Extracting Africa

NEWS (2-4)

FEATURES (5-10)

COMMENTS (11-12)

ARTS & CULTURE (13-14)

Tar Sands Meets YorkU 2 Game Over Nintendo 3 Challenges for Human Rights Defenders 4

Invasion of Mali 5 Canadian Mining 7 Tanzania’s Stolen Treasure 8-10

Donor’s Paradox 11

We Are Life 13 Workshop With D’bi Young 13 Capoeri 14

Spring Issue 2, 2013

Idle Know More 12 Reimagining Aid 12

Your Alternative News Magazine at York

Volume 5, Issue 2

xtracting E frica A

2

SPRING ISSUE 2 2013

Editorial

Extracting Africa R

esource extraction is a dirty business. As a result of 75% of mining and exploration companies being housed in Canada, Canadian companies play a significant role in destroying or contaminating natural environments and committing human rights abuses. According to a report commissioned by the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC), Canadian mining companies were involved in 33% (56 instances) of documented Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) violations between 1999-2009. This is, for example, 4x the amount of violations perpetuated by mining companies from Australia. Out of the 171 documented CSR violations in the report, 24% occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa. Such violations include community conflict, human rights abuses, and unethical behaviour. This issue - Extracting Africa - will provide insight into this toxic global industry, moving beyond the exploitation of subsurface treasures to an examination of different forms of resources that have historically, and are currently, the subject of (neo)colonial and imperial projects. Our goal is to provide some information on the complexities involved in considering resource extraction, and to encourage readers to re-evaluate the purpose of these projects in lieu of their negative consequences.

Our news section includes an article by Devin Holterman discussing a recently released report on the repression of Human Rights Defenders (HRD) in the resource extraction sectors of Tanzania and Uganda.

In a reprint of Alex Hellmuth’s article on the links between the gaming industry and conflict minerals, we are exposed to problems with CSR language, the effects this incurs on accountability, and the partial successes of consumer activism. Finally, Jesse Zimmerman writes about Enbridge’s Line 9 reversal project, a proposed pipeline that will carry diluted bitumen between Sarnia and Montreal, passing directly south of the York U community.

The features section includes Kristin Schwartz’s “The Western Invasion of Mali,” which provides a critical analysis and historical context to the current imperial occupation of Mali by Western forces, connecting this ongoing process to resource theft. Despite this ongoing form of domination, Schwartz highlights the prominent role women and civil society actors continue to play in an effort to extract themselves from militarization and conquest. Elikia M’bokolo traces the slave trade to its origins, discussing the internal and external manifestations of slavery and the subsequent struggles Africans faced in “The Impact of the Slave Trade on Africa.”

Next, Tracey Fehr provides a critique of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (a set of voluntary regulations for the diamond industry proven to be unsuccessful) that pushes NGO’s such as Global Witness to withdraw. In its place, Tracey comments that the Dodd-Frank legislation is established to provide accountability and transparency to an industry wrought with conflict diamonds.

In our comments section, Cimone presents a complex position as a student who once volunteered in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Cimone seeks an alternative to development and the marketability of certain charity and aid projects, calling for sustenance and support of local organizing. Also in our Comments section, Laura Pereira provides insight into how she developed the nonprofit organization Children of Light. After spending five summers in Ethiopia, Pereira has developed a unique relationship and knowledge of colonial and neocolonial processes. Pereira competes with the criticism of ‘band-aid international aid’ and argues for both short-term international aid and longterm systematic reform/revolution. Ashley Grover honestly expresses her experience at one of many Idle No More teach-ins at York University. Grover discusses navigating the lines between ally and contributor-to-theproblem. Grover asks the ever-important question of “If we do not begin to hold our government accountable and ensure that they keep their word in promoting the rights of First Nations in Canada, then what power do we have and who will be responsible for our future?”

Finally, our Arts sections hosts a variety of expressions including Kim Crosby’s empowering prose We Are Life. In an insightful reclamation of Black Indian traditional dance, Christian Totty aims to educate our readers on the historical legacy and resilience of Capoeira dance. D’bi Young is a well-known Toronto artist and poet who lines our art section with powerful poetic imagery in We Tellin’ Stories yo.

For our last issue of the year, the aim was to bring you a variety of opinions, news, and art all related to extraction processes that damage culture, environment, and land. In the process, we have gained articles and artworks investigating colonialism, neocolonialism, aid, as well as pieces that reclaim stolen and appropriated histories and culture. As always, we invite you to participate in the paper by contributing articles, poetry, fiction, or art and hope that some of you join the collective for 20132014 to ensure the continuation of critical and alternative news on campus.

Yours in solidarity, The York University Free Press

News Pipeline 9 – The Tar Sands Meet York U Jesse M. Zimmerman

F

or this article, I would like to take a brief pause from the immense injustices perpetrated by the extractive industries in Africa and focus on a project closer to home.

The focus throughout this article will be on the Alberta Tar Sands and the various proposed methods of rapid expansion.

Tar Sand extraction is quite distinct from traditional oil extraction, requiring a process of separating the petro from the tar sands itself, an extremely dirty and polluting process. In order to reach separate markets the bitumen must then be transported through pipelines built all over Canada and leading into the US. Bitumen is a particular type of petroleum that is highly corrosive and acidic.

It is known for being more vicious than

that would lead oil from Tar Sands through mainland, westward to Kitimat in British Columbia. This was called the Northern Gateway pipeline. The proposal includes tankers exporting the oil for international markets along the pristine British Columbian coasts. The coast itself is extremely rocky, which makes the danger of a spill or capsize likely. If either were to occur, this would irreversibly damage the fragile ecosystem of the Pacific coast. Various Within a short amount of communities time, we may have Tar Sands diluted along the bitumen travelling underneath Toronto, p i p e l i n e , with literally less than a kilometer away from joined environmental York University’s Keele Campus. a c t i v i s t s and various conventional crude oil and it is the type of concerned groups, have so far managed petroleum that is being extracted from the tar to stop this project, at least temporarily, sands in Alberta. On the abundance of oil that through various actions including physical will indeed be extracted from the tar sands, blockades by First Nations located in front should Canada proceed with the damaging of the planned pipeline route. extraction process, James Hansen of NASA succinctly stated, “If Canada precedes… it With the Pacific expansion dead in the water for the time being, Enbridge has will be game over for the climate.” looked eastward instead. This is where the Energy giant Enbridge has planned to feed story hits even closer to home. The pipeline this diluted bitumen through a pipeline is quite literally, for the community at

{

COVER IMAGE Title: “Someone Elses Treasure – Tanzania” Allan Lissner

The cover image is taken from Allan Lissner’s photo essay entitled “Someone Elses Treasure – Tanzania”. Allan is an award winning photographer, videographer, editor, and graphic designer based in Toronto, Canada and has collaborated with organizations such as Amnesty International and the Indigenous Environmental Network.

The picture is of an artisanal miner, named Timo, holding some gold nuggets. Timo works in a small-scale gold mine in Nzega, near Barrick Gold’s Bulyanhulu Gold mine. The artisanal miners say there were over 400,000 of them working in the area before they were all evicted in August 1996 to make way for the Bulyanhulu Gold Mine. To find out more about the negative effects of mining practices in Tanzania, we invite you to see the images and read the stories of mining impacted community members in Allan’s photo essay “Someone Elses Treasure – Tanzania”, which has been included in this issue. To view more of Allan’s work, visit http:// allan.lissner.net/

York University, in our own backyard. It is called Line 9 and currently flows west, originating in Portland, Maine, bringing oil to refineries near Sarnia, Ontario. Many of the refineries are located on Aamjiwnaang First Nation, nicknamed “Chemical Valley” by its residents, who face unprecedented health problems due to exposure. So much so that the mounting health problems have prompted the National Geographic Society to call it “the most polluted place on Earth.”

The proposal is to reverse the flow altogether, taking in diluted bitumen that originates in the Alberta Tar Sands through Sarnia along a route through Southern Ontario. From there, the oil would travel through west and north Toronto (Rexdale, the Jane and Finch community, right south of York University along the hydro-corridor just south of the Village community, and through northern Scarborough), onwards to Montreal. The oil would then travel through the New England States in the U.S. where it would finally reach Portland, Maine where it would be ready for export to international markets.

The proposed route for Line 9 runs through Aamjiwnaang First Nation and

CONTINUED ON PAGE 4

3

SPRING ISSUE 2 2013

News

Game Over?

Nintendo Bends to Activists’ Pressure on Conflict Minerals

ontinued pressure from citizen activists has finally started to crack Nintendo the company that ranked dead last in the Enough Project’s 2012 company rankings on conflict minerals report released last month. Nevertheless, much more is needed to convince the world’s largest video-game console maker to move beyond issuing public statements and take meaningful action to clean up its supply chain.

The 2012 company rankings showed the significant progress electronics companies have made over the past two years toward sourcing conflict-free minerals used in their products, and investing in conflictfree programs in eastern Congo. Consumer activism has undoubtedly played a role in moving these 24 companies ranked in the report to take action, but until now, Nintendo seemed immune to public pressure, let alone participation in Enough’s surveys in 2010 and 2012. However, in recent weeks, building consumer pressure and outrage among Nintendo users seems to have finally pushed them over the edge.

Last week, Jenna Kunz, a high-school activist in California, started a Change.org petition, calling on Nintendo to take the initial steps to map out its supply chain and ensure it is not using conflict minerals sourced from eastern Congo in Nintendo products. After reading Enough’s company rankings report, Kunz was shocked that the world’s largest gaming company had apparently not made any attempt to stop the indirect funding of violence in eastern Congo.

“I was appalled that a company with this much influence did not put human needs above the production of their gaming consoles,” said Kunz.

Her petition, which as of today has 5,147 signatures, inspired the Australian-based anti-slavery group Walk Free to create their own petition that focuses on ending the slave-like working conditions associated with the conflict minerals trade. Walk Free activists threatened to protest the September 13 preview event for Nintendo’s new Wii U game console. Amid such growing consumer pressure, Nintendo was forced to respond.

“Nintendo outsources the manufacture and assembly of all Nintendo products to our production partners,” a Nintendo spokesperson said last week to Polygon, a technology news blog. The spokesperson said the company established the Nintendo Corporate Social Responsibility Procurement Guidelines in 2008, which were revised in 2011, and disseminated it to all production

ADDRESS STUDENT CENTRE 434

YORK UNIVERSITY, 4700 KEELE ST.

TORONTO, CANADA

Alex Hellmuth

C

The YU Free Press is a free alternative newspaper at York University. Our principal objectives are to challenge the mainstream corporate media model and provide a fundamental space for critical analysis at York University and wider community.

partners who have all agreed to comply with the guidelines. The Nintendo spokesperson added, “Further, we have obtained individual confirmation from each production partner that they agree not to use conflict minerals.”

