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Cities and New Models of Migration.

The economic or educational prospects offered by African cities are fundamental to the urban growth that the continent is experiencing in general, compared to countries such as Niger or Chad which see their rural populations growing.

Migrations from Africa have often been analysed by studying movements to other continents, especially Europe. However, the way intra-African migration works was not considered. Faced with this Africa-Europe travel idea, African populations move within their countries of origin or travel to neighbouring states in search of better basic conditions, employment or even education.
According to the African Migration Report 2020, a report published by the African Union and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), it is estimated that between 53% and 79% of migrations occur within the continent itself, while 26 % occurs outside of it.

It is estimated that between 53% and 79% of migrations occur within the African continent (Photo: IOM/Alessandro Lira)

Much of this migration occurs from the countryside to the city, although the continent has traditionally been one of the regions with the lowest urbanization rates in the world. While territories such as North America and Europe experienced an unprecedented rural exodus during the 20th century, as did Latin America and Asia in the last decades of the century, the African continent maintained a very high percentage of rural population. However, this does not mean that the African population has not moved from the village to the city. During colonization, European projects transformed several cities into colonial capitals, partly attracting rural populations by concentrating job opportunities.
North America currently tops the urban population chart (82%), followed by Latin America and the Caribbean (81%), Europe (74%), Oceania (68%), Asia (50%) and Africa (43%), according to UN-Habitat. Although the African continent is in last place, in recent decades the urbanization process has accelerated, and forecasts do not seem to indicate any change in the trend. It is estimated that in 2050, Africa will concentrate at least 21% of the world’s urban population, although these data must be analysed from a broader perspective.

On the outskirt of Johannesburg. 123rf.com

In recent years, Africa has followed a global trend characterized by increasing urbanization for two reasons: the natural growth of the urban population and the rural exodus. Both causes have generated an exponential increase in the inhabited area of ​​the main cities, although this expansion is usually informal, without basic infrastructure and with environmental damage. To get an idea of this, it is estimated that in 2050 Africa will reach between 60% and 70% of the urbanization rate, that is, it will reach the current standard of Europe. It is evident that this rapid change will intensify the already existing traffic problems, the lack of essential services, pollution, uncontrolled urban sprawl, the conversion of agricultural land into urban space, and social change.
Although it is a fact that cities increase their population due to the arrival of migrants from secondary towns and cities, it is no less true that in some countries the rural population continues to increase, mainly due to local population growth.

Ethiopia. Two of the countries with the largest population in Africa will also increase their populations in the countryside: Nigeria and Ethiopia, with 50 and 40 million rural inhabitants, respectively.

According to UN-Habitat, countries like Niger are expected to triple their rural populations by 2050, and other states like Burundi, Chad, Malawi, Uganda, and Zambia are expected to double theirs within the same year. Furthermore, two of the countries with the largest population in Africa will also increase their populations in the countryside: Nigeria and Ethiopia, with 50 and 40 million rural inhabitants, respectively. Therefore, although there is an exponential growth in the urban population and that of the main cities of the continent, there are also other dynamics that often go unnoticed.
In the case of national migration, attention has been focused on a flow of impoverished people who go from the countryside to the city in search of a better life and who find themselves in a situation of exclusion due to a lack of infrastructure capable of welcoming them. But there is so much more. The migrant profile has changed in recent decades and there are not always movements from rural to urban areas.

Unidirectional movement?
The migratory logic experienced in other regions of the planet, characterized by an intense rural exodus, is overshadowing other dynamics which, albeit minority ones, continue to exist in continents such as Africa. Hence, in addition to rural-urban migration, there are also other migratory processes such as rural-countryside, city-city, and city-countryside. Likewise, migrations are generally not static, nor do they have a one-way direction.
On the continent, there are circular movements, in which migrants temporarily move to another point and then return.
Within temporary migration, mobility occurs for specific reasons – such as seasonal work – or for health needs and, moreover, return mobility is linked to the end of the working life of citizens who choose to return to their places of origin. Therefore, migratory movements in Africa can have a multidirectional and staggered character that responds to interests that go beyond the demand for work: educational, socio-cultural motivations, or economic opportunities.

Kenya. Men are waiting for work. ©grispb/123rf.com

Therefore, the reality goes far beyond the rural-urban movements which, although in the majority of cases, contemplate some challenges. Climate change and the depletion of natural resources question the model of extensive urban growth and the lack of sustainability. To this, we must add that the demographic increase in several African countries, especially in the cities, is fuelling the need for employment. Poor industrialization and the lack of an established service sector prevent the creation of stable jobs. The informal sector, while offering job opportunities, generates precarious jobs with low returns that increase the situation of poverty.
Although urban exodus also exists in some cases, it is far from establishing itself as a stable trend in Africa. Some of the reasons why some sectors decide to leave the city are due to retirement, job opportunities related to civil service positions in civil service, education, or health care. Or because the ‘myth of the city’ ends up breaking down.

A new generation
Migratory movements have changed in recent years, with new profiles, methods, and destinations. The younger generations of Africa and their goals have a lot to do with this. The African region has the lowest average age which in most African countries is around 20 years. This translates, in some cases, into a very high percentage of the population is young. For example, in countries like Ethiopia, 51% of the population is under the age of 20; in the Democratic Republic of Congo 56% of the inhabitants are in that age group, and at the head of the list is Niger, with 60%.In this context, it is easy to understand that the bulk of migratory movements occur among young people and not always for reasons of extreme dependence. The new needs of young people revolve around a higher education level, moving to major urban centres to obtain higher education in prestigious universities in Addis Ababa, Kampala, or South Africa.

South African students. The new needs of young people: to obtain higher education in prestigious universities in Addis Ababa, Kampala, or South Africa. 123rf.com

The search for qualified employment is also one of the reasons that lead young people to leave their places of origin and settle in urban centres where the possibility of working as doctors, public employees or in key companies is more favourable. Furthermore, we must not forget the interest of a part of this population in accessing the ways of life of a growing middle class and some presumably cosmopolitan lifestyles that are concentrated in the big capitals.
These migratory movements from the countryside to the city also worry about the vacuum they can create in rural areas. The former director of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), José Graziano da Silva, has spoken out in favour of the revitalization of the rural areas of the African continent to avoid the progressive loss of young inhabitants. His formula was to promote small agro-industries and cooperatives that generate employment, accompanied by other measures such as access to the Internet, a better infrastructure network and the provision of public services, as well as promoting rural tourism.
However, at the moment there is no project that manages to keep the young population in rural areas or to attract new inhabitants. The danger of a progressive emptying of the countryside is increasingly present in national agendas. Despite this, it remains to be seen whether the forecasts in Africa and trends among the younger generations consolidate. (Illustration: 123rf.com.)

 Pablo Arconada Ledesma

 

 

 

 

 

Re-inventing Flexible Cities.

 The art of getting by with countless informal activities not only affects the economy or daily activities but has significant repercussions on the urban form and on the very way of understanding urban centres as a constantly changing organism.

In the large square of a modern petrol station, incoming cars have to go around to avoid a herd of goats while the shepherd is talking excitedly on his cell phone. Small vendors of vegetables or sweets crowd at the windows of refuelling vehicles while in a corner some boys have improvised a basic informal car wash. A dozen people, sitting in a circle on plastic chairs and used tires, seem to be caught in a heated discussion. But chairs and men disappear in a moment as soon as a large truck approaches the tire dealer in the yard. Immediately afterward, the men resume their seats, and the conversation continues.

Gondar. Daily Life in the Northern part of Ethiopia

We are in the outskirts of Gondar, a city of 200,000 inhabitants in northern Ethiopia, but we could find ourselves in any large or small city in sub-Saharan Africa. Some call it informality, others disorder; what is certain is that the creative and extremely flexible use of spaces is in all likelihood the main feature of the continent’s urban centres.This feature has its most evident expression in the enormous spread of slums and informal settlements, places that arise rapidly in the gaps of the cities, preferably occupying spaces that cannot be used by ‘official’ buildings.

