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Colombia. The Challenges of the New President.

Monday, 1 August 2022 8:00

The Colombian presidential election showed a clear victory for the centre-left candidate Gustavo Petro. Although it was by only 3 points, it is a difference that avoids the disputes that would have arisen if it had been closer. It should be noted that the winning candidate, in the days before the election, mentioned the possibility of fraud.

It is an attitude that is becoming generalized in the American continent, as shown by United States politics with the position maintained by Trump after his defeat and the one that President Jair Bolsonaro is assuming because of which he could suffer.

The map of Colombia shows two clearly differentiated regions. The territories with coasts on the sea, whether the Pacific or the Caribbean, gave the victory to the winning candidate.

On the other hand, in those in the centre of the country, the defeated candidate, Rodolfo Hernández, won, with the exception of Bogotá, the capital, where Petro won even though it is located in the centre of the country. The urban vote – the violent social protests that the country suffered between 2019 and 2021 took place in this area – showed a predominance of the winning centre-left candidate, and instead the rural vote and that of the small towns turned in favour of Hernández, who, as an anti-political candidate was beginning to be perceived as the lesser evil by the traditional political system, which has been
the big loser in this election.

None of the factions into which the traditional structure of liberals and conservatives was divided reached the second round. This does not mean that its political and economic power has disappeared, and it will try to resist the changes that Petro will seek to impose.

His victory ratifies the electoral triumph of the centre-left that has been taking place in South America since the end of 2019. Then, in the Argentine presidential election, the formula composed by Alberto Fernández and Cristina Kirchner prevailed. The second Bolivian presidential election followed in 2020 – the first that took place at the end of 2019, led to an institutional crisis due to allegations of fraud against Evo Morales – which was won by his own party with the Luis Arce-David Choquehuanca ticket.

In 2021, Pedro Castillo won the Peruvian presidential election and in early 2022, Gabriel Boric won that which took place in Chile. The exceptions were Uruguay at the beginning of 2020 and Ecuador in 2021, where two centre-right presidents won: Luis Lacalle Pou and Guillermo Lasso. But the fact that will consolidate the shift to the centre-left is if, in October 2022, former President Lula prevails in Brazil over President Jair Bolsonaro, who is running for his re-election.

Meanwhile, the Venezuelan regime of Nicolás Maduro has been consolidated with an improvement in the economy and the reduction of the sanctions ordered by the Biden Administration. This trend distances the region from the United States, as evidenced at the IX Summit of Presidents of the Americas. Petro’s triumph – which he believed would modify his country’s marked alignment with Washington in terms of security – generated the enthusiasm of the Puebla Group, which brought together the ‘progressive’ leaders of the region, and expressions of approval by the Venezuelan regime.

Petro’s great challenge will now be governability in the face of misgivings and doubts from Washington, the business community, the Armed Forces, and the remnants of traditional politics. These have disappeared as a political option for power, but they maintain a significant number of legislators, with the ability to condition the Petro government, which would only have a third of the seats (the Parliament was elected months before the presidential election).

As for the right-wing populist Rodolfo Hernández, who joins the Senate, he will have only a handful of legislators, given that at the time they were elected, he was a candidate for whom less than 10% intended to vote. The markets show signs of mistrust and demand that Petro provides guarantees that give stability and reduce risks. But the other great challenge will be the issue of security – chronic in Colombia – which has been present for more than half a century and has not been resolved by the demobilization agreement with the FARC – the most important guerrilla group that has operated in the country – achieved by
former President Santos.

The National Liberation Army (ELN), the other guerrilla group that refused to participate in the peace accords, would agree to dialogue with the Petro government. But the reality today is more complex. The FARC dissidents that have rejected the peace agreement have a strong presence on the border with Venezuela and are linked to organized crime. Drug trafficking has spread and has taken over other activities, such as illegal mining. Paramilitary groups continue to be active and linked to organized crime.

Governability is not only a challenge for Colombia but also extends to other countries. In Bolivia, a political crisis has broken out within the ruling party over the presidential candidacy. President Luis Arce promotes his vice president, David Choquehuanca, as the ruling party’s candidate. The former President, Evo Morales, for his part, is seeking re-election, confronting both and putting governability at risk with the division of the ruling party in Congress.

In Peru, President Pedro Castillo does not have a majority in Congress, his party is divided, and he suffers from repeated allegations of corruption that put his permanence in power at risk due to the Peruvian constitutional system, which allows two-thirds of Congress to remove the President for ‘moral incompetence’.

In Chile, President Boric does not have a majority in Congress and faces growing criticism from the most radical wing of his coalition. Economic problems, social demands, union conflicts in the copper industry, and the violence of the Mapuche indigenous minority in the south of the country complicate governance.

But this problem also occurs in a centre-right government like that of Ecuador which, without a majority in Congress, faces growing protests in the streets, led by indigenous organizations that have caused the fall of several governments in the past. There are antecedents that allow us to measure the type of challenge that Petro will face. But they also show the existence of a regional problem.

Rosendo Fraga/Nueva Mayoria

Africa.Conquering Space.

Monday, 1 August 2022 8:00

Adopt a common political space strategy. Develop a constellation of satellites ‘made in Africa’ capable of guaranteeing independence in collecting data. Create a system of space policy by creating a system of governance. These are some of the goals of the African Union
in the field of space.

The advance of the technological revolution, whose progress was helped by the Covid 19 pandemic, is significantly affecting the internal and international balances of states. Great strides have also been made in the field of aerospace, to the point of leading some scholars to affirm that this will be the era of great space expansion. This is true if we consider that the new great powers – above all China – are adequately equipped to conquer this new frontier which is now one of the fundamental factors of the economies of the most advanced nations: proof of this is
growing financial investment. Even in the war in Ukraine, space infrastructures are playing an important role by enabling the Ukrainians to hinder the Russian advance thanks to their capillary observation through satellites of the crisis territories on which the battalions move as well as their strategic infrastructure.

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The development of activities related to the space sector is also having a positive impact by generating a new economy. In this regard, we see effects related to satellite navigation, or the famous GPS (today we also have Galileo and GLONASS), which is becoming one of the indisputable assets of the superpowers aiming to have a satellite constellation linked to navigation and observation of the Earth. It is clear that in this new development process, the effects of which we may equate to those produced by the industrial revolution, the countries that will employ more resources in the innovation sectors will play a leading role in future geo-economic and geopolitical scenarios.
Space science is also extensively contributing to the realization of sustainable development processes. In this regard, we have only to consider the benefits that derive from it in terms of resource management from Earth observation through the acquisition of data relating to chemical and biological composition.

