AfricaFocus Bulletin
July 26, 2016 (160626)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

At the 21st International AIDS Conference in South Africa last week,
“optimism faded as delegates arrived to news that donor countries
had reduced global HIV funding by more than $1 billion from 2014 to
2015. … Nearly 20 million people are [still] in need of
antiretroviral therapy. [and] nearly half of the $44 billion cost
could be unfunded between 2016 and 2020.” – Washington Post, July
25, 2016

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
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Overshadowed by the U.S. presidential campaign and by acts of
terrorism around the world, the 21st International AIDS Conference
was held in Durban, South Africa earlier this month. Sixteen years
after the previous International AIDS conference in Durban in 2000,
which marked a turning point in international action on AIDS, there
were successes to celebrate. In 2000, the only people receiving life
securing antiretroviral (ARV) treatment in Africa and other
developing countries were accessing medicines through clinical
trials. The few that were rich enough purchased life through private
healthcare. Sixteen years later, 17 million people across the world
receive ARVs, mostly through public health care systems. This
accomplishment is unprecedented, and UNAIDS has laid out the goal of
putting “an end to AIDS.”

But there were also dire warnings of the danger of reduced
international commitment to confront the continued death toll.
Africa, and in particular South Africa and neighboring countries in
Southern Africa, continue to be the epicenter of the pandemic.
Worldwide, the reality is that only 51 percent of people know their
status and of the 37 million people living with HIV, only 17 million
are on treatment. Almost one in five South African adults are living
with HIV, and the percentages are even higher in Botswana, Lesotho,
and Swaziland. And, noted International AIDS Society president
Linda-Gail Bekker, “there is a horrible funding gap we have to
address. We had so much money when we didn’t have the tools. Now we
have the tools and we don’t have the money.”

This AfricaFocus  Bulletin contains one essay by South African AIDS
activist Mark Heywood, and interviews with UNAIDS executive director
Michel Sidibé and International AIDS Society president Linda-Gail
Bekker.

For an excellent series of maps, tables, and charts on the current
status of HIV/AIDS in Africa, visit
http://www.afri-dev.info/ – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/hhzaln9

For coverage of the Durban conference by South Africa’s Daily Vox,
visit http://tinyurl.com/hfnjmns

For the Washington Post article quoted above, go to
http://tinyurl.com/hjr4vf2

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on health issues, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/intro-health.php

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

AfricaFocus Break from Publication

AfricaFocus Bulletin will be taking a break from publication for the
next six weeks. Automated news feeds on the website (
http://www.africafocus.org) will continue to be updated regularly.
AfricaFocus social media will also be updated occasionally during
this period.

Many thanks to those subscribers who have sent in a voluntary
subscription payment this year to support AfricaFocus Bulletin. Your
continued support is needed to continue publication and to expand
AfricaFocus outreach. Send in a check or pay on-line with Paypal.
See http://www.africafocus.org/support.php for details.

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

The response to AIDS has shown another world is possible

Mark Heywood

Daily Maverick, July 19, 2016

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za – Direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/hk6kosx

[Mark Heywood is Executive Direction of Section27 and an executive
member of the Treatment Action Campaign]

We live in a nasty, fragmented, divided world, where hatred is more
and more ruling the roost. Glorious bastards who have been pushed
beyond the pale of civilised behaviour are on a killing spree. Their
intention is to provoke new wars and civil wars where person fights
person on the basis of differences based on race, or religion or
ethnicity.

A gleeful arms industry has found a new market for drones with
bombs. The indiscriminate ‘fightback’ against terror frequently make
matters worse. Ironically groups like ISIS are aiming to push people
into the hands of bigots like Trump, Marie Le Pen and Nigel Farage.
They want more violence against marginalised people. They want
racial and religious civil wars.

It’s a zero-sum war game.

While reports of these horrors washed across our TV screens, the
21st International AIDS Conference began in Durban. Sadly, the
energy and idealism that is evident here risks being eclipsed by
global instability. Yet, in the AIDS activist movement and the 30-
year response to AIDS, we have seen glimpses of another world;
another way of living and loving, dying and doing business.

It is extraordinary.

Sixteen years ago the International AIDS conference first came to
Durban. At that point, the only people receiving life securing
antiretroviral (ARV) treatment in Africa and other developing
countries were accessing medicines through clinical trials. The few
that were rich enough purchased life through private healthcare.

Sixteen years later, 17-million people across the world receive
ARVs, mostly through public health care systems. This accomplishment
is unprecedented in the history of any medicine. Seventeen million
deaths have been averted. Although activists are rightly critical of
UNAIDS’ (http://www.unaids.org) talk of the end of AIDS, the fact
that an end can even be discussed – and that it is theoretically
possible – indicates just how far we have come.

How did we come so far?

People who stood up for their human rights achieved this. Activists
achieved this.

In the 1980s AIDS began its deadly rampage as an epidemic of
recrimination and prejudice. Stigma is by no means over. Yet, the
way in which people with HIV have stood up for each other has gone a
long way towards breaking the stigma. Solidarity with people most at
risk has won greater acceptance and recognition of sex workers,
understanding of difference in gender and sexual orientation and the
rights of drug users, prisoners, migrants.

Where once AIDS was marked by total hatred, there are now
significant pockets of respect for love and diversity, solidarity
and empathy, in every country in the world. A long way to go, yes,
but a start.

Other profoundly important things have happened. Once upon a time
almost every poor person with HIV was denied life by pharmaceutical
companies intent on amassing vast profits from essential medicines.
Activists shamed drug companies, challenged them in court, exposed
their corrupt practices. Prices tumbled. As a result different
business models began to emerge, ones that could make smaller
profits from meeting the needs of larger numbers of people. Prices
tumbled and tumbled.

Activists confronted the whole model of intellectual property
‘rights’ and by doing so were able to push back the WTO Agreement on
Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property, an ‘agreement’ that
had been forced on developing countries in 1995 at the height of
capitalist triumphalism. As a result a massive market opened for
generic companies based in India in particular. If similar
challenges were mounted around drugs for cancer or other causes of
illness millions more lives are there to be saved.

Learning how to make a market out of genuinely meeting needs and
human rights is something other corporates must learn, including for
decent food, housing and a hundred other of life’s necessities. That
battle must still be joined by other advocates, that wisdom still
acquired by a short-sighted business community.

So, AIDS is about AIDS. But it’s also about so much more than AIDS.
It’s about justice and social justice. In the words of Edwin
Cameron: “AIDS has taken us on a journey of light.”

In the weeks before this conference I warned that the job is only
half done.

The global statistics remain frightening. According to UNAIDS:

* There are 1.1-million deaths due to AIDS a year;

* There are 5,700 new HIV infections a day;

* Epidemics of TB and MDR-TB run largely unchecked.

My fears were not unfounded. As we sit in our padded seats, or
rather as we march, sing, argue, meet, learn from each other,
debate, shout, advocate, commiserate and occasionally cry, it’s
becoming clear that this glimmer of hope risks being snuffed out.
Conferences like this that refocus human rights activism, where
politicians come to account to people, might be the last kick of a
dying horse.

In activist meetings a very different picture is emerging to the
optimistic one that government officials, ours included, wanted to
make the AIDS story. There are medicine stock-outs in many
countries. Sex workers and drugs users are humiliated, imprisoned
and sometimes murdered. Poor people in rich countries are being left
behind by the artificial segmentation dreamed up by some bright
spark in the World Bank that declares certain developing countries
‘middle income’, ignoring the local context of inequality,
corruption and severe deprivation.

