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Iran. Young Generation: “We want to be free”.

The current Iranian Revolution is entering its fourth month, with people all over Iran protesting. Iran’s Gen Z is leading the charge as the loudest voice of the protests not only in the streets but also
in the cybersphere.

Generation Z (Gen Z) are individuals roughly born between 1997 and 2012, a generation that is considered often “digital natives” due to the easier accessibility to digital technologies such as phones, the internet, and social media while growing up.

In Iran, the significance of Gen Z’s digital footprint, as well as their courage on the streets, is especially noticeable during the current revolution. It ignited after the killing of Jhina (Mahsa) Amini, a young 22-year-old Kurdish woman who died after being subject to violence by h Iran’s morality police because she was not wearing her headscarf according to Iran’s strict Islamic Laws.

Her death sparked protests and revolts all over the country, with mostly young people demanding a revolution and loudly chanting “Woman, Life, Freedom”. Over the past decade, the Iranian Gen Z has deviated from the regime’s official portrayal.

Since over 50% of the population is under the age of 30 and with over 80% of the population having access to the internet, Iran isn’t just a young country, but a digitally literate one as well. It’s no surprise that its Gen Z are experts on social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter and especially TikTok.

Contrary to its portrayal by state media and some Western outlets as equally conservative and religious as its political elite, Iranian Gen Zs succeeded in becoming a globalized and open-minded generation with great knowledge about the music, culture, and politics of states worldwide, including the US.

On TikTok, a social media app where one can record short videos, many Iranian Gen Z’s upload videos of themselves singing along HipHop songs of famous US-American artists or imitating scenes of US-American sitcoms such as “Friends”.

One tragic instance is that of Hadis Najafi, a young 23-year-old woman who was shot in the first weeks of the protests. Hadis had a TikTok account where she would frequently upload videos of herself dancing to popular Iranian as well as Western music.

Based on her online presence, one could have guessed that she was a young student living freely in California or London. In the last video that she posted on TikTok, she states, while heading to the protest, that in 10-20 years, when Iran will be free, she can say that she participated in the protests that enabled the revolution.

These videos, which are left as so-called digital footprints within the cyberspace, show how brave Iran’s young generation is. While the Iranian security forces use live ammunition, imprisonment, and torture as ways to intimidate protestors, it appears to only encourage young people further to take to the streets.

The freedom of speech many Iranian Gen Zs experienced their whole life solely within cyberspace is turning into demands for freedom in real life. An interview with a young Iranian girl from Mashhad reveals that before the revolution, many young people dreamed of leaving Iran to be able to have a better future.

This isn’t surprising since the unemployment rate amongst young people is at 40%. However, the current revolution appears to have changed the mentality of young Iranians. Now, many Gen Zs are convinced that the regime will change and that there is no point for leaving the country.

For instance, a video on TikTok of two young 17-year-old Iranian social media influencers in early November 2022 shows the significance of the current revolution. In the video, the two young boys say their goodbyes to their followers, stating that they will protest on the streets from now on, hoping to still be alive after the revolution and continue making videos. This hope for freedom has gotten stronger and has overcome the fear of the regime.

Indeed, after the revolution in 1979, Iran’s first Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini had announced that the next generations born into the Islamic Republic will grow to follow the strict and conservative laws and regulations based in the Shia interpretation of Sharia-Law.

The Iranian regime enforced this by creating strict gender divisions starting from primary schools, mandatory religion classes as well as the promotion of conservative gender roles. However, contrary to the hopes of Iran’s political and religious elite, the country’ young generation did not grow up to be conservative followers of the Iranian regime, instead creating spaces for themselves where they would meet in mixed-gender events such as underground concerts, listening to forbidden Western music and discussing contemporary global issues. Even one of Iran’s clerics stated in a Friday prayer in 2021 that the plan of the Iranian regime to raise a new generation of faithful followers, has failed.

A major factor for this lucky failure is Gen Z’s access to the internet. Sharing their own voices and listening to others freely within a digital reality impacted young Iranians more than the Iranian regime could have anticipated.

One of the current revolution’s youngest victims, Sarina Esmailzadeh, a young 16-year-old girl who was shot dead in the first month of the uprisings, had her own YouTube channel. In one of her videos a few months prior to her death, she stated that “All that we want is to be as free like young people in the US and in Europe, we want to live in stability and with a prospect for a good future, we want to be free”.

Sarina’s words summarize the major difference between the revolution in 1979 and the current one. In contrast to the revolution in 1979, the young people on the streets now have pragmatic hopes and dreams for their future. Whereas in 1979, the revolution was carried by Communist, Marxist, Student, and Islamist groups, all having their own ideology, Iran’s Gen Z appeases any type of ideology.

Their hopes and demands for Iran’s future are simple: financial and economic stability, gender equality, freedom for all ethnic minorities and social welfare. During several occasions, young Iranians have stated that they do not want to follow any ideology anymore since it has caused much division inside the country. All they demand is a freedom and just state for everyone.

As the revolution carries on, the international community should first and foremost listen to the demands of Iran’s Gen Z since their role within the revolution cannot be overlooked anymore. The Gen Z might be able to realize their digital freedoms in real life. At this stage, it is evident that Iran’s political and religious elite is not willing to listen to its young people demands, therefore the burden is on the international community to show solidarity with the young and brave people of Iran, who will continue chanting “Woman, Life, Freedom”. (Photo: CC BY 2.0/Matt Hrkac)

Arqavan Farsi/ISPI

The DRC vows to become a world leader in car batteries but challenges remain.

The country has the ambition to become the world leader in batteries for electric cars. But despite its huge mining assets, important challenges must be addressed.

Besides its copper and gold mines, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is endowed with the minerals of the energy transition. During his visit to President Felix Tshisekedi in September 2022, Amos Hochstein, the United States Senior Adviser on Energy Security, said that Washington considered the DRC as a strategic country in a context where the Ukraine war highlights the need to diversify the energy mix in order to avoid dependency from a single producer.
At the G20 summit of Bali, by mid-November 2022, the Congolese Minister of Industry, Julien Paluku stressed that the DRC is the best location for the batteries and electric vehicles industries, with its reserves of cobalt, lithium, and manganese. Paluku also urged foreign partners in helping the DRC to set up the first batteries plant in the Upper Katanga province, in a partnership with neighbouring Zambia.

