ECHOES FROM THE ANGOLAN PRESS (23)

Antonio Freitas, in the Novo Jornal (NJ), comments on a controversial note sent by the Angolan Ministry of External Relations (MIREX) to all embassies, consulates and offices of international organisations in Luanda:


“The note restricts henceforth the circulation of diplomats inside the country, a measure being interpreted in some circles as a way of limiting the observation by them of what might be happening outside the capital during the electoral campaign. According to the document, the notified who might wish to travel outside Luanda must inform the MIREX of that intention at least three working days in advance. The ministry argues that the measure aims at ‘allowing the Angolan Government to fulfill its obligation to protect all inhabitants of the national territory, particularly the diplomatic agents.’
According to sources, the issue was discussed during a meeting between the External Relations minister, Joao Miranda, and the United States ambassador, Dan Mozena. The ambassador is said to have expressed his reservations about the measure, but was reassured by the minister that its only objective was ‘to provide an adequate protocol treatment’ to the diplomatic personnel. However, the note contains passages that don’t seem as comforting as the minister claims. For example, it refers to article 41 of the Vienna Convention, according to which ‘without prejudice to their privileges and immunities, the diplomatic agents, as well as having the duty to respect the laws and regulations of the accredited state, must not interfere in its internal affairs.’ This particular passage is taken by many as a serious warning to the foreign embassies which have usually taken positions whenever elections in African countries have unpleasant outcomes, as happened recently in Kenya and Zimbabwe. In an interview to the NJ last July, Dan Mozena said emphatically that his mission would be 'with an eye' on the Angolan elections."

As an echo of how party politics in the present campaign is being perceived by militants of the leading parties, there is a letter by a UNITA militant to the NJ in which he states:


“I am an old militant of UNITA who lived for a long time inside the UNITA liberated areas, including Jamba, the capital of the resistance at the time of Dr. Savimbi, the founding president of UNITA.
During the time that I lived in those areas, in relation to party-politics issues, there was no democracy in the true sense of the word, but there was Dr. Savimbi’s very able hand at manipulating politics, always taking into account the sensitivity and representativity of the local elites, bearing in mind their ethno-linguistic and racial belonging, which earned him lots of sympathy among the populations.
(…)
What we see today in Mr. Samakuva’s UNITA, as far as the choice of candidates for Members of Parliament (MPs) is concerned, is a scandal and is becoming dangerous for the harmony inside the party and the country. The elites of communities with political expression in various regions were almost all ignored. In retrospect, let’s mention the fact that in the pseudo-elections at the X Congress of UNITA, those who supported the parliamentarian Chivukuvuku for the leadership were removed from the places they held in the party, which contradicts the propaganda about democracy inside UNITA spread by Mr. Samakuva’s supporters. (…) The situation is even worse in the present choice of candidates for MPs, in provinces such as Benguela, where the genuine local UNITA elites are not represented and in their place friends and people from Mr. Samakuva’s region or his relatives were predominantly chosen. Quo vadis UNITA? The future will tell…”

Earlier in this series, I have published a similar letter from a MPLA militant appeared in the Angolense:



“In relation to the constitution of the list for future members of the National Assembly (MPs), I have to say that once again our glorious MPLA demonstrated that in terms of transparency and democracy it is the worst party. (…) Last Saturday, the Luanda Provincial Committee of the MPLA called a meeting with the directorships of the province’s ‘action committees’. The party bases, in spite of not having been informed beforehand of the reasons for the meeting, attended in mass. (…) [However], the meeting was pure and simply aimed at misleading the militants when the lists had already been made since March/April. The bases also became aware that the list for the national circle is equally very doubtful and doesn’t have any technical-professional credibility.
Within the various ‘action committees’ in Luanda’s urban areas (…) there are militants who sacrifice a lot in their work for the MPLA and are holders of undergraduate and masters degrees, among whom lawyers, university teachers and electoral trainers, with an enviable technical-professional experience. They are militants who have the MPLA at heart and whose presence in those committees will guarantee the party’s victory in the respective areas.

[However, it is sad to see that they were ignored in favour of mostly unknown faces].
(…)
That’s why, because of these injustices, the MPLA, mobilised with the sacrifice and supported by the bases, on polling day will see those same bases prefer to stay at home instead of voting for people that they don’t know and did not select. That’s also why the militant, if he chooses to vote, will do so for the opposition, which, in spite of the past, will probably have a better team for the National Assembly comparatively to our MPLA, which is not concerned with the Luanda vote because the victory will come from the provinces. We only regret that the MPLA continues to use the methods of the past and ignoring the fact that times have changed. It’s always the same people who get nominated, everything works on the basis of ‘schemes’ and corruption. When things are not done with transparency it’s a sign of corruption. That’s how the MPLA, even if unwillingly, is campaigning for the opposition.
I have expressed my opinion here because if I express it at the meeting I will be silenced, mistreated and perhaps killed. When a militant cannot just say what he feels and if he does is taken as disgruntled and when one is disgruntled it’s a crime, then it’s not possible to take these ideas to meetings. That’s how our MPLA is.”

Celso Malavoloneke, in the Semanario Angolense (SA), in an open letter to Fernando Macedo, president of the Association Justice, Peace and Democracy (AJPD), expresses his disagreements with the tone and the spirit of some of the positions this association has been taking on the current election campaign.

