Elmer Smith on Haitian "looters" and Baby Doc

"Even more outrageous is the idea that a police force in a town with no real law will shoot to kill to protect property from starving people. "


Dear friends,

With television images of the "looting" going on in Haiti, it's easy to miss the real looters of that small island nation who now are pretending to be "donors".

On the link below, my dear friend and brother Elmer Smith of the Philadelphia Daily News delivers a brilliant analysis that reminds us of the real thieves in this whole miserable scenario. Check it out!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20100122_Elmer_Smith__There_are__quot_looters_quot__-_and_then_there_s_Baby_Doc.html
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What about Haitian "economic development"?

"Genuine economic development is human. In others words, it is not the amount of trinkets and baubles that people produce or even the dollars that they earn that represents growth."

Dear friends,

I saw the article on the link below on a friend's Facebook post. The article was written by Nicholas Kristof, a veteran columnist of the New York Times. Kristof concentrates his work on non-Europeans; I guess because he thinks that he knows what's best for us.

Nevertheless, the aforementioned article is vintage Nicholas Kristof. His answer to Haitian economic development is to create a bunch of sweatshops. This, of course, came after he hinted at the historical exploitation of Haitians, beginning with the French.

Genuine economic development is human. In others words, it is not the amount of trinkets and baubles that people produce or even the dollars that they earn that represents growth. Rather, it is the ability for people to socially reproduce themselves, as a population group, through time, choosing their own direction in life, on their own terms.

Moreover, it’s people like Kristof who argue that slavery was actually good for Africans. Still, we have sweatshops right here in this country. What kind of future lies ahead for those caught up in that cycle of poverty and despair? After all, the people who own the sweatshops and so forth also own the politicians. Let’s keep it real.

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/opinion/21kristof.html
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Danny Glover interviewed about Haiti

"Is the militarization of this earthquake relief effort all about 'security', as I heard one retired US Army general explain on televiion? Let's look down the road as well., while the world is engaged in cleaning up this severely stricken island nation"

Dear friends,

Is the militarization of this earthquake relief effort all about "security", as I heard one retired US Army general explain on televiion? Let's look down the road as well., while the world is engaged in cleaning up this severely stricken nation.

After receiving an e-mail about the prorressive activism of many Americans both here and on the island nation of Haiti, I thought that I should share it on this blog. The 15 minutes-long video on the link below shows the hard-working artist/activist Danny Glover getting some things done. Please check it out!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/19/actor_and_activist_danny_glover_on
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Elm Smith gives us a personal view of Haiti as a veteran journalist

This was Port au Prince before the earthquake of 2010, before the hurricanes of 2008, just after the unintended cruelty of a U.S.-backed embargo helped to starve thousands of Haitians for their own good."

Dear friends,

On the link below, the incomparable Elmer Smith of the Philadelphia Daily News puts this whole Haitian disaster in perspective, based upon his personal experience with a land that has been afflicted by both social and natural turmoil countless times. What's next?

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/elmer_smith/20100115_Elmer_Smith__Only_latest_disaster_for_poor_Haiti.html
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Dr. Ndibe Shows Connection between Nigeria and Haiti through History

"In a move that did great credit to its revolutionary credentials, Haiti became the first nation in the world to recognize the legitimacy of the Biafran cause – and to extend diplomatic recognition to the embattled Biafrans. "



"Haiti’s tragedy, Biafran memories"

by Okey Ndibe

Exactly a week ago, Haiti was struck by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake that reduced much of that misfortunate nation to a colossal ruin. The quake’s epicenter was a mere 16 miles offshore on the western side of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s heavily populated capital.

Earthquakes are hardly ever innocuous; but this one was particularly catastrophic. Its proximity to the capital – home to more than three million people – proved disastrous. As I write, Haitian authorities were estimating that 140,000 had perished from the devastating quake. That toll is, as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rightly stated, is of biblical proportions. The prognosis is even more dreadful. Some experts predict that many of the tens of thousands officially listed as missing, as well as many of the critically wounded, will explode the casualty figures.

To see the horror of Haiti is to come to terms to a modern-day apocalypse. For me, it was especially harrowing to look at images of children and the elderly with mangled limbs, gashed heads and swollen faces.

When a natural tragedy strikes on this scale, it’s almost as if the living, in their forlorn despair, begrudge the dead the joys of a grave. Except that most of the Haitian dead were not buried, but abandoned on the streets. I was brought to tears when television cameras panned streets strewn with decomposing bodies. Nigerians have fashioned a unique obituary style where each deceased person is “called to heavenly glory.” Glory was not a word that came to mind when one saw the cadavers that littered the streets of Port-au-Prince.

And yet, Haitians, who in 1804 became the first black-run nation ever to achieve independence, have a lot of glory in their past. Two figures from their revolutionary history, Toussaint l’Ouverture and Jean Jacques Dessalines, are venerable heroes not only for Haitians but also for all people of African descent. These two warriors took on and ultimately vanquished the better-armed forces of Napoleonic France. Though Toussaint was tricked by the French, captured, and transported to France where he died in 1803, his collaborator, Jacque Dessalines, lived to become Haiti’s first leader.

Thanks in large part to meddling by France and, more recently, the US, Haiti has fallen short of its revolutionary aspirations. The American media habitually announce, with something approaching glee, that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. Haitians are a much-beleaguered people. Eighty percent of the populace lives on less than $2 a day. In recent times, the island nation has been buffeted by hurricanes and widespread hunger that forced desperate people to eat mud.

That specter will become worse in the aftermath of the earthquake. About ten percent of the homes in Port-au-Prince, a hilly city with wide swathes of ghettoes, were destroyed by the quake and its aftershocks. That means that more than 300,000 inhabitants face the grim certainty of prolonged homelessness in a city whose infrastructure, rudimentary to begin with, is now decimated.

It’s in the nature of natural disasters to be blind in their fury and destruction. This earthquake did not discriminate between rich and poor, old and young, the powerful and the feeble. It shook the Presidential palace to its foundations and leveled the Parliament. The offices of the United Nations were wrecked, more than twenty members of the organization’s staff were confirmed dead, and (at the time of this writing) scores more were still trapped in a pile of rubble. Hotels, churches, and hospitals were also laid to ruin.

With a calamity that touched every sector, the task of providing medical care to the legions of the wounded and getting food to the displaced, drifting masses was bound to be difficult. Even though the US, China, Canada and a plethora of relief agencies responded quickly with shipment of food, water and medicines, Haiti’s battered roads frustrated efforts to immediately reach the victims of the earthquake. Four days after the quake, the vast majority of Haitians were yet to receive succor. Doubtless, many of the dead would have survived had help got to them sooner.

A tragic occurrence like an earthquake offers a measure both of our human fickleness and vulnerability as well as our heroism, staying power, and resilience. The Haitian people, great in the past, will – there’s no question – find a way to rise from their current nightmare.

The earthquake is an opportunity for other peoples and nations to demonstrate the depth of their fellow feeling and generosity – and to offer a hand to their besieged Haitian brethren. Many nations and individuals rose, admirably, to the challenge.

Sadly, to one’s profound shame, the Nigerian government failed to stir much less show continental leadership in the face of Haiti’s peril. Nigeria’s invisibility during the darkest time for the people of Haiti betrays a monumental lack of a sense of history among those running (that is to say, more aptly, ruining) the country.

Last week, author Chinua Achebe issued a statement that must have been a veiled rebuke as well as a cry from the heart. He pleaded with Nigeria and South Africa “to more vigorously join the international community – particularly the remarkable and admirable example of the United States and the European Union – and provide much needed funds and other forms of aid to the people of Haiti for disaster relief.”

Achebe’s plea has a particular resonance at this time, the 40th anniversary of the formal end of the Biafran war. In a move that did great credit to its revolutionary credentials, Haiti became the first nation in the world to recognize the legitimacy of the Biafran cause – and to extend diplomatic recognition to the embattled Biafrans.

With the Nigerian idea in disarray, that Haitian position strikes one today as highly discerned. A Nigerian that doesn’t respond to the travail of the Haitian people is a construct of fundamental questioning.
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20 minutes-long video of Randall Robinson interview on Haitian Situation

"George Bush ordered the invasion of the sovereign nation of Haiti, in 2004. The duly-elected president and his wife were taken from their home and forcibly brought to another country (South Africa) - not allowing them to return, even to this day."

Dear friends,

The 20 minutes-long video on the link below is a brilliant assessment of what the disaster that just occurred in Haiti means for the future of a people that have been subjected to alien marauders, ever since they freed themselves from slavery by the French in 1804 , all the way up to modern times.

Worse yet, George Bush ordered the invasion of the sovereign nation of Haiti, in 2004. The duly-elected president and his wife were taken from their home and forcibly brought to another country (South Africa) - not allowing them to return, even to this day. With the whole world watching, will the Obama administration finally end this oppression and exploitation?

Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/15/bush_was_responsible_for_destroying_haitian
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More on US attacks against Haiti's democractically-elected Government

http://www.haitiaction.net/HFTH/hfth1.html
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"Teddy Bear" Passes

"Back in those days, the ladies called him "Teddy Bear", as he held "women only" concerts, across the country, where many in the audiences took off their panties and threw them at him while he sang on stage.”




Dear friends,

Philadelphia is known for many things, both great and far-from-great. However, few places can boast of the music legends who have either come from or through that town. Teddy Pendergrass was a Philadelphia legend. He lived and died that way.

During the early-Eighties, Teddy's former employer the late Harold Melvin and myself were buddies. Of course, this was long after Pendergrass had established Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes as a premier R & B group.

In any case, I remember those days during and after the senseless "accident" that caused Teddy to briefly disappear from the music scene.

Initially, it was forecast that he wouldn't live very long. As fate would have it, I can only imagine that medical professionals were pleasantly surprised that he showed them to be wrong. Meanwhile, and unfortunately, for some time now, Philadelphia has had the highest incidence of cancer amongst its citizenry than any of the other large cities in our country. That's what got Teddy colon cancer - not complications from the auto accident that he was in over 25 years ago. And so goes one of his hits with Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, "Bad Luck".

On the link below is a short chronology of his life. Back in those days, the ladies called him "Teddy Bear", as he held "women only" concerts, across the country, where many in the audiences took off their panties and threw them at him as he sang on stage. He was "The Man" in those days, for sure.

So long! - “Teddy Bear”.

Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20100114_Singer_Teddy_Pendergrass_dies_at_59.html

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Dr. Ndibe says, "Obama wrong on Nigeria"

"The title of this column, which sets out to make a subtle differentiation between Nigeria and Nigerians, is carefully chosen..."





"Obama wrong on Nigerians"

By Okey Ndibe

The title of this column, which sets out to make a subtle differentiation between Nigeria and Nigerians, is carefully chosen.

President Barack Obama has every reason to be dismayed with the Nigerian state, and specifically with the misbegotten lot who pass for the country’s leadership. Nobody is more ashamed of the mediocrities presiding over Nigeria’s affairs than enlightened Nigerians. The absence of even a credible pretence to a legitimate leadership in Abuja is a source of embarrassment and great pain for Nigerians. The Nigerian daily, Next, scooped last week that Umaru Yar’Adua, who has occupied space in Aso Rock since May, 2007, was brain dead. A brain dead “leader” pretty much sums up Nigeria’s tragic story.

Nigeria’s leadership gap must gall the first person of African descent to occupy the US presidency. And especially at a time when the US just managed, by sheer luck verging on a miracle, to escape a heinous plot orchestrated to inflict maximum psychological damage on Americans and the world. Had Farouk Abdulmuttalab and his al Qaeda sponsors realized their dastardly designs, they would have sent tremors down the spine of America and its allies around the world.

President Obama stood to pay a huge political price if the Delta flight had exploded over Detroit, as the foiled bomber had planned. A calamity on that colossal scale would have poured fuel into extreme rightwing charges – anchored by former Vice President Dick Cheney – that Obama was not only unserious about combating terrorism, but was, in fact, cozying up to rabid groups out to destroy America.

To his credit, Obama recognizes that the war against terrorists is far more complex than the George W. Bush crowd allowed. Obama has steered the war away from the Bush mindset that often came close to pillorying Islam – and which emphasized extravagant displays of firepower.

For all its pyrotechnic moments, the Bush approach made little progress in its mission to cripple terrorists. In some ways, in fact, Bush’s anti-terrorism doctrine, with its binary focus, its us-versus-them template may well have fertilized al Qaeda’s radicalization and recruitment of otherwise moderate, educated and liberal Muslims.

Obama was right to chart a different course. Far from abandoning the option of force, he merely rejected the abuse of that response. He reckoned that force ought not to be deployed where diplomacy had better prospects to promote dialogue and establish a sense of shared values or common interests.

My fear is that, in the wake of the aborted bombing by Abdulmuttalab, the Obama administration has moved too hastily to tar Nigerians. If there was an occasion when the sins of one depraved young Nigerian should not be visited on other Nigerians, this was it.

One point has been made again and again, but it bears belaboring. Abdulmuttalab’s odyssey as a terrorist had very little, if anything, to do with Nigeria. By all accounts, he fell under al Qaeda’s spell in the UK and was trained and equipped for his deadly mission in Yemen. Nigeria came into the picture of his plot at all only because he passed through a Nigerian airport en route.

And here’s another fact to consider: the moment the young terrorist’s father got an inkling that his son had fallen among zealots intent on wreaking havoc on the US, the man told US authorities what he knew. That the young man was able to board a US-bound flight sporting his lethal underwear bespeaks a profound failure on the part of an extensive network of US intelligence.

Obama has admitted that American intelligence did worse than fumble the ball; it did not even come close to having its eye on the ball. Even so, President Obama has balked at suggestions that he fire one or more custodians of intelligence. His argument is that the failure was a systemic one, not a matter of personnel laxity.

Perhaps that’s the right call. But it’s baffling that an Obama who has chosen to be magnanimous towards inept officers and intelligence agencies has signed off on a policy that amounts to grave injustice to Nigerians. Everything considered, there’s neither logic nor justice in portraying Nigeria as an address to watch for terrorists when Britain and Saudi Arabia are not on the list.

Shock, disgust and disbelief defined Nigerians’ collective reaction on learning that Farouk Abdulmuttalab, the would-be Christmas day bomber, was a Nigerian. Until the enterprising saharareporters.com produced the first photo of Farouk, and identified his father, many Nigerians were certain that he was an impostor who had somehow traveled under the cover of a Nigerian passport.

Nigeria has had a long and ugly history of outbreaks of religious violence – on the domestic front. Adherents of some extremist or fringe Islamic group often trigger these sprees of sectarian bloodletting by launching unprovoked attacks on Christians and other perceived “infidels.”

On the whole, the Nigerian state has a shameful record of confronting these homegrown zealots. It has often deployed mere words of warning, even exhortations of moderation, to these bloodhounds. It’s hardly come down hard on these killers in God’s name, nor has it mounted serious prosecution of arrested fanatical thugs. Official apathy to episodes of religious mayhem has served to encourage their recurrence.

In fact, the frequency and gruesomeness of such attacks seemed to wane only when the victims, figuring out that the Nigerian government lacked the will and muscle to protect them, learned to arm themselves and repel their assailants.

If Nigerians pose any serious threat to Americans, it’s likely to be Americans visiting Nigeria. A Nigerian transporting mass violence to America is extremely rare.

That’s why Nigerians regard Abdulmuttalab, rightly, as both a fluke and a “non-Nigerian” threat. He’s Nigerian by birth, sure. But he is, fundamentally, a hired-in-Britain, trained-in-Yemen al Qaeda operative. Nigeria had little or no role in his logistical preparation for the mission of death he undertook. He does not in any way represent an emerging trend in Nigeria. One concurs with the conclusion of a friend who speculated that, had Farouk lived in Nigeria, he might have menaced Nigerian “unbelievers,” but he would never have taken up explosives against the US.

Perhaps, as some Nigerians suspect, the Obama administration has chosen to exploit the terrifying circumstances of December 25 as an opportunity to further underscore Nigeria’s pariah status. If that’s the idea, it’s a sad mistake and the timing is atrocious.

Nigerians would welcome it if Obama toughened his administration’s stance against the imposed government of Mr. Umaru Yar’Adua. It’s a different matter when the US imposes strictures that compound the travails of innocent Nigerians.

The designation of Nigeria as a garden of terror could not have come at a worse moment. Nigeria is in the midst of a crisis never seen in its history – the absolute disappearance of a man who presumes to be the country’s “president.” And then there’s his cohorts’ insistence on using his name to hijack and monopolize.

As the power game plays out, nobody has bothered to address a nation-wide fuel scarcity that’s crippled the country. Nobody is doing a thing about ever worsening power failures. The parasites exploiting Nigeria are too comfortable to care.

Obama’s policy is ill-advised. It consigns Nigerians to the undeserved category of terrorists, and places the onus on every Nigerian to prove otherwise. He would do better to review that policy in a manner that recognizes that there’s a veritable chasm between Nigeria’s “leaders” and its people.

By all means, America should officially declare those who are running Nigeria aground as terrorists, but it should spare the vast majority of Nigerians who have nothing in common with Abdulmuttalab.
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Latest News about Dr. Barbara Teer's National Black Theatre Events Jan 14th & 20th, 2010

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A 6' 10" tall female teenager from Jamaica

Check this out!!!

