Before the end of this month we need to report the issue of African immigrant workers in Southern Italy. Early this month riots occured in Rosarno, Calabria sparked by shootings against Africans. These kind of shootings are not uncommon.
According to Saviano, author of Gomorrah, there are several hundreds of thousand African immigrant workers caught up in a brutal cheap-labor system ran by the Maffia. The Maffia organizes the immigration of Africans to the extensive vegetable and fruit farms of Southern Italy. These immigrants have to live in terrible conditions earning less than 3 euros per day for 10 to 14 hour working days. Thanks to them we can by cheap tomatoes, egg plants, zucchinis, olives, lemons .etc.. in our North European supermarkets.
These Africans live in tents, shacks and abandoned buildings on the margin of society. Repeated assault by locals against African immigrants have been reported in the last years. Unfortunately the local police is not sympathetic to the living conditions of the African workers. Disappearences are frequent and immigrants who object to low wages and poor working conditions are simply eliminated. The Rosarno riots were reportedly sparked by local youth who fired air rifles at African immigrants. Unfortunately these kinds of shooting are not uncommon. In December 2008 a man shot without apparent reason two Africans who were sleeping in their shack, one got severely injured. Following this event the workers took to the street peacefully asking for protection. Approx. 2500 to 5000 Aficans live in the Rosarno valley. This is a huge number compared to a total of 15000 inhabitants.
After the second attack early this January several hundreds of workers went into the town of Rosarno and burned cars and smashed shop windows. Several locals replied with a severe attack on the African settlements.
It was the fourth outbreak of intercommunal violence in recent years resulting in the resettlement of about 1000 Africans in detention centers. Two years ago six Africans died in such a fighting in the coastal town of Castel Volturno, although these killings should be seen in relation to the drug activities of a local Maffia clan and Nigerian immigrants. Generally the European media is not too much vocal about these violent events.
We hope you will find it interesting and look forward to seeing you all again. Of course we would like to see new face aswell. ;-)
But while we are celebrating Black culture, looking at history and empowering the community, we will also think of our brothers and sisters suffering in Haiti right now. Throughout BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2010 we will be asking for donations towards the cause and contributions will also be made from the entree fees. That's why we need you to help us get as many people as possible to come to the events. Here are 3 things that would have a great effect on the turnout :
- Call up a couple of people who probably don't know about BLACK HISTORY MONTH - Remind or tell your friends about the OPENING PARTY this Saturday and bring them along with you - Forward the mail to people who could be interested
Although the African Cup is almost over you can still get some stylish T-shirts of the French label Support Wear. The T-shirts were created by Stéphane Ndjigui, who also created the famous French Hip-Hop label “Première Classe” .
Stéphane Ndjigui is no stranger to football. He picked up his love for football from his father, who is a retired player from the famous football club Caiman De Douala of Cameroon.
For Support Wear Ndjigui asked several personalities from the world of music, football and theatre to support his project. Celebrities like stand-up comedian Thomas Njigol, football player Souleymane Diawara from Olympique Lyonnais (photo), rapper Mac Tyer and Zouk singer Ben J from the group “les Nèg' Marrons” have lent their image to the brand.
Tomorrow it's the Holocaust Memorial Day. And tomorrow I will also light a candle for Surinamese/Dutch freedom fighter and human rights activist Anton de Kom, who died in the Neuengamme concentration camp in Germany.
Anton de Kom was born on February 22, 1898 in Paramaribo, Surinam. His grandparents had personally experienced slavery and his father was born a slave. The many stories he heard at home about the atrocities, fed his aversion against racism and colonialism. The Kom is the author of the book "Wij Slaven van Suriname" (We Slaves of Surinam).
