About 40 religious leaders of different faiths signed a declaration on marriage to be presented to Parliament and society in general on the present national debate on the subject. "We, each from our respective theologies and traditions, understand marriage to be in its essence the union of a woman and a man. Each religion has, in its distinctive way, understood marriage to have religious significance.

As the Sudanese government escalates attacks against civilians in Darfur, and as it reportedly reneges on a new compromise agreement for a hybrid peacekeeping force, Africa Action urges the U.S. and other members of the United Nations (UN) Security Council to stop making concessions to Khartoum and to stand firm in the pursuit of an international peacekeeping force that can provide protection for the people of Darfur.

Floods, earthquakes and storms have routinely displaced tens of thousands around the world. Over the past few years, the international community's response to these catastrophes has become even swifter and more sophisticated. Until very recently, however, and in the rush to deliver life-saving aid to these people, little attention was paid to the rights of these displaced people.

The over hundred thousand refugees from Western Sahara living in Algerian camps are to hold municipal and national elections, starting on Wednesday (22November 2006). Voters will be able to choose between different Polisario candidates to bodies of the exiled state of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, which is a member of the African Union.

The honours for Best Feature Film at this year's Cape Town World Cinema Festival have gone to the Korean film, King and the Clown, directed by Joon Ik Lee. This 16th century dramatic comedy focuses on the intrigue and drama of court life. The Jury motivated, "This story about 16th century actors in the Korean Court completely transported us as it brought old theatre forms alive.

The UN Population Fund is organizing a film festival on gender-based violence. Filmmakers from around the continent of Africa have been invited to submit films and documentaries for a film festival in Dakar devoted to ending violence against women in Africa.

This Reader contains materials on human rights, peace and justice relevant to Africa, extracted from academic writings, reports from the United Nations and non-governmental organisations, speeches, official documents, national constitutions and human right cases.

The third issue of ICC-Africa is available now on the CICC's website. This issue is a "Special ASP" issue prepared for the fifth session of the Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court which starts on 23 November 2006.

Thousands of domestic poultry have been destroyed in and around the southern Sudanese capital of Juba in an attempt to contain an avian flu threat reported in the region several months ago, officials said. Samson Kwaje, the southern Sudan information minister, said a team had been visiting homes to check poultry and destroy suspected cases.

The next Ebola outbreak should be expected to occur "in northern Congo Brazzaville, towards Cameroon and the Central African Republic," according to African scientists that have closely studied the pattern of the deadly disease. They found that Ebola affect many Central African mammals besides humans and that the disease fluctuates with climate variables throughout the Gabon-Congo region, making predictions possible.

After more than a decade of brutal factional fighting, the road-blocks and gunmen have been cleared off the streets of the Somali capital, business is thriving and Mogadishu is being rebuilt. But strict standards of religious and behavioral discipline are being introduced, and questions are being asked about the vision of the new authority, the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC).

While Africa confronts the world's most dramatic public health crisis, it can over time meet the challenges, given sufficient international support, according to a first-ever report to focus on the health of the 738 million people living in the United Nations health agency's African Region, released today (20 November 2006).

The Sudanese Government yesterday (17 November 2006) agreed with the United Nations, the African Union (AU) and representatives from Security Council member countries and others to allow UN peace-keepers into Darfur to complement the AU mission already there. Khartoum had previously refused a UN presence in Darfur. At present, the UN assists a 7,000-strong African Union mission (AMIS) and is currently working on a $21 million support package.

Part of Congo's Supreme Court was burnt on Tuesday (21 November 2006) as judges reviewed electoral fraud complaints filed by supporters of presidential contender Jean-Pierre Bemba. The session was immediately suspended. It is unclear who started the fire, but police fired shots into the air to disperse Bemba supporters demanding to enter the court building.

General Roméo Dallaire, commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) in 1994, will testify for the third time next Monday (27 November 2006) before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Contrarily to the previous two hearings, this time the Canadian general is to testify via video-conference from the headquarters of the Canadian Army in Ottawa, according to the prosecutor's office.

"Hanadi" was a teenager when she was sold into a short-term marriage by her father. "When I was 14, my father told me I was to be married to a man from Saudi Arabia," said Hanadi, who did not want to use her real name. "Later on, I discovered that my father and the man had agreed I would stay with him for a month, until he returned home [to Saudi Arabia] at the end of the summer.”

A United Nations survey carried out in 177 countries has revealed that women collecting water spend an estimated 40 billion hours. The period is equivalent to a year's labour for the entire workforce in France. The world survey conducted in 177 countries (both developed and developing) specifically shows that in Mozambique, rural Senegal and Eastern Uganda, women spend 15 to 17 hours a week collecting water.

South African environmentalists are frustrated by plans to update the Durban airport ahead of the 2010 soccer World Cup. The development is said to "threaten the winter roosting sites of three million barn swallows that journey there after spending breeding months in countries across Europe and other parts of the world.”

Delegates from all over the world are meeting in Nairobi to discuss climatic change. Among the issues that surfaced is emissions, where the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan admitted liability for the emission of toxic agents. While addressing a press conference at the UN offices located in Gigiri on Wednesday (22 November 2006), Annan said that stakeholders have to play a major role to achieve the targeted emission reduction.

Having destroyed large part of its human and natural resources during the country's fifty years of wars is it possible for Angola to become the China of the African continent. Well, that is the assumption of Credit Guarantee, South Africa's largest insurer of company debtors.

Liberia still is far from recovering from its vicious civil war, but economic indicators show the ruined country is heading the right way. Especially the booming construction sector is fuelling the economy, promising an economic growth of almost ten percent this year. President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is extravagantly praised by her former employer, the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Having rejected the outcome of the October 29 elections, is former warlord, Jean-Pierre Bemba, capable of mounting an insurgency that could once more destabilise the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)? This is the question that occupied the minds of Congo watchers last week as incumbent president Joseph Kabila retained his seat by 58 per cent of the vote against Bemba's 42 per cent, and the country entered a phase where military might could determine its future.