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Within this context, the African Union (AU) also intended to carve out its own space as early as 2015 when the 2063 Agenda was adopted. This is a document that, in tracing the strategic framework for the continent over future years, through initiatives in the field of economic development, political integration (we are talking about the creation of a federation or confederation of African states), the improvement of justice and democracy, also highlighted ambitions in the space sector.
This sector, in fact, could represent for Africa a useful development flywheel capable of responding to the needs of the continent, as well as encouraging technological innovation processes useful for guaranteeing a series of services whose access is still denied to a large percentage of the African population.
Indeed, the actions implemented in the space sector began to take their first steps in 2013 when the AU Commission assembled a group of experts whose purpose was to elaborate a strategy capable of creating a structure for the development and the operation of initiatives in this area but, above all, to build a long-term vision, within which to allow the public sector to dialogue with the private sector. There was already a consolidated awareness of the importance of space for achieving socio-economic objectives, managing crises resulting from natural disasters, monitoring climate change, marine activities and resources, conflicts, the spread of diseases and much more. This awareness constituted a solid basis for the conclusion of the first phase of the process which resulted in the adoption of the African space strategy and policy, presented in January 2016, whose main objective was to create a perimeter of rules that, in addition to ensuring the promotion of the agenda, would ensure that Africa aligns itself with international treaties.

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This is also important given the fact that, in the space sector, in addition to the principle of competition between powers, that of cooperation also applies. We could, in fact, argue that space by its very nature is cooperation and competition. It is cooperation because it is right that certain processes of a scientific nature are developed in synergy; while it is competition because the economic dimension is involved.
Among the main objectives indicated in the strategic agenda of the African Union is the promotion of intra-continental partnerships, the development of a considerable African space industry and the development of a constellation of ‘made in Africa’ satellites useful for guaranteeing its own independence in the data collection. In addition, work is under way on the creation of a space policy implementation system through the creation of a system of governance. However, the achievement of this objective is not immediate both due to lack of funds and the institutional complexities due to the instability of some countries and the difficulties associated with the implementation of Commission communications at the national level and the creation of a coordination structure capable of operating both vertically and horizontally.

Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT)

To date, it is reported that over 20 countries have reached remarkable levels in the development of space programs and 8 of these have launched about 40 satellites into orbit. But, certainly, the greatest of the achievements to date is represented by the launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida on January 13, 2022, of the first satellite constellation, of three nanosatellites, entirely designed and developed in Africa at Cape Peninsula University of Technology on a SpaceX vector. This is a truly remarkable result which places the research sector already on an advanced level. This constellation, nicknamed MDASat (Marine Domain Awareness), will have the task of collecting data to monitor the portion of the sea corresponding to the exclusive economic zone and so strengthen the protection of South Africa’s marine resources. The milestone reached by South Africa has its roots in the path that the country has followed since the 1950s, attaining important milestones over the course of these decades, including the construction of the first satellite in the early 1990s and the establishment, in 1995, of the South African Council for Space Affairs (SACSA) whose goal is the implementation of the South African space policy.
These signals clearly indicate the progress that the continent is making in the space sector, also due to the efforts made by the African Union. Such progress, if governed and directed well, could produce ground-breaking effects, and lead the continent towards sustainable development by activating important transformations of which the first beneficiaries could be precisely the countries currently living in a considerable state of poverty. (Open Photo: 123rf.com)

Filippo Romeo

Music. Houeida Hedfi. In the Rivers of the Soul.

Monday, 1 August 2022 8:00

Sounds with an unmistakably Arabian and Middle Eastern flavour, the sort of music that passionately involves those who hear it.

There are masterpieces that germinate far from the great circuits of the music business and pop up where you least expect them. This is the case of Fleuves de l’Âme by the Tunisian musician Houeida Hedfi. ‘Rivers of the Soul’ really, in the form of sounds with an unmistakably Arabian and Middle Eastern flavour, but at the same time usable and lovable even by ears not very accustomed to this type of sound.
Rivers of notes that flow from ancestral sources, but with the energy of contemporaneity, without forgetting that the word immediately evokes water, understood both as a vital element and a dynamic flow that often starts as light as a whisper and then grows to roar, and again softens into a peaceful flow. That is how it is also for Houeida and her music immersed in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean sauces.

Photo: PIAS

Fleuves de l’Âme, which took almost ten years of work – put together between Tunisia, France, and the Berlin studio of the well-known producer Dreijer – is an entirely instrumental album where each track includes the name of a river in the title. With the percussion to the fore, supporting arabesques of strings and piano and the flickering sounds of the bouzouki, the three-stringed mandolin dearly loved throughout the Middle East, is evident. Certainly, one of the most intense and exciting albums among those released in 2021 as part of the evergreen world music. A mix of avant-garde and folk, classical and minimalist music, interrupted melodies and intricate rhythms, something that cannot be heard in passing, music that challenges the attention and the mind.
An even more relevant work, if we consider that it is the debut of a 25-year-old musician. Houeida Hedfi is a multi-instrumentalist with a background as an economist; she cut her teeth in a band called Chabbouba, and first entered the record markets in 2011, appearing in a compilation of Tunisian artists. She is now based in Paris, a vital pole of multi-ethnic planetary pop for decades. But her heart and music continue to be above all in her native land and her cultural roots.

Photo: 123rf.com

Especially since, for Tunisians, music is of fundamental importance, as it accompanies and marks the salient moments of everyone’s public and private life: weddings, baptisms, birthdays, and popular celebrations; and the songs related to the various events are often handed down from generation to generation. The typical musical instruments of Tunisia are the tabl, a barrel-shaped drum, and the zukrah, a kind of bagpipe.
Artistically Houeida was enchanted by the stambali, a religiously inspired dance (the belly is seen as a symbol of fertility) characterized by hypnotic percussive rhythms, but her hunger for melodies soon led her to a more varied stylistic hypothesis that mixes modernity and tradition, ancient instruments and electronics, classical echoes, and pop modernisms.
Fleuves de l’Âme is a splendid example of this, as well as a perfect promotional spot for a country that, despite its troubles, continues to represent an essential piece of Mediterranean culture. (Photo: SoundCloud)

Franz Coriasco

Sri Lanka. What next?

Monday, 1 August 2022 8:00

At the height of the numerous protests that have swept through Sri Lanka over the past 4 months, a crowd of protesters stormed the presidential palace in the capital Colombo, forcing President
Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee.
Former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is elected as the ninth President via a parliamentarian election. Uncertain future.

On Saturday 9 July, on board a military plane, President Rajapaksa headed first to the Maldives and then to Singapore where he resigned in front of the Sri Lanka ambassador on 15 July. On July 20, former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was elected as the ninth President via a parliamentarian election.

He won the election with backing of the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna party (SLPP) which had the most seats in parliament. Wickremesinghe is due to serve for the rest of Rajapaksa’s term, until November 2024. However, there are concerns his election signals an unstable future for Sri Lankan politics, with protesters vowing to unseat him just as they did Rajapaksa.

The institutional crisis in Sri Lanka was triggered by the collapse of the economic system. Totally dependent on foreign countries, in the early months of 2022, the island found itself without the currency reserves necessary to pay for imports of essential goods such as food,
oil and medicines.

