Uneven Development: Listening to the 'South', Listening to Vancouver

This video is an interview/short clip with a Somali-Canadian rapper named K’naan. The video was shot by his promotional staff, and was shot in Nairobi. The direct purpose of the video is for him to speak about his Video for a song called “Soobax.”  The song as well as its lyrics are  posted here.

In the video, K’naan speaks about his childhood in Mogadishu and his life as a refugee. He comments on his return to East Africa, and the importance of himself as a Somali musician. He shoots the music video in a neighborhood in Nairobi, known as Eastleigh, which is a large slum where many Somali refugees have settled. He speaks about the particular song he is recording and articulates the gist of the song. His view is basically that those responsible for violence in Somalia are at the root of the problems in the state and that is time for those same individuals to be held accountable for their crimes. I was introduced to him a few months ago, and much of his music has a similar tone.

It has been stated both on the blog and in class that alternative modes of expression are common for the subaltern. Music  is an alternative means of expression. The “subaltern” have been stripped of their voice, their ability to articulate their views and their ability to really contextualize their own struggles to others using their own knowledge. It is tough to say however, if Music and or other art forms affect the elite in a way that calls them to action. Another important question is whether or not music is produced on “the periphery” or in the center. It is also important o consider who is listening to music that has the purpose of bringing voice to subjugated individuals or communities.

K’naan uses both Somali and English in his music, and he also uses traditional forms of Somali music at times.  In this song the chorus in Somali and his angry tone really help him to get his point across. But, it is unclear whether this song is meant for a Somali audience that can relate to what he is saying or a Western audience that is unfamiliar with his point of view. Nonetheless, his use of Somali in this song, while still making it clear that it is hip-hop, allows it to effect any listener. He is really trying to give many Somalians a voice with this song, but on their own terms by using their language, alluding to aspects of Somali culture, shooting the video in an area where many Somali refuges have settled and speaking about the desires of these refugees. I believe that almost any refugees displaced from their home, and who live in poverty truly represent the subaltern. The main critique of subaltern modes of expression is that these forms of expression are often stuck in forms of Western discourse. I think K’naan is challenging this, and is using an effective method of speaking to the world without being subjugated to dominance discourse. However, there are certain elements that could take away from this, such as the fact that he is signed to a mainstream record label.

Ideas about piracy or ideas of Somalia as a failed state are the most common perceptions of a nation. K’naan and other critics have an interesting take on the roots of piracy in Somalia. There are some parallels that can be drawn between what we are studying in Columbia, and what is occurring in Somalia, with illegal fishing or waste dumping. In this case, piracy is a form of social struggle to many global and potentially capitalist processes. Or it is a means of fighting accumulation by dispossession. It is an interesting phenomenon that could be discussed quite a bit.

Somalia has been described as the world’s most “Failed State.”  A stable, democratic state could not be formed based on Western models, and thus it is a “failure.” This is a strong example of how discourse affects development, since Somalia is heavily underdeveloped and its lack of stable statehood is often seen as the underlying reason for this. K’naan states in the video, that is really the “gunmen,” the warlords, who have power in the State, and he makes it clear that the people of Somali, many of whom were displaced, want to live in their homes in a peaceful society. This illustrates that political failure was not inherent in the Somali people or their culture, as many mainstream sources present as factual.

Development in Somalia is a major topic in itself but K’naan and his music speak to issues that must be dealt with when looking to promote development in Somalia. I recommend listening to some more of K’naan’s music, some of it really gives “voice” to many who cannot “speak.” Here are some links to songs I find that would fall into this category:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf7oVRo0tro&feature=channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZwQZ19EKm8

On a personal note, I have visited Eastleigh in Nairobi and it is really the way K’naan describes it in the video.  It was an area that other Kenyans do not really visit, and from what I could tell the people I saw there were all of Somali origin. I have most of my family in Nairobi, and the Indians in Nairobi are part of the elite. The huge differences in the places inhabited by these “foreign” groups in Nairobi realy struck me.