Although the counting is still going on in the Mauritanian legislative and municipal elections, it is already clear that two former opposition parties - Popular Progressive Alliance (PPA) and Assembly of Democratic Forces (ADF) - are said to be neck-to-neck. The two parties probably swept the polls in the country's two most popular regions.

Fill your vacancies in South Africa today - Jobs-SA is one of the Countries fastest growing online Jobs site for South Africans! We have a mass growing online database of South African Jobseekers in all job categories.

The Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED) is looking for experienced professional volunteers and for interns to participate in its programme of health research systems strengthening with developing countries. If you are interested in being considered for work as a COHRED intern or volunteer, please send an e-mail to [email][email protected] with ‘interns and volunteers’ in the subject line.

Job purpose: To manage and control the corporate services function of the ISS and to ensure the attainment of organisational objectives and adherence to applicable legislation. The Institute’s Financial Manager, HR Officer, IT Coordinator and Publications Coordinator will report to this person.

2006 marks the 16th anniversary of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence campaign! Since 1991, the 16 Days campaign has worked to increase the visibility of violence against women as a human rights violation. The campaign has been utilized by groups all over the world to demand support services for survivors, enhance prevention efforts, press for legal and judicial reform, and use international human rights instruments to address violence against women as a human rights violation, a public health crisis and a threat to human security and peace worldwide.

The UN Population Fund is organizing a film festival in Dakar on gender-based violence. Filmmakers from around the continent of Africa have been invited to submit films and documentaries in English or French for a film festival devoted to ending endemic violence against women in Africa.

Isn't it expensive to be a Knight Fellow in Palo Alto? Yes, and for that reason, in addition to a $55,000 stipend (paid in10 monthly installments, September through June), we provide supplements for housing, childcare and health insurance. The housing supplements are $2,500 annually for single Fellows, married Fellows and those with domestic partners; $8,500 annually for Fellows with one child and $11,500 annually for Fellows with two or more children.

Human trafficking, including women forced to become prostitutes or minors forced to do child labor, is worse now than the trade in African slaves of past centuries, a top Vatican official said Tuesday (14 November 2006).

Transitional President Joseph Kabila has been declared the winner of the first democratic elections in Congo Kinshasa (DRC) in 45 years. The electoral commission said Mr Kabila had 58.05 percent of the vote, while Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba won 41.9 percent.

While not properly recognised, the once-persecuted Islamists are being tolerated in the electoral campaign going on in Mauritania. After Sunday's (12 November 2006) poll, Islamist candidates could enter the Nouakchott parliament for the first time, but the radicals find only a narrow audience among Mauritanians.

The new African-Chinese economic and diplomatic partnership, manifested in the pact signed by China and 48 African countries in Beijing this month, is unsettling European leaders and analysts, who continue to see Africa as Europe's backyard. French analysts and politicians have been calling attention to China's growing presence in Africa for many months.

The African National Congress (ANC) wheeled out some of its heavyweights during debate on the controversial Civil Union Bill and also offered an olive branch to the Christian and traditional lobbies by promising a review of the Marriage Act next year. Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota and Deputy Justice Minister Johnny de Lange joined Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula in urging the National Assembly to approve the bill.

In different prisons around the country, the government of Equatorial Guinea in October 2006 is still holding at least 63 political prisoners, according to human rights groups. Many of these have been subjected to heavy torture and most have not been through a fair trial.

In a somewhat surprising move, the Nigerian government asked poultry farmers and veterinary doctors to desist from vaccinating poultry against the avian influenza better known as "bird flu". Nigeria's poultry industry has over 140 million domestic birds and the sector contributes 9 percent to the country's Gross Domestic Product.

The Internet may be a promising strategy to deliver low-cost HIV/AIDS risk reduction interventions in resource-limited settings with expanding Internet access. This is according to a November 7 report appearing in Plosmedicine, a peer reviewed open access journal, published by the Public Library of Science (PLoS).

The 16th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (16CCEM) will be held in Cape Town, South Africa, from 11 to 14 December 2006. The theme of the conference is 'Access to Quality Education: for the Good of All'. Held triennially, these conferences provide an opportunity for Commonwealth Education Ministers to exchange views and discuss developments in education, review progress over the past three years, and develop strategies for future work.

Fair trade business is booming across the Western world, which can only be good news for the millions of poor farmers struggling to survive in the face of collapsing commodity prices and ruthless multinationals, right? Maybe, but as fair trade goes mainstream, formerly-clear distinctions about who really benefits are getting blurry.

The AMU Commission on Mathematics Education in Africa and the Tunisian Association of Mathematical Sciences host from November 6 to 9, 2006, in Hammamet (Tunisia) the first Pan-African Space on Mathematics (PASM). The specific theme of PASM 2006 is innovation in mathematics education.