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6069464n
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The Detroit Bodysnatcher - a short video

"Apart from showing that those who do both the hardest and most of the work receive the least compensation, it also points to one of those important jobs that many of us may prefer not to do. However, imagine if no one did it..."

Dear friends,

As the new year begins, and while folks are trying to commit themselves to a variety of "resolutions", please remember that we should be grateful to be able to feed ourselves without having to beg or steal for our nutrients.

At any rate, on the link below is a short video from the New York Times online edition. Apart from showing that those who do both the hardest and most of the work receive the least compensation, it also points to one of those important jobs that many of us may prefer not to do. However, imagine if no one did it.

Happy New Year!!!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2006/08/25/us/1194817103426/chat-with-a-detroit-corpse-collector.html
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Dr. Ndibe on the Recent Arrest of a Nigerian "Terrorist"

"Nigerians received a bizarre Christmas gift Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, a 23-year old man from a privileged background, tried to pull off what could have been the bloodiest suicide bombing in the US since September 11, 2001..."

"Nigeria’s terrorism notoriety"
by Okey Ndibe

Nigerians received a bizarre Christmas gift Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, a 23-year old man from a privileged background, tried to pull off what could have been the bloodiest suicide bombing in the US since September 11, 2001. Umar Mutallab had planned to detonate explosives strapped to his body in order to bring down Northwest Airline Flight 253 as the jet neared its destination in Detroit, Michigan.

Had his gory plan succeeded, Umar – an engineering student at the University of London and son of Umaru Abdul Mutallab, the just-retired chairman of First Bank of Nigeria – would have unleashed mayhem and terror not only on Americans but the world as a whole. Thanks to vigilant passengers who wasted no time in pouncing on him the moment they heard popping sounds, this bone-chilling disaster was averted.

Even so, this sickening plot by a sick child of privilege has become an instant disaster for Nigerians everywhere, but especially those who live or frequently travel abroad.

Fair or not (and there’s a lot of argument to be made on both sides), Nigeria is portrayed in the foreign media as one of the great centers of corruption and scams. Despite a well-established history of religious fanaticism that spills out, intermittently, into orgies of killing in Allah’s name, Nigeria somehow managed to escape being baptized a haven of religion-induced terrorism.

Until, that is, last Friday when Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab imprinted the name of Nigeria on the global consciousness as an address where terrorists teem. Through his depraved bombing plot, this young man has smudged the image of millions of tolerant Nigerian Muslims in the eyes of the world. In fact, he’s given all Nigerians a notoriety they can ill afford.

Nigerians who travel, or live abroad – especially in Europe, Asia and North America – will bear the brunt of this dangerous new perception. In a post 9/11 world where the lines between vigilance and hysteria are often blurred, to be identified as sharing citizenship with a young man who tried to incinerate a plane mid-air can mean great ordeal.

Throughout last week, I received calls from Nigerians living in the US, the UK, or Europe. In each caller’s tone was a touch of dread. Some wondered what Abdul Mutallab’s crazed design meant for the future of Nigeria, a country already prostrate. Others were more concerned about how the aborted drama of a bloody bombing would reshape their lives.

One friend, a professor at a top American university, told me about the traveling trials of a colleague of his, a professor of Sudanese nationality. On numerous occasions, the Sudanese scholar has been taken off flights, or prevented from boarding one – all on account of the man’s “Islamic” name and the Sudan’s reputation as a grooming ground for al Qaeda terrorists. Another friend, a young executive at a major American financial services company, related the experience of a colleague of his, an Egyptian-American. He said that when he and his colleague traveled together, the Egyptian-American was frequently subjected to exacting, even intrusive, searches and exhaustive questioning.

Travelers who carry the Nigerian passport know that they can count on a certain level of scrutiny and hostility at foreign airports. Who needs the added aggravation of being regarded as a terrorist – until you prove otherwise?

In the 1990s, at the height of 419 scams and other forms of schemes targeted at banks and gullible individuals, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued alerts warning American financial institutions to be wary of hiring Nigerians. Such directives took a toll on the career aspirations of many highly qualified Nigerian professionals in the US who were turned back from jobs the moment their passport gave them away. Many Nigerians who were working for financial corporations were subjected to surveillance that presumed them to be criminals – or, at least, crime-minded.

All that travail would pale to insignificance compared to the price Nigerians resident abroad stand to pay if – God forbid – the impression takes root that their country is a fertile soil for rabid zealots willing to inflict mass-murder and other forms of mayhem on “infidels.”

How exactly did we get here?

One answer, of course, is that al Qaeda is a global scourge, with cells embedded not only in Islamic nations but also in such liberal democracies as Britain, Denmark, Canada and the United States of America. In that sense, then, there’s nothing really extraordinary that a Nigerian had stepped up to play his hideous part in a tragic plot.

But there’s also a sense in which Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab’s emergence is the culmination of years of official nonchalance towards the phenomenon of domestic religious violence. Tens of thousands of Nigerians have perished in outbreaks of sectarian violence often instigated by members of some fringe Islamic group or another. It’s depraved, but not altogether unexpected, that zealots would from sometimes arise in a frenzied spree, fueled by a hunger to massacre non-believers in the name of their deity. But what’s even weirder is that the government – whose primary mandate ought to be the protection of lives and property – habitually indulges the slaughterers. On numerous occasions, the Nigerian police and army elected to snore away as fiends killed and destroyed in the name of “God.” Few, if any, of those murderers were ever prosecuted, much convicted.

The Nigerian state, in permitting sanctimonious fanatics to get away with their cruel sport, helped create Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab. In the end, the difference between domestic religious terrorism and its exportation is only a plane trip away.

Dora Akunyili, Umaru Yar’Adua’s “rebrand” guru, once disparaged Nigerians resident abroad for tarring their country’s image through excessive criticism. Akunyili should know better, but those were the early days of her commission – and she was, it seemed, desperate to convince her paymasters that she was equal to the magic, not of clearing out shit, but applying deodorant on it.

Akunyili’s barbs at foreign-based Nigerians sought to create a false dichotomy. She implied that some Nigerians – the homebound ones – view their country more positively than the disconnected “exiles.” The truth, and she knows it, is that there are indeed two groups of Nigerians, but not along the lines she suggested. There are those – the vast majority – who are dismayed by their country’s missed opportunities and derailed promises. And then, there are others – a tiny group – who profess to love Nigeria exactly the way it is.

Whether one is located abroad or at home has nothing to do with one’s response to Nigeria. Interest is everything. Nigerians are like people everywhere else: they want a decent country where they can live as humans, secure in their lives and property. But there are the few, leeches and parasites whose appetites are as huge as their minds and consciences are miniscule, who take callous pleasure in a dysfunctional Nigeria. For them, dysfunction is a necessary condition for the kind of primitive accumulation in which they thrive.

Once the majority awakes to the fact of its numerical superiority – and, from the way things are shaping up in the country, that’s bound to happen sooner than later – then they will stand up and reclaim their country from the calloused hands of the few manufacturers of misery and death in our midst. That’s one way to ensure that the Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab and his ilk don’t define the rest of us.
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Percy Sutton Dies at 89 years-old, on December 26, 2009

http://washingtondcjazznetwork.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2645717:BlogPost:28754&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_post
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National Black Theatre Event in NYC on Friday, Dec. 18th

National Black Theatre's Communication Arts Program presents An Introduction "Kahuna in the 21st Century" this FRIDAY December 18th‏
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Elmer Smith on the Employment Summit

"If big financial institutions needed a TARP, American workers need a tourniquet..."

Dear friends,

On th elink below you will find a piece by the pro;ific writer/thinker Elmer Smith of the Philadelphia Daily News.

An interesting comment from one of the people he interviewed in doing this report says, " 'We should be putting people to work in public jobs programs designed to help communities by repairing rusting infrastructure,' Dodds said. 'In the '70s, we put 4,000 to 5,000 people to work in this region in the CETA program. It's time to do that again.' "

None of the politicians or economists seem to get it. That is, make-work jobs are short-lived patch work operations that hide the real problem: people need to start developing their own communities, so that they can create their own livelihoods and not have to depend upon either the government or huge corporations. In order to do that, they must institute a new way of making value judgments that call for citizens in any particular community to work together for the common weal, as opposed to the dog-eat-dog type of mentality that became the major focus beginning with Ronald Reagan's and his bosses' assent to power.

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20091208_Elmer_Smith__At_employment_summit__the_10-percenters_call_for_some__good_jobs_.html
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Chinua Achebe Convened a Forum in Providence, RI 12/11/09

"Most of the men and women gathered at Achebe’s colloquium in Providence were in no doubt that the INEC headed by Iwu has an insurmountable credibility deficit. But they also realized that the time is ripe to mount a multi-pronged assault on the culture of fraud that keeps Nigeria in the grips of its least enlightened, morally bankrupt elements..."


