Like the phoenix from the ashes, THORNY ISSUES rises again! Yes, we’re back, with more surprises, more emotion, more spills and chills than ever before! In this latest instalment, we train our sights on the subject of COUNTRIES (while they still exist and we haven't yet become One Nation Under Google). So put on your travelling shoes for a wondrous wander through foreign and familiar lands. Just remember, when in Rome... 

Hey, where's Spain?

Africa: hope is coming...

Africa is the second most populous continent in the world and, probably, one of the richest places when talking about natural and cultural resources. In fact, it represents 20.4% of the total land in the world and 15% of its human population. However, at the same time, it has a long history of slavery, abuse and exploitation by other countries over many years.

         
 Thirteen centuries of slavery and another century of colonialism have led Africa to a false independence in worldwide economic trade. In the late 19^th century, the European imperialist powers occupied most of the continent and created many colonial territories. Only two countries, Ethiopia and Liberia, kept their sovereignty. Soon, after the Berlin Conference was held in 1884 and these European powers managed to ensure the political division they wanted and set up their own spheres of influence. That division still remains today.

         
 With the conclusion of World War II, these colonial territories gradually obtained formal but not political or economic independence. Apparently, the European powers became weaker but, at the same time, strong individual authorities grew unexpectedly thanks to foreign help. Most of the countries in Africa are republics that operate under a kind of presidential system; and that is one of the many reasons that have prevented democratic, peaceful development. We can see other factors as well; for example, instability, corruption, violence, authoritarianism and ethnic conflicts. Some have been incited by a group of dictators who had been gradually gaining the affection and kindness of the population in their corresponding countries from the beginning. As time went by, that worship turned into fear, and that fondness became hate.

Instability was constant and the military was seen as the only tool to keep and assure peaceful rules. Between 1960 and 1980, there were more than 70 coups and 13 prime minister assassinations. One of the main reasons for these civil struggles was disappointment with the imposed borders of many African nations fixed by Europeans countries during the Berlin Conference. Cold War conflicts between the United States and the Soviet Union also contributed to instability. When a country became independent for the first time, it was often expected to ally itself with one of the two superpowers. Many countries in North Africa received Soviet military aid, while others in Central and Southern Africa were supported by the United States. There was a major famine in Ethiopia and hundreds of thousands of people starved. Some said that Marxist economic laws made that situation worse.

 

In the 21^st century, however, the number of armed conflicts in Africa has decreased. This has to do with the assumption of new worldwide trade rules instead of continuing with the communist systems. And this is the reason why foreign economic investment has suddenly grown, especially from powerful countries like China. Many African nations have experienced a very rapid improvement of their economies over the last three years. 
 

In the meantime, all the African nations, except Morocco, got involved and joined together in the African Union in 2002. The idea was to create a common economic and political space where every country could speak, suggest and contribute to the development of the larger African community. There were legislative, executive and judicial organs and all with a highly organized structure. Although each nation ultimately lost a part of its strength in the continent, the union of these countries resulted in more power and tougher defense against possible abuses from abroad.

          
Although it has abundant natural resources, Africa is still the world's poorest and most underdeveloped continent. Some reasons for this include corrupt governments that have often committed human rights violations, failed planning from the African Union, high levels of illiteracy, poor access to foreign money and frequent tribal and military conflicts. According to the United Nations' Human Development Report in 2003, the bottom 25 listed nations (151^st to 175^th) were all African. Poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition and inadequate water supply and sanitation, as well as poor health, affect a large proportion of people who live on the African continent.

          
It is true that some of the problems and difficulties that African nations currently have come from bad domestic policies, political corruption and, sometimes, ethnic struggles; however, it is also a fact that external factors have had an important influence on the current situation of abandon and reliance on other countries’ investment, for example, from China. Anyone can have access to poverty and famine statistics for Africa, and in fact, poverty is increasing in some areas of the continent. In my opinion, however, tough control and an scandalous lack of solidarity from rich foreign companies and nations are the roots of the whole situation.

          
So, for a better understanding, let’s look at several real cases of outrage and exploitation of the African population and natural resources by different institutions, be they nations or big multinational companies. 

