Gettin' Crazy With Curricula.

As I sat down to craft my unit plan for this final project, I wanted to focus on an issue in African history/society/literature that we didn't get into much in this class. One perspective that we didn't get from the books we read was that of the white African experience. With that in mind, the novel I chose to use in my unit plan is The Syringa Tree, written by Pamela Gien, a white South African native now living in the United States. It tells the story of a young girl named Lizzie whose affluent family clandestinely works against apartheid, at great risk to themselves.

It's easy to demonize all white people in Africa as carpetbagging imperialists or missionizing fanatics. And during the colonial period, this was too often exactly the case. However, there are many people of European descent who are native Africans, and I wanted my unit plan to show instances of different ethnicities working together for issues of social and political justice. To that end, in addition to The Syringa Tree, I also used journalist Donald Woods' nonfiction book Biko, about his friend, murdered anti-apartheid activist Stephen Biko. After Biko was killed in police custody, Woods was forced to go into exile after his anti-aparthied stance and support of Biko's cause made it too dangerous to stay in South Africa.

Every good unit plan or lesson encourages students to think for themselves. I hope that by challenging preconceived notions of race and racial conflict in Africa, my unit would, if used in a classroom, do just that.

Jubilee

Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.

And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.

A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed.

For it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you: ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field.

In the year of this jubilee ye shall return every man unto his possession. (Leviticus 25:9-13)

Every fiftieth year in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the ancient Israelites observed a celebratory year in which indentured servants were freed, the land was allowed to lie fallow, and all debts were forgiven. During the years leading up to the 21st century, a loose coalition of groups from over forty countries formed to work toward the cancellation of third world debt. Called Jubilee 2000, this organization was supported by many famous people whom you have heard of and possibly respect, such as Bono, Quincy Jones, and Muhammad Ali.

After the year 2000, Jubilee 2000 split into various regional and national organizations devoted to third world debt relief; Jubilee USA is the branch in the United States. According to their website, the group is composed of "more than 80 religious denominations and faith communities, human rights, environmental, labor, and community groups working for the definitive cancellation of crushing debts to fight poverty and injustice in Asia, Africa, and Latin America." Sounds alright to me! There are comparable NGOs all over the world, including the Drop The Debt campaign in America's overseas doppelganger, the United Kingdom, and Jubilee South, composed of coalitions from many African, Asian, and Latin American nations.

Side Note: A friend of mine was married to a woman from Australia who once said, after seeing U2 perform, that Australians have a wonderful slang term for people like Bono: "tossbag." I don't know exactly what it means, but I have several unpleasant guesses. Anyway, say what you want about Bono, The Edge, and whoever those other two guys in U2 are, and I'll often agree with you. But he's passionate about social and economic justice around the world, and that's important and honorable. However, in this photograph he looks as if he's auditioning for a supporting role in a low budget vampire movie.

Kids at War -or- How Can We Make Sense of the World When It Doesn't Have Any?

As noted in my previous post, children participating in military action is neither a new or specifically African occurrence. Children are not usually present as official enlisted (or conscripted) soldiers. Rather, they are found more often as members of militias and guerrilla groups.

In the example of German youths defending Berlin against Russian troops in Spring, 1945, fervent members of the Hitler Youth were readily available to take the place of the Wehrmacht's disintegrating forces. The Hitler Youth functioned as a highly militarized version of the Boy Scouts, meant to instill complete allegiance to the Third Reich and prepare youth of both sexes for a life of dedication to Germany. While the United States did not draft or enlist anyone under 18, many younger men lied about their age and joined the cause, anyway. Kurt Vonnegut's classic novel Slaughterhouse Five is subtitled "The Children's Crusade" because of the young age of the men who were called upon to fight and die for their country.

During World War I, as well, many German students and recent high school graduates enlisted in the army to defend the Fatherland. As much as we like to demonize Germany, it was not just they who used child soldiers during the "Great War." All participants needed as many willing men (and women) as they could get; World War I required soldiers like no conflict had in history to that point. Interestingly, Crownprince Leopold of Belgium, nephew of our friend King Leopold, served in the Belgian Army during the First World War. He enlisted at age thirteen.

The malleablity and suggestibility of young people is perfect for those who would direct their enthusiasm and yearning for responsibility toward immoral ends. Child soldiers are denied what we in the United States so often take for granted: a childhood.

