According to filmmaker Makela Pulula, 800 refugees from around Africa enter Cape Town every month. Pulula’s documentary, A Shadow of Hope, is one of several films at the Durban International Film Festival to examine and interrogate issues of migration, displacement and asylum-seeking. "South Africans don’t want to accept the reality, because they don’t want to see themselves in the mirror."

Although some of the educated Ghanaians who left to make their fortune abroad, are coming home, the Minister of Tourism and Diaspora Relations is keen to tempt many more back. Those who do come find themselves relatively well-off compared with their fellow Ghanaians. They have the money to buy a plot of land and build a dream home. But the gated communities that are springing up only emphasize the huge divide between the haves and have-nots sleeping rough.

Glynis Clacherty, a South African researcher, initiated an art therapy programme for unaccompanied refugee children called the Suitcase Project, five years ago. Children from Ethiopia, the DRC, Rwanda, Burundi and Angola have taken part in the programme, which has enabled them to decorate suitcases in a way that reflects their experiences.

As World Cup fever hits the blogosphere, African Shirts - (http://africanshirts.blogspot.com/2006/06/im-moving-to-trinidad.html) follows the Trinidad & Tobago vs Sweden world cup match and decides he is moving to T&T.

“Trinidad and Tobago might be the smallest country to ever qualify for the World Cup, but to compensate for being a small country, they brought the biggest party machine ever. After their 0-0 draw against Sweden, one could be forgiven for thinking that they had won the World Cup. The Caribbean rum company Angustora has organised a few free events centred around Trinidad games. And after the Sweden match, fans of all hues and colours converged on downtown Dortmund, and threw possibly the biggest party since Borussia Dortmund won the Champions League.”

Also blogging on the World Cup, Soul on Ice (http://obifromsouthlondon.blogspot.com/2006/06/ex-colonised-state-of-mi…) takes us back to 1980s Thatcherite Britain and the infamous Norman Tebbit “cricket test”. Who are you supporting in this world cup? England? Trinidad and Tobago, Angola or Portugal? Ghana or Italy? Argentina or Ivory Coast?

“A friend told me of the sour feeling in Cameroon when France won in '98. In the 2002 World Cup Senegal carried on like they had won the damn thing when they beat France. And most of the French team are African in origin (Patrick Viera comes to mind). Actually I was jumping up and down when they won that one. My recent post on Senegal kinda explores their relationship with France. What is the psychology behind all this? Interestingly more and more second generation Africans and Caribbean’s are returning to play for their countries of origin.”

MentalAcrobatics (http://www.mentalacrobatics.com/think/archives/2006/06/violence_in_keny…) comments on a horrific case of rape in a Kenyan School. A group of male students sodomised another male student who is now in hospital, traumatised and in pain from the ordeal. The sexual assault is made worse when we learn that this was not the first time as the young man had previously reported an incident to the dormitory master. MentalAcrobatics writes that it is hard to believe the school authorities were unaware of what was taking place. He goes on to criticise the failure of Kenyan educational authorities to have a system in place to help deal with the continued violence in schools.

“Again and again, we see extreme violence from high school students directed at other high school students. This latest rape at Upper Hill School is just the latest example of this violence. There are measures that will be taken against the administration at Upper Hill but those actions will come too late to help one young student. We need, as a nation, to put in place a system that will help us understand and come up with solutions to this rising violence in our schools. This violence is growing into an epidemic. If it has not allready reached there.”

Blogswana (http://blogswana.wordpress.com/2006/06/12/update-on-internet-access) reports that internet penetration in Africa is now 5%, up from 2.5% last year.

“Richard Kassissieh, in Kassblog, writes that at the Maru-a-Pula school 81% of Form 1 students have a computer at home. 15% have broadband Internet access, 55% dial-up, and 30% no Internet access. Maru-a-Pula is a well-funded school located in Gabarone. Students in rurally located schools would have significantly less access, but one can envision that the trend in computer and internet access will continue and spread throughout the country over the next decade.”

Acoustic Motorbike (http://ggernst.blogeasy.com/ggernst.blogeasy.com/article.view.run?artic…) comments on sexism in Zimbabwe using her own personal experience. She is verbally accosted by various men as she goes about her daily business. She asks what it will take?

“And, of course, it’s not just about sex. It’s about men’s attitudes towards women. Maybe the message that a woman is not for beating already resonates with many men. But gender based violence is about much more than beatings. It’s about much more than rape or sexual assault. Surely it also includes the safety with which women move around in their own homes, their own streets, shops and neighbourhoods. Women are not for beating. They are also not for raping, heckling, objectifying or harassing. What messages do men grow up with then about what women are for? What do men think men are for? What do women think women or men are there for? Society has changed dramatically in the past 100 years. It is no longer acceptable to judge or stereotype someone on the basis of their race. Somehow gender differences feel like a harder thing to crack. But maybe in 1906 so did racism.”

Black Looks (http://www.blacklooks.org/2006/06/on_being_a_lesbian_activist_in_africa…) writes a piece on “Being a Lesbian Activist in Africa”.

“The LGBT community in Africa live perilous lives and activists because they are challenging the status quo, are in even more danger. They may have to move from house to house in order to avoid being outed by neighbours and reported to the police. If they are able to find work in the formal economy they have to hide their sexuality and bear the psychological pain of living a lie. Alternatively they may have to work in the informal sector, moving from job to job to avoid being discovered. Quite often LGBT activists go into hiding for short periods to avoid being discovered.”

* Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks,

* Please send comments to [email protected]

The Cape Town Book Fair (CTBF) opens its doors from June 17-20 for a series of workshops and discussions on topics relevant to writers, publishers and book-related industries. Taking place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, the event consists of book launches, readings and poetry sessions. Awards up for grabs include the Alan Paton Award for non-fiction, the Sunday Times Fiction Award and the Noma Award. Under the theme "Celebrate Africa" panel debates about the importance of publishing books in indigenous languages, poetry readings and various seminars will take place.

Programme activities include:
- Author discussion panel on "Making Poverty History in South Africa" with Alan Hirsch (Author: "Season of Hope: Economic reform under Mandela and Mbeki"), Sampie Terreblanche (Author: "A history of Inequality in SA") and Adam Habib (Editor: "Voices of Protest: Social Movements in SA").
- "Portraits of African Writers" with George Hallett and Gavin Jantjies. - Zakes Mda, author of the "Whale Caller", talks about life of writing, and his work.
- Poetry reading by Mphutlane wa Bofelo, poet and social activist.
- "Accumulating and disseminating knowledge in African Studies: The case of the Nordic Africa Institute" with Helena Olsson, (Marketing Manager), Birgitte Jansen, (Librarian) and Dr Henning Melber, (Research Director).
- Contemporary Nigerian Literature 20 years after Africa won its first Nobel prize for Literature - discussion between Harry Garuba, Toyin Akinosho and Muktar Bakare.
- Women's voices - Doreen Baingana on women writing in Africa.

For more information, visit

Despite the rhetoric, the people of Sub-Saharan Africa are becoming poorer. From Tony Blair's Africa Commission, the G7 finance ministers' debt relief, the Live 8 concerts, the Make Poverty History campaign and the G8 Gleneagles promises, to the United Nations 2005 summit and the Hong Kong WTO meeting, Africa's gains have been mainly limited to public relations. The central problems remain exploitative debt and financial relationships with the North, phantom aid, unfair trade, distorted investment and the continent's brain/skills drain.

The Art Of Flight is a guerrilla documentary that was shot illegally in Egypt on camcorders and a laptop. The film serves as a back story to the 2006 massacre of Sudanese refugees in Cairo. The filmmaker was nearly arrested three times during the course of shooting. This feature-length film tells the story of three people – a refugee from southern Sudan, a human rights activist from northern Sudan and an American journalist in self-imposed exile – all living in Cairo.

Soccer has struggled for years to rid itself of racism. For this World Cup the governing body of the world's sport is making harmony a central theme. "Football, like most sports, is combative - you play to win. But it shouldn't have anything to do with racism or violence," said Federico Addiechi, head of a Fifa division which deals with corporate social responsibility.

Tuesday marked the launch of Trust Africa, a new foundation based in Dakar, Senegal that will focus on conflict resolution, trade, and increasing democracy in Africa. Trust Africa has been operating for the past five years as part of the Ford Foundation, but will now be run independently from Dakar with an all-African board of directors. In the speech below, given to mark the launch of the foundation, John Githongo discusses democracy and governance on the African continent.

Speech to mark the launch of TrustAfrica in Dakar, Senegal on 6 June 2006

Honourable Minister, trustees and officials of TrustAfrica, friends at the Ford Foundation, Ladies and Gentlemen…

I would like to take this opportunity to thank TrustAfrica for honouring me with the invitation to make this address here today during the auspicious occasion of their formal launch here in their new home in Dakar, Senegal. The Trust arrives at a critical time with an important mandate to address issues that have always been at the forefront of public consiousness but which in today's environment find increasingly articulate and urgent expression. I am doubly honoured to participate in what is clearly a special moment for TrustAfrica and all who have worked so hard to make this special African initiative possible.

I was asked to make a few remarks about the opportunities that exist for improving governance and accountability in Africa and I shall limit my comments to those broad issues.

In truth serious debate about the manner in which Africa was governed only became mainstream after the end of the Cold war. Prior to this human rights, democracy, freedom of expression and other basic freedoms of ordinary citizens often took a back seat to the grand geopolitical struggles that were played out on African soil. It was thus somewhat disconcerting for many of our leaders to find themselves being lectured about good governance in the early 1990s by the very same Western patrons who had previously supported some of the most corrupt and oppressive regimes on the continent.

By the mid-1990s, on the heels of the macro-economic adjustments of the 1980s, governance - the fight against corruption in particular - had become central to the international development agenda as it was expressed in regard to Africa. By the end of the 1990s - 1997 in particular - the multilateral institutions were including governance-related conditionalities in their lending programmes and the bilaterals followed suit.

South African independence in 1994 saw the beginning of African attempts to reclaim the governance agenda. I would argue that the NEPAD initiative - its African Peer Review Mechanism in particular - is the most direct and potentially most successful instrument available for African to truly take ownership of this agenda. This is bolstered by the African Union's gentle slide away from the principle of non-interference in the affairs of sovereign nations especially when those sovereign African nations are led by groups intent on murdering significant numbers of their own populations. In truth we have been interfering quietly in each others affairs for a long time, mainly using our intelligence services. The time has come to interfere face-to-face and above the table to bolster the cause of democracy and good governance and, most importantly, to urgently intervene when situations go berserk and fear consumes populations.

Political accountability in practice

One of the most interesting issues to arise as a result of the spate of peaceful transitions across the continent since the mid-1990s has been that of political accountability. There has been a sense historically that a nation's top leadership were somehow not accountable and impunity attended to decision-making especially with regard to the management of public finances. This has changed. Just as we have had an unprecedented number of retired heads of state since the mid 1990s so to we have seen the establishment of commissions of inquiry into past human rights abuses and economic crimes and other transitional justice mechanisms. There are likely to be more of these in the coming few years and this is perhaps an interesting area for an institution like TrustAfrica to focus, at the very least to ensure that every new regime does not immediately embark on a witch hunt of its predecessors. Still, the key question that will continue to reverberate is to whom does the President answer and how? It is not unlikely that leaders will continue to get caught out by the media; find themselves under increased scrutiny of civil society and caught up by processes aimed at stemming newly urgent problems such as money laundering and terrorist finance. This is especially likely to be true of oil exporting countries.