This video depicts one element in a web of new responses to Development and globalizing forces represented in social movements and activism around the world. In June of 2008 a group from the Google Earth Outreach program travelled into the Brazilian Amazon. Google Earth Outreach is a program which provides cartographical and visualization resources to non-profits and public benefit organizations. Visiting with several indigenous tribes in the forests of western Brazil, the team taught GPS mapping, video, photography and computer technology skills to groups of villagers. The goal of these instructional sessions was to assist the villagers in creating their own maps of their lands, sacred sites and resources, and thus to help to spatially situate knowledge that has previously existed as oral history, passed from generation to generation. These maps also represent important tools in the fight against intrusions by logging and ranching and may form a key piece of evidence when groups deal with local and federal governments. The satellite imagery associated with Google Earth may allow them to see encroachments on their land, such as deforestation or river discolouration. Thus the maps represent key tools to enhance communication, preserve cultural knowledge, maintain accountability from governments and organizations and empower indigenous groups.

This video address one of the central problems facing social movements across the world, that of how to effectively communicate the message. By using media tools like the internet and GPS groups throughout the Amazon are being connected with the tools to protect their rights and assert themselves as owners or caretakers of the land they live on. These tools allow “scale weaving” and transnational literacy that was previously limited by lack of contact. Groups in the Amazon are able to communicate with governments on their own terms but also with other social movements.

Central also to the power of this movement is its participatory nature. By making maps of their own cultural and ecological knowledge, and doing it themselves, this group has fundamentally made the process (and the results) theirs. Foucault identifies power/knowledge as a foundational element of understanding many of the relationships in the development discourse. Cartography has always been one of the tools of power (and a representation of knowledge), in early lectures we discussed its importance during colonization when the acts of naming and locating sites was part of a process of dominance and subjugation. By spatially situating themselves and their world, these groups in the Amazon are defining themselves and taking control across scales.

The first time I watched this video I was immediately sceptical of those involved; why were they there? how were they impacting the mapping? would this mean Google (in my mind a representation of the omnipotent Western corporation synonymous with Development) owned the rights to the maps? These are questions which I cannot answer but they deserve consideration. Regardless it represents a communication across scales and boundaries, made possible by the technology and knowledge of two very different realities. As we have discussed in class, it is not our place to talk of “giving voice” to Spivak’s subaltern, I prefer to think of this as instead teaching another language.

Check these sites out as well:

• http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/magazine/15-11/ps_amazon#
• http://news.mongabay.com/2006/1114-google_earth-act.html
• http://www.amazonteam.org/index.php/193/Participatory_Ethnographic_Mapping_Mapping_Indigenous_Lands
• http://earth.google.com/outreach/index.html

There are roughly between 3-5 million African refugees in South Africa. Xenophobic attacks have taken place for many years but in March of 2008 there was a huge increase and over 100 people were killed. The attacks started in the community of Alexandria, outside of Johannesburg. Zimbabweans, Malawians, Nigerians and many other foreigners were physically attacked, their homes set of fire, and their shops vandalized and other were threatened with death unless they left the area. This violence spread throughout most of South Africa. It took the government a lot of military manpower to end the attacks and by the end of the violence over 200,000 people were displaced, many fearing to go ‘home’ to the squatter camps they lived in before.

In this clip Majirano Muderlua, a man from the Democratic Republic of the Congo explains his experience of the attacks. Here, he is the subaltern, a foreigner in a strange land where he is not accepted. Not only have he faced atrocities in the DRC and had to seek refuge in South Africa but here he is once again marginalised and silenced. In this clip he is able to speak, it is just him and the camera man, no images or sound effects are used. Interesting points to note was that he spoke in English (not French) and that he answered the camera man’s questions, it was not simply him speaking from his own thoughts. Yet, the cameraman’s questions do not seem too leading, and do not direct him to speak about a specific topic over another.

Muderlua may be unaware, but he uses strategic essenssialism. He is only one man from one African country yet he speaks on behalf of all foreign, abused refugees.  I also found the idea and importance of scale prevalent here because what started as a neighbourhood problem soon spread and became a national problem and when people died it came into view on an international level. Muderlua can be seen jumping scales as he asks for help from the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) to create a peaceful and safe environment for all refugees to live in.

Although it is not specified in this video the reasons for these attacks are common problems in development: unemployment, lack of social/government housing and poverty. South Africans who were part of the attacks have a discourse created through their history of discrimination during Apartheid.  Throughout the Apartheid government and until present there are large income inequalities and this has led to a large amount of uneven development. Many black South Africans have never had access to proper land, and social facilities. They create a binary between themselves and ‘the foreigners,’  and believe that with more and more foreigners arriving in South Africa their hopes for houses, jobs and a higher standard of living are getting driven further and further away.