Democratic Republic of the Congo, President Felix Tshisekedi.

During the COP 27 conference in Sharm El Sheikh, last November, Paluku declared that the Afreximbank, the Africa Finance Corporation and the Arab Bank for the Economic Development of Africa (BADEA) were supporting the project. Accordingly, the challenge for the DRC and other African countries is to win a share of the market of 900 million electric vehicles which will be built between now and 2050. The UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) is recruiting a firm that will carry out the pre-feasibility study of the plant.
In January 2022, President Tshisekedi had already instructed the Minister of Mines, Antoinette N’Samba, to prepare a plan of action for the beneficiation of these strategic minerals, in the wake of the DRC-Africa Business Forum which took place in Kinshasa in November 2021. On that occasion, President Tshisekedi presented his country as the most competitive destination for investments in batteries for electric cars and invited fellow African leaders to participate in future battery production projects in the DRC.
The call was prompted by a study made by Bloomberg NEF and commissioned by the ECA which identified the DRC as the best destination for the manufacturing of sustainable battery materials used in high-nickel batteries, as Congo can leverage abundant cobalt resources and hydroelectric power to become a low-cost and low-emissions producer of lithium-ion battery cathode precursor materials.

Electric cars with a pack of battery cells module. 123rf.com

According to the study, such a plant with a 10,000 tons cathode precursors capacity would cost only U.S. $39 million, three times cheaper than in the U.S. owing to cheaper access to land, low engineering procurement and construction. The expected boom of electric cars according to the study represents a $7 trillion market between today and 2030.
On the last 29 April, Tshisekedi and Zambian President Hakainde Kichilema signed an agreement in Lusaka, to set up a cooperation strategy involving the creation of a batteries plant.
The deal also includes the creation of a Council of Batteries in each country, including representatives from the ECA and the Afrexim Bank. Morocco, Gabon, the African Development Bank, Tesla, Bosch and Panasonic attended the ceremony.
Such enthusiasm is justified by Congo’s dominant position on the cobalt world market, with production representing nearly 70% of the world total and reserves which represent more than half of the world’s total. Cobalt production is likely to soar since electric vehicle sales are forecast to increase by 30% to meet the related demand needs of batteries which amounts to 57% of the total demand which also includes the supplies for the aerospace and manufacturing sectors.
The DRC also hosts large reserves of lithium estimated at 6.61 m. tonnes by the operator of the main mine, the Australian company AVZ Minerals whose Manono project, in the Tanganyika province which it owns with the state-owned Congolaise de l’exploitation minière (Cominière) as a junior partner, is the world’s largest deposit according to peer comparison information compiled by AVZ. Production is scheduled to start this year. The market prospects look bright since according to the International Energy Agency, the lithium demand could increase 40-fold over the next 20 years.
AVZ is making steps to cope with the rising demand. In February 2020, it signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Congolese Ministry of Water and Energy to refurbish the Mpiana-Mwanga hydroelectric power plant, on the Luvua River, at 87 km from the mine and increase its capacity from 18 MW to 54 MW.

Gécamines offices in DRC’s capital, Kinshasa. (Company’s website.)

But the development of the project might be hampered by a controversy between Congolese politicians over the location of the processing plant.  MPs from the Tanganyika and Upper Lomami provinces, where lithium mines are located are objecting to government plans to set up the processing plant in the Upper Katanga province.
Then, the CEO of AVZ’s main shareholder, the Dathcom company was sentenced to three-year prison for having forged shares by the Lubumbashi court of appeal in November 2022.
Other companies are rushing for lithium. Canada’s Tantalex Resources is developing a project on the Manono-Kitotolo lithium, tin and tantalum heaps and plans to start also production by 2023. The Australian company Critical Resources is developing with Cominière the Kitotolo-Katamba project, in the same area and the Kanuka mine in the Upper Katanga province, in association with Mining Mineral Resources (MMR).
The DRC also hosts sizeable manganese deposits which may be useful for the batteries industry in the Lualaba province where state-owned company Société commerciale minière de Kisenge-Manganese (SCMK-M) has a stockpile of already mined 400,000 tonnes of manganese at its open-pit mine of Kisenge. Since 1982, the manganese operation has come to a standstill but the project could resume if the 432 km railway line between Kolwezi and the Angolan border is rehabilitated, allowing the ore to be exported through the port of Lobito on the Atlantic.

123rf.com

Martin Kepman, the CEO of the Manganese X Energy Corporation is indeed convinced that manganese can replace cobalt in the lithium ion battery industry. Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk has vowed to eliminate cobalt from the batteries used by his company. In 2020, researchers from the University of Texas found cobalt-free cathode composition that works equivalently containing manganese, nickel, and aluminium. One of the advantages of manganese is that is far more affordable than cobalt.
The DRC has not yet any issued prospecting licenses for rare earths elements used for nickel-metal hydride batteries namely. But researchers from the Pan African University’s Life and Earth and Life Sciences Institute, mention potential  rare earths deposits in carbonatite complexes in the North Kivu, Maniema, North-Eastern Orientale Province, Haut-Uele, Ituri, Katanga, Kasai and Kongo Central provinces.
Yet, in order to transform the grandiose ambitions of creating a world production hub of batteries into reality, several challenges must still be addressed. According to the executive secretary of the ECA, Vera Songwe, the materialization of such projects requires “plenty of reliable and affordable power, which can be achieved by connecting Africa’s power systems with the Grand Inga at the core “.  But there is still a long way to go. Since the withdrawal from the Inga project in 2021 of the Chinese consortium led by the Three Gorges Corporation, no major progress has been achieved yet by the Australian firm Fortescue which was selected to develop it.
The mining industry is currently facing an electricity supply shortage of over 1,000 MW according to the Chamber of Mines.
Disputes between the government and mining companies may delay projects. One example is the dispute between the majority shareholder of the large copper and cobalt mine, Tenke Fungurume, the China Molybdenum Company and its minority partner, the Congolese state-owned mining company, Gécamines. As a result, Tenke Fungurume has not been allowed to continue its exports since July 2022.

The Victoria Falls bridge linking Zambia and Zimbabwe which can only support one truck crossing at a time.

