nationalism – Active Voice

The World Cup and its Others…

The World Cup as tweeted live taking note of the play of race, colour, nation, ethnicity, religion…and locaton.

It’s been the Americas’ #WorldCup, writes @NateSilver538. http://53eig.ht/1yu3wnC pic.twitter.com/EAbZIpmzNW

Presenting a Storified tweetshot of reactions from those of us in the Global South as our representatives at the World Cup in Brazil surged ahead on the day that the Black Stars (Ghana) and the Super Eagles (NIG) made their presence felt–race, religion, colour, ethnicity, nationality–all came in for comment. For example, the following tweet from Jean Lowrie-Chin in Jamaica: @chinhubert saw a tweet during #GHAvsUSA: “Not sure who to back – Ancestors from Ghana but remittances from USA” ☺ #Brasil2014. Check it out…

sanyasi @rchops

So Germany is the only European team that has a white guy who scores

2 days ago

Kamila Shamsie @kamilashamsie

Ok, who am I supporting here? #HONvsECU (@tejucole, any advice?)

2 days ago

Teju Cole @tejucole

@kamilashamsie Um, definitely the small poor country with brown people.

2 days ago

Kamila Shamsie @kamilashamsie

Helpful. “@tejucole: @kamilashamsie Um, definitely the small poor country with brown people.”

2 days ago

karachi ahab @karachiahab

@kamilashamsie @tejucole But they are both small poor countries with brown people. No? Very helpful indeed 🙂 #HONvsECU

2 days ago

Browne @drbrowne

Costly error by #ECU leads to Costly goal for #HON. Nice.

Ecualizer

There can no longer be any doubt: the U.S. is one of the top nine American teams in this tournament.

2 days ago

sanyasi @rchops

So basically postcolonial nations have spent every minute since independnce dedicating themselves to proving every colonial stereotype right

2 days ago

sanyasi @rchops

It is delightful that the national honor of so very Catholic France continues to be in the hands of its predominantly Muslim football team

2 days ago

Football’s a Country @FutbolsaCountry

If you’re wondering, there are Afro-Argentines >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Szi3by5Fs … and http://twn.org/catalog/pages/cpage.aspx?rec=1326&card=price …

21 hours ago

Irvine Welsh @WelshIrvine

MESSI TIME!!! C’MON THE ARGIES, A STRIKE ON I-RAN!! @CIA

21 hours ago

Grindacologist @Grindacologist

germany/netherlands ain’t winning no world cup in south america…so save unnuh breath…

19 hours ago

News to you, maybe, but not to us: the world's most football crazy nation is Nigeria. http://t.co/SVCBqy6BHU http://t.co/1jKUgH9ceE

News to you, maybe, but not to us: the world’s most football crazy nation is Nigeria. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-20/the-worlds-most-crazed-soccer-nation-try-nigeria … pic.twitter.com/1jKUgH9ceE

Teju Cole @tejucole

18 hours ago

Elnathan John @elnathan

I am Ghanaian. I am Ghanaian. I am Ghanaian.

16 hours ago

GOAL! Has someone accounted for the Obeah Man?? http://t.co/1WxgwV622Q

GOAL! Has someone accounted for the Obeah Man?? pic.twitter.com/1WxgwV622Q

Disgruntled Haradrim @pdjeliclark

16 hours ago

Teju Cole @tejucole

Oh my God, this is happening. Come on you Black Stars!

16 hours ago

Ory Okolloh @kenyanpundit

Black Stars broke my heart in 2010, not going to celebrate until the end. *watching with one eye*

16 hours ago

Aleksandar Holiga @AlexHoliga

You have nowhere to hurry, Ghana.

16 hours ago

This is how serious the game is..:-))..#GhanavGermany http://t.co/okeMHHEHqh

This is how serious the game is..:-))..#GhanavGermany pic.twitter.com/okeMHHEHqh

AmazingAfrika @StudioAfrika

16 hours ago

Rinaldo Walcott @blacklikewho

where is ogun in particular today? where is ogun?

16 hours ago

annie paul @anniepaul

C’mon Global South!!! you can do it! #GhanavsGermany

16 hours ago

Teju Cole @tejucole

There are no atheists in the 85th minute.

16 hours ago

Snidely Q. Whiplash @DrewOnline

It is immense that #GHA believes that they can and actually do go toe to toe with Europe’s deadliest team

16 hours ago

Aleksandar Holiga @AlexHoliga

What a thoroughly entertaining game.