Whether or not these South Africans’ claims have any validity the attacks were an atrocity and it is clear that the government needs to deal with the issues that both these refugees and also poor South African citizens face.

For further information, in particular looking at the view of South Africans on the matter, please watch the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl8PRMHFF_U

about Dambisa Moyo

Dambisa Moyo was born and raised in Zambia, Southern Africa. She completed a PhD in Economics at Oxford University and holds a Masters from Harvard University. She completed a Bachelors degree in Chemistry and MBA in Finance at the American University in Washington D.C.. She worked at Goldman Sachs for 8 years in the debt capital markets, hedge fund coverage and in global macroeconomics teams. Previously she worked at the World Bank in Washington D.C.. Dambisa is a member of the Boards of Lundin Petroleum and SAB Miller. Dambisa is a Patron for Absolute Return for Kids (ARK), a hedge fund supported children’s charity. She serves on the Boards of the Lundin for Africa Foundation and Room to Read, an educational charity.

Dambisa argues for more innovative ways for Africa to finance development including trade with China, accessing the capital markets, and microfinance. Dambisa has also been offered a contract for another book, entitled How the West Was Lost, scheduled for publication with Penguin and Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2010. This book examines the policy errors made in the US and other Western economies which culminated in the 2008 financial crisis. And discusses why financial and economic experts missed the signs of the credit crunch. It also explores the policy decisions that have placed the emerging world- China, Russia and the Middle East, in pole position to become the dominant economic players in the 21st century.

source: Dambisa Moyo’s website <http://www.dambisamoyo.com/author.html>

about Dead Aid

Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa

In the past fifty years, more than $1 trillion in development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Has this assistance improved the lives of Africans? No. In fact, across the continent, the recipients of this aid are not better off as a result of it, but worse—much worse. In Dead Aid, Dambisa Moyo describes the state of postwar development policy in Africa today and unflinchingly confronts one of the greatest myths of our time: that billions of dollars in aid sent from wealthy countries to developing African nations has helped to reduce poverty and increase growth. In fact, poverty levels continue to escalate and growth rates have steadily declined—and millions continue to suffer. Provocatively drawing a sharp contrast between African countries that have

rejected the aid route and prospered and others that have become aid-dependent and seen poverty increase, Moyo illuminates the way in which overreliance on aid has trapped developing nations in a vicious circle of aid dependency, corruption, market distortion, and further poverty, leaving them with nothing but the “need” for more aid.

Debunking the current model of international aid promoted by both Hollywood celebrities and policy makers, Moyo offers a bold new road map for financing development of the world’s poorest countries that guarantees economic growth and a significant decline in poverty—without reliance on foreign aid or aid-related assistance.

Dead Aid is an unsettling yet optimistic work, a powerful challenge to the assumptions and arguments that support a profoundly misguided development policy in Africa. And it is a clarion call to a new, more hopeful vision of how to address the desperate poverty that plagues millions.

source: Dambisa Moyo’s website <http://www.dambisamoyo.com/deadaid.html>

commentary

I grew interested in the debate around Dambisa Moyo’s book, because I had very strong opinions against relief development aid in Southern Africa in particular. It was refreshing to see an influential African speak out against aid, when surrounded by governments that will go through any means necessary to secure further aid inputs into the countries. But just as the cliché goes, give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him to fish and he will eat for his lifetime, this is something that relief aid specifically doesn’t address. Other development in infrastructure and industry is less patronizing however at the end of the day; they don’t give the local the necessary tools to develop without the constant need for development intervention.

What I particularly identified with Moyo’s opinion was her critique of governments’ attitudes and practices in the development processes of developing countries. There are underlying deals that foster uneven development in almost every single development transaction in Southern Africa. And it is high time that government officials be held accountable for the active role they play in the uneven development of their countries. They are elected into to office (technically) under the premise that they are there to pursue the best interest of their constituents however this is rarely the case.

