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Who Reads Here
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Jul
23
Coming Late to the Party
July 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
And not knowing whether I will take part because I can barely keep up, but:
There’s a reading challenge going on this year that I’d like to alert people to, just in case.
It’s the Africa Reading Challenge:
Participants commit to read - in the course of 2008 - six books that either were written by African writers, take place in Africa, or deal significantly with Africans and African issues. (Read more if you like!)
You can read whatever you want, but of the six books, I recommend a mixture of genres. For example, you might select books from each of the following:
- Fiction (novels, short stories, poetry, drama)
- Memoir / autobiography
- History and current events
I also recommend reading books from at least 3 different countries. The challenge is for 2008, but if you feel like jumping in now: karibu sana!
There’s help for the challenge. For example, there’s this list of Africa’s 100 Best Books of the 20th Century, compiled by a committee selected by the Zimbabwe Book Fair and published on the web by Columbia University Libraries.
And here’s the list put together by the challenger.
Here’s my own list of books which I’ve read by Africans/about Africa. It’s partial because of my memory, and you’ll notice it’s pretty old (mostly mid-20th century), and it includes only those books I finished (there are several, like Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah, Ngugi’s Petals of Blood and Matagari and Okri’s The Famished Road that I started but didn’t finish). Some of them I know pretty well, others not so well. Some I read in the original French, but can’t remember the name anymore. Several are not here, because I have to go dig them out to remember them. But if they are here, be sure they stuck with me.
- Achebe, Things Fall Apart, A Man of the People, Morning Yet on Creation Day
- Armah, The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born
- Sembene, Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu (God’s Bits of Wood)
- Oyono, Houseboy
- Soyinka, Death and the King’s Horseman, The Lion of God, The Bacchae of Euripides*
- Ngugi, A Grain of Wheat, Decolonizing the Mind
- Fugard, Master Harold and the Boys, Siswe Bansi is Dead
- Head, A Question of Power
- Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country
*Edited to get Soyinka’s play title right - it’s the Bacchae, not the Bacchus of Euripides
And of course one of the most influential books about Africa (and the whole colonial world, for that matter):
- Conrad, Heart of Darkness
It’s time, I think, to refresh my reading list anyway. If I decide to participate (some things will help me decide, like, oh, CARIFESTA) I will do so here.
Till then, I offer the challenge to you all.
EDIT: Here’s a bonus to the challenge - Siphoning Off A Few Thoughts’ link to Binyavanga Wainaina’s essay “How To Write About Africa” in Granta 92.
My favourite bit:
Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.
There’s a whole lot more.
Culture and the Arts, Literature
Jul
20
Oh, Look Wha Ya Do To Me
July 20, 2008 | 2 Comments |
That wasn’t what the concert was called, but it should’ve been. Because if anybody doubted that we Bahamians have a lack of love for our country or our icons, last night’s event — entertainment maestro Ronnie Butler’s farewell concert — proved them wrong.
I’m not going to say all that much. This isn’t going to be a review or anything — rather it’s a meditation, an homage, perhaps, to the artist who, with his (late) contemporary Tony “Exuma the Obeah Man” McKay and his mostly retired contemporary Patrick Rahming, formed the triumverate that not only peopled my adolescence, but helped define my place in this country inscribed for visitors according to the imagination of the northlands. There were others, too, like Eddie Minnis and the Erics (King Eric Gibson and his songwriter, our family friend Eric Minns), but their careers, unlike Tony McKay’s and Ronnie Butler’s were circumscribed. And of them all only Ronnie is still singing.
Or was. This year, he decided, it seems, is his last active year. He is retiring. He’s kicking back and relaxing (hahaha). And so last night, he gave his farewell concert.
If you’re in doubt about Bahamians’ lack of pride in our culture, you shoulda been there. There was of course the moment when the hotel staff began moving everybody forward, adding extra rows of chairs at the back of the ballroom. Then there was the moment when, after introductory music all through the early part of the evening, Ronnie made his appearance and the dance floors filled up. There was the general politeness of the crowd, the bonhomie, the genuine love in the room. There was the moment Eddie Minnis came out of his self-imposed twenty-five year retirement to sing three songs that everybody knows but which are so much a part of the national imagination that they seem to be unwritten — “Mike”, “Naughty Johnny”, and “Ting and Ting”, all linked together by patter that worked in the titles of Ronnie’s songs. And then there was the moment when Chickie Horne, the female impersonator who was once a staple of Bahamian night life, came out and performed — at 82.
