SCI-CULTURA

Warning: This is not about wallowing in the ‘poverty in Africa’ cliché but superficially examining what went wrong and more importantly how you and I can fix it. Starting today.

First, let’s be clear, we are talking about economic poverty as Africa is full of other diverse riches which I believe this blog is a witness to. There are a number of theories as to why there is a significant excess of economic poverty in Mother Africa, including the tragic and swift loss of resources during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and colonialisation.

The slave trade was abolished 200 years ago (on paper anyway) and Ghana, the first African country to attain self-rule recently celebrated 50 years of independence from British rule, with a stream of countries following on its heels.

So, isn’t that long enough to recover?
Answer: Yes BUT No.

It is a fact learned through hands-on experience that hand-outs (aka aid) don’t work. The irony of the G8 nations is that they are part of the problem, by endorsing the unfair trade rules that then lead them to debating how much aid to give; plus give loans that are inextricably tied to extortionate interest rates, which are in some cases passed on to profit-making vulture funds, e.g. in Zambia. This is like smiling at someone in a friendly manner and beckoning to hug them whilst simultaneously locating a tender place in-between their ribs on their back to drive in your knife.

Imported American rice and Italian tomatoes in Ghana, which are cheaper than local produce, thus putting local farmers out of business. Copyright: Ian Berry/Magnum Photos - part of the Disposable People exhibition

But there is hope with the growth of micro-financing initiatives, which are even more credible to cynics and have gained a huge global presence after Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Prize. Even larger mainstream organisations are changing their tune now that they realise that it can be profitable for them. In Kenya, banks are starting to cast their eyes to potential customers in the informal economy, beyond their usual middle class clientele. The power of the internet is also flourishing the concept of microloans from individuals through organisations such as

With regards to Fair trade, what then are the solutions besides storming the streets with Marxist placards? I reckon we take the ‘easy’ route. We play along. ‘The system’ [read: capitalism and democracy] is such that you and I are the most powerful people on the planet. Yes, you and I. Just sit with that for a moment and let it simmer.

Caveat: If only we get our act together.

In the capitalistic world in which we live, you the consumer, has the power to demand that whatever commodity you want is

I’m no economist, but it is crystal clear that if you and I don’t buy, businesses will collapse. They set out to please us because without us, they are, well, nothing.

In a democratic system, technically speaking the government is a euphemism for us. Which means that we have the right to demand that our respective governments trade fairly with African countries. In a country like the UK which can barely support itself and has supermarket shelves teeming with produce from all over the globe, in effect it is at the mercy of the developing world for commodities such as fruit, vegetables, flowers and even its recently booming café culture.

I struggle with being congruent sometimes. I love shopping in the local, independent grocers, but I realise that they can’t afford to go Fairtrade if it is not a mainstream practice. So I guess in order to compete with supermarket giants, the big corporations need to go Fairtrade first, and consequently make it mainstream. To our favour, there is more pressure on corporations to be socially responsible, which includes trading fairly. But this would work hand-in-hand with government policy. So this is where we come in. We put pressure on governments and supermarkets and we support microloan initiatives.

I know I have used words like ‘demand’ and ‘pressure’ which bear connotations, but it’s not all about being militant. Infact, I think asking nicely is more likely to get what you want by not antagonising others. During a conversation with a friend after being moved to tears of frustration by the docu-film Black Gold, based on Ethiopian coffee farmers and the global coffee industry, it emerged that Starbucks will serve Fairtrade coffee if you ask for it when making your order. I don’t frequent Starbucks and so this is unverified, but imagine the impact that would have, given that they are on almost every street in central London. It’s all about reaching the tipping point. If you doubt this, just look around now at the global economic bubble that burst after an increasing number of people were unable to pay their mortgages in the USA. Over-simplified, yes, but you get the drift: we the consumers have the power to change things.

A well-known British supermarket’s slogan is ‘Every little helps’. Given their reported profits in the £Billions, perhaps we should pay attention to this seemingly simple slogan and make it our own.

The more synergistic tactics we apply, the better chance we have to fix this. What do you reckon are other ways?

Shifting focus back to the start of this post – the African continent – how can we add value to our commodities such as coffee so that we may compete on an equal playing field?

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on practical action – both in the short and long term.

Normal posting resumes shortly.

Cinema of Brazil: Afro-Brazilian Perspectives is a film festival at the Barbican that seeks to celebrate ‘the nation’s foremost Afro-Brazilian actors, directors, intellectuals and musicians’. This is one of the features of the Brazil season in London, courtesy of the Brazilian embassy that is ‘adding a splash of [welcomed, needed, appreciated and valued] colour to [a typically grey] autumn in London’.