16 hours ago

Steph B-More™@StephBMore

This German niggas bleeding ALL over the field. Soccer so violent. #WorldCup2014

16 hours ago

oDessa @oblessa

Great fight Ghana a so we do it! #AfricanStandUp

16 hours ago

Irvine Welsh @WelshIrvine

Can we play extra time on this one? A perfect half of football and fantastic entertainment from both sides.

16 hours ago

Rinaldo Walcott @blacklikewho

these commentators “Germany did not bring their A game”. enough!

16 hours ago

Elnathan John @elnathan

OK Ghana I was just kidding. I love you. But I can’t promise about Samuel Kuffour. Not when he says “pahnahty”.

16 hours ago

Wasiin Bae @WalleLawal

GER vs. GHA was pretty much an episode of Game of Thrones. Valar Morghulis.

16 hours ago

Binyavanga Wainaina @BinyavangaW

so proud to be an African! #ghana @WorldPride2014 @WP14TO .

16 hours ago

Emily Crooks @emilynationwide

One of the best games of #WorldCup2014 so far on the longest day of the yr. Great display esp by #Ghana.

16 hours ago

Kellie Magnus @kelliemagnus

Watched Ger vs Gha in a bar in Fort Greene. Jokes for days. “That was an awesome head kick.”

16 hours ago

bamster @bamybambam

My mum just saw her tenant that is owing her money on super sport in Brazil

15 hours ago

Teju Cole @tejucole

It’s funny (completely unfunny) how much space Hajrovic is getting on the right flank. Acres. He could start a farm out there.

14 hours ago

Talat Aslam @titojourno

If you get an email from a Nigerian friend claiming he’s lost all his cash in Rio, don’t delete it as spam. It might just be true

14 hours ago

#NIG clearly looking for a specific target area in #BIH defence. http://t.co/ko5SVGGY78

#NIG clearly looking for a specific target area in #BIH defence. pic.twitter.com/ko5SVGGY78

Vasco Mota Pereira @CombinationPlay

14 hours ago

Ishaan Tharoor @ishaantharoor

So, so harsh for Bosnia

13 hours ago

Who no know go know! http://t.co/Oou9EqIKdO

Who no know go know! pic.twitter.com/Oou9EqIKdO

Teju Cole @tejucole

13 hours ago

Nigeria's Emmanuel Emenike fires in a shot on goal during the match between #NGR and #BIH. - AP #glnrWorldCup http://t.co/m87zaTnAzv

Nigeria’s Emmanuel Emenike fires in a shot on goal during the match between #NGR and #BIH. – AP #glnrWorldCup pic.twitter.com/m87zaTnAzv

Jamaica Gleaner @JamaicaGleaner

13 hours ago

Snidely Q. Whiplash @DrewOnline

Yow Nigeria nuh concede no goals yet!!!

13 hours ago

annie paul @anniepaul

Naija! Naija! Naija! Naija! Naija!

14 hours ago

Stephanie Nolen @snolen

This is a great look at what #WorldCup shows abt global #immigration when you look beyond players http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jun/22/world-cup-snapshot-global-migration-different-stands … via @tariqpanja

12 hours ago

On the pitch the World Cup has offered a snapshot of global migration. It’s a different story in the stands

The ethnic makeups of the 32 squads at the World Cup reflect the sedimentary layers of global migration over the last 500 years. The European colonial destruction of indigenous Americans gives us the almost wholly European squads of Chile, Argentina and Mexico; Australia can be considered an Oceanic version of this.

David Goldblatt

Elnathan John @elnathan

Wake up call. It will not be strange if Goodluck Jonathan wins in a free and fair election 2015. Twitter is not = Nigeria.

The Jamaican Nation and its Music

Two shows at the Institute of Jamaica reveal the disinterest in archiving the nation’s valuable collection of musical artefacts and safeguarding the history of this iconic popular music.

A rather strange table donated to the nation by Chen’s Furniture company at Independence

Curator of Jamaica 50: Constructing a Nation, Dr. Shani Roper, displaying a gift given by Trinidad to Jamaica in 1962

The flag of the short-lived Federation of the West Indies and a wooden bust of Queen Elizabeth carved by a Jamaican sculptor

Visited two very poignant exhibits last week at the Institute of Jamaica…Jamaica 50: Constructing a Nation and Equal Rights: Reggae and Social Change, a show of historic Reggae album covers. The first of these actually opened today and will be open till February 2013. Equal Rights opened a few weeks ago and is a gem of an exhibit offering visitors a chance to see some rare Reggae album covers; it should also stay up into 2013 so try and catch it. The LP sized catalogue should be a keeper with texts about the raison d’etre of the exhibit and information about the various periods in Jamaican music that are featured in the show. What struck me as immeasurably sad was the cramped space made available to archive, document and display the vast portfolio of music this country has produced. There is a whole alternative history contained in Jamaican music which really deserves better treatment by the state than it currently receives.

