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India. The Hair Business.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

The trade in human hair in the wig-makers’ salons is becoming a business worth millions of dollars. There are many orders from India. The role of the Hindu temples.

“Real hair, not artificial hair, is very much in demand – the young barber tells us. Every woman dreams of having a full head of long hair”. The best product comes from India. People who sell hair extensions agree on the fact that hair from China or Africa is not suitable for European women. “Indian hair corresponds better to the basic structure of European hair since it comes from the same genetic branch”, an expert in the sector explains. “This is why untreated hair from India is imported.

The hair is also popular because “most Indian women do not use products to style or colour their hair which keeps their hair strong, beautiful and intact. It is the type most in demand and therefore more desirable for the hairdressing industry”.
The religious and cultural background facilitates the abundance of hair from Indian temples.
Father Victordass Athistaraj, an Indian expert in Asian religion explains: “Millions of Hindus sacrifice their hair in the temples every year. By cutting their hair, they believe they are donating part of themselves to the gods”. He speaks to us of the Hindu temples of Tiruttani and Tirupati where tons of human hair are collected every month.

The temple of Tirupati, on the summit of Mount Tirumala, in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, was built in the year 300 and is considered the biggest place of pilgrimage in the world. Between 25 and 30 million Hindus visit it every year. According to local estimates, 75 tons of hair are collected yearly in the temple for a net value of around three million dollars.
The hair business involves all the temples of the south and the sacred cities such as Varanasi, Haridwar, Allahabad and Vrindavan. However, the locks of hair donated in the temples make up only twenty percent of the hair that comes from India and it is feared that the rest is the result of violence and intimidation.

“I hope my daughter gets well again”
We are at Shani Mahatma, one of the most ancient temples, situated in the state of Karnataka in south-west India. We watch as a woman wearing an orange-coloured sari enters the temple carrying a little girl in her arms. “I have come to the temple today because my daughter is disabled”, she whispers. “She is four years old and cannot walk.” The mother and child have walked for two days from their little village. It has been a difficult journey.
Father Victordass says: “ If you are well off, you give some money or animals to the gods. It is only the women belonging to poor castes who mainly donate their hair. They have nothing else to give”.

Sri Shani Mahatma Temple.

The woman goes into the salon where barbers dressed in white are waiting for the devotees. The woman sits down. The barber has tied the shoulder-length hair of the woman into two braids. With two swift cuts the splendour of her hair falls to the stone floor. She then says: “I hope my daughter gets well again”. She is a graceful woman and is very devoted. Slowly, with her child in her arms, she re-enters the temple with her close-cropped head. She bows down and continues to pray. She eventually gets up and starts her journey back to her village.
There are various reasons why people go to the temple: the young families thank the gods for the birth of their child; the peasants sacrifice their hair after a good harvest; the young men pray for a good job. However, where there is sickness or misfortune, people donate their hair. Little by little the stone floor is covered in hair. Most of the hair cut off in temples, like those of Tirumala-Tirupati and Shani-Mahatma, are sent to Koppal in the middle of the Indian desert.

A Visit to Koppal
With the proper permission we entered a great building in Koppal protected by security guards. We cross the courtyard where workers are drying hundreds of braids of long hair. We then move to a large shed where workers use large forks to move large bales of grey-black hair. Our guide tells us: “These bales have been discarded as they are
of poor quality. Then he proudly adds: we only export goods
of the finest quality”.

Finally we are led into a large hall. The younger workers crouch on the floor in front of a sort of upside-down rake. They arrange, clean and comb the hair of the thousands of temple visitors. At the end of the long production line, our guide proudly shows us some extension samples. They are packed in large boxes with an inscription in English: “First Class Human Hair. Product of India”. He invites us to feel the quality of the recycled hair – black, brown, blonde and red. We have to admit that the hair feels soft and natural. There is also a market parallel to that of the temples and that of the well-known brands: that of the discarded hair. Once a month, the ‘hair gatherers’ come to the Indian villages to collect the hair that comes away with the combs and is saved by local women. The spoiled and twisted hair is sold for a few rupees. “We do not deal in this market – our guide tells us – the hair follows different channels and is sent mostly to China where a lower quality of hair is used”.

Today, India exports two thousand tons of hair a year. One ton represents the hair of three thousand women. This means that, in India alone, every year, six million women are deprived of their hair more or less voluntarily. The value of the hair is estimated to be around 250 million dollars a year.
The demand for natural hair far exceeds supply and there is no sign of it diminishing. According to Philip Sharp, manager of one of the most famous companies in the world producing wigs and hair extensions, ‘Great Light’, hair has become a consumer material on a par with gold, diamonds, and oil.
We leave the hair factory and make our way towards one of the villages close to Koppal. Father Victordass informs us that there are thousands of people working at the hair factory. There is also something that everyone tries to hide: child labour. The middlemen take advantage of the poverty of the families in the region of Koppal by taking sacks of hair to the huts of the poor. It is there that the cleaning, sorting and combing takes place. Having the hair processed in the villages cost much less than in the factories. Father Victordass comments: “The work in the villages costs the equivalent of one Euro a day. I know some families where the children as young as five or six help their parents to wash the hair”. Father Victordass points out that many boys and girls suffer damage to their health because of handling dirty hair.

We then met Shanana sitting on the floor of her hut in front of a great heap of hair. He has no idea how many sacks of hair she has processed in recent weeks. She is fourteen years old. Her work starts in the morning before going to school and continues in the afternoon. She even works during the school holidays. The few rupees she earns go to helping her parents. “I use the money to buy schoolbooks and something to eat”, Shanana says.
Shanana’s great dream is that one day she will become a doctor. “I want to help my community because many of them are suffering and besides that I would like to help the young people find a better job than the one I have now”.

Jork Nowak

India. More than just tea.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

The serious crisis in the tea plantations. Alternative forms of working. Commitment to education. The role of the laity. We discuss these topics with Mons. Vincent Aind, Bishop of Bagdogra.

The district of Darjeeling, in the region of Western Bengal, is one of places most famous for the quality of its tea. Traditionally, Darjeeling is considered the finest of the black teas. It is called the ‘Champagne of teas’. The best infusions produce a light, clear tea with a floral aroma. Darjeeling amounts to 25% of Indian tea production.
India is second only to China for tea production. Today, however, the tea industry is going through a deep crisis. The reasons for this are many: the price of tea on the auction floors has been in constant decline over the years. According to the World Bank, tea prices have gone down by almost 44% in real terms. In India, all the profits from plantations have always been used up with no real or sufficient investment to improve the quality of the tea or the infrastructure.
There has been a grave crisis in the Indian tea industry which has led to the closure of many Bengali plantations.

Monsignor Vincent Aind, Bishop of Bagdogra with some leaders of the communities.

Monsignor Vincent Aind, Bishop of Bagdogra, told us: “In recent years, various tea-producing companies have closed their plantations; where they are still open, more often than not the workers are not paid regularly. They are in danger of ending up in dire poverty. This crisis is due to worsen in the near future”.
“This is why we, being the Church, are becoming involved in various ways to help these people find alternative work that can give them a dignified life”. The diocese of Bagdogra extends through the greenest of hills at the foot of the Himalayas; it has around 59,000 Catholics. It has twenty parishes, many of which are rural and it is characterised by a cultural, ethnic and religious mixture: “We are at the crossroads of human streams, since we are close to several borders. A few kilometres to the south we have Bangladesh, to the north west we have Nepal and to the northeast Bhutan; and China is not far away either”, the bishop says.
Hindus make up 60% of the population, but there is also a Muslim minority of 11% while all the Christian denominations and Buddhists amount to around 7%. There are also some Sikhs, Jaianists and animists.

