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The new frontiers of music. The sound of the desert.

With the initiative of Christopher Kirkley, an American bio-engineer who has become a music producer, the musicians of Mali, Niger and Mauritania can more easily make themselves known. Passion and new technologies.

In sub-Saharan Africa, in the eighties and nineties, music circulated mostly in the form of home-recorded cassettes that were sold in the markets and endlessly copied. That is how the Tinariwen, ‘Rebels of the Desert’, became a legend and their songs played from Tamanrasset to Timbuktu and from Agadez to Ghat.
Today, music travels swiftly from a courtyard in Bamako to Portland on the West Coast of America, thanks to new technologies and the creation of Sahel Sounds, a label that brings the rhythms and songs of Sahelian musicians to the United States and further afield.

Christopher Kirkley, a music producer.

It all began when, in New York in 2008, Christopher Kirkley, a young well-travelled bio-engineer came across a CD by the Malian guitarist Afel Bocoum, a nephew of Ali Farka Touré, an unforgettable exponent of desert blues. He was fascinated by it and vainly tried to imitate the style on his own guitar. He decided the only thing to do was to go to Africa and discover directly the secrets of Sahel music. His two-year journey brought him first to Mauritania and then to Mali and Niger where he listened and recorded wherever he found a celebration, a band or even just a single griot. In a blog, he wrote about all his experiences of life with a family of nomads using music as a means of communication. Once he returned to Oregon, Chris presented the music he had collected during his journey on the first CDs produced by the label Sahel Sounds. At the moment, its catalogue contains 65 titles (at the price of vinyl and $12 for the CDs).

Mdou Moctar

Some are sold out such as number one, Music from Saharan Cellphones – a compilation in vinyl of the more popular sounds of Mauritania, Ivory Coast, Mali and Niger – which Kirkley compiled from the recordings on mobile phones. This is how, in fact, the music spread via Bluetooth throughout the villages and tracks of the desert. It was not easy to find the authors of the pieces, obtain their permission to publish them, and pay their quotas. The profits are divided fifty-fifty between the label and the artists. The spread of smartphones made it much easier to make remote recordings in territories that are today insecure due to the presence of terrorist groups. (The most popular musical kermesse, the Festival au Désert, a meeting-point since 2001 among the dunes of Timbuktu of musicians with a passion for the music of the desert, has not been held since 2012, for security reasons).

Bandcamp Platform
“I met Aghaly Ag Amoumine in Timbuktu in 2011 and with him recorded Takamba, a faithful reproduction of traditional rhythms and typical stories of the griot of northern Mali, Kirkley recounts. I was not able to return to the city of the 333 saints and it is difficult to get in touch to make a new recording. However, thanks to WhatsApp and using the mobile phone of one of his nephews, we have started to plan
a new album”.

Chris transferred the piece recorded on WhatsApp by Aghaly – perhaps after making a few small corrections – onto the Bandcamp platform that was created in Oakland in 2008 and which brings together thousands of musicians and independent labels such as Sahel Sounds. It is an immense musical bazaar with 5 million albums that are also in digital form, available to those with a passion for all sorts of sounds. On average, they spend more than $20 million per month to download or buy the music of their preferred singers. “This is a great opportunity to break down barriers and allow the artists of West Africa to make themselves known”, the man behind Sahel Sounds who defines himself as ‘a guerrilla ethnomusicologist’ (he has studied neither ethnology nor music) and tells the story of the adventure of his label in the docufilm The Story of Sahel Sounds.
Chris enthusiastically fills several roles: searching for musical talent in Africa, procuring visas, packing and despatching records, organizing tournaments and negotiating contracts with other producers. He also produces films: Zerzura, a fable about an imaginary oasis filmed in the area surrounding Agadez is in the catalogue, together with the albums and the inevitable T-Shirts. He explains: “Sahel Sounds wants to be something more than just a label. I want the artists to feel they are part of a creative team that can ensure resources for their work.

Les Filles de Illighadad

Today, more than ever, it is important to have sub-Saharan Africa hear voices that constitute an alternative to those of the terrorists”. The example comes to mind of Mdou Moctar, a young Tuareg from Abalak in the north of Niger. Taking part in Music from Saharan Cellphones helped him to launch his career as a singer, something he wanted from his childhood when he made his own guitar, using the cables from bicycle brakes for strings.
With Sahel Sounds, he has published five more albums, staking his claim to be one of the more innovative interpreters of Sahel music. Alongside him there is another talented guitarist, Ahmoudou Madassane, who is also working in a female group, Les filles de Illighadad, the first women to perform playing electric guitars (they are usually limited to using traditional instruments such as the imzad and the tindé). The three women, discovered by Kirkley in 2014 in their village (50 km west of Abalak) were helped by him to record two albums and to perform concerts in New York and Detroit leaving their audiences fascinated by their hypnotic rhythms.

Anna Jannello

 

Restore Our Earth so We Can Live.

The youth see the environmental destruction in all aspects of our lives – the air we breathe, the forest destruction, the polluted oceans, the climate change that is upon us and the pandemic- all a result of human neglect, greed and power play for riches and dominance
of the Earth.

This young generation wants it to change and are doing much to bring it about by advocating political change to the Green Platform for a healthy planet. They are dedicated to change the destructive industry, corrupt political systems and bad environmental conditions due to the changing climate that is harming them and the Earth.

We all must work to change our lives and restore our Earth because everyone should have an equal opportunity to survive and have healthy life of dignity and equality. Those greater ideals are far away but we can restore the Earth in small ways in the place where we live.
Like recycling plastic and waste products, never waste food, plant organic vegetables and plant trees.

The most vital and important need is to have a healthy, clean, pollution-free, smog-free atmospheres and clean air to breath. The air we breathe affects our lives, our blood, our brains and body and our ability for clear thinking. It is one of the most important environmental goals we must reach. Our health and that of the world’s children depend on it. We humans are very unintelligent since we are poisoning ourselves. We are allowing national and multi-national industry to make billions of profits by producing electricity from dirty dangerous oil and coal-fired power plants.

The politicians and mighty moguls of industry tell us it is for our own good if we want our electric fans, air conditioners, heaters, lights and factories to run. How dull can we be, we with the big brains,
if we allow this when there are clear sustainable alternatives? The youth demand change.

The politicians are generally corrupt and in cahoots and enjoy conspiracies with the tough tycoons of big business run by the oligarchs of industry. We have to have political action and vote for politicians with green environmental credentials. To restore the Earth is not just cleaning up the plastic waste and planting more trees, all great and important, but we have to change the politicians and they will change the source of producing electricity on which the world runs.

This basic intelligent thinking, planning and positive action is all possible and it is part of the new wave sweeping the globe with the young generation. It means we and the tycoons have to confess environmental sins, individually, nationally and globally and repent and do penance by changing our bad environmental habits.

We can and must change to good clean ways of living so as to undo the damage caused by the past generations and the present one. We must change and replace the destructive energy-producing ways to restore the Earth. The people must demand the politicians and industry to convert more quickly to renewable sources of energy and phase out fossil fuels, oil, gas, coal and nuclear plants. We need to join the youth today in demanding these changes. The building of more wind turbines, solar panels, geothermal plants, wave and tide power and environmentally-safe hydropower is the goal.

Converting to electric-run vehicles sourced from renewable energy production is the way of the future. However, less flying, more walking and cycling and using trains are the best ways to travel to restore the earth. The burning of oil and coal is the most dangerous of all. They produce the most CO2 in the atmosphere, producing greenhouse gases causing climate change because of global warming and they are polluting the air we breathe. The Covid-19 pandemic stopped travel and restored a clean environment to many cities especially in China.

The coal industry is the worst of all for damaging the Earth. According to a report in N. Sönnichsen, Feb 2, 2021, “China has the highest installed capacity of coal power plants in the world. . . with a capacity of 1,042.9 gigawatts……the United States, which ranked second.
China’s carbon dioxide emissions from coal combustion reached 7.2 billion metric tons in 2019 – roughly 70 percent of the country’s
total emissions.

