Friday, February 22, 2008
Bush & Africa
It seems a president in his final year of office is a little innocuous. We can almost disregard all of his delusional worldviews and warviews, his inadequate response to a drowning New Orleans (and a drowning economy), his nod of approval to secret prisons, massive infringements on privacy, and funding for faith-based anything. As well as his multi-billion dollar cuts in domestic spending on health care and education, even his goofy pride in his one great domestic success (no child left behind) in face of sinking educational achievement rates as our peers in Europe and Asia outperform us.
That being said, Africa-wise he hasn’t done all too bad. Not outstanding either.
During his six day tour of Ghana, Liberia, Tanzania, Benin, and Rwanda, Bush visited several AIDS treatment centers that his own investment initiatives have helped fund. Writing for the Nicholas Kristoff (aah, my heart flutters ...) blog, Josh Ruxin claims the US has invested over $19 billion to date, 4 billion higher than what Bush committed in 2003. But who can really say which numbers are rosy and which are realistic? The breakdown isn’t as luminous as it may seem. PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) spends only about 55% on treatment of individuals infected with AIDS, mainly through the distribution of antiretroviral drugs. 20% goes to prevention programs; of that, an absurd 33% is spent on programs that promote abstinence. (One of the several reasons abstinence education is so futile in Africa is that in societies that condone men's polygamy and infidelity, and silence women's voices, married women contract the virus all the time.) None of the funds are expressly apportioned to improving the health systems in Africa which, in their crumbling state, have dangerously thwarted the good intentions of donors aid organizations.
On other fronts … While Bush hasn’t sent American troops into Darfur (should we, could we?), he has announced just this week he would free $100 million from his foreign aid budget to assist African countries that send peace-keeping troops to the region. He needs to back this kind of military support with harsher diplomatic efforts with the government in Khartoum. It might be too little too late, but it’s more than the Clinton administration did for Rwanda.
Africa's never been a fast-lane kind of place. Love it or hate it, the pace of life, maybe the pan-African philosophy, is ndank ndank (slowly, slowly). That's not how our country rolls, but it seems we've let it define our foreign aid.
That being said, Africa-wise he hasn’t done all too bad. Not outstanding either.
During his six day tour of Ghana, Liberia, Tanzania, Benin, and Rwanda, Bush visited several AIDS treatment centers that his own investment initiatives have helped fund. Writing for the Nicholas Kristoff (aah, my heart flutters ...) blog, Josh Ruxin claims the US has invested over $19 billion to date, 4 billion higher than what Bush committed in 2003. But who can really say which numbers are rosy and which are realistic? The breakdown isn’t as luminous as it may seem. PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) spends only about 55% on treatment of individuals infected with AIDS, mainly through the distribution of antiretroviral drugs. 20% goes to prevention programs; of that, an absurd 33% is spent on programs that promote abstinence. (One of the several reasons abstinence education is so futile in Africa is that in societies that condone men's polygamy and infidelity, and silence women's voices, married women contract the virus all the time.) None of the funds are expressly apportioned to improving the health systems in Africa which, in their crumbling state, have dangerously thwarted the good intentions of donors aid organizations.
On other fronts … While Bush hasn’t sent American troops into Darfur (should we, could we?), he has announced just this week he would free $100 million from his foreign aid budget to assist African countries that send peace-keeping troops to the region. He needs to back this kind of military support with harsher diplomatic efforts with the government in Khartoum. It might be too little too late, but it’s more than the Clinton administration did for Rwanda.
Africa's never been a fast-lane kind of place. Love it or hate it, the pace of life, maybe the pan-African philosophy, is ndank ndank (slowly, slowly). That's not how our country rolls, but it seems we've let it define our foreign aid.
warning to readers. someone has been commenting on my postings, and in the comment they leave a link which contains a virus. So don't click on any links you might find in these comments! I have the feeling this could be a blogspot-wide trend soooo, as if we need reminding, best to not click on or open anything that looks suspicious ...