Although this demonstrates that Nintendo can be moved by consumer activism, the company’s statements on conflict minerals and corporate social responsibility guidelines are hollow and do not make up for a lack of action. It remains uncertain how Nintendo enforces these guidelines and how production partners guarantee the minerals they use are conflict-free. Additionally, the procurement guidelines do not seem to be publically available on the company’s website, which is critical for maintaining transparency moving forward.

“Unfortunately, the company’s statement looks like a meaningless piece of paper without concrete steps behind it, because suppliers don’t know where their minerals come from,” said Enough Project senior policy analyst Sasha Lezhnev. “Guidelines are not supply chain investigations, audits, requirements to source from conflict-free smelters, or a plan to help certification.

Nintendo should join the electronics industry audit program for conflict-free smelters, and require its suppliers to use only conflictfree smelters. Without that bare minimum, Nintendo is only putting a fig leaf over serious issues of war and slavery.”

In August, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, released long-awaited rules and regulations on how companies should trace and audit their supply chains regarding conflict minerals. To ensure that companies comply, consumer pressure in the form of more petitions, demonstrations, and conflict-free resolutions is needed to pressure the industry laggards like Nintendo and HTC to take initial steps forward on this issue, and to keep the leading companies - like HP, Intel, Apple, and Motorola - to continue setting industry standards. Hopefully, with more pressure from activists and Nintendo users, Nintendo will follow-up its vague statement about guidelines with steps to make conflict-free products a priority.

This article was originally posted on the Enough Project blog on September 17, 2012 (www.enoughproject.org/blog)

EMAIL info@yufreepress.org WEBSITE http://www.yufreepress.org

EDITORIAL COLLECTIVE Max Chewinski Ashley Grover Canova Kutuk Michelle Liu Alexandria MacLachlan Daniela Mastrocola Nathan Nun Sabah Tasneem Rahman Jen Rinaldi Amy Saunders

CONTRIBUTORS Matthew Cimone Kim Crosby Ashley Grover Tracy Fehr Alex Hellmuth Devin Holterman Allan Lissner Michelle Liu Elikia Mbokolo Laura Pereira Kristin Schwartz Christian Totty D’bi Young Anitafrika Jesse M. Zimmerman

PUBLISHER

The YU Free Press Collective The opinions expressed in the YU Free Press are not necessarily those of the editors or publishers. Individual editors are not responsible for the views and opinions expressed herein.

Images used by YUFP under various creative commons, shared, and open media licenses do not necessarily entail the endorsement of YUFP or the viewpoints expressed in its articles by the respective creators of such images.

Only current members of the Editorial Collective can represent the YU FreePress.

ADVERTISING

For advertising rates, please visit our website at: www.yufreepress.org

EVENTS

Event listings can be sent to

info@freepress.org

The YU Free Press welcomes typed, articles and letters and short creative works and visuals. All submisions must be accompanied by the author’s name (with relevant affiliations).

Materials deemed libelous or discriminatory by the YU Free Press Collective will not be printed.

Send all submissions to info@yufreepress.org

News

4

SPRING ISSUE 2 2013

Human Rights Defenders Face Serious Challenges in Resource Sector David Holterman

A

ccording to a new report from the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP), human rights defenders (HRDs) attempting to monitor the resource extraction industry face serious risks to their personal integrity and structural challenges to their safety and effectiveness. HRDs who defend the rights of themselves and others in a peaceful manner share their experiences and testimonies in the new report, released in December 2012 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The report lists multinational corporations as serious hurdles for these HRDs, including African Barrick Gold (the subsidiary of Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold Corp) and Heritage Oil PLC, a junior oil firm with a secondary stock market listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

“States and corporations must respect their obligations to protect the work of human rights defenders and prevent harassment or unnecessary restrictions on their work,” said Hassan Shire Sheikh, Executive Director of EHAHRDP, an organization that initially spawned out of York University’s Centre for Refugee Studies. The report focuses specifically on the

{

“The report lists multinational corporations as serious hurdles for these HRDs, including African Barrick Gold (the subsidiary of Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold Corp) and Heritage Oil PLC, a junior oil firm with a secondary stock market listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange.”

resource sectors of Tanzania with its significant mining economy, and Uganda with its burgeoning oil and gas sector. It consists of interviews with nearly 40 HRDs engaging in these areas within the two nations.

The report, entitled ‘Only the Brave Talk About Oil’: Human Rights Defenders and the Resource Extraction Industries in Uganda and Tanzania, illustrates specific challenges HRDs are facing in their attempts to effectively monitor the resource sector. In one case at Tanzania’s North Mara Mine (owned and operated by African Barrick Gold) a number of HRDs were arrested and detained after attempting to gather information regarding the killing of community members. A HRD explained that such harassment and violence is commonplace and jointly inflicted by police forces and employed

security of the mine.

As the title of the report and a number of testimonies indicate, there are numerous instances of serious obstructions to the work of HRDs, especially regarding their ability to safely conduct their work.

An example includes the arrest of a Publish What You Pay – Uganda (PWYP-U) employee who had organized a community meeting to screen a documentary focused on the governance of resource-rich states Nigeria and Botswana. The PWYP-U employee was arrested and detained for nearly five hours.

Similarly, in a separate community within the oil region, PWYP-U had employees halted from screening the same documentary, arrested, and their equipment confiscated for months. The report also points to an apparent “directive” put forth

by Uganda’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development. This

directive calls for the ministry to administer written permission to anyone wanting to research or hold meetings, of any sort, in the oil region of Uganda. Human Rights Watch has confirmed the existence of this directive, indicating that it does not seem to appear in law or writing. Such directives can have serious implications on the ability to critically observe and report on the happenings in the region, and according to the EHAHRDP report, it “severely undermines the effectiveness of the work of HRDs in the oil and gas region of Uganda.” Other challenges faced by HRDs include the right to freely express their concerns with the appropriate parties, access important information, associate and assemble, and the right to consult in the operations of corporations and states within their community.

Importantly, these challenges are not exclusive to Tanzania and Uganda, but rather are faced by HRDs monitoring the resource sector across the African continent and around the world. The situation is so dangerous and suppressive it has led some to ask if we are currently witnessing a “global crisis for human rights defenders.”

However, it would appear testimonies and reports focused on the aforementioned challenges and abuses of human rights have fallen on deaf ears in donor nations such as Canada. It is expected that the Canadian International Development Agency (now merged with the new Department of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Development), will use public funds to further its 2011 partnerships with large multinational mining corporations such as Barrick Gold Corp. despite overwhelming criticism of the company and its subsidiaries.

Devin Holterman is a Masters of Environmental Studies 2013 candidate and the lead investigator of the ‘Only the Brave Talk About Oil’: Human Rights Defenders and the Resource Extraction Industries in Uganda and Tanzania report.

Line 9 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2 the Haldimand Tract, which belongs to Haudenosaunee First Nation. All of the First Nations affected have submitted concerns to Enbridge. This project was first proposed back in 2008, but opposition from environmental organizations caused it to be shelved in 2009. However, things have changed in 2012, in large part due to the passing of Bill C-38 also known as the “Jobs, Growth and Long-Term Prosperity Act” in Ottawa by the federal government. Among its numerous modifications, Bill C-38 allows for rapid approval of industrial mega-projects and a curtailment of the standard review processes that these projects typically undergo.

The first phase of the rejuvenated Line 9 proposal, the reversal of flow between Sarnia and Westover, Ontario, was already approved on July 27, 2012. Phase II is currently in the process of being approved, as it allows the flow between Westover and Montréal. Within a short amount of time, we may have Tar Sands diluted bitumen travelling underneath Toronto, literally less than a kilometer away from York University’s Keele Campus. On top of that, Enbridge plans to increase the flow from 240,000 barrels per day to 300,000.

So what is the concern regarding this project? To start with, Enbridge’s tract record regarding oil spills is not very reassuring. In

2010, an Enbridge pipeline had a major spill (20,000 barrels) in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan.

Approximately 150 households were evacuated and local residents were told not to drink tap water.

Initial costs of the clean up were estimated at $5 million but actually exceed $765 million. 35 miles of the river are still closed off to this day. More recently, 1,000 barrels were spilled in Wisconsin by an Enbridge project. It is estimated that between 1999–2010 Enbridge

had 804 spills causing around 161,000 barrels to be leaked into communities and the natural ecosystem, and in many cases causing irreversible damage.

Line 9 was constructed in 1975 and was made for conventional petroleum, not the more vicious diluted bitumen that is being proposed for its reversed flow.

Opponents of the project argue that a catastrophic spill is not a matter of if but rather a matter of when.

In order to stop such a damaging accident it will be essential that the opponents of the plan build a broad-based coalition. A group composed of one community or one group of particular activists cannot challenge Enbridge and its backers in government. The pipeline affects everyone along the route, the First Nations, the various largely marginalized communities of Etobicoke, the Jane and Finch area, and northern Scarborough, as well as the York University

community. The stakes are high and victory only possible when people act within their various capacities, bringing the struggle from all along the route and binding them to the struggles of those in Alberta, British Columbia, and worldwide. If the power of grassroots organization across horizons can achieve victory over such odds it will be painfully clear how attached human beings are to one another and how the fate of all rests on the actions of many.

5

SPRING ISSUE 2 2013

Features

The Western Invasion of Mali Kristin Schwartz

D

ecades after the decolonization struggles on the African continent, African states have their own flags, parliaments, and armies. However, military, economic, and corporate domination by the West has continued and is now intensifying, as the West relies increasingly on Africa’s rich deposits of oil, gold, uranium and other strategic minerals and natural resources. In The Ravaging of Africa, a radio documentary released in 2007, writer Asad Ismi and I described the devastating impact of US imperialism on the continent in four episodes: Militarizing Africa, Economic War, Corporate Plunder, and African Resistance. These themes can help us to understand the latest example of imperialist intervention: the invasion and occupation of Mali. Mali is the fifth largest country on the continent and spans parts of the Sahara, the arid Sahel, and fertile lands along the Niger River.

Militarizing Mali and the Sahel On January 11, 2013, France began an invasion of Mali, its former colony. Supported by the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada (which provided a cargo plane for transporting French troops and material), France has now stationed an estimated 4,000 soldiers in Mali and has engaged in fighting throughout the north of the country, supposedly to counter the threat of Islamic fundamentalism.

Co-operating with France is the Malian army, which backed a 2012 coup that overthrew the elected president. According to the United Nations, 380,000 people have been displaced. Civilians are being killed with impunity. France has stated its intention to withdraw its troops, on the condition that an occupation force composed of up to 8,000 soldiers from other African countries is in place. British Prime Minister David Cameron has said of the “terror threat” in Mali: “It will require a response that is about years, even decades, rather than months.”

This massive militarization of Mali follows the 2011 assault on Libya by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), another western military intervention.

