Cesaria Evora – Besame Mucho

Cesaria Evora and Salif Keita – Yamore

While it is true that everywhere from Hollywood to Nollywood producers have their say in what goes into a film, nowhere are they as arrogant and paternalistic as in African cinema funded by France. The African director is forced into a schizophrenic situation where he/she, born and educated in the city, is told to represent an Africa that is only ‘real’ in the deepest fantasies of the European producer: an Africa outside history, an atavistic Africa, and an Africa full of exoticism. The African director is treated as if his/her vision does not matter, as if African audiences are not relevant to the success of the film.

Woooow. That’s all I have to say.

Journalists enter the profession with the hope that their reporting will change the world, even in small ways, one day at a time. We feel it’s our duty to report on the lives, actions and inactions, of those we meet or hear of. We correctly determine that truly remarkable stories often remain untold and that if we don’t speak about them, then there’s a good chance they will be lost forever in the nebulous track of history.

We feel the urgent desire to bring the ardent, sometimes inconvenient truths to the people that read the stories in the comfort of their houses. We sometimes believe (maybe in a naïve manner) that for one story, for one person, we represent their only chance of having their voices heard. And from this belief stems our vocation – that of news messengers, of storytellers who adamantly believe that that real life is often more impressive, more challenging and outstanding than fiction. That the world doesn’t have to imagine heroes and great characters but simply look around and find them in our backyard.

War journalism, a risky business with few personal satisfactions for the journalists embarking on this mission, involves the type of calling that often goes beyond the responsibility of the job. It comes with real and tangible risks, it requires journalists to go past the boundaries of safety and comfort in hopes that their work product will mean something. That it will stand witness long after we are gone from this world. That it will talk of the atrocities and injustices that hundreds of thousands of people are going through when the rest of the world graciously drinks its cup of coffee in the morning.

Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros followed their stories to some of the most dangerous parts of the world. They went to those deserts, slums and terrorist-ridden areas which, as some cynics often argue, even God forgot about. They were armed with only their cameras and their belief that what they do will mean something, somewhere, some day.

Their deaths come with an unsettling feeling that many of us, hearing of what happened to them, have suddenly experienced. And it causes me more pain and discontent since I believe that most likely by next month their deaths will be forgotten. That, as viewers, we will be enchanted or entrapped in following another story, another controversy or shenanigan carefully orchestrated but one political party or another.

One could only hope that what these remarkable journalists left behind – thousands of visual masterpieces, documentations and records of the human suffering people in other parts of the world are experiencing – would one day be remembered for what they tell us both about the subjects captured on tape but also about those who stood still and brave behind the cameras.

As a journalist, I instinctively hope that the deaths of Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros were not in vain. But I also know that the products of their work are the long-lasting testimony of lives well lived.

What has been a subject of contention among scientists has been the degree to which language patterns follow the same rules. If it did, then there would still be African traces in the languages spoken today which would suggest a new level of connection among people all over the world. Quentin D. Atkinson, a New Zeeland linguistic researcher has undertaken the task of proving that there is an African origin of most modern human languages.

Mr. Atkinson analyzed the phonemes – distinct units of sounds that differentiate words – from 504 contemporary spoken languages. In an article published in the Science Magazine on April 15^th, the researcher has argued that there is a “serial founder effect” model of linguistic expansion from Africa. More specifically, that the distinct units of sound from all these languages can be traced to a point of origin on the African continent.

The conclusion of the article is quite simple yet of crucial importance to all of us. The fact that to some small degree all people share the same language with their African ancestors suggests that people all over the world are intrinsically connected to each other not only from a genetic point of view but also from a cultural perspective.

In the world of Quentin D. Atkinson (quote taken from a recent article in Business Week):

“”If our languages can be traced to Africa, and language is a marker of cultural ancestry, then . . . we are a family in a cultural as well as a genetic sense,” ”

You may access the pdf file of Dr. Atkinson’s article here.

The Tourism-led Migration is a result of the spike in international tourism and the relaxation of regulations regarding tourists traveling around the world (or at least in some localized regions). Basically, what the authors mean by this is that Tourism-led Migration is a process caused by the demand for seasonal labor in the tourist industry in some select destinations. For example, during the summer, hotels and tourist attractions in France might need extra employees. Given the fact that France is a member of the European Union, a business entrepreneur in France could afford, and would very likely hire cheap labor from Central or Eastern Europe and, more often than not, will do it at a cost lower than the local cost of labor.

Migration-led Tourism refers primarily to expats who travel back to their countries of origin, thus contributing to the local economic affairs and tourism industry as well as generating remittances for the family members left behind.

