Haiti earthquake footage on The Haitian Blogger

Translation: The woman is speaking French, saying: There was an earthquake, she's not injured, but a few things in her house have been broken... she's pointing to a fire (we can only see the smoke) and she repeats she is OK and the other girl is too... in English she says, "The world is coming to an end."

The Haitian Blogger

Pan-Africanism Congress 2009 in Munich

Photo Andrea Naica-loebel: Speakers, and members of the organisation
The 2nd Pan-Africanism congress was held on October 24th 2009 at the Goethe-Forum in Munich Germany. Approximately 500 persons attended the Congress.

Why a congress?
Many African countries will soon be celebrating the 50th anniversary of independence and freedom from Colonialism. However the hopes of true independence and freedom have remained mostly unrealised. Expectations of Economic, Social and Political growth are still mostly unfulfilled.Therefore the 2nd Pan-Africanism Congress intends to strengthen and to connect the African Diaspora. Ideas and visions for the sustainable shaping of Africa’s future will be discussed and further developed.



What is Pan-Africanism?
Pan-Africanism is a sociopolitical world view, philosophy, and movement which seeks to unify native Africans and those of African heritage into a "global African community". Pan-Africanism calls for a politically united Africa, according to wikipedia.

One of the important figures of the Pan-African movement was the first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah. In the video he speaks about his vision for Africa at the All African peoples congress, held in Ghana in 1958


Who were the speakers at congress?
Guest of honour was former President of Ghana Jerry Rawlings. Rawlings confirmed that Africa is still under the burden of politicians and other individuals who are pursuing personal goals with international assistance. "The key principles of good governance," said Rawlings, "is that the will of the people in all government decisions is paramount, and not the rules of a political party."

Bob Brown, Pan-Africanist and Nkrumahist-Toureist, pointed out that the black Howard University is the only university in the United States that uses the book by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah: "Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for Decolonization" as teaching material. "The tragedy is," said Brown, "that Nkrumah’s work is not used in Ghana nor other countries in Africa."

Dr. Grada Kilomba, psychologist, writer and author of the book "Plantation Memories" named her speech, "The Mask – Remembering Colonialism, Understanding Trauma". She explained that the politics of the colonial powers was full of sadism and brutality, and that it was used in order to the silence the black subjects.

See the complete list of speakers here

Munich?
In 1918 the former German Empire lost World War I and also its colonies in Africa (Cameroon, Togo, German East Africa, now Tanzania, and German Southwest Africa, now Namibia). In 1932 as a form of political protest close to 30 street names in Munich were named after events in the colonial history. But some streets were also named after notorious killers, like Lothar von Trotha. Now, thanks to the Munich City Counsel, four streets are renamed.

Links
Website Pan-Africanism forum (German)
Photos of the event
African Students Association in Heidelberg Germany

Special thanks to Tina Bach

Earthquake leaves Haiti ‘worse than a war zone’

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Msnbc
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Haitians piled bodies along the devastated streets of their capital Wednesday after the strongest earthquake to hit the poor Caribbean nation in more than 200 years crushed thousands of structures, from schools and shacks to the National Palace and the U.N. peacekeeping headquarters. Untold numbers were still trapped.

The devastation was so complete that it seemed likely the death toll from Tuesday afternoon's magnitude-7.0 quake would run into the thousands.

International Red Cross spokesman Paul Conneally said an estimated 3 million people may have been affected by the quake and that it would take a day or two for a clear picture of the damage to emerge.

First a senseless war and now this.

Jamaican convicts get incentive to leave UK

From: Repeatingislands.com
The head of the returned residents group is reporting that the British Government has made a major decision in respect of Jamaicans convicted in the United Kingdom. Percival LaTouche says Britain has committed to providing cash incentives for Jamaicans serving sentences for crimes, if they agree to leave the UK before the end of their detention. According to Mr. LaTouche, the convicts could be given up to $5,000 British pounds, much less than it would cost to keep the convicts in British prisons. He would like other countries to implement an incentive system for Jamaican convicts facing deportation.