Anton de Kom joined the Dutch resistance after the German invasion in Netherlands in 1940. On 7 August 1944 he was arrested by the Germans. De Kom died on 24 April 1945 of tuberculosis in Camp Sandbostel near Bremervörde (between Bremen and Hamburg), which was a satellite camp of concentration camp Neuengamme. He was buried in a mass grave. In 1960, his remains were found and brought to the Netherlands, were they buried in the Cemetery of Honour in Loenen. He became 47 years old.
A short documentary about De Kom's life.
The University of Suriname was renamed The Anton de Kom University of Suriname in honour of De Kom. Anton de Kom was listed in De Grootste Nederlander (The Greatest Dutchman/Dutchwoman) as #102 out of 202 people. And in Amsterdam Zuidoost a square is named after him, the Anton de Kom plein. It features a sculpture of Anton de Kom as a monument to his life and works.
In his book "We slaves of Surinam" he wrote: "Though unrecorded in the history books of the whites, the ill-treatment of our fathers is engraved in our harts. Never has the misery of slavery been brought home to me more insistently then through the eyes of my grandmother when she told us children stories of the old days in front of the hut in Paramaribo."
De Kom was traumatised by being son of a slave. I can't even image how hard it must have been for the Kom to be in a concentration camp where he had to experience the opposite of everything he fought for.
Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) commemorates the tragic loss of life in the genocides of World War II, in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur. HMD is held on 27 January, the anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
On the website of the Holocaust Memorial Day you can light a virtual candle, you can light it here.
I must admit I have never been a fan of Corinne Bailey Rae, but I am starting to become one after seeing the live performance of I'd Do It All Again on "Later with Jools Holland".
"Rae has undergone a tidal shift towards a raw, less manicured sound," said The Times of one of her recent London performances." And it shows.
The song "I'd Do It All Again" is from her new album "The Sea". The album is set in the UK for february 1st release on EMI's Capitol Records. In the US it will be available on January 26th.
Live performance of "I'd Do It All Again" on "Later with Jools Holland":
Always wanted to know what it’s like being a street musician in Paris, but were afraid to ask? You'll get the answer from guitar player Nikerson from Haiti. In the video he talks about his live in Paris, about his frustration, and about his dreams. An interesting video with scenes from the streets of Paris. See part two here
The video is from a very interesting blog called Beta Bahil. Beta Bahil wants to develop, market and distribute African cultural media and products worldwide. African, in this case, means anyone of African descent in or out of the continent.
"Neger, Feger" (“Negro”, “chimney sweeper”), were the names other children called her numerous times during her childhood. Usually, Manuela Ritz would not see her perpetrators. She held her head down. At one point she lifted it and hollered back at them „weißer Scheißer (“whitey”, “shit“)! Maybe this was the first step towards her present profession as and to her inner belief: Fighting back sets one free.
It’s the story of German anti-racist trainer ManuEla Ritz (40), and author of her powerfull biograpy “Die Farbe meiner Haut” , or in English “The Color of my Skin”. Her book was published in 2009.
ManuEla Ritz grew up in the small town Mügeln in East Germany, a town coined by the media as extreme right wing. In her book she writes about her experience of growing up in Mügeln, and about growing up as a black German in Germany.
Book tour In March 2010 ManuEla Ritz will be on a book tour in Germany. 10.3. - Landshut (Bavaria) 11.3. - Oberschleißheim (near Munich) 17.3. - Hannover 18.3. - Leipzig 19.3. - Cologne - not confirmed 22.3. - Bielefeld
Video In an interesting interview (German) Ritz talks about her workshops, and how racism works. A short translation from 2: 43 till 5:22).
Interviewer: when I think of racism I think of Neo-nazis and violance, but there is also everyday racism. Where does racism actually begin? Ritz: When I give empowerment workshops, I say to people that racism is what you experience. Racism is a form of discrimination. Discrimination just means treating a person differently. And the "different" means who is outside the norm and who is not. And when you're outside the norm I can ask you different questions, I can look at you differently, and I can touch you, which is not "normal" in our society.