For a great nation to be truly great, admired, respected and emulated, China with its success in greatly alleviating poverty in fifty years and massive construction and production capacity of consumer products, has to have moral values and respect for human rights and respect for the Earth and quickly phase out their oppressive cruel polices of island-grabbing, human rights abuses and their coal plants. Then, China will lead the world.

The most devastating result of a poisoned atmosphere from air pollution is felt everyday with the millions suffering breathing problems and with these underlying weaknesses, millions are dying, even hundreds of babies in Brazil, from Covid-19. Make no mistake about it. This pandemic is upon us like a dark cloud because of our lack of care of the natural world and protection of the earth’s wildlife and habitat of animals and birds. The unleashing of the various vicious viruses in recent years transferring from exotic and rare birds and animals when eaten, like bats or Panolin has brought devastation and suffering and death to so many.

The positive planned action of youth worldwide begins with a global youth climate summit led by Earth Uprising, in collaboration with My Future, My Voice, OneMillionOfUs and hundreds of youth climate activists. We admire them. They are the hope for a clean, restored Earth.

Fr. Shay Cullen  – Photo: ©Foottoo/123RF.COM

Spotlight on African films. Reinventing the seventh art.

The films made by young directors can be traced to two main streams. Afrofuturism which has taken root in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya and which combines stylistic research and sales and a more authored current, devoted to experimentation which has among its major exponents Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese (Lesotho). Netflix at the conquest of Africa.

Afrofuturism (a literary and musical movement that was started in the United States in the seventies to explore black identity and culture through the filter of science fiction) has returned to the fore especially in the United States and Anglophone countries partly due to the success of Black Panther. A version of Afrofuturism has developed especially in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya and is to be seen in some recent films, more out of a desire to revisit traditions in a more contemporary key than to explore a technological future.
The Lost Okoroshi of Nigerian Abba Makama, recently presented in Toronto, is actually defined as an Afrofuturistic journey through the universe of Nigerian masks.
The director tells how the film originated in a short circuit between a personal obsession of his with the world of traditional Igbo and the photographic work of Wilder Mann: The Image of The Savage by Charles Fréger, an excursus on the masks of some European countries.

The Lost Okoroshi Premieres in Nigeria. (Photo: Union Bank).

The film tells the story, with a slight touch of Kafkaesque irony, of the misadventures of a man who finds himself trapped in a traditional mask in its modern pop version. The director, who is also a painter, states that he wants to use the film to reconnect over-globalised Nigeria with its own traditional culture. However, he himself also admits that his film work, which avoids Nollywood and has cosmopolitan cinematographic references (Fellini, Jarmusch, Jodoroswky, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Spike Lee), is much appreciated, especially abroad and that The Lost Okoroshi was not distributed in Nigeria.Atmospheres that are similar but closer to a magical realism are to be seen in The Burial of Kojo of Blitz Bazawule, a hip-hop musician in Brooklyn who has returned to Ghana, his native land, to film a story which, through the eyes of a little girl, recounts a vendetta between brothers. The non-linear narrative is immersed in imagery where African mysticism combines with elements of horror and the aesthetics of a telenovela.

The Burial of Kojo. (Photo: Kino Scope)

There is abundant criticism of a country crushed by unemployment and corruption where the legal or illegal exploitation of the gold mines is in the hands of the Chinese. The saturated colours, the daring movements of the cameras and the use of music have led some critics to glimpse the influence of the avant-garde cinema which has Djibril Diop Mambéty and Alain Gomis as points of reference. Also La nuit des rois of Philippe Lacôte, set in the infamous prison of Abidjan, the Maca, situated between the jungle and the city, is a story that mixes realism, dreamlike language and oral narration. The impressive location and the skill of the actors are the strong points of this film which, however, fails to be totally visionary. The artificial jump into the past and the ingenuous special effects make the film rather boring but it still remains an interesting attempt to find a new style. The common denominator of this film is the attempt to reconcile stylistic research with a genre suitable for the public at large. Both The Lost Okoroshi and The Burial of Kojo have been bought by Netflix, Amazon and Apple TV.

Independent creativity
There is, instead, a more experimental and authorial theme that has as its more interesting exponents Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, author of the films:  Mother, I Am Suffocating, This Is My Last Film About You and This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection.Having grown up in Lesotho and then moved to Berlin, Mosese makes experimentation his stylistic trait. Black and white, the documentary that breaks through into fiction, the symbolism of the imagery and provocation are used by the director to tell the story of his country from a very personal point of view. Though he won awards and financing from the most important Film Festivals (Venice, Berlin, Sundance) Mosese reiterates the need to find a productive model that is different from that of the West. With this in mind, he founded “Barefooted Cinema” and the “Mokoari Collective”, intending to find easy and fast strategies to create films without having to spend years developing scenery that can satisfy the taste of festival selection committees, that receive awards and financing.

This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection.

The African voice in films shows itself only on the margins, filtered, distorted, watered down, bartered and corrupt. This was written a few years ago by Perivi John Katjavivi, an Anglo-Namibian director and producer, adding his voice to that of the young artists who seek the decolonisation of the silver screen.
The need to make small, independent films, filmed in Africa for the Africans, is still very great, especially among the youth.
From Angola comes Air Conditioner of  Fradique, a poignant journey into the heart of dilapidated Luanda where suddenly, and for no apparent reason, the air conditioners start to fall from the facades of the old buildings. With a tune that is something between the nostalgic and the surreal, we follow Matacedo, a security guard and a civil war veteran, on a mission (impossible) to repair the air conditioner of his boss.
Together with him, we explore the heart of a sorrowing city whose inhabitants invent worlds and stories to survive in a country full of contradictions. The keen eye of the director guides us through the meanderings of a sort of architecture that seems ready to collapse while, in the background, we can hear the sounds of the city mixed with the radio and TV news.

From Sudan, there are the resistant films of Hajooj Kuka who, with Akasha in 2018 debuted with an irreverent romantic comedy set during the civil war that broke out in 2011 in the areas of Sudan controlled by the rebels. Full of citations (such as those from Fanon and Bob Marley to the great classics of African films), Akasha reduces to humour the rhetoric of war, reverses the roles man/woman, plays with genders, makes facile use of psychedelic images but above all else, brings to the centre of the account the daily life of the populations stricken by the civil war. As the creative director of 3ayin, a network that concerns itself with the conflict in Sudan, Kuka is part of the production house Refugee Club and organises workshops of recitations and filmmaking among the peoples of the Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains.

Netflix in Africa
Nevertheless, this young and resistant cinema is almost invisible to the eyes of the public and especially to Netflix which, thanks to Covid-19, has become the Great Global Screen. Netflix took off a few years ago on the continent and chose Nigeria and South Africa as pilot countries to experiment a model which, a large budget and references to specific genres (police, horror, science fiction, teenager films and medical dramas) enabled it to value local talent and the cultural potential of the territory.Among many questionable productions, we find two exceptions. Òlòtūré by Kenneth Gyang, is set in Lagos and based upon true stories told by an undercover journalist who investigates prostitution and the trafficking of women who are sent to Europe. The style is harsh, almost documentary, the actresses are very good, the story is moving and there is much evidence of the search for cinematographic language. To conclude, we have Sakho et Mangane, not a film but a TV series created by a team of young authors and directors of African descent. Filmed in Dakar, it makes remarkable use of the urban possibilities of the African metropolis. There is an excess of reference to police-type films and others but the attempt to mix social criticism with a theme like that of the X Files works to perfection. The excellent actors are an added bonus.

