Motherhood on my doorstep... well, window ledge.

No serious blog today.

No rant.

Just birds. Baby birds!

These are my new neighbors. From egg to disgusting featherless monsters to cute chicks, all in a month or so...  Soon they will be flying the skys of Sudan. Mash'allah!

UPDATE:

They have flown the coop!

"Africa" doesn’t have to be the victim, it can be the rapper too!

The other night I was at a dinner party, enjoying the company of friends and the superior strength of their advanced air conditioning unit (these were engineers!). VH1 was on in the background and strawberries and cream was for desert. Things were looking good… Then a certain music video came on the television.

Fall Out Boy: I'm Like a Lawyer with the Way I'm Always Trying to Get You Off (Me + You)

Not exactly the most obvious name for a music video about Ugandan war children but there you go. I did a bit of research and this is how the Ugandan newspaper, The Monitor accounts for this strange mix of romance and tragedy:

“Originally, the plan was for Fall Out Boy to come to Uganda, see how their money given to the charity was being used and shoot a documentary to raise awareness about the plight of thousands of children displaced by the country's ongoing war, but they later decided that the best medium through which to portray the suffering in the north was through song (The Monitor, Dorene Namanya, 11 October 2007).

It goes on to say:

“The challenge thus, according to the Fall Out Boy official website was for the director Alan Ferguson and Invisible Children, the nonprofit children's aid group that sponsored the trip to "make a video that encapsulates two decades of war for a song that's chiefly about the ins and outs of a relationship gone awry." The solution was to make a video about a love story between two Ugandan teenagers.”

Well I am not entirely convinced to be honest…two decades of war in a six minute music video with very little narrative and explanation? A very fair treatment of a complicated conflict.

Anyhow, I want to represent an idea for my next music video (you didn’t know I had a music career? You obviously haven’t heard about the Khartoum’s theoretical jazz band):

“Africa”

A curious landscape filled with the victims of poverty, war and political corruption, waiting for you to save her.

“Africa”

The eternal location of our collective guilt, the place that needs our help, the place where the ultimate victim dwells.

“Save me VH1, Save me!” She calls out… 

OK, enough silliness. I know I am being silly.

Now let us compare this video with another musical endeavor that I came across this past week.

Fanfare if you please...

 

Last Saturday, the Goethe Institute and the French cultural centre organized a free hip-hop concert in the park of the National Museum in downtown Khartoum. Horay for free concerts outside! Horay for the chance to dance! Horay for funny German rappers (sorry Germans, I have just never heard rap in German before and it made me smile)!

The concert was the culmination of a workshop for young and aspiring Sudanese rappers and hip-hoppers to improve and showcase their talent with professionals from Germany and France: Sepalot Cajus of Blumentopf, 2 Bal from France. I don’t know the exact number of participants but there were probably about fifteen Sudanese performers on the night, including “Joyce” (yes, a lady rapper- a rare commodity and probably my favourite, and not just for the sake of the sisterhood; she was fantabulous!) Here is a picture of her performance:

The concert was followed by a three day UNESCO symposium on “Intellectual Property Righs in the Arts and Music” (slightly less exciting than a free concert, but nevertheless a useful pursuit).

To steal the Goethe institute’s words (and the fabulous translating skills of Google Language Tools) the conference was organized to “discuss Sudanese representative artist and musician associations, policy makers and recognized experts from Germany and France, legal frameworks for the development of cultural industry of Sudan. It focuses on issues of dissemination of copyrighted works over the Internet and the creation of an institution for collective management of rights, similar to the German GEMA or the French SACEM.” (Goethe institute: http://www.goethe.de/ins/su/kha/de4476989.htm)I know that the translation isn’t great but neither is my German. Thank you Google Language Tools, you’re my only hope.

ANYWAYS, I got to wondering…

Isn’t this the sort of thing that famous musicians and artists ought to be doing with their extra time? Engaging with local artists and helping them get ahead in the tumultuous world of music production. It certainly beats presenting the whole of the African continent as a land of starving babies, scary dudes with guns and the occasional maniacal genocidal president wandering past with a funny hat on his head. 