Fighter jets and military ships from France, the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway, and other countries bombed the country’s defences, weakening the government until opposition groups – mainly armed militias and Islamists – were able to take power and assassinate Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar Qadaffi. The armed forces of Libya dissolved and soldiers disbanded.

Among them were Malians from the Tuareg ethnic group, a nomadic people numbering two to three million who live in Libya, Mali,

Niger, Algeria, and Burkina Faso.

They call their territory Azawad.

When Tuareg fighters returned from Libya, some joined with the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (French acronym MNLA) to wage a

{

a regional level, bolstered by a growing alliance between Algeria and the United States. Jeremy Keenan, professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and author of Dark Sahara: America’s

institutionalize U.S. ties with the African officer class, part of AFRICOM’s mission to forge deep “soldier-to-soldier” relationships: general-to-general, colonel-tocolonel, and so forth down the line.”

The Army Times describes the deployment as follows: “U.S. Army Africa will continue to strengthen ties with regional militaries and governments by teaching military tactics, medicine and logistics, as well as combating famine, disease and terrorism in secure environments... Active-duty soldiers, guardsmen and reservists have helped quell regional violence, assist sick and injured Africans and feed the famished in East Africa.”

“The catastrophe now being played out in Mali is the inevitable outcome of the way in which the Global War On Terror has been inserted into the Sahara-Sahel by the U.S., in concert with Algerian intelligence operatives, since 2002.” -Jeremy Keenan

rebellion against the central government of Mali. This was the fourth such rebellion since 1960 and the most successful so far. By March 2012, the MNLA forced the Malian army to withdraw from the north of Mali, and declared Azawad independent.

By June, however, the secular MNLA was displaced in the cities and towns by Islamist groups including Al Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM), Jamat Tawhid Wal Jihad Fi Garbi Afriqqiya (Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, with French acronym MUJAO), and Ansar al Din. These groups began to impose sharia law and to carry out horrendous punishments for violations, including amputations, stoning, and executions.

What is most important to understand about these groups is that they emerge from the shadowy world of western intelligence operations, and are armed and trained by the west to serve multiple goals. Back in the 1980s, the U.S. created the mujahadeen in order to fight against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Later, the U.S. deemed these same Islamists to be an enemy, and invaded and occupied Afghanistan. The pattern continues today. During the recent Libyan war, NATO sided with Islamists in order to overthrown Qadaffi. NATO’s main ally on the ground was the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group led by Abdelhakim Belhadj, who had himself fought with mujahadeen in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Sudan. Now these same Islamic forces, bolstered by weapons from their western allies, and seized from Libya’s military, are fighting in Syria where they enjoy western funding and political support against the government of Bashar al-Assad.

Islamist groups in the SaharaSahel region were first incubated in Algeria. During the “dirty war” of the 1990s, Algerian intelligence neutralized political opposition to the government by nurturing and funding Islamist terrorist groups.

These groups committed massacres and created fear among the people, a sickening collaboration, which has since been exposed by highlevel Algerian military leaders.

That strategy continues today on

War on Terror in Africa says: “The catastrophe now being played out in Mali is the inevitable outcome of the way in which the Global War On Terror has been inserted into the Sahara-Sahel by the U.S., in concert with Algerian intelligence operatives, since 2002.”

The expansion of AFRICOM The war in Mali has provided an ideal cover for the expansion of U.S. military power in Africa.

On January 28, the United States signed a military agreement with Mali’s neighbour, Niger. A Niger government source told Reuters that the U.S. plans to build a base for unmanned drones in the country.

Drones are already operating from bases in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, and Djibouti. Outrage against the use of drones is increasing worldwide. The London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that in Pakistan alone, since 2004, drones have killed up to 3,325 people, including 176 children.

Moreover, 3,000 U.S. soldiers were already scheduled to be deployed across the African continent in 2013, joining the 1,200 stationed at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti.

These troops will advance the mission of AFRICOM, the Africa Command of the United States Armed Forces, established during the regime of George W. Bush.

Comments Ford, “Functions that were once the purview of the U.S. State Department, such as distribution of economic aid and medical assistance, are now part of AFRICOM’s vast portfolio.

In Africa, more than anyplace in the world, U.S. foreign policy wears a uniform – which should leave little doubt as to Washington’s objectives in the region: Africa is to be dominated by military means.”

Economic War, Corporate Plunder Mali is rich in resources. It has productive agricultural farmland along the Niger River. It is one of the biggest cotton exporters, and the third largest gold producer, in Africa. For centuries, the people of the region have profitably managed trade across the Sahara and Sahel, linking north and central Africa. In 1325, the Emperor of Mali, Mansa Musa, made a pilgrimage to Mecca with 60,000 retainers. He gave away so much gold along the way that its value dropped for a decade.

Today, Mali is ranked 175 of out 187 countries on the United Nations Human Development Index, a measure that takes into account life expectancy, access to health and education, and annual income. Almost one in five children born in Mali does not survive until their fifth birthday.

The country’s poverty is the consequence of its colonization

by France, from 1890 to 1960, and ongoing economic domination by the west. Like many other West and Central African countries, Mali

uses the franc for its currency. Paris determines the value of the franc in a manner that favours foreign corporations and impoverishes rural producers.

Austerity measures imposed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund as a condition for loans have destroyed health and education systems. Mali’s cotton industry competes with that of the United States and Europe, which subsidize their farmers and drive the price of cotton down so low that Malian farmers cannot make a living from their crop. Under pressure from the World Bank, Mali reformed its mining laws in the 1990s to promote foreign investment in the gold industry. Among those who have benefitted from Mali’s resources is Canadian mining companies IAmGold, Endeavour, and Avnel. Other mineral resources, not yet developed, include bauxite, phosphate, iron, manganese, and uranium.

Access to uranium, in particular, appears to be a driving force in the invasion of Mali. France derives over 75% of its electricity from nuclear power. Mali has some uranium deposits, but more importantly, its neighbour Niger supplies France with one third of its annual uranium supply. The French government-owned company Areva operates mines in the north of Niger, within Tuareg territory.

These mines have been the site of protests by local people concerned about environmental devastation and diseases caused by radiation.

Locals are also seeking a greater share of the profit from the mines.

In 2011, Islamists kidnapped seven Areva workers, and four are still being held hostage.

Fuelled by the local protests, the Niger government has demanded better terms from Areva. In February 2013, President Mahamadou Issoufou said in an interview with TV5 Monde that the 100 million euros which Niger derives from its Areva mines annually “represents just 5 percent of our budget, it’s not acceptable. That’s why I have asked to re-equilibrate the terms of the deal between Areva and Niger.”

Issoufou also suggested that Niger would seek other partners for developing its resources. China, for example, opened a uranium mine in Niger in 2010.

China has been investing heavily in Africa, to ensure access to raw materials and markets for the

CONTINUED ON PAGE 7

“AFRICOM’s array of alliances and agreements with African militaries already embraces virtually every nation on the continent except Eritrea and Zimbabwe.

All but a handful of Black African states routinely take part in military maneuvers staged by Americans, utilizing U.S. command-andcontrol equipment and practices,” writes Glen Ford, executive director of Black WikiCommons Agenda Report. “The new, roving U.S. January 21, 2013 - French troops board a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III brigade will further cargo aircraft en route to Mali.

FEATURES

6

The Impact of the Slave Trade on Africa

Elikia M’bokolo

This original text of this article has been edited by the YUFP.

T

he course of human history is marked by appalling crimes, but even the hardened historian is filled with horror, loathing, and indignation upon examining the record of African slavery. How was it possible? How could it have gone on for so long and on such a scale?

A tragedy of such dimensions has no parallel in any other part of the world.

The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes: across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports, and across the Atlantic. There were at least ten centuries of slavery for the benefit of the Muslim countries (from the ninth to the nineteenth).

This was followed by more than four centuries (from the end of the fifteenth to the nineteenth) of a regular slave trade to build the Americas and the prosperity of the Christian states of Europe.

Of all these slave routes, the “slave trade” in its purest form, i.e. the European Atlantic trade, attracts most attention and gives rise to the most debate. On the one hand, the Atlantic trade is the least poorly documented to date.

More significantly, however, it was directed at Africans only, whereas the Muslim countries enslaved both Blacks and Whites.

It was also the form of slavery that indisputably contributed most to the present situation of Africa.

It permanently weakened the continent, led to its colonisation by the Europeans in the nineteenth century, and engendered the racism and contempt from which Africans still suffer.

While specialists squabble about the details, the basic questions raised by the enslavement of the Africans have scarcely varied since the eighteenth century. The issue first became the subject of public debate as the result of the efforts of abolitionists in the Northern slave states, the demands of black intellectuals, and the unremitting struggle of the slaves themselves.

Why the Africans rather than other

SPRING ISSUE 2 2013 interest, which demands that no resource necessary to security and prosperity be neglected, and the founding charters of kingdoms, which impose on sovereigns the obligation to defend the lives, property, and rights of their subjects. The states involved in the slave trade strove to keep it within strict limits. In 1670, when the French requested permission to establish a trading post on his territory, King Tezifon of Allada made the following clear-sighted reply: “You will make a house in which you will put at first two little pieces of cannon, the next year you will mount four, and in a little time your factory will metamorphosed into a fort that will make you master of my dominions and enable you to give laws to me.”

In Angola, Mozambique and certain parts of Guinea, however, peoples? Who exactly should century, the Spaniards began to Europeans got directly involved be held responsible for the slave issue “licences” (from 1513) and in the African warfare and trade trade? The European colonizers asientos or “contracts” (from 1528) networks with the help of local alone, or the Africans as well? under which the state monopoly black accomplices or half-castes Did the slave trade do real damage over the import of Blacks passed who were the offspring of white to Africa, or was it a marginal into private hands. adventurers. These adventurers had phenomenon affecting only a few a reputation that was unenviable coastal societies? We need to take The great slaving companies were even in an age of extreme cruelty. a fresh look at the origins of the formed in the second half of the At the beginning of the sixteenth Atlantic slave trade. They shed seventeenth century when the century, the Portuguese lançados light on the enduring mechanisms Americas and other parts of the (those who dared to “take off” into that established and maintained the world were redistributed among the interior) were described as “the vicious spiral. the nations of Europe. The whole seed of the devil,” “the essence of of Europe - France, England, evil,” and “murderers, thieves, and Trade or go under Holland, Portugal and Spain, degenerates.” In time, this group of intermediaries grew large enough to “The desire for freedom...did not come to the Africans from outside, whether from Enlightenment constitute, at several along the coast, philosophers, abolitionist agitators, or republican points the class of “merchant humanists. They came from internal developments princes” on whom the slave trade came to within the African societies themselves.” rest.