Johnny B. Bad -or- Allen Webb, Why Do You Assign Books That Make My Soul Hurt?

Well, in the first ten pages of Johnny Mad Dog we are introduced to a character who can only achieve orgasm after watching the twitching naked buttocks of women whose eyes he has just rubbed with ground red pepper. And the charming rogue General Giap isn't alone. This book is full of children living adult lives, committing adult atrocities, and being saddled with adult responsibility. In class, I compared the child soldiers in the film Blood Diamond to Lampwick and the others who turn into donkeys in Pinocchio. The characters in Johnny Mad Dog are no different. I may not have offered such a glib analogy if I had already read Johnny Mad Dog; Lampwick never raped a television news anchor.

How can this happen? How do humans to this to others? It is not merely an African phenomenon, of course. During the Battle of Berlin in 1945, children represented a large proportion of the German defense against the Russians. Often, they fought remarkably fiercely; having known no other way of life, their allegiance to the Fuhrer and the Reich was absolute. In our own country, a fifteen year old boy named John Cook won the Medal of Honor for his actions at the Battle of Antietam during the Civil War. War touches everyone in society; its scope can never be restricted to an "appropriate" population.

Deserts Aren't Much Fun, Just Ask Tom Joad.

The United Nations declared 2006 the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. So this is no small issue (be aware, 2008 is the United Nations International Year of the Potato, and 2009 will be the International Year of Natural Fibres; in addition, the years 2005-2015 are the officially recognized United Nations Water for Life Decade).

Desertification, while annoyingly unwieldy to say aloud, is a major environmental issue. It is the process by which topsoil uses moisture, thereby turning fertile land into arid, barren desert. The kind of place that T.E. Lawrence liked to hang out, but that doesn't have a lot of use in terms of providing food and water to humans and animals. As this map shows, large parts of North Africa are considered true desert. However, large portions of the continent are either at moderate or great risk of being turned into dry and dusty wasteland:
Desertification is caused by a variety of factors, among them drought and unhealthy grazing and farming practices. In the United States, the most famous instance of desertification occured during the 1930s, as the Great Plains became known as the Dust Bowl. Millions of people were forced to leave their farms and homesteads because the land was no longer arable. John Steinbeck wrote books about it, and Woody Guthrie sang songs about it. This same process is ocurring all over Africa and the world, with similarly tragic results.

The effect that desertification has and can have on communities and nations across the planet is potentially disastrous. But don't trust everything you read on this blog, see what Kofi Annan has to say about it. He positions the problem of desertification beyond that of an ecological disaster, and relates it to broader social problems. Specifically, Annan states that "desertification is both a cause and a consequence of poverty."


Through ecologically-conscious farming and grazing techniques, as well as soil conservation efforts, desertification can be halted and even reversed. The United Nations has recognized desertification as a global issue, and 191 countries have signed the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). However, the problem is not solved as easily as signing a treaty. It takes time, effort, and money to stop desertification, as well as personal involvement and a sense of social and environmental responsibility.

The Moufflon Sleeps Tonight..

Throughout the novel The Bleeding of the Stone, I wondered what exactly a moufflon, looks like. Well, I found out. I'm not a hunter, so venturing out into the harsh, inhospitable wilderness in order to shoot one doesn't appeal to me. Particularly in the Libyan Desert, where the novel takes place, one of the most arid places on earth.

The stark simplicity of the novel appeals to me, especially when contrasted with the complexity of the conflicts involved. Asouf not only must resolve the conflicts that he experiences with the simple-minded hunters, but the conflicts between him and nature, and within himself. Of the classic narrative conflicts, that's man vs. man, man vs. nature, and man vs. self in one short novel (with elements of man vs. society thrown in for good measure)!

Xala Back Girl

I may be speaking only for myself, but I found it refreshing to read something that didn't make me want to go home and listen to Morrissey until I fell asleep with tears glistening on my cheeks. Not that Xala fails to engage in serious ideas or confront important issues in African history and culture. It certainly doesn't. But the novel breathes with a vibrancy and knowledge of humanity that, without artifice, that distinguishes it from some of the other things we have been reading.

Of course, the end of the novel justifiably deserves comment. The questions it raises, about liberty, about revolution, about class and justice, are ones that we still grapple with all over the world today. Xala gives us no easy answers; it refuses even to give us recognizable heroes and villains.

This adorable dog's name is Xala. It has nothing to do with the novel Xala.