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Cinema. African Queens.

Black Panther: Wakanda forever and The Woman King have sparked interesting debates both in the African American community and in African countries. Colonialism, Pan-Africanism and slavery are the backgrounds of the two Hollywood films.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever by Ryan Coogler from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is a sequel that reflects the pain and chaos caused by the death of actor Chadwick Boseman who passed away in August 2020 from colon cancer with which he fought, in silence and far away out of the spotlight, for four years. “It was a great human, artistic but also social and political loss because Boseman embodied much more than a superhero. Black Panther was a symbol of affirmation and revenge for the global black community, a figure that integrated itself with various global and local movements, starting with Black Lives Matter,” says Kevin Feige, producer of the film.

Movie Poster. Courtesy of Marvel Studios.

Both director Ryan Coogler and Feige knew of the risks of a new film after the great success of Black Power but, at the same time, of the great challenge that could be faced. Says Feige: “We had to find a way for Chadwick’s legacy to be honoured and continued. But it wasn’t about replacing him with another actor, we had to think of something different.”
Director Coogler decided to invest all in an army of determined and brilliant women.
The film tells that after burying King T’Challa, Queen Ramonda continues the fight to protect Wakanda from the interference of world powers enticed by vibranium. Next to her, Shuri, Nakia, Okoye and the Dora Milaje celebrate a proudly black female power by confronting a story that navigates from the invasion of the Conquistadores to the machinations of the American spy agency, the CIA.
It is an ode that goes beyond Pan-Africanism to open up to broad anti-colonialist horizons that encompass Mesomerica. The new hero is in fact Namur, king of the ancient Talokan civilization (recreated with the advice of experts from Maya society) who has not forgotten the violence of the Spanish conquerors and, unlike the pacific Wakanda is ready to declare war on the whole world to defend the vibranium.

Letitia Wright stars as Shuri in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” Courtesy of Marvel Studios

However, his thirst for revenge will be appeased by the peace-making intervention of Shuri who has agreed to become the new Black Panther after a long and painful mourning process. The strength of Wakanda lies in the proud defence of a tradition that is kept alive thanks to technology (Shuri’s supercomputer is called Griotte) and to a sisterhood that is stronger than borders and that accepts the brilliant African-American student Riri Williams into the Kingdom. Wakanda dialogues with the world, accepts the future but does not forget its traditions. A happy ending that silences any political claim but for better or for worse brings an indomitable and sparkling Africa into the spotlight, bringing it out of the dark, the shadows and the wild and exotic state where the American cinematic imagination had it always relegated.

The Kingdom of Dahomey
The Woman King by African-American director Gina Prince-Bythewood brings to the screen a real African kingdom, the Kingdom of Dahomey, and celebrates the courage of the agodjiès, the female army known as the Amazons. A Hollywood production with a budget of 50 million dollars, the film was shot in South Africa and has grossed over 92 million worldwide. The cast sees the Oscar winner Viola Davis, supported by Thuso Mbedu and Lashana Lynch, young and promising actresses
of the African diaspora.

‘The Woman King’. Instagram

The director reclaims a predominantly female and black crew who have studied extensively and faced gruelling physical training to perform the fights. The not particularly original narrative plot follows the story of a young orphaned Nawi who joins the army of the agodjiès, led by Nanisca. We are in 1823 and the Kingdom of Dahomey is obliged to pay tribute to the rich Nigerian Oyo empire a tribute composed of virgins, weapons and slaves to be sold to European colonizers. But Nanisca opposes and tries to convince King Gezo to abandon the slave trade and devote himself to the production and trade of palm oil. The challenge for the director was to tell the story of the agodjiès by clearly detaching from the distorted image handed down by the colonizers. For this, the advice of Leonard Wantchekon professor of political science and international affairs at Princeton University is followed. Born in Benin and related to agodjiè, Wantchekon has been studying the history of the famous female warriors for years and has defended the film from the attacks it received for presenting Dahomey, known for having enriched itself through trafficking, as a kingdom opposed to slavery.

‘The Woman King’. Instagram

It is the burning issue of the complicity of African kingdoms in the slave trade that has in fact sparked a bitter debate on social media, giving rise to a boycott campaign on Twitter with the hashtag #BoycottTheWomanKing, fuelled in particular by blacks who descend from African slaves and who feel that the film falsifies history.
Despite the criticisms, last December, the African American Film Critics Association nominated The Woman King as Best Film of 2022, followed by Wakanda forever. Nicole Brown, the first black woman to hold the role of president of TriStar, proudly declares that The Woman King will pave the way for new films based on African history. (Open Photo: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.  Courtesy of Marvel Studios)

Simona Cella and John Mutesa

 

 

 

Iraq. Lalish, the Sacred Heart of the Yazidis.

Persecuted and driven from their homeland, Sinjar, in Iraqi Kurdistan, Yazidis cling to their religion and traditions such as the pilgrimage to the most important shrine. We visited the place.

“Angels live on the threshold of every entrance, so it is important not to step on the entrance steps”. This is one of the rules that visitors and pilgrims hear repeated upon their arrival in Lalish, the valley in northern Iraq where stands the mausoleum dedicated to Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir, who died in 1162 and is venerated here as a saint, together with his successor Sheikh Hasan.
There are just a few rules to be followed: you walk barefoot and do not disturb the angels. We are ready to visit the shrine, a sacred place for the Yazidis, a religious minority originally from Kurdistan, a region that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran. Today they are also found in Armenia, Georgia, Russia, and Europe and it is estimated that there are about 700 thousand in all.

Lalish is located in Duhok Governorate in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. CC BY-SA 4.0/ Levi Clacy

The sanctuary of Lalish is located 35 kilometers north of Mosul. Even from some distance you can see the large conical roofs of the tombs typical of the Yazidi culture. The same structure, symbolizing the sun at the top, the rays along the surface of the cone and the earth at the base, is found in villages where a sheikh, a local religious guide belonging to the highest caste of the community, died.
But the Yazidi tenements in Iraq are recognizable above all by the entrance gates adorned with the image of a peacock, in honor of Melek Taus, the most important angel. According to tradition, when God created the world, he entrusted its protection to seven angels, including Melek Taus, the peacock angel. To test them, God asked them to bow before Adam, the first man. Only Melek Taus refused and was rejected by all mankind, with the exception of the Yazidis.
The same scene is described in the Qur’an, with the difference that the angel in question is Iblis (Lucifer in Christian tradition). God commanded Iblis to prostrate himself before man, but he refused and was cast out of Paradise. This is why the Yazidis have been persecuted for centuries and defined by Muslims as ‘devil worshippers’.
In reality, Melek Taus is not an evil figure; on the contrary, he is the leader of the archangels who decided to swear obedience only to God and no one else. According to other sources, the Yazidi religion originated in Iran, after absorbing the influences of Zoroastrianism and the Yazidis would have taken their name from the city of Yazid. Ancient Persian beliefs tell how Ahriman, the Evil One, created the peacock to prove that he too, like God, was able to give life to beautiful creatures.

An important spiritual representative of the Yazid religion in Lalish, sits by the wall at the entrance to the shrine with the tomb in Lalish. 123rf.com

More recent research indicates that the religion began in the twelfth century with the preaching of Sheikh Adi, who had created a Sufi brotherhood called Adawiyya. Coming from Lebanon, Sheikh Adi settled in Lalish to lead an ascetic life. The Yazidis venerate him as a saint because they believe he is an emanation of Melek Taus, but the mausoleum of Lalish dedicated to him was, according to some, originally a Nestorian church.
Whatever the origin of the Yazidi creed may be, which combines the millennial traditions of the Mesopotamian plain, its adepts have been persecuted for centuries because they are considered worshippers of Satan. Endogamy and the prohibition of revealing their precepts, handed down mostly orally, have only fuelled the mistrust of Christians and Muslims.
Although there is some sort of baptism among Yazidi ceremonies, one cannot become a Yazidi. It is necessary to be born in the community and it is mandatory to marry within it, under penalty of ‘excommunication’. Yazidism is in fact based more on a series of rules than on prayers and rites. It is said that the teachings of Sheikh Adi were contained in what is called the ‘Black Book’, which was lost a thousand years ago, but its very existence is doubtful.
Prayers are personal and always said turning towards the sun.
There are three castes: the sheikhs, the priests, which include about 30% of the population, followed by the pir and the murad. The most important religious office is held by Baba Shaykh, the ‘Pope’ of the Yazidis, whose appointment is hereditary but must be approved by the other senior sages. The difference between the various castes lies in the way religion is practised: only the sheikhs, for example, are required to fast for forty days in winter and then again in summer, while everyone else should make at least four trips a year to Lalish on the occasion
of the main holidays.