Lagos. The Mile12. CCA 4.0/Olatunbosun

Speaking of informality, the immense neighbourhoods of Nairobi or Lagos and their dramatic health and social situation stand out, but the phenomenon is more or less deeply rooted in any urban centre, so much so as to make it impossible to make a clear distinction between official and illegal areas. And it is not just about slums; the African city does not know totally unused spaces or ‘non-places’ left to themselves. Any area can be transformed and find a new vocation within a few hours.
Mainly as markets, warehouses, or ways through but also: urban agriculture, for example, is increasingly widespread and especially in small towns, many free plots, from roundabouts to cemeteries, are often used to produce vegetables.
When the iron mines of the small town of Lunsar, in the central north of Sierra Leone, were closed in the 1970s, most of the inhabitants began to clean up the marshy areas to use them as rice fields, colouring the urban streets with the brilliant green of newly transplanted plants.
An activity partially abandoned with the reopening of the mines a decade ago, but immediately resumed upon the arrival of the Ebola epidemic and the consequent lockdown.

Making the most of every opportunity
The optimization of urban spaces and the informal nature of the activities require the ability to create extremely flexible structures or functions. Everything is, or can be, ephemeral and flexibility allow both to survive problems and emergencies but also to adapt to contexts in rapid and continuous change and make the most of every opportunity.

The Gambian town of Farafenni. CCA 2.0/Greg Walters

The Gambian town of Farafenni is a must for those who want to reach Casamance, avoiding a 400 km route through the hinterland of Senegal. Here the main activity has always been street trade, especially near the banks of the Gambia River, where the queues to load vehicles onto the ferries can last weeks and a real informal commercial village has been born with stalls, currency exchanges, cheap restaurants, or makeshift motels. However, the new Senegambia bridge, co-financed by the African Development Bank and completed in 2019, has brought these thriving businesses to crisis point. As a result, the makeshift buildings on the banks of the river are rapidly disappearing to move to the toll stations or to the other side of the city, near the Senegalese border, where queues of vehicles remain waiting to pass customs controls. A movement of people and activities capable of transforming the urban form and its equilibrium in a very short time.
The ability to convert and regenerate free spaces in places of commerce or relationships does not only concern the scraps of land that escaped overbuilding or the narrow pavements, but even beaches or dry river beds, as happens in Keren, a town in the Eritrean lowland where the open bed of the almost permanently dry stream that crosses it, hosts the renowned weekly livestock market.

 Informal activities
The aptitude for the creative use of spaces is a widespread trend throughout the continent and is equally developed in metropolises and smaller centres. All of these strategies are in fact closely related to the activities of the informal economy, the real engine of African cities, which through complex systems of social and economic networks makes it possible to cope with the chronic lack of the services of an ‘official’ city. AbdouMaliq Simone, one of the leading scholars of contemporary urban Africa, speaks of a ‘pirate city’, dominated by invisible and ephemeral ties in which the only truly functioning infrastructures are the people themselves and their way of collaborating with each other.

Selling tomatoes in a local market. 123rf.com

The art of débrouillardise, of getting by, with countless informal activities, not only affects the economy or daily activities but has significant repercussions on the urban form and on the very way of understanding the city as a flexible and constantly changing organism. This is an even more evident attitude in secondary cities, free from overly stringent infrastructural requirements, from the presence of centres of power and control or from ‘urban décor’ requirements affecting political, economic or tourist capitals.
The African city is therefore a city of ‘light’ spaces, capable of modifying itself to adapt to situations and criticalities, rather than contrasting them. A vision opposite to that of Europe and the West which sees cities as rigid structures, based on the transformation and even heavy modification of the territory, but which in an era marked by the threat of disruptive climate change could prove to be much more functional and resilient. (Open Photo: Sunset over Saint Mary town in Sal Island, Cape Verde. 123rf.com)

Federico Monica

Asia 2023. A Year of Uncertainty.

In 2023, Asia will be a continent of global uncertainties, regional trends and attempts at recovery. Four general elections.
It will be the year of India.

The first elections are scheduled in Thailand on 18 June which will design the new National Assembly, or rather the bicameral Parliament. In fact, only the 500-member House of Representatives will be subject to the voters’ choice, while the Senate is made up of 250 members designated by the military leadership that controls the country since the coup in May 2014. Former general Prayut Chan-ocha, who was at the helm of the coup, is the premier in office.
The government is inefficient and responsible for having blocked any attempt at democratic and social development, relaunching the control role of the military, that of safeguarding the monarchical institution and the interests of family-based oligopolies without intervening against corruption, nepotism or wrongdoing in the public sector. This is without also guaranteeing stability and well-being, the rights of citizens, workers, and immigrants.

Bangkok. The portrait of His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn at front of the Supreme Court. 123rf.com

The path to the elections does not highlight any structural reforms needed by the country, only the attempt to safeguard the status quo. Manoeuvers are already under way to consolidate a disqualified power after the vote, trying in every way to deny space to the opposition groups that polls have shown capable of winning.
Overall, the situation prevents Thailand from recovering a political and economic role that would require profound reforms in terms of education, social security, and industrial competition. Also of greater equidistance on the diplomatic level which today associates it ever more closely with Chinese interests. In fact, Cambodia is now a kind of Chinese ‘colony’. A role that was also consolidated in 2022, highlighted with areas of substantial extraterritoriality in the hands of Chinese entrepreneurs where manufacturers, casinos and call centres operate as part of global networks of online scams, often with a labour force working in conditions of substantial slavery after being deceived
in several Asian nations.

The national flag of Cambodia. 123rf.com

The year 2022 saw the end of any opposition from parliament or trade unions to the judicial power that Prime Minister Hun Sen has held for 38 years. No one expects anything less than a plebiscite for his party, that of the Cambodian people, which controls all of the 125 seats in the current legislature, as a result of votes due to being cast to renew the National Assembly on 23 July.
With international pressure to renounce the dismantling of the political opposition, control over non-governmental organizations, the restoration of trade union freedom, freedom of demonstration and information, the government has so far replied with a tightening of measures and a further rapprochement with Beijing which is creating essential strategic structures on a strategic level in Cambodia.
Traditionally close to China also and with an anti-Indian function, Pakistan expects to return to the polls in the autumn to renew its 342-seat National Assembly. A necessary move, after the May 2022 vote of no confidence by Parliament against Prime Minister Imran Khan, leader of the party with the greatest consistency, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, and after Khan himself was the subject of an assassination attempt on 3 November while leading a protest march to the capital, Islamabad. Khan, who came to power in 2018 – counting on the support of the military and the judiciary in favour of his pragmatic Islamist ideology capable of containing the demands of religious extremism, and attracting support from abroad and from religious minorities – maintains broad popular approval. Various forces are opposed to him, starting with the Pakistan Muslim League now in a government coalition with the secularist Pakistan People’s Party, formerly that of Benazir Bhutto.

NLD sign on building in Falam Town in – Western Myanmar. 123rf.com

In Myanmar, the path towards the vote scheduled for October 10, wanted by the regime to ‘restore democracy’ after the alleged electoral fraud that in November 2020 would have led to victory for Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, risks derailing, as marked by the profound internal crisis which now amounts to a real civil war with a looming humanitarian crisis. Popular support for Nobel Peace Prize winner and former National Councillor Aung San Suu Kyi, subjected to a chain of trials and convictions that seek to weaken her resistance to cooperate with the regime, remains very strong.
And with her, the entire democratic movement gathered around the National League for Democracy, banned but central to the Government of National Unity which secretly organizes the resistance and administers various areas of the country.

Economy
From an economic point of view, 2023 presents itself in Asia (and the Pacific) with contrasting prospects even if generally positive in terms of growth. The greatest difficulty will be to recover from the imbalances created or accentuated during the pandemic and support the recovery of employment, business, welfare, and rights.
As reported by the World Bank, from the end of 2022 three factors could negatively affect growth: global slowdown, growing debt and policy distortions. The current measures to contain inflation and debt are in fact overlapping with those existing with regard to the food, fuel and finance markets. However, in the main countries of the region growth is expected to be higher and inflation lower than in the rest of the world.

Vietnam. Farmer. Max Pixel

Although contained, growth in 2022 was higher than that of other areas of the world, driven by the recovery of domestic consumption, sustained demand for exports of industrial products and goods from the area, and a limited tightening of fiscal and monetary policies which could, however, make matters worse in the coming months.
Obviously, this situation will have to deal with a combination of external problems: a general economic slowdown that curbs demand, and a growing debt burden incentivized by rising interest rates and declining exchange rates. Finally, there are the distorting measures taken by various governments on the internal market trying to address the present difficulties.For East Asia, UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) projects an expansion of 4.3 per cent compared to 3.3 per cent in 2022 and 6.5 per cent in 2021. Of uncertain significance could be the still be rising cost of raw materials and minor exports. The Chinese situation will obviously play a role, with an expected increase in GDP of 3.9 per cent, the confirmation of which could be affected by the uncertainties of consumption and the ongoing crisis in the real estate sector.
For Southeast Asia, the organization estimates a growth rate of 3.8 per cent, lower than the 4.1 expected in 2022 as a result of tighter domestic monetary policies and in the context of reduced global trade. The traditional regional vulnerability to instability due to financial factors and exchange rate uncertainty, makes the situation even less certain.

