Category: News & Politics

Libya aims to become tourist hotspot of the future

Ikram Bash Imam freely admits it is not an easy task to persuade a sceptical world that the “new” Libya, still awash with weapons and rival militias, is a holiday destination worth considering.

There is no question about the pull of attractions: more than 1 000 miles of pristine Mediterranean beaches, magnificent Roman and Greek ruins, palm-fringed oases and Saharan troglodyte caves. And while Libyan cuisine may lack the sophistication of its Maghreb neighbours, the country is remarkably unspoilt.

“Libya is a beautiful place and we are a hospitable people and we have much to show to visitors,” says Imam, tourism minister in a government whose prime minister, Ali Zeidan, was briefly, but embarrassingly, abducted by gunmen in Tripoli last month. (“It’s true that this is a very challenging issue,” she says.)

Young Libyans enjoy a dip in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Tripoli. (Pic: AFP)

Muammar Gaddafi’s violent demise at the hands of Nato-backed rebels two years ago has left the north African country open to the world for the first time in more than four decades. But the barriers to tourism are daunting: dozens of heavily armed militias, a desperately weak central government, jihadi terrorism and, to some, the threat of state collapse.

The scale of violence is exaggerated by the media, says Imam, receiving visitors and well-wishers at the Libyan stand at this week’s World Travel Market in London’s Docklands, a pulsating mass of laminated-badged industry insiders struggling under the weight of brochures, DVDs and posters.

“Everyone focuses on the violence but most armed clashes are between [Libyan] individuals and groups. It is not a war. When young people can get back to work and the economy is more normal and we have our elections and constitution they will hand in their weapons.”

Sensibly, Imam is taking the long view and moving cautiously. The short-term plan is first to build up domestic tourism and raise revenues to 4% of GDP over the next two years. International tourism comes after that. Diversifying employment away from the dominant energy sector is an important element of the government’s overall economic strategy.

Urgent work needs to be done. The Unesco-recognised world heritage sites at Leptis Magna and Sabratha are still badly neglected, though plans are under way to develop the lush hills of Jebel Akhdar, south of Benghazi, and Jebel Nafusa in the western mountains.

The ancient Roman city of Sabratha used to attract more than 20 000 foreign visitors annually before the 2011 conflict that ousted Muammar Gaddafi. Now the temples and mosaics overlooking the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean are usually deserted. (Pic: Reuters)

“We have to be realistic and we have to be honest about what we say and promote what we have,” says Imam. “The new Libya will not be closed to the world. We were cut off for too long. We don’t want to have hundreds of thousands of tourists coming without the infrastructure and services to receive them with high standards and in an honourable way. We need to lay the foundations for our industry.”

Libya is not entirely a blank slate. Modest growth began in Gaddafi’s final years, with some niche adventure travel and several spectacular hotels built in Tripoil – including the lavish Turkish-owned Rixos, where foreign journalists were virtually imprisoned during the revolution, and the supposedly secure Corinthia, the scene of Zeidan’s kidnapping. Later this year an international marathon is being held at Ghat deep in the Sahara.

Other practical problems include the difficulty of getting tourist visas from Libyan embassies: in one change, group visas can be obtained by travel companies on arrival. And friendly governments, including the UK, advise against all travel to parts of the country – including Benghazi and Derna – and all but essential travel elsewhere in Libya. The Foreign Office cites “a high threat from terrorism including kidnapping”. It adds: “Violent clashes between armed groups are possible across the country, particularly at night. You should remain vigilant at all times.”

Imam also agrees that Libya’s identity as a conservative Muslim country poses problems for mass tourism from the west. But it should, not, she suggests, be an insuperable one. “When I am in London and it’s raining, I need an umbrella. Yes we are Muslim society and we don’t want to offer alcohol. If people want alcohol they can go elsewhere.

“Our plan is that when you come to Libya you will enjoy the Libyan experience. Libyans are not closed-minded. But visitors must respect the country and its values.”

