American market while WorldSpace focused on leveraging its technology in Europe, Africa and Asia. Four percent of WorldSpace’s satellite bandwidth is dedicated to meeting the special humanitarian needs of the developing world, such as long distance education.

Unknown Genius

Samara’s story and his relative anonymity speaks volumes about mass media perceptions of Africa and how little is known of the Motherland’s potential in this new age of globalization. Much like Koos Bekker, the South African wunderkind who helped create the encryption technology that is used for most satellite subscription services throughout the world, the achievements of Samara and others of his ilk seem perpetually obscured by tragic stories about HIV/AIDS, war, famine, terrorism and conflict in Africa.

The modern media is heavily skewed toward Europe and America and strengthening age-old stereotypes of Africa as both a backward continent and a futile place for investment or progress. Africa has wide swaths of untouched wilderness and vast rural areas with no power grids and cars, but the interface with modern forces of globalization is there nonetheless.

Very few people outside of those with specialized business and telecommunications interests are aware that the African continent is surrounded by a giant submarine network of fiber optic cable extending from Portugal to Cape Town, South Africa known as the 3rd Southern Africa Telecommunication/West Africa Submarine Cable (or SAT3/WASC). This 15,000 km cable is supplemented by another 13,800 km cable extending from Cape Town to Malaysia known as the Southern Africa Far East cable (SAFE) and by a third submarine cable reaching from Cape Town to The Sudan, called the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy). The SAT3/WASC and EASSy cable systems were spearheaded by South Africa and funded by a consortium of 12 investors from Africa, four from America, eight from Asia and 12 from Europe, contributing more than $600 million. These fiber optic cables offer the widest bandwidth and highest speed for voice, audio, data and video transmission of any modern medium (including satellite) and provide Africa with a highly desirable, state-of-the-art telecommunications infrastructure.

In the coming years, residents of some of the world’s most geographically, economically and culturally isolated regions will gain access to a global information superhighway, “leap-frogging” the costly and environmentally intrusive infrastructure originally developed in the West. Limitless renewable energy from solar photovoltaic panels and low-cost technology (such as $100 laptops, using free, open-source software) will open a window on the world. Moreover, in light of new African regional and international forums for cooperation, such as the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and the African Union, the possibilities are boundless.

Ubuntu Spirit

Like Samara, Mark Shuttleworth is an African entrepreneur who merged globalization into his own vision. Shuttleworth was a business student at the University of Cape Town in 1995 when he founded Thawte, an Internet consulting business that built a full-security e-commerce Web server available outside of the United States. Both Netscape and Internet Explorer came to see Thawte as a trusted third-party authentication certifier for public key encryption technologies.

After a rapid rise in the global market Shuttleworth sold Thawte to VeriSign for $600 million. Shuttleworth then dedicated himself to his love of space travel – training with the Russian crew of Soyuz TM34, and becoming the world’s second private “space tourist.” He also developed open-source computer software systems for use in Africa and the developing world. He created the Ubuntu project, desktop and server technology dedicated to making open-source software accessible and user-friendly.

Ubuntu is an African traditional concept that roughly translates into “humanity” or “I am who I am because of who we all are.” It essentially reflects the value of community, sharing and cooperation that is prevalent among various ethnic groups throughout the African continent. From the perspective of computer technology, open-source systems – unlike proprietary operating systems like Microsoft Windows – are developed by a community of software programmers who share free access to the source code to modify it and build their own interfacing software applications.

Shuttleworth’s Ubuntu software and hardware systems are aimed at making Linux open-source operating systems accessible to ordinary, non-technical computer users. With attractive interfaces and stylish graphic artwork that markets the values of community and sharing, the Ubuntu Web site proclaims “software should be available free of charge, that software tools should be usable by people in their local language and despite any disabilities, and that people should have the freedom to customize and alter their software in whatever way they see fit.”

Ubuntu distributes the Linux operating system free of charge and operates associated programs like Edubuntu, a platform of educational software. It also runs a variety of initiatives under the Hip2BSquare brand, which aim to make mathematics and science attractive to pupils who are beginning to choose their subjects for high school.

Many African governments recognize the value of open-source software in Africa’s development and they are making commitments to use Linux systems as well as Ubuntu products. Even Microsoft owner Bill Gates, aware of the challenge open-source and Ubuntu represent, has made overtures to subsidize low-cost versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system for African governments. The future could see Africa using different technological systems, formats and software that are distinct from Microsoft Windows’ domination of the West, and more suited to Africa’s unique cultural and economic imperatives.

In Africa, things are often not what they appear to be, and there is much to see beyond the distortions and superficial perceptions of mass media images. Unbeknownst to many in the West, there are brilliant minds in Africa creating and shaping their own versions of a bright, bold and extraordinary future.

Barack Obama: Dreams of an African Ancestor

2006-11-18T18:48:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama being interviewed at the 2004 Democractic Convention.

This is a little surreal, of course, given that America has actually gone through a profound seismic tranformation in electing Barack Obama as our first African American president. It's been fascinating to watch Obama initiating dramatic, far-sighted policy changes - and in the process draw a whole generation of young voters into a new level of interest and participation in American politics.

I wrote this post in the Fall of 2006, when there was a lot of buzz about whether Barack Obama would throw his hat in the 2008 presidential race. Everybody was asking the question about his potential candidacy, but I wanted to turn the question on its head somewhat by looking at Obama's rise to prominence from the perspective of his father, the perspective of an African ancestor...

Barack Obama and the Dreams of an African Ancestor

Now that the election results are in and we have witnessed a historic transfer of power in Congress (or “peaceful overthrow of the government,” as a lawyer-activist friend of mine says) pundits and commentators are naturally speculating about the mood of the country and the 2008 Presidential election. For the Democrats, the undisputed star of the 2006 elections was Barack Obama, who seemed to take the political world by storm. The charismatic Illinois senator broke fundraising records and made his presence felt as he stumped for just about every Democratic candidate who was locked in a critical or not-so-critical race. Jockeying for prime position in the national spotlight, Obama shrewdly timed a 13-city promotional tour for his book, The Audacity of Hope, to coincide with the most crucial part of the campaign season. Obama also used the Congressional August recess to travel to Africa, generating international publicity while making important stops in South Africa, Djibouti, Ethiopia and his father’s ancestral home of Kenya.

If Americans didn’t know Barack Obama’s face before his Africa trip, by October just about everyone caught a glimpse of him through various media outlets, from the covers of Time magazine, Vogue and Vanity Fair to heavyweight television shows like Oprah Winfrey, Larry King Live and Nightline. Obama symbolized new hope and possibilities for the Democratic Party, and suddenly tongues started wagging about the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review making a very realistic bid to become the first Black president of the United States. Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks urged Obama to run, paying him a compliment by saying that any Republican nominee should at least have to earn the distinction of beating Barack Obama. But his liberal colleague Maureen Dowd chided Obama for being caught up in the glamour of his own celebrity without settling down to the hard work of “being a man of history” and declaring his candidacy.

Interestingly enough, reaction among African Americans to Barack Obama and his presidential aspirations has been more mixed than one might expect. Before the elections, columnist Earl Ofari Hutchinson proclaimed that Obama is “not the right tonic for Democrats” to win the presidency in 2008. Hutchinson pointed to Obama’s youthful inexperience, and a fear that the Republican South would not respond kindly to the idea of a Black president. Looking more deeply into African American perceptions about Obama’s candidacy, I was surprised to find considerable ambivalence or even outright resistance to the senator’s meteoric rise to media prominence. One writer described what he called the “Wayne Brady factor” with Black folks, who automatically become suspicious when they see a Black man being adored by White people. On one message board I made a comment about Obama being an intellectual, and another brother corrected me. “W.E.B. Du Bois was an intellectual. Franz Fanon was an intellectual. This n----a just got some hype.”

It later dawned on me that traditional African-American civil rights activists and community leaders might be uncomfortable with Obama because he breaks the oppositional mold and represents a new kind of Black political leader who has a broader focus and wide appeal. Obama has so many dimensions to his background and personality – a White mother from Kansas and an African father from Kenya, community organizer in Chicago’s inner-city, exemplary Harvard Law scholar – that people become befuddled when they try to fit him into their preconceived notions about politicians. A friend of mine who is Black and White and pointedly insists on describing Tiger Woods and himself as “interracial,” cynically wonders why the media should get excited about a potential presidential candidate just because he happens to be “interracial.” But Obama seems to distance himself from Tiger Woods’ philosophy of racial identification; among White crowds Obama refers to himself as a “Black guy” and among Black crowds he describes himself as a “brother.” Obama’s chameleon-like persona seems natural and without pretense; many journalists are fascinated by his ability to engage large crowds with an authentic, affable, “conversational” style. Both of his books, The Audacity of Hope and his autobiography, Dreams from My Father, read as intimate yet sophisticated and lucid conversations on complex topics viewed from his own personal experiences. Time columnist Joe Klein describes Dreams from My Father as possibly “the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician.” Obama’s books illuminate the motivations and insights of a remarkably intelligent man who is very comfortable navigating the high-speed post-modern cultural and technological forces that are reshaping American society.

Barack Obama is often criticized as being inexperienced, long on speeches and media publicity and short on actual legislative accomplishments. Some critics note that his political views are not particularly innovative or visionary, but rather reflect the standard ideas and positions that liberal Democrats have been espousing for years. Others tend look at the hard possibilities of winning Southern states, and are skeptical that Obama is up to the task, at least for the upcoming 2008 election. But whatever Obama may be lacking in legislative experience, he compensates for with sheer intelligence and motivational idealism. A Barack Obama presidential candidacy would be good for the nation, pushing the envelop of what Americans believe is possible, as Americans – especially African Americans – have always found a peculiar excitement in breaking barriers. Ironically, Barack Obama may be the only Democrat with the charisma and magnetism to challenge the near mythical hero status of Republican candidates like former New York City mayor Rudy Guiliani and Senator John McCain. Obama’s greatest strength may lie in his seemingly unique ability to identify with different sectors of America’s society, perhaps even including evangelicals. As a community organizer in Chicago, Obama found his home in the Black church, and is comfortable talking about religion during his political speeches. Obama even devoted an entire chapter in The Audacity of Hope to the subject of “Faith.”

As I watch Obama’s carefully crafted chessboard moves within the media spectacle surrounding his life, I can’t help wondering about the one dimension of his life that may be the least well-known or understood. I can’t help thinking about his African ancestry, and what his father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., might feel about his son’s political fortunes were he alive today. I find myself captivated by the looming figure of Barack Obama’s father and his African origins.

Barack Obama the elder was born into the Luo tribe in Nyangoma-Kogelo in 1936, a small village in rural western Kenya. Inasmuch as a son’s destiny is connected with his father, the American Obama’s story really begins in this remote part of Africa, when missionary schoolteachers noticed a certain young African’s precocious intelligence, and sent him to a boarding school in Nairobi. The bright young man distinguished himself again in Nairobi, and was selected among the most promising Kenyan students of his generation to attend American universities. Barack Hussein Obama Sr. went on to receive scholarships from the University of Hawaii – where he earned his bachelor’s degree graduated at the top of his class – and Harvard, where he received a master’s degree in economics.

Barack Obama Sr. returned to Kenya in 1963, during the early years after independence, when many of Africa’s great leaders, such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya – had bright visions about their nations’ futures. Armed with his ambition and his Harvard credentials, Barack Obama Sr., a Luo, was assigned to a top government position, only to see president Jomo Kenyatta appoint a less-qualified fellow Kikuyu tribesman to become Obama’s charge. The move infuriated Obama Sr., who complained loudly that tribalism was going to be the downfall of the new Kenyan nation. But Jomo Kenyatta – the proud founding father of Kenya – reportedly told Obama Sr. that he would never find a job in Kenya again, and closed ranks against the brilliant Harvard economist. Kenyatta’s vengefulness made earning a livelihood and providing for his family extraordinarily difficult for Obama Sr., and is one of the heartbreaking stories in Dreams from My Father. One can easily see why Barack Obama Jr. has spoken out forcefully against corruption in Africa, even to the point of addressing the Kenyan Parliament during his recent African trip about the intertwined problems of corruption and tribalism.

Although Obama’s speech stirred some controversy, his visit to Africa was overwhelmingly successful. He engaged in dialogues with South African leaders, and in Kenya where he drew huge, adulating crowds wherever he went. Many Kenyans, one would assume, cannot help being proud of the fact that their “favorite son” could possibly win election to the most powerful office in the world. Surely the most educated and sophisticated Africans, as well as the most humble, know that Obama’s potential success portends well for Africa, the developing world and the international community. One can perhaps imagine the spirit of Barack Obama Sr., silently urging his son to live up to his talent and potential, and to fear nothing in a society that is supposed to be built upon individual freedom and merit. Like his father before him, Barack Obama is pushing the envelop, striving to fulfill his ambition. Judging from the results of the 2006 elections and Obama’s role in the Democrats’ success, there are many Americans who are ready to see this highly gifted and compassionate African American become the next president of the United States.

Surviving Tragedy to Make a Joyful Noise

2006-11-01T16:23:00.000-08:00

It’s hard to imagine a war where hands, arms and legs are amputated with machetes and family members are tortured and murdered in front of each other for the maximum terror effect. And all in a war fought over and fueled by the accessibility and profits of diamonds. While Foday Sankoh and Charles Taylor ruthlessly spurred some of the worst atrocities of the 20th Century, people like Reuben Koroma, Franco Langba and Arahim Kamara were left to bear the brunt of their excesses and pick up the pieces. Their music – the music of the Refugee All-Stars – is magic in and of itself, let alone considering the extraordinary circumstances in which the group formed. To hear or see the Refugee All-Stars is to experience the real healing power of music, to know inner strength and to be part of a fantastic vibe.

Be sure to check out Zach Niles and Banker White's award-winning film "The Refugee All-Stars" and buy the All-Stars new CD "Living Like a Refugee." It's great music and it's bound to make you feel good... My favorite title is "Garbage to the Showglass," an ironic, supremely joyful chant about their improbable rise to fame. "They found us in the garbage, and put us in a showglass in the biggy biggy time..." "Black Nature" delivers a wickedly beautiful rap about God with interwoven English, Krio, French and African inflections, and other band members jump in verse-by-verse to sing their own story.

Surviving Tragedy to Make a Joyful Noise

Reuben Koroma has known the terrible depth of suffering and grief in Africa, yet his music has carried him from hopelessness to heights of abounding joy and ecstasy.

As a refugee from the diamond killing fields of Sierra Leone’s decade-long civil war, Koroma was one of some 2 million displaced people who witnessed one of the world’s most gruesome conflicts, a war full of horrid atrocities. Throughout the 1990s tens of thousands Sierra Leoneans were killed or maimed as the ruthless Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel forces made a brutal bid for political power and control of the country’s lucrative diamond trade.

Yet in the midst of the horror, seeds were being sown for an astounding breakthrough for Koroma and his music. In 1999 at Sembakounya Refugee Camp, deep in rural Guinea, Koroma found Franco Langba and Arahim Kamara, fellow musicians he knew and had jammed with in Freetown. With an old, beat-up guitar and makeshift drums, the artists began playing music to entertain and uplift the spirits of their fellow refugees. They were eventually joined by six others – including a rapper – and created their own spirited blend of reggae, R&B, hip hop and West African genres, dubbing themselves “The Refugee All-Stars.”

American filmmakers Zach Niles and Banker White happened upon the Refugee All-Stars in 2002 while they were traveling through Guinea, seeking to make a documentary on the devastation of the civil war. With financial help from some high profile celebrities including Keith Richards, Bob Geldof, Graham Nash and Steve Tyler and Joe Perry from Aerosmith, Niles and White followed the Refugee All-Stars for three years as the band performed in various refugee camps and grappled with the prospect of returning home to Freetown. With the assistance of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the band members visited Freetown and then returned to the refugee camps to spread the word that the war was “done-done” and Freetown was safe once again. By mid-2004 Koroma and the All-Stars were back in Freetown recording their first album, “Living Like a Refugee,” at Island Studios, a sparse one-man operation run by Sam Jones, an easy-going British expatriate.

“The Refugee All-Stars,” Niles and White’s sensitive and poignant film was released in 2005 and won numerous national and international film festival awards while introducing the Refugee All-Stars and their music to enthusiastic audiences. Beginning with their performance in March at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Koroma and his band have captivated crowds with the irrepressible joy and energy of their unique sound. The groundbreaking Austin gig was punctuated with dynamic summer concerts throughout the US, Canada and Japan. The Refugee All-Stars current 26-city tour hits the Boulder Theater on November 7, and includes December concert appearances in London and Paris.

All of the band members have faced horrific tragedies, and some of them even had limbs cut off by the rebels. (Amnesty International estimates that the RUF mutilated about some 20,000 people in Sierra Leone, hacking off hands, arms and legs with machetes and axes, to terrorize people into working the diamond fields.) The soft-spoken Koroma – who witnessed his mother and father being killed during the war – is utterly amazed at the All-Stars’ journey from jamming in isolated rural refugee camps to polished stage performances at large international music festivals.

“My life was very bad a few years ago in the refugee camp – I was suffering in very bad conditions and I didn’t have something to hope for. But now things are really happening for the Refugee All-Stars,” Koroma said during a phone interview, in his soulful, rhythmic Krio English. “I believe this kind of success is a very good thing for us, and we feel important – we feel successful. I always feel good that I have been able to achieve and have many of the things that I was dreaming.”