Other horizons
In China, Xi Jinping is on his way to a new presidential term in the 14th session of the Chinese National People’s Congress in March after his confirmation as the undisputed leader of the Communist Party of China at the 20th Congress last October.This path too, as well as growing economic difficulties, justified greater interventionism by Xi in 2022 internally, and a more decisive affirmation of the Chinese role in the international context, not without reactions.All trends that will pass in 2023, with three main factors of uncertainty: the leadership’s ability to contain the economic slowdown, relaunching production, exports, and domestic consumption; the developments of the Covid-19 pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine; and commercial and strategic relations with the United States and, in general, the western world.

President Xi Jinping meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Xinhua

On a social level, the aging of the population as well as the difficulty of reviving the birth rate will seriously question the authorities, together with the restructuring of the welfare system, while the fight against corruption and the abuse of power undermines credibility of the State and the hegemonic party will go towards further strengthening.
In India, 2023 will be an important year for its international positioning, starting from the presidency of the G20 in a year that is certainly difficult to interpret. That this happens in the year of the demographic overtaking of China is also significant.
Even the leadership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a Eurasian group that includes, in addition to China, several Central Asian countries, will also point out, albeit casually, the now inescapable role that India has acquired on an economic and political level, placing itself at the same time on a level of competition with the major powers and of mediation with the authority that derives from tradition, geographical position, and population.(Open Photo: Asian girl sews the fishnet. 123rf.com)

Stefano Vecchia

 

 

Bartholomew, The Green Patriarch.

In his long-serving ministry, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has unreservedly committed himself to the protection of the environment and the cause of peace, justice, and unity among all peoples, ceaselessly calling for effective solutions to the climate emergency.

There’s a proverb that says, “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit”. The proverb certainly would be well understood by His Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the 83-year-old spiritual leader of the world’s 300 million Orthodox Christians, known worldwide as The Green Patriarch.
In harmony with Pope Francis, whose Laudato Si’ document has become a road map for the ecological changes needed to conserve ‘Our Common Home’, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew said: “The world is not ours to use for our own convenience. It is God’s gift of love to us, and we must return His love by protecting it and all that is in it.” To be blunt, neither the Pope nor the Patriarch will live to see the benefits of the ecological campaigns they have initiated. Their faith tells them that we must act now to cut down emissions that will lead to the climate extremes that already affect livelihoods, food security, and peace itself.

“The world is not ours to use for our own convenience. It is God’s gift of love to us, and we must return His love by protecting it and all that is in it.” Photo: Ecumenical Patriarchate/Facebook

In May 2011, The Green Patriarch, wearing his ‘ecumenical’ hat, asked Churches to reflect on God’s love for the world, saying of weapons of mass destruction and of the climate crisis: “Our present situation is in at least two ways quite unprecedented. Never before has it been possible for one group of human beings to eradicate so many people simultaneously, nor has humanity been in a position to destroy so much of the planet environmentally. We are faced with radically new circumstances, which demand of us an equally radical commitment to peace.”This is a religious leader who is certainly no Johnny-come-lately to the issue of the climate crisis. He has been talking and writing about this crisis for a very long time, and has become internationally recognized for his vigorous leadership on environmental issues. Moreover, he has not confined himself to theological arguments but has raised the ethical aspects of the way the crisis must be addressed and offered practical solutions.

Tolerance From Asia Minor
Born on 29 February 1940 on the Aegean Island of Imvros, he was christened Demetrios by his parents, Christos and Meropi Archontonis.
He studied in Imvros and Istanbul, and then graduated with honours from the Theological School of Halki in 1961. He was ordained to the Holy Diaconate that same year at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Imvros and given the name Bartholomew. However, for the next two years, he was obliged to fulfill his military obligation in the Turkish army reserve.
He received his doctorate in Canon Law in 1968 from the Pontifical Oriental Institute of the Gregorian University in Rome before studying at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey in Switzerland, and at the University of Munich, where he specialized in ecclesiastical law.  Perhaps with this background, it isn’t surprising that Patriarch Bartholomew is fluent in Greek, English, Turkish, Italian, Latin, French, and German.

Patriarch Bartholomew. He has been able to nurture dialogue amongst Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Photo: Ecumenical Patriarchate/Facebook

When he returned to Constantinople in 1968, he was appointed assistant dean of the Sacred Theological School of Halki and the following year was ordained to the Holy Priesthood. Six months later, he was elevated to the office of Archimandrite in the Patriarchal Chapel of Saint Andrew.
Under Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios, he was appointed director of the Patriarchal Office, and on Christmas Day 1973, Fr. Bartholomew was consecrated as bishop and named Metropolitan of Philadelphia in Asia Minor. He remained as head of the Personal Patriarchal Office until his enthronement as the Metropolitan of Chalcedon in 1990.
That same year, as Metropolitan Bartholomew, he accompanied Patriarch Dimitrios on a historic 27-day visit to the United States as his chief advisor and administrator.

Vocation To Ecumenism
During this steady career path, he had been a member of the World Council of Churches Faith and Order Commission, acting as vice president for eight years. In January 1991, Metropolitan Bartholomew led the Orthodox delegation at the Seventh General Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Canberra, Australia.
There, he framed Orthodox objections that the World Council was departing theologically from essential Orthodox beliefs – but that has not detracted from his strong advocacy for maintaining extended contacts with other Churches.

Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew. (Photo Vatican Media)

These achievements meant that on the death of Patriarch Dimitrios on 2 October 1991, it was no surprise that Metropolitan Bartholomew was unanimously elected Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and Ecumenical Patriarch. There followed what reads like a ceaseless round of visits abroad and meetings with religious and political world leaders. And perhaps because the Ecumenical Patriarchate has that very special geographical and spiritual position between East and West, Patriarch Bartholomew has been able to nurture dialogue amongst Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, and has extended the hand of spiritual friendship to the Far East, visiting China and Hong Kong.

A Peacebuilder
Patriarch Bartholomew has been a trailblazer in terms of interreligious dialogue. Contributing to reconciliation in the Balkans, addressing issues of terrorism, and negotiating in countries such as Iran by addressing their governments on subjects of concern – in 2002 he spoke to Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on “The contribution of religion to the establishment of peace in the contemporary world”.
Today, he and Pope Francis seem to be leading the world in their unremitting efforts to bring about effective solutions to the climate emergency. They sing from the same hymn book, with The Green Patriarch stressing that the ecological problem affects all humankind and above all has a painful impact on the poor and the weak.

Ukraine. Irpin. Damaged church and burned car as a result of the bombardment of the city of Irpin. 123rf.com

The Ecumenical Patriarch has also taken a strong position against the war in Ukraine. He said: “What is happening in Ukraine is a tragedy, it is a disgrace that will stigmatize forever those who caused it, those who turned out to have no fear of God.”
The Patriarch concluded: “ We stand and suffer alongside the pious and courageous people of Ukraine that bear a heavy cross. We pray and strive for peace and justice as well as for all those who are deprived of these. It is unimaginable for us Christians to remain silent before the obliteration of human dignity”. (Photo credits: sacredspace102.blogs)

Marian Pallister
Pax Christi
Scotland

 

Music. Kalush Orchestra. Mamma Stefania…let me hear your voice.

In May, with their song ‘Stefania’, they easily won the latest Eurovision Song Contest and caught the attention of the world.

Then, Kalush Orchestra is a new phenomenon, having been founded as recently as 2019 by rapper Oleh Psjuk together with some friends.
The group takes its name from its birthplace, Kaluš, a city at the foot of the Carpathians, in western Ukraine: with just over 60,000 inhabitants, a land once conquered by the Austro-Hungarian empire and today, like the whole country, struggling with the tragedy of the Russian invasion.
The band started with an announcement on Facebook and, after various formation changes to the current line-up, emerged with the publication of what is currently their only album, Hotin.

