Ayacko Paul Odero in Tirgu Bujor, Romania. Photo Credit: Vasile Caburgan/Viata Libera

I spent my first 14 years of my life in a small town in the  South-East of Romania called Tirgu Bujor. Then I escaped. But that’s a story for another time.

Reading the regional newspaper I still occasionally write for I discovered that a Kenyan citizen is working in my hometown of only 7000 people. His name is Ayacko Paul Odero.  He is 34 years old and works for a local construction company. As the author of the article mentions, he is the first African to be exploited in the otherwise uninteresting city of Tirgu Bujor. Paul Odero works more than 12 hours a day for only 1000 RON (about 350 dollars) per month. Mr. Odero used to work for the Kenyan National Railways before seeking political asylum. As we can easily see, his problems did not end when he filled in the papers to become a refugee – after all, he ended up in Romania which is clearly not much better than Romania  (for example, the presidents of both countries have been accused of forging elections in the last five years).

I wish I could have anything good to say about his current situation but the total chaos that Romania is going through in the last 4-5 years has clearly affected Mr Odero as well. He appears to have obtained a post-high school diploma in airport security. He learned the Romanian language through a government sponsored language program he was enrolled in upon arriving to Bucharest. He went to school at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest but ran out of funds to finish it. He was then relocated to the Asylum Seekers’ Center in Galati (a city located about 40 miles away from his current location and the city where I was born). Then he worked for a local construction company. He was mocked by one employer which refused to pay for his labor. As of February of this year, he has been working at a local construction company in Tirgu Bujor.

As he told the reporter interviewing him, Mr. Odero does not leave the place where he works. He tried to visit the town once and the local policemen arrested them. Romania, what can you expect…?

As I have worked with asylum seekers in the past, I am quite familiar with the emigration procedure. Basically, as a refugee, you are first relocated to a refugee camp. After spending considerable amounts of time over there – in some cases it can take up to 3-4 years – a commission randomly assigns a country you are supposed to go to. You can either take it or you risk spending another year in a filthy refugee camp where diseases travel faster than the light.  Mr. Odero, like many other people, chose to leave Kenya in hope for a better place. Little did he know when he signed the refugee papers that the place where he will end up in will never look to you and say “Karibu tena…” Instead, you get more of Nenda kajitombe…

PS: the information presented in this post is based on an article published today, June 1^st, in Romanian, by Viata Libera Galati.

Benjamin wa Mambo, photo credit: Facebook

Art in Tanzania is an NGO operating in East Africa with projects in Tanzania and Ethiopia. One of their amazing initiatives has been to promote and support local artists and assist them with recording and promoting their music. This project has had some success and the organization is working on new strategies that will give their projects more media exposure. Recently, one of the young artists that joined the project finished recording an awesome song and this post is primarily dedicated to that. The artist is called Benjamin Wa Mambo and the song is called Nimefulia. You can listen to the song here. Also, the artist is on Facebook so if you want to add and express your support for his work, you are welcome to do so. Enjoy! Also, if you have any interest in volunteering in Tanzania you should definitely try to get in touch with the people at Art in Tanzania. They have over 1500 volunteers working on their projects every year.

This video gives you an idea of a project led by Art in Tanzania:

Women in Modern Africa

This course surveys key themes and debates in twentieth century colonial and post-colonial sub-Saharan African women’s history.  Exploring both women’s history and the history of gender, this course examines shifting conceptualizations of “woman” in diverse case studies and historical contexts across the continent.  Topics to be explored include sexuality, reproduction and health; public activism and politics; work and economic activity; religion; and policy and the law; and immigration and citizenship.  Course materials will include historical monographs, ethnography, fiction, memoirs and visual media.  Assignments will include the option of a service-learning component with Chicago-based community organizations that focus on advocacy and support of African immigrants and refugees.