One of the things that has always impressed me about many public figures in Asia when they are found to have abused the public trust is their public demonstrations of regret, contrition, shame and even tears before cameras. This culture does not yet exist for us here. Attitudes are still quite brazen. Partly as a result public confidence in leaders is low and around the world our leaders are often objects of derision, presented as greedy, corrupt and oppressive. The expectations of Africans with regard to their leaders is also broadly not one that suggests they expect altruism to drive decision-making and therefore opt for the second best of hanging around to see what they can gain directly for themselves and their families. This is changing, partly as a result of demography and a younger population with expectations driven by global imperatives. It also the case that the democratic tradition has truly kicked in across the continent. Despite challenges no one reasonable harks back to the one party state or military rule. Maybe we are yet to see a leader stand up and agree to having looted the public purse and express contrition for it. More importantly perhaps we could be moving to a situation where the leader who gets thus caught out does not enjoy the spontaneous and determined support of his or her people who rally to their cause because they perceive them to be victims of an ethnic witch hunt.

Regional integration as a tool for political accountability

I should like to argue that regional integration may potentially hold out the most important opportunity for improving political accountability across the continent. There is a sense in which some of the internal political contradictions - especially within some of the smaller landlocked countries within Africa - will only be resolved when these nations become integral parts of larger entities. And so one would hope that one day very soon, for example, Rwanda and Burundi will be part of a wider East African political entity. This would also put paid to the backward theories that are sometimes bandied about to the effect that tribalism in some African countries is so acute that we need to create tribally homogenous states.

Similarly, with regard to the dispensation of justice one would hope to see regional higher and supreme courts and other regional judicial instruments and processes coming into being that are perhaps less subject to the vagaries of internal national political challenges that can sometimes be vexatious in the extreme. On the other hand it can also be argued pragmatically that regional institutions will provide us with an opportunity to promote politicians who are sometimes reluctant to let go of national positions and institutions; we can promote retired Presidents to play useful roles at the regional level when they reach the point of diminishing returns nationally.

Development with Equity

But the most interesting and I should like to argue critical issue that TrustAfrica and similar institutions can assist many nations in Africa address is 'development with equity'. There is a sense in which development with equity especially in our highly heterogenous societies become a discredited concept in the mid-1980s when we were all structurally adjusted; it was dismissed as an outmoded socialist concept whose time had ended with the failure of some of the ambitious political and economic experiments of the Cold War years.

The political and economic programmes implemented at independence to promote the redistribution of wealth in light of the structural and institutionalised inequalities of the colonial era had stagnated by the early 1980s and lost credibility as a result of the inefficiency, incompetence and corruption that came with them - state owned enterprises in particular. The ostensible donor designed replacement programmes have been implemented half-heartedly and therefore perhaps less successfully. Indeed, macroeconomic stability has finally come to Africa at the beginning of the 21st century, but the pressing issues of political economy - equity in particular - remain unresolved. More than two decades since adjustment we have democratised but seem to have lost the intellectual will and machinery to grapple with the major equity issues facing the continent - the fact that even where economic growth has been rapid especially as a result of mineral wealth - the distribution of this wealth has been extremely unequal. People are afraid of being called socialists at a time when even in Europe the distinctions between Left and Right in terms of economic policy have become blurred. This is doubly problematic for us in Africa because inequality quickly finds regional, ethnic, tribal and religious expressions that complicate the politics in an extreme way. Most importantly it leads to the perception that closeness to the state creates and sustains elites on the basis of kinship ties and therefore governance is all about my tribe or my group or my family assuming the levers of power so that they can eat.

For a long time the prevailing philosophy said that the tribe had been overtaken by the nation; Gikuyus were overtaken by Kenyans; Yorubas by Nigerians; Hutus by Rwandese etc. In fact this philosophy was taken a step further when single party states were created to save us from the dangers of too many political parties that quickly assumed tribal characters. The detribalisation political experiment seemed to have failed in many places. Despite the national language; national anthem; national schools and of course the national single leaders; the tribe and its baggage refused to go away. In fact it started to become clear that within the single detribalising party those from this or that family or this or that tribe or region seemed to wield a disproportionate amount of power and similarly the economic benefits of development seemed to go to one group more than all the others.

The principle of disadvantaged groups; of affirmative action; of the better off providing for those who don't have so much was never one to be discussed seriously. Instead boils of resentment were allowed to fester and explode into calls for sovereign conferences and rebel groups claiming their rightful share of wealth they consider to be more theirs than anyone else’s. And this is happening at a time when there is an increasing acknowledgment of the stark inequalities of globalisation at least in the short term. The problem for our states that have been independent for around half a century is that globalisation's short term is our long term, and besides that we have watched as the Asians seem to have reduced poverty dramatically within the same time we have managed to deepen it here. So African impatience is not going to go away.

It just so happens that some tribes are richer than others - by mistake of history, access to markets, education, climate or sometimes because they happen to sit on huge deposits of some precious commodity that can be dug up and sold; or - because they wield the levers of power and can control that precious commodity that's dug up and sold. The sharing of resources seems to be discussed with greatest clarity as a result of a crisis - when one group has expressed its dissatisfaction with the status quo in a manner that undermines central authority. Be it oil, gold, diamonds or water - the shape of states will be moulded by these resource issues. One would hope that the principle of equity will inform the outcomes of the debates that are underway and those that are yet to happen upon us. TrustAfrica from its vantage point here in Senegal is uniquely placed to inform and help to shape this debate, to frankly address the equity issues that we have tried to sometimes sweep under the political carpet.