From my understanding Moyo advocates that we take the power out of their hands, by voicing that we don’t want them to keep lining their pockets with resources that are meant for the development of the nation, by whining off development aid altogether. However her proposed alternative is one that won’t necessarily change the order of things. I suppose it will be an improvement because the power will be redistributed through academics, experts, in other qualified elites, instead of dubious government officials. But it still relies on the neoliberal notions of the trickle down economy; which has to date to prove its effectiveness. 

As pointed out in the comment above, FDI is what is hoped will be promoted in contemporary African political agendas, however I feel that this too has a set of destructive consequences at are being over-looked too lightly. FDI equal if not greater capabilities to undermine domestic economies unless managed under strongly regulated economies, something that unfortunately is not the case for many nations in the Global South. 

I am currently reading the book Dead Aid and hope to comment again once I am done with it, maybe with a new/improved perspective.

Last VIFF showing –> Tue, Oct 13^th 12:40PM at Empire Granville
See also director Sandy Cioffi’s talk on Democracy Now –> Part 1 | Part 2

Summary

From VIFF Website

This is not the movie I intended to make, says director Sandy Cioffi, by way of introduction to her searing indictment of the politics of the global oil market. When the inauguration of a library in the Nigerian village of Oporoza was hijacked by a group of articulate and impassioned students, demanding an end to the environmental degradation of the Niger Delta, and a share of the astronomical oil profits ($700 billion) MEND (The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) was born. Projected to supply a quarter of the US oil imports by 2015, the Niger Delta occupies an increasingly fraught position. Nowhere is this more explicitly clear than when Cioffi brokers a deal with ABC News for a Dateline story on the crisis in the Delta. As the spokesperson for MEND struggles to make himself understood, the corporate media agenda is clearly revealed in all its predatory hysteria. But even as members of MEND debate whether their struggle should remain nonviolent or take up arms against government forces, across the globe the then-Nigerian president was meeting with George W. Bush to secure a commitment from the US to back the Nigerian government (with American Marines if need be). The government policy of execution, intimidation, and rape extended even to Cioffi and her crew, who were arrested and detained, their film footage seized. The film reserves some of its most damning information for the very end when it is revealed that the Niger Delta, one of the most polluted places in the world, has suffered the equivalent of 50 Exxon Valdez spills (with no plans for a cleanup).

Background

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, gained its independence from the British in 1960. The country is a “shaky rickety federation” of more than 300 ethnic groups coexisting within the national boundary drawn by the colonisers. Petro companies like Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron have been extracting oil from the Niger Delta since oil was discovered there in the 1950’s. This continued after country’s independence. After some 50 years of irresponsible operation by the oil companies and uneven distribution of this oil wealth, the Niger Delta is now in a state of extreme environment degradation and its some 20 million people living in poverty (see Wikipedia entry on Environmental issues in the Niger Delta).

The struggle of people living in the Delta against the social and environmental atrocities of the oil extracting companies and the Nigerian government dates back to the early days of independence. One of the important figures during this period fighting for a fairer share of the Niger Delta’s oil wealth is Isaac Adaka Boro. Later, the famous human right activist Ken Saro-Wiwa substituted Boro’s role and lead a nonviolent campaign to end the decades-long environment and social devastations in the delta region (see p117 in Victoria Lawson’s book on struggle of Ogoni People). The responses to Saro-Wiwa’s peaceful activism were violent. The Nigerian government ordered its Joint Task Force(JTF) armies to silence and slaughter communities involved in the campaign. More than 20 villages were wiped out since the 1990’s. And the multinational petro companies responded with a series of assassinations of Saro-Wiwa and his supporters (see Wiwa family lawsuits against Royal Dutch Shell of torturing and murdering Saro-Wiwa in Wikipedia). Oppressed and abused by the government and corporations, people of the Niger Delta started to deploy “stronger” measures in order to make their voice heard. Militancy of MEND, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, whose objective is to achieve “resource control and self-determination” in the region emerged as the prominent group in the struggle (see Wikipedia entry of MEND for detailed accounts).

Despite the frequency of being depicted by the Western media as a “terrorist group who has links with al-Qaeda,” MEND has been calling for international intervention to hold a third-party peace talk with the oil companies and the Nigerian government. However, the international community has not done anything significant to improve in the situation in the Niger Delta. That is other than United States’ decision to send more troops to secure the routes to ship crude oil out of Nigeria (see AFRICOM in Wikipedia).