From the 19 year-old rapper “Black Nature” to the silver-haired elder rasta Ashade Pearce, the Refugee All-Stars have a unique, eclectic sound that holds together diverse influences. Their album, “Living Like a Refugee” – released in the US in September on Anti Records – blends the familiar flavors of reggae and hip hop with rhythms and tones that are more deeply African and unfamiliar. While Koroma’s lyrics tell the story of the war, life in the refugee camps and themes of oppression, love and compassion, the music itself does not bear a hint of sadness. It’s clear – as Koroma points out – that music is intended to heal.

“It’s because of the love of music that we get together and then despite all of the struggles, all the constraints we are facing, we still really have some happiness within our hearts.” Koroma says, describing their music as a kind of therapy and having the power to heal trauma. “It’s treatment for us, because when we play music it feels like most of our problems are minimized. And then not only for us, but we saw hundreds of thousands of refugees were interested in listening to us. And then I think to myself, this might help them to minimize their problems, because everybody in the refugee camp has psychological problems.”

From the moment the Refugee All-Stars set foot in the United States, their music has taken the Western world by storm, and the band found itself thrown into a whirlwind of music industry machinations. Their very first performance at Austin’s South by Southwest Festival led to an on-the-spot negotiation for a major tour and promotion deal with the Rosebud Agency. With the tremendous buzz being generated by their concerts and the “Living Like a Refugee” CD, it seems that the Refugee All-Stars are on track to emulate the success of the Buena Vista Social Club, the Cuban artists who sold millions of CDs worldwide after being propelled to fame through a film documentary by famed musician and impresario Ry Cooder.

While the Refugee All-Stars have electrified crowds at Central Park in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Koroma describes a peak experience in Niigata, Japan at the Fuji Rock Festival, where the band’s music appeared to break cultural barriers.

“Before we played people were telling us that it’s difficult for Japanese people to dance to music – they like listening but they don’t normally dance to international music. But when we came on stage we saw that more than 4,000 or 5,000 people were dancing,” Koroma said, barely able to contain his enthusiasm as his voice rose in excitement. “Everybody was dancing –it was like magic! I just thought it was wonderful, because I was not expecting that. I was just expecting 10, or three or five people would dance and the others would sit. To my surprise I saw everybody dancing, people coming from all different directions.”

Koroma is optimistic about the future of Sierra Leone and the impact the Refugee All-Stars are making on their local music scene and international music. He says that before the war there was only one radio station in Sierra Leone, and now there are six in Freetown, and each regional district has its own radio station. He also says that the people of Sierra Leone are “very, very proud” of the All-Stars for “making history in the world,” and as a result local musicians are gravitating toward playing instruments and live music as opposed to computerized, digital songs.

Koroma likes to point out that the Refugee All-Stars are revolutionizing music by introducing certain indigenous West African rhythms to the rest of the world.

“We have a traditional beat that is called the goombay beat, and we have another traditional beat in Sierra Leone that is called muktivange,” Koroma explains, adding that goombay is specific to Sierra Leone when muktivange is played all over West Africa. “This kind of beat (goombay) is really a traditional beat that has never been exposed in the Western world, and we are trying to do that. We are playing it one of the sounds on our album, “Ya N’Digba.”

To their credit, the Refugee All-Stars have demonstrated the resilience of Africa and the extraordinary power of music to heal and transform human emotions. Their triumph over adversity and their boundless optimism offers a much-needed ray of light in world of escalating conflict, fear and violence.

For more information on the Refugee All-Stars visit www.refugeeallstars.org.

Motherland of the Mind, Body & Spirit

2006-09-15T22:49:00.000-07:00

Maurice Haltom in a live concert performance.

Africa, of course, is a continent, a location on our planet; but there are many dimensions and many ways of accessing Africa. While people jam to the latest pop dances and grooves, it sometimes escapes us that the common practices of African American popular culture or African traditional culture can be the gateway to a profound inner wisdom and intuitive knowledge. Teachers like Maurice Haltom – or “fundis,” as they say in South Africa - remind us that we can find an infinite world of truth and beauty through the Motherland within ourselves.

Motherland of the Mind, Body and Spirit

Jamming to the latest R&B or hip-hop joints, or marveling at the grace and beauty of dancers in an Usher, Ciara or Aaliyah music video, we are captivated by a certain style and grace that is Africa. But it sometimes escapes us that the inherent sense of movement that created an endless variety of fascinating dances can also be the gateway to a deep intuitive wisdom, in much the same way that yoga in India - and Kung Fu, Tai Chi and Qigong in China - are profound spiritual mind-body disciplines.

Indeed, just as African American pop dances are varied expressions of a certain inner theme or quality, and jazz music can yield many different renditions of a “standard” piece, Africa itself has the endless ability to adapt, absorb and morph its great identity into a multiplicity of manifestations. Sometimes certain teachers are able to illuminate these associations, to remind us that Africa has a richness of knowledge, congruities and connections that extend far beyond surface appearances.

As one such teacher, Maurice Haltom has never set foot in Africa, yet he carries the Motherland in his heart and mind, and throughout his whole being. In fact, it seems that virtually all of his aspirations and life’s work have been dedicated to exploring the profound wisdom and cultural connections underlying African music, movement and dance.

After more than 30 years of teaching, Haltom – who currently lives in Ithaca, New York and runs the Cayuga Center for Wellness and Healing Arts – has developed distinctive innovations synthesizing spiritual practices from India and China with fundamental aspects of African culture. His unique perspective has evolved from amazing life experiences spanning decades of encounters with remarkable teachers and mentors.

Perhaps his journey was sparked in the late 50s, when Haltom was high school student in Berkeley, California and his family lived a few blocks from the coffeehouses of beatnik poets, who at the time were sowing the seeds of the radical social movements of the 60s. Unbeknownst to his parents, young Haltom’s talent for African drumming was drawing him into startling new relationships and outlooks.

“The beatniks were vital and interesting to me because they appreciated the bongo drum. They would have the bongo drum playing behind their poetry and that’s where I got my first stage appearances – behind the beat poets,” Haltom explained, adding that his parents thought he was out running his newspaper routes. “In the meantime I’d be at the coffeehouses really getting my mind opened up. I could pop in there and find a whole different reference point. My own peers were no longer my reference point.”

The beatniks had an “artistic, European and French non-materialistic orientation” that Haltom says encouraged him to look for novel philosophies and alternative perspectives to mainstream ways of thinking.

After graduating high school, Haltom enlisted in the Air Force and was stationed in England when he met Aubrey, an African-American drummer and flutist who also practiced Karate. Haltom was intrigued by Aubrey’s ability to bridge the avant-garde world of jazz and martial arts; his new mentor introduced him to salsa music and Latin and Caribbean drumming styles, as well as the discipline of Oriental fighting techniques. But as Haltom delved further into Karate, he felt there was a natural connection between African dance movements and the martial arts, and he kept trying to create a more fluid fighting style, which ran against the grain of Aubrey and his other Karate teachers.

“There was a certain grace and a certain rhythm I was trying to get to and they couldn’t stand it,” Haltom says.

During the height of the radical changes of the 60s – from 1964 to 1969 – Haltom played music while immersing himself in the exciting social scenes that were developing in London, New York City and San Francisco. Haltom played for a variety of bands in California – including The Loading Zone, Kwandidos and Tower of Power – that at times opened for rock music icons Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane at the Fillmore in San Francisco. During one of his rehearsals, an Afro-Latin percussionist who learned that Haltom was interested in martial arts challenged him to spar. Haltom later learned that this non-assuming, talented musician had acquired the nickname “Sal the Assassin.”

“He took me outside and we spread out to spar and he just took me back to school in a way that I just could not ignore,” Haltom says, unable to suppress his own hard, hearty laughter. “And he did it in a way that like dancing. He was into music and dance, and he was an alcoholic at the time, but he had a mind that was really open. He was trained by a Kung Fu master and I asked him to take me to his teacher.”

As a result of his “schooling” by “Sal the Assassin,” Haltom then began studying with Kung Fu master Steven Hou. Kung Fu, with its continuous, circular movements, seemed to have the fluidity that Haltom had been yearning for. Not long after beginning his tutelage with Hou, Haltom also witnessed the Chinese Dragon Dance, and he saw a cultural connection between China and Africa that he had intuitively sensed. While unmistakably Chinese, the Dragon Dance – with its colorful tassels and loud firecrackers symbolizing the thunder of springtime – also has an essentially African drumbeat and rhythm. Haltom noticed that even the movements of the Dragon dancers themselves resembled African dance styles.

With time, Haltom became more and more aware of fundamental, archetypal expressions of African movement and dance, seeking to integrate these movements into his own martial arts and fitness practices. When he decided to pursue a Master’s degree in psychology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York in the early 70s, Haltom found a surprising number of students who were drawn to his multi-dimensional approach to music, dance and martial arts. He taught his first Tai Chi class in the summer of 1973 with one student, but by the next year the class ballooned to 70. By 1982 Haltom found himself opening the Aquarian School of Movement Therapy; four years later the center moved to another Ithaca location and became the Agape Institute for Movement Studies, offering a full range of classes in African drum and dance, Tai Chi, Kung Fu and yoga.

Haltom developed new techniques and practices that were based on the idea that “you could be rhythmic and continuous, and that could still be a basis for a kind of strength and power.” He envisioned both the Aquarian School and the Agape Institute as embracing a “multi-cultural approach to becoming more mindful and more conscious of the body.” One of his most compelling classes, which he calls “Atlantean Yoga,” combined the fundamental postures of Indian Hatha yoga with circular motions of African dance.

Haltom was surprised at the growth of his organization and the general interest in his teachings.

“I never really thought that I was evolving something, but by about 1982, I was pretty aware that there was something going on here between Africa and China – and India, with the yoga postures,” Haltom explained, as he described the basis of his from of yoga. “Atlantean Yoga involves the idea of taking postures which appear to be still, but because you’re breathing there is an opportunity of engaging in small, spinal flexing movements. You can find ways to keep the posture intact but at the same time undulate the spine and thighs.”

Haltom says that his work with the intensified breathing and movement innovations of Atlantean Yoga develops a particularly powerful sensitivity and connection to the Life Force, and presaged some of trends that would occur with the widespread popularization of yoga in the 90s. In particular, the practice of “Power Yoga." a form of athletic yoga with enhanced cardio-vascular activity developed by Rodney Yee in California, and Sanyasin Yoga, are both somewhat similar to Haltom’s Atlantean Yoga system.

During the time that he was developing the Aquarian Center and the Agape Institute, Haltom also studied with Chinese martial arts master Mantak Chia in New York City. He found that Chia’s teachings on the Chinese philosophy of Taoism and its body systems were applicable to almost all aspects of his personal life, right down to his African drumming technique and the way he played salsa music. Haltom developed a close relationship with Chia, and after a few years Chia invited him to work more directly in transmitting Chia’s knowledge to a wider range of students. It was a difficult decision, as master Chia was becoming a world-renowned teacher and his work eventually resulted in new interest in Qigong – Chinese esoteric yoga and healing techniques – in the United States and the Western world.

“Mantak Chia invited me to join him in the process of taking his teaching forward to a new level. And I really had to think about it, because I knew that in the back of my head there were other things that I didn’t really understand or know, and I turned him down,” Haltom explained. “It was very strange because I was getting a lot from his teachings, but I declined because of this inner feeling that I could see all of these connections between Africa, China and India (in my own work). That was the vision in the back of my head and so I declined, and that was hard.”

Haltom believes that African traditions and practices are generally not appreciated for their potential contribution to health and healing because they involve a mind-body orientation that is quite unlike standard Western thinking. But developing these practices are well worth the effort, because they can lead one to a new awareness of inner knowledge and the “collective unconscious” that is not accessible through conventional education.

“I call it from the bottom-up, because you are learning and thinking and cognizing from a different part of your whole being, which I think is part of the collective unconscious anyway,” Haltom explains. “I think we all have this going on inside of us – it’s just about getting different ways to stimulate and open doors so this knowledge can come out.”

Haltom currently teaches a few classes per week at the Cayuga Wellness Center, but his life has been somewhat redefined by his psychotherapy work with Cornell students and in his own private practice. Although he does less mind-body activity, Haltom still feels his work as a psychotherapist parallels his involvement in music, African drumming and the martial arts and is similar to the traditional role of a shaman.

“Even right now, as a psychotherapist in a place as diverse as Cornell, I would see myself not so much as a psychotherapist as a shaman,” Haltom points out. “I say that because what I’m doing is assisting people to come in touch with a deeper part of themselves. We all have housed in us a relationship with the Life Force that is in each of us and in all life.”

Beyond the wealth of awareness and inner knowledge that can be developed through African music, movement and dance, Haltom believes Africa has a more general “gift” for humanity through the cultural processes that are reflected in jazz music and improvisation. Much like he adapted Tai Chi, Kung Fu, yoga and music to his own inner themes of rhythm and movement, Haltom sees a powerful adaptive intuitive consciousness that is inherent in African culture. Haltom believes it “takes a lot of training” to develop this consciousness, but the effort leads to “the opportunity you might have to start living a life like that.”

“I think that Africa comes with a unique plan for adapting right now, in the current moment – and to each and every moment – in a very spontaneous and fluid fashion,” Haltom says. “Each and every moment in life is a mystery, and the mystery is solved when I come to the mystery myself, connected to my inner lawfulness, and I can relinquish control and give over to this trust of there is something within myself that can adjust perfectly and adequately to a certain moment.”

Truly well spoken, like a griot, a fundi, an African sage. Through jazz, drumming, martial arts and more, Haltom has shown us that there are many inner gems of African mind-body wisdom, and many pathways to the Motherland in the heart.

Africa's Environment and a Woman's Mission

2006-09-03T13:09:00.000-07:00

A group of women protesting at a Niger Delta oil facility. Insert: Leslie Fields.

Before I interviewed Leslie Fields and talked in depth with her, I had given some thought to ecological issues in Africa, but I didn't see them as clearly as I do now or with the same sense of urgency. I knew something about the problems in the Niger Delta as well as climate change, soil erosion and desertification, but Leslie gave them a new prescience and a new realness. One thing I didn't mention in this article - although Leslie hinted at it - is the effect global warming is having on flooding, as the snows of Kilimanjaro and nearby mountains are melting. It's not as big of a problem as desertification, but it fits in the whole environmental-ecological picture in Africa. As more African Americans - and more people in general - travel to and become interested of Africa, we also have give consideration to these issues and become more involved in environmental justice.

Africa's Environment and A Woman's Mission

Leslie Fields is an African American woman who battles for sanity and reason in an insane, unbalanced world. Her long dred locks, high cheekbones and welcoming smile project soft-spoken character and a deep bond with the African Motherland she works so hard to protect. At first glance, one might not expect that this non-assuming woman is an international attorney who takes on the likes of Shell Oil and powerful government interests on behalf of unknown, powerless people. Yet throughout her career, Fields has found herself tirelessly admonishing, cajoling, exhorting and otherwise influencing an extraordinary array of ambassadors, cabinet ministers, senators and congressmen, CEOs, community leaders and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) on environmental issues.

Most people think that ecology and environmental activism are the purview of liberal, touchy-feely Whites who live in suburbs and wear Birkenstock sandals. While there appears to be a lack of African-American interest in environmental activism, Fields encourages people to look beyond surface appearances and see that many ecological issues have important racial implications.

As an idealistic law student at Georgetown in mid-80s, Fields never studied environmental law, nor did she see herself becoming involved in the field. But during her early years as a practicing attorney working for the Texas Legislative Council and volunteering for the Sierra Club and the NAACP, she began to discern trademark patterns of community exploitation by large energy corporations.

“I got started doing environmental justice work here, in the United States. I realized very quickly all these companies were doing the same kind of exploitation – whether it’s “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana, or the “Chemical Corridor” between Baton Rouge and New Orleans,” Fields explains. “You can’t live down there and not notice this. It’s very obvious; all these chemical companies and petrochemical companies are all sited in Black and Latino low-income neighborhoods.”

Through her legal role with the Texas Legislative Council, Fields drafted the first Texas Birth Defects Registry. At the time, many babies with birth defects were “being born in clusters” near polluting plants, factories and chemical refineries. The Birth Defects Registry helped disseminate information from county hospitals so the problem could be viewed from a wider perspective. Her work on the Birth Defects Registry sparked off a new interest and lifelong passion for understanding the specific impacts of environmental policies on families and communities.

Fields adventurous backpacking trips and various travels through Mexico, Central America and South America only confirmed the same problems she saw in Texas and Louisiana. As she became more aware of the broader scope of environmental issues, Fields began meeting and networking with people from the countries she traveled in.

“As I traveled, I saw how the same companies were contaminating the same kinds of neighborhoods in Mexico and Central America,” Fields said. “Then I went to Ecuador for the first time, and I went to the Esmeraldas area, which is all Black, and that’s where they have their oil. And again, the same oil companies and their subsidiaries were contaminating that area.”

Fields new contacts would lead to involvement with larger groups such as the Indigenous Environmental Network and the National Black Environmental Justice Network, an organization she helped found. Fields gets excited when she talks about the friendships and sense of community she developed through her environmental justice work. She feels environmental justice is unique because anyone with an interest can get involved – from scientists, lawyers and students to grandmothers, church members or community leaders.

“My favorite people are older women, kitchen table advocates who see a problem, with no funding, no big organization behind them, and they get themselves together and they take on the city council or they take on whomever,” Fields said, laughing as she describes the culinary joys of her regional “Interstate 10” diet. “They’re involved in everything, they’re the keepers of the neighborhood and they also feed you. They give you bread pudding and sweet potato pie and barbeque and you drink beer and it’s just wonderful. People still sit around on their front porch and drink iced tea or beer and you see plant in the background with the flair and that’s where everybody has to work.”

