Here is the second part of the Musical Dispatch first published on 10 June 2015. (The first part was (re)published 23 May 2015)
My brief stay in Africa didn’t do much for my mental image of Africa. Like most non-Africans I’ve been bombarded by images and stories of cruelty, corruption, and suffering. War, child soldiers, female genital mutilation, and famine. Ravanalona the mad queen of Madagascar in George Macdonald Fraser’s Flashman’s Lady, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the rape of the nuns in the Belgian Congo, the war in Katanga Province over mineral resources, Idi Amin’s murderous regime, not to mention Idi’s rumoured predilection for human flesh, South Africa’s Apartheid era, the Rwandan genocide, the Blood Diamond film, recurring famine in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, on and on ad nauseum.
This is what we are told by our mainstream media, the implication being that somehow we are superior to those Africans that we are therefore justified in despising or feeling pity for.
Yet there it is on the internet : a wealth of positive stories and images of smiling Africans getting on with their lives and making exquisite music, not to mention writing some great literature. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_literature
If you have the time… enjoy:
http://youtu.be/LXYgCf24z5M
http://youtu.be/6xmYkjesR5k
http://youtu.be/NqsVD2ojNO0
http://youtu.be/MFW7845XO3g
All of this despite an army of foreign NGO’s, mercenaries, volunteers, government agencies, investors, philanthropists and philanderers doing their bit for Closing the African Gap. How this works in practice is illustrated by how in Kenya charity donated second hand clothes killed the thriving local textile and garment industry:http://jetems.scholarlinkresearch.org/articles/Lessons%20from%20Thriving%20Second-Hand%20Clothing.pdf
We have known Nangala all her life. When Nangala became a young mother, my wife Wendy was invited to baby Japaljarri’s ‘smoking’ (a ceremony attended by a few close women relatives such as grandmothers) and took some treasured photos of the event. Japaljarri displayed symptoms of what in western society we call autism; for example, he would ignore people ‘cooing’ at him. Nangala wasn’t having it. Warlpiri babies lead a blessed life. They receive constant attention from their extended family and are expected to reciprocate. Warlpiri passers-by will usually address a baby or child before talking to the adults. Every time one of us spoke to baby Japaljarri, eliciting no reaction, Nangala would gently move his gaze in our direction. She’d gently but insistently force her baby to pay attention and respond. Japaljarri is now a healthy happy very sociable four year old that actively plays with his younger brother.
In Warlpiri society, childhood disorders (bed wetting, etc.) are virtually non-existent.
Last year I attended the anniversary of the ‘Wave Hill walk-off’ at Kalkaringi. At one of the Kalkaringi ‘workshops’ someone mentioned that in a ‘top-end’ community with a population of less than 2,000, 82 NGO’s were operating. This did not include govt. agencies.
Sherman Alexie is a Spokane/Coeur d’Alene native North American writer. In his book ‘War Dances’ there is a poem ‘Go, Ghost, Go’. An excerpt:
The professor doesn’t speak. He shakes his head
And assaults me with his pity
I wonder how he can believe
In a ceremony that requires his death.
I think that he thinks he’s the new Jesus.
He’s eager to get on that cross
And pay the ultimate cost
Because he’s addicted to the indigenous.
Yuendumu has been designated (without asking us) a ‘Growth Town’. A plethora of government and private initiatives are flourishing. Quite a few are to do with child rearing:
PaFT … Parents as First Teachers
YMJC…Yuendumu Mediation and Justice Centre Inc. (“Working together to make Yuendumu a safe & better place”)
YPMC… Yuendumu Peace Mission Calendar (produced by the YMJC- and subsequently taken down when some Warlpiri ladies objected to it being displayed )
READ… Read Every Available Day (Interstate Volunteers get an airfare paid to come and listen to Warlpiri children read- in English)
YTN… Yuendumu Training Network
LRG… Local Reference Group
LIP…. Local Implementation Plan
RDRM… Red Dust Role Models….Striving to improve the lives of disadvantaged youth in remote indigenous communities…
Safe4kids…. Self explanatory.
And the list goes on.
A lady has been sent to Yuendumu whose job it is to deal with ‘0 to 3’ (year old children that is) and another whose mission it is to prevent ‘children at risk’ being removed by Welfare agencies. At an ‘agencies meeting’ we were told that the previous week only one child had been removed.
I wonder if Japaljarri is considered at risk?
With the Intervention driven ‘urban drift’ away from remote communities, these ‘agencies’ are increasingly competing for Warlpiri ‘clients’ and participants.
We are being assaulted with their pity.
Why don’t they let it be?…
http://youtu.be/eof2c5fTcI8
There will be an answer…
hata sisi kukutana tena
Frank
Decode: Google Translate Swahili