Some of the key suggestions of the report are as follows:

Migration-led Tourism can contribute to poverty alleviation.

Migrants’ remittances represent a critical instrument for enhancing tourism-related investments in the origin countries.

The lower the level of development in the origin countries, the greater the contribution of migration.

Diaspora networks represent a critical factor in development.

The report also deals with a series of study cases where the interplay of migration and tourism is analyzed. The countries considered in this report are: China, India, Japan, Philippines, USA, France, Germany, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. There is also a section on Central America.

It’s a pretty light reading, primarily building on existing literature, but it does at the very least suggests that the connection between tourism and migration needs to be further analyzed.

Dar es Salaam is a city that was designed to accommodate roughly 300,000 inhabitants. There are more than 3.3 million people living in Dar es Salaam at this time so one can certainly see why traffic is such a pain. Add to that the fact that many streets are unnamed, that urban development followed no structural plan but a constant ad-hoc expansion of the city and then one can certainly become a little bit more optimistic: it could have been much worse than it actually is. Another issue that needs to be taken into consideration is the narrowness of the roads in the city. Many of these streets can only accommodate two lanes but if you take into consideration the cars parked on both sides of the street at all time, driving in Dar es Salaam is like being an overweight mole in the ground trying to constantly squeeze in through the tunnels that can no longer accommodate the animal.

The local authorities have recently announced that starting as of next year, things will change. An Italian company has been chosen to carry out an urban development project meant to ease the traffic and create new arteries throughout the city. Pompously called the Dar es Salaam Transport Policy and System Development Master Plan, the estimated 3 billion-project that is co-financed by the World Bank is assumed to take at least five years to complete (call me cynical, but i will eat my hat if the project is actually completed in time!).  The plan was designed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and it looks strikingly similar to an earlier plan made by a bunch of Canadian consultants back in 1979, a plan which failed to be financed by the government because Tanzania had to channel its resources at the time towards ousting Idi Amin from power in neighboring Uganda (an endeavor which cost the Nyerere government at the time more than 500 million dollars).

According to the Citizen:

Apart from the flyover bridges, it proposes widening the main arterial highways – Morogoro, New Bagamoyo, Nyerere and Kilwa roads – and also constructing roads parallel to Ali Hassan Mwinyi the Selandar Bridge area, as well as near Morogoro Road, to relieve some of the bottlenecks at rush hours. JICA also recommends revamping public transportation through more effective regulation, and to encourage more commuters to use public transportation rather than personal vehicles.

Typical Dar es Salaam road

I’m not an urban developer, but I have spent countless hours in traffic in Dar es Salaam. And during those hours the only thing I would think of was precisely how congested the city was. And then the one thing that troubled my imaginary plan to redesign the city were the private businesses and residential areas that stand against such an ambitious plan. I don’t even think that 3 billion dollars would be enough to give a fair compensation to the people who reside along the main arteries in Dar es Salaam which this plan attempts to redesign. In addition, I agree with the plan’s assertion that some arteries should be assigned as expressways, but I fear that there aren’t enough roads in the city to allow for the reservation of particular streets as “heavy-loaded roads”.

Changing gears for a second, I find it quite interesting that the project was assigned to an Italian company. Italian private entrepreneurs have become a part of African economies in a rather silent and unceremonious way. From various Italian NGOs and hostels in Dar es Salaam, to the Italian tourist operators in Malindi (Kenya) and Kampala (Uganda) and in much of Southern Africa (I stayed at Italian guesthouses in Zambia, South Africa, Namibia and Mozambique over the last five years), Italian private ventures are everywhere in Africa. And, honestly, I don’t have a problem with that but I am quite surprised that very few people are actually analyzing these entrepreneurs. They seem to be discrete, cost-efficient and highly skilled, predominantly middle-aged men (a generalization I base solely on the Italian businesses I have been exposed to) and they are all seeing to their business relations, staying out of the political and public sphere. In addition, the two Italian businesses I know in Dar es Salaam are also very aware of the local customs and informal relations as their owners constantly pay off local policemen  to avoid harassment and constant raids. Without a doubt, this new master plan is the largest project assigned to an Italian private firm and I hope that more journalists and researchers find the time to look more into it, at the very least for information purposes. For now, however, I find that both the Italian communities in East Africa and the new master plan’s long-term consequences are severely under researched to the point of neglection. And that can’t really help anyone…

You can read more about the Dar es Salaam Transport Policy and System Development Master Plan here.

But what happens when it comes to the men’s social behavior? After all, a good physique denotes not only sexual prowess, but also aggression and promiscuity. After all, if one has access to the cookie jar, it’s unlikely that he will only eat one type of cookie every day.   Well, Dr DeBruine argues that the benefit of having a fit offspring exceeds that of having a stable partner. In other words, women in countries with poor health conditions would choose the hotter men despite the fact that the risk of them leaving is very high.