Inevitably this thematically diverse series of films both provides a platform to shed light on, and create a foundation, for an equally well-rounded discourse on socio-political and cultural issues that are relevant to Afro-Brazilians today. The line up of films therefore look to, in my view, divert from the generalised / stereotypical perceptions of the black Brazilian experience that has pervaded the global psyche partly due to the success and consequently wide accessibility of the explicitly violent films that portray gang sub-culture in the favelas (slums) of Rio de Janeiro, such as the avid-shooting-and-dropping-like-flies Cidade de Deus (City of God) and its sequel Cidade dos Homens (City of Men). On a brief but related digression, in this regard, these generalisations apparently parallel with the success of the South African film industry through Tsotsi and Jerusalema. A strikingly analogous portrayal and likewise perception of the Black British inner city experience is suggestive of the films Kidulthood and its sequel Adulthood. In all these world-apart instances (geographically, politically, culturally, socially, etc) oxymoronically, the success of these films is also their own nemesis. I say this not to belittle or deny the presence of violence in these innately complex communities and the powerful and positive use of a far-reaching and visually engaging medium to convey an urgent message to the masses on a global scale. The way of addressing this, to my mind, beyond contextualised debate is at the root – the film industry, which includes the funders.

But without digressing too much from the main objective of this post, the definition of Afro-Brazilian, and on a larger scale, Afro-identity in Latin America and its nuances struck me. This is addressed in the report by Minority Rights Group International titled ‘No Longer Invisible: Afro-Latin Americans Today’, which presents an elaborate discourse that pervades the historical, cultural, socio-economic conjunctions of an incredibly complex and unique experience with an expansive, inclusive approach that nourishes and encourages comparative enquiry both within the diverse Latin American population and without, e.g. the United States and the Afro-Latino diaspora.
The following patchwork of excerpts by Anani Dzidzienyo, to my mind, capture the intrinsic, expansive complexity of Afro-identity in Latin America.

On race and colour of the Afro-Latino:

On matters of race and color, the novice does well to tred lightly when approaching societies and systems such as those in Latin America. Non-whiteness and blackness, one quickly learns, are not interchangeable concepts; never assume blackness, and determine, with delicacy, the individual’s personal identification, which may not be consistent with that assigned by him or her by others. For the Latin American, a similar challenge awaits in North America, say or continental Africa, where what is perceived as ‘white’ may very well be, to the person concerned, ‘black’.

In connection with the afore-mentioned Afro-Brazilian film festival:

That Afro-Latin Americans have consistently developed cultural initiatives in response to their predicament is testimony to their unwillingness to embrace victimhood. Yet those initiatives in no way address issues of political and economic power and representation, nor do they resolve tension between actual power and symbolic power.

This, in my view, mirrors the foray of African cultural initiatives, such as the recent Lagos-Abuja-Washington DC-London tour of ThisDay Africa Rising Music and Fashion Festival – a celebration of Africa by showcasing Africa’s popular culture icons. Indeed such initiatives are not the solution but constitute a distinct, palpable thread that contributes to the web of initiatives that construct the multi-faceted solution.

On the historical presence of Africans in Brazil:

Is slavery still relevant? Yes and no. To argue that one cannot continue to talk back to slavery and its socio-racial economic structures to account for the conditions of Afro-Latin Americans does not mean that it ipso facto ceases to be relevant, especially in the view of the images and roles linked to slavery.

The icing on the cake in this analysis (I saved the best for last):

Of particular interest are the multiple meanings of Africa for the Afro-Latin Americans. Nowhere in the Americas has there ever existed a undimensionally positive image of Africa…Fundamental to any understanding of Afro-Latin Americans is, I believe, the question of Africa. Deeply embedded in centuries-old shame, the idea of this continent has a central, though rarely considered role in the complex relations among its descendants in the diaspora and the larger societies in which they live. The real and imagined meanings of Africa in all its richness and contradictoriness beg to be contemplated not as aspects of a single phenomenon but as factors in the dynamic of Afro-Latin American life today.

Dzidzienyo’s recommendation offers a ray of hope:

A program that seeks not just to catalogue distinct historical events but, first and foremost, to identify and monitor (currency being of primary importance here) the intersections of history, economics, politics and culture among nations with populations of African descent, [such as] The African Diaspora Research Project…Africa and Afro-Latin America: reconnecting the two through mutual exchanges of learning and information would surely count as one of the more fruitful outcomes of any effort to shed light on Afro-Latin Americans.

Article in full.

Postscript: Dzidzienyo’s use of ‘Latin America’ encompasses the geographical region of the Americas where the Latin-derived languages French, Spanish and Portugese are spoken, and therefore includes the Caribbean islands such as Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti.

I am enthused by the idea of building bridges between distinct entities, be they people, places or disciplines. Film maker and creative visionary Jehane Noujaim (of Control Room fame) presented her wish at a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference back in 2006 – her vivid and captivating vision of a day the world would unite through the power of film. Jehane Noujaim took the audience into her mind as she unveiled her perfectly pitched concept of people telling their stories at an allocated, synchronised time, to an audience that would span the globe. And won the TED Prize. It was not a far-fetched idea but captivating, inspirational and pragmatic – expanding people’s minds by allowing them to experience the world of “the other” from their own locality; travelling in mind as opposed to in body, uniting the world in a unique event where people will share the experience of watching and undergoing a transformation elicited by powerful stories through powerful imagery. The event to be held on 10th May 2008 is befittingly called Pangea Day, the name inspired by Wegener’s convincing theory of planet earths existence as a supercontinent prior to detachment into the continents we know today.