Francophone Africa and Senegal, in particular, seem to be the new hunting grounds of Netflix. France is not just a spectator. For years it has invested in TV series. The last of these was Wara, bearing the name of TV5Monde Plus, a Pan African TV series filmed in Saint Louis and launched as an African House of Cards. However, the attempt to promote political participation, especially by women, is too didactic and the series has not really taken off. There is still, therefore, plenty of testing ground for young actors and technicians.The budgets of the large television networks and the attentions of the festivals have not, therefore, extinguished the spotlight on African cinema.
Still, we must not forget some more independent initiatives such as the Centre Yennenga which, being located in Dakar, and thanks to the support given by Alain Gomis, wants to become a cinematographic centre specialised in training and post-production. The horizons are wide open and we are confident for the future.

Simona Cella

Guyana. An Unknown Country.

The recent discoveries of oil have brought Guyana to the centre of international attention. Many interests are at stake.

Guyana is a South American country located on the Atlantic Coast and wedged in between Brazil, Venezuela and Suriname, bordering these countries to the south, east and west, respectively. The country is characterised by dense rainforests. The territory consists mostly of plains. The part near the sea is covered with alluvial soil deposited by the many rivers that pass through it. The internal part is hilly while the east and the south are mountainous.

For many years, Guyana was outside the expansionist ambitions of the colonial powers and considered to be unhealthy and swampy whose coasts were largely occupied by the mouths of rivers pouring into the sea. The first on the scene were the British and then the French, followed by the Dutch who belonged to the very powerful Dutch West India Company. These countries were the first to enter the zone and they immediately divided the territory into three parts: British Guyana, Dutch Guyana, also known as Suriname, and French Guyana. They each established sovereignty over their own areas by means of peace agreements and by founding the establishments for purely commercial purposes, opening the way for colonisation by means of the abundant use of slaves imported from Africa.
During the sixteenth century, the flat part of the country began to be used for growing coffee, tobacco and cocoa. The colonists worked hard to build polders to keep out the sea and drain the land for cultivation. Due to the low level of the land, the polders could only receive ‘external water’ by means of artificially-operated devices. The creation of the polders, in the early eighteenth century, enabled the cultivation of sugar cane to be increased, a development made possible by the hard labour of the African slaves. The industry also produced rum and molasses. Over the years, slaves who managed to escape from their masters organised themselves into communities, taking refuge in the forests and mixing with the Indios.

With the Congress of Vienna, (1814–1815) the territory was definitively assigned to Great Britain and, in 1831, took the name of British Guyana. Later, in 1838, slavery was abolished also in Guyana and, to provide the plantations with manpower, contract workers were imported from India and other parts of the world. This change profoundly affected social structures because of the increase in the population from 100,000 to 127,700 inhabitants in 1851, and afterwards reached 296,000 in 1911 and 344,000 in 1937, eventually exceeding 500,000 in the nineteen fifties – as well as its varied ethnic composition. In Guyana, many groups are present among which are: the Indians (43.5%), Africans (30.2%), Afro-Guyanese (16.7) and Amerindians (9.2%) who live along the rivers in the interior of the country divided into nine tribes: Akawaios, Arawaks, Arecunas, Caribs, Macusis, Patamonas, Wai Wais, Wapisianas and Warraus. There are also people who are descended from the Maderesi recruited in the eighteen hundreds, some Chinese and other Europeans. The ethnic variety is also reflected in the variety of religions where Hindus are the majority (28.8%), together with Protestants (18.7%), Catholics (8.1%) and Muslims (7.3%). About 90% of the population is concentrated in the coastal strip between the estuaries of the Essequibo and Courantyne Rivers.

Today, Guyana has a population of 780,000 inhabitants and, after Uruguay and Suriname is the third smallest sovereign state in South America. The country has the highest rural population density on the continent. Although 90% live in the coastal area, the population density is very low, around 115 inhabitants per km².
Unfortunately, there are frequent tensions between the different communities, especially between the Indians and the Africans, with considerable consequences in the political sphere. The country is in the grip of migration with an estimated 500,000 Guyanese living abroad. Around 11,000 people leave the country every year, mostly going to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, as well as Venezuela and Brazil which are geographically closer.
Georgetown is the capital and is the main fulcrum of the economic, political, social and cultural affairs of the country. Linden and Golden Grove, with 28,000 and 23,000 inhabitants respectively, are the next two important inhabited centres; all the rest are small villages or centres with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants.

Georgetown, Guyana. (photo: Dan Lundberg/CC. A.2.0)

The languages spoken in Guyana obviously reflect both its history and its ethnic composition. English is the official language while such languages as Urdu-Hindi, Tamil and Creole are also widespread. The indigenous communities, on the other hand, are faithful to their own languages derived from the Arawak family of languages.
Concerning the indigenous populations, it is to be noted that, in recent years in Guyana, there has been significant progress that has helped the indigenous people tackle the poverty of which they were the main victims, by means of the economic transformation of the villages while protecting their culture and traditions.
Today, in fact, it is not unusual to find members of these ethnic groups occupying institutional posts such as that of a minister. They are also involved within social life and Indians are present in politics as well as in the health and education sectors.
In 2004, the government granted an immense tract of land of about 4,047 km², in the district of Konashen, to the Konashen community, managed by the Wai Wai people. This is one of the largest protected areas belonging to a community that is striving to implement a development plan for the sustainable use of the biological resources of Konashen COCA and the identification of threats to biodiversity, by means of targeted projects aimed at keeping the zone protected. The territory is the only one of its kind with a high level of biological diversity. (F.R.)

 

Mozambique. Governance of Natural Resources and the Armed Conflict.

Mozambique has returned to the news of the international media due to the humanitarian catastrophe ravaging the north of the country.

Since the conflict broke out in 2017, violence in the region has caused a humanitarian crisis with almost 700,000 displaced people and more than 2,000 dead, according to UN agencies. The escalation of violence in recent weeks in the city of Palma by the Islamic terrorist group Al Shabaab, has occurred at a time when more than 1.3 million people already needed assistance and humanitarian protection in Cabo Delgado and in the neighboring provinces of Niassa and Nampula.

In the last months, attacks on civilians, strategic government buildings and foreign companies by Islamist groups occur more frequently. In response to these Islamist attacks, the Mozambican army and mercenaries from a South African security company commit crimes of war, according to Amnesty International, with which chaos and violence are assured. These terrorist groups that have infiltrated themselves among the population have no direct connection with other jihadists who operate in other parts of Africa such as Somalia, Mali or the DRC but are part of the same Islamist network.

All the places in Africa where these violent groups operate, they appear to have a common denominator: the struggle to control the natural resources of the area. These are natural resources that are controlled by companies of foreign economic powers that leave little economic benefits to the population. In the case of the Cabo Delgado region, in northern Mozambique, this situation of violence is due to religious, political and economic circumstances.

The high rates of general poverty among the population, institutionalized corruption and discrimination by the State of some ethnic groups (Mwani) have caused the discontent of certain religious groups and have led to the arrival of radicalized groups. These groups take advantage of the population’s discontent to promote control of the area’s natural wealth, imposing violence and fear on the population.

In 2011, the Italian company ENI found one of the largest oil and gas reserves in the world on the northern coast of Mozambique (Rovuma basin). The oil extraction companies immediately knew how to expose their project to the population as an opportunity for employment and economic growth for the country. Nor was it difficult to convince the government of Mozambique to obtain the necessary permits that would allow them to extract the oil resources of the area.

In this context, oil and gas companies from around the world such as the French TOTAL, the German Anadarko, the American EXXonMobil, the Chinese company CNPC, the Portuguese company Galp or the Koreana Kogas company showed interest in the exploitation of oil reserves. Together with them, the service provider companies settled in the area.

However, it has been the French company TOTAL that has remained most active in the area, developing a multi-million oil and gas extraction project.  Unfortunately, the expectations generated by such business activity did not take long to dissipate as the local population still did not find the direct or indirect economic benefit of these mining operations.

Promises of direct compensation to the population, such as the construction of schools, the distribution of drinking water, or the creation of jobs, soon began to fade. In addition, the project would cause the displacement of the population so that service providers could establish themselves in the area.