At the entrance to the temple, you are greeted by a guardian. 123rf.com

At the entrance to the temple you are greeted by a guardian who, in front of a steaming cup of çay (the abundantly sweetened tea as the Middle Eastern tradition dictates), explains the rules to visitors. Taking some soil and placing it in a white handkerchief, he creates a sort of amulet that protects pilgrims and that Yazidis usually keep in their cars. Men dressed in traditional Kurdish clothes and women with the characteristic lilac veil kiss the door jambs and leave money on the thresholds to secure the favour of the guardian angels.
Crossing a series of courtyards you arrive at the tomb of Sheikh Adi, wrapped in fabrics of different colours. Pilgrims who want to make a wish must first untie a knot previously made by another pilgrim (and they will see their dream come true) and then tie a knot on part of the cloth themselves. Corresponding to the main rooms, there are two water springs, of which the most important is called Zemzem (of the same name as the well that is located in Mecca) and to which access is forbidden to non-Yazidis.
The springs are the holiest place in the temple because water is believed to have magical and healing properties, according to some because Lalish rises on a geomagnetic point of the Earth.

At sunset to light a series of lamps that are placed in various rooms of the temple. CC BY-SA 4.0/ Levi Clacy

There are also lodgings, kitchens, a room full of bread for pilgrims and an underground room that contains skins full of oil, used every day at sunset to light a series of lamps that are placed in various rooms of the temple. In this room, once unadorned, in recent years the handprints of visitors have appeared on the rock walls: “I had never seen them before,” our guide told us, revealing that the Yazidi religion, based on oral tradition, has no problem ‘inventing’ new rites from time to time.
A mural depicting a scene from the universal flood explains the importance of the black snake, revered by the Yazidis, but considered malignant by other monotheistic religions. Traditionally, when Noah’s ark was sinking, the serpent saved the patriarch by closing the hole with his own body. The door of the temple that leads to the sacred springs is also flanked by a black snake carved in stone.
Foreign visitors are welcome in Lalish. One almost has the impression that after the persecutions of recent years, the Yazidis feel the need to make themselves known in the eyes of the world because they fear they may disappear forever. There are no official figures, but it is estimated that the faithful remaining in Iraq number between 300 and 400 thousand. In Germany alone, there are 200,000 Yazidi immigrants and we often hear German spoken in Lalish, along with Kurmanji, one of the Kurdish dialects.

Yazidi men. CC BY-SA 3.0/ Bestoun94

The community made headlines in 2014 due to the persecution of ISIS. The girls who were kidnapped, raped and often become pregnant, were rejected by the community of origin even after the expulsion of the Islamic State from Iraq in 2017, because they had had relations with enemies. Between two and three thousand women took refuge in Germany, even though the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had built houses for them along the road leading to the sanctuary, hoping to facilitate their reintegration. The apartments are still uninhabited; the stigma has been stronger than the desire to welcome them back into the community.
Yazidis are still under threat today: under the pretext of eliminating members of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) considered ‘terrorists’ by Ankara, Turkish drones, with the complicity of the Baghdad government, continue to hit Sinjar, the region in northern Iraqi Kurdistan, forcing thousands of civilians to flee.
In fact, the Yazidi Resistance Units, formed in 2014 to fight against ISIS, and which now collaborate with the PKK to obtain an autonomous Kurdish region, operate here. Meanwhile, however, in Iraqi Kurdistan there are still about 200 thousand displaced Yazidis. ‘We would like to go home’, the young people we met in the Bajet Kandala refugee camp, on the border with Turkey and Syria, told us. ‘Sinjar is the homeland of the Yazidis, but for us there is still no peace’. (Open Photo: Lalish, an important holy site of the Yazids. 123rf.com)

Alessandra De Poli/MM

 

Africa Political Forecast 2023.

Elections in the most populated country of the continent, Nigeria, and the expansion of jihadism are some of the main challenges
expected this year.

Many elections are scheduled this year in Africa but several are likely to be postponed. In West Africa, parliamentary elections scheduled for 8 January 2023 in Benin should be more open than the previous ones in 2019 in which the main opposition parties could not participate owing to severe constraints. This time, opposition parties such as “Les Démocrates” and the “Forces Cauris pour un Bénin Émergent” have announced their participation. But some opposition leaders such as the constitutionalist, Joël Aivo who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his alleged participation in a plot to overthrow the state in December 2021, and the former Justice Minister Reckya Madougou, sentenced to 20 years for “terrorism”, were still in jail by the end of 2022.

The President of Liberia, George Manneh Weah. (photo: Executive Mansion-Liberia)

In this context, President Patrice Talon’s ruling Union Progressiste which merged with the party of the former Speaker of the Parliament, Adrien Houngbédji’s Parti du Renouveau Démocratique, seems likely to secure a majority of seats.
In Liberia, where presidential and parliament elections are due on 10 October 2023, the incumbent President and former star of the AC Milano football club, George Weah is running again. His main rival will be the former corporate executive, Alexander B. Cumming, leader of the Collaborating Political Parties opposition bloc.
In Sierra Leone, President Julius Maada Bio will seek re-election on 24 June 2023. The challenge could be difficult for the incumbent whose Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), currently holds a narrow lead in parliament over the main opposition All People’s Congress (APC). Maada Bio’s popularity has been waning after 84 former members of the government were indicted under suspicion of corruption. In August 2022, there were also violent protests against the increasing cost of living in several towns of the country during which at least 21 civilians and 8 policemen were killed. There are fears that further protests, involving violent confrontations with the security forces may occur
in the run-up to the election.

Political parties in Nigeria. (Photo Nig. Press)

The Nigerian presidential and parliament elections, scheduled for 25 February 2023 and to be followed on 11 March by the election of the governors and the members of the state assemblies, should be the most keenly contested since 1999. Out of the18 candidates vying for the presidency, four are leading: the former governor of Lagos state Bola Ahmed Tinubu who is the nominee of President Muhammad Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC), former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, the nominee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the former Kano governor and ex-Defence Minister under President Olusegun Obasanjo, Rabiu Kwankwaso, the nominee of the New Nigeria’s Democratic Party (NNDP) and the ex-Anambra state governor and Labour Party’s candidate Peter Gregory Obi. Observers predict that Nigeria’s 2023 elections might put an end to the domination of the APC and the PDP that ruled the country since 1999. Indeed, opinion polls in September 2022 have shown a strong lead for the outsider, Peter Obi, a former banker who has earned the status of an advocate of good governance in a country marred with corruption and mismanagement.
Soaring inflation, the plunging naira, youth unemployment and insecurity caused by banditry and jihadism in addition to the controversial spending by the Buhari administration of the COVID-19 support funds have created enormous frustrations in the country.
Mauritania should hold parliamentary elections during the year after the first peaceful transition of power in the country following the 2019 presidential election in which Mohamed Ould Ghazouani was elected president. The ruling Equity Party should have a clear lead, since it holds two-thirds of the seats at the National Assembly, even if the election should be more inclusive than usual.

Colonel Assimi Goïta barely controls half of the national territory. (Photo Gov Office)

A referendum on a new constitution is scheduled for March 2023 in Mali, as a first step in the return to democratic rule, following the military coups of August 2020 and May 2021. After that, local elections are due in June 2023 and legislative elections are expected to follow between October and November 2023 before a presidential election in February 2024.
Civil rights organisations express concern that the Independent Authority in charge of the Electoral Process has not made the necessary preparatory steps in time. Moreover, since the ruling junta led by Colonel Assimi Goïta barely controls half of the national territory, the representativity of the polls is at stake, in a country already weakened by the sanctions of the Economic Community of West African States and by the departure of the French troops of the anti-jihadist operation Barkhane.
In Gabon, President Ali Bongo Odimba claimed in March 2022 that he had fully recovered from a stroke and that he would seek a third mandate in August 2023. Meanwhile, the main opposition coalition called PG41 led by Louis Gaston Mayila, claimed on 21 September 2022 that the mandate of the Gabonese Centre for Elections, which is supposed to organize the ballot, expired in 2020 and is, therefore, illegal while problems remained such as the updating of the voters’ register. Many voters don’t have IDs while others have a document whose validity has expired.
According to the constitutional timetable, presidential and parliamentary elections should be held in December 2023 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But most observers believe it will not be possible to complete the preparatory steps in good time, which is potentially dangerous. The postponement for two years of the previous elections initially scheduled for 2016 triggered a cycle of protests that caused dozens of victims. By mid-September 2022, the National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI) had only received one-third of its annual budget for the year. Unsurprisingly, considerable delays in the voters’ registration have occurred. In addition, unlike in the previous cases, CENI will not be able to rely on the logistical support of the UN Mission for the Stabilization of Congo (MONUSCO). Indeed, despite ongoing unrest in Eastern Congo, the Kinshasa authorities want to terminate MONUSCO’s mandate under the pretext that UN troops are not performing their peacekeeping task efficiently enough.
The credibility of the vote is also eroded because many citizens could not be registered in a country where the number of IDPs amounts to 5.6 million and which lacks a proper population registry.

