One of our neighbours had an after-tears function at their home on Sunday. It’s when people get together after the funeral of a loved one in vibrant (and often raucous) acknowledgement of life and the person who has passed on.
I’ve only known the sombre solemnity of the aftermath of Muslim funerals, so to hear vibey gospel music and the chatter of relatives on lawn chairs filter through our bedroom curtains was something of a novelty.
Our neighbour was considerate enough to ask us beforehand if her guests could park on the area just outside our house.
Of course, it’s the neighbourly thing to do. We pardon the inconveniences.
Quid pro quo.
I also live across the road from a recently built mosque in a neighbourhood that, during apartheid, was classified as a whites-only suburb.
With the growing number of Muslims in the area, every Friday, cars choke both sides of our street for the Jumuah prayer.
One of the other neighbours has short driveway pillars placed along the grassy embankment outside his fence.
Whether his decision was motivated by a Stonehenge design aesthetic or a desire to not have people park outside of his house, we can’t say for sure.
If he ever required the use of our space for extra parking, that would be okay too.
While we aren’t the type of neighbours who gossip and philosophise with each other over the boundary wall, it’s a convivial non-complicated relationship. Like nice, friendly Muslims, we send over small gifts at Eid, wave and nod at each other, are polite to their dogs and go about living as quietly and non-disruptively as possible.
Our neighbourhood is mild, middle-class and multiracial.
An impossible scenario 30 years ago, when the house we now live in was built (complete with an outside Bantu toilet in its blueprints).
An old blueprint of our house in Ridgeway, Johannesburg South. (Saaleha Idrees Bamjee)
And while I can’t speak for those less fortunate or the well-monied, where the balances are still so severely skewed, the middle is where it’s at.
It’s where me and my black and white neighbours are at.
In the middle, all together.
Saaleha Idrees Bamjee is a freelance wordworker/IdeaGirl who also dabbles in writing, rhyming/speaking words, crafting, upcycling, cooking, and peak-time-traffic karaoke. This post was first published on her blog Electric Spaghetti. Connect with her on Twitter.
In protests reminiscent of the revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak in 2011, millions of Egyptians took to the streets on Sunday, this time calling for Mohamed Morsi – the country’s first democratically elected president – to resign.
Morsi’s first year in office has been anything but smooth, with opposition activists who supported him during the 2011 revolution now against him for championing the Muslim Brotherhood’s interests over democracy. He has also come under fire for his Cabinet appointments, judicial independence, women’s and religious rights, and his failure to tackle the country’s economic crisis.
The increasing unhappiness with Morsi’s leadership has fuelled a number of protests in Egypt – and his opponents have even tried to send him to outer space.
His supporters, however, are adamant he should be allowed to complete his term which ends in 2016, and say they will not allow a “coup”.
The opposition movement behind Sunday’s protests, Tamarod (Arabic for ‘rebellion’), has given Morsi until Tuesday 5pm to quit, threatening a civil disobedience campaign if he doesn’t.
Anti- and pro-Morsi groups clashed during yesterday’s protests, which is being billed as the largest in history. The young and old, nuns and dogs camped out (a few brought their sofas) across the country. Some spent the night, saying they’ll remain there until Morsi steps down. – AFP, Reuters, M&G
Follow the #June30 and #Egypt hashtags on Twitter, which is abuzz with live updates and photos from protest sites.
Protesters are seen on Monday morning in Tahrir Square in Cairo, where they camped out for the night. (Reuters)Anti-government demonstrators calling for Morsi’s resignation sleep outside the presidential palace in Cairo on Sunday night. (AFP)
The crowd in Tahrir Square, Cairo on June 30. (Reuters)Opponents of President Morsi shout slogans while holding a giant Egyptian flag outside the presidential palace in Cairo. (AFP)Women protest against Mohamed Morsi outside the presidential palace. (AP)Supporters of President Morsi in their protective gear as they prepare to protect the presidential palace in Nasser City, Cairo. (AP)
A man walks his dog wearing a sign that says ‘Leave’ as demonstrators gathered outside the presidential palace, calling for President Morsi to resign. (AFP)
Members of the opposition group Tamarod prepare to head to the presidential palace with a signed petition demanding the departure of President Morsi. (AFP)Egyptian protesters direct laser lights on a military helicopter flying over the presidential palace. (AFP)A protester waves a flag over a swelling crowd in Tahrir Square. (AP)
Vines stretch to the horizon under the hot summer sun in a vineyard near Casablanca, one of the oldest in Morocco, where despite the pressures from a conservative Muslim society, wine production – and consumption – is flourishing.
“In Morocco we are undeniably in a land of vines,” says wine specialist Stephane Mariot.