The Durability of Embedded Corruption Networks

Finally, a word about corruption. Too often discussions about governance are overtaken by the corruption debate. In part this is because it is such a vexatious issue in Africa - vexatious because even though it may not be worse than in other parts of the world the starkness of the inequalities in yields in Africa and the fact that those inequalities find ethnic, tribal and regional expression makes it a particularly compelling political reality. It is also the case that a few African leaders have been spectacularly colourful and excessive in their stealing. Embedded corruption networks on the continent consisting of civil servants, politicians, businessmen/brokers and security/defence sector officials have remained influential since the Cold War when most of them were engineered. In my experience with the new increased focus in Africa on the oil sector there is an urgency for accountability with regard to these resources more than ever before.

TrustAfrica will find that in the holding of public officials to account on the continent, especially with regard to the management of resources, the media will be at the cutting edge. Indeed, the media remains the first and most incisive tool of public accountability. The importance of media and information generally in this age of information technology that has democratised access to information between the First and Third Worlds and which has considerably enhanced the capacity of media and civil society cannot be underplayed.

I should like to conclude by pointing to a number of lessons from my experience where corruption is concerned:

1. National security and the procurement processes it derives is the last refuge of the corrupt. Extractive industries and communications are also open to spectacular abuse.

2. Political financing will become an increasingly troubling issue. Who pays for democracy in Africa?

3. Presidential accountability is key and only constitutional reform can make this happen.

4. Failure of the prosecutory authorities led to the creation of anti-graft agencies across Africa at the behest of development partners.

5. It sometimes appears as if in the Third World that the multilaterals are engineered to deal with authoritarian regimes. They are also faced with a glaring contradiction vis-à-vis governance: for them success is measured by the amount of money they lend or donate, the size of the programme they develop for a country. This imperative can sometimes contradict some of the executive measures they would need to encourage with regard to governance issues generally and anti-corruption matters specifically.

6. Restitution is more important than prosecution in the fight against corruption.

Despite some setbacks and bizarre developments across the continent, in Africa we are learning that public service means we serve the people and not an individual; that the public no longer accept that weary excuse of the past that one received orders from above to break the law or abuse public trust in any way. So a culture of political accountability may be beginning to take root. It will lead I believe, in the coming years to increasing calls for greater Presidential accountability in particular which might be expressed in the constitutional reform processes. This will be a positive development with wider implications where despite generally positive developments on the democratisation front ultimate presidential accountability is something we are only starting to learn.

Finally, the setbacks on the democratic front in Africa are not causing a generalised feeling of decline, despondency and failure – the maturing democracy thus far seems able to absorb the shocks. The TrustAfrica launch is yet another demonstration of this maturing. It is an honour to share this special occasion with all of you…

Thank-you.

* Pambazuka News has previously been the recipient of a Trust Africa grant. Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

“African Diaspora: the scattering of people from Africa and the sowing of their cultures globally.” The Museum of the African Diaspora (MOAD), recently opened in San Francisco and aims to “connect all people through the celebration and exploration of the art, culture and history of the African Diaspora.”

You don’t have to be in San Francisco to visit MOAD. Its website, offers a comprehensive, multimedia, participatory, virtual experience. You can take a video podcast tour of all three floors; submit a story for the archives projects; view slide shows of art, sculpture, photography, currently on exhibit; and read first-person African narratives from the Middle Passage to the 21st century.

After an hour on the site, you might be tempted to skip a visit in person. This would be a pity. MOAD is as much a model of architecture as it is a museum. A triumph of light, space, elegance and transparency, the building offers numerous clever sensory delights and surprises. The deceptively simple 3-floor, glass-walled atrium structure incorporates a higher-than-average number of seating areas for “rest and reflection”. As you walk into the entrance lobby, you are greeted by a question on the wall: “When Did You Discover You Are African? “

Few museums I’ve visited, in cities around the world, pull off the difficult feat of filling the mind and imagination without exhausting the brain and senses. The very nature of museums often leads to overstimulation. Complex navigation routes through multiple galleries and exhibits can cause tiredness and frustration. There is often just too much to absorb in one visit. MOAD’s offerings are certainly abundant, demanding, and multifaceted. But clearly, considerable thought was given to making them joyfully digestible.

The MOAD experience begins across the street from the building. Through the giant glass wall of the museum, passersby see a 2-story photomosaic of an African child’s face. The mosaic, constructed upon a photo by Chester Higgins Junior, is made up of thousands of photos submitted from around the world, of people both on the continent and in the Diaspora. Many of them are accompanied by titles and explanations, but, disappointingly, the main image of the young girl is not. I wondered what her name was, where the photo was taken. Is she still alive? What is her story?

One of the stated goals of MOAD is to remind visitors that “human life originated in Africa and gradually traveled to the rest of the world.” The point is brought graphically home by a glowing wall display. A few tiny dots of light emerge in the middle. They spread and multiply, creating a map of the world, while a timeline above the map highlights simultaneously the dates of major human migrations. The day I visited, a school group of 9-year olds were riveted by this feature. Their teacher had to force them to move on after 3 repetitions.

MOAD emphasizes its unique identity as a “first voice museum”, one that draws directly on the original testimonies of those who live the art, culture and history it explores. It’s ongoing I've Known Rivers Story Project is an unprecedented effort by an international museum to collect, publish, and archive "first voice" narratives from people of African descent.