The Kinshasa authorities want to terminate MONUSCO’s mandate. (Photo: UN/ Monusco)

Even if elections were held on time, there is a high risk that they will not be considered credible by a sizeable share of the electorate and risk, therefore, being challenged by protests. The lack of independence of the Supreme Court and of the CENI which is chaired by a supporter of President Felix Tshisekedi, are stressed by the opposition and the civil society including the powerful Roman Catholic Church. CENI’s refusal so far to commit itself to proclaim the results polling station by polling station, as requested by civil rights organizations, casts doubts over the sincerity of the future results.
In front of President Tshisekedi who is seeking a second mandate, the opposition is divided. Martin Fayulu who is considered by civil society and Roman Catholic Bishops Conference sources as the real winner of the 2018 election who was deprived of victory by massive rigging, is unlikely to obtain a second landslide victory. His Lamuka movement is split. But Tshisekedi’s side is also divided. The President’s ally, the Ensemble pour la République party led by the charismatic former governor of Katanga, Moise Katumbi which was part of Tshisekedi’s Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDSP) of the Sacred Union of the Nation, is considering leaving this coalition. Growing tensions between Ensemble and UDPS could reignite
tribal clashes between the ethnic Kasaians who support Tshisekedi and the local Katangese tribes in the copper-belt region.
Elections will be held in a context where large areas of Eastern Congo are under curfew and in a state of siege.Since June 2022, the main border post of the East, Bunagana, in North Kivu is under the control of the M23 rebels who cash huge amounts of customs taxes.

Opposition leader Riek Machar (L) and President Salva Kiir shake hands in Juba. (Photo: Isaac Billy/ UN)

In South Sudan, the polls expected in 2023 are looking very doubtful. Political parties in the youngest African state born in 2011, consider that conditions are not ripe to hold them. The United Nations has urged authorities and opposition parties to organize the presidential, parliamentary and local elections before February 2023, in accordance with the 2018 peace deal signed by President Salva Kiir and his deputy Riek Machar in the unity government.
Kiir and Machar have different views on the judicial reforms which have to be implemented before the vote.
In Zimbabwe, presidential, parliamentary, and local elections should be held in July or August 2023, as announced in October 2022 by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC). A new party called “Citizens Coalition for Change” (CCC) led by Nelson Chamisa is challenging the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). The CCC performed well in the March 2022 by-elections. But ZANU-PF’s position as the ruling party remains solid. ZANU-PF benefits from the de facto support of the ZEC which includes former military officials who aren’t known for their impartiality and from the support of traditional leaders who will help it to secure the rural vote.
Parliamentary elections are also due during 2023 in the little kingdom of Eswatini, where 52 years-old King Mswathi III appoints whoever he wants as ministers. But nobody expects fair elections. Opposition leaders are in jail or in exile and political parties are banned.

Madagascan President, Andry Rajoelina. (Xinhua)

According to Madagascar’s Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), the first round of the presidential election will be held in October 2023 and a second round will take place before the end of next year; if none of the candidates has secured a majority of more than 50% at the first round. The incumbent president, Andry Rajoelina is expected to run for a second term. But his victory is uncertain due to unpopularity caused by high levels of corruption and poverty. The credibility of the vote is also at stake. In September 2022, a report from the European Union Observers Mission highlighted the potential conflict of interest arising from the presence at the head of the CENI of a man whose wife is a Minister in the current government and the proximity of the chairman president of the High Constitutional Court with Andry Rajoelina. By the end of 2022, challenges remained to guarantee the credibility of the voters’ registry. At least three million people were deprived of IDs and their names were still missing from the registry. (Open Photo: 123rf.com)

François Misser

UN. 2023. The International Year of Millet.

The cultivation and consumption of millet is a response to the challenges posed by population growth, food insecurity and climate change. A unique opportunity.

Among the first plants to be domesticated, millet is considered a cereal with a high content of nutrients. For seven thousand years, this small, round grain has been the staple food for hundreds of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia and is now grown around the world. However, the production of this cereal species is declining in many countries and its potential to tackle climate change and food security is not being fully exploited, even though this herbaceous plant can grow on relatively poor soils and in arid conditions. Millet comprises a family of cereals produced from a variety of plants that have small seeds and are grown mainly on non-agricultural land, in arid locations, where irrigation may not be possible and access to markets is difficult.

Photo: Fao/Simon Maina

Once critically endangered, the millet species is now recognized as part of the solution to global food problems, as it is an essential source of energy, and its crops can be stored or ground into flour.
Promoting the diversity and nutritional and ecological benefits of millet can benefit the food sector, from producers to consumers.
“For a long time, millet was considered a food for poor farmers, while urbanization and land mismanagement have led to the loss of farmland. With millet, degraded drylands can be reclaimed, making this cereal essential for feeding a growing world,” explains Jacqueline Hughes, director of ICRISAT, a crop research institute in the semi-arid tropics based in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. Currently, a surprisingly small number of plants are used for human nutrition, from which we receive most of the daily calories we need. Thousands of species and varieties of plants that fed our ancestors have become extinct.

Genetic diversity
Rapeseed is said to have been domesticated in northern China, and as the seeds were saved and passed down through generations of farmers, different types of rapeseed adapted to the ecosystems around villages: soils, climate, altitude and the availability of water. Cultural preferences also contributed to the seed selection process; some favourite plants were replanted for their specific taste, texture, or colour of the grains.
Now, after decades of neglect, millet is once again considered an essential food. At the suggestion of the Government of India and with the support of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2023 as the International Year of Millet, with the aim of increasing the contribution of these cereals to food and nutrition security, improving sustainable production and quality of cereals and increasing investment in research and development.

African women cooking traditional food. 123rf.com

The FAO defines millet as: “A unique opportunity to increase global production, ensure efficient processing and consumption, promote better use of crop rotation, and encourage better connectivity between food systems to promote millet as a key component of the food basket”.
Though vulnerable, indigenous and local communities around the world are major advocates for agrobiodiversity conservation, thanks to their traditional knowledge of different crop varieties and how to grow them. FAO’s International Fund for the Plant Treaty supports farmers in developing countries in their efforts to protect and use the genetic diversity of plants such as millet to ensure food security. “If millet replaced large areas of rice cultivation in India, scientific research suggests potential benefits, such as lower greenhouse gas emissions, greater resilience to climate change, and lower water and energy use, all without reducing calories or demanding more land”, summarizes journalist Dan Saladino, author of Eating to Extinction (2022, FSG), in Foreign Policy magazine.

Intelligent food
The United Nations encourages regions of Asia and Africa to replace the big three grasses (rice, wheat, and maize), which together provide more than 50% of human caloric intake, with millet. Over 90% of millet production today takes place in developing countries on both continents. From millet grains, bread, porridge, malt, and beer are made. As a ‘smart food,’ millet can significantly contribute to overcoming malnutrition, as its nutritional benefits can increase the growth of children and adolescents by 26-39% when substituted for rice in standard meals.

Fields of pearl millets in southeast Asia. 123rf.com

The study “Can feeding a millet-based diet improve the growth of children?”, published in the scientific journal MDPI Nutrients, points out that “nutritional intervention programs can be developed and adapted to increase the diversity of meals using millet and therefore improve nutritional content, including in school and mother-and-child feeding programs”.Research author R. Hemalatha, also director of India’s NIN Institute of Nutrition, suggests that “implementing millet meals requires designing menus for different age groups, using culturally sensitive and tasty recipes”. Millet also contributes to meeting the health needs of adults, helping to control diabetes, and overcome iron deficiency anaemia, as well as reduce cholesterol levels, obesity and the risk of cardiovascular disease. In Western countries, millet is sold in shops and in dietary sections and is mainly consumed in multigrain bread and used in the production of poultry feed. Thanks to the high fibre content and short cooking time, it can also be used in salads, purees, soups, or desserts. (Open Photo 123rf.com)

Carlos Reis

 

 

The Role of Secondary Cities. Trait d’union between development and tradition.

Half of the African urban residents live in one of the more than 7,500 medium or small continental cities. They are often excluded from investments and public services. But they enhance the continent’s extraordinary heritage of biodiversity.

Large metropolises attracted a monopoly of attention to their immense social and environmental challenges, but the data on the urban phenomenon in Africa tell a different story.
If there are now at least 30 cities with over 2 million inhabitants, they represent only 30% of the continent’s urban population. Half of the urban residents, on the other hand, live in one of the more than 7,500 medium or small cities, mostly unknown centres with a population of between 10,000 and 300,000 inhabitants.