This is a multiple context in which Catholics, who are both a religious and an ethnic minority, find it hard to consolidate their own identity and find their social role. “One of the priorities in our work is, therefore, social-cultural reinforcement based on education”, Mons. Vincent Aind explains.The Church is especially concerned with education. “The rate of drop-out among children is very high. Their families cannot afford to send them to private schools where the standard of teaching is better, and so they make do with the state schools where attendance and books are free. The problem is that the children learn nothing and so are not prepared for the next steps in education. This is why, in our parishes, we have set up thirteen centres for evening lessons, with volunteer teachers for all subjects. We teach the children not only basic moral values but also other key aspects of life so that they may become active citizens: aspects such as respect for the environment and basic hygiene. By means of various creative activities, we also assist each one to discover and develop their personal talents”, the Bishop emphasises.

The diocese also organises ‘The Parliament of the Children’, where the little ones learn to discuss themes about their lives such as days devoted to the planting of trees in the villages, to raise awareness in the communities, whether Christian or not, of the importance of impeding the erosion of the soil caused by taking sand out of the river beds. “The aim is to help the young people become witnesses of new sustainable lifestyles and may also influence positively their families and neighbours by, for example, creating ‘plastic free zones’, where disposable plastic is outlawed”.The Church cannot forget social action. Monsignor Aind tells us: “To ensure an income for those in difficulty, we make loans to some small groups of women or men who organise simple productive activities, for example, renting land, cultivating it and then selling the produce”. Besides poverty, there is another social emergency for which the diocese is getting itself ready: “We are very concerned at the high level of alcoholism, especially among the men, who end up ruining themselves and their families. We have therefore asked the help of a Belgian congregation whose members are trained precisely to handle various addictions and one of their congregation is due to join us in a matter of months, to start some ad hoc projects”.

From the pastoral point of view, the diocese can count on more than six hundred village catechists: “For them and for the leaders of the Christian communities, five for each village, we organise seminars and monthly training workshops”, Mons. Aind adds.
The role of the laity is fundamental to pastoral action: “They know the people better than us priests since they are in daily contact with the faithful and also non-Christians”.
The formation of the community comes about also through Bible study meetings, as well as meetings on social and economic questions, which are tackled in light of the Word of God. The young men have catechism once a week and the girls are also looked after. “There is a Catholic women’s organisation – Monsignor Aind tells us – that proposes, besides prayer meetings and seminars, awareness projects. It is often the women who carry most of the responsibilities on their shoulders, from educating the children to the economic management of the family.
And, despite all these occupations, whatever proposal we make, it is they who respond more readily”.

Tested in so many ways, is the Church sufficiently prepared? “We have a certain number of vocations but they could be lower in number and better as to their quality”, the Bishop admits. “This is why we invest so much in the spiritual and cultural formation of the young men who show interest in the priestly life. At the same time we try to prepare the seminarians for work in the complex context that is the India of today”. Among other things, there is the growth of Hindu fundamentalism. “Even though we know that tensions are not so high here as in other parts of the country, there are those who continue to stir up hatred and so we try to counteract this by means of basic positive action that strengthens relations between people of different faiths”.

Chiara Zappa

The Geopolitics of Western Intelligence.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

New international challenges may significantly change the geopolitics of Western intelligence.

The alliance between the intelligence agencies of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (the so-called ‘Five Eyes’) doubtless represents the fulcrum of Western espionage and its greatest expression in terms of geopolitical power. Created in 1946, at first it included the UK and the USA, while Canada, Australia and New Zealand were still represented by London.

The situation changed in the following years when the British Dominions obtained complete independence. The main purpose of the ‘Five Eyes’ is collaboration and the exchange of data and intelligence information between the member countries.
Initially directed towards the Soviet Union (USSR) and the other countries of the communist bloc, its spying activities were later redirected to economic espionage and the war against terrorism.

As a network of international listening posts, it is today based especially on the interception of fibre-optic undersea cables, it guarantees spying operations. In fact, the cables carry the most of world communications and, by means of the control of territories and overseas military bases through which the undersea cables pass, the ‘Five Eyes’ is able to spy
on almost every region of the world.
Other forms of espionage collaboration have further extended the field of operations of the Anglo-Saxon countries.

In particular, during the Cold War, the ‘Nine Eyes’ was created (in which the Anglo-Saxon countries were joined by Denmark, Norway, the Low Countries, and France) and the ‘Fourteen Eyes’ (with the inclusion of Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and Belgium). However, these countries, also called ‘third parties’, do not enjoy the same confidence among the ‘Five Eyes’, with the exchange of intelligence with them being limited both in quantity and in quality.

The five Anglo-Saxon countries, for historical, cultural, linguistic and strategic reasons, and despite numerous cases of disagreement, clashes and even reciprocal spying, possess a geopolitical and cultural affinity that they do not share with any other nation. This has allowed them to establish close relations in unequalled military terms.

The Anglo-Saxon countries are not the only western countries to have set up interstate networks of espionage. By means of the European Union (EU) and the ‘Maximator’ alliance, the agencies of continental Europe fill an important role in intelligence, even if it is smaller than that of the Anglo-Saxon countries.
At the EU level, The European Union Intelligence and Situation Centre (EU INTCEN) directs the gathering and sharing of information between the various European Institutions and its member states.

However, given the civil nature of the information gathered, which is based upon open-source intelligence (OSINT), the effectiveness of the INTCEN is greatly limited. A similar alliance to the ‘Five Eyes’ may be found in ‘Maximator’, whose existence was made public some months ago by a Dutch professor of the University of Nijmegen.

Initially composed in 1976 of Denmark, Sweden and Germany, it later included Holland in 1978 and France in 1986, given the close relations between these countries and Germany. Other European countries such as Italy, Spain and Norway were not accepted due to their low capacity and operative experience in the field of cryptography, apart from a lack of trust. This alliance is still active today and concentrates mainly on the exchange of information derived from the interception and decoding of diplomatic and military communications. Real spying operations are a national responsibility and there are no joint operations.

Nevertheless, little is known of its modus operandi, except that, during the Cold War, the member countries brought pressure to bear upon the European companies in the production of encoding machines, which were deliberately tampered with and sold to third countries so
as to spy on them.
Holland, by means of Philips, and Germany by means of Siemens, and the partial control of the Swiss company Crypto AG, a world leader in cryptography, are the countries best technologically equipped.

The geopolitics of Western intelligence is therefore characterised by various forms of collaboration, of which ‘Five Eyes’ and ‘Maximator’ are at the top. Nevertheless, new geopolitical challenges could significantly alter present alliances. In particular, the return of China and Russia as great powers, and their perceived threat to some Western countries, has recently led to the development of new forms of collaboration.

The best example of this is probably the unpublished partnership between the intelligence agencies of ‘Five Eyes’ and that of Japan, Germany and France. That alliance is closely directed by the United States and has been called ‘Five Eyes Plus Three’. Its main aim: to take on the potential threat of China in the field of cyber-attacks and, more generally, of interceptions via the internet (see the Huawei case, one of the world leaders in 5G technology and accused by various western governments of wanting to install backdoors on their telecommunication systems to spy on other countries).