The concert was great. I haven't had that much fun in a long long while and it just went to show that musicians and artists can be found everywhere in the world. Africa is not just a place of tears, but a place of hip-hop too.

So I shall say this to any passing musicians or otherwise: if you want to change Africa for the better, you should stick to what you do best: music!! Come and share your talent and social capital with some musicians who want to get ahead. And actors and movie-makers: why not also share your skills (and oh-so-important connections) with young Africans. You don't have to adopt them to help them. 

Rant over. Peace out. Horay for multicultural hip-hop*!

 *side note: I must have spent twenty minutes figuring out the root of the Arabic word “HoB” before I realized it was the hop after the hip. Malish.

Me and Aymen trying to look cool and gangsta. 

Pray before you die.

When you get one idea for a blog, you get two... they are like night buses in that respect. 

Hello again. My battery is slightly lower and I still haven't gone to that cafe, but I wanted to share some bizarre commercials being shown on MBC (Kuwaiti channel).

I was reading David Mitchell's blog the other day. It was all about how a beer company in Britain has been prohibited from using the words "Take Courage" in its advertisements. The ad in question is a little bizarre. It features a woman in a tight dress (with a fairly ample posterior) and a man sitting on a couch drinking "Courage" beer. Apparently (and I am with David Mitchell here, WTF?) this is a "Does my bum look big in this" moment.

The advert was banned by the Advertising Standards Authority because beer companies are not allowed to suggest that beer give you courage. Huh?

This news troubled me deeply. I believe adverts say a lot about a society. In Australia, beer companies get away with having beer bottles with labels featuring a girl in a bikini, whose bikini disappears as the drinker consumes his beer. It just goes to show how depraved the Australians are. They can get away it female nudity, but we can't even have a little joke?!! And lest we forget: BEER DOES MAKE YOU CONFIDENT! I have two friends in Cairo who wouldn’t be married today if it wasn't for the sweet elixir of courageous beer.

I think we have to take a long look in the mirror (as Britons) and ask ourselves what we want our advertising to say about us. 

Do we want to be the kind of nation that bans the truth to comfort our pseudo puritanical underbelly or do we want to be a fun-loving nation (but not quite as fun-loving as the Australians, who let's face it have an unhealthy attachment to fun) and say yes, beer does in fact boost confidence and that sometimes this enhanced confidence leads to successful marriages among more timorous individuals who might otherwise die alone (I am not talking about my friends here)? And what do our adverts say about us? And who owns our commercial space?

Recently on the Kuwaiti channel, MBC several adverts have come to my attention. Some of them are quite beautiful, some are thought-provoking and some are damn right shocking. They all encourage viewers to pray...... before it's too late.

They are slightly reminiscent of drink-driving commercials in Britain. The gruesome, "that's why you should have worn your bloody seatbelt" or the "no, you didn't see that sweet little girl standing in the middle of the road because you were too bloody pissed, you stupid ****" ones. I guess you know the ones I am talking about?

Well these ones are different because they are about spiritual health- not warning you against death per se, but about life after death, and about your final destination, heaven or hell, paradise or… well, Khartoum on a hot day without electricity.

I am not a big believer in heaven and hell (as my good friend Taha now knows!!) but these commercials got me thinking... Yes, Kuwaitis and I have very different opinions on what constitutes a good society, at least they are striving and fighting for their commercial space. I don’t know who the hell (or heaven) pays for them, but the fact that valuable air time has been bought to encourage people to live better (from the Muslim* perspective) lives. 

*I guess I should add "Muslim from the Kuwaiti Muslim perspective".

I believe it is time for fun-loving, joke-telling secular Britain to do the same. We must fight for our commercial space! Who is with me?

......

...

..

Um, no-one else cares?

Right then, I’ll pipe down.

Nevertheless, take a look at these commercials; they are FASCINATING

Pray Before you Die (less traumatic)

Pray Before you Die (a bit more traumatic)

The Devil as a Telecommunications Promoter

(I especially like the cupid-devil one- surely the devil is too busy to encourage text-messaging among teenagers. Unless he works for the telecommunication industry, which given my recent experience with the company, “Zain” isn’t necessarily implausible). Anyhow enjoy!