Fields believes that everything she has done locally in the United States “translates globally” and naturally fits into the same patterns and environmental justice trends worldwide. At the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa in 2001, Fields and other activists worked hard to write platforms and draft position papers to elevate environmental justice issues to same level of other human rights issues like human trafficking, racial and sexual discrimination and torture. In Durban Fields met Niger Delta and Angolan activists who would help her focus on some of the most pressing environmental problems in Africa. After the Conference Fields became the director of the Friends of the Earth’s Global Sustainability Initiative, and then returned to South Africa to participate in the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002. Her work with Friends of the Earth – one of the world’s largest environmental organizations – initiated a new phase of involvement with African environmental causes.

With the highly visible martyrdom of Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995, the international media was gradually becoming aware of the exploitation of the Ogoni people and other ethnic groups in the Niger Delta region through the actions of multinational oil companies like Shell, BP and Agif. As Fields traveled to Nigeria and worked with NGOs and government officials she became sensitive to many of the complexities of Nigeria’s economic growth and development. She feels very strongly that the problems in the Niger Delta are one of the world’s worst – and least followed or understood – environmental crises.

“The Niger Delta is a civil war that no one is paying attention to. Everybody hears about Iraq, everybody hears about different places in the world like Palestine, but this is a civil war, and people are suffering and dying, people are being contaminated, and women are having miscarriages,” Fields explained, with sadness and anger in her voice, adding that many problems are accentuated by poor oversight and lack of environmental regulations and standards. “Nigeria flares and wastes more gas than any (other) place in the world because BP and Shell and Agip just care about getting the oil – they don’t care about what happens to the gas getting burned off in the production process.

“They flare it on the ground, they flare it ceiling high, they flare it all over the place. So all these communities have terrible pollution. I’ve seen pipelines next to health clinics and elementary schools – they just put them everywhere.”

The situation in the Niger Delta is part of a bigger problem with other countries in Africa like Angola and Equatorial Guinea. Fields describes these places as being “awash in all these new oil wells, and people are living in filth.” These problems have new implications for African Americans, as volatile global conditions are forcing the United States to get one-quarter of its oil and gas from West Africa. In the drive to satisfy its thirst for oil, the American government and US foreign policy will “follow the same model” of Shell and BP, creating conditions that oppress the lives of Africans.

Fields is adamant about raising these issues in African-American organizations and forums like the American Association of Blacks in Energy, the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus, where often she is the lone environmental justice advocate. She feels too many Blacks do not see the multi-layered connections between America and Africa.

“As African Americans, we cannot walk around now with our newfound knowledge and our Akente cloth and pretend like nothing’s happening over there. People are dying so we can drive SUVs,” Fields says passionately, adding that environmental hazards have created a cholera epidemic in Angola. “In the Niger Delta and in Angola people live in the most appalling filth so that oil companies can get that oil out of there and sell it to us at a price that we can live with. We can’t pretend that we’re buying African art and everything’s ‘brothers and sisters’ over there and we’re part of the problem because of our consumption patterns.”

Fields says she has had some success and positive response from the American Association for Blacks in Energy – an organization of African Americans in executive positions in energy industries – and the Congressional Black Caucus. During Congressional Black Caucus week in Washington, D.C., a great deal of networking occurs between Black Congressional Staff, the Energy Department, energy professionals and Ambassadors and diplomats from African countries. Fields says she has met the Ambassador from Angola, Madam Ferreira, who has said she would love to get support for renewable sources of energy in Angola, but her country needs direct foreign investment to build basic infrastructure damaged from their 30-year civil war.

Beyond environmental and economic issues related to the oil industry, Fields is even more passionate about her work combating the problems of climate change and global warming. She describes ecological issues as the “back-story” to many of the conflicts occurring in Africa, and she feels more people need to understand climate change in the context of soil erosion, desertification and the effects it has on African populations.

“Climate change creates more conflict and migration than anything. People migrate because of floods and famines and because of desertification,” Fields says emphatically, her voice rising in indignation. “Remember those floods in Mozambique a few years ago? And the situation in Darfur is the way it is because women have to go out and find water and get fuel because there isn’t any anymore because of desertification and climate change, and then they get attacked by the Janjaweed.

“Climate change is fueling migration and making people move to areas where other people don’t want them. And it’s all about water, and it’s all about energy.”

While these global challenges appear daunting, Fields is enthusiastic because activists are making breakthroughs by applying pressure through critical avenues in the corporate world. Ironically, Fields points out that these new movements are being driven by some of the same activists who organized the divestment movement to stop American universities from investing in apartheid South Africa. Along with Sister Pat Daley, one of the progenitors of the divestment movement, Fields served on the board of the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (CERES), an organization that encourages large pension funds, insurance agencies, banks and institutional investors to vote for shareholder resolutions that reflect the true costs of “climate risk.”

Climate risk may include damage costs related to floods and hurricanes such as Katrina, which devastated the Gulf Coast last year, or any costs associated with the ecological impacts from climate change. Fields did similar work through Friends of the Earth by advocating that international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as the US Export Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation carefully monitor costs associated with oil companies investing in the Niger Delta and Angola. Fields lobbied for more stringent requirements and standards regarding political risk insurance, making it more difficult for oil companies to write-off losses associated with business activities in regions known for poor environmental regulations and oppression.

Fields is very proud of the work she and other women activists are doing in Africa. She says one of her highlights in Africa was meeting Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, at the World Conference Against Racism in 2001. Dr. Maathi founded the Greenbelt Movement in Kenya, which has planted 30 million trees to stop soil erosion and desertification while also enhancing Kenya’s development position via the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change.

“Women are holding up half the sky there – they’re doing it. I’ve met all kinds of women ministers and parliamentarians and women who are running NGOs, and women who’ve been through a lot,” Fields says. “Wangari Maathai is the best example of what I’m talking about. She went through a lot – she was imprisoned and beaten. Ellen Johnson- Sirleaf (the new president of Liberia) was also incarcerated.”

Fields feels blessed to have the opportunity to work in Africa, and she feels hopeful that growing numbers of African Americans will continue to travel and work in Africa.

“I definitely feel connected (to Africa), in a very, very broad sense, whereas growing up, we didn’t have that. Now I know more Africans, I know people from Africa who have friends here, and it’s enriched my life in a lot of ways that I can’t even put words to,” Fields says, with a sense of gratitude. “I search things out, and if something has an African Diaspora angle to it I will gravitate toward that. I’m much more of a critical thinker as an American because I have this Diaspora feeling in me. I try to think how my life will affect other people, particularly Black people.

“Because if we don’t do it, nobody’s going to do it.”

Experiencing Soweto and the Real South Africa

2006-06-03T15:16:00.000-07:00

The Soweto Gospel Choir in a live performance.

This month marks the 30th anniversary of the June 16, 1976 Soweto riots that led to a nationwide resistance movement that eventually culminated in the unbanning of Black political parties and the release of Nelson Mandela from prison. There's a lot more to Soweto than meets the eye. Africa's most famous community is colorful, sophisticated, vibrant and full of joy. With a little bit of extra effort and some help from the right Black tour companies, you can transcend the surface level and get more into the real groove of the people and their lifestyle. Soweto is a great community to visit, and there are many ways to experience its unique African urban culture and sense of unity and oneness.

Experiencing Soweto and the Real South Africa

“When Soweto sneezes, South Africa gets a cold,” is a favorite, tongue-in-cheek saying among many Sowetans. But then again, certain Sowetans – doctors, lawyers, politicians and business leaders – tend to hide or conceal the subdued seriousness of the inference.

Most Americans have heard of Soweto, and the sprawling, unruly South African township conjures many images to mind, although most of them are confusing, limited or inaccurate, or at least only partial pictures of the beautiful whole. Soweto itself is more of a reflection of the many contradictions and paradoxes of South Africa. It is a ghetto, to be sure, but Soweto is also a place of aspiration and wonder, a place of leaders and entrepreneurs, a place rich with its own history, languages, music and vibrancy. When you’ve tasted Soweto’s restaurants and friendly shebeen ‘juke joints’, its crowded streets and playful markets, its love, laughter and hospitality, then you understand why a favorite bumper sticker reads, “To live and die in Soweto.”

What is often confusing for visitors is that Soweto – an acronym for South Western Townships – is actually a vast grouping of neighborhoods and townships of 3.5 million people that is larger than the city of Johannesburg itself. Soweto’s first township, Klipspruit, was formed in 1904 to provide African workers for the mining industry and menial laborers for white Johannesburg; since then Soweto has exploded into an expanse covering some 200 square kilometers of seemingly unending dirt roads, tiny homes and makeshift shacks. As Johannesburg grew, more and more people from rural homelands swarmed into the city looking for work, and Soweto in turn became more crowded, drawing the countless masses to its bosom like a compassionate mother who always manages to take in more orphans.

Africa’s most famous community is more than just an apparition of apartheid – it is home to some of South Africa’s most influential media personalities, writers, actors, musicians, celebrities, athletes and professionals. Soweto has its shanties and informal settlements, as well as its own mansions, model homes and middle class communities. Many of South Africa’s high profile national politicians and business leaders still can be found in Soweto during the weekends or when Parliament is not in session – even though they own expensive homes in the exclusive suburbs of Johannesburg, Durban, Pretoria and Cape Town.

This June – without much international notice or fanfare – marks the 30th anniversary of one of South Africa’s most important holidays, a source of great pride for Sowetans. It can be argued that on June 16, 1976, the new South Africa was born, with the violent riots that broke out after Soweto school children protested against changing the language of instruction from English to Afrikaans. The young Sowetans knew the implications; studying in Afrikaans – a modified form of Dutch – would isolate them further from the mainstream economy and the rest of the world, and make them even more subservient to the Dutch descendent white Afrikaners, the creators of apartheid. The frustration with apartheid’s uncompromising segregation in housing, jobs and virtually every aspect of life had been building up – like a pressure cooker – and the Afrikaans policy was the final straw that broke the camel’s back.

On an otherwise quiet, overcast June afternoon, the young Sowetans took everyone – and perhaps even themselves – by surprise. They agreed to walk out of their classrooms and meet at Orlando West Secondary School on Vilikazi Street, and then march from there to Orlando Stadium. By mid-morning thousands of students had gathered at Orlando West, streaming in from all over the township, until more than 15,000 uniformed students, ranging in age from about 10 to 20, joined the march. But along the way to the stadium the young protestors were met by a phalange of policemen who ordered them to disperse. When the students refused and began singing the spiritual anthem “Nkosi Sikeleli” (God Bless Africa), the police fired teargas canisters into the crowd; the students were unwilling to retreat, and some responded by throwing rocks and bottles. Police then fired indiscriminately, and children began to drop. Although the official estimate is that 23 students were killed, it is well known that in Soweto, everything and everyone is undercounted; other sources indicate that some 200 children were killed, not to mention those who were injured or crippled as a result of the police action.

A photographer for The World newspaper, Sam Nzima, witnessed the riots and snapped the now iconic image of 12 year-old Hector Pieterson being carried in the arms of Mbuyisa Mkhubo, running alongside Hector’s sister, Antoinette Sithole, from the scene. The haunting photograph was carried on news wires around the world and portrayed the brutality of apartheid repression in stark, terrible terms. As the first youth to die in the riots, Hector Pieterson became a symbol of the defiance and restlessness of South Africa’s younger generations, yearning for change. Later that night, as Soweto went up in flames, the rioting spread to the Black township of Alexandra, and then throughout all South Africa. It was as if Pieterson’s death was a unanimous signal that flashed across the nation, saying the time of waiting is no more.

The Soweto uprising set the government at loggerheads with Black urban communities in what would become a non-stop civil disobedience movement that finally culminated with the release of Nelson Mandela from prison and the unbanning of Black political parties like the African National Congress (ANC). Many of the youth involved in the Soweto conflict chose to leave the country, going into exile to join the armed resistance. The “Soweto Detachment,” as they became known, bolstered the ranks of various liberation armies that at times infiltrated South Africa and sabotaged government or military facilities. Other Soweto cadres were fortunate enough to be given scholarships and opportunities to earn college degrees in Europe, the United States and the Soviet Union.

Even before the ’76 Soweto riots, another popular movement based in Soweto had a different, yet in some ways more formative role in the prolonged struggle against apartheid. During the 1950s Defiance Campaign – when a fiery, young Nelson Mandela led people of all racial groups in a series of boycotts, strikes and civil disobedience – another birth of sorts took place in Soweto. On June 6, 1955, more than 3,000 delegates of resistance organizations, of every race and ethnicity, made with their way to Kliptown to approve The Freedom Charter, a declaration of human rights that became part of the foundation of South Africa’s 1996 Constitution. In the middle of one of the poorest sections of Soweto, the representatives gathered on the parched, crowded, dusty land and agreed upon an eloquent statement of their ideals, a dream that would only be fulfilled decades later.

Kliptown today is being transformed through an ambitious redevelopment project that includes the Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication – a memorial on the original Freedom Square site – along with a housing development, a shopping mall and a luxury 4-star hotel. The Square and the entire site are built on a new cosmopolitan vision of Soweto, and are adjacent to some of the most colorful and thriving street markets in the township. Yet Kliptown is also home to one of the poorest squatter camps in Soweto. The contrast typifies Soweto – a modern urban world of information and a hip, multi-cultural African personality, with new aspirations – and a village community that is not far removed from the earthly humanity of traditional Africa. This fascinating contrast seemingly keeps drawing the CEOs and the CFOs, the marketing directors, the Members of Parliament, celebrities, entrepreneurs and musicians back to Soweto.

As South Africa opened to democracy and the international community, a new generation of Black Soweto tour operators created new opportunities for travelers and visitors to experience the energy, joy and beauty of Soweto. Despite its history as a “location” preserve for Africans, a region walled in from white Johannesburg – Soweto is more accessible and welcoming to foreigners, visitors and tourists than one might think. Typically tourists interested in Soweto take a standard bus tour to the Hector Pieterson Memorial, perhaps with a visit to the old homes of Nelson and Winnie Mandela, and Desmond Tutu. Yet these tours only skim the surface and leave visitors with a very superficial contact and understanding of Soweto. Some Black-owned tour companies like Jimmy’s Face to Face and Imbizo Tours take tourists directly into the homes and communities of Sowetans, with surprising results.

Mandy Mankazana, who started her Imbizo Tours business in 1994, offers tourists the opportunity to live with a Soweto family, to experience their community and township life firsthand, in more intimate person-to-person encounters. “Imbizo” – which means a cultural or community gathering in Zulu – offers a wide variety of “township” tours, including a night-time “shebeen crawl,” which takes visitors on an adventurous party through many of Soweto’s famous home pubs, where Black South Africans love to socialize. But the most rewarding and powerful of her tourist experiences are the live-in visits with Soweto families.

“I propose to the client if they want to stay with a poor, middle class or rich family,” Mankazana explains, pointing out that she allows each tourist to determine the kind of family experience they would like to have. She says she gets “a lot of requests” for the live-in experience – from both Black and White clients – as most of her business comes from word of mouth, personal referrals and the Internet. “For the tourists it is a lifetime experience. When they come back from South Africa they’ve had a lifetime experience. They’re not treated like tourists – they’re accepted like a family member and they feel like they are a part of the family.”

Mankazana says that tourists have many misconceptions about Soweto, but once they experience her tours they always feel safer in Soweto than they do in downtown Johannesburg. Invariably they have great experiences in Soweto, whether they are Black or White, even though tourists usually have stereotyped views of the residents and how they might be accepted in Soweto. Mankazana feels that the tourism sector in Soweto is underdeveloped, and certain factors contribute to confusion about what Soweto has to offer and the kind of tours that are available to visitors.

“I don’t think the tourism sector is really opening up to Bed and Breakfasts in Soweto. They could do more business; they’re not as busy as hotels in Jo-burg,” Mankazana says. She also feels that some White tour operators have set up tours that take people to the Hector Pieterson Memorial and rush them through Soweto, without having contact with ordinary Sowetans, or allowing tourists to patronize Soweto’s curio shops, restaurants, arts and crafts stores, etc. She hopes that more tourists – particularly African Americans – will research the tour operators carefully to find a Black company that will offer more in-depth experiences in Soweto.

Angelia McGowan, a public relations contractor with the Colorado Department of Transportation, recently returned from a 10-day trip to South Africa where she tried the Imbizo live-in experience in Soweto and “shebeen crawl” before she went to an international conference on traffic safety in Durban. McGowan, 33, was overwhelmed by the friendliness and hospitality of Sowetans, and Black South Africans generally. She stayed with her host, Jane Oarabile-Monakwane, in a one-room Soweto dwelling that was in the backyard of a larger home. McGowan said her host’s room – one of three rooms in the same backyard, all with plastered walls and ceilings – was “set up nice, like a dorm room in a college, with a wardrobe” and had a TV as well as a computer with an Internet connection.

“Everyone in South Africa was very open – more open than I expected for me being a foreigner there. If I didn’t open my mouth I felt like I fit in, but as soon as I opened my mouth I felt like a foreigner,” McGowan said. She said that Sowetans usually greeted her in Zulu or Sotho, but quickly switched to English once they heard her African-American accent. “As soon as I opened my mouth they knew I came from somewhere else.”

