Video: Arrested Development - "Greener"

A great video from the band Arrested Development. Greener is a track about global warming, climate crisis and the need to be Greener. It's a track from Arrested Development’s new album “Strong.” www.arresteddevelopmentmusic.com/

Travelling to Space from the island of Curaçao

As of January 1, 2014 the Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao will be the home of the Caribbean Space Port called Space Experience Curaçao (SXC).

According to the website and the latest information, Space Experience Curaçao (SXC) envisions realizing a Commercial Space Line and Space Port on Curaçao International Airport. SXC will serve both the commercial needs of everyone who wants to travel into space, as well as the needs for scientific research and space training. Bringing small satellites into orbit in a flexible way will follow soon while in the somewhat longer term very fast orbital travel to distant parts of our world is within reach.

On July 23 a Letter of Intent between Curaçao Airport Holding N.V. and Space Experience Curaçao B.V. has been signed.


See Virgin Galactic

According to the website, the spaceport location at Curacao offers all the options of a complete luxurious holiday package including a suborbital spaceflight for initially the high-end market (HNWIs). The combination of spaceflight, luxury beach hotels, resorts and activities in a tropical climate is seen as the ideal new holiday for the relatively wealthy people of the world.

Interesting development. But what will happened to the real estate prises? They are already sky high at the moment. Most students who return to Curacao to starts their professional careers can only afford houses at the rural part of the Island.

And I hope that Space Experience Curaçao will not only invest in the Space Port, but will also set up and sponsor science education programs for the local schools and schools in the region.

For more information:

http://spaceexperiencecuracao.com
http://caribbeanspaceport.com

Antonio Guzman's search for his African ancestry + AfroLatinos

I have posted a few videos about Guzman's search of the African gene - "The State of L3" (Amsterdam), but the next videos show his search for his African roots.

Antonio Jose Guzman is a Dutch-Panamanian audiovisual artist. Born in Panama City, Panama in 1971. Lives and works in Amsterdam, Recife, Panama City and Dakar.

I think his search for his Black Panamanian roots can be placed in the trend of exploring the culture and the social issues of Black people in South and Central America, and the rise of a new Black assertiveness in Latin America. So also see the trailer of the documentary AfroLatinos.








Trailer of the documentary AfroLatinos.

Rama Yade: "Too Many Blacks In French Sports? Perhaps Alain Finkielkraut Had 'A Point'"

From the US political blog Booker Rising. A translation of Rama Yade's comments about the overrepresentation of black players in the national French football team.

The French Secretary of State for Sport and moderate-conservative is uncomfortable with the high numbers of blacks and Arabs in French sport, arguing that it demonstrates lack of opportunity in France:

(commentary in French): "This week I participated in 'Diversity In Action,' a magnificent operation organized each year in Lyon with my friends Ali and Faisal Kismoune Douhane to promote diversity in French society. Around the debate 'Sport and Diversity"' which brought together Pascal Boniface, Olivia Cattan and Jean-Michel Aulas, everyone, including me, was extolling the virtue of inclusive sports. It is true that Marcel Cerdan (French Algerian origin) and Michel Platini (of Italian origin) Yannick Noah (from Cameroon), Mehdi Baala (of North African origin), and the black-white-Arab team players of the 1998 French soccer team, are all children of immigrants who passed through sport and show our young people today who identify themselves, they can escape through sport."

She continues her commentary: "At a point in the debate, I felt a slight discomfort. This relentless promotion of sport as a means of social success struck me as suspicious. Is it not somewhere a symptom of a failed society? As if sport is asked to manage those it no longer wants or has failed to integrate at school or the workforce. As if other than sports, these young immigrant could not do anything else. The legs yes, but not the head. They run so fast....But our young people from immigrant backgrounds would to become a Zidane or Noah, given a high chance of failure because not everyone has the capacity to become a world champion or to win Roland Garros! In short, these young people, could they not also entitled to medical professions, journalists or lawyers? However, it is as if these trades are considered inaccessible, we choose to ghettoize youth of immigrant origin. Without solving the problems of access to the labor market because one cannot remain a top sportsman all his life, who must think of a time or another in his retraining. The labor market always eventually catches up with you, with its problems of discrimination that thought away, turning to the sport."

