From President of Malawi, Joyce Banda to the Occupy Nugeria group and even PSquare.
Alexis Okeowo lists some of Africa’s most fascinating people doing innovative, admirable, and sometimes destructive work:
1. Her name has been on the minds of most Africa observers this past year, and with good reason. Joyce Banda,
the President of Malawi, took office in April, after an epic power
struggle in which the late former President’s allies tried to block her
from rightfully assuming the position, and she has since made a
promising impression.
She
took a substantial pay cut, put the Presidential jet and cars up for
sale, vowed to arrest the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, an accused
war criminal, if he entered Malawi (a promise that several other African
presidents have shied away from), and has spoken out against proposed
anti-gay legislation.
She
also has been a prominent advocate for women and children, famously
leaving her first husband because he was abusive. The hype on Banda may
be outsized—critics point out that her taking a pay cut and selling the
jet and cars was necessary in a floundering economy—but I am eager to
see more from her.
2. It is rare enough to find vocal gay-rights advocates in West Africa, but the Cameroonian lawyer Alice Nkom takes
it one step further: she has devoted her practice, the Association to
Defend Homosexuals, to protecting L.G.B.T. citizens in a country where
homosexual acts are illegal. As a result, she has been repeatedly
threatened with disbarment and arrest. (One Cameroonian lawyer went on
local television with a Bible, advising that Nkom be put to death for
promoting homosexuality.)
Sixty-seven
years old and grandmotherly looking, the lawyer called attention to an
“anti-gay crackdown” last year in Cameroon, in which at least ten people
had been arrested on charges of homosexuality, including one man who
was sentenced to three years in prison for sending a text message to
another man, and numerous incidents of homophobic violence. She refuses
to close her practice. “Someone has to do this,” she says.
3. The director of one of this year’s most stunning films, “Nairobi Half Life SaveFrom.net,” is the Kenyan David (Tosh) Gitonga,
from the small town of Nanyuki. Praised by the Hollywood Reporter and
Kenya’s second-ever official entry for the foreign-language Oscar,
Gitonga’s first film is a lush, suspenseful coming-of-age tale and an
ode to the multilayered stimulant that is Nairobi. The film won the
Breakthrough Audience Award at the AFI Fest 2012.
Notably,
Gitonga, who has worked on several productions as an assistant
director, is part of a generation of young African filmmakers, which
includes Djo Tunda Wa Munga, the Congolese director of “Viva Riva!,” and
the Rwandan Kivu Ruhorahoza, who made “Grey Matter,” that appears
poised to reinvigorate moviemaking on the continent.
4. As a woman, Tanzanian lawmaker Al-Shaymaa Kwegyiris already
a minority in her country’s Parliament. But as an albino, she is one of
merely two parliamentarians with first-hand knowledge of the
increasingly perilous existence of the country’s albino residents.
In
June, she broke down crying in Parliament as she recounted the grim
facts: almost eighty albinos have died in ritual killings in recent
years, and many others have been raped. Little has been done to find the
perpetrators of these crimes, and many albino Tanzanians live in
constant fear. Albinos are often killed and dismembered there because of
superstitious beliefs that charms made from their body parts—some of
which sell for thousands of dollars—bring prosperity. Though a few
charities in Tanzania aid albinos, Kwegyr’s efforts, if heard, would be
the most effective.
5. Proscovia Oromait is
a nineteen-year-old college student and one of the newest members of
Uganda’s Parliament. The youngest lawmaker in the country’s history, she
is filling the office of her late father and says that she simply wants
to continue her father’s initiatives—when she’s not in class.
6.
Writing on a range of topics, from a painting of the South African
President Jacob Zuma’s genitals to widespread poverty, the newspaper
columnist and political analyst Justice Malala has
cemented his status as one of South Africa’s most important voices today
with sensitive, insightful commentary. On Zuma, he wrote: "The freedoms
that we enjoy today, the dignity that we enjoy today, are enjoined in
that [South African] constitution. For us to enjoy all these and to
continue to enjoy them, we have to acknowledge that this same
constitution will allow things that pain us, things that kick us in the
very heart of our being, to continue. The depiction of Zuma in such a
manner did so to many of our compatriots. Yet that is the bargain we
struck."
7. Nigerian pop music is taking over the continent. The captivating duo P-Squarehas
been churning out hit after addictive hit. The group is made up of
identical twin brothers Peter and Paul Okoye. Behold their latest
single: "The freedoms that we enjoy today, the dignity that we enjoy
today, are enjoined in that [South African] constitution. For us to
enjoy all these and to continue to enjoy them, we have to acknowledge
that this same constitution will allow things that pain us, things that
kick us in the very heart of our being, to continue. The depiction of
Zuma in such a manner did so to many of our compatriots. Yet that is the
bargain we struck."
8. In some ways, the Rwandan President Paul Kagameis the
man of the moment. Accused of helping to orchestrate a rebellion in the
eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo for political and
material gain, Kagame has, despite considerable evidence, continued to
deny involvement in some of the worst violence that has taken place in
the country in years. He has remained defiant even as allies like the
United States and the United Kingdom pulled their aid to Rwanda, which
makes up forty per cent of the country’s budget, as a result of that
involvement. The international community, still grappling with its
complicity in the Rwandan genocide, is now being forced to plead with
him to pull back from a conflict that he won’t admit he has a hand in.
Bonus! Many people came together to provide the face of Occupy Nigeria,
a protest movement that fundamentally shook Nigeria early this year.
After the government removed the seven-billion-dollar fuel subsidy that
made fuel cheaper for Nigerians, leading to a near halt of local trade
and business as the price of fuel doubled overnight, young and
working-class people organized mass protests that took over the streets.
Nigerians were told that government deregulation of the petroleum
industry would free up funds for other uses, an incongruous message in a
nation where only the élite profits from the oil wealth. The subsidy
was partly restored, thanks to protestors. The question now is whether
the Occupy movement will sustain itself and hold the government
accountable as reports of oil corruption emerge.
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