What does development aid really mean?
Does it mean managing money to mobilize against HIV
Or driving through southern Sudan in an SUV?
Does it mean the improvement of life,
Since many join the development enterprise to improve their lifestyle?
Does it mean giving 1/10 of 1% of your GNP
And having 1/3 of that funnel its way to those in need,
Since most of the aid goes to pay aid agency staff salary?
What does it mean?
Development aid is well-intentioned
But in this new millennium we have to learn our lesson
Because I'd rather have no aid than slow aid or low aid
If it means that development agencies will give funds
To governments for pipelines and pesticides
But indirectly support a genocide
Or have we forgotten the extreme case of Rwanda,
Where 80% of development aid went to the pre-genocide government
Even though all of the signs of the genocide were in place
But agencies for aid
Paid it no mind as long as that well-water became potable
...or that fertilizer ferry became floatable
... or that minimal rise in literacy became notable
Just noticeable enough to give uplifting quotable statistics on report backs to donors
Please!
Misguided, top-down development enforces the politics of exclusion
Because in collusion with repressive governments,
The poorest of the poor never receive assistance in fields like subsistence farming
And it's quite alarming
Because aid agencies never realize their agency in societal conflicts
Because they claim to take an "apolitical" approach
But they fail to see how misdirected, top-down aid can encroach
On a politically fragmented society
And exacerbate it by further disempowering the disempowered
Primarily by working with government-appointed elites
So we have to rethink development
Because many of us don't understand what to "develop" meant in the first place
I'm calling for a structural adjustment program of Structural Adjustment Programs
And other policies that claim or claimed to assist developing homelands
Because development doesn't mean that we can have Afrikan Growth & Opportunity
When the resources we use don't come from our own community
It doesn't mean fancy dinners in classy hotels
With money given to decrease mortality rates for newborn children
And if aid can’t be given to a government
Without a care for ensuring the rights of every child, woman and man
Then I'll be damned before I say that everything is “ok” with development aid

It's time to ensure that our dollars are being spent on education and public health
As opposed to Safari vacations and private wealth
For foreign experts and host government hierarchies
And if we can have vouchers at home
Why not have developing country vouchers
So good governments can choose the best development projects for their land
Instead of generic plans from those claiming to know what's best for the destitute?
Development aid can't be looked at as a Wall Street business transaction
Where investors are only worried about the comeback
We need to come back and revise our strategy
Because we'll all be glad to see the day
When development aid is not only concerned
With promising statistics on cocoa revenues, crop distribution,
And more village midwives
Because few lives will be improved or saved
Unless the poorest of the poor truly receive the majority of the aid
So until the day when underdeveloped development dreams
Are redeveloped for developing countries
Development aid will never be what is seems
And if we continue to turn a blind eye or a deaf ear to this preventable predicament
Then the poorest of the world's poor will continue to ask:
"What does development aid really mean?”

*Partially inspired by Dr. Peter Uvin’s Aiding Violence

• Urban Music Award winner Omékongo Dibinga, M.A., is a motivational speaker, rapper, and poet. He is the Founder & CEO of Free Your Mind Publishing. A first generation Congolese-American, Omékongo writes and performs in English, French, Swahili, and occasionally has used Wolof. He has released 4 CDs, 2 books, and 1 DVD. He is the host of “Flava,” an international satellite hip-hop radio show in Asia, Europe, and Africa. He has performed/lectured in the United States, South Africa, England, Congo-Kinshasa, Tanzania, France, Cuba, and Canada. His work has been televised in over 130 countries. For more information, please visit
• Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Wangui wa Goro writes that to talk of the African Renaissance when Africans go without food and die unnecessarily of curable diseases, when children have no access to clean water and basic education, compels us to ask ourselves who is this renaissance intended for. “That unless we can meet the fundamental needs of the majority of African people, words like Renaissance (rebirth) in the face of death for many sound like a mockery.”

It is easy to forget that culture is ever evolving and we are what we are today. Some may want to hark back to a specific historical model of culture in the eighteenth or nineteenth century or some other period which appeals to their desires. Some may have profound knowledge of their desired historical culture, while others may just be armed with nostalgia which they acquired through a variety of ways. Neither is invalid, nor undesirable.

Recently, in an imaginary African country, some people in their mid forties and fifties have taken to occasionally donning an animal skin to show their ‘elder’ status. Some are probably four wheel driving drunkards, rapists, thieves or murderers living in secluded areas of the city in gated properties with little or no connection with their rural communities.

Others are steeped in religious or cultural sentimentality acquired dubiously for social mobility, acceptability or political or economic expediency. This is then promoted as “our way of life”, as if culture cannot be contested, as if the values of tradition and modernity cannot be put to the test to scrutinise who they serve; for what purpose and to which ends.

Most worryingly, is the fixing of tradition as something staid that will never change and which condemns the majority into servitude or slavery. For me, culture should answer the question whether it can promote and deliver democracy, equality and social justice for the majority. A pro-people culture would bode well for peace, justice and democracy in Africa; a culture that would enable a re-engagement with the self that has been lacking - a re-engagement with our neighbours and the world in ways that are powerful and which would yield tremendous wealth, enjoyment, creativity, learning and exchange.

Amnesia and denial

Instead, on the whole, we have been living with our heads in the sand like the ostrich. But the ostrich compensates for this behaviour in that it can run, and run very fast when it needs to. What has struck me as absurd is a wilful forgetfulness of what has happened to Africa in the recent and not so recent past such as the colonial era and its aftermath. We have forgotten our heroes and role models.

In Kenya for instance, years after independence, the question of freedom fighters sits uneasily with the nation as does its colonial and post colonial history. Practices which women and men have fought against such as female genital mutilation, and entrenched views about women’s roles in society, are yet again up for contestation. Coming from a former settler colony and having visited several countries such as South Africa and Zimbabwe, I am struck by how patriarchal and colonial our cultures still remain, from our means of production, our means of consumption and our participation in the production.

All of these are directed as they are at somebody else rather than ourselves.In another example in Kenya people have been forced to wear used underwear from second hand stocks in Europe! What happened to the thriving textile industry? It has been decimated by cheap second hand used imports and Kenyans are wrongly forced to wear used underwear.

What happens in the name of culture?