And then there was Ronnie.
And all I can say is oh, look wha ya do to me.
Yeah.
Culture and the Arts, My Bahamas
Jul
20
Warning: Going to Upgrade Again
July 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
Now.
WordPress 2.6 is not a major upgrade like 2.5, but it’s an upgrade anyway. And upgrading runs risks.
Not that this has been the most active blog in the recent past (I have a lot to say but no real liberty of saying it) but people do stop by every now and then.
I wish to warn you that what I’m about to do may take this blog offline (again) for a while (again). Please be patient if that happens and check back periodically until it’s up again.
Of course, after all this drama, it will all go swimmingly and all will be well.
We can only hope.
Jul
8
Thoughts on Independence
July 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
I don’t know whether this is the best title for this post. All I really wanted to do was to quote this paragraph from this post:
“Say nothing of my religion,” Jefferson once said. “It is known to myself and my God alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life; if that has been honest and dutiful to society, the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.”
This is exactly how I feel about myself and my religion, my own faith.
I’m thinking about it because last night we held the Independence Gospel Extravaganza at Arawak Cay for the first time since the 30th Anniversary, and naturally that got me thinking about God, faith, and so on.
I do not worship as many of us do. My faith is not worn on the outside. I have never much liked the uniform. I hope that my faith in God guides my life from within.
When I was nineteen, I prayed for integrity. One thing I’ve discovered — one shouldn’t pray things lightly. I also prayed once for patience, and was rewarded with a position in the government of The Bahamas! Integrity is something else again, and it comes with all kinds of burdens and responsibilities. I don’t know about the rewards. I’m not all that interested in the car and the house and the clothes that some people’s faiths seem to come equipped with.
Last night I was moved by the music and by the singing of almost all of the performers. We were exhorted to get up and dance in the spirit. I felt the same way I felt when I hear all good music; I find the Holy Ghost in the human creative spirit. This is holy.
But really? I feel as Thomas Jefferson did. Not that I would read my Bible the way he did. But I return to his comment about his own belief, and say it again:
“Say nothing of my religion … It is known to myself and my God alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life; if that has been honest and dutiful to society, the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.”
Christianity & Not, Nationalism, Thinking Critically
Jun
29
Creating an Asphalt Garden
June 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
I thought this was an interesting article.
Creating an Asphalt Garden | Views | TheRoot.com
Jun
28
Dissent, Power, and Politics
June 28, 2008 | 7 Comments |
Well, from Jamaica, this is interesting:
PM Golding has invoked the Staff Orders rule that says governmental officials must keep their traps shut when their individual positions conflict with existing gov’t policy. Not an atypical move for him to make. But, it really does and should sweet us when we see cracks in the veneer of retrograde, unsubstantiated policies, that come in the form of truth-telling, even if the labba-mouth will probably lose their jobs.
Especially given the exchange that’s been occurring on Rick Lowe’s BlogBahamas and Larry Smith’s Bahama Pundit about the responsibility of civil servants to speak out about the wrongs and the cracks in the society.
Here’s the source of Long Bench’s commentary.
President of the Jamaica Civil Service Association, Wayne Jones, said the Government’s Staff Orders outline a mode of behaviour for public officers, as it relates to their interaction with the public.
Jones told The Gleaner yesterday that Section 4.4 of the order points to how government material or documents should be shared with the media through the permanent secretary, head of department or designated spokespersons.
Jones said Harvey would not be able to express a personal view, particularly on topical issues, without the media and other persons in society construing it to be government thinking.
He acknowledged that public officials would be faced with situations where they might be asked to express a professional or personal view on a matter.
Come on, people of the Caribbean. Do or do we not live in democracies? What is the responsibility of those of us employed in governments to our nation? What is gained by the kinds of restrictions applied to civil servants that are outlined in the documents we inherited from the Brits (who remain subjects, and not citizens, in their own land, by the way)? Weren’t they written when only a small number of people worked for government, and when our lands were colonies anyway and when freedom of speech was not something anyone had at all? Why are they still being invoked today, when our governments are major (in The Bahamas’ case, the largest) employers? Does this not seem to be at odds with the idea of a democracy?
Nevertheless. General Orders stands. Our Rules of Conduct may be found here. Go read for yourself.