Try telling the 12-million hungry people in SA or 25% unemployed
that ours is a middle income country. “Dream on”, they will reply,
“we would be happy if it was a ‘some-income’ country, rather than a
no-income country.”

Human rights respecting countries like South Africa are silent on
the human rights abuses by our economic allies in countries like
China, India and Russia. Attacks on civil society organisations and
activists are growing. In India, the Lawyers Collective – an
organisation that has shone a light for human rights for 35 years –
and 15,000 other NGOs are under attack.

Finally donor funding from developed countries for preventing and
treating HIV and TB is declining fast. As right wing governments
rise in the West and as the unwinnable ‘war on terrorism’ consumes
ever greater resources, the appetite for matters-just is declining.
If we are to meet the target of universal access to ARV treatment
UNAIDS has announce that there is a funding gap of $7 billion a
year. But apparently taxpayers in developed countries feel that they
have done enough now.

My answer to that, dear US Ambassador Gaspard and others, is to
appeal to you that your governments try a little harder to talk to
your taxpayers. Show your citizens how their investments in others’
lives have brought us half way across the river to the “end of
AIDS”. Appeal to them to continue their largesse. Explain to them
why their investment in AIDS is something they should take proud
ownership of, how it has been an investment in humanity, health
systems and social fabric. It has saved millions of lives. Tell them
the job’s not done. Tell them the world will be safer for it.

Try also to persuade them that today’s way to win the war on
tomorrow’s terrorism is in large part with love and respect for
human rights, solidarity and empathy, inclusion rather than
exclusion.

If we do not arrest these developments the response to HIV risks
evolving once more into one based on market calculations about
profit and investment frameworks rather than fundamental human
rights. We will never come back to Durban to celebrate.

The question we have to ask, the question you have to ask, is
whether we will allow this recession?

There are 18,000 people at this AIDS conference. We are
0.00000000000000000000001% of the world’s population. We are
0.000000001% of the 37-million people still alive with HIV in the
world. We have a huge burden on our shoulders. But we also have the
power of human rights law, of advances medicine and scientists, of
morality, of love. In the words of the Deputy President Cyril
Ramaphosa, who opened the conference, “We must throw ideas at each
other, not stones. It is through human action that we will end this
epidemic.”

So, will this conference be the last kick of a dying horse?

It depends on you.

**************************************************************

Step by step: The road to ending the AIDS epidemic

By Sophie Cousins

Devex, 18 July 2016

http://www.devex.com – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/jrfz3p8

Michel Sidibé has a big job ahead of him. By 2020, the executive
director of UNAIDS wants 90 percent of people living with HIV to
know their status, 90 percent of people who know their status to
access antiretroviral treatment, and 90 percent of people on
treatment to have suppressed viral loads.

While achieving these 90-90-90 goals would set the world on course
to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030–in line with the Sustainable
Development Goals–the reality is that only 51 percent of people
know their status and of the 37 million people living with HIV, 17
million are on ART. As the 21st International AIDS Conference opens
this week in Durban, South Africa, activists are calling for
treatment for all.

Meanwhile, HIV infections among adults are not on the decline. In
fact, infections are on the rise across some regions.

While there are promising new prevention tools such as pre-exposure
prophylaxis (PrEP), it’s not yet widely available in many settings,
particularly for key populations.

And all this is happening while funding for response is on the
decline, with more emphasis on countries most affected by HIV to
finance their own responses, as many transition to middle-income
country status.

Devex sat down with Sidibé at AIDS2016 to discuss the road ahead.
Here are some highlights from that conversation:

Q: UNAIDS has set the very ambitious 90-90-90 targets to be achieved
by 2020. There’s 17 million people out of 37 million living with HIV
on ART. What needs to be done to scale up people’s access to ART?

A: We have been ambitious because during the last five years we’ve
been able to double the number of people put on treatment, which
means that countries were not overwhelmed by the problem and they
were able to define their strategy, to reach people and make sure
that treatment was available. The biggest challenge I personally
feel will be this one: the health systems. The huge number of people
[receiving] treatment is [shedding] light on the inefficiencies of
our health systems and the capacity of the health system to absorb
and to be able to scale up quickly, more than they have been able to
do.

If we don’t have a shift in the service delivery approach–to think
about strengthening the community, reinforcing the interface between
the last service provider and the community, and bringing civil
society and others to become providers of services–it will be very
difficult for us. That’s why I’m calling for 1 million community
health workers to be implemented really quickly.

[Secondly], financing will be critical. What I’m seeing right now
has scared me, if we continue to harbor the flattening and reduction
of funding. We cannot lie to each other. I cannot see how Malawi,
Zambia, even South Africa can get to 6 million people on treatment
without any financial support. We need to continue to call for
global solidarity. I think financing will be a key issue.

[Thirdly], how we will reach hard-to-reach people–those key
populations who are today representing 35 percent of new infections?
If we don’t have a strategy that can really quicken the pace and
reach them and get them treatment services, then our ambitious goals
will not be achieved.

Q: A recent UNAIDS report found that new HIV infections among adults
have stalled, failing to decline for at least five years. In eastern
Europe and central Asia, new HIV infections rose by 57 percent
between 2010 and 2015. What role do you think PrEP can play in HIV
prevention and how can you expand its use among countries that are
against it?

A: We are completely supportive of PrEP. We are working with
countries to try and introduce PrEP in countries such as South
Africa among sex workers. We are [also] trying to see how in Eastern
Europe and Central Asia we can start pushing to make sure they can
have the appropriate policy reform which can help them to target
people who inject drugs so it can reduce infections. I think they
are not closed to that [idea], even though we face the dilemma that
we continue to believe that harm reduction programs should be put in
place, that people should not be criminalized, and that people
should not be facing prejudice and exclusion.

Even if with PrEP, if you cannot come for services, you cannot get
the pill … that is the trade-off we need to manage properly–not
just making sure that a pill becomes the magic response but
restoring the dignity of people, making sure they are not hiding and
not discriminated against. There’s a tendency to think that with
PrEP pills will help us to resolve issues of infection. That’s true,
but if you don’t reach people, if you have a series of bad laws that
are not removed, it will be impossible for us to implement because
the impact will be little.

Q: There’s insufficient coverage of harm reduction programs across
the globe and policies that criminalize people who inject drugs. The
United Nations’ target to reduce HIV transmission among people who
inject drugs by 50 percent by last year was missed. How can UNAIDS
better advocate for harm reduction programs?

A: A good example is China: It was [previously] zero tolerance for
people who inject drugs previously. What we did, was really bring
the leadership of China to really understand the evidence–the
science and the strategy information–coming from other countries.
China today has the biggest harm reduction program in Asia. I think
groups that are put on those programs are close to zero new
infections. So it means that the pragmatic approach of China helped
to completely change the face of the epidemic among drug users.

And there’s a lot of uncertainty around funding for AIDS response in
the future. How will UNAIDS advocate for funding for key
populations?

We are working closely with PEPFAR who in New York announced $100
million for key populations. I think it’s a catalytic fund and, for
me, that’s what we need, to have the courage to say “these are
targeted funds” [that] will help us to see how to better reach those
people with a community network. I think it will certainly bring
different modalities in the future–how to finance those groups and
how to support them–because until now they were part of a package
of financing.

Having the courage to say that we have $100 million behind you and
want to succeed, that really could completely change the way we can
leverage [the funding] to scale up. We will see a lot of community
groups who will start to be more vocal because they can get small
amounts that help them to demonstrate that they can have an impact
if they are given more resources.

