When the international community takes its forty winks: A typewriter and the dream of an artist

Underneath the surface, the lands and peoples we ignore. Metal and fence in Salzburg
Pic by Philo Ikonya

Will the world always remain this tilted towards the nations that have achieved much more development? 

I dreamt of changing the world and have not stopped. I realise even more clearly that it is not so hard. Not so hard because there is something you can do right now and change the world. The statistics may not matter. Today and now you can decide that when you see people you will check your own barometer of justice. Check if at once you feel you are better than the people you see around you because of a specific reason. Check what that reason is and dismantle it. You cannot know that you are better than someone, superior by just looking at them! And even if you contested on something, you cannot always be the winner. 
The other way of changing anytime is learning something new and reflecting on it. Writing is a physical and spiritual way of reflecting.

I was not so aware of what tantalum is until I read about minerals that are used to make computers and practically every other gadget that we hold in our hands as electronic. And then I read about coltan too. Many nations want to claim that they all have some. China, Norway, Finland and many more. I think Russia too says she does have it. 
It is all essential for making phones, computers and all our current plethora or contemporary connection goods. 
But one thing is for sure, the country known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo has more of these minerals than any other country we know. 

But the sad part is that these minerals never lead to peace and prosperity, instead they fuel wars. Diamonds and gold do the same for there is something in humans that makes them compete immediately for any resources that fetch money and quick. Power and wealth. 

The DRC is not so often in the news and when it is we hear of a musician or a crisis that affects the country, the last one having been a volcanic eruption. Then the main international channels followed some tourists there. When the rape of over 200 women in the Kivu carried out by some UN Peacekeepers was publicised, I did not see much footage on the area around Kivu. 

I have not seen the country marketed on ads on international channels the way I have seen Zambia, South Africa and others do. But we are a global village. A global village in which our neighbours and their problems are hanging off cliffs but never in the centre. For I know this country and others need more information to be aired on their growth and sustainability. 
I fear that we believe we have everyone in sight when we do not. 

I hear that the International Community is at work for all nations but when I listen hard, the song of exploitation of minerals and the people in the DRC and other lands, I do not hear so loud. Instead I find out that most electronics are dumped in Ivory Coast and other lands of Afrika. I find out that in general, climatic changes are going to hit Africa hardest. One has to wonder what we are doing to bring some issues to prominence long enough for all of us to understand them. How is positive action against these changes being measured? How can we try to take the burden off Afrika? She has not polluted the world the most. On the contrary!

 It is high time that we stopped believing that these games are fair. Time to audit and question what goes on. For all things need to be re assessed today. How is technology affecting us and our relationships, our families? Is it time to look carefully and see how we are evolving to a different level that will be studied in the near future?

There was a time when young people used to believe that their parents knew everything and did all very well. Such times might still exist in some places where the wonders of self connectedness has not overcome. Somewhere in worlds that are still away from all social media. A place where it is normal to stare at the sky and dream. Walk for ages without getting a phone call or without listening to music. That place is rapidly shrinking all over the world and with that something is lost and much should be found.

For our fingers are trapped into tapping. Typing has become old fashioned for some. Two quick fingers does it all on the phone. Keyboards are no longer the ones of the "The quick brown dog jumps over the fence!". You can look all the time and just touch type as you go a long. Did the sound of the keys upon punching a typewriter make a difference to our capacity to be alert? Remember that sound? Some kind of rapping ability it had and it rung a bell " Zweee!" when you happily returned the carriage. And with it some satisfaction. The writer and the typewriter.

I remember how keen I was to teach myself to touch type. I had a big heavy book with practice exercises. I picked up speed fast in a few evening classes. I did not include the numbers but I got the feel for the 'f' and 'g' keys and that is half the job done. 

I loved to look at a neatly typed sheet. Of course white out was always there on the side. It did not look quite so neat although it did the job. Carbon papers were hard to control for a copy. Today you can just delete forever with the delete key. As for copies you can make as many as you like on your computer, print if need be and  come back for some more. We have leapt over a chasm in technology and moved so far. But what about our imagination?

There are so many gadgets available. You can have almost all your books on a Kindle or on the computer too, especially the new purchases of the time. I never thought about all these things in the 80s did you? 

I never imagined that I could be in touch with the world at any time - audio-visually. So much has changed. One thing thing however remains true. The muse of inspiration is still a muse. 
There are pleasing moments in which I can get lost completely in my fantasy and dream stories and write them either by pen or on a computer. I can also sit down and just think about them.

The life-span and location of the manuscript has changed. I can share a poetic verse often and I do that on my page on facebook. 
I can share thoughts on my Timeline. What have I gained and what have I lost? Well connecting as I like is my gain. Using that connectivity for growth is the challenge. Sometimes it remains just a connectivity there with the potential for sparking off some useful work or not. But with nations, we cannot afford to sleep. We have enough media to make all places anywhere on earth to be accessible and almost all knowledge and information. Then we there might be something global about us even if not a village! 

http://clotelsisters.blogspot.no/2013/03/wangari-wa-maathais-eyes-and-mothers-of.htmlWangari Maathai celebrated (1st April 1940 - 25 Sept 2011)

A white Papamobil for a black Pope

Pope Benedict XVI: regarded by many as a hero for his humility in accepting
his limitations and choosing to resign from the papacy

You shall know a tree by its roots too!
It is not the first puzzling thing to happen to a Pope. John Paul I the smiling Pope was Pope only for just 33 days. You can still read stories of intrigue about him. People still ask who killed him even when his family say he died of ordinary disease. Pope's are not supposed to die just like that. Neither are they meant to leave the Holy See that easily. So then people cried in 1978: 'What could it be, Oh Tiber tell us in your flow that takes away this smiling one so fast from our earth? All suspicions were muted where I was. It was God's will we were told. It was time to pray harder for the church. And people prayed and fasted for the church. Even then I heard the question I still hear now. Will the Pope be black for a change, or for just this once? The Italians had dominated the universal church with too many Popes. Other European nations were waiting for a chance. Latin America dreamt of it too. Afrika?

That the colour issue still persists points to little progress. Just like hoping and praying that the president of America would be black after all these years. And then he was. Barack Obama. And then they said he was Kenyan not American. And why Barack Hussein? Some answered he had to be an incognito Muslim, a friend of terrorists. Then in 2011, he unveiled a big statue of Martin Luther King Jr who was assassinated for believing in his people and all people. I was embarrassed that America had taken this long to give that honour to Dr. King.

Back to John Paul II. He seems to have come from a background that many felt would help him understand and change the world. He loved Literature. He liked drama and acted when he was younger. He had a heart full of love for his friends since his youth. He seemed to be marked for a special one in life. How could you forget the young boy after the early death of his mother doing homework with his father? His story is extraordinary. I read they even told his mother when he was in a cot he was going to be a special boy. What with a lorry running over him and he surviving that? My son would say  that is close to Fifty Cents surviving 9 bullets. And then I would tell him actually the Pope too was shot and lived and that he embrace Ali Agca. Even though he is still blamed for conservatism, John Paul rocked if I may say. 