Permanent exhibits include:
Celebrations—Ritual & Ceremony
Music of the Diaspora – connecting jazz, blues, and gospel to reggae, rock and roll, and hip-hop.
Culinary Traditions – highlighting Africa’s role as primary producer of major food products
Adornment
Slavery Passages, and the Freedom Theater
Temporary exhibits are curated around four universal themes - Origins, Movement, Adaptation and Transformation. This seems a little simplistic. One questions the thinking behind such rigid classification. Living culture is messy and boundary-defying. As a museum-goer, I prefer to be confronted with its complexity, offered tools to engage with the contradictions and commonalities, rather than told that this particular collection exemplifies “Adaptation” or “Movement”.

For example, in July of this year, MOAD will mount the first solo exhibition in America of Qes Adamu Tesfaw, Ethiopia’s finest living artist. How can a body of work created over a 70-year lifetime slot into one or two themes?

Another question raised by my visit to MOAD is that of accessibility. Entry is free to children, $5 for seniors, $8 for everyone else. No sliding scale that might accommodate those on lower incomes. This seems a particularly ironic blind spot, given the national rate of poverty among African-Americans: consistently double that of white Americans since the Civil War. In addition, the majority of African Diaspora newcomers to San Francisco are refugees from Africa’s economic and military crises. $8 per person for a museum visit is simply outside the budget for households in these circumstances. Even more ironic, MOAD does not participate in the Free Museums Day Program, where entry to all San Francisco museums is free on the first Tuesday of every month. At the time of writing, MOAD’s staff had not returned my calls requesting further information on the reasoning behind these policies.

There is no question that MOAD is an exhilarating, enriching, and exciting addition to the global culture of the African Diaspora. In the breadth of its vision and the aesthetics of its conception, it does important and groundbreaking work. Its task in the years ahead will be to ensure that the very populations it portrays within its walls are equally represented among the visitors who walk through its doors.

Visit MOAD at www.moad.com

* Shailja Patel is a Kenyan poet, writer and theater artist. Visit her at www.shailja.com

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Kenyan writer, Muthoni Garland has been nominated for the Caine Prize for African Writing, 2006 (http://www.caineprize.com) for her story, 'Tracking the Scent of My Mother.' Muthoni says that her story was inspired "by the climate of private fear in which many children and women in our part of the world exist."

International soccer has been plagued for years by violence among fans, including racial incidents. But FIFA, soccer's world governing body, which is based in Zurich, said there had been a recent surge in discriminatory behavior toward blacks by fans and other players, an escalation that has dovetailed with the signing of more players from Africa and Latin America by elite European clubs.

While anti-racism campaigners have warned black and Asian fans against visiting parts of Berlin and the former communist east Germany, politicians have leapt to reassure non-white visitors they will be safe. Concerns have been heightened in recent weeks by a series of apparently racist attacks. The Africa Council (Afrika-Rat), a group which represents Africans in Germany, has also said it will publish a brochure listing "no-go areas" which non-white visitors to the Berlin area should avoid.

Eurodad has released the publication "To Pay or To Develop", a handbook on debt sustainability. This publication clarifies different conceptions of debt sustainability.

An anti-poverty strike by South Africa's main labour federation appeared to have limited impact on Thursday, with some major mining and transport companies reporting few workers showing up for shifts. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) called the one-day stay-away to highlight what it says are the government's poor record on creating new jobs and slashing poverty for the country's black majority.
* Related Link
Cosatu blames bosses for Cape Town rampage

"Imagining Ourselves,” (IO) an ambitious online project featuring personal stories by hundreds of young women from more than 100 countries around the world. The women were asked to respond to one question: "What defines your generation of women?"

Phillippa Yaa de Villiers in Johannesburg describes herself as a “refugee from legitimacy.”

Amanda Tumusiime, Ugandan visual artist, makes works in oils.

Monique Wanjala, social economist from Kenya, has changed the way “my brothers treat women” by coming out to her family about her HIV+ status.

Zimbabwe’s Netsayi sings of the longing for connection on the journey to claim herself.

Iman Shaggag of Sudan recalls the forcible circumcision of her childhood friends.

Nigerian photographer, Toyin Sokefun, captures women both owning and disowning concepts of female beauty.

What do all these women have in common? Their songs, stories, films, artwork, photos, are in "Imagining Ourselves,” (IO) an ambitious online project featuring personal stories by hundreds of young women from more than 100 countries around the world. The women were asked to respond to one question: "What defines your generation of women?"

Produced and presented by the San Francisco-based International Museum of Women, IO sets out to capture the voices of women in their 20s and 30s – a generation poised to take the reins of global leadership. Launched on March 8th, International Women’s Day, in Arabic, English, French and Spanish, the exhibit logged an astonishing 65,000 “hits” in 24 hours. In its first week, over 200,000 hits were recorded. Contributors from 154 countries posted comments, responses, and their own stories. By mid-April, the numbers had risen to 3.5 million hits, from 130,000-plus unique visitors, in over 170 countries.

Clearly, IO taps a global need – for young women to share their visions and voices, and to connect with their peers internationally. African contributors range from the famous – Hafsat Abiola, Rokia Traore – to 20-year-old Odette Mukeshimana, orphaned at 9 by the Rwandan genocide, and left to raise her 6 siblings single-handed.

In a week when South Africa’s Jacob Zuma was acquitted of rape, when we heard of UN peacekeepers and aid workers in Liberia and the Congo extracting sex from 8-year-old girls in exchange for food and money, IO is a vital injection of nutrients for the artist-activist soul. Not because it offers escape from the grim realities African women face. On the contrary. In the words of Kenyan journalist, Mary Kimani, who has covered Rwanda, Burundi, and the DRC for the last 6 years:

“The poems I have sent in are not romantic poems. Imagination is not just about things we would wish to be, but a lens through which we can also see truly. There is a place for dreams, it is the place that tells us all that we can be if we were allowed wings and could soar. But all real dreams must be firmly anchored in reality.