1.- COLTAN MINES IN CONGO. As you all know, coltan, short for columbite-tantalite or, in other words, “the grey gold”, is a mineral with metal that is mainly found in Australia and in the eastern regions of Africa, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), where 80% of the world’s coltan reserves are. Once coltan is refined, it becomes a heat resistant powder that has unique properties for storing electric charges. This is why coltan is so important for the cell phone industry and is a vital component in the capacitors that control the electric boards of cell phones and other electronic devices.

           
First of all, how is coltan mined and obtained? The main “tool” is hands. There is usually a large, deep crater where particles of coltan are constantly falling due to its heavy weight after having been separated from mud, water and other residue of non-useful minerals. Mines are open 24 hours a day and a team of miners obtain hardly a kilo of coltan per day. In addition, most of the workers are very young, covered by mud and dust and with reddened eyes.

         
 The price big companies pay for a kilo of coltan is very high and it rises daily. Companies like Nokia or Sony have sometimes paid more than 400$ for a kilo of coltan. But, this doesn’t correspond to the salaries that miners receive. It is even more painful that most of the workers in several mines all around the Democratic Republic of Congo are children, because they can retrieve the ore from difficult places and, of course, the pay that owners give to them is even lower.

          
Secondly, it is known that the coltan trade is financing civil war. Almost all the parties and military forces from the Democratic Republic of Congo and, in addition, neighboring countries like Burundi or Rwanda have obtained enormous profits from coltan which they invest them in military strategies, despite the fact that, for example, there are no coltan mines in Rwanda. Uganda is also implicated in smuggling coltan out of Congo for resale in Belgium.

         
 The third subject has to do with gorillas. One of the biggest National Parks in Africa is located in Congo and its name is Kahuzi Biega. The number of mountain gorillas has decreased surprisingly in the last decades as the wide fields of trees have been reduced due to the growth of mines. And that is not all; another reason for the reduction of gorillas is that their meat is being used as food not only for miners but also for the rebel armies that control the area.

         
 In the end, however, small changes are taking place. For instance, a few companies that belong to the technological industry and usually buy coltan are actually asking their suppliers to certify that the ore they buy does not come from Congo or neighboring countries but from legitimate sources. At last, however, governments and big companies are seeking for other alternatives to African coltan, and as a result they have found small areas in Greenland where coltan could be mined. The problem simply moves…

2.- BLOODY IVORY TRADE. Behind every object made of ivory that is sold anywhere in the world, there is probably a trail of human and animal suffering and exploitation. The “price” that is often paid for ivory production is well known: photographs in the media show trucks full of elephant tusks or pieces of ivory decorating zoo fences or many state offices.

          
At the same time, there is another important problem that has to do with ivory trade: the human toll. It is not just a matter of elephants but also of human beings. Exploitation, political corruption and taxpayer abuses by public officials are sadly frequent, and so criminal interests in the end are being served. Like diamonds, gold or coltan, ivory is taking its own place as a resource conflict in Africa. 

         
 International criminal syndicates, corrupt governments and some of the world's most notorious terrorists and rebel armies -for example, Al-Shabab from Somalia or the Janjaweed from Sudan- are financing and strengthening the global trade in illegal ivory. Several governments from African and foreign countries are also deeply implicated in facilitating the extraction, trade and export of ivory for personal profits.

         
 Change, of course, should come from not only the African nations but certainly from those countries, especially in Asia, that can control the demands of ivory and offer guarantees in order to create a fair, reliable ivory supply chain. Thailand is both a principal receiver and a major manufacturing state of illegal ivory products. But what is important here is that Thailand is currently fixing its legal system by trying to control the illegal ivory trade and, at the same time that it reduces the consumption of this product. Finally, citizens can also take action by requiring environmental conservation, public and fair trade policies and, for instance, by trying not to buy ivory objects that have been manufactured illegally. Human rights are here in danger and elephants are sadly on the way to extinction. 

3.- BITTER CHOCOLATE. In Ivory Coast, the West African country that produces half the world’s cocoa, children carrying long saws and machetes are a common image. They are soon taken out of school and put to work at big cocoa farms all over the country. Severe wounds are very usual and they work for hours without any possibility of resting. 

