Waiting for an Angel

I loved the start of this book! It starts in prison, bonus! Political prisoners, writing poetry locked up. Then Lomba discovers that his captor is actually human when he talks to a woman from the outside. I loved how this went down. The Superintendent is viewed as nonhuman, a thing not a person. But toward the middle and end of that section Lomba discovers that he is a human "Even jailers fall in love". It reminds me of a part of The Wire, season 3 episode 2. Three police are out at the movies and from the movie across the hall two drug dealers they are always hassling and locking up walk out too. The line is "Huh, ya'll see movies too". Perfect. We never think of people in authority as "real people" "(even teachers and professors).


This novel gave of a sense of urgency at the beginning. I think it is because after the prison part we start with a character getting killed! What! Then we flashback to six months before the character being shot to a time where the three characters go to the beach and find a fortuneteller who tells the character is going to die and Lomba's future is only prison. We know what is going to happen in the end to two thirds of the main characters, so the story seems to be sprinting toward that ending. At any moment, what they do could automatically land them in jail or dead. Sadly, as I progressed through the novel this urgency tapered off, I wish it had held up throughout the entire book.

Wigs. I underlined wigs the first few times they were mentioned. Seems odd to me that African women would be wearing them, well, odd that revolutionaries would be wearing wigs. Wigs, to me, would have been ascribing to European hair trends, or at the least a European look. And you can't tell me that these student revolutionaries wouldn't have put it together that their current problem in the country wasn't linked back to European occupation. So, allowing yourself to go along with the hot trend of the time would have been very, anti-revolutionary. I thought it a unique point the author put in. I am not sure what he is trying to say with it, maybe that the revolutionary bug caught on so quickly people did not fully change their lives over to the African way?

Getting toward the end of the novel, the protest oddly reminds me of another essay I have read, Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers by Tom Wolfe. Wolfe's essay is meant to be funny and I don't think Waiting for an Angel was suppose to be, but when the bus of prostitutes came on the scene I started giggling some. Imagine 20 prostitutes stumbling out of a bus, to me that is comdey. It shows unity yes, but think of the big wigs they have on to boot, I am picturing beehive hair, in my mind this motely crew looks ridiculous.

Oil papers

Basically, Africa is useful. Cradle of creation, possible start of the human race. so why wouldn't they be filled with resources everyone wants. Rubber, gold, diamonds, oil, were they a developed country it would be great, however colonialization has set them back so far, with leadership and debt, any time resources the rest of the world wants is found, it turns into a great big mess. Natural gases has been the next big problem Africa is dealing with.

We know Africa hasn't had the best go of it. First, they were stripped of resources by European powers, leaving them destitute. Then the Europeans left and the people in charge were not much better, they had learned how to rule from the Europeans and that often meant, brutally with a perchance for embezzling money. Most of the time they do not have the means to take on massive building projects, like drill for oil so they must again turn to their friends the Westerners. Being keen for seizing an opportunity, the help for getting oil out of the ground is never free. The African nation can get equipment and help if they sign a long contract saying they will sell oil to the Western nation at a fixed price, good in the short run for the nation but once inflation hits they are now selling their best commodity below market value. You can imagine how this spirals out of control for the African nation.

If a nation has a leader who refuses to sell oil (or any commodity) to the Western powers at the price they want, it has been the norm to "get rid of" that leader. Coups, military coups,accidents and assassinations are just a few of the ways governments in Africa have been changed, and the overwhelming majority have changed to leaders with a very open policy toward nations, such as the United States.

I am trying to not repeat myself, I read the National Geographic article as part of an exploration. Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil talked about two things in particular that I find interesting, rebels and prostitution. The rebel portion reminds me of an overlooked movie that came out after Blood Diamond called Catch a Fire. The movie was about south African apartheid, but a portion of it revolved around the African workers at a refinery. The main character is charged with blowing up the plant, taking out this plant would disrupt the government. I feel this is the same type of deal that the rebels in Nigeria are going for. Make running an industry int he country so expensive that eventually they just leave.

I forget where I heard about prostitution following industry, perhaps CNN or maybe it is because the same thing happened all through history, at least as old as the Roman Empire. Both articles spoke on how economies went down hill when oil is found, because people stop working on what they used to, farming goes down and imports go up. This is what leads to prostitution, what is a girl with no education going to do for money? Clearly, sell your body. It's sad but true, your body is a commodity that the men working int heir refineries or derrcks are not going to find readily. They are usually far away from home and if they do not move their family to the slum outside the plant they are men, far from home with a large, in their eyes, semi-disposible income. "beer and girls" that is what the Ghazvinian article said.