"Anambra 2010 as window to 2011"
By Okey Ndibe

Nigeria’s preeminent novelist Chinua Achebe is, in manner, soft-spoken and gentle. In fact, Achebe has been described as self-effacing. Seldom does his voice rise. But those who know him best recognize that, beneath that genteel exterior, there is a steely core to the man. Achebe is the master of economy in expression, a man who manages the magic – rare in our world – of not expending one careless or superfluous word when he speaks.

Given Achebe’s demure nature, it’s significant that a certain impatience, even stridency, has in recent years crept into his voice. In several recent interviews or statements, Achebe – who just accepted a prestigious position as the David and Mariana Fisher University Professor at Brown University – has not tried to mask a deep disappointment with the desultory way that his (nearly) fifty-year-old nation continues to carry on. Some two months ago, the author even used the word “revolution” in speaking about what it would take for Nigerians to reclaim their country.

In 2004, Achebe’s rejection of what was touted as a national honor – the bestowal of the Commander of the Federal Republic by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration – became a classic of conscientious censure. The Obasanjo government’s announcement of the award came at a time of the regime’s ill-veiled sponsorship of mayhem in Anambra, Achebe’s home state.

In a letter that was as brief as its moral force was stupendous, Achebe conveyed utter outrage. He wrote to Mr. Obasanjo: “For some time now I have watched events in Nigeria with alarm and dismay. I have watched particularly the chaos in my own state of Anambra where a small clique of renegades, openly boasting its connections in high places, seems determined to turn my homeland into a bankrupt and lawless fiefdom. I am appalled by the brazenness of this clique and the silence, if not connivance, of the Presidency.”

In those few words, Achebe not only captured the remaking of his home state into a state of anarchy but also struck at a fundamental truth about the character of the Obasanjo presidency: a tragic investment, not in nation-building but nation-wrecking, and a willingness to be wedded to criminal elements and projects.

It was not, properly speaking, honor that Achebe rejected; a government that lacked honor could not confer on anybody what it didn’t have. A dishonorable regime such as Obasanjo’s was capable, in the final analysis, only of dispensing dishonor. That presidency, like the “leaders” before him, had emptied national honors of any real moral content or social prestige. I wrote a column that lauded the novelist for his principled rejection of impunity and iniquity. The column was appropriately titled “Achebe’s repudiation of horror.” For it was clear to me that, had Achebe accepted the tainted honorific, he would have left his admirers, in Nigeria and outside, horrified.

Achebe deserves more fame for what strikes me as a highly intuitive insight into his country’s political drama. The man’s antenna seem adept at detecting those moments when his nation is poised on the edge of a terrible chasm.

The publication (but not the writing) of his A Man of the People – a novel that ends with a coup d’etat and predicts a succession of other coups – almost coincided with Nigeria’s first military intervention. The closeness of the fictional “prediction” to the real coup earned Achebe the unwelcome attention of the soldiers who planned and executed a counter-coup at the end of July 1966.

In 1984, Achebe published The Trouble with Nigeria, a treatise that has since become arguably the most widely read social and political analysis of Nigeria. The book’s importance, in sheer volume of sales as well as the frequency with which it’s quoted, belies its critical reception. Some haughty social scientists, anxious to protect their professional turf, had sought to pooh-pooh Achebe’s insights. A few of them even charged him with a lack of analytic rigor.

Today, many scholars examining the factors that precipitated the collapse of the Shehu Shagari administration routinely acknowledge The Trouble with Nigeria as a vivid portrait of the time and an illuminating study of Nigeria’s enduring malady. In some way, the book x-rays the corruption, dearth of vision and depth of rot that spelt doom not only for Shagari and his cohorts, but also (on an even profounder level) for the Nigerian citizenry.

The point is that Achebe’s instincts about his troubled, troubling country are so excellent. Achebe’s decision, then, to convene an international colloquium on Nigerian elections resonated both with many Nigerians as well as Nigerianists – my term for those deeply focused on Nigeria, whether they are diplomats or scholars. The colloquium took place last Friday, December 11, at the Westin Hotel in Providence, Rhode Island – a shout away from Achebe’s new academic address.

A throng of Nigerians attended the colloquium. The familiar faces included Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, Achebe, Dim Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Governor Peter Obi, Professor A.B.C. Nwosu, Professor Abiola Irele, Senator Ken Nnamani, Senator Ben Obi, Mr. Emeka Izeze (a top executive of The Guardian), Mr. Sonala Olumhense (a columnist at The Guardian), and Sowore Omoyele (of Saharareporters.com). The team of Nigerianists included three former US ambassadors to Nigeria, Walter Carrington, John Campbell, and Princeton Lyman. Nigerians will remember Carrington for his clashes with the Sani Abacha dictatorship, often triggered by the ambassador’s identification with Nigeria’s democratic forces in their war against the bespectacled military ruler.

The colloquium achieved consensus on two linked questions. One: that the February 6, 2010 governorship election in Anambra will serve as a preview and dress rehearsal for the 2011 general elections. Two: that Nigeria may be hard put to it to survive another fraudulent polls, and certainly not one rigged on the scale of the 2007 “elections,” notoriously named as one of the worst in history.

Considering that so much rides on the Anambra governorship election, it’s nothing short of scandalous that Maurice Iwu will be permitted to conduct it. As chairman of the (misnamed) Independent National Electoral Commission, Mr. Iwu has established a distinction for incompetence, perfidy, and shamelessness. Here’s an electoral umpire who seems to think it’s up to him to award offices, to divest voters of their constitutional right to determine the outcome of polls.

The signs are there – writ large – that Iwu’s INEC is set to turn Anambra into its latest site for a tragic miscarriage of an election. Iwu has been on a media blitz lately; he’s up to his usual game of exhibiting a contrived tone of earnestness in insisting that his commission will deliver a credible election. Perhaps, he manages to believe himself. Nigerians know better. They know that he has a candidate in the race, and that candidate’s name is Nnamdi (Andy) Uba. Besides, Nigerians have seen the same empty strutting and grandstanding by Iwu just before the electoral heists in Adamawa and Ekiti. Nigerians realize that the real Iwu is not the one who makes high-minded speeches, but the one who operates crudely, in secret, only to emerge with bizarre electoral results.

Most of the men and women gathered at Achebe’s colloquium in Providence were in no doubt that the INEC headed by Iwu has an insurmountable credibility deficit. But they also realized that the time is ripe to mount a multi-pronged assault on the culture of fraud that keeps Nigeria in the grips of its least enlightened, morally bankrupt elements. Anambra will be a testing ground.

A politically naïve and confused Atiku Abubakar let INEC and the ruling party to get away with the Adamawa rig fest. The electoral umpire in Ekiti found a way to silence her conscience, and made another questionable call. Still, the mood in Nigeria and among the participants in the colloquium suggests that the days of unchallenged electoral impunity may be numbered.

Here’s my prediction: if INEC screws up the Anambra election, it’s likely to be the last election Iwu misconducts.

okeyndibe@gmail.com
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Sandy Banks on "Second Sunday of December, a Time to Remember"

"The death of a child you birthed and raised, scolded and praised, worried over and celebrated is unlike any other pain. And it doesn't matter if they are 4 years old, or 45, as my husband was."


Dear friends,

I read this piece, on the link below, from a friend who writes for the Los Angeles Times, Sandy Banks. Her work appears on this blog, from time-to-time. Nevertheless, her most recent column is a very powerful and touching one about losing a child - the worst event that a parent can ever experience. Moreover, in our holiday spirit, we should not forget that this is a painful time for many.

One Love,
G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-banks12-2009dec12,0,7274539,full.column
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Tiger Woods and the "sex scandal"

"Of course, that comes after the prime directive: Never have an affair with anyone who would enjoy seeing themselves on the cover of “In Touch” magazine." - Gail Collins

Dear friends,

The brouhaha about Tiger Woods' alleged mistresses is, at least to me, a laugh a minute. "Let's keep it real!", if you'll pardon the jargon. Many, if not most, of the women who are coming forward are lucky if they were even a one-night stand, probably. But rich people draw parasites faster than corpses in a swamp.

Hence, much of what is passed off as relevant "news" in this market-driven, possession-oriented culture has more to do with how pathetic American journalism is, for the most part (although, occasionally, something informative and inspiring does slip through). Nonetheless, while Tiger Woods learned to master the game of golf, he, apparently, has never learned much about social relationships. As a matter of fact, personally, I cannot recall hearing Tiger talk about anything other than golf anyway.

