text:
Can Moldova ever win its gruelling fight against corruption? · Global Voices
Vladimir Thorik

A man walks past graffiti depicting a Moldovan five Lei coin in the capital of Chișinău, 2019. Photo (c): Maxim Edwards. Used with permission.
This article is made possible through a partnership with Transitions, a Prague-based publishing and media training organisation
“I am the victim of fraud by high-ranking corrupt officials who have gone unpunished,” complains Stanislav Ivanița, a farmer from the village of Corbu in the Dondușeni District, in the far north of Moldova. This 60-year-old veteran of the conflict in nearby breakaway Transnistria now faces a battle with the Moldovan authorities: Stanislav is fighting against repayment of a loan whose sum has risen by a third following corruption scandals linked to the theft of a billion dollars from one of Europe's poorest countries. The bank isn't giving up, but neither is he.
Much has changed in Moldovan politics recently. Politicians from this eastern European state have come and gone, defeating and replacing each other over the past 30 years of independence, but one thing remains static: their relentless ability to draw Moldova into international corruption scandals. Can that ever change?
The scandal Ivanița mentions is the “Theft of the Century,” which the most notorious example of high-level corruption in Moldova. From 2012 to 2014, a sum equivalent to one billion US dollars was siphoned off three local banks, and sent abroad under the guise of loans underwritten by government guarantees. Through an intricate chain of shell companies this money, which was actually withdrawn from the state budget, since spread across dozens of jurisdictions. Moldova's taxpayers are left footing the bill.
After the banking scandal, the international press and even the EU increasingly referred to Moldova as a “captured state.” From 2015, the country was dominated by a clan of officials led by Vladimir Plahotniuc, a former parliamentary deputy and chairman of the ruling Democratic Party of Moldova (DPM). Plahotniuc was widely considered the informal ruler of the republic, despite not holding any public office for several years.
But in the summer of 2019, the PDM government lost power, ousted by an unlikely coalition of local socialists led by pro-Russian president Igor Dodon and the pro-European ACUM bloc. The government resigned, and the oligarch gave up his post as PDM party leader. Plahotniuc left the country in secret, announcing his resignation from politics. His flight was made possible thanks to joint political pressure from the European Union, USA, and Russia.
With Plahotniuc gone, Moldova's new rulers declared “deoligarchisation” their priority. On June 8, the new coalition adopted a parliamentary declaration on “recognising the Republic of Moldova as a captured state” and describing PDM rule as “totalitarian.” It went on to call corruption the “shared national misfortune” and “main threat to the freedom, security, and well-being of the Republic of Moldova and its citizens,” as a result of which “Moldova has become one of the poorest and most vulnerable countries in Europe with an alarming level of depopulation.”
So in October 2019, Moldova's National Anti-Corruption Centre and special prosecutor declared that Plahotniuc was wanted for money laundering on an exceptionally large scale. Plahotniuc's property and assets in Moldova — worth 55 million lei (or US $3.1 million)— have been temporarily frozen, but his exact location remains unknown. Initially, media reported that the oligarch was hiding in the USA, but it has since become known that the Americans consider him an unwanted guest.
In fact, in the first half of January 2020 Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State, gave an official statement concerning “Vladimir Plahotniuc's… corrupt acts that undermined the rule of law and seriously compromised the independence of democratic institutions in Moldova.” On January 13, the US State Department, sharing Pompeo's speech, deprived Plahotniuc and his family of the right to obtain US visas.
These steps would have been unimaginable just a year ago. But public faith in the fight against corruption still remains low — last year, a third of Moldovans named it their most pressing concern. Transparency International's recently released 2019 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) ranks Moldova 120th of 180 countries, between Sierra Leone and Nigeria.
Stanislav Ivanița's story is an illustrative example of how this rampant corruption can wreck the livelihoods and lives of ordinary Moldovan citizens. The farmer went bankrupt after the cost of his bank loan rose by a third.
Stanislav led the author through a young apple orchard which he was forced to sell in order to repay part of his bank loan. The farmer had taken out a loan of €35,000 to purchase the orchard and agricultural equipment just a few years before the banking scandal erupted.
Moldovan farmer Stanislav Ivanița stands in what was once his orchard. Photo (c): Vladimir Thorik. Used with permission.
Chaos followed. The interest on Stanislav's loan increased, and to make matters worse, the Moldovan Leu depreciated. This led the cost of the farmer's loan to increase by 33%. To pay off the bank, Ivanița's family had to sell all eight hectares of their land, a tractor, and a farm building used to house livestock. But it wasn't enough.
“To pay off the outstanding debt, the bank wants to take away the last thing I have: the house in which I live. In any case, I will leave. I don't see a future in a country where people like me go bust due to fraud by the mafia and corrupt officials,” Stanislav exclaims.
Devaluation, rising costs of loans, and a decline of international confidence in the Moldovan authorities — these are the clearest long-term consequences of the kind of corruption which seized Moldova.
“Due to the depreciation of the leu, at the start of 2015, 25% of Moldovan citizens became a poorer by a quarter; the total loss to the population is estimated at around half a billion dollars,” said Veaceslav Ioniță, a Moldovan analyst and former chairman of the parliamentary commission on economics, finance, and budgetary issues.
Moldovan economists say that after the theft of the billion, European donors cut financial support for Moldova to the bare minimum. According to Ioniță, if in 2014 the country received grants worth three percent of its GDP (about $270 million a year), by 2019 this amount had decreased to a few million (up to 0.2% of GDP).
Plahotniuc's departure from politics was welcomed by Moldova's anti-corruption experts. But they stress that toppling one oligarch isn't enough. Any comprehensive anti-corruption drive, analysts argue, would strike at the foundation of Moldovan politics. That means that Moldova needs leaders with the political will for a gruelling challenge — meaning a “reboot” of the system through early parliamentary elections.
Mark Tkachuk is a prominent political consultant and former advisor to Moldovan president Vladimir Voronin. Tkachuk, who leads the recently launched Civic Congress party, believes that even after Plahotniuc's departure, “institutional memory lives on in the electoral system, especially in the form of direct presidential elections which he invented for [political figures] without significant authority.”
“But the main legacy of [Plahotniuc] is the current political majority, which consists of two pro-Plahotniuc parties. Parliament itself is elected by an anti-democratic mixed system,” explained Tkachuk. “Once this last holdout of the old regime collapses, when the first real democratic elections are held, then it will be possible to say that Moldova is no longer captured!”
Similarly Alexandru Slusari, a politician from the ACUM bloc who headed the parliamentary commission to investigate the theft of the billion, believes that “Plahotniuc symbolises the corrupt regime of the past four years,” but stresses that “not all the sins of corruption are to be blamed on him.”
“Many people from Plahotniuc's entourage feel good under Dodon's new power. Like fleas, they quickly jumped from one dog to another and continue to be engaged in corruption schemes. It's important not only to remove one person with a big history of corruption, but to destroy the system itself,” explained Slusari. The politician believes that while Plahotniuc should be brought to Moldova for a fair and open trial, “he has something [incriminating] to say about so many people, including the current president.”
In October 2019, Slusari announced the names of the beneficiaries of the theft of the billion in Moldova's parliament. The names featured in a report, long kept out of the public eye, by the investigations firm Kroll Inc., which had been hired by the Moldovan authorities to look into the money's disappearance overseas. Among these names was Vladimir Plahotniuc, whom Slusari called the main beneficiary, the politician Ilan Șor (who controlled a group of three banks from which the money was removed), several deputies from Șor's political party, former Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPM) Vlad Filat. Filat, who had been sentenced to six years’ imprisonment in 2016, was released from jail last December.
“We see how [Plahotniuc's] regime is attempting to reproduce itself under new conditions and a new ‘boss'”, declared Viorel Cibotaru, who led the LDPM for several years after Filat. “On the contrary [the current PSRM and PDM dominated parliament] is more likely to try and perfect and adapt the old regime.”
Cibotaru, who now directs Moldova's European Institute for Political Studies, believes that the key to liberating the country from corruption lies in political reform (immediate parliamentary elections held under a proportional system, in which openly corrupt and discredited politicians will be barred from running), and a return to presidents being elected by parliament rather than the citizenry. He also argues that what is needed is not the “tightening” of legislation but its “simplification,” meaning that the financial risks associated with illicit enrichment should far exceed the possible profits.
Stanislav Pavlovschi, a Moldovan judge formerly at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is convinced that politicians’ claims to fight against corruption should only be seen as credible if they can “demonstrate to society on a daily basis that they [personally] reject corrupt schemes.”
“Committing acts of corruption must become non-profitable,” says the ex-judge from the ECHR. But to drive forward those reforms, say Pavlovschi and other experts, independent, effective, and incorruptible leaders of the judiciary and law enforcement bodies are urgently needed.
That has been a major sticking point in recent months. It was the failure of Moldovan politicians to agree on a new prosecutor general which led to the early dissolution of the government of pro-western reformist Maia Sandu last November. Deputies from the PSRM, Sandu's former allies, voted with the PDM against her government. The 47-year old economist Ion Chicu, a former minister of finance from Plahotniuc's times, was elected Moldova's prime minister that same month. Until then, Chicu had served as an advisor to President Dodon, who praised him as a “technocrat” upon his appointment.
Did the collapse of Sandu's government spell the end of “deoligarchisation”?
Not necessarily. After Chicu's government came to power, Alexandru Stoianoglo became Moldova's new prosecutor general. Despite Stoianoglo's former affiliation with the PDM, several experts told GlobalVoices that they believe he demonstrates a genuine desire to change how his institution investigates corruption cases.
According to figures given by Stoianoglo at a press conference this month, over the past four years Moldova's specialised anti-corruption prosecutor has brought over a thousand corruption cases to court. Around 45% of these were considered in one or two court sessions. Around a third of the cases investigated by the anti-corruption prosecutor were instances of petty corruption, concerning sums no higher than 5,000 Leu (€250). The head of Moldova's courts stressed in an interview that while the anti-corruption prosecutors investigated petty cases, investigations on larger scale corruption schemes had not progressed. The “Theft of the Century,” according to Stoianoglo, was investigated by just six prosecutors, while some comparatively inconsequential cases featured up to 45 specialists.
Meanwhile, Moldova's law enforcement bodies say that they are still working hard to establish the whereabouts of Plahotniuc and pushing for his inclusion on an Interpol wanted list.
“As of today there has been no official answer from Interpol's central bureau in Lyon concerning an international search warrant for Vladimir Plahotniuc,” said Angela Starinschi, press officer of Moldova's National Anti-Corruption Centre, in comments to GlobalVoices on 28 January. “The fight against corruption is an ongoing process, taking into account the fact that there is a high tolerance towards corruption in society. This also accounts for the inability of state institutions to deal with the huge number of corruption cases. That's why [we've] stepped up activities to prevent corruption through public education,” said Starinschi.
“There are hundreds of bureaucrats and law enforcement officials who have completely lost their ties to the state, to the law, and to their fellow citizens,” began Vadim Pistrinciuc, the former deputy chairman of the LDPM and executive director of the Institute for Strategic Initiatives, a Chișinău-based think tank. “We have them to thank for the ‘seizure’ of this country. And they're still here.”
Pistrinciuc is convinced that Chicu's government is made up of “henchmen of the Democratic Party who are working in secret with Plahotniuc and the PSRM… The worst thing is that they are rehabilitating many of the schemes of the past.”
“Dodon is Plahotniuc's student, who has decided to follow in his teacher's footsteps,” concludes Slusari. “But I don't believe that he has Plahotniuc's guts. The opposition simply won't allow a repeat of the state capture scenario.”
The threat that history will repeat itself, that their country will remain trapped in a vicious spiral of apathy and impunity, has left Moldovans like Ivanița reluctant to contemplate what will come next. “It's impossible to predict anything while the people are being robbed under government guarantees,” concludes the farmer.
“My property, like Moldova, has been taken away a piece at a time. I have no faith in the future.”
Moldova’s political turmoil