Kumasi, Ghana. Busy Street near the Ghana Central Market in Kumasi. 123rf.com

The inexorable rush towards the city of the African continent is not, therefore, exclusive to megalopolises but, on the contrary, is driven above all by small and medium-sized centres. A trend destined to consolidate: these cities generally have higher birth rates and levels of internal migration than metropolises since they represent a simpler and cheaper landing point for those who decide to leave rural areas.

Politics, investment, and infrastructure
The condition that unites hundreds of medium and small cities on the continent is undoubtedly exclusion: a problem that triggers a vicious circle that is difficult to break and involves politics, economics, and opportunities for access to wider connections and networks. From a political point of view, secondary cities are often in a sort of limbo that blocks access to programmes and investments, excluded both from development policies for rural areas and from urban planning and redevelopment programmes. The latter, in fact, are often tailored to the needs of large cities that have more stringent problems but also a greater capacity to attract investments and international aid.

People walk along the bridge beside the road in Saint Louis, one of the biggest cities in Senegal. 123rf.com

The latest UN-Habitat report on the state of African cities (2018) focuses precisely on the ability to attract private foreign investments, considered one of the major drivers of urban development. Apart from sporadic cases linked to mining areas or strategic corridors, such as the coast between Lagos and Abidjan, secondary cities are totally excluded from the important flows that affect the continent. The scarcity of public investment in services and infrastructure is also a sore point. The boom in mobile telephony has made the possibility of communicating accessible to many, but the same is not true for access to electricity, water, or transport networks which, although constantly growing, spread at a slower rate than the rates of urbanization and the demand for connections and services in peripheral areas. The so-called micro-grids, small autonomous grids usually powered by solar panels, are changing the face of access to energy in the most remote areas, yet even in fast-growing countries, such as Senegal or Ghana, the nights of many secondary cities are still punctuated by the hum of diesel generators.

Not just the economy
Although some small cities boast ancient cultural traditions, university education is mostly concentrated in large cities and determines the constant drainage of the best talents who will hardly return to the ‘province’ to invest their skills. Furthermore, the scarce opportunities for higher education limit the spread of a middle class capable of generating development and bringing skills that are more than ever necessary in local authorities which are called upon to increasingly complex tasks by the processes of political and administrative decentralization. The scarce attention that has often been given to the training of institutions and local officials is one of the sore points of these processes and has contributed to paving the way for environmental degradation and indiscriminate consumption of land due to a lack of spatial planning.

Market in Huambo City. It is the third-most populous city in Angola, after the capital city Luanda.

Due to these multiple levels of exclusion and poor connectivity, many small and medium-sized cities, although more ‘on a human scale’ and liveable than African metropolises are not very attractive, are socially fragile, and find it difficult to find their own territorial identity. This identity and an ability to create networks that are more than ever necessary in a perspective of resilience are crucial. If their size and political weight protect large cities from sudden economic or demographic crises, medium or small cities are often at the forefront of suffering from devastating effects of diplomatic clashes, price fluctuations, and decisions taken elsewhere.
Walking through the dusty streets of Assab, in the far south of Eritrea, it is hard to believe that the city was once one of the most flourishing ports of the Red Sea. The crisis with Ethiopia has marked its fate and the recent thaw will hardly be able to reverse the trend, especially after the expansion of the Addis-Djibouti railway.

Environment and food supply chain
African secondary cities, therefore, live in a situation that is not too different from the problem of the ‘peripheries’ of the rest of the planet, aggravated, however, by the structural problems of many states on the continent and by the delay with which innovations and ‘development’ reach the most remote areas.
A condition of exclusion that does not mean marginalization; the exponential growth of both the number of inhabitants and settlements that reach the size of an urban centre makes these cities the leading players in the great transformations that are affecting Africa. All the biggest games, from the demographic to the environment and to the question of agri-food production are played here.

Ouidah. It is a city on the coast of the Republic of Benin. 123rf.com

Those who have visited an African market cannot forget the enveloping vortex of colours, sounds and smells; in small towns, these weekly markets have always been a fundamental point of reference for many surrounding villages and small agricultural producers in the region, but lately, they have also been sources of food supply for the metropolises. The rural areas surrounding large cities, in fact, are increasingly compromised by inexorable overbuilding and extensive exploitation; hence the need to organize complex supply chains in which secondary centres become focal points for bargaining and exchanging agricultural products. The prices of many commodities in the Addis Ababa markets are decided in Holeta, Dima or Debre Zeit, half-known agricultural towns less than 50 km from the capital, where greenhouse agro-industrial production is increasingly widespread to meet growing demand.
Some secondary cities, therefore, form a network that determines the sustainability and, in some cases, the very survival of large metropolises, a network that should be enhanced at a strategic level to further safeguard local production and the environment.

Safeguarding traditions
The main ‘biodiversity’ kept in the secondary cities, however, is that which is historical, cultural and artistic. Unlike the capitals and metropolises, largely born in colonial times and overwhelmed by too rapid development, the smaller centres can hide the evidence of an ancient past, tracing caravan networks, border lines, centres of power or culture. In them, there may be the hidden remains of monuments or traditional architectural typologies still in use, but above all an enormous quantity of priceless intangible assets: knowledge, traditions, languages, religions, and customs linked to the rural world. Much of the development opportunities of many small and medium-sized cities pass through the challenge of safeguarding these elements.

The Chinguetti Mosque was an ancient centre of worship created by the founders of the oasis city of Chinguetti in the Adrar region of Mauritania in the thirteenth or fourteenth century.

We may take, for example, Chinguetti, a famous Saharan city that holds a priceless heritage of private libraries where manuscripts dating back to the 10th century are kept. The inclusion in the UNESCO list is not enough to stop its depopulation and the advance of the sands, which increasingly undermine the ancient stone streets, threatening to bury the city. Without targeted development and enhancement policies for responsible and cultural tourism, even this green lung of knowledge risks disappearing. “We are foreigners in our own cities”: with these words already 40 years ago the Cameroonian sociologist and theologian Jean Marc Ela warned against the risks of the loss of identity in the new cities, which at the time were beginning to grow inexorably. Today these words are in danger of coming true; the disruption and mind-boggling figures of megalopolises are drawing the continent towards the future but at the high price of sacrificing customs, cultures and knowledge on the altar of an often-contradictory modernity. The role of secondary cities can instead be that of a link between development and tradition, preserving and even enhancing the extraordinary biodiversity heritage of the continent. (Open Photo: Kumasi, Ghana. 123rf.com)

Federico Monica

Sister Helen Prejean. To Give Dignity.

She shows no signs of slowing down in her long-standing fight to end the death penalty.

At 84, she is writing her fourth book while directing her advocacy organization, Ministry Against the Death Penalty, in New Orleans. She spends a fair amount of time on the road as she continues to give talks, especially on college campuses, about the injustices she sees with capital punishment.

She also continues to minister to both death-row inmates and murder victims’ families. She has accompanied six men to their executions. When she was asked where she gets her energy, her responses all revolved around the work she does.

For starters, she said she is energized by those she ministers to on death row – currently a Louisiana inmate in his 60s, Manuel Ortiz. The Salvadoran has been on death row for close to 30 years and continues to claim innocence from the sentence he received for hiring someone to murder his wife. Sister Helen said Ortiz is a prayerful man with great devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

“How does he get up every morning in that cell for 30 years now? How does anybody do that?” Sister Helen asked. She said she comes away more enlivened from every visit with him and is also overwhelmed by what he goes through – “knowing you’re innocent, knowing the lies they told about you in the trial.”

His case, along with the 690 people currently on death row in the United States, remind her “we’ve got our work cut out for us,” she said in her understated way. Her Louisiana drawl almost belies the urgency of the work she sees ahead. Her passion for both the innocent and the guilty on death row — who all have God-given dignity, she points out — has been her driving force ever since she witnessed her first execution in 1984: the electrocution of Patrick Sonnier, a 34-year-man found guilty of killing two teenagers.

Sister Helen first came to know Sonnier as a pen pal, when she volunteered to write to someone on death row. From that correspondence, she later became Sonnier’s spiritual adviser. She has often referred to her decision to write to someone on death row as a move of “Sneaky Jesus,” saying Jesus sneaks up and draws you into doing something that seems small but, in the end, becomes life-changing. Because Sonnier wanted Sister Helen to be with him and to pray for him at his execution, Sister Helen agreed.

But really, nothing could have prepared her for what she witnessed. “What I saw set my soul on fire, a fire that burns in me still,” she wrote in her memoir, “River of Fire.” After leaving the prison, in the middle of the night, she said she threw up in the parking lot.
But from that day forward, she knew that she had to do something about what she had seen.

As she put it: “Our faith awakens and we speak. I knew very few people were going to get this opportunity ever to be in (the execution chamber). I’m the witness.” Adding that she began to speak with whoever
would listen.