Once the armed conflict to control the natural resources of the Rovuma Basin has emerged and has caused death, destruction and chaos in the region, the Mozambican authorities have called for emergency international assistance to restore security in the area and help to thousands of displaced people. The European Union and the United Nations have responded to calls for help, but it is repeated once more a situation in which a country of the global South, rich in natural resources, is exploited by companies from rich countries and this generates a situation of discontent among the populations and violence.

We should therefore ask ourselves whether this kind of humanitarian aid is the kind of aid that Africa needs? Is this the new way of relationship between the global south and the rich global north? Are these dynamics of exploitation of natural resources-armed conflict-international aid part of what is called the new colonization?

Natural resources are clearly important at the origin of many armed conflicts in Africa. Preventive mechanisms to avoid such conflicts are almost non-existent and the international legislation that could help prevent them is always voluntary.

The European Union has a great responsibility in such conflicts, since in many cases European companies come to Africa encouraged by legislations that promote access to natural resources to ensure the supply of raw materials and minerals.

Similarly, European companies arrive in Africa backed by bilateral investment agreements (BITs) that protect companies against their investments. This is the case of the companies that since 2011 have made investments in oil and gas exploitation off the coast of Mozambique and that continue to operate with impunity both in this country and in other regions of Africa.

The ongoing United Nations binding treaty on business and human rights would be a useful conflict preventive mechanism.
Respect for human rights does not begin with the exploitation of natural resources but from the approach of sustainable development policies that integrate the will of local populations, carry out social impact assessments, guarantee the sustainability of natural resources and protect the environment.

Currently, despite UN sustainability goals, despite EU energy transition plans, despite business due diligence and human rights and environment plans, despite national legislations of direct responsibility of companies… the violation of human and environmental rights continues to cause conflicts like the one in Mozambique.

The good governance of natural resources in Africa is mainly a responsibility of transnational companies but requires the commitment of all States to continue fighting for the well-being of local populations who are the legitimate owners of natural resources, ensuring respect for national and international legislations as well as continuing to fight against all forms of corruption. Only from a commitment on the part of the States that consider the local populations and their needs and that values the social and environmental impacts of the exploitation of natural resources can guarantee the true integral development
of the people.

José Luis Gutiérrez Aranda,
Trade Policy Officer,
Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network (AEFJN)

Africa Sahel. Nature as a hostage.

The nature parks of W-Arly-Pendjari, straddling the borders of Niger, Burkina Faso and Benin, have become a target for terrorists and poachers. They have rendered inaccessible one of the most beautiful reserves of Africa.

With 1.7 million hectares of unspoiled nature shared by three national parks on the border between Niger, Burkina Faso and Benin, the W-Arly-Pendjari (WAP) complex is a crossroads of the largest ecosystem in all of western Africa. A treasure-trove of biodiversity recognised by the UNESCO in 1996 as a World Heritage Site, it is no longer coveted only by poachers and traffickers of animal hides and ivory but also by armed rebels and Jihadist cells.

This is confirmed by what has happened in recent years. On 9 August last, a group of guerrillas attacked the giraffe reserves at Koure in Niger, within the W park, killing six French humanitarian workers of the ACTED NGO, their driver and their guide. In May 2019, in Pendjari, Benin, two French tourists were abducted and their guide murdered. Since 2018, in the Arly Park in Burkina Faso, at least eight rangers and guides were killed in ambushes.
The widespread chaos has forced hundreds of park guards to leave checkpoints unmanned, transforming these areas into open zones where the hunting and sale of wild animals have never been easier.

Countermeasures
To regain control of the situation in the more vulnerable zones in the Wap African Parks Network complex, the ONG charged with management has engaged a group of instructors to create an internal intelligence unit to be employed on the Benin side of the parks of Pendjari and W. This unit is to train the rangers, teaching them counter-attack measures, to recruit new rangers and coordinate joint operations with soldiers deployed by the Benin army on the border with Burkina Faso and Niger. The government of Porto-Novo which in the past five years gave the NGO six million dollars, has deployed around 150 soldiers to guard three border crossings into Burkina Faso.

Pendjari National Park. Bénin. ( CC BY-SA 4.0/ Ji-Elle)

France has also given its support, providing the air forces of Benin and Burkina with spotter aircraft to intercept incursions by Islamist combatants. The increasingly bothersome presence of armed groups within these natural parks has been confirmed by Daniel Eizenga, a researcher of the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies. “In Arly Park, in recent months, there has been an increase in the number of operations bases of Islamist militants”, Eizenga explains.  “Various groups have come together which are now fighting for the control of this territory. In the W Park, instead, due to this threat, tourist trips and hunting expeditions have been discouraged since 2018”.
It is easy to understand why these areas are so desirable. They are impenetrable with dense undergrowth, difficult to reach and so difficult to police, where Islamic groups may settle undisturbed to set up training camps and find secure places to conceal arms and ammunition. “ The Islamic State in the great Sahara has increased pressure in the area coming into conflict with formations allied with Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM)”, Eizenga emphasises. “On behalf of the latter, in the eastern part of Burkina Faso and in the south of the country close to the national park of Kaboré Tambi near the forest of Nazinga, the Macina Liberation Front, Ansaroul Islam ad al-Murabitun is operating”.

An alliance of convenience
That which allows the Jihadist groups to multiply here and there within the W-Arly-Pendjari (Wap) complex is, especially, the alliance of convenience formed with the poachers’ networks. This is a new strategy also used in the past by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group of northern Uganda led by the warlord Joseph Kony, which formed an alliance with the elephant poachers of East Africa. This modus operandi has also been followed by the Sudanese Janjaweed militias.
What is happening on the border between Burkina Faso, Benin and Niger differs little from this.

The poachers pay a tax to the Jihadist militias and in return are given protection and a free hand to hunt and sell their goods. The guerrillas, in turn, benefit from this lucrative business to finance their activities. It is worth noting that a lion skin can be sold for 2,100 dollars and that in the Burkina part alone of the WAP complex, there are around 350 unguarded big cats”. “The most valuable goods are the bones and other parts of the lion, elephant tusks and the skins of leopards and cheetahs, recounts Philipp Henschel, director of the programme for the protection of lions in West and Central of the Panthera network.
“Wherever there are very valuable species of wild animals, such as lions, rhinoceroses and elephants, it is often the terrorists themselves who hunt them and sell their parts”.
Along with these shady transactions, the Jihadists and poachers hold in their grasp one of the more unspoiled reserves in the whole of Africa where once people would come from all over the world. Today it is no longer possible to go there – unless one is armed to the teeth.

Rocco Bellantone

Why Goats Live with Man.

The goat and his mother lived alone in their village. He said to her, “I have here a magic-medicine to make one strong in wrestling.
There is no one who can overcome me, or cast me down; I can overcome any other person.”

The other beasts heard of this boast; and they took up the challenge. First, house-rats, hundreds of them, came to the goat’s village, to wrestle with him. He overcame two hundred of them one by one.
The rats, then, went back to their places, saying that they were not able to overcome the goat. Then the forest-rats came to wrestle with the goat. He overcame them also in the same way. And they went back
to their own place defeated.

Then the antelopes came to wrestle with the goat. He overcame all the antelopes, every one of them; not one was able to throw the goat to the ground. And they also went back to their places disappointed.
Also, the elephant with all the elephants came on that same mission.
The goat overcame all the elephants; and they, too, went back
to their place defeated.

Thus, all the beasts came, in the same way, and were also overcome by the goat, and went bad surprised at the goat’s strength. But there still remained one beast, only one, the leopard. He had not made the attempt. He said he would go, as he was sure he could overcome. He came, but the goat overcame him also.
It was proved, then, that not a single beast could withstand the goat. This made the goat think that he was king.

Then the father of all the leopards said: “I am ashamed that this beast should overcome me. I will kill him!” And he thought of a plan to do so. He went to the spring where mankind got their drinking water and stood, hiding at the spring. When men of the town went to the spring to get water the leopard killed two of them.