For a long time the Arab slave trade and even Denmark, Sweden and appears to have been a supplement Brandenburg - shared in the spoils, How profitable was it? Scrupulous to a much more profitable establishing a chain of monopoly accounts were kept of the slaving commerce in Sudanese gold companies, forts, trading posts ships’ outgoing cargo. They give and the precious, rare, or exotic and colonies that stretched from us a very clear picture of what was products of the African countries. Senegal to Mozambique. traded in exchange for millions of It was geared mainly to the African lives: rifles, gunpowder, satisfaction of domestic needs. In Sporadic raids by Europeans soon brandy, cloth, glassware, and contrast, it was the trade in human gave way to regular commerce. ironmongery.

A surprisingly beings that galvanised the energy African societies were drawn into unequal exchange? Perhaps. But of the Europeans along the coast the slavery system under duress, the same sort of thing is still going of Africa, despite some exports hoping that once inside it they on today. The countries of the of gold, ivory and hardwoods. would be able to derive maximum North stop at nothing to convince Following the successful benefit for themselves. Nzinga African heads of state to import establishment of slave plantations Mbemba, ruler of the Kongo white elephants in exchange for on the islands off the coast of Africa Kingdom, is a good example. mediocre personal profit.

(Sao Tomé, Principe, Cap Verde), He converted to Christianity in the export of Africans to the New 1491 and referred to the King While the revolts of black slaves World supplied the workforce for of Portugal as his brother. When during the Atlantic crossing and the colonial plantations and mines he first came to power in 1506, in America are well documented, whose produce (gold, silver and, he protested strongly at the fact there is less awareness of the above all, sugar, cocoa, cotton, that the Portuguese, his brother’s scale and diversity of resistance to tobacco and coffee) was the prime subjects, felt entitled to rob his slavery within Africa, both to the material of international trade. The possessions and carry off his people Atlantic slave trade as such and two slavery systems nevertheless into slavery. It was to no avail. to the slavery which it induced or shared the same justification of the The African monarch gradually aggravated within Africa. unjustifiable: a more or less explicit allowed himself to be convinced racism with a strong religious that the slave trade was both useful One long neglected source is colouring. In both cases, we find and necessary. Among the goods Lloyd’s List. It throws unexpected the same fallacious interpretation offered in exchange for human light on the rejection of the slave of Genesis, according to which the beings, rifles took pride of place. trade in the African coastal Blacks of Africa, as the alleged Moreover, only states equipped societies. It is packed full of details descendants of Ham, are cursed with rifles, i.e. participating in of damage to vessels insured by and condemned to slavery. the slave trade, were able to resist the famous London company attacks from their neighbours and from its foundation in 1689. The The Europeans did not have pursue expansionist policies. figures show that in more than an easy time establishing the 17% of cases, the damage was due trade in “ebony.” At first, they The African states fell into the to local rebellion or plundering in simply raided the coast and trap set by the European slavers: Africa. The perpetrators of these carried people off. However, the trade or go under. All the states revolts were the slaves themselves, regular exploitation of mines and along the coast or close to the assisted by the coastal population. plantations required an ever-larger slave trading areas were riven It is as if there were two separate workforce. In the early sixteenth by the conflict between national interests at work: the interest of

{

states that had allowed themselves to become incorporated into the slavery system, and the interest of free peoples who were under constant threat of enslavement and were moved to act in solidarity with those already reduced to slavery.

As for slavery within African society itself, everything appears to indicate that it grew in parallel with the Atlantic slave trade and was reinforced by it. It similarly gave rise to many forms of resistance: flight, open rebellion, and recourse to the protection afforded by religion (attested in both Islamic and Christian countries). In the Senegal valley, for example, the attempts by certain monarchs to enslave and sell their own subjects gave rise, at the end of the seventeenth century, to the Marabout war, and the Toubenan movement (from the word tuub, meaning to convert to Islam).

A continent of “savages” The ideas of abolitionist propaganda, which certain ways of commemorating the abolition of slavery tend to reinforce, should not be accepted uncritically. The desire for freedom, and freedom itself, did not come to the Africans from outside, whether from Enlightenment philosophers, abolitionist agitators, or republican humanists. It came from internal developments within the African societies themselves. Moreover, from the end of the eighteenth century, merchants in countries bordering on the Gulf of Guinea, who had mostly grown rich on the slave trade, began to distance themselves from slavery and send their children to Britain to train in the sciences and other professions useful for the development of commerce. That is why throughout the nineteenth century African societies had no trouble responding positively to the inducements of industrialised Europe, which had converted to the “lawful” trade of the produce of the land and was henceforth hostile to the “unlawful” and “shameful” trade of slaves.

The Africa of the nineteenth century was very different from the continent, which Europeans had encountered four hundred years earlier. As the Trinidadian historian, Walter Rodney has tried to show, Africa had been drawn by the slave trade down a dangerous path, and it was now well and truly underdeveloped.

European discourse on Africa now centred on the “backwardness” and “savagery” of the continent. Based on such value judgements, the West was postulated as a model. African upheavals and regression were attributed, not to real historical developments in which Europe had played a part, but to the “innate nature” of the Africans themselves.

Emergent colonialism and imperialism cloaked themselves in humanitarian garb and invoked “racial superiority” and the “White Man’s burden.” The former slavetrading states now spoke only of

CONTINUED ON PAGE 7

7

FEATURES

SPRING ISSUE 2 2013

Canada and the Extractive Industries: One in the Same

and other mining corporations in Tanzania.

Many of the corporations, including Barrick Gold Corp, lured to Canada thanks to the numerous benefits they receive from the state have atrocious human rights records.

The DRC and Tanzania are just two examples of nations where these violations take place. There are unfortunately many more.

Devin Holterman

T

here is a popular political cartoon from the Yukon News that shows Prime Minister Stephen Harper being chased by a bison, which is labeled as the Idle No More movement. Prime Minister Harper is wonderfully portrayed, complete with his characteristically awkward yet undeniably sly smile that sends feverish chills through the bones of anyone who possesses

{

realize such wealth.

The undeniable link between the Canadian government and oil, gas, and mining industries has recently been on display. In December 2012, the International Co-operation Minister Julian Fantino, officially declared the strengthening of ties between the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)

the World’s Mining Industries that these (in)actions have serious implications for people and human rights in nations all around the world.

There is an ever-growing list of violent confrontations between police/mine security and the surrounding communities at African Barrick Gold’s, the subsdiary of Barrick Gold Corp, North Mara mine in Tanzania. The most recent killing of a member of the surrounding community was in November 2012.

Environmental degradation is also rampant.

“The fact is, the Canadian nation-state, made up of every Canadian citizen, not only allows such behavior to go nearly unnoticed but bolsters the exploitative behavior of the extractive industry through blatantly obvious benefits and subsidies...”

a personality. The PM’s thought bubble contains these words: “If I ignore this like I do scientific data, the premiers, and most Canadians, they’ll lose interest and wander off.”

The cartoon has all the makings of a great political cartoon as it tells the hard truth with significant humour. At first, I responded with a chuckle, but it soon turned to a reaction of anger brought on by the element of truth in the PM Harper’s thought bubble. Why? The subtext accompanying the PM’s thought bubble could have been easily filled with nearly endless topics ranging from military spending, foreign policy, the Arctic, climate change, the extractive industries, and the list goes on. Frankly, with no intended slight to the artist, this cartoon was simple, the issues are many, the political response limited.

I will take the last topical consideration presented above and explore it more thoroughly.

Moreover, I will illustrate just how embedded the Canadian government and thus the Canadian nation is to the global extractive industries with the hope that the attempts at further ignorance will strike a cord throughout the readership.

Let us be completely honest here: Canada is built on the extractive industries. Just look at the Canadian campus: the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto named after Peter Munk, the founder and chairman of Barrick Gold Corporation, one of the largest gold mining companies on the planet. The numerous Schulich schools around the country are aptly labeled in the name of Seymour Schulich, who is one half responsible for introducing royalty payments to the mining industry. These are just two examples. Canadian universities, colleges, medical centers, and numerous other aspects of society have been significantly infiltrated by the profits of Canada’s extractive industries. Canadians continue reaping the benefits, not understanding who is behind these monuments, much less the negative effects caused in order to

and Canadian interests abroad − in other words the extractive industries. This lead, Yves Engler, writing for The Tyee, to label the country a “Global Bully.”

Engler is discussing at length the Canadian government’s role in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a role that is not helping to secure peace and stability for the Congolese people but rather is solely focused on securing and maintaining Canadian mining investment in the country, which totals $3 billion.

“So, on one side, we are saying that pollution in North Mara is caused by Barrick. I would say, it is straight forward, that one I do not fear. Although the evidence at this moment can only be circumstantial evidence, but I would say before Barrick or before large-scale mining these problems were not

This role has moved beyond the closed-door meetings between diplomats and international monetary institutions. It is now blatant, Canada’s global image is eroding away and it no longer is the country seen as the blue helmet wearing, peace and environment loving country next to the United States. Rather, it is a country whose foreign policy aligns perfectly with furthering its most destructive and exploitive industries abroad.

Public funds legally mandated through CIDA for goals such as poverty alleviation have been, and will continue to be, utilized to bolster the corporate social responsibility profiles of major Canadian extractive corporations such as the aforementioned Barrick Gold Corp. in foreign countries often labeled as “developing.”

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

Canadians should not be surprised.

Government support for the Canadian extractive industries is not new. In fact, it is the very reason why 75 per cent of global mining corporations are officially found within Canadian borders, listed on Canadian stock exchanges, and receive unbelievable benefits for being so, regardless of where their operations take place or how those operations are conducted.

The fact is, the Canadian nationstate, made up of every Canadian citizen, not only allows such behavior to go nearly unnoticed but bolsters the exploitative behavior of the extractive industry through blatantly obvious benefits and subsidies such as those already mentioned. Alain Deneault and William Sacher elaborate further in their new book Imperial Canada Inc. Legal Haven of Choice for

Mali

long term. Rather than imposing austerity measures, China has helped to build roads and schools, and offered generous export credits. Reuters reported in December, “China’s trade with Africa reached $166.3 billion in 2011, according to Chinese statistics, and African exports to China - primarily resources to fuel Chinese industries - rose to $93.2 billion from $5.6 billion over the past decade... China in July offered African countries $20 billion in loans over the next three years, double the amount pledged in the previous three-year period.” By invading northern Mali, France is seeking to protect its mines in Niger from Tuareg nationalism, and to counter growing Chinese economic influence in the region overall.

Slave Trade

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5 liberating Africa from “Arab” slavers and the black potentates who were also engaged in slavery.