The potential threat of Russia to Europe, and especially to Middle East and Nordic countries, constitutes an ulterior bond between the western intelligence agencies, apart from opening the way for unpublished forms of collaboration with the new members of the EU and NATO such as Poland and, presumably, Ukraine in the future. At EU level, even though Brexit risks weakening intelligence relations between the United Kingdom and the other European nations, the split between London and the Old Continent has led to greater cooperation between the member states. One clear example of this is the institution of a European intelligence school (Joint European Union Intelligence School, JEIS) within the PESCO projects, with the aim of developing common skills and technologies in that ambit.(photo: The home of MI6 in central London)

Stefano Marras/CgP

GGW. An inconsistent impact

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

The Great Green Wall’s goal is clear: to regenerate 100 million hectares of degraded land by 2030; to sequester 250 million tons of carbon dioxide; and to create 10 million jobs in rural areas, contributing directly to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Still, understanding what the results have been so far is more complex. If we rely on the official numbers (as reported on the GGW website www.greatgreenwall.org managed by the UN Convention for Combating Desertification – UNCCD), the 28 million hectares of land regenerated with the addition of 12 million trees planted in five out of the 20 countries that have adhered to the Project, then some 15% of the target will have been achieved ten years from now. And, we are not talking about jobs. But the pan-African agency for GGW published different data: three million hectares regenerated in 11 countries and 11,000 permanent jobs created. And the figures vary yet again if we consider the many programs that have been established to support the GGW. What is clear is that not all countries have reached the same point. Senegal can boast that it has taken the lead in the GGW compared to the other members, having been the first to outline an action plan.

The West African country started the program as early as 2008, before the GGW had its own dedicated Pan-African agency, taking a lead role in promoting the project, including among other African heads of state and government. Senegal was also the only country to embrace the initial idea of the Great Wall, beginning to plant trees on a 15 km wide strip in the regions of Tambakounda, Matam and Louga.
According to data from the pan-African agency, Senegal would cover about 50% of the 15 km wide strip. “It is the only country that from the outset has had the political will and the means to act on the ground”, said Youssef Brahimi, a former member of UNCCD, who a leading manager of the Project. Directly behind Senegal, the most active GGW countries, based on the number and extent of installations, are Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Mali, and Ethiopia. Brahimi believes that a lack of funding has obstructed implementation of the Project.

Partners, whether national or international, range from 11 to 25, and among the main actors participating in the GGW are FAO (the UN Food and Agriculture Organization), the World Bank, the Sahel and West Africa Program (SAWAP), the UNCCD, the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), created in 1992 to address major global environmental challenges, and the European Union. In addition to these, several African regional organizations have joined, ranging from Interstate Standing Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
The result has been that the GGW started as an African project, but ended up being a global one; however, it lacks coordination. Or, rather, at least on paper, the African Union and the pan-African Agency for GGW, which were created at the start of the Project, should be coordinating. The absence of coordination, or a sole point of reference, blurs the contours of the Wall, renders the results inconsistent and, perhaps most of all, leaves the Project to the whims of highly different approaches to achieving the same goal, which is to recover soil fertility and support local populations.

Even the ‘harmonized regional strategy’ approved in 2012, which the Pan-African agency adopted, has failed to ensure a homogeneous mode of action. The UNCCD global mechanism has helped draft it, but even as they consider the document an important step towards a strategic vision, World Bank sponsored project managers say the participants operate too independently without, necessarily, following the indicated plans. Adding to the lack of coordination, there has been a longstanding institutional conflict (which now seems to have subsided) between the African Union GGW Commission and the Pan-African GGW Agency. The Agency, in fact, was founded in 2010 but its function was regulated and recognized by the African Union only in 2012. The institution currently works with 11 out of the 22 Project countries, even if it is expanding. For some years there has been an overlap between the two main African actors. According to the 2012 decision, the African Union is responsible for coordinating the mobilization of resources while the GGW agency serves as the ‘executive arm’. “The decision was not taken immediately and this has generated confusion. Therefore, some States are turning to the AU and others to us”, said Abakar Zougoulou, scientific and technical director of the pan-African agency. Moreover, said Zougoulou: “It’s as if there were two captains on the same ship: us and the African Union”. It was only in 2018 that the two organizations tried to remedy the institutional confusion by regulating their mutual collaboration.

In this regard, Zougoulou said that “in the near future Algeria, Egypt, Benin, Togo, Gambia, Cameroon and Ghana would be joining”. However, Zougoulou feels that there still exists a misunderstanding among the various GGW inspired institutions, whose work is not directly part of the project”. To be considered part of the initiative, the harmonized regional strategy outlines three criteria that must be met. The first concerns the Circumsaharan geographical area, from the Maghreb to sub-Saharan Africa. The second concerns the part of the territory concerned for each State: i.e., the areas with the lowest rainfall, from 100 to 400 millimeters”. The African scientific community has identified this area as being a priority for intervention. And the third criterion concerns the species of plants that are used. “Some 200 species have been identified, based on their adaptability. Since we don’t have enough funds to cover the entire area of the countries involved, we identified priority species. All institutions wanting to contribute had to consider this, but often they did not”. Zougoulou said that it’s only recently that partners have understood the need to act first in the area of low rainfall and then expand outward. Considering that the harmonized strategy criteria are binding, many World Bank projects would not fall under the jurisdiction of the GGW initiative; the actions have affected areas of countries beyond the rainfall parameters. (M.G.)

Murchison Falls. A tour through the largest national park in Uganda.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

Welcome to the Murchison Falls National Park named after its famous waterfall. George Atube, the ranger who talks with animals, accompanies us during our tour through this spectacular place.

The Murchison Falls National Park is the oldest and largest park in Uganda which was established in 1952. It is situated in the north western part of the country, covering an area of 3,840 square kilometres and it is about five- or six-hours’ drive from Kampala. The waterfall that gives the park its name is formed from the 43-metre rift valley wall where the striking river Nile gushes through a small seven metre space. The rumble of the water that rebounds and crashes over the rocks creates a type of hypnotic atmosphere.
Murchison was the name chosen for this area, in the mid-nineteenth century, by a couple of explorers, Samuel Baker, a Scottish millionaire, and his wife Florence, a Hungarian woman who was sold as a slave as an orphan, and later was freed by Samuel Baker who married her. On an expedition searching for the source of the River Nile, the couple discovered the spectacular waterfall, which they named after Sir Roderick Murchison, the then President of the Geographical Society of London.

National parks in Uganda are managed by the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA). The UWA is in charge of conserving the country’s natural heritage, which includes animals, plants, natural features and ecosystems in general. UWA implements diverse strategies to conserve and sustainably manage wildlife in collaboration with several NGOs, trying to promote tourism and protect parks from threats such as poaching. This governing body that regulates wildlife conservation in Uganda is also in charge of the formation of new rangers. As a result, the number of animals has increased and the country registers a growth of 15 percent in tourists every year.

George Atube has worked as a ranger and guide for 39 years.