When the war broke out last February, Oleh Psjuk was in Kyiv where he was based with the band, but he decided to return immediately to his city: he gave up music and immediately set to work helping refugees on the run, delivering humanitarian aid packages and escorting civilians to train stations as they left Ukraine.
Their intention was to resume immediately after the event, but the resounding victory at the Eurovision Song Contest prompted the group to change their plans and they embarked on a long international tour aimed at raising funds to support their country.

Kalush Orchestra performing “Stefania” at the Eurovision Song Contest 2022. CC BY-SA 4.0/Michael Doherty

After all, at Eurovision Song Contest it was immediately clear that the Kalush Orchestra would be the favourite: not only for the tragic geopolitical context in which the event was taking place but also because that song had everything it needed to bring the message of pain and hope of an entire people to the world: “Mamma Stefania, the fields flower and turn grey. Mamma, sing me a lullaby, let me hear your voice… I will come to you over broken roads. Nothing will wake me from my sleep, not even the terrible storms…Stefania mom, mom Stefania! The field is blooming, but her hair is getting gray. Sing me the lullaby, mom. I want to hear your dear word. Stefania mom, mom Stefania! The field is blooming, but her hair is getting gray. Sing me the lullaby, mom. I want to hear your dear word”.

Kalush Orchesta in concert. CC BY-SA 4.0/Vseh

And in fact, Oleh and his friends made the most of the opportunity to let the voice of their people be heard above the noise of the exploding bombs: “We perform on behalf of everyone who has been affected by the war and fights for peace. With our music, we can bring the message to a huge audience – they declared in those days – We want to show the Ukrainians on Eurovision night that they are not alone, that all of Europe is observing how we fight in this cruel war and supports us “.
Quite a few months have passed since the event of the Euro Festival, but the situation in Ukraine does not show us even a glimmer of peace, so much so that Kyiv has already had to give up the right to organize the next edition of the Eurovision Song Contest.
But in the meantime, the irresistible blend of hip-hop and Ukrainian ethno-music of the Kalush Orchestra is even ready to conquer the States where they have been on tour since last October. All proceeds – together with the 900 thousand euros obtained from the lottery that awarded the frontman’s now famous pink hat – will be donated to the Help Heroes of Ukraine organization devoted to supporting Ukrainian families stricken by the war.(Open Photo: Kalush Orchestra. (Photo Eurovision Song Contest)

Franz Coriasco

Africa. Emerging Companies, the Challenge of Urbanuch.

Today the challenges multiply in African cities while their inhabitants have access to many more services, often at the hands of innovative companies.

In 2025 there will be 100 African cities with more than a million inhabitants. In 2050, 14 cities of the continent will have reached the category of a megacity, that is, they will have more than 10 million inhabitants. In 2100 Lagos could reach 88 million, potentially four times its current population.
The forecasts, which cover scenarios of 80 years, offer disturbing results. Only numbers and little else. Objectively, the intersection between the growth of the city and the growth of the population is a challenge. But what the forecast or, at least, the bare figures do not transmit is another reality: the African cities of 2050 will hardly be like those of today. Almost certainly, life in those cities will not be like that of today. That is to say, the evolution of these settlements does not happen simply by an increase in population; the cities themselves are in transformation and in recent years this change has grown enormously.

Konza City Project, near Nairobi

One of the factors of this change, even if not the only one, is the energy released by digital ecosystems.
A decade ago, there was a rush on the continent for technological cities projects. In a race at the helm of technological and urban innovation, the spectacular seemed to prevail over all else in the proposals, leading to the presentation of city designs set in a science fiction future.
Konza City, near Nairobi, Hope City in Greater Accra, Ethio ICT on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, and Diamniadio in the expansion area of Dakar, are examples of this. Over the years, some of the plans have been blocked while others have been postponed. Those that have materialized have done so after a strict reality check and, in most cases, under considerable criticism. Each one was conceived in terms of technological parks, smart cities and spaces in which innovation and the good life virtuously combined. They were to become the outlets of the dreams of the big cities. And they have become, overall, prohibitive frustrations in the middle of nowhere. The urban transformation determined by technological innovation has not definitively chosen that road in Africa.

The Yaba case
In opposition to this model, one marked by the magnetism of reality prevailed. Digital ecosystems have shaped urban environment, generating a practical, immediate, and relatively spontaneous transformation. The most striking example is certainly that of the Yaba district in Lagos. It is paradigmatic because the sequence of its development shows the ability to attract emerging companies and, at the same time, because it takes place in the city with the greatest evolution on the continent, the economic capital of Nigeria. What was once a popular neighbourhood of the Nigerian megalopolis hosted the birth of the innovative ecosystem of the city, probably the most dynamic and lively on the continent.

Bosun Tijani, co-founder of Co-Creation Hub in Lagos. CC BY-A 2.0/Russell Watkins/DFID

In this sector, just over a decade ago, the Co-Creation Hub, at the time a completely revolutionary innovation centre, which was one of the pillars of the digital awakening of Nigeria, was installed. Ideas have emerged that have become incubated, accelerated, and supervised companies in the Co-Creation Hub and also companies that searched for the warmth that the community provides, especially when promoting start-ups was still against the current. But the promise has become reality and the Nigerian digital ecosystem was consolidated in Yaba, to the point that some large companies, which were able to choose logistically cheaper locations, ended up moving their offices to the neighbourhoods where the Digital life of the city is present. Perhaps the urban conditions are not the most appropriate in this rethought and recreated neighbourhood, but the protagonists assure us that, for the operators in the sector, Yaba is better than the new – and exclusive – business neighbourhoods, such as Eko Atlantic which was designed in Isola Vittoria. Yaba is not the only example of this process. Something similar, although perhaps not so pronounced, took place in the Kilimani district of Nairobi, which, however, is now considered to be crowded out by the construction of the large buildings that triggered that attraction.

Solutions to urban problems
However, the main transformations that digital ecosystems guide in African cities have to do with access to services for their inhabitants. Usually, difficulties of mobility, waste management or even pollution are some of the evils related to the cities and, above all, to their disordered growth, also aggravated by overcrowding. Among the negative urbanization factors, there are also safety, unemployment, and insufficient availability of resources in education or healthcare.

The street life of Uganda’s capital, Kampala. A crowd of people on the streets and heavy traffic. 123rf.com

Precisely, the environment of start-ups and innovative social enterprises offers solutions to the challenges related to the first group, in what has already started to be called Urbantech. Mareme Dieng ensures that many of the entrepreneurs, in reality, are covering the public services that administrations should provide but do not do so. Dieng, head of the strategy for Africa at Global 500, an influential risk capital fund that invests in companies all over the world, adds that investors are massively supporting these Urban plans, as well as other entrepreneurial sectors because they see that there is a lot to be done and this presupposes a large available potential market.
The urban transport sector has been very interesting for entrepreneurs, for whom it is clear that there is a need in this field that requires a response. Probably one of the most representative cases is that of Safeboda, a start-up that started its business in Kampala and introduced planning in the Motortaxi sector (popularly known as Boda-Boda). The company, which has undergone some setbacks such as a scandal over the sale of user data to third-party companies or a frustrated attempt to enter the Nairobi market, expanded and consolidated in Ibadan, the second most populous city of Nigeria. From this country, specifically from Lagos, another innovative proposal is projected.

View of Cape Town’s city centre at night, South Africa. 123rf.com

Seven years ago, the Metro Africa Xpress (Max) began to circulate in the city, revolutionizing the most widespread transport sector, known as Okada in the economic capital of the African giant. Max not only spread to four other cities in the country but also started producing its vehicles and opened the juicy melon of electric urban mobility. Since its birth, it has attracted the attention of investors for its ability to adapt and for the good reception of its service.
Another crucial sector is that of waste treatment. Based on different technical systems, but with the same spirit of improvement of the collection, the expansion of management and the reduction of pollution, while generating resources, they deploy their Disposed Green activities in Accra and its suburbs, or the veterans Werecycle in Lagos. In the same way, Mr Green Africa collects and works plastic in Nairobi, to give them a new life, just like Coliba does in Abidjan and Accra. In this case, public services intersect with the circular economy.

Delivering the goods
Urban transformation comes from companies such as Paps, for example, which has implemented an efficient system for the delivery of goods to Dakar and Abidjan. Faced with a distribution structure such as that of this emerging company, which receives the support of international investors, the reaction could be to think about strengthening digital trade, but its impact and its scope are greater.