The collapse of reserves is mainly linked to the decrease in remittances from abroad, which have reached their lowest levels since 2012, and to the crisis in the tourism sector caused by the pandemic and the deterioration of security conditions following the Easter 2019 attacks claimed by the National Thowheeth Jama’ath – a local Islamist group affiliated with ISIS – which caused about 270 victims and
over 500 injured.

The controversial policies promoted by the Rajapaksa brothers, characterized by poor strategic vision, contributed to aggravating the structural problems of the Sri Lankan economy. In particular, the reduction in taxes and the cut of about 7 percentage points in VAT, which went from 15 to 8%, approved by the government in November 2019 to boost domestic consumption, contributed to the deterioration of the macroeconomic situation.

In fact, thanks to the pandemic and lockdowns, the tax cut has produced a drastic reduction in overall revenue that has weakened the country and paved the way for rating agencies to downgrade. Even the recent decision by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka to devalue the rupee, aimed at the government’s intentions to attract remittances and investments, ended up favouring a surge in inflation which reached 54.6% on an annual basis in June. Even an innovative measure such as the ban on the use of chemical fertilizers has proved short-sighted to the test of facts, causing a drop in crop yields of up to 60% in the central-northern districts of the country.

At international level, the end of the Rajapaksa era could translate into a gradual downsizing of the Chinese presence in Sri Lanka. The strong ties between Colombo and Beijing date back to the years of post-civil war reconstruction and have evolved due to the diplomatic action and political choices of the Rajapaksa. Subsequently, the inclusion of Sri Lanka in the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, the maritime chapter of the New Silk Road, favoured Chinese penetration into the economic system of the island.

Over time, Beijing’s attention has turned to strategic infrastructures with investments useful to realize the Colombo Port City Project, funded by China Harbour Engineering, or the construction of the Magampura Mahinda Rajapaksa port, commonly known as Hambatota, built thanks to the funds of the EXIM Bank of China and then sold under management to Beijing due to Colombo’s inability to honour the loans.

Overall, Chinese investments in infrastructure on the island amounted to about 12.1 billion dollars between 2006 and 2019, years in which, except for the parenthesis linked to the electoral defeat of 2015, the Rajapaksa dominated the political life of the island.

China’s economic commitment in Sri Lanka has sparked a wide debate on the real impact of investments and the island’s ability to cope with its debts, at the risk of ending up in the so-called “debt trap”. While, on the one hand, the ongoing crisis poses challenges to relations between China and Sri Lanka, on the other it seems to present an opportunity for Narendra Modi’s India. In fact, in a revival of what happened at the end of the civil war in 2009, Sri Lanka needs the help of the main regional players, namely India and China, and international financial institutions.

In this context, in the face of the lukewarm reaction from Beijing, Delhi has shown itself to be particularly reactive in wanting to support the island. In a short time, India has pledged about $ 4 billion in loans, credit lines and currency swaps, in order to guarantee Sri Lanka the purchase of basic necessities. Overall, Delhi has shown that it wants to take advantage of the space left momentarily by Beijing to turn the crisis into an opportunity. The goal is to regain lost ground in a country that fully falls within the priorities of the Indian neighbourhood strategy called “Neighbourhood First”.

Despite invaluable Indian support, Sri Lanka’s future remains tied to the support of international financial institutions such as the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
While the former is providing the island with the necessary liquidity to buy gas and fertilizers, the IMF can offer Colombo a structural solution to overcome the crisis.

For this reason, negotiations have been underway for months between the Washington-based institution and the island which should end with the activation of the Extended Fund Facility, the IMF tool useful for resolving medium-long term imbalances in the balance of payments. However, negotiations are also progressing slowly due to the inability of the Sri Lankan political class to implement the agreed reforms.

Although IMF support for the island is not new, the negotiations over recent weeks could take on a broader political significance. In fact, Sri Lanka recently, on the basis of what has been done by other regional players such as India, contacted Russia in an attempt to obtain oil at a discounted price.

This move, in addition to fully inserting the island in the wider diplomatic competition underway between the West and Moscow, could incentivize the IMF to accelerate the closing of the deal. For its part, however, Sri Lanka must find a quick solution to the institutional crisis so as to be a credible interlocutor in the eyes of the Fund.

The current crisis, therefore, could impact on Sri Lanka’s international and regional positioning. At the moment, China does not seem interested in playing a central role in the affairs of the country and this leaves open a space that India could try to exploit. In this context, the flight of President Rajapaksa to the Maldives, a country historically close to Delhi, also signals the central role played by the subcontinent in this phase. In addition to the competition between India and China, there is the increasingly important role of international financial institutions which represent the only lifeline for a sinking country.

However, in the short term, Sri Lanka does not seem capable of resolving the severe economic crisis. The momentary lack of an internationally recognized political leadership, in fact, deprives the IMF of interlocutors and prevents the reaching of an agreement that appears for the moment only postponed. In the absence of a sudden change of policy by Beijing in the coming months, it is possible to foresee an expansion of Indian influence in Sri Lanka that would partially rewrite the balance in the Indo-Pacific. Any repositioning of the island, however, would be fragile as it is essentially linked to necessity rather than a clear strategic choice.

Moreover, in the long run, China is unlikely to abandon its assets in the country entirely after years of political and economic investment. In light of what has been described, it is possible to imagine that Sri Lanka will turn into one of the main theatres of the clash between Delhi and Beijing in which the effectiveness and prospects of their respective regional strategies will be measured. (Photo:123rf.com)

Tiziano Marino/CeSI

Nollywood in Netflix Sauce.

Monday, 1 August 2022 8:00

The Blood Sisters miniseries has disembarked on Netflix. Filmed during the pandemic by Biyi Bandele (Half of a Yellow Sun, Fifty) and Kenneth Gyang (Òlòtūré, Confusion Na Wa) and produced by EbonyLife Studios, the 4-episode miniseries has already found considerable success both in Nigeria as well as in the UK and the United States.

The story begins with the luxurious celebrations for the engagement of Sarah, a sweet and beautiful girl of humble origins, and Kola, a powerful manager of a pharmaceutical company. The party, however, is upset by the death of Kola who, after neutralizing the killer sent by her older brother, is killed (in self-defence) by Kemi, Sarah’s best friend.
To escape the police and the revenge of the powerful Kola family, the two women hide in the slums of Lagos waiting for an opportunity to leave the country. During their escape, the two protagonists must defend themselves from greedy and violent characters. The foremost of these is the mother of Kola, head of the family, linked by an ambiguous relationship with her favourite son Kola.
She is as sweet and understanding with Kola as she is cruel and disparaging with her other two children. Femi, the older brother who lives in the shadow of Kola harbours a desire for revenge with his power-hungry wife Olayinka. And Timiyen, the ‘mistaken’ sister, a drug addict in the process of detoxification.