The DRC also faces logistical handicaps. The Manono lithium mine is located in the landlocked province of Tanganyika, at 640 km fromo  Lubumbashi and the road is in a very poor state.
Another constraint is the transfer of minerals by ship on the Lake Tanganyika which have to be unloaded before being transported by truck or by train to the port of Dar-es-Salaam.
A Bloomberg report, published in November 2022, highlighted that the DRC is faced with chronic bottlenecks at the border with Zambia. Trucks can be locked two weeks, in traffic jams. The whole journey can take a month between a Congolese mine and a South African port.
Another bottleneck is the Victoria Falls bridge linking Zambia and Zimbabwe which can only support one truck crossing at a time.
In South Africa, truck hijackings jumped by a third in the first quarter of 2022, according to official crime statistics while the container port of Durban ranked as one of the least efficient ones in the world according to a World Bank study of 2020.

DR Congo. North Kivu. View of a crater on the outskirts of the city of Goma. Photo MONUSCO/Abel Kavanagh

The Congolese batteries production plans are facing also a political problem. The caucus of MPs of the Tanganyika province complains that local people have not been involved in the discussions about the beneficiation of the lithium ore at the DRC Africa Business Forum, including the location of future processing factories.
Another important challenge is security. Whereas cobalt and manganese deposits can be mined in relatively safe environments, the situation is different for rare earths and lithium. The provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri are under state of siege since May 2021. Endemic violence provoked by the clashes between the Twa and Lubakat militias is also posing a potential threat to the lithium projects of the Tanganyika province. Finally, the exploitation of lithium bears negative consequences for the environment. The process of extraction of lithium from hard rocks in the form of spodumene is quite damaging since it requires the use of dynamite and the drilling of wells that can be served l hundred meters deep, which can cause soil and air pollution. Soon or later, these issues will have to be addressed to meet the criteria of the environmental lobbies worldwide. (Open Photo: 123rf.com)

François Misser

Latin America. Liturgical Art at the Service of the Poor.

A Spanish Claretian, for 35 years a missionary in Latin America, Fr. Maximino Cerezo Barredo, now ninety years old, is nicknamed ‘the painter of liberation’ because his artistic work has renewed the sacred iconography of the continent starting from the preferential
option for the poor.

The murals and works of Fr. Maximino have decorated many churches and religious buildings in Latin America. “It is the Latin American context – he tells us – that has put me in close communication with the lowest of society, which produced these works. The world of African Americans, farmers and indigenous people is the one that most influenced me.
I believe that salvation is made present today through the history and life of the poor which is the privileged place in which the real presence
of Jesus is manifested”.
Father Maximino continues: “If I had stayed in Europe, my art would have been different. My path is that of a European who goes to Latin America, identifies himself spiritually and humanly with the world of the poor and, on the basis of what he knows, like a craftsman, expresses what he feels with the images the people provide for him: the faces, attitudes, geography, environment, countryside, rivers, forest, etc.

In his life as an artist, there were various moments that marked his artistic and missionary life. The missionary recalls: “In 1968 in Basilan in the Philippines, I met the Third World, poor and suffering: how could I continue to paint beautiful churches, while those living images of God were exploited and outraged? What was the point of art that ignored the terrible reality of the poor?
Coincidentally, the possibility of founding a Claretian mission in the forest in the San Martín department near the Huallaga River emerged in Peru. Despite the initial opposition of my superiors, I persisted until I was allowed to leave in 1970. I had heard about the General Conference of the Latin American Bishops held in Medellín two years earlier and was in contact with Dom Pedro Casaldáliga, whose booklet I had illustrated of Clamor elemental poems published in Salamanca, Spain, in 1971, but until then I had not been involved in the situation in Latin America”.

“Another key episode occurred a few years later – the priest continues – in the church of Juanjuí, where I had created a mural of 130 square meters entitled The History of Salvation. One day I saw an old woman who, after having observed all the paintings, moving from the image of Adam and Eve to those of the rebellious people, the prophets, Mary and the risen Christ, fell on her knees before the image of a woman crying in front of a dead child in her small coffin, lit a candle and remained some time in prayer. I realized that through the image I had painted, this person was able to get in touch with God. So I discovered that our God reveals himself in the daily lives of people, not only in the great events of history”.In 1977, Father Maximino participated in Medellín in a pastoral course organized by the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM) accompanied by liberation theologians such as the Chilean Segundo Galilea, who, however, before the conclusion, were expelled for ideological reasons and replaced, left the course and went for two weeks to Riobamba, Ecuador, with Msgr. Proaño, and a month in São Félix do Araguaia, at a time when the pressure of the military on Dom Casaldáliga was such that he was forced to hide the archives and similar material. “That period confirmed for me the rightness of the line I had to follow, on the pastoral and artistic level: to put myself as a person, priest and artist at the service of the cause of the oppressed”, says the missionary.

The artist-missionary recognized that his art was increasingly influenced by the situation of each people and the means available. Thus, the Magnificat painted in Nicaragua in 1981 was influenced by the fact that the revolutionary process was undergoing the aggression of the United States through the contras and the boycott by the bourgeoisie, while the Catholic hierarchy did not accept what was called the “Popular Church” .
In Venezuela, it is affected by the context of a neighbourhood where thousands of peasants fleeing from the countryside had arrived, and rural elements mixed with those of urban civilization appear in the painting. In the one painted in Luciára, the people of the Brazilian Mato Grosso appear.

Father Maximino considers how people helped him: “I began to understand that the people expressed a world of existential beliefs, which constituted the fabric of their culture, and transmitted Christian values ​​that I believed I had, but did not practise: hospitality, sharing, etc. And that I had to listen. This gradually made me discover another way of understanding the Gospel and the Church, forgetting what I had learned in the seminary to learn little by little from the little ones of the Kingdom, from the practice of faith that I saw in the people. This has also changed my faith”. Looking at today, he believes that there is an artistic movement that is inspired by ecclesial renewal, but it is small and limited to the sphere of basic ecclesial communities, where a true artistic formation is lacking. The great artists, with some exceptions, have no religious concern and consider Christian art as ‘stuff from the sacristy’. There is little interest, unlike what happens in music, which is of immediate use in celebration. Art depends on single individuals.

