Category — Africa

So what do Madagascar and South Korea have in common? On the face of it, very little. The former is a country in development, the second is an economic power. One is in Africa, the other in Asia. The Malagasy have uncontaminated land. The Koreans lack cultivatable land. Madagascar has 28 inhabitants per square kilometer. South Korea has 493 inhabitants per square kilometer.

However, recently, the Malagasy government signed an agreement with Daewoo, the Korean electronics, automotive and food conglomerate, to hand over of 1.2 million hectares of cultivatable land for 99 years. This is nearly half the cultivatable land in the country (2.5 million hectares) and worse of all, it’s for free.

Here it is, new colonialism in Africa and it flew under the radar of every media outlet I subscribe to. I see this deal as criminal because Malagasy citizens won’t benefit from it and yet another rainforest will be clear-cut for profit. Subsequently I won’t be buying Daewoo products…if I can help it. I suspect that now I’ll have nightmares about bulldozers, displacement of indigenous peoples and trade slavery.

The West is behind the curve relative to African investment. China is decades ahead and reaps massive benefits. As in this Current.tv video, Angola gets new and improved infrastructure: roads, railways, hospitals, universities and schools, new businesses and is the fastest growing economy on the Continent.

Unfortunately Chinese investment does nothing for Angolan unemployment and promotes widespread corruption. China doesn’t tie investments to human rights, economic stability, good governance or democratic ideals. Its investments target the vast Angolan oil and iron ore resources it needs for now and the future. Moreover, this is happening in Sudan (oil), the Democratic Republic of Congo (copper, cobalt, coltan), Zambia (copper), Mozambique (wood), Equatorial Guinea (oil) and elsewhere.

The new Administration in Washington has the daunting task of finding ways to strengthen its ties to Africa humanely and quickly, before its too late. What is clear is that the old, Western ways of doing business there no longer matter.

A Hundred Very, Very, Very Large Buys You Three Eggs

The answer is, in Zimbabwe, not very much. Back in July, the government of Zimbabwe issued one hundred billion dollar notes. With one, you can buy four oranges or three eggs as shown in the picture above. But they still cannot buy you a loaf of bread.

Once-prosperous Zimbabwe has seen an unprecedented economic meltdown since it gained independence in 1980. The official inflation rate is now at 2.2 million percent. And, the reason for this? I’m no economist, but I know enough to submit two words as evidence: bad leadership.

Robert Mugabe has a lot to answer for in Zimbabwe. His is a bitter betrayal. Once a hero, revered for his part in the country’s fight for independence from England (remember colonial Rhodesia?), he has led the country deeper into sectarian violence and economic collapse. Zimbabwe, was a net exporter of food and one of the strongest economies in Africa. Now it cannot feed itself. A true recipe for disaster.

Sorrow in Eastern Congo

As the work of healing our nation continues, do not forget the work that must be done elsewhere. We will surely turn our attentions to Iraq and Afghanistan and rightly so. But let us not forget the work to be done in the last place many of us think about, Africa.

People are still being killed for land and oil in Darfur, but I want to turn your attentions to Eastern Congo for the moment. Few of us know of its civil war or minimize it as yet another ‘African problem that has nothing to do with me’.

Just remember this. Congo is awash with gold, diamonds and metals such as cassiterite and coltan used to weld small pieces together in electronics. The conflict in Eastern Congo is being funded by mineral resources that end up in MY cell phone, YOUR laptop and other electronics.

That connection deepens my stake in a war that sprung out of festering hatreds from the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Perhaps some of us saw its dramatization in the movie ‘Hotel Rwanda’ or remember when we here in America were focused on Bosnia and ignored Rwanda. That ‘oversight’ allowed the ’summer of blood’ when 800,000 were murdered in 100 days.

Although media outlets here in America continue to ignore the news from Goma, Kiwanja and other places in Eastern Congo, it doesn’t have to be like that. The BBC and the (London) Times have daily online updates. And, if you find yourself hungry for up-to-date details, review Ushahidi.

Ushahidi, which in Swahili means ‘testimony’, is an award-winning mapping tool initially deployed during last year’s post-election violence in Kenya to let people on the ground ‘crowd source’ reports and photos. Since the Internet is rarely available in conflict zones, Ushahidi allows ordinary citizens to report news via mobile phone SMS text messaging. The BBC and regional news outlets use it daily to enhance their reporting.

It is more than just a program, however. The Ushahidi Engine is a platform that allows anyone to gather distributed data via SMS, email or the Web and visualize it on a map or timeline. The goal is to create the simplest way of aggregating information from the public for use in crisis response. In May 2008, it was used to map the xenophobic attacks perpetrated against non-South Africans. Imagine if it had been available during the Katrina disaster in 2005.

Today the Ushahidi team deployed the version of their software for the Democratic Republic of Congo (see below). Instances of deaths, property loss, sexual assault, disease, displacement of peoples, locations of fighting, peace efforts and more can be tracked.

screen capture - Ushahidi - Eastern Congo

To learn more about Ushahidi and the situation in Eastern Congo, follow the links below:

Ushahidi
http://blog.ushahidi.com/index.php/2008/11/07/ushahidi-deploys-to-the-congo-drc/
http://drc.ushahidi.com/

http://whiteafrican.com/
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/10/31/the-congo-war-take-three/

Africa News - Times of London
Africa News - BBC

My musical tastes are eclectic, lending to having grown up in the Jim Crow world of the 50’s and 60’s and to my exposure to many cultures during times abroad in the 70’s. Among my favorite genres are rhythm and blues, jazz, rap and world music because they most closely represent the significant cultural influences in my life.

If I am pressed to commit to such a thing, I’d have to say my all-time favorite band is Deep Forest, the collaboration of French musicians Michel Sanchez and Eric Mouquet. They compose a new kind of world music, sometimes called ethnic electronica, mixing ethnic with electronic sounds and dance/chillout beats. Their sound has been described as ‘ethno-introspective ambient world music’. Their debut album, Deep Forest, mixes New Age electronics with UNESCO field recordings of music from Zaire, the Solomon Islands, Burundi, Tibesti and the Sahel.

Recently I discovered a favorite track from the first album posted on YouTube. Play Night Bird as you read further.

The haunting yet pleasing yodeling is from a group of young Baka women from the Ituri Rainforest that stretches across Cameroon, Congo and parts of Burundi. They were recorded by an ethnomusicologist working in Burundi in 1967 and this is their formal greeting for guests.

In the few decades since these incredible voices were recorded, the Baka (or Aka or BiAka or Mbuti or ‘pygmies’, as they are known) are disappearing at an alarming rate. As a result of encroachment, destruction of habitat, slavery and the Congo Civil War (2003), their numbers have dwindled to less than 30,000.

Rather than viewing them as ‘primitive’ (and thus valueless) as we in the West typically do, why not learn from these very old peoples? And, old they are, having a high predominance of L1, the oldest genetic haplotype on Earth.

One thing I learned is that Baka fathers spend more time in close contact to their babies than in any other known society. Baka fathers have their infant within arms reach 47% of the time and have been described as the ‘best Dads in the world.’ It has been observed that they pick up, cuddle, and play with their babies at least five times as often as fathers in other societies. It is believed that this is due to the strong bond between Baka husband and wife. Throughout the day, couples share hunting, food preparation, and social and leisure activities. The more time Baka parents spend together, the greater the father’s loving interaction with his baby. Would that I’d spent more time cuddling and playing with my son.

It’s difficult to accept that these incredible voices may be silenced in our lifetime. Please recognize that the destruction of their culture is happening concurrently with others the world over and that losing any one of these ancient cultures is losing a part of our collective selves.