At first, she encountered a lot of criticism with people shouting things at her like: “What do you know? What’s your authority? The Catholic Church upholds a right of the state to take life!” She didn’t back down though. “You just stay in there because you know what your eyes have seen, you know what your heart has felt you know what the Gospel of Jesus says about loving your enemy and forgiving.”

So, she has stayed there and continues to do so, for nearly four decades. Starting with parish talks and then moving on to writing “Dead Man Walking” and speaking to St. John Paul II and Pope Francis about the death penalty wrongs. “Have to do it. Can’t do it,” she said of her personal crusade.

The woman religious who grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, entered the convent at 18 and spent years teaching in Catholic schools, has not held back in recounting details of what she has seen in state prisons in prisoners’ final moments.

In 1997, she told Pope St. John Paul that she has walked behind a man on his way to be executed, with legs shackled, hands cuffed to a belt, and surrounded by guards who whispered to her: “Please pray as I make this walk that God holds up my legs.”

“Where is the dignity in taking a human being and rendering them completely defenceless and killing them?” she said she asked the Pope. “How do we respect the inviolable dignity even of the guilty? Can you help our church? Can you help us?” And he did help, she said, in a 1999 visit to St. Louis where he described the death penalty as both cruel and unnecessary and said: “Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform.”

In his 1995 encyclical, “Evangelium Vitae” (The Gospel of Life”), the Pope spoke against the death penalty but he included the caveat that it could be used if absolutely necessary to defend society. Sister Helen said that phrase made her heart drop because she knew those words would be used by anyone who wanted to sentence someone to death. She likened Pope St. John Paul’s discussion of the death penalty to taking the issue to the net, then Pope Francis pushed it over the net in 2018.

That was when he announced the revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to include a description of the death penalty as “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” and said it was inadmissible in all cases. There’s no doubt Sister Helen was pretty happy that day. But by no means did she just take a break afterward. She knows there is still plenty of support in the U.S. for capital punishment, even as some states are abolishing it, and that Catholics are not much different from the general public in their death penalty views.

A 2021 poll by Pew Research shows that 60% of U.S. adults favour the death penalty for people convicted of murder, including 27% who strongly favour it. It also showed Catholics falling into that same bracket with 58% of them generally supportive of capital punishment, with 27% strongly favouring it. When asked how to reach people in the pews, Sister Helen said they need to learn about the death penalty in Catholic schools and parish adult education program.

She says she is hardly alone in her advocacy but part of a broader movement. She likens it to “a pot that begins to boil and these little bubbles start at the bottom and they start rising up. Well, I was one of those little bubbles.” And even now, the work doesn’t get old for her. “There’s a great life when you feel you’re fulfilling your purpose,” she said, adding that she is glad to be awake to today’s social injustices even though she said it took 40 years to happen. “It’s a great grace to be awake and then to be engaged in soul-sized stuff,” she said. “Bring it on.” (Photo: MADP)

Carol Zimmermann/CNS

South Africa. ‘A Missionary Parish, to Reach Out to Many who Are still Far Away’.

The parish of St Daniel Comboni is located in the eastern part of Mamelodi, a name that means, mother of melodies, because of the concentration of musical talent offered by its inhabitants.
We visited this place.

Mamelodi, northeast of Pretoria, is a township created in 1953 to relocate the African population during the Apartheid era. Ten years ago, it had a population of 334,000, but now it is probably more than half a million. It is a dormitory town, with many middle-class workers, government, and private sector employees who commute daily to Pretoria or any other nearby towns.
“During the day, only retired people stay at home because children also go to school”, says Fr Jerome Anakese, the parish priest of St Daniel Comboni –  Many of the unemployed live in informal settlements. At night, especially in winter, there is a smell of smoke. They collect wood or, if they can, they buy it, to heat themselves outside their tiny shacks. There is a tremendous social imbalance”.

The township of Mamelodi, northeast of Pretoria. A dormitory town.

The number of those collecting garbage for recycling grows every day. “They do a hard and undignified work, pushing heavy bales on carts through the streets.  They are left to their own fate, without any protection”, continues the Comboni Missionary -. Those unemployed try their luck in the informal economy, selling on the streets, driving taxis, or recruiting clients for them. They intend to emulate their working neighbours who drive private cars through the streets of Mamelodi. Others, unfortunately, turn to crime or to drink. The insecurity is a consequence of social contrasts and high levels of unemployment”.
The parish of St Daniel Comboni started in 2007. The Comboni community, along with parishioners, began to establish the first structures. The priest’s house, the hall, still used as  church, and some classrooms for catechesis were built. The various groups and sodalities commenced developing. “People are very welcoming and about 200 attend Mass every Sunday”, points out Fr Jerome.
The parish sodalities and six of the nine small Christian communities are already functioning as before the pandemic. Seventy-five catechumens are preparing for baptism, “a good number for a small community like ours”, says the parish priest.
Forty percent of the Mass attendees are people under 30. They are also beginning to reorganise themselves.
Ivonne Moswane is one of their leaders. Originally from Mashabela, in Limpopo, Ivonne, 27 years old, arrived at St Daniel Comboni in 2014. She grew up with her grandmother who introduced her to the Catholic faith. She studied civil engineering and is now completing her apprenticeship in plumbing.
“Young people have many challenges, but they need to take responsibility. Many come from broken families and haven’t had someone who listens to them to help them heal their wounds”, she said.

Fr Jerome Anakese, parish priest of St Daniel Comboni with two members of the community. (Photo: José Luis Silván Sen)

Fr Jerome agrees: “In general, family life is in a deep crisis; there are many single mothers and very few structured traditional families. Most marriages are short-lived and children end up living with grandparents or relatives. Young people are hooked by modern culture, music, parties, fun— ‘we are free’, they say, ‘we know what we want’”.
Ivonne sees music and dance among the most remarkable talents of Mamelodi’s young people. “Many don’t get into university after high school and stay at home doing nothing. Others turn to drugs or alcohol and to finance it, they steal”. Teenage pregnancy, domestic or sexual violence and dropping out of school are also challenges affecting young people. Ivonne recognises that there are also positive stories, such as the case of Mpho, who quit drugs and now teaches young people, through talks and sport, how to beat drugs.“I am trying to regroup the young people again, bring them closer to the parish and get them off the streets; to resume our programme ‘the soup route’ in which we go around the neighbourhood and offer soup and bread to the needy”, comments Ivonne, who offers her gratitude to the Comboni Missionaries. “I met them in Limpopo, and from them I learned that it is more important to give than to receive. I love going to the church; there I find mental serenity and security. I have my vis-a-vis with God”.
“I want to grow spiritually and make a positive contribution to the community”. She would like to see young people maturing with an open mind, a vision and mission which makes them participants in their own personal growth, in the Church and in the community at large.

After Sunday Mass. Forty percent of the Mass attendees are people under 30.

Fr Jerome points out: “I would like our parish to be missionary, to reach out to many who are still far away. Two kilometres from the mission, there is an area where people are settling. We are not there yet”. As far as the parish social commitment, he considers that there is still a lot to do. “We have to organise our visits, registers and so on, but we already have two initiatives running, the delivery of about 10 kg of food to about 100 people and the distribution of blankets that have been donated to us. The community is attentive to those who do not have their basic needs covered, such as food and household needs. The choir has even donated goods to one of the elders”.
Finally, he said: Mamelodi is a mission in line with our Comboni charism, namely to reach out to the peripheries, as Pope Francis also often reminds us, carrying out a pastoral ministry that brings together social and faith aspects, creating living and mature missionary communities”. (Open Photo: The parish of St Daniel Comboni. José Luis Silván Sen)

Rafael Armada

Ali Birra, Icon of Oromo Music.

For over fifty years he has been the voice of this ethnic group of Ethiopia and has garnered considerable popularity. He had disagreements with Haile Selassie and with Mengistu. He died last November in Dire Dawa.

Although he left Ethiopia in the 1980s and stayed away for about twenty years, Ali Birra continued to be much loved in his homeland. He was one of the great protagonists of the extraordinary season – the 60s and 70s – of modern Ethiopian music.
His success and the continuity of his popularity appear all the more extraordinary when one considers that, in a landscape of Ethiopian music of the roaring twenties that was otherwise entirely in Amharic, Ali Birra was a more unique than rare case of an Oromo singer, with a repertoire in the language of this ethnic group historically dominated and despised by the Amhara.
Ali Birra, born Ali Mohammed Musa, was born in 1947 in Dire Dawa and died last November 6. At thirteen, Ali joined Afran Qallo, a pioneering modern Oromo music group. A Muslim like many Oromos, at fifteen, during the celebrations for the end of Ramadan, Ali made a splash by singing a song entitled Birra Dha Barihe – “birra” in the Oromo language means spring – and Ali Birra thus became his stage name. This is how he puts it: “I was lucky to be a singer in an era when there were few Oromo singers, so I was able to influence the thinking of the listener”.