Photo José Luis Silván Sen

Not only does conventional trade use its services, which reduces movements to the city, but also offers coverage, for example, to pharmacies or to some requests from the public administration. This example shows that the impact of innovative ecosystems on the future of African cities has multiple variables, some curious such as the problem solved by Okhi. It is a Kenyan startup that provides users with a postal address. An apparently simple operation on how to have a clear and verified address, but so unusual in most large African cities, improves packaging services and online shopping, but also allows access to banking services or help in response to medical emergencies. From there, creativity continues to look for sustainable solutions to the problems they present. (Open Photo: 123rf.com)

Carlos Bajo Erro

Danger of Jihadism.

The spread of terrorist actions across West Africa alarms the Ghanaian authorities. Experts argue that the possible involvement of Ghanaian youth has an economic and social rather than an ideological matrix. The sentinel role of local communities.

What seemed unlikely a few months ago is now possible. Ghana is observing with increasing concern the onset of terrorism on the northern borders of the country. So much so that the same ministry of national security no longer speaks of anything but a ‘terrorist threat’ linked to the attacks in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, but also to recent events in the Ivory Coast, Togo, and Benin. Meanwhile the information minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, talks about intelligence reports suggesting the involvement of Ghanaian youths in terrorist groups.

Until now the country had been considered an oasis of peace where extremist ideologies and radicalization phenomena were unlikely to take root. A long tradition of peaceful coexistence – also made possible by frequent inter-ethnic marriages – and a strong religious tolerance, have naturally kept tensions and ‘exaltations’ at bay. Now things are changing. The reasons are essentially two: the spread of the terrorist phenomenon in areas very close to the country where it is easy to cross borders, and an economic and social unease that attracts young people to dangerous and violent paths.
This year’s Global Index on Terrorism highlights the deterioration of the situation across sub-Saharan Africa – especially in the Sahel – protagonist in 2021 of 48% (or 3,461) of all deadly terrorist attacks, globally. Between 2007 and 2021, deaths from terrorism in the Sahel increased by more than 1000 per cent. As the Global Index points out, the factors underlying affiliations (al-Qaida and the Islamic State group) are complex and systemic: lack of food, access to water, high population growth and weakness of governments. It is therefore clear that such violence has a strong social rather than ideological matrix.

An Immigration Service officer in northern Ghana. (Photo Ghana Press)

Meanwhile, the Ghanaian government – engaged in the surveillance of sensitive targets such as churches, mosques and other public places – in recent years has concentrated its efforts on border control, especially the one to the north (a region with a Muslim majority) with Burkina Faso, a country in which terrorist actions increased from 191 to 216 in a year. But there is another modality that has always characterized a form of intelligence in the field. “Communities know each other and therefore the presence of a ‘foreigner’ is always noticed”, explained Ken Ahorsu, a researcher at the University of Legon in Ghana and co-author of a study on border security. “What is being done is to educate the community to take responsibility and report anything suspicious, or an unusual presence, to traditional leaders or the police”.

No country is immune
Furthermore, the concern for arms smuggling has led to the involvement of drivers and hauliers so that they themselves pay more attention to what they carry. Emmanuel Kotin, director of the Africa Centre for Security and Counterterrorism is convinced that Ghana is “not at all immune from terrorism”. “Some of the conditions that gave rise to the birth and expansion of terrorism in other countries are here in Ghana”, he explains, referring above all to the lack of involvement of young people in decision-making processes and to the economic crisis.

“Communities know each other and therefore the presence of a ‘foreigner’ is always noticed”

The reason for the destabilization in many African countries and the Sahel in particular, says Vladimir Antwi Danso, dean of Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College and an expert on international affairs, “is that people do not know how to find food or how to live and it will not be military interventions or the imposition of Western democracy that stops the violence”. And he continues: “Ghana is not prone to terrorism, even if obviously this is unpredictable. If attacks occur, we think they may be aimed at Western interests”.
And aside from the delicate socio-economic situation and the criticism of the current government’s achievements, there are other reasons for resentment. For example, the ‘cordial relations’ with the US that led, a few years ago, to hospitality being given to two former Guantánamo detainees (although there were never any reasons to consider links between these and Sahelian terrorist groups) or even the signature of an agreement for a greater US military presence in the country for the deployment (and training) of anti-terrorist troops.

Kwesi Aning, head of the research department of the Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Training Centre, also insists on the strong sense of community of the Ghanaians, especially in rural areas. A form of natural opposition to the entry of dangerous elements. Of course, the country’s weaknesses are known to intelligence: the presence of small arms, the overcrowding of the zongos (slums inhabited by the poorest Muslim community), permeable borders, and the passage of information and ideologies through social media. Yet, Ahorsu concludes, “the military solution is not the answer. To fight terrorism in West Africa, we need to work with traditional authorities, religious leaders, and civil society. And above all to provide for the needs of the populations”. (A.S.)

South Africa. Zapiro, a Graphic Humourist.

Through his cartoons, Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro) has been campaigning against apartheid since the 1980s. He has written 28 books and publishes a daily cartoon in the South African Daily Maverick. We went to meet him

 Order prevails in Zapiro’s bright and pleasant creation space. Smiling and apologizing when his dog’s barking interrupts the conversation, for a few minutes he leaves the creative process he embarks on daily to share his ability to humorously interpret what is happening in the country. “Cartoons have played a huge role in both old and new South Africa. The relevant thing is that there were no blacks who could express themselves through the cartoons, they were not given the opportunity even if they were good, and they were persecuted. I only remember one cartoonist, Nanda Soobben, a South African of Indian origin, who worked with me in the days of apartheid”, he explains, surrounded by his books and his reference volumes, from Asterix and Obelix to Tintin, or art books that have helped people to be more observant.

“They were all white men, like me, who worked in the establishment media, very restrictive and limited by prohibitions. It was a very repressive state. Others among us were in the alternative press. But in the new South Africa, everything has accelerated and now there are almost two generations of black cartoonists”, adds Zapiro.
“There is no place in the world where cartoonists are completely free. Media owners censor themselves on sensitive issues. He also mentions the fact that in the last 15 years you feel that you cannot express yourself as you would like on social networks because things can be perceived out of context and you risk being hacked or attacked by trolls (problems on social networks). The feeling of absolute freedom is difficult, but in South Africa, we are quite comfortable in the Department of Freedom”, he says, with a half-smile after recalling that former president Jacob Zuma mentioned him twice, even though the complaints have not been successful.

Aware of the privilege it means for the cartoon to be the first thing the reader notices when they reach the opinion pages, he insists on the importance of the “surprise factor combined with humour” to have a real impact. “It’s about making people think differently, seeing something and absorbing it, connecting multiple messages that support each other to give it another interpretation… These are signals that quickly reach the brain and can become memorable. Combining that communication with the image makes it burn in the brain”. Surrounded by notebooks composed of sheets of sketches, ideas and thoughts labelled with the year of production, for Zapiro the key concepts are “the content – what you want to say – and the vehicle – how to do it”.

While he prepares breakfast, Zapiro listens to the radio with a pencil and one of those white notebooks; he then puts the television in the background and converses with his contacts, with his editor or with the journalists who are currently working. “You have to reach the climax, it’s the hardest part, but it’s what makes you reach the reader directly”, he says. Zapiro created his first character at the age of 11, at school – a boy with a fringe over his eyes – and received the baptism of censorship with a cartoon in 1993, in which he draws “puppets in a Parliament created by the old government, in what blacks did not occupy seats. This put me on the right track”. (Open: Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro) – Photo: José Luis Silván Sen
Carla Fibla García-Sala

 

 

Cuba. The Old Saint Lazarus. The Devotion of a People.

Every year thousands of people go to pay homage to Saint Lazarus in El Rincón, a few kilometres from the capital Havana. “Only Cubans know the mysteries that Saint Lazarus hides”.

Pilgrims arrive breathless crawling on their knees along the path that leads to the National Sanctuary dedicated to Saint Lazarus in El Rincón. The place is packed with devotees paying homage to Saint Lazarus, the saint of the poor, the healer of the diseases of the skin. This miraculous old man is loved as much as Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, the patroness saint of Cuba.
Every 17 December, the day of homage to the saint, a vast crowd gathers at the small town of El Rincón, about 15 kilometres from the centre of Havana, either to honour promises for graces they obtained or to ask the saint for health, money and love, essential elements, according to many, to achieve happiness.

