DR

Even though I never got used to French traditional food at home, I have always loved French food in general, I used to eat things like baguettes, croissants and other typical western food found in restaurants. The French are well known for their delicious and rich cuisine, and they put a high priority on the enjoyment of food.  In that sense, I must admit, I feel French.

At home, my mother has always been cooking both Western and Kabyle traditional food.

The most famous dish in the Kabyle and  North African culture is unmistakably “couscous”,  and it is becoming increasingly popular in France.

 However, there are many different types of couscous depending on the region where it comes from. Moroccans include saffron , Algerians like to add tomatoes, Tunisians   spice up theirs with  harissa and Kabyles add green beans.

 Among the other specialties from the Kabyle culture, there is also the special bread, « Aghroum” which is flat and crunchy. We can have it with “Felfel” for example (not to be confounded with “Falafel”), It is a simple dish made of cooked and crushed pepper mixed up with olive oil.

  DR/  Kabyle bread, « Aghroum »

 It is this mixture of flavour that finally made of me a real foodie[1] person.

 When, in 2009, I moved to England for 8 months, the change of environment also meant I had to forget both the dishes of my Mum and the French gastronomy.     

The thing that first caught my eye was the quantity of take away shops one could find lined up in the streets of the city where I lived. The same dishes would also be displayed in all the fast food restaurants:  “Burgers, Parmesans, Pizzas and Kebabs”.

Junk food was apparently king in this part of Britain, no wonder if the obesity rate in the North East is the highest in the country. In this region, the most popular dish is called the “Parmo” which is a shortcut for Parmesan. It’s a much loved dish made of chicken or pork « fillet » with « béchamel » sauce and a layer of cheese (strangely not parmesan), normally served with chips and a choice of salad: coleslaw or creamed cabbage.

  DR/ Chicken Parmo, also served in restaurants 

Unfortunately, I did not have many opportunities to discover good homemade British food, except for the famous Fish and Chips that I ate in Whitby, a lovely fishing port of the North East coast. Apart from their Sunday dinner and a filling breakfast, I have not experienced the richness of the British culture in terms of food…Far from sharing Jacque Chirac’s opinion who, joking five years ago with Russian leaders, said about Britons: « One cannot trust people whose cuisine is so bad”. From my experience, I have noticed that unlike what is the case in France, in Britain, eating has not much to do with any form of ceremony. 

However, England  remains a multicultural society, and the multicultural aspect of this country is also reflected in the various dishes offered by the migrants who have come to settle there. The dishes of the newcomers are also part of a certain British heritage.Chicken tikka masala, for example, is so popular that it has even been proclaimed as  British national dish.

  DR/ Chicken tikka masala

      (Could you imagine “couscous” being recognized as a “French national dish”?)

Indeed, the best moments I had were when I was discovering new dishes from other parts of the world thanks to my friends who like me were foreigners. I had the opportunity to taste « jollof rice » from Nigeria, chicken rice and « dahl » from Pakistan, « noodles and moon cakes » from China, « tortillas de patatas », « mojete and patatas Alioli » from Spain, « Polish pickles », « Malaysian coconut chicken » and the best green tea ever made by my dearest Pakistanni pachtoune friends.…

Back in France, I was happy to find again my favourite baguette and my mother’s dishes but I also came back with a heavy heart. To my big surprise, shortly after my arrival, I already missed all the exotic flavours I had discovered during my stay in Britain.  My mind was still full of very nice memories about my eating time in England…

DR

PARIS — France is embarking on a grand experiment — how to diversify the overwhelmingly white “grandes écoles,” the elite universities that have produced French leaders in every walk of life — and Rizane el-Yazidi is one of the pioneers.

The daughter of protective North African parents in the tough northeastern suburb of Bondy, Ms. Yazidi is enrolled in a trial program aimed at helping smart children of the poor overcome the huge cultural disadvantages that have often spelled failure in the crucial school entrance exams.

“For now we’re still a small group, but when there will be more of us, it’ll become real progress,” said Ms. Yazidi, 20. But she is nervous, too. “We’re lucky, but it’s a great risk for us,” she said. “We might never make it” to a top school.

Because entrance to the best grandes écoles effectively guarantees top jobs for life, the government is prodding the schools to set a goal of increasing the percentage of scholarship students to 30 percent — more than three times the current ratio at the most selective schools. But the effort is being met with concerns from the grandes écoles, who fear it could dilute standards, and is stirring anger among the French at large, who fear it runs counter to a French ideal of a meritocracy blind to race, religion and ethnicity.

France imagines itself a country of “republican virtue,” a meritocracy run by a well-trained elite that emerges from a fiercely competitive educational system. At its apex are the grandes écoles, about 220 schools of varying specialties. And at the very top of this pyramid are a handful of famous institutions that accept a few thousand students a year among them, all of whom pass extremely competitive examinations to enter.

“In France, families celebrate acceptance at a grande école more than graduation itself,” said Richard Descoings, who runs the most liberal of them, the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris, known as Sciences Po. “Once you pass the exam at 18 or 19, for the rest of your life, you belong.”

