Posted in Music, tagged Abdullah Ibrahim, Cape Town, jazz, Kyle Shepherd, Marlon Burgess writings, Music, piano, review on May 29, 2009 | 2 Comments »
By Marlon Burgess
I’ve convinced Marlon Burgess, Cape Town-born musician and graduate student who recently moved to New York City, to occasionally contribute regular blog posts to Africa is a Country (my theory about strength numbers refers). He agreed to write a review of young jazz pianist and bandleader Kyle Shepherd‘s debut album, “Fine Art:
Posted in media, tagged Africa and US media, how The New York Tmes covers Africa, news coverage of Africa, press, Ryan Briggs, The New York Times on May 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Blogger Ryan Briggs (he is a PhD student in international relations, with a specialization in international development, at the School of International Service at American University in Washington, DC) is working on a project to analyze New York Times coverage of nine African countries from 1981 to 2008. He has published some of his results on his website, like this one:
To learn more about the project, see his blog where you can also also get country comparisons or specific stories (like coverage of Rwanda before and after the 1994 genocide).
You can also download the whole set of 14 images that he created here.
Via Texas is Africa
Posted in Not just about Africa, tagged civil war, Congo, Delphine Schrank, DRC, elephants, John Hopkins University, resource war, The Atlantic on May 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
In a video report (above) and print article reporter Delphine Schrank (for The Atlantic) “… visits the empty lakes and scattered elephant bones left behind by the DRC’s ongoing violence.”
You can also watch short interview clips on the website of the International Reporting Project (they paid for the trip).
Posted in politics, tagged Abahlali baseMjondolo, Dara Kell, Dear Mandela, film, politics, slum dwellers, South Africa, video on May 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Filmmakers Chris Nizza and Dara Kell have been in South Africa since mid-April on their first production shoot for the feature documentary film ‘Dear Mandela’ (the feature expands on a short film they shot last year).
They post regular production updates about the shoot online.
Like most recently when they quickly uploaded a short video (above) of footage shot when members of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a slum dwellers group in Durban, where there film is set, traveled to the country’s Constitutional Court (equivalent of the US Supreme Court) to go and challenge a local law that would allow the council to forcefully remove them from their homes. We see the activists talk about the proposed law, inside and outside the court, and snippets of the hearing itself.
However, what I like the most of the 4 minute insert, is right at the beginning when Mnikelo Ndabankulu, spokesperson of Abahlali baseMjondolo, talks to the camera about the state’s obligation to its citizens. A natural performer, he knows how to put emphasis where it matters.
Watch for yourself.
That’s a citizen.
Posted in television, tagged Dutch, football, gays and lesbians in Africa, humor, Metropolis TV, Netherlands, protest, sexuality, television, video, VPRO on May 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I recently discovered Metropolis TV, a project of the Dutch public television station, VPRO. An online project with 50 correspondents (a mix of film makers and video bloggers) from around the world, it consists of short video inserts (2 to 7 minutes each; all programs have English subtitles) that you can watch on the website.
The programs are organized by theme. These include the most recent episode on “Protesters” (including a student who embarked on a hunger strike in Zambia to get the President to award a scholarship to a friend), and earlier focuses on “World of Soccer” (among others in Ghana, Egypt and Mali) , “Humor” (South Africa, Burkina Faso and Zambia) “It’s a Chinese World” (Ethiopia, Kenya and Zambia) and “Being Gay In …” (Uganda, Senegal and Zambia).
You can also search for programs by country.
The programs are slick, well-edited, and the topics cover a wide range. Africa is well represented.
It’s worth a regular visit. You can also sign-up for an email alert to know when new programs are posted.
Posted in blogs, tagged Blogs and Blogging, blogs I like, Easily Distracted, history, intellectual culture, Timothy Burke on May 28, 2009 | 1 Comment »
“Disciplinary boundaries” are often rigorously policed in the United States. Historians talk to historians. Political scientists to political scientists. And so on. Academics generally write in the jargons of their disciplines or, worse, their “sub-disciplines.” With a plethora of academic journals catering to the increasing specialization, academics now write more and more to smaller groups of readers interested and familiar with their topics. Basically, it is getting harder for historians to talk to media studies scholars to political scientists.