People crawling in a religious ceremony at San Lazaro Catholic Church in El Rincon. 123rf.com

Revered throughout Cuba, this saint is represented as an old man with sores on his body, wearing rags, with crutches, accompanied by two small dogs which, according to legend, licked his wounds to soothe the pain. It is not very easy to reach El Rincón, a small town in the municipality of Rancho Boyeros. However, especially, on the 17th of December, one can see a vast crowd of pilgrims walking along the path that leads to the gates of the sacred site. Some arrive breathless crawling on their knees or on their backs, some even dragging rocks behind them all the way from central Havana to honour promises made to St Lazarus. Red Cross members are there, ready to come to the aid of those who are tired or pass out.
These touching scenes show how strong devotees’ faith is in this saint that grants miracles.
The cult of Saint Lazarus passes from generation to generation, some identify him as the Lazarus in the Bible, others as the beggar who appears in a parable of the Gospel, and still others as Babalu Aye, orisha (deity) of the Yoruba religion from Dahomey, in Africa. The cult of Saint Lazarus is therefore also an example of syncretic devotion: African slaves kept their old religions alive by ‘syncretizing’ their deities with Christian saints. The procession in honour of the Old man, as people affectionately call the saint, can be several kilometres long. Some devotees walk barefoot; others carry a large wooden cross on their backs; some tie a stone to a chain around their ankles. There is no distinction of sex or race among Saint Lazarus’ devotees.

Interior of San Lazaro Catholic Church, El Rincon. 123rf.com.

It is without a doubt, the 17th of December, the official date of tribute to the saint, sees the largest volumes of people at the sacred site in El Rincón. However, this church, dedicated to the cult of Saint Lazarus, is visited all year round. Every day a huge number of people go to the sanctuary bringing their little children, their grandparents and even their puppies to have them blessed by a priest. This shrine was built in 1917 as the Saint Lazarus Church and home-hospital for leprosy patients. In the nineties of the twentieth century, this small church was awarded the title of National Sanctuary.
In 1998 Pope John Paul II went to visit the shrine and celebrated a mass just as he did in Santiago de Cuba when he held a mass at the shrine of the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, as part of his pastoral visit.
The sanctuary remained unchanged until 1990, when two side aisles were added to make more space in order to accommodate more faithful. The whole building was restored, and despite the fact that the current structure does not have a defined architectural style it reminds one of a Colonial-Baroque-inspired church. The interior is rather modest: the main altar also shows neoclassical and romantic elements that make up a typically Cuban eclectic ensemble. Other smaller altars are characterized by neo-Gothic features and are dedicated, among others, to the Virgen de la Caridad and the Virgen de Regla.

San Lazaro Catholic Church and people praying in El Rincon. 123rf.com.

In the central vault, visitors can see a gigantic figure of a richly-dressed Saint Lazarus and, to its left, another smaller image of the saint, which is protected by a glass, where Saint Lazarus is represented as the partially-dressed ‘miraculous’ old man. The faithful stand praying before the image of the saint. They also make offerings, light candles and leave bouquets of purple flowers, the colour of the saint, which are placed in large baskets by attendants. Saint Lazarus …whether the Biblical Lazarus raised from the dead, or Saint Lazarus the ‘miraculous old man’, or the Afro-Cuban Babalu Aye, beyond beliefs and miracles, whether granted or not, fanaticism or tradition, this saint is part of  Cubans’ culture. These people find strength, resistance, humility and love in their religious faith. Only Cubans know the mysteries that Saint Lazarus hides, only Cubans know about the alleged miracles granted to them, or to their dear ones. One of the characteristics of these processions, despite being overcrowded, is silence. There is only one to talk to and to pray: this saint. And once people leave the gates of the sacred site behind, whether they are believers or not, their souls will certainly feel at peace. They will feel grateful for something they cannot even define. They can’t explain why… but they feel at peace with their conscience. (Open Photo: San Lazaro Catholic Church in El Rincon, Cuba. 123rf.com)

Pedro Santacruz

Mexico. Between Art and Popular Religiosity.

Mexican folk art is present in all aspects of community life. During the civil (and Christian liturgical) year, no less than 120 traditional religious feasts are celebrated. The greatest of all is the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Almost all the religious festivals that take place throughout the year provide a theme and a reason for the elaboration of an infinity of handicrafts: among the Huicholes, who live in central-western Mexico, they are called eyes of God (offerings to protect children up to the age of five, when it is believed that they have overcome the dangers of the first age), the muvieris (feathered arrows that the priest or marakame uses in the various rituals and with which he invokes the divinity), the jícaras with drawing in beadwork of the sacred animal: the deer, the boards on which they draw the symbols of their mythology with coloured wool threads glued on with Campeche wax.

Mexican pottery Talavera style of Puebla in Mexico. 123rf.com

Among the Otomi of San Pablito Pahuatlán, Puebla, dolls are made out of amata or Chinese paper that symbolize the spirits of good and evil.
The representation of animals in dances has a profound magical-religious significance, such as those of the cycle of the Tiger, the Tecuanes, the Tlacololeros, the Deer, the Snake and others with a profound totemic character. Similarly, milagros, which are figurines of silver or alloys, shaped like an eye, leg, heart, etc. which represent the parts affected by some evil and which are placed in churches to ask for divine help, are the extraordinary examples of popular painting
and faith found in churches.

Christmas cycle
Among the popular expressions with which Christmas is celebrated – the inn, the Nativity, the pastorelas, the Epiphany and Candlemas – we find the plastic representation of scenes related to the birth of Christ.

Mexican Nativity scene with Holy Family and baby Jesus. 123rf.com

Mexican folk art offers us nativity scenes made with all kinds of materials: from stylized figures of wheat straw in Tzintzuntzan, Michoacán; to the polychrome wooden niches that recall ancient scenes in San Antonio Arrazola and San Martín Tilcajete, Oaxaca; beautiful natural wood carvings in Coatepec de Morelos, Michoacán; figures in coloured sheet metal in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato; trees of life with nativity scenes and baroque figures in polychrome clay of kings riding magenta elephants and camels, where even the mule and the ox are studded with flowers and stars in Metepec, State of Mexico.
Very delicate cribs in stretched glass, in Guadalajara, Jalisco, and others in cardboard and pasta in Mexico City.
The famous and popular miniature nativity scenes, modelled and polychromed by hand in Tlaquepaque, Jalisco.

Pastorelas
The origin of the pastorelas is rooted in the religious theatre of the Middle Ages, ingenious representations of a symbolic nature, written in verse in ‘quadriloquism’ and handed down from generation to generation. All follow the same lines and the same trappings that allude to the narration of the birth of Christ, with characters representing the shepherds Bato, Bras and Galia, the hermits in pointed hoods, the Holy Family in the portal of Bethlehem, the archangels Gabriel and Michael, the villains of the comedy: Luzbel and her court of demons, with the deadly sins Cunning, Lust and the other infernal hosts, who are finally defeated by the forces of good who go to adore the new-born
with songs of praise.

La Candelaria
On February 2, the Christmas cycle ends with the feast of Candelaria, which commemorates the presentation of the Child Jesus in the temple. It is on this date that the images that are ‘raised’ from the cradle in domestic cribs, in baskets, trays and chairs adorned with flowers, accompanied by grains of corn, beans, wheat and other cereals, are blessed, indicating that this ceremony is linked to the agricultural cycle.

Fiesta de la Candelaria, in the parish of the Espinal, in the city of Orizaba. CC BY-SA 4.0 / Isaacvp

The godparents, who thus become compadres, will dress the child in a special costume made for this day, according to the different invocations they adopt: the Santo Niño de Atocha, the Niño Limosnero, the Niño de las Palomas … even the Niño footballer.

 Carnival
The second great religious cycle – that of the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ – is preceded by the Carnival whose antecedents date back to ancient feasts such as the feast of the sacred ox of Apis and the goddess Isis in Egypt, the Greek bacchanalia, the wolves and the Roman Saturnalia, the harvest of mistletoe between song and dance in the early spring night in the Welsh forests.