“Today, however, there is a tendency to return to the icon, considered the highest expression of European religious art. Instead, I try to create a more updated image, starting from the popular world, not for the intellectual and religious elite, but from the people for the people. I believe that sacred art is experiencing a very serious crisis, also because ecclesiastical buildings are not as interesting as in the past. In Europe, then, the process of secularization also carries weight and is not sensitive to the issue of transmitting the Christian message through art”.
He concludes: “Perhaps plastic art is destined to be replaced by digital art. Young people are able to watch images in a video for hours, but they get bored in front of a static art object. The image remains important, but it has shifted from the static and permanent form of a wall or a painting to the realm of the mobile and the virtual”.

Mauro Castagnaro

The political and economic problems.

Having obtained independence from the mother country, the country was led for 16 years by a socialist regime, headed by Manuel Pinto da Costa. Within a decade, a strong disaffection towards the establishment grew among the population; it was mainly caused by the economic decline, the impact of which on living
conditions was considerable.

This situation favoured the opening of the process of economic liberalization which began in 1985 and was consolidated at the beginning of the 1990s. As a consequence, there followed a change in relations on the international scene, with a transition from the front of the socialist countries which was weakening, towards western countries. The move towards the other front was also consolidated through the liberalization of the market; the partial restitution of agricultural plantations that had been collectivized; the opening of a popular referendum that approved a new Constitution; and, therefore, the transition to the democratic regime, taking place in 1991, in the style of Western democracies, with a semi-presidential system, regular elections, and alternation of ruling parties.
More specifically, the country’s institutional set-up is made up of a National Assembly in which 55 members, a Head of State, and a Head of Government, sit. The Head of State is elected every five years by universal suffrage and is allowed only two consecutive terms; the Assembly is renewed every 4 years, while the Prime Minister is
appointed by the President.

São Tomé. National Assembly building. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

From a political point of view, the liberal turn was also supported by the founding of the Party of Democratic Convergence-Reflection Group (PCD-GR) which won the legislative of January 1991. In March of that same year, thanks to the support of the PCD-GR and that of Prime Minister Daniel Daio, Miguel Trovoada, who had recently returned from French exile, was elected to the Presidency of the Republic.
The change of guard did not at all exacerbate the economic and social problems that gripped the population. A situation that was becoming increasingly complicated, exacerbated by bitter disagreements at the top between the Head of State and the new Prime Minister Norberto Costa Allegre, was relating to financial policy. This confrontation, in the summer of 1994, led the Head of State Trovoada to dissolve the National Assembly and call new elections.
The electoral competition, which took place in the following October, did not go in the direction Trovoada hoped for. After three years of absence, the Liberation Movement of São Tomé and Príncipe-Social Democratic Party (MLSTP-PSD) returned to power and was able to exploit the strong popular discontent to place itself again at the helm of the country led by Carlos Graca. However, even this new political course undertaken by the country did not bring any benefit to the economic problems.
On the contrary, further deteriorations were recorded to the point of requiring the launch of new austerity measures, in the absence of which the World Bank would not have provided the further funding on which the entire economy of the country was based. In this context, the conditions for a military coup d’état matured, the resolution of which, however, took place in a few days and in a completely peaceful manner, thanks also to the mediation contribution offered by Angola.
The various governments that alternated in the following years, and Trovoada’s re-election in 1997 to the Presidency of the Republic – which lasted in office until 2001 – did not contribute to the improvement of living conditions in the country.

Miguel Trovoada was the prime minister from 1975 to 1979 and the second president of São Tomé and Príncipe 1991 to 2001.

Once Trovoada was deposed, in 2001 the conservative Fradique de Menezes of the Independent Democratic Action (ADI) took office, while at the 2002 elections, the MLSTP was reconfirmed and formed a government led by Maria das Neves Ceita Baptista de Sousa. This caused a terrible conflict between the presidency and the parliament that soon resulted in a new coup d’état that temporarily deposed Menezes, who returned to office after a few months thanks to the success of international negotiations. So, after a few months, placing himself at the helm of the Democratic Movement of the Forces of Change, a new party he founded in 2001 after a split from ADI, he won the 2006 presidential elections.
Unable to run for a third consecutive term, in the subsequent presidential elections of 2011, Menezes was replaced by Pinto da Costa who won against the speaker of the National Assembly Evaristo Carvalho, the ADI candidate. Elections for the National Assembly were held in 2014 and the ADI gained a majority, winning 33 of the 55 seats. This made it possible to appoint Patrice Trovoada (ADI), son of former president Miguel, as prime minister, a position he already held in 2008 and 2010-2012. Evaristo Carvalho, however, returned to the scene a few years later, winning the presidential elections against Pinto de Costa in August 2016, while the 2018 National Assembly elections marked a defeat for the ADI. In this circumstance, however, the MLSTP-PSD, despite having obtained the largest number of seats, had to opt for the formation of a coalition government, composed together with other smaller parties, of which Jorge Bom Jesus (MLSTP-PSD) was appointed prime minister.

President of São Tomé and Príncipe, Carlos Manuel Vila Nova since 2 October 2021. CC BY 2.0/ ITU Pictures.

There were 19 candidates in the first round of the 2021 presidential elections. Of these, the MLSTP-PSD’s Guilherme Posser da Costa ran against the ADI’s Carlos Vila Nova who won the competition by getting more than 57% of the votes compared to his opponent’s 42.46%. The ADI also managed to establish itself in the legislative elections of September 2022, led by Patrice Trovoada, obtaining 25 of the 55 seats against the 23 of the MLSTP-PSD, while the remaining two were assigned to an independent party.
On 11 November Patrice Trovoada, swore as prime minister and head of the 18th Sāo Tomean government. On 25 November a coup attempt failed. Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada said four men managed to enter the army headquarters while another armed group waited outside. The ringleaders were arrested after two hours of heavy gunfire and explosions. The Prime Minister said one of them was the outgoing head of the National Assembly and former presidential candidate, Delfim Neves.  However, the outgoing prime minister Jorge Bom Jesus labelled the event as an “invention” that the new government would use as a pretext to crack down on opposition parties.
(Open Photo: São Tomé. The presidential palace. CC BY-SA 4.0/ Ji-Elle)

(F.R.)