The people went to tell the goat, “Go away from here, for the leopard is killing mankind on your account.” The mother of the goat said to him, “If that is so, let us go to my brother, the antelope.” So they both went to the uncle antelope. When they came to his village, they told him their errand. He bravely said, “Remain here! Let me see the leopard come here with his boldness!”

They were then at the antelope’s village about two days. On the third day, about eight o’clock in the morning, the leopard came there as if for a walk. When the antelope saw him, the goat and his mother hid themselves; and the antelope asked the leopard, “What is your anger? Why are you angry with my nephew?”

At that very moment, while the antelope was speaking, the leopard seized him on the ear. The antelope cried out, “What are you killing me for?” The leopard replied, “Show me the place where the goat
and his mother are.”

So the antelope, being afraid, said, “Come tonight, and I will show you where they sleep. And you may kill them; but don’t kill me.” While he was saying this, the goat overheard, and said to his mother, “We must flee, lest the leopard kill us.”

At sundown, then, that evening, the goat and his mother fled to the village of the elephant. About midnight, the leopard came to the antelope’s village, as he had been told, and looked for the goat, but did not find him. The leopard went to all the houses of the village, and when he came to the antelope’s home, in his disappointment he killed him.

The leopard kept up his search, and set out to find where the goat had gone. Following the footprints, he came to the village of the elephant. When he arrived there, the elephant demanded, “What’s the matter?” And the same conversation followed, as at the antelope’s village, and with the same result. The elephant was killed by the leopard, for the goat and his mother had fled, and had gone to the village of the ox.

The leopard followed, and came to the village of the ox. There all the same things happened, as in the other villages. The goat and his mother fled, and the ox was killed by the leopard. Then the mother, wearying of flight and sorry that she had caused their friends to be killed, said, “My child! if we continue to flee to the villages of other beasts the leopard will follow, and will kill them. Let us flee to the homes of mankind.”

They fled again, then, and came to the town of man, and told him their story. He received them kindly. He took the goat and his mother as guests, and gave them a house to live in. Not long afterward the leopard came to the town of man looking for the goat. But the man said to the leopard, “Those beasts whom you killed failed to find a way in which to kill you. But, if you come here, we will find a way.” So that night, then, the leopard went back to the village.
The man then made a big trap for the leopard, with two rooms in it. He took the goat and put him in one room of the trap.

Night came. The leopard left his village, still going to seek the goat; and he came again to the town of man. The leopard stood still, listened, and sniffed the air. He smelled the odour of the goat, and was glad, and said, “So! this night I will get him!” He saw an open way to a small house. He thought it was a door. He entered, and was caught in the trap.
He could see the goat through the cracks of the wall, but could not get at him. The goat jeered at him, “My friend! you were about to kill me,
but you are unable.”

Daybreak came. And people of man’s town found the leopard in the trap, caught fast. They took machetes and guns, and killed him. Then man said to the goat, “You shall not go back to the forest; remain here always. Some friend or relative of the leopard may try to kill you.” This is the reason that goats like to live with mankind, through fear of leopards.

Folktale from Tanzania

Israel. Kuchinate, let’s all crochet.

Kuchinate is the name chosen by a group of African women seeking asylum in Israel. They have organised a project for themselves which will guarantee them a steady income and daily assistance. Two Comboni Sisters are helping them.

Sister Azezet Habtezghi, known by all as Sister Aziza, and Sister Agnese are Comboni Missionaries and members of the Bethany community in Jerusalem. Kuchinate (which means crochet hook in Tigrinya), is an organisation of women from the Horn of Africa countries seeking asylum in Israel. Sister Aziza is a co-manager and Sister Agnese keeps the financial accounts.

Sister Azezet Kidane, co-Director of the Kuchinate (Miriam Alster/Flash90).

Sister Aziza, from Eritrea, has worked for more than ten years on behalf of women who have suffered violence and torture as they went through hellish conditions while crossing the Sinai desert. In 2012, she received the award Trafficking in Persons Report Heroes from the American Secretary of State for her work against human trafficking.
Sister Agnese went to the Holy Land after working for 16 years in Sudan, two in Egypt and three in Dubai. She is now collaborating with Aziza in the Kuchinate project with the Bedouins of the Jahalin community of Khan al Ahmar, a camp on the Jerusalem to Jericho road. However, the real protagonists of this initiative that takes its name from a simple tool, the crochet hook, are the African women. One of them is Meron, a single Eritrean mother with a child. She grew up with her mother in Eritrea but was kidnapped one day when she was going to buy bread. Meron never liked to speak of all the things that happened to her during that terrible time but after a few months, she managed to enter Israel, passing through Sinai. It was only then, after she discovered Kuchinate, that Meron began a new life. In Kuchinate she found a warm welcome and someone to listen to her story.
Kedes is also from Eritrea and entered Israel after travelling for four months across the Sinai desert. Some of their companions went through the same experience:  Zghiaria, Hadas and Ganet, to name but a few, each with a terrible story to tell, but all of them full of joy at having found Kuchinate and being its active members.

On their own initiative, they opened a workshop in Tel Aviv where they sell their handmade products.  The shop displays a variety of items, in striking bright colours; all made using the crochet hook: baskets, handbags, bracelets, household goods and items made of cloth such as dolls, facemasks, tablecloths and serviettes, all waiting for customers. The shop has also begun online sales which means the products can become better known and exported.
Kuchinate is something more than a business: the project also provides voluntary education programmes for the women seeking asylum which enable them to take part in various courses such as professional dressmaking, English language, or computer skills. They also receive psychological accompaniment to help them integrate all the violence and suffering to which they have been subjected.

One important element in the Kuchinate project is that the young women do not confine themselves to merely producing and selling goods. Kuchinate is also intended to be a sharing of traditions and culture. For this reason, before the pandemic, social gatherings were organised, including the East African coffee ceremonies and a school of Eritrean cooking with the traditional flatbread called injera: all of which aimed at bringing the asylum seekers together and getting to know their personal stories. The spread of Covid-19 has had a catastrophic effect on thousands of people in Israel who have lost their jobs with nothing to fall back on such as social security. Many of the Kuchinate women were not able to continue their part-time jobs (many were working as maids in well-to-do families or hotels); overnight, they found themselves deprived of their income.  Seeing the situation, many people have continued to support Kuchinate by buying their products. This has enabled the women to continue their work and earn their living.

Sr Aziza remarks: “Apart from the ulterior value of the women’s network which has guaranteed the results of the manual work they do within a therapeutic social system that is open and culturally appropriate, together with the creation of income-generating products that express Africa’s pride and cultural beauty, all of this contributes to the general well-being and health of our women”.
During the pandemic, Kuchinate has also provided the young African women with psychological support, instituting monthly buna talks (coffee chats) in small groups, and daily telephone calls to monitor the needs of each asylum seeker. To sum up, despite the pandemic, Kuchinate has obtained excellent results, also this year, a decade after its foundation. Today, there are over 230 women who are taking part in Kuchinate and have had the joy of neighbourly support. Mostly because of the little crochet hook.

Chiara Pellicci/PM

Africa. “The mission continues…”

A total of one hundred and thirty years those three Comboni missionaries spent in Africa. Three devoted people of great faith and love for the people. Their motto was: ‘This is our home and here we will remain as long as there is life in our bodies’.

Comboni Father David Ferraboschi is originally from Italy but has spent some 50 years in Sudan as a missionary. Only forced exile lasting for four years could separate him from Sudan. “When I first arrived in Sudan, there were about sixty of us Comboni missionaries in the country but today we are less than twenty. The mission continues, nonetheless”.
At the age of 79, Father David is still “in the front line” working in the parish of Masalma, in Omdurman. Founded in 1889, it is the oldest current community of Comboni Missionaries in Sudan. However, Father David’s first mission was among the Nuba, in El Obeid and Kaduqli – North Kordofan and South Kordofan, respectively.