Why, he was the only cardinal swimming in between conclave sessions at the election of John Paul I and when it was over he left fast for home. He loved the silence of the mountains. Then he was back promptly and before he knew it he wore the ring and put on the shoes of the fisherman. "You are Peter, and upon this rock I shall build my church!" He became Peter. He did not do a Quo Vadis, running away from Rome in pain but he flew longer than some pilots, still holding the key of Peter well.

I saw him in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania at different times and in Rome too. When John Paul II died there were many interviews in Kenya. I was invited to some and I contributed an article for the daily newspaper on him.

St. Peter's Square in the distance. Reflection time

The year is 2013. The last two weeks have been awash with Vatican news since Pope Benedict XVI resigned. This resignation also happened just before Ash Wednesday, the day that starts a solemn 40 days for many Catholics. A time when many pilgrims flock to Roma especially during the Holy Week to receive the blessing Urbi et Orbi from the Holy Father. To see the Pope. They expected to see Benedict the XVI. Besides all that his was an untraditional exit, not by death the death of the Pope seen as the normal mode and seen as a divine intervention but by human design which is often not seen as divine. So many reasons why were given to beef up the simple explanation that the Pope himself gave. We were at scandals, Vatileaks, mafia and just name it. The Pope had to appeal again to bring back focus on his poor health and inability to be Peter the keeper of the Key of Heaven on earth.

And this in sharp contrast to his friend and immediate predecessor John Paul II who died on his sick bed after suffering for long. This too the reverse of the belief that like Peter is depicted in Quo Vadis -  "Where are you going to, Peter?" A voice asked him - He was asked to turn back and go and sit on his throne in The See of Peter. It is not supposed to be abandoned. The Pope is another Christ they say. Christ suffered up to the end. Today, many people feel that things have been demystified. A German Pope has said that he is lonely and cannot carry on, that he is unwell.  I wonder what would have happened if he had been from Kenya or another Afrikan country and resigned. We still confuse people with borders. When John Paul I died I was in Kenya. I remember the big headline. The Pope is Dead. And a black banner at the top of the headline instead of an advertisement. And Kenya is not a Catholic country. The newspaper was owned by a Muslim. There was an eerie ring around the death of John Paul I. The smiling Pope who lived as Pope for such a long time. People around me were deeply concerned. The influence of the church spawns continents.

I think John Paul II may also have wanted to resign. But he endured Parkinsons disease and many other ailments. He stayed. He was a superstar in his 'youth' young people came to his window at night to check how he was doing in his last minutes. He had broken certain walls of bureaucracy. He was the friend of young people. I know that when Benedict the XVI was announced after the white smoke, I wondered if something had gone wrong. Somehow, his age and style did not seem to me to be directed at where the Church was going before but then many said that Benedict XVI was very intelligent and was the right candidate to succeed John Paul II. There is no contesting the white smoke and actually one is advised not to even talk about it.

But now agains, some questions keep coming up. Don't ask me again if the Pope will be black what does it matter? If he be black and I still cannot shop a white market in peace. Europe gone right wing will monsoons begin to blow in the Black sea? What do I care when every black girl you see on Carl Johann Street is supposed to be a Magdalene's descendants the old profession bringing to life and continuity? If God has always been he and white in our churches and Simon of Cyrene helping the Christ carry his cross was black what means race here?
Have you not seen that after all Augustine of Hippo will not be seen as black no matter how you try? Unless you refer to his life of debauchery first, not his intellectual ability. Monica. What does that kind of diversity matter? These are the roots of the tree.

If the Pope were black he would not be pope because he is black. The Canon Law on resignation of a Pope in article 422 or any other would not change. There are some people who whether in the church or not imagine that they know what there is in an Afrikan who is not suppose to know very much as soon as they see one. Black Sisters always had to form their own convents in some congregations in Afrika because they could not live with the White Sisters. You can still find them. Who rationalises that in some congregations? All the Black Sisters to be in one convent opposite the White Sisters? When it comes to examples and the vigour of the faith in Afrika, I hear nought about the example of the martyrs of Uganda even when the church needs their example quite badly for:

"They had repeatedly defied the king by rescuing royal pages in their care from sexual exploitation by Mwanga which they believed contrary to Christian teaching"

Castel Gandolfo is calm and beautiful. Little ripples on Lake Albano know many stories. Touristic yes but also stories of the struggles of different religious groups within the Roman Catholic Church. They are many. Some are lay organisations of enormous influence such as Opus Dei. Others such as Focolare are religious organisations. There are many secular institutes a different category. In many international church groups, leadership is hardly ever Afrikan or female. Founders of organisations that are taken seriously by the church do not have roots in Afrika.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_Martyrs

In the Roman Catholic canon of saints, there are not many from Afrika. The number only went up because of the 22 Martryrs of Uganda, both Protestant and Catholic but all of them canonised by Paul the VI in 1964 for embracing a new faith, baptising themselves and rejecting the Kabaka Mwanga's sexual advances. Only that in Uganda today they publish names of and kill people who are seen to be homosexual and the churches are mum.

Namugongo, near Kampala is a shrine dedicated to them. Most saints come from Europe. Once canonised it is said that they belong to the whole world but when Afrikan ones are elevated to the altars there is always more jubilation. It would be seen as a great thing to have an Afrikan Pope and in that rejoicing, what sadness. The more remarkable this becomes the worse the indication about the world, and this church.

I have not heard preaching against racism much in church when I went. I noticed in Europe people not eager to shake hands with Afrika. They made it quite obvious they were afraid. They kissed their partners and protected their palms in church. They bowed from afar to us. These are small things that priests never seem to observe or address from the altar.
 I waited for weeks when the scandal of priests sexually harassing people was abuzz and in the church I went to there was not a word save one fast sentence one Sunday. 
There is a need for more dialogue over many things and real challenging of ourselves.
In Africa many people believe that Jesus was a European and his mother and father it would follow. I think that would not change in the minds of many people of the continent. I think there would be fear in many quarters of Europe especially if the Pope like Barack Obama went into his family tree and found that he had a sister called Fatuma. No one would remember that there is a Fatima in Portugal. And if they went deeper into the story, there would be questions raised. I was went to Loretto in Italy. I was told that the House of Loreto flew from the Holy Land in Israel, from a spot that architects verified because Muslims were invading the area! Flew away instead of throwing the doors open to those who were living nearby. The entrance to this church today has gullies on the ground, formed by the knees of pilgrims crawling in to pray for healing just like the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico.

What colour are brains? What colour is faith? The number of Great Britain's black academia is woefully down compared to the white. Promotion has trusted colour so what colour should doctrine be? If any new Pope comes into the Vatican, he has a tradition to uphold.  If there would be a doctrine change, then there would be no Catholic Church. Those waiting for a change in the Catechism of the Church are waiting for the impossible. Those who are waiting for a black pope may see one someday for of course, the Pope can come from any land. But what we need now is the people reflecting and guiding in the church. What we hope now is that the Cardinals continue in ever deeper reflection and accept the humility of change.

Internalising Women´s Issues

If the human rights of one person are abused all our rights are violated. I sat in a discussion in Norway recently  where a woman -annoyed that the South African government was being criticised as we watched a film titled Dear Mandela in which poor people in townships struggle for housing -decided to say out loud that only one or two women had their rights violated. That to her meant that the government and situation was not so bad because only a few girls were reported hurt and not millions.

