Liniker - Zero

New Kenyan Sci-Fi Series Imagines Immigration In Reverse, As Africa Becomes World’s Oasis

At a time when Africa receives 50,000 Greencard Lottery wins each year to migrate to the US alone, this new production series seeks to address ongoing immigration issues within the world. It is also expected to change the negative portrayal of Africa as a poverty stricken continent to that of an avenue for development, of which, would gradually discourage youth from seeking “greener pastures” abroad. As the brain child of Dr. Marc Rigaudis, directed by Cherie Lindiwe from USIU, the new plot revolves around a young couple embarking on a treacherous journey to reach mankind’s last cradle of hope, Africa. However, the couple must beat the impossible odds, experience great sacrifice yet keep their faith before their goal can be achieved.

H/T Shadow and Act

Morocco’s ‘My name is not Negro’ campaign

According to an AlJazeera report Sub-Saharan Africans are most vulnerable to attacks in North African countries not just because of their skin colour but also because being black is associated with being undocumented and hence being a threat to people’s safety. In people’s minds, black skin equals undocumented. We see it with the case of Toussaint Mianzoukouta, a Congolese teacher who had his papers and was arrested by accident and then killed while being transported by the authorities. Activist Dhoruba Bin-Wahad had this to say about the current relationship between Sub-Saharan Africans and North African Arabs.

"Much of North Africa’s Arab population exhibit anti-Black and anti-Sub-Sahara African prejudice and behave in a condescending and arrogant fashion when dealing with Black Africans - even though many of them are of darker complexion than those they’re hating on! This is true in Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, and especially true of the Wahabi Saudis. Which tell you that "skin" color is really not the basis for Arab ignorance but history and the geopolitics of conquests and empire. The attitudes exhibited by Arab Morrocans toward Black Africans is also alive and well right here in the US among the immigrant Muslim Arab population, who’s leaders, mostly from well off or educated backgrounds back in their country of origin, redly congregate in exclusive enclaves that wholly identify with the institutional racism of Law enforcement, and Businesses that exploit poor working class communities of color. Their contempt for Africans is thinly veiled but rears is ugly face whenever African-Americans challenge racism and the violence of the Police State, and often times their distain is barely detectable until there is a crisis that threatens their position in White supremacist America’s hierarchy of Racial worth, i.e., "Rag-heads" and "camel-jockeys" are barely a step up from "Niggers" and "Wetback" Mexicans. Nonetheless, in the US the economic, racial, and cultural division and class struggles that permeate the America’s Muslim population, (a minority of whom are actually of North African Arab origin) are papered over with an almost satis and subservient Islamic facade that does not engage America’s institutional racism - in fact encourage collaboration with and respect of "those in power over you". A principle that would have never served Africa’s enslaved in America well - but which suits institutional racism and the Rich"

A Moroccan campaign that denounces racism against black people has stirred significant controversy about the integration of migrants into the North African country.

Last month, the anti-racism collective, Papers for All launched a traditional- and social-media blitz, with photos, banners and T-shirts reading “Massmytich Azzi” (“My name is not Negro,” in Moroccan Arabic). The campaign came just a few months after the Moroccan government, which has been widely criticised over its treatment of sub-Saharan Africans, launched an initiative to document migrants.

Last year, a number of migrants died after being subjected to police brutality or racist acts, prompting human rights groups to intensify their efforts to force the government to act and sensitise Moroccans to the issue.

Photo-A.P

Read more- www.aljazeera.com/english

Il faut lire Stuart Hall

Parce que son œuvre et sa pensée on été peu commentées en France. Parce que leur pertinence au regard de l'actualité en font des outils précieux pour comprendre notre époque tourmentée : il faut lire et relire Stuart Hall.

"La question de la différence n'est pas simple, mais c'est une question sur laquelle nous allons tous devoir nous pencher, parce que, sinon, nous allons nous entretuer." Stuart Hall

in Stuart Hall, Éric Macé, Eric Maigret, Mark Alizart, Editions Amsterdam, mai 2007.