During the shebeen crawl McGowan found that Sowetans were eager to talk to her about living conditions in the United States, and subjects like the recent Hurricane Katrina disaster. Sowetans were quick to open up to her, with a sense of love and community that seems to be an inherent part of African culture. At the shebeens she met lawyers and doctors, and actors and artists in the entertainment industry, along with ordinary Sowetans, all in the same settings. Some of the Sowetans she met invited her to stay with them during future visits to South Africa.

“Everyone was so open, I couldn’t believe that people would tell me the next time I come I could stay with them. This was only after five minutes of talking,” McGowan explained, saying she was taken back by the kindness and authenticity of the Sowetans. “It wasn’t a pickup line. They were just being very genuine. They are always open to visitors. They take great pride in hosting and entertaining visitors.”

Through Imbizo Tours, McGowan was also able to arrange to stay with a Black South African host in Durban, the site of the international road safety conference. Her host, Fikile Molefe, also accompanied her for many of the conference evening parties and socials, and took her on various tours of Durban. At a cost of R300 per night, or about $50, McGowan spent about half of the money she would have spent at the conference’s official hotel accommodation and yet had a more personable and varied experience of Durban. McGowan’s Soweto tours, including accommodation, pickup and transportation to the airport, was R500, for two days and one night, or about $83, savings that ultimately gave her more options for her entire travel package. By contrast, on her first night in South Africa, McGowan spent R550 or about $91 on a bed and breakfast in Melville, one of the trendy White neighborhoods in Johannesburg.

It seems that McGowan and other tourists – Black and White – are finding that experiencing Soweto and the real South Africa can be both cost-effective and personally rewarding by tapping into the spirit of “Ubuntu,” or African love and community, through the personal networks of Black South African tour operators. When she left for South Africa, McGowan had only two contacts and some far-sighted ideas about what she wanted to encounter; she returned home a much wiser woman, knowing the depth of the African heart.

New Battle for Broadcasting Rights in Africa

2006-05-01T12:49:00.000-07:00

In the next few years, the telecommunications environment of Africa will change dramatically as South Africa turns its formidable technological and economic prowess towards the rest of the continent. The history and context to these developments are just as intriguing as the new picture that is beginning to emerge as regulators, entrepreneurs, investors and industry players make their mark on the vast, open landscape.

I wrote this article in the Spring of 2006, as ICASA - the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa - was preparing its first hearings on pay television. With their provisional pay television license in Botswana, Black Earth Communications beat everyone to the punch. But for all their brilliance and innovation, by July 2007 Black Earth Communications found itself squeezed out the regulated South African market by large institutional forces, while its operations in Botswana are still in an uncertain formative stage. Satellite pay television originating in Botswana and broadcasting into South Africa - or anywhere else in Africa for that matter - remains a very real possibility. Despite the rebuff of Black Earth Communications by ICASA, this story is illustrative of some of the extraordinary developments happening in Southern Africa that will shape the long term future of broadcasting throughout Africa. The media and even the digital technology environment that emerges in Africa in the years to come may be more suited to the continents peculiar development needs, varying significantly from American and European models.

The New Battle for Broadcasting Rights in Africa

Africa often seems lost in a perpetual technological and economic time warp, desperately isolated from mainstream of modern globalization. Oddly enough, satellite television in the Motherland reflects this same trend, yet also contradicts it, with certain peculiar complexities. Africa is the only continent in the world where one company—South Africa’s MultiChoice International Holdings (MIH) and its DStv platform of channels—maintains a tightly controlled monopoly on pay television broadcasting throughout the entire region.

But this decades old monopoly is being challenged, as a new Black-owned satellite television venture, Black Entertainment Satellite Television, or BEStv, was recently awarded a broadcasting license from the National Broadcasting Board (NBB) of Botswana. Moreover - in the wake of BEStv’s bold move - a host of players in South Africa’s sophisticated high-tech telecommunications industries are jockeying for position as the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) plans to issue licenses for new satellite and cable subscription television services. All of these developments will revolutionize the existing broadcasting environment in Africa, as the Motherland enters a new era of Pan-African programming, broadcast content and signal distribution. The history and context to these developments is as fascinating as the future promise of Africa’s new media age.

MultiChoice: Unlikely Beginnings of a Global Player

In 1982, Koos Bekker, a South African graduate student at Columbia University, diligently completed his broadcasting Masters degree thesis on the possibilities of establishing a subscription television service in South Africa. Bekker was fascinated by the budding success of HBO, which at the time was just beginning to pioneer the new market for pay television, as it targeted hotels, motels and home subscribers while experimenting with program content and pioneering cable and satellite broadcasting. HBO's company headquarters was located near Columbia - which had one of the world’s leading research units on telecommunications – and Bekker spent many hours interviewing HBO executives and technical staff. After obtaining his degree Bekker faced a crossroads between choosing a career with HBO, or returning home to grapple with the uncertainties of advocating his pay television ideas in the highly authoritarian broadcasting environment of South Africa.

Once back in South Africa in 1984, Bekker carefully completed his research and made a business presentation to Ton Vosloo, the chairman of Naspers, a publishing company that ran the nation’s top Afrikaans newspapers and was considered a mouthpiece for the conservative Afrikaner establishment that conceived, legislated and maintained apartheid. Vosloo was certainly very well connected; he was a member of the Broederbond, the secret society of lawyers, judges, parliamentarians, cabinet ministers, business and political leaders who ran the government and sought to empower the white Afrikaner population. Vosloo was intrigued by Bekker and was won over by his thoughtful planning and thorough command of the subject matter. Moreover, Naspers was keen to diversify its media interests, and was also very interested in television, although it was a new medium (television was first introduced to South Africa in 1976) and was tightly controlled (for propaganda purposes) by the apartheid government.

Bekker and Vosloo made their pitch to Foreign Minister Pik Botha, who also managed the Telecommunications portfolio. Like Vosloo before him, Botha was also thoroughly impressed with Bekker. Botha agreed to grant the new company a broadcasting license under the condition that no news would be broadcast and other publishing groups would be allowed to participate in a joint venture, albeit with Naspers as the managing partner. In a later interview Botha said he had never met anyone as singularly determined as Bekker, and that the 30 year-old entrepreneur had a wisdom and demeanor that was well beyond his age.

After securing their license, Bekker and his team of engineers began to identify and develop broadcast and encryption technology that would allow them to utilize terrestrial broadcasting systems to do what HBO was doing via cable. The new technology they developed into an over-the-air format would establish Nasper’s new company, M-Net, as a world player in subscription television for decades to come. M-Net made their first broadcast in September 1986, a few months after Canal Plus from France also went on air, making France and South Africa the first countries to operate over-the-air pay TV. By the time Rupert Murdoch’s British-based Sky TV followed suit in 1990, M-Net’s cutting edge encryption technology was already growing in demand throughout Europe and Asia.

M-Net invested heavily in infrastructure in its early years, and lost more than R32 million (about $40 million, at the 1987 exchange rate) in its first two years of operation. But trends and ideas catch on quickly in South Africa, and sometimes it seems the South African economy can churn and grind with a speed that rivals America, Europe, Japan or Australia. By 1990 M-Net turned its massive losses into a profit of R19.9 million (about $7.5 million, at the 1990 exchange rate), and listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange with a bright outlook and ambitious plans for future growth.

In the ‘90s M-Net morphed into three divisions: MultiChoice International Holdings (MIH), its subscription television ventures throughout Africa, as well as Greece, Thailand and China; M-Cell/MTN, one of Africa’s most successful cell phone operators; and Open TV and its affiliates, which manage the MIH broadcast and encryption technologies. Naspers also still maintains its highly profitable newspaper and magazine publications, which have also been expanding into Nigeria, Angola, Kenya and other African markets. Because of its media and technology holdings Naspers is listed on NASDAQ. Ironically, Naspers – the Afrikaans publishing house with Broederbond roots - has grown into Africa’s most successful media conglomerate, a true multinational force in the age of globalization. In 1996 Naspers sold its European subscriber base to Canal Plus for R7 billion (about $1.62 billion), with Bekker - its chief strategist - leaving Europe to concentrate on China as well as other Asian and African markets. Bekker has always maintained a progressive view of the developing world, and believing that China was “the place to be” and “it didn’t help to go to mature markets like Europe.”

The MultiChoice Monopoly Faces New Challengers

At the turn of the century there was great speculation in the South African telecommunications industry that there was room for another satellite or cable pay TV operator, and many CEO’s and their marketing teams developing business plans and strategies for South Africa and the entire African continent. ICASA, South Africa’s broadcasting regulator, had been investigating the issue, and after receiving comments from the industry, announced that in March 2006, it would invite applications for cable and satellite subscription services, scheduling hearings for July, 2006, with an eye toward granting operational licenses by mid-2007. The expected competitors were institutional giants, like Telkom (South Africa’s telephone operator) SABC (South Africa’s public broadcaster), Sentech (SABC’s signal distribution arm), Orbicom (MultiChoice’s satellite company), WorldSpace (an African satellite radio broadcaster), and Vodacom (a South African cell phone company). All the muscle and might of South Africa’s telecommunications industry was primed to take on MultiChoice, aiming to bring the most successful 21st Century business models and high tech systems into the vast expanse of the Motherland.

But a news leak in January 2006 – that followed with a formal announcement - sent shockwaves through broadcasting and media circles. A small company in Johannesburg, Black Earth Communications, and its satellite pay television venture Black Entertainment Satellite Television, or BEStv, had been invited to apply for a satellite television license by the National Broadcasting Board of Botswana (NBB). Flying under the radar, BEStv’s daring coup now threatened South African competitors with the prospect of going on air a full year in advance of others players, thus stealing both potential program content and market share. Furthermore, by operating out of Botswana, BEC and BEStv challenged ICASA and South Africa itself with competition to its own previously unrivaled position as the dominant regional and continental force in satellite broadcasting and telecommunications.

Suddenly, South African newspapers, radio and television programs were awash with stories about BEC and its relatively unknown CEO, Andrew Jones, an African American television producer from Richmond, Virginia. Bloggers and Internet message boards were buzzing with excitement, as the South Africans and Botswanans - previously only peripherally attuned to the ICASA proceedings - were suddenly confronted with a more real and immediate potential alternative to MultiChoice. While many questioned how the service would work, what program content it would offer (MultiChoice has exclusive distribution agreements with CNN, BBC, Discovery Channel, ESPN, MTV, VH1 and other popular global channels), etc., the general sentiment was excitement about the prospects for new competition. A surprising number of people – Black and White – seemed to be frustrated with MultiChoice’s monopoly and its service.

Jones, who initially approached MultiChoice and later Sentech to broadcast channels on their satellite systems and was turned down, is bullish on the market and optimistic about prospects for going head-to-head with the MultiChoice behemoth.

“MultiChoice rakes in about R600 million a month in subscriptions and another R700 million a year in advertising, what they really need is competition,” Jones pointed out. “US customers get 500 channels and pay half of what they do here.”

BEStv – which was formally awarded its broadcast license on April 3, 2006 - is targeting the emerging Black middle class with an initial service of 5 – 10 channels at a cost of less than R100 a month (about $16, at the current exchange rate), then plans to upgrade their service to an additional 100 channels within a year, without a significant increase in price. The initial BEStv channels will include music, sports and entertainment. MultiChoice currently offers 55 channels, for about R399 (about $66) per month. While MultiChoice offers CNN, ESPN, VH1, MTV, Discovery, E! and other popular international channels, its subscription offerings do not include any of the American subscription channels like HBO, Cinemax or Showtime. BEC and BEStv has adopted an innovative strategy aimed at cultivating content for its African market, which includes courting African American and African Diaspora programming from the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America, programs from Asia, Australia and New Zealand, and creating HIVtv, the world’s first dedicated HIV - AIDS channel. Currently, Black Entertainment Television (BET) is not broadcast as a part of MultiChoice’s DStv platform, and thus BEStv – as well as the major South African pay TV hopefuls – will be vying for the African American channel.

Jones said the question of who will license BET’s programming will be a key factor in the development of the satellite television playing field in Africa.

“Well that’s the $64,000 question. Without giving up any company secrets, obviously, we plan to approach the big cable channels in the US that might appeal to Black audiences in Africa and in South Africa and see if we can be the entry point by which they can come into the African market,” Jones explained, adding that securing the Botswana license allows BEStv to negotiate the content it would like to bring to the Continent. “By all means we intend to get the best programming and the best content that will appeal to our Black market. If you look at the big Black cable channels out there, this looks great... And that certainly includes bringing the best and most established people from the United States as well as Europe and the Caribbean.”

Perhaps the most fascinating and innovative aspect of the BEC venture will be the dedicated AIDS channel, which will actually be the flagship of the BEStv satellite platform. Jones describes HIVtv as a “non-partisan channel dedicated to educating the global population on HIV/AIDS and celebrating the progress made in the fight against the disease.” He said HIVtv will feature interviews with medical professionals, psychologists, celebrities, those living positively with the disease, documentaries, footage from conferences, music videos, peer group discussions, entertainment and AIDS news.

“The AIDS Channel would be launched initially on BEStv in late 2006 or early 2007 and then be made available immediately on any satellite platform or any broadcast outlet willing to carry it. BEC expects that at maturity, the channel will be watched by hundreds of millions of people on every continent daily,” Jones said. “In fact, we firmly believe that HIVtv has the potential of becoming the most important satellite TV channel in the world. It would be an unbelievable channel, and if BEC fails it can succeed.”

While BEC and the BEStv venture appears strategically well-positioned amongst its larger South African competitors, it faces a number of legal and technical battles to successfully operate its platform, which include using MultiChoice decoder boxes to distribute its broadcast signal to African audiences. To receive the BEStv service, customers will be able to buy a new smart card, which can be used in any MultiChoice decoder, which range anywhere from R250 (about $41) to R3,000 ($500) in price. The low-end, R250 decoders are sufficient for receiving the BEStv signal, Jones said. BEC’s legal position is that the decoder is the customer’s property, and MultiChoice should have no right to determine what customers do with the decoders once they’ve been purchased.

In response to Don’t Panic, a 24-hour pornography channel that sold smart cards to distribute programming originating outside South Africa, Multichoice installed software in their decoder boxes that made other smart cards inoperable. Don’t Panic, which has been operating since 2002, has had an ongoing legal battle with MultiChoice since 2003, and the case was referred to ICASA. In April 2006, ICASA issued a decision stating that question of smart cards for use in MultiChoice decoders should be “self-regulated” by the industry. MultiChoice has stalled somewhat on the issue, claiming that their decoders will only accept DStv services. In this respect, Don’t Panic and BEStv – as well as other operators who plan to use MultiChoice decoders - may now have to turn to the South African Competition Commission, if agreements can’t be reached with MultiChoice.

Jones feels very strongly that the legal winds auger in BEC’s favor, and he feels the Competition Commission will compel MultiChoice to remove the blocking software.

“What we’re saying is that those decoders do not belong to Multichoice. They were sold to the consumer and Multichoice made a whole lot of money selling those decoders to consumers,” Jones pointed out. “Therefore Multichoice doesn’t have a right to put anything into those decoders other than what it needs to get its programming to its subscribers.”

Even after hurdling the decoder problem, BEStv faces the issue of acquiring a broadcast license in South Africa and facing the competition of much larger rivals like SABC, Sentech and Telkom. Yet while there are still questions to be answered for BEStv, it is clear that in the coming months more eyes will turn towards Africa as the new “winds of change” hit the broadcast airwaves.

Vusi Mahlasela - The "Voice" of South Africa

2006-04-21T14:18:00.000-07:00

Vusi Mahlasela’s music captures the unbridled beauty of South Africa... The singular power of his voice and guitar carries his audience into many subtle, ethereal landscapes of Africa's heart and soul. Most of Vusi Mahlasela's life has been dedicated to the struggle to overcome apartheid, but his sound extends far beyond a pedantic political message or one-dimensional rants. The fascinating colors of his musical palate create wonderfully imaginative stories and artistry around the basic facts of social injustice and deprivation in Africa. Vusi came and performed in Denver this summer, and it was an honor to interview him and write this article for The Denver Post. It was also an honor to see just how much one African brother with a guitar and an incredible voice can touch one’s soul.

Vusi Mahlasela - The "Voice" of South Africa Reaches Out

From his boyhood, when he taught himself how to play guitar with a handmade instrument that he constructed out of fishing line and tin cans, Vusi Mahlasela seemed destined to touch the world with his music. Growing up in Mamelodi Township, just outside of Pretoria, South Africa, Vusi Mahlasela’s talent soon became more than just youthful precociousness or a pleasant pastime. In the tradition of the poet-troubadour, Mahlasela would turn his poetry and music toward the suffering and injustices of apartheid, gradually transforming himself into one of South Africa’s most well-known artists and strongest voices in the anti-apartheid movement. Today Mahlasela’s sound and stage persona is so distinctive that he is known in South Africa as simply, “The Voice.”

In Denver, on June 22, Mahlasela will kick-off a month-long tour of concerts and music festivals in the United States and Europe, culminating with Peter Gabriel’s WOMAD in Reading, England and Les Nuits Atypiques de Langon, in Langon, France. Mahlasela is being brought to Denver by the Swallow Hill Music Association, and will be performing at the First Divine Science Church at 14 and Williams St. in Capitol Hill.