A long road to Independence.

The islands of São Tomé and Príncipe were deserted until their discovery by Portuguese navigators. Even today we do not know for certain the date of this event or the names of those who first discovered the islands.

According to some scholars they were discovered by João de Santarém and Pedro de Escobar in 1451, while others, more reliably, argue that the discovery is attributable exclusively to Pedro de Escobar.  Escobar arrived on the island on 21 December 1471, the feast day of Saint Thomas and from which, in fact, the name of São Tomé would derive.
In 1483 São Tomé was given as an endowment to João de Paiva who brought the first group of emigrants there made up mostly of prisoners and Jewish children separated from their parents, who settled in the Ana Ambó cove near Ponta Figo, in the North-West of the island. The arrival of the settlers on a completely uninhabited area that was also geographically defined and delimited, transformed the archipelago into a real cultural laboratory in which interesting syntheses of biological, economic, and cultural intersections were generated.
Within a few years of the settlers’ arrival, the island became one of the largest sugar producers globally.

Forte de Sāo Sebastiāo (1575) in São Tomé town. CC BY 2.0/ David Stanley

This primacy, however, lasted for a short period, ending with the entry into the market of Brazilian competition which, with its size, dealt a severe blow to the nascent economy of the country, already troubled by the social instability caused by workers subjected to slavery. The instability continued following the invasions of the Angolan tribes, accentuated at the end of the sixteenth century and coming from the northern coast of Angola, while in 1595 an indigenous man, Amador, caused a bloody revolt following which he proclaimed himself king of slaves. In the same period, the two islands were attacked by a Dutch naval team but also by privateers attracted by the riches of the plantations. Due to their geographical position, the island, after the collapse of sugar exports, was transformed into a port hub managed by the Portuguese in the function of the slave market headed for Brazil. From 1640 to 1644, São Tomé was subjected to Dutch rule, then until 1753 it was in possession of the Count of Lumiares and, from that year, together with the island of Príncipe, it passed under direct Portuguese sovereignty. Due to the frequent unrest that troubled São Tomé, the capital was moved from Santo António to Príncipe whose port was the seat of many activities. But the lack of an adequate military defence continued to make the islands, which in the meantime had been ceded by the Portuguese to the Spaniards, easy prey for the invaders and so in 1779, São Tomé was again attacked by a French group.

Yellow cocoa pod just harvested. 123rf.com

The nineteenth century brought the country back to the centre of the global economic scene. This new transformation is due to a number of factors including independence obtained by Brazil in 1822, the suppression of slavery in the Portuguese territories and the introduction of coffee and cocoa crops. The new crops made São Tomé – which in the meantime had returned to being the capital of the archipelago – the largest producer globally. The plantations were no longer worked by slaves, but by contract workers from Cape Verde, Angola, and Mozambique whose conditions, however, were not at all dissimilar to their predecessors. As highlighted by some anthropologists, the archipelago, in the eyes of Europeans, had a double value since, in addition to being perceived as a territory to be colonized in order to exploit its resources, it was also seen as a utopian place, an uncontaminated exotic garden where it would have been possible to create an ‘ideal city’, so much in vogue in the Europe of those years. Hence the birth of urban nuclei that the Rochas would become with the intention of combining unspoiled nature with the birth of these small ‘ideal cities’ to produce specific and rationalized agriculture in which work is systematically divided and organized.
Within these nuclei, a complex cultural pluralism was generated dictated by the mutual influences, clashes and encounters of the various civilizations present on the island.

Proclamation of Independence of São Tomé and Príncipe, with Nuno Xavier Daniel Dias, President of the Constituent Assembly, and Admiral Rosa Coutinho, Portugal’s representative at the ceremony. Source: Fundação Mário Soares, Arquivo Histórico de São Tomé e Príncipe.

Given its characteristics, São Tomé constituted an ideal location for Portugal to abase as it proceeded in its colonizing mission to reinforce the modest and weak role that it had in Europe.
This attitude of the Portuguese was expected to make them flexible and willing to contaminate themselves with other cultures and to create conditions of hybridization, albeit through moments of violent dialectic as in the case of São Tomé.
In the twenties of the twentieth century, the cocoa market experienced a major crisis causing the island to plunge into a new form of isolation, in which cases of violence and brutality by the Portuguese against workers became more and more frequent, including the massacre of Batepá in 1953. Following these episodes, the archipelago, which since 1951, with the reform of the colonial territories of Portugal constituted a Portuguese Overseas province with a governor and representation in the National Assembly of Lisbon, laid the foundation for its independence. Nationalist movements gradually took hold, including the Liberation Movement of São Tomé and Príncipe (MLSTP), led by Manuel Pinto da Costa who became President of the Republic following the independence of the archipelago obtained on 12 July 1975.  (Open Photo: Fishermen artisanal fishing. Pixabay)
(F.R.)

The Maasai. The origin of cattle.

Naiteru-Kop, one of the gods of the Maasai, walked the earth at the dawn of the world and he found it already held some inhabitants. He found a Dorobo (a member of a hunting people, also known as Okiek), a snake, and an elephant living together.

After Naiteru-Kop had passed by, the Dorobo found a cow in the bush and took it as his property. After that, the Dorobo would take the cow out into the grasslands to watch it feed, and then return to the homestead that he shared with the elephant and the snake at night.

The snake often sneezed, for it crawled in the dust which was trampled by the man, the cow, and the elephant, and when it sneezed it sprayed its venom in the air. The elephant did not feel anything, its hide was so thick, but the man became very uncomfortable and developed rashes. The Dorobo complained to the snake, and the snake answered that the sneezing was not its fault, but happened because of all the dust
around their camp.

That night, while the elephant and the snake were sleeping, the Dorobo took a cudgel and crushed the snake’s head. Then he cast the snake’s carcass out into the bush. The elephant asked after the snake in the morning, and the Dorobo said he had no idea where the snake had gone. From his manner, the elephant guessed that the man had killed the snake. But they continued to live together.

A season of rains came, turning the grass green and covering the land with small puddles in which the Dorobo’s cow could drink. But after the rains had passed the waterholes dried up until there was only one left. This was the elephant’s favourite spot; it was the elephant’s custom to graze upon the tall grass, harvesting it by the bushel with its trunk, and then go down to the waterhole and loll in the water and the cool mud. During the rainy season, the elephant gave birth to a calf, and the two of them would do this together.