Diamonds

Mining for diamonds, the easiest way is to dig a pit in the ground until you hit ground water, usually 70 feet. Then you have workers pan through the soil that was taken out of the ground. If you look at the picture you can see the circular pan device that is used. You swirl the dirt around in that and the mud and such will come out while you do it, the diamonds will stay toward the bottom since they are heavier. Then you look through and pick out the diamonds.

There are different ways to get diamonds in Sierra Leone since there are different factions that control the diamond mines. The RUF will sometimes let people pan for diamonds for 4 days and pan for themselves 2 days. Or, what is more common is the two pile system. You are given two piles, one for the RUF one for you. Whatever you pan out of the RUF pile goes to them and whatever you pan for yourself you get to keep. Somehow more always comes out of the RUF piles though.

Quick history before the next portion, the RUF was a group who was trying to over through the government, for a while they were successful in controlling large parts of the country. The quick of it is, they controlled the diamond mines which could buy better weapons that the government had, therefore, they were a powerful fighting force known for brutality, but that is a different blog.

You might wonder why people would work for the RUF since they are also known for mutilation, rape , kidnapping...the list goes on. Well, if you work for the government you get a wage and if you do find a diamond that is worth selling you might receive a small reward. However, the reward is more like $2 though more than what they normally are paid this is not life changing money. Something else I learned, or more accurately was made aware of was the quality of diamonds. Most diamonds found are not the ones that go into rings and bling, they are industrial grade, used in cutters, or that machine at the dentist office that files down your teeth. These diamonds sell at very cheap prices, $80 a carat in the 2001 book I looked in. Workers are not getting rewarded on industrial diamonds, though it is 80% of the industry.

As for gem diamonds, they start out quite big, but after cutting it down, it can lose half its' size! Pictured below is the largest diamond taken from Sierra Leone (that has been recorded). It is called the Star of Sierra Leone, and it is huge... fairly sure I read that when it was found it was close to the size of a brick.

Ancestor Stones Part 3

First, where was that genital mutilation part? I do not remember reading that at all, perhaps part I glossed over.

Now on to the real post. I found the most interesting part of the story on a literary level how narration was set up. Each of the women had their own narrator voice, something I have not seen much in novels, especially with so many of them (I'm still having trouble remembering who is who).

Being that the book was written from the point of view of so many people, I find myself wondering how reliable they are as narrators and witnesses to events. I think this started when Asana fed us a line about her brothers death. It made me question other facts, like if Hawa's mother actually was the favorite, we are only getting that story from her point of view. Of course the daughter would want to think her mother was the favorite out of eleven wives, it is something to make you feel better, especially if you are lonely and have no one to play with.

There were times that I wondered if events actually occurred as they were being told, or if they were slightly different. The narrator was going on their own experience and we all have different views of events even if we are all there at the same time, same place. think what I am trying to say is, I read the lady's with a grain of salt and relied on my own background knowledge of the region.

I could not find any portions where the narrator seemed to know more than the person narrating the text might know. all the information provided seemed to be gained through years of experience and if whoever narrating at the time talked about events happening across the country it seems to be from what they heard of after the fact. Feel free to find any portions that dispute this, I would love to find them.

My final question about the book is the term "aunty". I know this was used int he South during and after slavery, Black women did not have proper names, it would be "aunty", some people had a problem with this. It makes me wonder if this was a European constuct and why Mariama thought it was a good term, and endearing term. Offhand I feel this has something to do with her postivie experience working for Mr. Blue.

Ancestor Stones Part 2

I want to write about matriarchal vs. patriarchal societies with Ancestor Stones. By the most basic of terms, I cannot find which would perfectly fit the novel. Sure, women we in charge of lots of things, the head wife was even in charge of the money and important things. That alone does not allow me to qualify this society as matriarchal. Nor can I qualify them as a matriarchal group because Madame Bah is a woman and owns her own shop.