Mexican Carnival dancer wearing a traditional folk costume and mask.123rf.com

In Mexico, this festival has a completely different character, due to greater indigenous influence, where its ritual-propitiatory character is more accentuated. According to some researchers, this is due to the fact that this time of year corresponds to the Mesoamerican New Year, with its own nemonteni (five useless days), which regulate the ritual calendar.
Thus, several cities celebrate parades and dances: in Yuriria, Guanajuato, the dance is made up of hooded men dressed in black, with a skull painted on their backs; in Xochistlahuaca, Guerrero, men dress up as women, with beautiful huipiles and ride the machomula, which is a huge wooden horse; in Chiconcuac, Morelos, masked men with coats and bobbin hats dance the Taragotas; in Tlaxcala, the charros parade with feather headdresses and shawls embroidered with sequins; in Cantona, Tlaxcala, groups of catrines can be seen wearing coats and top hats, fine masks and open umbrellas; in Tepotzotlán, in the State of Mexico, the Chinelos, dressed in artisela dressing gowns, wire mesh masks, beards and a large feather headdress, take to the streets dancing the Brinco.

Lent
More than anywhere else, in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato and in the States of Colima, Morelos and Puebla, on the sixth Friday of Lent, the Friday of the Addolorata, altars covered with tablecloths and paper flags are erected, where images of the Virgin of Sorrows are placed with candelabra, stacks of large blown glass balls with coloured water, candles, chia seed plates, lentils, flowers and decorated candles. In Santa María Atzompa, Oaxaca, the altars include vases in the shape of a deer, the body of which is decorated with deep incisions through which chia or corn seeds are inserted – as if in a furrow – which, when sprouting, resemble the fleece of the ‘animal.’

Holy Week
On Holy Thursday and Good Friday, in various cities of the country, Judas dolls are sold, made of cardboard and cane, decorated with fireworks, and painted in bright colours, which, while symbolizing the traitor apostle, take on the appearance of the devil, of death and, above all, of the popular and political figures of the moment.

Handcrafts for sale in San Martin Tilcajete, Oaxaca, Mexico. CC BY-SA 4.0/ AlejandroLinaresGarcia

These very special dolls are usually burned in the square or in the streets of every town and village. On the occasion of Holy Week, in Metepec, in the State of Mexico, crucified Christs are modelled in polychrome clay; in San Antonio Arranzola and San Martín Tilcajete, in Oaxaca, wooden niches are created to represent Calvary and others in sheet metal with clay figures representing the different phases of the Passion of Christ.

The cult of the dead
One of the most deeply rooted celebrations in Mexico is that of All Saints which is celebrated on 1 and 2 November (the first is dedicated to deceased children, the second to adults). For Mexicans, death is nothing more than a phase of life itself, like the corn seed which, in order to continue its life cycle, must be buried to be reborn again. The Mexican people celebrate with great enthusiasm the day of re-encounter with those who preceded us on the journey towards eternity; they celebrate and erect altars in honour of the dead in the houses, with food and drink; the tombs are decorated with flowers or candles and their favourite dishes are offered to the dead, of which they will only take the ‘aroma’, while incense is burned.

Day of the dead celebration. Photo: 123rf.com

Traditional altars of the dead are decorated with cempasúchil flowers, and paper garlands of chopped Chinese paper. They are also decorated with scented candles or black paper flowers, as well as with crosses, vases, candlesticks, and censers. Of the latter, the best known are those hand-modelled and painted in tempera with bright colours, or those made of glazed black clay, such as those in the neighbourhood of La Luz, in the city of Puebla; or the polychrome and painted ones of Izúcar de Matamoros, Puebla.
The most popular items for the Day of the Dead holiday are decorated and painted sugar skulls, which bear a person’s name on their foreheads. Among these, those produced in Toluca, in the State of Mexico, in the central area of ​​Michoacán and in Mexico City stand out. In Celaya, Morelia and Mexico City, the skulls are made of cardboard and pasta, in the style of the Jews. Huge sugar skulls are also made in which bowls of colourful flowers are placed.

Our Lady of Guadalupe
The most important symbol of Mexican religiosity is the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, in whose mestizo face scholars have tried to see that of the most revered female divinity in pre-Hispanic times: Tonantzin (‘Our True Mother’), and whose sanctuary is found in the same place where the patron saint of Mexico is venerated today. But Guadalupe’s cult goes beyond its religious significance, as she is an icon of nationality with a deep social sense of integration and identity.

Every 12 December commemorates the apparition of the Guadalupana on the Tepeya hill. Near this date, pilgrimages to the Basilica of the Virgin multiply. Groups of pilgrims carry banners – some of them hand-painted – flags, banners with different legends and images of Guadalupe, richly decorated with natural flowers. The pilgrims are accompanied by marching bands and many people dressed in traditional costumes with ritual dances that they will perform in front of the Morenita. (Open Photo: 123rf.com)

Electra López Mompradé
Museo de Arte Popular
Mexico

Freedom of Religion – Touchstone of Human Rights.

All rights are equal but some rights are more equal than others. FIFA and the Qatar authorities are justly under fire for restrictions on LGBT rights and their treatment of migrant labourers.

But nothing is said about the abuse of rights to religious freedom, a world-wide problem as well as one local to Qatar and other gulf states where many migrant workers, especially those in domestic service, are Christians from the Philippines.

Article 18 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights spells out what the right to religious freedom – violated around the world – means in detail. “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice,
worship and observance”.

This means little in practice today, neither globally nor in Qatar which hosts big interfaith gatherings but where, even at Easter, Christian servants are refused time off to attend religious services.

Worldwide harassment and persecution of people because of their faith, from verbal abuse and hate speech, to arson and murder, is rising steadily. Only eight of 198 countries monitored by the Evangelical Christian organisation Open Doors get a clean bill of health.

Aid to the Church in Need, a Catholic organisation which works in over 140 countries, is currently running a ‘Break the Silence’ campaign to raise awareness of the persecution of Christians and all faiths [my italics] with a day of special events this Wednesday in London’s Ukrainian Catholic Church. Aid to the Church in Need has also renewed focus on Nigeria, where attacks on Christian churches have risen from 18 in 2019 to 31 in 2020 and 23 in just the first six months of this year.

Religious freedom, a touchstone of human rights around the world, is not ignored in Britain but tends to be mainly a Conservative Party concern. The UK has a special envoy for Freedom of Religious Belief (FoRB), Fiona Bruce MP, an evangelical Christian. Both the Commons and Lords, the latter with 26 Church of England bishops, the Lords Spiritual, do lobby and speak out on FoRB issues. But with the exception of the Uighers and Rohingya, the cases they raise rarely are deemed newsworthy, can be complex, and seldom evoke large-scale sympathy.

Take the case of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian. When she offered water to a Muslim co-worker it was refused; her ‘Christian hands’ rendered it haram, forbidden. She was told to convert to Islam to cleanse her impurity. An altercation ensued in which she allegedly blasphemed against the Prophet and the Qur’an.

Asia Bibi was convicted under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and spent eight years on death row before being acquitted in a High Court judgement in October 2018. Here was a named individual, a fruit-picker, a working woman with whom we could empathise. Public opinion was aroused.

According to Open Doors, of the three Abrahamic faiths, Christians suffer from some degree of harassment and persecution in 145 of the world’s 198 States, Muslims in 139, and Jews in 88. But is discrimination always based on faith alone? In India the Modi government for its own purposes is promoting Hindu-based cultural nationalism against Muslims. Are the Hazara in Afghanistan persecuted because they are not Pashtun or because they are Shi’a or both?

Particularly in Africa some ethnicities, minority and occupational groups are identified by their religious beliefs. Bloody clashes over land-use in parts of northern Nigeria between pastoralists, who are broadly-speaking Muslim, and farmers, broadly speaking Christian, are perceived as religious conflict.

From one perspective these aren’t important distinctions. In all cases human rights are grievously violated. And as my old Nigerian friend Matthew Kukah, Bishop of Sokoto, once said: ‘What do you call these people? I call them criminals”.

In 1971 a Synod of the world’s Catholic bishops declared: “Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel.” A wordy way of saying that for Catholics working for justice is a religious obligation, an integral part of Christian practice and observance – so politics and religion can’t neatly be separated.

In the repressive states of Southern Africa and Latin America where I worked resistance by Christians qualified them for persecution, imprisonment, torture and death. Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, gunned down at the altar in 1980, made a saint of the Catholic Church, became an icon of this kind of martyrdom.

