My new project

Well maybe project isn't the best word, more like obsession. I've jumped on the microblogging bandwagon and started a Tumblr site--African Media--to bookmark and document my adventures (so colonial I know) in consuming, well, African media.

So far there's a lot of stuff on African literary journals, glossy magazines and the launching of high-speed internet in the east. Use it as a list of bookmarks for rad stuff from around the continent.

MLK BLVD Project

For about five months I lived in a flat on Martin Luther King Road in Lusaka. I immediately associated it with the Martin Luther King Jr boulevards, streets and ways that I'd been to over the years: Seattle, Portland, Atlanta, Oakland, New Orleans. In the US, naming a street after MLK is about creating a symbolic connection between black neighbourhoods and a city; a repudiation of centuries of apartheid policies.

In Lusaka, Martin Luther King Road is in affluent Kabulonga, home to a disproportionate number of white expats, NGO workers and upper-middle-class Zambians. Our neighbour had cousins, sons and nieces spread across the world studying or running businesses in Australia, Texas and the UK.

In the style of many southern African neighbourhoods, MLK Road Lusaka is completely surrounded by glass topped walls, heavy metal gates and underpaid security guards from nearby townships. Most of the landscaped area between the walls and the drainage ditches that abut the tarmac is kept immaculately trimmed by a squad of blue-coverall wearing young men. They cut the grass, bent over double, with blunt scythes.

The MLK BLVD project is a blog of crowdsourced photos from different Martin Luther King roads, boulevards and ways from across the US and the world. It's really worth looking at.

It's also making me really regret not taking better pictures. I basically have only a photo of my gate during a hail-storm. If anyone has better photos I suggest you upload it to the MLK BLVD project Flickr pool. Also, I seem to remember many African cities having MLK roads, photos of which would probably ad great perspective to the project.

Are biofuels the answer to Zambia's petrol problems?

No, probably not. Elaisha discusses the issue along with the threat of land grabs over at The Earth Feed.

Was going to be snarky

I was prepared to write about the absurdity of "protecting African wildlife" when budgets for helping human beings are getting slashed but then I read the article and realised they're talking about one of my favourite NGOs: COMACO. I like them because they're quite explicitly a pro-human organization that links fighting poverty to ecology and, yes, wildlife.

Norway grants Zambia 8 mln USD
in wildlife conservation support

an indication that the project had impacted well in uplifting livelihoods of communities living around South Luangwa National Park in eastern Zambia.

LUSAKA, (Xinhua) -- The Norwegian government has given Zambia’s Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) 8 million U. S. dollars to support its project of empowering local communities living near game parks to prevent them from killing animals, the Times of Zambia reported on Friday.

Norwegian Ambassador to Zambia Tore Gjos said during a signing ceremony in Lusaka that his country will not stop supporting Zambia’s wildlife sector.

The Norwegian envoy said the support to WCS’s Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO) project was an indication that the project had impacted well in uplifting livelihoods of communities living around South Luangwa National Park in eastern Zambia.

He said the project had been able to improve rural livelihoods around the game management area and had helped to protect the biodiversity and ecosystems in the area.

COMACO Country Director Dale Lewis said the initiative had helped to conserve more than 5, 000 wild animals annually, as the community had turned to farming and abandoned poaching, which was prevalent before the introduction of the project.

Under the project, communities are encouraged to give up snares (for trapping animals) and firearms. They are instead empowered with skills to tap other sources of earnings such as farming. The project has so far helped 30, 000 households in the area.

Wonderfully vague Zambian political website

www.zambiaunite4change.org

Nice website with an eloquent Obama-ish manifesto. I wonder why it's so secretive though. It doesn't, on first glance, seem like something that would invite repression but you never know.

Hot new Zambia links

Short BBC piece about politics and music in Zambia (begins at 6:12) featuring reggae artist Michael Zulu. Also includes interview with Mathew Thembo. Some great messages and whatnot.

That said, I don't like the majority of Zambian reggae music. Like a lot of Zambian rappers who have fake American accents and appalling flows, a lot of Zambian reggae sounds like a mockery of 80s Peter Tosh.

A few weeks after news of the Lujo virus was splashed around the world Zambia has made the international news again.

“Going after big fish hasn’t worked,” he said. “The fish will not fry themselves.”

Zambia recently won rare convictions against former military commanders and Regina Chiluba, the wife of its former president, on corruption charges. Frederick Chiluba, president from 1991 to 2001, will himself face a verdict in July on corruption charges. His sumptuous wardrobe — Lanvin suits, silk pajamas and handmade Italian shoes of snakeskin, satin and ostrich — became an emblem of greed in one of the world’s poorest countries.

But anticorruption leaders say they sense less commitment to tackle corruption since the election of President Rupiah Banda. “I’m inside,” said Maxwell Nkole, who leads a task force set up to investigate the Chiluba-era abuses. “The tempo, the intensity to tackle corruption is dropping.”

The Banda administration vigorously denies that charge, and says it will prosecute officials who stole $2 million from the Ministry of Health. At stake are hundreds of millions of dollars in grants from the United States’ Millennium Challenge Corporation that Zambia is eligible for. On a recent afternoon, ambassadors from rich nations, the United States and Britain among them, mingled at a party on the lawn of Mark Chona, the first chief of the Zambian anticorruption task force. In welcoming them, he issued a sharp warning.

“Your money is being stolen,” he said. “Don’t sit silent. You don’t know how much influence you have.”

Unfortunately it's part of a trend article talking about corruption in Africa in general with lines like

The broader anxieties about Africa’s resolve to combat corruption have emerged from troubled efforts in several countries.

I don't understand how Africa can have "resolve" to do anything. As if "Africa" has a will-power problem that a little life coaching couldn't cure. Maybe a support group and a 12-step program is what's needed.

My Sick Links

I've been in bed the last few days with a cold, or "flu" as it's called in Zambian, and I've been obsessively reading blogs. I'm also getting better at the internet; I learned how to do this thing called "bookmarking." Seriously, I've never done it before. The following are some awesome things I "bookmarked" while sick.


The Places We Live is a website of photos and audio from slums across the world. Part of it is interesting interactive photos of people's homes while they tell you about it. My favourite is the home built under a bridge in Jakarta. It's not what you think.

From the links section of that site I found Squatter City, a great blog about squatter and illegal settlement issues from around the world.

My housemate and ILouis have been obsessed with pirates of late. We trade news tidbits with a giddy sense of excitement. This Guardian article is one of the better ones. A straight up interview with a pirate about why and how he does what he does. Great people these pirates.

I haven't really been following Democracy Now since I've been in Lusaka but there's always some great stuff when I do go back like Mugabe vs Obiang and the double standard towards African dictators and a discussion about what's happening now that more journalists under repressive regimes are going online (hint: more journalists in jail).

The most fascinating thing that I witnessed in the last few days, however, is the Strange Maps blog. I've had a fascination with maps since I was very young, like drawing detailed fantasy maps on giant rolls of paper, and this managed to revive all kinds of super nerdy feeling that I'd forgot existed.

October Links

So yeah, I read Stephanie Nolan's blog. She's the Globe and Mail's Africa correspondent.

The mainstream press considers this guy a nut for his claim that 50,000 native children were murdered under the residential school system. IMHO that makes him worth checking out. With all the news about mass graves and church complicity lately Hidden From History is a pretty good starting point for information about the Canadian genocide.

Masthead Magazine, the magazine about magazines is folding. Sorry Marco! There's a decent blog post about the implications for the Canadian Magazine industry on the Canadian Magazines blog.