However, once the colonial powers had carved up the continent, they took great care not to abolish the slavery structures they had found in place. Any change would have to be gradual, they argued, and “native” customs had to be respected. Slavery thus persisted within the colonial system. Worse still, in order to drive the economic

It is long past the time to move beyond Julien Harneis discussing these issues in small Miner in the Democratic Republic of Congo niche groups of researchers, there,” one prominent human rights activists, civil society, and students. defender in Tanzania explained to As the cartoon mentioned at the onset reminds us, the political me. powers understand, they have The name of this individual is thought of this before, perhaps saw withheld for safety reasons as it coming, and have a reactionary he, and many other human rights plan in place. It is up to the people defenders and activists, have faced to make their voices heard, to push intimidation and threats to their through the status quo, shatter it, personal safety and integrity for and call for the change they want simply attempting to monitor the to see. It always has been. operations of African Barrick Gold Resistance in Mali and beyond As the current crisis developed over the past year in Mali, women’s organizations and civil society groups denounced first the military coup, and then the rising power of Islamic fundamentalists in the north. As the possibility of military intervention grew, one Malian women’s rights activist told Pambazuka News: “Any decision that is taken by political leaders, ECOWAS [Economic Community of West Africa], the African Union or the international community needs to be aware of who is paying what price for every intervention that they consider.” In November 2012, 40 leaders of women’s organizations met in the capital, Bamako. They demanded “at least 30 per cent female representation in all bodies for crisis management and post-crisis management; participation in political and institutional governance, security and the electoral process; capacity-building in terms of

{

mediation, negotiation, prevention, conflict-management and peaceconsolidation; advocacy by the UN Secretary-General in favour of reparation for the harm suffered by rape victims as well as their care; and immediate implementation of a support fund for the selfempowerment of the women of Mali.”

Rather than an expansion of democratic and gender-sensitive decision-making, the people of Mali got soldiers, fighter jets, and drones. They are in for a long fight to extract themselves from the military abyss created by the west.

Kristin Schwartz is a community worker, writer and radio producer.

In 2007, she produced The Ravaging of Africa, a four part radio documentary, with writer and executive producer Asad Ismi, which can be downloaded via Asad’s website at www.asadismi. ws.

“Whatever it is called, nothing can disguise the fact that forced labour is de facto and de jure simply the reintroduction and promotion of slavery.”

machine, they created a new type of slavery in the form of forced labour. As stated in a letter from the French deputies to the minister for the colonies, “Whatever it is called, nothing can disguise the fact that forced labour is de facto and de jure simply the reintroduction and promotion of slavery.” Here again, to look no further than the French example, the impulse for freedom came from Africa. It was due to the efforts of the African deputies,

led by Félix Houphouët-Boigny and Léopold Sédar Senghor that forced labour was at last abolished in 1946.

Elikia M’bokolo is the Director of studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, in Paris. Translated by Barry Smerin.

Copyright 2013, Le Monde Diplomatique, used with the permission of Agence Global.

8

FEATU

Tanzania is blessed with Tanzania is estimated to you factor in the large q other minerals – not to m – Tanzania should be a v remains one of the poore only are Tanzanians not b that the multinational mi poor.

The following accounts livelihoods, exploited wo about the mining industr communities surrounding by the world’s largest g Mine, owned by the third

Someone Else’s Treasur Allan Lissner

Sheila is one of 258 men, women, and children, from Mtakuja village who were displaced in late July 2007 to make way for an expansion of the Geita Gold Mine.

“The police invaded us at three in the morning when we were all asleep. They had machine guns and a court order evicting us. Some of us resisted to allow the elders to run away. They started beating us. We were not allowed to take any belongings as we were pushed using guns.”

To this day allegations continue that during the evictions in August 1996, at least fifty-two artisanal miners were buried alive in their pits by company bulldozers.

The company denies these allegations and maintains that “the way people left this site was in a peaceful, systematic fashion” despite reports in the Tanzanian press at the time reporting mass confusion, looting, robbery and bloodshed as people fled from police in riot gear.

In response to the companies’ and the government’s denials Melania, a Kahama resident, has been collecting these photos of people who claim to have witnessed the killings or lost loved ones during the evictions. “…This one was there when it happened … this one lost her son … this one went back afterwards to try and dig out his friends … this one lost her home and her grandchildren …”

This is the home of the Luhanga family in Kahama.

The Luhanga’s were among the thousands of families who had been forcefully evicted in August 1996 to make way for Sutton Resources’ Bulyanhulu Gold Mine, which was bought three years later by Barrick Gold.

According to companies’ own estimates there were anywhere between 30,000 and 400,000 people living in the area before the evictions.

The company claims that the people living there were nomadic and illegal trespassers, but the communities argue that some of the villages in the area had existed long before colonial days.

Maria is one of the displaced villagers of Mtakuja, living in a number of tents that have been nicknamed ‘Darfur, Tanzania.’

“We were not aware that we were going to be evicted,” Maria says, “Our houses were demolished. Others were beaten and others have died. I have lost my brother and my uncle, who was our village leader. My baby has been suffering but it is hard now in that I am not able to get soap, medicine or clothes for my child. And I cannot leave, as there is no security here. If I leave, someone may get inside and take the little I have. So I am stuck here. ” Deogratios is the traditional ‘witchdoctor,’ or medicine man, of the community. He was among the thousands of people who were evicted to make way for Barrick’s Bulynhulu gold mine.

He remembers being forced from his home by heavily armed paramilitary forces only one day after the Minister of Minerals and Energy had issued an order giving the Bulyanhulu residents one month to vacate the area.

Deogratios and his family had nowhere to go, so for two months after being forced from their home they were hiding in the bush. During this time, his wife became ill, but with their home destroyed, and without access to his medicines, the healer could do nothing as he sat and watched his wife die.

9

URES

The Mwita family lives in Nyamongo next to Barrick’s North Mara gold mine. The waste rock on the edge of the mining pit can be seen just behind their huts here.

“We had never experienced poverty before the mine came here.” They used to farm and raise livestock, “but now there are no pastures because the mine has almost taken the whole land … we have no sources of income and we are living only through God’s wishes.”

h an abundance of in mineral resources. In gold alone, o be sitting on top of a US$39 billion treasure. When quantities of diamonds, copper, silver, gemstones, and mention its wildlife, agricultural, and human resources very wealthy country. Despite this wealth the country est in the world, leading some critics to argue that not benefiting from its abundance of mineral resources, but ining industry has contributed to impoverishing the rural

of mass displacements, violent confrontations, lost orkers, and poisoned ecosystems raise serious questions ry in Tanzania and internationally. The focus here is on g the Bulyanhulu and North Mara Gold Mines, both owned gold mining company Barrick Gold; and the Geita Gold d largest gold company, South Africa’s AngloGold Ashanti.

re - Tanzania With many communities surrounding these large scale mines now unable to continue their traditional livelihoods of farming and raising livestock, thousands are left with no alternative but to turn to scraping through the mine’s waste rocks and digging pits nearby to look for gold.

Artisanal miners have tunneled deep into the same mountain that the Geita Gold Mine is mining. There are over a thousand artisanal miners working in this dangerous makeshift mineshaft that tunnels almost directly underneath GGM’s open pit gold mine. These attempts at finding gold near the mines have brought local artisanal miners in direct conflict with the multinationals operating the large-scale mines. The company has tried to stop the artisanal miners from using this mineshaft by filling in all but one of the entrances into the shaft. Now they are left with only one-way in and out, increasing the dangers they face.

Melania’s two eldest sons, Jonathan and Ernest, were among the fifty-two miners who were allegedly buried alive during the evictions. The family owned the pit that they were working in at the time, so Melania lost her livelihood as well as her two children in August 1996. “Bulyanhulu had more than 400,000 artisanal miners,” says Melania, “My shaft was number 37B. I had about 15 young men working for me and I was able to feed them. We were not wealthy, but we were financially stable and always able to meet our basic needs. A mother in my standing never used to beg, people used to come to me for help. But now we are undesirable and in deep poverty. I will never forget the brutal killing of my children and the poverty they have brought to our lives.”

Deus had worked in the Bulyanhulu Gold Mine as a supervisor for five years when he was in an accident. He had to be flown a thousand kilometers away to Dar es Salaam, waiting 18 hours before receiving any treatment. He lost his right arm.

He remembers vividly the doctor telling him that if he had received treatment earlier it would have been a very simple procedure to save his arm. For a career ending injury, the company eventually agreed to give him 10 million Shillings (9,000 CAD) in compensation, far less than the 600 million Shillings (550,000 CAD) Deus estimates he should have received as a supervisor working for the world’s largest gold company. “There is no humanity in the way they have treated us,” insists one of Deus’ former co-workers, “they make us promises while we are of use to them. But then, if we become sick, or old, or start to complain about our rights, then they just spit us out like a chewing gum that has lost its flavour!”

10

FEATURES

SPRING ISSUE 2 2013

Mabibhi is a resident of Nyakabale, a small farming community of about 2,000 people living near the Geita Gold mine. He suffers from severe skin problems, which first started appearing about three years ago. Mabibhi, who has since passed away, lived a full life and said that it did not matter what happened to him. What he was really worried about was the fate of his grandchildren.

Water contamination has become one of the central issues that communities have raised against these largescale mining operations. This is a water hole in Nyamongo that was built by Barrick Gold near their North Mara Gold mine as a gift to the local communities (the edge of the mine pit can be seen in the top left corner). But the water appears milky and dirty and the plants around the water hole appear to be dying.

“We do not have safe water here,” says Esther, who lives next to the North Mara Gold Mine, “in 2004 we were going to a wedding, the road was muddy – black mud. I drew water by hand and washed but then the hand started to itch and revealed some pimple-like reaction. The company should build a new tailings dam. This one has no sealing system, we were here when they were building it.”

Mutaguna, the granddaughter of the late Mabibhi, is pictured here drinking the same water that residents believe has been contaminated by the nearby Geita Gold Mine. Residents report that the water now tastes bitter and smells foul, but they have no other sources of water and cannot afford bottled water.

Mary Otaigo (above) from Wasgita village, downriver from the North Mara Gold Mine, is suffering from skin discoloration all over her body. Speaking on behalf of his mother who was barely able to speak, Mstei Otaigo explained; “we farm down by the river and Mama would go down to check whether the monkeys were eating the crops. In the process she used the Tigithe water and was affected. We had 55 cows, 50 died of water pollution, the remaining cows I sold to treat my mother but she is not getting any better.

She does not eat well, she complains of severe stomach pains the whole night, and she scratches her whole body. This company has not brought any benefit to us apart from suffering. We were doing well economically, but since they came we have no breathing space. Their presence has taken us backwards.” Mary Otaigo died seven months after this interview.

Residents of Nyakabale have compiled a list of 36 deaths since the Geita Gold mine began operations in 2000, which they link to the chemicals from the mine. “The first unusual deaths,” according to residents, “occurred shortly after the Geita mine began operating … a family of four died after eating a dying rabbit they had caught near the tailings dam.

Since then, a number of women have had miscarriages.”

Mass displacements, violent confrontations, lost livelihoods, exploited workers, and poisoned ecosystems, all for someone else’s treasure - gold - 80% of which will be used for jewelry.