In most African countries and in the Diaspora, owing to the lack of attention paid to this significant field of African culture much is done quietly on the cultural scene through the efforts and sacrifice that individuals and small groups make. This is true of most art forms which are produced in private and painstaking ways, with little public support. Occasionally, interested private or foreign investors such as the British Council, the French Cultural Centre or the Goethe Institute (who see their linkages with Africa and promotion of African culture as integral to promoting their own cultures) enable us to catch a glimpse of what is possible! The gesture is not reciprocated! Imagine, African cultural institutes sponsored by African governments in every key capital of the world!

Here, in London, where you would expect to find thriving cultural institutions displaying the long links between Africa and the UK, you will be hard pressed if you can point to one. The only institution which is supposed to broadly represent Africans which has existed for a while, is one you will want to run a mile from. It is currently shamefully closed and dilapidated after several years of struggling to survive. Although it has played an important role in democratic struggles for Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora, its governance remains shrouded in mystery and secrecy and many people have gradually been put off from going there as they do not wish their culture to be promoted in this impoverished way. It sits there, right in the heart of the thriving Covent Garden, 200 yards from the UK’s prestigious multimillion Opera House. This sorry state of affairs is a travesty, to both British and African Heritage. It is a general measure of how we see ourselves at home and abroad and how we want to promote ourselves. It is also a measure of how we are seen by others, alienated. Changing this perception may be the way to that much-vaunted renaissance.

Elsewhere for instance in fashion, Ghana, Senegal and Nigeria continue to impress with a sense of dress all their own, and what is even more refreshing is that it is not for tourist appeal. Yet what is worrying for even these thriving economies, heritages and creativity, is their reliance on Brick Lane or Switzerland for lace and for designs (sold as African) but produced in India or somewhere further away, thus creating jobs for others elsewhere.

This is all well and good for south-south or any other collaboration. However, the question of how the relationships are defined, the moral, social, cultural and economic cost for Africa and the loss of the possibilities to replenish creativity is one we must be concerned about. As they say, practice makes perfect and we have been forever perfecting everybody else’s things which are then directed at us for consumption whether we like it or not. There is a subtle and not so subtle disparaging of anything home grown that does not pander to somebody else’s appeal or taste.

What is Kenyan? Is it the donning of animal skins and harking back to some golden era in the 19th Century before the Europeans came? And whom is this supposed to appeal to?

What is popularised and cheap is the man-eat-man culture of the bourgeoisie, both Western and African which is often crude and vulgar as it is dependent on making a mockery of the dignity of majority of the people and allowing them to forget that what is theirs is being siphoned off slowly and sold back to them repackaged (cheaply) at ten times the price. The mass media, often Hollywood oriented, continues to dominate the nations’ outlooks on themselves and it is rarely kind about who Africans are, or what our aspirations are.

African Cultural Production and alienation

But what is the real lived experience of cultural production in Africa? I work as a translator and challenge anyone reading this article, to name me ten African literary translators and the titles of their books. You will be hard pressed. This phenomenon is replicated across all cultural production, with perhaps the exception of music by the greats - Baaba Maal, Angelique Kidjo, Hugh Masekela, Fela Kuti, Miriam Makeba and others. Ask any African which 10 books by an African writer they have read outside academia, or who our ten leading painters, sculptors or film makers are and you will be faced with blank faces. I learnt this the hard way, through being a member of the jury of Africa’s 100 best books. The majority of the books that came through the list were foreign-published and in European languages. They were written mainly for academic purposes and for adult consumption.

Port Louis and the ideals of the Cultural Charter for Africa
Such moments make you realise that, as Africans, just how alienated from ourselves we are. This alienation makes one wonder what happened to the OAU’s Charter on Culture and the mandates, aspirations and ideals that brought independence to Africa.

The OAU had made a brave attempt in 1976 in St Louis in Mauritius to define a vision for an African Cultural Policy. The ideals then articulated still remain relevant today and it is pleasing that this debate is set to continue in Addis Ababa, and better still that we might live to implement it. For culture must belong to people and their governments, as government departments will not themselves produce culture, but facilitate it.

My hope is for the debate on national and regional policies to be a continuous one and the lessons that have been learned from festivals, exhibitions, competitions, creativity and interactions across the continent and the globe to be shared more widely. Wonderful initiatives and models exist but only linking them and the wider populace will make a difference. Engaging in the debate of what democratic culture is and what it can become and its links to schooling, arts, sport, entertainment, heritage, leisure and general socio-economic and political production in every arena, is crucial. It should engage the practitioners and policy makers but most of all, it should engage the consumers.

Arts, culture and heritage are seen as a luxury, as a world apart from the real. They are not seen as the pulse which can feed blood into the arteries of justice, peace, democracy and development. Talent and achievement can be nourished and nurtured through state support for arts, heritage and culture in meaningful ways. Young and old people should be allowed to discover their heritage, and here, I recall the work of a wonderful scholar George Senega Zake who spent most of his lifetime trying to retrieve the dying musical art forms of East Africa as well as educate new generations to appreciate their heritage through music. Like him, we should become not only curators and archaeologists, but take up our responsibility to make the past a thriving part of the present and the future.

It seems that the task of excavating must go hand in hand with the task of creating new and vibrant cultural industries which are pro people: sustainable and economically viable. Projects which engage the majority and contribute to national development and democracy, hold up a mirror to society, allowing us to see a true picture of ourselves. Instead, we have exiled, jailed, tortured and killed our artists by smashing the mirror into thousands of fragments because we do not like what we see. The freedom to culture is an important arm of the freedom of expression. It is a fundamental human right.

Elsewhere, culture is what makes the humanity pulsate. One of the things about Britain is the amount of thriving traditional and global cultures represented there. They do not threaten what the nation thinks of its own heritage. I am thinking here of the museums on slavery and colonialism in Liverpool and Bristol which tell unflinchingly (although sparsely) about those chapters of British history! Such institutions have come out of people’s struggles for these spaces, and so their story is told, and in that way, the story of Britain is holistically present. In similar ways, Africans must continue to strive for their ways of life, past and present, to not to be deleted off the page.