Les éditions Amsterdam ont fourni l'essentiel de la bibliographie en français de ce grand intellectuel disparu le 10 février 2014.

Identités et Cultures. Politiques des cultural studies.

Identités et Cultures 2. Politiques des différences.

Le Populisme autoritaire. Puissance de la droite et impuissance de la gauche au temps du thatchérisme et du blairisme.

« J'appelle Chaos-monde le choc actuel de tant de cultures qui s'embrasent, se repoussent, disparaissent, subsistent pourtant, s'endorment ou se transforment, lentement ou à vitesse foudroyante : ces éclats, ces éclatements dont nous n'avons pas commencé de saisir le principe ni l'économie et dont nous ne pouvons pas prévoir l'emportement. Le Tout-Monde, qui est totalisant, n'est pas (pour nous) total. Et j'appelle Poétique de la Relation ce possible de l'imaginaire qui nous porte à concevoir la globalité insaisissable d’un tel chaos-monde. »

Edouard Glissant. Traité du Tout-Monde, Paris, Gallimard, 1997.

Ce soir : Achille Mbembe en discussion avec Elsa Dorlin, Éric Fassin et Nacira Guénif-Souilamas

Jeudi 17 octobre 2013, 18.00-20.00 - Salle D02, Université Paris 8 Saint-Denis.

C’est une rencontre intéressante car Achille Mbembe vient présenter son dernier ouvrage au Laboratoire des Théories du Politique de l’Université de Paris Saint-Denis et discute avec trois chercheurs importants qui interrogent sans cesse la marge et l’ailleurs pour décortiquer les mécanismes politiques économiques et sociaux à l’œuvre dans la société française contemporaine.

If Not Now, When? Models for Resistance in SF

Both fantasy and SF present alternative visions of the world; but some of these visions are helpful, and others are not. Some are dystopian, some are utopian. Some are hierarchical, some are egalit…

“In science fiction novels and dramas, the evil or oppression to be resisted is often systemic, and identifiable as a human construct, the outcome of a complex web of causality…”

Lu dans Oruun : Vitshois, un artiste épris de “librisme”...

oruun 

Vitshois Mwilambwe Bondo est sans doute un des artistes congolais contemporains qui va marquer sa génération. Ayant développé une technique de collage à partir d'images récoltées dans les magazines de mode, cet artiste travaille sur le message d'un monde globalisé et dans le même temps chaotique d'où peut sortir quelque chose d'inédit. Sa notion de contemporanéité se rapporte ainsi à une idée de création résultant de rencontres, de chocs et de brassage des cultures. Héritier de la philosophie du librisme, Vitshois questionne de manière quasi permanente la place de l'art congolais sur l'échiquier du marché de l'art contemporain international. C'est donc dans une volonté d'échapper aux frontières géographiques et culturelles qu'il a créé sa propre structure à Kinshasa. Il propose à des jeunes artistes congolais sortis de l'académie des Beaux-Arts un lieu où ils peuvent venir expérimenter, échanger, apprendre et développer à travers leur travail une identité artistique propre. Une identité libérée de tout carcan et autres cases dans lesquelles, malheureusement, on essaie souvent de les confiner.

la suite ...

William Shakespeare,"La Nuit des rois".

Before Tattoos and piercings, the Amasunzu hairstyle was the epitome of individuality in Rwanda. Mother always scolded my brothers into cutting off their hair once their beautiful coils started to sprout from the scalp. I think as a child, I bought into the ill-education that ‘’real men’’ should not grow out their hair. Dreadlocks were for the ‘’no good-doers’’ and one millimetre hair peaking on bold were for the ‘’focused’’, goal achievers. Guys, hair is really political. Why do we call our own hairstyles/customs pagan while giving foreigners the holy badge? Even though this look was worn during the pre-colonial times in Africa, to me, this look also reverberates into afro-futuristic elements that I completely adore.