author: Vladimir Thorik


text:
The world of satire in Myanmar’s comical profiles Facebook group · Global Voices
Juan Cebu

Screenshot of the Kung Pao Kyi Kyaw Facebook group.
A Facebook group in the language of Myanmar, created on 21 January 2020, gained over 240,000 members in less than a week — but many of those members have profiles that were created mere hours before joining the group. This follows a trend, whereby users create profiles pretending to be historical or fictional characters in order to talk about satirical or comical things in modern society.
The group's name, ကုန်းဘောင်ကြီးကြော် (Kung Pao Kyi Kyaw), refers to a popular Chinese stir-fry dish called Kung Pao — but it is also a pun on Myanmar's historical Konbaung Dynasty, which is spelled using the same letters in the Myanmar alphabet as the ones used to spell Kung Pao. The Facebook group is public, so anyone can join; its purpose is merely to make people laugh through satire. However, users must adhere to rules: they are banned from posting pornography and from using racist hate speech.
Many new profiles have been created pretending to be a variety of things including technology (a phone, Facebook), commodities (beer), concepts (afterlife), or current trends (Wuhan virus). Contexts are often automatically understood by a shared culture because they make reference to situations that are relatable in real life. If they are a historical character, for instance, they might make references to past events or fictional worlds. On the other hand, some profiles — like Myanmar or Phone — are posting as if their identities are alive and conversing with actual Facebook users. Many of the creative posts attract thousands of reactions from users.
Here are some of the popular examples from the group:
A profile named Dasagiri, a love-sick warrior king with multiple heads (Ravana) from the Myanmar adaptation of the Sanskrit epic Ramayana, wrote as if he was talking to his love interest, the princess Seetham: “If each of my head has different hairstyles, then will Seetha love me back? My royal family, advice!…”
In the top post, the profile “Myanmar” wrote: “Leave, all of you, get out!…” The bottom post: “How's life, living at my place?”.
The profile “Phone” writes, “Why are you touching me early in the morning, even before you wash your face??”
Another profile with the name “Newton”: “I thought the strongest attraction is the Earth but actually it's my girl's smile.”
As the trend gained momentum, with new profiles being created every hour, it seemed as if there was a spike of non-real identity accounts on Facebook. This might raise some eyebrows for Facebook, whose community standards demand that users create authentic profiles with their true identity.
Recent research shows that a majority of social media users in Myanmar use Facebook for a variety of different functions such as microblogging, searching for information, or forming an online community; rather than just purely for social networking and communications. Therefore, the research said that users do not need to use real identity for these functions. Contrary to the standards of the platform, users in Myanmar can have multiple accounts to serve different purposes, but this does not mean that their intention is necessarily malicious.
Amidst the disinformation and hate speech that is often spread by numerous, unidentifiable Facebook accounts, this trend poses a puzzling question. Facebook has previously taken down several accounts linked to the Myanmar military, and banned those related to the ultra-nationalist icon Wirathu — but will it allow the seemingly harmless, comical, and imaginary profiles on the Kung Pao Kyi Kyaw group to thrive to freely express on its platform, or will it also order their removal?

source: news-globalvoices

license: Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

author: Juan Cebu


text:
Newly elected Mozambican MP who lacks upper limbs plans to focus on education · Global Voices
Alexandre Nhampossa