George Atube has worked as a ranger and guide for 39 years. Now he’s retired, but still continues to go to the park and tell stories to visitors. He is a tall, sociable and smiling man, and since he was very young he felt the need to protect animals. He tells us that the first time he saw elephants in the wild, he thought that that was the world he wanted to be in. He started to work in the Queen Elizabeth National Park.
Then, in 1975 he arrived at Murchison Falls. His task was to chase hunters. When Idi Amin encouraged the slaughter of elephants to sell their tusks, his soldiers roamed through Uganda’s national parks killing elephants with hand grenades. George remembers how he and other rangers confronted them. Decades of poaching and armed conflicts decimated one of the countries with the greatest concentration and variety of fauna across the continent. Of the 17,000 elephants in Murchison Falls there are only a few hundred left now. Many rangers also lost their lives.
In 2015 George’s work contract expired. It was time to return home and spend more time with his wife and their eight children. However, a company of tourist safaris calls him from time to time for short collaborations. “What I do now is just narrating stories to visitors. Tourism is very important for the communities that live in the surroundings”. Twenty percent of the park’s income goes to local projects. George says that Uganda is experiencing a tourist boom.

The Murchison Falls Park is bisected by the river Nile. The southern zone is a wooded area while the northern area is characterized by savannah where visitors and guides have the chance to perform car driving games. We travelled by car wishing to meet the animals living in this region. The best time to see them active is in the early morning and at sunset. We saw baboons looking at us in the most wooded area. While in the open space of the savannah we were able to see different species of antelopes. It is difficult to see lions and you have to be lucky. His unexpected encounter with a lion, is one of the stories that George often narrates to tourists. He says that one day, while he was walking through the park, he ran into a group of lions. Without trying to escape and fearing for his life, he addressed God asking him to save him from death. He says that God told him, “Speak to the lion”. So, George looked at one of the lions and said: “Mr. Lion, you are thinking of killing me but I am not your enemy. My task is to protect you. Please let me go”. He tells that the lion replied: “It’s okay, George. You can go”. He concludes his story by stating that he learned that lions are very polite animals.”

Human beings can be friends with any animal. Even with a lion, as long as they do not bother it”, says George and he adds that he is able to understand the language of animals and that they can understand him. He shows tourists how he imitates the trumpet of an elephant, the shriek of a baboon and the song of different birds. “I need to hear the sounds of nature. That is all the music I need”. The giraffe is his favourite animal. Those in the Murchison Falls Park belong to the Rothschild subspecies, also known as Uganda’s giraffe. There are only a few hundred examples left in the wild in Uganda and Kenya. These animals only sleep half an hour a day. “I love watching them. They walk silently and smoothly. They look like they are smiling and they do no harm to trees or anything else”.

Giraffes, oribis, hippos, elephants live peacefully in this unique landscape. They seem accustomed to human visits. Vehicles stop, visitors observe them, take photos. George speaks with admiration of each species. Once he saw twelve elephants picking up the bones of a dead elephant. They put together its remains in one place, with respect, and after ten minutes they left. “They behave as human beings do”.
When the sun sets, a Ugandan-style chickpea stew with a local beer in one of the park’s lodges or a tea in a tent next to Lake Alberto can be a good way to conclude the day. Meanwhile, we share the experience of our tour with other visitors and ask them if they had the chance to see lions. Or we just keep silent to listen to that music which George speaks about: the sounds of this amazing place that makes one feel as if existing in another world, the sounds of this space of freedom.

Gonzalo Gomez

Not a choice between poor and ideology.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

Advocacy is a process to ensure change where there is injustice, providing a solution to a problem, and building support for acting on both the problem and the solution. Its aims, among others, are social changes in attitudes and relationships.

However, advocating for the poor is far from lobbying for an ideology. This clear divergence should never be put on the back burner, above all in this time of conflictual polarizations.Astorga Cremona, who is often referred to as “the nun of the trans” due to her work, on the past August 10th, cut a ribbon to the new Costa Limay Sustainable complex in Neuquén, Argentina.
The complex with 12 studio apartments is part of a housing solution for a dozen transgender individuals between the ages of 40-70. The 2017 census claims that transgender people in Neuquén have a life expectancy of 45, with only 5% reaching the age of 56 or older.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1967, Astorga Cremona, 53, is a member of the cloistered monastery of Santa Cruz and San José in Neuquén. She received her habit at the age of 20, and immediately started to work with young drug addicts and alcoholics. She has also ministered for years to prisoners and during the past 14 years to transgender women, encouraging them to stop addiction and helping them to get out of prostitution by teaching them different trades.

Astorga has ties with Pope Francis since he was archbishop of Buenos Aires. She wrote to him about the inauguration of the new housing complex and received an encouraging reply, “God who did not go to the seminary or study theology will repay you abundantly”. He assured his prayer for her and the transgender women many of those had been in poverty, prostituting themselves for living and, with quarantines due to the COVID-19, losing this their only source of income.

Back to 2009, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio “never opposed” what she was doing, visited her and told her, she says, not to abandon the “border work, which the Lord” gave her. This word “border” implies working with people who have been “discarded” by society, and “with whom few want to get involved.”

However, sister Astorga states that the new building is not “a refuge nor a trans home,” but spaces for living given as a loan, “as if it were a rent, but without paying anything.” Those who comply with the standard regulations of any rental are able to stay long term. Those who presume breaking the rules receive warnings and then are shown the door.

“Sometimes I ask him – the Pope – how to do it when they say ugly things to me,” she remembers. She received directly the first answer: do not stop praying. Conjointly, in an interview Pope Francis stated, “Life is life; things have to be accepted as they come.” However, “Sin is sin.” Never say that it is all the same, “but in each case, welcome, accompany, study, discern and integrate. This is what Jesus would do today.” He went on: “Please don’t say that the pope will sanctify trans.” It is not just a moral problem. “It’s a human problem that has to be resolved as it can, always with God’s mercy”. So, “Walk with trans, but fight gender theory.”

Christian charity is today a strong tool of advocacy. As an advocate instance, charity should lead, among other aims, to changes in institutional policy and practice, in public attitudes and behavior. The concern that advocacy risks diverting resources away from service delivery, direct help and creating a negative feelings and impact is inconsistent. Nevertheless, it should also be always clear that advocating for the persons is never a lobbying for their good or bad behavior nor for their ideology or political positions.

Raising awareness and understanding, increasing the knowledge about the existence of a social issue, and calling citizens to address it should never be confused as a support to what causes the issue. Rebuke the sin, but welcome the sinner, said once Pope John XXIII. Be perfect as your Father in heaven. He does not declare holy what is bad, but makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

See Pope tells nun helping transgender women, ‘God will repay you’, and Nun ministering to transgender women gets thumbs-up from Pope and also Pope says walk with trans persons, but fight gender theory

John Paul Pezzi, mccj
VIVAT International NGO
with consultative special status at UN

China Ventures into the Middle East.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

Mainly for reasons of energy sources, the last decade has seen China investing heavily in the Middle East and North Africa. The Silk Roads have sought the improvement of ports and other regional infrastructure, rendering the countries of the Gulf, Egypt and Iran the main destinations of Chinese investment.
Despite all this, the premises for involvement at the political-military level are yet to be found.

A new piece has emerged on the Middle East chessboard: China. Its economic expansion in the last twenty years has caused an exponential increase in Chinese dependence on imported oil and natural gas, amounting to 69,8% and 45,3% of its total needs. As a result, the Middle East has changed from being a marginal zone of the world to one that has been central to the strategy of Beijing since 2008.