Ali Birra produced his first music Album in 1971, the first in the history of Oromo music. (Linkedin)

However, his good fortune came at a price. From the age of sixteen, he was repeatedly arrested and spent several months in prison: in Ethiopia at the time, it was forbidden to sing in the Oromo language and value the Oromo culture. Afran Qallo was also an intellectual group, in tune with the restlessness of the youth and students, often of a Marxist orientation, who in Addis Ababa dreamt of the fall of the emperor.
The lyrics of Birra’s youthful songs are influenced by or borrowed from the lines of Oromo revolutionary poet Abubakar Mussa, and like so many of his peers, Birra is not simply a nationalist and sees Oromo liberation in the broader context of socialist revolution. Some of Afran Qallo‘s young people know Arabic well, and treasure the Yemenite and Sudanese musical traditions: Afran Qallo‘s music thus differs from the Amharic one not only in terms of language but also for a physiognomy that brings it closer to Arabic and even Indian music.

Painting by Yadesa Bojia

In 1966 Birra moved to Addis Ababa. In the capital, he met Ahmad Taqi, one of the first Oromo nationalist militants, and it was Taqi who bought him a guitar: in ’74 Taqi, died in combat with a group of Oromo guerrillas; for Ali Birra, the mourning was heartfelt.
In Addis Ababa in the 1960s, Ali Birra’s fame expanded. Protagonists of the development of modern Ethiopian music were the orchestras of military corps, the only ones to have musical instruments and resources to experiment, and Birra is enlisted in that the imperial guard. He stands alongside idolized singers like Tlahoun Gessesse and Mahmoud Ahmed; it’s a prestigious landing place, but he’s not at ease, he doesn’t even speak Amharic well.
During a ceremony he does not prostrate himself before Haile Selassie: he defended himself by claiming that a Muslim does not bow before any human being, but ended up in prison. In ’69 he left the orchestra and worked on the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway. In ’72, he returned to Addis and to music. Birra was now re-integrated and continued to sing in the Oromo language, at this point, he rose to be a national star.
In Haile Selassie’s last years, Ali Birra did not limit himself to the use of the Oromo language. With the refined Ethiopian art of the double entendre – called “wax and gold” – he lets the nationalistic passion of the Oromos and the resentment towards the Ethiopian monarchy (with its authoritarianism and its colonial attitude) as well as the Coptic Christian Church, linked to the monarchy in a relationship of mutual support.

Ali Birra was singer, composer, and poet. (From Facebook)

In 1973, Birra published Awash, which became an anthem of Oromo nationalism and escaped censorship thanks to the double-meaning technique. After the overthrow of Haile Selassie, in 1975 Birra republished the song in a much more direct version, in which he invited the Oromos to get rid of all aspects of the old regime and to commit themselves to the socialist transformation of society. But within a few years, faced with the turn given to the revolution by Mengistu, the Oromo cause also returned musically clandestine: Birra badly tolerated censorship and the obligatory reference in songs to Marxism-Leninism. In ’84 he left Ethiopia. In the meantime, in a life in which women and alcohol have played a non-secondary part, there is also his marriage to a Swedish woman. After having lived in various countries and mostly in Canada, where he had created an NGO engaged in the schooling of children in Dire Dawa and in other centres of Ethiopia, in 2005 Ali Birra returned to his homeland where he saw that his popularity was still great. On 6 November, Ali Birra died in a hospital in Adama, a city in the Oromo region, southeast of Addis Ababa. The funeral was attended by thousands of his fans, but also by politicians and artists: a eulogy was delivered by Mahmoud Ahmed. In a tweet, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, also of Oromo ethnicity, said that Ali Birra “was a role model for many”, and that “with his songs, he promoted unity, perseverance and culture”. (Open Photo: Twitter)

Marcello Lorrai

South Africa. How the Rainbow Country Prays.

It is a nation with a Protestant majority, with a strong presence of independent African churches and Pentecostal movements. Only 6.66% of South Africans are Catholic.

The first Christians who arrived on the South African coast were Portuguese explorers who did not evangelize the territory. The first attempt was made in 1652 when Calvinist Dutch settlers reached Cape Province. For nearly a century, the Reformed Protestant faith dominated the area and exerted significant religious, educational, and social influence. At the end of the 18th century, British missionaries arrived and began to enter South African territory with the Gospel in hand. Colonialism and Christianity became companions in conquest, although some missionaries sympathized with the natives, especially when the lands of the natives were expropriated.

Johannesburg. Anglican priest praying for his congregation. 123rf.com

African resistance to Christianity was not relevant as its spiritual legacy easily connected with the new faith, especially because of its connection with their ancestors and their aspirations for liberation from the racism, prejudice, and oppression of the colonizers. African Christianity has struggled to maintain its authenticity – by playing a participatory role – by maintaining traditional practices that are cultural, but also prophetic.
In the mid-nineteenth century, the traditional Christian faith was taking shape in the forms of Afrikaans Christianity, embodied in the Dutch Reformed Church and so-called English Christianity, which included the Protestant and Catholic churches.
At the end of that century, groups of African Christians began to break away from traditional denominations to form Independent African Churches (IAC). The motivation for leaving was neither doctrinal nor liturgical, but political; Africans felt discriminated against when it came to accessing posts of responsibility in their confessions. The exodus, which gave a new feature to South African Christianity, extended into the twentieth century.

The era of apartheid
Afrikaans Christianity supported the segregationist regime by justifying it in an interpretation of some biblical passages (Deuteronomy 20, 10-14 and Romans 13). Faced with this, English Christianity – Catholic and Protestant – became, starting from the 1980s, a critical voice of the segregationist government.

Catholic Parish in the township of Mamelodi.

The Kayros document, published in 1985, and in the preparation of which many Catholic theologians participated, strongly condemned apartheid: “There is only one way to the unity of the Church and that is that Christians who support or are neutral in the face of the oppressor must change sides to be united in faith and action in favour of the oppressed”. The Catholic Church has expressed this support through its presence in the peripheries, in poor and marginalized communities. Their presence is made visible through teachers, nurses or doctors in neighbourhoods and informal settlements.
Other churches with various denominations that fought apartheid have now become socially silent; they are not present when communities protest against human rights abuses or violations, injustice, corruption, mismanagement of public services or xenophobic attacks. One reason is the close relationship between its leaders and successive governments since 1994. Critical and prophetic voices during apartheid now occupy positions in the executive or benefit from the regime’s favours.

Independent Churches
South Africa has more than 10,000 Independent African Churches (IAC). Although very varied, they share some elements that allow classification into two large groups. The first is the Ethiopian Movement or Christian Initiation Churches. They separated from the traditional denominations towards the end of the 19th century, but retained the doctrine and liturgy of the mother churches, albeit with African leadership.

South Africa has more than 10,000 Independent African Churches (IAC).

The African Zionist movement or Zionism (aMaZioni), of a messianic nature – and with nearly 20 million members – constitutes the second largest group. Its origin is from the Catholic Church of Sion, founded in Illinois (USA) by Alexander Dowie. They believe in personal conversion, followed by baptism by immersion accompanied by ascetic practices, such as refraining from eating pork, smoking, or consuming alcohol. Healing is at the heart of their doctrine and liturgy. With an emotional cult, they maintain the culture, values, ​​and spirit of African civilization. Some have an ethnic affiliation, such as the Zulu-oriented Baptist Church of Nazareth; the Christian Church of Zion is the most interethnic, although with more roots among the Sepedi, while the International Church of Pentecost is more linked to the Setswano.
Everyone sees water as a sacred element in purification and healing. Its cult is syncretic and ancestral veneration plays a fundamental role in its bond with the divinity.
Although the IAC do not have a unitary ecumenical body, there is the Council of Established African Churches – affiliated with the World Council of Churches – the Association of Independent African Churches, the Organization of African Churches, and the Organization of South African Independent Churches. To these was added the recent South African Council of Independent Churches, registered as an NGO and which brings together the independent Churches in a structure that facilitates relations with the government on national issues.

Spiritual influence
African Pentecostalism has taken root on the continent due to its emphasis on healing, among other factors. Africans interpret life from a spiritual perspective and natural causes are not always at the centre of their worldview. Behind all misfortunes, there is a spiritual power with the ability to influence the lives of individuals or the community. Therefore, witchcraft is responsible for lightning damage, livestock infertility, disease, poverty and even death.
The Pentecostal message of healing as atonement attracts Africans more than a scientific interpretation of life. If the doctor warns of tuberculosis, the witch doctor diagnoses sejeso – a poisonous potion – while in the case of AIDS, he describes it as boswagadi – unpurified widowhood. The Pentecostal and charismatic message flourishes for its promise of a change in the life situation.