The proximate motive for Malavoloneke’s letter is a statement by AJPD, signed by Macedo and also published in the SA, according to which “The AJPD alerts the Angolan political community and the international community, specially the national and international observers, to the practices, unacceptable in a democratic state of rights, which have been occurring in the current electoral process, namely: the Government of Angola’s permanent propaganda in the state media using the same narrative discourse of one of the contending parties in clear violation of the principle of equal treatment and opportunity; the give-aways to members of the electorate of goods such as bicycles and motorcycles by political parties and organisations affected to them during acts of political campaign with vote orientation, all under the blind eye of the National Electoral Commission and the National Council for Social Communication; the persistence of attempts to violate the laws applicable to the electoral process, and the occasional political violence, even if of low intensity and not generalised, without the prompt charging of the responsible for such actions by the competent judicial and police bodies.”

In reaction to that statement, Malavoloneke asserts:

(…)

In 1991/92 I was placed in the southern region of the country coordinating the area of community development of a well known international ONG. In that role, I was witness to the damage caused to the bodies and minds of thousands of compatriots by inflammatory speeches and careless actions that have characterised that election campaign. The “friends” from the international community, headed by the United Nations and supported by the super-powers of the Cold War and Portugal, imposed their agenda and timing, anxious for a disposable solution in which the most honest hoped – they could only hope – that after they left the country Angolans would come to agreement the best way they could. However, all exploded even before that, with the consequences that we all know.
(…)

And, look, I forgot something: when the fight began, my functions changed, and do you know to what? Head of logistics of a makeshift travel agency to evacuate from the country the foreigners and their families from the chancelleries that contributed more or less openly to set the country on fire. And those chancelleries don’t seem far away from you and the AJPD. Ah! And I also evacuated some Angolans who all of a sudden produced other passports which they had been hiding, mind you…
(…)
Therefore, I would like you to understand that we all need ways out. Ways out that have also to be ways of hope. Ways of hope that do not need to be necessarily perfect, they just need to be necessarily ours. Created by us with the limitations that we have, created in our own context with our own specificities and created for our land with the adaptations that they might require, but not imposed by a theoretical script from any western country.
(…)

It seems to me that the Angolan elites have decided to look after these aspects and take that past as a reference. Therefore, your discourse, dear FM, sounds isolated and causes fears. Hence this reaction from your close brother. Our responsibility, as the elites, is to scrutinise the process, yes, but taking into account our idiosyncrasies. And one of them, really assumed, is that inflammatory, passionate, virulent speeches at this stage are arson attempts: whatever the reason, they are damaging, even dangerous, to the common good. Let us thus accept the imperfections of our process and let us build our own history with the responsibility of the great peoples where all tolerate each other. Because it is important at this stage for us to believe in the good will of everybody, whether or not it exists. It’s the price of the progress towards plain democracy. Where we arrive at not forcefully but by stages. Where mistakes, instead of throwing weapons, are pillars of the lessons learned in the way toward perfection.”

And finally...

ECHOES FROM THE ANGOLAN PRESS (21)

This week’s articles are all extracted from the Cultural Supplement of Novo Jornal, ‘Mutamba’ (named after Luanda’s main downtown square), which presents this as its ‘picture of the week’:

Their 'person of the week' is Ossanda Liber, a young Angolan film-maker living between Lisbon and Luanda, who owns the company Liber Media Productions. She is about to complete her latest documentary, about Luanda’s popular mega-market “Roque Santeiro”, which she considers her biggest cinematic challenge:

“The ‘Roque Santeiro’ market represents a Stock Exchange of a kind. It used to manage so many millions a day that everything was decided there, including the exchange rate USD-Kwanza.
(…)
Three or four years from now I would like to do two things: first, a magazine for Angolan women, because in Angola the big problem at present is that there’s only women; the men died in the war and now there’s on average 10 women for each man. I believe that Angola will be a country governed by women, they are very present in the family and domestic life and all that would be material for a female publication. Then I would also like to take an acting course, because I was told by a producer friend of mine that I could be a good actress. I don’t know if he was joking or not, but what is certain is that I started to think seriously about it.”

Also featured, an account of the celebrations in Luanda of 45 years of Bonga’s artistic life. One of the country’s major musical references – as a singer, composer, instrumentalist and performer – Bonga distinguishes himself by his closeness to his Angolan cultural roots, in spite of having lived permanently outside the country for the last around forty years:

“Two galas and a show for the youth were more than enough to confirm (if that was still needed) the power of Bonga’s music and the arguments that make him one of the most ‘internationalised’ Angolan musicians. The events were part of the artist’s 45-year musical career, which also included the release of a new record, ‘Bairro’. In the three events, Barceló de Carvalho, or simply Bonga, confirmed that all authentic product must be well consumed. Known as one of the great defenders of Africanity and, in particular, of the musical genre Semba, the musician interacted with the audience through a variety of sounds and conversations. Many attended: just in one of the shows, at ‘Estádio dos Coqueiros’, there were almost 15 thousand fans.”

News as well of a project led by researchers from the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Coimbra, Portugal, supported by the economic group ESCOM and coordinated by the Portuguese Ministry of Culture, aimed at the study of unpublished documentation about Angola and the Lunda-Cokwe cultural area in particular:

The project is part of the program of reopening of the Anthropological Museum of Dundo – an important Central Africa research centre in the areas of entomology, archaeology and ethnography, which is internationally known for its collection of
Cokwe art. It is geared toward the investigation, digitalization and conservation of historical documents related to Angola covering about half a century of colonial occupation of the area, namely those of the Cultural Services of the former Company of Diamonds of Angola, Diamang – the initiator of diamonds’ exploration in the country in 1917 and once considered ‘a state within a state’, whose documental estate was acquired by the Museum in 1986 – and of Marie Louise Bastin, a specialist in
Cokwe art.