Now, in my own research I have witnessed some interesting things with regards to how men choose their sexual partners. For example, while doing research in Tanzania, I noticed that the men I talked to about sex and women more often than not had preferences very different from mine, preferences which, I would argue, were indeed related to the environment and the health issues related to Tanzania. For example, some of the men I interviewed expressed their preference for larger-than average women – or how some of them labeled traditionally built women. That obviously goes against Western standards of beauty, which I obviously share by virtue of my own upbringing, that a beautiful woman is generally a thin, tall woman with symmetrical features. How does one account for this difference? Well, one can always talk about cultural differences which are prone to exist. But there’s another explanation which was suggested to me by some of the Tanzanian men I talked to. They argued that thinness is generally associated with disease – HIV in particular, and as such it’s always better to date a larger woman. I’m not going to comment on this anymore because this was only a tangential aspect of my research but I think that both DeBruine and some of my respondents are to some extent suggesting the same thing – the environment and the health conditions of a particular place can and might in fact affect how men and women look at each other, as well as their sexual preferences.

To read the whole story in the Economist, click here.

Brain drain and Africa are old acquaintances. For as long as we have heard of post-colonial Africa, we’ve known of people leaving the continent, willingly or not (or better said because they had no other choice), in search for a better place. And the problem with a phenomenon like brain drain is that it is so overused in development/ political discourse that it somehow becomes meaningless. If you grew up hearing about, you would likely not pay attention to it. Or better said not internalize it as a real problem. But as it turns out, brain drain can have a direct impact on current affairs and, in some industries / business sectors, the effects of brain drain can be disastrous. For Africans and Westerners alike.

The East African ran a piece this week on flight controllers (the technicians who coordinate pilots for takeoff/ landing procedures). As it turns out, both in Kenya and Tanzania, flight controllers seem to be leaving the country for other regions and airlines. For various monetary reasons, the numbers of controllers have not been increased for quite a while. What’s the situation at right now? Uganda has 80 controllers, Tanzania 50 (for 12 airports) and Kenya 150 (to operate 8 airports).

To be an air traffic controller is no easy job. In fact, some consider this job to be one of the most demanding in the world because one employee has to take into account a very large number of variables in their daily work (there are so many things that can go wrong at once!). Combine that with the fact that this is a highly specialized and skilled job and you can certainly understand why a) East African air traffic controllers would like to leave the country and get a better salary (UK average per controller is 90,000 pounds a year) and b) how the rest of us interested in traveling to East Africa might somewhat be…screwed.

Sadly, Fassie had prematurely left this world in 2004, as a result of a cocaine overdose. The next year, given the popularity and the controversy of the singer, a documentary called “Brenda the DVD: the Brenda Fassie Story and Videos” was released.

The documentary is basically a combination of interviews and public appearances Fassie made over the previous ten years. After watching the 45 minute film, I thought it was fairly interesting simply because it allowed me to see a different Brenda Fassie than the one I was familiarized with by virtue of being a big fan of her music.

In the first part of the documentary, a young Brenda Fassie talks about how she ran away from Cape Town to Johannesburg. “To me, Johannesburg was the New York of South Africa,” confesses the singer.

Perhaps more important than the biographical information itself, the documentary allows us to get a glimpse at Fassie’s life philosophy. “I do everything now because I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.” Brenda Fassie was a pragmatic, calculated and extremely intelligent woman. She was ambitious, daring and loving. Despite her huge popularity (as the documentary reveals four out of the seven albums released by Fassie were voted the most popular albums in their year of release), she remained a humble, honest and inspirational figure.

Too many people forget where they are coming from once they become famous. Some of the scenes in the documentary, showing Brenda at her parent’s graves and in the poor neighborhoods of Cape Town where she grew up (albeit featuring her in a gorgeous car) showed that she had no intention to keep her humble beginnings hidden.

There isn’t much more to say about this documentary. Despite its informative value, the interviews and concert clips seem to be rushed together without an attempt to contextualize them so that we can actually get a comprehensive picture of who Brenda Fassie really was. So viewers are somewhat forced to create and project their own understanding of the singer and derive whatever they think is the value of watching this documentary.

Interesting trivia information: In 2001, when Brenda Fassie visited Tanzania, she needed a military escorts because of very high numbers of people who showed up to see her.

I rate this documentary 5/10.  But if you like Brenda Fassie’s music, this is as close as you can get to see the behind-the-scene artist.

Part of the documentary is available on youtube: