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Chad. Koupor. Mission of Hope.

In a remote corner of Chad, three missionaries of the Immaculate Conception give a simple Christian testimony.
Walking alongside people.

Hilda, Shephali, and Irene are three Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception present in Koupor, in the south-west of Chad, on the border with Cameroon, where they arrived in February 2019.
In the past, there had been some Burundian sisters, but none had been there for five years. “They gave us a big party when we arrived!”, they remember. Even though no one knew them, and most people aren’t even Christians. Yet these three nuns, with their great simplicity and unbelievably poor means, manage to make people experience, through small gestures, a sense of respect and care for the people with whom they share their lives.

Everything is lacking: roads, water, schools, health centres… File swm

Just being there is a great sign because in Koupor, as well as in the surrounding villages, there is nothing and no one. There are no state works of any kind and no NGOs. Everything is lacking: roads, water, schools, health centres… People live in extreme poverty and are increasingly at the mercy of a changeable climate, balanced between terrible droughts and devastating floods. Either there is no water or there is too much.
Now is the time of the floods, but until a few weeks ago the savannah was scorched by temperatures above 50 degrees, and water and millet – the basic element of nutrition – had become very rare commodities.
In the rainy season, however, when the earth appears wrinkled and furrowed by deep cracks, real lakes are created that further accentuate the isolation of this village and the entire area. Even the missionaries, who normally travel by bicycle or motorbike on sandy paths, must use the canoe to travel over these expanses of water that are increasingly associated with devastating climatic events that cause destruction and displacement of people.
It is a land of extremes in which these three nuns from different countries, generations and experiences live their mission, and today find themselves sharing the joy of bearing witness to the Gospel in this part of the world also through gestures of closeness and charity.

Sr. Shephali. Her main commitment is to the group of girls. Photo: A. Pozzi

Sister Hilda, from India, is a veteran of the group. She has 36 years of experience in Cameroon, first in the South in Ambam, and then in the Far North. “When I arrived, it was a very poor and abandoned region, but I saw great changes. Here, however, there is nothing”.
This mission in Koupor is a constant challenge. Not only due to the climate but especially due to the backwardness of the place. Even the simplest things become complicated. She experiences this every day in the dispensary they renovated. Everything is very basic but clean and tidy: there is even a small laboratory, solar panels, and a water pump. “But there are no medicines”, Sister Hilda says, showing us the almost empty warehouse. “The government doesn’t give anything except vaccines and it’s not easy to get them because transportation is extremely difficult. Normally we get them from Caritas which also pays the salaries of the staff”.
There are currently two nurses and a midwife. But the patients are very few as are the women who come to give birth – five in the last month. Almost all of them continue to have their babies at home and go to the dispensary only in case of complications, sometimes making difficult journeys by motorbike or on the back of a donkey.
Nurse Valentin shows us the register of visits: fewer than three thousand patients a year, an average of nine a day. “People don’t come to the dispensary because often they don’t even have the few pennies needed to pay for medical tests or medicine, but also because they don’t even know that they can get treatment here. This is why we are doing a lot of awareness work and vaccination campaigns in the villages”, explains Sister Hilda. “But it’s a question of mentality. People often don’t understand the importance of going to the dispensary or even of sending children to school”.

A mother with her child. Almost all women continue to have their babies at home. They only go to the dispensary if there are complications. File swm

The other two nuns who dedicate themselves to the education of girls and to pastoral care, as well as to mission schools, also experience this. Sister Shephali has just returned from Bangladesh, where she went on holiday after a long-forced absence due to the Covid-19 pandemic. She also has 17 years of experience in Cameroon behind her. Then she got back into work in Koupor, just across the border in a similar territory and with similar people, but with very different challenges. Her main commitment is with the group of girls in the cutting and sewing course which also becomes an opportunity for broader training, also carried out in extra-curricular moments in a small house within the mission.
“The course is spread over three years. The first two are attended by about fifteen girls each. The third only from the best”, explains Sister Shephali, while she tries to start the lesson with girls who arrive late, some children crying and others running away. “It is not easy to give continuity to this course, because they themselves live in precariousness. Some start and then stop coming, others get married, and others have children. There is one now who comes with her child”. Everything must be managed with a lot of patience and determination.

Sister Irene is in charge of pastoral activities, catechesis for children and young people. Photo: A. Pozzi

Sister Shephali knows well that for these girls it is a unique opportunity not only to learn a trade and contribute to their families’ meagre finances, but also to have a minimum amount of training. She adds “Many of them are illiterate and so, in addition to cutting and sewing courses, we do some literacy, French language, hygiene and cooking courses, and what is called ‘Eva’ here: education in life and love”.
Unfortunately, in these areas, girls are often excluded from the education system, which in Chad is very precarious. The mission is building several schools or replacing classrooms made of millet stalks and straw with brick buildings. But then there is a lack of qualified teachers and those who exist are not paid. The Koupor school – the first in the entire area, founded by Oblate missionaries – and the surrounding ones all belong to the community. That is, they are managed by a committee of families who have to pay all the expenses, including salaries. In Koupor, where there are 230 students, the staff is complete and usually manages to keep to the schedule. But this is an exception. The mission also provides most of the books, but there are not always enough for all the teachers. For this reason, there is also a small library that is managed by some volunteers, together with Sister Irene.

The father with his two sons sitting outside the home. File swm

Originally from Papua New Guinea, Sister Irene is the youngest of the group. Before arriving in Chad, she spent a few years in Italy and seven months in Cameroon. She now takes care of pastoral activities, and the catechesis of children and young people. She reflects “Koupor is a very isolated and closed context, in every sense, which develops very slowly. We continually experience this by going to the villages for pastoral work. What we do is first of all is to give support to the catechists who carry out the bulk of the work and we verify the progress made by the Christian communities. The people are always welcoming, even if they often have nothing”.
The children, then, are always very much enjoying themselves. Above all, it is their voices that fill the silence of the evening, when darkness descends and envelops everything. A single faint light, that of the mission chapel, illuminates the darkness and is soon filled with songs and prayers. The parish priest and the three missionaries of the Immaculate lead a small procession of children, women and young people who gather in this circular building, similar to the local homes. The sound of the tom-tom gives rhythm to the songs. And prayer gives meaning to the day. It is a precious moment of thanks, trust, and hope in the flow of lives marked by precariousness. (Open Photo: Sister Hilda has worked in Africa for 36 years. A.Pozzi)
Anna Pozzi/MM

Nicaragua. El Güegüense. A People’s Resistance.

A Nicaraguan mask play that defies the arrogance of the powerful with style and creativity. An extraordinary portrait of non-violent resistance. It is an essential part of Nicaraguan culture. 

The January wind cuts a path through the peaceful town of Diriamba, 45Km from the capital Managua. Diriamba owes its name to Cacique Diriangen, the legendary Nahuati Indian chief.
On 19 January people come from all over the country to celebrate the feast of the city patron, San Sebastián (St Sebastian). Thousands take to the streets of Diriamba to accompany their saint to the meeting (tope) with the other saints of the nearby towns: Santiago (Jinitepe), San Marco (St Mark) and the Dolores (Our Lady of Sorrows).

Diriamba owes its name to Cacique Diriangen, the legendary Nahuati Indian chief. File swm

Accompanying San Sebastián there is a group of people all wearing a mask typical of the Diriamba culture, the Güegüense. Also known as Macho Raton, the Güegüense is a satirical drama and a synthesis of the American Indian culture and that of Spain. It is a combination of drama, music, and dance and it is also the name of the main character of the drama. There are various versions of this theatrical work for a total of 314 stories centred upon the conflict between the Spanish colonial authorities and the Indians of America. The Güegüense (a name that in the American Indian language Nahuati refers to an old and powerful personality of pre-Hispanic Nicaragua) defends himself by means of clever verbal devices against the accusations levelled at him by the colonial authorities.
He does not challenge the authority and neither does he seek to directly answer the accusations but uses every possible device to undermine Spanish authority.  Unlike the carnival in other cities that lasts only one day, the festival of Diriamba lasts a full week.
The theatrical presentation is carried out within the city with processions in the streets and public dances. Musical accompaniment is provided by violins, guitars and drums; the various characters are distinguished by their costumes, wooden masks, hair-dos and other accessories.

Güegüense is a work that is full of life and expresses the resistance of a nation against foreign invasion. (Photo Julio Molina)

The main characters with a role in the various stories are Güegüense, his children, the Spanish authorities and some mythical animals. Güegüense ought to be a respectable elder but is depicted here as a rascal, at least with regard to the Spanish conquistadors. His comments are cynical, he is pretentious and full of deceit. The actor playing this role wears a mask, in itself a sign that he does not wish to reveal his true identity. Don Forcico and Don Ambrosio, the two sons of Güegüense, do not seem to be brothers.Forcico is a villain who approves of the tricks and lies of his father.  Ambrosio is honest and tries to unmask the dishonesty of his father. Sometimes Suchi Malinche appears in the plays. She is the daughter of the governor. Her name comes from a Nahuati word meaning flower and from the name Malinche, the name of the Indian girl who was Cortes’ interpreter during his first Mexican campaign, afterwards becoming his lover. At the end of the play, two horses (or mules) appear surmounted by goat horns and framed by wicker baskets decked with ribbons.

Accompanying San Sebastián there is a group of people all wearing a mask typical of the Diriamba culture, the Güegüense. Also known as Macho Raton. (Photo Julio Molina)

There is a relationship between the symbols to be found in the local superstitions and the horse (mule) that arrived in Nicaragua with the Spanish conquest. They represent both a warning to understand the false accusations and the new elements that might be used for the benefit of the local population. Many stories reach the royal Council within the palace of the governor.  Güegüense is accused of something illegal, usually of having entered the province without permission.
By means of many promises and assurances, the old fox succeeds not only in avoiding punishment but even receives a substantial reward, usually a marriage between his son and the daughter of the governor. The language used is a mixture of old Spanish and non-grammatical Nahuati.At first, this jargon was used as a means of communication between the conquistadors and their subjects but then came into common use among the Spanish who lived in Central America. True Aztecs speak with disdain of this dialect as the language of the slaves. This language was used by Güegüense to his advantage. Pretending not to understand, he avoids direct questions, answers in ways unconnected with the questions put to him, and distorts everything in a comical way. Nobody knows for certain when this play was composed. Some indications refer to the arrival of Captain Fernandez Davila (1522 ca). Davila met the local tribe whose chief was Diriangen.

Unlike the carnival in other cities that lasts only one day, the festival of Diriamba lasts a full week. (Photo: Julio Molina)

The indigenous people received the foreigners courteously and listened to their requests which included ceding their sovereignty to the Spanish crown and their conversion to Christianity. Having asked for a short period to consider, the indigenous people decided to attack the invaders. The Spanish decimated the Diriangen tribe and the survivors were subjected to Spanish rule.
Perhaps only a hundred years later, some of the descendants of these survivors managed to create a theatrical representation that showed peaceful resistance to the foreign rulers. Acted out under the very noses of the conquistadors, the play makes fun of them and their inability to truly conquer the spirit of the local population.
Güegüense is a work that is full of life and expresses the resistance of a nation against foreign invasion and makes up one of the most important cultural patrimonies of the Nicaraguan population.
It was for this reason that, in 2005, UNESCO recognised Güegüense worldwide and proclaimed it a world heritage. It is an extraordinary portrait of non-violent resistance against a more powerful enemy and, at the same time, testimony to the creativity of the Nicaraguan people. (Open Photo: Julio Molina)

Joseph Santacruz

A Bridge in 2028?

“Ebale ya Congo ezali lopango te, ezali nzela” (The Congo River is not a barrier, it is a road), sang the famous Congolese musician
Joseph Kabasele.

Today this statement must be taken with a pinch of salt. People have strong cultural and linguistic ties, but access to capital is no longer automatic. Over time, the river has become a difficult wall to cross, and relationships are increasingly similar to those of ‘cat and mouse’.
We remember, for example, the operation ‘Mbata ya bakolo’ (the slap of the elderly), which took place in 2014. The Brazzaville police violently and brutally forced back more than 100,000 ‘Zairians’ in Kinshasa.
The Congolese from the Democratic Republic of Congo were accused of various crimes, including not having valid documents.
Some of them had lived in Brazzaville for more than 30 years and had already started families.

DRC citizens deported from Brazzaville wait to be transferred to their place of origin in a transit camp in Maluku, the 23rd of May 2014. © MONUSCO/Sylvain Liechti

This operation had a before and after. It had led to the closure of the borders between the two countries and had contributed to the cooling of relations, and even mistrust, between the two capitals. Authorities on both sides of the border had also tightened conditions for crossing. Relations stabilized only in 2019 after long negotiations between the two governments.In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic led to the closure of the borders between the two capitals, reducing the number of visitors from Kinshasa to Brazzaville and vice versa.
Two years later in February 2022, the governments of Kinshasa and Brazzaville announced the reopening of the river and land borders.
Crossing the river on a half-hour boat costs between $25 and $30. Add to this the harassment of government officials, especially in Kinshasa. This makes the step even more difficult, which has remained a prerogative of the rich. The river, which once linked the economies of the two cities, is now subject to a border regime which is costly for the population. To get to the other shore, citizens often use rudimentary boats, so accidents are not uncommon.

The road and rail bridge project
The project to build a bridge connecting Brazzaville and Kinshasa dates back more than thirty years. Since then, many conferences have been organized and campaigns launched to explain the benefits for people on both sides of the river. Cédric Kalala, a border police officer in Kinsuka, Kinshasa, looks forward to the completion of the project: “This bridge would be of great help to us. The Congolese on the other side of the river are not just our neighbours, they are our brothers. In Brazzaville and Kinshasa, it is difficult to distinguish between those who come from Kinshasa and those from Brazzaville, because we speak the same languages: Lingala and French. If the authorities built a bridge over this river, it would facilitate trade between us. Furthermore, the bridge would not only reduce the cost of the crossing but also the risk of shipwrecks that we see on the river. People could walk to and from Brazzaville to visit their family. For the people of Brazzaville, the dream of this bridge is the same”, says Cédric.

Brazzaville. The construction of this bridge is part of the Central African States Partnership (CEAC).
CC BY 3.0/Creative Studio

On 11 November 2019, Congolese leaders from both sides of the river signed an agreement in Johannesburg, South Africa, for the financing and implementation of the project. The estimated cost was at least $600 million. The 1,575-meter-long bridge will include a railway, a dual carriageway, pedestrian pathways, and a border control post on each side. Work was scheduled to begin in August 2020, but has now been postponed to 2024, while commissioning is scheduled for 2028.
The construction of this bridge is part of the Central African States Partnership (CEAC). It offers a number of advantages. It would make trade between the two capitals more fluid, facilitate the import and export of goods between Matadi and Pointe-Noire and harmonize immigration procedures between the two countries.

View of the Brazzaville Bridge from Kinshasa. CC BY-SA 4.0/ Kimmyfari

The project also falls under the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) framework for Africa’s connectivity overall. It would guarantee the continuity of the transport system along the Tripoli (Libya) – Windhoek corridor, which crosses Chad, Cameroon, the two Congos, and Angola. Experts estimate that traffic, currently around 750,000 passengers and 340,000 tons of cargo per year, would increase to more than 4 million passengers and 3 million tons of cargo per year. This could boost the economies of the beneficiary countries.
(Open Photo: Lwanga Kakule)

Lwanga Kakule

 

The face of the two cities.

Kinshasa is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is experiencing a demographic explosion due to a still high birth rate and migratory flows encouraged by rural poverty and the insecurity of war zones.

Today, Kinshasa has 17.07 million inhabitants. It is currently the third most populous city in Africa, after Cairo in Egypt and Lagos in Nigeria. It has 24 municipalities. It is considered the largest French-speaking conurbation in the world, having surpassed Paris.
Kinshasa is everyone’s favourite centre of attraction and opportunity, especially for young people. As a business centre that controls the majority of activities, the capital is renowned for its prosperity within the country and is a bridge that connects DR Congo with other countries.

Kinshasa’s Boulevard du 30 Juin. The city has 17.07 million inhabitants. Photo: Lwanga Kakule

“Today, like many African cities, it is seen as the place where all hopes come true. Everyone hopes for something good for themselves and for those around them. It is mainly young people who go there to study (especially at university), in search of economic abundance, electric light, and employed work”, explains Professor Jean-Pierre Bwalwel of the Catholic University of Kinshasa.
Others move to the capital for trips within and outside the country, for medical treatment and so forth.
Finally, it often happens that their goals change and they decide to settle in ‘Kin la Belle’, where music and light shows abound.

Kinshasa. Market. The capital is renowned for its prosperity. File swm

But life is difficult for many people. Thousands of families survive in cramped accommodation with poor hygienic conditions, malnutrition, and transport problems. Despite this, the population of Kinshasa is recognized for its dynamism and resilience. They strive to create a tone of joy and what they call ‘atmosphere’. They are known for their hospitality and constant human warmth. In most cases, they rely on themselves to solve their problems.
On the other side of the river, Brazzaville today has a population of 2.5 million, out of 5.4 million in the entire country. Congo-Brazzaville is one of the most urbanized countries in Africa, with almost 70% of the Congolese population living in urban areas, resulting in an urban-rural imbalance and poor agricultural, livestock, and fisheries production.
The population is concentrated in the south-west of the country, mainly in Brazzaville, the capital and Pointe-Noire, the financial capital and along the railroad that links the two largest cities in the country.

Nabemba Tower in Brazzaville. The capital has a population of 2.5 million. Photo: Lwanga Kakule

Brazzaville began to develop during the decolonization process, particularly when the new authorities decided to make it the official capital, to the detriment of Pointe-Noire. But in the first half of the 1970s the country fell into a deep economic crisis when the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank reduced aid and credits, forcing the government to make a series of budget cuts, especially in social spending.
Transport infrastructure was progressively abandoned and all urbanization policies, such as access to drinking water, electricity, healthcare, and education, were reduced to almost nothing.
The civil war in the Republic of Congo from 1997 to 1999 was particularly ruthless, and Brazzaville was the centre of fighting between the late president Pascal Lissouba and the current president
Denis Sassou Nguesso.
Poto Poto is one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Brazzaville. It is currently the centre of important companies and businesses. Since its foundation, the capital has welcomed many foreigners. Senegalese, Malians, Togolese, Beninese, Burkines, Nigerians, and Guineans who had accompanied Savorgnan de Brazza and settled in Brazzaville. Many of them never returned to their homeland and some became naturalized Congolese. For decades they specialized in fishing and trading and had virtually unchallenged dominance over trade in Congo-Brazzaville. Now they are gradually entering into competition with the Congolese of the DRC, the Chinese, and the Indians.

 Trade between Kinshasa and Brazzaville
Due to their proximity and high population concentration, Kinshasa and Brazzaville have generated a significant volume of commercial exchange. Traders from both banks cross the river to stock up and do business. According to analysts, informal cross-border trade represents a very high percentage of trade between the two capitals. Food products are by far the largest items of trade between the two populations.
From Kinshasa, fish, cassava, palm oil, coffee, frozen chicken, spaghetti, and biscuits are unloaded in Brazzaville. Some of these products come from within the DRC, especially from the provinces of Kwilu,
Kwango, and Maindombe.

A group of people in the street at Pompage. The population of Kinshasa is recognized for its dynamism and resilience. Photo: Lwanga Kakule

The FIMA pier and the port of Yoro are the supply points for the people of Brazzaville, while the Ngobila beach serves the inhabitants of Kinshasa. The latter import clothes and fabrics from Brazzaville, mainly wax fabrics made in the Republic of Congo which they then sell in the provinces of Ecuador and Kasai, and in the rest of the country across the river.Judith Singa is from Pointe Noire, the second largest city in Congo-Brazza. A 40-year-old widow and mother of three children, she runs a shop in Poto Poto where she has lived for 11 years: “I made regular return trips from Brazzaville to Kinshasa”, she explains. “I used to buy frozen chickens and the business was thriving. Four years ago, I changed my business: I opened a fabric shop. Most of my customers are from Kinshasa”.In 2021, Brazzaville writer Gaston M’Bemba-Ndumba published a book titled ‘Femmes et petits commerces du fleuve Congo entre Brazzaville et Kinshasa’, in which he analyses small-scale trade and exchanges between women in both cities. As a result of observations, he discovered that most of the products used for skin whitening, for example, come from Kinshasa and those who sell them in Brazzaville are women who have used these products. According to his analysis, small women’s trading is the most representative part of the commercial sector between Brazzaville and Kinshasa, which, for the most part, remains informal. Its commercial activities focus on catering, the sale of fresh food and clothing.

A woman selling chicken in Pompage, Kinshasa. Photo: Lwanga Kakule

At Port Nzimbi, named after a former army general of Mobutu, in Kinshasa, around 50 women from the capital display pondu ‘hard leaves’, a staple food in the country, which they buy wholesale on the islands of the Congo River and they retail it early in the morning.
Maman Nicole, 43, mother of four, explains: “For six years I have been selling pondu, cassava and sometimes tomatoes and aubergines. Almost every day I take a motorized pirogue. Sometimes I make a crossing to Brazzaville, where I have some customers. It is thanks to this work that I can send my children to school”. The police officer, who monitors the movements of the pondu sellers, tells us that she has been working for over ten years in various border posts along the Congo River, confirming that most of the small trade on the Congo River between the two capitals is carried out by women.
Trade between the two capitals has given rise to jobs for people such as salesmen, porters, loaders, truck drivers, mechanics and so on.
Ports on both sides of the border have also become notorious for organized smuggling, sometimes with the complicity of government officials from customs and other enforcement services. Many goods – fabrics, minerals, fuel, coffee, etc. – cross the river without paying taxes. This is without taking into account the clandestine passage of migrants on both sides. (L.K.)

 

 

Leadership in African Culture. Between Fear and Respect.

African traditional political leaders cover both the temporal and the religious spheres. They represent the exigencies of the ancestors before the community of the living and the exigencies of the same community before the ancestors.

This double responsibility before the people and before the ancestors confer on them both authority and power. The Congolese philosopher Nkombe Oleko explains the relations between the chief and his people using two Tetela proverbs, an ethnic group of the Democratic Republic of Congo: “The chief is a leopard, he is not afraid of anybody”; “All have neighbours but the ear lives alone”.
The first character of the chief is his incontestability. Once one is invested with authority, he is placed in an incontestable relationship with others. He has to impose himself on the others and to inspire fear and respect. His authority is exercised over all the people. He knows neither preferences nor discrimination. The incontestable character that power gives him isolates him from the others. The chief is a lonely man.

Otumfuo Osei Tutu II Asantehene, the King of the Asante Kingdom. “People regard them as God’s earthly viceroys” Photo: The Kingdom of Asante

While the lion is the king in the savannah, the leopard is the king in the forest zones but the idea behind the two symbols of power is the same. Africans in general see in their chief a force that enables a man to dominate others. It confers on him both nobility and the right to govern. The same force enables him to keep order in society and in the cosmos, making him a priest of its cult.
However, other Tetela proverbs are there to show that despite the general submission to the chief (Ears [human] do not rise above the head), things are not all that smooth. A goat does not eat the leaves imposed on it by force. There is a tendency to contest the incontestable as a manifestation of freedom.This contestation of authority has two faces: the refusal to be dominated by the other and the exigency of participation and reciprocity in authority.

The head chief of a village in Burkina Faso. CC BY-SA 3.0/Adam Jones

According to Nkombe Oleko, what the muntu looks for in his relations with his superiors is the establishment of a conscious educative circle, in which everyone is instructed by contact with the other and in which the act of hetero education is not the monopoly of one person. When this is achieved, authority is modified. It is no longer an egocentric power of self-valorisation at the detriment of the other; it does not suffocate donation, acceptance and respect anymore the freedom of the other.
It becomes as John Samuel Mbiti, a Kenyan philosopher, notes African kings are not simply political heads, they are mystical and religious heads. Thus, they are divine or sacral rulers, the shadow or reflection of God’s rule in the universe.
People regard them as God’s earthly viceroys. However, despite all the qualities attributed to them, Kings belong to the category of shameful and impure beings. They become monsters whose personality has been violated by, and in favour of, power. If we take into account the royal incest and the fact that some kings used to be anointed with human blood, as the anthropologists Louis-Vincent Thomas and René Luneau pointed out investiture pushes the king out of normal human relations giving him the solitude proper to wizards.
This monstrosity needed in order to face the equally monstrous powers inherent in the universe is a kind of positive wizardry meant to protect the people and protection goes hand in hand with the king’s quality
as father of his people. The Baganda, the ethnic group in Central Uganda, call their king Goats are sacrificed a hen a large family or clan is at risk, but when the whole tribe is attacked by sickness or any form of common enemy, it is a bull.

Traditional Basotho chief. “The first character of the chief is his incontestability”. Photo: Pixabay

‘Nnamunswa’ (queen ant) and the Tetela people refer to their chief as the ‘mother hen’ who covers her chicks. Authority is hereby associated with paternity and maternity. The aim of this authority is the protection of all the subjects from external and internal dangers.
Paternity then counterbalances monstrosity bringing about the ambivalence Africans perceive in political power as it is sung by the people Mossi of Benin to their new king immediately after his investiture: “You are a heap of dung! You are a heap of rubbish! You come to kill us; you come to save us!” “The qualities of the king are always raised to the highest degree and so his negative aspects”. He is, as it were, the human dispenser of these qualities for all his subjects.
The person of the king is so important that when a Murundi (from Burundi) would say: Gir’umwami (literally meaning, have the king!), he would wish that the inner personality of the king may possess his interlocutor; that his interlocutor may participate more fully in the life of the monarch Leadership implies interdependence.
“The face does not grow fat without the cheeks”. Nkombe Oleko applies this Tetela proverb to authority.

The San are the oldest inhabitants of Southern Africa. “The chief is a lonely man”. File swm

Thus, without his subjects, the chief cannot be chief. Authority is not at the service of one’s own self. Its paternal dimension essentially puts it at the service of others. The chief, in virtue of his ‘being head,’ depends on his subjects. In African thought, power is the principle of participation in communal life. Every individual, from the king or chief to the latest initiate has power in a given field thanks to his or her ontological, physical, intellectual, spiritual, and moral qualities. But all of them, specialists and ordinary citizens, young and old, men and women, participate in the same power invested in the ruling organ. (Open Photo:Gabon. Village Chief Jerome Likassou is seen in his traditional wear. © Brent Stirton/Getty Images for FAO, CIRAD, CIFOR, WCS)

Edward Kanyike

 

Ghana. ‘Dipo’ Puberty Rites: Transitioning into Womanhood.

The Dipo rite is an integral part of the Krobo culture. Over the years it has been used to inculcate useful values into adolescent girls as they prepare to assume their marital responsibilities.

The Krobos are part of the Ga-Dangbe ethno linguistic group and they are the largest group of the seven Dangbe ethnic groups of South-Eastern Ghana. Dipo is a historical rite of passage for young females transitioning into womanhood among the Krobo people
in the Eastern Region of Ghana.
Dipo is not unique to the Krobos alone, but it is celebrated by the people of Manya and Yilo Krobo, in Krobo Odumase and Somanya.
The inhabitants of Odumase Krobo area therefore celebrate the Dipo as an annual ritual intended to launch puberty-aged girls and virgins into womanhood. The ritual, which is traditionally performed on a young girl, denotes that she has matured into a woman and is ready to marry.
The ritual which is usually marked as festival is held in the month of April every year, a time where parents send their qualified girl children to the town’s top priest after the event is announced.

The goal of Dipo is to assist pubertal girls in transitioning into adulthood by shaping moral values and social responsibilities. File swm

Parents upon hearing the Dipo initiation dates send their adolescent girls to the chief priest under whose tutelage the girls would have to go through various tests and rituals to prove that they are qualified
for the Dipo rites.
The qualified initiates are then adorned with a bead-necklace and strand of leaves. Little cuts are also made on the arms and one by one they lift up a small grinding stone and place it on larger stone. Their introduction to the grinding stone marks the beginning of the Dipo rite. They are kept for a while till they are sent to another part of the mountain ‘Tegbe te’ or ‘Tegbe rock’ and given Dipo- headwear, a tall straw hat.
These young girls are subsequently put through a series of procedures to verify their chastity and eligibility for the rites, which are exclusively open to virgins and girls in puberty.
The goal of Dipo is therefore to assist pubertal girls in transitioning into adulthood by shaping moral values and social responsibilities, learning home management skills, and preventing risky sexual behaviours.
One theory has it that Dipo was introduced by the priestess of Krobo land, Nana Kloweki. Historically, Dipo was instituted to mark the stage of puberty and was intended for young females of marriageable age, although it is now performed with girls younger than puberty.
During the rites, Krobo participants acquire skills to fulfil roles as responsible female adults, including vocational training, house-keeping skills, and preparation for married life.’

During the rites, participants acquire skills to fulfil roles as responsible female adults. File swm

The significance and symbolic nature of ‘Dipo’ is enormous and intriguing including the propagation of a lineage, status, and family organisation. Others believed that Dipo was a traditional method of preventing promiscuity, infidelity, premarital sex, pregnancy, and sexually transmitted infections.
Dipo involves several symbolic actions. Exposure of a person’s body, such as the breast and stomach, is used to distinguish initiates from non-initiates, and help identify those ready for marriage, and detect pregnancy.Libation is poured at the beginning of most rites to ask the ‘gods’ to bless all Dipo participants. Blood of castrated goats, which is usually poured on initiates’ feet, is believed to wash away bad omens. This is also to drive away any spirit of barrenness.
Different types of beads used during Dipo rites have specific names and meanings. Those with many types of beads signify wealth. Blue beads are called ‘Koli’, meaning something valuable. Yellow beads represent maturity and prosperity, whereas large yellow beads are known as ‘Boredom’ and are believed to possess magical powers. White beads signify respect for gods and ancestors. Finally, while not compulsory, an incision may be done as a form of identity on the back of the left hand for those who have successfully completed Dipo rites.
There are stages where a Dipo rite of passage can be classified based on specific activities. The first stage, known as the stripping stage, involves replacing everyday home attire with a string of multiple beads and dressed with cloth around their waist to just their knee level. Dipo participants also have their heads shaved during this period.
This is done by a special ritual mother, and it signifies their transition from childhood to adulthood. They are paraded to the entire community as the initiates (‘dipo-yo’- Dipo girl).
The second and third stages (middle and climax, respectively) emphasise different symbolic activities, including having a special meal (fufu), taking a ritual bath, and smearing the body with a white substance.

The girls who go through the rites receive a mark on their hands as a sign of participation. File swm

The climax phase involves the pouring of libation (three consecutive times) and climbing a sacred stone. The final stage consists of activities that include body marks and the last dance. Dipo includes other rituals such as eating particular types of meals. Dipo initiates learn a special dance known as ‘Klama’, where the dead and the living are believed to participate. Participants usually undergo a ritual bath and are required to sit on a stone before the ceremony ends to determine their virginity in the past. This is to prove their virginity. However, any girl found to be pregnant or not a virgin is detested by the community and does not entice a man from the tribe.
No girl who has sat on the stone has seen what it looks like as they are made to close their eyes. As soon as the girls step out of the stone enclosure, parents run as a sign of victory to carry their daughters, and rush out of the area. The stone serves as a stool for kings in the olden days because there were no proper stools. The forefathers brought the stone with them during their migration to their present place.
As traditions demand, when the girls sit on the stone, they receive blessings from their ancestors. And therefore become ‘oheneba’ (the daughter of a king).
Adolescent girls who did not go through the rites could neither be queen mothers nor serve the community while girls who went through the rites received a mark on their hands as a sign of participation.
Following all of this, the young girls are sheltered for a week and taught about femininity, marriage, and the people’s customs and traditions. The children are then returned to their parents. The Dipo ceremony culminates in a large durbar in the community, during which the girls are dressed in Kente (specially woven cloth) and given exquisite jewels by their parents. Any male present at the durbar who is interested in one of the girls might start looking into her past and family at this time before making an official approach.

Dipo involves several symbolic actions. File swm

With singing and drumming, they perform the Klama dance. At this point, any man interested in any one of them can start investigating into her family. It is believed that any lady who partakes in the rites not only brings honour to herself but to her family at large.
In as much as the Krobo people practice Dipo, not all Ghanaian or even the Krobo people accept Dipo rites, and there have been disagreements about its value and actual essence. While some people believe it is a cultural practice that should be continued, others believe it has no significance in modern Ghanaian society. Because Dipo is conducted within traditional African religion and culture, Ghanaians influenced by Western culture and Christianity may believe it to be unacceptable. Another aspect of the debate is the initiates exposing certain parts of their bodies to the public to signal Krobo men of their readiness for marriage. Today in some communities, Dipo initiates are allowed to cover their breasts with a ‘wax-print cloth’. This change was made to cater for current societal opposition of exposure of private body parts.
Finally, Christians may view Dipo rites as a practice that is traditional and unacceptable to Christian beliefs. For example, Dipo rites include practices, such as ancestral worship, incisions, and ritual baths, practices opposing to Christianity. Many communities in Ghana today do not have rites of passage. However, traditional leadership and customary law among some ethnic groups have retained the cultural legitimacy of rites of passage, such as in the Krobo community.

Damian Dieu Donne Avevor

Electronic Africa Continues to Evolve.

The way electronic music entered the African scene in the 1990s, how it was developed, and how it is becoming increasingly relevant. From kuduro in Angola to gqom in South Africa.

Two factors occurred in the 1990s that created the space for the entry of electronic sounds into the African musical panorama. Since the 1980s, analogue recording studios began to close due to the collapse in vinyl sales with the boom in pirated cassettes. At the same time, digital studios and their distribution formats have not yet taken hold, and therefore in many African countries, there is a sharp decline in the production of recorded music.
In the same years, radio frequencies were liberalized in various states, and many new stations were created in many of the large capitals, heralding a new phase in which the demand for music skyrocketed, satisfied mostly by foreign music, often Western, precisely in the years where house, techno and dance genres start to go crazy. This is the context in which in 1994 the hit I Like to Move It by Reel II Real reached the airwaves of Angola, where it led to the birth of what later became the symbolic genre in the country, kuduro.

Kuduro has become the distinctive sound of Angolan youth. File swm

Young Angolans imitate the sound of the hit, which in turn recalls their local rhythms, using simple tools such as a cell phone with personalized ringtones. In the following years, small digital studios popped up all over Luanda and kuduro, with its hard and essential electronic beat, became the distinctive sound of Angolan youth.
Even in Ghana the wave of house and dance music, called asokpor, gradually absorbs local rhythms, taken mainly from the jama and kpanlogo dances and rhythms of the Ga people. In South Africa, house in its original form is a long-lived and dominant genre; still in vogue since the 1990s, it contributed to the breaking down of the barriers imposed by apartheid and gave rise to kwaito.
This slowed-down, socially conscious, take on house incorporates South African elements, particularly Zulu rhythms and hip-hop vocal styles.

An alternative sound
In the 2000s, a new, deeper form of Afrohouse emerged, with softer, more expressive singing and more delicate beats. The standard-bearer of this new trend is Black Coffee, probably the most popular African DJ in the world; he and other DJs have achieved superstar status in South Africa. However, as commercial success increases, the sound becomes economically inaccessible for new producers.
At the beginning of the 2010s, the need for alternative sounds emerged. Instead of polite rhythms and sophisticated – and expensive – vocals taken from established artists, local producers created the onomatopoeic gqom style, marked by essential, minimal, and repetitive arrangements reminiscent of Detroit techno and industrial music.

Black Coffee (left) performing with DJ Shimza. CC BY-SA 4.0/Andy Vuyo

Gqom started in South Africa, expanding across the continent and beyond, with gqom parties in many European cities. People had hardly become used to it, however, when a substitute took hold in the motherland, this time the more durable amapiano, literally ‘very piano’ in the Zulu language, which emerged in the mid-2010s. The tempo is slower than gqom or house music, the beats are softer, and the instruments have a more organic sound. Having gone further than any of its predecessors, the amapiano livens up parties in Lagos and Nairobi but also in London and Milan, and endless dance videos with amapiano music appear on TikTok, spreading its sound and culture.The sound spread to other African countries. Nigeria, musically the undisputed heavyweight champion, adopted its Afrobeat to create Afropiano.
Lubumbashi, in the DR Congo, is home to a vibrant Afrohouse and also an Amapiano scene, which began a decade ago with DJ Spilulu, and in more recent times led by DJ P2N and DJ Renaldo.
Angola remains permeable to South African house influences, with producers like Djeff touring the world.

“The growing influence of music created in Africa is a reminder of the cultural strength of a continent”123rf

In Ghana, there is no autonomous house scene, but some visionary producers work in Accra, such as Nshona Muzick, the main creator of the vogue for dance and azonto music that in 2012 spread across the country and among the diasporas.
The same economic obstacles that contributed to the birth of gqom in South Africa recently led to the birth of a new electronic genre in Nigeria: cruise, from the slang phrase catching cruise, literally ‘having a laugh’. Here too, producers replace expensive vocals with snippets of audio taken from online videos. Everyone from politicians to street vendors ends up listening to fast, stripped-down beats.
The countries mentioned all have a long tradition of adapting their musical environment to new instruments, trends, and aesthetic tastes. In other areas of the continent, electronic contaminations remain more experimental, more underground, but the musical scenes in which they develop are no less rich for that.

Rophnan Nuri Muzeyin known as Rophnan is an Ethiopian musician, singer, songwriter, DJ, and audio engineer. CC BY-SA 4.0/Cymande25th

Uganda is emblematic: in the capital Kampala, the Nyege Nyege festival and label drives electronic experimentation and creates connections between local artists and international situations. The Electrafrique nights, on the other hand, born in Nairobi and now at home in Dakar, are a lively hub for Afrohouse and other electronic styles. The Afro-futurist artist and producer Ibaaku works in Senegal; Chad is the home of Afrotronix, while in Ethiopia, Rophnan has become a star for having projected his traditional training into new and daring electronic productions. There are many more artists, and the creativity and opportunities that characterize the scene show no sign of decreasing. In an age where migrants are in the headlines and visas are denied, the growing influence of music created in Africa is a reminder of the cultural strength of a continent we too often overlook. (Open Photo: 123rf)

Benjamin Lebrave

 

Slovakia. The simplicity of an encounter.

The Little Sisters of Jesus live their contemplative and active lives in fraternity. They work among those marginalized: immigrants, precarious workers and township dwellers. They try to find beauty and greatness where only degradation and misery are imagined. Sr Anna offers her witness as a worker in a laundry in Slovakia.

I have been working in an industrial laundry here in Bratislava (Slovakia) with about 120 employees for two years. It’s a very modern laundry and a lot of the work involves using different machines. I am at the section for hand folding of bathrobes, sheets, hospital gowns, etc. so that they are ready to be sent to hotels and hospitals.
For each workstation, there is a screen that shows the productivity of each worker as a percentage. Alongside, tables present the parameters, i.e., the number of towels, pillowcases and sheets which, must be hung or introduced into the machine per hour. Unfortunately, these figures do not take into account breaks due to machinery breakdowns or other unforeseen situations. Initially, to be a good worker and not lose this job, I wanted to meet the required parameters.

Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. File LSJ

But at the same time, I also wanted to be in contact with my colleagues, which was difficult for me since, as a Polish foreigner, my Slovak has a different accent. Furthermore, the work takes place very quickly and there is not much time for discussions. Nevertheless, a situation developed that showed me what was really important. One day I realised that I was the only one who hadn’t finished the job and that, to do so, I would have had to stay well after the scheduled time. I didn’t want to ask for help, I wished the others could finish their day. All the Roma women I work with, seeing that I wasn’t going out, came to help me finish. They showed me that it is possible to find joy in one’s work, not only by respecting an often-exaggerated parameter but above all in relationships and just by working together.

Sr Anna with one of her friends. File LSJ

About forty prisoners also work with us: they are guarded by four guards and controlled by surveillance cameras. In the beginning, the employer set strict limits on the possibility of having contact with them, so much so that we were forbidden any kind of conversation. However, after a few weeks, it became evident that it was not possible to work together like this and we were able to exchange a few words. One day early in the morning, Luca, one of the prisoners, asked me to approach him because he wanted to tell me something important. He began by telling me that he had read an illustrated Bible that someone had lent him. He was fascinated by Jesus’ encounter with the adulteress. He was particularly impressed not only by Jesus’ non-judgmental attitude towards the woman but also by the fact that he did not resort to violence against people who wanted to stone her. Luca’s need not to be judged and not to use violence against the other made me aware, once again, of the importance of looking at the other.
Too often, in our haste we can only look at the other through his defects, his limitations, failing to see you, above all a person.

Sr Anna with her co-workers in the industrial laundry. File LSJ

Following the war, some Ukrainian women welcomed by Slovakia also arrived. Some of us have started to worry. Would there be enough work for everyone? And would there be a reduction in seats? Fears and hostility arose, generated by resentment towards new hires. I wanted to get to know the Ukrainian women, but it wasn’t easy because they worked together in a separate group and only spoke their language.
One day last summer, we were all tired from the high temperature in the laundry room. We didn’t have the strength to work, we were suffocating. In those moments candies are useful. We started exchanging them: they had Ukrainian sweets and we had Slovak sweets. Small simple gestures matter, like giving candy or a smile. Jesus’ normal encounter with the Samaritan woman is equally marked by simplicity because it begins with the Lord Jesus’ simplest question: “Give me a drink” (Jn 4:7). The simplicity of the encounter between one person and another, without prejudices, reticence, fears, etc., becomes the basis of a true encounter. (Open Photo: Sr Anna at work. File LSJ)

Sr Anna Jana

Tanzania. Maasai Colours.

Red and black are two of the fundamental colours in the Maasai culture and symbolize God’s two main traits.

Red depicts anger and benevolence, and black (or dark blue) the sanctity of a person or object. Above all, they invoke God himself as Papa Jai Orok (the Black father) and they ask him to cover all the Maasai people with his black cloak, intoipo iyiook to Ikila lino orok.
Clothes and other items that are either black or dark blue show a person’s sanctity at a particular stage of their life. These people become untouchable: one must greet them, but not shake their hands or touch them. Their dark appearance, coming from their clothes is enhanced by their long hair, giving a more menacing appearance. This group includes babies that are no older than 6 months, and, for a brief period, boys after circumcision and women after giving birth. Since they belong more to God than to society, they are revered and respected.

Red represents anger and benevolence. File swm

The elderly that preside over the most important Maasai festivals, always of a religious nature, are dressed in dark blue and offer prayers and blessings. A sprinkling of a mix of honey, beer, milk, and a light spray of saliva symbolise God’s spit and his life giving rain – at times
more than what is needed.
In the life of a Maasai, objects associated with people or activities are preferably of a black or dark blue colour. This is also true for the circumcision ceremony of a small animal, a lamb, or a big one, a bull. Also in the “eunote,” the ceremony representing a warrior’s promotion (ol-orika) – the most important event of a man’s life. He is happy because from then on, he is considered an elder.

Maasai woman with her child. File swm

The origin of Il-oibonok, Maasai saints, date back to the “black house.” One of Natero’s children, Kop’s second wife, was named Naiser – meaning the rebellious. All the most important Maasai saints are chosen from the Ilaiser clan.
According to the Maasai, the Oikum orok, the black stick that is sometimes made of steel, is a sign of great authority. It has the same cultural, symbolic, and sentimental importance as the wand in other cultures. The stick is buried in a river of mud for some time to give it its black colour. The elderly Maasai wear the black emurt narok around their neck: the Isaen naarook (black pearls). A long string of dark blue coloured pearls that is usually wrapped twice around the neck and hangs down on the chest. Some call them the pearls of prayer.
Black also means “emptiness.” Only a thin line separates the sanctity of emptiness from the greatness of poverty. Everyday sayings reflect this, such as enkurma narok (flour – to which neither oil nor sugar is added), enkaji narok (an empty house) or enkare narok (water – to which nothing is added, water the elderly don’t drink).Dark colours are often associated with the elderly and wisdom; red symbolises, above all, youth and energy but at the same time impatience and even cholera.

Dark colours are often associated with the elderly and wisdom. File swm

When God gets angry, his mountain spews out lava and boiling red fire. After every eruption, Oldoinyo le Engai (God’s mountain) calms down and covers itself with a sober layer of grey ash, returning slowly to normality with new vegetation and life. This shows God’s renewed and eternal benevolence towards his elusive Maasai people.
Red emblazons their clothes and their hair. Warriors paint their bodies red ochre. Red is found in the wildness of youth and life. Before 1900, the Maasai used to wear cowhide, tainted red with ochre. In every ceremony, before a boy’s circumcision (enkipaata), and even during the eunoto ceremony, there are two days of dancing. The red dance (enkzpaata nanyokie) and the white dance (enhpaata naibor). White is obtained by scraping the sides of riverbeds with white diatomite and chalk (enturoro).Green is another important symbolic colour. Grass, trees, and shrubs have a symbolic and a real meaning for individuals. Grass is peace – he who carries it in his hands cannot carry a weapon. Trees, with their leaves, roots, bark, fruit, and wood are the ingredients for traditional Maasai medicines. In fact, the Maasai often use the olcani (tree) for medicine. (Open Photo: 123rf)

Frans Mol – Natana Ole Paswa

African Music. Creativity and the Internet.

Afrobeats, bongo, amapiano, rumba, and gengetone are genres that are now heard everywhere. Thanks to social media and the growing investments of the recording industry. The world has never heard so much African music as today.

Over the last decade, African music has risen to the forefront of the international scene. Out of all of these, it was Afrobeats, the genre born in Nigeria, that showed the way, with artists like Burna Boy increasingly achieving sell-outs, climbing the charts, and winning awards. However, the music of the continent has much to offer beyond Afrobeats.
There are several genres that are increasingly capturing the interest of the global public: the amapiano from South Africa, the bongo from Tanzania, the rumba from the Democratic Republic of Congo, or the gengetone from Kenya, but also the African declinations of genres such as R&B and drill music. It is safe to say that African music is entering
its ‘golden age’.

Divine Ikubor, known professionally as Rema. On 26 October 2023, Rema released a 5-title EP named Ravage. CC BY-SA 4.0/ Thealfe Studios

In 2023, for example, the Afrobeats category was included in the MTV Video Music Awards for the first time. Taking a look at the artists nominated for the statuette allows you to get a precise idea of the exploits this style has recently performed. Virtually impossible to escape, anywhere in the world, is Rema’s Calm Down, as well as her remix with Selena Gomez.
The two versions of the song have totalled 1.1 billion views on YouTube. Davido’s Unavailable is the lead single from Timeless, the Nigerian artist’s fourth studio album, and the first album by an African songwriter to reach number one on the US iTunes chart. Then there is Burna Boy, with his hit It’s Plenty. The Nigerian singer’s seventh LP, I Told Them, reached number one in the English charts: just the latest in an endless series of recognitions. Moving forward we find Bandana, by Rema and Fireboy DML, one of the anthems of the year 2023, and then People, another great success of the same year, by Cameroonian Libianca.