          
The most important chocolate manufacturers have promised several times to eradicate forced child labour, but the years go by and these big companies do not keep their word even when the US Congress threaten them with economic sanctions. This project is named The Cocoa Protocol and its first and most important goal is taking children off the chocolate farms in Ivory Coast. As the congressman Eliot Engel says: “The bottom line is to stop child slavery”.

These are only three examples of the exploitation and national and international abuse of African population and their natural resources. We could mention others, like the diamond scandal in Sierra Leone, or the long-standing oil conflict in Sudan and South Sudan.

          
A Harvard University study led by Professor Calestous Juma showed that Africa could feed itself by making the transition from importation, under illegal and dark policies, to self-sufficiency. "African agriculture is at the crossroads," says Dr. Juma. "We have come to the end of a century of policies that favored Africa's export of raw materials and importation of food”. Although there has been a facing up to the reality of discrimination, exploitation and international abuse, Africa is starting to focus on agricultural innovation as its new engine for regional trade and prosperity. 
           
Hope is coming…

Bolandres

Countryless

He came to love the place where he lived before being forced to leave it. He liked the people he met there; most of them, at least. He enjoyed its culture, its landscapes, its cooking. He believed in all of these clichés as if they were really true. But probably he would say the same if he had arrived or been living on the other side of the planet.

Now he is living in an airport lounge although he used to live in a country scarred by racist violence, war, corruption and poverty, misfortune everywhere. Then he arrived in a country that he hardly knew; a country that does not exist for a large number of people in the world; a country that most of Americans, for instance, can not place it on a world map; a country of which many people only know the name of its soccer teams; a country where its people are not very appreciated by their close neighbours who consider them poor, lazy, jealous, boastful, rude and noisy.

People tend to think that a country is made of boundaries, territory, laws, barbed wire, customs, traditions and so on. And they are right. Nevertheless, the true land of a man, of a woman, is made of memories, emotions, thoughts and all manner of blazing, incandescent material that remains softly and silently in our hearts. Mistaken things, obviously, flotsam making up an artificial island, homelands without lands, mother countries without a ground. “In my mind, my homeland does not have a physical territory, do not have even a name, just cloudy boundaries. Nevertheless, I can clearly distinguish an broad cane field close to the river, my grandfather’s vegetable garden, my schoolyard where my friends, my people, get along” he told me.

Hearing that reminded me that a few, especially writers and poets, have said that childhood is the true homeland of a man. And others have said that a homeland is where freedom remains, where one can be free. Even so, there are a lot of definitions for a mother country. Others more down-to-earth, said with Aristophanes that a man’s homeland is where he prospers. “They did not allow me to”, he said. For some, according to a French proverb, the mother country is just the money. “They did not allow me to earn it,” he added. The Swedish said that a homeland is where one is useful. Even more, we can say with Ovid that every land is a homeland for the courageous man, as water is a homeland for the fish. So the whole world could be a homeland to the courageous man, even if she or he is far away from his home. However, poor people are always strangers even in their own native land. “So, where is my homeland, considering I am a poor man, a useless one and my bravery has ran out?” he asked me.

Patria est ubi bene sit cuique: Each person's homeland is where things go well for him 


During this chat and for an instant, my mind was absent in a sort of naive dream. The perfect country, I thought, should contain Japanese gardens everywhere, the most beautiful beaches, happy people dancing, bloodless volcanos, people enjoying their jobs, the aurora borealis, a full moon every night, happy people talking, summer mornings, happy people caring, a government worried about your happiness, a worldwide market, the aroma of coffee in the morning and tea time at five, happy people cherishing each other, weddings that last several days and divorces that go on for weeks, wine, support without corruption, music, people in good mood, paella and fireworks as the only expression of violence. As well as vast boundaries as wide as the biggest meridian and as large as the last parallel. And everybody should be able to cross the door and take their place in it.