When I allow myself to dive into and indulge in the concept of global unity, I am aware that there is clearly an aspect of me that is running away with fantasy. More so as we are living in an age where we talk in polarised terms and convene around coffee tables, speculating on the imminent and inevitable crumbling of the global power, as a dragon (simultaneously?) rises, spanning her wings across the globe to be the next world dominator. However, if I may stay in fantasyland for a moment yet, as I do quite like it here, thinking of planet earth’s continents as a single, conglomerated land mass as it arguably was about 250 million years ago, illuminated for me how this physicality can radically alter how we as individuals perceive and relate to the world. How our inhabitance of a giant land mass could cognitively breed unity amongst us, the inhabitants – the human race – one people on earth, regardless of our physical appearance, culture or heritage purely based on our perceived closer proximity to each other. Regretably, I am falling back from the clouds as I start to recount in my mind the number of inter-continental conflicts that are still fresh in my mind, having occurred during my own life-time….

Back to reality now, it also got me thinking about my Africanness, my Kenyanness and whatever-else-I-may-identify-with-ness. Despite Africa’s vastness and incredibly exhilirating and mind-blowing diversity, what is it that makes me feel connected to my fellow Africans at large? Turning a misconception that I see represented in the media on its head, I am now pondering on if there is a possibility that at a subconscious level, I have absorbed the oh-so-infuriating message that Africa is not a giant? What about the convenient reference to sub-Saharan Africa that excludes the Sahel (for example in terms of statistics) that we have now internalised that has only widened an already palpable divide. This subject matter in itself deserves a separate post.

I suspect that there is an ounce of truth in the notion that Africa’s existence as a land mass breeds unity to those who inhabit her undulating, diverse terrain. No argument wins by presenting a mono-variable and therefore there are sure to be other factors at play here, such as the marginalisation of a people that is inexorably embedded in our history and continues to be propagated in the current global climate with issues such as unjust global trading policies. However, thinking of the land mass that is the continent of Africa, there is a level of intimacy that we share by virtue of our proximity to each other that is embodied in the ease of access that we have to one another, albeit presuming ease of ability to traverse the artificial borders that were carved out in Europe without our knowledge. What I am saying is that our proximity to each other by default makes us feel we belong to each other. A macro community, in other words. This bears great similarity to the concept in economics that a single currency makes people feel united as it simplifies travelling and inter-country relations, therefore uniting neighbouring nations. Basically, it is all in the mind. Although I am not the expert, I daresay that this is already the case in Europe and Central Africa. Looking around me, in the UK, a small island in Northwestern Europe, it is fascinating to see how the UK plays a delicate dance with her identity; with one foot in continental Europe and the other firmly rooted in her autonomy and Britishness. After all, unlike Ireland, the rest of the UK clings onto the sterling, nose turned upwards snubbing the Euro.

Back to Africa – ironically, it is easier and cheaper to fly across the Mediterranean to Europe as opposed to travelling within Africa. Explicably due to the economic theory of demand and supply (although there are promising signs that this is changing, big up KQ). Despite this, our connection to each other remains steadfast. Thinking back to the possibilities of interwoven variables that connect us, all playing a part to nurture our sense of unity, it becomes apparent to me that perhaps another leaf to the argument is that, it may be partly because our identity is physically worn and therefore openly viewed by others (which can be postulated for other regions of the world of course). A person with whom I have no affiliation can look at me from a distance and have full knowledge of my ancestral home, without any verbal exchange. The eyes speak to the onlooker. This reminds me of the brief but appreciated act of exchanging eye contact or a subtle knod, that goes unnoticed to those momentarily sharing the same space when my path has fleetingly crossed with another person of African origin either by birth or ancestry, in a town that had a white majority. Indeed, the solidarity of minorities.

I like the word solidarity. Perhaps yet another unifying factor is our yearning to stand together, in our own defence after witnessing the seemingly tireless mis-representation of our continent as a dark, disease-ridden and war-torn hell hole. In which case, the very misrepresentation that attempts to deny us of our expansive identity also plays a part in uniting us? African Foundation for Development (AFFORD), an organisation that I have a lot of time for, formulated a policy document on what the Diaspora can do to challenge media misrepresentation of Africa.

The question of a united world remains, sitting heavily on my shoulders. Perhaps it is a long way ahead yet, however, we can only but start with baby steps by opening our hearts and listening to each other. Join me on Pangea Day around the world. Surely I can still dream, can’t I?

Update: If you can’t be bothered to read the entire schpill, just read this –

My brain has been ticking along since I put up this post resulting in a eureka moment, a connection of neuronal networks, in the realisation that what I spent a number of paragraphs mulling over as inspired by the concept of the earth as pangea may be summarised thus: there are a myriad of interwoven agents at play to form a complex multidimensional picture that will inarguably influence our definition of the term “community”. These include geographical boundaries (aha! the connection to pangea), shared interests (for example activism), age groups, gender, socio-economic and political factors. This list could potentially carry on to infinity as we identify the plethora of micro and macro communities that exist based on our differences or associations. I guess you now either (a) get the drift of my ramblings or (b) have spotted I never read a social science. Or both. Don’t you just love it when things suddenly arrange themselves into nice, little, tidy packages to calm an overwhelmed mind?