Finally, echoes of the recent passing of Nobel Prize of Literature Alexander Soljenitsyne – “An anti-soviet who died Russian at 89”:

In a telegram of condolences addressed to the family, President Dmitri Medvedev referred to Soljenitsyne as ‘one of the 20th century most important thinkers, writers and humanists.’ Mikhail Gorbatchev, the father of Perestroika who provoked a political turn in the East and the fall of the Berlin Wall, had already referred to him as ‘a man with a unique destiny who was one of the first to soundly denounce the inhumane character of the Stalinist regime, having faced difficult probes together with millions of his country citizens who experienced the communist concentration camps.’
Having chosen the autobiographical novel as his main vehicle of expression, he wrote ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ and ‘A Day in the Life of Ivan Denissovitch’, based on daily life reports of prisoners, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize of Literature in 1970. However, he preferred not to go to Stockholm to receive it for fear of not being allowed to travel back to Russia.
But not everything was worthy of a positive evaluation in Soljenitsyne’s life. His support of fascist dictatorships, such as Pinochet’s and Franco’s, cost him tough criticism. Also controversial were his words of approval of the second Tchetchenia war and his calls for the death penalty for the independents in the region.

ECOS DA IMPRENSA ANGOLANA (17)

Nesta edicao, oportunidade para repescar alguns artigos e entrevistas que ficaram ‘na gaveta’ durante as ultimas semanas.

Comecando pelas entrevistas:

Filipe Mukenga ao Novo Jornal (NJ)

Ao completar 45 anos de vida artística e 30 anos de parceria com Filipe Zau, Filipe Mukenga prepara o quarto e, talvez, último disco da sua carreira. Em entrevista ao Novo Jornal, o autor de "Angola no Coração" mostra-se desiludido com a falta de reconhecimento do seu trabalho pelos angolanos e aponta caminhos para o desenvolvimento da música nacional: mais formação, mais acesso a instrumentos e maior união entre os artistas.
(...)
Faço harmonias complicadas e opto por um conteúdo poético rico. Criei então o rótulo NMA (Nova Música de Angola), que sintetiza a minha filosofia enquanto músico.
(...)
O que podemos esperar do disco "Nós Somos Nós", que lançará em Setembro?
São 14 canções, muitas delas compostas por mim em parceria com o Filipe Zau. Com elas quero, acima de tudo, homenagear o nosso povo pela paz que conseguiu alcançar. Em termos musicais, pretendo mostrar a ligação entre o semba e o samba que são, de facto, ritmos irmãos. É um disco a pensar também no enorme mercado brasileiro.

[Aqui]

Rui Mangueira ao Semanario Angolense (SA)

Não se sabe quanto o Estado angolano arrecada de impostos do animado movimento de mercadorias entre o Dubai (capital económica dos Emirados Árabes Unidos) e Angola. Trata-se de um movimento que poderá crescer nos próximos meses, com a abertura, no passado dia 12, da rota comercial da TAAG, que vem encurtar a viagem que se fazia passando por Joanesburgo (África do Sul) e, mais recentemente, por Addis Abeba (Etiópia). (…) Desta conversa com Rui Mangueira, recentemente nomeado embaixador de Angola nos Emirados Árabes Unidos, pode perceber-se a importância que aquele país vai tendo nas trocas comerciais dos angolanos e as oportunidades que existem para o empresariado angolano, se este se organizar e sonhar com conquistar outros mercados.

[Aqui]

Mari Alkatiri ao Cruzeiro do Sul

Governei o país durante quatro anos, com um orçamento anual inferior a 84 milhões de dólares. Este governo está a governar com um orçamento de 400 milhões por ano, e está já a propor um orçamento rectificativo de mais de 200 milhões de dólares.
Eles não têm programa, não têm plano, governam com bilhetinhos. O Xanana manda
bilhetinho para os ministros: faça isso, faça aquilo... (risos). Governa com bilhetinhos. Importa que Xanana Gusmão tenha a coragem de assumir que foi ele quem dividiu o país em leste e Oeste. Divisão esta que teve as consequências desastrosas: violência generalizada, implosão da Policia nacional de Timor-Leste…
[Aqui]

Passando aos artigos:

No SA exaltou-se a “coragem da China”

Quando Mao desencadeou a «longa marcha» que é já uma mitologia viva da revolução chinesa e até do século vinte, a China era um país pobre onde mesmo assim os pobres eram obrigados a pagar uma renda aos ricos em cereais, prática essa - a do pátio das rendas- que se imortaliza nas artes plásticas chinesas. Agora, imaginemos que Mao estaria a ver a China de hoje, a economia, as cidades, a cultura, a quase ausência de fome, a indústria, a construção civil, em suma, a grande marcha que transformou a China grande numa grande China como um sismo de progresso, que discute os mercados palmo a palmo com as grandes potências mundiais. Não muitas vezes a midia ocidental mostra as conquistas dos chineses, os novos edifícios e cidades, os estabelecimentos de ensino, os hospitais e o crescente empenho na cultura. Foi preciso vir a maka da chama olímpica e do Lama e, agora, a desgraça do sismo e suas réplicas, para vermos a China em tudo que é ecrã.
[Aqui]

