who should really be fighting the african war on poverty?

femi kuti, calls upcoming live 8 “waste of time”, doubts it will have much effect on fighting poverty in africa.

“I would rather save the money for a ticket to Live 8 and invest it in medical care or school fees for my son. This will benefit me more in the end than going to a concert that will never meet my needs,” Femi told The East African.”

He said the time has come for Africans to unite and fight corruption and poverty, which he blamed on “old leaders who have refused to leave, so that they can loot till they die.”

of late a lot of bytes have been devoted to africa’s debt burden and how eradicating it and other measures (the right kind of aid) will help end poverty on the continent. but femi kuti’s point hits at the heart of the matter. africa needs to solve its own problems. tony blair, bono, bob geldorf, jeffrey sachs are all eloquently and passionately advocating the case for africa. but it all rings a bit hollow to me. while wortwhile, they are advocating solutions that treat the symptoms, not the underlying problems. i too believe that until solutions can be crafted based on what africans need and aspire to, we will still be talking about eradicating poverty on the continent in 2015, 2020, 2025.

walk around any large city in africa, and you will see african entrepreneurship, african ingenuity, african innovation at work DESPITE all the problems that plague our continent. the solution: let every individual figure how best to provide for his family, her community. war, corruption, outdated definitions of what constitutes economic activity, byzantine bureaucracy (try starting a business in any developing country), and frankly certain aspects of culture all conspire to prevent individual africans from doing that. the real work to be done is in removing those obstacles, freeing individuals to use their creativity to make their own lives. all public policy should flow from this basic premise/promise.

this is a very libertarian notion, on which that great country america is founded (although they seem to forget it). it is what is fueling revolution in ukraine and other eastern bloc countries. that is the war we should be waging as africans.

fiction based on a true story

i keep coming back to this feature on greg miller. he uses a large format, view camera to capture street scenes, based on the decisive moment technique of henri cartier-bresson. however, his are not the instant “grab” shots of street photography, he mentions in the accompanying interview that he directs his subjects back to the decisive moment that caught his eye, then captures that with his camera. what results inhabits that grey area between photojournalism and fictional storytelling, heightening and isolating those instances that say something about a people, a time, a place.

other africas

other africas an online exhibit of photos, fabrics, posters attempting to highlight a more diverse image of africa. quote: “The objective of this exhibit is to offer images of Other Africas, perspectives that lead us away from the desolate and romanticized Africa of the Western imagination toward those places where African modernities are emerging.”

[via metafilter]

also from metafilter: african dress traditions, postcards of leaders from early 20th century.

an ex-mas feast

an ex-mas feast: a short story in the current (6/13) issue of the new yorker is a fictional story about a family living on the edge on on the streets in nairobi. it is written from the perspective of jigana, a young boy on the edge of the precipice that is life as a street kid.

the writer is uwen akpan, a nigerian jesuit priest who is working on a series of stories about children in various parts of africa. he spent some time in nairobi in 2000 and actually spoke to some of the street kids around adams arcade when he lived there. he also received some technical help from binyanbvanga wainaina of kwani? fame who spiced up the story with a little nairobi slang.(new yorker interview here).

excerpt; jigana has just sniffed some glue to stave off hunger while waiting for his sister to come home with the x-mas feast.

I was floating. My bones were inflammable. My thoughts went out like electric currents into the night, its counter-currents running into each other, and, in a flash of sparks, I was hanging on the door of the city bus, going to school. I hid my uniform in my bag so that I could ride free like other street children. Numbers and letters of the alphabet jumped at me, scurrying across the page as if they had something to say. The flares came faster and faster, blackboards burned brighter and brighter. In the beams of sunlight leaking through the holes in the school roof, I saw the teacher writing around the cracks and patches on the blackboard like a skillful matatu driver threading his way through our pothole-ridden roads. Then I raced down our lopsided, bald field with an orange for a rugby ball, jumping the gullies and breaking tackles. I was already the oldest kid in my class.

harlem serendipity

go see: “malcolm x a search for truth” at the schomburg center for research in black culture in harlem. the exhibition contains personal artifacts from malcolm x’s life (mostly letters) and a series of beautiful black and white photographs documenting his life from childhood to death.

interesting: there is a small section of photos that brother malcolm took on his visits to africa, including some pretty decent images of ghana. it would be intriguing to do an exhibition of his photography; he is a man who met a lot of interesting people and was present at a lot of pivotal events in 1960s black history. indeed in a number of pictures in the show he is shown with a camera and in a few is actually taking pictures. hmmm.