African Blogs This Week
Mshairi (http://www.mshairi.com/blog/2006/08/29/we-are-all-african/)comments on Hollywood’s latest fad: the appropriation of Africa and Africans by big names such as Angelina Jolie, Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow (who appears in a photo with the words “I am African” written across the picture for the ‘Keep a Child Alive’ AIDS project). Mshairi questions the motives behind both the project and the likes of Paltrow and others.
In the case of the ‘Keep a Child Alive’ project, the big names claim that each one of us can claim a genetic link to Africa. “The reason why Ms. Paltrow has the lines on her cheek and the words - I AM AFRICAN on the image – according to the ‘Keep a Child Alive’ website, is because ‘each and every one of us contains DNA that can be traced back to our African ancestors’. This sounds great and is obviously meant to be a trigger to get people to donate funds for AIDS orphans, as we are all one big happy family. Read their website though, and you can detect an uncomfortable and clear separation between ‘them’ and ‘us’ in their literature."
For the moment they have chosen to appropriate Africa and identify as Africans. This is insulting and arrogant as they use Africa to promote their careers and accumulate even more privilege and wealth under the guise of raising funds for AIDS or whatever charity of the moment they choose to support. How about they put their money where their mouths are and really do something concrete and lasting with the millions of surplus dollars in their bank accounts? And do this with humility and respect.
The Moor Next Door The Moor Next Door (http://wahdah.blogspot.com/2006/08/right-to-be-almost-naked.html)comments on the opposition to Muslim women participating in beauty pageants because “it brings a slur against Islam”.
“What's the fact that Muslim women wear swimsuits in their countries got to do with it? The clerics would tell you those women were shouting 'slurs' at Islam too. That's not an argument against them, mind your own business is. There's nothing Islamic (or Christian, or Abrahamic generally, for that matter) about swimsuits or bikinis. They're debauchery to most everyone (almost everyone), not just Muslims; that's why people like them, because they're not supposed to. That's what makes them 'hot'. It's an animal urge. It's not about being Muslim it's about being human.”
He personally does not approve of beauty pageants, not on religious grounds but because they are essentially a non-event.
“They contribute nothing of value to society except the image of women as objects. I am of the backward and fundamentalist school of thought that people ought to get real jobs (you know, work), go to school, and work within society to some beneficial end, instead of prancing around in their underpants or less. (I know some people think, Well some of the girls use the pageant as a way to advance their humanitarian or charitable agendas, but if their ideas were so great, why would they need to get naked for it? When was the last time a porn star or beauty queen achieved her goals of world peace or limiting some blight on society?)”
Beauty pageants not only objectify women’s bodies but they also indulge the fantasies of men. They are completely meaningless exhibitions that promote specific measures of beauty that are unrealistic, racist and highly offensive.
Jeffrey Sachs is once again the subject of African Bullets and Honey. - African Bullets and Honey (http://bulletsandhoney.blogspot.com/2006/08/less-kids-in-africa-equals-…) This time, it is an environmental campaign to help poor Africans and people from the Middle East “whose numbers are rising too fast”.
“Allowing that people in the rich countries live on about $30,000 per year, well above the global average of $10,000, which itself is substantially more than most Africans consume and earn, his suggestion is that giving birth to less poor people is the best course of action in the future. Sachs is worried not about the suffering of the unborn poor should they live like their parents in scarcity and ill health but rather that they may actually manage to fulfil their economic aspirations. At present growth rates by 2050, according to UN forecasts (not usually worth the paper they are printed on by the way), world population will be 9 billion with 2.5 billion of this number born in the poor countries. If this 'surplus' somehow finds a way to earn and consume today's $10,000 average, it would by Sachs calculations cause untold environmental stresses especially due to the fact that cruel fate has chosen to locate 'biodiversity hotspots' among the unwashed masses.”
Possibly he is concerned that the minority world’s resources will be compromised by the growth in the majority world who already consume less than one-third of what the minority world consumes! He should be out there campaigning in the West against its over consumption and the mounds of waste it produces every year instead of producing patronising lectures towards Africa on population growth.
The Concoction - The Concoction (http://theconcoction.blogspot.com/2006/08/get-food-but-you-may-be-raped…) reports on the failure of the Sudan peace agreement to bring about any change in the Darfur region. Writing specifically on the rape of women, she comments that whilst laws exist on the conduct of wars, sufficient attention has not been given to rape.
“Reports of militias raping civilian women is one constant disaster that comes out of the Darfur civil war. Fetching fire wood or water often ends up in the women being raped. Just imagine running to the grocery store to get a gallon of milk and there is a very high possibility of you being raped. Just imagine.”
Chippla’s Weblog - Chippla's Weblog posts on the expulsion of oil companies from Chad for failing to pay their taxes. This is a particularly interesting story on two counts. First, a leader of an oil producing country has called the multinationals operating within its borders to account for their actions. Second, the response of the international media to the expulsion is that it is a negative move, with Reuters describing President Idriss Deby’s decision negatively as “oil resource nationalism”. Well of course it is, as ultimately it will benefit Chad more than the multinationals.
Chippla writes:
“President Idriss Deby may be an abuser of his country's constitution and the ruler of the most corrupt country in the world, but on this issue he seems to be thinking. The brain cells of the Chadian representatives who signed the initial oil deal need to be checked. This reminds one of the silly gas deals signed between the government of Bolivia and some American companies in the past. It is better for Chad not to be an oil exporter, than for it to export oil only for the bulk of the proceeds to find its way out of the country. A classical example of how foreign investment, meant to improve the economic situation in African nations, ends up sucking such nations dry.”
For too long these multinational companies have got away with their dirty deeds in Africa and elsewhere. For once, Idriss Deby has done something right. Imagine if all of Africa's oil producers acted as one and took a similar line instead of kowtowing to the likes of Shell, Chevron and Elf? We need oil money and oil for that matter, but not at any price.
Black Looks - Black Looks (http://www.blacklooks.org/2006/08/beauty_is_skin_deep.html) points to a video made by a 16 year old African American girl which addresses the taboo subject of skin tone within the African/Black community. The short film interviews young women about their Blackness and hair texture and how this impacts on their self-esteem. The film-maker, Kiri Davis uses a doll experiment with young male and female children where they are asked to choose whether they like the black doll or white doll, which one is good and which is bad. In the final scene of this section, a child is asked which one resembles her. She is hesitant as she has just chosen the white doll as “good” and then realizes that it is the black doll that is in her image, and she reluctantly pushes it forward as her choice. A very powerful and disturbing film but made even more brilliant in that it is made by a 16 year old.
* Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks, www.blacklooks.org
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org