Interviewer: could you give an example?
Ritz: A friend of mine told me, a grown up woman, that in bus her hair was touched to see how it felt. She thought "hello" are we in the year hundred.
Book Review
Because the story of ManuEla Ritz is very powerfull I have added the complete English book review.
Review
ManuEla Ritz is working as trainer for Anti-Racism and Empowerment Workshops. In her biography “The Color of my Skin“, which was published in April 2009 by Herder Verlag, she describes her job and the reasons that made her chose this profession. She does this by describing scenes she has experienced in her life as Black German woman, reflections which include joyful as well as painful memories. The author calls her book rightfully „not a biography in the traditional sense“. The reality of her life - once in East Germany and now in a unified German republic - is inevitably connected with the central theme of her work, life and pain: Racism and how one can fight it.
The fact that this is a book which gives encouragement and which has been written by an author who has still „hope in her heart“ becomes clear in her introductory words. Here ManuEla Ritz describes the effects which Barack Obama’s election as president of the United States has had on her in December 2008. He fought a seemingly hopeless battle and won it. This is an experience she has made as well and continues to do so until today: „Racism in Germany is still existing,“ she says, and the experiences she presents in her book leave no room for doubts about this statement.
ManuEla Ritz grew up in a small town in Saxony, Mügeln. The reader finds out at the very beginning of the book that already her journey into life and her arrival in the same were accompagnied by complications and separations. It were those very circumstances of her birth that caused that ManuEla Ritz experienced few days after the first change of environment which was her transport into a foster house for babies in Mügeln, which was 15 kilometers away.
Mügeln, where ManuEla spent her childhood and youth, was the place where she made her first experiences with racism. „There was a time during childhood, in which I felt the pressure from the outside world to define myself through an ethnic heritage which was unknown to me. I was given the impression that I was not a real German.” She describes the feeling of being excluded from the rest of the group and her participation in the game “Who is afraid of the Black Man” in the chapter about her childhood. Until today the game represents to her an intrinsic example of how children are taught to think in racist categories at a very early age. This is another reason why ManuEla Ritz believes in fighting racism in a very early stage. The fact that she offered an Anti-Racism workshop against racism at the school of her childhood in Mügeln is therefore no coincidence at all. The media treated the town as synonym for the existence of right wing violence when in 2007 eight men of Indian heritage were beaten up and hunted through the streets of the city by a mob.
Mügeln is also the place where ManuEla Ritz learned for the first time how liberating it feels to defend oneself successfully against racism. „Neger, Feger“, were the names other children called her numerous times during her childhood. Usually, ManuEla Ritz would not see her perpetrators. She held her head down. At one point she lifted it and hollered back at them „weißer Scheißer!“ Maybe this was the first step towards her present profession and to her inner belief: Fighting back sets one free.
And there where many things she had to fight against, e.g., the obstacles she had to overcome when starting the search for her biological parents. With different experiences and realizations at the end of these roads which brought her first to Meißen, the city of her birth, and much later in 2007 to Nairobi in Kenya, the country of her father.
Years before these travels, ManuEla Ritz had experienced that in a unified Germany there is not automatically a place for Black people. Again, she had to learn how it feels to be excluded, an experience which she turned into a movie script after she had completed a further education study program in script writing. In this work, she describes how the unification brought freedom for many and fears for others. For ManuEla Ritz these experiences are part of her path of life: „Fear can paralyze“, she writes. „Fear can also motivate. Fear, and even more so the desire not to allow that my life is dominated by it, were important aspects for my decision, to become an Anti-Racism-Trainer.“ She talks about this in the second half of the book, in which she also shares experiences and insights that she made during her work as Anti-Racism-Trainer. Beside that she also points to scenes of daily life racism, e.g., arbitrary controls of Black peoples’ passports as well as the common usage of established racist terminologies in the German language.