Yet, really, about what is this stupid story? More than ever, the US government- and corporate-controlled media are exposing themselves for what they are - i.e., opinion-makers. After all, the techniques that they use to disseminate information, as scholar and social critic Noam Chomsky has insisted for decades, are: Selection of topics, Distribution of concerns, Emphasis of issues, Filtering of information, and Bounding of debate. This enables media agencies to: Determine, Control, Shape, Select, and Restrict information and ideas that "Serve the interests of dominant, elite groups". (see Manufacturing Consent by Chomsky)

Finally, the average American citizen swears that s/he thinks, feels, and consciously acts as an individual. However, as many of us are aware, most of what the former think, feel, and do are based upon images and ideas that are superimposed on the minds of the population through coercive cultural institutions, of which media are no small part.

At any rate, on the link below is a quite appropriate piece from Gail Collins of the New York Times that, in case you missed it, may be of interest to you.

Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/opinion/10collins.html?_r=1
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Join Us on December 10th in New York City!!!

"Join us as an audience member for this unique experience of discovering new untapped talent"
2031 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK, NY 10035
BETWEEN 125TH AND 126TH STREETS

Acknowledgements:

This program is funded in part by Council Member Inez E. Dickens, 9th C.D., Speaker Christine Quinn and the New York City Council, City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs, the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone and your individual contributions.

presents:
An Artist Showcase:
"Fertile Ground"
Thursday December 10, 2009
8pm-11pm Suggested Donation: $10.00
On this special evening,
YOU - the audience have an opportunities to witness ten new artists present original material

National Black Theatre's House Band
Bert Price on keyboard, Olamide on guitar,
Brady Watt on bass guitar, Jamal Hampton on drums, Jamal Peoples on keyboard, to be one of the ten artist presenting orginal material.
contact Mr. Bert Price at berttheproducer@gmail.com

WEBSITE LINK
Dr. Barbara Ann Teer's National Black
Your participation is most important!!!
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Racism and the Job Hunt

"...if we start thinking in terms of 'we', instead of the 'I' that keeps this market-driven, possession-oriented society going, then we will be able to build communities that are prosperous in every way."

Dear friends,

We have to build our communities, starting with how we raise our children. Racism, the euphemism for "White Supremacy", is a cultural institution in America. It is not a disease or a form of xenophobia.

To be sure, the term White Supremacy usually conjures up mental images of men in white bedsheets. However, a far more useful definition is: the United States is a White Supremacist nation, because a person can come from, say, Romania yesterday, declare himself or herself "white" and immediately inherit the oroginal Pilgrim group. George Washington, the battle flag of the Confederacy, country music, and privilege over African Americans and those who look like us, as his or her claim of being "white" will also make him or her part of an artificial "majority" group.

All of our talk thus far concerning people calling themselves "white" has yet to deal with the subject of a often used cult term, the "white male". Supposedly, this "white male" is the cause of our society's problems (if not the world as well). The question then arises, "Who is the white male?" Is he the European American fellow in the unemployment or welfare line?

According to recent federal census figures, there are as many low-income European American men in our country as there are combined for all non-European Americans, regardless of so-called "race" or gender - or age. How about someone who is homeless or imprisoned? Perhaps, this is our powerful "white male". Or, is it an infirmed man in one of our many veterans' hospitals nationwide? Maybe, it is the guy who is about to lose his home or car - or job.

Interestingly enough, not only is the "white male" never clearly identified by his bashers, as well, nobody mentions that this "white male" is nurtured by a mother, wife, lover, sister, grandmother, aunt, cousin, and/or friend who calls herself "white". In other words, from whom does the "white male" learn to be a "white male"? It seems like someone is playing a sidewalk shell game on us.

The point being made here is: in a society where people are placed on various social levels (called social stratification) for any number of reasons (for example, upper vs. lower class, black vs. white, male vs. female, sick vs. well) - a person can often be a member of both an oppressor group and an oppressed one, at the same time. The Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill debacle proves that adequately. Thomas is an agent of Male Supremacy (euphemistically-called "sexism"), yet he is oppressed as a non-European American. Also, this idea is eloquently presented in an anthology of essays, edited by David Theo Goldberg, called Anatomy Of Racism: "Oppression exists in many different forms and degrees...Group oppression occurs when a group is defined or conceived of as a group and is oppressed because of its group characteristics...generally the oppression of a group requires the power of another relatively cohesive group...Group oppression, thus, generally occurs when oppressors act as part of a group to oppress others identified as a separate group." - from an essay by John L. Hodge called "Equality: Beyond Dualism and Oppression"

Obviously, the word "oppression" implies lack or loss of freedom. But freedom is not a lone fixed thing. There is individual freedom and group freedom. All U.S.A. citizens have, to some extent, personal freedom (for example, the right to protest or vote for whomever we choose, the right to express ourselves in a variety of ways, and so forth). Many of us, however, lack group freedom, however. So it seems that there is much more going on here than oppression by the "white male". As a matter of fact, if anything, the white male is a red herring.

One of the worst aspects of this notion of "whiteness" is that many people have been made to use the word interchangeably with "American". More than skin color and nationality is implied in "whiteness", however. For instance, almost forty years ago, as a Black Panther, while doing community organizing work in New Haven, Connecticut, I got into a political discussion with a young Chinese woman who was the roommate of a friend of mine (who also happened to be Chinese and belonged to an organization called I Wor Kuen). At one point, during our conversation regarding racial discrimination, this Asian American woman declared, "I don’t get what you mean...I'm white". When I interrupted, "You're Chinese!" (as both of her parents were) - she burst into tears and walked away. As a matter of fact, regardless of wherever I saw her after that day, she never spoke with me again. (An interesting side note, about three years after the aforementioned incident, while in Boston one night watching television, I saw the same young Chinese woman being interviewed on a local station. She had become the costume designer for a nationally recognized European American ballet company.)

At any rate, in an essay called "The Souls of White Folks" Dr. W.E.B.DuBois wrote: "The discovery of personal whiteness among the world's peoples is a very modern thing...The ancient world would have laughed at such a distinction...by emphasis and omission to make children believe that every great thought the world ever knew was a white man's thought, every great deed the world ever did was a white man’s deed..."darkies" are born beasts of burden...Such degrading of men by men is as old as man and the invention of no one race or people...It has been left, however, to Europe and to modern days to discover the eternal worldwide mark of meanness -color!"

Ultimately, although people will feel disempowered by ceasing to identify themselves as “white” (a fact that blows away the argument against "affirmative action"), they should appreciate the fact that the whole concept of whiteness is an ideological construction anyway. Moreover, it is a phony claim - if not an illusion.

Finally, if African Americans start thinking in terms of "we", instead of the "I" that keeps this market-driven, possession-oriented society going, then we will be able to build communities that are prosperous in every way. Moreover, as a result, other groups may follow our successes in building "community" which will make them have less need to mean-spiritedly pit themselves against us by calling themselves "white" (which allows them to be part of an artificial "majority" group that is getting screwed by the "organized minority" just as much as we are). And so, the information on the link below will have become dated. Dig?

One Love!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/us/01race.html
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Smith on the Injustice of American justice

"There is no free-standing right not to be framed," argued Neal Kataya, of the Justice Department..."



Dear friends,

One of the areas in our economy that continues to proliferate is the Crime Industry. Moreover, both "the law" and many of its enforcers, have it in their interests to keep the industry going and growing in that context.

On the link below, my very dear friend and brother, Elm Smith of the Philadelphia Daily News delivers a very thoughtful piece that enlightens us all. Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/69944622.html
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Jazz Calendar for December in the Connecticut/Western Massachusetts area

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

"Thank you for supporting global jazz, our legacy..."


NICKi MATHIS, Ed.M, Sunday 6 Dec 5-7P w/Lynn Tracey/Something Cool
Distil, 270 Worthington St, Springfield, MA. 413.737-5557; 860.212-0209

Saturday 19 December 7:30 pm, and Sunday 20 December 2:00 pm,
Annie Mae Smith in Pender County… by, Liston Filyaw, directed by Frances Sharp
Aetna Theater, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 600 Main St, Hartford, CT.
OJAY Images 860.683-8881; $25

Sunday 17 January 2010 4 pm, NMAAJazz featuring Norman Johnson, Jr. Ortiz

FREE Martin Luther King Jr Celebration
Yale University Peabody Museum of National History
70 Whitney Avenue, at the corner of Sachem Street, one block north of Trumbull Street, New Haven CT. Contact Josue Irizarry 203.432-3778

http://matchbook.org/ArtistProfile1.aspx?ProfileId=741 BOOKINGS:860.231-0663

http://cdbaby.com/cd/nickmathis
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More US troops in Afghanistan?

The name gives it all away: the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. There can be no genuine “democracy” in a nation that is governed by religion, since religion, as a vertically-structured cultural institution, is based on privilege and intolerance. Hence, the notion of inclusion in decision-making is shunned, if not suppressed.

Dear friends,

The name gives it all away: the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. There can be no genuine “democracy” in a nation that is governed by religion, since religion, as a vertically-structured cultural institution, is based on privilege and intolerance. Hence, the notion of inclusion in decision-making is shunned, if not suppressed.