Deputy Mércia. Photo by José Matlhombe, used with permission.
Among the 250 parliamentarians who took office on 13 January for the 9th Mozambican parliament, one deserves special mention.
She is Mércia Viriato Licá, 23 years old, the youngest deputy in the Republic of Mozambique’s history.
Because of a birth defect, she has no upper limbs. Typing on a phone, writing on paper, drinking water, using a computer — all this and a number of other activities that require hands and arms, she does with her feet. In 2019, she completed her law degree at Maputo's Pedagogical University.
Elected for Frelimo, the ruling party in Mozambique since independence in 1975, Mércia represents the constituency of Tete province. Her candidacy was proposed in 2019 by President Filipe Nyusi, who she met the previous year through Facebook. Nyusi then decided to surprise her with a visit to her home, from where he said he left impressed:
(…) sinceramente esta jovem surpreendeu-me. Ela faz tudo com os pés. Ela provou-me que não há barreiras que não se podem superar na vida.
(…) sincerely, this young lady surprised me. She does everything with her feet. She proved to me that there are no barriers in life that cannot be overcome.
Mércia was abandoned by her father as a baby and was raised by her mother, with whom she lives today. Despite her disability, she told President Nyusi that she feels no different from others. She recognizes having gone through difficulties but turned them into opportunities, she has told TV Surdo.
In some opinion circles, her story is seen as an example of overcoming. Her life was recently recounted by Voice of America in a report entitled “Mércia, from renegade girl to deputy”.
In an interview with Carta de Moçambique, held on her inauguration day as a parliamentarian, Mércia discussed how she intends to inspire young Mozambicans, who comprise the majority of the approximately 28 million people in the country:
Espero contribuir para o desenvolvimento do país na escolaridade e educação. Incentivar os jovens para que nunca deixem de estudar porque a educação é o caminho para a vida (…) acredito que, por estar aqui na casa magna, irei incentivar e inspirar muita gente pelas atividades que irei exercer durante o meu mandato. Acredito que quando as pessoas olharem para mim e verem que sou capaz, também se conseguirão levantar.
I hope to contribute to the development of the country in schooling and education. To encourage young people to never stop studying because education is the right path in life (…) I believe that by being here in the great chamber, I will encourage and inspire many people by the things I will do during my mandate. I believe that when people look at me and see that I am capable, they will also manage to take action.
Human Rights Watch researcher Zenaida Machado wrote on Twitter:
Marcia Castela, 24, a law graduate, is Mozambique's youngest MP. An important gain and inspiration for the youth and people with disabilities. She and 249 other MPs were inaugurated today, following October 2019 general elections. pic.twitter.com/I2XeInZy1c
— Zenaida Machado (@zenaidamz) January 13, 2020
Although in 2010 Mozambique ratified the International Convention for People with Disabilities, an agreement that advocates for the creation of better conditions for disabled people, their lives remain difficult in the country, as reported by the newspaper A Verdade.
Access to buildings and public transportation is usually not adapted for disabilities, in addition to discrimination faced in other contexts. Because of this, the Association of the Disabled of Mozambique calls for specific legislation that defends this population's rights.
Commenting on Machado's tweet, the British High Commissioner in Maputo, NneNne Iwuji-Eme, said that Mercia is an inspiration not only for people with disabilities, but for any young girl anywhere. “The world needs more young girls dreaming of being leaders and succeeding like you,” she said.
The activist Benilde Mourana says she is very happy with the appointment of Mércia and hopes that she will not be “just another parliamentarian”, but will contribute to people's real aspirations:
Fiquei feliz com a eleição da jovem Mércia, rapariga com deficiência para deputada da Assembleia da República, afinal a inclusão deve começar de algum lado. Espero que ela não seja mais uma deputada e sim aquela deputada que leva as reais preocupações das pessoas com deficiência para a magna casa. A Mércia sozinha não basta, que onda de inclusão se alastre para outros sectores chaves na área da deficiência (…)
I was happy with the election of the young Mercia, a disabled girl, as a parliamentarian, after all inclusion must start somewhere. I hope that she is not just another parliamentarian but the one who brings the real concerns of disabled people into the great chamber. Mercia alone is not enough, let the wave of disability inclusion spread to other key sectors (…)