When ManuEla Ritz claims that working constructively with the topic racial discrimination is a necessity, she does this also from the perspective of a mother of two children. Her goal is to assist them, so that they are able to find and create their own strategies at hand and to strengthen them in the way they deal with racism. The topic „How do I tell my children“...what racism is about and how you fight it, is a central matter to her.
Participants of her workshops learn, that racism has many faces and that the need to fight against it, is central for a society in general, not only for those who are its target. ManuEla Ritz is aware of the fact that most white Germans have to get used to the thought that racism exists in Germany. „They don’t experience it“. Others do and not all of them survive it. The reader gets aware of this in the chapter that deals with racially motivated assassinations in Germany and that makes clear that racism concerns everybody. ManuEla Ritz knows: compassion does not help those who are the target of racism. Compassion is not visible and it does not offer any protection against attackers. The conditions that allow racism to take place at all are explained in her Anti-Discrimination-Workshops: „Discrimination is only possible if there is a majority who does not interfere” ManuEla Ritz stated once in an interview. “Those who keep silent, seem to agree.“
ManuEla Ritz is also describing strategies for those who have to deal with racist attacks. She explains to them the importance of understanding how internalized racism works. As she makes clear, it is important to replace it with the knowledge that racism is a powerful social and oppressive structure.
Structures of power and oppression are also dealt with in the subsequent chapter in which ManuEla Ritz provides an introduction to the topic Adultism. Adultism refers to the discrimination of children and youths through adults. Based on this phenomenon, the author shows that all types of discrimination are based on similar structures. To provide evidence for her findings, she presents a theoretical model as well as empirical findings from Adultism workshops that she has conducted during the course of the last four years.
Beside this biography there is more material the reader can turn to after completing the book. ‚Homestory Deutschland’, a multi-media theatre piece about Black German lives and experiences is a well received project, that provides an inter-generational and deep view onto topics that the reader will be acquainted with from ManuElas Ritz’ biography
Sade Nominated For Brit Award. To Celebrate its 30th Anniversary, The BRIT Awards 2010 will include a new retrospective award - The ‘British Album of 30 Years’. The category includes the top 10 best selling albums that have also won British Album categories over the past three decades, and we are very happy to announce that Sade’s debut album ‘Diamond Life’(1984)has been nominated. The award will be voted for by Radio 2 and 6 Music listeners.
In the meantime, here’s the full list of nominations for BRITs Album of 30 years. BRITs Album of 30 Years Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head Dido - No Angel Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms Duffy - Rockferry Keane - Hopes & Fears Oasis - (What's the Story) Morning Glory? Phil Collins - No Jacket Required Sade - Diamond Life The Verve - Urban Hymns Travis - The Man Who
African-Italian stiker Mario Balotelli (19) has a lot to endure in Italy. Read the very interesting post on the blog Myafroitalianlife (M.A.I.L)
Football player Mario Balotelli (19) aka Super Mario for the great Inter fans, was born on 12 August 1990 to Ghanaian immigrants Thomas and Rose Barwuah in the Italian city of Palermo. Up to here the story is boring without much adventure. However years passed, Mario has become a young man gifted with the ball on his foot. Great, he is a Ghanaian football hero now. Wrong, because he is the controversy of the Italian soccer game these days. Let's go back few years.
In 1993 at the age of three Mario's parents entrusted the child to a white Italian family, the Balotelli. Mario remained with them and still sees them as his parents. For Italian bureaucracy he was not allowed an Italian citizenship until the age of eighteen, just less than two years ago.
Now he is an African-Italian, who has the desire to play for his beloved country Italy. However since last month (December 2009) he is in the Italian national news due to the racial abuse he receives whilst on the field.