Sunday, February 17, 2008
quelles vacances
The mosque in Djenne, the largest mud-structure in the world. (why you should love mud architecture: highly sustainable, locally acquired, thermally efficient, and limitless in design possibilities)
Mali is a lot like Senegal, particularly areas of Senegal outside of its capital region. But the differences, of course, are there - understated, pale; like sisters.
Mali is immense, Mali unrolls the dusty tapestry of its territory in all directions interminably. Mali has so much space, so much void. And how we traipsed and retraipsed it ...
Salif Keita headlined the Festival on the Niger concert we went to in Segou. Salif Keita is an albino, and something about that suggested to me - irrationally I suppose - an infirmity. Which is why the strength of his voice and his heavy presence on stage blew me away. His voice is like a heavy harmattan wind that picks up all the murmurs and whispers and cries breathed across the Sahara and blows it at you with such a force, you’ve got no defenses against it.
I wish we had more time in the desert, but we only spent a couple days up in Timbuktu. We stayed with a young Tuareg married couple who were super friendly, if not a dysfunctional (arranged) match … we rode camels straight towards the red setting sun, as if we could meet it on the horizon. Spent the night in their cousins’ encampment, under a moonless sky and ten thousand stars. From the highest private dune I watched the desert come back to life in the morning. I thought about what it must be like to know your way through the desert by the stars and the dunes, so identical looking to me. The desert is like the ocean in many ways, fierce but traversable in the same way. Frightening and alluring in the same ways. The city of Timbuktu itself is really cool, a special blend of African and Arab. Magic lamps and flying carpets for sale. Definitely a trace of the grandiose center of learning it was so many many years ago. Getting there and back was a drag though! After the return trip, we crashed for 24 hours in a sleepy little town at the foot of a mountain that seemed made just for that purpose.
We spent a lot of time on the road, which was a really good chance to see the environment but tiring too because transportation tends to be a little uncomfortable … Laura and I spent a lot of time thoughtfully ranking the worst rides. The time we squeezed 13 people in a “public” 4WD vehicle and flew across the rocky desert might have been the worst. The busride from Djenne to Segou felt luxurious by comparison, until we got peed on by the sheep on the roof.
Mali is archaic and artistic and magical. It was incredible, really.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
For those of you who didn't know (I didn't know), 2008 is the International Year of Languages. A fitting time to learn a new language and to ruminate over the babel that both separates and connects us.
When I studied abroad in Senegal, I was lucky to meet Boubacar Boris Diop, a Senegalese novelist who published for years in French before switching to his native language, Wolof. This is a really thought-provoking interview with him that touches on so many interesting, if problematic issues concerning African writers and readers. (For more on UNESCO's International Year of Languages: http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=41344&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html)
Interview by Jasmina Šopova
You wrote a dozen books in French before choosing Wolof, your mother language. Why this reversion?
Actually, my language was always there, inside me. The only problem I faced was the ability to write in my language. I was “corrupted” by French. I spoke everyday Wolof, but I didn’t possess it intimately.
Then there was Rwanda. A group of writers I belonged to went there after the genocide, in 1998, as part of the operation “Rwanda: writing as a duty to memory”. I said to myself that if we’d let 10,000 Rwandans get killed per day for three months, if nobody had done anything, this conveyed a certain contempt for Africa…
At that moment I felt even more strongly the desire to write in my mother language. It became essential. Oh, at first it was painful…I was very afraid of writing a French novel in Wolof. I had to fight against myself, but the Diops are stubborn! Then I began to hear voices – voices that came up out of the past. And writing became very easy. I am certain that my first novel in Wolof, Doomi golo (the she-monkey’s young), is my best piece of writing.
Is writing in Wolof therefore also a political act?
Absolutely. Coming back to the title of my novel The she-monkey’s young: what’s a monkey? It’s an imitation of the other. The passage that best sums up the book is the one in which you see a huge mirror in the middle of nowhere. Two gorillas find themselves in front of the mirror and they see their own images. They start fighting their reflections and as a result of hitting the mirror, they hurt themselves and die. What we call hatred of the other is in fact self-hatred. You have to be able to tolerate your image in the mirror, assume your identity.