Bahamas Government, Caribbean, Censorship, Getting Myself in Trouble, My Bahamas, Social Conscience, Theatre
Jun
18
Shout-Out to Eemanee & Long Bench
June 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
Hypocrisy & HIV in the Caribbean (Eemanee)
Responses to HIV in the Caribbean are hampered by an entrenched hypocrisy, homophobia and false trotting out of “christian” values when convenient. meanwhile people continue to have sex, all kinds of sex, a lot of it unsafe.
We feel free to talk around sex, to joke about sex, to sing about sex, to simulate sex, to have sex but we refuse to really talk about it- to talk about power and pleasure and vulnerability. So JFLAG, the Caribbean’s most progressive gay rights group, has been blocked from attending a UN meeting on HIV/AIDS and Jamaica’s poster girl for the Ministry of Health’s HIV education programme has been fired for getting pregnant! The heads continue to suffocate in the sand!
As part of my job, i accompanied a group of young people all between 14 and 17 at an HIV Education workshop. Before the facilitators could begin one girl inquired loudly whether or not condoms would be distributed.
“No!”
“Well, how yuh supposed to protect yuhself without condoms?”
“That’s what we’re going to teach you today.”
When Women Violate The 5 Commandments (Long Bench)
I’ve been thinking about sex a lot these days. And I’ve come up with the 5 Commandments that women are asked to follow here in Jamaica:
1. Have as much sex as you want.
2. Hide what you are doing at all costs.
3. Tell one ‘hole ‘eap a lie when yuh buck yuh toe an mek dem see seh yuh fall dung.
4. Expect all k’i’na fiyah fi bun fi yuh when backra fine out.
5. Lie dung an beg fi mercy like sey yuh a ‘ungry belly mongrel dog.And those of us who, for all kinds of reasons, decide not to abide by all of these commandments - well, a pyere problems, yes? Kwame Dawes just wrote a really insightful piece in the Washington Post about Annesha Taylor, who was the poster girl for the Ministry of Health’s public education campaign about HIV/AIDS. Just like Sara Lawrence, the Miss Jamaica World 2006 who was the target of public scorn and hypocrisy when she disclosed that she was pregnant last year, Annesha was immediately disappeared by MOH when she disclosed that she too was bearing a child.
Caribbean, Christianity & Not, Social Conscience, Women
Jun
16
“Red”
June 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
Geoffrey Philp reads a poem here, called “Red”. It’s about being in between.
As Philp writes:
And while this poem does not adhere strictly to the form [the ghazal], it did allow me to play with the word “red,” which at the start of the poem refers to a biracial person or “half-caste.”
Caribbean, Culture and the Arts, Literature, Writing
Jun
13
Microwave not recommended to bake a quality bread product
June 13, 2008 | 2 Comments |
I’m baking a frozen roll of French bread for breakfast. That’s what it said on the package.
Know this. As long as I’m awake, little things run through my head, rather like the ticker tape display you see at stock markets. Little communications from my subconscious flash across my conscious mind and distract me from what I’m doing. And unfortunately for me and those around me, those communications have emotional reactions. Recently, I’ve been operating in a state of low-grade anger. It’s a bit like a low-grade fever; it makes me irritable some of the time, snappish and sarcastic (which has its humourous moments). Most of the time, though, it just makes me depressed. It’s like being locked in a tiny room with no windows and a nagging relative.
The thing that makes me angriest these days is the fundamental disrespect that we offer ourselves as Bahamians, our country, and (yes) our culture. The three are inseparable, and the disrespect is pervasive. I’m not talking about crime or politics here, although both are symptoms. I’m talking about the conviction that far too many of our leaders seem to have that we are really second-rate people. Our country can’t compete. We are incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial. We can’t develop ourselves, so we have to find foreigners to invest their money in our economy to develop us for us. Etc. (Shut up, Nico).
The disrespect comes out when we see what we invest in ourselves, in our society, in the formation, cementing, and celebration of our identity as a sovereign nation. I keep raising the point that we are the third richest independent country in the western hemisphere. So forget the fact that Bermuda and Cayman are richer than we are; they’re still colonies/dependencies of Britain. The Bahamas is richer than every other country in the Americas than the USA and Canada.
And what do we have to show for it? What monuments, institutions, works of art, buildings, public spaces, have we provided for ourselves (and only ourselves) over the course of thirty-five years? What we did have we have also destroyed — Jumbey Village comes to mind, along with Goombay Summer, the National Dance School home (the institution still exists, limping along in near-oblivion, but its building was demolished for no reason anyone can give me, whose land still stands empty next to Oakes Field Primary School, and its rent now costs the government a goodly and unnecessary packet), the Dundas Repertory Season, the Government High School.