Secretary Yade brings up Alain Finkielkraut, a conservative French essayist who in 2005 commented that the French soccer team was "black, black, black" (as opposed to black, white, Arab: "Result: young aspiring athletes have never been numerous. Moreover, there is no problem of diversity on the field and in stadiums (in leadership, however, it's tragic!). Quite the reverse. The France soccer team, they say, has eventually become....black, black, black! Damn, is it possible that Alain Finkielkraut has been misunderstood?"

Read original French article here

Russia elects first black politician

Through the multicultural European website euromight.com I discovered the latest news in Russian politics. The first black Russian elected as a council member in a twon 100 km north of Moscow, Novozavidovo. An intriguing stroy of an African who made a Russian town his home and future. I don't have much more to add than the interesting article you can read via this link.

Art: In search of the African gene - "The State of L3" (Amsterdam)

The State of L3 - Image of Antonio Jose Guzman
It’s an exhibition about Black DNA, Afrofuturism, and the black identity. And it’s entitled "The State of L3".

Created by the Pan African Contemporary Arts & Film Collective of Armin Kane (Dakar), Antonio Jose Guzman (Panama/Netherlands) and Felipe Peres Calheiros (Brazil).

Date: June/July/August/September 2010 in Amsterdam, for more details go to: www.stateofl3.com

Very interesting is the DNA Road Movie "The Day we Surrender to the Air" of Panamese/Dutch audiovisual artist Antonio Jose Guzman. Guzman got his DNA analyzed in the United States and discovered that he is of African, Central and North American, and European lineage. His genetic identity was based on the Diasporas of his forefathers. So how did his parents end up in Panama?

State of L3 Draft


One of the interesting videos is Guzman talking to his father in Panama


Surrender Oosterpark Amsterdam - scenes of a cultural festival in Amsterdam


See all the videos here

From 10 July 2010, SMART Project Space presents Modernity & Aesthetics of the New Black Atlantic, an exhibition by The State of L3 exploring the connection between migration, visual culture and African heritage. Based in Amsterdam, Dakar and Recife, The State of L3 has created a rhizomatic network of artworks and artists working with multimedia exchanges, projects, videos and internet archive.

Throughout the work the concept of Afrofuturism plays a key role, a literary and cultural aesthetic that combines elements of science fiction, historical fiction, fantasy and magic realism with non-Western cosmologies in order to interrogate, and re-examine historical events of the past.

Links:
www.aguzman.com
www.stateofl3.com
www.thedaywesurrender.com

Video: Black Brazilians from the Diaspora meet Africans

Because it’s always interesting to see how black people from different countries connect with each other, here’s the video: "Na nga def: Diasporics Encounter Africans".

The video is about a meeting in 2008 between young black Brazilian women from the Diaspora and young African women from various countries. Most interesting remark: "I thought Brazil was all white."

The video is a promo of a documentary that's going to be released soon, referring to the encounter of young activists from the African Continent and its Diaspora who got together at the Gorée Island in Senegal - one of the three main slave-shipping point from where enslaved Africans were brought to the Americas for three and a half centuries. Na nga def? (How are you?) was a greeting in wolof, which youngsters from Diaspora repeated daily while in Gorée during 30 days of July 2008.

White baby born to black parents (not albino) , London 07/2010

A Nigerian couple living in London had a white baby who is not albino. Scientist cannot explain the phenomenon although they can confirm that the child is not an albino and biologically of both parents. Another proof of the relativity of race.

This may sound strange but I tend to link it to a recent scientific argument explaining the existence of white people in Europe. Last year I read an article in The Times stating that only 5500 years ago white people started to evolve from dark skinned people in Europe. Due to a sedentary life Europeans found themselves having less vitamin D in their food than hunters-gatherers. Vitamin D is an essential nutrient and a light skin is much more efficient in absorbing vitamin D from sunlight than a dark skin is.

In places such as northern Europe, where sunlight levels are low, the ability to make vitamin D more efficiently could have been crucial to survival. Vitamin D deficiency could be lethal. Research links it with heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and reduced immunity. Therefore people born as white could have had a greater chance for survival in places with few sunlight. Through time natural selection made what we nowadays call ‘the white race’.

Still, this findings have to be treated with caution as a lot of things are still unclear and based on presupposition rather than hard scientific facts (please read more here). The birth of Nmachi is only one little fact that could enlighten our biological understanding of human diversity.

Cuisine: Babette De Rozieres's new book

French chef Babette De Rozieres will present her new book "La Bonne Cuisine de Babette" at "Le Festival des arts culinaires et de la gastronomie" on 24/07/2010 - 25/07/2010 in Guadeloupe.