At the moment I’m translating this novel into French. It will be published in France in September 2008.
Why didn’t you decide to publish it in French in Senegal?
Because now there are only publishers in national languages. That’s good news, anyway…even if their tongues are hanging out! They work with enthusiasm, but with immeasurable difficulties too: no way to make a profit, no distribution…True, the state occasionally steps in. The “Direction du Livre et de la Lecture” (book and reading administration) funded, for instance, a second edition of my book Doomi Golo after the first run of 3000 copies was sold out.
Besides my publisher Papyrus, there’s the « Organisation Sénégalaise d'Appui au Développement » (OSAD) that does remarkable work. And also ARED publishers, but they’re specialized in research and in education for development.
How many readers can you have in Wolof?
If I’d asked myself that question, I would never have started writing! It’s true that where I come from, many people don’t know how to read and don’t buy books. And they have other priorities: their children’s health, feeding their families….There’s also another phenomenon: rich people who live in poor societies generally prefer buying a fancy car, because you can’t show off a book….
We have to accept this situation and bet on the long term. It will take a while for books written today in the African languages to prevail, but they’ll eventually find acceptance. Thirty years ago, literature in national languages didn’t exist, except for a few isolated cases. Today the situation is the opposite: hundreds of books have been published in Wolof and Pulaar, definitely more than in French.
There are two writers’ organizations in Senegal, one composed of writers in French, the other of writers in national languages. The latter are far more numerous, but they have no visibility, because we live in a society where French is the language of prestige.
Do you count on diaspora readership?
A great deal. But although the younger generations of the diaspora speak their mother languages, they don’t know how to read or write them. This is why I had the idea of organizing a Wolof workshop with young people whose background is Senegalese immigration in France. At first the parents didn’t necessarily see any benefit in their children learning their mother language, but there was great demand from the young people. We’re starting in Bordeaux on 25 February. It’s an idea that seems odd initially, but if it works I’ll be very proud of it.
Often when one travels from one African capital to another, one has to stop off in a European capital. Does this also happen in the world of African literature?
It would be fantastic if I could translate the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiongo directly form Kikuyu into Wolof, without going through English and French….To my knowledge there’s almost no translation from one African language into another. My novel Doomi Golo is translated into Pulaar now. But who will translate it into Swahili? Do we have to wait two or three centuries? Not necessarily, but that’s what I fear, alas.
You know, Africa was divided up by the colonial powers in Berlin in 1885. Africans speak to each other through the colonial languages. And me, making fun of it, referring to the Berlin Wall of the Cold War, I call it our “Berlin Wall”. It is invisible but terrible – it separates the English-, French- and Portuguese-speaking countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
With Moussa Konaté, Malian writer who heads the French-speaking festival “Etonnants voyageurs” (amazing travelers) in Mali, I’ve often discussed the idea of organizing a big meeting of African writers who write in national languages. A way of at least making cracks in this wall. But it’s easier to find sponsors for French-language writers than for those who write in national languages. UNESCO could be the perfect venue for such a pan-African encounter, particularly this year, international year of languages. And it’s an international space. Without walls.
When I studied abroad in Senegal, I was lucky to meet Boubacar Boris Diop, a Senegalese novelist who published for years in French before switching to his native language, Wolof. This is a really thought-provoking interview with him that touches on so many interesting, if problematic issues concerning African writers and readers. (For more on UNESCO's International Year of Languages: http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=41344&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html)
Interview by Jasmina Šopova
You wrote a dozen books in French before choosing Wolof, your mother language. Why this reversion?
Actually, my language was always there, inside me. The only problem I faced was the ability to write in my language. I was “corrupted” by French. I spoke everyday Wolof, but I didn’t possess it intimately.
