Africa is a Country

Jeremiah Wright has said really no more than [what] falls squarely in the ambit of black theology, black religion to answer the anguished questions of black people suffering under the brutality of white racism. It ultimately seeks reconciliation, but you cannot be reconciled with one who has his boot on your neck to keep you in the gutter. To be reconciled you must stand up right to look the other in the eye.

The rest and context here.

[Footnote: The mainstream media distorted Reverend Wright's politics to such an extent as to make it into a caricature (the Reverend's worse sin, by the way, is probably his lack of political astuteness, which is why Obama, wanting to become President, finally threw him under the bus. Because that is what mainstream American consensus wanted).

To get a better sense of Reverend Wright's politics, revisit his interview with the broadcaster Bill Moyers and read two good assessments from the Columbia Journalism Review's website. The first of the CJR pieces, here was written right after Obama's "race" speech in Philadelphia (a decent, but ultimately very conservative, mainstream speech, by the way, as the political scientist and labor organizer Adolph Reed points out here and here) and the second analysis right after the media circus had moved onto something else, here].

By the way, while elites go into fits about Reverend Wright, ordinary Americans point to the bigger elephant in the room.

The leader of South Africa’s dominant political party and the movement still electorally identified with the majority of the country’s people, is despite his dodgy ethics, remaking himself as a credible successor to Mbeki.

He comes across as measured and “leader-like” in media interviews. See for example his interviews with Jon Snow on Britain’s Channel 4 here and with David Frost on Al Jazeera. See here.

Though everyone is not convinced, some political observers have taken note (for example, University of Cape Town political scientist Anthony Butler and London’s Independent newspaper, among others.

Bring me my machine gun.

The Cannes International Film Festival starts tomorrow (till May 25th).  The official program can be viewed here.

I may be missing something, but no African film or film with an African theme (including North Africa) made the official cut.

African films are shown as part of the “Pavillon les Cinemas du Sud” (Pavilion of Cinema of the South). Full list here (including Changing Faces, Zimbabwe, Triomf, Black Business/Une Affaire de Negres, and Paris a tout prix).

Similarly, there is a special set of screenings of African shorts and some discussions and screenings of films by young Africans.

Kamaal the Abstract in the latest issue of WAX POETICS (on the magazine if you don’t know, see also here) on the 2008 US Presidential Elections:

Q: Who are you voting for in the 2008 presidential election?

A: [quickly replies] Obama–because I want change, and I want something new. I’m tired of the world the way it is, and I feel like he’s our best chance to experience that. I feel like it be might be business as usual with Hillary, and everyone talks about experience, but Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were and are two of the most experienced people in politics that held those positions ever, and look where it got us. It got us into a unilateral decision for an unjust war; we’re in billions of dollars of deficit; our education system is laughable; health care is horrible; people work more and don’t get paid shit, and its all fucked up. It’s just a bad deal, and I think that Obama is the best chance to get us out of some of these ruts that we’re in.

Q: Do you think America is ready for a Black President?

A: Hmm … let’s see: the majority of country is White–probably not. It’s the craziest shit how conservative we are as a people. The irony in this country is we talk about the land of the free and individualism, but people of color continue to election White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. I know I took a long route, but they may not be ready for a Black president, but I think it will happen. Afterwards, I think we all should get past it, like, “He’s Black, it’s great, now everyone get to work to create more history.”

Pieter Hugo, the South African photographer, is the only African featured in JUXTAPOZ’s “Photo Issue” that came out this month. I guess we’ll have to wait till their “Africa” issue.

The rest of the pics here.

After subjecting the memories of Ismael Beah a teenage boy who was forcefully conscripted into a violent civil war in Sierra Leone and then wrote about it to the kind of scrutiny that should be reserved for war mongers and war criminals (I am still trying to figure out what the point of all that “investigation” was), the Village Voice treats another former child soldier — this time the Sudanese rapper Emmanuel Jal — with courtesy.

See here.

Was it just Darfur rebels? What does it mean for politics in the Sahel?

Some perspectives from Western media.

This include a decent analysis from the New York Times — whose Nairobi correspondent usually fond of the word “tribe” and “bloodletting,” the Christian Science Monitor (the best of the American news outlets on Africa), and of course, the BBC and Al Jazeera.

University of Massachusetts-Armherst is being pressured to take back an honorary degree it gave to liberation hero turned tyrant Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. University of Edinburgh in Scotland has already done and Michigan State University is under pressure too. Full story in Boston Globe. Here.

The only African films displayed prominently in the “International” section at the Virgin Music Store in Union Square in Manhattan. [One of Sembene's films was buried somewhere (I asked a clerk).]

By the way, Britain is not “International” and France, Spain, and “Latin America” have their own sections.

No comment.

FADER TV: Open Bar With BLK JKS from The FADER on Vimeo.