Course Assignments:

Short Paper #1: 4-5 page paper that is to be an analysis of Week 1 or 2 readings. Pick two of the articles that critically assess methodologies/themes of African women’s history. What are the debates? What is your assessment of their arguments? (25% of grade)

Short Paper #2: 4-5 page book review.  Book reviews are an essential tool through which scholars keep abreast of new literature in their fields.  Pick one of the monographs that we have read in the course and write a review.  A good book review is not just a summary of the book, but more so a critical presentation of its arguments, how it challenges/expands scholarship, and an assessment of its strengths and weaknesses. Chose from: The Comforts of Home; Hustling is Not Stealing; Politics of the Womb; For Women and the Nation; African Women’s Movements (25% of grade)

Final Paper: 8-10 pages (50% of grade) There are two options:

1. Select a theme and a reading from the course that was of greatest interest to you.  Read at least two more monographs or three more articles of your choice.  Write a secondary source research paper assessing how scholars have analyzed the theme, comparing their approaches, and offering your critical assessment and arguments of where the research should go.

Or

1. Option for Human Rights students: over the course of the quarter will volunteer as a mentor paired with an African woman immigrant/refugee living in Chicago through the auspices of the Pan-African Association and the Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago.  The immigrants hail from Ethiopia, Burundi and Eritrea. These organizations describe the volunteer opportunity: “Volunteering as a mentor will entail weekly home visits to help with English, cultural transition, job search, and more.  It’s really more of a friendship development/teacher role that allows trust to be built not only with the specific volunteer, but with Americans in general.”  The paper will draw on the service learning experience to analyze how African women negotiate immigration as a life strategy.  In doing so, the paper will explore the social, political, cultural, and economic contexts of the women’s lives on the African continent.  The paper will also analyze the processes and negotiations of U.S/African immigration laws as they impact African women.

**Papers turned in late will be marked down ½ grade per day late**

Week 1: By Way of Introduction

3/30     Course Introduction

4/1       Inserting African Women into History: Methodological and Epistemological Debates

JSTOR: “Whose Life is it, Anyway?: Issues of Representation in Life Narrative Texts of African Women,” International Journal of African Historical Studies, 26:3 (1993)

JSTOR: “Truth-Telling and the Politics of Women’s Life History Research in Africa: A Reply to Kirk HoppeTruth-Telling and the Politics of Women’s Life History Research in Africa: A Reply to Kirk Hoppe (pp. 619-627), Heidi Gengenbach, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3, 1994

Week 2: Debates Continued

4/6       The New African Diaspora:  Migration and Gender in the 21^st Century

Guest: Alexandra Hill, Volunteer Coordinator Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago

CHALK: Msia Kibona Clark, “Questions of Identity among African Immigrants in America,” in The New African Diaspora

4/8       JSTOR: “Placing African Women’s History and Locating Gender,” Social History 14 (1989): 359-79. Nancy Rose Hunt

CHALK: Helen Nabasuta Mugambi, “The Post-Gender Question in African Studies,” in Africa After Gender?

Week 3: African Women Writing

4/13     CHALK: So Long A Letter Mariama Ba (Senegal)

4/15     Nervous Conditions Titsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwe)

Paper 1 due by 9AM, Monday, 4/19, History dept. office

Week 4: Sex and Money

4/20      CHALK: Signe Arnfred, “Rethinking Sexualities in Africa: Introduction” in Rethinking Sexualities in Africa

Luise White, The Comforts of Home, Chapters 1-4 (pp. 1-102) and chapter 9 (pp. 221-229) (Kenya)

4/22     Online at Reg: Marc Hunter, “The Materiality of Every Day Sex: Thinking Beyond Prostitution ,” African Studies, vol. 61, no. 1.

John Chernoff, Hustling is Not Stealing, Part 1: Into the Life (pp. 121-218) (Ghana)

Week 5: Reproductive rights and FGM

4/27     Lynn Thomas, Politics of the Womb: Women, Reproduction, and the State in Kenya, Introduction, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Conclusion (Kenya)

4/29     CHALK: Bettina Shell-Duncan and Ylva Hernlund, “Female “‘Circumcision’ in Africa: Dimensions of the Practice and Debates,” in Female “Circumcision” in Africa: Culture, Controversy, and Change