Q: Given that only 51 percent of people know their status, what role
do think self-testing is going to play in the future? How can we
increase its outreach?

A: I think we need to completely change our approach to testing.
It’s good to go for routine testing and make sure that we make
testing more convenient. Self-testing can therefore play a very
important role, on one condition: we need to think about our service
delivery approach. It’s not possible to have self-testing when you
don’t have a different health system, which can be really big not on
just the health system per se but a system for health. We need to
think about systems for health–the community approach, so we have
community health workers, a subsystem of health, which will be able
to really deal with this self-testing [and] go door-to-door because
they are trusted, have the capacity and are close. But, if not, we
cannot tell people to go self-test … It will fail completely
because again we’ll have a lot of people who will test positive but
will not have the ability to access services–they will be scared
and they will not trust anyone.

What we need to think about in this period is how we electrify a
different type of communication approach. Most young people are
complacent. They don’t see people dying of AIDS. So we have a bulk
of young people that need not just to be protected, but becoming
actors of transformation in terms of prevention. That is, for me, a
future challenge.

*****************************************************

Aids Conference 2016 – the Gains, the Gaps, the Next Global Steps

The Conversation (Johannesburg), July 22, 2016

http://allafrica.com/stories/201607220830.html

Interview

By Linda-Gail Bekker, University of Cape Town

As the 21st International AIDS Conference wraps up in Durban, South
Africa, Professor Linda-Gail Bekker, incoming International AIDS
Society President, talks to The Conversation Africa health and
medicine editor Candice Bailey about what was achieved and what
still needs to be done.

Q: What are the three interventions or innovations that stand out at
the conference in terms of taking the fight against HIV
forward?

A: There has been exciting work about how we do treatment better to
make sure we get to the 34 million who are infected. And that’s
absolutely critical. We have to reach those 34 million people but we
know that health systems, particularly in the sub-Saharan region,
are struggling. So there was some wonderful work on differentiated
models of care, how we can do business more effectively and
efficiently and ways we can do the steps in the cascade more
efficiently.

And I’ve loved some of the testing innovations. Addressing all the
steps from testing is critical.

Secondly I’m passionate about primary prevention but I think we’ve
got some gaps on how we can do it. I’m a great proponent of daily
pre-exposure prophylaxis and I really think we should roll it out
because it works. But I’m very excited about the prospect of what’s
coming down the road in terms of less frequent dosing for pre-
exposure prophylaxis.

Number three is a fresh approach to adolescents. This conference has
reinvigorated the notion that we have to get adolescents to the
table. We have done well, I think, in getting adolescents to be
really well represented. And it works. You feel their voice.

The message I have heard here is that we need to have an integrated
approach. We can’t just talk HIV treatment or just HIV prevention.
It has to take into consideration structural issues, behavioural
issues, rights, access — a lot of issues. And I think it becomes a
model of how we really look after our adolescents around the world
and HIV is a great catalyst within that.

Q: Based on the discussions at the conference where are the gaps in
the global HIV response?

A: At the moment it’s money. There is a horrible funding gap that we
have to address. We had so much money when we didn’t have the tools.
Now we have the tools and we don’t have the money. I feel desperate
about that.

In 2000 we missed opportunities because we didn’t have our systems
and our thinking right. I’m taking collective responsibility but
there was a leadership gap and we lost lives because of that. Here
we stand now and if we don’t act in the way that we should, we will
have lots of lost lives and infections that we don’t have to. And I
don’t want that on my record.

When we get help from Sir Elton John, Prince Harry, Princess Mabel
from The Netherlands and Charlize Theron to shine a focus on this we
are eternally grateful. We need help from everyone to carry the
message that the job isn’t done. Otherwise we will miss the moment
and we will have regrets. And I don’t want to be in that camp.

I am very pleased that the Replenishment of the Global Fund
Conference is being held in Canada because I think the Prime
Minister of Canada is really showing that he can get the job done.
Justin Trudeau’s a great example of moving forward when he needs to
move forward and doing uncomfortable things when they have to be
done because it’s right. I have a sense that he does what’s right.
So I’m excited about that because I think that’s important.

We have to keep showing people that it’s not only the right thing
and the compassionate thing and the humane thing but that it makes
good financial sense. We are bleeding where we don’t need to bleed
in terms of finance. And if we can shut it down earlier we will do
the world a favour.

Q: What is the message that is coming out of this conference?

A: The job is not done. We have tools that can be deployed; we have
a lot of work to do. We have the energy but this is not the time to
not have the resources. It’s a collective global effort. And we’re
excited. Durban has re­energised the whole sense of community and
engagement. Now we need the rest of the world to get on board. And I
think we can do it. The optimism that I have felt here is real. But
the reality is that if we don’t move forward from today that
trajectory will
flatten out.

…

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

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Zimbabwe: #ThisFlag

AfricaFocus Bulletin
July 15, 2016 (160715)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

“The Zimbabwean regime did not expect Pastor Evan Mawarire to be set
free on Wednesday night. But unprecedented public pressure forced
the magistrate’s hand, with a little help from blundering police.
Look away now, Comrade Bob, because Zimbabwe will never be the same
again.” – Daily Maverick, July 14, 2016

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/zim1607a.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
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This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a short news report on the
release of Pastor Evan Mawarire, who sparked the #ThisFlag citizens’
protest movement in Zimbabwe, and excerpts from a longer analytical
article by Zimbabwean political analyst Alex Magaisa.

For short powerful statements by Pastor Mawarire, from April  and
earlier this week, just before his arrest see

and

Another AfricaFocus Bulletin released today, not sent out by email
but available on the web at http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/zim1607b.php, includes a press
release and excerpts on a report released today in Harare: “Working
without Pay: Wage Theft in Zimbabwe.” This study, by the Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe (LEDRIZ) and the
Solidarity Center, documents the failure of both government and the
private sector in Zimbabwe to pay wages to ordinary workers, despite
lavish pay and benefits for top executives.

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Zimbabwe, go to
http://www.africafocus.org/country/zimbabwe.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Zimbabwe: Power to the pastor, power to the people as Mawarire walks

Simon Allison

Daily Maverick, July 14, 2016

http://tinyurl.com/zsebl3k

The Zimbabwean regime did not expect Pastor Evan Mawarire to be set
free on Wednesday night. But unprecedented public pressure forced
the magistrate’s hand, with a little help from blundering police.
Look away now, Comrade Bob, because Zimbabwe will never be the same
again.

Harare Magistrate’s Court may once have been an impressive building,
but no longer. The walls are cracked. The paint is peeling. The
windows of Court Six, where Pastor Evan Mawarire’s remand hearing
was held on Wednesday, are caked with dirt. Only half the ceiling
lights work, and the wall clock is stuck at a little after seven
o’clock.

As a symbol for everything that’s wrong with Zimbabwe, it’s a
writer’s dream, as is the court’s location on the inauspiciously
named Rotten Row.

Except that something unexpected happened. The usual show trial
script called for Mawarire’s charges to be upheld, and bail denied,
to make sure that the state keeps him where they like to keep the
troublemakers: behind bars.

But no one followed the script. On Wednesday, rising above the
symbolism of these shabby surroundings, something went right in
Zimbabwe.

The first to break ranks were the lawyers, nearly 200 of them, who
volunteered to represent Mawarire en masse. Not all of them could
fit into the jam-packed courtroom – strictly standing room only –
but those who did were conspicuous in their sharp suits and business
attire.