The document which still guides Chinese politics in the Middle East is the 2016 China’s Arab Policy Paper which sets out the principle of the ‘1+2+3’, indicating sectors of economic cooperation in order of priority: energy (1), infrastructure and commerce/investment (2), the nuclear sector, aerospace and renewable energy (3). Today, half of the crude oil imported by China comes from the Middle East and North Africa.

Chinese investments amounted to 242 billion dollars between 2005 and 2020 and commercial exchange with Arab countries was worth 317 billion dollars in 2019. In recent years, the Chinese Silk Road project has further accelerated the economic integration of the two regions. The ancient continent is still by far the major economic partner of the Middle East, but rapid Chinese expansion generates fear, most of all in European governments, but also in Washington.

To complete the picture, a report by the ‘Arab Barometer’ shows that the Arab populations would much prefer greater involvement of their countries with China rather than with the United States or Russia. The various sub-regions of the Middle East show very different levels of integration with China. The Maghreb, for example, remains on the margins of Chinese action, despite the efforts of the North African governments for greater cooperation in the sectors of infrastructure. The case of Libya is symbolic of the Chinese approach in the Middle East.

Agreements with Gadhafi had brought 18.8 billion of Chinese investments to the North African country which, in turn, provided 3% of Beijing oil requirements. China, nevertheless, has never had an active role either in the territory or diplomatically. Contacts with the Tripoli government have brought about the recommencement of petroleum exports and the signing of the memorandum of the Silk Roads in 2017.

Egypt has stood out among other North African countries ever since, in 2014, President al-Sisi signed 25 cooperation agreements with Beijing, among which was the ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ for the Silk Roads. Good relations between the two countries facilitate the smooth entry of China into the largest Egyptian infrastructure projects: the new administrative city and the exclusive economic zone of the Suez Canal.

On the other side of the Red Sea, the monarchies of the Persian Gulf are in the front line of cooperation with China. The plan which all these countries have adopted to emerge from the yoke of petroleum require massive foreign investment and Beijing is the only power with sufficient available capital. The United Arab Emirates are to the fore with 4,000 Chinese companies in the country, growing commercial exchange and agreements already signed for the development of 5G.

Lastly, Iran is the leader among the regional partners of the Blue Empire. International sanctions in past decades have brought Teheran and Beijing ever closer. Many experts saw in the Nuclear Pact an attempt by Iran to lessen Chinese influence in the country, but the agreement is already on the rocks and Iran has returned to the arms of China. As proof of the deep relations between the two countries, Xi Jinping and Rohani have recently signed a 25-year partnership involving billions in investments in the energy, transport, tourism, telecommunications and infrastructure sectors.

Analysts have shown that the Middle East is the only region of the world where investments in the Silk Roads were not halted in the past two years. The so-called Belt and Road Initiative is, in fact, the cornerstone of Beijing’s interests in the Middle East since it depends not only on the influx of Chinese goods into Europe but also the political destiny of Xi Jinping. The main overland corridor is planned to traverse Iran and Turkey and reach Eastern Europe.

Even more relevant is the maritime corridor which will connect the Indian Ocean with the Mediterranean, passing through the Red Sea. The maritime corridor has placed the Gulf countries at the centre and has brought huge investments to the maritime infrastructure of the region. Among the most important ports is that of Djibouti, acquired and enlarged by the Chinese colossus of maritime transport, COSCO.

Along the coasts of the peninsula we find Jebel Ali and Khalifa in the Emirates, already maritime hubs in the region, Duqm (Oman), built with Sino-Oman funds to the tune of 10.7 billion dollars and the port of Jizan (Saudi Arabia), whose construction was handed to a Chinese company. Finally, there is the exclusive economic zone of the Suez Canal that is attracting Chinese companies from Porto Said to Ain Sokhna, on the opposite end of the Canal.

This swarming of port projects in a relatively small and sparsely inhabited region is accentuating remarkable competition between the Gulf monarchies. In parallel, the governments of the Gulf are trying to attract Chinese investment in the futuristic cities under construction. One of these is Neom, the Saudi megalopolis costing 500 billion dollars, now halted by Covid-19, is due to attract investment from Beijing
and also the future Silk City in Kuwait, an explicit reminder of the Chinese project.

Flourishing economic relations between the Middle East and China have encouraged forecasts concerning a future political and military commitment of the Blue Empire in the region. The much-discussed withdrawal of the United States from the Middle East, no longer considered essential, seems to leave China with the role of policemen in one of the most unstable areas of the world.

The construction of the first military base outside Djibouti and the deployment of some warships between the Gulf of Aden and the Mediterranean lend credence to this belief. Nevertheless, Beijing has no desire to become entangled in the political and military plots of the Middle East. As various Chinese analysts emphasise, the attention of the country is concentrated on tensions in the Indian Pacific and the population would not understand such deep involvement
in such faraway theatres.

For that matter, following the principle of non-involvement in the internal affairs of other countries, China has kept out of all the conflicts in the region. The management of the Libyan dossier is a meaningful example of the defence of economic interests while avoiding political-military involvement.

Add to this the fact that, among the reasons for American involvement in the Middle East – to combat terrorism, defend Israel and the protection of petroleum-related economic interests – only the last of these applies to China. Even so, the management of such assets is rendered easier by their concentration in politically stable states, such as the Gulf states, Egypt and Iran, as well as by being in geographically restricted areas, such as the exclusive economic zones, the multi-purpose ports and the large cities of the Gulf. In conclusion, there is no sign on the horizon of a wave of Chinese imperialism in the Middle East.

Corrado Cok/CgP

The Pan-African Green Wall.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

From a green wall of trees to a mosaic of ecosystems. From the moment it was conceived to now, The Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel (GGW) – has been radically transformed.
The objective, however, has stayed the same: to curb soil degradation and to combat poverty.

In June 2005, the Heads of State and government from the Community of Sahel and Sahara States (CEN-SAD) met in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, and for the first time ever, they agreed to jointly combat desertification through a specially dedicated project. Former Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade became its spokesman. In January 2007 the African Union formally adopted the initiative in Addis Ababa. A few years later, in 2010, the GGW received its very own dedicated Pan-African Agency during a meeting in N’djamena, and Chad was tasked with coordinating and harmonizing the efforts of each member State.

The initial project focused on the reforestation of a 15 km wide, and 8,000 km. long, strip from Senegal to Djibouti (from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea). The green wall involved the planting of trees to help curb desertification and the impoverishment of populations. Still, many criticized the effort – especially civil society, based on the evaluation of similar experiences in Algeria and China. But previous reforestation steps had not taken into account such factors as the quality of the soil or the use of native plant species, which are better able to adapt to the climate and the amount of water available. The failure to select species on the basis of adaptability meant that tree mortality was high. Meanwhile, the poor or non-existent involvement of local populations in the GGW’s design made it difficult to maintain green areas. Both in Algeria and China, similar projects moved towards an integrated system of afforestation, agricultural and pastoral development.