O NJ destacou os investimentos de Stanley Ho nos bio-combustiveis

A Geocapital, do magnata chinês Stanley Ho, prepara-se para entrar no mercado dos bio combustíveis, surgindo Angola entre os países incluídos na lista de um investimento que vai trazer para África cerca de 30 mil milhões de US dólares num prazo de 10 anos. A empresa, criada em 2005 em Macau para desenvolver projectos nos países lusófonos, tem mantido uma grande proximidade e afinidade com a Sonangol, como ficou demonstrado pela conjugação de esforços na recente crise no BCP (as duas empresas formam, em conjunto, o maior bloco accionista do maior banco privado português). A produção de bio combustíveis, além de Angola, vai também acontecer em Moçambique e na Guiné-Bissau, deverá iniciar-se até 2010 e atingir, a partir de 2020, uma produção de 14 milhões de toneladas/ano, cerca de 10 por cento da produção mundial.
[Aqui]

O A Capital deu-nos noticia do projecto de reconstrucao do Teatro Avenida

O velho Teatro Avenida dará lugar a um novo projecto arquitectónico que proporcionará melhores condições de trabalho aos artistas e maior comodidade aos cidadãos. Foi neste sentido, apontando os benefícios do projecto, que o escritor angolano Jacques Arlindo dos Santos apresentou o projecto. O Novo Teatro Avenida é uma iniciativa da empresa privada Dry Dock, em parceria com o GPL e o apoio institucional do Ministério da Cultura.
[Aqui]

O Angolense noticiou que a Sonangol esta’ em condicoes de ‘tomar conta’ da refinacao de petroleo no pais e que o novo edificio sede da empresa esta' concluido

Economistas perspectivam o aumento da capacidade interna de refinação do crude, nos próximos tempos, em Angola. Tal leitura é-lhes oferecida pelo novo cenário, criado na Fina Petróleos de Angola, com a cedência da participação do Estado à Sonangol. O cenário coloca a Sociedade Nacional de Combustíveis numa posição confortável, para gerir a refinaria com um Conselho de Administração único, o que facilitará a tomada de decisões, por representar interesses comuns.
(…)
A nova torre sede da Sonangol está concluída. O complexo edifício, obra da mais fina arquitectura moderna é presentemente o edifício mais notável da capital angolana e empresta beleza e uma nova imagem à baixa de Luanda. Com 23 andares, durou cerca de três anos e meio a ser construído e deu emprego a mais de duas mil pessoas.
[Aqui]

E para que tudo nao sejam apenas ‘aguas passadas’, um artigo de Luis Kandjimbo na corrente edicao do SA:

No texto publicado no passado dia 28 de Junho apresentámos em breves linhas, e entre outras, a proposta de periodização de Grégoire Biyogo cujas ideias continuaremos a analisar. Chamo por isso a atenção do leitor para as propostas de classificação das correntes filosóficas que presentemente dominam o pensamento africano, Segundo o filósofo gabonês. Autor de uma obra consagrada à História da Filosofi a Africana em quatro volumes, publicada em França com a chancela da editora L’Harmattan, Grégoire Biyogo é um dos filósofos da geração que se revela na década de 80, o período da afirmação da chamada filosofia moderna e contemporânea. Com uma formação eclética obtida na Universidade da Sorbonne (Paris I e Paris IV),tem desenvolvido a sua pesquisa nas áreas da egiptologia, da epistemologia e da teoria da literatura. Professor da Universidade Omar Bongo do Gabão, onde lecciona epistemologia da investigação, dirige igualmente seminários de doutoramento na Universidade de Paris XII, tendo sido fundador do Instituto Cheikh Anta Diop de Libreville.
[Aqui]

“ECHOES FROM THE ANGOLAN PRESS”

A NOTE TO THIS BLOG’S ENGLISH READERS

As you might have noticed, for the last few weeks I have been posting here a series titled “Ecos da Imprensa Angolana.” Since I’ve received a few enquiries about it, let me explain what it is about:

It contains full transcripts of selected articles published in Angolan newspapers, which I have been receiving weekly from Luanda. Most of them are taken from the weekly private/independent papers (there is only one daily paper in Angola – the state-owned Jornal de Angola). Some of them can be found online (e.g. Jornal de Angola, Semanario Angolense and Jornal Angolense – their links are at the bottom of this page), others not. Online access can be free in some cases, restricted in others. Some publish online the full contents of their paper versions, others don’t.

I intended this series primarily to serve those Angolans and other Portuguese-speakers outside the country who might have limited and/or irregular access to the Angolan media. However, I trust that speakers of other languages will be able to resort to the existing online translators, if so interested.

Let me take this opportunity to bring to your attention an update to a story carried in the last two posts of this series, which some of you might have also come across in the international media, namely the alleged mugging on stage of American “rapper” 50 Cent, during a music event in Luanda. The article that follows, which I translated from the original in Portuguese, is published in the current edition of Semanario Angolense:

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED?
50 Cent recovers necklace

The necklace supposedly robbed from 50 Cent on April 30th, during a show in Luanda, has already been returned to his legitimate owner, it can be read in the news section of the MTV channel website (www.mtv.com). Citing a statement by a member of 50 Cent’s band, G-Unit, to another website (www.tmz.com), according to which “the necklace is back on 50 Cent’s neck”, the article does not present any details about how the piece, estimated to be worth around USD 2 million, was recovered.