author: Alexandre Nhampossa


text:
A Mexican engraver revives a mostly-forgotten Russian printmaking tradition · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Lubok-style modern engraving by Alejandro Barreto, representing Russia and Mexico. Photo used with permission.
In late 17th-century Russia, houses and taverns were often decorated by a unique form of art: the lubok (or lubki in the plural) were cheap woodcut prints widely sold in markets, most often depicting scenes of everyday life, although also — and surprisingly so, as that wasn't very tolerated at that time — satire of religious and state figures at times.
Eventually, the lubok became so popular that even the monarchy began producing its own patriotic cuts in the 19th century. But this form of art fell into oblivion after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, and is now mostly known in academic circles or obscure subcultures in Russia.
Fast-forward a century later and the lubok emerges across the world in the studio of Mexican engraver Alejandro Barreto, who discovered the tradition as he was learning Russian. He became fascinated by it and decided to produce his own lubki portraying traditional imagery of his native Mexico.
I talked to him about his artistic and intercultural journey. The interview has been edited for brevity.
Alejandro Barreto: Fue durante mi proceso de aprendizaje del idioma ruso hace unos 10 años, en algún libro pude apreciar el grabado lubok referente al Gato De Kazán y me enamoré a primera vista ya que fue mi primer contacto como grabador con una de estas piezas. Fue curioso darme cuenta cuando viví en Rusia, que la gente común casi no conoce esta manifestación artística pese a que es un testigo antropológico vivo de su historia. Los niños los ven en los libros de escuela, pero en realidad no saben que estas imágenes son lubok, ni cómo se hacen. Mi motivación principal para aprender ruso fue lo exoticidad del lenguaje comparado con el español que es mi lengua natal y la fascinación que me produjeron las caricaturas soviéticas de la casa fílmica Soyuzmultfilm.
Alejandro Barreto: It happened while I was learning Russian about 10 years ago, I found a lubok engraving in some book, referring to the [image of the] Cat from Kazan [The Cat from Kazan – a city in Russia, is one of the most iconic images of the lubok]. I fell in love at first sight because this was my first encounter, as an engraver, with one of these lubok pieces. It was strange to realize, when I was living in Russia, that ordinary Russians hardly knew about this artistic tradition even though lubok is a living anthropological witness of their history. Children see them in textbooks but they don’t know these images are lubok and how they are made. My main motivation for learning Russian was that it is an exotic language compared to Spanish, which is my native language. I also had a fascination with Soviet cartoons produced by the Soyuzmultfilm studios.
The cat of Kazan, known as Кот Казанский in Russian, one of the most iconic images of the lubok tradition, believed to date from the 18th century. Some historians describe it as a possible caricature of Russian Emperor Peter the Great. Wikimedia commons CC-BY 3.0
FN:  The lubok is sometimes described as the Russian ancestor of satire, comics, and social critique. Do you agree?
AB El Lubok es un documento histórico en sí mismo, consigo viene una cantidad fabulosa de información, valiosa en todos los aspectos de las épocas donde tuvo su auge (Siglo XVIII-XIX) hay algunos estilos de vida rurales, los cuales hoy en día que se conocen gracias a estos grabados, canciones, anecdotarios, leyendas, chismes. Lubok era un medio de comunicación impreso y humorístico que podía abordar cualquier tema, tal y como lo hicieran las gacetas europeas o el mismo periódico actualmente. Siempre he pensado que el bajo precio, el humor y la manera colorida de pintarlos fueron aquello que enganchaba al espectador a comprar los impresos incluso para decorar las puertas o paredes de su casas.
AB: The Lubok is a historical document in itself, providing a fabulous amount of information that is valuable for all aspects of the 18th and 19th centuries, when it had its peak. It provides information about the way people lived in rural areas that are known today thanks to these engravings, songs, anecdotes, legends, gossip [many lubok have, besides images, texts incorporated into their frame]. Lubok was a printed means of communication full of humor that could address any issue, just as European gazettes did then, or newspapers do today. I have always thought that the low price [of the lubok printed on thin paper], the humor, and the colorful colors hooked the audience. People would buy the prints and even decorate their houses’ doors or walls.
Alejandro Barreto working on a lubok. Photo used with permission.
AB: Para mí el lubok ruso es una gran fuente de inspiración y objeto de estudio. Para poder compenetrarme y adaptarlo a la cultura mexicana, en mi país hice una tesis doctoral que explicaba la historia y formalidades de este arte en comparación con la gráfica popular del taller TGP, Manuel Manilla y José Guadalupe Posada de principios del siglo XX en México y con los cuales comparten muchos géneros de estampa narrativa y humorística. Siento que fue el mejor ejemplo para poder dar a conocer a los mexicanos lo que es y representa un lubok en Rusia. Mi trabajo llevó un proceso donde tuve que apropiarme las herramientas y estilo burdo de lubok para crear estampas que hablaran de la cultura popular y la historia de México. A esa serie le llamé lubokus.ru.mx, logré realizar un acervo amplio de piezas relacionadas a este tema México-Rusia, para poder ser presentadas en exposiciones en varias partes del México, Rusia y el extranjero, tan solo el año pasado se presentó en Bulgaria y en Polonia.
For me, the Russian lubok is a great source of inspiration and an object of study. To be able to understand and adapt it to Mexican culture, I did a PhD thesis in Mexico that explained the history and rules of this art compared to the popular graphic of the Taller de Gráfica Popular [a leftist artist collective founded in Mexico in 1937] with people like Manuel Manilla and José Guadalupe Posada. The popular Mexican graphics shared with the lubok the same kind of stories and humorous prints. I felt that this was the best example to help Mexicans understand what a lubok is and what it represents in Russia. My work led to a process where I had to appropriate the tools and crude style of the lubok to create prints that talked about Mexico's popular culture and its history. I called the series lubokus.ru.mx, and managed to make a large collection of pieces related to this Mexican-Russian theme. I presented them in exhibitions in various parts of Mexico, Russia and abroad. In 2019, Bulgaria and Poland exhibited them.
Lubok entitled “Melquiades Herrera rumbo a la academia de San Carlos” (Melquiades Herrera on the way to the San Carlos Academy). Image by Alejandro Barreto, used with permission.
AB Sin lugar a dudas lubok es el antecesor de los comics rusos, creo que es muy importante el papel que juegan con las historietas y también como antecedente del cartel soviético. Encontré parecidos muy interesantes a nivel formal e histórico con grabados populares de otras culturas como en el nordeste brasileño con la literatura de “Cordel” la cual involucra rimas con narrativas de carácter popular con grabados y se venden a bajos costos. Tuve mi propia oportunidad de hacer mis cordeles lubok alrededor un tema muy mexicano: “Lucha Libre”. También he visto otras manifestaciones que gozan de muchas similitudes con lubok como los pergaminos de patua en Bengala, India y luboks que he visto de otros países eslavos como Bielorusia, Ucrania y Kazajos.
AB: The Lubok is, without a doubt, the predecessor of Russian comics. I think they played a big role in developing modern Russian comics books and are also the precursor of Soviet propaganda posters. I found very interesting similarities with popular engravings of other cultures in terms of format and history, such as the Cordel literature of northeastern Brazil, which displayed rhymes and popular narratives and were sold inexpensively. I had the opportunity to make my lubok art revolve around a very Mexican theme, the Lucha Libre [wrestling]. I have also seen other art forms that share many similarities with lubok, such as the Patua scrolls from Bengal and India, or the lubok that I have seen in other post-Soviet countries such as Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
Lubok titled El Monstruo Metálico de Kazajistán (The metallic monster of Kazakhstan). By Alejandro Barreto, used with permission.
AB: Desde que estudio el tema lubok soy un fanático, he realizado mis grabados inspirado en ellos, pero también en mi viaje a Rusia pude obtener algunos impresos originales lubok de varios temas, desde grabados de la biblia ilustrada por Vasily  Koren (La primera en ruso de 1692 y con la cual llegó la técnica del grabado en madera a ese territorio como antecedente del lubok popular) hasta impresos sobre anecdotarios, hechos insólitos y relatos políticos satíricos.
Yo amo la estética de la representación de las figuras. Me doy cuenta de la ingenuidad del pueblo ruso de aquellas épocas, ante hechos extraordinarios, aquellos impresos eran interpretados de una manera muy pura, es decir se hablaban de animales exóticos o de monstruos sin tener una referencia real o fotografía y las representaciones al ser hechas a base de relatos, los hacían unos personajes maravillosos emanados del mundo Naïf.
AB: I am a fan since I have started studying the lubok and I have made prints inspired by them. During my visit to Russia, I was able to obtain some original lubok prints illustrating various subjects, including Bible engravings illustrated by Vasily Koren (the first Bible printed in Russian in 1692 that launched the technique of wood engraving that preceded the one used for the lubok) but also anecdotes, unusual facts and satirical political stories.
I love the aesthetics of the figures represented on lubok. I realize the ingenuity of the Russian people of the time. These prints were interpreted in a very pure way in the face of extraordinary events, that is to say that they depicted exotic animals or monsters without having a real reference or photograph. The representations were based on stories and they made wonderful characters, coming from a naïve from of art.
Lubok entitled “Cantinflas Rumbo al teatro de los insurgentes” (Cantinflas Rumbo at the Theater of the Insurgents. He was a famous and popular comedian of early 20th century). By Alejandro Barreto, used with permission.
AB Como decía anteriormente, en México hubo un periodo muy importante del grabado mexicano con la construcción de nuestra nación a finales del siglo XIX y principios de siglo XX, donde la restructuración del país estaba gestionándose, la cultura mexicana comenzaba a notar sus primero atisbos como nación moderna. Había mucho castigo por parte del gobierno y la clase poderosa, eso gestionaba ciertas condiciones para el grabado se convirtiera también en una arma de protesta, al ser accesible, hablar por el pueblo, levantar la voz de la crítica y el humor. Una nación saludable para mi forma de ver debe tener sentido del humor y debe ser crítica y tanto lubok como nuestro grabado mexicano comparten ese capítulo en sus respectivas historias.
AB As I said before, in Mexico there was a very important period of Mexican engravings coinciding with the building of our nation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when our country was being restructured. At the time, Mexican culture began to experience its first glimpses of modernity. The government and the powerful classes were very repressive, and that [repression] molded the conditions so that engravings would become, too, a weapon of protest. It was accessible, it spoke for the people, it raised a voice of criticism and humor. In my view, a healthy nation must have a sense of humor and be self-critical. Both the lubok and our Mexican engravings share that chapter in their respective stories.
More of Barreto's art can be seen on his Instagram account.