The result, critics say, is a self-perpetuating elite of the wealthy and white, who provide their own children the social skills, financial support and cultural knowledge to pass the entrance exams, known as the concours, which are normally taken after an extra two years of intensive study in expensive preparatory schools after high school.

The problem is not simply the narrow base of the elite, but its self-satisfaction. “France has so many problems with innovation,” Mr. Descoings said. Those who pass the tests “are extremely smart and clever, but the question is: Are you creative? Are you willing to put yourself at risk? Lead a battle?” These are qualities rarely tested in exams.

But the schools fear that the government will undermine excellence in the name of social engineering and say the process has to begin further down the educational ladder. The state, they say, should seek out poor students with potential and help them to enter preparatory schools. Of the 2.3 million students in French higher education, about 15 percent attend grandes écoles or preparatory schools. But half of those in preparatory schools will fall short and go to standard universities.

In 2001, Mr. Descoings, 52, who cheerfully admits that he failed the concours twice before passing, began his own outreach program to better prepare less-advantaged students for Sciences Po. Last year, the school accepted 126 scholarship students out of a class of 1,300, and two-thirds of them have at least one non-French parent, he said. But that is a far cry from 30 percent.

One of them, Houria Khemiss, 22, is about to graduate from Sciences Po in law. The daughter of Algerian parents growing up in impoverished St.-Denis in the Paris suburbs, she was pushed by a high school teacher to the special preparatory program. She wants to become a judge, “because then you have a direct impact on people’s lives.” Many at Sciences Po will become the leaders of France, she said, “and because we are there it gives them another point of view.”

Oualid Fakkir, 23, who is graduating with a master’s in finance, said, “It’s very dangerous for France to close its eyes and say, ‘Equality. We have the best values in the world.’ It’s not enough. There has to also be equality of chances.”

…………………………………………………………………………….

But other elite grandes écoles are more specialized than Sciences Po, concentrating on engineering, business management, public administration and science, and they are more concerned about the government’s program.

Pierre Tapie, 52, is the head of the business school ESSEC and chairman of the Conférence des Grandes Écoles, which represents 222 schools.

While he shares the government’s objective of diversity, he said, there is a long educational track before the concours. “We cannot be the scapegoat of any demagogic decision because we are the finest and most famous part of the whole system,” he said. Gen. Xavier Michel, 56, runs École Polytechnique, one of the world’s finest engineering schools and still overseen by the Ministry of Defense. Known as X, the school is extraordinarily competitive, and its students do basic training and parade wearing the bicorne, a cocked hat dating from Napoleon, who put the school under the military in 1804.

“The fundamental principle for us is that students have the capability to do the work here, which is very difficult,” with a lot of math, physics and science, very little of it based on cultural knowledge, General Michel said. Even now, he said, the school takes only 500 students a year, barely 10 percent of its specially educated applicants. “We don’t want to bring students into school who risk failing,” he said. “You can get lost very quickly.”

Despite the misgivings, in February the Conférence des Grandes Écoles, under considerable pressure, signed on to a “Charter of Equal Opportunity” with the government committing the schools to try to reach the 30 percent goal before 2012 or risk losing some financing.

But how to get there remains a point of contention. There is a serious question about how to measure diversity in a country where every citizen is presumed equal and there are no official statistics based on race, religion or ethnicity. A goal cannot be called a “quota,” which has an odor of the United States and affirmative action. Instead, there is the presumption here that poorer citizens will be more diverse, containing a much larger percentage of Muslims, blacks and second-generation immigrants.

The minister of higher education, Valérie Pécresse, argued that French who grow up in a poor neighborhood have the same difficulties regardless of ethnicity.

But the government is examining whether the current test depends too much on familiarity with French history and culture. “We’re thinking about the socially discriminatory character, or not, of these tests,” Ms. Pécresse said. “I want the same concours for everyone, but I don’t exclude that the tests of the concours evolve, with the objective of a great social opening and a better measure of young people’s intelligence.”

The government, with Mr. Tapie’s group, has moved to unify and expand scattered outreach programs from different schools. Copied to some degree from Sciences Po, the program Ms. Yazidi attends tries to reach out to smart children, give them higher goals and help them get into preparatory schools. About 7,000 high school students are currently enrolled, but it is too early to tell whether it will produce a large number of successful applicants.

At one recent session, 10 students, all children of immigrants, were working to pass a special concours for a top business school instead of going right into the job market. Their teacher, Philippe Destelle, pushed them to “look more self-confident” in oral exams and “don’t be afraid to have an opinion.” He told one, “You have the answers, but you don’t trust yourself.”

Salloumou Keita, 22, is vocal and social, but worryingly behind on his math. “We have to prove something,” he said. “There is a look we always get, a questioning — ‘Can he adapt?’ ”

Awa Dramé, is 22, French-born of African parents, confident and talkative. “I don’t mind being a guinea pig, so long as the experiment works,” she said. “Reaching this level was unthinkable before, and I can see myself going higher,” she said. “I’m full of dreams.”

(Suggested to AnOpenEye by Siham Keddouh)

DR

The reason why I have chosen that word is not because I recognized myself in this name. Far from it, this is just the way I feel I have been sometimes perceived in my life.