Libya’s problems are not unique. Nearby stands in the Middle East and North Africa section at the World Travel Market include a large but very quiet Iraqi one – where gaily coloured Beduin carpets and brass coffee pots have no obvious effect on countering the negative impact of Baghdad’s repeated suicide bombings. Tunisia, one of the few relatively bright spots of the Arab spring, is moderately busy. On the Egyptian stand – complete with plaster sphinxes – the emphasis is on Red Sea resorts far from the tensions of Cairo. Palestinians are trying to promote Jerusalem and Bethlehem in competition with Israel.

Lebanon’s stand displays fine wines but is also quieter than usual – tourist revenues affected by the war next door. Syria has not even been represented for the past two years. “There’s no point,” said a glum Arab tour operator. “It’s suicidal to even go there.”

12 years ago

Black models protest against racism in Brazil’s fashion industry

Some 40 black models, most of them women, have staged a topless protest in Rio de Janeiro against the low presence of Afro-Brazilians on fashion catwalks.

“What strikes you, your racism or me?” one of the female demonstrators wrote on her chest during the protest late Wednesday timed to coincide with Rio Fashion Week.

The demonstration also coincided with the signing of a deal between the Fashion Week organisers and the Rio ombudsman’s office setting a 10% quota for black models in fashion shows, the G1 news website reported.

“This agreement crowns a joint initiative that can open a space that does not yet exist,” said Moises Alcuna, a spokesperson for Educafro, a civil rights group championing the labor and educational rights of blacks and indigenous people.

Members of the Educafro organisation protest, demanding the increase in the number of black fashion models during the Rio Fashion Week. (Pic: AFP)

More than half of Brazil’s 200-million people are of African descent, the world’s second largest black population after that of Nigeria. But Afro-Brazilians complain of widespread racial inequality.

“If we are buying clothes, why can’t we parade in the [fashion] shows,” asked a 15-year-old model taking part in the protest. “Does that mean that only white women can sell and the rest of us can only buy?”

“Claiming to showcase Brazilian fashion without the real Brazilians amounts to showing Brazilian fashion [only] with white models,” said Jose Flores, a 25-year-old former model who now works in advertising.

After 13 years of debate, President Dilma Rousseff last year signed a controversial law that reserves half of seats in federal universities to public school students, with priority given to Afro-Brazilians and indigenous people.

In June 2009, the Sao Paulo Fashion Week (SPFW) – Latin America’s premier fashion event – for the first time imposed quotas requiring at least 10% of the models to be black or indigenous. Previously, only a handful of black models featured among the 350 or so that sashayed down the catwalk – usually less than 3%.

But in 2010, the 10% quota was removed after a conservative prosecutor deemed it unconstitutional.

12 years ago

Art: The ‘Man of a Thousand Faces’ returns to Nigeria

Photographer Samuel Fosso, whose renowned self-portraits have made him one of Africa’s most popular artists, is exhibiting for the first time in Nigeria, where he grew up in the grip of the brutal Biafran war.

Fosso, a Cameroonian national, is known for taking chameleon-like photos of himself dressed as a range of figures from black African and American life – from musicians to pop-culture icons to political leaders.

Nicknamed the “Man of a Thousand Faces”, his pictures have been shown in major museums across Europe, in a career that has taken him far from Nigeria, his mother’s homeland.

“It’s very emotional for me to be here,” the 51-year-old told AFP as he premiered his latest work at the fourth edition of Lagos Photo, an international photography festival.

Fosso’s appearance is a major coup for organisers of the annual festival, which began last week and this year brings together some of the greatest names in contemporary photography, including Britain’s Martin Parr and Spain’s Cristina de Middel.

“When I suggested bringing Samuel Fosso, everyone told me, ‘You’re too late’, or ‘He’s too well-known’,” said the founder of the exhibition, Azu Nwagbogu.

“Then I contacted him via Facebook and he spoke to me in Igbo. I was shocked! I didn’t know about this part of his life with Nigeria.”

Fosso needed nearly a year of preparation to produce “The Emperor of Africa”, his piece for the exhibit – a collection of five self-portraits in which he dresses as former Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong and through which he explores the relationship between China and Africa.