Father David Ferraboschi: “I am having a beautiful missionary life”.

“There I learned to love this quiet, simple, life-loving and extremely welcoming people. In Masalma, most of the Christians are Nuba who came to escape from the endless conflict that their region suffers. I love this parish. This is where the Comboni Missionaries Sr. Teresa Grigolini and Fr. Josef Ohrwalder, along with other missionaries, were forced to remain as prisoners during the Islamic rebellion at the end of the 19th century. They had a kind of secret chapel where they prayed unknown to anyone, taking a great risk. That is why we wanted to open the parish”.
In 1990, Fr. David’s visa was not renewed since the Khartoum government wanted to reduce the Catholic presence in the country. Fr. David left for Egypt with the hope of soon returning to Sudan. But as the permission did not arrive, he returned to Italy to study at the Pontifical Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies.

It was a time to improve his knowledge of Arabic and to study in depth the Qur’an and the Muslim religion. He was only able to return in 1994. He was in Nyala (Darfur) for five years, and again in El Obeid, with the Nuba, for another eight years, before ending up, in 2005, in the parish of Masalma.
His face lights up when he talks about his life there. “I am having a beautiful missionary life. I see that faith in Jesus helps many people to move forward, it stimulates them to overcome the differences between the communities because they feel they are members of a larger group”. He talks to people and never seems to be in a hurry. “Once you get into people’s reality and free yourself from prejudices, everything is easier. It cost me a lot. At first, I was a victim of that desire for people to do what we do and the way we do it. And it is not like that. They have their way of seeing things, their vision, also their defects, as we do, but it is undoubtedly they who are the protagonists and must manage the mission”.

Sr. Conchita: “I have lived the mission with joy”
Last March, Sister Conchita Lopez, a Comboni Sister, received from the Spanish Government, through its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the cross of the Royal Order of Isabel la Católica for her commitment on behalf of poor people around the world.
Sr. Conchita Lopez was born in Toledo, (Spain) 75 years ago. Sudan is also her mission land, which she only left to care for her elderly mother for a few years. She felt a very strong missionary call at the age of 12 and it followed her faithfully despite stiff opposition from her family. “I had to flee from home to start my formation with the Comboni Missionaries and only little by little, and after much suffering, my family ended up accepting my vocation, and was even happy about it”.

Sister Conchita Lopez: “the mission with the joy”.

“I arrived in Sudan on December 3, 1975. The first years were lived in Omdurman and Atbara, studying Arabic and assimilating the cultural values of the country. Later, the roads of the mission would take me to present-day southern Sudan. I spent six years in Juba and then a long period in Malaka and it was always the same: war, war and more war. The bombs were falling everywhere, but at the same time God’s grace was so strong that it renewed us and gave us strength to continue with the people”. Sr. Conchita continues: “At that time, all humanitarian organizations had left and people looked at us and asked us: `Are you going too?’ I do not know where we got the strength to say: No, the good shepherd does not abandon his sheep so we will stay”. The superiors in Rome asked the sisters to leave the mission, and the United States embassy offered them a flight to leave Malaka, but they did not leave. “We chose ourselves. We did not pray about it and the superior said: ‘You see what they tell us from Rome’, and there was a silence. Suddenly a sister said: ‘I’m staying’; then another: ‘I want to stay as well,’ and so the six of us stayed there. We felt that it was not the time to abandon those people who needed us and we really created a wonderful fraternity with the people. It was a joy for them to see us there and with their enormous faith they encouraged us: ‘Don’t worry sister, God is with us’. We came to evangelize and we were evangelized”.

In 1996, Conchita returned to Spain to care for her mother. She returned to Sudan in 2004, where she spent four years in Khartoum until, in 2008, she was assigned to her current community in El Obeid. “I have always lived the mission with the joy of being among the poorest. I have been accompanying two communities in Rahad and Umruwaba, near El Obeid, for 12 years with people living in tremendous misery. Most of them are Nubas, but there are also other small groups from different communities. I go there and visit families, including the Muslim ones. I talk with some of them and try to help others in whatever way I can.
I try to make sure the children go to school and receive an education. That is my mission”.
Sr. Conchita remembers the names of various people she has encountered. One of them is Riad, whom she baptised as he was in danger of death. He died a few hours later. “It was something very emotional. There were all those people praying on their knees next to Riad, in a small and very poor house, where they had only one dirty old mattress but a lot of faith. This is our presence”.

Fr. Alfredo Neres:  “The joy of meeting people”
Father Alfredo Neres is Portuguese. He has spent more than 34 years in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “As soon as I arrived in the Congo, I took on the task of assisting the villages on the savannah where the most abandoned people live.  A whole year may go by without people being able to go to confession or assist at Mass. In all these years, I have always wanted to experience the joy of going to meet and visit our Christians in the savannah. I remember going to visit a chapel in Ango mission, 198 km from the centre, often pushing my loaded bicycle up the hills. My visits to those villages created a new atmosphere. I would proclaim the Word of God, hear confessions, celebrate Mass and spend days with the people. Sometimes I would stay in the forest for three weeks before returning to the parish tired and in need of a wash but with overflowing joy”, Father Alfredo recounts.

Father Alfredo Neres: “ This is my home. I will stay as long as I can”.

The missionary continues: “In my missionary work, I have always emphasised the work of evangelisation, giving priority to the training of pastoral agents according to the Comboni motto of ‘Saving Africa with Africa’. The second strong point is the Eucharist, helping people to live deeply the Eucharist in their towns and villages. In third place, I consider the Sacrament of Reconciliation as fundamental as it shows the love of God through forgiveness and closeness”.Father Alfredo recalls: “At first, there were not many priests in our dioceses in the Congo and the work involved especially the preparation of catechumens for baptism. Many baptisms and confirmations were administered to lead people to Christian maturity. When I was an episcopal vicar in Bondo, the Bishop charged me with erecting three new parishes in the diocese, each a long way from the other (Monga, Ango and Dakwa). I stayed for two months in each parish to ensure the conditions for their establishment”.
An event he experienced changed his life. “In December 1981, my priestly, religious and missionary life was turned upside down. While I was in Rome doing a course, I took part in a meeting of Charismatic renewal. During the prayer for the outpouring of the Spirit, I received a gift from the Holy Spirit, the gift of healing people’s diseases and liberating them”.
When he returned to the DR Congo, Father Alfredo devoted himself to his new ministry. He was chosen by the Bishop of Bondo as the diocesan exorcist and he has exercised this ministry for twenty years. “I like these two activities very much: healing people and liberating them from the power of witchcraft, from magic and their evil chains”.

The missionary continues with his memories of his missionary life. “The most impressive memories concern the seven years (from 1996 to 2003) of war he spent at Ango and Bondo. When the soldiers of Mobutu, on the one hand, and those of Bemba and Kabila senior, on the other, clashed, the rifle shots and rockets struck the village and our houses. The soldiers ransacked the houses and the church. They even thought we kept money hidden in the tabernacle. To avoid something worse, I left the tabernacle open and empty. I took the Blessed Sacrament to my room where I had set up a well-cared-for altar. One night, from 18:00 to 5:00, the battle raged with thousands of shots being fired and the forest set alight. The volleys of fire from the tanks passed above the house and exploded somewhere else. All night long I lay on the floor gazing at the Blessed Sacrament. I kept very quiet, of course, and told Our Lord that it would be nice for us both to be buried together and go to heaven together. His presence would have ensured my admittance. In those moments, I experienced the presence of Christ very strongly. At other times, when we took refuge in the forest, I would take the Blessed Sacrament in my satchel and it was always a source of immense joy for me. His presence among us gave us surprising strength and courage”.
Father Alfredo concludes: “As I look back over my 34 years of missionary life in this land, I feel overcome by joy for the life I have lived. In moments of trials and sorrows, they give me peace and joy in my heart. I have been called to pass on, to give, to share and bring this joy to life in the people Our Lord allows me to meet”.
When David, Conchita and Alfredo were asked if they plan to ever leave Sudan and DR Congo, they respond in a similar way: “This is my home. I will stay as long as I can”.