For those who never came across that expression before:

A “Beurette” is just a female “beur”, in French slang; it designates French-born people whose parents are immigrants from North Africa.

I found that expression very pejorative and I hated the people who called me like that.

 I grew up in a small French town where it was rare to find any immigrants from North Africa.  I was only surrounded by white French people but my family has always been deeply immersed into Kabyle and Muslims traditions. This might be the reason why I was given this etiquette.

I finally moved to these suburbs called ‘banlieue parisienne’, when I turned 18.

 Back to the main topic:

From October 2009 to May 2010, I spent the academic year in the North east of England, working as a French Teacher assistant mainly in a secondary school – (named) Ian Ramsey Church of England School.

I have North-African background, I was born in Algeria but grew up in France, and I was there (in Britain) “to represent” the French culture, for a year, assisting teachers or teaching on my own small groups of children aged between 11 and 15; discussing different aspects of the French culture with them

DR

When I first started working in this school, I was sometimes feeling quite uncomfortable because I wondered: “how someone like me, who is not French “ pure souche” as we say in France, can share and transmit the French culture. But I finally found my way and realized that indeed I am French, strange as it may seem, even though I have no clue about how French wines taste like, I have never ever tasted “cassoulet or quiche aux lardons”… Fortunately for me, France is much more than just porky recipes!

Little by little, I finally thought I could find another way to introduce the French culture just like any “pure souche” French girl.

I was eventually feeling more French in Britain than I had ever felt in France…Weird feeling, indeed.

It was an experience full of surprise. I was very astonished to see how open-minded Britons were, especially regarding religion. While I was trying to find out few things to show about Christmas celebrations in France, some even went as far as to ask me if I wanted to talk about how French Muslims celebrate Eid El Kebir,.

 I also noticed how they remarkably promoted tolerance and integration allowing minority groups to maintain their cultural identities and customs at school; offering for example, Urdu classes in a school called Church of England…Whereas in France the government has always been uncompromising with secularity, banning religious symbols in public schools. I remember the first time I saw in that same school the immigrants’ children from Pakistani background wearing the veil without facing any problem. I then thought of all the problems this same veil was causing on the other side of the Channel.

I used to think that secularity was the best option at school, but my experience there made me seriously reconsider my opinion. I would never have thought it could work well.

However, while the adults seemed quite aware of cultural differences, the teenagers seemed really surprised to hear that I could be French and Muslim at the same time. Once, during a school trip in Toulouse, we were visiting a cathedral.  Some students were being rude and giggling all the time, so I told them to calm down. One of them, a platinum blond, grumbled “I am not Christian, I don’t care’”. “Are you Muslim then?” I said, just to see her reaction. She looked daggers at me as if I was insulting her. I told her that whatever her religion, when she comes to a place of worship, she should behave. Then I said: “By the way, I am Muslim”. Finally deeply shocked, she said “What?! Muslim?! But I thought you were French!”

DR

When it comes to explain delinquency in the deprived areas of Paris the following argument is often to be heard: “Youngsters of immigrant descents do not have in France any successful role model, except from that of the football players or rap singers”. It is true that in a country where it has become a custom from the mass media to denigrate and negatively depict ethnic minorities, in general models for a certain category of the population are scarce. Besides, the case of Karim Benzema who was recently involved in the Zahia scandal also proves that football players just like rap singers are sometimes far from being good examples for the younger generations. This week I decided to focus on people I think could be presented as models for the youth in the nineteenth district of Paris.

Among all the people I know in the nineteenth district of Paris Sadia Diawara is without doubt one of the best models for the younger generation. I first heard about Sadia Diawara some five years ago. At the time I was travelling a lot between the U.K and the nineteenth district of Paris. Sadia Diawara was the founder of the Afternoons of the Memory at Mama Africa restaurant; a meeting that took place once a month, on Sundays, and where discussions and tales about Africa were told in a convivial atmosphere.

Today, once again the name of the 31 year old director and entrepreneur is in everybody’s mouth. Three years ago, Sadia Diawara who has “more than a wallet in his pocket”, launched a project that consists in traveling from the nineteenth district of Paris to Mali; crossing by car countries such as Spain and Mauritania. The initiative is based on mutual solidarity between the French people taking part in the project and the different people encountered on the way to Mali. Equipment in exchange for knowledge is the key element of the initiative. The Africans teach the French how to plant trees in the region and the French provide them with the necessary equipment. During the trip, cultural exchanges take place not only with the villagers but also between the travelling crew. The first objective of the initiative is to fight all united against desertification no matter the differences or the continent we live in. Through the ecosystem Global Warming affects all of us without distinction.  

DR.

From the two previous expeditions Sadia Diawara remembers the good memories. “I will never forget the first time we arrived in the village my parents had left some thirty years ago to come here and make a living”, he once told me before adding. “The planting of the first trees is an experience no one can forget”… “No matter how many trees you’ve planted, each new planted tree gives you the same sensation and feeling of pride”.   

Road Tree’P is an initiative coming from the heart asking no money or support from any government or organisation. “All we need is people coming and taking part in the trip” Sadia says.    He dreams of the day when individuals take the initiative to go on their own and plant trees in order to fight against deforestation and desertification. In every culture and religion the planting of a tree has huge signification. When he grows older Sadia Diawara would like to be able to say to his grandsons: “You see this forest over there I am somehow at the origin of it” …  “This is my legacy to you”. And, this wish of his is, indeed, what makes him great and a model for the younger generations.