Mahlasela’s summer tour comes fresh off the success of his music in the soundtrack for “Tsotsi,” a South Film that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film earlier this year. Beyond winning the Oscar, “Tsotsi” – the story of a young gangster who hijacks a car, only to discover an infant in the back seat – has also won critical acclaim for its music, which introduces the driving force and beat of “kwaito,” South Africa’s homegrown corollary of hip hop. The rebelliousness, linguistic machinations and bravado of kwaito are perfectly complemented by Mahlasela’s spiritual soprano, and deeply emotional, ambient meditations reflecting the conscience of the film. The “Tsotsi” soundtrack also includes “Silang Mabele,” one of Mahlasela’s most popular songs, a traditional African melody about work and grinding corn, which Mahlasela reinvented into a call for the world to work on ending poverty.

With the success of “Tsotsi,” Mahlasela’s music is reaching new audiences all around the world. The exposure has been valuable, as Mahlasela was recently persuaded by his good friend Dave Matthews (who also is South African) to sign with Matthews’ ATO label, giving him new visibility in North America and Europe. In 2003, ATO produced The Voice, a collection of some of Mahlasela’s best work, compiled with an eye toward broadening Mahlasela’s appeal as an international performer.

Mahlasela has been pleased with his involvement with “Tsotsi,” as he works toward a transition from being an anti-apartheid activist to finding new pathways as an artist.

“People know me and my music for instilling hope. There is always something to talk about with the times changing around you and the people around you,” Mashlasela said in a telephone interview from his home in Mamelodi. “But now my music has changed in some ways, because one needs to develop as an artist. I’m not only writing about South Africa but also about the continent of Africa as well.”

Mashlasela explained that some of the music for his new album – which is currently untitled but is due out this fall – is about the historic dispossession of the indigenous San people of Southern Africa, and particularly their oppression by the government of Botswana, which has been accused of destroying their identity and means for survival.

Mahlasela, who is known for a dreamy acoustic sound and subtle African rhythms and blended with deep, resonant vocal harmonies, spoke enthusiastically about his new album. The new project includes collaborations with some of South Africa’s top recording artists, such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Hugh Masekela and the Soul Brothers.

“The new album is concentrated on much more than just the acoustic sound of me and my voice. It’s sort of like the songs directed themselves where they wanted to go,” Mahlasela said, adding that the production has generated a lot of “buzz” in South Africa’s music community. “Lately we’ve found there are quite a lot of musicians who want to come and participate. Every song is demanding.”

Mahlasela is developing the new album with his long-time producer, Lloyd Ross. Given the tremendous range of styles, genres and musicians in South Africa, Mahlasela and Ross have learned to work together to find the right artists for different productions, and at times they take their recording equipment into outlying rural communities to capture traditional music and instrumentation.

“Most of the time I know there are certain people I want to work with for the album or on various songs. And maybe Lloyd also will know people who know how to do certain things for a sound that I think should be there,” Mahlasela explained. “If there’s something we’re looking for and I don’t know how to create it, maybe the producer knows and he will have the connection. It develops by working together.”

Conflict Diamonds: Africa's Hidden Pain

2006-04-01T13:33:00.000-08:00

Nothing shines like a diamond, and probably nothing else in this world is the source of so much greed and misplaced suffering. To examine the whole issue of what has been happening with illegal diamonds is an eye-opening experience. Doug Farrah's book, "Blood from Stones: The Secret Financial Network of Terror," is a fascinating expose of the international criminals, moral degenerates and terrorists exploiting the illicit diamond trade in Africa.

Conflict Diamonds: Africa's Hidden Pain

The great reggae artist Peter Tosh was fond of saying, “I am from Africa. I stone you with diamonds. I stone you with gold.” Tosh loved these patois poetic references to Africa, and he was always enamored by the continent’s incredible abundance of mineral wealth. In his song “Mama Africa,” he describes the Motherland as “the maker of diamonds, Mama, the maker of gold.” But beyond the profound natural forces that create the mysterious beauty of diamonds and gold are equally astounding transformations in the human world that create the massive demand and multi-billion dollar profits of the global gem industry. Diamonds are cherished worldwide as symbols of love, wealth, power, beauty, glamour and success. But behind all the shine and bling of ghetto fabulous rappers, traditional Hollywood glitz and the mass appeal of wedding bands, earrings and necklaces—lies the sad fact that over the years conditions in Africa have made buying diamonds a human rights issue.

South Africa – The Beginnings of a New Industry

Driving through Johannesburg, South Africa, one can’t help noticing heaps of artificial hills and small mountain ridges, layered with golden, yellow-hued dust. Along the main highways, or from downtown skyscrapers, a vast series of rolling plateaus—man-made mountains created by the debris of gold mines—can be seen stretching east to west, as the outer, visible signs of the world’s largest gold deposits. It soon becomes obvious to visitors that this ridge that encompasses Johannesburg, Pretoria and many outlying smaller cities fuels the giant economic engine of South Africa.

Some 250 kilometers to the southwest, in Kimberly, near the confluence of the Vaal and Orange Rivers, is the Great Hole, another man-made oddity protruding from nature. With a circumference approximately one mile, and a depth of about 700 feet, the Great Hole was formed with the removal of more than 22 million tons of earth and stands as a monument to humanity’s hunger for the money to be made from mining diamonds. The gaping hole has a frightening and horrid presence; until it is seen, it is hard to imagine that something of this nature can actually exist, and it invokes archetypal fears of falling in pits or caves or being consumed in great darkness.

The gold reefs stretching around Johannesburg and the Great Hole are symbols of Western civilization’s contact with Africa’s hidden treasures. With frenzied fury, white miners, engineers, merchants and financiers began extracting diamonds in what became the Great Hole without any regard for the benefit of the land or its indigenous African people. As capital consolidated all the claims into the De Beers Mining Company, the kings of the new diamond industry experimented with a system of labor where Africans were confined to the most arduous, backbreaking work and were housed in sparse, prison-like dormitories called hostels. The hostel encampments allowed De Beers to maintain strict control of its African workers and created the foundation of the migrant labor populations—in both the diamond and gold industries—that eventually formed the financial backbone of apartheid.

Throughout the 20th century De Beers amassed billions in profits while paying its black workers pittance wages that were carefully calculated to a level just above the subsistence living conditions of rural African communities. With its gigantic surplus value De Beers formed itself into an unprecedented global diamond syndicate, controlling the production as well as the sale, pricing and distribution of diamonds worldwide. The shrewd capitalist elite at De Beers wielded extraordinary influence on the consumer demand side of the equation as well. The “A Diamond is Forever” advertising campaign—which De Beers started in 1938—is considered one of the most successful of all time. It created the notion that diamonds symbolize marital love and commitment (and thus never to be resold), and craftily identified diamonds as a luxury item synonymous with the glamour of celebrities, movie stars, royalty and high society.

The 1990’s: The Emergence of “Conflict Diamonds”

By the 1990s--just over a century since its inception--the De Beers diamond industry cartel remained more or less intact, controlling some 60 to 80 percent of the world diamond trade valued at more than $8 billion annually. After the freeing of Nelson Mandela and the dismantling of apartheid, the outcry over the plight of African diamond and gold miners in South Africa subsided and their oppression was more or less forgotten, or perhaps even legitimized—in all its racial ugliness and sad injustices—with the birth of the “New South Africa.” With the low-wage, hostel migrant labor systems firmly entrenched in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana—and with high consumer prices maintained at inflated levels by the De Beers cartel—the tradition of African exploitation by the diamond market forces morphed into new frontiers. As quickly as apartheid seemed to fall apart, various rebel groups, militia leaders and warlords across Africa suddenly discovered the military hardware, wealth and power that diamonds could bring them. In Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, civil wars and regional conflicts were fomented by arms merchants who used the diamond trade to bankroll local armies while making fortunes through subterfuged networks of front companies and transnational corporations. The profits also filled the coffers of Al Qaeda, and possibly Hezbollah–terrorist organizations notorious for their violence and human rights abuses.

In Angola, the infamous UNITA rebel strongman Jonas Savimbi—who previously had been supported by the apartheid government—found in the trade of “conflict diamonds,” a new source of wealth to sustain his guerilla movement. Despite a negotiated peace settlement and years of UN economic, military and diplomatic sanctions, Savimbi and his UNITA forces were able to re-arm and resume the Angolan civil war based on the proceeds of diamond sales from UNITA-held territories. While the resumption of the Angolan civil war first drew the attention of the United Nations Security Council to the issue of conflict diamonds, it was not until Savimbi, along with two of his senior brigadiers, was ambushed and murdered by government forces in February 2002 that UNITA was finally disbanded and its diamond trading activities ceased.

While Savimbi’s violent intimidation and megalomania was legendary—it seems the worst conflict diamond abuses occurred in Sierra Leone. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a rebel force headed by strongman Foday Sankoh, waged a civil war in Sierra Leone for 10 years by controlling the diamonds fields on Sierra Leone’s eastern region bordering Liberia. Unfortunately for the people of Sierra Leone, the diamonds there are of very high quality and can be found on the earth’s surface, accessible to anyone with a few basic hand tools. Much like Savimbi, Sankoh was brutal in suppressing anyone who opposed his rule; but Sankoh’s trademark tactic was to amputate the hands of locals to terrorize them into working the diamond fields. Amnesty International estimates that the RUF eventually mutilated about some 20,000 people, hacking off hands, arms and legs and otherwise maiming or butchering with machetes and axes. Working in alliance with Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, Sankoh pushed his blood diamonds on to the world market, exchanging them for weapons and cash that sustained their political power. The RUF’s reign of terror finally came to an end with the intervention by British and Guinean special forces who slipped into the country and crushed the rebel army. Sankoh was arrested and eventually died in captivity while being tried for war crimes, including crimes against humanity, rape, sexual slavery and extermination.

Conflict diamonds also created problems in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a nation that had finally witnessed a rebel movement overthrowing Mobuto Sese Seko, a dictator siezed power in a coup in 1965 and ruthlessly pillaged his country of billions of dollars. But shortly after coming to power in 1997, the new government of Laurent Kabila began to experience a wave of insurgency in its eastern regions. Once again, the same pattern evidenced in Angola and Sierra Leone emerged in DRC. The eastern diamond mining regions of the DRC were overwhelmed by rebel factions, primarily the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of the Congo, or FDLR, which were being supported by neighboring Uganda and Rwanda. The sale of diamonds from the FDLR on the international market provided resources for unending geopolitical conflict between various rebel factions, DRC and Uganda and Rwanda. Despite periodic negotiations and peace agreements, the fighting continues, resulting in the forced displacement of Congolese people living the mining areas, as well myriads of human rights abuses.

Global Activism and Global Action

During most of the Sierra Leone civil war, the international community was somewhat unaware of or indifferent to the atrocities committed by the RUF. Thanks to blistering international human rights campaigns by Amnesty International and Global Witness, public knowledge of the abuses increased, and grotesque pictures of amputated arms and hands threatened to tarnish idealized consumer images of diamonds as symbols of purified marital love. The Amnesty International and Global Witness “blood diamonds” campaigns, along with appeals by the United Nations, had a strong impact on the international diamond industry, which began discussions in 1999 on developing a regulatory framework to trace diamonds from their point of origin. Fuel to the fire was added by a November 2001 Washington Post investigative report by Doug Farrah linking $20 million in conflict diamonds sales to al Qaeda operatives as well as a diamond dealer associated with Hezbollah. Farrah’s expose provided strong evidence demonstrating that al Qaeda was transforming its capital assets into hard-to-trace mineral commodities, particularly diamonds and tanzanite.

The industry negotiations culminated in the formation of the World Diamond Council, composed of representatives of diamond traders and diamond manufacturers and government observers, as well as the Kimberly Process, a new certification and paper identification process tracing rough diamonds to their place of origin. Established in November, 2002, the Kimberly Process requires diamond producing countries to provide a Kimberly Process Certificate verifying the origin of all rough diamonds mined within their borders; the certificates must also accompany the sale of diamonds at all subsequent export and import transfers. While the organizational structure and regulatory framework of the Kimberly Process is impressive, some NGOs have complained that the process is flawed as it relies too much on industry self-regulation and is susceptible to corruption at the government certification level. Nonetheless, the attempt at regulation of the massive diamond industry represents a step forward in stemming the dangerous trafficking of blood diamonds.

Sadly, diamond mining in Africa—and the massive profits of the diamond industry—have always been associated with the exploitation and hidden pain of African people. But with the most grevious abuses of the sales of conflict diamonds abating, and the diamond industry moving into a new era of regulation, at least some of Africa’s suffering is being reduced. Newlywed couples admiring the gleaming beauty of their wedding rings seldom give thought to the hapless miners who live and labor in horrible conditions so that comfortable Westerners can enjoy these “precious” gems. African Americans themselves rarely contemplate these connections, or the fact that the high demand and supposed “scarcity” of diamonds has been artificially manufactured by the De Beers cartel. Rappers sporting their bling have unconsciously bought into the De Beers hype, propagating their egos on the twisted machinations of an elaborate profit-making scheme of distorted value.

Undoubtedly, human rights groups have changed the problem and perception of conflict diamonds, causing consumers to look beyond surface appearences into the some of the forces behind the mining and distribution of diamonds. Activists have forced more regulation, more conscience, more concern and caring on the industry. Perhaps with time, people around the world will also learn to see more of the mystery and humanity of Africa reflected in the magnificence and brilliance of the gemstones themselves.

Dreaming the Motherland: A Student in Africa

2006-03-03T15:44:00.000-08:00

The city of Durban on the east coast of South Africa.

Not many people know a lot about the port city of Durban, in South Africa, but then again, South Africa itself is quite confusing and mysterious to people who have never visited there. Talking with Liz Andrews was intruiging because of her intuition and her power of introspection. Liz was able to analyze and process many layers of her impressions and encounters from her study abroad experience in Africa, and it changed her as a person.

Dreaming the Motherland: A Student in Africa

Liz Andrews has discovered Africa. Her journey began in the South African port city of Durban and ended half a year later in Soweto, where she received a grant to study attitudes on HIV/AIDS in the Black township. Experiences – with her host families, her fellow students and people in the various ethnic communities changed her view of herself and awakened a new awareness of her own spirituality.

Andrews, who completed her study abroad experience during her senior year at Wesleyan University, organized her program through the School for International Training (SIT). She earned a full semester’s credit for her field study project from Wesleyan, which also arranged her travel, food, lodging and program expenses. Her academic credits did not apply to her American Studies major, but Andrews said that her experience in South Africa gave her even more insight into the American social justice issues she had been immersed in for years at Wesleyan.

“I was really interested in going to Africa for personal reasons, and also to be a ‘world citizen’,” Andrews said. “I feel obligated to travel and learn as much as I can about the world and share those experiences.”

Years ago, studying abroad meant a semester or summer in France, Spain, Germany, Italy or England for wealthy or upper class students who were fortunate enough to have the resources to indulge their interests. Oddly enough, this typically Euro-centric college tradition never really included an idea that there was a whole world of cultures and philosophies that were profoundly different.

Today, African American students who want to see the world can study in Africa, with all the weighty encounters, subtleties and complexities that could entail. For an African American student in Africa, study abroad inevitably means much more than completing term paper assignments and writing reports. A trip to the “Motherland” is an intense, almost revelatory experience, and is bound to touch on personal questions and emotions that transcend classrooms and ivory towers.

African studies have changed dramatically, along with the development of new educational opportunities. We have gone from pushing universities to create Afro-American studies courses to establishing legitimate departments and re-evaluating what a degree in African American studies might mean in our fast-changing world. Study in Africa has also become more feasible because tuition costs have risen to the point that travel and room and board fees can be accommodated in one semester’s college expenses.

I experienced a sign of these changes when I ran into a White student from Purdue University who was doing an internship at a community computer education center in Dobsonville, Soweto. It was strange enough that I met this White American in Soweto, but I was even more surprised when I learned that this nerdy-looking dude had no real interest in computer science but was majoring in African American studies. I knew from experience that it is not unusual for White Americans to take an academic interest in Africa, but I couldn’t help thinking that this young, easy-going college student and his motivations reflected a deeper generational change among Americans. As rap and hip hop blend into advertising and broader pop culture trends in language, music and fashion, suburban culture is evolving with an influence that Cornel West describes as the “Afro-Americanization of America’s youth.”

African American students are also seeing more opportunities and more ways to experience Africa than their parents could ever have imagined. They see rich possibilities for learning, self-examination and building a sense of identity and connectedness in a world where globalization is inevitably creating new ties between Africa and the Diaspora.

Andrews chose Durban because Johannesburg seemed too overwhelming, “like going to live in New York City, but in country you’ve never been in before.” She was also fascinated with its large Indian community, which was brought to South Africa to labor in the sugarcane fields in much the same way that African slaves were brought to work in the Americas. Moreover, the trip was a roots experience, allowing her to explore her ties to Africa through her father’s African American heritage. Her mother, who is adopted, is of racially mixed but unknown ancestry.

Andrews has a curly, auburn red Afro and reddish-brown complexion, with a kind-hearted smile and compassionate, emotional eyes. Andrews’ voice rose with energy as she described a turning point when she visited Wentworth, a mixed-race “Coloured” township near Durban where she felt an immediate connection. Andrews originally planned to do her research project on water delivery in a rural African village – she suddenly changed her mind and decided it was more important to be in Wentworth.

“We had been in South Africa for two and a half months at that point, but I had never had much interaction with groups of ‘Coloured’ people. When I got there I was blown away,” Andrews explained. “All of these people looked like me, and so many things about them reminded me of Latinos in this country, their position in society, their attitudes and so on.”