Then there was Rwanda. A group of writers I belonged to went there after the genocide, in 1998, as part of the operation “Rwanda: writing as a duty to memory”. I said to myself that if we’d let 10,000 Rwandans get killed per day for three months, if nobody had done anything, this conveyed a certain contempt for Africa…
At that moment I felt even more strongly the desire to write in my mother language. It became essential. Oh, at first it was painful…I was very afraid of writing a French novel in Wolof. I had to fight against myself, but the Diops are stubborn! Then I began to hear voices – voices that came up out of the past. And writing became very easy. I am certain that my first novel in Wolof, Doomi golo (the she-monkey’s young), is my best piece of writing.
Is writing in Wolof therefore also a political act?
Absolutely. Coming back to the title of my novel The she-monkey’s young: what’s a monkey? It’s an imitation of the other. The passage that best sums up the book is the one in which you see a huge mirror in the middle of nowhere. Two gorillas find themselves in front of the mirror and they see their own images. They start fighting their reflections and as a result of hitting the mirror, they hurt themselves and die. What we call hatred of the other is in fact self-hatred. You have to be able to tolerate your image in the mirror, assume your identity.
At the moment I’m translating this novel into French. It will be published in France in September 2008.
Why didn’t you decide to publish it in French in Senegal?
Because now there are only publishers in national languages. That’s good news, anyway…even if their tongues are hanging out! They work with enthusiasm, but with immeasurable difficulties too: no way to make a profit, no distribution…True, the state occasionally steps in. The “Direction du Livre et de la Lecture” (book and reading administration) funded, for instance, a second edition of my book Doomi Golo after the first run of 3000 copies was sold out.
Besides my publisher Papyrus, there’s the « Organisation Sénégalaise d'Appui au Développement » (OSAD) that does remarkable work. And also ARED publishers, but they’re specialized in research and in education for development.
How many readers can you have in Wolof?
If I’d asked myself that question, I would never have started writing! It’s true that where I come from, many people don’t know how to read and don’t buy books. And they have other priorities: their children’s health, feeding their families….There’s also another phenomenon: rich people who live in poor societies generally prefer buying a fancy car, because you can’t show off a book….
We have to accept this situation and bet on the long term. It will take a while for books written today in the African languages to prevail, but they’ll eventually find acceptance. Thirty years ago, literature in national languages didn’t exist, except for a few isolated cases. Today the situation is the opposite: hundreds of books have been published in Wolof and Pulaar, definitely more than in French.
There are two writers’ organizations in Senegal, one composed of writers in French, the other of writers in national languages. The latter are far more numerous, but they have no visibility, because we live in a society where French is the language of prestige.
Do you count on diaspora readership?
A great deal. But although the younger generations of the diaspora speak their mother languages, they don’t know how to read or write them. This is why I had the idea of organizing a Wolof workshop with young people whose background is Senegalese immigration in France. At first the parents didn’t necessarily see any benefit in their children learning their mother language, but there was great demand from the young people. We’re starting in Bordeaux on 25 February. It’s an idea that seems odd initially, but if it works I’ll be very proud of it.
Often when one travels from one African capital to another, one has to stop off in a European capital. Does this also happen in the world of African literature?
It would be fantastic if I could translate the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiongo directly form Kikuyu into Wolof, without going through English and French….To my knowledge there’s almost no translation from one African language into another. My novel Doomi Golo is translated into Pulaar now. But who will translate it into Swahili? Do we have to wait two or three centuries? Not necessarily, but that’s what I fear, alas.
You know, Africa was divided up by the colonial powers in Berlin in 1885. Africans speak to each other through the colonial languages. And me, making fun of it, referring to the Berlin Wall of the Cold War, I call it our “Berlin Wall”. It is invisible but terrible – it separates the English-, French- and Portuguese-speaking countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
With Moussa Konaté, Malian writer who heads the French-speaking festival “Etonnants voyageurs” (amazing travelers) in Mali, I’ve often discussed the idea of organizing a big meeting of African writers who write in national languages. A way of at least making cracks in this wall. But it’s easier to find sponsors for French-language writers than for those who write in national languages. UNESCO could be the perfect venue for such a pan-African encounter, particularly this year, international year of languages. And it’s an international space. Without walls.
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