From Folklore to political speech. Building a black grassroot responsability leadership in crisis time for the hip-hop generation. Black Spanish Youth Day in Madrid (Spain) on 19 October 2012
http://www.foja-jovenesnegros.blogspot.nl/
From Folklore to political speech. Building a black grassroot responsability leadership in crisis time for the hip-hop generation. Black Spanish Youth Day in Madrid (Spain) on 19 October 2012
http://www.foja-jovenesnegros.blogspot.nl/
Thanks for the post. I will defintely go to this. I met the organiser of this event on the metro in Madrid, he sat next to me on the metro and started reading a Marcus Garvey book in English instantly we struck up a conversation and ended up having a coffee where he told me the good things he's doing for black people in Madrid and Spain, He's a really nice man. I will go to the event and review it.
ReplyDeleteHi Chico, You're welcome, but I got the information from John. And thanks if you want to review the event on AE!
DeleteHey guys, so I've just come back from the event and have to say I was very disappointed.
ReplyDeleteI really like the organiser Abuy Nfubea and his heart is in the right place but he can't orgainse and to be honest I feel it's like an ego trip for him, he loves the sound of his own voice and wanting to me the man who saves black people in Spain, I explained to him once it's a team effort he didn;t like that, The event was embarrassing, it was a youth day but there weren't any youths there, it had English on the flyer alongside Spanish so I was kind of expecting some of the event to be in English as well, so were some Ghanians who showed up, but left after 30 minutes as a whole there wasn't more than 20 people there, most of who began leaving after an hour.
It was just speech after speech from people with no breaks for five hours, I looked around and people had faces like they'd been dragged to church when their favourite TV program was on.
First there were members of parliment, a man from the Spanish Police about stop and search also an author called Reyes Fernandez who wrote about Spains role in the slave trade which alot of people don't know about, she raised some good points about this being taught in school, when it came to question time there wasn't enough people to ask them questions and then when people did ask them questions the organiser abuy cut them off so he could speak I couldn't believe it.
There was no breaks so people could mingle and talk to each other, and then when a video was shown where the speaking was too low and the music too loud, so loud it was distorting which made people cringe.
I spoke to two documentary makers after and they weren't happy both were black and born in Spain but one was has hertiage from Congo and the other Angola what they explained to me was the event should've been in French, Spanish and English because the black people in Spain speak one of these languages they were suprised like I, that they weren't any black people there from the Carib islands or South America, where Madrid is so segrated Dominicans have their neighbourhood, other latinos have their neighbourhood and Africans have their neighbourhood, so they rarely mix, I have friends from all these neighbourhoods and I know they have problems with the police so I know for sure if they knew the could voice their opinons to the police they would be there but I felt like the event being in the day on a Friday didn't help.
After two hours I looked around and people were falling alsleep. The only people still in the room were Abuy's friends. It was hard for me because I didn't understand everything, so I stood at the back and spoke to a girl who translated things for me, there were others speakers one from Colombia and others from Africa but they were speaking to an almost empty room, people started going outside just to talk and stretch their legs.
I was surprised there were no newspapers sellers, (here in madrid Africans sell newpspers but no one buys the newspaper, one Spanish person explained to me the newspaper is very bad so they never buy it in Spain, so really it's begging, the sellers hope to get spare change. Most of them are from Nigeria).
All I could do was shake my head, because alot of funding went into this event and it seemed to me it was for nothing, because things aren't gonna change when there are 20 people there.
Terrible. Absolutely terrible news! Grateful to you, Chico Rei, for your report, but it just irks me to no end that that event was so poorly organized! This was the prime opportunity to start a massive pan Afro-Spanish movement the likes of which had never been seen before, and what? A failure because of the organizer's lack of organizing skills. Just sad! (As an aside, I think of the moniker you've chosen for this blog; the Afro-Brazilian hero, Chico Rei, and wonder: If our enslaved ancestors were able to literally move mountains 300, 400, 500 years ago, under the most untenable conditions, why on earth couldn't this Spanish Youth Day program be successful in the 21st century?!)
ReplyDeleteAnd as for the language problem, Abuy Nfubea KNOWS and knows WELL that the African community in Spain is conformed by a MINIMUM of native Spanish speakers. True, his European language is Spanish since he's Equatorial Guinean, but the Equatorial Guineans in Spain are the minority-Africans. The largest African community are the Moroccans, estimated numbers as high as 500,000, whose European language is French; then the Senegalese, whose European language is also French, those legally in Spain: 47,000; then the Nigerians, European language: English, legally in Spain: 35,000; THEN the Spanish-speaking Equato-Guineans, who only number 23,000. Add the ENGLISH-speaking Ghanaians and you can see that any type of Pan-African conference in Spain MUST take into consideration that the majority of the attendees may not have mastered Spanish so the event should be in Spanish as well as French and English.
Well you went with high hopes, Chico Rei, but you know the saying about the best laid plans of mice and men....SMH. I hope Opportunity knocks again....I feverishly hope.
Hi Chico-Rei, many thanks for the report! I agree with John, this is terrible.
ReplyDeleteYeh I went with high hopes and took the day off work to go, to be honest I've avoided events like this in the past for this particular reason. Its just people on an ego trip talking about what should be done, but doing nothing about it.
ReplyDeleteThe title is very misleading. I thought it would be a youth day, with lots of energy, young people expressing themselves, maybe something to do with hiphop, but it was more like a conference in a plush room with no more than 40 chairs.
What annoyed me the most was when the woman translating for me, this was after sitting down for an hour. I stood at the back while she quietly translated for me, and Abuy constantly motioned for me to sit down so much so that a man come up and said he wants you to sit down, all of which I ignored and told Abuy after that if he kept doing that I would just leave the place.
I think they need to do a day where they bring all Africans, people from the Caribs and South Americans together so they know they are not alone because all seem from seperate so they can share experiences and then they can confront the police, and tell them what they have been through.
I did meet a few people who I'm going to keep in touch with and the documentary makers I spoke about are going to interview, the members of paraliment and the book author, which will be translatedin English. I will send the interviews through, with so it wasn't all bad.
I feel the black people in Spain have lost hope and are just black people who know their place which is under the white man's boot.
I am going to upgrade this to a posting.
Deletewhat is the goot news? your vision is very afropxsimistic. thx rxvolution is every day...this thx reality, How you feel malColmx or MLK WIN dOING ANd CONTINUITY WORK, INVOLVe INVITX US IN YOUR eVeNT AN THeN TALK,TALK,TALK,TALK.IS NOT FASHION CHICK IS RVOLUTION NOT B TV
ReplyDelete