The deportation of Jamaican prisoners in the UK and their transfer to Jamaica has been going on for years. In 2007 Prime Minister Gordon Brown told Parliament that there were 1,400 Jamaican prisoners in British penal facilities, the highest number of all foreign nationals, adding that the UK would sign agreements with various countries “so that we can return prisoners from our cells as expeditiously as possible.” Read the full story here

Black people in Spain

Being black in Spain is different from being black in the UK, France or The Netherlands. In an interesting article five black people from Spain share their experience about living in Spain (short translation). You can read the full article (in French) on the blog Noirs d'Amérique Latine

Among the interviewed is television reporter Lucía Asué Mbomio. In the video for the website Live unchained she talks about her her documentary and about being black in Spain.

Short translation
Marcia Santacruz is chocolate coloured. Black like her father and her mother. Black as her grandparents. But apparently, in Spain, clothing, education and money determine the level of melanin. They nuance skin tone. The Afro-Colombian, who came to Madrid to complete a Masters in Public Administration, said: "In the Spanish mind Black is synonymous to domestic work, poverty and lawlessness. In their subconsciousness, they can’t believe that there can be a Black latina who speaks about Sartre.

Spain is not an openly racist country. There is no xenophobic party with parliamentary representation. The country does not represent a clear rejection of Black people, except for marginal extreme right groups. But there is subtle everyday racism, manifested in the way home. It is installed in the eye. You find it in the classic statement: "I am not racist, but ..." Or it’s the shop salesman who rushes to serve a black person, just so that person can leave the shop quickly. It’s racism in a country where blacks have gone from singular exotic elements, to being put all in the same bag, which is perceived with some concern: immigrants.



Update: A trailer of the documentary 'Can We Take Off the Blindfold? ' by Virginia Bright



Here, there is neither Barack Obama or Oprah Winfrey. There are not many symbols of success. The Black presence is recent, an explosion which occurred in the late nineties.

Spain has about 683,000 African descent. 1.5% of the population, just over 10% of foreigners according to the High Council of Black Communities (Alto Consejo de las Comunidades Negras). This exponential growth is most striking: in 1998 they were no more than 77,000. And just last year, about 7,500 descendants of Africans were born in the Spanish territory.

According to the association that advocates the visibility of the black community, these figures are approximate. First, they counted the foreigners residing in Spain from countries with Black people, and mixed the result with the percentage of African descendants from these countries. These figures have a margin of error. Unfortunately we have no ethnic census, the racial difference does not appear on the national identity card. But the quantification of a minority can be seen through another lens, especially if the initiative comes from the minority itself.

There are data that say: "We are a growing community. We are here. Take us into consideration."

For there was a time when the Spaniards (white) rubbed their eyes in seeing them. Donato Ndongo-Bidyogo, writer and minister of the self-declared government of Equatorial Guinea in exile, based in Madrid, arrived in Spain when his country was still a Spanish colony. A province on the African continent, one hundred percent black. In a recent article entitled Una nueva realidad: los afroespañoles (A new reality: afro-Spanish), the Equatorial Guinean wrote several anecdotes of his early years in the white territory.

For example: "Older women who, at Christmas 1965, ran, terrified and scared to see me in a city within the Levantine region, laying hands on her head and cried a black, black, My God, a negro! "[...] My classmates had scratched his head and hands with their fingers and were surprised they were not stained black.

Guineans in the former colony were the first to arrive. Today, there are a little over 23,000 people. This is the third African country with the biggest contingent of Blacks, after Senegal (47,000) and Nigeria (35,000). But migration has been very different. They came to study in the metropolis.  Today, they perhaps represent the most integrated Black community of African descent, with a second and a third generation.

Lucía Asue Mbomio reporter for Españoles por el mundo (TVE1) is one of them. She speaks with an accent of the district when she wants. She says it is her vulgar side. Born to a white mother and a father of Equatorial Guinea, she grew up in Alcorcón, a municipality south of Madrid. She's 28, and her room in a shared appartment, is filled with pride of her race. From "I Have a Dream" Martin Luther King, to the "Yes we can," Obama.