author: Filip Noubel


text:
Nationalist, socialist, and now feminist: The many facets of Czech author Božena Němcová · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Engraving of Božena Němcová. Image by Czech artist Jan Vilímek, Wikimedia Commons CC-BY 3.0
Anyone who has attended a Czech school will automatically associate the name of Božena Němcová to her 1855 bucolic novella Babička, which means “grandmother” in Czech. With over 300 editions, the book has been mandatory reading for Czech school students for generations. The story paints an idyllic rural childhood nestled in a community of women who devote their entire lives to their husbands and family.
Born in 1820, Němcová was pushed by her family to marry a tax inspector 15 years older than her. She bore him four children and followed him around the Habsburg Empire as he was posted to different locations. She often had to beg her friends for money and food to feed her family, and died of exhaustion in 1862 only one day after her novella Babička, who turned out to be her most famous, was published.
February 4, 2020, marks the 200th anniversary of her birth. Over the past two centuries, Němcová has been remembered for different aspects of her life and work, usually picked to fit the contemporary zeitgeist: first, as an anti-German nationalist, then as a communist icon, and finally, today, as a feminist symbol.
Illustration representing the main character Němcova's novella “The Grandmother”. Image by Czech artist Adolf, Wikimedia Commons CC-BY 3.0
The mid-19th century was a turning point in the history of the multi-ethnic, multi-confessional, and multilingual Habsburg Empire: A Pan-Slavism movement advocating for the rights and unification of the Slavonic-speaking nations emerged in 1848, a precursor of the future nation-states that would come out of the fall of the empire in 1918.
Both Czech and Slovak intellectuals of the time were openly involved in the movement. Němcová's husband sympathized with those ideas and, when he was posted in what is today Slovakia and later in Prague, she became personally acquainted with some of the most influential pan-Slavic thinkers.
While German was then the language of social mobility, education, business, and the press, she decided to opt for Czech as her writing language, as she had been educated in both languages. In several of her works, she calls for the Czech language to be promoted in the face of the state-imposed German.
This is probably why she became a symbol of the Czech national narrative, and is now, for example, pictured on the 500 Czech crown banknote. Of the six banknotes in circulation, only two portray women: the other is the 19th-century opera singer Ema Destinnová.
All the Czech crown banknotes in circulation. Božena Němcová is represented on the 500 crown bill. Image from Wikimedia Commons CC-BY 3.0
In 2005, the Czech State Television ran a national survey to ask people who they would nominate as the most famous Czech person: Němcová came out 10th, and the first woman on the list.
The Czechoslovak Republic that emerged from the Habsburg Empire in 1918 did not keep its political independence for very long: following World War II, the Communist Party took over power in 1948, and the country rapidly became a satellite state of the Soviet Union, which imposed its ideology of socialist realism to all realms of art and culture.
Němcová was then given a new interpretation as a proto-socialist writer describing class warfare and female poverty in the capitalist 19th century. Indeed, “The grandmother” starts with a quote by German leftist thinker Karl Gutzkow:
Z toho vidíš, že chudí nejsou tak docela ubozí, jak si myslíme; jsou opravdu blaženější, než si představujeme a než my sami jsme.
From this you can see that the poor are not as as pathetic as we think; they are in fact happier than we think, and than we are.
The Czech journalist, writer, and communist idol Julius Fučík wrote in the 1940s an essay called “Božena Němcová bojující” (the fighting Božena Němcová) in which he extols her as a socialist hero.
One aspect that was carefully censored from all previous appropriations was Božena Němcová's life as a free woman, both intellectually and sexually.
Besides being a prolific writer — she has written novellas, short stories, fairy tales, travelogues, even ethnographic essays — she was also personally involved in the publishing of her works, a rare feat at that time. Franz Kafka, who spoke and read Czech, and kept a volume of her “Correspondence”, saw in her an outstanding author in her own right.
More recently, historians have highlighted the fact that, unhappy as she was in her marriage, Němcová had an active sexual life and several affairs with leading intellectuals of the time. In her letters, she speaks about her sexuality in a tone that was not common for women in the 19th century.
Interviewed by Global Voices, Czech writer Radka Denemarková explains her fascination with Němcová:
Dneska by z ní byla rebelka, bojovnice za lidská práva a bloggerka. Vnitřní nezávislost navzdory době, to je pro mě Božena Němcová. Nedovolí, aby v životě hrála jen stínovou roli dcery, manželky, matky, vždycky chtěla vědět, kdo je. Nechce být v životě otrokem.
Z literárního hlediska jí mnozí vytýkali, že měla takový talent a ztrácela čas právě korespondencí, která se ze záliby vyvinula ve vášeň. Ale copak měla volbu? Když v národních obrozeních malých národů zakotvila tradice, že spisovatel je svědomím národa a spisovatelé suplovali roli politiků, udržovali národní jazyk, obnovovali národní komunitu, povzbuzovali národní sebevědomí, tlumočili národní vůli? Nechtěla být pouhou milenkou. Díky své korespondenci je světová autorka.
Moc se taky nepřipomíná, že psala i německy, „jak jsem dorůstala, jsem velké zalíbení nacházela v knihách německých, a to české čtení a ta řeč zdálo se mi tuze sprosté.“ První německy psané texty spálila. Neměla poslouchat manžela panslavistu a měla psát dál německy, byla by součástí světové literatury, nejen té národní.
Today she would be a rebel, a human rights defender, and a blogger. Inner independence against the period she lived in, that is what Božena Němcová represents for me. She won't allow herself to be reduced to the shadow role of a daughter, mother, she always wanted to know who she was. She doesn't want to be a slave.
From a literary point of view, many accuse her of wasting her talent with this correspondence. But did she have a choice? For small nations the National Revival movement established a tradition of the writer as the conscience of the people, and of authors as replacements for politicians. She didn’t want to be just a lover. So thanks to her letters she is a world author.
What is not often mentioned is that she also wrote in German: “as I grew up, I found great pleasure in German books, while I found the reading in Czech and the Czech language vulgar.” She burnt her first texts in German. She shouldn't have listened to her pan-slavist husband, and should have written in German, she would then belong not only to the Czech literature but to the global one.
As February 4 marks her official date of birth (there some controversy about her real date), the Czech leading independent weekly Respekt put her on the cover with the headline “Zázrak jménem Němcová,” or “a miracle called Němcová:”
Respekt 6: Dvě stě let od narození Boženy Němcové • Koronavirus se již nejspíš nepodaří zastavit • Reportáž: Děti bez budoucnosti • Pět roků soudu Terezie Kaslové • Rozhovor s novou děkankou FAMU • Jak si vysvětlit  rekordní návštěvnost českých kin https://t.co/P7YYxEi9hr ? pic.twitter.com/IB8omkbP4Q
— Týdeník Respekt (@RESPEKT_CZ) February 2, 2020
The special coverage starts with an article by renowned Czech journalist Sylvie Lauder, who writes:
Sejdou se Franz Kafka, Julius Fučík a Vlasta Chramostová. A v čem by tato značně nesourodá trojice mohla najít společnou řeč? Odpověď je překvapivě prostá. Všichni obdivovali Boženu Němcovou, byť každý jinak. Pro Fučíka byla spisovatelka, od jejíhož narození tento týden uplyne dvě stě let, „první socialistkou“, pro Kafku „jasnozřivě chytrá“ mistryně slova, pro Chramostovou inspirací pro zápas s totalitní mocí.
Franz Kafka, Julius Fučík and Vlasta Chramostová [one of the few female dissidents of the Prague Spring] get together. And what would be the common topic this unlikely trio would find to discuss? The answer is surprisingly simple. All of them admired Božena Němcová, though each differently. For Fučík the writer was “the first socialist”,  for Kafka, she was “clairvoyantly smart”, for Chramostová she represented an inspiration to fight totalitarianism.


text:
A novel about a Mexican family who migrates to the US comes under fire · Global Voices
Melissa Vida