A little discussed feature of the Cold War is the way the global political and ideological division penetrated the Catholic Church itself. In Moscow I had the unnerving experience of listening to devout Catholics whose little church opposite the KGB’s Lubyanka headquarters had cameras trained on the door, dismiss the late Cardinal Paolo Arns as a communist. Arns, a Cardinal committed to the poor, was a tireless campaigner against human rights violations by Brazil’s
brutal military dictatorship.

From 1960-1990, in Latin America, Philippines and South Africa, opposition to military dictatorships, oligarchies and apartheid, produced martyrs killed for following the simple demands of justice. Opposition to Communist Party repression in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe had the similar consequences.
But because of the ideological barrier of the Cold War, never did these victims of tyranny engage with each other in serious dialogue.

Religious Orders with members from both parts of the world experienced this same division within their own ranks. Catholic charities worked on different sides of the divide, Aid to the Church in Need in the Communist world, the Catholic Institute for International Relations in Latin America, Philippines, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), South Africa, Namibia, and Mozambique.
There was no coming together around the shared experience of persecution and the terrifying ordeals of those who resisted tyranny.

Today there are new violations of religious freedom. Christians pursuing environmental causes are experiencing martyrdom in Latin America. The question arises who is responsible for such persecution? The actions of the State or the inaction of the State? A former governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, reared a Christian and a leading opponent of the blasphemy laws, was assassinated by his bodyguard for supporting Asia Bibi. An unholy amalgam of State and Society at work.

There is no lack of information. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom publishes a factual annual global report. The Mormons in Utah have a comprehensive archive of FoRB legal cases. In 2019 the Anglican Bishop Philip Mounstephen of Truro produced for the Foreign Secretary, an independent review entitled Support for the Persecuted Church. It contains a fine summary of the plight of Christians around the world and suggests what might be done about it. But nothing much changes for the better.

We in the UK have no right to be complacent. Antisemitism alongside Islamophobia remains a rallying theme of extreme Right organisations. I have listened to black Pentecostals who believed Muslims worship the devil. Ahmadis experience the disdain, and sometimes worse, of their Muslim neighbours.

Anti-Catholicism bubbles up from the depths of social media. The Labour Party was investigated and castigated for its failure to deal adequately with antisemitism by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and a question mark hangs over the level of anti-Muslim prejudice in the Conservative Party. Muslim-Hindu tensions have surfaced in Leicester.

Do not expect such symptoms of hostility and prejudice to improve as poverty and social dislocation, the recruiting sergeants for intolerance and discrimination, increase in Britain, and in the rest of the world. (Open photo: 123rf.com)

Ian Linden
Professor at St Mary’s University,
Strawberry Hill, London.

South Africa. Joburg. Towards Social and Urban Renewal.

Johannesburg or Joburg, as it is called, is one of the fifty largest cities in the world. With six million inhabitants, it is estimated that in less than a decade, it will be a mega-city and will have to find solutions to the demands of services and basic resources.

Known as Igoli (city of gold, in Zulu), the urbanization of Joburg began after the discovery of deposits of the precious mineral in 1896. Only 35 years later it already had 400,000 inhabitants. It is also the city with the largest area of trees planted in the world (6 million).
Its population is made up of 76.4% blacks, 5.6% mestizos, 12.3% whites and 4.9% citizens of Hindu origin. Furthermore, according to official data, 7% of its population is illiterate and 34% only received primary education. It is also a mix of religions: 53% are Christian and 24% do not identify with any creed, 14% follow independent African churches, 3% are Muslim, 1% Jewish and 1% are Hindu. It also has a small community
of Mormons. (49,000).

Despite the push that the country’s democratic governments, the first led by Nelson Mandela, gave to the construction of social housing – between 1994 and 2014, 2.9 million homes were built across the country as part of the Reconstruction and Development Project – and the increase in infrastructure for basic services for the population that suffered under apartheid discrimination, the situation is still serious.
Almost 30 years after the end of apartheid, the feeling of stagnation, coupled with the frustration of repeated promises and an average waiting time of decades for access to a home, indicate that the problem is still far from being solved.

A boy on the outskirts of Johannesburg

According to World Population Review, 80% of the South African population resides in formal housing, 13.6% in informal housing and 5.5% in traditional housing. In the case of Johannesburg, it is estimated that 29% of its residents live in informal housing, with limited access to water and electricity, and poor sanitation.
“We strongly believe in the importance of undoing the divisions of space imposed by the apartheid era that continues to segregate our cities on the basis of race and social class. And for this, integrated housing districts from the periphery must be developed, with economic and leisure opportunities for the districts of the city centre”, says one of the managers of Divercity, a real estate fund formed by large private companies in the sector (Atterbury, Ithemba, RMB, Future Growth and Nedbank Properties) which is collaborating with the Johannesburg city council to make inhabitable those areas of the city condemned to service cuts or occupied by criminal gangs who demand money from people and keep them under coercion and violence.

From Hillbrow to Maboneng
“Joburg is rapidly becoming urbanized and is expected to become a megacity by 2030, requiring more homes to meet current and future demand. Converting the old commercial buildings in the city centre into affordable residential housing with a high standard of quality in the urban core helps to answer this question economically”, emphasises the Divercity manager in his brand-new office in one of the restored buildings in Maboneng, located in the area christened Jewel City, whose splendour cannot be ignored.

The main square of Jewel City. Photo José Luis Silván Sen

Jewel City is just a street where transformation is absolute. Modern buildings decorated in bright colours converge in squares where children can play safely. You can see international and local fast-food restaurants, well-stocked supermarkets, and modern cafes with a wide variety of products. It is a scene limited to a specific space because in parallel streets you pass into a completely different situation, with badly paved roads and overcrowded and untidy places.
The restored buildings function because all their services, from waste collection to water and electricity supply, to security, are private. The well-intentioned former mayor Herman Mashaba launched a plan in 2016 (with an initial investment of around 1,220 million euros) to ‘rebuild Joburg’ which included kilometres of cycle paths, whose durable green colour can be seen in some streets in the neighbourhood of Hillbrow, and partnering with real estate companies to offer affordable one- to three-bedroom apartments to the lower-middle-class population. This is with rents of 55 to 275 euros, depending on the number of rooms, excluding the services necessary to make them habitable such as water and electricity.

The entrance to renovated buildings with a security system. Photo José Luis Silván Sen

Mashaba, during his tenure – he resigned in 2019 to form a new political party, Action SA, with which he ran for local election in November 2021, without obtaining a majority that would allow him to carry out his project – estimated that more than 150,000 people were on a waiting list for accommodation and an average of 3,000 migrants arrived in Johannesburg each month in search of better economic opportunities to build a decent future.

Newtown and culture
In addition to basic accommodation at an affordable price and with guaranteed minimum services, other areas of the city centre have undergone a somewhat fictitious transformation, due to specific places such as Newtown, which is home to Mary Fitzgerald Square, where events and political meetings are usually organized. The dilapidated Museum Africa and the Market Theatre, which with its experimental shows and shows that end late in the night, provided a degree of big-city normality, aside from the obsessive safety in which every citizen moves around Joburg.
During the Mashaba period, the number of police officers on the streets was increased to make the city centre ‘the safest place to invest’. The claim remained only words since crime rates and violent deaths have not stopped rising.

Buildings undergoing renovation. Photo José Luis Silván Sen

Farther south, between Market and Commissioner Street, in Gandhi Square and the Marshalltown business area, the spaces designed to sit and enjoy the hustle and bustle of the city are surprising. As in Maboneng, it is impressive that if you widen a little the radius in which you walk, you come to a road with potholes and sidewalks where the sewer covers are missing. The feeling of insecurity also increases, and is impossible to avoid when faced with evidence of the armed guards at the entrances to buildings who warn people of the danger of carrying a mobile phone in one’s hand.

Fighting the structural inequality that exists throughout South Africa, but which in big cities like Johannesburg increases due to the presence of mafias and corruption that has become intrinsic in recent decades, is the great challenge of the mayor, Mpho Phalatse, who last January promised a ‘golden start’ for the city. This commitment includes the development of the city centre, the operation of traffic lights, public transport, road maintenance and the fight against cable theft to avoid power outages, and has also led to the renaming of the Joburg heritage site named after Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Much remains to be done for the city to become a more human place. (Open Photo: View of Johannesburg. Photo José Luis Silván Sen)
Carla Fibla Garcia-Sala

 

 

 

Photo Gallery – Snapshots from Latin America

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