Still according to that MTV news article, signed by Gil Kaufman, the artist’s spokesperson at Interscope Records said to The New York Times that “50 Cent’s necklace was recovered.” Meanwhile, at the artist’s site (www.thisis50.com) the supposed mugger, named as Bruno Carvalho, is not mentioned as having snatched the diamond encrusted piece. Instead, it is said that security at the event was precarious, which allowed some fans to get too close to the artist, having one of them “tried to grab 50 Cent’s necklace”.

[Keep reading here]

UNDER THE DRUM BEAT

I am not exactly someone to judge a book by its cover but I must admit to being sometimes inclined to buy a magazine just for its cover…
Now, here’s a magazine I would certainly buy just for its covers: the Drum magazine of ‘50s and ‘60s South Africa. I might have bought one or two of its more recent editions for their content, but those early ones would have got my money just for the covers. Of course, they are now collector’s items and highly protected by the Black African History Archives (BAHA) and The Bailey Archive, so I doubt that a common mortal like me would have a chance to get hold of one these days. But I can, nonetheless, claim possession of one of those highly coveted t-shirts printed with Drum covers put on the SA market by the very talented, clever and praised Nkhensani Nkhosi, actress and founder/creative director of fashion house Stoned Cherrie and one of the symbols of the New South Africa.

I mean, who, among those of us grown up in Southern Africa knowing of and experiencing, even if only indirectly, the antics of the apartheid system, would have imagined that within that system there was ever a place for a magazine telling through its covers of such a glamourous and exciting Black South Africa? And beyond that, of a Black Africa – there were, in fact, a South African and a West African (based in Ghana) versions of Drum, the latter telling us such amazing stories as Louis Armstrong’s visit to his motherland in February 1961 – precisely when armed struggle against colonial rule in Angola had started?

From a historical perspective, I would venture that that Drum of the ‘50s and early ‘60s could only be a testimony of the resistance of a social makeup the apartheid system (instituted in 1948) hadn’t yet managed to completely suppress, which makes those numbers even more valuable. That is precisely what those fortunate enough to have looked inside its covers will tell you: Drum was a repository of all the gripping stories chronicling the early years of the apartheid regime – except, apparently, for the Sharpeville massacre of 1960, which its legendary owner, Jim Bailey, reportedly didn’t allow to have mentioned in the magazine…

About Bailey, Bongani Madondo and Don Morrison wrote in an investigative story on Drum, What Made Drum Beat?, for the, now defunct, British “Zembla Literary Magazine”, in 2004: (…) After all, nobody knew about sensationalism better than Jim Bailey, a man whose name inspires perjoratives from former friends and victims. Ruthless. Dreamer. Freak. Wannabe Black. Bohemian. Drinker. Rich liberal son of colonialists (and quasi-colonialist himself). But also Visionary. Scholar. God’s gift to African publishing. Bailey’s father, Sir Abe Bailey, was a well-known South African mining magnate, financier and friend of arch-colonialist Cecil John Rhodes. Jim’s mother,Lady Mary Bailey, was an aviatrix whose 1927 solo flight from Croydon to Cape Town is legendary. After graduation from Oxford, young James Richard Abe Bailey joined the World War II British army and became a fighter pilot. Somewhere in the mid-to-late 1940s, he headed to Cape Town, then – as now- a magnet for bored Europeans in search of sun and excitement.

There Bailey met Robert Crisp, sole proprietor of a dull magazine called ‘The African Drum’, previously ‘The Bongo Drum’, which covered the quantly colorful lives of rural blacks who feared God and endured the missionary. Bailey saw an opportunity. All over the world, black people were becoming style-makers and urban culture creators. In New York and Paris, blacks were arbiters of fashion for both the counterculture and the mainstream. The Beat Generation imbibed jazz and the blues, smoked and wrote out of an existentialism espoused by blacks.Poetry, music, fashion – aaah, to be black, Bailey thought. He purchased the publication in 1951 and moved it to Johannesburg, where he imported from England an energetic editor named Anthony Sampson (who later found fame with his ‘Anatomy of Britain’ and 'Mandela', the official biography). Together, they got down to the business of remaking the magazine and making waves.

Bailey fell in love with Sophiatown and its rowdy, urban energy. A slum on the surface, Sophiatown was a mix of Africans, Indians, Chinese, Portuguese, Greeks and Jews doing business and living in relative harmony. The town offered everything white South africa and Europe did not: sex, alcohol, extraordinary characters, style, hope, hopelessness. “Noisy and dramatic,” was how David Coplan described Sophiatown in his 1985 book ‘In Township Tonight!” “A new synthesis of African culture sprang out of its potholed streets, communal water taps, the rectangular jumble of yards, brick and wood dwellings here and eye-catching mansions there. Sophiatown was crime-ridden yet heaved with music and wishes and dreams, vulnerability and stubborness that gave it its swaggering personality.”

Into this heady atmosphere, Bailey launched ‘African Drum’. He quickly cut the title back to ‘Drum’ and assembled a staff of untrained township youngsters into what would be known as the “Drum School” of writers. A few of its graduates – Casey Motsisi, Todd Matshikiza, Ezekiel Mphalele, Bloke Modisane, Bessie Head – went on to become successful novelists, poets, dramatists and composers. To the thousands of blacks who migrated to Johannesburg during the 1940s and ‘50s, ‘Drum’ was a manifesto of social realism. The magazine’s lurid, over-written feature stories, with their violent, tragic, fashionably dressed characters – dice hustlers, jazz musicians, racist policemen, babes and molls – and especially the accompanying pictures, not only entertained Sophiatowns but embodied Sophiatown. Drum portrayed celebrities, especially actors and jazz musicians (who were often the same), as accessible pople who lived within the same poverty-stricken township as their fans. At its peak in the late-1950s, the magazine had editions all over the continent recording “the ladder down the stocking” of Bristish Imperial rule. Its total circulation topped 800,000.