Now, I will now go do some work (Sara)...

The winds of change...

I know I am long due for a blog.

I could blame it on Mongy’s wedding in Cairo. I could blame it on the fact that I have been getting down to business with my PhD despite the fact that my department's library burnt down last Thursday (ah!).  I could blame it on the South African election and all the interesting BBC coverage. But no, I am going to blame it on the energy industry for a change. My days of environmental lobbying are well and truly behind me and I haven’t had a good old rant against them in a while.

I can remember going door to door in Los Angeles as a teenager. Ringing the bell, holding my clipboard tightly between my fists, pulling out my best American smile and bracing myself for the inevitable rejection. You can see it written on their faces, “How do I get rid of this child without giving her any money?” 

The weaker ones will fall, I know which ones they are.

“Hello, my name is Laura and I am from CALPIRG, California’s leading Public Interest Research Group. As you probably know California is experiencing a massive energy crisis this summer.” (quick breath of air) “The big energy companies are trying to cut back on our environmental protection policies by switching on old and dirty gas powered plants. We are lobbying to change that. Are you with me on the issue?”

Door slam in face.

Angry internal grumbling: “I bet they wouldn’t like it if there was a gas power plant outside their bloody house.”

Flash forward eight years, same Laura, same hippie leaping inside of me:

“I wish that fucking gas generator outside my bloody house had some bloody gas in it so we have some fucking electricity for a change!!!!!”

50 degree heat and 12 hour power cuts have recently pruned my principles. That hippie has well and truly been crushed. Ya salem!

But I ask you this, how is a girl supposed to get anything done when power cuts follow her like pesky English clouds, waiting to block her every move with 50 degree heat and expired battery power? Mustaheeel!! (Arabic word of the day: impossible).

What about Meroe dam you ask? Didn’t the president just cut the ribbon on a brand new dam that is supposed turn Sudan into an energy exporting country? Didn’t he make that damn speech the day before the ICC announcement? Didn’t he dance on stage to the roar of adoring fans? Well yes he did. The man likes his cha cha. Ocampo may take his freedom, but he'll never take his cha cha. 

There is a rumour going round town that the French water engineers working on Meroe left early because of the ICC announcement and so they never finished the damn dam. I don’t know if this is true. It is a rumour after all. 

All I know is that at eight every morning, when I am just settling down in front of my computer, I hear the fan slowly whirl on its hinges, I hear the sound of generators clawing the peace outside and I hear the gentle shriek of a neighbour yelling at the bowab downstairs. There seems to be some disagreement about who is supposed to pay for the gas in our generator. I have now (after much shouting) paid my share. My "exuberant" neighbour refuses to pay for anything. She almost called the police on the rubbish lady. Apparently no-one in Khartoum has paid for rubbish collection in three years. No-one but me… the damn stupid foreigner.

I hope our power generator comes back online. I do miss electricity. I am sick of living in the café down the road. It’s hard to work on your computer when fifty medical students are crowded around the television watching “Herbie, the animate car win NASCAR races against Matt Dillon” and taking turns to come to my table and shyly whisper “Hello, what is your name?” before scurrying timidly back to their seats.

And hopefully they will fix whatever is wrong with the dam. Then Omar Bashir will come back and inaugurate it a second time. Double the PR points.

And maybe the ICC can make another announcement and Bashir can inaugurate another half finished infrastructural facility? Perhaps a water treatment plant? I would so enjoy having water cuts to go with the power cuts.

My only hope is for global warming to substantially change the world’s climate so that Sudan becomes slightly less steaming and more amenable to the opening of windows (I am sorry CALPIRG, you have lost me on the issue- lost me, that is, until I return to a country with a dependable electricity supply and can once again reclaim my trampled hippie).

Ma’salama, I got to get out of here and go back to that dear old cafe... Maybe they will have another adventure for the run-away car.