Collage made by Melissa Vida with extracted Twitter posts and the front cover of “American Dirt” by Jeanine Cummins, pulled from the author's Twitter @jeaninecummins
Author Jeanine Cummins’ new book “American Dirt” has prompted ire from Mexican, Chicano, and Latinx communities on Twitter, who claim the story relies on poverty pornography and misrepresents a theme intimately familiar to thousands of Mexicans: migration.
The novel tells the story of a Mexican mother, Lydia, who, fleeing violence in Mexico, moves with her son to the United States. It has been acclaimed by renowned authors such as Stephen King and Sandra Cisneros, as well as literary critics and Oprah Winfrey (who picked it for her famous book club). It was published in English by Flatiron Books, which reportedly acquired the book for a seven-figure deal, and has already been translated into Spanish and Bulgarian. A film adaptation is allegedly being discussed.
The author Cummins explains in the book's afterword her reason for writing it, where she also admits that “someone browner than me” should have written it.
At worst, we perceive [migrants] as an invading mob of resource-draining criminals, and, at best, a sort of helpless, impoverished, faceless brown mass, clamoring for help at our doorstep. We seldom think of them as our fellow human beings.
Cummins, who isn't Mexican and identified as white in 2015, had then said in her Twitter profile that she is “Irlandaisa [sic]/Boricua/Persona” and has a grandmother from Puerto Rico.
On Twitter, strong responses claim the book is insensitive, superficial, and misrepresent Latin American communities in the United States.
Renowned author Julissa Arce Raya said:
#Americandirt is now an @oprahsbookclub selection. As a Mexican immigrant, who was undocumented, I can say with authority that this book is a harmful, stereotypical, damaging representation of our experiences. Please listen to us when we tell you, this book isn’t it.
— Julissa Arce Raya (@julissaarce) January 21, 2020
A Guatemalan- and Mexican-American vocal Twitter user who goes by the name Polemicist rues the book's sensationalism of the pain of immigrants.
If you’re going to get and read #AmericanDirt please do so knowing that it is following a long tradition of sensationalizing the lives and experiences of immigrants. It is not humanizing to make people into worn out tropes and “thrill rides.”
— Polemicist (@PalmTreesnGz) January 21, 2020
Many people retweeted a review by author Myriam Gurba that was published in the academic medium Tropics of Meta. The review was originally slated to be run on a feminist outlet who pulled it after claiming Gurba was not famous enough “to pen something so ‘negative’,” she herself said.
In her article, Gurba says that “italicized Spanish words like ‘carajo,’ ‘mijo,’ and ‘amigo’ litter the prose, yielding the same effect as store-bought taco seasoning.” She adds that the story of Lydia isn't credible because the character seems to be constantly surprised by the violence that torments Mexico.
That Lydia is so shocked by her own country’s day-to-day realities, realities that I’m intimate with as a Chicana living en el norte, gives the impression that Lydia might not be…a credible Mexican. In fact, she perceives her own country through the eyes of a pearl-clutching American tourist.
Gurba criticizes how the novel lacks mention of any political causes for migration, and shared book titles by Latinx writers on her Twitter account.
For Esmeralda Bermudez, a Salvadoran-American journalist for the Los Angeles Times, the root of the problem is the inequality in the world of American publishing, where the majority of North American journalists are white.
You don’t have to be Latino/an immigrant or write about immigrants. I’ve had white mentors who I respect because they’ve worked hard to see past their limitations, to understand the community. The problem is the book arena is ruled by white writers, agents, critics, gatekeepers. pic.twitter.com/t15XoyY9ij
— Esmeralda Bermudez (@LATBermudez) January 20, 2020
She said that because of this inequality, stories written by Latin Americans about their own experiences are erased and not frequently found on bookstore shelves.
In an industry where Latinos make up only a tiny percent, our stories are often rejected, shrank down, manipulated, misunderstood, stolen, appropriated, exploited, sanitized, repackaged for easy consumption by white audiences. Most of all, our stories are silenced — invisible.
After Esmeralda Bermudez's Twitter thread took off, she said that Jeanine Cummins blocked her, which gives the impression that the author is not open to having a dialogue with the community offended by her novel.
Adding insult to injury, Flatiron Books prepared a launch party for “American Dirt” in which the guest table was adorned with false barbed wire, a reference to the book's cover, but also to the walls that separate the United States and Mexico. Illustrator John Picacio called the piece “Mexploitation:”
Seeing lots of #Mexicanx sharing but I don't think this is being seen enough. Photo: May 2019 bookseller party by Flatiron Books for #AmericanDirt, complete w/ faux barbed-wire centerpieces. #Mexicanx pain & anguish as fashion brand. Disgusting. #Mexploitation (via @lesbrains) pic.twitter.com/z1DCIkrFwo
— John Picacio (@JohnPicacio) January 22, 2020
It appears that criticism of the novel is not due to slow anytime soon.

author: Melissa Vida


text:
‘Françafrique’: A term for a contested reality in Franco-African relations · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Malian children with flags of participating nations on the opening day of the 27th Africa-France Summit held in Bamako, Mali on January 14, 2017. Source: UN Photo/Sylvain Liechti (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
“Françafrique” is a term that describes the historical relationship between France and its former colonies in sub-Saharan Africa. Like most colonial and post-colonial constructs, it was rarely challenged in France for decades, but today the idea of Françafrique is highly contested in both France and Africa.
A portmanteau linking “France” and the French word for Africa, its earliest use, dating back to 1955, is attributed to then Ivoirian President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who used the term to highlight the good relations between France and its former colonies. In its broadest definition, it encompasses the political, financial, military, cultural, and linguistic relations between France and the countries that came under French rule or influence—Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal.
Those 21 countries gained independence, mostly in the 1960s, but the concept of Françafrique continues to be debated around the following questions: Who designed the framework for these multiple relations? Who benefits and how? What are the motivations—both declared and hidden—of the actors involved? Where is the future of this relationship in the 21st century? Is Françafrique still relevant and needed?
In a post-colonial world, the views on this issue are of course numerous, but also conflicting, divisive, and constantly evolving across time and language. The process of acknowledging, assessing and overcoming the trauma of colonization is indeed a long and painful one.
In the aftermath of World War II, a wave of pro-independence movements swept across French colonies in Africa and Asia, eventually forcing France to recognize the legitimacy of their right to self-determination.
France, however, having enriched itself by exploiting energy resources and mines in its colonies, was eager to keep privileged access to such resources. Paris was also preoccupied with its image as a world power, and saw sub-Saharan Africa as its pré carré (“own backyard”), from which to protect against both Soviet and American influence by maintaining military bases. General Charles de Gaulle, then president of France, saw an opportunity to maintain his country’s influence in sub-Saharan Africa by creating a web of relations that would serve its economic, diplomatic, ideological and domestic political goals.
Boulevard du General Charles de Gaulle is the main street of Pointe-Noire, Republic of Congo. Photo by David Stanley April 9, 2015. (CC BY 2.0)
Well into the 1990s, African money was also used in generally undisclosed ways to finance France’s political parties, with African emissaries traveling to France with suitcases full of cash seeking, regardless of who won the election, to cement French politicians’ loyalty and support for certain African heads of state. Legislation on the financing of French political parties was amended in the 1990s, but there is evidence that this practice continued after that period.
It was not until the late 1990s, however, that the concept of Françafrique began to be challenged in France. In an influential 1998 essay titled “La Françafrique, le plus long scandale de la République” (“Françafrique, the longest scandal of the [French] Republic”) French economist and activist François-Xavier Verschave unpacked the aspects of this web of policies that were kept carefully invisible for a long period of time. For Verschave the term also included a humorous wordplay — “fric” is a French slang word for “cash”.
No French president, however, would question the concept of Françafrique publicly until 2012, when President François Hollande stated it was time to “end Françafrique.” Nevertheless, maintaining France's influence, particularly to advance its security interests, remains a priority for French politicians to this day.
Views of Françafrique in France vary from nostalgia from the colonial period (especially among the right-wing), to outright criticism of its policies often sparked by media investigations, but increasingly so by academics, civil society, NGO activists and French-African community leaders. This increasing rejection of French influence is also exemplified by the movement toward restitution of African artworks and advanced by activists like Kemi Seba, a controversial pan-African activist from Benin who has become the face of rising anti-French sentiment in Francophone West Africa.
CFA francs. Photo by Kaysha, January 24, 2010. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
One of the central elements of French policy in sub-Saharan Africa was the creation, in 1945, of the CFA franc (franc de la Communauté Financière Africaine, or “franc of the African Financial Community”), which became the currency of sub-Saharan Africa's French colonies.
The CFA franc was pegged to the French franc and later to the euro. Two separate currencies were created: the Central African Franc, for Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon, and the West African Franc, for Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. In practice, however, both currencies were at parity and interchangeable.
Paris mandated that the African central banks maintain between 50 to 65 percent of their foreign reserves in France’s central bank to guarantee the convertibility of the CFA at a fixed exchange rate.
On December 22, 2019, France and eight West African governments announced that they would replace the CFA franc with a new currency—still pegged to the euro— called the Eco. The announcement created some confusion, as the Eco was first launched by six member states of one of the largest economic unions in Africa, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The ultimate goal is to have one common currency for most of Central and Western Africa, as Cameroonian economist Martial Ze Belinga explains:
In a way, we now have two Ecos. One that the 15 African countries voted for and whose name was already decided in 2003. And today there is a new Eco which France and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) countries have chosen — independently of the others. This seems astonishing. One could at least have waited for them to give their approval.
The announcement of the end of the CFA franc has reactivated the debate about the legacy of French colonialism. The main question has been whether the CFA franc benefitted the development of Western and Central African economies, or whether it had in fact allowed France to manipulate local economies and political systems and stifled the development of this region.
Supporters of the CFA franc policy argue that the system allowed for relatively low inflation and financial stability and that funds deposited in the French central bank generated interest that was transferred back to the African governments. Any country could have left the CFA franc zone temporarily, as Mali did from 1962 to 1984, or irrevocably, as was the case with Guinea, Mauritania and Madagascar. Supporters also argue that while the CFA franc might be printed in France, other African nations’ currencies are printed in countries such as the United Kingdom and Germany.
Nigerian journalist David Hundeyin cautions that the debate around the CFA franc is often hijacked by populist leaders:
A rather unhelpful effect of the framing around the CFA conversation is that France is often typecast as the quintessential colonial power hanging on to its empire by all means, which fits in neatly with the narrative of the CFA Franc being a tool for French neo colonial subjugation in the 21st century. In fact, France is a remarkably different country now to what it was in the mid-20th century.
Critics of the CFA franc policy, on the other hand, decry it as a form of hidden financial colonialism, while some have used the catchphrase “French colonial-era tax” to describe the mandatory deposit of financial reserves in France’s Central Bank, which in 2015 represented 14 billion euros.
It is true that, for years, Paris required representatives on the boards of many African central banks, raising legitimate concerns about the independence of the decision-making process. Also noted by Senegalese economist Demba Moussa Dembele is the fact that, under this system, “African countries are deprived of their liquid assets.” Dembele points out that the convertibility system has allowed the flight of massive amounts of African capital back to France in times of crisis. Overall, he concludes that the issue is about sovereignty, namely that each country should have full control over its own currency.
For Togolese economist Kako Nubukpo, the main issue is that financial policies continue to be dictated by the Central European Bank and reflect a model of European development that was of little relevance to African economies:
Je ne pense pas que nos pays puissent se développer en pratiquant la politique monétaire de l’Allemagne. Or la situation est bien celle-là. Notre arrimage à l’euro nous contraint à pratiquer la politique monétaire d’un pays fort dans des économies faibles. Cela revient à taxer les exportations et à subventionner les importations.
I don’t think our countries can develop by practicing the monetary policies of Germany. Yet, this is the situation. By being pegged to the euro we have forced the monetary policy of a strong country to a weak economy. This amounts to taxing exports and subsidizing imports.
Echoing Dembele’s concerns, Nubukpo also notes that:
Puisque il n’y a pas de limites à la convertibilité, les élites locales ont tout loisir de placer leur argent sur un compte étranger ou d’acheter un appartement parisien. C’est le point central. Nous avons des élites rentières qui n’ont pas intérêt à faire évoluer ce système. En Guinée équatoriale, la moitié du PIB est transféré à l’étranger pour rémunérer la propriété du capital. C’est considérable.
Since there is no limit to convertibility, local elites are free to put their money on an overseas account or to buy a flat in Paris. This is the central issue. We have elites who live off the income from their properties and have no interest in changing the system. In Equatorial Guinea, half of the GDP [gross domestic product] is transferred abroad to support property purchase. That’s quite considerable.
Senegalese economist Ndongo Samba Sylla makes a comparison with France's former North African colonies, noting that:
“The CFA franc is characterised as a credible and stable currency, a significant virtue given the experience of most currency-issuing African nations. This counter-argument is, however, flawed: experience shows that nations like Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, which post-independence withdrew from the franc zone and minted their own currency, are stronger economically than any user of the CFA franc.”
Beyond the economic arguments, the issue is also about a public debate of France’s colonial past—or lack thereof. As Boubacar Boris Diop, a Senegalese writer and journalist, observes:
“To be frank, the meek silence of Francophone African intellectuals is the main reason why French public opinion thinks there is nothing wrong with Françafrique.”