“What defines my generation of women? In one word: resilience.”

This resilience is the hallmark of the African contributions to IO. They are juicy, vibrant, outrageous, creative, defiant, humorous, stoic, determined. They are charged with talent, fuelled by razor intelligence, honed and polished by professional skills and training, driven by vision and purpose.

The resilience shines through the groundbreaking performance of the Vagina Monologues in Lagos, a production that prompted the First Lady of Lagos State to declare: “Every woman is on that stage.” It infuses the passion of South Africa’s Monica da Silva, who pioneers community homeopathic treatments for HIV+ children. It underpins the words of 18-year-old Marie Josee Nyirabisabo, as she describes her YWCA training in literacy, reproductive health, microfinance, and her business plan to generate income for herself and her two younger siblings.

The one gripe I have with IO is the limitations of its search tool. The site carries no single comprehensive listing of every story, event, and contributor, so tracking down the African voices becomes a treasure hunt. But the hunt throws up endless riches – compelling photos and visual art, uniquely individual voices, powerful film and music. The site is beautifully designed, both clean and rich, visually striking, yet clutter-free. I’m not surprised that the average visitor stays 20-30 minutes.

“Women catch courage from women whose lives and writings they read,” wrote the renowned American writer and scholar, Carolyn Heilbrun, “and women call the bearer of that courage, ‘friend.’” The great strength of IO is that its genuinely interactive design allows this ‘catching of courage’ to take immediate form alongside each exhibit in the posting of comments and responses. So for example, Lisa Russell’s short film on obstetric fistula in Niger, elicits a story from Sudanese Iman Shaggag, about the childhood friend who, after circumcision, had no interest in any game other than mutilating her dolls just as she had been mutilated.

Scheduled to run for four months, March – June 2006, IO presents a different theme each month, with featured contributions and conversations online, and linked live events around the world.

The opening theme for March was Love. Notable contributions include:

Ugandan artist Amanda Tumusiime’s oil paintings of the Kiga Hug. The vivid textured images show the greeting embrace of the Bakiga of Southern Uganda, “The Kiga Hug is a personal invitation to cherish, love and embrace the future with a purpose.”

The story by Monique Tondoi Wanjala (Kenya), of her journey from a newly-married “enthusiastic Christian wife” who believed AIDS only affected “promiscuous people”, through the discovery that she had been infected with HIV by her husband. Wanjala takes us through her cycle of denial, despair, and the choice to move forward, educate herself and others, come out as HIV+ and become an advocate and activist. “For me, knowledge is power.”

“Unfolding Posture”, by multidisciplinary artist Heba Farid (Egypt): a series of photos of a woman’s body turning under water. The views of limbs, hair, torso, fluid and distorted, become a metaphor for all the shifts women address in IO.

Nigerian Toyin Sokefun reflects on beauty, in photos of women claiming, manufacturing, and contemplating their physical selves.

And finally, Hafsat Abiola interviews Amina Lawal, an illiterate villager from northern Nigeria, made famous in 2001 when an Islamic Shari’a court sentenced her to death by stoning for bearing a child out of wedlock. Two of Lawal’s responses stand out with heartbreaking starkness:

Q: What are your expectations for your life?
A: I leave my life to God.

Q: What were your dreams when you were growing up?
A: We had no dreams. We were not brought up to think that we could dream.

In April, the theme was Money, perhaps the most crucial determinant to women’s ability to define themselves. We meet Winnie Gitau, who against all odds, started her own health foods business in Kenya - and revolutionized the market for holistic products. Her story demonstrates the challenges faced on the continent, even by educated, professional, middle-class women, in financing business ventures.

At the other end of the spectrum, Carolyn Asapo (Uganda) describes her work with the Village Enterprise Fund, which offers start-up capital to rural women. “My wish is to have a world where challenges are transformed into opportunities.”

Culture and Conflict is the focus for the current month, May. Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, South African writer, delves into the complexity of mixed-race heritage in the apartheid years.

“ I am the colony of their forbidden love,
where Africa's son
and Scotland's grand-daughter
dna-ed, denied their offspring”

And ends with a clarion call to all her sisters:

“No ring adorns the marriage of myself to myself,
it is endless and golden.”

Netsai Mushonga (Zimbabwe) narrates her evolution as the founder of WPP (Women’s Peacemakers Program), and Director of Women's Coalition.

“I was alarmed when my distant cousin was killed by her husband and then not arrested. He was made to pay a cow to his in-laws and got a younger fresher woman. That memory from my childhood sticks out to me as I finally realized that women's situation was akin to slavery.”

Tessa Lewin’s short film, “Conscious Dreaming” is a charming, whimsical, thought provoking, musical animation piece. In just a few minutes, it captures the dilemmas of all young women negotiating the quest for self with the longing for connection and stability.

It’s hard to click out of the IO site. It feels like walking out of an electric conversation between a group of women, a conversation that bubbles with laughter and inspiration, throws up fresh argument and challenge moment to moment, leaves your brain and imagination crackling. Perhaps the most important thing IO does is make my generation of women present, in their own voices, through their own lenses, for all the world to see and hear.

Hafsat Abiola says, of her interview with Amina Lawal: “I meet so many women who are still waiting for permission to be present. Ultimately, Imagining Ourselves must be Imagining Ourselves Authorized.”

Mary Kimani sums it up:

“When I hear the term 'Imagining Ourselves', I think reality and hope mixed together. It is who we are now and who we want to be. It is love and pain, joy and anger, hope and fear all mixed together. We imagine ourselves whole, human, complete, and that has never in any language or culture, translated to perfect or ideal. It has always translated to complex, multifaceted, and annoyingly human.”