They became even more conspicuous when Magistrate Vakayi Chikwekwe
asked who was representing the accused. As one, the lawyers in the
room raised their Law Society cards, an extraordinary image of
solidarity that gave goose bumps to everyone else watching – except,
perhaps, the none-too-undercover intelligence operatives, who
appeared to be carefully noting down faces and names. That the
lawyers present were undeterred by this danger underscores their
bravery.

“There are times when we have to shed our status as lawyers and push
for justice as citizens. It does not require a lawyer to see that
there is injustice going on here,” said Belvin Bopato, an attorney.

The hundreds, and at times thousands, of people gathered outside
were doing something equally unprecedented. They were protesting. In
Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, protesting is a dangerous, even fatal, activity.
Which is why it doesn’t happen very often, and never in these
numbers. But here they were on Wednesday, draped in the national
flag which has become such a subversive symbol of resistance,
chanting and singing and praying all through the day and early
evening as they waited for the magistrate to deliver his verdict.

“It’s been a while since Zimbabwe last had a voice, but now it has
found a voice. I’m here to stand in solidarity with Pastor Evan,”
said activist Mlambo Garikai.

The most unexpected plot twist, however, was delivered courtesy of
Magistrate Chikwekwe himself. It was possible to feel some sympathy
for the magistrate, who found himself in a classic Catch-22: flout
the law but keep his political bosses happy; or follow the law but
anger his superiors, who have the power to make him very
uncomfortable indeed.

It was obviously a difficult decision. Even after starting
proceedings six hours late, Chikwekwe called several long
adjournments, and only delivered his verdict full 90 minutes after
it was due.

As they waited, the audience inside the courtroom sang and danced,
while the large crowd outside began to get impatient. Had Mawarire
not been released, a confrontation between riot police and
protesters would probably have been unavoidable.

But the law won. After lecturing the police and prosecutors about
their mistakes – most notably in substituting the original charges
with a much more serious treason charge just minutes before the
hearing began – Chikwekwe told Mawarire he was free to go.

The courtroom erupted into cheers and ululations, as did the
thousands of people waiting outside, who by now were holding
candles. “I feel ecstatic. We have shown that if we can come
together we can push the system to work normally. What happened here
today gives us hope,” said Elton Kapfunde, one of the pastor’s many
supporters.

Ngonidzashe Marera, a friend of Mawarire’s, said that the verdict
showed the strength of the pastor’s faith. “I’m over the moon. God
is there for us. Good has prevailed. Man’s arms are too short to box
with God, clearly.”

If Robert Mugabe’s regime falls – and that day is considerably
closer today than it was yesterday – then historians will look back
and pinpoint this as the moment when the tide began to turn. There’s
no doubt that the sheer scale of the solidarity movement frightened
the ruling party’s decision-makers, who never intended to let
Mawarire walk, and may even have forced Magistrate Chikwekwe’s hand.

On Wednesday, Zimbabweans in their thousands took on the regime, and
won. And now that they’ve done it once, they can and will do it
again.

************************************************

Citizens’ movement and the resurgence of the repressive state in
Zimbabwe

Alex T. Magaisa

July 8, 2016

http://alexmagaisa.com – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/jxx32ed

[Excerpts only. Full text available at links above]

[Alex Magaisa lectures at Kent Law School, University of Kent and
can be contacted at wamagaisa@gmail.com Twitter: @wamagaisa]

In one incident, a young man is dragged out of his room, his pair of
trousers half down and without shoes. He tries desperately to raise
his trousers and pleads with them. But they don’t listen and they
don’t care. They pummel him with baton sticks as if they are beating
an unwelcome intruder. He falls to the ground, perhaps the self-
preservation instinct to make himself small, but they respond by
beating him up with even greater intensity. He yelps in pain and
tries to cover his head to minimise further damage but this does not
deter them. They yank him up and continue to beat him as if they
were beating a drum.

It’s not fiction. … These are the images of Zimbabwe which the
world has been seeing this week – a reminder of the dark days when
the Zimbabwean state has typically turned upon its citizens with
intense brutality. The beating happened after commuter omnibus
drivers went on strike, protesting against too many roadblocks by
police, at which members of the police force extort bribes from them
on a daily basis.

Then on Wednesday [July 6], Zimbabwe witnessed the #ZimShutDown2016,
following a call for a mass stay-away from work. Harare and most
cities were deserted. People had heeded the call. There was a heavy
police and army presence in towns around the country as well as
rural centres like Jerera, where pictures showed scores of police
roaming the centre. Social media was down for a while, with people
unable to access WhatsApp and most suspected the state had a hand in
the breakdown.

Efforts by government spin-doctors to downplay the mass stay-away
failed. Schools were closed and unpaid for the month of June, civil
servants in the health and education sectors led the way and stayed
away from work. Government had to deploy the military in public
health institutions to provide cover. Apart from the violent
clampdown, the state issued several warnings to the public. The
instruments of repression were being mobilised. This typical of the
Zimbabwean state, reacting like a bully who suddenly panics at the
sight of a challenge from an unexpected and unfamiliar source and
whose first instinct is to flex muscles and bare teeth in order to
frighten with a generous amount of threats.

Historic moment

When the story of this week’s events is told to future generations,
its place and significance in the trajectory of Zimbabwean political
history will not be lost on historians and keen observers of
Zimbabwean politics. … I believe the events of last week,
beginning with the protests in Beitbridge are a seminal moment in
the sense that they demonstrate for the first time in a long period,
a re-awakening of the citizens and a demonstration of their capacity
to assert themselves in their capacity as citizens, not as followers
of political parties or organised civil society. …

The #ZimShutDown of this week was, in some ways, unique in its
galvanising and mobilising effect without the aid or leadership of
traditional actors on the political and civil society landscape. For
the first time in a long time, the traditional political actors,
both in the ruling establishment and the opposition were by-standers
in an historic moment championed largely by ordinary citizens. I am
careful to say for the first time in a long time principally because
it is not the first time this has happened in our polity. The events
of 1998 spring to older minds, when Zimbabweans came together in a
huge flood of dissent against deteriorating economic conditions.
Taking the lead was the then vibrant labour movement, with the ZCTU
at the apex, led by Morgan Tsvangirai. Many young Zimbabweans have
only known him as an opposition politicians, but at the time, he was
a leader of the labour unions. Civil society movement was still then
in its nascent stages but those were the moments when organisations
such as the National Constitutional Assembly began to assume a
leading role in campaigning for political reform under the flagship
call for constitutional reforms. For the first time since
independence, the people of Zimbabwe heeded the call for a mass
stay-away. It was also unique in that many employers backed the
call, signalling an interesting milieu ideologies in one moment; a
strange mixture of capitalists and socialists.

Lessons from the past

This is not the place to narrate and analyse the historic events of
the late 1990s. … I also make reference to 1998 so that the
present generation of leaders and activists in the citizens’
movement has a wider appreciation of the context within which
#ZimShutDown2016 and related activities are taking place. While
there are key aspects that distinguish the current citizens’
movement, such as the role and influence of social media, it is by
no means an invention of the current generation. It is important to
locate it neither as the beginning of history of activism nor the
end of it, but as part of an incremental process that has been in
motion for a long time and has manifested in various forms and has
been prosecuted by various actors at each stage. … Zimbabwe’s
post-independence struggle for democratic reform is against a well-
established and deeply-entrenched electoral authoritarian regime,
this citizens’ movement must be seen in this context as the latest
of waves chipping away at a wall which is backed by the military.

While the older generation should be more receptive to the new wave
of activism and its leaders and not view them with suspicion, the
new generation of activists must also be mindful of and respect
history and those who have already been in the trenches.