Vision

I do not ask for much as we look forward to the outcomes of the AU conference on culture in Addis Ababa. I hope that the conference yields deliverable outcomes that will engage the minds of the young and the old through modern and traditional means, through technology, through information, communication and through travel. We have a right to ask for as much as we wish, but equally, we must be willing to play our part in bringing it into fruition.

A first step in acknowledging our heritage is through its most important medium, our languages, whether, visual, oral, physical or musical. The AU has taken the bold step of adopting Kiswahili as the all African lingua franca.

But language, whether the mother tongue or nation tongue or neighbour tongue, must be a democratic tongue that allows people to express their aspirations and imaginings without demeaning others. What is important, is that these languages enable us to confidently excavate the past as well as yield new possibilities for today and tomorrow. For what then are we wearing borrowed clothing?

Culture is about dignity and self worth. It is about knowledge and confidence in knowing the good, the bad and the ugly. In Africa, as elsewhere, culture emerges through our understanding of this soil, its fauna and flora, through its numerous waters and skies, through unfurling the secrets that it harbours through our ancestors, and through us and our dreams for the future.

Culture is universally compelling in its call to a moral duty which can engage every human being. It is a fundamental human right and a very fulfilling one. Hear the songs, watch those films, go to those bookshops and readings. Go to those museums, produce those crafts, participate in the production of art, consume it or produce it. Marvel at how rich our heritages are. Marvel at the artefacts that were looted and are stashed in vaults across the world. Feel the desire to demand their retrieval, or share in the secrets which only a dying few can decipher. Engage them with trips to this heritage sites of looting, physically or through technology. Touch these totems. Let the totems or replicas be restored and returned. There is so much that we can do and that must be done.

Our attitudes towards education are as important as the paramount questions of justice and equality. In our own case, the question of restorative justice is one which we must pay close attention to so that the ghosts of those genocides, holocausts, dictatorships and theft do not visit us again. What upholds our dignity and our humanity today has to be central. It cannot be a case of “this is how our ancestors did it so we must do it in the same way” if this means violating women’s rights, children’s rights, the rights of one ethnicity or the privileging of one section of society over another. It should uplift us all into valuing each other for what we are and for what we can become.

African Renaissance

Measuring the African Renaissance is a perilous task. When people go without food and die unnecessarily of curable diseases; when children have no access to clean water and basic education, then we have cause to ask ourselves who and what this renaissance is intended for. Unless we can meet the fundamental needs of the majority of African people, words like Renaissance (rebirth) in the face of death for many, sound like a mockery.

Yet without being cynical, there are many promising initiatives such as the journal Kwani, the Paa ya Paa gallery in Kenya, Xarra, the only black bookshop in South Africa, the various Africa wide, book, cultural, music, film and theatre festivals and many other events that are good examples of initiatives trying to place a different kind of culture on the map.

For me, these institutions/events represent different ways to culture, and even then, I ask Kwani and Xarra: where are those African language narratives? What medium is best to disseminate these? Nollywood may hold an answer but even so, where are those technicians and publishers, like the Henry Chakavas, the Aseneth Odagas, the Aminatta Sow Falls, the Ayebia Clarkes and Kassahun Checoles who are brave to risk a different kind of economy by publishing Africa? Where are those film makers who are willing to bring the oral traditions on to our screens without apology while making films that feed contemporary culture and document our heritage? Where are those musicians and painters and sculptors? Where are the beautiful ones? The reception and funding of their work, and how governments, citizens and policy makers engage with them, will tell you even more about who we are.

The continuity of African Centred initiatives promise a re-awakening breed, a different breed trying to nurture out of the postcolonial vacuum, the kind of vision that Port Louis began as initiatives such as FESPACO and FESTAC. This vacuum was interrupted by the abyss of repressive regimes and apartheid on the continent. And although it is always easy to blame somebody else, those years were a product of global culture which was vehemently anti-African. Our governments aided and abetted the denigration of African humanity. The perilous work and courage of cultural activists was key to restoring some sense of normality to Africa today. So our task is to support these initiatives as a part of democratic norms.

Pan-African global heritage

The contribution and role that the traditional and new diasporic communities have played in contributing to continuity in the face of that vacuum cannot be underestimated in the economic and cultural value they have continued to offer. That is why we must embrace our multicultural global heritage instead of being myopic and ethnocentred. We must enjoy wider global Pan African heritage. In this way, everyone stands to gain, through sharing of skills, through trade, through promoting excellence, through dialogue, through linking the various trajectories of culture in their new locations whether on the continent or beyond.

But further, we must see our African culture as part of a thriving global heritage. Living internationally as I do, I have been privileged to dip into the numerous cultures of Africa, Asia, North or South America, Europe, Australia, the Atlantic, the Pacific and from the African Ocean and their collaborations. I readily eat my fufu, aloco, ‘chapoo’, couscous, tchiabu jdian, mukimo, attieke and rice and peas as if I have done so all my life.

Appreciating other cultures makes you appreciate what belongs to you and also allows you to enjoy the wealth and beauty of the human heritage of which we are a part. Global democratic culture should be encouraged as a wealth, as it gives new perspectives on others and on the self, but it should be done on terms which edify, not denigrate.

Our legislators must create a platform for our heritage for which they can be remembered. Our governments must contribute to it, embrace it and run with it. Most importantly, the everyday practitioners and artists have a moral obligation to safeguard, nurture and defend our cultural heritage for peace, justice and development as they have always done. For without them, there can be no culture to speak of.