The African Zionist movement or Zionism constitutes the second largest group in South Africa.

Historically, Pentecostals have dissociated themselves from issues of social justice. They did not build hospitals, schools, or orphanages, nor did they denounce injustices such as colonialism or apartheid. They viewed political engagement or participation as a worldly sin. Its message about healing and the second coming of Christ to restore humanity was seen as contrary to a social commitment.
Today, different currents can be identified within this great movement. One of these, classical Pentecostalism, which emphasizes baptism in the Holy Spirit, is now charged with building schools or helping the poor.  There are also the neo-charismatic churches, generally founded by Africans and split off from the classical denominations. They follow the principles of the search for success in the government of the Churches and their preaching is thematic. The principles of gurus like John Maxwell are at the heart of its preaching. They attract businesspeople and entrepreneurs from different areas of society. Its prophets promise their followers the three Ps – power, protection, and prosperity.

African Pentecostalism has taken root on the continent due to its emphasis in particularly on healing.

Finally, there are also the New Prophetic Churches, which continue to appear. Although Pentecostal in nature, their message about personal conversion is limited and they place greater emphasis on prophecy and revelation. They preach the power of the Holy Spirit, but with few biblical references. They use traditional African spells.Both the Pentecostal and the Independent African Churches continue to recruit very significantly among the members of traditional Christian churches.

Ecumenical dialogue
Interreligious dialogue has become a relevant theme in South African theology. Nevertheless, the challenge is how to develop a practically applicable theology of dialogue, manifested in a dialogue between religious communities and people from different cultural backgrounds. What exists is a dialogue of life between members of different confessions who share activities in a spirit of unity beyond their religious affiliations.There are three major ecclesiastical bodies on the religious scene in the southern region: the South African Council of Churches, the South African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, and the South African Evangelical Alliance, which often collaborate on religious and social issues. (Open Photo: South Africa. A wooden cross with the Ten Commandments engraved on granite in  Ficksburg in the Free State Province. 123rf.com)

 Kelebogile T. Resane  

China. Lantern Festival.

Religion, philosophy, legends, imperial politics, and folklore – these are the ingredients of one of the most popular celebrations in China associated with the New Year of the Asian giant. The Lantern Festival.

This year’s Chinese New Year begins on Sunday, January 22 with the beginning of the Year of the Rabbit. It will continue until February 5th. The Chinese celebrate the New Year for sixteen days. And on the last of these days, the Lantern Festival takes place. It is a traditional festival that is more than two thousand years old and has gone through various stages, depending on the dynasties.
The Lantern Festival began in the Han Dynasty (206-220 AD). At the time it only lasted one day. The Tang dynasty (618-907) increased the number to three. By the time of the Song Dynasty (960-1279), it lasted for five days. With the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) it reached its peak of ten days. Soon after, however, the Qing dynasty (1644 to 1911/12) reduced the festivities to four days. After the establishment of the Republic in 1912, it was reduced to a single day.

123rf.com

The Lantern Festival is the first of the three great festivals inspired by Buddhism and Taoism, philosophical, religious, and ethical systems in which existence consists in the search for harmony with oneself, with nature and with the spirits associated with creation.
According to traditional Taoist beliefs, the fate of humanity is governed by three deities: Tian Guan Da Di, ruler of heaven, who grants happiness; Di Guan Da Di, ruler of the earth, who forgives sins; and Shui Guan Da Di, ruler of water, who alleviates dangers.
This first festival celebrates Tian Guan Da Di, who blesses the fortune of those to whom he gives life.

Young couple holding lanterns at Chinese new year. 123rf.com

The second festival takes place in the seventh lunar month. It is called the Chung-Yuan Festival (or Spirit Festival). It lasts a month and could be described as the feast of indulgence.
People pray to Di Guan Da Di for their deceased ancestors and pray that the wandering spirits of the region of hell will not come to haunt them or their loved ones.During this festival, people try not to do anything unseemly and prefer visiting temples to pray.The third festival takes place in the tenth lunar month. It is called Xia-Yuan Festival and is addressed to Shui Guan Da Di, to free people in difficulty.

The legend of the Lantern Festival
There are three popular legends and one imperial version that explain the origin of the Chinese Lantern Festival. Legend has it that in ancient times a certain village was attacked by wild beasts that hunted people and animals. The villagers organized their defence against the wild beasts. The inhabitants, seeing a beautiful bird flying from heaven to earth, mistook it for a ferocious animal and killed it. The ruler of heaven, the Jade Emperor, became enraged and ordered the destruction of the village in a firestorm on the 15th lunar day.
However, the emperor’s daughter overheard this and warned the villagers. A wise man suggested that every house hang out red lanterns, light a fire in the street, and set off fireworks on the 14th, 15th, and 16th. In this way, they deceived Emperor Jade, who thought that all the villagers would die under the fire.
Another legendary story says that, at the time of the Han Dynasty, there was a favourite counsellor of the emperor who, one winter’s day, as he entered the garden, heard the cry of a little girl who was preparing to commit suicide. He asked her why and the girl, whose name was Yuan-Xiao, replied that she did not know her family, as she had always worked in the palace, and that she could not live without the love of her parents.
The royal adviser came up with an idea to help the little girl find her parents. He left the palace, set up a table on the street and disguised himself as a fortune teller. He gave all customers the same prediction: there would be a devastating fire on the 15th lunar day. The rumour spread quickly and everyone, being very worried, asked the imperial adviser for help. He told them: “On the 13th lunar day, Jade, the god of fire, will send a fairy dressed in red to burn the city. If you see a lady dressed in red, on a black horse, ask her how to obtain mercy”.

123rf.com

When the day came, the little girl Yuan-Xiao acted like the red fairy. People flocked to the palace to ask the emperor for advice and help. The councillor ordered that all the houses of the city, starting from the palace, hang red lanterns and throw firecrackers, to deceive the god of fire. He also suggested that the inhabitants of neighbouring lands participate. Thus, it was that Yuan-Xiao’s parents entered the palace, and the little girl recognized her parents. As everyone was so happy, the emperor ordered that festival to be held every year, and as Yuan-Xiao prepared a wonderful meal, her people called it Yuan-Xiao’s festival.
The third legend starts from the second and adds a new fact: it is said that in ancient times women of marriageable age were not allowed to leave the house except on the days of the Yuan-Xiao feast, following the emperor’s order to bring all of the lanterns to deceive the god of fire. There is also an imperial version. The emperor was a great supporter of Buddhism and, seeing how the monks lit lanterns to worship the Buddha, decreed that in all temples, the palace, and throughout the country everyone should hang lanterns to worship the Buddha. Year after year, this Buddhist festival has developed into a great popular festival, which has spread from the royal palace to the people and from central China to the whole country.

Activities for people visiting the festival
Today, the Chinese make paper lanterns, with fire or electric light inside. They hang them around houses and temples or take them through the streets at night. They design them to imitate the animals of the Chinese zodiac – specifically the animal that gives the year its name, and
in 2023 it is The Rabbit.

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Since it is also called the Yuan-Xiao Festival, it promotes the gathering of families, especially the younger generation and the elderly, and eating yuan-xiao. These are sticky rice balls with a variety of fillings, such as dates and beans, sesame, chocolate, peanuts and cocoa with butter or meat.There are folk dances, such as the dragon dance, which celebrates good harvests and the prosperity of life, and the lion dance. This animal is a symbol of boldness and strength, capable of favouring people.
Another manifestation of folklore is stilt-walking, and the actors impersonate monks, clowns, villagers, or fishermen, entertaining the people. Finally, the Lantern Festival is also known as Chinese Valentine’s Day. Once upon a time, each girl wrote her name on an orange which she threw into the river. The man who took it would be her boyfriend. Today, love messages and gifts are sent to relatives and friends. (Open Photo: 123rf.com)

(F.F. – Ho Li)

Africa’s Hotspots in 2023.

The outbreak of war in Ukraine showed that a conflict could begin in any moment. The crisis had actually been going on for some time, and it simply got worse. There are in Africa different crises due to insecurity that are ongoing and could degenerate in 2023.
We will examine some of these crises moving eastward towards the centre of the continent.

In 2023 West African countries like Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Togo will have to cope with jihadists belonging both to Islamic State and Al Qaeda coming from the Sahel region. Extremists will try to infiltrate the societies, recruit militants, and create operational bases. Especially in the northern areas of these states attacks against security forces and public officials will be possible. But these groups could also target foreigners (tourists, aid workers, businesspeople, etc.) both in those areas and in other parts of the countries.
This dynamic started some years ago and is due to several factors. First, the proliferation of jihadist groups in the Sahel area thanks to the flaws of states like Mali and Burkina Faso. Second, the economic deprivation of large parts of the population, who feel socially marginalized and are vulnerable to extremist propaganda. Third, the ethnic tensions and the historic grievances that split the populations, as an example pitting nomadic herders against farmers.