DR

I did not know what to write about today. So I decided to write on something I think I master quite well.  Unlike the younger generation I cannot really say I was born in it. But I belong to that generation that partly contributed to its shaping. Yes, people of my age are somehow those who gave French Hip-Hop its present features and values.

I know it is funny to speak so especially when everyone knows that Hip-Hop is American and not French. However it is important to notice that unlike many other countries French Hip-Hop has a proper identity which distinguishes it from the ones of other countries.

Many French Hip-Hop artists are very well known not only in the Paris region but also in the four different corners of the Hexagon. Despite the reluctance from part of the mass media to present Hip-Hop as a genuine art and culture; what was first regarded as a simple movement has along the years transformed itself to become an authentic culture. It is possible today to see different periods and forms of expression of this culture in France.

I will never forget those days back in the early eighties when Sydney, one of the rare and only black TV presenters who appeared on the green screen on Saturday afternoons, used to put some funky atmosphere in every household. Here was a guy older than us who resembled us. He was the big brother of every single uprooted kid who happened to be looking for a new cultural identity different from the one of both their parents and the host community. The movement Sydney was presenting us at the time has now grown up into a real art and culture composed of four different disciplines that are Dance (breakdance and smurf), Graff, DJ, Rap.

  If dance was the first discipline to be broadcasted on TV, easiest forms of expression such as Rap and Graffiti were to become more popular. The nineties are well known to be the decade of the apology of Rap music and Hip-Hop in France. The first generation of sons and daughters born in France from African immigrant descents were so much involved in the expansion of the hip hop culture, that they even became assimilated to it.

However for some business and personal economic reasons most French Rap singers were also progressively forced to adopt a more commercial form of their art, thus emptying it from its very first essence. Expressing one’s grieves and informing the mass on the irregularities in our system was finally replaced by a more Bling, Bling rap, too shy to contradict and denounce the system.

Unlike what was the case in the early nineties most French rap singers nowadays have a very poor knowledge and use of the language they express themselves in. Their lyrics are very often senseless and their music often sounds just like another bad copy of the American sound.

Yes, except for a few rap singers such as Kerry James, Shuriken… etc., it is possible to affirm today that good old French rap is dead. Yet, that seems far from being the death of the French Hip Hop culture. Hip Hop culture as a whole is just about to integrate a new form of expression that for the love and for the sake of this culture I ask the younger generation to use just and only for the advancement our community. Spoken Word Poetry better known in France under the name of Slam is from far the new discipline that could bring back sense and noble values to the street culture a whole generation had to shape in order to give itself an identity.

Enjoy this extract:

http://www.planeteslam.com/TRANSMISSION/DOSSIER%20SLAM/Slam%20dossier%20page%203.htm

DR

Malian actor renowned for his long association with the director Peter Brook and his work in film

By Andrew Todd guardian.co.uk, Sunday 2 May 2010 18.25 BST Article history

The Malian actor Sotigui Kouyaté, who has died aged 73, was an important bridge between African and western culture for 40 years. He was best known for his collaborations with the director Peter Brook, in whose work he demonstrated an extraordinary range.
Kouyaté was one of the very few performers around whom Brook shaped particular projects at the Bouffes du Nord Theatre in Paris. Kouyaté played a resonant Prospero in a French-language Tempest (1990), bringing to the role the sensibility of a culture for whom the supernatural is a practical, everyday matter rather than distant folklore. In the Oliver Sacks-inspired play The Man Who (1993), he effectively effaced his origins, playing various patients (and the Jewish Sacks) with transparency and universality. In Qui Est Là? (1996), an improvisation based on Hamlet, he played Polonius, a gravedigger and a terrifying, uncannily lifeless ghost. In Can Themba’s The Suit (2000), he showed great comic talent, playing a very convincing drunk (although he never touched alcohol) and – in drag – an uproariously funny church woman. Perhaps the apex of his work with Brook was the creation in 2004 of the role of the Sufi mystic Tierno Bokar, in the eponymous play, based on a real-life West African prophet of tolerance and self-sacrifice.
Kouyaté was born in Bamako, Mali’s capital, to Guinean parents, who moved to Burkina Faso soon after his birth. He was the descendant of a long line of griots, a nomadic, noble caste responsible for recounting oral history and resolving conflicts as a form of artistic social duty. He continued in this role throughout his life as one of the world’s most visible African actors and a conscientious, charming witness of his people’s culture. He claimed to belong to the griots’ culture more than to any particular nation.
An extremely tall, willowy figure, Kouyaté’s career was extraordinary even before leaving for Europe. A carpenter, teacher and then professional footballer, he became captain of the Burkina Faso (then Upper Volta) national team in 1966. His burgeoning activity as an actor, writer and director led to an early film role in Christian Richard’s slave-history drama The Courage of Others (1982), which brought him to the attention of Brook’s collaborator Marie-Hélène Estienne, who was travelling the world casting the huge Mahabharata project. Brook instantly knew he was the right actor to play Bhishma, the conduit of wisdom and memory who uses his power to choose the time of his own death to manipulate the outcome of the Mahabharata’s great war. The production was first staged at the Boulbon quarry in Avignon in 1985, and Kouyaté reprised the role in Brook’s five-hour film of the drama.
He had fathered two sons – the film-maker Dani Kouyaté and the actor and storyteller Hassane Kassi Kouyaté – before he left Africa and settled on the outskirts of Paris in 1984, starting a new family with his Swiss wife, Esther Marty-Kouyaté, who he met during the three-year world tour of the French and English versions of the Mahabharata. With her he had a daughter, Yagaré, and a son, Mabo.
Kouyaté described his working experience with Brook as being in direct, harmonious continuity with his life as a griot: he half-expected an uptight, intellectual French troupe, but found instead a multinational group where every voice was respected and concerns shared among a circle, which recalled his origins. « The word, » he once told me, « is the weapon of the griot; one must know how to transport and make a vehicle of speech … which is a difficult art, the prerequisite of which is listening. I have found this listening attitude with Peter Brook. »