For my next blog, I am going to take a tour of Khartoum’s new bus station, which apparently doubles as a shrine to Bashir. I can’t wait!

This makes me mad/sad.

I just wanted to post a new article I received from the google sudan group. It just made me so mad. How can news outlets get away with making things up like this?

While I don't think the presence of foreign NGOs in Sudan is ideal and in some ways, their expulsion might (with a lot of luck!) bring greater opportunities for Sudanese NGOs, the recent depiction of organizations such as Oxfam and Save the Children as "the bad guys" is just unfair. I am sick of hearing about they "were doing bad things" in Darfur. That is simply not the case. Why do people believe it?

Anyhow, I thought this was interesting, if a little sad...

First, here is the (made up) news from the Sudan Media Centre:

24/03/2009 13:37

Oxfam Welcomes Sudanization of Voluntary Work
Khartoum (smc)

The general manager of the UK Oxfam humanitarian agency has welcomed Al-Bashir announcement last week to Sudanize voluntary work in the country. The manager said that they have been working for 30 years to arrive at such an aim to enable and upgrade local non-government humanitarian organizations to improve their performance.

On the other hand, humanitarian Aid commissioner Hassabu Mohammed Abdel-Rahman hailed the performance of foreign aid organizations operating in Sudan, adding that the decision to Sudanize voluntary work in country was greeted with positive understanding by regional states and organizations. He stated that a humanitarian committee had already engaged in arrangements for translating the decision into action.

Hassabu denied allegations that the government pledged to expel more aid organizations rather, he warned that any organization not abiding by Sudan''s laws of voluntary work or violates its mandate would face similar actions.

Now here is Oxfam GB's response to Sudan Media Centre article

Oxfam GB is concerned that a recent article from Sudan Media Centre, entitled “Oxfam Welcomes Sudanization of Voluntary Work,” misrepresents the organisation’s position. Nobody from Oxfam GB has been contacted in regard to this article.

We remain extremely concerned about the negative impact that the expulsion of Oxfam GB and other organisations from northern Sudan will have on many of the poorest and most vulnerable Sudanese communities. Oxfam GB has been working with 600,000 people across northern Sudan – in Darfur, Red Sea State and Khartoum – who will all be seriously affected. We are appealing the government’s decision.

While Oxfam fully agrees with the need to help build the capacity of Sudanese organisations – and has been working to do so for more than two decades – we believe that international organisations still have a vital role to play in Sudan.

Oxfam GB has worked with Sudanese partners since we began working in Sudan 25 years ago. More than 90% of our 500 staff in northern Sudan are Sudanese. Wherever possible we aim to hand over Oxfam GB programmes to local communities and partners. For example, in Darfur in recent years we have handed over the management of numerous water systems to local communities and organisations, once they have been established. In Red Sea State, we have worked to hand over an Early Warning System to safeguard food security to the local state government. Other Oxfam International affiliates work closely with local partners on a range of development and humanitarian projects across Sudan.

However, such handovers are a gradual process. International NGOs continue to provide an enormous amount of humanitarian and development assistance throughout northern Sudan – benefiting the lives of millions of people. This vital work must not be overlooked.

A little pre and post ICC Bashir comparison: image make-over?

Conforming to the Arab tradition that newspapers must display at least one photo and story (no matter how dull) about the president describing in sometimes unnecessary detail whatever the president did on that particular day- be it opening a dam or simply just sitting on his thumb and drinking some tea, I present a little pre and post-ICC photo shoot featuring the man of the hour... Omar Bashir. 

The first photo comes from the front page of the "Al Sahafa" newspaper, February 22nd, 2009.

The second photo comes from the Hekayaat newspaper, March 8th, 2009 (a few days after the ICC arrest warrant).

Granted that the Hekayaat isn't as high brow as Al Sahafa, but I can assure you that all the newspapers had more or less the same photo- theirs was just a little bigger. 

"Come on, Omar Bashir- if you're going to re-style yourself as the man of the people can't you opt for something a bit more subtle? At this rate, you will soon be invited to a Prince Harry fancy dress party."