She was asking how many were treated to badly in order to downplay the fact that one woman was arrested and tortured. Those of us in the house stood up for the one. For there is something so important about how we take the threatening or the deprivation of the rights of one that has to do with us all.

When it comes to women´s issues it is a fact that many are inclined to see the world in very small bits but still use the words ´globalisation´, ´´internationalisation´ and so on. Key for many should be the fact that if we do not internalise women´s issues we cannot resolve the dilemmas that face women. This is because we then take regional patterns and not see how one form of oppression leads to the other, and the next and the next. That oppression is one but takes different forms.

Womens´issues are couched in cultures. It is a cultural matter how we decode them, not just a matter of figures and geographical expanses even when they must be included too. Culture is very deeply internalised that it often relegates women to the voiceless masses. It is true that the number of women who speak out is important, it is necessary to have a majority representation for change to happen but very little changes if we have numbers but no internalisation of women´s issues.

Big words. Internalisation of women issues is important for surely if we are not internalising  them, there is not need internationalising them. I consider the sharing between nations vital whether they are nations in one continent or in many. But of no use if one regional group is not able to overcome Female Genital Mutilation amongst neighbours who practice it and instead wait for power to come from the West to help them stop the malaise.

I consider that there might be one unknown woman with unsual ideas in a part of the world we are not familiar with and this woman, whoever she is we have to recognise as international even if we do not know her. She can stop the genital mutilation of the girls near her without hitting any headlines. We overlook such work. This is the real reason that women´s issues look isolated and as if they are to be drawn out of a dark well. It is the fact that we only want to recognize most often those we know and of the day, especially if they are celebrities. Women issues have always been global even when it was only one woman lost on a river canal - and paddling a canoe on her own as I was told about one toothless woman doing this - in Thailand to go and vote.

Women issues have always been received with concern in different areas of the world even when it was only one woman Kabata who lay in hospital dying from domestic violence. In her head was a universal if global makes us think some are smaller. The issue was that she was dying and would not be visible to us anymore because her husband in Ukambani Kenya, had battered her until she was close to death and then dead. For sometimes we can go too far in divorcing some parts of the world and then celebrating as if everything is new.

I know recent cases move us and I am greatly moved by the recent reactions to rape in India. Many of us are campaigning for literacy and freedom of expression with Malala Yousoufzai and that is why I want those who write on women´s issues especially in papers that have a great reach to go much deeper. We have to take these issues beyond the big resound in what is normally recognized as international.

The words ´global village´, ´globalisation of issues´ too are many years old now. But depending on how they are used and who uses them, they can look almost new. The old book Globalisation and its Discontents by Joseph Stiglitz is almost a dozen years old now. In this book about the world of economics Stiglitz argues the case for the discontents of globalisation. Looked at in the same way women´s issues can risk being unseen because they are considered as globalised.

It is clear so often that in the South and I speak for the part of Africa that I try to understand, the West is always welcome and well known. It is always known as global and is hardly questioned. On the other hand, the West finds it very hard to include the rest and the South that I know in its dialogue. I have been looking for writers in Europe who have a heavy presence even just of the many people who live in their nations but in vain. They do not dent the psyhe of the West. This cannot be with regard to women´ issues. Women have always been part of the global and world issues. There is nothing so new in this if you ask me. To read about globalisation as if it is new concerns me because it seems that then we are stagnant. So I wonder where we belong in Africa when I hear this:

“Women issues are world issues,” Michelle Bachelet, the executive director of U.N. Women and former president of Chile, said recently. “Today there is greater awareness than ever before that women’s full participation is essential for peace, democracy and sustainable development.”

I am sure that Lusita Lopez Torregrosa has written other articles I may have not read and while I react to her article, I know it was not her doctoral or other thesis but the dialogue is important and especially as big media from the West shapes public opinion more than the stories my grandmother told me by the fireside in Kenya. I opt for the internalisation of women's issues.

What is it about a New York article on the Female factor by Lusita Lopez Torregrosa published on January 8 2013, see the link below, that might not be a good indicator for women even if she starts on a note of cautious optimism? Ít is the lack of a historical take. It is the reduction of the issues to the women present in positions today to the ones who make issues international.

Why is New York celebrating the internationalisation of Women's issues today without a word about the rural women of Mexico, Mexican women journalists when they die in big numbers to this very day to defend their nation and opinions? Where is mention of Mexico 1975, Nairobi 1985 and Beijing 1995? Are we not at this level then recording women´s gains throughout decades?
  

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/us/09iht-letter09.html?src=recg&_r=0

Cross the Ganges in rage on rape, India is not an island

If quiet flows the Ganges I know not; rape on ice revisited

A winter 'sunrise' in Oslo 13 January 2013. Photo by Philo Ikonya 


            I still see scattered ashes of the gang-raped student of physiotherapy on the Ganges and the huge river rages in my mind. All rivers meet. All names name us. We do not need to know her name to never forget her. If it is offered we shall revere it. Deep in us, we know it. And we know more. We know that there is a message in this death for every human being everywhere in the world. This is not a debate on which to ask how come India is so enraged. It is not India. It is the world. From the North to the South: streams, rivers, lakes and finally oceans that seem to wrap the world in peace from on high are one.

It does not matter what form the ashes have taken now or where they are. This was not meant to shake India alone.  Whatever shores they may have touched have known rape before. We will not make light of this grave matter and say it just happens. I won't. I shall rage more than Dylan Thomas* for this was "no gentle good night!" 
There is and was insane violence. It is happening again and again right now.  There is no good rape. Not even the one in which the 'victim' in this case is a person who cannot due to illness or age react. And yes, I am raging because my little friend who has cerebral palsy was raped right in her mother's house while her mother was away for a while. Kenya. We must all shout at the beast of rape wherever we see it because too many people are silenced for one reason or another. Sometimes, it is a bribe.
I wrote long e-mails, used the phone to get the mother out of fear but suddenly, her daughter had not been raped. The doctor says it was not the first time. What then?

The River Ganges is long. Everywhere along it people can have their own entry point. But the last time we saw it on January 15, people were there to bathe in millions for the forgiveness of their sins. I have not time here to go into one religion. But this is about all of us. We wash again and again just like Pontius Pilate on that day and the priests daily.  I think the worst all of us can commit is to keep on thinking that this outrageous rape-murder has only pointed to India.  For who really lives after rape? Which child? Which grandmother? Which young girl? Which boy or man? So I rage that we talk without borders. 

But let us first look right next to ourselves and how we deal with rape and what that says to the world.

We can now ask India many questions and say that after all she is not that great. We are not overlooking her rapes, they are horrendous. Who has spoken up for the Dalit? How many more unknown groups are under ground as the UN keep peace? But let us first look at ourselves and very near us. I am in Norway.

Last winter 2012, there was what was referred to as "A rape wave" in Oslo, Norway. Never before had there been so many reported rape incidents. It was and is still a disaster. Nothing can be worse than girls being afraid to go home on their own in the dark because they are afraid that they can get raped. But in the discussions we had in the media and on our own. Something very strange kept happening. There were many who easily pushed the issue back to the girls. How they are dressed, what time they were out and who they were with. I know this boils over. There are people who want to convince you and they are sure themselves that women provoke rape. They are everywhere. 
The other dimension became the "immigrants". Blame a whole group of people. Blame them because they are black or green. Blame them because they were not born here. Blame them. It was the first reaction too when Oslo was bombed. It is terror. It is the 'outsiders'. In the moment of addressing rape, the best would be to stick to the offence and report all offenders not races or background. Today I visited the Akerselva. She battles with winter 2013 to tell her story about rape on ice.