Kouyaté’s flourishing film career was pursued in parallel to his work with Brook. His 18 films included collaborations with the directors Thomas Gilou (Black Mic Mac, 1986), Cheick Oumar Sissoko (La Genèse, 1999), Amos Gitai (Golem, Spirit of Exile, 1992), Stephen Frears (Dirty Pretty Things, 2002) and Kouyaté’s son Dani (Keita, Heritage of the Griot, 1994). He was the subject of the documentary film Sotigui Kouyaté, a Modern Griot by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (1996), which followed him on a journey back to Burkina Faso. In London River (his second film with Rachid Bouchareb, after 2001’s Little Senegal) he played a French Muslim father seeking his son, who is missing after the July 2005 terror attacks in London. He described the film as being « made by love ». The performance earned him the best actor prize at the 2009 Berlin film festival.
Sometimes criticised in the western press for a lack of actorly technique or artfulness, he represented a different tradition of performance – not as imitation, but as presence, embodiment and witness. Immensely handsome, immemorially ancient in appearance from his 50s and dangerously dapper when off stage or screen, Sotigui charmed a vast circle of friends and admirers, to whom he was faultlessly generous, whether with his advice, humour or hospitality. He had an unnerving habit of correctly guessing details of one’s state of mind and recent movements when encountered.
An important part of his artistic legacy is the Mandéka International Theatre, which he co-founded in 1997 in Bamako, with the aim of producing and radiating Malian theatre. He is survived by Esther and his four children.
Peter Brook writes: Sotigui was, for all of us who knew him, who worked with him and who became close to him, an absolutely unique person, incomparable with anybody of the past or present, in the same way that Shakespeare and Mozart were their own individual human categories, at once remarkable and universal, uncanny and familiar.
I first saw him in a photograph that Marie-Hélène Estienne showed me: he was standing next to a tree, and he had an extraordinarily tree-like character himself, both physically and personally. He was inseparable from his own African soil, rooted in its social, cultural, family and spiritual structures and traditions. He was deeply animist in the sense that he saw and sensed, as a matter of course, the continuity between the visible and invisible worlds, between inner spirit and external tradition.
At the same time, when he was in the context of the west, he was totally open to the world around him, seeing it clearly in all its good and bad qualities, but without ever judging or becoming hostile. Like a tree, he was unbending in his core, but reaching out, responsive, quivering in reaction to every fine current with which he came into contact.
As an actor he was possessed of a deep sense of meaning and an absolutely natural response; his heart and mind had a transparent connection to his body, his muscles, face and fingers, allowing him an organic expression devoid of applied skill – a condition of emptiness and responsiveness which many western actors strive for years to attain, but which to him came perfectly naturally.
• Sotigui Kouyaté, actor and director, born 19 July 1936; died 17 April 2010

DR

« We are humanists »




Thierry Sinda, man of letters, fascinating and passionate artist, opens the doors of his universe where nostalgia and fighting spirit are often interwoven.  Author of the poetic collection « Travels to Africa in search of my deep self” Voyages en Afrique à la recherche de mon moi enivré . In this work, he evokes his journey and the encounter with his roots, the cultural duality, part of his inner self. A narrative on the roads of his journeys and his encounter with the other one beyond time
A Frenchman of origin, an African of heart, he does not forget his fight for the equality of all Men where each one will find a place to build one’s self. It is in this sense that he has created a movement, the Union for the New France « , an achieved political party which aims at giving a voice to those who are in the margin of the republic  » 



How can you define yourself?


I am a professor and researcher, a journalist, a cinema critic for the magazine Amina and the president of “The Spring of the Poets of Africa and Other Parts of the World”; an association linked to the 1901 law, created in 2006. It organises festivals and the 7^th edition is due to take place, 2010; I am also the president of The Diversified Generations (association law 1901) which fights against all forms of discriminations.


Your father was also a big poet. Did he inspire you as a poet?