There might be lessons to be learned from that era, which the
present generation can use to avoid old mistakes. This is because I
have noticed a tendency on social media, where people demand instant
results and sometimes end up utterly deflated and defeated when
things don’t happen as quickly as anticipated. Yet if one
understands the bigger picture, knowing the origins of this
struggle, including its highs and lows, they might have a better
appreciation of the incremental nature of the process; indeed, a
better appreciation of the fact that the struggle is a slow-cooked
dish, not the pre-cooked instant microwave variety.

Catching traditional actors by surprise

An interesting feature of the current citizens’ movement is that it
seems to have caught the ruling party, the opposition and
traditional civil society by surprise and consequently, none of them
have been quite sure of how to react to it. …

The problem is that the leadership of traditional political parties
and organised civil society has not evolved over the same period,
while society has changed and its demands and expectations have also
changed. Like ZANU PF, opposition parties and organised civil
society have not confronted and dealt with succession issues and the
culture of entitlement of those in leadership positions. This has
resulted in a traffic jam in the leadership of parties and
organisations the civil and political spaces, with those in front
unwilling and unable to move or give way to new generations or
ideas. Traditional political parties and civil society organisations
are notoriously hierarchical and exclusionary in the selection of
leadership. …

The traditional opposition and organised civil society appear to
have struggled to come to terms with this new phenomenon. Do they
embrace it? Do they join it? Are they leading it? Are they
followers? How exactly do they accommodate this phenomenon which has
not emerged from their usual programmes at traditional work-shops.
… Both the opposition and civil society groups need to self-
introspect thoroughly and reflect on the new phenomenon of the
citizens’ movement and consider their role in the changing political
and civil landscape.

New challenge for ZANU PF

This unconventional citizens’ movement has also caught ZANU PF by
surprise, presenting a new challenge on an unfamiliar front. The old
party is used to dealing with the traditional political opposition
or organised civil society, which they invariably bundle together as
Western-sponsored opposition or regime change agents. The state and
ZANU PF have developed a wide array of tools to deal with these
traditional opposition in civil and political spaces – through
infiltration of political organisations, banning political
gatherings and meetings, deploying laws meant for political
organisations, propaganda through state media, etc. However, they
have not had to deal with a citizens’ movement of this kind, with a
large base in social media. …

It is clear that the regime is currently unsure about the nature of
the latest challenge. The term they have settled on for now is that
the dissent and activism is being orchestrated by a “Third Force”,
even though no-one has given substance to this term to clarify who
or what exactly constitutes this force. For the government, there is
a sinister force beyond the traditional opposition which they are
not equipped to handle. They can’t quite define what it is. They
cannot believe that citizens can consolidate and find expression in
non-traditional political and civil spaces.

In all this, of course, is a typically stubborn refusal by ZANU PF
to acknowledge that the people of Zimbabwe can think for themselves
and make their own decisions. For the ZANU PF regime, any resistance
to its policies and style of governance cannot be from and by the
people of Zimbabwe making independent decisions. Rather, it has to
be instigated and influenced by foreign elements, usually the West.
This is a very condescending mindset against fellow Zimbabweans. It
shows the character of the state, where citizens are like children
who need guardians to think and decide for them and if it’s not the
government, it has to be another sinister third party doing it on
their behalf. Individuals within the state are not regarded as
rational beings capable of making their own decisions. The irony is
that a government which claims independence and sovereignty of the
nation does not believe that the people from whom that sovereignty
and authority to govern are derived can make independent decisions
to express grievances unless they are influenced by the West. …

Social media

One key factor that distinguishes the current citizens’ movement
from similar movements in the past is the availability and popular
use of social media. When #This Flag movement started through social
media messages by Pastor Evans Mawarire a couple of months ago, it
was initially dismissed as “a passing fad”. It was dismissed as
nothing more than social media chatter, which would dissipate
quickly as people moved on to the next internet fad. There was
little appreciation of its capacity to galvanise sentiment and
passion among people both in cyber and physical spaces.

Soon however, representatives of #ThisFlag movement were engaging
directly with authority, one example being a public meeting held
with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor, Dr John Mangundya over
concerns around the issue of bond notes. That in itself was an
indication of a so-called social media-based movement transcending
cyberspace and finding recognition and accommodation in physical
spaces.

After seemingly dismissing the social media as irrelevant within
Zimbabwean political spaces, the government has reacted with panic
to the real potential of social media. The Minister of Information,
Chris Mushowe, on 7 July 2016 issued a long statement in which he
warned what he called “misguided malcontents” who are allegedly
misleading people into protests against government. …

However, by contrast one of the key things which social media has
done in the Zimbabwean struggle is to empower citizens to fight
against such government manipulation though information-sharing
networks which have reduced barriers in time and space between
citizens across the world. This way, a person in Tsholotsho is
communicating with his fellow citizens in Mutare, at Sadza, in
London, Sydney or New York and Cape Town, sharing valuable data,
information, tools and advice. The propaganda machinery has faced
serious challenges from social media because citizens are able to
instantly scrutinise, challenge, and dismiss the lies and
fabrications in the state media. Each morning, Zimbabweans scour the
papers, pick stories from all media and dissect them, showing
absurdities and exposing weaknesses and contradictions in propaganda
to a wider audience. Citizens no longer have to rely on what the
papers tell them. They also listen to what fellow citizens are
saying through social media. Citizens no longer have to wait for the
media to share information, as there has been an upsurge in citizen
journalism with social media users sharing videos and uploading them
by the second. By the time the traditional media shows its images
and videos, they would have long circulated among the people through
social media. It is truly amazing to see the way information is
passed and spread across wider field on via Twitter, Facebook and
WhatsApp messages. Oft-times I have been amazed as I have received
my own work which I would have shared: it will be coming from
multiple sources with the hour, itself a demonstration of the power
of social media, which the Zimbabwean state and opposition have
until now underestimated as they have focused on the traditional
spaces. Hence when the government misrepresents the law, lawyers
instantly challenge it and respond through social media, providing a
counter-view and in the process empowering other users.

…

The likelihood is that Zimbabwe will follow Russia’s path and enact
laws which specifically target social media users. The template for
such laws already exists in Putin’s Russia …

It is fair to predict that the Zimbabwean government will be fast-
tracking a law on social media usage based on the Russian template
and there will be a number of quick convictions and jail sentences
against users designed as examples to the rest of the population.
…

Exclusion

The government has also resorted to typical strategies of exclusion.
… It’s the politics of exclusion where those deemed to be citizens
are protected, while the excluded are deserving of no protection –
they are dehumanised. This dehumanisation makes it easier for those
charged with the job of getting rid of them. …

Within the Zimbabwean political context, the Homo Sacer [person
excluded] is a person who opposes or dissents from ZANU PF.
Zimbabwe’s Homo Sacer is identified by the labels ascribed to them
and by far the most common label of exclusion is “sell-out”. To be a
“sell-out” is to be defined as the worst form of being within the
Zimbabwean political space. You are banished to the margins and are
deemed worthy of the death sentence. …

In more recent years, a term that is close to “sell-out” is to be
labelled a “regime change agent”. This term has been used liberally
against any person who opposes or is deemed to oppose ZANU PF. Like
a “sell-out” a “regime change agent” is regarded with contempt in
ZANU PF circles and deserves the worst treatment and punishment.
Another term of exclusion is “dissident”. …

These terms of exclusion are dangerous and reckless as they are
often a prelude to atrocities against perceived opponents, as the
Rwandan Genocide showed, where targeted communities were
continuously labelled “cockroaches” by the media, itself a label of
dehumanisation which fuelled the rampant killings. It is therefore
important to monitor how this language of exclusion and banishment
evolves in the coming weeks. These are labels of dehumanisation
intended to demonstrate that a life is not worthy of any protection
or recognition. It is the kind of hate speech which is prohibited by
the Constitution for good reason because it fuels atrocities. It is
therefore irresponsible for government, Ministers and state media to
employ these labels of exclusion and dehumanisation.