CHALK: Liselott Dellenborg, “A Reflection on the Cultural Meanings of Female Circumcision,” in Rethinking Sexualities in Africa, pp. 79-94. (Tanzania)

Week 6: Colonial Encounters

5/4 CHALK: Misty L. Bastian, “Vultures of the Marketplace”: Southeastern

Nigerian Women and Discourses of the Ogu Umunwaanyi (Women’s War) of 1929,” in Women in Colonial African Histories pp. 260-281 (Nigeria)

CHALK: Judith Van Allen, “‘Aba riots’ or Igbo ‘Women’s War’? Ideology, Stratification, and the Invisibility of Women,” in Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change (Nigeria)

5/6       CHALK: Wambui Waiyaki Otieno, Mau Mau’s Daughter: A Life History, Foreword and Chapters 1-6, pp. 1-102 (Kenya)

Paper 2 due, Friday 4:30pm, History Dept. office

Week 7: Building New Futures

5/11     Cheryl Johnson-Odim, For Women and the Nation: Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti of Nigeria, up to p. 97

5/13     For Women and the Nation: Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti of Nigeria, p. 97-178

Week 8: On the Post-Colony

5/18 Aili Tripp, African Women’s Movements, up to p. 139

5/20 TABLEAU FERRAILLE

Week 9: Urban-Rural Spaces

5/25     CHALK: Belinda Bozzoli, Women of Phokeng, Introduction, pp. 1-15

Shula Marks and Lily Patience Moya, Not Either an Experimental Doll, pp. 55-114

5/27     Not Either an Experimental Doll, pp. 115-193

Week 10: By Way of Conclusion

6/2  Student presentations

Final paper due: 4pm, June 8^th, History Dept. office

The symposium will engage the business community, members of the academia and students on opportunities and challenges in corporate Africa. In September 2009, members of the University Of Chicago African Business Group developed a broad framework to start a world-wide discourse on how the business community can create wealth to uplift the continent. Our belief is that the emergence of a vibrant private sector with the freedom to innovate and expand is the most critical way to transform lives in Africa. While it is true that the government needs to play a major role with the right policies and institutions, the African private sector also needs to move beyond any perceived limits and play a more prominent role going forward. These debates are designed to do just that. They are structured to bring together numerous actors on various sides of policy issues affecting the private sector, and create a conversation that ultimately influences policy and practices.

“I have complex feelings about Eastwood and his libertarian politics: for me, he has never understood social processes, and works with lone, heroic figures that must triumph despite society and law. So I felt sure that he would scant the complex historical forces at play in Mandela’s historical role, and in the South African transition. Resorting to the game and the world cup was then a simple formulaic device to reduce these complexities, and also the challenges of nation-building under postcolonial conditions.”

Invictus was only the second movie directed by Eastwood that I’ve seen, after Million Dollar Baby. Recently, I watched an older Africa-related movie made by Eastwood, called White Hunter, Black Hurt. And now I accurately understand what my acquaintance meant.

Eastwood plays the flamboyant and historical character of director John Huston, the famous filmmaker and screenwriter who made African Queen, one of the earliest movies about Africa. Called John Wilson here, Huston has two obsessions: he wants to make a wonderful movie and kill an elephant. Why killing an elephant? Because it’s a sin he wants to commit. White Hunter, Black Hurt, an adaptation of the novel with the same name, deconstructs these obsessions and tries to make sense of this extremely complex personality. To some extent, Eastwood is successful in his endeavor. The character he plays borders paranoia and shows a libertarian mantra so uncharacteristic of people of his time (the action happens in the early aftermath of the Second Word War).

Making a movie about the conflicts inside an artist is quite an appealing project. But what Eastwood, the director does, is exactly what the anthropologist quoted earlier said. He oversimplifies the realities of the time and portrays an eccentric man who fights against everyone for justice. Which ends up being a quite shortsighted perspective.