Jihadists in the Sahel.

Clearly, these issues could be solved in a peaceful and constructive manner, improving the relation among the different communities and the sense of belonging to a large community. But the inefficiencies of the ruling elites create the conditions of a clash of civilization on a smaller scale in many of these countries.
Mechanisms created by the different societies to solve disputes on land and water between the different communities are in crisis. And some politicians are exploiting the tensions to widen their support base and gain power. Also, the extremist groups use this strategy. Therefore, an escalation of violence is increasingly likely. And other countries such as Senegal could be affected.

The Nigerian hub
Nigeria will remain a hub of insecurity in its region. Jihadist groups are widening their areas of operations. From the north-eastern and north-western states of Nigeria, they are moving southward. In July 2022, several attacks were reported around Abuja, the capital city. Ethnic and religious violence is on the rise in large parts of the country and the autonomist movements active in the south are stepping up their actions. The trust in government is declining and, in the short to medium term, some parts of the populations might find attractive the idea of creating independent states that are ethnically homogenous. Elements such as criminality and corruption cooperate in worsening the situation.

Displaced Nigerians shortly after their arrival in Dar es salam refugee camp in Chad. UNHCR/Aristophane Ngargoune

In February and March 2023 new elections (both presidential and legislative) will take place. Nigeria is waiting for a new administration that will need some time to start implementing its policies. Therefore, in 2023 leadership problems are to be expected.
It must be said that in the past insecurity spread from Nigeria to neighbouring countries. And in part this phenomenon is still present, especially as far as Chad is concerned. Nigerian jihadists still operate in the Lake Chad basin and their actions are influenced first of all by what happens in Nigeria. But, as seen before for Togo and Benin, the neighbours have increasing security problems that are not due to dynamics in Nigeria but to their internal weaknesses and to problems in states such as Mali and Burkina Faso. It is true that in Nigeria you can find the most relevant branches of jihadist networks. But militants in Togo and Benin seem to be headed by Sahelian leaders.

At the heart of instability
Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will remain two of the most problematic countries in Africa.
Central African Republic is in turmoil since 2013. Different militias fight to control swaths of territory and natural resources (such as gold and diamonds). Government troops, supported by Russian Private Military Contractors, a UN Mission (MINUSCA) and regional partners (such as Rwanda) struggle to counter the guerrillas. It is true that foreign intervention (especially Russian) helped Bangui to break the siege set by the rebels and reconquer parts of the territory.
But it is not sure that Russian contractors and foreign troops will be able to thwart a joint rebel offensive. President Faustin-Archange Touadéra is trying to prolong his power, and this is creating political tensions that could lead to protests and unrest.

UN soldiers in DRC. (Photo UN)

The north-eastern provinces of Democratic Republic of the Congo will still be the theatre of fights in 2023. Government troops, supported by foreign troops (first of all Ugandan) and the UN Mission, will try to prevail over guerrilla groups of different origins (including jihadists). Some of these groups could be supported by neighbouring countries that vie for influence. In other parts of the country clashes between different communities will go on. Rwanda, that is an element of stabilization in Central African Republic, could be a source of destabilization in DRC.

The African chessboard
The political context at the international level is not in favour of peace and the rivalry between powers has a negative impact on African affairs. In 2023 those powers will continue to fight for influence on African politics. They will support local governments in the fight against instability, but their main goal will be to exclude rivals and gain access to resources. The West African countries seen before were long considered basically a French hunting reserve. But in the latest years powers like China and Russia, but also USA, intervened and France is increasingly marginalized. But Paris will keep on trying to maintain if not develop its influence on African countries. This quarrel will have consequences on the security level.

In Central African Republic, government troops, are supported by Russian Private Military Contractors. CCA 4.0/CorbeauNews

The Russian intervention in Africa has increased at least since 2019 and Moscow became a powerbroker in countries such as Central African Republic, Libya, and Mali. But in 2023 it will likely have to deal with the consequences of the war in Ukraine. Therefore, the troops and the private military contractors that were sent in Africa could be redeployed elsewhere, reducing the Russian grip on these countries. But this redeployment will bring a void that will be filled by other powers or armed groups after a phase of fights. The crisis in Ukraine did not cause the crises in Africa but worsened them. The increase in prices of commodities worldwide helped some African countries but created subsistence problems for large sections of the population. These problems could bring widespread protests and riots.

Andrea Carbonari

Middle East and North Africa´s 2023 Economic Outlook.

Global growth forecast is expected to slow down, from 3.2% in 2022 to 2.7% in 2023. This is caused by a combination of the global cost-of-living crisis, tightening financial conditions, the invasion of Ukraine and the enduring impacts of the pandemic.

As economic growth will weaken worldwide in 2023, most countries in the Middle East and North Africa region will experience economic hardship in varying degrees. Countries exporting their hydrocarbon reserves, particularly those of the Gulf Cooperation Council – GCC, (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) marked by high export levels and small populations, are expected to sustain high government spending, thanks to strong financial buffers maintained by a relatively stable export revenue.

According to the IMF, the average economic growth across the Middle East and Central Asia is projected to stand at about 3.6% in 2023. This is above the global average and, mostly, a reflection of a price rise in hydrocarbon resources. The growth is not distributed evenly in the region, as oil-importing economies fall behind oil-exporting nations.

Parts of the area have faced a harsher impact from the war in Ukraine, particularly those who rely on Ukrainian grain imports. All in all, the region´s growth prospects will depend on how various global issues will unfold, including a potential decline in oil prices, the economic downturn in the developed countries, and the war in Ukraine.

As per IMF forecasts, global inflation is expected to have peaked in 2022. It went from 4.7% in 2021 to 8.8% in 2022 and it is predicted to decline to 6.5% in 2023.  As its driving factors vary among different countries, inflation will be felt at various levels across the region.

Countries with high government revenues mostly generated through hydrocarbon resources export will be subjected to lower inflation compared to those with low government revenue. The case of the Iranian economy will continue to be exceptional for an energy-exporting economy, as there is virtually no prospect for a nuclear agreement recovery. Sanctions are expected to keep putting pressure on the government´s ability to generate hydrocarbon export revenue.

Combined with the ongoing popular uprising since September 2022, this will increase economic pressure on the Iranian economy. Various episodes of strikes were recorded, either in the government and in the private sectors. As protests continue, the possibility of further, widespread strikes increases. The most severe inflation rise will affect oil-importing economies, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon, where economic challenges and currency depreciation of 2022 will persist.

The impact of inflation on households with limited disposable income will have visible impacts on the standard of living across the region. Energy prices are projected to remain sensitive to war in Ukraine and the risk of further escalation and/or spread of the conflict beyond Ukraine.

Food price inflation – caused by the impact of war in Ukraine (i.e., the decline in export of Ukrainian agricultural products), extreme weather conditions and water shortage – is expected to remain persistently high across the world. The likelihood of extreme weather events due to overall climate change may have major impacts on the global food supply, entailing upward pressure on global food prices. Under such circumstances, the MENA food markets are predicted to be impacted by high inflation, given the region´s high dependence on imported food.

This will decrease local households’ ability to afford food bills. As such, the standard of living across the region is projected to be affected by the rise in food and energy prices. Indeed, a decreased disposable income will have direct repercussions on consumption and saving. The latter will have an impact on credit access. Persistent inflation will contribute to further currency depreciation and elevated interest rates.

In the such a global economic environment, transparency and accountability are key to all MENA countries to face the economic storms of 2023. Policy action must be directed towards sustainability in the economic environment, protection of the more vulnerable segments of society, and inclusive growth across the region.

Indeed, such efforts require strong political will, stable foreign and domestic policies, and a realistic understanding and acceptance of the challenges and capacities of each economy. For years, policymakers across the MENA region have been entangled in maintaining state political power, often heavily relying on widespread oppression and balance of power struggle, both domestically and in relation
to other regional rivals.

Economic stability, development, and reform have remained far down on the ´priority list´ of governments across the region. The financial crisis is the new norm from Lebanon to Tehran, while very little attention is paid by policymakers to address the underlying challenges. Banking and pension sectors, social safety nets, market transparency, and fighting corruption have remained unbothered, if not worsened, across the area.

Devastating global shocks and the lack of appropriate policy-making contributed to worsening socio-economic grievances and loss of public trust for many governments in the MENA region. Local human capital was wasted on unemployment and bad policy choices. There is an urgent need for authorities to learn from past experiences, acknowledging the real socioeconomic strength and weaknesses of their respective countries to implement effective policies. (Photo: 123rf.com)

Sara Bazoobandi
GIGA/ISPI

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