She wants to remind us of the environment too but that for another day. Until we all treat rape and acknowledge that it happens everywhere, we are going nowhere. 

High profile cases that signal trouble for the world

The reported cases that reach the media are the ones we call high profile. But these too sometimes go out of attention silently. What happened to the world when United Nation Peace keepers raped over 200 women in Kivu of the D R Congo? Was this little violence? And if your read well you know that this is not the first time that UN Peacekeepers rape.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/peacekeepers-gone-wild-how-much-more-abuse-will-the-un-ignore-in-congo/article4462151/

 

 What impression do they give to the world? Of course some of them are settled out of court and outside the limelight. I remember Dominique Strauss- Khan. It is only that this headline coming a few days after the rape of the Indian girl probably bored most people. http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/19/world/europe/france-dsk-carlton-case/index.htmlThe last thing I saw was a beautiful Gambian woman, Nafissatou Diallo, thanking the people who stood by her and God and telling us that this had been resolved out of court. There is no death sentence in many places of the world for rape.

Julius Assagne might be clean, but the world deserves to know the truth. After all this is a man who believes in 'outing' the truth. All we need is a reasonable end.  Ecuador gave asylum to Julius Assange whose freedom of expression I do not begrudge him. If we cannot get these things out then we have no right to sit hard and pretty and ask India questions such as I heard on Hard Talk. They are questions to the world. I know the idea is that India does not take action and police do not record enough crime but on rape let us not make only news. Let no river flow in peace from now on. 

For was it not only yesterday that we confirmed that former BBC manager Jammy Savile so vile hid in the best place? He hid in the open and as a celebrity for over fifty years molesting, harassing, raping children for years. Now only his tombstone is in trouble?

Let the Ganges and all rivers rage. I forever thank the Indian activists, the people for standing up, speaking out and saying rape is death. Their children did not carry placards that said stop rape in India. They said, Stop Rape!

And we saw one tough ex-police boss who comes out clear minded and ready to work, not only for India but for the world on rape issues. After all she clearly stated that Indian police behave the way they do because they still operate with the 1816 British Law (Better start serious review India dear,  Kenya has only changed the law and discovered much more work needs to be done still for real change to come. Take the first steps you Mahatmian land... great soul!)
This reform must flow longer than the Ganges and rather than wash any sins, take justice urgently to so many because justice we shall never give to our unnamed hero and so many other people in the world!

   

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2215324/Jimmy-Savile-gravestone-removed   

Invictus: we need to become Mandela

"We sang a song about the Freedom Charter, and another about the Transkei, with the lyrics, 'There are two roads, one road is the Matanzima road, and one road is the Mandela road, which one will you take?' The singing made the work lighter...and we were soon ordered to stop singing. (Whistling was banned.) From that day onwards we worked in silence. Long Walk to Freedom. The autobiography of Nelson Mandela *Abacus. pg. 484

                        We have a treasury of so many words from and about Nelson Mandela. Films. Invictus a film directed by Clint Eastwood celebrates the invincible spirit of Mandela. Mandela is a big name. No one proves it best than youth who live in the poorest of conditions in South Africa. I saw how eager they were in Soweto and other places that Mandela recovers from his recent lung infection. They meant it. They said it. They cried it. They wrote it. They prayed it. We have to become Mandela rather than spend time arguing if he is a product of the West as some of my friends have done on Facebook. Why do we want to stand in the face of unquestionable greatness? His greatness does not mean that the others are not great and that is what Invictus shows.

Mandela's is a story that is impossible to forget. A story? A life. He made it out of Robben Island and he became the icon around which much of South African hope was centred. Weaknesses we all have but some people once in many, many years seem to visit humanity for a very specific message. Mandela is one such man. There were and are many other heroes in South Africa but human beings have a way of looking to some people for hope in a particularly earnest way. For some reason, some individuals are somewhere at a specific time and things happen in a different way. They take a position on the psyche of many people and there is the production of positive energy and hope. They are loved.

If you gave many people a chance to have tea with friends, they would not leave Mandela out. This includes the people of Soweto, many African people, individuals such as Chief Albert Luthuli, Vufile Mini, Ahmed Kathrada, Hellen Joseph, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu...  Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela...and well, if you went all the way back and Gandhi was coming to tea he would be keen too. Very keen. Now even Idi Amin if he were alive would gladly want to reach Mandela, so would Colonel Muamar Gadaffi, Bokasa, my grandmother and father, Mother Teresa a whole host of us. You have seen how many singers and people liked to visit Mandela and sing for him on his birthday. I  longed to see him but learned it was better to try and understand his story.

On the 16th of June 2012 both at 13.00hrs in her  Nobel Lecture, Aung San Syu Kyi had Mandela's name on her lips. She talked about him when she addressed the people during a concert in her celebration outside the Peace Centre in Oslo. Later upon reading Desmond Tutu´s foreword to Freedom From Fear, the second edition of her book, I read "...she had no bitterness; and she was ready to work for the healing of her motherland, which had suffered so grievously. In revealing this extraordinary magnanimity, she was emulating Nelson Mandela who has left the world awed by his singular lack of bitterness, his magnanimity and his willingness to forgive those who ill-treated him."

Towards the end of 2012, I watched the documentary titled Dear Mandela. It is a about those  those who still suffer evictions try to see how to be unconquerable in the spirit of invictus but in a different circumstances. The young people are searching for the liberation that did not come with Mandela's exit from Robben Island and his five years as president. Suffering after the acquisition of freedom is difficult to take after so many people have died for freedom and better means and lives. Mandela did the honourable thing and left office after five years, an example to many people in political power despite the risks.

It is at this time in South Africa when power is in the hands of black people that the people expected to have less problems of housing and other issues when the contradiction of poor leadership hit home most. The documentary is described as a film about unfreedom. My earlier letter in this blog was a quest on my mind on how to decipher that complete freedom too on the whole continent of Africa . I believe we need it. http://philoikonya.blogspot.no/2010/01/dear-mandela.html

Some say that the West is eager to make heroes out of some for others to look up to. I think that is ridiculous. Anyone who bothers to read A long Walk to Freedom will find out for themselves that what was in Mandela was only recognised when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with De Klerk. In Amandla the movie and in so many records can one see that Mandela is one of those few persons, who visit humanity once in many years and who leave an indelible mark whilst spreading inspiration from Burma to Iceland.

We need the spirit of Mandela in all of Afrika and everywhere.  Indeed many people beyond the borders of the townships of South Africa longed and prayed for his recovery. What we now need to focus on is working towards opening up ways so that Mandela's approach and life can help us all. What is most important is that we allow ourselves to inherit his spirit and be our own award to ourselves. To scrutinise our own selves in many ways to see where it is that we miss the mark and how to overcome that. It is not easy. We have reached a point where we have to see political parties such as the ANC for what they are.