Samuel Fosso poses next to a series of self-portraits in which he is dressed as the former Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong. (Pic: AFP)

He also needed a production director and about 10 other people, including make-up artists, technicians and a costume designer for a day’s shoot in the French capital, Paris.

This is a far cry from Fosso’s first studio, in the Central African Republic, where at the age of just 13 he began photographing himself using the unused ends of the rolls of film brought in by his clients.

“But it was already a major production at the time,” said gallery owner Jean-Marc Patras, who has represented him exclusively since 2001.

“Even in the 1970s, Samuel left nothing to chance, be it make-up, costumes or lighting.”

Uprooted by Biafran war
Fosso has no photos from his own childhood but says he has never forgotten the traumatic images of the Biafran war, which claimed nearly one million lives between 1967 and 1970 after the southeastern region broke away and declared itself a republic.

Aged barely five, Fosso lost his mother and found refuge in the forest with his grandparents, both of them from the Igbo ethnic group at the centre of the conflict.

“Thank God I had a robust constitution,” he said.

Fosso was the only child of his age to survive from his entire family. The images of burnt and disfigured bodies, the bloated stomachs and twisted limbs of malnourished children and hunger have remained with him, he says.

Aged 10, Fosso left his village in Nigeria, Ebunwana Edda, to work in his uncle’s shoe-making shop in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic.

Three years later, in 1975, he opened his first photographic studio with the motto: “With Studio National, you will be beautiful, stylish, dainty and hard to forget.”

Once the shop shut in the evening, he made himself up and got in front of the camera.

Inspired by magazine cuttings, Fosso imitated his idols – black African and American musicians.

He bought himself a pair of two-tone platform leather boots to dress up as Cameroonian-Nigerian singer Prince Nico Mbarga, whose Highlife-style song Sweet Mother was then a radio hit.

Fosso took the photos for himself and as a lasting memory for his as-yet unborn children and his maternal grandmother still in Nigeria, who repeatedly told him when he was a child that he was “the best-looking in the village”.

Until 1993, that is, when French photographer Bernard Descamps, on the hunt for talent to show at a new African photography festival, arrived in Fosso’s studio.

Impressed by his self-portraits, Descamps asked Fosso if he could take the negatives with him back to Paris. A year later, Fosso received an Air Afrique ticket for Mali, where he would win his first award at the Bamako Encounters, a photo show that has become a major biennial exhibition.

Six-figure price tags
Today, Fosso’s self-portraits have been included in collections at London’s Tate Modern and the Pompidou Centre and Quai Branly museums in Paris.

Samuel Fosso poses next to a self-portrait, which sees him dressed as former Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah. (Pic: AFP)

The wealthy Congolese entrepreneur Sindika Dokolo, a major collector of contemporary African art, bought three series of self-portraits from Fosso, including “African Spirits”, a homage to major figures of the pan-Africanism movement and the fight for civil rights in the United States, which carry a price tag of at least $135 000.

But Fosso has not altogether left his studio in the Miskine district of Bangui.

Despite his success and daily hardships in the Central African Republic, which is riven by instability after rebels overthrew the previous government in March, he said simply: “I’ve got my own way of doing things there.”

And if he ever leaves, he says, it will not be for Europe but for his village in Nigeria, where his wife Nenna, mother of their four sons, was born.

Cecile De Comarmond for AFP

12 years ago

CAR’s sectarian violence forces thousands into hiding

The Central African Republic is in danger of becoming the world’s latest failed state, with increasing sectarian violence sparking a humanitarian disaster. Médecins Sans Frontières’ Dutch general director, Arjan Hehenkamp, has recently returned from the country. He sent this harrowing report:

I’m just back from Bossangao, a town of 45 000 people 330km northwest of the capital, Bangui. From the air, you can see tin rooftops and big compounds, and it looks like a prosperous and bustling regional centre. But then you start looking for people and you see that there’s no one there – all the houses are deserted. Most of Bossangao’s inhabitants have gathered in a church compound, an area the size of nine football pitches, where 30 000 people are enclosed by their own fear.