Great nations invest in symbols. They understand the need to spend hard money on creating objects and institutions that mean — or can mean — something to the people who belong to the nation, and they create a sense of belonging. Washington D. C. is an example of the kind of grandness that preceded the greatness of a nation; the American founding fathers imagined a great nation, built the symbols, and let the country catch up to their vision. In Britain, squares and statues and public places and institutions and buildings are created for every great moment in their history, and you can see those great moments literally laid out on the ground. In the capitals of our Caribbean neighbours, public and private funds are invested in monuments — statues, institutions, promenades, parks — so that even the most humble of their nationals, and the most arrogant of their visitors, can get some idea of who they are.
But here in The Bahamas of the twenty-first century, we put up our parks and our monuments and our et ceterae only when we beg the help of our foreign investors. Meanwhile, we take the taxpayers’ money and pour it into failed institutions or foreign pockets and cry poor-mouth when asked to help artists explore our identity though self-expression. The people who get our money do not know or care who we are, except that we are whores who will let them wipe their feet on us when they are finished with us. And without them our governments (no matter what initials they wear), who are stewards of the third richest independent government in the New World, choose again and again not invest a penny in the development of the Bahamian person, the Bahamian soul.
So how did I get here from what’s written on a packet of frozen French bread?
Simply this. The French, who have invested millions in their people and their symbols (some of which, like the Eiffel Tower, could be regarded as a horrendous waste of time, aesthetics and money) and who hold in their greatest art museum not only the great art of the French but the great art of the world (the Mona Lisa, after all, rests in the Louvre) have an unassailable sense of themselves. People who know claim that the French are arrogant. But after all, they have things to be arrogant about; their governments’ investment in culture has made even the most ordinary and semi-educated Frenchman proud to be French. And that pride leads to quality — a quality that is recognized world-wide, and that turns, in the end, into money again.
Hence the message on the bread package. Microwave not recommended.
In this microwave land our politicians and administrators have created for us — that we have allowed to be created for ourselves — it’s the kind of thing that nags me, and threatens to drive me mad.
Bahamas Government, Global Economics, My Bahamas, Personal, Tourists & Tourism
Jun
12
There are days
June 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
There are days, Mama, when there is far too much to do to do anything much at all.
This week has been pretty much like that. It’s a week when I wish I was like earthworms or amoeba — slice me up and let me regenerate into six or seven mes. (Biologists, don’t bother — leave me wallowing in my ignorance!)
So it was with some relief that I read the following post by Helen Klonaris, which pretty well covers some of what happened this week, and more:
Here are some excerpts.
The conversation about the rights of gays and lesbians in this country is stuck in a Christian fundamentalist scriptural war that cannot see gays and lesbians, bisexuals or transgender people as integral to the wide spectrum of human existence. And the few (read one or two) public spokespersons for the GLBT community who dare to engage in this conversation publically are time and time again hooked into a circular argument which begs the question: how can you ask for human rights if God says you shouldn’t exist at all?
And by presuming firstly that all Bahamians are Christians, and assuming, secondly, to know God as absolutely as they do, Christian fundamentalists not only reduce and limit that God, but reduce and limit the scope of what it means to be human. And I cannot help but see the metaphor: It is God lying in a pool of his own blood, head severed, and no one has been held accountable.
Hear, hear.
I am often struck by the raw hatred that we so often spew in the name of God in this country, so much so that I’m glad that I didn’t turn on my radio to hear the discussion about this crime today. Homosexuals, after all, like Haitians (try not to be anything beginning with “H” in this Bahamaland, people, else we’ll toss another “H” your way), are easy targets. In anthropology, we study the phenomenon of witches, who are not what we think they are when we see the word. In anthropology, witch-hunting tells us far, far more about the society that is doing the hunting than it does about the objects of the hunt. The salient point about the process is that societies create scapegoats out of individuals who fall outside the social norms, who make the status quo uncomfortable, and every bad thing that happens in the society is transferred to them.
When people call in to radio talk shows to talk about “them” (all those deviants beginnings with “H”) and invoke God and divine law and the Scripture, I always wonder where and when the Gospels fell out of their Bibles. Like where these bits went, or this bit, or this.
But I don’t need to say a whole lot more. Helen’s already said it.
Christianity & Not, Crime, Human Rights, My Bahamas, Social Conscience