We have to give a keen look to all of Afrika from Mali to Somali, Central Africa to South Africa and keep searching for the key to uniting the continent in focusing on economic growth and greater success for all the people. ANC was lucky to have Mandela. His outlook, his appreciation of power and his leadership are needed today. We must climb to the peak of leadership in Afrika. Much has been gained in many countries there is room for change. South Afrika and Kenya are examples of that.

And yes we do need one another as a continent because whether we like it or not our people are strewn across borders due to how Africa was divided in Brussels and roads, and railways seas, lakes and rivers unite us. See how Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique need Lake Tanzania. Landlocked country economies go down when ports are inaccessible due to war or unrest.  What if our governments learned to spread goodness, respect justice and not be bitter over old feuds? Well, we do seem to unite for some things and what sadly seems to be the case is that our elected leaders unite and lobby much more for their power bases to keep strong than for the people to get justice.  Recently elected president of Malawi Joyce Banda refused to host an AU meeting in her country if the ICC indicted president Omar Al Bashir was to attend. She faced a lot of criticism but she followed the law as a signatory to the Rome Statute. Sadly the Kenyan government did the opposite in 2010 when Al Bashir was invited to Kenya. We could go on but this was about Mandela and through him, owning roots of goodness, our heroes, our philosophies and worthy convictions. Our history is full of greatness examples and who are we to opt to be so small trying to even say that Mandela is made for us? Has our wisdom vanished? Is De Klerk also a product of the West? Are the Dalai Lama, Aung San Syu Kyi, and Desmond Tutu? Well then if they are, and if justice especially from the ICC is from the West, what is left?  The life lessons from Mandela are valid for humanity and we should be glad to have shared the times in which he lived with him even if we met Mandela.

I do not have to say that Mandela remains our hero and this blog celebrates him unreservedly and is so delighted he recovered well. Walk on Mandela! It is truly a long road to freedom! I still see you sparring with Jerry Moloi, yearning to be a boxer when you were stronger. You know better and have served well. Your attitude reminds me as the wise Indian saying goes that "We have not inherited this world from our ancestors, we have borrowed it from our children!" There is nothing contradictory in that. You worked like one who knew others must come. When we have put others behind in leadership in Afrika, we have to acknowledge that we have let Mandela down.  

Is birth the beginning or the end? Self- immolations, life as a burning light

In free flight, Photo by Gloria  Fernandes

2012. This year in numbers has looked elegant to me with two gracious 2s at the end of it. But it is the number 95 that means most to me as I come to almost end of 2012. 82 men and 13 women have immolated themselves in Tibet. Because they were born there and there is no freedom.
They have made me ask "What is birth?" For people were happy when these women and men were born. Now they are gone in our eyes is there shame that they could not live? http://www.savetibet.org/resource-center/maps-data-fact-sheets/self-immolation-fact-sheet

 Wangchen Kyi, 17 years, the last immolate on the 9th of December is heart rending. Only seventeen years of age. Her name sounds like my sister´s. Wangchen has paid the ultimate price for freedom. She is one among soon, hundreds. There has to be another way.

I want to think about birth. This is a topic of course that can be enriched by the festivities of this season. See how the birth of one Child is important in December for many people. I think about the greatness of a country that stands up for one person, like India has done for the student of medicine who was gang raped on a bus and is still fighting for her life. That is a birth because hundreds of women are raped in Delhi daily. Because ultimately, there is no such a thing as one person. Never.

The question of the Tibetans is not one between Muslims and Christians. The message Urbi et Orbi Pope Benedict XVI, 2012 received much international press. He mentioned several by name including my beloved Kenya, for to be born somewhere does make the place dear to us at heart. But this should not be over another's rights. Nigeria too was mentioned, and  Africa in general was described as the continent so challenged for peace. And it is true.  Mali, DR Congo, so many refugees in pain and suffering. Much of this conflict is seen to be based on religious differences.

In the message, Asia was in focus. But not directly Burma where the recent killings of Rohingya Muslims has taken place. Europe and its tendency to the right wing was not. Germany was not. The refugees from Afrika come mainly to Europe and find life very difficult. One who mentions China does not mention the sufferings of the Tibetan people so easily. So, that these immolations did not sound like the birth and death of Christ. What are the underlying factors on how we are reaching out for one another in the world today?  http://www.marinij.com/ci_22257994/text-pope-benedicts-urbi-et-orbi-christmas-message

But I go back home. I have lost a dearly loved uncle in the last week. We nicknamed him Joj. Medical doctor GN Gitatha, Joj, (RIP). He was always open to everyone around him. In my village, we call that a good person. He learned new things including Haematology and always used them to serve others. For so many people it does not matter their ethnic affiliations when it comes to helping. He walked miles to sit with a sick person even long into his retirement. I did not see him limited by what he was. He learned languages. He tried to reach others in many ways. I could say that Joj burned out his life for others and so he lives even now and left so many people aware that his life was. He did not find a retired life in a village a barrier, neither were his simple clothes. Some people who thought they were progressive in the village did not understand a man who had lived in Europe for some years and now walking around 'just like that'?  He did. He kept fascinated by life in the present. He had no media and was not on fb. His smile on the village paths gave life. He read books. He read his niece's books and was always so happy about them!

As I reflect someone is already whispering that we are born to die. Well, we are also born to live and actually it depends on you to see which one prevails. And living in such a way that we are saying something about our life and that of others. That we are a fire that is burning or a light. Of course those who prefer the dark side of life are welcome. Joj was not born a doctor, he became one. He was always striving to be a better doctor. And so it was hard for him to "oppress" anyone by virtue of being a doctor.

We are living in an age of great technological progress and yet we are concentrating more and more on our own entity and are not too willing to reach far beyond. I have heard people from a very small clan, forget kings, simply say in arrogance that their clan does not speak to another or have anything to with them. They do not marry into that clan they disdain, they emphasise. I have heard the same argument repeated by big faiths, royalty, races and people in power and in class.

I am talking about being born into religions, royalty, tribe or ethnic group, man, woman. In Kenya and else where, I have lived with people who find it hard to relate to others who are not their own. Even if they say that they are ¨born again¨. I find it even worse to keep reading that at home, where ethnic conflict sparked by electoral fraud caused death and much bloodshed, loss of homes and livelihoods.

If we do not have the courage to see that what we are born into is not something we can use to oppress others or humiliate them then we have hardly been born, so to speak.  If we cling onto our being ´born´ this and that, then we are a miscarriage of what we were meant to be. You might ask what we were meant to be, a miscarriage of what and I would say of many things. For too long we have laid deep emphasis on what we are born: This country. This Religion. This Class. This sex. What we are born into or are cannot be denied but how does our birth affect those we find around us?  If it only leads to deaths as in Tibet then it is better that we question our identity. What is growth as human beings on this planet if another cannot live how they wish?

It is not a very alien idea. Kings dressed in rags and walked as paupers in years gone by so they tell us, to see how life is for the others. Today, kings or royalty might Twitter as does Pope Benedict XVI and some other leaders of the world. Who among them is really concerned about what is happening in Tibet? But we all need to see for ourselves around us. We need our own eyes.  We have to recognise that we are that other person we see as outside of us. And this is not just a romantic idea. Well it has never been. Because some people such as Hitler were so obsessed with what one is born genetically, 6 million people died in gas chambers. One would like to think that this is over but its ugly signs are not under cover. They are visible in Europe.