Apart from these labels, the most common form of banishment and
exclusion is through criminalisation of behaviour and sending people
to jail. …

The rural frontier

One issue that remains critical in the Zimbabwean political and
civil society landscape is the rural frontier. For a long time, it
has been ZANU PF’s stronghold. The 2012 census showed that 67% of
the population is rural, which means urban areas host only 33% of
the population. Since electoral politics is a numbers game, ZANU
PF’s political strategies are centred on retaining control of the
rural constituency. Traditional opposition parties and organised
civil society have always done very well in urban areas, as shown by
the MDC’s success in Harare, Bulawayo and other urban areas. The new
citizens’ movement which has made waves in recent weeks has been
concentrated in the urban areas. In this regard therefore, it is not
very different from the traditional political opposition and
organised civil society. The civil and political spaces they are
occupying are well-trodden paths. The novelty is in the use of
social media and cross-party appeal arising from the issues around
which the citizens’ movement is built. However, like the traditional
actors in politics and organised civil society, they are yet to
crack the rural constituency. There is a chance that social media
platforms like WhatsApp might make in-roads in the rural
constituency, but the response of the state machinery, through
criminalisation, warnings, threats and false claims that they can
see what social media users are doing are likely to affect the
impact of social media. ZANU PF only has to trigger its rural
machinery of intimidation and the ever-fearful and vulnerable
population will be cowed into submission.

Resurgence of the repressive state

…

It is clear that the current state is a mirror image of the colonial
state. The same methods and strategies are being deployed against
citizens. When Welshman Ncube analysed the continuities between the
colonial and post-independence state, he found that there had been
no effort whatsoever to dismantle the repressive state. Ncube wrote:
“the culture of the Rhodesian legal system was one of extreme
brutality in both content and methods of law enforcement”. This was
echoed by Jonathan Moyo, who wrote at the time: “At independence,
the Zimbabwean nationalist leadership wittingly or unwittingly
failed to broaden democracy but embraced the oppressive institutions
and legal instruments such as the Rhodesian-imposed state of
emergency which took ten years to be lifted.” This was in the late
1980s at a time when ZANU PF was trying to impose the one-party
state but the same arguments remain applicable today and if anything
the repressive state has become stronger and more ruthless. The
current reaction of the Zimbabwean government to the citizens’
protests has attracted the same reaction which is characterized by
intolerance, violence and repression.

During the first ten years of independence, the government
maintained a state of emergency, again inherited from the Rhodesian
state. …

Going forward, we are likely to see more arrests of activists in the
citizens’ movement. Ordinary members of the public will also be
arrested and prosecuted as examples to others. There will also be
new laws to criminalise conduct on social media and other similar
spaces. There will be further statements and warnings from the
coercive elements of the state, all designed to deter and scare
people from using social media to challenge government. In this
regard, the citizens’ movement will find that its struggle is really
not very different from the struggle which the traditional
opposition parties and organized civil society have faced in the
past. The question is whether this new citizens’ movement has
devised new tools to overcome or get around these impediments. In
other words, are the citizens prepared to defend their leaders and
their rights in a manner that is different from how traditional
opposition parties and organised civil society have done in the
past?

…

*****************************************************

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please
write to this address to subscribe or unsubscribe to the bulletin,
or to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about
reposted material, please contact directly the original source
mentioned. For a full archive and other resources, see
http://www.africafocus.org

“I would like to join in the appeal to President Obama to formally exonerate Ethel Rosenberg before leaving office. By now it is overwhelmingly obvious that there was no case at all, and that the government manufactured the case in order to pressure her husband to cooperate with the prosecution. The case was a gross miscarriage of justice, an ugly stain on American legal history. It is long past time for official recognition of the magnitude of this crime, and exoneration of the tragic victim.” – Noam Chomsky

AfricaFocus Bulletin
July 6, 2016 (160706)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

As recognition grows that the legacy of slavery and the slave trade
is still embedded in the structural inequalities of today’s world,
scholars are finding new ways to make the lost connections visible.
One dramatic and inspiring illustration, featured in this issue of
AfricaFocus Bulletin, is the film “They Are We,” showing the
rediscovery and re-connection in person with their African relatives
of an Afro-Cuban community which still celebrates their heritage
with dances and songs in a language almost forgotten by current
generations even in its villages of origin in Sierra Leone. The
film, first released in Cuba in 2013, features the story of this
rediscovery, in the voices and faces of the communities who
collaborated in the making of the
film.

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/sltd1607.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=
http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/sltd1607.php

The film originated in the research in Cuba and West Africa of the
Australian anthropologist Emma Christopher. But it turned into
dialogue and collaboration of both members of the communities and
filmmakers in Cuba and Sierra Leone.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains several short reviews, from New
York, Chicago, Havana, and from the website for the film, as well as
links to an educator’s guide for use of the film in classrooms. The
full video is available to rent for streaming on Amazon for $2.99
(go to http://tinyurl.com/zhvbqcw).

Thanks to AfricaFocus reader Daphne Muse for calling my attention to
this film through her Facebook post.

And, by coincidence, just as I was deciding to put this on
AfricaFocus, as a break from the normal focus on analysis of current
events and issues, I also was reminded of two related sets of
stories. I think AfricaFocus readers will agree that such glimpses
of the past are not just of academic interest, but also of relevance
in understanding how that past still molds today’s world, and how
remembering and reconnecting must be part of building new futures
that begin to repair the accumulated and continuing injustices.

First, the Washington Post published a feature article on Albert
Jose “Doc” Jones, who has long been a pioneer in maritime research
on the wrecks of slave ships, including the São José, a Portuguese
ship that went down near Cape Town after leaving Mozambique in 1794.
The Post article can be found at http://tinyurl.com/zefpceh. The
artifacts from the 1794 wreck, in which over 200 of the 500 slaves
on board drowned, will be on display at the National Museum of
African American History and Culture, as part of a cooperative
project of the Smithsonian Institution, Iziko Museums of Cape Town,
and other partners in the U.S. and Africa (see the press release
from the Smithsonian Institution at http://tinyurl.com/q6jbgqp). And
a short video on the São José, from Iziko Museums, is available at

The same morning, Ezikiel Pajibo, another AfricaFocus reader (in
Liberia), posted a Facebook link to an article from South Africa
History Online (http://www.sahistory.org.za) about Liberia’s
“Kroomen” sailors who worked along the West African and Southern
Africa coasts as contract workers for the British Navy as the slave
trade was ending in the 19th century and into the 20th century(
http://tinyurl.com/hns8s65). These sailors were among the channels
for the contacts of the Garvey movement in the Americas with South
Africa and Namibia (as explored in publications by scholars such as
Gregory Pirio and Robert Vinson).