• UK based Kenyan, Wangui wa Goro is a public intellectual, academic, writer, translator, and cultural promoter. She is currently the director of Amber Cultural Productions as well as the president of the African literary translators and subtitlers association (ALTRAS) and (TRACLA) Translations Caucus of the African Literature Association (ALA) [email][email protected]
• Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Poetry is defined differently by different people. How do Africans define poetry? Is it possible to draw from the experiences of pre-colonial African oral traditions in developing an organically grown and contextualised slam poetry movement in South Africa? asks Mphutlane Wa Bofelo.

The emergence of Slam Poetry as a competitive, theatrical, participative and entertaining presentation of poetry and a social event involving a vibrant interaction between the poets is attributed to construction worker and poet, Mark Smith and the bunch of blue collar eccentric intellectuals who gathered at the Chicago Jazz Club, and the Get Me High Lounge for a series of poetry sessions in 1985. They continued the tradition under the framework of the Uptown Poetry Slam at another Chicago Jazz Club, the Green Mill from July 25,1986 to date. Looking for a way to breathe life into the open mic poetry format, construction worker and poet, Mark Smith (Slampapi) started a poetry reading series in 1985 at a Chicago jazz club, the Get Me High Lounge; which was owned by finger-popping’ hipster, Butchie (James Dukaris) who allowed anything to happen. The series' emphasis on performance laid the groundwork for a style poetry and performance which would eventually be spread across the world.

In 1986, Smith approached Dave Jemilo, the owner of the Green Mill (a Chicago jazz club and former haunt of Al Capone); with a plan to host a weekly poetry cabaret on the club’s slows Sunday nights. Jemilo welcomed him, and on July 25 that year, the Uptown Poetry Slam was born. Smith drew on baseball and bridge terminology for the name, and instituted the show’s basic structure of an open mic, guest performers, and a competition. The Green Mill evolved into the Mecca for performance poets, and the Uptown Poetry Slam still continues 18 years after its inception. Explaining the slam poetry craze and vibe at The Green Mill, the Idiot’s Guide to ? declares: “The experimenters in this new style of poetry presentation gyrated, rotated, spewed, and stepped their words along the bar top, dancing between the bottles, bellowing out the backdoor, standing on the street or on their stools, turning the west side of Chicago into a rainforest of dripping whispers or a blast furnace of fiery elongated syllables, phrases, snatches of scripts, and verse that electrified the night.”

Poetry in the Boxing ring

But in Chicago itself the idea of reading poetry in non-literary settings and in a theatrical and sporting and somewhat eccentric and experimental style often bothering on the break with conventions, could be traced to as early as the late1970s and early 1980s. Sometimes in 1978 (or 1979) Jerome Salla and Elaine Equi got for readings at Facets Multimedia. Elaine Equi recalls, “Jerome was getting bigger audiences, drawing from bars, the Art Institute scene, from clubs such as O'Banyon's, La Mer, artists, and publishers. The people around the Body Politic were one scene. But when Jerome and I would read, it was not really a literary crowd. By 1980 Salla constructed his own poetry competition based on a boxing match and the crowd was rowdy. Elaine Equi explains how this started "My husband was reading at some space in Chicago... His readings were always accompanied by a lot of audience participation. There was one particular musician, named Jimmy Desmond, who got irritated easily when he was drunk. He grabbed a chair and swung at Jerome. There was a fight, but it didn't actually come to blows." Jerome Salla continues, "A couple days later I got call from Al-Simmons. He was involved with the old poetry scene in New York’s lower east side, and in Chicago too, and hung with Ted Berrigan. He said, 'Jimmy Desmond would like to challenge you to a ten-round poetry fight to the death...” (Kurt Heintz, 1996)

Pioneer of the Slam Poetry scene in New York, Bob Holman recalls seeing Ted Berrigan and Ann Waldman in a poetry bout dressed in boxing gear, around 1979 but indicates that he didn't first communicate with Mark Smith until after he visited the Green Mill in person. Elaine Equi proposes that Simmons might have got the idea from professional wrestling, but also adds that Simmons told her that he saw a couple poets in a boxing ring in New York and would love to stage a poetry fight between her and Simmons. The first fight took place in 1980 at a fly-by-night club. Equi has very fresh memories of these ‘poetry fights’: “I read a poem called 'Give Piss a Chance' shortly after the death of John Lennon, and the crowd booed..!" They had a stage like a boxing ring and girls in bikinis, holding up cards for the number of the rounds. They also had and judges... each round Jerome and Jimmy reading one poem. Jerome won." It was not a fluke. They had a rematch and he won again. About two hundred people witnessed the second match. There match was at Tut's on Belmont at Sheffield, now The Avalon. I read in leather boxing shorts, had a robe that said Baby Jerome. Jimmy had a nickname too. We didn’t really hate each other. It was just a funny, kind of weird event we threw to make money," says Salla. "There was little story in the Trib. We were with the punk scene. A lot of forces were converging in Chicago at the same time. Suddenly there was an audience for poetry. There really isn't anything that close to the experience today except in rap music." (Kurt Heintz, 1996)

The philosophies of slam

Equi’s reference to rap in relation to the late 1970’s Chicago poetry phenomenon is interesting given the link that today’s slam poetry has with hip hop, of which rap is one of the components. It is noteworthy that Mark Smith took the name from the game of basketball which is also having some cordial relations with hip hop. Based on this information, one can say with Slam Poetry, Mark Smith and his crew of convention-busting poets and lovers of the spoken continued a tradition that -in Chicago-started in the late 70’s, and gave it a format and name in tune with the times.