Today my heart goes with one couple I read about in a Norwegian language magazine  All Verdens Historie Number 14/2012. I am impressed by the man who refused to salute Hitler. It was in June 1936 in Hamburg. August Landmesser kept his arms folded on his chest as all others saluted. He did not intend not to be seen.  In a sea of Hitler salutes a photo has shown that he remained firm because he was in love with Irma Eckler, a Jew and engaged to her. They had a child. He was arrested for watering down the German race and was imprisoned. Even though he disappeared and had escaped and found a job but was disappeared and believed to have died in 1944. Humans in love and daring to be. The Gestapos arrested Irma in 1938 and in 1941 she was sent out of Hamburg where they were and in 1942 she was killed in a gas chamber.

I have talked about similar occurences, (would you call them stories? ) with people who always pipe out very fast that the thing to do is to have saluted to save his own life. Such people define life as breathing, eating for more years. But let me try and stick to my topic. What we think we are born into brings us very many problems, I have seen.

When the Rohingya Muslims get their houses burnt by Hindus and the act blessed by monks, I shudder to think that we do not understand being born into religions. I really do. Did we want Burma free so that some people can die? We have to fell some walls. Why should a child, a woman, a man die because of religion? Who is God that you might take life on behalf of whom all religions say is sacred and holds life sacred? There are so many things that obviously tell us that being born here or there is just accidental but we see it as ordained by some mighty force. I have not forgotten the same thing is done by other Muslims somewhere, say in Nigeria or Egypt, they persecute the Christians. Kill them at Christmas in church and on most ordinary Sundays of 2012. Christians did that before to the Muslims, so what is this all about?

The same differences occur in other areas. Lineage remains captured in a way that does not make sense for the outcomes in the lives of so many other human beings. I understand our longings for home and to belong. I know I felt it when the Mannasseh race left India over 2000 years later to go home to Israel. I suffered very much reading the Exodus and I wished I could just go and push Pharaoh out of Egypt all by myself for when you read these things as a child, they continue happening in your mind and are never over.  I later learnt that there are many other pharaohs in our lives.

It is important that Tibetans regain their freedom and space. There have been more  It is more important if their freedom is going to mean much to the world including to China´s own freedom. Because Mohammed Bouazizi was born in Tunisia, he immolated himself for Tunisia. But his fire was aflame beyond the Tunisian borders. Likewise when we are born, our flame must go beyond our religion, our light must go beyond my own things and touch humanity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Bouazizi

But how is it that we are not able to cope with those who we think are different by birth, religion, race and culture? How does a an 'accident', as they are called in Metaphysics of Being, such as location, colour, place and so on become so very important over the substance?  Look at race. And that not only black and white abut also racism with race. Dark skinned Indians versus are oppressed by lighter skinned ones. The cast system reigns.

What is it that we are not doing to focus now what we should become regardless of where we are born? Fundamentalism is rife in many ways and we need to help ourselves to recognise that we are not whom we believe we are.  Are we all together living a lie? It sounds strange I know.

So I look at this birth thing again in religion. Seeing what is becoming of us because of confessed faiths, I have said before that actually nobody should be born anything.  We have to thank rather than condemn those who are questioning our society in this regard. If we cannot live above or confessed faiths then Christopher Hitchens' international bestseller will always be greater than God.

I think we must quickly invite all forms of criticism and questions today. We have to take this life as a gift ... and unwrap this it. I see the scars of it in politics. People claiming power as family, that is to inherit it from their fathers (almost always)  at the expense of the many who were not born to there father of those who claim it. Sometimes it can be fair but it hardly ever is.

I cannot believe it when I see people even fighting from groupings that hardly mean a thing to the world, considering how the world is disorganised. Tibetans cannot to be forced to be what they do not want because they are growing in a different way. I hope that we will all dedicate more action and thoughts to Tibet right from today. Before 2013 most likely there will be another self-immolation. Shall we not all tell representatives of peoples voices to speak out against this all over the world? If the world behaved like India last week, standing up for Tibet in spite of our own wounds, and nothing changed, we would at least say we stood up to be counted!

Insecurity in Kenya, activist Okiya Omtatah attacked yesterday

Violence unleashing in Kenya. For speaking out, someone will remove your teeth and hit your thinking head, the house of your brain until it bleeds. Okiya has been outspoken and fearless in Kenya. This is what they have done to him. It was  done at night
http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Activist+seriously+injured+in+night+attack/-/1056/1615622/-/sb95y0z/-/index.html

There are many times I have received text messages from people in villages in Kenya who tell me they cannot sleep because of fear. They get attacked by thieves or gangs and the police are far from being available. I know sometimes they are. But most times even as we discuss in the media big topics the people are just worried about how to get out of the house safely and go to a toilet outside the house as is common in the rural areas where water does not flow to have outside toilets. Just how to hold up for the night and how to sleep. How can you when every leaf that move reminds you of how your doors and windows can come out all of a sudden and you find knives on your flesh.

Even as we argue that we can manage our justice systems and indeed even want to stop the ICC from prosecuting  our indicted leaders on political violence in 2007, where is our strength? Even as we insist that the African Court of Human and Peoples Rights should have capacity built for this, where is our hope? Activists in Kenya are in fear. The people both in the cities and in the rural areas live in fear. We need to take into consideration that Kenya goes into an election next year.

A tale of two hearts of liberty: Chief Albert Luthuli and Maxim Gorky

Chief Albert Luthuli

I was given a book gift on the life Albert Luthuli. I normally look at several books at any given time so I was also re-reading Mother by Maxim Gorky. It is exciting to be able to play with dates and see what was happening in different places at the same time. Contemproraiety has its interesting aspects. Chief Albert Luthuli and Maksim Gorky. They are very different but their passion for freedom and political growth measures the same. It is all consuming. Perhaps they both died for their love for freedom.

It sounds strange. Can you compare a writer to a Nobel Prize winner?  But I often wonder what was happening in the same years or thereabouts in different places and people. What if I could hear a symphony of all events? Would it be a symphony or a cacophony? What about just two lives? Are they easy to see clearly? They both lived in very complex political arenas. Was Gorky murdered or did he die of a heart attack? How could a moving train slay Chief Albert Luthuli ever so cleanly on the back of the neck? Who killed him?

Could I make sense of a unity of facts without music but just seeing the dates and how they influence others? Seeing it clearly in my mind like in a crystal ball?   What did Luthuli and Maksim have in common? The former was brought up by his mother and the latter by his grandmother.  Where is the dicordance in their lives? What did it mean to Gorky to be an orphan and for Luthuli to only have his Mother, the very person Gorky so longed to have that this influences the title of his book about change: Mother? Did deprivations of affections they needed from missing parents make them more of seekers of justice? What hope is there today for so many orphans in Africa. My article is a strange introspection. How much do Russia and Africa communicate? How much African literature do Russians or Chinese people know?