Her research project – which she undertook during the last three weeks of her stay – involved developing a needs assessment for Women of Wentworth, an non-governmental organization that empowers women through education, training, counseling and job placement. Throughout the week Andrews left her North Durban beachfront apartment, headed into downtown Durban and caught communal “combis” – rickety old vans that typically stuffed 12- 15 passengers and served as an informal public transport system for Africans and Coloureds since the beginning of the apartheid era.

Women of Wentworth had funding to open a community center, and Andrews’ task was to find out what programs, services and activities the Wentworth community would like to see in the center.

Andrews said Wentworth seemed like a déjà vu of ghettos in America, with similar pathologies and social patterns.

“The one thing people said they wanted the most was a place for their kids to go,” Andrews pointed out, explaining that many people felt their youth needed positive alternatives to dangerous distractions like gang violence and crime. “The Wentworth community is similar to any township ghetto community anywhere in the world, in that there is a lot of prostitution, drugs, alcoholism and violence.”

Andrews said she was amazed at the power of African American images and ideals of beauty in South Africa.

“When you first drive into Soweto you drive around this round-about and there is a three-sided billboard and on all three sides it has Dark ‘N Lovely,” she said. “This is ‘Harlem’ of South Africa and the first thing I see is straighten your hair? It was very interesting. Now that I’ve been there, it makes a lot of sense. But beforehand, there was no one to tell me things like that.”

The issue of African American media images and stereotypes arose again later in conversations she had with her Zulu “home-stay” family in suburban Durban, where she lived for six weeks. The head of the family was the spokesperson for the African National Congress (ANC) in KwaZulu Natal province. They lived in a beautiful house, in an exclusive neighborhood, with a swimming pool and a Mercedes. The 16 year-old son loved rap music, and the lyrics.

“He idolized Black American rappers, which is a pretty common thing, I think,” she explained. “He was always going around saying, ‘Nigga, blah, blah, blah’ and I would tell him ‘that’s not really a cool word to say – I definitely don’t say that.”

Andrews continued, with a hint of exasperation. “He thought that was a really cool thing to do, and that was how you were cool as a Black person. I told him that’s a really horrible word, and he was like, ‘I understand what you’re saying, but I’m still going to us it.’”

Andrews also noticed that a lot of parents and older-generation Africans hated rap and hip-hop, and they had formed negative views of African American culture as a result.

“I didn’t realize how internationally powerful anything that we put out there is. The media is a very tricky thing. It’s an amazing resource as far as progress, and technology goes,” Andrews said. “It’s amazing that we can reach one another in so many ways, so quickly. But it also means that everything and anything that we put out there is going to influence on the world. Not just whoever you want it to influence, or whoever you think it’s going to influence, but it could potentially be seen by millions of people.”

Andrews found grappling with media images, perceptions and identity difficult in more ways than one. The dissonance surrounding her earliest experiences in Soweto motivated her to apply for a research grant and to experience the community in a more intimate, authentic way. The sanitized “half-day” Soweto tour organized by SIT seemed very distant and was decidedly uncomfortable, she said.

“For the most part I felt very disconnected and almost oppressive, because we were there on this air-conditioned tour bus and we were looking at people who live in Soweto, who are not benefiting financially from us having access to their lives and their community.” Andrews explained. “So I really wanted to go to the community in a more responsible way – not that doing research is always or by any means the most responsible thing – but I wanted to be more engaging with people.”

Andrews’ return to Soweto opened her eyes to a new way of thinking. Her research focused on HIV/AIDS education for high school students, evaluating their struggles, feelings, ideas and attitudes towards the spread of the disease. South Africa has one of the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in the world, with some estimates indicating that as much 20 percent of the adult population is living with the virus.

Andrews was surprised to find that despite generally successful dissemination of information about AIDS, many were still unwilling to use condoms and practice safe sex.

“The one thing that struck me the most was this idea that they’re going to die anyway, so it doesn’t really matter,” Andrews pointed out. “People will say, ’I might get shot today. I might get hijacked tomorrow. I might get stabbed. I might get robbed. A lot of things can happen to me. You’re telling me I might die 10 or 12 years down the line – who cares?”

Andrews found this attitude was hard to accept, but when she tried to put herself in their shoes, she couldn’t help concluding that there was certain strange logic, and although she didn’t condone it, she felt she understood the young Sowetans. Nonetheless, their attitudes also reflected something of Soweto’s history of deprivation and a subsequent devaluing of life.

Throughout her Africa experience, Andrews moved between different people and communities that were far removed from her own background, yet she found ways to identify with and understand them. In South Africa, people commonly speak about the African ideal of Ubuntu, a feeling of oneness and community that is intrinsic to African culture. Ultimately, study abroad in Africa gave Andrews her own personal experience of Ubuntu that transformed her feelings about herself and her outlook on life.

“Being in Africa helped me realized on a personal and societal level, how much power I have. And just how important it is to make every decision in your life a good one,” Andrews says. “Selling yourself out in any way influences the world. Selling your people out is really detrimental to everyone. It’s like the whole idea of Ubuntu – interconnectedness – everything you do effects everyone else.”

It was a powerful, life changing realization. What more can a college student expect from a study abroad program in this daunting new world of global possibilities?

Lost Boys of Sudan: Searching for Peace

2006-03-01T13:18:00.000-08:00

One of the "lost boys" of Sudan carrying supplies at Kakuma Refugee Camp.

The “Lost Boys of Sudan” is truly an incredible story. It’s a story about war, cruelty, suffering, endurance, faith and deliverance. In our global village, somehow, the things that happen to James Manyror and Michael Deng are more and more everyone’s responsibility. Meeting James and Michael was an inspiration - the distance they’ve traveled, physically, mentally and spiritually is unbelievable. The world is changing and evolving at a breakneck pace, and some people, like James and Michael, are caught up in the vortex. They should be a reminder to us that while mass events are often beyond of our control, individual lives do matter, and we should do what we can to make a difference.

"Lost Boys" of Sudan: Searching for Peace

In the Western mind, the name “Sudan” denotes a land and a region, as much as a modern nation-state. Extending below the Sahel grasslands on the southern edge of the Sahara, from the “French Sudan” (Mali) east to the Red Sea, the Sudan is a region rich with connotations and images. It is a land of profound history; a place where the mystery of ancient Egypt and Nubia, the pyramids, the great desert and the rest of the African continent all converge. Sudan is also known for the most beautiful shades and darkest hues of the African race; it is also a land where the racial mystery of what is “black,” and what is “African” and what is “Arab” is so fine as to be indistinguishable, yet full of violence, separation and warfare.

How does a place of such beauty and history become rife with conflict and suffering? Over the last 20 years Africa’s largest geographical nation has also become home to its most protracted and brutal war. More than 2 million people have been killed and another 4 million displaced in a civil war where accusations of genocide, ethnic cleansing, slavery and crude horrors abound--horrors that are nearly impossible to conceive behind Western TVs, computer screens and the conveniences of modern living.

Most recently, Darfur has commanded world attention, as the combined attacks of the Sudanese military and the Janjaweed militia have bombed, killed, raped and pillaged, carrying out a scorched earth policy that has decimated the livelihood of peaceful, agrarian people. As hundreds of thousands have been driven to destitution and starvation, many world leaders, aid organizations and human rights groups have called for international intervention.

It seems that these massive conflicts, tragedies and displacements have their own special names and places in the history of the African continent. There is the Maaf or the great crisis of slavery; the Mfecane or Defacane, the vast destruction and migrations of tribal groups in the wake of Shaka Zulu’s ruthless expansion; and now a new Diaspora of African Sudanese seeking refuge from continent’s latest conquerors.

But even before we began to hear about the problems of Darfur, another extraordinary saga of suffering was emerging from the Sudanese north-south conflict. The desert of Sudan and Egypt has been a land of epic migrations and the scene of biblical exile and deliverance—and it seems that in our modern times we have witnessed a new mythical tale in the sad story of the “Lost Boys of Sudan.”

In 1987, the Sudanese government—in coordination with loosely organized militias—intensified its bombing raids and attack on towns and villages the southern region, killing adults and raping and enslaving women and young girls. Thousands of the male children from these pastoral regions were typically herd boys who tended goats and cattle on the outskirts of their villages and by chance survived the devastation. Suddenly homeless orphans, these boys gradually coalesced into larger and larger groups seeking to escape the violence and possible enslavement or conscription. Ranging from about 5 years old to 13 or 14, the wandering bands of “lost boys” had no idea of the terrifying ordeal that lay ahead of them. Originally some 26,000 (according to UN estimates), less than half would survive the agonizing journey on foot that would eventually cover nearly 1,000 miles of desert and months and years of wandering from one village or temporary refugee camp to another.

Dogged by hunger and thirst, the Lost Boys ate leaves and wild berries and sucked water from mud and desert plants to stay alive. Sometimes the pain was overwhelming and some of the boys just collapsed to the ground from exhaustion, or slowly lagged behind, becoming easy prey for lions. When the smallest boys were in too much pain to walk, some of the older boys would pick them up and carry them on their shoulders. Sometimes the Red Cross helicopters dropped food and supplies to them, but aid organizations were unable to land because of the fierce fighting in the region. For the most part, the Lost Boys were on their own.

The boys walked for several months across southern Sudan and into Ethiopia, where they lived for three years in various refugee camps. But fate was not on their side, as Ethiopian insurgents staged a coup d’etat in 1991 and the rebel military forces chased the boys out. In their desperate attempt to escape Ethiopia, many of the Lost Boys drown in the River Gilo, or were eaten by crocodiles or shot.

For more than a year the boys walked back into Sudan, and then south to Kenya, where they finally found relative stability at Kakuma Refugee camp in 1992. Over the past 10 years Kakuma has grown into one of the world’s largest refugee camps and is now home to more than 80,000 dispossessed people from Somalia, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Congo, in addition to the Lost Boys and other Sudanese. While Kakuma provides some security and basic health and educational services for the boys, it is a desolate environment of sweltering 100-degree desert heat, tin-roof mud slab homes and pit toilets. The refugees are unable to cultivate their own crops, and must rely on a low-calorie one meal per day food ration. But the Lost Boys at Kakuma were grateful for their survival, and are eager to take advantage of primary education classes and English lessons in hopes of a better life.

James Manyror knows firsthand about the terrifying experience of the Lost Boys. But sitting in his comfortable Aurora apartment, with his 49ers jersey, baggy jeans and basketball sneakers and the TV blaring ESPN NBA highlights, you would never guess that he was among the thousands who made that harrowing journey through the desert. Manyror looks like an ordinary African American teenager or hip-hop kid. His dimpled smile and easy going laugh show no signs of someone who lost his innocence and childhood in the Lost Boys’ ordeal. If you ask him about the past, he’s eager to tell his story and share his amazement where life has taken him.

“Life was really a struggle. When I think back then, it looks like a nightmare—you can’t figure out where you are. You can’t imagine that year,” Manyror said, as his voice suddenly becomes animated. “I never thought that I could sit here. on a couch like this, in a place like this and go to school. We really struggled and we didn’t know where we would end up.

“Sometimes trying to explain it is really difficult. There was no food some days; there was no water some days; sometimes you are sick and you don’t know if you’re going to stay alive.”

Manyror’s roommate Michael Deng is also a Lost Boy from Paireng, the same village that Manyror was also born in. They come from an isolated rural area with no electricity, no TV or radio, no running water. The two boys made the long journey together in allied groups, and have a very deep bond and friendship; they came to Denver together from Kakuma in 2001. In four years they've gone from learning how to use can openers and telephones to attending college and mastering the look and feel of American youth. Deng is more introspective and reserved, but with his fly shirt. crisp pants, handsome boots and smooth haircut, he looks ready to hit Pierre’s Supper Club or the Casbah on the prowl. But when he speaks, Deng appears serious and thoughtful, carefully considering his words.

“You can’t imagine it,” Deng answers ponderously, replying to my question about his experience during the war years. He speaks slowly and shakes his head in disbelief. “I can’t explain it. It would take an entire year or two years. It was such a large history that you cannot cover it in one day.”

Manyror then proceeds to describe the general events of their great trek. The government attacks in 1987, their escape to Ethiopia, being chased out of Ethiopia back into Sudan, and finally walking all the way across the Kenyan border to Kakuma. He said they had nothing when they left Paireng, but sometimes people would give them supplies along the way. Language was often a barrier and at times they could only communicate with hand gestures; sometimes villagers were openly hostile. One of his worst experiences happened when they were leaving Ethiopia and a local gang opened fire on them.

“After we left Pinchalla, when we were in Kopita, we were attacked by local villagers—it was a very tragic attack. One of my friends was killed that night—oh man, I was so scared,” Manyror said with a tremble in his voice, adding that he had many nightmares long after the event. “They started shooting at night. Nobody saw them come up to us.”

Deng seemed calmer and less traumatized by the attack, and explained that the villagers were “shooting randomly” and those who happened to remain prone, close to the ground, survived; the unfortunate boys who stood up and ran were killed. Manyror was terribly shaken by the loss of his close friend, who they buried later that day.

“I think it was his day to go,” Manyror shrugged.

When I asked both young men about the roots of the conflict and the perceived racial differences between the Sudanese Arabs and Africans, Deng let go a bitter, sarcastic laugh, again shaking his head in disbelief. Manyror however, was more inclined to discuss the political context.

“When you say you don’t see a (racial) difference between (the Sudanese) Arabs and Africans, you are right. But political differences play a role. It comes to religion—the Arabs think that they are Moslem, and the others are infidels,” Manyror pointed out, explaining that the Arab government has imposed Islamic fundamentalist Sharia law and controls job opportunities and economic development. “Some who are a little lighter think they are separate from the south, but it is heritage that is the biggest difference.”

Deng and Manyror are from the Dinka tribe, the largest ethnic group in Sudan, and they both hail from the Ruweng clan of the Dinka. Like many of the Lost Boys, both young men are not quite sure of their ages or birthdays. Manyror says he was born in 1979, and was 12 or 13 by the time they made it to Kakuma in 1992. Deng says he was born in 1980.

True to his solemnity and contemplative character, Deng speaks of becoming a priest or pastor. He works during the day at Safeway and takes theology courses from the Catholic Church at night. Manyror works as a Certified Nursing Assistant—he studied nursing at Aurora Community College—and intends to transfer to a university to earn his Bachelor degree. Both young men say they are so busy with school and work that they have very little time for TV, movies web surfing or other kinds of youth entertainment.

Manyror returned to Kakuma for two months in April and May of 2005, and he has now become consumed with a vision of starting an organization to help other Lost Boys at Kakuma. There is a continuing influx of refugees from Sudan, and after talking with Kakuma officials and local church groups, Manyror would like to assist in a project to construct 10 dormitory buildings and 10 classrooms for some 200 young orphans who are now semi-permanent residents at the camp. Like Manyror and Deng, the orphans will receive some education, and many of them may be resettled in the United States, Great Britain, Australia and other countries. Manyror calls his organizations the Sudanese American Orphaned Rehabilitation Organization (SAORO) and has applied for tax-exempt status as a non-profit. The organization launched its web site—www.saoro.org—in March.

Manyror is very excited about the prospects for SAORO and he believes he is in a position to make a difference for Kakuma, which he describes as a “horrible”—if relatively safe and secure—place. He hopes more Americans will learn about the crisis in Sudan and will help the plight of Sudanese refugees.

“People in the United States hear all kinds of stories in the news—good stories and bad stories. If they don’t hear these stories, they won’t know what is happening.” Manyror explained, saying he believes “people of goodwill” can help the Lost Boys. “I think for me, not to get this story out, is not an option.”

Es'kia Mphahlele's African Literary Journey

2006-02-03T15:56:00.000-08:00

Es'kia Mphahlele in 2005 (left) as a dapper journalist in the 1950s. This photo is courtesy of Jurgen Schadeburg, who captured Black South Africa during the Drum era. Check out his web site--it's an amazing visual journey.

Once again, this article is part of my Eye on Africa series. I feel honored that I had the opportunity to meet and interview Ezekiel Mphahlele. He is truly one of the giants of our African cultural leaders, and given his age, this recent visit to the States may be his last--he doesn't travel here very much. Meeting Es'kia reminded me somewhat of a chance encounter I once had with James Baldwin 22 years ago; they both had a powerful presence, a profound wisdom and soft-spoken intellect that is subtle yet overwhelming. I would have loved to have spent more time with Es'kia (or for that matter, James Baldwin), but alas, there never seems to be enough time to spend with these great "fundis." Their writings live on for future generations, but sadly, their time is limited in this world. In this article I wanted to present Es'kia in the broadest context of his life, and to hint at his ideas of "African humanism" which I believe can form the basis of a viable and creative African educational system.

Es'kia Mphahlele's African Literary Journey

“The minds I would be dealing with were already unchained by their own effort. Give people a poor education and the mind will soon find a way out. Revolt is then inevitable. No, the mind cannot be chained forever.” - Es'kia Mphahlele

Throughout my experiences and travels in Africa, I have followed the shadow of Es’kia Mphahlele--his reflection, traces of his footprints—until one fine, late August day, I met face to face with the world-acclaimed novelist, educator and African philosopher. The 85 year-old former University of Denver professor lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, and was in Denver on a rare trip (and perhaps his last) to the United States. I had the good fortune of being introduced through a mutual friend and spending an afternoon of evocative conversation in the backyard shade of a quiet Park Hill home. It was an extraordinary encounter.