Or am I am being cynical and does this symbolic change in appearance represent a more inclusive leadership that embraces Sudan's African as well as Arab culture? 

Well, there is always hope. Insh'allah....

The symbolism of a broken toe: the ICC, Omar Bashir and the Sudanese elections

I have spent most of the past weekend locked inside.

Not exactly locked, I mean no one came over and physically ripped the key out of my hand and inserted it into the keyhole. Rather it was strongly encouraged for all khawajas in Khartoum to stay inside this week. Why?

The ICC issued an arrest warrant for the Sudanese President, Omar Bashir of war crimes and crimes against humanity (but not genocide). What does this mean? (apart from the fact that I got involved in an indoor football match that very nearly cost me a toe!) It means that they think they have enough evidence to prosecute him. They say they have over 30 witnesses who can directly link him to atrocities in Darfur. 

Are they right? I am going to be a little bit controversial here and say who cares...

What I think matters more is what this ruling means to the forthcoming Sudanese election and the internal politics of the nation more generally. 

I am not saying that what happens in Darfur doesn't matter on a humanitarian level. Of course, that matters. Millions of people will be affected by this court ruling (though perhaps not in a positive way, given the exile of 10 of the bigger international NGOs operating in Sudan). But if there is to be any sort of solution to the problem of Darfur it has to come from internal pressures. On the whole, Sudanese people are very very nice. They are just as frustrated with their own government as you or I (they have to deal with them every day!). If foreigners want to make change, they have to do it with the cooperation and participation of the Sudanese citizenry.

Almost every Sudanese person I know does not like the ICC.  Their typical response is "I am against the policies of this government, but this is not the way you change things. Why doesn't the ICC prosecute Bush and Israel? There are plenty of war criminals. Why us?" Most feel ashamed and offended that an external power is trying to interfere in the internal politics of their country. Others say "Well, Omar Bashir is the best of the worst. He is the one that brought peace in the South and he has transformed the economy in recent years. He is not perfect, but he brings stability." This is also a fair point. Some of the other "big men" in the government aren't any better (and could be quite a bit worse) than Omar Bashir. Removing him from office could create great instability for the country and leave a dangerous power vacuum.

Personally, I am divided whether or not I support the ICC's attempts. I have many friends that work in Darfur and I know that the situation is not improving. The political negotiations seem to go nowhere and there is a dire lack of trust among all those at the table. I can see why Luis Ocampo has taken it this far. He is desperate for some kind of solution.  We all are. But is the ICC going about it in the right way? I am not convinced. This ruling seems to have made Omar Bashir more popular than before.

Last Tuesday, I took a bus from downtown Khartoum to Amarat. I was happily working on an Arabic short story, asking the man next to me for vocabulary and generally ignoring the chaos of bus life. Suddenly, the radio jumped in volume. I heard an angry booming voice. The man next to me asked another passenger, "The president?" He nodded. My ears pricked up. 

I didn't get all of it, but what I did get was perfect PR, classic political machinations. Omar Bashir was giving his speech at the site of the new (and biggest to date) Merowe Dam. He was cutting the ribbon on a hydro-electric project that will provide electricity to thousands of people. He added that several other big scale projects are in the works and promised to cut energy prices by 25-30%. It was a carnival of excitement. He told Ocampo that he could "eat it" (almost Bart Simpson like in his eloquence. You got to smirk). He also said that Sudan was "a proud people, a people that do not accept insults, do not accept humiliation". That is how the ICC ruling has been portrayed; as an insult to the Sudanese people. 

What Will Happen Next?

Last week, a Khartoum taxi driver was arrested for painting the words "Ocampo is coming!" (the contemporary Boogie man of Sudan) on the back of his amjad. 

This is very unlikely. The street parade last Wednesday confirmed that most people in Khartoum either support Bashir or are too scared to speak their mind. They will not hand him over. Only the pizza man who delivered the pizza to the four famished khawajas hiding inside my flat thought that "he should go to the court and defend himself". Advertisements in all the papers and all the buildings proclaim "We are with you Bashir" (granted that lots of these are government owned). It seems like this ruling has made him more popular (at least publicly). I am sure it is very different in the West and the South (but do these areas matter politically to the state?)