Some of my friends (mainly the handful of readers of this blog!) have asked me why I am not blogging on the violence that has rocked our beloved Kenya since the fateful election fiasco. I find it impossible and frankly out of question to do so, given that I am not currently living in the country. What can I contribute when I am not there to fill my lungs with the rusty smell of dried blood; or to witness the glistening edge of a panga held high and tight in mid air under the hot sun, by the owner of fixed, glazed, determined eyes; or to look into the sad beady eyes of an orphaned child or a parent banished to being flooded with the razor-sharp cutting pangs of grief that inevitably come with mourning a child; or to feel the vibrations of the earth under me, not of the habitual tremors but of Kenyans, running for their lives.

Who am I to have an opinion from a safe, detached, albeit technologically shortened distance? Simply put, I do not qualify.

Like many other Kenyans in the Diaspora, I am living turbulent Kenya virtually – through blogs, online news articles, YouTube videos and regular candid conversations with family and friends. The violence broke out towards the end of my month-long sunny sabbatical in Kenya. I did not feel ready to leave, at a time that my beloved Kenya was going through such a momentous and tormentous time. I could feel it. We all could. A time that would be marked in the pages of our history with innocent blood and analysed by scholars and wananchi alike for eons to come. It was make or break time for this thing called Kenya, as Binyavanga Wainaina simply but effectively coined it. The layer upon layer of injustices, frustrations and suppressed anger that had been accumulating over the years and forming a palpable mound under our national carpet could no longer be quietly concealed. Or ignored. Or viewed through the rose-tinted lenses of 6% economic growth. The seams had burst at the edges and we watched, mouths agape in horror, as the unspeakable propagated throughout the land like malignant tumour cells turning against the body that nourishes them. People were dying. Women and girls were being raped. Homes were being torched. And more.

But how could I stay on in Kenya and risk losing my academic job in London, my livelihood, my career?

My sabbatical was over and I had a rendezvous with KQ to airlift me out of the dark depths of pandemonium and despair. Non-stop to destination: London. I lied to myself that the spate of violence and atrocities would soon come to an end. Surely it was only a matter of time. After all, Kenyans are self-proclaimed and objectively labelled peace-lovers, and have been an oasis of hope and an example not only to our neighbours but sub-Saharan Africa at large. Surely come February we would be talking of nation-building and IPOs once again.

Back at work and the guilt started to creep in. At first it came as occasional nudges as I spent significant chunks of my working day online, reading anything and everything that I could get my mouse to click onto. And then it wound its way. Gently, quietly meandering through me like a slithering snake and slowly eating in like caustic acid until it found a comfortable place at the core of my being. It had consumed me. Mentally, spiritually, emotionally. Why did I leave in the first place? I walked the “streets paved with gold” with a blank, empty and disconnected gaze. Distracted and consumed by my disorderly thoughts. Physically I was in London, but my heart was still in Kenya. With time I started to become somewhat detached, despite continuing to immerse myself in the on-goings, but now with a less than frantic fervour. Actually it wasn’t immersion. It was more like floating. Suspended at the interface between two distinct worlds, air and water. Kenya and London. I didn’t quite fit in and connect with London like I usually did. Something was missing. I longed to laugh and really mean it. To fill my body with endorphins that would lift me up, soaring like a weightless bubble, floating on an ephemeral but exhilarating high. I wanted to avoid the sympathetic, concerned gaze from colleagues and non-Kenyan friends who sought my analytical rant on the shocking images and sounds that poured into their living rooms. I just wanted to be. To feel and not to have to put words to what I was feeling. And with time I noticed that surrounded by British accents, red double-decker buses and wool winter coats in determined, urgent stride, I had become somewhat detached from the escalating body count. I stared at the various shapes that formed numbers on my computer screen, unable to comprehend or imagine how each and every single one was being buried and mourned for in a Kenyan home. I also started to react like some of my non-Kenyan friends did when I was in Kenya – making calls or sending text messages to enquire after the people I love, having watched or read chilling BBC news reports that felt so close to home. It is home.

The SMS.

I awoke one morning to a simple yet poignant text message from a dear friend in Nairobi that declared, “Kenya is dying”. Just like that. Raw and piercing. No how are you? No niceties. No sugar-coating. Like a true friend. Those 3 words grabbed hold of me by the shoulders and shook me, releasing me from my self-imposed prison. I felt my body resonate with the vibrations of my pounding heart as I subconsciously drew in long, hurried, deep breaths into my rising and falling chest. Rising and falling. Rising and falling. It was my moment of truth and barefaced honesty. The time to face my demons. My demons are really myself… Fairytale Kenya no longer lives here. I have now allowed it. The emotions, the feelings, the thoughts, the fear, the disappointment, the anger, the unanswered questions sit with me. They rise through my being, drifting upwards like tendrils of smoke, flowing freely like a river that is powered by an unseen force. They reside within me and all over me. I can feel them on my skin as goosebumps and sitting underneath the domed spaces of my arched arm hairs. I can taste them in my mouth as they slide on my moist malleable tongue, forming syllables that are carried by the vibrations in my voicebox, making sounds that merge and collide to form coherent, articulated words.