In 2011 the French Centre for Desertification Studies (CSFD) published a paper about the first phase of the GGW, entitled “The African Great Green Wall project. What advice can scientists provide?”, dedicated to the first version of the wall. In the study, scientists disputed the expression ‘stopping the advance of the desert’, pointing out that it was not so much a matter of the Sahara’s advance as it was about the degradation of the semi-arid zone due to an overexploitation of resources and low rainfall.The French scholars also stressed that if the project was to take root and work in the long term, it would have to necessarily focus around the needs of the local population. Indeed, the Wall’s initial route would have crossed inhabited, agricultural and pastoral areas. Hence it would need to engage the inhabitants to manage the natural resources.
To succeed, the GGW project, according to the Studies Centre, should have targeted aspects such as: preserving biodiversity and ecosystem services, integrating different economic activities, considering the conditions of access to land and resources, and ensuring lasting
benefits to the population.

In 2012, the GGW adopted the ‘harmonized regional strategy’, still in force today. Its aim was to standardize procedures and establish guidelines for the member States. The GGW was born out of an African Partnership, backed by international solidarity, which aims to reverse the erosion course in Africa’s more arid regions. According to the document, the project aims to conserve, develop and manage natural resources and ecosystems; strengthen infrastructure and rural area potential; to diversify economic activity and improve the living conditions for the communities, reflecting an integrated and multi-sector approach.
Today, the GGW has become a mosaic of sustainable development efforts involving agricultural projects, pastoralism, and the planting of trees, shrubs and plants, able to ensure additional income for the local populations. The initiative involves, at various levels, 22 countries surrounding the Sahara: from the North to the Sahel belt, up to Benin, Togo and Ghana, which had been excluded at first. (M.G.)

Music. Djibouti, Modern Notes.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

The New York music house Ostinato Records recently released a Groupe RTD album – a Djibouti band composed of civil servants – the first to take modern music beyond the borders of the country in the Horn of Africa.

The international diffusion of modern music in the Horn of Africa came late on the scene as compared with the new African music which – after the appearance of lone figures like Miriam Makeba or Manu Dibango who came to the fore in the sixties and seventies – began to take on the appearance of a collective phenomenon in the early eighties. It was not until 1986 that the first record of modern Ethiopian music entered international circulation: Ere Mela Mela by Mahmoud Ahmed published by the Belgian label Crammed. But the situation of modern Ethiopian music was really resolved only in the late nineties when, in France, the Éthiopiques series was launched.

In Somalia, modern music had to wait even longer, up to a few years ago: it gained international popularity after a collection of excerpts from the seventies and eighties entitled Sweet as Broken Dates, issued in 2017 by the New York label Ostinato Records. However, not all of the Horn of Africa had been affected: again this year, Ostinato Records has taken on the publication of the first album, The Dancing Devils of Djibouti, which takes the modern music of Djibouti beyond the borders of that small country (with less than a million inhabitants) facing the southern mouth of the Red Sea.
In this case, there is no compilation of vintage material but a special recording by a band that is active today, the Groupe RTD.

Brilliant Musicians
One of the reasons why modern Djibouti music remained unknown abroad was that the republic of Djibouti, the former French Somaliland which became independent in 1977, is one of the few countries in the world where musical activity is totally controlled from above: practically all the professional music bands belong to the state. Besides being something entirely new in popularising the music of the Horn of Africa, the album produced by Ostinato Records also represents a historical event of its genre, since, up to now, foreigners were not allowed to work with Djiboutian musicians. We may say the record is the result of the work of several years.

“The Dancing Devils of Djibouti” by Groupe RTD is the first-ever globally-released album to come from Djibouti. Courtesy of Janto Djassi

In 2016, the record label contacted the management of Radiodiffusion-Télévision Djibouti, the national television organisation, to discuss the possibility of overcoming the obstacles that prevented the circulation of Djibouti music outside the country. Ostinato Records was also interested in accessing the radio-television archives, among the largest and best-preserved of the continent, with thousands of tape recordings of Somali and Afar music, the main ethnic components of the population.
In 2019, it was the first label to be given permission to access the archives. During the course of the negotiations, Ostinato Records realised that the radio-television organisation had a band called Groupe RTD (an acronym for Radiodiffusion-Télévision Djibouti), with official duties at presidential and national ceremonies, and was also a brilliant band playing modern music. Ostinato then opened further negotiations at the end of which it obtained three days of recordings by Groupe RTD at the radio studios.

Influences
With one female and two male voices, saxophone, guitar, keyboard, bass, drums and percussions, The Dancing Devils of Djibouti is a fresh testimony to the vivacity of the music of this corner of the Horn of Africa and the multiplicity of influences it feeds upon. Naturally, there is the music of nearby Somalia and Ethiopia, and there is also a connection between Groupe RTD and the Sweet as Broken Dates collection, as the saxophonist Mohamed Abdi Alto can also be heard on one of its tracks, and another track of which was composed by guitarist Abdirazak Hagi Sufi, originally from Mogadishu: both musicians, co-leaders of Groupe RTD, were active on the Somali music scene before moving to Djibouti. Abdi Alto follows jazz models while Hagi Sufi loves Jamaican music.

Groupe RTD records in studio in Djibouti. The group also performs as the national ceremony band for official events. Courtesy of Janto Djassi

The Groupe RTD is internationally influenced by such music as reggae, which is very popular in the Horn of Africa; its popularity in the area of Somalia is, of course, facilitated by its affinity with traditional rhythms (often modernised in reggae style) such as the dhaanto. Much of the music of the Horn of Africa betrays oriental accents and here the vocalist Asma Omar shows sensitivity to the styles of Bollywood musical films. Geopolitically strategic, the position of Djibouti, a commercial crossroads, renders it receptive to the most powerful cultural export product of the Indian sub-continent.

Marcello Lorrai

The Economy of Francesco. Young People, A Commitment, The Future.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

Inspired by St. Francis of Assisi and by Pope Francis, 2,000 young adults met online to discuss making the economy more responsive to human dignity and more respectful of creation. The Economy of Francesco project, sponsored in part by the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, hosted a virtual global meeting Nov. 19-21. Below the Final statement and Common commitment

We young economists, entrepreneurs and change makers of the world, summoned to Assisi by Pope Francis, in the year of the COVID-19 pandemic, want to send a message to economists, entrepreneurs, political decision makers, workers and citizens of the world, to convey the joy, the experiences, the hopes and challenges that we have gained and gathered up in this period by listening to our people and to our hearts. We are convinced that a better world cannot be built without a better economy and that the economy is so important for the lives of peoples and the poor that we all need to be concerned with it. For this reason, in the name of the young people and the poor of the Earth,

We ask that:

1. the great world powers and the great economic and financial institutions slow down their race to let the Earth breathe. COVID has made us all slow down, without having chosen to do so. When COVID is over, we must choose to slow down the unbridled race that is suffocating the earth and the weakest people who live on earth;

2. a worldwide sharing of the most advanced technologies be activated so that sustainable production can also be achieved in low-income countries; and that energy poverty – a source of economic, social and cultural disparity – be overcome to achieve climate justice;

3. the subject of stewardship of common goods (especially global ones such as the atmosphere, forests, oceans, land, natural resources, all ecosystems, biodiversity and seeds) be placed at the centre of the agendas of governments and teaching in schools, universities and business schools throughout the world;

4. economic ideologies should never again be used to offend and reject the poor, the sick, minorities and disadvantaged people of all kinds, because the first response to their poverty is to respect and esteem each person: poverty is not a curse, it is only misfortune, and it is certainly not the responsibility of those who are poor;