So the question remains, what does this all mean for the election?

I was lucky enough to attend a lecture last week by Justin Willis from Durham University. He gave a presentation on Sudan's former elections. 

I am going to massively paraphrase now (apologies): Elections are not just about people choosing their leader; they are also about people becoming individual citizens and participants in a democracy. Free and fair elections are trophies to be held up by proud nations. However, in Sudan this "individual" ideal has not always been so forthcoming. 

All past Sudanese elections have been held in a hurry because of political conditions. While in some ways, they were quite successful in terms of participation and enthusiasm in Khartoum and its surrounding areas, the South and the West did not get the same experience. To them, the elections were just more of the same- in order to vote in some cases, you literally had to know the person manning the booth. In some places, chiefs provided the list of voters and so instead of individual registration, it was more about membership in a particular kinship/tribal group. Justin Willis conceded that even in Khartoum, people tended to vote along tribal/hometown lines. Crucially, every elected government has not lasted. Military coups have come along and there has been little popular resistance. People might have voted for them, but when it comes down to it, they don't love them enough to defend them.

What Willis stressed most strongly is that elections need an enormous amount of preparation. The last election was in 1986. This means that no-one under the age of 40 has ever participated in a national election (some will have participated in university or union elections). A tremendous amount of public education will therefore be required in order to make sure people are aware of the process. Preparation is EVERYTHING. 

There are many reasons why this election will be different. First of all, it is the first time that voting will take place on one single day. It is scheduled to be held during the summer, which will make registration and polling exceedingly difficult in Southern Sudan (due to the weather). For the first time, ballot counting will also take place on site, as to reduce the potential for ballot-box stuffing. All of these factors will make this election extremely tricky to pull off. On the other hand, it means that there will be less chance of malpractice.

Crucially, this election will take place in a very different political climate. Traditionally, the Umma and NUP/DUP parties have dominated. One audience member complained "They don't even have policies. They just depend on loyalty" (which prompted Justin Willis to counter "Well, that is partly the electorate's fault for voting them in!). I think I could say the same about British or American parties too! This time, there are other (more powerful) contenders on the scene. The NIF and the SPLM/A. Where will people bestow their loyalty? or will this election be more about policies and solutions?

So many Sudanese friends say that the political corridors need to be cleaned out but there is no Sudanese Obamba hanging around at the moment. To a certain extent, the path to political power dictates what types of candidates you can be expected to get and in Sudan, that path is the military. Will this election bring any kind of change? I don't know but I certainly hope so. 

If the outside world wants to influence the Sudanese government's actions in Darfur, then it should focus on this election. PREPARATION, PREPARATION, PREPARATION! How can the outside world help encourage excitement and participation in this election?

And for those within Sudan, everyone needs to get excited about this election. If we can learn anything from the American election, it's the importance of enfranchising the disenfranchised. There are a hell of a lot of them in Sudan. 

I believe in political change. It may be slow and arduous... but eventually change comes. And sometimes, the slower the change, the more stable and appropriate the change will be. 

I really don't know if this ruling is pushing change in the right direction. 

About the only positive effect that the ICC court ruling might have (and I am really trying to see the glass half full here) is the seemingly stupid response of the government to exile ten of the biggest NGOs in the country. 

At first I though, "Darfur is going to be ****ed now." My heart quite literally sunk out of my chest. Catastrophe. But then when I spoke to some NGO friends who are being forced to leave, I realised that it was not just Darfur that is going to suffer because of this move. These NGOs work in all parts of the country. If they pull out and their programs temporarily stop, what will local people think of the government in Port Sudan, Northern Sudan, the Nuba Mountains and wherever else these organizations work? Will they be able to make the connection between lack of programs and the State's policies? Maybe this will make the government less popular....and maybe this is the silver lining? (but in the meantime, the people of Darfur are going to be suffering a lot for this little glimmer of silver)! I don't think my heart will ever quite climb back in place...

That is my two cents (or two piastres).

Laura