text:
US tech companies should push to remove sanctions on Sudan · Global Voices
Mohamed Suliman

Young Sudanese celebrate the end of Global Entrepreneurship Week Sudan in 2016. Photo by Global Entrepreneurship Week (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Last year, Sudanese citizens deposed a totalitarian regime that had ruled for more than 30 years. For the participants in the peaceful protests, social media platforms were key tools for organizing and communicating their message to the outside world. These platforms, produced by US companies, have played a crucial role in boosting the Sudanese economy, which is starting to rely on the internet for its growth. Indeed, US tech companies have a strong interest in pushing for the removal of US sanctions on Sudan.
In October 1997, the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on Sudan. U.S. Executive Order 13067 prohibits transactions with the Sudanese government. According to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the rationale behind this decision is that the Sudanese government’s “continued support for international terrorism, ongoing efforts to destabilize neighboring governments, and the prevalence of human rights violations, including slavery and the denial of religious freedom, constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States”. Needless to say, the revolution invalidates most of these conditions.
Sudanese civil society has pushed hard against digital and technological sanctions. In 2014, as a result of long advocacy efforts supported by American tech rights groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, some of the sanctions were relaxed with the issuing of the General licence D — a step welcomed by many Sudanese, and which had a very positive impact on the Sudanese tech sector.
There are many ways to understand the scale of the internet economy in Sudan. According to Digital 2019 Sudan, a report compiled by marketing agency Kepios Pte. Ltd, creative agency We Are Social Ltd, and Hootsuite Inc., the company behind the Hootsuite social media platform, internet penetration in Sudan is 28%, with 11.82 users online. Platforms such as Facebook, Google, and YouTube ranked among the top five visited websites in the country, and co-working spaces, innovation communities, entrepreneurship conferences, and similar international events have become a reality of life for young innovators in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.
In early December 2019, the Sudanese prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, undertook a six-day visit to the U.S. to discuss issues pertaining to Sudanese-American relations, the removal of sanctions among them. One of the outcomes of the tour was the reestablishing of diplomatic ties with the first exchange of ambassadors in 23 years.
American tech companies such as Google, Twitter and Facebook should be making a strong push in Washington D.C. for the full removal of sanctions against Sudan. Such a move will not only end years of an unfairly punitive policy — it will also unlock a substantial and promising new market for these companies.