Can you compare this great spirit of Albert Luthuli to that of a writer's free spirit in Maksim Gorky? Well, I do because of the way the two handle change. One of these men became change, Luthuli. That was especially so when he chose to defend the ANC. Gorky other became the change in his writings which he sends out to the world. Both persons impressive for working against all odds. Chief Luthuli was a quiet and humble activist. Gorky wrote Song of the stormy Petrel, a poem that got the Marxist magazine banned. He was an activist though the writing and in speeches. Both men got arrested many times. The Chief was banned from addressing people. He joined many protests including the one after the Shaperville massacre.

Gorky (in white)and A. Chekov

Chief Albert John Luthuli (Nobel Peace Prize 1960) lived from c. 1898 to 21 July 1967. His Zulu name was Mvumbi. He was a teacher and a politician. He read and wrote a lot. He is the author of Let My People Go! Luthuli lived in exile too. Chief Luthuli was a fervent Christian but he was a friend of all. His role was in the non-violent struggle against apartheid. Today when the Chinese inundate Africa, will they inter-marry and learn with respect and depth our African languages?

Chief Albert Luthuli could answer all these questions today.  He was the first African, and the first person from outside Europe and the Americas, to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.Chief Luthuli believed in equality of all human beings. He knew how to love people who believed in other means of changing society.

The Chief worked with everyone who looked for good even when they did not agree on certain things. He worked with Moses Kotane, a Communist, Logan Naidoo tells us in the book about Goolam Suleman In the Shadow of Chief Albert Luthuli. Chief Albert Luthuli was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe then Southern Rhodesia where his father worked as an interpreter. His father died when he was 10 years old and his mother returned to Grouteville because they were very poor and life was hard. His mother had grown up in the royal court of King Cetshwayo, the third in the line of Zulu Kings and since King Shaka. (Logan Naidoo, In the Shadow of Chief Albert Luthuli)

Could they, being people of very diverse areas of origin have been inspired by the same things? What was it that made them make a difference?  One is a believer in God and the other an atheist. These are two men who knew the change they wanted to see. They envisioned it, owned it and set forth to let it grow. We need to learn from them. We need to desire a peaceful world not to the same extent that we desire to eat or wear a dress. This has to be madly. I love activists and Maksim Gorky was a political activist.

I have heard and seen something of Luthuli here and there, but visiting his Museum in Durban was very special. It happened that we went there as part of Poetry Africa 2012. The spirit of the man fills every nook and pricks with little rays of light, every little cranny in that place. I did not visit it, I experienced it. There is a sense of peace there. The school students who were there to recite pomes were for me the greatest sign of hope for Africa.

One wonders where all this peace and common sense has gone in some parts of the continent of Africa. We are descendants of very dignified people. Nobody feels out of place with people who have the spirit of freedom. People who struggle for it, no matter the differences they may have. We are surrounded by examples of good leadership which we do not allow to blossom, however. There is so much learning and study in Africa. So much study that we have to say if we are still failing to bring progress and stability to some nations it is because we are not interested.

There are many lessons to learn form literature, history and politics. Why are people only ready to listen to their own group leaders today in so many parts of Africa. Chief Albert Luthuli is a fine example. See how he handled Communism. Chief was never a Communist. But he knew how to work with everyone to attain freedom. "Moses is a top intellectual. I respect him highly. He is making a tremendous contribution to the cause. We will work together until freedom is atained; after that maybe Moses and I will fight because he is a Communist and I am a Nationalist." The Chief believed in the dignity of all peoples.

Maksim Gorky writes powerful things but this is his first sentence in Mother. "Every day the factory whistle bellowed forth its shrill, roaring, trembling noises inot the smoke begrimed and greasy atmostphere of the workingmens's suburb: and obedient to the summonss of the power steam, people pored out of little gray houses into the street. With somber faces they hastend forward like frightened roaches... Living a life like that for some fifty years, a workman died."

They are two very different men but whose were greatly involved in the lives of their nations and peoples. They are so different but their interest in humanity helps them overcome many difficulties and diffferences.  Perhaps they read one another. Perhaps they did not. Both did amazing work to ignite the consciousness of the people towards freedom and dignity.

Wikipedia writes of Gorky that, "At the heart of all his work was a belief in the inherent worth and potential of the human person. In his writing, he counterposed individuals, aware of their natural dignity, and inspired by energy and will, with people who succumb to the degrading conditions of life around them. Both his writings and his letters reveal a "restless man" (a frequent self-description) struggling to resolve contradictory feelings of faith and skepticism, love of life and disgust at the vulgarity and pettiness of the human world."

Maxim Gorky wanted to awaken the world to struggling for a better life. He was a political activist who funded Lenin's party but spoke against it when necessary. He did not join the party. He was a Marxist. He was part of the 1905 Russian Revolution. He opposed the Bolsheviks taking of power in 1917. He worked with people who did not agree with is ideas.

Yes, Gorky means "bitter" . Bitter is the last adjective one would use to describe the humble and peaceful Chief Albert Luthuli but these two men reach very far in stirring our consciences or the that of humanity, if such a thing exists, and for the good of the human race. Gorky,  is one of the many pen names that Alexei Macimovich Peshkov who lived from March 28th 1868  to 18th June 1936 used. His novel Mother was an immediate success.  He lived in exile. At the age of twelve in 1880, he ran away from home to find his grandmother. He was brought up by his grandmother. He lived in exile for many years. He handled paper and writing when it was very dangerous in his country to do so.

Chief Luthuli travelled a lot to speak with people about freedom. He travelled by bus. Gorky, deeply affected by the death of his mother travelled on foot across the Russian Empire for years looking for different jobs and gathering ideas for his writing. Maxim believed that man created God. However he has thousands of people who follow him today as a saint. Who follows Chief Albert Luthuli who prayed often for his nation and for guidance? Who thinks this ancestor of Africans is a saint? At least the followers part should matter. Africa needs generous, dedicated and happy leaders. Look at that smile again? 

The Imam and His wife- Freedom of Expression is paramount

This picture of Imam Abduljalil and Jamila Sajid lasts and lasts on my mind. It is the Imam looking down from his six foot something frame tenderly at his only wife Jamilla, who spoke with much passion about freedom on his side. The Imam spoke first about the Innocence of Muslims, a You Tube that a few weeks ago was all the rave in the news and which he addressed in the context of freedom of expression. His wife Jamilla told us of her firm belief in togetherness and how in Brighton in their early years, she decided to speak to all her neighbours about why it is important to talk to other people. She says, "What is important is to keep talking. When you talk, you discover many other things, and there can be peace!"
It was not easy. I asked her if some people did not reject her message especially those who were from her own background because she has opted not to wear the hijab for the time being and says she may one day wear it but not now. 

"Of course. Some of them shut the door in my face and broke eggs on me when they saw me." But that did not stop her. She spoke to us at a Sophus Lies Gata 5 at the invitation of Initiatives of Change (IOC) and then went on to speak at the Daru Salaam Mosque about bringing up children without rolemodels, the experience of Muslim mothers in Great Britain. Jamilla is of her own mind and the Imam knows that. 

Abduljalil hardly mentioned the film in question. "Freedom of Expression is paramount" he says. He explains that does not mean insulting others. However, violence is not an answer to such insult if it should occur. I could hear between the lines that responding with violence, and two weeks ago violence hit many embassies and in Libya Chris Stevens the USA ambassador and two of his colleagues were killed, is futiel. Abduljalil says violence does not show your enemy or the person you fight that your are superior but on the contrary, it gives a poor image of the violent and all that they stand for, The Prophet and religion included. 