When the rains had ended, the Dorobo could find no other water for his cow than the elephant’s waterhole.
He asked the elephant not to muddy the hole so that he could water his cow, but the elephant answered that its custom had always been to enjoy the hole and it did not wish to change.

So, in secret, the Dorobo made an arrow, and then one evening he shot the elephant and it died. When the mother elephant died, the calf went away: the older elephant had warned it about the Dorobo and how the man had killed the snake, and now the man had killed the elephant. The calf went to another country.

There, the calf met a man, a Maasai named Le-eyo, and they talked. The elephant calf told the Maasai why it had run away from the Dorobo who had killed the snake and the elephant to protect himself and his cow. Le-eyo said he wished to see this man, and so the elephant calf agreed to show him the way.
They went back to the camp. There, the Maasai was very surprised by the hut the Dorobo had built: it was built on end so that the doorway looked up at the heavens. While they were standing there, Naiteru-Kop called out to tell the Dorobo to come out the next morning.

Le-eyo heard the message, and so the next morning it was the Maasai and not the Dorobo who went to learn what Naiteru-Kop wished
to tell him.

Naiteru-Kop gave Le-eyo instructions, and he followed them carefully. He built himself a large enclosure, and to one side he built a little hut of bent branches and grasses. Then he searched the bush and found a thin calf. He took it back to his enclosure and slaughtered it. But he did not eat the meat. Instead, he spread out the calf’s hide and piled the meat upon it, and then he tied it up into a great bundle.

He built a very large fire in the centre of his enclosure, and when it was roaring, he lifted the bundle of the calf’s meat and threw it into the fire. Then he hid in the hut. As he did so, the clouds gathered thickly overhead and thunder rolled over the plains.

While the man was hiding in the hut, a leather cord dropped from the heavens, and cattle of all sorts began to come down the cord into the enclosure. They descended until the enclosure was filled and they were bumping against each other to make room.
One of them then put its foot through the wall of the Maasai man’s hut, and he cried out in alarm and surprise. At the sound, the cattle ceased coming down the cord from heaven.

Naiteru-Kop called out, and Le-eyo went out to answer his call. “These are all the cattle you shall receive, – said Naiteru-Kop, – because by your cry you have stopped them coming. But they shall be yours to tend, and with them you shall live”.

Since that time, the Maasai have herded their cattle. The Dorobo have become hunters, using clubs and bows, and arrows to kill their prey. When people who are not Maasai own cattle, the Maasai presume that the cattle have been stolen from Maasai and try to reclaim them. (Photo: 123rf.com)

 Folktale from Tanzania

Turkey Toward 2023, Erdogan’s Turning Point?

Turkey is heading for crucial presidential and parliamentary elections in a pivotal year for its history.

Indeed, October 2023 will mark the centenary of the founding of the Republic. Before that date, in June, Turkey will go to the polls, which will either consolidate President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s longstanding power or mark a seismic shift, after two decades of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) rule. Six months ahead of the vote, election outcome is still far from being decided. President Erdoğan will certainly play all his cards to maintain his leadership, despite the number of challenges he is facing.

This time, opposition parties appear more united than in previous electoral races. Defeating Erdoğan is undoubtedly the main glue of the heterogeneous opposition bloc. The National Alliance – which includes the main opposition, centre-left Republican People’s Party (CHP), the centre-right and national İyi (Good) Party, Felicity Party and Democrat Party – joined efforts last February with Future Party and DEVA Party, both founded by two former prominent members of the AKP, to create the so-called ‘Table for six’.

Restoring the parliamentary system – in force before the 2017 constitutional reform that turned Turkey into a presidential republic –  is the main point of the Table for six’s manifesto in case of an election victory. Nevertheless, so far it is still unknown who will be the opposition candidate for the presidential race.

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, CHP’s leader, Mansur Yavaş, the mayor of Ankara, and Ekrem İmamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul, both from the CHP, have been pointed out as possible candidates for the opposition. According to July 2022 Metropoll’s survey, the Turkish president would fall behind all the potential opposition candidates in a second round.

Polls also show that approval for Erdoğan has decreased over the last two years and a half. While it peaked to 55.8% during the first months of the global pandemic, political support to the AKP leader fell to 41.2% last summer. Recently, Erdoğan has regained in popularity, though he remains below 50% in a country where political polarisation is likely to intensify in the coming months.

Turkey’s grim economic situation is the main reason for disenchantment with Erdoğan and its party. Over the past year, Turkey has experienced a currency crisis and a soaring inflation rate, after the central bank implemented a significant rate cut at the end of 2021, following President Erdoğan’s unconventional policy to control inflation by reducing interest rates.

The latest figures of the Turkish Statistical Institute indicated the inflation rate at 85.5% in October. Yet, it does not seem to reflect the real situation in a country where the rise of consumer prices would be over 185%, according to independent economists.

Considering the recent repeated rate cuts (the latest to 9% from 10.5% in late November), a U-turn in the government’s monetary policy is highly unlikely before the elections, while expansionary policies will continue. Indeed, Erdoğan’s strategy stakes mainly on economic growth, along with the increase of public spending, to (re)win the hearts and minds of Turkish people ahead of the vote.

Economic imperatives have also been a major driver of Turkey’s efforts to reset relations with its regional antagonists over the last year. Against the backdrop of Covid-19 pandemic’s disruption and geopolitical transformations in the Middle East, Ankara’s renewed diplomatic activism relies on two main considerations.

First, the country needed to break its isolation, as it could no longer afford the cost of both its assertive foreign policy and fierce geopolitical competition in the region. Second, it needed foreign investment and cash injections to relieve its economy. In this regard, de-escalating tensions and mending fences with neighbours, from Israel to the wealthy Gulf monarchies, have been a priority of Ankara’s foreign policy.