Wilson goes to Africa accompanied by his friend, Pete Verrill, an elegant Jewish young man whose main mission is to smile, entertain his older companion and keep him on track with his project.  When they reach Africa, Uganda to be more precise, they go to Lake Victoria hotel, a famous high class hotel owned by a white settler. One evening, the two have diner with a gorgeous young woman who Wilson fancies quite a lot. But it turns out that she’s anti-Semite which makes the old director snipe and dismiss her in a very brutal manner out of reverence for his younger friend. But immediately after that, a servant drops a tray and is mistreated by his white employee. That makes Wilson go after this guy as well. The character challenges the white owner to a fight and then tells Verrill: “we fought the preliminary for the kikes now we will fight the main event for the niggers.” Really? Is that Eastwood’s conception of an individual making the world a better place? Granted that his character admits he’s an intruder in Africa, do we really reduce racism and anti-Semitism to a snide dismissal over a glass of wine and a fistfight? Seriously…

See the scene for yourself right here:

This movie might have some interesting scenes but overall it’s way too verbose and, as I’ve been pointing out, it oversimplifies some of the issues it deals with, to the extent that it looks fake. On a different note, both Eastwood and Jeff Fahey (as Pete Verrill) play their characters quite honorably (my criticisms are related to the script and the vision of this movie, not the actors’ play). In addition, the limited glimpses of African life that we get are quite charming. Parts of the dialogue, especially between Wilson and his producer are hilarious. This suggests that there might be some value in watching White Hunter, Black Hurt after all.

The tragedy with Clint Eastwood and his character is that they both believe that small gestures can have a huge impact or that they mean a lot. They can, but not always.

This movie has a 90% rank on rottentomatoes.com which I find completely overrated.

I give this movie 4/10 as I ultimately considered watching it a waste of my time.

Movie trailer:

To me, the most emotional part of the movie is not his return to Kisumu, but his visit to the refugee camp in Chad. He is exposed to terrifying stories about their daily struggles and the lives they are condemned to live. Both Barack and Michele are devastated by what they hear and pledge to take a direct interest in the region. But the Darfur issue, like all the other major themes in this documentary, is treated in rather shallow and superficial terms. The hard questions are never asked and to a great extent Obama seems very cautious not to upset anyone in his travels. Which, in turn, upsets me as a viewer with a ground knowledge of African politics and realities.

I cannot say I didn’t like the movie as a whole but the complete lack of objectivity and impartial narrative line was something I was rather uncomfortable with. Given the fact that I’ve been an Obama supporter from 2006 I didn’t need any convincing that the current president is a great politician, which means that I expected more from this DVD. I didn’t get it. At the end of the 60 minute long documentary, we still don’t know what Obama’s view of African politics is, what his vision for the continent might look like and whether he approves or disproves of how politics is made across Africa or say the least in his father’s native country. He takes an equidistant stand on African current affairs and his speeches are rather broad and definitely not indicative of what his thoughts and views of the continent are.

In some ways, watching this documentary made me think how disappointed I would have felt, if I were an average Kenyan who might have had the chance to meet Obama on this trip. The senator sounds so interested in African politics, in the small businesses or the social issues he addresses and he definitely gives you the feeling that this great American will in fact give his best in trying to enact change in US foreign politics. Everywhere he goes, specifically in Kenya, he is welcome like a local hero, a man who succeeded in his life and is now ready to give back to his community. I’m not saying that Obama is socially or culturally Kenyan, in fact I believe quite the opposite (that he is truly American) but to the people he meets and interacts with, that’s how he looks like.

Obama makes what turned out to be an unfulfilled promise in this documentary. In one of his speeches he promises to try to shape the United States’ policy towards Africa so that the interests of the countries he visits will be addressed to their benefits. Five years later we see that his pledge has yet to be addressed. Perhaps now President Obama is the one who should watch this documentary, as he clearly suggests that the continent might be of great significance to America’s interests which has yet to be seen in US foreign policy.

I rate this documentary 6/10

Movie Trailer

90 people lost their lives in a EA plane crash two days ago. My most sincere condolences go to the families affected by this tragedy. It is only the third fatal accident in Ethiopian Airlines’ history, the largest airline in Africa.