I thought I was a citizen from a kind of civil heaven called Europe and that understanding made me feel safe and relieved just for a while. Europe? What Europe? An idyllic place where the police are British, the chefs are French, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian and everything is managed by the Swiss. But I looked at him and felt I was out of there, just like he was. I could not be in such a paradise like a Robinson.

Then I felt myself as a citizen of the world. But, to what segment of this world would I belong? The ones who bleed and threaten to flood the promised lands? The ones who live in opulence surrounded by man-made oceans over the sands and put barriers in order to keep others from stepping on their artificial gardens? Surely not, I concluded. I am not from there. So, I must be a citizen of the Universe. But what Universe? The one which is expanding or the one which is becoming smaller?

Finally, we said goodbye. I took a flight to my home country, a region in the South of a quasi-paradise called Europe where the police are German, the chefs are British, the mechanics are Italian, the lovers are Swiss and the Greeks rule everything. That is the truth.

Bart Ptolomy

The World is a Book...(1)

A stubbornness, that was how this journey started. It was spring 2008: “The Borneo rainforest is one of the few remaining natural habitats for the endangered Bornean orangutan. It is an important refuge for many endemic forest species, including the Asian elephant, the Sumatran rhinoceros, the Bornean clouded leopard, Hose's civet and the dayak fruit bat”.    After reading these descriptions, my head began to spin around, to imagine, to plan. It was like an itch that you were not able to stop, like a kind of fever burning inside you.

I felt the compulsion to go abroad,  far away, forget our cultural attachments. I was excited thinking about the chance to observe the Bornean orangutan and other Indonesian species.

Why Borneo?  I was looking for expeditions beyond, looking to explore and feel, looking to discover and to receive the natural and cultural impact of new lands, new countries, new scenery. To breathe spicy aromas, exotic scents; to regard noble, curious and proud glances; to be illuminated by honest and shy smiles.

 

Indonesia map

But, goddamn!!! The plan began to unravel. We wanted to travel in January 2009 to Indonesian Borneo, but the monsoon season reigns over everything at that time, and this is the wettest season. We had to change our plan, but not too much,  because it is a huge territory and the monsoon only affects some areas. We decided to go ahead, focusing on the Malaysian-Indonesian region but we had to be selective because this is a vast area. According to a 2002 survey by National Institute of Aeronautics and Space , the Indonesian archipelago has 18,307 islands. The island is divided among three countries: Malaysia and Brunei in the north, and Indonesia to the south. Approximately 73% of the island is Indonesian territory.

The search was getting a bit frustrating because there were a lot of  places to go, and time and money were dictations to us. During this desperating hunt, while I was taking part in travel blogs and reading travel guides,  I discovered the Toraja, on Sulawesy Island. Formerly known as Celebes, it is a large, extraordinary mountainous island between Borneo and the Maluku Islands (aka The Moluccas). As I was saying,  I found the Toraja, an ethnic group that lives mainly in the region of Tana Toraja and has a strong ethnic identity. I became captivated by the data that I was collecting about their culture, their identity, and their ancestral houses,  but above all by their funerary rituals.

In this part of Indonesia,  big,  strident funerals form the centre of social life. In this culture, the bodies of dead relatives are cared for years after these relatives have passed away.

In the highlands of Sulawesi Island in Eastern Indonesia, there is a community of people that understand death not as a singular event but as a social ceremony.

In Tana Toraja, the most important social event in people’s life are not weddings or births, but funerals.

The coffin place during the ceremony

These funerals are characterized by elaborate rituals that connect people in a reciprocal debt based on the number of animals - pigs, chickens and specially water buffalos –that are sacrificed and distributed in the name of the deceased.

 

One of the water buffalos presented

These rituals can last from a few days to a few weeks. It is not a private and sad ceremony, however, a publicly shared transition. These grandiose ceremonies clash with our own concept about death and mortality.

The Toraja people do not see physical death as a true death. In fact, a Toraja member is only truly dead when the extended family can get together and can collect the necessary resources to perform a funeral ceremony according to the status of the deceased. And the ceremony takes place in front of the whole community, who participate in it.

The deceased widow heading the procession

Until the funeral, the body is placed in a special room in the family home, whose residents live with the bodies of their dead relatives.