Bailey and his staff took particular care with the covers. The most beloved of all the cover girls was blues singer Dolly Rathebe, an icon to Sophiatown ‘tsotsies’ (gangsters). To them, she was Marilyn Monroe and Josephine Baker rolled into one. Blessed with a husky, sometimes coarse voice, she would wisper, coo, and sing-talk like Nina Simone. She wiggled her hips to the ‘tsotsies’, sang the blues to the troubled, and crooned Yiddish lullabies to the rich Jewish patrons of the Johannesburg jazz scene. Dolly reshaped the whole continent’s sense of African feminine beauty. She was even courted by one of Drum’s writers, Can Themba. Themba, along with literary journalist Bloke Modisane, “Hollywood detective” columnist Arthur Maimane and music critic Todd Matshikiza, were the ears of Drum. Photographers Jurgen Schadeberg, Bob Gosani and Peter Magubane became the eyes that captured the town’s vibrancy. But one personality reigned supreme: Henry Nxumalo, who more than anyone embodied the magazine. “From the coffee plantations of the Gold Coast to the jazz-stung nightclubs of Nigeria,” he wrote in a 1956 blurb, “in the dreaming hamlets of Zululand, among Cape Town’s fun-filled coon life, and Johannesburg’s teeming, thrilling thousands, everywhere, every month, Drum is read and relished.”

After obtaining his junior certificate at a missionary school, Nxumalo trekked down to Jozi, where he served as a messenger at the ‘Bantu World’ newspaper. When World War II erupted, he signed on with the British Protectorate regiment and served as a sergeant in Egypt before coming back to the paper as sports editor. In 1951, he was hired as Drum’s first black reporter. Slim and dapper, he quickly became a familiar presence on the Sophiatown scene, covering crime and club dates with equal verve. Within a year, Nxumalo began writing as “Mr Drum”, a byline under which he produced some powerful exposes. “In those days”, remembered fellow reporter Themba in a posthumous 1985 memoir, “rumour was strong that farmers were ill-treating their labourers in the Bethal district. [Indeed, one had been flogged to death.] Dear ol’ Mr Drum fastened his braces, tied his shoelaces, fixed his Woodrow hat and got on a roll to investigate – simply by getting himself a job as labourer himself, in one of those Bethal potato farms.” It wasn’t just the emotional shock of the labourers’ conditions that excited interest in what Nxumalo wrote, but the courage he displayed in getting a job as a virtual slave and then escaping from it. The piece he wrote turned both Nxumalo and his magazine into urban icons.

Not long afterward, authorities at Johannesburg’s notorious Number Four prison were rumored to have introduced a dehumanizing new way of searching inmates for smuggled items such as tobacco, dagga (cannabis) or anything that could have been hidden in the rectum. Prisoners were lined in a row, naked, and made to skip and jump as they ran in front of their jailers. This was called the ‘Tausa’, or monkey, dance. On 19 January 1954, Nxumalo contrived to get himself arrested in Johannesburg by staying out past the night-time curfew without the required pass. By a stroke of luck, he was sent to Number Four. In “Mr Drum Goes to Goal”, illustrated with clandestine photos, Nxumalo described the ‘Tausa’ dance and other abuses at Number Four. The expose’ caught the prison system by surprise. Authorities were enraged, and Nxumalo suddenly became a figure of great interest to South Africa’s security branch. By then, his exploits as an investigative journalist had earned a number of enemies, among them thugs, crooked politicians, farm owners, and police.

On New Year’s Eve 1955, Nxumalo headed into the warm Sophiatown night, humming to himself. He stopped at his cousin Percy Hlubi’s place and, shortly after seeing in the new year, walked out into the night. His battered body was discovered the following morning by a cousin’s wife on her way to catch the day’s first train. Still in his suit, he was face-down on a patch of dry grass, with one shoe missing and a blood trail that went back a thousand metres to the entrance of Coronation Hospital in Newclare. Nxumalo left a wife, Florence, who died in 1979, and five children. No one was ever convicted of his murder.
Can Themba died of alcohol-related complications in exile in Swaziland, Todd Matshikiza died in exile in Zambia, Nat Nakasa committed suicide in New York and William Bloke Modisane died in exile in West Germany. Dolly Rathebe died on 16 September 2004 from a stroke.


Drum’s home turf is gone too, a victim of the apartheid policy of forced removals from “white areas” – which included a longtime black enclave like Sophiatown. At 5:30am on 10 February 1955, government trucks backed by 2,000 heavily armed police removed the first hundred and ten families to what is now part of Soweto, the black township. Over the next three years, other families followed as bulldozers razed the buildings around them. Before long the place was a wasteland of rubble. A white suburb was developed on the site. The government called it Triomf (Triumph).

Today, Johannesburg – “Jozi” to initiates – is a multi-ethnic sprawl, where Somali Muslims rub shoulders with Nigerian drug lords and Congolese le Sapeur fashionistas. Drum is a mere shadow, resold, repositioned and defanged since its glory days. But the magazine’s early spirit of iconoclasm is being celebrated with a new zest: Drum’s golden era of the ‘50s and ‘60s and Nxumalo’s story have been the subject in the last few years, among a flurry of books, essays, articles and documentaries in SA and abroad, of a feature film, Drum: Stories from Sophiatown (2004), directed by South Africans Zola Maseko and Dumisani Dlamini, produced by Hollyhood’s Chris Sievernich (The Quiet American) and Rudolf Wichmann (Love and Rage), co-written by Jason Filiardi (Bringing Down the House) and starring US-born Taye Diggs (Chicago) and a posse of talented South African actors.