What is more important – my career or my country? Everything is a choice. Not choosing is a choice.

For a person who thought I was living by a decent set of values, constantly challenging my perceptions of the world and broadening my outlook, and sometimes irritating those close to me with my idealist views, the saddening and depressing state of affairs in Kenya has greatly humbled me.

What am I willing to give up for my country?

This episode in Kenya has given me a renewed and deeper sense of utmost revered respect and gratitude to Kenya’s fallen, largely forgotten heroes. Men and women who put aside their children, their spouses, their friends and gave all they had – their lives – so that I could grow up in post-independence Kenya. So that I may never know what it is like to pay allegiance to the monarch of a distant, foreign land. So that I may have full rights in the land that my ancestors from a number of communities trode upon and eventually nourished with their decomposing flesh. The earth that now feeds me. So that I may have the choice of where I would live. So that I may vote for my leaders. I have since dismounted from my anti-colonialism high horse as Kenyans are violating some of these rights as they attack, oppress and kill fellow Kenyans.

As the tears silently glide their way downwards, my windswept face their only witness, in stark contrast to the loud, unruly thoughts that fill my grey matter, the question I ask myself now is what can I do that is meaningful for Kenya seeing as I have chosen to stay here?

The New Oxford English Dictionary’s (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998) definition of TRIBE is as follows:

Noun 1 a social division in a traditional society consisting of families or communities linked by social, economic, religious or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect, typically having a recognised leader: indigenous Indian tribes.

Derogatory a distinctive close-knit social or political group
Derogatory a group or class of people or things
Informal Large numbers of people

A boxed statement headlined “usage” subsequently states:
In historical contexts, the word tribe is broadly accepted. However, in contemporary contexts, used to refer to a community living within a traditional society today, the word is problematic. It is strongly associated with past attitudes of so-called primitive or uncivilised peoples living in remote undeveloped places. For this reason, it is generally preferable to use alternative terms such as community or people.

The word tribe and its derivatives have progressively provoked a bone of contention. My heightened sensitivity to the use of this word incessantly drives me to ponder on its apparently comfortable place in our vocabulary in sub-Saharan Africa. What is the appropriate term to define the gargantuan variety of languages, cultures and traditions that traverse the entirety of the African continent and beyond? I tend to disdain from its use and refer to the debatable terms “ethnic groups” or “communities” when making an observation that demands a distinction between Kenya’s 50-odd tongues. Curiously, of the three East-African languages that I speak, only Kiswahili easily translates into kabila.

What tribe are you? – The fleeting use of this phrase, without the close inspection and analysis of a cognitively composed question has developed into a habit. It implicitly infers a label that may be stuck onto someone and used to define them by a string of regrettably familiar stereotypes; as opposed to belonging to a community that share the same language, culture and to an extent values. Although admittedly, the advancement of rural to urban migration renders the latter invalid in some cases. Perhaps the ease displayed in the use of the word tribe is attributed to our apparent innocence (or debatably ignorance) that the word tribe carries with it a heavy load of negative preconceptions, insinuations, connotations and assumptions. To my ear, and admittedly more-so when voiced by Euro-Americans, the word tribe subtly and quietly carries the undertones of an imprisonment to a Conradian perspective; one that locks Africans into a primitive, uncivilised and barbaric predisposition. An uninstructed people, who, perpetually oblivious to the external world around them, herd animals and flimsily drape miniscule pieces of animal hides or processed tree barks that functionally obscure strategic parts of their dark chocolate sun-torched, well-defined bodies. In an attempt to rationally examine this sentiment, it is clear that the root of my strongly formed opinion emanates from colonialism.

The divide and conquer tactics that the Europeans cunningly applied to their great advantage and success, after their task of studying and grouping the variety of cultural practices and languages into tribes was, I suspect, the dawning of so-called tribal politics in a number of African countries, such as Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The infamous word tribal hit the media houses in the West as a result of the violence that engulfed Kenya after the recently contested 2007 general elections, simplifying an intricately complex reality that culminated in the spate of violence that has taken away over 500 lives and destroyed an incalculable number, estimated at over quarter of a million. Hmm, those tribal Africans are at it again.

An elaborate discourse on the meaning and use of the word tribe that I highly recommend is eloquently articulated in a report by Africa Action, which was recently published by Africa Focus Bulletin dated 8th January 2008. Notably, its relevance despite the fact that it was written just over 10 years ago was readily highlighted. Talking about “Tribe” – Moving from Stereotypes to Analysis gives a balanced analysis of the rationale behind both the use or disuse of the word tribe and concludes with relevant case studies across Africa.