You can read the full article (in French) on the blog Noirs d'Amérique Latine

Update

Afroféminas
Antoinette Torres Soler and Lucia Asue Mbomio Rubio are two black women who created the digital magazine Afroféminas. A space for women of African descent. "I saw there was a problem in the media on how black women were portrayed," says its founder, Cuban born Torres Soler, who arrived in Spain in 2007.  She fights against the collective image that always boils down to portray women of African descent as "foreign, vulnerable and poor."  Read 
Racismos cotidianos: “Para ser negra, eres muy guapa”

In the video Antoinette Torres Soler talks about her motivation




Documentary

The new documentary Gurumbé, Forgotten Music speaks of a very unfamiliar subject, the black African population who lived in Andalusia in the centuries XV to XIX.  The documentary highlights the role of slavery, the accumulation of wealth by many merchant families in Seville and Cádiz, and the influence of Afro-Andalusians in Andalusian history and culture.



In the video Gurumbé, London born flamenco dancer Yinka Graves performs the Andalusian flamenco dance La caña. See the interview 'Meet La Morena: Yinka Esi Graves' at Las Morenas De España.


Travel 

• Festivals In Barcelona: Celebrating Multi-Cultural Barcelona

Expat
 
Also see Black travel expert Nelson George of BlackAtlas talking to Black British Judi Oshowole, who has lived in Barcelona for 18 years. See more information about her and the community BIBS (Barcelona International Black Sisters) here. 


Links

• High Council of Black Communities (Alto Consejo de las Comunidades Negras)
• High Council of Black Communities on Myspace 
• Black Stories From Spain 
• Las Morenas de España - A site for women of color with an interest in Spain to share stories, advice and create community

 
Postings

• Black travel experiences in Europe
• Report black Belgian in Spain
• Africa Vive - Biggest African cultural event in Spain

  
Articles

• La huella cultural de los negros esclavos en España
• How Did Early-Modern Slaves in Spain Disappear? The Antecedents

film: Leroy (Germany 2007)

Leroy, a German youth film (2007).

Leroy (17) is German – and black. He lives in Berlin, wears a big afro, but prefers Mozart to Hip Hop. Leroy’s friends are outsiders as well, Dimi is Greek and Achmed is Palestinian. However they all have girlfriends except Leroy. When cute Eva falls in love with him, nobody is as surprised and confused as Leroy himself.

But first love is not always sweet. Eva’s family turns out to be right wing extremists. They even named their Australian parrots after two of Hitler’s generals and Eva’s five skinhead brothers are longing to kick Leroy’s butt asap.

However, Leroy does not give up easily. He assembles his friends, fights for his love and, in his own style, revives the black power movement of the 70s. His motto: Funk not Fascism.

Leroy (Alain Morel) lives in Berlin-Schöneberg, and is the son of a black eccentric inventor (Günther Kaufmann) and a progressive white mother (Eva Mannschott) who works for the local government

“Director Armin Völckers takes a gently humorous look at otherness and xenophobia in modern day Germany.”
www.spill.com



A black guy who is in love with a girl from a right wing extremist family? It's as if the German director tried to mix German Neo-Nazi culture and black exploitation culture with bi-racial love. I wonder if a black director would have made a flick like that. Germany keeps surprising me.

Official website Leroy
Read more at Seattlefilmfest

The director also made the short film, "Leroy cleans up" (2005)
Part 1


Part 2

Crime and community - The two sides of the London area Brent

The London Borough of Brent, or Brent, had the highest gun crime rate in London. Of course there is more to this multicultural area then crime, where black, white and Asian people seemingly live peacefully together. In two videos both sides are shown.

In the documentary Love In The City (LITC) a group of young people highlight the positives of Brent, as they were tired about hearing the negatives, and anti-knife and gun crime initiatives. LITC was an inter-generational summer 2009 youth project for young people to engage with their peers and different generations to find out mostly positive things about leaving in their areas, and some history.



In the video ‘Gun Crime in Brent’ the residents talk about the cause of the gun crimes.


Although it's interesting to see both sides, I still wonder why having "nothing do to" always seems to have the same effect in our communities.

See more Brent
Official site Brent
Brent magazine

Nneka's new album "Concrete Jungle" + free mixtape

The countdown for Nneka's new album "Concrete Jungle" has started. On February 2, 2010 her new Album Concrete Jungle will be in the US stores. But as an introduction to her new album the Nigerian/Afro-German singer/songwriter has released the clip "The Uncomfortable Truth".

But there is more. She also collaborated with Brooklyn-based Mixtape DJ, remixer and hip-hop producer J .Period to put together a mixtape entitled: The Madness (Onye-Ala). You can download it free here.