Scene from Blood Sisters (Photo: Netflix)

Sarah’s parents are certainly no better. Greedy social climbers from an Igbo village, they are more interested in the loan given them by Kola’s family than in their daughter’s happiness. As a corollary, there are other male characters who are not particularly noteworthy. Cops, detectives, killers, and traffickers are even less convincing than the protagonists.
Directing, set design, acting, costumes and dialogues, all defer to the classic stylistic features of a Nollywood (the Nigerian film industry) in a Netflix sauce. Nothing new then despite producer Mo Abudu’s bombastic statements: “Blood Sisters is a crime thriller, which is a new genre for us, so the prospect was inspiring and very exciting! It was also a particularly unique and intense experience; we shot it during the pandemic, but we stayed true to the vision we share with Netflix, which is to tell authentic and exciting African stories with superb production levels”.

(Photo Netflix)

Other enthusiastic statements warn us that the world would finally be ready for a 100% Nigerian and at the same time universal story. This is why it was shot in English with micro forays into Igbo and Pidgin. The promotional material states that the series is an ode to Lagos, a commercial megalopolis where different social classes coexist. It would be precisely the economic dynamics between rich and poor that constitute the international element, some argue, making an unlikely comparison with Squid Game. Others extol the feminist theme.
A story of sisterhood and women’s emancipation that denounces domestic violence and systemic corruption. Unfortunately, these good intentions are not enough to make it a series of innovative qualities. We find the woman behind the scenes, Mo Abudu, a tireless African media mogul, much more interesting.

Photo from the premiere of Blood Sisters held in Lagos. (Netflix)

Ambitious and determined, she started her career as a talk show host. In 2013 she founded the EbonyLife Media network which produced more than 5,000 hours of content including The Wedding Party one of the most successful Nigerian films. With offices in Lagos, London, and Los Angeles, EbonyLife Media works with international partners to develop African stories imbued with Black Consciousness for the continent and the diaspora. Mo Abudu’s empire also includes the EbonyLife Creative Academy in partnership with the Lagos state government and the EbonyLife Space, a luxurious event and cinema resort where, in fact, the first episode of Blood Sisters was filmed. (Open Photo: Netflix)

Simona Cella

Ethnic Variety.

Monday, 1 August 2022 8:00

The period of Dutch colonization made the country one of the main crossroads of both the slave trade and the migration of labour to be employed in plantations and mines, leaving as a legacy the multi-ethnicity dictated by the mixing of cultures, languages, and religions.

This, however, has had little effect on the divisions between the various ethnic groups which, in fact, can still be found today. Among the most represented ethnic groups, there is that of the descendants of immigrants who came from Asia, hired by the Dutch at the end of the nineteenth century, but also that of the Afro-Surinamese. The Hindus represent the largest ethnic group with 148,443 inhabitants, then there are the Cimarron with 117,567 inhabitants, the Afro-Surinamese with 88,856 inhabitants, the Javanese (coming from the island of Java, an ancient possession of the Dutch East Indies) with 73,975 inhabitants, the mixed ethnic group with 72,340 inhabitants and finally the indigenous with 20,344 inhabitants, including the Maho community. Due to their presence, Suriname joined the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), pledging to recognize the right of these peoples who traditionally occupy those territories.

Schoolgirl, Paramaribo. ©feije/123RF.COM

As regards the Afro-Surinamese it is good to point out that the ethnic group is divided into two sub-groups: Creoles and the Maroons-Bushinengue. The latter, whose name indicates the numerous clans of descendants of slaves of African origin, are divided in turn into six tribes, concentrated mainly in the easternmost part of the country: Ndyuka (Aukan), Saramaccani, Paramaccani, Kwinti, Aluku (Boni), and Matawai. In the country, there is also a group composed of descendants of Lebanese traders and another of descendants of Sephardic Jews, as well as descendants of European colonizers who amount to about 1% of the population. To these groups, we must add the new generation of immigrants who have arrived in recent decades from China, Brazil, Cuba, and Haiti. Its varied ethnic composition makes Suriname also a multilingual country and, in addition to the local language the Sranan Tongo, Dutch is spoken which has, since the colonial period, been the official language, together with Hindi, Javanese and Sarmacha.
Although Dutch is the official language, it is spoken only by a minority of people while Sranan Tongo is recognized as a lingua franca as well as being the most widespread locally. However, despite its widespread use and although it has an official grammar, only very few people are able to read or write it. The different ethnic groups also have their own native languages. Hindus speak Sarnami, which is a local variation of Hindi spoken by their ancestors, and the Javanese speak Bangsah Jawa whose linguistic structure is very similar to the language spoken in Java.

Interior view to Saint Peter and Paul cathedral in Paramaribo. ©homophoticus/123RF.COM

While indigenous tribes have managed to pass on and preserve their original linguistic heritage, today they are losing it as younger generations are less inclined to its conservation. There are also the Cimarron tribes with their native languages and the Chinese and Brazilian migrant communities who respectively contributed to the spread of their languages. The largest number of indigenous and Cimarron tribes are concentrated in the remote interior of Suriname, where they mainly live in villages along the country’s major rivers. Both ethnic groups are made up of different tribes. Hindus and Javanese are also historically concentrated in some specific areas of the country, namely in the districts of Saramacca and Nickerie.

Mosque in Surinamese countryside. 123rf.com

This variegated social composition has had an impact, as anticipated, also on the religious factor. This has meant that multi-religion has become one of the characteristic aspects of the country where, within this mosaic, Christians represent the largest component with 40% of whom 21% are Roman Catholics, 11.18% are Evangelicals, 11.16% are Moravian, 0.7% are Reformed, 0.5% are Lutheran, and 3.2% belonging to other strands. Hindus come next with 19.9% of which 18% are Sanatan Dharm, 3.1% Arya Dewaker and 1.2% belong to other variants of Hinduism. Muslims amount to 13% and are divided into Sunnis 3.9%, Ahmadiyya 2.6%, and 7.3% to other strands of Islam. Then there is a 10% of the population that follows mixed cults such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, Agama Jawa, Judaism, Winti, etc.
The country’s multi-ethnic character has also had a completely positive influence in the musical field, in which a lively soul and jazz scene was born with European, African, North American, and Asian influences. Surinam! a compilation released in 2012 by a Dutch record company, Kindred Spirits, had great success in this area, including the best dance and funk productions released in Suriname between the seventies and eighties. (F.R.)

Immense Natural Resources.

Monday, 1 August 2022 8:00

Suriname is a country rich in natural resources in terms of biodiversity, fresh water, raw materials, and cultural heritage.

The mining sector is linked to the extraction of bauxite, gold (which is extracted from the alluvial deposits of Saramacca and Lawa), silver, nickel, and crude oil (which is extracted from an offshore field off the coast of Paramaribo, Saramacca district, connected to an oil pipeline at the Paramaribo refinery). This sector constitutes the most important item of the country’s exports, amounting to 85%. This, however, makes the economy of Suriname subject to fluctuations in the market prices of various goods. In the 1980s, in fact, the fluctuations in the prices of raw materials generated internal political disturbances that resulted in a terrible economic crisis that prompted the country, in the following decade, to resort to international aid granted on condition that the country implemented a development plan including austerity and structural reforms. This plan, however, did not change the state of poverty in which the population finds itself.