I always find myself shaking my head when i contrast the resources made available to house Jamaica’s rather slender visual art tradition in comparison to the slender resources made available to showcase Jamaica’s internationally renowned popular music. Mi cyaan believe it indeed, to echo Mikey Smith. Is this really what the nation thinks of the extraordinary music generated by its people? Is it because Jamaican music comes from the underprivileged segments of society that it gets such shoddy treatment? For a previous post on the subject go here.

Director of the Music Museum, Herbie Miller who curated Equal Rights

: Miller surveying the tiny storeroom available to house the rich artefacts of Jamaica’s world famous music scene

These beautiful album covers from the Dermot Hussey collection donated to the Music Museum are at risk if not properly stored.

This faded, ragged poster of Usain Bolt draped in the nation’s flag is symbolic of the neglect of both downtown Kingston and the popular culture of its people

For more photos go here.

Caribbean Nationalisms: Trinidad and Jamaica

$2m flag in right hand upper quadrant

I’ve been in Trinidad the last couple of days where i’m contemplating the giant $2 million national flag fluttering in the breeze in Port-of-Spain, while hummingbirds fight each other for a suck at the red plastic feeder on the balcony of a friend’s apartment. Found out yesterday that Trinidad and Tobago is suffering from a prolonged drought as is the rest of the Eastern Caribbean. Jamaica has also been severely affected by the lack of rainfall recently but the discussions around this never ever referred to the fact that this was a regionwide phenomenon.

I was interviewed practically on arrival for an online forum called NBS or the No Behaviour Show by @SanMan_ish or Hassan, someone i previously knew only on Twitter. Hassan had just started NBS the week before and was wishing he had access to a Jamaican perspective on various issues including water shortages, when my tweet announcing my arrival in TnT appeared in his timeline. Before you knew it i was being interviewed on a variety of subjects starting with something Jamaican Minister of Culture, Olivia Babsy Grange, had said at the opening ceremony of the International Reggae Conference at UWI, Mona. Was Jamaica losing Reggae to European musicians as Ms. Grange had suggested, Hassan wanted to know. I said i preferred to view singers such as Gentleman and Matisyahu as ambassadors for Reggae, taking a Jamaican product to new brand audiences. To hear more of what i said click here…

The International Reggae Conference at the University of the West Indies, Mona, was a big success i thought. The first morning I chaired a panel on Collection, Storage and Dissemination of Jamaican music with three participants, Herbie Miller, the director of the Jamaican Music Museum and two Americans; Elliott Lieb, founder of the Trade Roots archive, dedicated to collecting Jamaican music and Brad Klein, a film-maker working on a documentary on Jamaican ska. In the audience, amongst others, was Stranjah Cole, ska maestro, who features in the film.

Stranjah Cole seated in front row

Herbie Miller made an eloquent case for a budget to stock his museum and do the kind of work the foreigners were doing gratis out of love for Jamaica’s music. How extraordinary i thought, that a case even needs to be made for something so obviously deserving of support. After all the Jamaican government had decided decades ago that Jamaican art was worthy of being collected, stored and disseminated, investing in a National Gallery for the purpose. And this despite the fact that Jamaican art is insignificant compared to Jamaican music which has virtually put the country on the map, creating Brand Jamaica and maintaining its profile to this day. Yet as Brad Klein pointed out many of the early recordings and films on Jamaican music have vanished without a trace. What a tragedy!

l to r: Chappie St Juste, Herbie Miller, Stranjah Cole, Brad Klein and Elliott Lieb

During the discussion that followed the presentations, cinematographer Chappie St. Juste who was in the audience, disclosed that the films were actually safely stored in vaults in England where they had been sent for processing and the task now was to repatriate them. But repatriate them to what? and where? and to what conditions? The music museum exists only in name. Perhaps instead of berating Europeans for ‘stealing’ our music we should be grateful to them for having stored our cultural products safely, something we ourselves have been careless about. Remember the scandal a few years ago when it was discovered that the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation archives had been vandalized, and that early recordings of Louise Bennett and others had vanished?