We see that women were doing a lot of the house work and the work to maintain the compound. When we are introduced to Asana's mother she is maintaining the outer walls of her house. The wives are in charge of the cooking, cleaning and taking care of the children. These are all tasks normally associated with what Europeans would consider a good housewife. Clearly, the man was in charge of how many wives were taken; Asana's mother made suggestions since she was older and respected, but Asana's husband brought in a new wife whenever he felt he should. And the man is in charge of the labor that makes the families income, a role that is often seen in patriarchal societies.

One might argue that the women fish and that is normally viewed as a man's job, along the lines of hunting. However, we do hear mention of men fishing and it was men who build the dam to trap the fish in, so it is more that the women are going to a large barrel and using nets to gather some fish. Besides that, the fish were for consuming and preparing fish would have been the woman's task.

Divorce was allowed but it did not look like the woman had much say in it, or more so, women did not seem to be able to take advantage of it. We learn early on in the novel that to divorce someone you have to pay back the bride price, boom, divorce. Fun thing about bride price, the way we see divorce done was how the Talmud, book containing Jewish laws, ethics, customs and history, sets up divorce as a financial being. to me this establishes women as almost items that can be bought and returned. It also seemed that divorce did not have a negative connotation to it. In Europe, it would mean that the woman was not "pure" or the man had a xala problem. In Ancestor Stones, it could be any small excuse.

I am not in favor of saying this book is empowering to women. Note Asana. One of her co-wives was basically sold by her father so he could retool his barns. I particularly can't say that is surprising or horrible because the same thing happened in Europe all the time. We saw King Leopold II marry of his daughters to expand his empire all the time. Asana somewhat had a choice of who she married, she pleaded with her dad to see the man that become her husband, but in the end I feel that the dad could have vetoed that decision.

Ancestor Stones Part 1

I am starting this blog after only finishing the first chapter. I cannot believe Asana narrates things that aren't true! She was pulling on my heart string with her brothers last words being the answer to the riddle they were telling before they saw the white man. But no, on the next page, come to find out, that did not happen at all. Needless to say I am currently mad at Asana and will now treat her as an unreliable narrator, and no, she does not get credit for correcting herself. That's just how it is, I don't write the rules.

If I dare look past Asana's transgressions of being a lying child, in my eyes, I became quite intrigued by the scene with the white man, for many different reasons. Note, eggs are still considered special and that children should not have them. This was mirrored from, real life I assume and, Things Fall Apart where only spoiled children ate eggs. I find this interesting because cultures are quite fluid. What might be a taboo for one generation is not so for the next, maybe I was thinking that after "awesome" colonization that some of these old ways might be gone. As of 1926, I suppose they haven't.
Speaking of colonization, how has Asana not seen a white man? Perhaps, due to her young age, but they were certainly around. Were they not even talked about in her family? I was taken aback by her shock and awe in regards to the white man. Though her description of him was quite amazing, moon shadow, what a great phrase.
Finally, in regards to the white man, when Alusani started getting sick I assumed it was from malaria or small pox, some white person disease, you know, due to the fact that Alusani was spending time around a white man and eating his food. Germs are everywhere and contagious, mass biological genocide happens! I'm not sure Alusani did not have a European disease, Asana says it would be called a brain tumor these days, but first of all, I do not know which "these days" she is referring to and second, I don't totally believe her since I again won't take her as a 100% reliable narrator.

Is anyone else having trouble figuring out how these women are related? I cannot figure if Mariama is a wife just like the Asana's mother or is married to someone else? Regardless, Mariama has an interesting life, her mother works, slightly, making snuff. For some reason I think that is cool, probably because I think rolling your own cigarettes is cool too, though I don't smoke. Even mor eintersting is that Mariama's mother is not Muslim or Christian. As a narrator I don't think it was described how much of a force these two religions were/are. Either one would kill you for not conforming. If they did not kill you, you certainly were second class citizens for not being Muslim or Christian. I view that as strength, not Rama or the wives in Xala, Miriama's mom is going against so many laws and social taboo's, that is revolutionary.

I have to say, surprisingly I am enjoying this book. I think Toni Morrison took it out of me this weekend beating me in the head for 200 pages that black is viewed as ugly and white is beautiful. I thought that this book would also be something along those lines, thank goodness it is not. Such a great book talking about firsts. First time seeing a white man, first time looking in a mirror. It gives off a hopefully vibe for the start of the book. I wish this book would be great as a primary source, I wish it was one!

Xala

You don't need to read further than the first page to get the first jab at post-colonial African countries. Just as our previous readings of Walter Rodney and Frantz Fanon tell us, when colonial powers leave they also leave a structure. Though clearly the structure is broken and harms the people it is too easy for those revolutionaries to use it as their own. Perhaps that is due to the lack of education and foresight, who knows. The beginning of Xala, we see the main character and his friends taking over the Chamber of Commerce, since they were all business men. It is important to note that the main character El Hadji has some nefarious activities going on. He acts as a front for overseas investors. I read this to mean that, El Hadji is the African face of European businesses in the country. It is as if the European's never left, the only difference is they must now give money to one more African, a small price to pay to continue to run the industry. The beggar whoever likes El Hadji, when El Hadji gets back after getting rid of the xala. A very nice gesture by someone who has been arrested after phone calls from El Hadji.

Did anyone notice El Hadji's interaction with the beggar? He hates the beggar, to say the least and has him arrested on several occasions. Then look at how he acts with everyone else, throwing thousand franc notes around left and right. Why wouldn't he spare some money to the beggar but be willing to give money to facc-katt's and seet-katt's? I think the beggar is suppose to represent the common man, the poor man or the unemployed class in the country. As a business man El Hadji has no use for him so he finds him an annoyance. Everyone else serves a purpose or a task for El Hadji, but the singing/begging simply annoys him. El Hadji is a former revolutionary, a champion of the people, not put in power; his job is to help out people like the beggar, but alas, he ignores the beggar just as the French colonial power would have.

I began to wonder if the whole impotance is Yay Bineta fault? She had two husbands die on her and the old wives tale was that she was destined to kill a third. Yay claims that her "daughter's" marriage was like her own, and we see this with how she makes it happen and is always riding El Hadji (much like a wife). El Hadji being impotent is a little less than death, since he did not technically marry Yay Benita. And one could make the argument that being impotent was worse than death, he lost face and couldn't function as a human being.

It seems pretty obvious that the xala was an effect of acting European. But the business men are fake Europeans or a satire of it. My favorite line includes the phrase "made to measure" suits, the African's are trying to look refined and Europeans but their suits are bought off of the rack. Their European persona's don't fit them. Anyway, El Hadji fixes his xala problem by going off the road, so to speak, and getting back to his African roots. The third marriage was based around money and not love to begin with. At first it was on the brides side, she needed to marry to get out of her fathers house since he couldn't afford all his children. Then it became monetary for El Hadji, he, clearly, had to pay for the huge reception that would show him as a man of means, buy another villa and thent here was the car and gasoline. Money, which is rooted in European culture more than African, was the downfall of a mighty revolutionary.

For the fun of it read Xala and look for all the allusions toward male genital or erections, the novel is full of them.

"I maintain that every civil rights bill in this country was passed for white people, not for black people. "

Anyone I can relate to the "Black Power" movement is going to get blogged about, especially when I can link them to the Black Panthers.

Stokely Carmichael first came to pominance when he became the president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Most famously they are known for voter registration and being harassed in the South when they moved their voter champaign down there. I'm not saying it worked, since all the people of power were white the registrations were often considered invalid. This was the group however who famously brought attention to Mississippi that summer after three SNCC workers (two white and one black) went missing. Good ole J Edgar Hoover had to send his FBI to investigate and found their bodies...and other black people who had disappeared that summer in the Mississippi Delta area, but naturally did not garner attention because they were black and it was the South.

Well, he only stuck around for about a year because he went heavy on the Black Power kick. He quit SNCC and joined up with my favorite group the Black Panther Party. The Panthers were more proactive than SNCC, more in your face, much more fun to read about. However, eventually, the same issue popped up as it had in SNCC before, Carmichael believed that white people should organize in their communities first before helping black lead activists, whereas the Panthers were willing to take help from anywhere at time.

Thus started Stokely Carmichael in Africa. He and his wife, a South African singer, moved to Guinea and he became an aid to the then Prime Minister Ahmed Sekou Toure.
Carmichael's progress from Black Power to the Pan-African struggle is simply taking his civil rights beliefs up a notch. His separatist views were exactly what the African people needed at that time. Their countries, for upwards of hundreds of years, were being run by either white people or the people whom the white man put in charge. Obviously, the powers that be were not going to allow Africans to have their own government and run it themselves so a clean break from everything white was probably the best idea out there. Some might see this as shortsighted and racists in it's own right but you really have to look at the times to understand how this made sense. One hundred years after the abolition of slavery black people were still considered second class. Forget the lunch counter indignities, or that in the South they would call you boy, this goes so much deeper. You couldn't vote and participate in this democracy but you could still fight its wars for it, three generations of African-Americans (and much more than that for Africans) fought in wars hoping that when they came home they would finally be viewed as equals, but instead wearing the uniform in New York City, a northern "progressive" city could get you lynched to a lamp post. I too would want to separate fully away from the society and people that were doing this to me!