Allan Lissner is an award-winning photographer, videographer, editor, and graphic designer based in Toronto, Canada. This is an abridged version of a longer photo essay, and can be read in its entirety at http:// allan.lissner.net/

11

SPRING ISSUE 2 2013

COMMENTS

Donor’s Paradox: Grassroots Development in the Charity Culture

Matthew Cimone

E

sther Kanu is a social entrepreneur in Freetown, the capital city of Sierra Leone. I met Esther as a 4th year International Development student on Co-Op placement. Esther survived Sierra Leone’s Blood Diamond conflict, female genital mutilation, and teenage pregnancy from a forced marriage in order to found her organization; a school called the Women in Action Development Center. Esther’s school was not started by an international charity.

It is a grassroots initiative to help women rebuild their communities following brutal civil conflict and dire poverty. My placement in Africa for 11 months cost a large international sports charity I was volunteering for, approximately 35 000 dollars - a sum of money that would have run Esther’s successful school of 200 girls for an entire year. Following my volunteer experience, I went home.

Whereas Esther has been there, running her school since 1996.

of large international charities, that hope to win the trust of the donor community. Whether charities will admit it or not, they are selling a product. Many of the marketing departments for large charities have as many staff members promoting them in Country - as the charity has operating overseas.

If you are in the for-profit sector, you have some clear bottom lines established. If the value of your goods and services are not made apparent, your company will not be profitable. You need to win over your constituents: your customers/shareholders. With a charity, the product is less tangible - “feeling good” or “connecting to a larger cause.” The “value” of the product is determined by the level of trust established through the organization’s ability to articulate the importance of meeting a particular need and secondly,

{

At the time I met Esther, her school received no international funding.

The sports organization I volunteered with pulled in millions of dollars in donations annually. Contrasting the costs associated with projects run by large international organizations versus the budgets of community projects like Esther’s, the comparative advantage becomes clear. Why not support the “Esthers” of the world? In terms of development, it is like constructive laziness. We do not need to build projects from scratch.

We do not have to pay for longterm ex-patriot staff. However, we do not often do international development this way. Why? Because of a dominant culture, created by the marketing strategies

Engineers without Borders, Free the Children or Charity: Water. From the name alone, you get a sense of what need an organization is meeting. The donor browsing web pages sees “need for medicine,” “need for roads/buildings,” “need to end child labour,” and “need for clean drinking water,” respectively.

What about an organization whose sole mission is to support local innovative leaders like Esther? What need is being met?

Lack of support for indigenous knowledge? Need to recognize innovative local initiatives? This level of development is abstract. It is meta-development. Abstract is a hard sell against clean drinking water. However, the danger for the large non-profit is that the desire for marketability often becomes the development. Unlike the forprofit, the non-profit actually has two constituents: the donors, as

“The larger organization claims it can make a difference because it has the capacity to assist communities that otherwise don’t have the ability to help themselves. This marketing promotes a worldview of helplessness; people in need of rescuing.”

well as those who are actually receiving intervening services from the organization. In forprofit the donors supplant the local Articulating the needs of local recipients of services as the primary leaders, like Esther, is a hard sell constituents of the charity. This is in the dominant charity culture. the donor paradox. Furthermore, Development itself is complicated. many large organizations focus It involves issues in politics, on highlighting a need or problem anthropology, economics, history, they are trying to address but ecology, etc. So how do you rarely discuss successes or translate that to the average donor? failures. Demonstrating success in You focus on one development development (or addressing failure) issue. Consider organizations requires an understanding of the such as Doctors without Borders, complex development context. It is not surprising, then, that organizations often do not have any indication of how they quantitatively measure success on their websites. For metrics, you have to download an annual report and even here, many organizations measure success by how many donations they receive, further reinforcing the paradox.

Where a for-profit fails if it delivers a poor product/ service to market, a large non-profit can theoretically Some of the students at Women in Action, an efficient, grassroots organized continue to receive school for women. donations as long as demonstrating that donor dollars are not spent on administrative costs.

Founder of Women in Action Development Center, Esther Kanu, overseeing a micro-grant program through Capilano University's Eagle's Nest Program it is marketing a particular social ill to its donors regardless of how effective the organization actually is in effecting change. A non-profit cannot really go out of business.

An advantage Esther has, as a smaller community project is that she can create metrics that are tangible and calculable because she is monitoring a specialized project of a manageable size. For example, she could easily point out to me several businesses in the community started by her students and how profitable those businesses were years after the students had graduated.

With respect to administration costs, Dan Pallota, in his book Uncharitable, describes the typical donor as being trained to overlook organizations that have administrative expenses in excess of 10%. The truth is that the magic 10% number pushed in the charity culture is completely arbitrary. Using 90% of your donor dollars on your programs does not necessarily translate into success. Therefore applying that same logic to a community project like Esther’s would tell us nothing about its productivity.

Esther’s project, by its nature, is going to spend more funding on administrative costs as a school, especially if capable instructors are to be found. Ironically, the burden of proof falls very hard on smaller organizations. Esther would be scrutinized far more because the assumption is that the larger international organization knows best or is more capable of effecting change. The perceived efficacy of the large non-profit also becomes part of the donor paradox. The larger organization claims it can make a difference because it has the capacity to assist communities that otherwise do not have the ability to help themselves. This marketing promotes a worldview of helplessness - people in need

of rescuing. Esther, in the charity culture, is not a competent, brave and visionary leader. She is just another African woman who is in need of saving through the “whiteman’s burden.”

Rarely is local leadership held up as a potential solution. The concept is difficult to market and the established charity culture finds local innovation bad for business.

Why would a large organization want to give up its facade as the hero? A shift in donor culture is required if we are going to take advantage of development projects available through local visionaries, thus making projects more cost effective and far more sustainable.

Our hope, with Esther’s Echo, is to facilitate that cultural shift.

We want to use information technologies to provide leaders like Esther the opportunity to market themselves to a wider donor audience, share their vision, and ultimately educate donors on the advantages of supporting grassroots development initiatives.

Esther serves as the archetype in our mission to demonstrate that far from requiring salvation, local social entrepreneurs are already employing innovative change ideas that are being overlooked because of the marketing strategies of large hungry international charities.

As a child, Matthew Cimone watched too much Star Trek and therefore thought life was all about traveling to distant worlds and trying to help people. As an adult, he runs a start-up charity called Esther’s Echo that operates in West Africa; his way of still traveling and doing good (www. esthersecho.org). To keep one foot in the space community, he is currently filming a documentary about the end of the space shuttle program called Chasing Atlantis (www.chasingatlantis.com).

12

COMMENTS

SPRING ISSUE 2 2013

Idle No More, Idle Know More Ashley Grover

A

s I sat in a classroom on the second floor of the Ross building, I thought to myself, I really hope this panel gives me an idea of what I can do to be an ally to the Idle No More cause, rather than accidentally becoming a part of the problem. By becoming part of the problem I mean to make reference to many instances in the past when individuals or groups have sought to speak out for the rights of those being oppressed, but have failed to include the voices of the marginalized in their discussions. Having predicted that this exact thought would be on the minds of many of us who had come to the teach-in, Anna Zalik, Associate Professor from the Faculty of Environmental Studies, held up a sign she had brought with her which read: Idle No More, Idle Know More. The message behind this was clearly, the way to help is to be an educated aid to the cause.

{

Idle No More’s most recent hurdle has been the passing of Bill C-45 (among many others), an omnibus bill that removes protection from a series of waterways throughout Canada, many of which are on First Nations land and are supposed to be covered by Treaties. Not only do bills such as C-45 weaken the already dismal environmental

regulation across Canada, they are also widely recognized as a violation of Aboriginal and human rights.

Failure to meet basic human rights is not anything new to Canada.

Last year, before any of the omnibus bills were being passed, Amnesty International released a report openly stating that three

informed are you about the nature of the oppression, violence, and abuse that First Nations’ tribes have endured and which continues to take place today? Because I know that, I could never read enough to feel like an expert on the subject.

The second speaker at the teach-in was Robin Cavanagh, Assistant Professor in the Faculty

“As allies, it is our responsibility to understand the Spirit and Intent behind these treaties and to ask ourselves where we would be today if they had been honoured since the moment they were signed.”

UN human rights reviews in 2012 found that Canada is ignoring the rights of their Indigenous people. So here we are, on the cusp of environmental disaster, weakening protection laws that are already shamefully ineffective and allowing our government to ignore the basic human rights of First Nations’ all over the country – and I’m asking you, how much do you know about Canada’s history?

And I’m not talking about images of the Underground Railroad or a pseudo-free-world cultural mosaic.

I’m talking about pre-contact, first contact, the signing of the treaties, the Indian Act, residential schools, and more current issues like the Attawapiskat hunger strike. How

of Environmental Studies and member of the Sagamok First Nation in Ontario. What I found most interesting in Robin’s discussion surrounding educating and re-educating ourselves about Canadian history was his proposed challenge of the concept of decolonization. He pointed out that the colonization of First Nations tribes in Canada has been a failure and that although the fight continues today, it has surely not been lost. Robin urged us to realize that colonization is not a thing of the past, but is happening right now, all around us. We are in the middle of attempts to colonize today, witnessing such efforts as Bill C-45 to push Canada’s

Reimagining International Aid Laura Pereira

I

am in love with 200 Ethiopian children.

After spending 5 summers in Gambo, Ethiopia, I have developed a complex understanding of the issues surrounding African poverty.

This article is an expression of my concerns and critiques, but ultimately, it is a proposal for the re-conception of international aid and development.

In the summer of 2008, my best friend and I traveled to Gambo, Ethiopia, where we were introduced to a community of about 200 children. The local community expressed a need for the children to learn English in order to succeed in their academics, and so we began classes. It did not take us long to fall in love with the children, who have since welcomed us into their communities. The two of us have returned every summer and we were able to develop a summer camp program, a sponsorship program, and a newly founded nonprofit organization called Children of Light.

When people find out that I spend my summers in Africa I often get questions like, “What’s it like over there? Is it as bad as they show on TV? Are they really that poor?” I am always hesitant to answer these questions because on the surface, the answer is yes. The poverty in Ethiopia is as terrifying as many commercials suggest. Yes, children are starving. Their frail bodies visibly suffer from malnutrition.

Flies find homes on the faces of little ones, and girls as young as 5 years old take on motherhood.

The student’s hands are cracked, dried, and burned from the house and fieldwork; their feet often completely exposed to the rain and to the heat. Every day, there are more letters and requests for money to go to school, for hospital bills, or to help feed families.

The struggles and hardships of poverty in Ethiopia are not only evident, but also impossible to ignore. Nevertheless, in spite of the atrocity of childhood poverty, there is another side to the story � a side that radiates light and profound joy.