So, about what is the real point being made, as well as the insistence upon the supporting of “democracy” – whether in Afghanistan or Pakistan, by the military/industrial complex of the United States government? At least to me, it is: those who possess the greatest amount of military puissance (might) dictate the rules. Please remember that the United States of America has only been a “world” power for six decades; that is, since it dropped atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Besides, the essence of “democracy” is non-violent conflict resolution.

Nevertheless, on the link below is a concise, yet informative piece, by the always impressive Stephanie Kraft of the Valley Advocate that reveals continuing growth of the far-reaching tentacles belonging to the aforementioned United States’ military/industrial complex. Meanwhile, after the people of Afghanistan have been explopited, for centuries, by alien marauders, earlier this year (2009), the Embassy of Afghanistan, in Washington, DC boasted, "More than 70 American companies have registered in Afghanistan since 2003, representing $75 million in potential investment, and more than 15 foreign and domestic banks have opened their doors in Afghanistan...Ford, 3M, and Boeing are examining business opportunities in Afghanistan, and Coca-Cola has opened a $25 million bottling plant in Kabul."

And the beat goes on...

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.valleyadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=10881

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Support Traditional African music and the artists who play it !!!

"This is a very credible cause. Please consider."

Dear friends,

One of my siblings just sent me the e-mail below. This is a very credible cause. Please consider.

One Love, One Heart, One Spirit,
G. Djata Bumpus
*******************************************************
Subject: 2009 Guide to Gifts Saving Zimbabwean Musicians' Lives

With 100 children dying EVERY DAY in Zimbabwe, there is not only a humanitarian catastrophe, but also a real danger that, in the struggle to survive, traditional music will not be passed on to the next generation.

Every year at this time, MBIRA suggests gifts that you can order from our non-profit organization, that help to support over 150 Zimbabwean traditional musicians (at the bottom of the economic ladder there), and their large extended families, including the children that hopefully will survive to be the musicians of tomorrow.

If you prefer to make a tax-deductible donation, go to http://www.mbira.org/ and click on the DONATE button, or send a check or money order made out to MBIRA to PO Box 7863,Berkeley, CA 94707-0863, USA.

MBIRA's non-profit sales of traditional music CDs played by over 150 musicians from all over Zimbabwe, and mbiras by 16 Zimbabwean instrument makers, are estimated to help support more than 2000 men, women and children in Zimbabwe...AND are helping to preserve respect for traditional culture and music.

You can make a difference, and enjoy great music, too! When you buy a CD from MBIRA, the musicians on it get a minimum of 12 times more money than if you buy a CD in almost any other physical or online store. Please consider giving great gifts this year, that support Zimbabwean musicians.

Here are our gift suggestions, and thank you for helping us to support Zimbabwean musicians!:

1. "First Mbira Lessons" DVD with video lessons, audio play-along tracks,graphics and text for the new mbira player. Also available with an mbira -http://www.mbira.org/catalog.asp?cat=dvds

2. Give MBIRA CDs - when we sell even one, it may feed a rural musician'sfamily for 2 weeks. Proceeds go to the musician(s) on the CD.*** A list of CDs on which some or all of the musicians earned less than $100 this year is at the end of this email - ordering these is especially helpful, and they are ALL great recordings, sometimes just have too many people on them for each one to earn much. Try one!

If a CD on the list is one of your favorites already, give a copy to a friend. Consult our gift guide at http://www.mbira.org/catalog.asp?cat=favorites
Or browse all the CDs and make your own selections after listening to audiosamples at http://www.mbira.org/catalog.asp?cat=cds To just look at new releases, go to http://www.mbira.org/catalog.asp?cat=new

3. BOOK/CD "Shona Lessons for Mbira Students" by Patience Chaitezvi athttp://www.mbira.org/catalog.asp?cat=books

4. Make a tax-deductible DONATION in someone's name...even a small donation can make a big difference in Zimbabwe. 100% of donations received between now and December 31st will go to the Zimbabwe Musicians Fund (100% of your donation goes to Zimbabwean traditional musicians we have recorded who earned less than $100 this year, including some great musicians we have recorded, but haven't had time to finish making their CDs). Go tohttp://www.mbira.org and click on the DONATE button at the top of the page

5. Mbira player EBONY SCULPTURES by very talented village mbira player andartist, Fradreck Manjengwa. We have both female and male solo mbira players in stock. To order, go to http://www.mbira.org/catalog.asp?cat=sculpture

6. Copper and brass BANGLES, THUMB PICKS for mbira players, also bubble padded-ziplock BAGS for mbira travel and storage at http://www.mbira.org/catalog.asp?cat=mbira-accessories (scroll down)

7. Give an MBIRA T-SHIRT - short-sleeved t-shirts, babydoll tees, and hooded SWEATSHIRTs too. Sizes and colors currently available are listed at http://www.mbira.org/catalog.asp?cat=shirts and ALSO note what color(s) and size(s) you want on your order, please.

8. Give an mbira WORKSHOP (or part payment of one) to a new or continuingmbira student. For example, weekend workshops in various locations, or an 8-day Mbira Camp. For dates and cost of workshops, seehttp://www.mbira.org/events.html In the San Francisco Bay Area, give the gift of mbira lessons, too. Just send a check to MBIRA with details, and wewill send a gift certificate (include name of the recipient and address tosend it to).

9. Mbira INSTRUMENTS - Browse what we have in stock at http://www.mbira.org/catalog.asp?cat=mbiras and we are are expecting MORE mbiras and dezes to arrive about December 1st, so check back if what youwant is out of stock.ORDER ONLINE: Order with a credit card or PayPal account online athttp://www.mbira.org, and we will ship your CDs by first class mail (Priority Mail if order is for 4 or more within the US, and all mbiras go byPriority Mail within the US) the next business day.

ORDER BY PHONE: You may order by phone between 9 am and 7 pm PST (West CoastUS time) by calling 510-548-6053.ORDER BY MAIL: You may also order with a check or money order by mail, and we will ship when we receive it ***please include an order form printed from the website, and include the proper amount for shipping, and tax if you arein California.

ORDER A GIFT: Please send us an additional email if you wish the gift shipped to an address other than your own, as PayPal will not always tell us this when you order online!

BUY IN PERSON: Those who live in the San Francisco Bay Area may also come to Berkeley to make purchases in person at MBIRA house or at the Musicians Fund benefit mbira concert Sat. Dec. 12 at 8 pm , email: erica@mbira.org for directions to either.----------*CDs of Zimbabwean Musicians Who Earned Less Than $50 Each This Year*Solo Nyamaropa Tuning:3406 Alois Mutinhiri (w/hosho)3411 Golden Nhamo 3427 Goliath Rambakudzibwa 3451 Herbert Matema & Kajawu Chingodza (vocals) Duet Nyamaropa Tuning:3409 Vitalis Botsa & Fabian Rujuwa3429 Munwanenzewe & Chasi3452 Kadungure & Mutizwa (2 x dongonda) 3453 Muchapondwa & ChikupoGroup Nyamaropa Tuning: 3404 Muchumi/Hoto/Magaya 3410 Jekanyika Mbira Group 3423 Dzapasi Mbira Group 3424 Mhondoro Mbira Group 3425 Rushanga Mbira Group 3428 Sungano Mbira Group3438 Mhuri yekwaRwizi – The Next Generation3440 Dendera Resango Mbira Group3441 Mhuri yekwaManomano3442 Rwizi Mutoro Mbira Group 3444 Munongedzo Mbira 3449 Mandarendare Mbira Group – Nyamaropa & Dongonda Tunings 3471 Muzanenhamo Mbira GroupGandanga/Mavembe Tuning: 3413 Courage Njenge3420 Murawo Tembedza & Langton Bapiro Dambatsoko Tuning: 3208 Elder Mujuru Mbira Players 1996 3339 Stanley, Norman, Sam and Munyaradzi Mujuru 3439 Dambatsoko Mbira Group 3445 Fradreck & Nyarai ManjengwaOther Tunings & Instruments:3453 Newton Gwara & Chaka Marimba 3265 Rinos Simboti Mukuwurirwa & Tiri Chiongotere – Saungweme TuningCompilations & Intensives: 1100 Vashauri Vol. 1 Great Mbira Singers 3903 Nyama musango – Nyamaropa Tuning3914 Bangidza3911 Shumba yangwasha3928 Nyama musango – Gandanga/Mavembe tuning 3941 Shanje *CDs of Zimbabwean Musicians Who Earned Less Than $100 Each This Year*Solo Nyamaropa Tuning: 3307 Boniface Mutandwa3422 Friday Chamunorwa 3426 Ephraim Musekiwa3432 Daniel Taveshure 3437 Tavengwa Chikupo3442 Albert ZinhumweDuet Nyamaropa Tuning: 3268 Luken Pasipamire & Chris Mhlanga 3455 Gift Mzarabani & Ignatius MutandwaGroup Nyamaropa Tuning: 3015 Mhuri yekwaMuchena 1991Gandanga/Mavembe Tuning: 3062 Ephat Mujuru 19863144 Healing Tape on CD 3433 Madziva & SanyikaDambatsoko Tuning:3454 Nicholas Jemwa & Fungai MujuruOther Tunings & Instruments: 3435 Dzongodza TaonezviNote: at least one musician on each CD earned less than the amount indicated Thanks for your support for Zimbabwean musicians!Happy holidays to all! Erica********************************
Erica Azim MBIRA: the non-profit organization devoted to Shona mbira music of Zimbabwehttp://www.mbira.orgphone (510) 548-6053; fax (510) 548-2454 P.O. Box 7863, Berkeley, CA 94707-0863, USA email: erica@mbira.org
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Dr. Ndibe on Nigeria, in Sickness and in Health

"Leaders who can’t, or won’t, solve problems for other citizens should have no right to run off to better-run countries when their health is ravaged."