Enrique Bayo

 

 

 

The Central African Republic. Let’s start again together.

To recreate the social and interreligious fabric of a society torn by war, it is necessary to provide opportunities for people to meet, especially the youth, by means of formative and cultural activities.
The young people try to mend what politics has divided since they feel part of a single people.

“The most important thing for us is not the theoretical principles but how to recommence living together”. This was the reply of Fr. Moses Otii, a Ugandan Comboni Missionary and parish priest of the parish of Our Lady of Fatima, one of the largest in the Archdiocese of Bangui, when asked to recount his experience in the ambit of interreligious dialogue.
This is the heart of the matter: to start again by creating opportunities for Muslims and Christians to approach each other and once again to live and work together. It comes after they have been at the centre of violent political instrumentalisation that led them to be falsely associated with the Seleka and Anti-Balaka rebel groups that have fanned the flames of conflict in the whole territory of the Central African Republic since 2012.
This has brought about the latest in a series of political crises mistakenly interpreted as a religious conflict between the main faiths of the country. However, the causes that led to the clashes are to be sought elsewhere: in the way the government abandoned vast peripheral territories and in the greed of the rebel groups who want to get hold of the immense mineral resources of the country.

Father Moses shows the chalice pierced by a bullet during the May 2014 attack on the parish.

Not even the parish of Our Lady of Fatima has been spared. It is located a few hundred metres from Km5, the economic powerhouse of the capital and with a Muslim majority. There were repeated attacks, massacres and attempts to destroy it, resulting in dozens of deaths, including the killing of two priests. Since 5 December 2013, more than six thousand displaced people have found refuge there, a situation that has lasted more than three years.
In the midst of this tragedy, Fr. Moses never gave up. That which gives him the strength to remain in such a difficult situation is the faith of the people. He realises more and more that the presence of the Church is their only sign of hope. “If we had left the parish, it would have been as if we quenched the last flame of hope. Our presence is vital”, the young missionary priest says. Father Moses understood it was necessary to do something concrete.  He prayed, reflected, questioned himself and then asked for collaboration to set up a working team. Together, they began to dream and think up initiatives. “With all the atrocities of recent years, we began to consider what we should do and start some activities, with just one thing in mind: to create the right conditions where Christians and Muslims could meet together”.

The parish of Our Lady of Fatima is one of the largest in the Archdiocese of Bangui.

The first of these initiatives was a course of English lessons which was attended by around 120 young people of whom 80 were Muslims. Fr. Moses recalls this first experience: “At first it was not easy, due to the presence of the Muslims. Then, as time went by, the young people realised that those Muslims they were meeting were people like themselves, with the same desires and dreams to be fulfilled. This first exchange was positive, and it encouraged us to continue moving in the same direction”.Listening groups were set up to help the displaced to escape from the spiral of hatred, anger and revenge. The first video about peace entitled ‘The Dove’ was shown in a number of displaced people locations, arousing animated debates on the theme of reconciliation and forgiveness.At the end of 2019, a cultural centre for young people was opened with the title of The Martyrs of Fatima featuring a library, a conference hall, literacy courses, informatics, robotics, psychological counselling, a film workshop and a music studio. Many Muslims attend the numerous training courses on peace and conflict management and resolution.

Bangui’s Archbishop Dieudonne Nzapalainga, the late Imam Kobine Layama and Pastor Franco Mbaye-Bondoih.

“We are preparing the ground for forgiveness and reconciliation”, Fr. Moses explains, “many people tell me how they have lost everything, their families and homes and ask how they can forgive, how they can be reconciled with the people who cut down their nearest and dearest. It is necessary to prepare the ground because forgiveness is a gift of God”. Fr. Moses explains the deep meaning of the new centre: “We have to overcome the sense of being victims and become authors of our own destiny. We have suffered and lived through bad situations, but this place of death must become a place of life. From being a place of wounds, it must become a place of healing”.The missionary repeats the importance of interreligious dialogue that is firmly rooted in the lives of the people: “We are creating spaces where the people can meet and those of different religions can mix together”. Besides the cultural centre, a pharmacy with a laboratory for tests has been added. The aim is always the same: to care for people and heal their wounds by means of encounters.
Fatima parish is becoming a space where dialogue between the religions becomes abundant life.
Anour Limane, president of the Central African Islamic Youth Circle for Development tells of some of the initiatives of recent months in which young Christians and Muslims took part at Fatima parish.
Last September, the Muslim and Christian communities organised together a Festiphoto de Fatima, an online photo exhibition that enabled young Central Africans to demonstrate their creativity by showing the other face of the country, one much different from that of death and destruction that young people were used to seeing, so as to allow the abundant human and environmental beauty of the Central African Republic to emerge. In December, a Festipaix de Fatima was held. This was a film festival aimed at promoting the culture of peace and dialogue between the cultures and religions by producing films under the direction of Julio-Cyriaque Mbetheke (Fatima parish) and Fatoumata Dembele of the Circle. Both initiatives met with enormous success, with many of the youth taking part in them.
Anour comments: “As the community of young Muslims, we faithfully frequent the Fatima youth cultural centre. Our students also frequent the library, an occasion for them to talk to the youth of the Christian community. We want to relive the communion that existed before the crisis”.Father Moses recalls: “When I first arrived in 2012, Christians and Muslims lived together in this quarter.  The parish was full of life and initiatives, a place of encounter between many people of different religious persuasions. Muslims, Protestants and Catholics would come together to watch films, take part in sporting competitions, and celebrate Christmas together. The political-military crisis that broke out towards the end of 2012 put an end to all of that”.

Muslim and Christian children would sit together side by side in the school benches in front of the parish. Sr. Charlotte, who is headmistress of the Catholic school Notre Dame de Chartres has had to work on the problem of healing the wounds left by the war. “In our school, the majority of the children were Muslim. After the war, both teachers and parents refused to have their children go back again to the school. They had suffered too much. We prepared them little by little to accept all the children because this school makes no distinction based on religion, social class or ethnicity”.When the school was reopened, the children who had not seen each other for so long were happy to meet again with their classmates and they immediately began to play together. “It was necessary to work for a long time to get them to understand that we are neither Anti-Balaka nor Seleka, but we are all brothers and sisters”.
He recalls: “One day, during an assembly, a Muslim mother told the Christian parents that the school protects all their children, both Muslim and Christian and prepares them to face their future with commitment”. Whereas politics has divided the country, setting one against the other, the youth want to commit themselves entirely for a different future, in a country where 85% of the population is made up of young people who are uneducated and therefore more easily manipulated.
Anour Limane concludes: “We must not allow ourselves to be manipulated by the powerful; all those who want to divide us. We young people of various religions have one thing in common. We all belong to the Central African Republic”.

Federica Farolfi

A New Constitutional Charter.

In 1966, Guyana became independent of its mother country and joined the Commonwealth as an autonomous entity.

Legislative power was entrusted to an elected assembly composed of 35 members and, in 1970, the new Constitutional Charter was launched and the ‘Cooperative Republic of Guyana’ was proclaimed with Arthur Chung, judge of Chinese ancestry, as president. He was succeeded in 1973 by Burnham who worked to establish relations with Cuba, the People’s Republic of China, the USSR and the German Democratic Republic. Nevertheless, as a member of the Commonwealth, it was strongly influenced by the United States and the United Kingdom on the local political scene. That influence caused the country to develop a greater cultural affinity with the British islands of the Caribbean, with Suriname and French Guyana than with the rest of the southern region of the Americas. Furthermore, the various ethnic groups established in the country did nothing to help create a spirit of unity capable of reaching
a cultural synthesis.