The snap shot of the starving child often used in campaigns, depicts Africans as helpless, reducing them to desperate victims. However, the story of this struggle is only a partial view of a much more complex and colorful narrative.

What the picture leaves out is the story of survival, resilience, and determination. These children are some of the strongest individuals I have ever met. They are incredibly well rounded, musical and creative, exceptionally intelligent, and have an eagerness to learn I have never seen before. Even in their poverty, the people of Gambo are by far the most generous I have seen. In certain ways, Gambo is the richest community I have had the pleasure of being a part of.

Being a witnessing to the greatness of the Ethiopian culture, makes

it is quite difficult to be at home in Canada, amongst a status quo that in so many ways simplifies the African population, and the complexities of poverty. I have come across too many views concerning African poverty to account for. I have met people who have given up hope for Africa.

Individuals who ignorantly and shamefully assume laziness is the cause of poverty. There are those who are completely apathetic and indifferent, and those who are exceptionally educated but remarkably skeptical of any kind of social action. This article is written for the inquiry that I appreciate the most: those who challenge my presence is Africa to begin with, who question the value of our work, how we distribute resources, and what kind of long-term transformation the community is aiming to implement.

When taken at face value, I recognize that going into Africa bringing promises of a better life is borderline nonsensical.

As an undergraduate student of international development, I am aware of the history of colonialism and the embarrassing efforts of international aid. After studying the legacy of colonialism, and the impacts of neocolonialism, I feel that the wealth of the western world could not exist without the oppression of the African people, and the exploitation of their resources. In my view, the wealth and privilege that I have been born

Indigenous peoples into silence and submission.

Similar to Anna Zalik’s encouragement to ‘Know More,’ Robin reinforced the need to look to one’s history, to follow the creation story (whatever it may be), in order to understand their next steps.

Within every worldview there is a way of seeing the world around you and within each First Nation there is what Robin referred to as a Spirit and Intent provided by the tribe’s philosophy, a philosophy that comes out of their creation story and is meant to act as a guide. This Spirit and Intent was a part of the treaties and has been passed down through each generation, its goal to promote proper care, respect, compassion, and balance amongst all of the beings and the land. As allies, it is our responsibility to understand the Spirit and Intent behind these treaties and to ask ourselves where we would be today if they had been honoured since the moment they were signed.

us to forget about this and move on. They are counting on you to not contemplate the way things should be, to not ask yourself why these issues are not being taught in our elementary and high schools. Furthermore, they are counting on you to ignore the lives of all those who’s rights are being ignored. Well, we can only ignore poisonous water and toxic air for so long – and like Robin said, “We may be standing on opposite sides of a river, but we both need the river.” Until we began to look to our past and ask ourselves where we have come from, we will never understand what steps might be necessary to move forward.

Therefore, Idle No More urges you to take some time to inform yourself about the history of oppression in Canada, research current events and draw connections between past and present, between yourself and those being marginalized. Once we all know a little more, I would be surprised if we could simply forget it and move on.

If we do not begin to hold our government accountable and ensure that they keep their word in promoting the rights of First Nations in Canada, then what power do we have and who will be responsible for our future? The Harper government is counting on

For more information check out these websites or search for the Idle No More movement on Facebook and Twitter:

into does not really belong to me and although I am working on a miniscule level, I believe that a redistribution of wealth is in order.

By fundraising in Canada for the scholarships that we offer to the students in Ethiopia, we find a way to help children meet basic needs such as school fees and clothing.

Still, regardless of my intentions, the history of colonialism and foreign aid follows me, haunting my every move. Every day I have to make an effort to set myself apart from the damaging affect of charities and exploiters who have come before me and continue to work all around me.

You do not take a bleeding victim into surgery without out some kind of bandage to prevent them from bleeding out and dying. For those who consider themselves global citizens, I urge you to recognize our new responsibility of reclaiming the very notion of international aid and development.

Being emerged in the field of international development, I often come across the ideology that Africa does not need aid. I would like to make the distinction that Africa does not need the kind of misplaced, corrupted aid that it has been receiving. After 5 summers in Ethiopia, I would argue that the children I have spent countless hours with, definitely need aid. I believe that extreme poverty is a crisis that must be approached with urgency � the world must stop turning its back.

Issues as devastating as childhood malnutrition demand immediate attention.

“But International aid is just a band-aid,” my critics test me. I am constantly challenged by the argument that international aid is a short term, bandage affect, which fails to deal with the structural issues of poverty. I find myself in a struggle to convince people that short-term solutions are needed, alongside long-term systematic reform/revolution. Bandages save lives. In the process of healing wounds, bandages are essential.

http://sixnations.ca/ http://idlenomore.ca/ http://www.attawapiskat.org/

As social activists, we need to completely abandon the idea that Africa is without resources, or incapable of building societies that allow their citizens to realize their full human potential. Africa is known to be the birthplace of civilization, art, farming, and humanity. Therefore, Africa is not lacking it is being oppressed.

International aid/development projects need to be established as authentic and innovative partnerships, where donors discard their attitudes of superiority.

Donors must recognize that the recipients of aid are fully capable of making their own choices and decisions in order to better their lives and lessen the burden of poverty.

I wish I could agree that Africa does not need financial assistance, but I have spent too many nights agonizing over the struggles of the Ethiopian family. I have received too many pleas for help, and have spent too many hours explaining to the students that I am doing the best I can to help them. I can only hope that the resources I share as a facilitator, and the the work I am doing will help these students reach a level of autonomy, so that they may start to transform their own society into a place where their future children can live freely, without the oppressing bonds of poverty.

13

SPRING ISSUE 2 2013

Arts & Culture The universe is grateful for your brilliant life force and this little brown queer. Like a lot of others thank heavens for your presence and the life affirming solidarity that tells us that we are not alone.

‘We Are Life’ Kim Crosby

W

e womyn, we queers, we trans folks of colour will be the ones to lead this revolution. We the cash poor, the differently abled, the Global South, First Nations People − we are life.

They thought we would not continue if they killed our men.

They thought that the revolution did not lie in us too. They left us behind, devalued our contributions, didn’t even give us the dignity to acknowledge us strong in their narratives, named us as weak, as sissies, as violent, as ‘crazy.’

As we worked tirelessly, our bodies raped, colonized, our stories, and our majik co-opted, we endured.

And we are here on the front lines, in their organizations, held into debt by their institutions, whether it be wage, education, health‘care’ and we resist.

We dare to wear glitter, and dare to worship god(dess), dare to teach, to learn, to search, to laugh, to love.

We are miracles every last one of us. We have been stripped down to our core and what is left is vibrant, willful, creative spirits.

And I say to those upholding patriarchy, whiteness, sexist, heterosexist, economic supremacy − are you scared? Are you scared

that behind these systems of advantage and your ill-gotten gains, you are nothing? You are lacking in integrity and inventiveness, in soulfulness, and and resourcefulness. What have you traded your humanity for?

that you want to say (all things that we deserve), know that you are valuable regardless of whether anyone bears witness to you − to us.

Our energy and our spirits persist.

I will keep resisting, we all will in our own way. We will fight even though we shouldn’t have to, we will teach even though it is not our responsibility, and we will be murdered even though there is more than enough to go around.

We are radical just for existing in

everything that we are and all that we are not. And again I say, we are life. * Kim Crosby is a daughter of the diaspora, Arawak, West African, Indian and Dutch, hailing from Trinidad and living currently in Toronto. She is an awardwinning multidisciplinary artist, activist, consultant, facilitator and educator.

For more on Kim’s art and activism see http:// kimkatrincrosby.squarespace.com/

To be ‘neutral,’ to be ‘objective,’ to be the thing that is never named, but suffocates us all? You traded this for the richness of your difference, the varieties of your gender, ethnicity, and sexuality. You traded love for towers held up by fear, built up lies, and surrounded yourselves in fun house mirrors.

We may not live forever, but we live richly, in our relationships, in our stories, sometimes only in our dreams. And we dream of a time where the world can be in technicolor, where no one is disposable, where life is a value, and work is a negotiation and liberation is for free.

Instead you dream of nothing but grey skies and beige life.

I am so proud of us, proud our ancestry whose reverberations I feel now. Even if no one sees your actions, no one compensates you for your work, even if no one hears your voice and all the things

Taking Care of our Communities - A SORPLUSI workshop with D’bi Young I

Michelle Liu

magine yourself sitting along a riverbank, your feet freely dangling over the water, with the waters of the stream flowing energetically past you. Look into the river.

Imagine an image of yourself as you are right now in the water’s reflection, with all your feelings, scars, and thoughts. Imagine the image looking back at you. Take a deep breath.

Let this image flow past you, carried away by the movement of the waters. Your burdens, traumas, and oppressions flowing away.

Imagine an image of yourself exactly a year ago, your feelings, fears, and wounds. Breathe.

Let this image flow down the river past you. Imagine yourself five years ago. Let this image flow away. Imagine yourself in an early childhood memory. Reach your hand out into the reflection and pull the child out, invite them to sit next to you by the riverbed. Say to the child, ‘I love you...I will see you again soon,’ as the image of that child slips back into the reflection and flows away down the river...

Sitting with D’bi Young Anitafrika,

{

“I believe that we are accountable and responsible for the stories we tell and the stories we believe ” - D’bi Young

the performance artist, dub-poet, storyteller, and educator, I was in the company of about eight other York students engaged in a workshop and collective meditation. Learning about each of our her/histories, we reflected upon three things: Who am I? How am I? What is my purpose? This inquiry was a deeply political act. In trying to answer these questions, we come into overwhelming contact with the difficulty of narrativity, particularly with the narratives that have gendered, racialized, classified, and produced us as a reified other. The inquiry challenges the systems of

oppressions that we both internalize and externalize. Now the task is reclaiming our narratives.

Young was a brilliant exercise in a methodology of empowerment and creative development, first taught to her by her mother – the dub-poet Anita Stewart.

The four-hour workshop was a part of York’s Inclusion Day organized by the Centre for Human Righs entitled The SORPLUSI Method.

The workshop facilitated by D’bi

SORPLUSI – an acronym for Self-knowledge, Orality, Rhythm, Political Context & Content, Language of communication, Urgency, Sacredness, and Integrity – is the foundation of a praxis in holistic self-actualization.

SORPLUSI, rooted in the oral tradition of storytelling is a method radically different from the EuroAnglo-American centric ways of understanding life and human subjects. the commodifying impulse of statecapital apparatuses and enlightenment era modes of reasoning.

http://yemoya.org

Looking at each of the eight principles, we looked at the stories that can be constructed and imagined.

Some elements were from our biographical experiences, some her/historical and some created.

In this workshop, we created and expressed ourselves through a character – the child we had met earlier in the meditation. We asked, who was this child? Where were they from? What did they like?