“Here there is a microclimate which favours the production of ‘warm wines’, even though we aren’t far from the ocean,” adds the manager of Oulad Thaleb, a 2000-hectare vineyard in Benslimane, 30 kilometres northeast of Casablanca, which he has run for five years.
The social climate in the North African county is less propitious, however, with the election of the Islamist Party of Justice and Development in 2011, and the fact that Moroccan law prohibits the sale of alcohol to Muslims, who make up 98% of the population.
In practice though, alcohol is tolerated and well-stocked supermarkets do a brisk trade in the main cities where there is a growing appetite for decent wine.
According to some estimates, 85% of domestic production is drunk locally, while around half of total output is considered good quality.
“Morocco today produces some good wine, mostly for the domestic market, but a part of it for export, particularly to France,” says Mariot.
Moroccan women pick grapes on September 14 2009 at the Ferme Rouge domain in Had Brachoua. (AFP)
Annual output currently stands at about 400 000 hectolitres, or more than 40 million bottles of wine, industry sources say, making the former French protectorate the second biggest producer in the Arab world.
By comparison, neighbouring Algeria, whose vineyards were cultivated for a much longer period during French colonial rule, produces 500 000 hectolitres on average, and Lebanon, with its ancient viticulture dating to the pre-Roman era, fills about six million bottles annually.
Some of Morocco’s wine regions – such as Boulaouane, Benslimane, Berkane and Guerrouane – are gaining notoriety.
Already it has one Appellation d’Origine Controlee – controlled designation of origin, or officially recognised region – named “Les Coteaux de l’Atlas”, and 14 areas with guaranteed designation of origin status, most of them concentrated around Meknes, as well as Casablanca and Essaouira.
And in March last year, an association of Moroccan sommeliers was set up in Marrakesh bringing together 20 wine experts.
French legacy
In the central Meknes region, nestled between the Rif Mountains and the Middle Atlas, there is evidence that wine production dates back some 2 500 years.
But the industry was transformed during the time of the protectorate (1912-1956), when the kingdom served as a haven for migrating French winemakers after the phylloxera pest decimated Europe’s vineyards around the turn of the 20th century.
As in Algeria and Tunisia, the French planted vineyards extensively, with Morocco’s annual production exceeding three million hectolitres in the 1950s.
The main grape varieties used to produce the country’s red wines are those commonly found around the Mediterranean, such as Grenache, Syrah, Cabernet-Sauvignon and Merlot.
Mariot, the manager of Oulad Thaleb, boasts that the domain, which he says has the oldest wine cellar in use in the kingdom, built by a Belgian firm in 1923, produces one of Morocco’s “most popular wines”.
Standing by a barrel, he casts a proud eye on the vintage, describing it as a “warm and virile wine”.
Abderrahim Zahid, a businessman and self-styled “lover of fine Moroccan wines” who sells them abroad, says the country now produces “a mature wine which we can be proud of”.
A man pours wine into a glass inside a wine cellar in the Moroccan town of Benslimane in the Casablanca region. (AFP)
Morocco’s wine industry now employs up to 20 000 people, according to unofficial figures, and generated about $170-million in 2011.
But the remarkable progress made by the sector in recent years has taken place within a sensitive social environment.
While alcohol production is permitted by state law, and supermarkets and bars enforce no special restrictions on Muslim customers, officially the sale and gift of alcoholic drinks to Muslims is illegal. They are unavailable during Islamic festivals, including throughout the holy month of Ramadan.
Separately, the Islamist-led government decided last year to raise taxes on alcoholic drinks from 450 dirhams ($53) per hectolitre to more than 500 dirhams.
So far this has not noticeably deterred consumption among Morocco’s population of 35 million, although economic realities certainly influence local drinking habits.
The wine favoured by Moroccans is a cheap red called Moghrabi, which comes in plastic bottles and costs 30 dirhams (about $3.50) a litre.
His name hangs like a talisman across Africa, from the President Barack Obama High School in Nigeria to the Obama Barbershop in Tanzania, so delighted is the continent to have an American president it can call its own.
Yet Obama’s trip this week will be only his second to sub-Saharan Africa since he became president more than four years ago. His first was a flying 20-hour trip to Ghana in July 2009 (preceded weeks earlier by a stop in Egypt). So it’s no surprise that wherever he goes this week Obama will be faced with questions about how well he has treated his father’s homeland.
Two-year-old Princess Smith sits with her father Francis Smith as they await Obama’s arrival at the International Conference Centre in Accra on July 11 2009. (AFP)
For in the race to do business with an increasingly prosperous and opportunity-laden continent, America is lagging behind. The United States is no longer Africa’s leading trade partner; it lost that position to China in 2009. In contrast to Obama, the new Chinese president, Xi Jinping, visited the continent on his first trip abroad – an indication of its strategic importance to Beijing. It’s a perfect partnership: China needs resources and Africa wants cheap imports and investment. Countries such as Japan, Brazil and Turkey are also aggressively positioning themselves to get in on the act.