Recap of Q&A with the director Sandi Cioffi on Thu, Oct 8^th, 2009

Q: As a documentary maker, how did you maintain neutrality while spending a long time with these villagers?
A: When I was in Northern Ireland people always asked “why are you on the side of the IRA?” When you are safely sleeping in a hotel room, you’ve already chosen your side with your feet. I think it is very difficult for a documentary maker to stay neutral. For the crew to travel safely on the creeks, we need to get permission and protection from MEND leaders and village elders. Then the next thing you know is that you’re spending a lot of your filming time with them and seeing things through their perspectives. In a world where the mainstream media goes for things that are sensational rather than complex, I think something showing an alternative way of thinking is indeed necessary.

Q: What was left out on the cutting room floor?
A: Several things. First, the footage of our forth trip to the delta last year (2008) was not included because the it was destroyed by the Nigerian government when the crew was captured and jailed. It includes interviews of young politicians who are pushing for a third-party peace talk with the UN and more generally a just and democratic political system. These interviews were to be the last chapter of the film. Second, interviews of Chevron spokespersons. I didn’t want to show you because some of the clips make the company look really bad. I thought you don’t need me to give a black and white picture of corporate giants taking advantages of small people. It’s that they are doing it. But I’m using oil, probably from Chevron and Shell. I am guilty too. That’s why I didn’t think it was necessary. One other thing I really wanted to show you but didn’t is a scene of woman screaming seeing her village was set on fire by the JTF and all her family killed. But I left it on the cutting room floor because I thought I shouldn’t show you things that are too emotional and out of context.

Q: You dedicated the whole film to show the struggles of the Ogoni people over their land and resources.  But Nigeria is a huge country; The Niger Delta is just a small part of it. To me, political and social struggle in one place is inevitably linked to what is going on elsewhere in the country. Why didn’t you incorporate any of the social movements in other parts of Nigeria?
A: My primary aim is to give the audience a sense of what’s going in the delta. When I started filming, I watched everything available on the delta and they are all totally out of date. The latest one was made in 1994. And things have changed a lot since 1994. I don’t know about Canadians, but in the States, most people don’t know anything about Nigeria.  If they know anything, they know that Fela Kuti’s music was cool. They might know there is oil there, too. I don’t know Nigeria outside of the Niger Delta or Oporoza, the village where most part of our filming is done. I’m more concerned about getting the stories of the villagers through. Besides, I wouldn’t do justice to anybody if I try to give you a glimpse of people’s lives all around Nigeria. I think for a defined scope is needed for any documentary.

Commentary

To make their voices audible

The movie tells the heartbreaking story of the people living in the Niger Delta who have had many practical solutions to the problem for many years and whose voice is constantly being ignored, if not deliberately distorted, by the international community. It comes to the idea discussed in the Sharp reading “Can the subaltern speak.” What we are seeing is a lack of media coverage when the movement to liberate the delta was undertaken in a peaceful fashion saying the region is dangerous. And now, when the MEND and other militant groups are fully armed, there is a literally a flood of foreign media to the area bring back images of masked men with guns swearing to expel the oil companies and their workers.

A vicious cycle of representations

It is a vicious cycle that no elite would listen and solve the problem in time unless the subaltern turn to violent measures. Then the elites would not let go of the opportunity to dehumanise and demonise the subaltern labelling them as “terrorists” and presenting the corporations as powerless victims under these “terrorist threats.” It is ironic to see the subaltern, who are glad that they had finally received some attention from the elites, in turn become even more militant and belligerent. In many aspects, the situation of MEND in the movie reminds of me of Frantz Fanon and his idea of violence as the last resort of the oppressed to make their voice audible and that violence is inevitable in decolonisation and years to come after that (see pp122-129 in Sharp).

However, I believe there are ways in which the subaltern can break out from this vicious circle of representations. One is through the justice system, which can be seen in the lawsuits of Saro-Wiwa’s death against Shell. Another way is to create an alternative space for the subaltern to present themselves, like what Sweet Crude did and what we’re doing here. One of most impressive parts of the movie is this meeting of the leaders of women’s rights group and MEND discussing how they want to be portrayed in the film. They explicitly state that they don’t want to be presented as “resource persons.”In other words, this alternative space for subaltern to speak needs to be constructed on an equal relation between the actor and producer so that the subaltern can decide how they would like to be represented.