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

They Are We http://theyarewe.com/

For a teaser video see https://vimeo.com/ondemand/theyarewe

To rent ($2.99) or purchase the streaming video on Amazon, go to
http://tinyurl.com/zhvbqcw

An educators’ guide for the film, with background on the slave trade
to Latin America and class activities suggestions, is available at
http://icarusfilms.com/guide/taw.pdf. A DVD for classroom use can
also be ordered from http://icarusfilms.com/new2015/taw.html

**************************************************************

This Documentary Uncovers an Afro-Cuban Community Singing in an
Almost Extinct African Language

http://remezcla.com/ – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/zrlyhjc

Feb. 18, 2016

Manuel Betancourt

They Are We tells a story that, were it not told by a University
professor in the middle of a documentary, you’d swear couldn’t
possibly be true. Emma Christopher, who’s written extensively on the
Atlantic slave trade and teaches at the University of Sydney, found
herself connecting a remote chiefdom in Sierra Leone with a small
Afro-Cuban community in Perico whose traditional song and dances
suggest a direct lineage to that Western African group. The film’s
title is a direct quote from a Sierra Leonean upon watching videos
of the Cuban dancers: “They are we!” he exclaimed, seeing something
in the annual San Lazaro ceremony that looked all too familiar.

That’s right, a lively celebration by the proud members of the
Gangá-Longobá in central Cuba eventually led Christopher to find the
African village from whence the songs came from generations ago.
Moreover, she arranged for these Afro-Cuban people to fly to the
place where their ancestor was torn from her family, sold to
slavery, and taken to the Caribbean island all those years ago.

As Christopher told an audience here in New York, “It’s completely
incredible that they’ve kept these songs and dances alive for all
these centuries!” The songs were being sung in a very particular
kind of language–the Banta tongue–which is nearing extinction in
Western Africa. Armed with this amazing story, Christopher moved to
Cuba for two years and ended up getting a Fellowship from the
Australian Research Council that helped her fund the finished film.
In it, we see four Cubans from Perico make the journey to Sierra
Leone where they are met with open arms by a community that was all
too happy to get to know these long-lost family members. They Are We
is a moving story that celebrates this colorful and vibrant slice of
Afro-Cuban culture, and which shows the resilience of tradition even
in the face of historical violence.

Christopher was on hand after the film’s screening at the Film
Society of Lincoln Center’s Dance on Camera series for a Q&A where
she talked about the long-gestating project, and explained more
about the cultural similarities between these two geographically
distinct communities.

Find some highlights from the Q&A below.

On How They Are We Came Together

“The film’s title is a direct quote from a Sierra Leonean watching
videos of the Cuban dancers: “They are we!” he exclaimed, seeing
something in the annual San Lazaro ceremony that looked all too
familiar.”

It was really my incredible pleasure to be part of that. It was an
amazing privilege. I never planned to make this film. I was working
on a totally separate project. I originally filmed the Cubans out of
interest, them being the only group still in Cuba that celebrated
being Ganga which I know, as a historian, means they were from
Sierra Leone/Liberia. They did not know this at this point. I wanted
to show it to my students in Australia who don’t know much about
Afro-Cuban cultures. And then, as you saw in the film, when I was
working in Liberia on the original project, these people in a cafe
saw it, and they were like “You have to show it to the whole town.”
And what I initially thought I was doing, what I was originally
interested in, was studying people’s reactions to it. So I started
showing it across West Africa in order to get people’s reactions.
Because I was intrigued by the way they responded. Because even then
I had no idea that we’d eventually be quite certain that an answer
was possible.

On Choosing Who Got to Make the Trip to Africa

[Who you see in the film is] a small part of the group. In some way
I turned it over to them. It’s kind of interesting: this had always
been a women’s society, and it’s pretty clear that it also was in
Cuba until Florinda–Cuco’s grandmother–died. Florinda had three
daughters. It had always passed from mother to daughter up until
that points. But she had three daughters, two of whom predeceased
her, and one of whom had medical problems. She was not able to pass
it to her. But she passed it to her granddaughter, Piyuya who you
saw in the film. But what happened was, in Cuba, after Florinda
died, a Santero –and Santería is a much more male-dominated
religion–said, well it should stay in the family and it should be
passed to Cuco, Florinda’s grandson. So Cuco thinks of himself as
the leader and that’s fine. Except everyone else thinks of Piyuya as
the leader because she’s a woman and she inherited it from the
former leader. Piyuya was sadly, too old to come; she’s passed away
since then. She was 85 in the film. She was not strong enough for
the journey.

But Cuco really wanted to come and he wanted to bring his grandson.
And I very much wanted to bring Alfredo because he was someone who
had been carving African art. He was also known as really teaching
children about the pride in their African roots. And then I said
that they were not bringing four guys, because that’s a different
dynamic, and so, of course, it was Elvira who’s the successor. What
was interesting was that when we got to Africa was that the Africans
presumed that Elvira is the leader. And so Cuco would say that he’s
been waiting for his grandmother to appear to him in a dream for 30-
odd years to tell him the secrets, but in Africa, unfortunately, he
realized that this wasn’t going to happen. Because it’s a woman’s
secrets. And this was a bit of a surprise to him.

On the Surprising Cultural Resilience of Songs And Dances

The [Cubans] did not have that much of a sense of what it meant.
Certainly not in terms of the dances. The songs have slightly
different meanings to them but what was kind of intriguing is that
they more or less sing them in the same order as the Sierra
Leoneans. It’s not in the film, but there’s actually a recording by
Lydia Cabrera, the well-known Cuban-American anthropologist. She
recorded the Gangá-Longobá in the 1950s. But when Cabrera came to
the U.S. from Cuba after the revolution, she brought those
recordings with her and then kind of forgot that they existed. And
I’d taken those back to Cuba and Sierra Leone and they are very much
more identifiable to the Sierra Leoneans.

In fact, this one, which I found when I was editing this when I was
checking the subtitles for it, there’s a lot of evidence that up
until 1980 Florinda knew exactly what those songs meant. Because she
still says words in the Cabrera recordings that indicate that she
had much more clear meaning and what’s interesting and that up until
her death, she was known in the Perico region as a herbal healer. So
even though today they’d forgotten that some of the songs are herbal
remedies, there’s quite a lot of evidence that she knew. There are
clear differences in meaning, but underneath that, there’s more
commonality than I ever would have anticipated.

**************************************************************

‘They Are We’ review: Documentary unites Cubans, Africans

“They Are We” records the reunion of Afro-Cubans and Sierra Leone
villagers.

Chicago Tribune, June 24, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/guf8xlp

“They Are We” proves that you can go home again.

It takes a while to set up its centerpiece, a joyous
transcontinental reunion of Afro-Cubans and Sierra Leone villagers.
But the 77-minute running time of “They Are We,” making its U.S.
theatrical premiere this weekend at Facets with filmmaker Emma
Christopher in attendance, is nothing compared to the estimated 170
years that passed before the film’s far-flung subjects found each
other again.

Christopher’s story is an academic and musicological detective
story. Several years ago the University of Sydney professor traveled
to Perico, Cuba, where she filmed the Ganga-Longoba community. The
Ganga’s traditional chants, she discovered, originated in the
isolated Sierra Leone village of Mokpangumba, ravaged by civil war
in the 1990s. Christopher describes herself as a slave trade
historian; her research indicates the Mokpangumba people were sold
into slavery in the mid-1800s, to Cuban traders.

For a half-hour or so, “They Are We” shuttles back and forth from
Cuba to Sierra Leone as the two communities, who first come to know
of each other’s existence through viewing Christopher’s footage,
prepare for the Afro-Cubans’ life-altering trip across the ocean.
Christopher allows her camera subjects to reiterate their
anticipation once too often. (When one woman says, “I want the
moment we will meet to arrive,” you know what she means.) Then the
film grows into itself, and lovingly chronicles the celebratory
meeting of these very different but ancestrally connected groups.