In a uniquely pitched piece, Paul Goldsmith’s “The Return of the Tribe”, recently published in Kwani? 4 (2007), Kenya’s cutting-edge literary journal which unapologetically cuts into socio-political issues presents the evolution of the word tribe as a specific form of organisation, which he explores within but not confined to fourth generation warfare, as he also cleverly intertwines his discourse with tribal politics in Africa. Goldsmith lists a sample of titles and corresponding authors who have given an in-depth analysis, far beyond what I ever could, on the concept of tribes and tribalism in Africa. In good faith, I hope Dr Goldsmith won’t mind me plagiarising:
The Illusion of Tribe – Aiden Southall
The Ideology of Tribalism – Archie Mafeje
Tribal Survival in Modern African Political Systems – Colin Legum
The Tribe as Fact and Fiction in an East African City – David Parkin
The Social Organisation of Cultural Differences – Frederick Barth
The Politics of Cultural Pluralism – Crawford Young

What persistently captures my attention and imagination is Mwalimu Nyerere’s vision for Tanzania (Ujamaa); one that has since united a people with the ubiquitous use of the Kiswahili language. It is evident that a nation is so much more than the artificial, colonially-imposed physical boundaries of a country; it is simply a people. Together as one despite their multiple identities.

Colourfully ornate Dutch Wax or Wax Prints are big business for women traders appropriately referred to as Nana-Benz in West-African countries such as Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Ghana by virtue of the affordability of the German car. The intriguing history of these mobile canvases of art-work ubiquitously reputed to be the quintessential African fabric and a proudly-adorned symbol for African solidarity / black consciousness is perhaps not that well recognised. Originally a cheaply produced imitation of Javanese batik by the Dutch in the 19th Century in a bid to penetrate and in an oh-so-colonial way take over the market, and unsuccessfully so might I add, the Dutch Wax prints landed a more favourable market in the Gold Coast (as the Europeans called it then). The rest as they say is history. Today, in West and Central Africa and further afield in metropolises like Nairobi or Cape Town, Wax Prints have been embraced as a fashionable, back-to-the-roots attire, effortlessly reflected on the streets, catwalks and glossy women’s magazines.

Interestingly (well, at least for the techno-enthusiasts), the misleading name Dutch Wax or Wax Prints was a fabrication (excuse the pun) intended to compete with the hand-made Javanese batiks that were laboriously depicted with the use of wax. Apparently the Javanese women drew the motifs on woven cloth as a form of meditation – how beautiful is that! Conversely, the European machine-made fabrics used dye-resist resin to design the motifs. The Dutch Wax “brand”, however, is used to this day and sought after in colourful stacks of folded textiles in market stalls as a symbol of quality. Initially a unique commodity as the sole European production purely for export to the African market, this is now changing with production as far as China and closer to home in Ghana and Nigeria. Naturally, the lower prices of the Chinese-made fabrics have raised a lot of concerns for local producers as has the contestable quality in some instances, for consumers.

What is fascinating is that this once upon a time purely European production was quickly appropriated, embraced and integrated as a means of self-expression. It is a possibility that this was only so because the Dutch were viewed as well-meaning traders as opposed to colonial masters in their West-African niche. Therefore trading with them as opposed to the British for instance, was probably a rebellion of sorts. Regardless, despite its history, this style of fabric has been integrated and achieved local meaning in the design and hierarchy of its styles that it is unquestionably African. This is perceptively asserted in an interview with Nina Sylvanus, a social anthropologist from UCLA, simply but ingeniously with the phrase “the use is its meaning”. An example to illustrate this is that spaghetti’s origins are inarguably a copy of Chinese noodles since the days of the Italian explorer Marco Polo. However, no one would query spaghetti as authentically Italian. On a complete diversion, I was intrigued to stumble across Dr Sylvanus’ work and can not imagine the looks I would have got from my parents had I proclaimed I would be embarking on a PhD to research The Fabric of Africanity. Actually, who am I kidding – even if I knew people were actually researching this, I would not have dared. It simply would not have crossed my mind as an option…And then we are left wondering why non-Africans appear to be more interested in examining and documenting our culture? Alas, that is a topic for another day.

Since early childhood, as I suspect in any African home, we grew up with the mantra “respect your elders”. This has been inexorably engrained in my brain, like a moulded figure in dried cement, and frankly is a decent code to live by. Whether aged 10 or 40, no well-mannered younger person would hesitate to give their seat up for an older person or allow them to be heavily laden with luggage. When speaking to an elder (with exceptions of course e.g. playful grandparents), the eyes along with the tone of voice drop and a humble posture adopted. In later life, when the younger person is of working age, they tend to the elder ones’ needs with love and respect. A connection to Ancestral veneration is apparent, which is characteristic to African Spirituality, widely practised prior to the bush fire-like spread currently dominant religions such as Christianity and Islam. In traditional communities, upholding elders with high regard was standard practice – not only did they possess wisdom from their many years on earth, but they too would soon be joining the realm of the Ancestors in the spiritual plane. (I will address African Spirituality in a separate post)