5. the right to decent work for all, family rights and all human rights be respected in the life of each company, for every worker, and guaranteed by the social policies of each country and recognized worldwide by an agreed charter that discourages business choices based solely on profit and founded on the exploitation of minors and the most disadvantaged;

6. tax havens around the world be abolished immediately, because money deposited in a tax haven is money stolen from our present and our future and that a new tax pact be the first response to the post-COVID world;

7. new financial institutions be established and the existing ones (the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund) be reformed in a democratic and inclusive sense to help the world recover from poverty and imbalances produced by the pandemic; sustainable and ethical finance should be rewarded and encouraged, and highly speculative and predatory finance discouraged by appropriate taxation

8. companies and banks, especially large and globalized ones, introduce an independent ethics committee in their governance with a veto on the environment, justice and the impact on the poorest;

9. national and international institutions provide prizes to support innovative entrepreneurs in the context of environmental, social, spiritual and, not least, managerial sustainability because only by rethinking the management of people within companies will global sustainability of the economy be possible;

10. States, large companies and international institutions work to provide quality education for every girl and boy in the world, because human capital is the first capital of all humanism:

11. economic organizations and civil institutions not rest until female workers have the same opportunities as male workers because, without an adequate presence of female talent, businesses and workplaces are not fully and authentically human and happy places;

12. Finally, we ask for everyone’s commitment so that the time prophesied by Isaiah may draw near: “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Is 2, 4). We young people can no longer tolerate resources being taken away from schools, health care, our present and our future to build weapons and fuel the wars needed to sell them. We would like to tell our children that the world at war is finished forever.

All this – which we already experience in our work and in our lifestyles – we ask knowing that it is very difficult and that perhaps many consider it utopian. Instead, we believe it is prophetic and therefore that we can ask, ask and ask again, because what seems impossible today will seem less so tomorrow thanks to our commitment and our insistence. You adults who control the economy and businesses have done a lot for us young people, but you can do more. Our times are too difficult to ask for anything but the impossible. We have faith in you and that is why we ask much of you. But if we asked for less, we wouldn’t be asking enough.

We ask all this first of all from ourselves and we are committed to living the best years of our energy and intelligence so that the EoF can increasingly bring salt and leaven to everyone’s economy.

Egypt. Mons. Claudio Lurati: “Called to witness with our lives”.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

A great opportunity to rediscover the reasons for a presence. A multicultural community. Dialogue with Islam. Speaking with the new Catholic Latin Rite Bishop Mons. Claudio Lurati.

The Catholic Church in Egypt is very small numerically: 300,000 members out of a population of 100 million inhabitants the majority of whom are Muslims. A characteristic of the Church is that it includes communities of seven different rites: Coptic (the largest), Latin, Armenian, Maronite, Syro-Catholic, Chaldean and Greek-Melkite.

Mons. Claudio Lurati, bishop of the Catholic Latin community in Egypt.

“Being such a small community in a country deeply marked by a Muslim presence is a great opportunity to rediscover the reasons for a presence that does not depend on numbers or its works, important though they may be” says Mons. Lurati. “We find the reasons for our presence in the person of Jesus whom we are called to witness to by our lives, marvelling at seeing our witness reaching the most improbable people and places and at the way meaningful relations are built up along with endless possibilities of walking together even with those who are different from us”.
The newly-appointed bishop continues: “The Catholic Church, which is not only Latin, is a reality that impresses by its inter-nationality. It is composed of people from all over the world. Its inter-nationality gives it a unique profile which must be put to good use. While in every Christian situation the challenge is to live unity in multiplicity, for us this is especially required. It is also the most powerful instrument for testimony we have at hand”.

The first school of catechesis
The evangelisation of Egypt originated in the preaching of St Mark the Evangelist, precisely in Alexandria in Egypt. Christianity spread rapidly. In Alexandria, which had become the See and second only to Rome in importance, was founded what was considered the first School of Catechesis of Christianity in the II century. Its teachers included: Athenagoras, Clement, Dydimus, Origen and such illustrious visitors as St Jerome. In the IV century, monasticism began to spread.

Alexandria. The cathedral of Saint Catherine.

In the V century, the Coptic Church (Coptic means Egyptian), together with other Eastern Churches of the Latin and Greek Church, separated, rejecting the conclusion of the Council of Chalcedon convoked in 451, in which monophysitism, the heretical Eutychian doctrine which recognised in Jesus a single, divine nature, denying his human nature, was condemned. The coming of the Arabs saw Egypt subjected to a progressive process of Arabisation and Islamisation which, starting in the IX century, made Christians a persecuted minority, though always very much present. From the XIII century, the pastoral care of European Catholics who had settled in the country was entrusted to the Friars Minor in the Holy Land.
It was not until 1839 that the Apostolic Vicariate of Egypt was erected, subject directly to the Holy See. In 1951, it assumed the title of Alexandria of Egypt and, on 30 November 1987, the Apostolic Vicariates of Heliopolis in Egypt and Port Said were added to it.

A sense of respect

Mons. Claudio Lurati, 58, is Italian and belongs to the congregation of the Comboni Missionaries. On 30 October last, he was consecrated bishop of the Catholic Latin community in Egypt. The Latin Church has around 70,000 members. The Apostolic Vicariate has jurisdiction over the faithful of the Latin Rite in all of Egypt. The seat of the Vicariate is the city of Alexandria, where the cathedral of Saint Catherine is located. The Vicariate has 30 parishes in all of Egypt, 167 priests and religious men, and 250 religious women.
He says that the Catholic Church in Egypt, with its involvement in education and charitable works, enjoys respect and prestige. “The Church has founded a number of schools – highly regarded for their educational standards and in which 50% of the students may be Muslim – and charitable works such as dispensaries, medical centres and initiatives for the training of women and assisting immigrants and refugees, mostly from Sudan and Eritrea”.
There is, of course, in Egypt, a powerful presence of the Orthodox Coptic Church. “The Coptic Church has great riches to be shared and we are especially attentive to it, though we may find this difficult since it mostly uses the Arab language. As in the past, there is a high degree of collaboration socially, in public health and education. We celebrate Easter following the Orthodox calendar, with a few exceptions. It would certainly be good to reach agreement on this among all the Christian communities of the world”.

Pope Francis with Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al-Azhar University.

Egypt is increasingly becoming central to the Catholic Church regarding relations with the World of Islam. In his recent encyclical Brothers All, Pope Francis makes explicit reference to the Sheikh of al-Azhar. “In recent years, the highest Islamic religious authority in Egypt, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Ahmad al-Tayyib, has shown himself to be one of the more active partners in dialogue with the Catholic Church, so much so that he signed the document of Human Brotherhood in Abu Dhabi in February 2019 and is quoted in the Encyclical, with some opinions almost shared, as if they had been written perhaps by two authors rather than one. Come to think of it, this is staggering”, Mons. Lurati says.
The bishop continues: “There is also the historical legacy of the visit of St Francis to the Sultan. That visit has hardly left a trace among Muslim historians of the time but, in the memory of the Christian West, it remains a great gesture of approach, an unarmed and free encounter. After that experience, St Francis wrote his Unstamped Rule and instructed his friars to “go among the Saracens, to be “subject to all human creatures for love of God”. Here there is also a lesson for us living as a minority in a Muslim country, and so formed for a religion that is different from ours. Being here as a minority and obedient to that world, allows us to come to know it since obedience is the path to knowledge”.

