Black Looks

The Palestine Think Tank [Haitham Sabbah, Yousef Abudayyeh, Mohamed Khodr, Mary Rizzo,] have published this excellent list of common errors made by activists / movements and how to rectify them. The errors and solution are applicable to movements and activists worldwide.

Activism and activists for Palestine have been getting some media attention recently. This is absolutely great news. It is an opportunity that we need to take advantage of, especially since Palestinians themselves are denied space in almost all mainstream mass media. Reflecting on this fact, we at PTT have decided to express some of our observations, thoughts and suggestions in order to enhance the work of all activists, ourselves included. This is a summary of some of the things that we believe are some common activist errors and our proposals for avoiding that errors lead to damage. In the coming weeks we will elaborate on each of these points in essays. We hope that our observations and proposals can be of use for ourselves and for those who commit their time and energy to the Palestinian cause. Read the full list here

Bhopal – 23 years on the site has still not been cleaned up.

Oil spills in Oloibiri

Dumping toxic waste in Nairobi

Lesotho – GAP/ Levi factory dumps chemical waste

Trafugura dumped on Abidjan

Today is the start of a landmark court brought by four farmers from the Niger Delta against Shell Oil.

The Nigerian farmers and fishers, who lost their livelihoods after oil from leaking Shell pipelines streamed over their fields and fishing ponds, are claiming compensation from the Anglo-Dutch oil giant. They also want Shell to clean up the oil which remains in the land, so that they can return to farming and fishing.

The four victims of the leaks are from three Nigerian villages.

They have subpoenaed both Shell’s subsidiary in Nigeria and Shell’s Dutch headquarters. They allege that as the result of Shell’s negligence, agricultural lands have been devastated, drinking water polluted, fish ponds made unusable and the environment and health of local people harmed.

Continue reading the case here

Links: Shell Guilty

A meeting of civil society organisations, lawyers, media, academics in Port Harcourt to discuss the future of oil in the Niger Delta and it’s impact on climate change and sustainability have issued a strong militant statement to the Federal Government.  The meeting was chaired by Nnimmo Bassey, the Director of Environmental Rights Action who described the communiqué as

117 organisations signing on to the most militant statement of its sort
I’ve yet seen – formidable!

The communiqué is scathing in its criticism of the present government which rather than address the issues raised has in fact exacerbated them in so many ways culminating in the recent amnesty deal with militants. Rather than tackle the cause of the militancy and criminal activities such as the huge environmental damage and lack of development, the government simply made a financial deal with a group of militants in exchange for their silence. The cost of doing so could well have been put towards building health centers, schools and other infrastructure for the communities and begin to erode the reasons behind the militancy in the first place.

Never before have so many people and organisations come together as one to condemn the Nigerian government’s actions from the continued deferral and failure to end gas flaring; failure to insist and regulate the oil industry according to international standards; contributing and being part of the land grab by oil companies and the promotion of agri-imperialism; fueling the corruption in the region which has itself contributed to the violence and the policy of militarisation and abuse instead of development and support.

The Communiqué also criticised the proposed Petroleum Industry Bill [PIB]. The PIB is one of the most contentious and repressive pieces of legislation as it affects the people of the Niger Delta. In a recent interview, constitutional lawyer, Prof. Itsewaju Sagay pointed out some of the flaws of the PIB….

It is one of the most insensitive documents I have ever seen.
It’s a document that is created with the intention of exploiting the oil and gas of the Niger Delta, whilst not recognising the existence of the people of the Niger Delta. There is nothing about royalty for the host communities; there is nothing about increasing derivation from 25 to 50 per cent, which was what we negotiated before our independence, which you will find in the 1960, and 1963 Constitutions. There is nothing about increasing our rights in derivation throughout the continental shelf, as was the case against the two constitutions, what it slated clearly, that a coastal state is deemed to be the owner of its continental shelf. All that has been taken away. There is nothing that recognises the rights of the communities and states to be involved as stakeholders in the running of the Petroleum Industry contrary to what is provided for in the solid minerals Act, which of course mainly applies to the north.

Although the communiqué does refer to the impact of militarisation and environmental damage on the lives of women I feel the conference members missed an opportunity to spell out the specific abuses particularly those committed by Nigerian security forces.

The strongest demands were around the immediate ending of gas flaring and the proposed exploitation of bitumen and the stopping of new oil blocs. The full comminque can be read here.

Links: Shell Guilty

The Critical Now
Remember Ken Saro Wiwa

There is much silence around gendered violence in Nigeria particularly in the Niger Delta region.   Whilst the Nigerian government, military and militants act out various layers of theatre around amnesty, bunkering and continued militarisation, women continue to face daily violence. No one knows the numbers of women and girls  raped and sexually assaulted over the past 15 years of military occupation.  Even those rapes which have been filmed on camera such as in Choba in 1999 and in Ogoniland which women have spoken of, no one has ever been arrested let alone brought to trial.   So it comes as no surprise that a young woman , Grace Ushang, serving in the Youth Corps in Maiduguri was raped and murdered and nothing has been done and doubtful anything will be done.  On the contrary the response from the government is that they cannot protect women in the NYS so they will have to do so themselves!