Perhaps confirming the communal spirit of slam and the universal nature of its ideal of creating an open space for expression, Mark Smith declares on his website that Slam does not belong to him but to “the thousands of people who have dedicated their time, money, and energy to this Chicago-born, interactive format for presenting poetry to a public that has a zillion other barks and belches and flashes to hold its attention”. However he expresses his wish that the slam phenomenon should grow in accordance with the philosophies that have become what I consider to be the backbone of what we call the "Slam Family". These include:

- The purpose of poetry (and indeed all art) is not to glorify the poet but rather to celebrate the community to which the poet belongs. (This idea is paraphrased from the works of Wendell Berry)
- The performance of poetry is an art -- just as much an art as the art of writing it.
- The Slam should be open to all people and all forms of poetry.
- We must all remember that we are each tied in some way to someone else's efforts. Our individual achievements are only extensions of some previous accomplishment.
- Success for one should translate into success for all.
- The National Slam began as a gift from one city to another. It should remain a gift passed on freely to all newcomers.

Towards an organic South African Slam Movement

These are lofty communal and humanistic ideas that in the dog-eat-dog individualistic and materialistic society might be easily dismissed as too idealistic and utopian indeed! Mark Smith himself confesses that “the idealism and cooperative forces of the Slam are in constant conflict with the competitive and self-serving appetites of its ambitious nature”. He asserts that the struggle between the idealism of slam and its competitive spirit has taught the slam family much but also threatens to obliterate all that has grown to be. And unequivocally and unambiguously declares that he is “on the side of idealism and hope.”

How many of us who have latched on the slam poetry buzz share the idealism and pro-humanism spirit? And to what extent are we able to contextualise the slam movement within the tangible and concrete realities of Azania, and locate it within the particularities and peculiarities of the Azanian\South African situation? How do we relate the slam movement to our own history of using poetry in particular, and literature and theatre in general, to open the space of discourse and critical engagement with prevailing socio-economic, political and cultural conditions? Can we draw from the experiences of pre-colonial African oral traditions in developing an organically grown and contextualised slam poetry movement in South Africa\Azania?

In South Africa\Azania the idea of doing poetry in a non-literary setting and of moving away from eurocentric conventions in as far as the stylistic concerns of poetry and the manner in which poetry is delivered, is not a new phenomenon. As early as the 1970’s, groups like Dashiki fused poetry with jazz. The Allah Poets, Mihloti, Medupi Writers and others recited their poetry over the beat of the drum and sounds of horns. People like Muthobi Motloatse and Gamakhulu Diniso of Busang Thakaneng used the term Proemdra to refer to a fusion prose, poetry, music and drama, and promoted the notion of participatory theatre. Muthobi Motloatse’s theatre piece, ‘Nkosi –the Healing song’ is a typical example of the fusion of the language of story telling, music, dance and drama. Here the barriers between the audience and the performer were broken, and in the words of a character in ‘Nkosi- the Healing Song’, “myths, legends and facts are interwoven and the story can “begin in the ending and end in the middle.”

The concept of participatory theatre gained ground in the 70’s and 80’s. Participatory theatre was informed not only by ‘the anti-poetry theory’ of the of Bertold Brecht, Jerry Grotowsky’s ‘poor theatre’ and Augusto Boal’s “theatre of the oppressed”, but also by pre-colonial African of cultural and artistic forms of expression where there were no rigid borderlines between music, poetry, dance, etc. When groups like Ujamaa (in Sharpeville), Rakgalema Medupi Arts Commune and Arts in Motion (in Sebokeng), (Mafube in the East rand) and Makana Poets (in Zamdela) emerged in the 1980’s and 1990’s, they followed the same trend began by their predecessors. These groups performed poetry at political rallies and social events like wedding ceremonies and birthday parties, at schools, in churches, in beer-halls and in stadiums. Poetry was performed in prisons, hostels, squatter camps, refugee camps, and in the trenches and guerrilla training camps in exile. In the words of Muthobi Motlaotse, this kind of literature and theatre deliberately shit on conventional English-English literary forms.

It mixed languages and genres and knew no holy cows. In as far as its dare-devil, passionate and energetic, genre-crossing, convention-defying multi-media spirit and its efforts to open up the space for self-expression and dialogue between the writer and society are concerned, the slam poetry phenomenon shares stylistic and thematic concerns with the poetry, literary and theatre movement of the 1970’s up to the early 90’s in South Africa\Azania. The efforts of many slam poets\ hip hop activists in Azania today to attune their artistic expressions to the historical-material experiences, politico-economic conditions and the cultural and linguistic heritage of our country is in many ways a continuation of the tradition and legacy of the 1970’s generation that was in the main inspired by the philosophy of Black Consciousness.

Conclusion

What is missing is a conscious and well-coordinated programme to link up the present literary and cultural movement with the past and to educate the current crop of poets and cultural activists about their predecessors. The ignorance of the present-day generation of poets and spoken word activists about the contributions and achievements of their predecessors and ancestors in the literary world is reflected by the scant respect shown to the legendary Mafika Pascal Gwala during his recital at Poetry Africa. The impatient audience heckled when Gwala recited on the opening day of Poetry Africa. The presenter of the programme is to blame for not informing the audience that Gwala was entitled to recite for more than the four minutes allocated to other poets, as he was the featured poet of the day. He also introduced Gwala with just one sentence whereas he went on and on about the other poets. Given proper direction, the poetry movement and the cultural movement in South Africa have a lot to offer to this country. And acknowledging the struggles, contributions and efforts of the ancestors of South African literary and theatre movement and learning from them would be the first step in the right direction.

Names that come to mind are Mirriam Tladi, Fatima Dike, Fikile Magadlela, Nardine Gordimer; Richard Rive, James Mathews, the late Strini Moodley (who founded the first union of Black theatre and upon whose request Gwala wrote the classical piece, ‘The Children of Nonti’), Mafika Gwala, Mazisi Kunene, Farouk Asvat, Benjy Francis, Athol Fugard, John Kani, Lefifi Tladi, Lesego Rampolokeng. The list is endless. The passion of most of these individuals for literature and theatre was fanned by the desire to use the word as an instrument for transformation and social change. Their works were part of the quest for a South Africa and a world with a more humane face. It is this understanding that will motivate the present-day writer, poet and artist to use podiums like the slam poetry\spoken word scene as mediums of self-expression as well as a platform for social dialogue and an instrument for social change. When this happens, the word will not cower to the dictates of capital, but will place the collective dignity and collective interests and aspirations of the people before narrow materialistic individual gains.