My great disappointment in my nurtured idealist views when I became an adult, was the realisation that older people in my circles that I was supposed to respect by virtue of their age, were making judgements or carrying out actions that were in conflict with my own values. How then could I respect such a person? As an African in the Diaspora who is a statistic of migration patterns and globalisation that have reasonably contributed to the creation of multicultural societies, the pluralism of my identity – and I suspect for others in a similar situation – can be as much of a blessing as it can be a curse. There are certain overt traditions that we continue to live by whilst others that remain tacit, that can be a source of conflict, both with yourself and with people in your circles. Some of these traditions that I am alluding to are not explicitly defined; they are implicit in people’s demeanour and responses. In some instances I tread with caution and figure it out as I go along. One of my dilemmas has been how to handle interactions with older people who demand respect when I feel that they do not deserve it based on their discourse or behaviour. Interestingly, respect may be defined in a myriad of ways, depending on your environment. For example, not speaking unless you were spoken to was a code of conduct that my high school teachers during my eventful stint in a Kenyan national boarding school sneeringly enforced, and got me into trouble numerous times until I learnt that the definition at home was not in tandem with the one at school. Although it is so clichéd to dwell on hindsight as the best teacher, I can look back with 20-20 clarity that those teachers were forcibly demanding respect as opposed to gaining it from us. The concept of a Kenyan boarding school is far too complex to go into, but although it wasn’t apparent at the time, it was certainly character building! Someone must be blogging on it before lights out…I digress.

What then is the answer to how to uphold your own values without being ostracised in your community for speaking your mind, which is (wrongly) translated to being disrespectful of your elders ? How do you handle Auntie or Uncle so-and-so who grates you with racist / tribalistic / sexist / homophobic / just plain ignorant comments that proliferate one of the many –isms and does not allow room for an open discussion? After a number of failed attempts to respectfully explain my views to an apparently disinterested elder, my strategy is now avoidance at all costs. And if we happen to bump into each other at an event, family or otherwise, I say a quick hello and exchange nicieties (if at all), followed by a swift exit. Shame isn’t it?

In any struggle against oppression, the arts express the irrepressible core of who we fundamentally are. The arts provide a tenacious platform that reinforces identity and propagates a message that permeates beyond physical or tacit borders. The arts convey the feelings that arise from the depths of our very being and converts them into a visual or auditory illustration, that allows others to experience them. By seeing and /or hearing the expression of self, we momentarily grasp a fragment of another’s soul. In other words, the arts foster the human connection. Although artists express their pain and their joy from their individual perspectives, in an oppresive environment they concurrently create a focal point that breeds unity and determination amongst the oppressed and are knowingly or unknowingly the voice of a community and even a nation to the outside world. Consequently, the power that an artist potentially has within their reach can be viewed as a threatening force to any oppressor.

In my childhood, I vividly recall the late 70′s / early 80′s government-imposed detention without trial and banning of books by the renowned Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o, who later went into exile in the UK and the United States. At that age, I could not comprehend why writing stories about Kenyans and more so in a Kenyan tongue, should be regarded as a political weapon that could instil fear in the then President Moi. Artists present the truth – their truth to the masses in a language that captures our attention and imagination, by speaking to us at a level that is beyond cerebral comprehension and assimilation. Ngugi has been an adamant and much acclaimed voice in the face of neo-colonialism and an avid campaigner of the use of African languages.

Colonialisation, however, has not yet been put to bed and Western Sahara has been fittingly coined Africa’s last colony. With a similar thread to the occupation of Tibet by her neighbour China, Western Sahara has been occupied by the Kingdom of Morocco since the Spanish withdrawal and handover to Morocco and Mauritania in 1975. The UN has its hands tied due to vetoes by France and USA in the UN Security Council, whose support for Morocco is supposedly intended to combat Islamist extremism. And that is only part of the story of the chronology of the Saharawi struggle… As a consequence, multitudes of Saharawi refugees live in camps in the Algerian desert and Morocco continues to have authority over the Saharawi people. Sandblast, a London-based charity, has organised the Sandblast Festival 2007 that will stage Saharawi artists in order to create global awareness of the plight of the Saharawi. They seek justice. Will you listen?

Watson and Crick became household names for their Nobel Prize-winning breakthrough in the 1950′s that revealed the structure of DNA as a double helix of its base pairs. This has been cited as paving the way for the rapid advancement of genetic research and indeed the Human Genome Project, which sought to map the DNA sequence (genome) of human beings. It is therefore terribly disconcerting that James Watson had the audacity to unashamedly and unjustifiably claim that Westerners are intellectually superior to people of African origin, as published in The Independent newspaper (17 th October 2007).

It is apalling that a scientist globally held in such high regard, propagates eugenics theory which unsurprisingly bears no evidence, when empirical evidence is the foundation for any scientific declaration. Unequivocally, Watson is exhibiting his personal prejudices and disguising them as scientific fact. Unfortunately it is farcical fodder like this that further propagates baseless racist ideology. The concept of race is a superficial social construct, with no scientific basis. These unjustified theories were historically used to fuel racist ideology and were ludicrously applied to justify colonialisation and the horrific and inhumane acts, of which trading Africans as commodites in the Slave Trade and the atrocities of Nazi Germany are perhaps the most widely recognised.