 » One is not born a poet but becomes a poet. « . My father, Martial Sinda was indeed the first poet of the AEF in 1956. He was awarded the Grand Prix(Prize) of the AEF in 1956, and was a member of the 3rd generation of the movement of the Negritude to which we can add: Bernard Dadié, Paulin Joaquim David and many other members … I did not like  poetry in particular and I don ‘t believe that it is genetic . I saw myself interested in poetry by emotional shock: the first shock was born from an encounter with a girl. This was a love letter, then, a poem of love and finally the love for poetry was awakened in me. It is a movement that goes on…
I did not make poetry because of my father otherwise this would not have been authenticity. I am certainly following his path but i am not doing it consciously.


How can we qualify your style?


Once, a professor compared me to a « black Apollinaire « . Apollinaire made some calligraphy; I join an art rather abstract, a sort of cubism. I do not draw the I speak object about. But I make ideograms that is to say that I give a shape to my idea, making it follow a movement.

Is « Journey in Africa in search of my own self », a kind of quest for identity or just a mere title?


It is not a collection of poems it is a poetic drama. Each poem can be appreciated as poetry or by reading them one after the other to create the narrative of a young Frenchman who is going to Africa to discover his roots.
There is delight and disappointment because the character realizes that in Africa there is alienation, poverty, and neo-colonialism. I do not try to make art I have just made an autobiography of what i have been experiencing.



You are the president of The Spring of the Poets of Africa, when was this association born?


The Spring of the poets was created by Jacques Lang and there never was any representation of black poetry. Very often when you are invited to a purely French poetic event you cannot express all that is in your poetry because they will probably miss the point. There was a feeling of uneasiness. Many said « we only play the Negro poets when asked to; « So the idea came to me in 2004, to gather all these poets and to create The Spring of the Poets of Africa. We used the theme submitted by The Spring of the National Poets and we added specificity so that it might correspond to the profile of the poets invited. We are not sectarian.
Our festival is sponsored every year by a godfather of the world of poetry. The first godfather was Jacques Rabemananjara, a poet and Malagasy statesman, poet in the line of Césaire or Senghor who was awarded the Grand Prix (Prize) of the French academy (regional education authority) for his whole work; he died in 2005, and in the literary will he gave me, he asserted that it was good that this association is praiseworthy in the sense that it will enable African poets to be known and to know each another. Our common aim is to make the voice of the neo-negritude heard


What difficulties did you meet during the organization of this festival?


We may always face difficulties. This festival gives the Blacks the opportunity to own their history and to share it. The fight is worth it. This is the rehabilitation of the black man and his culture that we are expressing through articles and we try to write poetry. It enables us to discover one another … The first edition of the festival, at Annie Bouet’s bookshop, was a magic moment. The bookshop was crowded. Sounds of tom-tom punctuated the words. And cultures intermingled: Africa, Madagascar and the Caribbean. There were exhibitions: Elvir Mauroy; Black beauties of C. Baudelaire. Showing these papers to the others is to propose an artistic and human experience. 

It is not a sectarian initiative but a real message to break barriers and remove prejudices, to give diversity all its energy. 


Besides your cultural and literary commitment, you are the president of the Association Generation Diversity and today the president of the Union for a New France, how and why can one go from an association to a political party?


If I never got involved in politics, it is on the one hand because politics such as it is practised in Africa is hardly satisfying and on the other hand, because it seemed to me impossible to have an impact on politics. The perfect profile of the politician is no longer a fifty-year-old white man who made the ENA(NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION SCHOOL).
Moreover our political life has been dominated for more than thirty years by the same traditional political parties. They often change the name of the parties but not their political staff unless a natural change of generation takes place. Within the association Diversity Generation of which I am the president, we have decided to study the issue of diversity in politics. It has been reported that : out of 520 000 local councillors only 2000 came from the visible minority group; out of 577 members of Parliament of in the National Assembly, there were only one hundred women and one deputy elected by the hexagon coming from the coloured minority ethnic group (George Pau Langevin). Out of 209 regional councillors in the Ile-de-France region there are only three black councillors. The « white » society does not want to integrate the other elements of the French society that are different. There is a problem of integration in so far as the majority does not want to open society to others. It is the reason why with a group of friends we have decided to set up the Union for the New France.



What is your wish for France?


When the French society is just like its plural composition, we will have already won a fight.


Could you tell us about the schedule?


The 7th edition of The Spring of the Poets of Africa will be held from Tuesday, May 4th till Sunday, May 9th in partnership with the festival « L’ Afrique dans tous les sens ». This year the event will have as a theme « the 50th Anniversary of the independence of the countries of Africa « : a tribute to these men who, through the activist literature (Damascus, Dadié, Senghor) fought against colonialism and for the restoration of the African dignity


Pieces of information are available at: www.neonegritude33.afrikblog.com

DR.

Christophe Adji-Ahoudian is a man of the field before being a political actor; through his policy he is highly determined to put an end to the prejudices in the districts. It is for him a real « citizenship action ». Elected deputy mayor of the XIXth district of Paris, in charge of the youth department since 2008, he remains faithful to his program and has not stopped activist involvement.: it is more that an appointment it is a fight.
It is with this idea and faith to his commitments that he has set up the young talents festival, an event supervised by Mayor Roger Madec, since 2009, which values the skills of the young people in the « districts », an unavoidable event where all the fields of cultural activities are revealed for a couple of days.