Yar’Adua’s luck, Nigeria’s misfortune
By Okey Ndibe

Last week, Attorney General Michael Aondoakaa went out of his way to establish his closeness to Aso Rock resident, Umaru Yar’Adua. With Nigeria gripped by widespread rumors of Mr. Yar’Adua’s death in a hospital in Saudi Arabia, Aondoakaa set out to squelch the whispered falsehood. In a statement, he told Nigerians, in effect, to relax. In Nigerianese, the statement was akin to declaring, “Nothing spoil!”

Aondoakaa wanted Nigerians and – why not – the world as well to know that he’d been on the phone to Yar’Adua, and Umaru was, as one newspaper reported, “hale and hearty”. Well, good for Mr. Yar’Adua, but how about millions of Nigerians who can’t afford to fly abroad for the succor of Saudi or German doctors?

A day after Aondoakaa’s upbeat, “nothing spoil” report, Yar’Adua’s personal physician finally owned up, in a statement released by Segun Adeniyi, that the former Katsina governor has been diagnosed with “acute pericarditis,” described as an inflammation of the covering of the heart.

Nigerian clerics, Christian and Moslem alike, weighed in with prayers for Mr. Yar’Adua’s quick and complete recovery. Moved, no doubt, by Christian and Islamic sense of charity, these ecclesiastical authorities urged adherents of their religions to storm heaven with petitions for Yar’Adua’s physical mending.

I’m not one to argue against praying for any ailing person. In fact, I wish Mr. Yar’Adua nothing less than vibrant, exuberant health. Even so, each time I made to pray for the man, I stumbled. A voice within me kept protesting, “How about the millions of sick Nigerians dying silently, slowly, in excruciating pain in Nigerian hospitals laid waste by the avarice, greed, idiocy of so-called Nigerian leaders?” Since assuming – I’d say usurping – the Nigerian presidency in 2007, has Mr. Yar’Adua taken any significant step to improve the quality of health care in the country?

My answer was there – it was easy – No! There’s no question that many Muslims and Christians heeded their leaders’ entreaties to storm God with petitions for Mr. Yar’Adua’s well being. I hope the Aso Rock resident recovers well enough to answer a simple question: What have you ever done to give ailing Nigerians a praying chance at revamped health?
Mr. Yar’Adua was enthroned on Nigerians on May 29, 2007 – thanks to a combination of Olusegun Obasanjo’s colossal malice, Maurice Iwu’s shameless mischief, and (later) the Supreme Court’s tragic misjudgment. Since his investiture in office, Yar’Adua has made several trips abroad – specifically to Germany and Saudi Arabia – on account of his sickness.

These frequent medical trips have proved costly for Nigerians. Nigeria is in woeful shape, and demands a full-time, energetic and visionary leader to devote himself to the generation and execution of sound policies to rescue the country. Yet, Yar’Adua has been far from focused on Nigeria and its myriad crises. Quite simply, the hardest thing the man does in a typical day, it seems, is to nurse himself to sleep.

In a moment of comical diversion during his “run” for the presidency, Yar’Adua had challenged those doubting his superb physical conditioning to step into an arena and face him in several rounds of squash. That sad attempt at swagger has since earned a spot as one of the theatrical interludes in Obasanjo’s “do-and-die” campaign against a people who had the effrontery to deny him an unconstitutional third term in office. Since his investiture in office in May 2007, Yar’Adua has cut the image less of a swashbuckling squash player than of a man who, on many a day, would be incapable of sitting up to watch one round of squash.

Rumors have swirled in Nigeria that Yar’Adua has cancelled numerous state functions because he was in no shape to sit through them, or to stand up for a few minutes to make a speech. Nigerians wasted billions of naira on an election to choose a leader, and ended up with a man that must rank as one of the costliest liabilities in the history of leadership. Again, Nigerians must be in no hurry to forget that Yar’Adua is a product of vengeance. Even so, Yar’Adua deserves scolding – he’s grown up, after all – for consenting to be a pawn in Obasanjo’s diseased game of vindictiveness. Yar’Adua knew full well that he was a feeble man, that his body could not withstand the sheer physical tax of being a president. For his own sake, for the sake of his family, and in the interest of the Nigerian collectivity, he should have had the courage to tell Obasanjo: “Sorry, but I can’t serve as the instrument with which you whip Nigerians.”

Aondoakaa wants to toast what he alleges to be Yar’Adua’s strong health. It’s fine if Saudi doctors nurse Yar’Adua to health, or even a semblance of it. The trouble is that, in a perverse way, Yar’Adua’s health care translates a health scare for most Nigerians. Let me explain.

The record is that Yar’Adua has been seriously sick for a long time, even spanning the eight years he operated as Katsina governor. Yet, the man didn’t see fit to build and equip one hospital in his state that would cater to other residents facing similar health issues. He was apparently like most Nigerian “leaders,” content to take care of himself – by flying abroad for treatment. It never occurs to these so-called leaders to use their offices to improve the quality of health care in Nigeria and for Nigerians.

Last week, a young man contacted me from Lagos to report his shock at the dismal state of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital. “The place is not even fit for pigs to be treated there,” the man said, pleading that I write about the issue.

LUTH is no isolated case. Nigerian hospitals, almost without exception, are a ghastly sight. In the 1970s, Nigeria boasted a number of teaching hospitals that were well equipped and run by some of the best doctors in the world. Today, those teaching hospitals have come to abject ruin, the result of neglect by the country’s cast of misbegotten “leaders.”
Nigerians ought to awaken to the scandal, and resist the rule of men and women who wreck the nation’s health sector and then run abroad for medical care. Has Yar’Adua ever paused to ask himself whether Saudi Arabia has more doctors than Nigeria?

Has it ever occurred to him that Saudi monarchs do not fly to Nigeria when they urgently desire a doctor’s attention? Why then does he – do other “prominent” Nigerians – have a habit of rushing off to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Germany or elsewhere to worry their doctors? Don’t Nigeria’s rulers realize that a good health care system does not emerge by accident? Instead, that such a system is the product of vision, planning, and seriousness of purpose on the part of genuine political leaders in partnership with medical professionals. What is Yar’Adua’s record, even, in paying doctors or equipping existing federal hospitals? Is that record not – bluntly put – wretched?

That’s the kind of conversation Nigerians ought to be having. Those who wish to pray for Yar’Adua’s restoration to health should, by all means, do so. Here’s my own prayer: That Yar’Adua’s luck in Saudi hospitals should not continue to spell misfortune for millions of Nigerians.
On his return to Abuja, Yar’Adua should (as a priority) outline what he intends to do to lift the quality of Nigerian hospitals to Saudi levels. If he can’t come up with a plan, then Nigerians ought to insist that he should head for a Nigerian hospital when next he needs to see a doctor. That way, he would gain first-hand experience of the grim reality at Nigerian hospitals – and a deserved taste of the desperate fate facing most Nigerians who suffer from common and severe ailments.

Leaders who can’t, or won’t, solve problems for other citizens should have no right to run off to better-run countries when their health is ravaged.
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Jenice Armstrong provides a real review of "Precious"

"...unfortunately, for the most part, both African American actors and directors still make plays, tv series, and movies that allow us to either go laugh at ourselves or make 'white' folks feel sorry for us." - G. Djata Bumpus



Dear friends,

Rarely have I seen a movie review that was very honest. This one is. Moreover, the piece on the link below by the award-winning journalist Jen Armstrong, of the Philadelphia Daily News, proves the well-known fact that, unfortunately, for the most part, both African American actors and directors still make plays, tv series, and movies that allow us to either go laugh at ourselves or make 'white' folks feel sorry for us. What a drag!

Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/features/73292207.html
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Has the US Government, along with Multinational Corporations from the US, pulled a Hit and Run Money Grab on both US and Iraqi Citizens?

"...all of the money made by various banks and corporations like Dick Cheney's Halliburton, along with several other multinational companies, as they looted the coffers of our country with the excuse of 're-building Iraq'."

Dear friends,

After lying by claiming that there were "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, so they could have an excuse to invade a sovereign nation, the US government and its allies in the business community, unable to hoodwink most of the American public any longer, face a real dilemma. It is: all of the money made by various banks and corporations like Dick Cheney's Halliburton, along with several other multinational companies, looted the coffers of our country with the excuse of "re-building Iraq". Now, according to the article, on the link below, from the New York Times, apparently, the crooks here-to-mentioned are leaving behind hospitals, schools, and other facilities to a people who do not possess the wherewithal to use this conglomeration of new Iraqi institutions. Will the US Government now have to get American as well as workers from other countries to fill the void? Go figure.

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/world/middleeast/21reconstruct.html?_r=2&hp
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Sandy Banks - her artistic side may remind other professional women to reflect that way

"When I sat down to write this column, I reached reflexively for a stereotype. A trendy artists' enclave. In Inglewood? How odd."

Dear friends,

This is a splendid and important piece on the link below, by Sandy Banks, a very special columnist for the Los Angeles Times and someone whose work we get to appreciate on this blog occasionally. Please enjoy!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-banks21-2009nov21,0,2335042.column

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Dr. Ndibe on "A parable of four men"

"Last week, four Nigerian men made the headlines for different reasons. The four men, and their various stories and fates, served to underscore the state of the Nigerian nation."




"A parable of four men"

by Okey Ndibe

Last week, four Nigerian men made the headlines for different reasons. The four men, and their various stories and fates, served to underscore the state of the Nigerian nation.

There was the death in London of Samuel Ejikeme Okoye, a renaissance man and extraordinary scientist whose credentials, broad research interests and excellent record as a professor on three continents justly earned him a description as one of Africa’s top scientists. Professor Okoye died in London on Wednesday, November 18 – after many years of battling renal disease.

Born on July 26, 1939, Okoye earned a B.Sc (First Class) in Physics in 1962 from the University of Ibadan, then an affiliate of the University of London. He then won a worldwide competition for a Carnegie Foundation fellowship that enabled him to undertake doctoral studies in Astrophysics at Cambridge University, England. He became the first black African to obtain a PhD in the field of Radio Astronomy.
I learned of Okoye’s death on Thursday, November 19, a day after his transition. The sad news colored the rest of my week. Even so, my deep sorrow at the passage of this remarkable man was also mixed with a sense of buoyant pride in having known him personally.

Over the last ten years that I have written a column for one Nigerian newspaper or another, Okoye was one of my most dependable encouragers. He would often call me after reading one of my essays to offer commendation, as well as the occasional criticism, in that soft, but morally powerful, voice of his. Other times, he’d send an email to urge me to pursue my forthright denunciation of depraved behavior by men and women who misname themselves leaders.

Part of my great pride in the late scholar arose from stories I had heard – years before ever meeting him – about his rare intellectual gifts and accomplishments. Born in Amawbia, my hometown, Okoye became my most intimate portrait of an intellectual legend. I recall occasions when my parents, or some uncle or other elder, would refer to Okoye as “a first class brain.” In my child’s imagination, I always wondered what the inside of such a brain might look like.

Years later, talking regularly with Okoye, I came to grasp his special qualities. I realized that those who spoke grandly of him were not mistaken in the least. In numerous conversations with him, I was struck by his soft-spoken mien. He projected the quiet confidence of a man of intellectual depth and sound moral convictions. His brand of self-possessed restraint is absent in our empty men and women easily drawn to vulgar self-dramatization and ignoble obsession with materialism.

During a visit to London in August, I made a point of visiting Okoye at home. Here was a man who was a giant in his field, a man who had excelled as a professor in Nigeria, the U.S., and the Netherlands, but he was the portrait of contentment in a modest flat, a home shorn of frippery or gaudy décor. His long battle with kidney disease had left a toll on his physique, but his mind remained agile and encyclopedic. For two hours or so, we sipped tea and discussed Nigeria and other issues. Whilst science was his primary constituency, he exuded a deep passion for life and an undying hope that Nigeria would – sooner, he prayed, than later – arise from its moribund state and realize its true promise.

He was convinced that a proper grounding in science is indispensable to the task of national recuperation. This conviction led him, five years ago, to approach the editors of The Guardian with a proposal to write a science column for the paper. On numerous visits to Nigeria, I heard from readers and journalists who benefited immensely from Okoye’s science journalism.

There were, I think, two reasons the huge number of readers who followed his science essays. First, he had this rare ability to choose science issues that were bound to excite broad interest and curiosity. Second, for readers who, like me, who dread the arcane and abstract jargon of science, Okoye proved the perfect guide. Years ago, Professor Chinua Achebe reminded some lecturers at the University of Lagos that the best experts in any field are not necessarily those versed in professional jargon. For Achebe, the true greats are those whose mastery of their subjects enables them to convey complex ideas in accessible language. Achebe cited the example of Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician and elegant essayist, to buttress his point. Professor Okoye had something of that genius, a flair for transmitting baffling scientific ideas in a language digestible by many lay readers. A distinguished scientist, he also wrote crystalline prose.

Here’s one anecdote that serves as a gauge of Okoye’s stature. As a graduate student at Cambridge doing research work in radio astronomy, he played a key role in research work that earned his supervisor, Dr. Tony Hewish, the 1974 Nobel Prize in physics. In his Nobel acceptance speech, Professor Hewish acknowledged Okoye’s collaboration in the research that led to the discovery of the neutron star. Said Hewish: “The first really unusual source to be uncovered by this method turned up in 1965 when, with my student Okoye, I was studying radio emission from the Crab Nebula. We found a prominent scintillating component within the nebula which was far too small to be explained by conventional synchrotron radiation, and we suggested that this might be the remains of the original star which had exploded and which still showed activity in the form of flare-type radio emission. This source later turned out to be none other than the famous Crab Nebula pulsar.”

Before one goes – painfully – from Okoye to a mention of the other three men, I must apologize in advance for mentioning a truly great man in the same breath as three knaves, villains and mediocrities.

Last week, a Swiss court found Abba Abacha, youngest son of the late dictator, Sani Abacha, guilty of laundering $350 million. The court stripped the thief of this cash, stolen from Nigeria in the days his puny father held the nation hostage. The late Abacha, and now his son, illustrate deep moral sickness. It is sad to encounter two men, father and son, whose lives were ruled by greed on a deranged scale. Today, the name Abacha has become a despised franchise for corruption and misrule.

Then there were stories that one university, in Anambra State, was conferring an honorary doctorate on Mr. Andy Uba, and another, in Edo State, had invited former Governor James Ibori to give a “Founders Day” lecture on Monday, November 23. The question is: what kind of blight has seized the administrators and trustees of both universities?

A university is supposed to be a place for learning, inquiry, and the formation of men and women of sound moral insight. Seen in this light, the two universities – Nnamdi Azikiwe and the University of Benin – have betrayed their mission and besmirched their reputation. They belittled themselves by opting to hop into bed with morally emaciated men.

Uba, an aide to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, is understandably desperate for an honorary doctorate. Even though he doesn’t have an earned bachelor’s degree, he long passed himself off as a PhD holder. A man who must answer, sooner or later, for the legendary wealth he accumulated during the Obasanjo years, Uba can’t wait to suit up in the borrowed (and ill-fitting) toga of “doctor.” Did the university find Uba worthy of an honorary degree because the man did such an excellent job of lying about his credentials? Is it because Uba (reportedly) donated a building to the university? Why were the administrators blind to the fact that Uba can hardly explain the source of his wealth? At any rate, no university worth its mettle would exchange an honorary degree for a gift. It’s simply deplorable.

How about Ibori, a man twice convicted in London in the early 1990s, before he found his way back to Nigeria to soil the office of governor in Delta. As I write, he’s facing prosecution for allegedly pilfering billions of naira during his eight-year run as governor (even though there were speculations that his friends acquittal had been arranged).

Professor Okoye knew who he was, and his numerous students and admirers will long treasure his legacy and the values he stood for. Unlike the Abachas, Professor Okoye could account for what he owned. Unlike Uba – who can’t tell anybody how he struck it rich, or where he went to school, or the names of some of his professors and fellow students – Professor Okoye’s academic record is open to public verification. Unlike Ibori, Professor Okoye could boast that he never trembled when a London Metropolitan police officer walked past.

It’s a symptom of our national collapse that university administrators would hold up Uba and Ibori as role models. Those who bestow laurels on unworthy men should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Thank God for the likes of Professor Okoye who prove that greatness, especially true moral greatness, is its own reward.
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