{You can download an excellent video about Drum here}


(Sophiatown is Gone - Miriam Makeba)

GRACA CAMPOS: O FIM DE UM PESADELO

PARA MAIS DETALHES CLIQUE NA IMAGEM

GRACA CAMPOS: FREE AT LAST?

(MORE DETAILS SOON)

SOBRE A PRISAO DO JORNALISTA GRACA CAMPOS (III)

Apesar de noticias ainda por confirmar* sugerirem que a policia angolana tera' tentado impedir a sua realizacao como previsto, nao obstante as autorizacoes e garantias legais obtidas pelos organizadores, estava programada para hoje em Luanda, uma vigilia com os seguintes objectivos e programa:

VIGILIA A TER LUGAR NO DIA 13 DE OUTUBRO EM LUANDA NO LARGO DA INDEPENDENCIA


PELA LIBERDADE DE EXPRESSÃO E LIBERDADE DE CONSCIÊNCIA




PROGRAMA:
18:00
Chegada dos Participantes
18:15 Oração do Padre Pio
18:30
Intervenção de Justino Pinto de Andrade
18:45 Poesia por (Zoge Teatro)
18:50
Intervenção de Filomeno Vieira Lopes
19:05 Musica por MCK
19:10
Intervenção de Alexandre André Sebastião
19:25 Poesia por Noa Wette
19:30
Musica por Brigadeiro 10 Pacotes
19:40 Reverendo Tony Zinga (CCDH)
19:55
Encerramento


Maiakovski
Poeta russo "suicidado" após a revolução de Lenin XX :

Na primeira noite, eles se aproximam e colhem uma flor de nosso jardim.
E não dizemos nada.
Na segunda noite, já não se escondem, pisam as flores, matam nosso cão.
E não dizemos nada.
Até que um dia, o mais frágil deles, entra sozinho em nossa casa, rouba-nos a lua, e conhecendo nosso medo, arranca-nos a voz da garganta.
E porque não dissemos nada, já não podemos dizer nada.

O que os outros disseram, depois de ler Maiakovski.

Incrível é que, após mais de cem anos, ainda nos encontremos tão desamparados, inertes, e submetidos aos caprichos da ruína moral dos poderes governantes, que vampirizam o erário, aniquilam as instituições, e deixam aos cidadãos os ossos roídos e o direito ao silêncio: porque a palavra, há muito se tornou inútil - até quando?...

Primeiro levaram os negros
Mas não me importei com isso
Eu não era negro
Em seguida levaram alguns operários
Mas não me importei com isso
Eu também não era operário
Depois prenderam os miseráveis
Mas não me importei com isso
Porque eu não sou miserável
Depois agarraram uns desempregados
Mas como tenho meu emprego
Também não me importei
Agora estão me levando
Mas já é tarde.
Como eu não me importei com ninguém
Ninguém se importa comigo.
Bertold Brecht (1898-1956)

Um dia vieram e levaram meu vizinho que era judeu.
Como não sou judeu, não me incomodei.
No dia seguinte, vieram e levaram o meu outro vizinho que era comunista.
Como não sou comunista, não me incomodei.
No terceiro dia vieram e levaram meu vizinho católico.
Como não sou católico, não me incomodei.
No quarto dia, vieram e me levaram;
já não havia mais ninguém para reclamar...
Martin Niemöller, 1933
– símbolo da resistência aos nazistas

(LER COMUNICADO INTEGRAL AQUI)

*Noticias nao confirmadas. A vigilia teve lugar onde e como previsto.

OUTBLOGGING @ AFRICANPATH (VI)

ANGOLA: “A SENTENCE WITHOUT TRIAL” OR THE PAINFUL REVERSAL OF A NATION-BUILDING PROCESS

(Read article here)

SOBRE A PRISAO DO JORNALISTA GRACA CAMPOS (I)

LER COMUNICADO DO SA E BACKGROUND DO CASO AQUI.

FREE AT LAST!

(Pictures: Times on Line)

ALAN JOHNSTON: UPDATE

Two weeks ago, I posted here an appeal for support to the release of kidnapped BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston.

Today, the good news is that Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) were told by Palestinian leaders that "he is still alive" (see here).

Meanwhile, among various initiatives to support his immediate release, the BBC has launched a petition and an online service to keep all those interested updated on any developments on the case.

You can access that service by clicking the picture above.

FREE ALAN!!!

Como muita gente no UK e no mundo, tenho estado nos ultimos dias quase paralizada pela ansiedade e angustia perante a possibilidade de, como reclama um qualquer grupo militar em Gaza desde ontem, Alan Johnston, nascido na Tanzania ha' 44 anos e de ascendencia Escocesa, correspondente da BBC na Palestina durante os ultimos 3 anos (depois de o ter sido no Uzbequistao e no Afeganistao), ter sido assassinado depois de ter sido raptado ha' pouco mais de um mes!

I would dread to have to post here an R.I.P. for Alan any time from now: SO PLEASE, WHOEVER HAS HIM, OR KNOWS HIS WHEREABOUTS, PLEASE HELP FREE ALAN JOHNSTON! He is just a humane, friendly and likeable journalist professionally performing his duty, in short, A HUMAN BEING: not any sort of "enemy"!!!

