Cos variety is the spice of life, here’s a more-personal-than-usual post in a different format. But hopefully it will elicit a smile… Un jour à la Martinique: ‘A day as Khadijah’.
I don’t watch TV here. I used to. 10 years ago I lived on a daily diet of BET and a German cop show I still remember storylines from relatively vividly. It was called Le Clown in French, and it was awesome. A standard detective/action hero main character but because it was German the things that people called the police for were different from what I was used to. The things that a jury would think were important were different. I found it fascinating to see how another people lived. That it, like lots of violent cop shows came on at like 8am was also a revelation; we have a ‘watershed’ in the UK, which means that if it’s not suitable viewing for kids it shouldn’t be on TV before 9pm.
It’s probably why I like languages in theory. I say in theory cos in practice I become more reluctantly bilingual by the day I swear. When I’m feeling stressed out, suddenly I’m all ‘argh, as if my day wasn’t shitty enough, I have to explain my vex face in french! ARGH!!’ But that happens when you’re a bit homesick.
I used to love French. When I was in secondary school, I used to translate my favourite RnB tunes into French – for fun! In my spare time! And then I’d do my regular French homework! When I did A levels, I would listen to French radio every morning. And not the music stations, like news programmes. I was a proper francophile. Continue reading
Henry who you say? His name may have slipped through the annals of history but Henry Sylvestre/Sylvester* Williams was a man whose work back in the day is still echoing over a hundred years after his death. Hence his life and work merit the number two spot in this series of Five Great, British and Black Moments which is movingblack’s contribution to black history season.
Well, that and it’s in chronological order (number one is here)
The Short Version:
Henry Sylvester Williams
1) Henry Sylvester Williams coined the term ‘Pan-African’.
2) When considering the biographies of Sylvestre Williams, WEB DuBois, Marcus Garvey and Edward Wilmott Blyden, a group of final-year students at l’Université des Antilles et de la Guyane voted him the Father of Pan-Africanism last year, so it’s official.
3) He organised the First Pan-African Conference in London in 1900, sowing seeds which would yield extraordinary fruit half a century later, long after he’d been forgotten. Assembled to organise for an end to colonial exploitation and racism, and for self-determination, their warm, formal reception by the British establishment – including a tea with prominent MPs on the terrace of the Houses of Parliament – is basically unthinkable to those agitating for such things today. The conference was attended by eminent black activists from all over the world, as well as a number of the British political bigwigs of the day – Liberal Party people, Fabian Society folk, the Cobden girls – who believed social justice was for everybody. Continue reading
There are lots of black people ‘of African descent’ in the UK. Perhaps the Kreyol expression ‘nou bel e nou la!’ / ‘we are here and we are beautiful!’ reflects the centuries-long battle to have our presence merely acknowledged.
Despite 500 years of debate and denial of our presence in more and less creative ways, we’re still standing. If this is news to you, please check out the National Archives’ web exhibition. It’s rather appropriately titled ‘Black Presence’ and covers the period 1500-1850.
If it’s not news, then you may also know it would be remiss of me to pretend the UK’s not celebrating black history month this month, and that all sorts of weird and wonderful events and occasions are not happening as a result.
I LOVE black history month – or ‘season’ really considering things start kicking off towards the end of September and slow around mid-November. As October approaches, traditionally my girls and I would keep the social calendar clear, stock up on What’s On brochures and debate what looked ‘actually unmissable’, and what looked like a rehash of something already done. In London we were always spoilt for choice as councils, museums, theatres and arts venues seemingly competed for the most innovative and interesting ways to bring history that is black and yet British to life. Continue reading
I was honoured to be interviewed as part of Bani Amor’s series ‘Race, Place and Adventure’ bringing to light the voices of travelling writers of colour this summer. But you should check this out cos Everywhere All The Time is awesome, fun, and ALWAYS thought-provoking!
THY TRAN is a San Francisco-based writer and chef-instructor who specializes in the history and culture of food. Her research into how diverse communities grow, cook, sell and eat has taken her from Seoul to Singapore, Cusco to Kochi. In addition to contributing features in publications such as the Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Saveur and Fine Cooking, she co-authored Asia in the San Francisco Bay Area: A Cultural Travel Guide, Taste of the World, Essentials of Asian Cooking and The Kitchen Companion. Thy is a founder of the Asian Culinary Forum, a nonprofit organization that hosts multidisciplinary symposia exploring the forces that affect Asian communities and their cuisines around the world.
Bani Amor: Tell us about yourself. How would you describe your work?
Thy Tran: Firstly, I’m a freelance food writer and editor, with an emphasis on providing historical and cultural context…
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Great films don’t only entertain me, they’re an assault on my imagination! They stimulate my intellect, fuel my quest to understand. Film has long been a magical medium offering an unusually intimate look at many a place I may never visit. Like great novels, when done well, cinema plants the desire to see with my own eyes, places I’d often not previously considered visiting.