Corporations as victims of “terrorist activities”

Another impressive and shocking part of the film is how ABC news report about the MEND’s activities in Nigeria. In the clip, a woman identified as a “global energy analyst” said when there are several attacks on petroleum producing facilities in the world, like what was going on in Nigeria, then the price of oil will be drastically increased. Later Sandy Cioffi told me that this so-called global energy analyst actually works for an oil company. I personally thought the comment is clever. Blame those people in the South struggling over their right over resources for making the oil prices high. Call what their fights “resource nationalism” and say that they post threats to free trade and property right. By channelling hatred towards people elsewhere, the investment bankers, hedge fund managers and speculators alike can escape from the responsibility of restlessly investing in the fuel market and creating pushing oil prices to record high. Just like how western empires and the drivers of the big D development have gone to the South to solve problems in the North, the states, corporations and media again find it effective to demonise the South to make the Wall Street financial capitalism seem legitimate. Of course, this statement exaggerates and simplifies the complex reality we’re experiencing now. Nonetheless, it helps us to reflect upon how the “terrorism” and “if we don’t give them anything the poor people are going to kill us” rhetoric has infiltrated our daily life.

Click to watch the video
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ngozi_okonjo_iweala_on_aid_versus_trade.html

Summary:

Former Nigerian Finance Minister Nogozi Okonjo-Iweala speaks at the 2007 TED conference in California about the future of Africa. After doing opinion research and looking at other studies, she calls employment the top issue for African youth. To provide jobs Okonjo-Iweala advocates a partnership between government aid, private sector donations, and “ordinary African people.” She tells a personal story to explain that the source of aid can often be irrelevant to the person receiving it. Okonjo-Iweala’s priority solution is to build infrastructure using funds from international donors, but with consent and consideration from local peoples. Finally, she advocates job creation and empowerment for women.

Commentary:

Who IS Nogozi Okonjo-Iweala?

A native Nigerian who went to Harvard and has a Ph.D in regional economics and development from MIT. After being the first female Finance Minister for Nigeria, she is now a director at the World Bank. I think Okonjo-Iweala uses strategic essentialism in her talk in two ways – first to take on the role of an “ordinary African” in order to convince her audience that she is somehow authentic and understanding of that population. Second, to adopt the identity of a successful westerner, who uses the language of finance and economics to explain the relative gains of helping the poor. I have to wonder – how would my perception have differed if the speaker was a caucasian male? Okonjo-Iweala’s oriental dress and femininity made me more likely to sympathize and try to understand her. I was inspired by Okonjo-Iweala but still critical of many of her ideas about development.

What WAS she talking about?

Okonjo-Iweala uses an economic rationale to explain how humanitarian aid can save lives, which makes the economy more productive. She says the act of the EU giving aid to Spain and Ireland for infrastructure should be repeated in African countries. Well, I know that the EU is the largest aid donor in the world and has given billions to Africa. Okonjo-Iweala would say that the money wasn’t used in the right places. I think she neglected to mention the amount of government and private sector corruption that adducts that aid money. Plus, with new aid, I thought she should have mentioned the importance of environmental sustainability. Finally, although the talk’s title was ‘aid versus trade’, Okonjo-Iweala only addressed the former. After reading the public commentary posted under the video, I found many other viewers equally frustrated by the topics she chose to focus on and incomplete explanations.

Where is the voice?

It is questionable whether Okonjo-Iweala (or anyone) can properly represent individuals in Africa. I think she does give a voice to the ‘subaltern’ by doing opinion research and speaking against injustice publicly. She empowers the colonized and marginalized by saying that the developed world could not have been built without the ‘aid’ from today’s developing countries. She does recommend conferences and consultation processes, and praises China, a more powerful developing nation, for hearing the interests of local people. I don’t want to forget that even through Okonjo-Iweala, voices can still be “caught in translation.” Is Okonjo-Iweala subaltern? That is still up for debate.