Oh man, Stokely was at it til the end, blaming his cancer on the FBI and CIA. This might seem ridiculous, but if you see what those two government organization did over the years to black activists and anyone who they didn't like (say Fidel Castro), it isn't too far fetched. for years after the Black Panther Party went defunct Huey P. Newton (not the real Huey in the video), co-founder, had his house bugged and was followed by plain clothed cops, among other harder to prove accusations like staged gunfights to try and draw him out and robberies. Most Panthers ended up dead or in jail, some at the hands of police...sometimes still sleeping in their beds. Cancer as a conspiracy, perhaps not, but what else was the government doing to the man who attempted to empower black people and help Africa rise up?

And finally, think of the Carmichael quote that is my title. Think about the laws and who passed them, and when they were passed. These civil rights laws are something our classrooms hold up in teaching that we are a progressive society who does the right thing. Makes you feel warm and fuzzy that we have a law to show we no longer discriminate doesn't it? Taints that feeling when you realize that a law had to be put in place to make everyone equal doesn't it?

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

On the first day that we discussed King Leopold's Ghost in class it was brought up that the European slave trade decimated the African economy by turning all the nations into trade based nations who were dependent on Europe for simple good like clothe and food. It should be looked at that one of the reasons Europeans used to justify turning Africa into a trade entity was to help them become civilized, because capitalism meant they were civilized. However, this was not capitalism, capitalism implies that the African nations would be producing goods to sell to Europe, and by no stretch of anyone's imagination, should people be considered a manufactured good.

Well, when Europe finally had to give their colonies independence they concocted other ingenious ways to keep reaping the benefits of Africa (and the United States hopped on board too). There was always the option of puppet leaders, America liked to go that route in Latin America and that hasn't turned out too well. Eventually, you can't control the people you put in control and assassination is too messy so there has to be a better route. If you can't control the country through puppet leaders then the next logical thing that Western nations did was buy up all the resources in Africa. You spin it like this, you are going to come in and put the equipment in place, high a work force so the people have jobs, build towns, schools, roads and pay taxes. You are an underdeveloped African nation, you have no way of getting the resource out of the ground on your own so it is the best deal going. That is how land gets sold to foreign interests, never mind that you will only follow through with the parts of the deal that aid your company, it was better than when you came in so you were doing a service while robbing them blind.

I was surprised by the trickery of these companies and the governments they controlled. Outlawing the growing of cash crops so the workers had no other choice but to work for the Europeans. That's just unbelievable, even I couldn't think of that!

My, sickly, favorite part of Rodney's article was how much people were paid. Europeans working in Africa were paid 10 times more than their darker skinned counterparts. You might say, why does not anyone say something about this or quit. But the fact of the matter is that if you do, then you get fired and instead of 4 pounds a week you get nothing. To me, it seemed like slavery all over again, this time it actually might be costing less. They had to feed, clothe and keep slaves healthy because they were an investment, but a worker only needs to get paid enough to stay, and if he goes there will be some other poor sap willing and able to do his job. Reminded me of sharecroppers, ending slavery in the South actually made the plantation owners richer than when slavery was going on.

As a history major I love Walter Rodney, he has some spot on research for the 1970's. Take the numbers and information in chapter 4 about the slave trade. Rodney excellently pinpointed that 15-20% of the slaves would often die in journey. Of course, this numbers could have been cooked by captains trying to make themselves look better as slave traders. A few things should e noted, most of the deaths occurred close tot he coast when slaves were required to stay below deck so they wouldn't try and jump overboard and get back to land. Being down below the entire time would create hot conditions that caused dehydration. Dehydration, rather than disease was the killer of the slave trade. Also, later in the slave trade, as sailing technology advanced deaths of slaves sharply dropped because shipbuilders figured out ways to store more water on the ships, making it enough for bot sailors and slaves. If it makes you feel any better, slaves were given water over the sailors because sailors cost money and slaves made money.