Ezekiel “Es’kia” Mphahlele is one of Africa’s most revered writers and scholars, known both for his literary works as well as for his activism in arts, cultural and educational matters. He was initially trained as a teacher, but after he spoke out against the inferior standards of “Bantu” education the apartheid government banned him from teaching anywhere in South Africa. Subsequently Mphahlele became a political reporter and fiction editor for Drum, a continent-wide African magazine that printed daring political exposes by brilliant investigative journalists, peppered with colorful features and creative writing styles blending English with African idioms and narratives. Drum mirrored a literary renaissance in the 1950s, an era when South Africa was burgeoning with creative energy in the music and the arts. (Interestingly enough, a recent South African film, Drum, by director Zola Maseko and starring Taye Diggs, tells the story of Henry Nxumalo, one of the most popular Drum journalists who was found murdered in Johannesburg.) Notwithstanding the attention he and others received through Drum, Mphahlele aspired to be a writer, and after he finished his Masters degree at the University of South Africa in 1956 he went into exile with his wife Rebecca and their three children.

Mphahlele began teaching in Nigeria, later saying that “West Africa gave Africa back to me,” awakening him from the alienation and deep-rooted traumas of apartheid. The 1959 publication of his autobiographical novel, Down Second Avenue, drew worldwide interest in Mphahlele as a writer, and focused a powerful spotlight on the internal dynamics of South Africa as it steadily drifted toward greater racial oppression and greater world isolation. Now a classic of African literature, Down Second Avenue had successful printings in English, French, German, Russian, Dutch and Japanese, which reflected the impact and international popularity of the book. Mphahlele’s second novel, The Wanderers, a story chronicling the experience of exiles in Africa, earned him a nomination for the Nobel Prize in literature in 1969.

Mphahlele thrived on his teaching activities in Nigeria, but he also found himself drawn into a whirlwind of creativity activity among West African writers and artists such as novelists Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Ngugi Wa Thiongo and Amos Tutuola, sculptor Ben Ewanwu and painters Demas Nwoko and Uche Okeke. Mphahlele felt he had been plucked from a South African literary renaissance only to be dropped into the heart of a West African cultural renaissance. He was appointed director of the Congress for Cultural Freedom in Paris, for which he traveled and worked extensively in Kenya, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and Uganda, in addition to lecturing throughout Europe. At the end of his term with the Congress, while teaching at the University of Nairobi in 1965, Mphahlele was offered a teaching fellowship at the University of Denver and an opportunity to earn his PhD, an offer that he gladly accepted.

By the mid-1970s Mphahlele had built a thriving career in academia and a comfortable life in American suburbia, but the “tyranny of place” dominated his heart and mind. He could feel the land of his forefathers calling him, and he yearned to make his teaching and writing relevant to the actual conditions of life in South Africa. In August, 1977, barely a year after the Soweto riots, and less than a month before the death in detention of Steve Biko, the Mphahleles returned permanently to South Africa, exchanging their British passports for the infamous South African passbook ID, the “badge of oppression.” And this very fact makes Es’kia Mphahlele’s life distinctly different from most South African exiles, who generally left the country in the 50s, 60s and 70s and returned in the early 90s, after Nelson Mandela was released from prison and Black political parties were unbanned.

The return to South Africa was not without its controversies. Many of Mphahlele’s fellow exiles—prominent political activists, writers, musicians and poets—told him that going back was a mistake. Not only was he possibly endangering himself and his family but, they also argued, that returning at that time would be a propaganda coup for the South African government, which would then appear to be more liberal and open in its policies. Mphahlele dismissed these arguments, but he also paid heavy prices for his return. Within a few months of being back in South Africa, his son Puso began to get his first ugly, bitter tastes of racism apartheid style. He was not conditioned to the survival instincts of living under apartheid, and they feared for his safety. The older Mphahlele children had already become accustomed to individualistic, independent American lifestyles, and so Es’kia and Rebecca sadly gave their son “back to America.” After some discussion, they all agreed that it was best for Puso to live with his sister in Washington, D.C. and finish his high school education in the United States.

Mphahlele had returned ostensibly to assume the chairmanship of the English Department at the historically Black University of the North, and the teaching staff voted unanimously for his appointment. But once again Mphahlele was destined to confront the face of government repression, as the Minister of the Department of Education vetoed his appointment, leaving him jobless. White supremacist politicians could not tolerate the idea of an African being the head of a Department of “English,” leading a White staff that was actually much less qualified. Despite the rebuke (and thinly-veiled retribution) of apartheid officialdom, Mphahlele had the last laugh. He was eventually asked by the vice chancellor of the private University of Witswatersrand—South Africa’s most distinguished university—to become the chairman of their new Department of African Literature.

In the South Africa of 1977—as compared to 1956, the year of his exile—Mphahlele found worsened conditions in the urban townships (Soweto was “monstrously slummier”) and an educational system ravaged by the sub-standard “Bantu” apartheid program. He traveled around the country in various capacities lecturing and teaching new ideas for transforming African education based on “African humanism,” an overarching concept that he felt was valid for the continent as a whole. He often drew large, overflowing crowds of people, young and old, students and non-students, eager to hear from the worldly scholar and Nobel prize nominee who had returned to be with his people and fight the system from within. He was held in high esteem and was a contemporary African prophet and hero to many.

Mphahlele’s African humanism embodied the ideal that Africans should express their own unique approach to education, getting to know themselves and their continent through a study of African history, religion, cosmology, literature and the arts, before moving on to other areas of world knowledge. Although he never drew the apparent parallel, Mphahlele’s African humanism pedagogy presages a comprehensive introspection of African traditional culture, not unlike the Edo period in Japan, where the Japanese barred Europeans from their society and experienced a flowering of their classical culture while simultaneously learning Western technology and economics.

Over many years, I slowly discovered why Es’kia Mphahlele is so revered by South Africans, the world academic community and Africa’s intelligentsia. Sitting in the shade of a friend’s plum tree, I had come full circle, and I could not help but love the small, soft-spoken literary giant. We talked for quite some time about his days with Drum magazine, his years in exile, trends in African art and literature and the future of South Africa and the African continent as a whole. His aged, graying eyes belied the intensity of his intellect moral courage and fierce honesty; his words conveyed the hard-won wisdom of years of travel, copious study and astute human observation.

I asked Es’kia if he felt Africa had a living spirit, and if that spirit touched him or spoke to him in some way. His poignant answer was timeless and inspiring, in light of the overwhelming darkness and strife South Africans, African Americans, and many African people have faced in recent history.

“Yes, Africa speaks to me, because I listen too much to the wild voices of now, of present day politics and ethnic problems and conflicts. (But) I (also) listen to the subterranean voices, the voices coming from the past, from my forefathers and our ancestors. That’s how Africa speaks to me. Never mind the political noises that one hears, this way or that way. I’m talking about something much more solid, as well as spiritual. And there are ugly things happening in African countries. The poverty of Africa touches me deeply, especially because our leaders seem to be so impotent in dealing with it. There’s a good deal of corruption among some African leaders who simply want to have power and wealth. They don’t care two hoots about what happens to the people, and that is the sad part of it. But if you stop and listen to the voices of ancient wisdom—and you hear the voice in the metaphors of our languages and in the mannerisms in which we as Africans approach each other... If we listen to the voices of those forces, you get somewhere. You realize that you have some protection from other kinds of foes and forces that work on you.”

Kyle Baker's Contempary Vision of Nat Turner

2006-02-02T10:49:00.000-08:00

It's been years since I picked up a comic book, but reading this and interviewing Kyle Baker was a fanatastic experience.

Kyle Baker’s Contemporary Vision of Nat Turner

Kyle Baker is at it again.

As if his renown as an animator, cartoonist, illustrator and one the comic industries finest artists weren’t enough, the multi-talented writer is turning his prodigious creative energies to writing a graphic novel about the infamous slave rebellion leader Nat Turner.

But perhaps this is expected of someone who helped pioneer the graphic novel art form itself with such treasured gems as the hilarious hip hop critique “Birth of a Nation,” sophisticated social satires like “Why I Hate Saturn” and “The Cowboy Wally Show” and a comic book version of the Bible’s King David. It seems that Baker ‘s consistency lies in his penchant for taking his readers and fans beyond the expected boundaries of his previous works.

For people who haven’t touched a comic book since fourth grade and believe that comics can’t take on serious subjects, think again. Ever since Art Spiegelman broke new literary ground with “Maus”—a graphic novel about his father’s harrowing experience surviving the Nazi Holocaust—graphic novels have set the publishing world on its head. Taking his inspiration from Spiegelman, Baker was one of the first to experiment with the graphic novel format in the mid-80s with “The Cowboy Wally Show,” which one reader called “the single funniest graphic novel ever written.”

But Baker’s “Nat Turner” series is anything but funny. Nat Turner, of course, has a curious and enigmatic place in our nation’s history. Like John Brown, Denmark Vesey and other slave rebellion leaders, Turner was caught up in the injustices and emotional upheavals that would eventually spark the Civil War. William Styron fired up the American imagination with his Pulitzer Prize winning “The Confessions of Nat Turner,” in which he, a white southerner, took artistic liberties to write from the psyche of a 19th century slave,

Baker’s “Nat Turner” is quite the opposite of Styron’s. Between beautifully vivid, explicit artistic images there is no dialogue, save the actual writings from Nat Turner himself, as told to Thomas R. Gray, the sympathetic attorney who recorded Turner’s last words and confessions in his jail cell as he awaited execution. The result is an extraordinary historical journey that goes back in time to the capture of Nat Turner’s mother in Africa and her horrid slave ship journey through the “Middle Passage,” and on to the story of Nat Turner’s childhood, youth and eventual rebellion.

Baker sought to avoid some of the controversies that followed Styron’s book by adhering to original sources for his story.

“Everything in the stories is actually true—they happened to somebody. A lot of the experiences aren’t particularly well-documented just because they were slaves,” Baker says, with an earnestness that belies his lighthearted sense of humor and irony. “I have a lot of books, and during the Depression there were a bunch interviews done with slaves through the WPA, and they were an excellent source. I’m trying to stick with primary sources because it is such a controversial subject and there’s also been a lot of misinformation written about Nat Turner too, just over the years.

“You can’t argue with actual quotes. You might argue with whether what that guy said was accurate, but you can’t argue that Nat said it, at least.”

“Nat Turner” stirs turbulent emotions as it carries the reader through the trials and tribulations of slavery. The drawings are black and white—revealing Baker’s amazing power of illustration—and vibrantly dramatic, yet starkly visceral and haunting. I found myself returning to the images again and again, reliving events, absorbing the story and developing an unusual affinity for the characters. It’s been many years since I flipped through a comic book, and “Nat Turner” was a pleasurable return to a fascinating—if under appreciated—media.

Baker finds the ambiguity of Nat Turner as a historical figure is perplexing. African Americans and white Americans often have very different views of Turner, and that confuses and fascinates him.

“One thing that I had encountered before I started the book was that every time I told a black person I was writing a book on Nat Turner, they’d get very excited and say, ‘That’s a terrific idea, I can’t wait to see it,’ “ Baker explains. “And whenever I’d tell a white person I was doing a book on Nat Turner they had no idea who Nat Turner was.

“I thought it was very interesting that there’s a guy like that—you ask almost any black person who he is, and he’s a hero. And one of the things that really fascinates me about the guy is that he is controversial and I honestly don’t know why.”

Baker uses his artistry to paint a broader canvass of slavery itself, and while he is known for his deft linguistics and wry sense of humor, “Nat Turner” is more of a sparse, Zen-like journey through historical records and collective images of the “peculiar institution.” He considered including more dialogue, but since he decided to confine his work to historical sources, he felt some of the dialogue could actually diminish the impact of the story.

Baker also pointed out that he had to put more into the art to convey what a character is thinking and saying to compensate for the lack of dialogue.

“If I had added dialogue, it would have had to been in a slave dialect, which is very hard to understand anyway, so I couldn’t see how it would help the story. When I read some of those old things written in dialect, it’s like they almost didn’t speak English,” Baker explains, adding that it’s harder to make the characters sympathetic if the reader can’t understand the narrative. “Slaves were uneducated. They talked like you see in those Mark Twain books. I just felt it real distracting—it’s another problem for the reader to deal with.”

While Baker is held in high esteem in the comics world (he received the Harvey Award and the Eisner Award, considered the two top honors of the industry), he still faces certain editorial battles when he ventures into new experimental territory. He decided to circumvent potential conflicts by self-publishing “Nat Turner” through his own company.

“When you’re signing the contract (with a publisher) you’re taking a guess, because you haven’t written the book. I often get into trouble because as it gets nearer the deadline I realize, “Oh God, this is lot more work than I thought,” Baker pointed out, with his regular chuckle. “In the case of Nat Turner, that’s exactly what happened. The comic books were originally supposed to be 32 pages, but as I was doing them, I felt it really didn’t work at that length, and they needed to be 48 pages. And even that would’ve gotten me fired.

“And then bringing it in late (would be a problem). When I’m working on something like Batman, I can’t get away with that.”

Beyond extending the length of the book and the time he spent working on it, Baker is also choosing to break the format mold with “Nat Turner.” He says an average Superman comic book has six to nine drawings per page, while “Nat Turner” has far more variation, and corporate publishers might have a hard time accepting the project.

“I think if you go into a publisher that traditionally is used to seeing 5 or 6 drawings per page and you bring in one drawing on a page, with no color and no dialogue, it looks you’re trying to pull one over on them,” Baker said, bursting with laughter. “It looks like I’m trying to work less, which isn’t at all the case. The reason I’m doing less drawing per page, is because I want to spend more time per drawing.”

Apparently, the formula is working and the response has been positive. Baker has published the first two comic books in what will eventually be a series of four, and the first one sold out, while the second is also selling out fast. After the final two are printed, the entire series will be published as a graphic novel. Baker will not reprint the comic books, and hence they are becoming collector’s items. He expects to complete “Nat Turner” within two months, although the book is already available in pre-orders on the Barnes & Nobles web site. He started “Nat Turner” around June, 2005, although he conceived the project a couple of years before that.

Baker believes his innovative marketing strategy is helping popularize the graphic novel version, although he feels “Nat Turner” can reach a far wider audience than the young males who typically frequent comic book stores. People who buy and trade comic books aren’t necessarily representative of the kinds of readers who will likely find a Nat Turner graphic novel appealing.

“The thing about the kind of stuff that I tend to do for comics is I’m trying to push the envelope. But the problem is regular readers don’t want the envelope pushed. The people who read Spider Man every week aren’t saying, ‘Boy, I really wish I could have a Nat Turner comic book,’ “ Baker says, with his trademark chuckle. “The reason its being done this way now is because I’ve been in this business for 20 years. I happen to know the distributors and retailers, and now I’m trying to get more into schools and bigger book stores where I think the audience is going to be.”

Depending on the success of Nat Turner, Baker is considering writing other historical graphic novels that might be suitable for teachers and schools. The 40 year-old lifelong resident of New York City has plenty of options in comics, cartoons, film and animation. He recently worked on Shrek II, providing character development for the Eddie Murphey’s donkey. Baker also worked on “Looney Tunes: Back in Action,” with Brendan Fraser, Bugs Bunny and other Warner Brother’s cartoons, where “they spent millions of dollars on it and had tons and tons of meetings and they were wrong.” His experience with the Bugs Bunny movie reinforced his concept of not being afraid to test his own ideas independently in the marketplace.

Baker’s old friend, film director Reginald Hudlin—who worked with Baker and Aaron MacGruder of the Boondocks cartoon series to create “Birth of Nation”—recently became the head of entertainment at BET, and Baker says they are planning a television animation project. But he’s a little concerned about the uncertainty of the budget, which he believes will have a big impact on the quality of the final product.

“I think with TV and video the more you spend, the better it looks. The people he’s hiring are all very good, so it should be okay,” Baker opines, pauses for a moment and laughs. “If the budget’s not that good, I just won’t be that excited about it, but I’ll still do it.”

“The Bakers,” a comic book and graphic novel series about his wife and three children is another one of his self-published projects that is close to his heart. His wife Liz says, with a slightly strained ambivalence, “He gets paid to make fun of me. Very few people can get away with that.”

On African and African American Actors

2006-01-03T16:01:00.000-08:00

Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo in Hotel Rwanda

Ah, Bra John, "Their blacks are better than yours"? I think you're a little misguided on this...

Much respect, John Matshikiza--much respect... Don't get me wrong--your work in theater, stage, film and television is uncompromising. I loved you in that artful, stupendous film, "The Heart of the Country." Between the breathtaking scenery, shining cinematography, and passionate portrayals of idiosyncratic characters karmically entwined in the Free State, I saw a glimpse of the possibility of what real, world-class South African cinema could be. And you had me in sitches when you were steppin' around in the white baas' boots and taking his daughter's virginity! As a director, writer and actor, you know your craft, and you know how to bring out the best in folks. I can't help agreeing with most of what you've said--for years I've longed for really seeing more of what South Africa has to offer the world on the silver screen--I think the issue is a little more complex. African Americans and Americans aren't the only ones who are making the decisions and controlling what ends up as the final film product.

I'll give you an example, and I'll even start with the 1950 version of "Cry the Beloved Country," which you point out as the genesis of baffling accents and confusing African Americans taking South African roles. Personally, I thought both Sydney Poitier and Canada Lee did fantastic jobs in that film. When Anant Singh and Darryl Roodt remade "Cry the Beloved Country" in 1995, they captured the splendour of the Drakensburg and added rich textures and great scenery that gave life to Sophiatown and Jo-burg in the 50s. But Canada Lee delivered an eerie line with a singular grace that gave the movie its intense emotional power. But Anant Singh and Darryl Roodt wouldn't touch that line, maybe for fear of offending the "Rainbow Nation New South Africa" 'I'm okay you're okay' ethos. Or maybe because they're not Black (is Indian really "Black"?) James Jarvis has an eiphany, after accepting his son's death, he see's his son's humanity, and he recognizes his own failings. He turns to the Black minister, Rev. Stephen Khumalo, and says:

James Jarvis: "All my life I have lived in darkness."
Rev. Khumalo: "Every white man I have ever known..."