Economically, the rapprochement with the United Arab Emirates resulted in a $5-billion currency swap deal with the Turkish central bank, last January. A further $5-billion injection may come from Saudi Arabia in a move to support Turkey’s foreign currency reserves and advance on the path of diplomatic normalisation as well, which started with Erdoğan’s visit to the Saudi Kingdom last April, to overcome years of tensions after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

Furthermore, Ankara expects gains from strengthening economic cooperation with both Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, in terms of increasing foreign investment inflows and trade. However, these benefits will not come immediately. For instance, the $10 billion for strategic investments UAE pledged last year have not materialised yet, while it is too early to see what will be the boost to bilateral trade resulting from the recent lifting of a Saudi undeclared economic embargo on Turkish products.

Besides the economy, foreign policy’s moderate approach has also been instrumental to increase the president’s prestige, both internationally and domestically. As a matter of fact, with its mediation efforts between Russia and Ukraine since the conflict’s outbreak, Turkey has regained centre stage and international approval. Not surprisingly, Ankara has been trying to capitalise on both a mediation role and regional reset, to increase its leverage on some crucial issues concerning its national interests, from tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean to security threats related to PKK “terrorist” activities.

At the end of December, unexpectedly, prospects to reset relations with Egypt and even Syria emerged. Although it does not seem to be part of a pre-electoral foreign policy strategy, the handshake between the Turkish president and his Egyptian homologue Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, during the opening session of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, cannot certainly wipe the slate clean on decade-long strains.

The path, which was already opened in 2021 with two rounds of exploratory talks at the deputy foreign ministry level, has not been clearly traced yet and remains uneasy. Several sticking points should be overcome. While there is some move from Ankara on Egypt’s request to halt the activities of the Muslim Brothers members in Turkey, positions on Libya remain very distant. ‘If relations with Egypt are back on track, we can do the same with Syria’, Erdoğan said, not excluding the possibility to meet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the future.

Yet, no more handshakes are in sight for the moment, but rather a new ground military operation, which Turkey is ready to launch in the framework of Operation Claw-Sward to secure a 30km safe zone in northern Syria. As in the past, this is likely to gather all Turks around the flag, but the implications on Turkey’s international image and relations with partners have not been underestimated, above all if Ankara intends to continue to play a prominent external role in the year ahead. (People passing by portraits of Kemal Ataturk and Erdogan, the current president of Turkey. Photo: 123rf.com)

Valeria Talbot/ISPI

The Cities of Africa. Urban and Decolonial.

The key to understanding the growth of cities in the African continent.

At a frenetic pace, Africa has gone from being the least urbanized continent to be the fastest urbanizing region on the planet. With urbanisms and complex dynamics as diverse as the histories that have shaped them, African metropolises today stretch across the continent like authentic dystopias. Capitals like Bamako (Mali), port cities like Lomé (Togo), secondary cities like Saint Louis (Senegal) or smart cities like Kigali (Rwanda) are authentic social hotbeds and spaces where cultures and different ways of being in the world meet. They are an inevitable continuum that provides different answers to common challenges.

Kampala. A crowd of people on the streets and heavy traffic. 123rf.com

Although the main approaches that are being made to urban Africa are aimed mostly at focusing on challenges, one of those that relate most to the media is its dizzying population growth.
The population growth that African cities are experiencing is not comparable to anywhere else on the planet. Furthermore, the peculiarities of the rapid transformation of urban spaces in the southern Sahara make them perfect paradigms of what the urban theorist Mike Davis had already baptized in 2005 the ‘planet of slums’.
The phenomenon of African urbanization is challenging to say the least. It is wrong to think that the African continent was rural before colonization. As the historians and chroniclers of the time testify, while Europe remained closed in on itself during the Middle Ages when most of the population was afflicted with diseases, African urban residents were more numerous.
However, modern urban history reveals vertiginous transformations. While in the 1960s the population of cities did not reach 15%, by 2030 half of Africa will already be urban and by 2050 its streets will host more than 60% of its population.

Angola. Luanda City. 123rf.com

Very soon, in fact, Africa will host six of the largest megacities on the planet. While Lagos (Nigeria), Cairo (Egypt) and Kinshasa (DRC) are about to host more than 20 million inhabitants, Luanda (Angola), Dar es-Salam and Johannesburg (South Africa) will exceed 10 million inhabitants.
The most recent demographic studies identify three fundamental causes of this ‘urban revolution’.
The main one: the natural growth of the population due to the increase in life expectancy and the birth rate. Secondly, there is the rural exodus because, although in the decade of independence there was an important element of attraction, this has ceased to be a relevant component beyond particular cases such as that of refugees. And, to a lesser extent, the reclassification of the urban territory and the birth of secondary cities, the most numerous on the continent.

Informal settlement on the outskirts of Stellenbosch, Western Cape province, South Africa. 123rf.com

Overwhelmed by the unstoppable trend towards urbanization, the anguish of urban planners and local administrations is palpable, aware of the serious implications of urban laissez-faire in the international agendas of the last century. What consequences does such a hasty and profound transformation entail for African societies? Who is responsible for the continent’s current urban unsustainability? How does the use of second-hand vehicles from Europe pollute the air the Dakarois breathe and how to reverse it? How did the supply crisis affect the restriction of international flights in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic? What about the current Russia-Ukraine war?There are countless worrying aspects that we could explore when we talk about contemporary African cities. But in each of them there is a structural response that refers us to colonization and post-independence.

Who is responsible?
It is not only the way ancient metropolises designed modern African urbanism that must be held responsible for today’s urban dysfunctions, but also the urban response to the multipolar world in which we live. It is no coincidence that Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), the headquarters of the African Union, is the city that has invested the most, with the support of China, in public transport or road infrastructure, having been the first to build a subway in the 2015, or that it has a promising textile and clothing industry that is making it known as ‘the new Bangladesh’.
The protests that triggered the usurpation of Oromo lands in 2014 for the expansion of the Ethiopian capital, and that form the backdrop to the current war that the federal government supports in Tigray, have no place in the state’s accounts. The fact is that, like Addis Ababa, African cities generate 50% of the gross domestic product of the entire region, becoming real centres of economic power. The question of who (and how) controls this power is probably the crux of the matter.