After the ceremony, the deceased are buried and you can see some niches for this outside the town set into cliff,  even inside some trees.

Some niches inside a tree

They usually make some wooden figures –called tau tau- that set on the top of the area on a kind of  balcony, where the dead have been buried.

 

Tau-Tau figures into a cliff

The journey around Malaysia and Indonesia was very impressive and exciting, going from Kuala Lumpur to Malacca, staying at Langkawi Island, spending some days in Java and Sumatra,  islands that tempt the imagination with the attraction of adventure. They are islands of extraordinary beauty, which  bubble under the power of natural eruptions of steaming volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis. They also have idyllic deserted beaches.

Nevertheless,  the main course was waiting for us, Sulawesi was on hold . Although we had made contact with a local travel agency,  the situation was uncertain. We had doubts that our stay there would coincide with some of the funerary rituals because they mainly take place in the summer time.

Tongkonan shapes

It is also necessary to mention the amazing, ancestral houses of the Torajan people, called Tongkonan, which have  distinctive oversized,   boat-shaped roofs.

 

A Toraja man explaining the Tongkonan restoring process to me 

Restored Tongkonans

But the same day that we arrived at Makassar airport –the provincial capital of South Sulawesi- our contact there asked us that if we wanted to attend a funerary ritual in the  Rantepao district. We said: Yes , of course we do!!!

But the location was tricky. The island is extremely mountainous and we spent six hour by car to get there. You can imagine how incredible and frightening landscapes were that we saw on our way.

In our case,  the rituals would last five days. In the first two days, which were the most exciting for us, the family of the deceased receives presents from the other relatives and the extended family.

A procession snapshot

It was just as if you were taking part in a movie filming, such  as Gladiator or some other Romans themed movie. The ceremonies are colourful, vibrant, lively, and strident.

A never-ending parade takes place, in which every family, dressed in their finest, is presented by a speaker, who shouts out their presents, mainly live animals.

The speaker shouting  out the presents

We spent almost seven hours there, and the rituals would be continued. In the following days, they sacrifice and distribute the animals among the Toraja community and there is also a final ritual in which the body of the dead relative is buried in one of their sacred places.

It was the most powerful and amazing event I have attended. They experience death as a social process and not just a biological one. This philosophy not only changes the way they die, but also the way they live:  Life that doesn’t end with death.

Children during the funeral ceremony

(1)“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page”

St Augustine.

Scissor Sister

Benin, a Little Treasure in Africa

            

There is no need for a time machine to transport you to another time. There is a place in Africa where, magically, time seems suspended in the air; this place is Benin. Do you want to know it a bit better? If so, let’s go to the core of atavistic Africa.

Benin is a little-known country located in West Africa, open to the Gulf of Guinea, an ethnic mosaic that retains traditions and indigenous languages despite the effects of colonization. It’s a place rooted in the past and barely exploited by tourist, a place with a harsh history of slavery and a long road ahead of it.

Benin is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Niger and Burkina Faso to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the South. Its flag displays three colours: the green symbolizes the forest and the country’s natural wealth, the yellow refers to its mineral wealth of the continent and the red is reminiscent of the millions of dead from slavery, a terrible story shared by many of the nations which emerged after decolonization; all of these colours are those of Pan-Africanism, the political, social and cultural movement for the independence and brotherhood of the peoples of Africa. Nelson Mandela was one of the spiritual forebears of this movement.

A former French colony, Benin is a small, safe, varied, colourful and friendly country where tourism is still not a widespread activity and where we can find very authentic scenes without much outside influence.

Its hot climate has two rainy seasons: one torrential, between April and July and another more moderate one between September and November. The best time to visit is between November and February, when the weather is cool and dry. There are huge differences of temperature between the tropical area where mangroves abound and the interior one with savannah-type vegetation.

This variety permits authentic nature sanctuaries like the Pendjari National Park in the Northwest, declared a biosphere reserve by UNESCO in 1986 and known for its biodiversity and wildlife: lions, elephants, hippos, antelope etc… The French colonists, aware of its rich fauna, reserved it for hunting for years. The beauty of the park is enhanced by the Atakora range in the distance. The coast is the habitat of many birds, more than three hundred different species, endemic fish, turtles and even humpback whales.