What stories were they told/not told? What languages were they allowed to speak? What languages could they not speak? What foods could they not eat? Where couldn’t they go? How were they feeling?

This process demands an inward exploration of suffering and the sufferings we have internalized into our bodies. It teaches us to connect, resist, and resolve the sufferings, transforming oppressions into conscious externalizations of radical love.

In teaching us to know and love our bodies, our communities, and ourselves, the methodology teaches us to challenge the colonial narratives and operations that have been physically, ontologically, and spiritually violent.

Our bodies urge us to take care of both others and ourselves. Caring

CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

14

Arts & Culture

Rivers of Love

CAPOEIRA:

A BLACK-INDIGENOUS TOOL OF RESISTANCE

D’bi Young Anitafrika who amongst us carries the sage-secrets of loving where are our elders our children the ones who walk with the old-time knowledge of a healing love an unapologetic love an uncompromising love an honest love if you tell me who I will sit studently by the rivers of their feet washing away all this unknowing that I have come to know relearning a language of honesty and integrity and compassion these languages were carved on our hearts’ tongue by ancient ones who somehow we have forgotten because somewhere between a dream and a time-less-ness across di ocean waters our sons and dawtahs our moddahs and fadahs our auntie uncle sistah and breddah stretched love fabric thick and thin so now here we are trodding trodding trodding trying to heal these scars of broken fibre that stick up inside a wi like macka who amongst us carries the sage-secrets of loving if you tell me who I will sit studently by the rivers of their feet washing away all the unknowings that I have come to know relearning a language of integrity a language of compassion a language of honesty because these languages were carved on my heart’s tongue by the ancient ancient ancient ones who somewhere somehow sometime I have forgotten please forgive me for not having loved you relentlessly in all cases fear has been my worst enemy were fear not here I would kiss you and I would feed you food from my womb and I would stop you from aching and share a smile and I would wait with you by the roadside for a while were fear not here I would give name to these unnamed spaces of accountability and of responsibility that flow like rivers between us sometimes silent but always deep were fear not here the full moon radiance of your vulnerable and warrior spirit washing over me like the sun bathed in trueness would mirror and I would shine and you would shine and we all would shine brilliantly but who amongst us carries those sage-secrets of loving if you tell me who I will sit studently by the rivers of their feet washing away all the unknowings that I have come to know relearning a language of integrity relearning a language of compassion relearning a language of honesty because these languages were carved on our hearts’ tongue by ancient ancient ones who somehow we all we all have forgotten my people I cannot promise to love you fearlessly but I can love you courageously in spite of all my fears I can love you with honesty I can love you with integrity this love our love is a healing love re-branching itself like the roots of the iroko tree whose arms are outstretched to the promise of tomorrow who roots reach beyond those wounds our collective wounds of yesterday here now today you and I we the community we the people we can stand firm in love one love one love * From ‘rivers...and other blackness...between us’

SPRING ISSUE 2 2013

Christian Totty

I

want to focus your attention on one of my favorite artistic forms: Capoeira. Capoeira is a combination of dance, martial arts, and music for a dynamic performance of skill, wit and spirit.

It is said that the origins of Capoeira are rooted in the Benguela Highlands region of Angola, where a tribal body to body fighting game, without weapons was held inside a circle as a part of a bridal initiation ceremony. With the colonization of Brazil from 1500- 1815, African slaves who were displaced and brought to the Americas revived the practice of Capoeira as a means of survival and resistance against the harsh, inhumane, and violent treatments on the sugarcane farms, or engenhos, on which they were forced to work.

In an environment much like that of colonized North America, Capoeira began to develop within communities called quilombos, which were safe and hard to reach settlements where African, Native Brazilian and other oppressed groups could find refuge.

“Inside the safety of quilombos, capoeira developed as a means of self-defense and for use during guerrilla attacks. Numerous times quilombos were attacked or raided

Taking Care - D’bi Young

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 14

for our communities, we produce alternative political imaginaries, re-narrativized in the connections we make. To retell, invent, and create are wonderful acts of selfaffirmation, life affirmation, love affirmation, which subvert the political economy of capitalism, patriarchy, and colonialism that have devastated the creative potentials of people(s). To understand trauma and transform it, to self-actualize our subjectivities, to control the narratives that have shaped who we are, how we are, and our ‘purposes,’ we actively participate in the creative confrontation of colonialism and other intersectional structural oppressions.

Creating is a powerful and empowering activity all too often lost in the obstructive definitions of ‘artists and non-artists’. We are all artists and non-artists and we all create. The process of creation is not about the product, but the relationships created that ought to be honored in art practices. A critical art practice involves a great love for one’s self, not in a self-indulgent way, but a loving, life-affirming way. It involves a love and respect for yourself as a dignified, resilient, body and perhaps more so, the same for the people around you. This is where I think art begins – love, care, and urgency. These are practices in creating alternative (non)systems.

We cannot take care of our communities, when we cannot

Photo by Zoe Marriage

by slave hunters. Capoeira was used to protect these communities and was effective in repelling attacks. Those slaves who were captured, taught capoeira to the others in plantations and disguised it with music and dance.” 1.

In this way, capoeira was neccesary for survival, and used as a tool of resistance against the colonizers, or the capitães-do-mato.

The art of capoeira is, like dance, an experience in fluidity that calls for grace, agility, strength, flexibility, and creativity. In 1888 slavery

{

was abolished in Brazil. However, capoeira remained a threat to the government and was soon after banned from being practiced.

Today, Capoeira is widely practiced for a variety of reasons. However, when practicing Capoeria, it is important to keep in mind its African-Disaporic and Indigenous Brazillian roots of resistance.

This piece was originally written for http://blacknativejewel.wordpress.com. Please see the link for the full article.

“Caring for our communities, we produce alternative politial imaginaries, re-narrativized in the connections we make.”

take care of ourselves, and when we don’t know who we are (becoming) or made to be ashamed of who we are.We need to teach ourselves, through our organizing, our creative practices, and our own modes of self-(re)presentation that we are worthwhile, strong and creative.

communities around us. Return to the riverbank, look at yourself and smile. The personal is political.

As we (re)membered in the SORPLUSI workshop “...if you don’t know yourself, you don’t know what you are fighting for.”

In the creation of our lives and modes of living and loving, we invent art practices that knowingly or not, subvert and de-stabilize oppressive hegemonies As artists, activists, educators, and community members, we are responsible for the energies we externalize, whether that is conversation, relationships, visual arts, song, dance, performance, writing, or any other modality.

In other words, daily life is an art practice, loving yourself and your communities is a critical art practice. Making, performing, speaking, rhyming, resisting, (de) constructing – these are ways of making life. To recount D’bi Young, “I believe that we are accountable and responsible for the stories we tell and the stories we believe.”

That said, make your affirmations, critical, radical, and positive. In an environment of commodification, fragmentation, and exploitation, self-care/self-knowledge is radical and it extends into the spaces and

* D’bi Young Anitafrika is an ‘african-jamacan-canadian/ turtle-islandist’ performer, monodramatist, playwright, dubpoet, story-teller, educator, and social justice advocate, using biomyth [biography + mythology] to communicate and transform the narratives that dominate, traumatize, and brutalize our bodies and spirits. D’bi Young is currently preforming, educating, running workshops internationally and directing the YEMOYA international Artist residency in Jamaica.

For more on D’bi Young, see http://dbi333.com/ & http://sorplusimethod.com/

15

SPRING ISSUE 2 2013

Events

A Threat to Toronto: The Ontario Government’s Plan for the Pickering Nuclear Station Tuesday, 16 April 2013 - 7:00 until 9:00 pm Metro Hall, Toronto - Rm 314 (55 John St., Toronto) Jack Gibbons from the Ontario Clean Air Alliance will discuss how Pickering is an unnecessary risk and stands in the way of developing safer energy sources.

Theresa McClenaghan from the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA) will discuss whether Toronto’s nuclear emergency plans can protect Torontonians in the event of an accident at Pickering.

Shawn-Patrick Stensil of Greenpeace will discuss the risks of ageing reactors and the need for a clean up plan for the Pickering reators.

Criminalization of Dissent On the occasion of Palestine Political Prisoners’ Day: a panal discussion in solidarity with political prisoners around the globe WEDNESDAY APRIL 17, 2013 AT 6:30 PM OISE - Room 5-250 (252 Bloor Street West- St. George Subway Station) Please join us to hear these stories, identify common strategies and discuss effective community responses.

Co-organizers: Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA), Coalition for Tamil Rights (CTR), Latin American and Caribbean Solidarity Network (LACSN) and the Philippine Solidarity Network – Toronto (PSNT) For further information: Logan Sellathurai: justice5@sympatico. ca Call for Submissions to Mad Pride Toronto 2013 Monday, July 8 to Sunday, July 14 www.madprideto.com Mad Pride is an arts, culture, and heritage festival created by psychiatric survivors, consumers, mad people, folks the world has labeled “mentally ill”, and those in solidarity with us. Mad Pride is about: remembering and participating in mad history, challenging discrimination, advocating for rights, affirming mad identities, developing and empowering mad communities, having fun! Our lives and contributions are valuable and need celebration!

Do you want to host a consumer/survivor-driven event, performance, talk, presentation, film, or panel discussion at Mad Pride Toronto 2013? Please let us know via our event submission form – which will be available on our website atwww.madprideto. com or by calling Tina at 416 926-9762 x 245. Contact: events@ madprideto.com Do you want to submit to our second juried Art Exhibition? We invite two dimensional, sculptural, or time-based art submissions from psychiatric survivors, consumers, and mad people. Contact: Martine at martinematthews@soundtimes.com If you are a consumer/survivor and would like to display/ sell your art, crafts, buttons, t-shirts, knitting, zines, books, music, baked goods or promote your blog, website, group, network, idea, consider requesting a table at the Mad Market.

Contact:outreach@madprideto.com Deadline: Friday, April 26th, 2013 Do you want to get involved in making Mad Pride Toronto 2013 happen? Check out www.madprideto.com for more information on joining the Mad Pride Toronto 2013 Organizing Committee and to complete a Statement of Interest.

SAVIS’ First Annual LUNAFEST® Film Festival LUNAFEST is an independent women’s film festival of awardwinning short films by, for, and about women. This innovative event will raise funds to support SAVIS’ programs. Movie titles for the evening include: Georgia Terry, Chalk, Self Portrait, Bathhouse, When I Grow Up, Flawed, Blank, Whakatiki, and Lunch Date. Please check the website at www.lunafest.org to view the movie trailers.

Please join us on May 2nd 2013, at 7 pm in the Holy Trinity Secondary School Theatre, to view these wonderful films and support an important cause. Tickets are $25 and available now - call 905-825-3622 to order yours. In addition to supporting SAVIS, 15% of the net funds from LUNAFEST will also support the Breast Cancer Fund.

SEND YOUR EVENTS TO: info@yufreepress.org