Egypt is a country that is experiencing economic and political tensions. “What immediately meets the eye is an enormous ferment, a commitment to creating infrastructure. Changes are also under way in the centre of gravity of Egyptian social life. A new capital is being built about 30-40 km from Cairo. We do not make political statements but we must be attentive to the situation to keep up to date. I may add that, during this period, the Christians, after the dangers posed by the Muslim Brotherhood, are breathing a sigh of relief. We need to keep in mind that, in 2013, after the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood, about 250 Christian structures were attacked such as churches, schools, etc. For the next four years, there were many very painful terrorist attacks against Christians and others. It seems to me that things are more
under control at present.
The episcopal motto of Mons. Lurati is ‘Quaerite Primum Regnum Dei’– ‘Seek first the Kingdom of God’. “It is both the fruit of experience and an aspiration. In my religious and priestly life, I have always done what I was asked and, on the few occasions when I had other things in mind, things turned out differently. However, to have the Kingdom of God as one’s first horizon has made me more free and rendered more gratuitous and abundant what came afterwards. I hope this attitude will continue to inspire me and place me ever more at the service of this Church”.

Genevieve Devey

Namibia. The Okavango Delta threatened by fracking.

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 8:00

A junior Canadian company will start drilling oil in the next coming weeks in an area which supplies the environmentally sensitive Okavango Delta with water, and thereby threatens potentially the living conditions of the bushmen and of the elephants.

The junior Canadian company ReconAfrica listed on the Canadian TSX Venture Exchange, is planning to start drilling oil and gas wells into the environmentally sensitive, protected areas which supply the Okavango Delta with water.
Maps from the Namibian and Botswana ministries of mines confirm that the company has been awarded prospecting licences in the area by both governments. It claims to have made a major discovery and has acquired the rights to drill in more than 35,000km2 of north-east Namibia and north-west Botswana.

According to the findings of experts from the prospecting company Worldwide Geochemistry presented by ReconAfrica to investors in Frankfurt, last October, the area hosts potential reserves of more than 100 billion barrels of oil, which is the equivalent of one third of the world’s largest reserves in Venezuela or in Saudi Arabia.
On its website, ReconAfrica also says that it owns 90% of the Namibian side of the shale deposit, with the government-run Petroleum Company of Namibia owning the rest.
Part of the reserves are conventional but in order to exploit the shale deposits, ReconAfrican plans to use the much controversial fracking technology. ReconAfrica’s CEO Scot Evans told indeed industry sources in June 2020 that he had hired fracking pioneer Nick Steinsberger to run the Namibian drilling project, claiming that that hydraulic fracturing is “a technique now utilised in all commercial shale plays worldwide”.

Evans is by no means a tenderfoot in the oil industry. He is indeed the former vice-president of the Houston-based oil services industry giant Halliburton whose former chairman was the U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. The company has been involved in several controversial operations. In the early 1990s, Halliburton was found to be in violation of federal trade barriers in Iraq and Libya, having sold these countries dual-use oil drilling equipment.
Then, its subsidiary KBR was issued a contract in 2003 to conduct oil well firefighting in Iraq which, critics say, was awarded due to Cheney’s position as US Vice President. On that same year, Halliburton admitted in SEC filings that KBR paid a Nigerian official $2.4 million in bribes in order to receive tax favourable treatment.
Environmentalists are extremely concerned. The drilling location sits along the banks of the Kavango River, along the border between Namibia and Botswana, inside the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area which covers 520,000 square kilometers and encompasses 36 protected areas including several national parks. Three of them (Khaudum, Manghetti et Bwabwata) are close to the drilling zones targeted by ReconAfrica.
And the drilling location is in the area of the Namibian headwaters of the Okavango Delta and the World Heritage Tsodilo Hills in Botswana is one of Africa’s most sensitive environmental areas.

ReconAfrica’s concessions are overlapping several wildlife migration corridors of these parks which represent the world’s largest transborder conservation area. Any oil spill would pose a direct threat for the Kavango River and all the living beings which depend from it, all the way to the Okavango Delta in Botswana which is the sanctuary of many species including buffalos, hippos, springboks, white and black rhinos, zebras, wildebeests, hyenas, leopards, hyenas and cheetahs in addition to 500 species of birds and 85 of fishes The area is also home to Africa’s largest migrating elephant population – around 250,000- as well as endangered African wild dogs and sable antelopes.
The first human inhabitants of the area, the San people, known as bushmen, who have been living in the area for at least 40,000 years are also risking to lose one of their last refuges of the Kalahari. Indeed, ReconAfrica plans to drill also near the World Heritage archaeological site of Tsodilo Hills in Botswana, which according to UNESCO holds 4,500 rock paintings. University of Cape Town social scientist Dr Annette Hübschle is concerned that the fracking project may impact the way of life of the San communities in the area.
The Namibia’s Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism claims that an environmental impact assessment (EIA) that was done to cover the drilling of three wells by Recon Africa, yet affected communities and civil society are still in the dark about this development, say critics.

Furthermore, the area is important for Namibia’s and Botswana’s tourism economies. The Okavango River, is the sole provider of water to the Okavango Delta, Botswana’s most visited tourist attraction. Altogether, this lifeline in the desert supports more than a million people in the region with food, employment and water. In such context, the use of the hydraulic fracturing may have negative impacts, including poor air and water quality, community health problems, safety concerns, long-term economic issues and environmental crises like habitat loss, warns the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists.
According to Surina Esterhuyse from the Centre for Environmental Management, at the University of the Free State (South Africa), fracking which consists in pumping in sand, water and chemicals under high pressure to crack open the formation’s micro-fractures and release the trapped oil and gas, produces wastewater which may be radioactive and highly saline while some of these chemicals may be toxic.

Accordingly, if the fluids migrate to freshwater aquifers, they can contaminate groundwater and surface water. Fracking in the headwaters of the Okavango delta within the Kavango-Zambezi transfrontier conservation area could affect negatively the water quality there and the Okavango river water in Botswana and Namibia.
Moreover, Chris Brown, the CEO of the Namibian Chamber of Environment, an industry-funded environmental organisation that helps liaise between mining companies and affected communities, is wondering if ReconAfrica should be allowed to drill yet since it does not seem to have followed legal requisites such the public participation and environmental review processes. Browne considers that there needs to be public consultation over such an important issue.
An additional problem is that neither Namibia, Botswana or South Africa are party to an international treaty on the transboundary management of shared water resources.
This increases the risk of a dispute between neighbouring countries over the resource or the damages caused to the environment.

Confronted with the critics, the Namibian Mines Minister, Tom Alweendo told The Namibian daily that he did not see any problem with drilling for oil and gas in such sensitive and fertile land areas. Moreover, in September, he blamed the Windhoek-daily which had warned about the dangers for the environment of Recon Africa plans to drill oil and gas wells in the Okavango area, saying that “The article is written to cast doubt on how the government manages environmental issues”.
Despite ReconAfrica,’s CEO’s own admission that fracking would be used to exploit the oil deposits, the Minister told the Windhoek paper that the Canadian company people “are not going to do hydraulic fracturing but a conventional drilling method”. Yet, the paper reminds that Alweendo has for years earned a reputation of disregarding environmental concerns

François Misser

Photo Gallery – Snapshots from Africa

Advocacy

Baobab

Youth & Mission