Quelques mots d'un member de l'équipe du centre culturel de La Courneuve, Houdremont, sur le festival de musique Africolor et le contexte de répression de l'immigration en ce moment en France :
23/12/2023
Ah! Kwantou: Ghanaian French music live!
A short clip from the great concert by Ah! Kwantou at Africolor, in La Courneuve, France, on 22 Dec. 2023. More soon!
17/12/2023
MC Abdul from Palestine - 'Shouting At The Wall'
A clip from this song was sent to me via social media.
It's actually been recorded a few years ago, in Gaza. But how relevant!!
MC Abdul - 'Shouting At The Wall'
Look at this kid... incredible!!
🇵🇸 15 y/o rapper from Palestine 🎤 Spreading peace, love & unity through music.
MC Abdul - 'Let It Rain'
A little more about Abdul in this video from 2021:
His name is Abdul-Rahman al-Shantti.
Born on September 14, 2008, he's known professionally as MC Abdul or MCA Abdul.
The Palestinian rapper from Gaza, Palestine "gained popularity when he sang a rap about freedom, in front of his school in Gaza which garnered hundreds of thousands of views on social media."
Subsequently, as of August 2023, his videos for "Shouting At The Wall" and "Palestine" have received more then 930,000 views and 700,000 views, respectively, on YouTube alone.
He says his idol is Eminem...
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His most recent video:
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Thanks Mark for sharing a first clip...
On our types of online socialisation
Dear friends, readers, newcomers,
I hope this message finds you well.
This year hasn’t been good for much problems, not for the climate, not for peace, not for us, journalists, and not for freedom of expression in general.
One of the issue worsening is the way we're owned by our social media.
You may have seen what happened on Twitter (I won't use the CEO's dark rebranding...).
I certainly have… I mean, for instance, how the CEO criticised the German government for participating in sea rescue operations, posted photos of himself at the Mexican border, and... supported infamous antisemitic French author Alain Soral...
If not, all you need is here on AP, on Bloomberg, and here on Forbes... and on Musk's own unbearable feed!
More recently, Meta started censuring post, and the European Union announced "formal infringement proceedings" against X after identifying suspect posts related to the war between Israel and Hamas:
It is the first such move against a major online platform under a new EU law designed to combat disinformation and hate speech.
I cannot stand the idea of serving as a tiny pawn in his empire, can you?
*
As a journalist, reporter and writer, I spent an enormous amount of time on Twitter in the past decades, before it was changed, just doing my job: sharing relevant information for free, completed by art, music, films, beauty... created by people I admire and respect for their values.
I can no longer do that without feeling used and reduced to silence, as the algorithm favours the richest man of the world's opinion, while pushing us out. All that by claiming he defends "free speech".
I feel really powerless posting on it, and on social media in general...Serious media have been robbed of all effects. Disinformation, opinions, and hatred have taken all space, thus power. This is the era we live in.
This week now, disinformation and lies about Palestine have inundated all these networks…
All over the world, press freedom is attacked, reduced or threatened. Online networks help to find sources, information, contacts, etc.
But not if we have to sell our souls to the devil for it...
Facebook, Instagram and Thread - as Meta - are not much better, to be honest, I won't start listing all the reasons why, but basically they just encourage self-promotion and competition. While stealing our data! Remember Cambridge Analytica?
Here is an excellent piece on Meta's policy towards politics:
https://theintercept.com/2023/08/30/meta-censorship-policy-dangerous-organizations/
I also tried Mastodon and Post but not much happened there...
If I'm writing to you, it is because I've interacted with you on Twitter at some point or for some of you daily. I now suffer there...
There are alternatives!
Here are a few.
Hope to see you there.
>> BlueSky, and other similar networks
It looks and feels like Twitter at the beginning…
https://www.zdnet.com/article/best-twitter-alternative/
Twitter, or as it's now known, X, isn't the same as it used to be. Here are the best Twitter alternatives if you're looking to leave the social media site.
My account on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/melissaontheroad.bsky.social
The one on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@melissaontheroad
>> Substack
Substack is an American online platform that provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription newsletters. It allows writers to send digital newsletters directly to subscribers.
But it's also much more than that, and allows space for communication and networking.
Here's my newsletter:
https://substack.com/@melissaontheroad?utm_source=profile-page
Melissa Chemam
SUBSTACK.COM/@MELISSAONTHEROAD
Reporter/Writer on African affairs, migrations, culture, Europe/UK/France, interested in rewriting cultural narratives.
I'm also the author of the book 'Out of the Comfort Zone', about Britain's music, art, multiculturalism & activism, digging into the ghosts of its colonial past.
There are plenty of other newsletters there, of course! And spaces to chat, exchange, discuss, correspond...
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16/12/2023
Palestine: Art centres, artists and messages
These types of articles are multiplying:
'More Than 1,000 Artists Boycott Bristol’s Arnolfini Center Amid Palestine Censorship Controversy'
In an open letter, artists are pledging to withdraw from working with Arnolfini Arts, following their censorship of the Bristol Palestine Film Festival in December.
Here are some key points from the letter:
"Their actions are a terrible mistake, and a cowardly move toward a British arts ecology that has no genuine space for discussion, debate or dissent.
"Their actions are a terrible mistake, and a cowardly move toward a British arts ecology that has no genuine space for discussion, debate or dissent.
We cannot let the arts in this country be censored and limited by fear, pressure or lack of moral leadership. Palestinian freedom of expression must be equal and protected.
We welcome @icalondon @sitegallery @wysing.arts.centre who have all had the courage and ethical backbone to stand up and platform Palestinian voices and arts and demand a ceasefire."
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This is not the Arnolfini I know.
We need an explanation...