This caused Guyana to be isolated in the region. Nevertheless, during the past twenty years, there has been an about-turn in that ethnic groups which were formerly distinct tended to merge and the growth of politics which developed in the Latin American region due to the activities of such organisations as USAN that seeks the integration of the regional bloc. In fact, the construction of road infrastructure creating connections with other countries, the influence of Brazil and Venezuela and migration within the region have allowed Guyana to become more a part of the South American cultural context.
However, there is also an organisation that seeks to promote integration with the United States: Guyana USA which is based upon the large number of Guyanese, around 100,000, who possess dual citizenship and the Guyanese resident in the United States who number about 350,000, a number equal to about one-third of the entire population of Guyana.
The institutional profile of Guyana is a democratic republic with a semi-presidential system with the president as head of the government. Executive power is in the hands of the government while legislative power belongs both to the government and to the National Assembly. The president is elected indirectly and has the duty of appointing the prime minister. The president may not be removed except for reasons of health or flagrant violation of the constitution. On the other hand, he may dissolve the National Assembly. The prime minister leads the government under the control and coordination of the president. The Assembly has legislative power and representatives are elected by proportional representation in which 25 seats are allotted by preferences and the remaining 40 are reserved for members chosen by the parties and inserted into the blocked lists.

National Assembly. (Photo: Guyana Inc. Magazine).

The independence of the motherland animated the political life of the country by means of the development of two already existing major parties that represented the two largest ethnic groups. Of these, the first and most important is the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) which was formed as an offshoot of the old Labour Party which adopted a Marxist orientation and was later supported by the Indian workers. In 1957, seven years after its formation, some dissidents broke away and formed the People’s National Congress (PNC) which was more open to private enterprise in the economy and was an expression of the African-Guyanese population who accused the PPP of implementing policies favourable to the sectors controlled by the Indian-Guyanese.
With its clear electoral advantage, the PNC dominated the local political scene from the early seventies to the end of the nineties but as the new millennium opened, the PPP assumed the government of the country. Nevertheless, it must be said that, while both parties have a socialist orientation, the real differences that separate them have to do with ethnic questions and the distribution of resources. The two ethnic groups are, in fact, divided between the two production sectors of the country with the population of Indian descent overseeing their interests in the plantations of sugar, coffee and rice while those of African descent and living in urban areas, oversee the interests of the mining sector.

Guyanese President Irfaan Ali.

In March 2020, the country went to the polls and the result was a new rotation of power between the two most important parties. The outgoing President David Arthur Granger (PNC) was beaten by Mohamed Irfaan Ali of the PPP. The election was called following a 2018 vote of no confidence in President Ganger due to the doubtful relations between the state and the US oil company Exxon Mobil. Ali won the election after a recount of the votes which, after the first count, granted victory to David Granger. The recount followed accusations of fraud brought by the opposition, international observers and the Supreme Court of Guyana.
The victory of Mohamed Irfaan Ali represents a moment of special historical relevance since Ali is the first practising Muslim president to be head of a Latin American country. The new president will have to manage the unprecedented situation of an oil-related economic boom as well as the tensions between the two ethnic groups which could worsen due to the appropriation of profits. (F.R.)

 

The Latin American Church in Assembly. The challenge of ‘Synodality’.

In Mexico City, from 21 to 28 November, the first ecclesial Assembly of Latin America and the Caribbean will take place with the motto ‘We are all out-going missionary disciples’.

The project originated with the dialogue between Pope Francis and the Latin American Episcopal Conference (CELAM) which, in 2019, during its XXXVII General Assembly, proposed to have a VI General Conference of the Latin American episcopate. This followed those held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1955, in Medellín, Colombia, in 1968, in Puebla, Mexico, in 1979, in Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, in 1992 and in Aparecida, again in Brazil, in 2007. The conclusions reached gradually configured an ecclesial tradition and magisterium proper to the continent. Pope Francis not only believed it useful and necessary to have a new meeting in Latin America but launched an even greater challenge to the bishops, one that is more up-to-date and typical of its pastoral policy: to hold in this continent an ecclesial Assembly
with a synodal character.

CELAM itself specified that ‘The Episcopal Conferences of Latin America and the Caribbean have set in motion the acts and objectives of the Aparecida Document but, fourteen years after the event, it was difficult to have consolidated data concerning the continent during these years. For this reason, the Holy Father Pope Francis said that there are many Aparecida proposals still pending and he therefore encouraged the CELAM bishops to hold a meeting to study those guidelines in light of the new challenges of our times’ and ‘promote a Latin American and Caribbean Church with that outgoing, missionary and synodal spirit’.
The objective of the Assembly will be to ‘respond to the present-day pastoral challenges faced by the Church in the region and to study the proposals formulated in Aparecida’, having as its goal the years 2031 and 2033 when the 500th anniversary of the Guadeloupe event and the 2000th anniversary of our redemption will be celebrated. With this Assembly, the situation of our peoples will be contemplated, the present-day challenges will be studied, especially in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, new impetus will be given to pastoral commitment, and new ways will be sought so that all may have life in abundance’.

A missionary and synodal church
The Ecclesial Assembly of Latin America and the Caribbean has set in motion a process of listening to the entire People of God to generate various means of dialogue and activities that will be ‘the thread that joins from within the whole process of discernment before and during the Assembly’. It will last until mid-July.

Mauricio López, the coordinator of the Listening Committee, has promised that, “We aspire to have the full and ample participation of the People of God who are pilgrims in Latin America and the Caribbean so that this Assembly may be a real celebration of our ecclesial identity at the service of life”.
Lopez adds that, “This event is intended to be a true expression of a presence that embraces the hopes and desires of all the people who make up the Church, the People of God, especially in this time of deep crisis”. All men and women of the Church may take part.
Faced with this situation, “coherence with the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus will be the living gesture that makes our process relevant, and we must listen closely to the cry of impoverished Mother Earth which is also our sister in this period of the Covid-19 pandemic and all the other pandemics of inequality and exclusion that this moment reveals”.
Through a video message, Archbishop Eduardo Eliseo Martin, of Rosario, Argentina, encouraged people throughout Latin America to actively participate in the Assembly: “The Church wants to listen to all the laity, to all the faithful, to the greatest number, to be able to evaluate through all of you which is the path we have to follow”.The listening process takes a similar methodology as that carried out by the Vatican’s Synod of Bishops under Pope Francis where, through different ministries or individually, people are invited to answer a questionnaire and share their reflections on several issues affecting the Church.

In the meantime, the ‘Preparatory Document for the Journey Towards the Assembly’ has been published. It studies some aspects of the situations that ‘challenge us as missionary disciples in this historical hour’, in light of the document and experience of Aparecida.
In this ‘Document for the Journey’, “We may find more amply the theological, historical and Biblical foundations in light of the various documents of the Universal Church as well as those of the Conferences of Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean. It will assist personal and community dialogue and also discernment, giving rise to many contributions from the People of God while listening to each other, and in common deliberations. It is a document meant to stimulate and open dialogue”, Lopez said.

In the words of the Spanish-Bolivian theologian Fr. Victor Codina, “Francis does not wish to gather an elite separated from the Christian community that is composed of all the baptised, all of whom are capable of teaching and learning, for all have received the same Spirit, all are called to pray, speak, think, discuss and seek together the will of God”. It is not just a question of simply remembering the Aparecida Conference but to find new paths of universal fraternity and social friendship for the continent and in conformity with Evangelii Gaudium, Laudato Si’ and Fratelli Tutti, Francis does not want things to be decided from above, from the vertex of the ecclesial pyramid, still less by a clerical Church but from the base of the pyramid, involving everyone, in a Church on a journey, a many-faceted Church, under the ever-surprising guidance of the Spirit of the Lord who goes beyond all our plans”.
The Ecclesial Assembly of Latin America and the Caribbean will not only be a moment of reflection for the American continent but will also be a time of reflection in view of the Universal Synod of the Church in 2022 which will have synodality as its central theme. (C.C.)

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