De Rozieres also wrote the famous cookbook "Creole".

Nelson Mandela International Day ! - July 18th

Today it's Mandela Day. On November 2009, the UN General Assembly declared July 18 Nelson Mandela International Day in recognition of the former South African president’s contribution to the culture of peace and freedom. Website www.nelsonmandela.org

I forgot of doing something special today, but I will catch up.

Summer Carnival Rotterdam 2010 – Street parade July 31st

Summer Carnival is a yearly 3-day Caribbean Carnival in the city centre of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Summer Carnival, similar to the carnival in Rio, is a huge event where at least 900.000 visitors come from all over Europe to dance to the latin music and look at the colourful and amazing costumes and floats in the big street parade.

Promo Summer Carnival 2009


On Saturday July 31st the big Street Parade emerges in the city centre. At night there is still a lot to see on the two live stages.

The Carnival started out as a local Carnival of the Dutch Antillean community in Rotterdam, and grew out to an international big city event.

Program:
Queen Election on July 24th,
the Battle of Drums on July 30th
Street Parade and Live On Stage on July 31st.

Links:
Dutch: www.zomercarnaval.nl/
English: www.zomercarnaval.nl/nl/English

Video: Filmmaker Mo Asumang about herself and Berlin

H/T Black in NRW: An interview with German filmmaker, actress, and moderator Mo Asumang. She is well known in Germany due to her documentary movies and TV moderation. Recently she has gained International exposure being featured in Roman Polanski's movie "The Ghostwriter" playing Condoleezza Rice.

In the interview with Fareed Khimani, she talks about herself and about her city Berlin. They also visit the multicultural festivities on labour day in the famous immigrant neighbourhood Kreuzberg. According to Asumang the special thing about the festivities on labour day is that you always have riots between Neo-Nazis, left-wing people and the police.

But Kreuzberg is also the home of the Carnival of Cultures http://www.karneval-berlin.de

Also see the post: AfroGerman week: filmmaker Mo Asumang in search of "Roots Germania"

African Troops at France's Bastille Day

Today France is celebrating it’s national day, Bastille Day. President Sarkozy invited for the event some 13 African head of states. All from countries celebrating their 50th anniversary of independence.

Troops from Cameroon, Gabon, Niger, Chad and Congo-Brazzaville joined the military parade under the leadership of French military officials. All this happened among heavy criticism on two levels. First that many of the invited head of states are responsible for grave human rights violations. Inviting them gives a certain legitimacy to leaders who have no wish to respect the human rights and increase the life quality of the country’s citizens. Second because of the symbolism. Marc Ona, a Gabonese human rights activist compares African leaders at the parade to "colonial governors who find themselves together with chief colonialist Nicolas Sarkozy to celebrate keeping Africa in international penury".

Sarkozy’s argument is that African soldiers fought alongside French soldiers during World War I and World War II and that this is a way to honour them. But honestly I think there are better ways to honour the veterans then to invite their corrupt leaders to this parade.

Let’s not forget how France totally failed to grant the respect and rights of the African veterans of all post Napoleonic French wars. It is stunning how wikipedia’s entry on the Tirailleur Sénégalais fails to give more information about this insult towards the African troops who fought alongside Europeans during World War I en II.

It’s only in 2006 (after Rachid Bouchareb’s film on the Arab soldiers during WWII) that Chirac granted the pensions the veterans deserved. Most had died at the time. You can find some info on wiki in this article.


Some of France's African troops in Europe during WWII

Sarkozy further stated that the presence of the African troops just shows to the world the strength of the ties uniting France with its former colonies. And that is exactly what Sarkozy wants as in this globalized world the African nations have a lesser need to preserve the ties with their former colonizers as new nations (like China, Brazil and India) are investing and collaborating with them.

The International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH), an umbrella group for human rights organisations around the world, said in a letter to President Sarkozy that "It would be no small paradox that during a celebration of the values of the Republic, these values should be flouted by the presence of torturers, dictators and other predators of human rights, and that instead of pursuing them, France honours them."

Defence Minister Herve Morin said on national radio that there are no indications whatsoever that war criminals were present among the African units. Maybe not among the African units, and maybe not war criminals. But there are definitely criminals among the African head of states invited to France’s national day.

This article is based on a BBC News article you can find here

Below I add an intersting video analysis from Newsy.com

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