The cavalier brutality of this morbid tale of criminal vigilante action is compounded by the official response to it. The director-general of the NYSC reportedly travelled to Maiduguri ostensibly to discuss this crime with the state’s law enforcement authorities. Rather than denounce this for the crime that it is and reassure our young graduates on national service that their wellbeing preoccupies the highest levels of decision-making, the director-general merely advised youth corpers to ‘take their personal security seriously because whatever we provided is not enough. They must learn to be security-conscious.’ Pray, how?

Writing in Pambazuka News, Asma’u Joda and Iheoma Obibi make the connection between violence against women and the proposed law which if passed will dictates dress code in Nigeria.

The bill proposes to grant intolerably dangerous powers of arrest and invasion of the most intimate privacies of the woman’s body imaginable to both police officers and ordinary citizens to undertake vigilante action against women they merely perceive to be ‘indecently dressed’.

Senator Ekaette’s bill covers any female above 14 years wearing a dress that exposes ‘her breast, laps, belly and waist … and any part of her body from two inches below her shoulders downwards to the knee’ (such as the much-admired Fulani milk maid). Also liable to become a criminal if this bill were to become law is any person dressed in ‘transparent’ fabric (such as lace) as well as men who expose any part of their bodies between the waist and the knee (such as men relieving themselves by the roadside). All these people and more would presumably attract arrest from zealous policemen. If this bill becomes law, there will not be enough prisons or mortuaries in Nigeria for its victims. It will licence vigilante violence against women, leading to fatalities like the fate that befell Grace Ushang.

The proposed Bill is part of a movement in the country towards increased Christian and Islamic fundamentalism which is invasive in all aspects of behaviour in both the public and private spheres and which impacts particularly on women and girls.   In this environment, security forces as well as religious leaders and zealots will have the authority to hand out immediate punishment for offenses of “indecency” such as with Grace Ushang who dared to wear the NYS uniform of khaki shirt and trousers – which is deemed as male dress.  Any woman over the age of 14 found wearing jeans, showing her shoulders or ams, legs etc would be criminalised.  We have a president who was never elected, a war involving 20 million people, no electricity or water and now rather than criminalise violence against women we have a proposed law which will criminalise women by virtue of how they dress and leave them vulnerable to even more violence.

Two months ago the Hunger Coalition was formed to protest against the SABC broadcaster’s decision to cut local content and by doing so marginalise South African languages, art and cultures. Last Tuesday actor Sello Maake ka-Ncube joined the hunger strike [replacing Zamambo Tshabalala, a 24 year old industry novice who completed 30 days without food] with the following statement….

All I know is that I have always stood for something in my life. And this is one of those times that I have to do so. The cultural development that has suffered the brutality of colonialism and the ravages of Apartheid is presently choked by greed, mismanagement, and outright violation of my and my fellow countrymen’s human rights. It is so disheartening when the very fighters of Apartheid who have been given and entrusted the mandate to help us get our dignity back are the very people subjecting us to worse indignity and violation of human rights………….

When I heard the statement – “I didn’t get into the struggle to be poor” – you won’t begin to imagine the consternation I felt. And to think it was MY vote that put person in that position, with a mandate to level the fields and help in dragging people from the muddy slough of poverty. And now it’s all about HIM. I couldn’t, and still can’t, help but feel a numbing sense of despair.

I also can’t help but be reminded of an expression that many mothers would say to their children: “If you don’t wake up, you’ll end up feeding on the crap of your counterparts.” Sadly this crap has been misdirectedly dished up to us by those we think we share an affinity with.

South Africa appears to be on the verge of a free fall backwards, some examples: – attacks against democracy and the criminalisation of the poor and their right to live in the city; the growing alliance between the religious right and the ANC which ultimately challenges the constitutional rights of LGBTI people and not least of all the proposed “shoot to kill” policy under consideration during the 2010 World Cup. Anything to protect business and foreigners – from tearing down the homes of the poor, evicting market traders to putting innocent people at risk of death by shooting anyone who looks like they might be engaging in a criminal act – is this a thief? pick pocket, fly pitcher, shackdweller?. And even if you are a real criminal what happened to the right to trial and justice? Might even the decision to exclude local content be also related to the World Cup which seems to be the driving force behind so many policies – the cokacolaisation of SA.

But it’s not just SA where the Arts are under attack. In Nigeria the ewaBamijo Festival of dance is under threat because there has been a change of Managing Director of one of the sponsors, the Nigerian Central Bank. Choreographer and visionary founder of the ewaBamijo dance festival, Qudus Onikeku is fighting to save the festival while bureaucracy plays the fiddle…..