Nine million people inhabit this multi-ethnic country. Groups like the Fulani are spread out throughout central and northern Benin, while to the south we find Guinean people such as the Fon, the Yoruba and the Mina and, in the northwest, the Somba and Taneka. There is an even greater linguistic and dialectal diversity (more than fifty). Although Benin has been independent since 1960, the official language continues to be French as a colonial inheritance.

A more ungrateful past is its history of slavery as millions of slaves left Benin’s shores over the centuries. This lucrative human trafficking was even carried out by the kings of Benin. In Ouidah, a city on the Atlantic coast, The Door of No Return symbolizes the end of a slave’s life in Africa. Most slaves would never return to their homes after being shipped to America. Further along the beach is a smaller statue showing some of those who returned and this monument is called The Door of Return.

The problem has persisted into the 21st century; thousands of children were sold by their relatives to overcome poverty, until finally, in 2006, the government of Benin abolished the exploitation of children.

Benin’s economy is highly dependent on subsistence agriculture and cotton production. Gold, oil and marble exploitations are under foreign ownership. The currency is the West Africa Franc but dollars and Euros are accepted in the cities.

 

Benin is the only country in the world where a non monotheistic religion is officially recognized, in fact, since 1991. This is the Voodoo that in the Yoruba language means "soul". Although colonization introduced Christianity and this religion is practised by elites, while Islam has entered from north, the true essence of Benin’s people is Voodoo: an animistic religion where the dead pass away to other stage, nor hell, nor heaven but among us. One way of paying homage, loving and remembering them is through totems, anthropomorphic figures called fetishes. Authentic Voodoo rituals with dances and animals sacrifices are found everywhere.

                          

Benin is an elongated country that faces the sea on its southern end, with a short coastline open to Atlantic in the western segment of the Gulf of Guinea. The importance of the sea is crucial from a strategic and commercial point of view and this is why the majority of the population lives here.

There are two capitals, the official one, Porto Novo which keeps its colonial name, given by the Portuguese for its resemblance to Oporto and, Cotonou, the main city of Benin which is the seat of political and economic power and with a population of about million and half people that has tripled in the last two decades, the country's most populated city. Cotonou preserves the architectural heritage of its Marxist-Leninist past in many buildings. 

It also boasts the Dantokpa market, one of the largest of Western Africa, covering over 20 hectares. Traders from neighbouring countries come here to sell their goods in the stalls of the main building and labyrinth of adjacent streets. Next to the crowd, noisy motorbikes and vans speed by.

A wide variety of fruits and fabrics for sale give more colour, if indeed that is possible, to this moving painting. Pedestrians wearing colourful prints and carrying full baskets on their heads are the principal actors.

 The market environment becomes a cultural and exhibition center during the Art Festival of Dantokpa. Photographs, paintings and craftwork take over the market streets and surprise the market’s usual buyers.

Bargaining is an obligatory practice in this market that gathers together all kinds of goods, from fabrics, foods, spare car parts and furniture to smuggled goods like alcohol or tobacco.

The market’s far north end is one of the most visited areas; it is dedicated to the sale of fetishes. There are all sorts of amulets and stuffed animals for Voodoo ceremonies.

Fetishes are the most disconcerting of Dantokpa's wares: monkey heads, turtles, frogs, birds, Voodoo dolls...

The Port district is Cotonou's colonial core. An ideal spot to walk through the streets, visit art deco buildings from the twenties and thirties and enjoy its peculiar atmosphere

Ganvié called the African Venice is located at Nokoué Lake. The city lives floating in the wetland. All transport and travel is by water. Every activity is done afloat. In the seventeenth century, escaping from slave trade, the ethnic group Tofinu hid in the swamp and settled in bamboo shacks built in the mud.

Without a doubt, Benin is worth visiting before mass tourism puts an end to its authenticity; a fascinating place which attracts not by material riches but by its profound spiritual wealth and goodness.
                                                                                      

 Aliud