Phillippa Yaa de Villiers wraps up her poem with uncompromising solidity:

“Here we are then. Here we are.”

Imagining Ourselves Curriculum available for educators, partners and community organizations to download from the Museum Website at:

http://www.imow.org/education/curricula_exhibit_io.php

* Shailja Patel is a Kenyan poet, writer and theatre artist. Her work features in Imagining Ourselves this month at:
www.shailja.com

* Please send comments to [email protected]

The Program Officer will be responsible for grant making in media, arts and culture in the Foundation’s Office in Eastern Africa. The Program Officer will build on and develop programming achievements in the portfolio’s ‘Building Sustainable Spaces for Creativity and Culture’ initiative, while developing and strengthening innovative interventions in an emergent media aspect of the work.

In May 2006, the UNESCO Sector for Social and Human Sciences is calling for nominations for the UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education. The Prize, amounting to US$10,000, was created in 1978 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to encourage organizations and individuals that have made an exemplary contribution to the advancement of knowledge on human rights.

The crowd at Cody's, Berkeley's legendary bookshop, is multicolored in every way – skin, clothing, headgear. On this Saturday night, over 100 people have filled the upstairs space to see and hear Wole Soyinka read from his new memoir: "You Must Set Forth At Dawn." The chairs are all taken. People stand at the back, pressed up against display tables and bookshelves.

When Soyinka enters the room, his trademark shock of white hair moves like a beacon to the podium. At 70 years old, he has been through gruelling physical trials, including 22 months in solitary confinement under the Abacha regime. He's on a book tour so jam-packed with interviews, readings, signings, speaking engagements, it would exhaust a 25-year old. And even more tiring, one would imagine, is the recurrence of the same questions, over and over, at every appearance:

What do you think about the conflict over oil in Nigeria?
Is there hope for democracy in Nigeria? In Africa?
What are the responsibilities of The African Writer?
What Can We Do About Darfur?

Also recurrent in every audience: the self-important windbags who don't even have a question. Who simply want to trumpet their nanosecond of African Experience:

"I was in Ghana in the Peace Corps in 1972..."

"I visited your country in 1981 and I was told it was a very dangerous place for Americans…"

Yet, he fields them all. With grace, humor, energy, presence, attention. Stays awake. Stays engaged. Stays responsive.

Tonight, he reads an excerpt that describes his departure from Nigeria, 10 years ago, by "shall we say, an unorthodox route". A 10-hour journey by pillion on the back of a motorbike, through bush and forest via smugglers' routes, across the border. He describes the very real physical dangers and hardships: branches slashing his face in pitch darkness, risk of capture; then renders them surreal with an equally vivid evocation of the two fantasies clung to throughout the journey: a long, cold shower, followed by a long, cold beer.

His firm resonant actor's voice reminds us of his decades in theatre. It has an unhurried, hypnotic quality that redeems his frequently-rambling, verbose sentences that can seem clunky and tedious on the page. He draws out syllables, "agonized in-ten-si-ty"; aerates the prose with pauses, visibly savours the memories his words conjure up for him. "I'll sing the praises of whatever brings me solace."

So a terrifying flight into exile also becomes an ode to beer, an adventure story. The passage could be a metaphor for Soyinka's own life and work, marked by his capacity to hymn the tiny comforts of life, the minutiae of human longings, as a defiant counterpoint to the larger oppressive forces of history.

Questions about his work as an artist bring out the different strands of thought that have made up his opus.

Q: African literature in past decades has focused overwhelmingly on the encounter between African and European culture. What are African writers most concerned with today?

A: We've moved into a stage of internal probing. An inquiry into the internal states of contradiction that have prompted the state of affairs on the continent. Issues of power, and the alienation from power, of the people being governed. We're really probing into the social interstices of our being, the philosophical givens. We've become far more inward looking over the last few decades.

Q: Africa is frequently discussed generically, as a single continent, ignoring the multiple nations and cultures.

A: This is not just a mistake the West makes. Even some African intellectuals do it as an act of choice – a sensibility that denotes unity – "don't split up Africa – we're one." It's a nice sentiment, but it lacks a basis of reality.

Q: You write in English, but what is your relationship to your mother tongue?

A: Colonial language was forced upon us. Just as colonial boundaries were enforced to serve administrative and economic needs of the colonial power. After independence, these new nations required, for the same administrative, economic, legislative purposes, a national language. Which was usually the colonial language – English, or French, or Portuguese.

So my generation grew up bilingual. We had our mother tongue, and then we had English – the language of exchange, mobilization, commerce, courts. From a political aspect, it was also the language of unity.

Q: Is Heinemann's African Writers Series broad enough to cover West Africa literature adequately?

A: The series is very uneven. While it did pioneering work, it also tended to do away with standards. That was why I originally refused to be published by it. But it was also a marvelous instrument for giving new voices an avenue for publication.

Q. What are the roles and responsibilities of the African writer who lives abroad?

A: The same as the role of the writer in any part of the world. Which is no different from the role of the bricklayer, or mason, or carpenter – that is, the role of a citizen. A human being, a community member.

The writer has one advantage: the tool of instant communication. As a citizen, the writer's role is to inform, sometimes to entertain. When I seek something to read, I don't reach for a political tract, I reach for a poem, a beautiful poem. But the very act of entering another's experience enlarges and strengthens me to return to the cauldron of political engagement.

So as a writer, you must find a way to enlarge your vision of humanity.