TikTok
How did this explosion arise? Several factors have contributed to the enormous increase in the global consumption of African music. Above all, the internet and social media, have given a decisive boost to the international public’s access to the music of the continent. YouTube, and more recently TikTok, have played a crucial role in taking African music to a new level. YouTube has made many listeners discover African
songs for the first time.

Selena Marie Gomez, singer, actress, businesswoman and producer at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards. CC BY-SA 4.0/Vmas

And, in recent years, TikTok has been a launching pad for the careers of quite a few artists. With short-form dance videos dominating the social media platform, their songs have provided the perfect soundtrack for millions of people
around the world.
The platform’s data reveals that Rema’s Calm Down has been used in 1.8 million videos; Ruger’s Girlfriend in 1.5 million. “For listeners, TikTok is now one of the main tools for discovering new music”, emphasises Emmanuel Okiri, strategist of the music and entertainment platform Loud.co.ke. based in Nairobi: “When developing strategies to launch their songs, many African artists focus on the most effective ways on the platforms, such as viral challenges and collaborations with influencers”.

Major and local labels
Not only ordinary fans have become enthusiastic about African music. Reading the current trends, major record companies have started investing in artists from the continent like never before. Over the past six years, Universal Music Group, Sony, and Warner, the three major labels that alone control around 69% of the world’s record market, have all added African talent to their stables.
The biggest names in African music, such as Rema, Davido, Burna Boy, and Wizkid, have all signed contracts with major labels. The latter are also entering into partnership agreements with local labels, thus creating a channel that can bring emerging African talent to the global spotlight. Of course, the revenue generated by African music has also grown.

Afrobeats star Burna Boy performing at Nativeland Concert, Lagos, Nigeria. CC BY-SA 4.0/Catherine Omeresan Sutherland.

According to data from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), artists in sub-Saharan Africa produced $70.1 million in revenues from recorded music in 2021, an increase of 9.6% year-on-year. Today, the main revenue sources for African musicians are live performances and streaming. For the more successful ones, brand partnerships are also proving profitable.
Between August 2021 and August 2022 Apple Music recorded a 500% increase in streaming from African DJs. Also in 2021, Spotify decided to expand to reach 39 African countries, in order to tap into the vibrant musical genres that are redefining the continental scene. Research by the Dataxis centre estimates that annual revenues from African music streaming will increase in 2026 to 314.6 million dollars, from 92.9 million in 2021. Unlike the IFPI data, which only takes sub-Saharan Africa into consideration, Dataxis considers the entire continent including North African markets.

Royalties
However, several factors could hinder the expansion and development of the great financial potential of African music. First is the low network penetration rate recorded on the continent. In its research, Dataxis estimates that this will represent the first limit to the growth of the sector, underlining that ‘streaming cannot go faster than infrastructure’. Improving this aspect can therefore act as a driving force for the entire sector. In the growth of African music consumption, the transnational diffusion of various genres on the continent has played a central role, and Nigerian Afrobeats, for example, is very popular in Kenya, as confirmed by the data on streaming listeners – unlike Kenya which is one of the African countries where the diffusion of the network is more widespread. Observes Okiri: “If we could improve internet access on the continent, the impact would also be felt in all creative sectors, not just music. The benefits for cinema or video games, both of which use music in various ways, could be significant”.

“If we could improve internet access on the continent, the impact would also be felt in all creative sectors, not just music.” 123rf.com

The growth of the African music industry is also being held back by the limited support for artists in some of the continent’s biggest markets. Musicians lose millions in royalties due to inaccurate collection systems, mismanagement, and lack of accurate data. A forensic audit of organizations in Kenya responsible for collecting and distributing royalties to artists has revealed that between 2020 and 2022, musicians did not receive the $1.07 million they were owed. Although the organizations collected licensing fees from the various businesses that used the music, the money never reached the artists, who often found themselves in poverty. Investments and policies that increase internet access in Africa and ensure fair wages for artists should therefore be priorities for African governments. Only in this way will music and entertainment become pillars of African economies, generating thousands of jobs and valorising a large number of artists. (Open Photo:123rf)

Martin Siele

 

 

India. Child Brides. A School for a Fresh Start.

According to a recent UNICEF report, there are 640 million, 200 million in India alone, child brides. In Polur – in Andhra Pradesh – a congregation of nuns runs the ‘Sree Jeevan Jyothi Vocational Junior College’, a nursing school that welcomes young women who are victims of early marriage

Kavitha and Navyashree, are two Indian girls who were married off at the ages of 14 and 16. Their marriage didn’t last long; they were in fact chased out of their homes by their in-laws in a village in the state of Andhra Pradesh, in south-eastern India.
Today they live in Polur – in the Nandyal district – together with 150 other young women in the ‘Sree Jeevan Jyothi Vocational Junior College’, an institute that since 2010 has welcomed girls – many of whom are victims of early marriages – and prepares them to become nurses so that they can care for the elderly, pregnant women and disabled people both at home and in hospitals. The institute is run by the nuns of the Society of Saint Anna Phirangipuram – a local congregation dating back to 1874 – and aims to take care of child brides and girls in extreme poverty and make them independent.

The students of the Sree Jeevan Jyothi Vocational Junior College attend the morning assembly in Polur, a village in the southeastern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. (GSR photo/Thomas Scaria)

In India, marriage under the age of 18 is prohibited; but at the beginning of the year over 1,800 men were arrested, mainly in the north-east of the country, in 4,000 cases of child marriage. This practice, unfortunately, is still widespread not only in India but throughout the world. And indeed, it has grown again as a consequence of the Coronavirus pandemic.
The new UNICEF report ‘Is an End to Child Marriage within Reach? Latest Trends and Future 2023 Prospects Update’ highlights that 640 million girls are married off worldwide, 12 million every year. And India alone has a third of them, or a number of child brides that exceeds 200 million. Furthermore, it is estimated that another 10 million girls will become child brides by 2030 due to the effects of the pandemic. In fact, as we read in the report, across the world, conflicts, climate disasters and the ongoing impact of Covid-19 – in particular the increase in poverty, income shocks and school dropout – contribute to increase the causes of child marriage and make it difficult for girls to access the health care, education, social services, and community support that protect them from child marriage.

Kavitha talks about her early marriage and separation with Sr. Ignatius Suman, the director of the College. (GSR photo/Thomas Scaria)

Kavihta is now 18 years old and has spoken of how she was forced by her parents to marry a stranger shortly after eighth grade. At her husband’s house, she had to do household chores, get up at two in the morning, cook for the family of six and then go to work on the farm all day under the scorching sun. She was very often beaten by her husband and her parents for her shortcomings in her work. “One day I attempted suicide, and they kicked me out”, she said.
It was Sister Balajyothi Ramisetti who found her and admitted her to nursing school. “We have several cases like hers among our students; they gradually emerge from the trauma and manage to study well”, she says.Navyashree – now 26 and a first-year junior college student – has been married to a close relative for seven years. “I had four pregnancies, including two miscarriages; the other two children were born mentally retarded and were unable to survive”, she says. “My husband’s family blamed me for my inability to give birth to healthy children and they sent me away”. Consanguineous marriages are very common in the villages of Andhra Pradesh and lead to the birth of unhealthy children who often die very early.To prevent dropping out, and to work on their personality development, female students stay in the hostel attached to the College and during their stay on campus they keep busy with various activities, such as tailoring courses, cooking exercises, cultural events, and sports and counselling sessions that help them overcome their traumatic past.
Since its opening, the school has trained 650 young women and also holds courses for laboratory technicians. The government’s Board of Intermediate Education has recognized the College making it an accredited school.

Thatipatri Gnanamma (1822 – 1874) founded the congregation of Sisters of St. Anne of Madras and Sisters of St. Anne Phirangipuram.