Film feels powerful because the immersion in another place is shallower than a book, but quicker. 90 minutes earlier, I’d barely heard of El Salvador (the South American immigrant community is comparatively small in London), now I’ve seen Innocent Voices; I know a lot more about one kid’s story, his life amidst a civil war, and the horrors of child soldiery. I’d love to learn more. Continue reading
I’ve been travelling a lot this summer. I’ve been magnificently blessed. I’ve also travelled with my eyes open, and something unusual has caught my attention: Quite separately from my natural antenna keenly tuned to signs of social upheaval, it seems that every place I’ve visited has been in the throes of a political drama.
Seriously!
I’m not expert in international political analysis, but I swear every stop involved someone explaining that something wasn’t working normally as a result of protests.
Before you write me off as some leftwing fantasist seeing the revolution everywhere I go, here’s what I mean:
1) Martinique: Petrol Strike.
Firstly there was the question of whether I could leave for my adventures in the first place. A week before my anticipated departure, there were talks of yet another petrol strike. Two days later it was confirmed and began.
As usual in Martinique, the petrol stations were blockaded and the island came to a swift, choked standstill. In a petrol strike, business meetings are postponed, schools lack teachers and pupils or close, services – including health and police – effectively shut down because key personnel can’t get to work. The state doesn’t appear to have reserves in these eventualities/make provisions for ‘key’ staff. Riots don’t break out because the would-be opportunists/discontented are also conserving whatever petrol they have left. Thus it was that all movement in the country halted days – hours really – before I hoped to begin the adventure of a lifetime. ‘Off island,’
C’est pas possible! I fumed.
No one knows how long it will last. Although the petrol strikes in the last year have always lasted five days or fewer, everyone remembers how it was a ‘mere’ petrol strike that started the historic 40 day national strike/protest of 2009. The discontent which fuelled that moment remains widespread – particularly the social complaints – so I’ve often heard Martinicans say they expect another such outbreak, with some rather apocalyptic predictions of a violence which will be markedly different from the last period of protest.
On the Friday before I was due to leave, the worst happened. My ride to the airport phoned me to say she’d run out of petrol; if Coralie couldn’t get some the following day, I’d need to try and find somebody who still had petrol, and who loved me enough to use the little remaining petrol they had on me. She might be able to take me the 10 mins to the port with what little petrol they had left, but not the 30 min drive to the airport. Boats and planes had the fuel to get me off Martinique to St Lucia, where a flight would take me to London and my summer adventure would begin. But could I get to the port or airport to board? Continue reading
Madinina, as Martinique is known to locals, is a beautiful place. It’s very easy, on any random day, to take a picture lifted out of a stereotypically stunning postcard version of Caribbean topography on an average mobile phone.
The Flower Isle
I’ve not done any empirical research on this, but it seems sometimes as if every Caribbean island’s name has a subtitle; Dominica is the Nature Island, St Lucia is Simply Beautiful, Grenada is the Spice Island, Madinina is the Flower Island.
Can you imagine how many flowers you have to be able to see, how frequently, how many varieties and how lovely they have to be for an island to end up nicknamed ‘the flower island’? Combine the overflow of beautiful flowers in all manner of species and colours, with a terrain of peaks, valleys and more peaks, rivers and waterfalls, a fabulous coastline, rainforest and incredible landscapes. And that’s just the land mass.
Les Gens
As much as I love walking across the beach after work, or watching the sun dip behind the horizon line spectacularly at dusk, what I really love are the people. Unfortunately, they have a distorted vision of themselves. I never knew any one people to be so convinced of their own worthlessness. And I’m black. Nothing gets Matinitje (pronounced Mat-in-it-che) more frenzied than talking about the wotlessness of other Martiniquais (pronounced Mar-ti-nee-kay)*. Seriously. But I always find the display somewhere between alarming, amusing and disturbing because it has not been my experience at all.
The greatest gift that Africa, with its traditional culture of ubuntu, the Biko quote goes, would give to the world, is a more human face. Without getting overly sentimental, that’s kinda how I feel about moun matinitje aka Martinican people. For me, this is an unconditionally giving people. They give of themselves very naturally and very generously. Continue reading
Personally, I think travel is supposed to be fun. I therefore also don’t think you have to have a ‘sensible’ reason to go anywhere. Surely what you choose do in your free time should simply be, as you choose it to be? For example, I’ve always wanted to go to Sri Lanka cos there’s a city called Kandy. I found it spinning a globe for fun as a kid and it caught my attention and imagination. Spelled with a K admittedly, but a city that sounds like a sweet shop sounds like my kinda place! I haven’t gotten there yet but it’s totes on my list. I pick places to visit for the randomest of reasons as my DC to DC road trip notes will confirm for you. As will my unrestrainable excitement ahead of visiting Haiti. So with no further ado, here’s a list of reasons why I think Ghana in West Africa would make for a fabulous holiday destination! Continue reading
I often reference books I like, or which made me think, or which taught me something I think might prove useful to know sooner or later. Memoirs of a Born Free, about a young woman activist growing up in post-apartheid South Africa, is one of those books.
This review, on the Steve Biko Foundation’s Frank Talk blog, discusses the book and it’s Eastern Cape launch event in Ginsberg, and sums up why I think it’s a must-read for you.
movingblack 