One of the most evident characteristics of the African urbanization phenomenon is poverty. Globally, and with great nuances, depending on the country, about 62% of city dwellers live in informal settlements. This means that most of Africa’s population growth occurs in poor neighbourhoods and where the majority of the population depends on the shadow economy. In this sense, the African urbanization process has nothing to do with the Western one. While other continents such as Europe have seen the growth of urban areas due to the rural exodus of an industrial proletariat called to provide labour in factories installed in urban centres, Africa is experiencing a process of urbanization without job opportunities that have no similarity even to the other continents in the southern hemisphere. Unsurprisingly, a stereotypical image of African cities is being built as degrading, indecent and hopeless spaces. But exclusion and marginalization also have their genesis.
In Africa, modern urban projects were designed as part of the extractive goals of colonial administrations. Colonial cities projected urbanisms that only served their purposes. It can be seen how cities that fell under the Gallic yoke such as Abidjan (Ivory Coast) imposed urban planning that reflected their model of direct control, and where it was intended to be able to control as many meters as possible from each road intersection. Meanwhile, cities developed on the British model such as Nairobi (Kenya) are the reflection of an indirect rule very much
along the lines of apartheid.

The municipal urban plan of Nairobi dates back to 1948.

The capital of Kenya, to name a specific case, was a ‘tricolour city’ where white British officials lived in the highest places, avoiding malaria. Blacks, at the other extreme, were barred from entering administrative and commercial areas. There were building permits that Blacks couldn’t afford, as well as imported building materials that they couldn’t access. Meanwhile, the Indian community, who arrived as a kind of second-class citizen in the service of the colonial administration, stood between the two and was given permission to build near the white residential areas. An exclusive urban plan was thus imposed, safeguarding the minority of settlers from the municipal regulations that made the presence of the local population illegal.
A direct consequence of this is that today, and in conditions of overcrowding and administrative neglect, 5% of the Nairobi area is inhabited by 60% of its residents, while a minority owns most of the city with garden houses and barbed wire trying to protect the privilege of having inherited power and right. This is what is known as the colonial slab of African urbanism.

Kibera is the largest slum in Nairobi and the largest urban slum in Africa.

Post-colonization continues to affect the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those first rural migrants who arrived in the new Nairobi, the city that was built on the land of the Maasai practically from scratch to build the railway that connected Uganda with the port of Mombasa (Kenya). A panoramic look at the famous slums of Kibera, Mathare or Kawangware, shows an agglomeration around the swampy areas where improvised toilets emerge during the rainy season, simple plastic bags with faeces flung from windows forming waste sediments in the absence of toilets and water pipes. After all, why would a government invest in informal settlements that keep speculating and selling poor land to wealthy landlords who ceaselessly build condos and shopping malls? The municipal urban plan of Nairobi dates back to 1948. It is enough to consult the local press of any city to see how the scourge of forced evictions in poor neighbourhoods manifests itself daily in all cities of the continent.
The cities of the continent are today an amalgam of centrifugal forces in decolonization where municipal laws do not yet reflect their real actors or their needs. Urbanization and decolonization are an inseparable couple in contemporary Africa, and each city will decide, with a greater or lesser degree of violence and conflict, how to lay the foundations for the future, already undeniably urban for all. (Illustration: 123rf.com.)

Gemma Solés i Coll

 

 

Youth. Talking Entrepreneurship.

Strike while the iron is hot. The wisdom of this saying epitomizes the entrepreneurial mind. lt is a mind that the youth should embrace. However, it is not just acting that makes a difference in entrepreneurship but knowing opportunities when they manifest themselves. Ultimately, it is creating value for the community that brings dividends.

In August 2023, thousands of young people will gather in Lisbon (Portugal) for the 37th World Youth Day. Many of them will book accommodation through a platform known as Airbnb, an online platform that allows people to share homes with tourists as an alternative to conventional hotels.

Airbnb was co-founded in 2008 by two unemployed art school graduates Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia. Both were 26 years old. The story goes that in October, 2007, a design conference was held in San Francisco, which drew a huge crowd of participants who overcrowded the city’s hotels.

Brian and Joe decided to rent out some air mattresses to some of the participants. This initiative was the light-bulb moment that gave
birth to Airbnb.

Airbnb is but one among many companies started by young people. Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Dell lnc. were also founded by college students in their dormitories.

Pope Francis’ message for the 37th World Youth Day, focusing on the theme of “arising” and “going with haste”, uses the figure of Mary, the mother of the Lord, to propose attitudes and behaviours to be embraced by 21st-century youth. We say that Mary’s mindset as described by the Pope captures the essence of the phenomenon of Youth entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship is broadly defined as the ability to recognize and act on an opportunity to create value for the community, while youth entrepreneurship relates to entrepreneurial activity undertaken by young people aged between 15 and 35 years.

Youth entrepreneurship is widely framed as a response to youth unemployment. However, considering that the ability to create value for the community is a constituent dimension of self-actualization, youth entrepreneurship cannot be circumscribed to the realm of necessity.

Tales abound of young people who decided to abandon the comfort zone of salaried jobs to venture into the stormy waters of entrepreneurship.

ln Greek mythology, the god Kairos is presented as a young and handsome man always standing on tiptoe, always running. He holds a razor in his hand and has a single lock of hair that hangs over his face; however, the back of his head is bald. Kairos is always followed by the goddess Metanoia, a haggard and sorrowful woman carrying a stick with which she whips those who have failed to get hold of Kairos.

Metanoia is the goddess of regret. Entrepreneurial opportunities are like Kairos: they come by and swiftly disappear if they are not harnessed. Failure to leverage emerging opportunities leads to regret.

ln the Pope’s message for the 37th World Youth Day, Mary is presented as a young woman who can recognize an opportunity when it arises. The opportunity consists of the possibility to be of service to another person. Entrepreneurial opportunities push us outward, toward others. As the Pope writes, “Mary’s focus is always directed outwards”.  Entrepreneurship is not primarily about what is in it for me!

Further, Mary acts on the opportunity immediately. She does not succumb to what management guru lgor Ansoff calls “paralysis by analysis”. The Pope’s words are apt: “When faced with concrete and urgent needs, we need to act quickly”.

The 2021-2022 Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) describes our times as characterized by the “new uncertainty complex” encompassing a battery of challenges ranging from climate change to disruptions of supply chains due to Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine. These problems contain opportunities for young people to “arise” and to act with haste in providing solutions. (Photo: 123rf.com)

Wilfred Sumani
Nairobi – Kenya

 

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

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