The Uncomfortable Truth is also on the mixtape.



Links
Nneke Myspace
Nneka world

Happy New Year 2010

Concha Buika - New Afro Spanish generation

Concha Buika is a critically acclaimed flamenco fusion vocalist from Spain. Born in 1972 in Palma de Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain, she is the daughter of political refugees from the former Spanish African colony Equatorial Guinea. She made her full-length recording debut with Buika (2005) on Dro Atlantic. On of the popular songs of the album is 'New Afro spanish generation'(video). The song is about being black and Spanish.

She collaborated with accomplished producer Javier Limón for her second album, Mi Niña Lola (2006). Her breakthrough release, Mi Niña Lola, sold over 100,000 copies in Spain. She collaborated with Limón again for her third album, Niña de Fuego (2008), which garnered a Latin Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. Though Buika was frequently acclaimed by critics, the nomination came as a surprise, as she was little known outside the Spanish flamenco fusion scene. (Source: Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide)



La falsa moneda is from the album Niña de Fuego (2008)


Her latest album is 'El Último Trago'

Offical site: Buika

Concert Fally Ipupa on January 2nd 2010 in Paris

Photo: Fally Ipupa and Olivia Longott
Saturday January 2nd 2010, Congolese singer Fally Ipupa will take possession of The Zenith in Paris from midnight to dawn. He will present his new album ‘Arsenal de Belles Mélodies’ to the French public. And this, after a triumphant tour on the African continent. With his song Droit Chemin (2006) he won a Trophée Arts Afro-Caribbean, and a gold record. He sold out stadiums in Africa, and performed with the popular group Kassav.

During the show in Paris he will receive a gold record for his achievements. He will be accompanied by the American R&B singer Olivia Longott, Longott was signed to the G Unit label of rapper 50 Cent.

On January 2nd The Zenith will tremble on the sounds of this popular innovative artist, who wants to produce "world music another way".

International Tropical Christmas Market Paris La Villette from 18 to 20 December 2009

For the first time in Paris, the Caribbean islands, combined with 42 African countries, will introduce a new journey called the 'Le Marché international de Noël tropical de Paris' (International Tropical Christmas Market of Paris).

It’s an Ultramarines mix of: crafts, clothing, jewelry, spices and other delicious cuisines.

Place: Paris La Villette, from 18 to 20 December 2009

Creative video. And why don’t black people write?

“What writing is for Jewish people, is making music for black people,” said my old Jewish High school classmate Ab a long long time ago.

His statement suddenly came to my mind while seeing a creative book video (see below), which I spotted on the blog De-cluttering my Mind

But is he right about black people? Of course there are lot of black writers out there. UK's Zadie Smith (picture), France's Marie NDiaye and my all time favorite, the American James Baldwin. I remember I had to defend my choice of Baldwin on my English literature list. Baldwin was not considered “literature”, at least not on my high school in Amsterdam.

Back to classmate and Jewish encyclopedia Ab. He added. “The reason why the influence of Jewish people in Hollywood is big, is also because there are many Jewish writers. We create are own heroes. That’s why black people don’t get Oscars.“

This reminds me of the global discussion about the underrepresentation of black people in the movies, and about the problems of black actors on ‘white’ stages. About these problem a black producer once said, “we need black writers who write black stories so we can create are own heroes in plays and films. “But,” he added, “ you need quantity to get quality.” I forgot to ask what he was implying.

But I refuse to believe that what writing is for Jewish people, is making music to black people. If that’s true then black people will be chained to Hip Hop videos forever, and the rest of the planet will create their own stories and transform them into block buster movies.

Chuck D once called Rap music the black CNN. I think I’ve heard enough ‘black’ news by now, I would like to read some of it on paper for the change. And the oral history thing? It’s just another way of saying that we don’t read books.

Back to the video: the video is of course what story writing is all about: creating a reader’s experience. The moment you open a book you must feel as if you were sitting in a train heading west. You see the smoke of locomotive, feel the bumpy railway and hear the train conductor saying: “ tickets please.” Yes, I tried!



And for the one who wants to be a writer, here’s the cliché tip from the writers wannabe class: Read Tsjechov! Read some of his short stories here.

And Ab? He started a Klezmer band. So he was wrong after all.