(Pic: Médecins Sans Frontières)

The country has been gripped by violence since the coup d’etat in March, and religion is becoming a part of the conflict – basically everyone is scared of being targeted by everyone else.

The church compound is like an open-air prison. People don’t even dare to go and fetch the wood they need for cooking. They don’t dare to go out of that protected zone back to their houses – where they would have a roof over their heads and some proper facilities – even though their houses are sometimes only a few hundred metres away.

(Pic: Médecins Sans Frontières)

When you walk into the compound, you’re faced by a teeming mass of people, and you have to navigate through all the families that have set themselves up there. They’re living, they’re cooking, they’re defecating, all in the same compound, and they’ve been there for three weeks. They’ve recently got some shelter materials, but otherwise they’re living in the open air, surrounded by mud and garbage.

Our medical teams are working in the compound, and we’ve set up water and sanitation facilities. We’re pulling out all the stops to provide them with basic amenities and medical care, but at the end of the day it’s an untenable situation. It’s just not suitable for a 30 000-strong group of people – the risk of disease outbreaks is too great.

There are 1 000 to 1 500 people, also mostly Christians, staying in another protected zone around the hospital – they have slightly more space, but in essence it’s the same thing. And there’s a 500-strong group of mostly Muslims in a school nearby – testament to the religious divisions that have crept into the conflict.

(Pic: Médecins Sans Frontières)

We are working in the church compound, and also in the hospital, with both international and local staff. The hospital provides inpatient, outpatient and surgical services, and is functioning at a reasonable level, but it needs to be cranked up in order to deal with the numbers of patients we’re seeing and the kinds of injuries they’re arriving with – injuries which are quite horrific and difficult to treat.

One of our patients was a man who had been shot four times in the back, and his head had been partially hacked off by a machete. The surgeon tried to sew it back on and save the patient, but sadly he died.

Another was a child from a village outside Bossangao. His parents had tied him to the house with chains because he had diabetes and was prone to running around and having fits. But they lost the key to the padlock, so when they had to flee into the bush they couldn’t take him with them. When they came back he was still alive, but he had been slashed badly across his arms when he held them up to protect himself.

(Pic: Médecins Sans Frontières)

This is the level of brutality and violence that is affecting people, and we are probably only seeing a part of it. Outside Bossangoa, we know there are troops and local defence groups going around and seeking people out, engaging in targeted killing or small-scale massacres. Our teams have come across sites of executions, and some have actually witnessed executions.

The villages along the road from Bossangao to Bangui are deserted. For 120km, there’s no one there – 100 000 people have disappeared and fled into the bush. We can’t reach them, and they can’t reach our services. This is a major humanitarian and medical concern.

Compared to last year, when there was already a chronic humanitarian crisis in Central African Republic, the crisis has doubled, the capacity of the state has vanished completely, and the humanitarian capacity has halved.

There’s an acute need for aid organisations to deploy themselves with an international presence outside the capital, and in particular for the UN to lead the way in doing so. An international presence has a protective effect – I’m pretty sure that if MSF had not been present in Bossangoa, the level of violence and killings would have been much higher than it was.

Since the armed takeover in March, the violence hasn’t really abated. There have been violent reprisals and counter-reprisals. The violence continues, but now it is just more targeted and out of sight.

12 years ago

Idris Elba stars at SA premiere of Mandela movie

He could hardly be described as Nelson Mandela’s spitting image, but when the British actor Idris Elba arrived at the South African premiere of Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom on Sunday, there was some of the awe and adulation usually reserved for the great statesman himself.

“You can see the sweat! No pressure?” joked Elba, feeling the heat of countless camera phones as he wiped perspiration from his forehead. “South Africans love their Madiba and it’s a massive responsibility to bring him alive in the best possible way.”

Playing Mandela is an acting Everest that stars including Morgan Freeman, Danny Glover, David Harewood, Terrence Howard, Clarke Peters and Sidney Poitier have attempted to scale, but none, perhaps, have quite reached the summit. Elba, who grew up in Hackney, east London, has already earned the praise of Mandela’s family.