I had troubles with watching this movie and reviewing it. I have postponed this job for months.  Now, I finally think I have a clear mind to look at it objectively, but I’m still not sure of that. Some of you might now that Tanzania is the country where I conduct my own academic research and after visiting the country on various occasions I am very found of the people I met and of the progress that the country itself has registered in the last decade or so. When watching this terrifying, uncomfortable documentary it’s not that easy to be objective. The misery and desperation many of the subjects of this project experience is painfully real and so are the issues it raises.

For starters, the cliffnotes of this documentary. Back in the 1960s a team of researchers did a little experiment: they brought in an alien species of fish, the Nile Perch, and “planted” it in the lake. In time, the fish took over the ecosystem destroying most of the live fauna in the lake, reproducing itself again and again until the Nile perch became the main predatory species on site. Virtually millions of people who live in the Great Lakes area are relying on this species for food supply but the raising costs are making it less and less available to the locals and, as I have personally witnessed, it encourages many Africans to go into illegal fishing. For example, I have personally interviewed several young people who in the last two years who illegally fish in the lake. Some of them go fishing at night and are paid meager salaries for their catch. How meager? On average they would get about two dollars a night if they catch a minimum of ten kilograms (22 ponds) of fish which is less than one tenth of the market costs of that catch. It’s not fair but it is the reality.

Realizing the economic benefits of the Nile Perch, an independent Austrian movie-maker, Hubert Sauper goes to the Great Lake region and investigates the formal and informal businesses that are related to the Nile Perch from fishing to distribution. The story he tells and the images we see do not constitute a beautiful story. Many reviewers (here, here, here and here for example) tie the social inequalities and the anxieties that many of the locals experience to the destructive force of globalization. Simply put, various Russian cargos get a significant amount of the weekly output (i.e. perch fished from the lake) and fly it straight to Russia, Ukraine or other European nations. The company that operates most of the fishing in the region is run by Indian immigrants. Obviously, most of the locals do not benefit from these transactions, in fact they are impoverished by it as they are discouraged or even forbidden from fishing. What is left behind is starving children, illegal fishing, ill prostitutes and a lot of frustration.

It is hard not to be emotional when watching this documentary, but the way this documentary is designed it makes it almost impossible to be objective. There is hardly any sense of order and organization in how this documentary is structured. Instead of trying to make a point, the director allows you to navigate through piles of visual sources and make your own idea of what is going on. On one hand, this is a good strategy: you are not being fed a message but allowed to decide for yourself what that message might be. On the other, you are left in confusion, because the documentary does not provide any answer to the most prevalent question that many of us would instinctively have upon watching Darwin’s nightmare: what can I do to change this?

I am ready to admit that the exploitation of this African resource – the Nile Perch – is something that deserves our attention and compassion. However, I cannot just dismiss it. At the end of the day, trade is what Africa needs most. We live in hypocritical times when countries say one thing and do the complete opposite, when statesmen will defend the spirit of the free market and yet authorize unmatchable subsidies to their own subject thus hurting the Africans who might be able to make the same offer at a better price. Part of me would like to see all that fish go to the Tanzanian or the Ugandan or the Kenyan people. But I know that this is simply not possible as the transition from seeing Africans as more than simple producers to actual consumers is not complete or anywhere close to being accepted by many of the African elites. No matter how troubling it was for me to watch this documentary, I am not comfortable with unleashing another set of complains about how devastating the predatory international economic system really is. If I do that, then I will simply continue to being a part of the vicious cycle in which everyone is blaming everyone with no tangible results. Foreign interests are getting the fish they need for their own markets out of Tanzania. Some locals have their own illegal deals. What are we left with at the end of the day? What can actually be done and who can we point the fingers to? The government? The industry? The West? Like most of the work in academia, this documentary does not provide us with any answers that can allow us to simply shift from being simple observers to action-doers.

This movie is an interesting investigation, with an interesting structure (or lack of), and a simple message: something really bad is happening in a distant country and we’re not paying attention. Let’s say that now we are. What’s next?

This is an open question for an ongoing debate. I will give credit to this movie for bringing it into the public attention. We are still waiting for the brilliant minds of those of us around the world who might suggest a reasonable solution to this problem. Any takes on it?

This documentary is rated 8/10.