Bauxite Factory at Paramaribo. CC BY-SA 3.0/ Mark Ahsmann

Of the minerals present in the subsoil, bauxite is the one that the country has in large quantities with the largest deposits located in the areas of Accaribo, Moengo, and Param. Once extracted, the mineral is partly exported, mainly to the United States, Canada, Belgium, and Norway, and partly processed on site. The forest heritage, due to its great valuable species, is another important item in the country’s economy. Then there is agriculture, where the cultivation of rice predominates, covering more than three-quarters of the cultivated land, and to a lesser extent, we also find crops of sugar cane, bananas, coconuts, citrus fruits, and legumes. Another important element of the country’s economy is the fishing of crustaceans which, once caught, are sold in foreign markets. From an industrial point of view, the country does not display adequate development, due also to insufficient production of electricity but also due to the absence of skilled labour and foreign investment. The exceptions are industries related to mining and those of a rather modest size that deal with the processing of agricultural and forestry products. Internal trade is underdeveloped, given the prevalence of a strong subsistence economy and insufficient road and rail communications networks, limited only to the coastal strip.

Dutch tourists in the Bigi Pan Nature Reserve. CC BY-SA 2.0/ Jan Willem Broekema

Another significant element of the Suriname economy is made up of tourism coming especially from Holland, but also from drug trafficking, cocaine in particular. In 1999, the then president Dési Bouterse was also involved in these trades favoured by the strategic position in which the country is located.
He was convicted by the Dutch court for drug trafficking, while his son Dino, who was at the head of the national counter-terrorism team, was arrested in Panama in 2012 and extradited to the US.
If the raw materials present in the country on the one hand represent wealth, on the other they constitute a threat to the ecosystem since the high profitability has encouraged gold mining, deforestation, intensive hunting, and poaching.
In fact, these activities, if carried out without due attention, can generate a significant impact on the environment, degrade water quality and damage the ecosystems of southern Suriname with a significant impact on indigenous communities whose livelihood is exclusively guaranteed by their customs and traditions: the use of natural resources, hunting, fishing, and the cultivation of medicinal plants.

Street with old colonial buildings in Paramaribo, capital of Suriname. ©mathess/123RF.COM

In addition, Suriname is also threatened by climate change which makes natural habitats vulnerable, generating a negative impact on the communities living in the southern part of the country, but also by the phenomenon of land grabbing. This phenomenon threatens, in particular, both the indigenous communities and those descended from slaves who today find themselves living in territories that we could define as strategic due to the presence of raw materials in the subsoil. Already in the past, in the 1960s, the US company Alcoa worked on the construction of the hydroelectric plant, obtaining in exchange the concession for the extraction of bauxite. The work, which led to the formation of Lake Brokopondo, forced thousands of Maroons (mainly Saramaccans) to emigrate to other areas of the country or to nearby French Guiana. In addition to the Maroons, the Maho community is constantly threatened by these phenomena without receiving any protection from the state. (Open Photo: Teal sky and green trees with Suriname river landscape. 123rf.com)
F.R.

Ukraine war and climate change help Namibia to sell its hydrogen potential.

Monday, 1 August 2022 8:00

The country’s solar and wind huge potential coinciding with Europe’s need to diversify its energy mix away from fossil fuels provides large opportunities which are beginning to materialize with a first large hydrogen project.

As the EU aims at decarbonising its economy and reduce its dependence from Russian oil and gas, it is turning towards sources of clean energy. On the 3 May, at the European Parliament, the spokesman for the European People’s Party on Energy, Christian Ehler stated that “Energy independence has become an absolute priority”. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to “accelerate the roll-out of hydrogen and renewables to ease off dependence on Russia”, he said.
The hydrogen potential is promising. Indeed, hydrogen makes it possible to obtain energy without carbon emissions, either through its direct combustion with oxygen or in the form of electricity via a fuel cell. It may be used to decarbonise sectors which are hard to electrify, such as steel and cement plants and has applications in the transport sector.

According to World Platinum Investment Council estimates, the sector will be worth U.S. $ 2.5 trillion by 2050. Japan alone is planning to import up to 800,000 tonnes of hydrogen annually from 2030. Global volumes could reach 800 million tons by 2050. Potential suppliers such as Chile, Australia, Saudi Arabia are already moving to meet the demand.The EU plans to import 10 million tonnes of green hydrogen by 2030. to replace fossil fuels in the industry and transport sectors. According to the World Energy Council, the EU demand could even reach 60 million tons by 2050. The European Investment Bank has already EUR 1 billion investments in the pipeline to finance hydrogen projects.
For the trade association Hydrogen Europe, the EU cannot produce all this hydrogen domestically, because it doesn’t have enough sun or wind. Hydrogen Europe considers Africa as its prime partner.
Already, countries like Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa are developing green hydrogen plans. Namibia is the more advanced. The country is endowed with huge clean energy potential, and it is one of the best prepared for hydrogen production.

Namibia is uniquely positioned to be one of the largest green hydrogen producers globally.

According to the World Bank, Namibia boasts from a huge 720 GW wind power capacity and could export ammonia at competitive prices. According to German government experts, Namibia should offer competitive prices that would place the country among high-potential green hydrogen producers and exporters. In addition, the country has large reserves of platinum and iridium, two metals used to separate hydrogen from water.
By the end of the decade, Namibia could become an exporter of green hydrogen from both wind and solar power, said James Mnyupe, economic adviser to the Namibian presidency, to participants at the “World Hydrogen Summit” in Rotterdam, in May 2022.
Namibia enjoys indeed over 3,500 hours of sunshine per annum and high wind speeds. Accordingly, the power of giant solar farms can be used to make hydrogen, which can be used for fuel or converted into ammonia to make fertiliser. In order to produce hydrogen, Namibia would use desalinated sea water which would be split into hydrogen and oxygen, by electrolysis. Then, the hydrogen would be piped to a terminal and exported to Rotterdam, Germany or South Africa”.
The solar potential could be developed soon, following the signature in 2021 of a Memorandum of intent (MOI) by the U.S. government to build a 5 GW solar power complex in Botswana and Namibia, with the support of the African Development Bank and of the World Bank Group. This scheme which is part USAID’s Power Africa Initiative could be one of the largest solar power complexes in the world, using both solar photovoltaic and concentrated solar power technologies.