Just last year I was part of the Bristol Palestine Film Festival there with Ken Loach and many great activists... And the event took place at Arnolfini, the international art centre of Bristol.
The event was titled 'Boycott', how ironic...
'Boycott': film + discussion at the Bristol Palestine Film Festival, Dec. 2022
Something must have turned wrong...
As the article reports, now:
More than 1,000 artists across the cultural field—including Ben Rivers, Brian Eno, Adham Faramawy, and Tai Shani—have signed a new open letter that accuses Bristol’s Arnolfini International Centre for Contemporary Arts of “censorship of Palestinian culture,” after the institution canceled two events that were part of the city’s Palestine Film Festival.
The signatories vow to no longer work with the Arnolfini or engage with its events and urge their peers in the field to join the boycott.
In November, the Arnolfini cancelled a screening of Farha (2021), a coming-of-age story set during the Nakba, the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes during and after the 1948 Palestine war, by Jordanian-Palestinian director Darin J. Sallam.
The screening was set to be followed by a Q&A with the Palestinian writer and doctor Ghada Karmi. The center was also scheduled to host a poetry reading headlined by the rapper and activist Lowkey.
The screening of Farha will now be hosted at the cinema & arts charity Watershed, while the poetry event will take place at the department store and arts hub Sparks Bristol.
In Bristol, Portishead’s Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley, Massive Attack’s Robert del Naja, writers Alice Oswald, Nikesh Shukla, Shon Faye, Travis Alabanza and Rachel Holmes are among many artists who have written a letter accusing the iconic Arnolfini International Centre for Contemporary Arts of “censorship of Palestinian culture”.
As listed here: https://artistsforpalestine.org.uk/category/all/
The artists vow to take collective action and urge other artists and audiences to join them, saying:
“We must, reluctantly, refuse cooperation with the arts centre and will not participate in any of its events until Arnolfini publicly commits to consistently uphold freedom of expression, with no exception for Palestine, and genuinely engages with Bristol’s arts community to rectify the harm it has caused”.
They added:
“We want to make it clear that we stand fully behind workers at Arnolfini who’ve had no say in this. Our message is addressed to those in the management who made this damaging decision; the signatories of this letter expect better integrity, transparency and cultural leadership from Arnolfini.”
The letter continues: “Until the Arnolfini leadership publicly commits to consistently uphold freedom of expression, with no exception for Palestine, and genuinely engages with Bristol’s arts community to rectify the harm it has caused, we must, reluctantly, refuse cooperation with the arts center and will not participate in any of its events.”
Finally, Bristol artist and composer Nik Rawlings, who was in talks with the gallery to undertake a residency at Arnolfini, announced that they are no longer willing to do so.
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I hope we get to hear what really happened soon for these events to be cancelled.
We need to work with the venue for this to never happen again.
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Melissa Chemam
Nu Barreto's new exhibition
Art exhibition: 'Silhouettes Parfaites' - Nu Barreto, artist from Bissau Guinea - Currently at Galerie Obadia, Paris
'Silhouettes Parfaites'
Little clip:
15/12/2023
14/12/2023
Latest post on my Substack Newsletter
From mid-December 2023:
UK's deal with Rwanda / Kenya at 60
East African highlights for the month
Read from here:
UK's deal with Rwanda / Kenya at 60
And subscribe, it's free!
News and cultures from my African news journalism, cultural events, African diaspora, activism and more.
Senegal: Sonko's free to run
My latest for RFI English:
Senegal court clears jailed opposition figure for presidential run
A Senegalese judge on Thursday (14 December) ordered that jailed opposition leader Ousmane Sonko be reinstated on the electoral roll, clearing the way for him to stand in next year's presidential election.
The judge thus upheld a regional court ruling from October overturned by Senegal's top court last month, which said the question of whether Ousmane Sonko should be restored to the electoral roll should go back to the lower court in Dakar.
According to RFI's correspondent in Dakar, some supporters of Sonko gathered in the court welcomed this news with jubilation, chanting the opponent's name.
One of his lawyers, Me Ciré Clédor Ly, said that the State could file an appeal before the Supreme Court, but that “this appeal is not suspensive”.
“The electoral code is very clear," he added. "When the judge makes his decision, this decision must be immediately executed.”
Convoluted justice case
Sonko has been at the centre of a stand-off with the state for more than two years.
He came third in the last presidential election.
Growing in popularity over the past few years, especially among young voters, he has however been dealing with the justice system on many cases.
Sentenced for "corrupting the youth" in a boiling court case in June, he was also accused by the government of inciting insurrections, after he resisted his trial with popular marches and protests.
In late July, he was arrested on charges including fomenting insurrection, criminally associating with a terrorist body and endangering state security.
His supporters in his PASTEF Party and the opposition coalition believe that the slew of criminal allegations brought against him since 2021 are part of a campaign to derail his political aspirations ahead of a presidential election in February 2024, led by current president Macky Sall.
In mid-October a judge from Sonko's stronghold of Ziguinchor, the city in the region of Casamance where he has been mayor since January 2022, ordered that he be reinstated on electoral lists for the February vote.
And Senegal’s National Electoral Commission said early in November that Sonko “must enjoy his status as a registered voter with all the rights attached thereto."
But Senegal’s Interior Ministry has since refused the request.
Back in the campaign
A few weeks later, Senegal's Supreme Court ruled on his ineligibility, and his party had to choose another candidate, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, to defy President Sall in the upcoming presidential election.
Pastef insisted that not all legal options had been exhausted to clear Sonko's name, encouraging the opposition to work with Diomaye Faye in the meantime.
His spokesperson, El Malick Ndiaye confirmed Sonko want to carry on running.
Sonko now has only a few days to rejoin the presidential race: he need to present formally his candidacy and obtain the necessary sponsorships before 26 December.
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