* * * *

Many might say that with the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Soyinka reached the apogee of achievement as an artist. He could afford to rest on his laurels. But he continues to delight in new adventures, to bring undiminished zest to his face-to-face encounters with audiences around the world. Perhaps this appetite for dialogue, this sustained creative energy, are the finest testaments to his work. They are living proof that art can, and does, revitalize, rejuvenate, reinvent, in the face of all challenges.

I want whatever he's on. And I want to still be on it when I'm seventy.

* Shailja Patel is Kenyan poet, writer, and spoken word theater artist. Visit her at

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Wole Soyinka, Nigerian Nobel Literature Laureate, shares thoughts on current hot topics of African politics, during readings and interviews this week in San Francisco's Bay Area.

It has been a busy week for Wole Soyinka. He is in San Francisco Bay Area to promote his new memoir, “You Must Set Forth At Dawn”, published this year. However, Africa’s first Nobel Literature Laureate is as well known – perhaps better known – as a political human rights activist.

At 70, the Nigerian writer who famously wrote: “The truth shall set you free but first the truth must be set free,” is still a fiery advocate for oppressed populations, from the indigenous peoples of the Niger Delta to the victims of Darfur. Most recently, he founded a new political party: the Democratic Front for Peoples’ Liberation (DFPF), that will put up candidates on a platform of pluralist democracy in Nigeria’s next elections. “I never accepted I was an exile from Nigeria,” he said on Saturday, at a reading in Berkeley. “I told myself and others I was on political sabbatical.”

Below is a selection of Soyinka’s political comments, culled from a range of readings, discussions and interviews in the Bay Area over the past 3 days. Next week’s column will focus on his thoughts about his work as an artist and writer.

Q: Are you better known for activism than for literature?

A: It’s difficult to say. Because the nature of my work – theatre – has always brought me in contact with a lot of people. Especially the living theatre – we do it in streets, offices, public places – so it is a direct creative encounter with all kinds of people.

Q: Do you feel a conflict, or tension, between being an activist and writing?

A: Most human beings, especially creative human beings, would rather be doing something other than what they are doing. But basically, you respond to what’s happening around you. So while I do not separate the two personae, there are times I do resent being pulled into the political arena.

Q: What are your thoughts on the current Nigerian government?

A: It’s an oligarchy. Almost like a Mafia kingdom.

Q: You once said that as you saw things over the years, it always seems to boil down to two questions: truth against power and power against truth.

A: Yes, and power against freedom. Power needs lies to survive, deceit, manipulation. The truth is, for me, the expression of freedom.

Q: What can you say about the conflicts over oil in Nigeria.

A: We all agree, we wish we’d never found oil. The worst developed areas in Nigeria are the oil-producing regions. And those who suffer most are the indigenous people who live in those regions.

Their farmland has been depleted. Their ponds and rivers are polluted. The very air is degraded. [The indigenous grassroots democracy movement] has brought the Federal government to the negotiating table to demand that oil revenues actually benefit them before they remit taxes to the center.

Q: One of the issues you’ve spoken about is what’s happening in Darfur. What can be done about Darfur?

A: People are still hedging the truth in. There is a brutal ethnic cleansing going on, and anodyne language is being used, by the UN, by the African Union. This is a renegade government, and the UN and AU must declare Sudan a renegade state, guilty of genocide.

Sudan is a member of both the African Union and the Arab League. It has one foot in the African world and one in the Arab world. The silence that is most deafening is that of the Arab League. We must put them on the line. The Janjaweed make no bones about the fact that they are pushing an Arabist agenda – to cleanse Darfur of African presence. This is being done in the name of Arabism. It is time for the AL to take the lead, to excommunicate the Sudanese government.

There has been a coyness about assigning primary responsibility. The primary responsibility for curbing this genocidal criminality rests with the Arab League.

Q: What is your view on the war crime tribunals in Rwanda and Sierra Leone? Do you think America’s refusal to participate, or be subject to, international war crimes courts, undermines their purpose?

A: Even if one individual identified is brought before the world tribunal, it gives hope to the victims that if they keep up the struggle, they may achieve something.

So we shouldn’t bother ourselves so much with whether the US participates or not. Just keep working towards those achievable goals.

But we have to be more imaginative and creative. It’s not enough to bring Charles Taylor or Milosevic to trial. We need to construct cages for them and tour them around the world. (Laughter) Through refugee camps, hospitals – I would be happy to offer my services with such ideas.

Q: What do you think about the resurgence of the Biafra movement happening now, and the way the Nigerian government is handling it?

A: The movement successfully paralyzed the nation for 2 days last year when it called for all Biafrans to down tools. The fact that they acted, in union, and were able to bring the country to a halt, is very significant. The success of the call, compounded with the militancy in the Niger Delta (Nigeria’s primary oil-producing region) indicates a nation on the verge of disintegration. We’re in real trouble.

Q: What can we do about the brain drain from Africa? For example, there are more doctors from Ghana in the US than there are in Ghana.

A: Develop our own nations, create more jobs, so there is the prospect of professional satisfaction for the brains who have left.

The leadership must actually invest heavily in those projects that ensure our technocrats, professionals, can return and enjoy just a little of the satisfaction they have enjoyed outside.

Q: How can reparations for slavery be channeled in ways that reach the African people, rather than corrupt governments?

A: Without even considering financial reparation, there is a restoration that can happen of a far more egalitarian relationship between Africa and the enslaving world. For example, repatriation of all artworks that were stolen during the era of slavery. A people’s art represents their humanity.

And we must understand that it was a two way process. There was also an Arab slave trade. If we talk about reparations, we cannot be silent about the internal slave trades, and the internal racisms that are still alive in many African countries.

* Listen to Wole Soyinka interviewed by Michael Krasny on the Bay Area’s KQED radio (one hour) at:

* Please send comments to [email protected]