He told a story of how lonely he was in his days in Oxford. Then one Christmas there was a message for those who were going to be alone at Xmas and felt it to get in touch. He ended up being a guest of a Christian family at Christmas. He had thought it would be his last one in England as he could not stand the place. Rev Carr and his family however, made him see another side of life. Imam Abduljalil tells of his fears on his way to the Christian home which turned out to be the Rev's home. 'First, they will have dog at home. Then they will serve pork!" It turns out that this family had no dog. I would say that for a British family was like to be without 'god' and then they did not have 'pork' and even alcohol was not served. He relaxed when he heard Rev Carr say that they too did not serve alcohol but allowed those who wanted to drink to do so in town and to if drunk to stay outside! Abduljalil cannot ever forget his surprise.

Islam as a religion suggests what a woman should wear but does not oblige one to wear that. This is no secret. The suggestion is made several times but it does not become an order to wear a hijab but yes, to cover the body. In Jamilla's case, the body is well covered with her punjabi-lke  suit and lovely delicate sandals. Her long hair covers her head. 

Imam Abdulljalil says that the Prophet has taught that one in a foreign land must understand and respect the rules of that land. Abduljalil argues that if some people cannot understand that freedom of expression is paramount in the West, they have to remember they are not at home. They also have to know that just because in their countries some people are ordered to hit at others by presidents who are dictators, the case does not apply in America and other lies. Therefore, he said people who feel offended have to know that it is not the president of America who told someone to make a film titled "The Innocence of Muslims". The hitting back at a whole land and its peoples is illogical. He pleaded for dialogue and patience, and never hitting back. The Imam and his wife work for peace. This is a favourite couple!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaO4yqz3UBY

The rhythm of activism for peace in Harry Belafonte

Mending the hole in the bucket

It does not matter where you start... if you sing out loud "There is a hole in the bucket... " everyone will join in with "Dear Liza, dear Liza!"  "Coconut woman is calling out... and ... " Before you can go any further you will hear all join in " and everywhere you can hear her shout eh... " If you start singing, 'wid plenty rydthm and so sweetly... " before long you will hear " dey play this stilbahn... " If you star "Day O... Day O... " You know what you will hear.
Harry Belafonte was even suprised that before he started "Day O " in Japan when he visited... the people had gathered to sing his song to him. Then, he told us in the Melafestavalen in Oslo last week, he knew then that the power of song is immense. See, he went on, among all the arts music is with us everywhere. It is found wherever we are because we take it there. That includes in the bathroom and the bedroom.

 A singing soul

But Harry Belafonte has another song in his soul that we were so lucky to listen to. And this song calls one to consciousness. He is a resilient activist and unabashed to speak out for the voiceless.. you will be left shattered by the images in his film "Sing your Song" especially so the last image. I will not say what it is. And again once you hear this song of championing for justice deeply in you,  you will find you will join in singing it  somehow... you will find your own lyrics, you will begin to do your own thing, you will start  to Sing your Song if you had not began. If you had began it you will find that it has more and more verses and choruses and that you just have to keep on singing louder after hearing Harry Belafonte.

It was amazing to watch the film Sing your Song and listen to HB's live interview in Oslo's Melasfestivlen 2012. I am glad that a friend had a reservation for me. You see it was a very special thing to be there not because of fame or how shall I put it? It was something else that happened at Klingenberg Kino. It was the fact that I heard a song that Belafonte sings very deeply with his soul. It is the song of peace. The song of that peace which many of us know is not found by just smiling back but by speaking as he often repeated, 'Truth to Power'. This is the song I did not know that Belafonte sang so deeply with all his might and soul. It was very inspiring. The film, which am not reviewing here is a jolt for those who sit back and watch all the violence and injustice in the world going on.

                                                        

We cried and laughed and went through deep soul searching with Harry Belafonte whose life story is an example of what it takes to be resilient. Growing from poverty of not just not having material things but also lack of voice and recognition for the many black people in the South and becoming the icon he is another sign that much can be achieved in this life. Let me say quickly that for me this interview was life defining. I can say and this not just because he is a UNICEF Ambassdor of goodwill that Harry Belafonte can change lives with his words. I will blog this story in bits but I will blog on for some time because I want to explain what I mean as well as share thoughts on Harry Belfonte's thoughts in Oslo. I warn you that am not referring to any notes or magazine. Only if I need a spelling or some data. I am doing this a week later and without notes to see how much of it I made mine and why. I am challenging myself.

So we were waiting and then the movie rolled on. Violence, poverty, blood and song. The first scene in the house where Belafonte in the house where he was born is pacing up and down and the title of the movie on his backs is a masterpiece as the rest of the documentary produced by Gina Belafonte is. The movie is fast and intense. I went through a whole range of emotions. Some of the things I heard are never to be forgotten. Smiles, tears, tough times, telephone calls. Joy in Afrika, the visits to Afrika and a place where am going to go deeper. Harry Belafonte and Afrika. I knew that he had sang with Miriam Makeba but I must say I was very impressed that this was the first question that the interviewer asked him. No notes, so what I remember is that he was asked what it was like to and how he came to sing with Makeba. The answer was beautiful. He said he heard hear and he knew at once that this was a voice from Afrika singing... and telling the African story from Afrika. My soul was smiling as I so love as many people do, Miriam Makeba. I know she sang in western capitals but Miriam was in touch with the soul of her continent all the time as is Harry Belafonte when it comes to Afrika. He is committed to championing justice and am glad the issue of so many black Africans in prisons today in America is so well analysed and taken to deeper levels. Modern day slavery. I have been shocked everytime I have switched on programs on TV and especially one National Geographic which for me was meant to always be about scenic and exotic travel. Lots of crime in one color. We went form Norway where the 22nd of July was a real alarm to realising that this unfortunately is the world. From Mississippi to New Guinea. I count myself lucky to have been in that hall and heard and seen for myself what Harry Belafonte is all about. A friend and I had watched Carmen Jones before when we saw he was coming. I had not seen this old movie and it is mindblowing. In Sing your Song, clips of movies with famous actor come in. He narrates some details relating to the movie that one would never have got to know.

The picture coming to my mind now is Nelson Mandela's. I did not write earlier how the flight to Afrika from Mississipi impressed me. The dignity and joy of the people on the roads dancing and singing is captured so well. These and many other scenes keep coming to mind. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. so close and so far.. in death. The scene where Harry Belafonte is asking where he had gone is heart rending. Seeing our Kenyan Tom Mboya almost made me stand up in the hall but on the way home always the puzzle of what we know about who assassinated this man Tom Mboya in Kenya in 1969. The decade sixties for those with strong convictions did not only swing, it stung.  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated at 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 1968, Tom Joseph Mboya was assassinated on July 5, 1969 in Nairobi at about 1 pm and J F Kennedy at 12.30 p.m. on November 22, 1963.

But we go back to Mandela and hear Belafonte saying that he would rather wake up listening to Tata's wisdom than looking at his accounts. And then the wonderful meeting where Madiba calls him "Harry Boy" and laughs asking if he remembers him... so wonderful. See... am carrying on...