P.S.: Entretanto, um qualquer maluco acaba de cometer o maior "mass murder" na historia dos EUA, numa universidade da Virginia, tendo abatido a tiro cerca de 33 pessoas, incluindo a si proprio... gratuitamente! Porque tanta violencia???!!!

ON WOMEN'S MONTH, CELEBRATING WOMEN'S POETRY: II. NOEMIA DE SOUSA

Conheci Noemia de Sousa durante um qualquer evento literario em Lisboa nos anos 80. Desse breve, mas muito marcante encontro, lembro-me de ela me ter perguntado algo como “sera' que voces, da nova geracao de escritores, teem nocao de que os vossos livros no tempo colonial nunca seriam publicados?”. Nao me lembro exactamente da minha resposta, mas acho que lhe respondi que “sim, obviamente, temos nocao disso”.

O que sempre me impressionou e fascinou em Noemia, antes e depois de a conhecer, foi o impacto que a sua poesia teve na literatura Mocambicana e das ex-colonias Portuguesas, apesar de nunca ter publicado um unico livro ate’ quase ao fim da sua vida (isto numa era em que, cada vez mais, pelo menos em certos circulos, so' se considera poeta ou escritor a quem publique livros como quem fabrica e vende pao quente todos os dias). Ha’ quem diga que assim o foi porque ela assim o quiz. Nao sei se tera sido exactamente essa a razao, ou se ela tera tido a ver com a pergunta que me fez naquele encontro. Ou talvez Noemia se sentisse plenamente satisfeita apenas com a esparsa aparicao da sua poesia em publicacoes tais como Mensagem, Itinerário, Notícias do Bloqueio, O Brado Africano, Moçambique 58, Vértice, ou Sul.

Qualquer que tenha sido a razao, em 2001, Nelson Saute finalmente conseguiu a sua autorizacao para a edicao de uma colectanea dos seus poemas, escritos cerca de 50 anos antes, entitulada “Sangue Negro”. Sobre ela Francisco Noa, critico literario, escreveu: “Feita arma ou confissão, a poesia de Noémia de Sousa , reunida na obra “Sangue Negro”, exprime não só as inquietações de espírito de um sujeito, claramente localizado no tempo e no espaço, como também prefigura sentimentos, percepções e aspirações, onde converge toda uma nação por acontecer.”

De seu nome completo Carolina Noemia Abranches de Sousa Soares, nasceu em 1926 em Catembe (entao Lourenco Marques, hoje Maputo), Mocambique. Tambem usando o pseudonimo Vera Micaia, comecou a escrever poesia aos 22 anos de idade e nao deixou desde entao de impressionar o mundo literario Mocambicano e nao so’, sobretudo pela profunda afirmacao das suas raizes africanas. Noemia deixou Maputo com destino a Lisboa em 1951, tendo dali emigrado para Paris em 1964. Regressou a Lisboa em 1975, onde residiu e trabalhou como jornalista e tradutora ate’ ao seu falecimento em Dezembro de 2002. Com a devida venia perante a sua memoria, aqui ficam alguns dos seus poemas:

[Foto: Maputo by Ana Santana]

NEGRA

Gentes estranhas com seus olhos cheios doutros mundos
quiseram cantar teus encantos
para elas só de mistérios profundos,
de delírios e feitiçarias...
Teus encantos profundos de Africa.

Mas não puderam.
Em seus formais e rendilhados cantos,
ausentes de emoção e sinceridade,
quedas-te longínqua, inatingível,
virgem de contactos mais fundos.

E te mascararam de esfinge de ébano, amante sensual,
jarra etrusca, exotismo tropical,
demência, atracção, crueldade,
animalidade, magia...
e não sabemos quantas outras palavras vistosas e vazias.

Em seus formais cantos rendilhados
foste tudo, negra...
menos tu.

E ainda bem.

Ainda bem que nos deixaram a nós,
do mesmo sangue, mesmos nervos, carne, alma,
sofrimento,
a glória única e sentida de te cantar
com emoção verdadeira e radical,
a glória comovida de te cantar, toda amassada,
moldada, vazada nesta sílaba imensa e luminosa: MÃE


IF YOU WANT TO KNOW ME

If you want to know me
examine with careful eyes
this bit of black wood
which some unknown Makonde brother
cut and carved
with his inspired hands
in the distant lands of the North.

This is what I am
empty sockets despairing of possessing life
a mouth torn open in an anguished wound
huge hands outspread
and raised in imprecation and in threat
a body tattooed with wounds seen and unseen
from the harsh whip strokes of slavery
tortured and magnificent
proud and mysterious
Africa from head to foot
this is what I am.

If you want to understand me
come, bend over this soul of Africa
in the black dockworker's groans
the Chopez' frenzied dances
the Changanas' rebellion
in the strange sadness which flows
from an African song, through the night.

And ask no more
to know me
for I'm nothing but a shell of flesh
where Africa's revolt congealed
its cry pregnant with hope.


(Mais poesia de Noemia Aqui)



A Song To Heal - Jean 'Binta' Breeze

MY DEBUT @ AFRICANPATH'S GUEST BLOGGER SERIES

I've gladly decided to oblige to a kind invitation by Joshua Wanyama, AfricanPath's Editor, to participate in his site as Guest Blogger. So, from now on, once in a while I will be "outblogging" there. My first post went up today and is entitled "Are We All Losing The Plot?". It can be accessed and commented both at AfricanPath and Here.