For the past one year, i have been running helter skelter to save ewaBAMIJO, my festival that will happen in Lagos by the end of October, when the idea of such festival came to me, it came with sudden revelation of the bounty of possibilities, opportunities and experience that this will present to a wide range of Nigerians, both artists, scholars and audience. With ewaBAMIJO, we hope to create a workable space – not just for dancing. A space for our bodies and mind to learn and grow, a space to share and celebrate oneness, a space where the impossible happens. A space where we could live, eat, create, play and share as a community, a community of artistes – A space that the custodian of our well-being, refused to create.

But it gets worse as other festivals are threatened with extinction

Just like ewaBamijo; FELABRATION is threatened, and much heartbreaking, the Lagos Book and Art Festival, CORA’s prime project is threatened by the recourse to cultural infamy at the National Theatre, which has reversed its yearly support for the project; and now asking them to cough out nearly 4.5 million naira to rent the halls.

Where would that luxery fall from? The “newman” there told them sincerely that he had not been sent to the National Theatre to come and promote the Arts OR CULTURE FOR THAT MATTER, but to rent out the halls, and he knows weddings and churches will be more profitable. Meanwhile, two of the banks that had also offered them a hand of support are not willing to discuss with them ‘for now’ – because ‘CBN’s eyes are all over them’.

None of this is happening in a vacuum – the attack on the Arts is part of the growing religious fundamentalism and a sterile leadership devoid of any imagination whatsoever – where weddings and church services supersede everything. Corrupt leaders who make fake deals with militants now shooting happy face photographs rather than guns. Tear away the layers of a million words and you will still not find the ordinary people who walk and wade through oil or whose faces are burnt by pit fires.

Follow the hunger strikes on Twitter: /hungerprotest

Slavery has always been a near-taboo topic of discussion between Africans and Blacks in the Diaspora. In discussions about slavery, inevitably, the issue of sharing blame always arises. Did Africans because of greed, jealousies, stupidity, and or the lure of cheap gin and beads offered by Europeans gladly sell off their own people to a life of humiliation, misery and menial work as plantation workers in the West Indies and the United States of America?…..As we now, as a nation, put a lot of emphasis on the new aspects of human trafficking in our society (again to the Western world and all for purely monetary gains), the Calabar Slave Museum is a sobering testimony of our social history, full of lessons of the worst in human behaviour and a chilling permanent presence documenting gross human abuse.

Links:
The Two Princes of Calabar

Will the real Nigeria stand up.  

Ed Kashi who produced the photo journal “Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta” in 2008 recently returned to the Niger Delta for 7 weeks.   Kashi’s photos vividly captures the way oil invades peoples lives on all levels. From the oil infested rivers and ponds, the pollution from gas flares, pipelines running through villages and the poverty of peoples lives to the rise of the various militant groups including MEND.

He returned to Nigeria to shoot some video in Bayelsa State and publishes excerpts from his dairy which capture the farcical disorganised bureaucracy and sheer frustration at getting anything done in Nigeria. Nigeria is full of farce and irony. The capital of Bayelsa State, Yenagoa is as far removed from the modern showcase that is Abuja, [which was built on money obtained from the oil produced in Bayelsa and elsewhere in the Delta] as you can imagine. I wonder how many residents and visitors to Abuja consider the cost of the city to those in the far outposts of South Eastern Nigeria. Not very many I am sure. To return to the diary…

May 15, 2009

Yenagoa….this is the capital city of the federal state of Bayelsa, which is only 12 years old. They have put me up in the bosom of the state, the Government House, a large compound for hosting guests and dignitaries. I have not been put in the VIP building. The furniture is broken, many of the lights don’t work, the TV is useless, there is no internet, the bed is a piece of foam on a piece of plywood, and it’s not clean. On the bright side, there is electricity, a functioning air conditioner and some lights. I have to focus on what I do have, not what I don’t, otherwise I’d go downhill fast.

This is so typical of Nigeria. I am in a grand compound, with a sense of decrepit grandeur on the surface. Yet inside so much is broken, unfinished or just done poorly. The irony is, being hosted by the government I have less than I would in one of the privately owned guest hotels in the town.

A woman dressed in Sunday best negotiates the crossing of 9 pipelines running in front of the houses. Photos by Ed Kashi

The last sentences encapsulates the essence of Nigeria – A grand country which on first sight gives one a sense of a slightly decrepit land. Scratch the surface and you find much that is broken, unfinished, doesn’t work or is just done poorly. A sense of “patch patch” everywhere and the resignation of “weytin for do now?”. On the positive side, expectations are relatively low so disappointment is kept to a minimum. Of course, for some, there is always the knowledge that secret hiding places of luxury exist built behind walls and irons locks. From here one can pretend one is in another Nigeria.

Current TV – Sahara Reporters