• Mphutlane Wa Bofelo is a writer, activist, life-skills facilitator and performance poet who has been published in several journals, websites and anthologies and has performed at various events. He won the Slam Poetry Champion of Championship organized by the Slam Poetry Operation Team (SPOT) in 2003. He also published the booklet, ‘The Journey Within' with Yaseen Islamic Publishers. In 2005, he won the Durban Slamjam at the 9th Poetry Africa held at the BAT Center. In June 2006, Mphutlane performed at the first Cape Town International Bookfair. He co-founded the Makana Poets with Sello Hlasa in the late 80's and is currently a member of the Nowadays Poets, the Live Poets Society (LiPS), the Slam Poetry Operation Team (SPOT), and the Open Stage Society.
• Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Sources

1. on 13\11\06)
3.3. www.e-poets.net/library/slam/converge.html (accessed on 13\11\06)

The first Pan African Cultural Congress was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia this week (13 to 17 November 2006). The Congress was organised by the African Union (AU), and its purpose was to “review and assess the cultural sector in Africa, and consider challenges and opportunities in order to draw strategies and appropriate programmes,” according to the AU press statement.

To coincide with that conference, Pambazuka News publishes today a special issue on the theme of Culture and Social Justice. It is a ‘multimedia’ edition, with a series of audio-recordings accompanying the written word.

Culture is frequently seen as something that is either peripheral to the struggle for social justice, or as entertainment or fashion. In many cases it is seen as something embedded in history, immovable and sacrosanct, referring to some idealised vision of the past, confining creativity and limiting freedoms. The continued oppression of women, for example, is frequently justified on ‘cultural’ grounds. But culture is a living form: it is rooted in our histories, but constantly evolves. It reflects the deeper spirit of humans, but also serves as a tool for emancipation. As with all aspects of human existence, whether it is art, literature, music, economics, personal relationships, and science (yes even science), culture expresses the underlying social relationships: the ‘culture’ of those who sit comfortably in the back of the Mercedes is different from the culture of those over whose lives the wheels churn. Culture has many languages, even in a society that appears homogeneous.

In this collection of essays and poems, accompanied by a series of audio-recordings that we are distributing as ‘podcasts’, Pambazuka News celebrates the culture of resistance in Africa.

Ngugi wa Thiong’o, the renowned Kenyan writer and thinker, discusses in his recorded interview with Robtel Pailey the critical role of language and its potential both to free thought as well as imprison it, a theme that is developed further by Neville Alexander, interviewed by Mandisi Majavu, who cautions against using race discourse in our quest for social justice.

Wangui wa Goro argues that to talk of the African Renaissance when Africans go without food and die unnecessarily of curable diseases, when children have no access to clean water and basic education, compels us to ask ourselves who this renaissance is intended for. “… unless we can meet the fundamental needs of the majority of African people,” she argues, words like Renaissance (rebirth) in the face of death for many sound like a mockery.”

From the Harlem Renaissance, to the Negritude Movement, up to the present day African Renaissance, black people have always struggled to find ways to redefine themselves, while in the process creating sites of cultural resistance. From literature, to the movies, history, and to fine art black people have struggled to create spaces, “wherein we can both interrogate the gaze of the Other but also look back, and at one another, naming what we see.” (hooks,1992:116) The ‘gaze’, as bell hooks argues, is the actual site of resistance for culturally colonised black people globally.

Mphutlane Wa Bofelo points out that when it comes to poetry, one of the sites of resistance is the global slam poetry movement. However, Bofelo problematizes the issues by asking: “How do we relate the slam movement to our own history of using poetry in particular and literature and theatre in general to open the space of discourse and critical engagement with prevailing socio-economic, political and cultural conditions? Can we draw from the experiences of pre-colonial African oral traditions in developing an organically grown and contextualised slam poetry movement in [Africa]?”

It is in the same spirit of resistance that Milton Allimadi writes that the overall Western attitude towards Africa is that the continent is trapped in a tribal time warp. Allimadi states that the Western media plays a vital role in perpetuating this misconception. Western journalists and editors, writes Allimadi, still have the same colonial attitude towards Africans. “…Not much has changed since the earliest days when Western reporters first started to cover African countries on a widespread basis.”

In a podcast interview, emerging rapper PlanBe explores with Sokari Ekine violence and rape in South Africa and he performs his rap Stand Against. And in another podcast, Congolese poet Omékongo wa Dibinga shares three of his poems with us exploring the attitudes towards Africa, aid and development (the text of the latter is also reproduced here).

This issue was guest edited by Robtel Pailey, to whom we express our thanks.

I have been reading the Pambazuka Newsletter for two years, and will carry on doing so - good work!

Congolese poet Omékongo wa Dibinga shares three of his poems with us exploring the attitudes towards Africa, aid and development. For more information see

Renowned Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o talks to Robtel Pailey from Pambazuka News about the importance of language and culture.

In our series on trade justice, Pambazuka News was at Levellers Day in the small village of Burford in Oxfordshire in May 2006. This annual event marks the anniversary of the execution of three soldiers who were part of the Leveller pro-democracy movement in 17th century England. Pambazuka News caught up with Karen Chouhan from the National Assembly Against Racism, Salma Yaqoob from Birmingham Stop the War Coalition and ex-MP Tony Benn to get their thoughts on what trade justice means to them.