Tiken Jah Fakoly is an Ivoirian musician living in political exile in Mali. His lyrics and message are very powerful and I believe he captures the contraditions and inconsistencies that exist in West African and North-South politics.  This post actually consists of two song – though I’ve only posted the one video (Viens Voir has no music video) – because the totality of his message cannot be grasped in a single song (or even two songs, for that matter).

Y’en a Marre (We’ve Had Enough) critiques the relationships that has existed between North and South as captured by dependency theory.

Translation of lyrics:

(Chorus: )
We’ve had enough

Africa has had enough

We’ve had enough

The people have had enough

Journalists assassinated

Because of assassin presidents

Generals in command

Oppressed populations

Aid to the countries diverted

Famished populations

The nations funds squandered
Human Rights ignored

(Chorus)

After the abolition of slavery

They created colonization

Once we found the solution

They created ‘cooperation’

As we denounced that situation

They created globalization

Without explaining globalization

Babylon* is exploiting us

(Chorus)

{Yaniss Odua :}

We must stop supporting this

The life of our brothers doesn’t count for

this gang of vampires**

Stop the wars keep the faith

Faya (fire) on all the heads of state that

send us to kill our brothers

They don’t respect us

It’s the same thing for their laws

They don’t even look when the people

reclaim their rights

They absolutely do not share the money

It’s not that there isn’t any

They do nothing for our sisters who

sell themselves to live in this world

(Chorus)

Assassin-presidents

We want no more!

Generals in command

We want no more!

Child soldiers

We want no more!

Orphans of war

We want no more!

(Chorus)

Africa has had enough

Of all these plots

My people have had enough

Of all these manipulations

Africa has had enough

Of all these exploitations

My people have had enough

Of all this oppression

Africa has had enough

*Babylon: a reggae/rasta term meaning the (corrupt) establishment, ‘the man’, the system, the authority and, in this case, the North and modernity.

**Vampire: another reggae/rastafari term meaning the oppressor, the exploiter.

Viens Voir (Come See) (Viens Voir video) is a critique of the mainstream development initiatives that often depict and refer to Africa as a destitute and helpless. Rather, Tiken affirms – and not only in this song – that Africa is a place of richness. Resource rich, cultural richness and diversity, generosity. Tiken rejects the notion that Africa needs to be saved by the North.

Translation of Viens Voir:

(Chorus)

Come see, come see

Come see, come see

You who speaks without knowing

Bamako, Abidjan or Dakar
Sierra Leone, Namibia, Kenya

Come see

My Africa is not what they would have you believe

Why always the same faces?

Why always the same comments?

Why always the same reportages

To listen to them, my Africa would be nothing but drought and famine

When we listen to them, my Africa is nothing but combat and mine fields

Come see
(Chorus)

My Africa is not what they make you think

Not a word on the history of the continent

On the civilizations and riches of the past

Not a word on the values

The people who welcome you, their hand on their heart

(Chorus)

My Africa is not what they want you to believe

Africa is not what they want you to believe

Come into our families

Come into our villages

You will know what is hospitality

Warmth, smiles, generosity

Come see those who have nothing

See how they give

You will leave rich

You will never be able to forget

Come see

Both these songs are sung in French, but Tiken Jah Fakoly also sings in Djoula and occassionally English. These two songs also both address international issues, whereas many of his songs are focused on domestic issues in Cote D’Ivoire and other West African countries.

Enjoy,

Skyler

There are volumes of voices speaking out for HIV/AIDS “victims.” Nelson Mandela, Bono, Stephen Lewis, Stephanie Nolan, Starbucks and even George W. Bush have contributed their words to the chorus. However, the voices of impoverished, HIV+ Africans appear to join the discourse only on rare occasions, and often this happens when others speak on their behalf. In this way, it seems that these voices fit into the category of sub-altern: marginalized and un-heard.

In addition, with regard to HIV/AIDS, numbers are often allowed to take the place of voices from the less privileged global majority.  It sometimes seems as if we are meant to gain an understanding of another person’s lived experience through the study of overwhelming statistics. This is an impossible expectation. For example, hearing that twenty-two million people in Sub-Saharan Africa live with HIV doesn’t translate into an appreciation of what it is like to live with HIV. With numbers as large as twenty-two million, individuality of those included in the statistic can get lost in calculation.