The Ganga are given African names; woodcarver Alfredo Duquesne, for
example, becomes “Uncle Sinava.” In one scene he learns the art of
scaling a palm tree from his new brothers. The Mokpangumba boys in
turn learn baseball. “It’s been more than 20 years since we last saw
this man dancing,” one villager remarks, admiring an elder’s
response to the presence of his distant relatives, home at last.

Parts of “They Are We” feel like a first draft. But once the party
starts, all is well.

**************************************************************

“They Are We” Premieres in Cuba

Yusimi Rodriguez

Havana Times, December 13, 2013

“They Are We” Premieres in Cuba

On December 3, after months of waiting and intense anticipation, the
premiere of Emma Christopher’s documentary They Are We took place in
the Havana residence of the British Ambassador.

Havana Times readers have been able to follow the story narrated by
the documentary through previous articles on the work of Christopher
and photographer Sergio Leyva  and my interview with Alfredo
Duquesne and Elvira Fumero, the film’s Cuban protagonists.

More recently, they also read of Reunion, a photo exhibition with
pieces by Sergio Leyva and sculptures by Alfredo Duquesne held in
Havana’s Casa de Africa.

Seeing the film, I got a sense of the distance that separates a
story one hears or reads from a story one sees with one’s own eyes.
I could try to describe the way in which Elvira takes part in the
daily chores of the women in the African village, her humbleness and
sincere desire to learn from them, but my description would
invariably fall short of capturing the reality of it.  One has to
see her, hear the way in which she says she must return to the
village because she didn’t get to carry a pitcher on her head.

Seeing a story that is both familiar and new to one is a strange
feeling. I had heard Leyva’s description of how the people of
Mukpangumba, Sierre Leone had welcomed the Cubans from the town of
Perico, Matanzas when they arrived at the village. I had even seen
photos of the encounter. Nothing, however, compares to the emotions
I felt on seeing it unfold on the screen.

I hadn’t had a chance to meet Humberto Casanova, a direct descendant
of Florinda Diago, and her grandson Yandrys Izquierdo. They were
unable to attend the premiere because they were busy working in the
Ganga Longoba African folklore group.

I had seen their faces in Sergio Leyva’s photographs, but I had yet
to know of their experiences during the trip. This may explain why
one of the parts of the film I enjoyed the most was when Yandrys
taught village children to play baseball and the four Cubans staged
a traditional Ganga Longoba performance for the locals.

To our Western eyes, Mukpanguma may look like a precarious place. A
different filmmaker may perhaps have concentrated on the absence of
drinking water and electricity. Throughout my life, I have seen
Africa as a decimated and pillaged continent torn by civil wars.

Cubans’ relationship to Africa has been that of the do-gooders who
deploy international aid in the form of soldiers, doctors and
engineers to the continent. Africa is all that, true, but it is also
a land of rich and varied cultures, of people who have been able to
overcome all manner of tragedies. Sergio Leyva and Alfredo Duquesne
described the inhabitants of Mukangumba as super-people.

The thing I appreciate the most about Christopher’s work, evident to
me since our first conversation, is her intention of showing a face
of Africa different than the one divulged by the media, of telling a
hopeful and happy story. “Happy Africa,” were her words when she
spoke with our editor Circles Robinson and I following the film’s
premiere, “happy news Africa.”

The Are We will be screened at the San Diego Black Film Festival in
January and the Sierra Leone Film Festival. The director was unable
to submit it in time for screening at the 35th Havana Film Festival
– perhaps we will be treated to it at next year’s festival.

Beyond the recognition it may or may not achieve, the film has
staged beautiful moments (all of them captured by the camera), of
which I have only offered a foretaste.

During our conversation with Emma Christopher, we learned that, when
she traveled to the African village with her editor Joana Montero in
order to synchronize the subtitles, she sang a number of songs she
had learned by heart, having had to hear them repeatedly during
editing.

A villager travelling with them gave her a startled look, surprised
at seeing a young white woman singing local songs. In the end, as
they did with the Cubans from Perico, the people of Mukpangumba gave
her an African name – “Lumbeh”, meaning “she who stays with us.”

I would have paid to see the faces of villagers while watching the
documentary. Christopher tells us many had never seen a television
before, that they don’t even have mirrors in the village, and that
it was very strange for them to see themselves on a screen.

The film not only captures beautiful moments, it also prompts
questions, such as: when will the history of Africa begin to be
taught at Cuban schools, not from the perspective of Cuban
internationalism, but that of the diversity of cultures that exist
on this continent, the civilizations of those who were brought to
the Americas as slaves?

We could ask ourselves the same question about our own continent:
when will Cuban schools begin to teach the history of the Americas,
which as important as that of Greece, Rome and Egypt?

Though They Are We will not be shown at this year’s Havana Film
Festival, I don’t believe Cubans should wait a whole year to see it.
Its duration (an hour and ten minutes) makes it apt for a television
screening. There are more than enough channels and spaces on Cuban
television where it could be shown for audiences around the country.

**************************************************************

Director’s Note

From http://icarusfilms.com/guide/taw.pdf

Making They Are We was a rollercoaster of a journey. It is a film
that I never intended to make; did not even believe was possible.
When I was invited to film the annual ceremony of Cuba’s Gangá-
Longobá people, I did so simply from interest in their rituals.
Cultures meld and adapt to fit new realities, that is their nature,
and enslaved people and their descendants have had more reason than
most to use their cultures as means of not only survival and
endurance but also transformation and regeneration. They had to make
anew from the tiny fragments that had not been stolen. So I was
fascinated by a set of songs and dances specific to one Afro-Cuban
community, quite different to the more familiar and far larger
Santería and Palo societies.

Even when I began to screen the subsequent film footage of the
Gangá-Longobá across the Liberian and Sierra Leonean hinterland–the
part of Africa from which people termed Gangá originated–I had
little idea what would happen. What fascinated me initially were
West African people’s responses to the Cuban performance. Their
wonder, pride and joy were evident.

Yet screening the Cuban ceremonies in West Africa eventually led to
a village that ‘claimed’ the Gangá-Longobá in the most beautiful,
profound way. Its people simply and spontaneously joined in with the
Cuban songs, something nobody else had done. Fascinatingly, with
very little formal education, they also understood right away the
significance. They were watching, they told me, the descendants of
somebody stolen from their village. As one man said, ‘they are we’.
It was a day that will forever remain with me.

There were years more of work: tracing the details of this claimed
connection to the best of my ability, dealing with bureaucracy, and
agonizing over the danger of privileging this very rare link over
other (equally valid) kinds of African American-African connection.
But the agonizing was mine not theirs, not on either side of the
Atlantic.

They waited far more patiently than I. They were sure of what they
knew, that these were their long lost kin. And when word finally
arrived that the Gangá-Longobá would now be free to travel to Sierra
Leone, they danced in spontaneous celebration while I danced with
far less skill around the kitchen of my rented apartment in Havana.
The Cubans and Sierra Leoneans told me that obviously, after all
their dedications and quiet pleas, the ancestors had pulled the
right strings.

I became a filmmaker as well as a more traditional historian writing
books because I wanted people to be able to speak for themselves–
albeit through my lens–and for viewers to see their expressions and
sentiments, to glimpse the realities of their lives. It has been my
extraordinary privilege to work on this film, to call so many of the
people it revolves around my friends. I hope you and your students
enjoy meeting them through the screen.

Dr. Emma Christopher
Director, Producer and Researcher of They Are We
Anti-Slavery Australia, University of Technology Sydney.

*****************************************************

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