Q: How will you define yourself?

As an Associative activist I joined the political field in a natural way. I subscribed to the PS in 2005 and then supported Roger Madec’s list during the municipal elections of 2008. From then on, he elected me deputy mayor in charge of the youth affairs. It is my first political mandate.

Q: How did you go from your associative action to the political arena?

The BGA (Bold Boys of Africa) is an association of friends, all young. It compensates the lack of initiatives for the young people. All the fights we had led for the training as well as for the cultural interest of the youngsters in the district, led me to political action. In our activist policy, there is necessarily a link between the associative and the political field.
But my political project reached its highest point during my journey in 2006 in the United States with our association BGA. We met a lot of Afro-American activists in several sectors and it opened our eyes: if we want to improve our fight it is necessary to get involved in all the sectors of society. When we came back in France, each of us undertook a mission in the sector which interestged him most. I have chosen the political arena..

Q: As Deputy Mayor in charge of youth affairs, do you consider yourself as a spokesman of the young people in the districts?

Before being interested in politics, I was committed to the creation of many associations, and I still stick to my role of man on the field which strengthens my link with the other young people.
They see in me the associative activist who has chosen the political tool to bring about more concrete answers. In my role of associative activist, I only had limited actions
I do not claim to be able to say that I am a model but hope my policy will meet its expectations as much as possible.

Q: Which results have your action brought about since 2008?

Concerning the training and jobs opportunities for the youngsters, we are in a very positive dynamic. Some examples of our actions: we lowered the cost of the BAFA to 50 euros to allow young people to have access to training and work as guides in children camps(the usual cost of the BAFA was 450 euros). We had 70 subscribers for 40 available jobs. The training in computing was a frank success because we had 7 times more subscribers than we expected. In September the forum on the Cooperative Education, gathered 350 young people, while we expected 50. This is concrete action which enables us to facilitate the professional integration of young people. It is necessary to know that all the led actions are made according to the needs and expectations of the young people of the district. Roger Madec, the mayor of the XIXth district dedicates a big part of his policy to the notion of diversity, which also defines the district.
Q: On the theme of cultural and ethnic diversity, the « salad bowl » ,….  You set up in 2009, the festival of the young talents. Where does this idea come from?

It is a kind of participative democracy. Indeed, this festival was born in a meeting between Roger Madec and the young people of the district, during the municipal campaign. During the meeting, young people voiced the will to be valued in their know-how. They did not want us to limit their images to crimes and passiveness.. The idea of the festival was born. We held our promises. When elected, we set up « the festival of the young talents » of the district in several sectors. The first edition was in July, 2009.

Q: What is the aim of this festival?

It is an initiative on 6 days, taking place in  July and in various places in the XIXth district of Paris. To present the cultural and sports talents we also want to show the geographical heritage of the district.
The implementation of the festival requires the creation of a specific program for the necessary costs and various stages to be followed.
First of all we elaborate and submit a program; and I make a budgetary proposal to the Mayor. Once validated, I present the godfathers thanks to door-to-door canvassing. Godfathers are the persons who are going « to chair » the festival. Once we’ve found the godfathers, we appeal to applicants for the young talents in the field of: the textile creation, Music, and humorist careers. These 3 domains will define the first three days of the festival. The three following days will be about: football, basketball and dance: the organization is delegated to local associations. For example for FOOTBALL it is BJA, for basketball it is Solitary FC and as regards dance it is Ivoiry Ebony.We organize committees with other associations to make sure that the actions are indeed in connection with the presented discipline. This year we shall add a competition of young talents entrepreneurship to encourage the young people who want create their own business. A message we give them is: « we support you in what you are, what defines you ».
This festival would not be possible without the mobilization of social actors. It is the tripartite commitment which takes place between the institution ( the City hall), social associations and young citizens ( the initiators).

Q: How are the godfathers chosen?

For the first edition in 2009, we have chosen the godfathers among the former inhabitants of the XIXth distirict and who are now famous: the main godfather are OXMO PUCCINO; Nasty, a dancer; Mamoutou Diarra, a basketball player; Mickael Djarousso; Sadio Bee or again the Comedie Club with whom we had worked previously.
For this second edition, we selected Agnès B for fashion, Djamel Debouze, Gad Elmaleh or Omar and Fred for the humorists. For the concert, we hope to get Yannick Noah or Kelly Rowland.
Our motto is to remain in a spirit of diversity so that the festival remains a real platform of human meeting and common experience.

Q: How are your financial partners chosen ?

For the 2009 edition, it was largely public financed (the city of bets, the city hall of the 19th district, the League of the Education, 3F, Paris housing association) and many associations and shopkeepers of the XIXth.
For this new edition, we want to widen our financial partners. Have more support from private partners (Banks and shopkeepers). Wide private support is a guarantee for the success of this citizenship intiative.
Q: How are you going to advertise this event?

We are going to use all means of communication to reach a wide and diversified target: pamphlets, posters,, Facebook (Facebook talents19ème), radio stations, TV channels. Last year Trace TV was present during the festival, this year we are also trying to get M6 as a godfather.
The dates 5th to 9th of July are held for the second edition of the Festival of the young talents. We hope to have as much success as last year.