Jean-Jacques is one person within that statistic. A 25 year old father of two, he lives in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. He has had AIDS (symptomatic expressions of the HIV virus) for a year. He is dizzy, vomits, and is very thin. Jean-Jaqcues explains that life-extending medication is very costly and because people living with HIV/AIDS get little support from the government he, and others with AIDS will die (I think this is what he means by the phrase “We are late”). Jean-Jacques says that he would gladly be an advocate for HIV/AIDS treatment, if he were to receive it. He then calls on those who “think of the people of the Congo” and on the government to do something about the crisis. He seems frustrated by the apathy of the Congolese government. He says that people have tried to draw the Minister of Health’s attention to the crisis, but that they have received no response. Having watched Rape of a Nation (See below) where I learned about the election of Congo’s  current totalitarian government, I found Jean-Jaques description of the ambivalent health minister both intriguing and depressing. Jean-Jaques embodies the effect of living with a government that disregards the welfare of its people.

Jean-Jacques expresses a painful tension in this video. He would like to be able to work with his community to combat HIV/AIDS. He says that if treatment helped him to live he could be a spokesperson for medications. Historically, AIDS has been a stigmatized disease, and in this light, Jean-Jacques willingness to share his story is rather remarkable. He seems to be passionate about the issue, dedicated to an idea of action and courageous enough to share his story. However, in the end, Jean-Jacques is caught in a familiar colonial power differential “We call on the donors…they help us and we’ll be saved.” Jean-Jaques is pushed into the position of a victim. While he has a fervent drive to create positive change for himself and for his community, he’s held back illness, poverty and an uncaring government. It is difficult to know which of his problems have been exacerbated by development agendas.

There are certainly things about this video that are problematic. Jean-Jacques has been allowed a chance to share his story and he is speaking for himself, but he is giving a western style interview and it has been translated into English. In being offered an opportunity to meet privileged audiences “in the centre” (in their homes, on their computer screens, in a translated language) nuances and ideas may have been lost. In addition, it is unlikely that Jean-Jaques would have been responsible for filming or editing the video. The clips chosen for inclusion were likely selected by another person.  The individual who edited the video has chosen (consciously or unconsciously) images that reinforce their own ideas, biases and agendas to the video. Jean-Jacques may be speaking, but it seems as if his voice is coming to us through multiple filters. He has been given space to speak in this video, but tragically, for the most part, it is only to ask the privileged “donors” for help.

This short video was created by the organization I am writing my paper on, the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). MCC is an organization of the Mennonite Churches of the United States and Canada which works both in North America and around the world in a number of capacities. This particular video focuses on a branch the organization’s global “Generations at Risk” HIV/AIDS awareness program in Nepal, and specifically two of the local women (Laxmi Kuwar and Tuka Regmi, both of whom became HIV positive through husbands who went to work in India) who have started support groups to counsel those with the disease and raise awareness in the wider community.

What I found particularly interesting about the video, and many others featured alongside it on the MCC website, is that the central characters are women. In Chapter 3 of Making Development Geography, Victoria Lawson talks about the challenges mainstream development theory has faced concerning the role of women. Development has often been aimed solely at men, while women have often been considered, implicitly or explicitly, as passive and dependent on male breadwinners. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Lawson identifies approaches such as Women in Development (WID), which, although able to shift the focus of development, in the process “constructed a homogeneous ‘Third World woman’, associated with a series of problems, such as illiteracy, high mortality, high fertility and poverty, that were holding her back.” She is the “ideal subject of development” (102).

In contrast with these caricatures, this clip shows that women do certainly face unique challenges. According to MCC’s website, “Women in general, and girls in particular, are more vulnerable to HIV and are disproportionately affected by the epidemic. They bear the greatest burden of care. Families remove girls from school to care for sick relatives or assume family responsibilities, thereby jeopardizing recent gains in female health, nutrition and education. This has an especially detrimental impact on girls’ own development and leaves them more vulnerable to the epidemic” (MCC).

I think that by recognizing the distinct challenges faced by women in Nepal concerning HIV/AIDS, and allowing the two women in this video to tell their unique stories—stories in which they have active roles—this clip avoids recreating either the ‘passive housewife’ or the ‘Third World woman’ and instead shows a good example of involving women in little ‘d’ development, which can hopefully create practical change.

If you would like more information, this video initially came from here.