Hydrogen fuel cell in a research laboratory. 123rf.com

A contract for an industrial project which would be the first large green hydrogen project in the country was being negotiated in May 2022 by the Namibian government and the preferred bidder, Hyphen Hydrogen Energy. This company is a joint venture between the British Virgin Island registered investment and infrastructure company Nicholas Holdings and Enertrag South Africa, a subsidiary of German renewable energy company. Enertrag which operates more than one thousand wind turbines around the world.
According to Obeth M Kandjoze, the chair of Namibia’s Green Hydrogen Council, the first phase of the project, which would use both solar and wind power, is expected to enter production in 2026 and generate a 2 GW capacity to produce 120,000 tons of green hydrogen for conversion into green ammonia, at a cost of US 4.4 billion.
Further phases in the late 2020s, will expand the capacity to 5 GW and 3 GW of electrolysed capacity, increasing the combined investment to $ 9.4 billion and hydrogen production to 300,000 tons annually for regional and global markets. That figure compares with Namibia’s annual GDP of $10.7 billion.

Hyphen’s project is part of the Southern Corridor Development Initiative (SCDI) portfolio of projects.

Hyphen’s project is part of the Southern Corridor Development Initiative (SCDI) portfolio of projects. About 4,000 km² were allocated for this project which will be entirely financed by Hyphen. The SDCI comprises a 26,000 km2 area between Lüderitz and Orangemund, on the Southern coast. It has the potential to produce 3 million tons of green hydrogen which would represent the equivalent of one third of the EU’s total import needs by 2030.
The adjudication process was made with the assistance of the Colorado-based NREL national laboratory of the US government and experts appointed by the EU Global Technical Assistance Facility on Global Energy. Once the necessary feasibility processes are concluded, Hyphen will have the rights to the project for 40 years.
Yet, Hyphen’s project is only a start, the beginning of Namibia’s big hydrogen adventure. According to preliminary market estimates by the World Bank, the Kharas region could produce 2 million tons of ammonia, generate $ 800 m. in revenue and house generation assets of 5 GW at less than 3 US cents per kwh.
According to Namibia’s President Hage Geingob, Namibia has identified four potential Hydrogen Valleys across the country. The Hyphen project is just chapter one of the development of the first one: the SCDI.
Namibia’s potential has already attracted many partners.

Namibian Mines and Energy minister, Tom Alweendo and Germany’s Economic Affairs and Climate Action minister and Vice Chancellor, Robert Habeck signed a joint declaration of intent to accelerate the research, development and production of green hydrogen.

On the 11 April 2022, Robert Halbeck, the German Minister of economic affairs and climatic action and Thomas K Alweendoo, the Namibian Minister of Mines and Energy, signed a joint declaration of intent. Germany will finance hydrogen pilot plants up to EUR 30 million in addition to 200 scholarships and the development of a national green hydrogen strategy for EUR 10 m.
In September 2021, beside Hyphen, Namibia received eight more commercial proposals to develop large green hydrogen projects namely from Sasol, Fortescue Future Industries and Tumoneni. By May 2022, the Windhoek government had received 31 bids to develop pilot plants and three to develop the national green hydrogen strategy.
In November 2021, Namibia signed an agreement with the port of Rotterdam which plans to become the Green Hydrogen export hub for Europe and the rest of the world and another deal with Belgium to promote and develop cooperation in the field of green hydrogen, which was sealed after President Hage Geingob’s visit to the Benelux
in mid-February 2022.

Hydrogen renewable energy production. 123rf.com

The first project to come on stream is a pilot plant which will be built by Namibia’s Ohlthaver & List Group and CMB Tech, a subsidiary of the Compagnie maritime belge shipowner (CMB), and which will start production by end 2023. The project which represents an investment of US $ 18 million will be developed by a joint venture called Clean Energy in the Erongo region. Depending on the results of the demonstration plant, a larger production plant will be built in a second phase. The aim is to produce hydrogen from solar power and distribute the fuel to trucks, locomotives, mining equipment and ships.
The government plans to create a National Green Hydrogen Research Institute (NGHRI) with centres to carry out studies on clean hydrogen production and storage, new materials, hydrogen fuel cell technology, hydrogen use, etc. However, Kennedy Chege, researcher on the Mineral Law in Africa at the University of Cape Town warns that the amount of water required to produce hydrogen in such a dry country could be a challenge. Desalination and the cost of electrolysis used to produce hydrogen can be expensive, which could erode the competitiveness of Namibian green hydrogen, says Chege. (Photo: 123rf.com)

François Misser

Climate Change and Advocacy. Planting Bamboos.

Friday, 1 July 2022 11:39

In the Philippines, the missionaries of the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) are committing to plant 100,000 seedlings of Bamboo by 2022. With an ambitious goal for planting 1 billion bamboos by 2030, collaborating with the local churches of parishes and dioceses in the Philippines. But why Bamboo?

The first reason is climate change. Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than an ordinary tree. A hectare of Bamboo absorbs 12 tons of carbon dioxide annually. Second, bamboos prevent erosion and flooding. A clump of Bamboo will absorb 30,000 litres of water annually. The third reason is that the Bamboo is useful for livelihood.
The shoots are processed and bamboo poles are made into furniture and construction material.

The Filipino government estimates that if we plant a billion bamboos, this will result in 15 billion dollars in annual income. We believe that this is a conservative estimate. We think it will reach up to 25 billion dollars annually if we put the right factories in the right places and have massive bamboo planting.

As Missionaries, we have the hope that we can do this; that we can plant a billion bamboos, absorb gigatons of carbon dioxide from the air, give jobs to a lot of people, and prevent erosion and flooding, which caused a lot of damage to property and even to life.

We therefore would like to call on everyone in the whole Philippines and in the whole world to join us. We are now partnering with the Global Climate Action Project, and they are making an App for us with a geotagging feature to monitor the number of bamboos planted. After joining our baseline data, you can see it in Google Maps afterwards. So, we would like to thank the many people in our bamboo advocacy.

We hope to make a difference because otherwise, climate change will become irreversible. We have no other choice. This is the only planet that we have. Let us take Care of it for ourselves and future generations.

The scientists are saying the year 2030 is the deadline. We must keep global warming at no more than 1.5°C by 2030; otherwise, climate change will become irreversible. We now know that the bamboo can help mitigate climate change, prevent erosion and flooding, and increase people’s economic profit and well-being, especially that of the poor.

Planting one billion bamboos is not an idle dream. In the Philippines, we are responsible only for 2% of greenhouse gases, but we will be the first ones to be hit by super typhoons. We believe, first of all, that awareness is widespread. Secondly, the government has said that every village is to have a seedling nursery. And there is a law called The Philippine Bamboo Industrial Development Act.

The government will fund the seedling nurseries, supporting the building of factories to produce engineered Bamboo. Logging is already outlawed in the Philippines. It’s forbidden to cut a tree without permission from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

We have made our move. As missionaries, we have decided to have 100,000 bamboo seedlings planted by 2022. One interesting initiative is that elementary, high school and college graduates cannot graduate and are not given their diplomas if they do not plant ten trees each.
So that’s it.