The congregation was founded by Thatipatri Gnanamma to educate and promote women, especially those living in rural areas, who are particularly vulnerable and often victims of unjust systems and traditions. Thatipatri Gnanamma was an ordinary lay woman from Phirangipuram, a small village in Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh. She was married to Innaiah and had five children. Unfortunately, she was widowed at the age of 37. Four of her children entered religious life and one married. Finally free from all family commitments, Gnanamma moved to a village called Kilacheri, 40 km from Chennai, where she lived until her death. In her time, girls’ education was an impossible dream. Gnanamma constantly kept in touch with the illiterate girls in the area and identified education as the main means of making them independent. Father Arokianathar, the parish priest of Kilacheri, helped her to think concretely and establish a school for girls in Kilacheri in 1863. Inspired by her commitment to serving the cause of women, two young girls asked Gnanamma if they could help in this inspiring work, also expressing the desire to become nuns. Gnanamma agreed and sent them to Bellary for training. After initial training, these two girls became nuns and thus a religious congregation known as the ‘Society of Sisters of St. Anne-Madras’ (SSAM) was born, with the specific vision of giving impetus to the cause of women.
In 1999, Pope John Paul II established it as a pontifical congregation and it now has more than 1,000 members in 90 convents, serving in five continents. (Open Photo: 123rf)

Sara Toffano/MM

Europeans, Israel and Palestine.

European countries have a history of differing views on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Recent disagreements among EU leaders highlight the complexity of the issue, but a political solution necessitates the involvement of various stakeholders.

The recent ‘cacophony’ of EU voices – as some defined it – over the Israel-Gaza conflict should not come as a surprise. Historically, in fact, few international issues have divided Europeans (governments and citizens alike) more than the Middle East. If the 2003 Iraq War represented perhaps the most spectacular case in point, throughout the decades Europe’s main countries have often aligned themselves differently on the Israel-Palestine dispute.

During the Cold War, particularly after the Six Days’ War of 1967, the Eastern bloc led by the Soviet Union (yet the first state to recognise Israel in 1948) sided with the Palestinians and their Arab supporters. After 1989, however, Moscow gradually developed a peculiar relationship with Tel Aviv – which included the migration of thousands of Russian Jews to Israel – while most Central European countries (some of which had not been immune to antisemitism during the XX century) shifted their support towards Israel, partially also in connection with their efforts to join NATO and later the EU. Among them, the Czech Republic would even become one of its staunchest allies, with former US Secretary of State, Czech-born Madeleine Albright, playing a key role therein.

In Western Europe, France evolved from a close friend of Israel (helping it i.a. develop its nuclear capabilities) to a fierce critic of its post-1967 occupation of Palestinian territories, in particular under De Gaulle and his immediate successors. Only under Nicolas Sarkozy (himself of Jewish origin) did the Fifth Republic adopt a more balanced position, further consolidated later on in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 2015/16 (today France is the European country with the highest number of both Muslims and Jews).

Belgium has followed a similar trajectory. Italy, too, has evolved from a mainly pro-Palestinian posture in the 1970s and 1990s (equally shared by the left and the Catholics) to a more balanced one, whereas Spain has combined unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people with a highly symbolic ex post acknowledgement of the unjust expulsion of the Jews in 1492, offering Spanish citizenship to the descendants of the old Sephardic community.

The UK, for its part, has long struggled between, on the one hand, aligning itself with Washington (especially after the 1956 Suez crisis) and, on the other, coping with its role as the former ‘colonial’ power in the region and protecting the financial interests of the City of London (where many Gulf monarchies had stored their ‘petrodollars’).

If Ireland has always identified with the Palestinians and the Netherlands has been mindful of hosting a major Jewish community, both – along with the Nordic countries – have traditionally supported diplomacy while vocally condemning breaches of human rights and international law by either party. But key to understanding Europe’s internal differences is the German (and Austrian) position – dramatically shaped by the legacy of the Holocaust – of constant and virtually unreserved support for Israel, which often blocked more critical common statements and initiatives.

In this context, the one season where Europe found itself completely united on the Middle East was the decade between the Oslo Peace Accords (1993) and the last serious attempts to implement them, roughly 20 years ago. The European Community had actually been one of the early supporters of a reasonable deal between the two parties: its first ever common foreign policy statement was indeed the 1980 Venice Declaration, which explicitly mentioned the legitimate rights of the Palestinians to “self-determination” and of Israel to exist in security. And when that prospect suddenly became tangible, the Union – in close cooperation with the Clinton administration – threw its full weight behind the peace process.

The EU even became a formal member of the so-called ‘Quartet’ (alongside the US, the UN and Russia) that monitored and accompanied the process, and it supported the fledgling Palestinian Authority both financially and operationally, i.e. by deploying a border assistance mission to the Rafah crossing and training the Palestinian police
in the West Bank.

And when the peace process came to a critical juncture – after Itzhak Rabin’s assassination, the recurrent Intifadas and the uninterrupted Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories – the Union engaged to play a central role in its final implementation. In the last-ditch negotiations that took place in the final months of the Clinton presidency (2000), Brussels committed to massively support Ramallah in building a Palestinian state-like entity in return for Washington supporting Tel Aviv in reining in (and compensating) the Jewish settlers and fully accepting the two-state solution.

The draft arrangement – enshrined in a famous ‘non-paper’ prepared by Miguel Angel Moratinos, the EU Special Envoy and close aide to then High Representative Javier Solana – was never finalised though, partly because of Yasser Arafat’s hesitation, but mostly because within a few weeks George W Bush succeeded Clinton at the White House and Likud’s Ariel Sharon defeated Labour PM Ehud Barak in the Israeli elections.

Ever since, the peace process was first put temporarily on ice, then overtaken (and undermined) by other developments: 9/11, the Iraq War, the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the growth of Iran’s regional influence, the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ and the ensuing turmoil across the region, the rise of the Gulf monarchies and the re-alignment of Erdoggan’s Turkey – but also the continued expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, recurrent skirmishes between Gaza-based Hamas and Israeli forces as well as controversies and even provocations in and on Jerusalem.

In turn, Europe was hit by the so-called ‘polycrisis’, from the Eurozone woes to the migration waves (mostly from Muslim countries), the jihadist attacks and, more recently, the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. All these developments have contributed to putting the ailing peace process on the back burner – some EU countries even followed the Trump administration’s example and moved their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – but have also had major consequences at societal level, with growing anti-Muslim/anti-migrant sentiments and recurrent episodes of antisemitism: the boom of right-wing populist parties across the continent can be seen as both a cause and an effect thereof – all duly amplified by and through the digital sphere.

Following the 2008 Russia-Georgia War, relations with Moscow replaced the Middle East as the most sensitive and controversial foreign policy issue inside the EU – at least until last year, when Russia’s blatant aggression against Ukraine quickly unified opinions and generated a surprisingly well coordinated and effective response by the Union. Does the recent ‘cacophony’ over the Israel-Gaza conflict put into question that newfound cohesiveness and decisiveness of the 27 and their declared ambition to act more “geopolitically”?

It may indeed have appeared a bad omen to see EU leaders differ in public – including at the UN – over whether to suspend or increase humanitarian aid to Palestine, over the meaning of ‘ceasefire’ as opposed to ‘pause(s)’, or over the emphasis to give to the respect human rights and international law while acknowledging Israel’s right to defend itself. Yet these differences, in part driven also by petty inter-institutional rivalries, are neither fundamental nor unsurmountable: they are not unique to Europe either, and they also run through public opinion and across political parties inside individual countries. And much will depend on the next stages in the conflict, as Europeans are understandably concerned about a possible regional conflagration and its consequences – including a further rise in energy prices, waves of refugees and terrorist actions.

Twenty years later, however, it is evident that there is no military solution to the conflict and, above all, that a political one will require the convergent and constructive engagement of not only Americans and Europeans but also the Arab countries – and especially of the Gulf monarchies, which now undoubtedly have all the necessary resources to stabilise a region in which, instead, they have hitherto played a predominantly divisive and destabilising role.

Antonio Missiroli/ISPI

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