At the same time, the Obama administration appears to be struggling to develop a coherent African strategy. In August 2009, barely a year into the administration, Jendayi Frazer, US assistant secretary of state for African affairs during George Bush’s second term, lamented “the Obama administration’s penchant for lecturing Africans rather than listening.” Indeed Hillary Clinton, Obama’s first-term secretary of state, seemed to spend much of her time warning Africans to beware of China. Journalist Howard French wrote recently of the need to “put an end to the belittling, small ball ritual whereby African leaders are invited to Washington in groups of three or four (as if an African country by definition didn’t merit a one-on-one discussion), offered a quick photo opportunity, a few homilies about democracy and governance and then sent on their way”.
Obama’s much-vilified predecessor set a pretty impressive record of engagement with Africa. Under Bush II the US government launched Pepfar, a remarkably successful $15-billion commitment to tackling HIV and Aids. The Millennium Challenge Corporation, a US foreign aid organisation that rolls out poverty reduction programmes in developing countries (much of its work is in Africa), was established during the Bush era.
The Bush government left footprints across the continent beyond the aid arena. It played a role in the signing of the peace agreement that brought an end to decades of civil war in Sudan, showed a lot of interest in bringing an end to the wars in the Congo region, and helped bring about an end to the civil war in Liberia, helping ensure Charles Taylor’s resignation, and eventual arrest and prosecution. (Taylor has of course since wondered aloud why Bush is himself not facing prosecution for his own “crimes”).
Against this background of US, Obama comes across as positively neglectful. His only activity of note has been to ramp up US military activity in Africa, adding drone bases and deploying significant numbers of troops. When he was first elected there were celebrations across the continent, and perhaps unrealistic expectations that he would champion African interests on the world stage. Indeed on his first visit to Ghana, he declared that he had “the blood of Africa within me”. Since then his absence has been keenly felt, sparking accusations that he has betrayed his roots.
But is this fair? Does Obama have a special responsibility to the continent, because of his ancestry? Perhaps not. Perhaps the emphasis on Obama as a black president is missing the point. Because it’s not just for reasons of solidarity that the US president should attend to Africa. There are more selfish reasons, both , economic and political, as well.
Barack Obama meets Senegal’s President Macky Sall for bilateral talks at the presidential palace in Dakar on June 27 2013. (AFP)
Africa, as the much-touted “last frontier” for global trade and investment, is today arguably more important than at any other time in its history. Obama would do well to provide more government support to American investors and entrepreneurs seeking to do business in Africa, and to nudge Congress to relax limitations on the US export-import bank’s mandates. To allow the continent to increase its share of global trade – currently only about three percent – America ought to lead the way in abolishing unfair trade tariffs and agricultural subsidies. America can and should also do more to use its clout to deter the global flow of the proceeds of African corruption – whether it’s stolen crude or laundered money – and impose sanctions on the beneficiaries.
“Two-term presidents traditionally devote most of their second terms to foreign policy, which they can control with less interference by Congress,” wrote journalist Jonathan Alter in The Promise, his book on Obama’s first year in office.
The world will be watching to see if that holds true for Obama, and how much of this devotion will be directed at the continent where his father was born and lies buried, and where there’s so much opportunity to leave a lasting presidential legacy without having to break America’s bank.
Ng’endo Mukii is an award-winning filmmaker whose work ranges from animations to documentaries. Born and raised in Kenya, she went on to study in the UK and the US. Last year she graduated from the Royal College of Art in the UK, producing an acclaimed animation film Yellow Fever as part of her master’s thesis. In it she tackles the sensitive issue of skin bleaching and African women’s self-image using hand-drawn and computer animation, pixilation and live action.
The seven-minute film is based on observations from Mukii’s six-year-old niece, her personal experiences and history. The responses from her niece on the subject of skin colour and the privilege afforded to those with light or white complexions are very touching and insightful.
(Pic: nmukiiwix.com)
Mukii explains the inspiration behind Yellow Fever: “I am interested in the concept of skin and race, in the ideas and theories sown into our flesh that change with the arc of time. I believe that skin and the body are often distorted into a topographical division between reality and illusion. The idea of beauty has become globalised, creating homogenous aspirations, and distorting people’s self-image across the planet. In my film I focus on African women’s self-image, through memories and interviews; using mixed media to describe this almost schizophrenic self-visualisation that I and many others have grown up with.”
Yellow Fever scooped the award for best animation at the Kenya International Film Festival in 2012 and the best short film award at this year’s Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards. It will be screened at the Zanzibar International Film Festival which starts on June 29.