Where do you have enquiries for the young talent’s festival ?

Christophe Adji-Ahoudian

Tel : 01 44 52 28 18

http :::www.mairie19.paris.fr/mairie19/jsp/site/portal.jsp

Facebook « Festival jeunes talents «

(Alexandre Dumas)

DR.

As a child whenever I was told about the hardship the African Diaspora had to go through, I would often picture the old black and white movies my dad used to watch late at night on Sundays. In these movies dating back from the two first decades of the twentieth century blacks were depicted not only as inferior to white folks but also with a silliness and stupidity that used to go beyond nature and normality. White people painted in black colour with red heavy lips were also often used as a caricature of the black identity. In other pieces of work such as those by Edgar Rice Burroughs the inventor of the character Tarzan of the Apes in 1912, black Africans, were usually in those years described as « savage » and relatively “primitive” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarzan). If things, in the US, have changed for the better since then, in France the mockery still seems to be going on.

Back in the nineteen eighties many artists in France were making their fame on the back of the black African community. No one will forget the racist clichés and stereotypes that used to be broadcasted in the different TV programmes destined to the younger generation in the eighties. It is thus indeed that artists such as Michel Leeb or even Dorothee with her songs “La machine avalé (150.000 units sold) », or again « il y a des papou partout dans la rue » became famous depicting and stereotyping black Africans. Michel Leeb who was specialized in caricatures even used to compare black Africans to monkeys without it shocking the mass media or the same politicians who admits today that violence on TV can have a bad influence on the younger generation.

But more striking than that in France, is the recent movie on the life of Alexandre Dumas, a mixed race French writer of the nineteenth century who became famous with piece of works including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne. In the film which is somehow aimed at educating the public on the writer’s life some key information are totally ignored. As if the French society was not composed of enough coloured people -be it blacks from Africa or the French West Indies- to play such role at cinema; it is the white comedian Gerard Depardieu who reincarnates the French writer on the screen.

The idea would have had nothing disturbing had it happened in a context or society where black dignity was restored after years of slavery and colonisation. But in the country of “Liberté égalité et Fraternité” where it is officially admitted through the voice of the French president Nicolas Sarkosy that “the African man did not significantly enter History” (http://www.elysee.fr/elysee/elysee.fr/francais/interventions/2007/juillet/allocution_a_l_universite_de_dakar.79184.html) such inaccuracy appears as another insult to the Black community as a whole. The movie totally ignores the colour of the skin of the writer. It excludes and denies once more the contribution of a whole community to the French patrimony. Every scholar or specialist in French literature knows that during his day time Alexandre Dumas was commonly referred as the “nigger”. Shooting a movie on his life ignoring those facts is just another lie transmitted to the younger generation that often find it difficult to be interested in a national History that has nothing in common with their reality or individual history. And the worst in all that is that this initiative of lie is once again partly carried out with public funds, which also means with the money of the black community living in France.

As a relief I am just telling myself: “Let’s hope, just for once, that the movie will be largely boycotted by the Black Diaspora worldwide!”

DR

Immigrants’ voting rights: the debate is still raging

The debate on national identity and immigration is raised in electoral programs. With such a political tension dividing policymakers and citizens, as well as several political parties, Martine Aubry, the president of the socialist party, suggested that immigrants should have the voting right before the next local elections.

On Tuesday the 12^th of January 2010, the Socialist party whose head is Martine Aubry submitted a bill to the National Assembly to enable immigrants to vote during the next local elections. The European elections are not part of the debate yet. The government refuses to pass this bill and this reaction testifies that some policymakers are still disturbed by this debate which feeds electoral programs.

Indeed the government’s spokesman, Luc Chatel claimed on RFI, « This bill was not designed only for the coming local elections. » even knowing that this voting right was deeply linked to the notion of citizenship.  Eric Woerth, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, corroborates the government’s opposition claiming that the French population is not ready to welcome that proposal.

Paradoxically, a recent poll unexpectedly raised concern among the bill’s opponents, but was cheerfully welcomed by Eric Besson: the  high majority of French citizens (55%) accepts immigrants’ voting right for the local elections as the Secretary of Immigration wished such a result even if on a long-term period. He expressed his opinion on a TV political program, 17 heures politique, reported by an opinion poll made by the French broadcasting regulatory body for the magazine, Le Parisien Aujourd’hui en France, published yesterday.

Why this reform is taking such a long time in France whereas immigrants like their French counterparts contribute to the economic and social life of the country? This seems even more contradictory, knowing that immigrants have already been given certain rights: the right to vote during elections in works council, boards of directors of the Social security fund, social housing, industrial tribunals, associations. Immigrants also have the same basic rights as French citizens. Immigrants are taxpayers and are instrumental in developing local as well as the national wealth.

A few people fear that granting the voting right to immigrants, might give birth to an identity vote, a community vote and that the French nation might turn into a divided nation. Republican values might be threatened as well. There is no reason to think so. However, making a difference among voters on cultural grounds can generate tensions based on multiculturalism misunderstandings.

What about the French value of Equality born during the French Revolution: same rights, same duties…