Many spectators will agree that he is a good, excellent young footballer, but others blame the abuses on his arrogance and completely uncontrollable behaviour. For another party he is abused due to his colour. Read the full story here
Yele is a song from the hip hop Album (1997) entitled "Wyclef Jean Presents The Carnival Featuring Refugee All Stars", or more simply The Carnival. It was Wyclef Jean's first solo album
The album features guest artists such as including Celia Cruz, The Neville Brothers and Jean's bandmates from The Fugees, Lauryn Hill and Pras.
The album features skits between many of its songs, most of them set in a fictional trial for Wyclef Jean, in which he is accused of being "a player and a bad influence".
The final three songs are sung in Haitian Creole.
The album sold over 5 million copies worldwide, and was RIAA certified 2x Platinum (source wikipedia)
It's sad to see that Wyclef now has to defend himself against allegations of misappropriated funds from his Yéle Haiti Foundation. The charity foundation is used to raise money for the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. See the full story on all Hip hop.
Meaning of Style Exhibition. Black British Style, and the underlying political and social environment. An exhibition created by New Art Exchange.
Dates: Saturday 16 January - Saturday 10 April 2010 in Nottingham (UK)
New Art Exchange presents an exhibition exploring the presence of young African Caribbean men in Britain over the last 40 years, and how Black music, fashion and culture have influenced mainstream society.
Young African Caribbean men have often been portrayed as low achievers and perpetrators of crime in British society. But now, with Barack Obama winning the presidency of the biggest superpower in the world, will we see these same young men portrayed in a different light; as a source of huge potential for the future? Will the achievement of black youth in Britain over the last 40 years be recognised and honoured?
The presence of young 'Black' men in the UK started to be felt in the mainstream media in the 1970’s. Often portrayed negatively, this was a period of hope for the ‘African Caribbean’ community, a period of ‘Pan African’ and ‘Back to Africa’ ideology. This was also a period of oppression for many young Black men, due in part to the political climate of Thatcherism, Police harassment and institutionalised racism.
The African Caribbean youth of the late 1970’s/early 1980’s were the first generation in the UK to confront society and demand change on mass. This ‘rebel’ generation in the UK were reflected in the visibility of sub-cultures like the ‘Natty Dreads / Rastas’ and the rise of reggae music with politically aware artists like Bob Marley and, in the UK, Steel Pulse. Young men developed a ‘Rebel’ style that influenced young people from all backgrounds, around the world.
Style, fashion, ideology and the ‘Black’ Diaspora may have changed over the years, but young ‘Black’ men in the UK have made their presence felt ever since. In modern society many of the legacy of this 'rebel' style is seen in the fashion of young people from all backgrounds, ethnicity and geographical locations around the world. Ultimately, this exhibition will ask questions of all of us.
‘The Meaning of Style’ will bring together artists that have created portraits of young people using different mediums and create a dialogue and polemic which cross reference the work in the exhibition .
Skinder Hundal, Chief Executive - New Art Exchange said:
“New Art Exchange is extremely proud to be hosting this extremely important exhibition, which explores some of our seminal artists documenting ‘British Black culture’ from past decades, and highlighting how this has helped influence fashion, music and mainstream culture. It was a time of change, awareness and finally empowerment for many migrant communities in the UK, and the exhibition explores this through various artforms.”
The exhibition and accompanying events and educational programme will explore young African Caribbean men’s style and fashion over the last 40 years, and the underlying political, social environment.
Photo: Michelle and Barack Obama The venue Jahrhunderthalle in Frankfurt (Germany) will experience a sound it has never heard before: formed to a huge percussion ensemble, the audience accompanies US president Barack Obama on his successful way into the White House. The event organizer MOVE GmbH promises a double world premiere: at the premiere of "HOPE – the Obama Musical Story" on Sunday, 17 January at 8:00 pm, the audience will rhythmically participate on specially developed percussion chairs - for the first time ever worldwide. "Hope is the first interactive musical of a new generation", says musical producer Roberto Emmanuele, CEO and creative director of Move GmbH based in Bad Soden. "This is an enormous sound and a great musical experience for the audience."
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."