That would be a lot because we have 28 million elementary school students. How many will graduate? Then we have college graduates also. We really believe that this is doable. We may not succeed but it is possible. It is not an impossible dream to plant 1 billion bamboos in the Philippines, absorb gigatons of greenhouse gases, prevent erosion and flooding, the loss of lives and property and give jobs to thousands of people. The government is already mobilizing. They only need some help from the developed countries responsible for most of the greenhouse gases that plague us now, especially in the Philippines.

The churches are also mobilizing. Archbishop Emeritus Antonio Ledesma, said he would talk to all the bishops so that the whole diocese and all the dioceses in Mindanao may help in this bamboo advocacy. (Photo: 123rf.com)

Benigno B. Beltran

Economy. Unsustainable Extractivism.

Friday, 1 July 2022 8:00

The oil industry is at the heart of the Angolan economy. But it benefits only the political business elite; it has a great impact on the environment and reserves will run out by 2050.

The Angolan model of economic development – as ‘extractivist’ – based on the exploitation of natural resources, in particular oil, diamonds, phosphates, bauxite – has to come to terms with its own unsustainability. We have before us a model characterized by a deep multidimensional crisis that affects the environment, society, institutions, and politics. Any consideration of sustainability must question the three dimensions that compose it: economic, social, and environmental. In the Angolan case, it is necessary first to identify the characteristics of the extractivist system, then to analyse the political economy of oil (a central element), and finally to outline the environmental issues together with the social ones, prefiguring the need to diversify the production system.

The extractivist system exploits – until exhaustion, the degradation of the land and lack of interest in the repercussions on future generations – renewable and non-renewable natural resources, concentrating the benefits in the hands of a limited number of people, be they national elites, intermediaries or international or foreign elite.
In the case of Angola, it is clear that the vast majority of citizens do not benefit from the revenues linked to the extractive industry, since this industry is in the hands of the corrupt national elite. One of the mechanisms by which this system is perpetuated is the ability to marginalize or eliminate from the political debate decisions about alternative sources of energy. In this way, innovative solutions from which broad social strata would benefit, are blocked, for the simple fact that they do not serve the interests of the political and business elite who hold the reins of the system.

Growth for the few
One of the more relevant aspects of the economy of extractivism is its dependence on continuous economic growth that guarantees the elite the accumulation of wealth, excluding the great mass of the population. This need for continuous growth, typical of capitalist economies, induces unbridled consumption behaviours on the part of the elite and an imitation effect on the part of the Angolan middle class. What should be emphasized is that only a small part of the revenues from mining, oil in particular, is allocated to public investment, that is, to sectors such as health, education and industrial, technological and scientific training. In addition, private entrepreneurs in the oil sector invest relatively little (and often badly) and mainly to maintain extraction levels.
Only in a few cases did entrepreneurs in other sectors invest to refine the production of the few non-extractive goods (such as agricultural ones) destined for export.

As a result, growth depended on oil between 2002 and 2015, while the other sectors deeply stagnated. Only after 2015 did the Angolan government begin to invest tentatively in economic diversification, with little to show for it up to now.
In terms of the public budget, the government invests just 8% of its resources from oil taxes in social sectors (primarily education and health); the rest goes to cover the salaries of the elite and their businesses, the costs of international service companies, the army of consultants. The new urbanization of Kilamba, a district of the capital Luanda, is a contrast to these privileges: the inhabitants, employees of the extractive industry, demand greater public support for the health centre of their neighbourhood.
Even more striking are conditions in many informal neighbourhoods (musseques) in the suburbs of the capital where there is a lack of drinking water, electricity, and a sewage system.

Agriculture and biodiversity
The drastic reduction or even disappearance of the baobab, from Senegal to Angola, is a symptom of serious environmental degradation. Near Luanda, in the municipality of Sequele, there is a baobab park: an area, as extensive as 33 thousand football fields, which should be protected and which instead, since 2020, has lost more than 2,000 baobabs. It was urban pressure that felled them. According to the Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation (Inbac), the price paid to cut down a baobab ranges from 25,000 to 30,000 Kwanza, or between 35 and 40 euros, since the operation is relatively simple. The wood is then sold to wholesalers, who resell it in the musseques around Luanda or on the edge of provincial and local roads.

For many of those who buy it, wood is the only source of energy or the least expensive. This use of wood not only contributes to deforestation, but also to air pollution in the musseques, and is harmful to health. In fact, burns or respiratory diseases are very frequent among children living in the suburbs. This state of affairs reveals the non-existence of a national energy policy.
Solutions, however, do exist. Even the public company Sonangol, which produces oil and natural gas, has developed some solutions, but they have not yet been applied because they are not considered profitable. The transition to a less extractivist and more sustainable economic model is all the more necessary if we take into account that authoritative estimates believe that Angola’s oil reserves will last for another 25 years.

Changing the model is first and foremost a political choice that can only take place gradually but also with the necessary decisiveness. It means increasing sustainable agricultural production, based on smaller production units intended to satisfy first of all the local markets. It means that forests and green spaces must be protected and enhanced for local populations, implementing appropriate policies. It means investing in education and health, which helps create more jobs for Angolans (as opposed to the current model). Finally, it means guaranteeing a better quality of life in the musseques through adequate and targeted investments. Civil society is aware that an environmental policy combined with a social and educational policy would be needed. But to achieve a sustainable economy, decisions cannot be made by the narrow political-business elite. Angola requires that decisions be made more communally and mature in a more democratic context.

Marc Jacquinet

Congo. Sapeur. An Extravagant Identity.

Friday, 1 July 2022 8:00

On the trail of men and women who dress luxuriously without being rich. Weekend dandies convinced they can stimulate emancipation and social criticism with their dress and posture. There is no shortage of proselytes.

“There are no schools to learn to be like me. But you can see a little boy soon manifest the character of a true sapeur. Where did you learn it? It is the spirit. The spirit that is in some special people”. Moutalaoua Emrick Uriel Bienvenue, aka ‘Derrick’, is a 35-year-old Congolese electronics technician with his wife and children. He is busy arranging dozens of ties, shirts and designer suits in a small studio apartment located in the Makélélé neighbourhood of Brazzaville, the capital of Congo.
“With these clothes I attract people’s attention, I awaken consciences by transmitting another possible identity and I leave a coloured trace to follow”, he explains, observing himself in the mirror while trying to match the jacket with a tie.

Derrick is a member of the Society of Animators and Elegant People (Sape), a movement whose adherents wear luxury clothing and accessories in an ostentatious, sophisticated and extravagant way, the African equivalent of 19th-century Oscar Wilde dandyism. It is no coincidence that the name ‘Sape’ refers to the informal French verb ‘se saper’ which means ‘knowing how to dress well’.
The sapeur and the sapeuse are to all intents and purposes ‘African dandies’ who profess the so-called religion ‘ya kitendi’ (the religion of the cloth), which aims to achieve absolute elegance and the search for new forms of style that inspire society.
The origins of the movement are uncertain. According to their accounts, the first sapeur were the so-called évolué of the early 1900s who returned to the colonies from periods spent in Europe dressed in Western clothes and for this they were admired and acclaimed as heroes of emancipation. But the Sape actually spread, becoming popular, in the 60s and 70s between Brazzaville and the Kinshasa front (in the Democratic Republic of Congo).