Let us come back to the basics — are we not just one species – Homo Sapiens? Admittedly there is diversity in our species and pluralism in our individual identities. However, how this can be categorically used to create baseless hierachies misquoting genetics, more so by the supposed intellectuals in society beggars belief. Well, there you have it – even Nobel Laureates can get it so wrong.

Reality TV made an irrevocable impact on the British public with the advent of Channel 4′ s social experiment, Big Brother. Years on, it appears that reality TV has “gone native”, with programming such as BBC2′s Tribe, Channel 4′s Meet The Natives, amongst others jumping onto the bandwagon. It readily begs the question- is this the noble use of TV programming to offer a platform for profound and meaningful debate on the human condition or purely a desperate attempt to capture audiences in a society that is desensitised from an overwhelming abundance of information? Despite the positively well-intentioned testimony by Tribe’s presenter, Bruce Parry, I fear the answer lies in the latter. It is curious that the undoubtedly marketable, carefully selected names of the afore-mentioned TV series depict the reality TV “stars” with terms that come with baggage and are not used descriptively in the so-called civilised global North. They leave a bad taste in my mouth; reminiscent of the tone in Conrad’s infamous Heart of Darkness, which unapologetically portrays the “dark continent” of savages. And so I am left wondering if this play with words conceals a sinister message to the audience. With names like that, who was their target audience anyway? I daresay it seems to be marketed as an exclusive chance for the modernised of the 21st century with a possible entrenched nostalgia for the long-gone days of the Empire to “go native”, much like a khaki-clad colonial explorer, and to observe the far-removed realities of the dark-skinned natives from the safety and comfort of your cosy living room.

Both TV series vaguely depict a resemblance to anthropological enquiry (a social science which has redeemed itself from its colonial and ethnocentric past), where an outsider joins and fully participates in all aspects of the day-to-day lives of a community. Suffice to say, anthropology sets out to connect the significantly long (at least a number of years) subjective experience of the observer to the bigger picture, in order to answer the overarching question of what it means to be a human being. In both these series, they portray the experiences without contextualising them, or indeed asking meaningful questions derived from the observations and their relation to the UK, for instance and the larger scheme of things. With respect to Meet the Natives, this is eloquently elaborated on by Dr Luke Freeman on the Channel 4 forum, Origination.

Channel 4 claims to have turned the tables round by giving the Pacific islanders cameras to record their experiences of life in the UK. How Channel 4 can make this claim begs belief when they then turn their cameras on them. Although no one has announced it, it is glaringly obvious that someone in Channel 4 thought it would be bemusing entertainment to bring over the people of Tanna (an island of Vanuatu) who revere the Queen’s husband as a god. The core objective of these men’s visit was to seek an audience with Prince Phillip and report back to their Chief. Suffice to say, no one’s faith should be questioned and their belief system should be regarded with respect. Of note, Channel 4 does not at any point relate this to Tanna’s history and the adaptation of the local culture to colonial subjectification, a response that transpired elsewhere in the world. That aside, I was horrified when these men from Tanna were subject to the tucking into a well known fast food brand’s fried chicken bucket, purpotedly as an experience of British life – was this really necessary? One word comes to mind: trans-fats.

In Tribe, the presenter Bruce, has been warmly welcomed into a number of societies in Africa, South America, and elsewhere, with open arms. In one episode where he was in a village of the Dassanech people in the Omo Valley, in the environs of Lake Turkana in Southern Ethiopia, Bruce was initiated with the other young men of the village. Any African will tell you that this is indeed a great honour that was bestowed upon him and I wondered how seriously the BBC (and Bruce) take the irreversible impact they have on the lives of the people that they fleetingly visit, camera in hand. For after Bruce leaves with his entourage, life there will never be the same. It is not to suggest that these people do not have any exposure to people from the West. What I am alluding to is the genuine generosity and open-heartedness that these people undoubtedly have. I was saddened to see Bruce’s adoptive mother in the village talk about her son (Bruce) with such genuine affection, more so when the time came for him to depart. It is my hope that Bruce et al hold these interactions and relationships that they form with utmost respect, that goes beyond what makes good viewing.

Why is it then that this type of programming appeals to the masses? Is there a perceived sense of oh-my-god-would-I-do-that?, when Bruce sheds off his jeans, t-shirt and hiking boots to parade bare-foot, semi-naked and adorned with body paint before he ventures off with his fellow men to hunt for their dinner? Or is it that globalisation is turning us all into boringly predictable hybrids and that this programming provides us with a unique chance to curiously peek with an unattached demeanour, into the “unspoilt” and rapidly fading cultures of the world? Whatever the case, clearly, this advent of reality TV into the fashionable quickie exploration of non-Western cultures draws a fine line between education and exploitation. The immediate ethical issues that need addressing are where the profits from filming tribal holidays go and before they are replaced by the next fad, how can these TV programmes / cultural voyeurism be used a worthy conduit that highlights the regretable plight of historical and present-day exploitation, and in many cases extinction, of indigenous people across the globe. The charity Survival International is an advocate for sustaining the endangered indigenous ways of life in the face of so-called development.