Asked on the red carpet about the daunting task of nailing Mandela’s accent, Elba replied: “I just wanted people to recognise him when they heard the sound and say, ‘That’s Madiba!'”

The star of The Wire and Luther had almost missed the black-tie event in Johannesburg after he suffered a severe asthma attack on a South Africa-bound plane and was hospitalised. But he took another flight just in time to witness in person how South Africans judge his portrayal of the nation’s father figure in the £22-million biopic.

The premiere was held a few miles from the suburban home where Mandela (95), remains in a critical condition after spending three months in hospital with a recurring lung infection. “He’s probably watching this on the news as we speak,” Elba mused. “This is very special.”

Mandela’s absence made it a poignant gathering of his closest family, friends and comrades who mingled with their cinematic counterparts. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, his second wife, sat beside Elba during speeches at a champagne reception. Greeted by ululations, she told the hundreds of guests: “I’m just as excited as all of you are. Thank you for coming to join us in revisiting that turbulent journey that brought us here today. I have no words to describe the translation that Anant [Singh, the producer] came up with of that painful past.”

She added: “Let us just all go and sit back and revisit our history. The importance of this is that we should remember where we come from and that this freedom was hard earned and it was won at a very heavy price. We’re here to celebrate not only comrade Madiba but all the men and women who perished in the liberation war.”

Idris Elba and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela at the premiere of “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom” in Johannesburg. (Pic: Gallo)

Mandela’s third and current wife, Graca Machel, was also present but declined to be interviewed. They were joined by the new British and US ambassadors, the Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer and long-time friends of Mandela including Ahmed Kathrada, a fellow prisoner on Robben Island, and the lawyer George Bizos, who defended Mandela from a possible death penalty half a century ago. “It brings back the memories,” Bizos said.

Singh said a smiling Mandela had asked “Is that me?” when he saw a picture of Elba made up with grey hair and wrinkled face and wearing one of his trademark Madiba shirts. “I said, Madiba, you really think it’s you?” Singh recalled.

Elba sat through more than five hours of makeup before filming began, said Singh, who spent 16 years on “a very rocky road” searching for funding, the right script and the right director. For the latter role he eventually settled on Britain’s Justin Chadwick, who admitted: “I was resistant. I’m from Manchester, I’m not from South Africa.”

Winnie is played by another Briton, the Skyfall actor Naomie Harris, but the rest of the cast are South African. The film traces the life of the anti-apartheid hero from his childhood in the rural Eastern Cape to his imprisonment on Robben Island and his election as the country’s first black president in 1994.

Mandela’s daughter Zindzi, who attended a previous private screening, said: “When I watched the movie it was a very emotional moment for me. I found it quite therapeutic. It made me confront many emotions that I’d buried and refused to acknowledge. Honestly it was very difficult … At the same time, the love that kept the family together comes through in the film. And the fact that my father left … and my mother continued the struggle.”

The 53-year-old added: “There is a scene where my sister and I are left alone at home because my mother has been locked up and my sister is looking after me, like trying to make us breakfast and so on. It made me weep and weep because it was so true. And we had those moments of loneliness where we found there is nobody for us and it was very bleak and no hope of anybody coming to our rescue. And just that scene alone took me to the various episodes in my life where I just felt the absence of a father, of a mother and of a normal family life.”

In a recorded message for the event, South Africa’s president, Jacob Zuma, said: “A life of inspiration. That is the best way to describe Madiba … He became an inspiration to the world as a freedom fighter, a statesman and a man of principle.

“We will tell the story of this wonderful human being, this great African for many, many generations. We are privileged to have lived in the time when he put his stamp on history. So I welcome the premiere tonight, the first public showing on African soil, of the film Long Walk to Freedom.”

The biggest cheer of the night was reserved for Elba when he joined other cast members on stage and said: “What an amazing turnout, we’re very proud. This story is so much bigger than me, than any of us, and when we were given the task to bring this story to life it was under the guidance of Justin and Anant. I’ve never worked with such a committed set of actors. In true spirit, these are my comrades.”

The movie will be released in South Africa on 28 November and the UK on 3 January.