In turn, the pages and columns of popular journals catering to intellectuals (e.g. The New York Review of Books and London Review of Books) are dominated by a small group of recycled writers.
But enough complaining.
That’s why we have the Internet and blogs.
Take the academic Timothy Burke, a history professor at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, whose work has focused mostly on Southern Africa, particularly Zimbabwe. Fellow academics know him better for his book with a long time, Lifebuoy Men, Lux Women: Commodification, Consumption and Cleanliness in Modern Zimbabwe.
For a while now I’ve been a fan of his blog, Easily Distracted, which covers “… Culture, Politics, Academia and Other Shiny Objects.” He has been blogging since 2000 on a no-frills site.
Though he writes about historiography (for the uninitiated, that’s the study of the way we do, or write, history), he tackles a range of topics, including a lot of posts on politics, culture, intellectual culture, television, in accessible language, mixing disciplines and engaging with the popular, with much of it, crucially for my obsessions, related in one way or the other to the continent.
I like this blog. (Blogs I Like, no. 1 is Scarlett Lion.)
Posted in Books, tagged Cape Town, James Matthews, poetry, poets, South Africa, writers and writing on May 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Poet and novelist James Matthews turned 80 today. Here‘s a link to a short note I wrote on the occasion of his 79th birthday.
If you can read Afrikaans, here‘s a link to piece in Cape Town’s “Die Burger” by reporter Heindrich Wyngaardt. [The picture, above, by photographer Michael Hammond accompanied the Wyngaardt story.]
Posted in Africa is a Country, politics, tagged advertising, censorship, colonialism, design, History is written by the winners, history writing, television, war on May 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
This image above was part of a now-abandoned, award-winning print media campaign to promote a television channel.
The slogan ‘History is Written By the Winners” is printed in the top right-hand corner. The logo of the company is blocked out.
The inscription, which is too small to see, reads:
Iraqis killed under Saddam regime: 300,000
Iraqis killed under US regime: 1 030 000
Two more images from the campaign:
Posted in Not just about Africa, tagged Arthur Kemp, British National Party, Chris Hani, European elections 2009, far-right, racism, South Africa, white racists on May 28, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Next week (between June 4 and 7) European voters go to the polls to elect representatives for the 736 seats of the European Parliament. Polls indicate that traditionally centrist (and Pan-European parties) will take the bulk of the seats. 72 of these seats will be contested in Britain. And there, the far-right, racist British National Party (BNP) is running for election. The BNP looks like a long shot, but some polls indicate that far-right candidates could take up to 20 seats.
Which brings me to this news from Britain’s Independent newspaper:
A far-right activist linked to the murder of Chris Hani, a prominent ANC activist, is just one of a number of white South Africans who are helping the British National Party as it gears up for the European elections. Arthur Kemp was arrested in connection with the 1993 murder of Hani – one of the most popular black politicians in South Africa – which was intended to derail the country’s transition to democracy. Although questioned, he was released without charge and came to the UK in 1996. Now the editor of the BNP’s website and the author of white supremacist books, including the “March of the Titans: A History of the White Race”, and “The Lie of Apartheid”, which includes an essay on the Hani murder, he was spotted in the BNP’s election headquarters in Wales preparing thousands of campaign leaflets … [T]he largest traffic to the BNP’s website comes from South Africa and it claims the party is targeting wealthy white South Africans for donations. “Many of them may be friends and relations of the growing number of South African BNP members, of whom Arthur Kemp, editor of the BNP website and in charge of the ideological training of the party’s 250 or so elite activists, is the most prominent,” Searchlight’s [magazine] website says.
See also The Guardian
Posted in Africa is a Country, art, tagged art, galleries, New York City, Signs Taken for Wonders on May 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