My point is that even the most respected South African producers and directors can make their own decisions and their own mistakes. And sometimes they get it things right, and they have an extraordinary capability of telling their own South African stories. Whatever resistance you might have to African American actors, Anant Singh did the right thing in casting James Earl Jones as Stephen Khumalo. Maybe he didn't speak with a Zulu accent as you know it, but his performance was impeccable nonetheless. I may not have liked what Anant and Darryl were up to with changing the climax and most powerful part of the film, but they did a lot of other things very well. At the end of the day, having Richard Harris as Jarvis and James Earl Jones as Rev. Khumalo brought international attention and acclaim to the film that otherwise would not have been.

As you pointed out, this thing of African American actors and South African films and themes goes way back, and I often hate the marbled accents as much as you do. But sometimes really good actors have a way feeling a part, and making it their own, even when the character comes from a different culture. I'm thinking of Don Cheadle's performance of Paul Rusesabagina in Hotel Rwanda. He played the role well, and he drew the audience that that film deserved. And many South African actors benefitted from the African American element in that production. The actors learned from each other and pulled together something dramatic, powerful and haunting, something that hopefully opens people's eyes to a cinematic journey beyond comfortable suburban mindsets. The genocide in Rwanda was a story that very much needed to be told, to as large and wide an audience as possible.

Maybe Don Cheadle is one of the few African American actors who has enough talent and verbal dexterity to really immerse himself in an African accent. Nonetheless, I'm sure there are ways in which African American and African producers, directors and actors can collaborate constructively, as they did in HBO's "Sometimes in April." And none of these productions--however fabulous or flawed--precludes South Africans from making their own bold and intelligent independent films that can grab attention at Cannes or Sundance. South Africa definitely has the industry infrastructure and abundantly talented writers, producers, directors and actors.

But this thing of South African actors and American actors has a history, and it's something we're all trying to work through. A lot of African American models and actors have been coming to South Africa since the early 90s and were getting parts and opportunities that they couldn't access in New York or LA. I remember meeting a young African American brother at a Gallo record launch in 1995--after a few introductory remarks he escalated into a bragging spiel about how successful he had become. "Man, the opportunities that are out here are FANTASTIC!" he told me emphatically. At the time he was more of a curiosity to me, and I was more interested in listening to him and observing. Our involvement in South Africa stemmed from completely different understandings and motivations. All the while I was thinking, "God damn, man--do you realize that some people gave their lives so that this country could be open and free?" He should read Don Mattera's poem, Child.

As I spent more time in South Africa, I learned that there were a good number of young brothers like the one I met, and it seemed to me that the South African advertising industry was quite happy to accommodate them. Then, after a little more observing, talking to people etc., I also began to see that there was a lot of racism in the South African advertising industry, a kind of racism that an outsider might not expect from surface appearences. Once I was on the set of a commercial shoot where a Black transvestite donned a platinum wig and did a hilarious imitation of Marilyn Monroe singing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President," for some kind of advertisement. It was a funny concept, and very well executed, but there were no Black folks on the set save the transvestite and the caterers (and myself). After years of observing White people, one becomes sensitized to certain things... The conversations of the director and the crew, their facial expressions, body language and the way they treated their talent spoke volumes about their insulated arrogance and the kind of social environment they are accustomed to operating in. I could also see that this was an environment that in many ways was more welcoming to African Americans than Black South Africans. Some of this has to fit into the equation you have titled, "Their blacks are better than yours."

The larger picture is that in this era of globalization, Africans from all over the planet need to collaborate and come together to do great, creative things in the film industry. We need to look beyond tribal and national identifications to reach a new, higher definition and understanding of Africanness. After all, Don Cheadle can play an Rwandan with subtlety and Idris Elba, a Brit, can play an African American with chilling intensity. Black actors like Giancarlo Esposito in New York City have often demonstrated incredible versatility with performances that bridge culture and point the way to a new African multi-ordinal identity. Our traditions, our experience, our cultures, our heritage and the stories that made us are a tremendous source of wealth. Hugh Masekela really spells this out when he talks about "cultural synergy" as a potential engine of economic growth for African people. But if all we see is an "African American" actor, or a "South African" actor, or a "Nigerian" actor or a Zulu or Xhosa or Hausa or Yoruba or whatever, we miss the greater vision...

Note: John Matshikiza is a columnist for the Mail & Guardian and is an acclaimed playwright, actor, director and producer. He's a brilliant, talented brother with a crooked smile, an easy manner and a hilarious sense of humour that belies his seriousness and depth. You can read his "With the Lid Off" column here.

Their blacks are better than yours

John Matshikiza: WITH THE LID OFF
23 September 2005 03:30

Thank goodness I’m too old to join the humiliating queue of black actors looking for work these days. I no longer have to fret about black Yankees being cast in roles that African actors can fulfil with ease, grace and, dare one say it, the whiff of authenticity. I’m at peace, way beyond the petty debate.

It was never a debate anyway. It was, and is, a transatlantic monologue, occasionally interrupted by cheeky, indignant, heckling interruptions from down here in the South -- out-of-work Bantu would-be actors yelling: “Why can’t we be given a fair crack of our own whip?”

You can fool yourself into believing that the phenomenon first raised its futile head in the 1980s, with the likes of Denzel Washington as Steve Biko in Cry Freedom, my buddy Danny Glover in the title role of the HBO television movie Mandela and as “Boesman” in the dead-in-the-water Boesman and Lena, starring alongside Angela Bassett as typical Korsten coloured trash. Then there was Sydney Poitier in another Mandela television film (while Morgan Freeman chafes in the wings to play the same role in Anant Singh’s endlessly upcoming epic based on Long Walk to Freedom) and James Earl Jones as the humble Zulu vicar in the remake of Cry the Beloved Country.

The roster of heavily sponsored black-on-black exploitation is brought right up to date with Samuel L Jackson in the film adaptation of Antjie Krog’s Country of my Skull, and, of course, Taye Diggs in Zola Maseko’s glossy, hollow Drum. Then there are the ubiquitous Slovo sisters making Hollywood hay while the sun still shines on the memory of their father Joe’s impeccable struggle credentials, conniving in the casting of a black British actor in Red Dust (written by big sister Gillian) and yet another honky black American in the gritty, gory Umkhonto weSizwe thriller Hot Stuff, written by middle sister Shawn, and co-produced by baby sister Robyn and currently shooting on location on various white-owned farms in the Transvaal.

No, you’d be wrong in thinking that the “our blacks are better actors than your blacks” thing began as recently as that. Poitier and Canada Lee twanged through the native roles in the first version of Cry the Beloved Country in the 1950s. And even before that, Negro extras jumped around pretending to be Zulu warriors in a long line of B movies shot in New Jersey and California way back in the early days of cinema itself in the 1920s and 1930s.

The directors of these films, all white (with the noble exception of Maseko) have always argued, as does Hot Stuff’s award-winning director, Philip “Rabbit Proof Fence” Noyes, that exclusion of the authentic African article has nothing to do with discrimination against Africans. “I looked at everyone there was to look at all over the world, and simply chose the best actor for the job,” they cry with one, well-rehearsed voice.“So there. Go make your own movies.” Conveniently forgetting that the cash to make movies, like the Negroes who end up starring in them, is over there, not over here.

While our leadership berates the West at the United Nations for continuing to subsidise their own farmers as a way of blocking the potentially wealth-creating export of African produce into their own countries (Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 metaphor of the American government paying American farmers not to produce alfalfa come to prophetic fulfilment) they make not the slightest suggestion that films shot on the African continent should empower African actors and screenwriters (Maseko was kicked out of that role in favour of an American writer in his own movie). And, of course, it would be Hollywood sacrilege to expect an African actor to get the chance to even audition for the role of Shaft in Shaft, or for one of Washington’s drearily upright vigilante detectives in any number of American skop, skiet en donder flicks.

Imagine the embarrassment of Third World “Angel of mercy” Angelina Jolie or Meryl “I had a farm in Africa” Streep struggling to introduce Seputla Sebogodi at the Oscars -- wouldn’t work. There is something distinctly odd in standing on set with Denzel, cameras rolling as he struggles half-heartedly to emulate Biko’s Eastern Cape accent. The producers are paying him a cool few million US dollars to do his best, no more. But we cannot exclusively blame our slave-escapee “African- American” brothers and sisters for kicking dust in our faces, laughing over their shoulders as they rush back to Beverley Hills with the loot. I-job-I-job, after all -- even over there.

The more flamboyantly political brothers have taken the fight into their own camp on our behalf. A burly cat with a stack of menacing talent gave himself the Ghanaian sounding name of Yaphet Koto, and continues to make a good living playing burly, menacing American gangsters. Then there was the late, great Adolph Caesar, who cocked a snook at the establishment by naming himself after two of the Western world’s most ruthless dictators, swaggering like a warped, high-yellow mirror of the society that made him, while still showing that, when it came to serious acting, he was up there with the best.

But these are the exceptions that prove the rule. We can surely look forward to nothing better in the future than Will Smith playing Oliver Tambo, or Ice-T cast in the role of Kwame Nkrumah. All of this is beyond my concern nowadays, however -- except when my daughters drag me along to see the latest, big screen travesty of our tough yet dignified history, told the American way. At that point I feel a strange hotness under my collar and an even stranger burning sensation somewhere in the seat of my pants. That’s when I try to persuade them to switch screens in the Eastgate multiplex and go and have a good old laugh at Shrek instead, for the umpteenth time. At least he’s green, mean and a Glaswegian-accented anti-colonial freedom fighter -- with a genuine, ghetto-Negro donkey as a sidekick.

That’s what I tell myself, anyway.

Genetic Frontier of the Motherland

2005-11-03T16:08:00.000-08:00

This is the third column of the Eye on Africa series. I enjoyed researching and writing this piece, although I didn't really get as detailed as I wanted to or perhaps should have regarding the actual genetic controversies. I'm obviously not a molecular geneticist, but I wonder about the issue of databases and genetic markers, particularly if Oprah Winfrey DNA was supposedly traced to the Zulu tribe. According to African Ancestry's web site, they don't have markers for the Ndebeles and the Swazis, who are adjacent ethnic groups and might have similar markers. (They claim to have a marker for Xhosas, another adjacent ethnic group, but that is raises even more questions because the Xhosas are a actually a group of tribes--the Amampondo, Mfengu and Thembu--that speak the Xhosa language. So these become confusing issues with regard to what actually goes into the database.) In Oprah's defense, I read one blog post from someone who claimed to be a member of the Zulu royal family, and he said that Shaka sent a group of Zulu's to the United States for technical education, but they never returned. On the other hand, a lot of South Africans are trying to get away from the tribalism that has been a destructive influence on their history. So why should an American media celebrity claim that she "is Zulu"?

Genetic Frontier of the Motherland

For African Americans, genetic technology in the new millennium is proving to be an unexpected source of knowledge and self-discovery. Incredibly, the tools of modern research are forming an unlikely connection to lost ancestors, broken families and forgotten languages and traditions dispersed by the legacy of slavery. At a time of heightened interest in Africa—when more African Americans are traveling to Motherland than ever before—the link between the Diaspora and Africa is being augmented by the study of DNA.

Thoughts of DNA testing in the Black community might invoke images of forlorn mothers on the Maury Povich Show crying in pain or shrieking vindication as a parade of their hapless boyfriends are brought on camera for the final ‘moment of truth’. Far beyond criminal investigations, paternity suits and court cases, DNA analysis is beginning to have entirely new associations and implications for African Americans. The idea of tracing the DNA of African Diaspora descendents to their roots in Africa is being pioneered by African Ancestry, a company founded in February, 2003 by molecular biologist Dr. Rich Kittles and entrepreneur Gina Paige. Dr. Kittles, began developing his database nearly 10 years ago, as an extension of his academic research. Currently, the company claims it has 20,000 samples in its database, representing about 200 ethnic groups throughout Africa.

The concept for African Ancestry started after Kittles traced his own DNA, and soon became inundated by requests from friends and acquaintances that also wanted to know their own genetic history. Overwhelmed by the work, Kittles eventually partnered with Paige, creating a business that has doubled every year since its launch and has served about 3,000 people. African Ancestry has also attracted media personalities and celebrity clients such as Oprah Winfrey, Spike Lee, actor Isaiah Washington, “Roots” star LeVar Burton, former UN ambassador Andrew Young and California Congresswoman Diane Watson.

“The market found us. It wasn’t something that we were trying to push on the community,” says Paige, a former Fortune 200 company executive. “People were creating the demand and forcing the creation of the company.”

Customers pay $349 for either a MatriClan test for maternal lineage or a PatriClan for paternal lineage. Each kit contains two sterile cotton swabs that are rubbed on the inside of both cheeks, then placed in bar-coded envelopes that are express couriered to African Ancestry for processing. The results are sent back to the customer in 4-6 weeks, and the original samples are then destroyed to protect confidentiality.

Paige is upbeat not only about the company’s prospects, but also about the impact African Ancestry is having on the African American community.

“People have used this in different ways, on local, national, and global levels. Personally, people share information with their family, and they may name a cousin based on the language of their ancestry,” Paige says, enthusiastically. “People have formed study groups, and native associations. There are people who have lobbied their congressmen, and there are people who have invested in their ancestral communities.”

But the work has not been without its controversies. Oprah Winfrey caused a stir during a recent trip to South Africa when she announced that her DNA test results revealed her ancestors were Zulu. Many found this hard to believe, given that Zulus were historically far removed from the West African slave trade. Moreover, the Zulu Empire was an amalgamation of many different ethnic groups conquered by the great warrior Shaka Zulu, which at its height spread from the South African coast through present-day Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Even Mangosuthu Buthelezi, a leading chief of the Zulu nation remarked, “She is sadly mistaken.”

Others have questioned how reliable DNA data can be in determining ancestry for specific ethnic groups, and whether enough genetic markers have been collected and categorized to derive detailed assessments. But Paige is careful in describing her company’s services and cautions potential customers against having wrong expectations.

“Certainly, we don’t have every ethnic group in our database—we have 200 ethnic groups in our database. But we never market that we will find an ethnic group. We market that we can find the country, but if we can find an ethnic group, that ‘s even better,” Paige explains. “In over 85 percent of the cases we find the ethnic groups, but I don’t want people to be misled. We can’t guarantee that we will find the ethnic groups. People who are looking for ethnic groups need to think long and hard about why they are taking the test.”

Notwithstanding the sarcasm and cynicism sparked by Winfrey’s comments in blogs and on message boards, stories abound of individuals who have found personal meaning in their test results. One woman felt “a sense of completion” after her test results confirmed a story her grandfather told her that one of their ancestors was a slave originally from Timbuktu. Another woman, who traced both her mother’s and father’s ancestors to Sierra Leone, traveled to a rural village and pledged to raise funds for a new school complex and a small medical clinic. A Chicago man who learned he descended from the Kru tribe of Liberia became an activist on behalf of his people, many of whom are refugees displaced by Liberia’s civil war.

Civil rights leader and former UN Ambassador Andrew Young, who has traveled and worked in many parts of Africa, traced his ancestry to Sierra Leone and Sudan, countries he had never been active in before. Young feels that DNA analysis is a good resource for African Americans to identify and become involved with specific countries and cultures in Africa.

"What we need now is for people to get deeply involved in one particular country or region or culture, and this certainly is one way that anybody can decide ‘this is where I want to work,’” says, Young, noting that he plans to be more “intrusive and involved” in Sierra Leone and Sudan.

In “Motherland: A Genetic Journey,” filmmakers T. Jackson and A. Baron profile two Black British women and one man who search for their African roots using DNA analysis. One woman is mixed-race, and her test reveals that one of her ancestors was a slave owner, and she visits what used be his sugar plantation in Jamaica. The other woman traces her ancestry to the Bubi tribe of Equatorial Guinea, and has a very emotional reunion on Bioko Island where the people accept her as a sister. The man’s search leads him to an equally emotional encounter with the Kanari tribe in southern Niger.

The award-winning documentary, which aired on BBC and American cable networks, so moved Coloradan Mika Stump that she decided she had to have her own African Ancestry DNA test. Stump—who was recently tested and is waiting for the results—was orphaned when she was 6 after her mother left her in New York City’s Penn Station and never returned. Along with the confusion of her abandonment, Stump has earlier childhood memories of “palm trees and beaches,” suggesting that she and her mother may have come to New York from the Caribbean or a tropical or sub-tropical coastal area. She hopes the test results will help her put together some of the missing pieces of her life.

“It’s everything to me. When people ask me, ‘who are you, where are you from,’ I look at them and I can’t answer,” Stump explains. “It will be amazing if they can pinpoint something and say, this is where I am from. That’s big for me.”The Basalt high country resident believes her DNA analysis will provide her with a reference point where she can begin her research. When she was abandoned, Stump didn’t know her name or her age or her mother’s name, and had to rely on what she was told by medical doctors. Like many others who are exploring the ramifications of DNA testing, Stump is finding a new kind of hope in her quest for a sense of identity and connection with her African ancestors.

For more information on DNA analysis see http://www.africanancestry.com/ and www.uml.edu/dept/biology/rootsproject/africanamericandna.htm