A social phenomenon that has become a form of rebellion against the Marxist anti-colonial austerity of the then People’s Republic of Congo and against the Mobutu regime in neighbouring Zaire, which banned Western clothing by imposing traditional clothing within the rigid ‘campaign for authenticity’ represented by the ‘abacost’ (clothing approved by the regime). Another important element of the movement is its link with the musical environment which has absorbed its style right from its beginnings. In the lyrics of the songs of stars like Papa Wemba or Emeneya Kester, references to Sape appear all the time. Over time, it has gained further weight in vast regions of Africa thanks to the spread of the Congolese rumba which last December was added to the UNESCO list of the intangible heritage of humanity.

Bacongo Quarter
Derrick’s stereo loudspeakers play the Bakwetu rumba piece from a live 1992 Wemba. After spraying himself with Paco Rabanne perfume, the sapeur carefully polishes a pair of elegant black shoes: “They are fabulous Damir Doma. I bought them on the web and had them brought directly from Paris through friends. If I tell my wife how much I paid for them, she will kill me”.

Sapeur spend a large part of their savings to buy clothes and accessories from the most important fashion houses in the world. In everyday life, they are ordinary people who also carry out humble jobs and live in popular neighbourhoods but make sacrifices that risk ruining themselves for the sole purpose of becoming a dandy and practising what is in effect a sort of cult. “There are ‘commandments’ to follow and initiation practices to be trained and introduced into the clans. Like historical Piccadilly where I grew up”, Derrick explains.
Many sapeur are also dressing advisors for those who want to buy elegant clothes and are invited to parties and weddings to give ‘blazon’ to the ceremonies. “With us, clothes take on a whole new dimension – continues the Congolese dandy – a sapeur never goes unnoticed. You understand it from his attitude, the way he smiles and the tension of his colours. It is the bearing that makes the difference”.

Every weekend, Brazzaville’s dandies gather in clubs in the historic Bacongo district where, in 1978, Christian Loubaki, who is said to have coined the name Sape, opened a clothing boutique called La Saperie. During the rallies, the dandies hold debates on styles and compete in the so-called combat d’esthètes (struggles between aesthetes) during which they parade with artificial and model-like movements, making themselves appreciated in bars and on the avenues by the so-called ngembo, young apprentice admirers.

Continental phenomenon
Sylvie Honorine Boudimbou, aka Nono de Paris, is a 46-year-old employee and has been a sapeuse for over twenty years. She came to pick up Derrick in an old Toyota. She is very elegant and wears sunglasses and a big straw hat: “First we shall go to Chez Uriel and then we go on to the Trocadéro; ok?”, she says, referring to the clubs while she drives excitedly through the green taxis of Brazzaville. Once there, she dives into a lively and colourful crowd of dandies surrounded by admirers and curious passers-by: “It’s always a big party and we are here to animate and communicate messages”, Nono points out. As a veteran, she wants to deepen the objectives and significance of the movement which still has many detractors: “Families and communities may not accept this lifestyle and others accuse us of denying our origins. In reality we make the most of the clothes made by Europeans by imposing our Black elegance“.

Sape is a socio-cultural phenomenon that originally may have been in part a way of detaching oneself from poverty and forgetting it by using a ‘denegrifying’ character quite the opposite to that of the enhancement of ‘négritude’. However, it has always stimulated social demands fed by generations of young Africans in search of points of reference and cultural identity. The number of followers today is growing and one comes across sapeur in other countries as well, from Senegal to South Africa. Thanks to music, Sape has also arrived among African Americans, where the watchword is increasingly ‘Black is beautiful’, and it has undergone a further boost. Testimony to this is the documentary Black Dandy, Une beauté politique by Ariel Wizman and Laurent Lunetta released in 2015, which retraces the stories of emerging designers who see black dandyism as a true declaration of identity independence.

Marco Simoncelli
Text and Photos

Latin America. ‘The Good Living Mystique’, in Daily Life.

Friday, 1 July 2022 8:00

The ‘Good Living’ is an integral way of perceiving and living life: everything is interconnected, and interdependence is the key to ensuring that everyone lives a full life.

The mystique of good living is rooted in community myths that narrate the interdependence of all beings who are part of the common home. It invites us to live fully in the present, remembering the past and learning from the future, taking care of the fabric of life.
The ‘Good Living’ is, therefore, a way of being, of living and of relating in and with our common home.
This being-being is not a completed fact, it is a series of attitudes that try to become every day in order to build a just eco-society where every being has its space in the community, where power relations are symmetrical and where the vital system as a whole is taken care of so that everyone may have clean water, fresh food, the freedom to work and create with a mysticism of joy that is expressed in celebration, in silence and in encounter.‘Good living’ arises from the translation of the vital expressions of indigenous peoples.

In the Aymara peoples, in the Andes, the expression is suma qamaña: ‘suma’ expresses balance, relationship, fullness, it does not only mean good; ‘qamaña’ means life.
In the Quechua peoples of the valleys and of the Amazon the expression is ‘sumaj kawsay’: ‘sumaj’ expresses deep attention, harmony, it does not only mean good. While ‘kawsay’ means life, as in Aymara, but with a slight tinge of continuous movement.
Another less known expression, but frequent in the everyday language of the valleys, is ‘misk’y kawsay’: ‘misk’y’ expresses whatever achieves a pleasant taste, a close relationship, an integral gentle presence, which intensifies the sensation of well-being. By broadening the meanings of these words, starting from their use in the territories, we can show that the ‘Good Living’ corresponds to an integral way of perceiving and living life, where everything is interconnected and where interdependence is the key to symmetrical relationships.

123rf.com

It also enables us to question the translation as good/good, which risks being interpreted as a value judgment that classifies one way of life as good as opposed to another which is bad, a position that reflects a dichotomous view of reality, and allows some beings to be judged as good and others as bad.The Guarani peoples of the Amazon speak of ‘the search for the land without evil’, ‘yvy marané ‘, which expresses an intact, privileged, indestructible soil, where the earth produces by itself, where corn grows by itself and death does not exist; a place of perfection that will erase the expressions of all that is limitation. These four vital expressions support the spirit and the proposal of good living as a way of daily life, which is in tune with the abundant life to which Jesus refers when he says: “I came that they may have life and have it in abundance” (Jn 10:10). ‘Good Living’ challenges us to live a daily mystique with attitudes and actions (personal and social) that co-build an eco-just society, a life in abundance. (Photo: ©dlrz4114/123RF.COM)

Tania Ávila Meneses
Bolivia

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