author: Mohamed Suliman


text:
Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite leaves behind a legacy of language · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite reads his poem “Calypso” at “Calypso” at the University of Virginia in April 2008. Screenshot taken from a YouTube video uploaded by RJ Ramazani.
The esteemed Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite, whose unique voice was universally recognised as an integral part of the canon of post-war West Indian literature, died on February 4, 2020, at the age of 89.
Born Lawson Edward Brathwaite, his evolution to Kamau Brathwaite — that deliberate pairing of his chosen African first name with his given Briton surname — is representative of the space he carved out for the two to coexist. His work, known for its innovating “Creolisation” of language, was integral in helping to forge a sense of regional identity in the painful aftermath of slavery and colonisation. Alongside writers like Derek Walcott and V.S. Naipaul, Brathwaite helped raise the Caribbean voice to reach the ears of the world.
He got his start through Frank Collymore‘s bold literary magazine Bim, which allowed emerging writers’ work to be read alongside more established, published West Indian authors. The blog Memo from La-La Land suggested:
But if it was [Frank] Collymore’s encouragement that kept alive the poetic vein in Brathwaite, it was his time in the Gold Coast (modern day Ghana) from 1955 to 1962 that built the vivid image in his mind of the close relation between the African and the Caribbean experiences. In my view, Brathwaite’s lifelong quest rests upon the premise that Caribbean culture is intrinsically connected to African culture, not by means of an ethereal or genetic connection, but through an active transformation of the social norms that took place over more than three centuries of slavery […]
In a region where, decades later, there is still a debate over the use of “proper” English versus the loaded phrase “dialect”, Brathwaite coined the term “nation language”, which he defined as “the kind of English spoken by the people who were brought to the Caribbean, not the official English now, but the language of slaves and labourers, the servants who were brought in.”
His intelligent and loving defence of this hybrid as not just valid in terms of language, but integral to Caribbean identity, inspired many other West Indian writers, including Sam Selvon and Louise Bennett. What it also did was place stock in the value of the region's oral tradition, through which many African customs were upheld and passed on over the course of the transatlantic slave trade.
As Facebook user Tara Inniss-Gibbs put it:
Reading Kamau is the closest you can feel to putting the intense emotion of both trauma and love for a language that is not your own on to the page…
Memo from La-La Land further explained:
Brathwaite claims through his poetry that orality – speech – is king. […] For instance, in 1992 Brathwaite published a selection of poems, mostly from his first two trilogies, ‘The Arrivants,’ (1972) and ‘Other Exiles’, (1975), except at this stage he had discovered the advantages of working on a computer. This led to the development of his ‘Syncorax video style’ texts, which is another way of describing the usage of various font styles and sizes throughout the book. The changes occur both within a poem and from poem to poem and the spectacular graphic effect lends itself to being discarded as an aesthetic caprice, or an ode to the wonders of technology. Upon second scrutiny, however, it becomes evident that the graphic innovations are, in fact, included to highlight, to reproduce, the natural emphasis and modulation that pertain to Caribbean speech.
Brathwaite's first three poetry collections — “Rights of Passage”, “Masks”, and “Islands” — published in quick succession in 1967, '68 and '69, earned him global recognition and critical acclaim. They were later republished as “The Arrivants”. His subsequent trilogy — “Mother Poem” (1977), “Sun Poem” (1982), and “X/Self” (1987) — also delved into questions of identity.
Once his passing was announced on social media, regional netizens began sharing their remembrances. Posting the words of his poem “Calypso”, Barbadian multi-media artist and curator Annalee Davis said on Facebook:
I remember his lecture at Frank Collymore Hall many years ago — that very beautiful lilt in his voice, a rhythm that could only have come from Barbados, and a most unique way of using his very own tongue that honoured who we are. […]
His use of nation language and the breadth of work he produced leaves an indelible mark on us all and I know that people around the Caribbean and its diaspora will mourn his passing as we will in Barbados.
The country's prime minister, Mia Mottley, paid homage to Brathwaite as “easily one of the titans of post-colonial literature and the arts”, while the George Padmore Institute described him as “one-third of the pan-Caribbean trio of founders of the seminal Caribbean Artists Movement” (the other two being Trinidadian John La Rose and Jamaica-based Andrew Salkey).
Facebook user Candace Ward said that Brathwaite's “influence on [her] work as a Caribbeanist was profound”, while academic Bartosz Wójcik remembered his kindness. Professor Kenneth Ramchand remembered Brathwaite's towering contribution:
Kamau was versatile and always interesting. He wrote a most important book about Creolisation, discoursed extensively on ‘nation language’ which he demonstrated brilliantly in his poetry, and was the prime influence in the region's eventual discovery of its potent folk and oral traditions. His work and his theories fed on the subterranean links between the Caribbean, Africa and the African diaspora, and it was especially sensitive to the music, rhythms and imagery of African-American culture. […] I have never wavered in my admiration for his passionate interest in our culture and society, his revelation of his native Barbados as root and bright symbol and the unceasing formal experimenting in his verse. It is consoling that like Walcott and [Wilson] Harris he is not lost to us, since he has passed into the consciousness of our civilisation.
Kamau Brathwaite was also an academic and well-respected educator; he studied at the University of Cambridge's Pembroke College and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Sussex. He was a recipient of both Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships and published many books about African culture and identity.
His time spent in Ghana as an education officer greatly impacted his understanding of the black experience. Some of his important academic works include “Folk Culture of the Slaves in Jamaica,” (1970), “Afternoon of the Status Crow”, (1982), and “History of the Voice”, (1984), in which he put forward his theories on nation language. He also had professorial stints at New York University and The University of the West Indies.
Well-recognised in the literary world, Brathwaite was the 2006 international winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize, for his collection “Born to Slow Horses”. He also won the Neustadt International Prize for Literature (1994), the Gold Musgrave Medal for Literature from the Institute of Jamaica (2006), the Poetry Society of America's Robert Frost Medal (2015) and the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry (2018).
As much as his scholarly writings chronicled the post-colonisation Caribbean experience, however, it is Brathwaite's poetry that captured the imagination of both the region and the world. In the words of Facebook user Richard Drayton:
[I]t was as a poet/shaman that his name will be forever resonant whenever Caribbean [people] try to make sense of themselves.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


text:
Bengali, Pakistani, and Amazon indigenous women perform ‘The rapist is you’ song · Global Voices
Melissa Vida

Screenshot from YouTube video by Dhaka University Students Movement
The viral feminist flashmob “The rapist is you” (“Un violador en tu camino”) born in Chile is still making waves all over the world as it inspires women to protest sexual harassment and abuse.
One of them was in Bangladesh, where over a thousand people protested against the rape of a Dhaka University student. Many protesters performed the Bangla version of the song “The rapist is you”.
“এই দায় আমার নয়, নয় চলন-বলন-জামার
এই দায় শুধু তোর, তুই ধর্ষক”
The fault wasn’t mine, nor where I was, nor what I said, or nor how I dressed
The fault is yours, the rapist is you
Screenshot from YouTube video by Rahul Talukder.
The protest happened on January 6 in front of the Bangladesh National Museum adjacent to the campus.
Around 500 cases of rape and abuse had been filed in the Dhaka metropolitan area in 2019.
This online TV channel did a music video with the Bangla song playing over performances in different countries. Clips of the performances were not broadcast in Bangladeshi mainstream media, but went viral on social media.
On another video, some of these students were seen performing the same song in different places and at different times:
The Bangladesh Police have since arrested a suspect of the rape incident.
“The rapist is you” became a feminist anthem after Chilean women danced and sang the choreography by feminist collective Las Tesis on November 25, 2019, amid mass protests against economic inequality that erupted the month before.
There have been wide reports of police abuse during the protests. The song, which had been written before the demonstrations began, was a feminist response to that violence as nearly 17 percent of filed criminal complaints against state authorities concerned sexual abuse, according to Human Rights Watch.
The flashmob inspired women in Mexico, Colombia, Kenya, India, and all over Europe and the United States to denounce similar patterns of violence.
This performance was made by Kichwa, Shuar, Waorani, Achuar and Shiwiar indigenous women of the Ecuadoran Amazon:
The flashmob was based on the work of Argentinian feminist and professor Rita Laura Segato, who inspired Las Tesis to show that “rape not just as a crime against an individual woman, but the expression of a larger social issue,” as reported by Quartz.
The song therefore targets institutional pillars — “the police, the judges, the state, the president”, as lyrics say — as accomplices of gendered violence.
Athanasia Francis, who's pursuing a Ph.D. on gendered violence in the United Kingdom, noted in The Conversation that “The Rapist is You” gained traction internationally because systemic gendered violence itself is transnational.
This transnational feminist response in the form of a song proposes solidarity and empathy in turbulent political times. It’s calling for an acknowledgement of sexual violence as a systemic and global problem in democratic institutions that, ironically, were created to prevent it.
For Spanish journalist Marta Borraz, the song also relieves women from self-blame when falling victim to sexual violence when the lyrics say “it’s not my fault, nor where I was, nor what I wore:”
La performance pone el foco en la impunidad de la violencia sexual y se ha convertido en un grito colectivo que ocupa el espacio público, una especie de catarsis capaz de concentrar múltiples sensaciones para cambiar el sentido de las cosas y, sobre todo, de la culpa.
The performance focuses on the impunity of sexual violence. It has become a collective cry that occupies public space, like a catharsis that is able to concentrate multiple sensations in order to change how things, especially guilt, are perceived.
“The Rapist is You” was also sung in protest against visits of high-level politicians. On January 8, 2020, an Indian feminist collective performed the song in Kolkata as part of the widespread protests against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the city.
Aopala Banerjee, one of the performers, told Scroll.in that the group “wanted to highlight the patriarchal violence that Modi’s idea of a Hindu Rashtra (Hindu Nation) represents.”
Recently, women in New York City performed the anthem outside of where Harvey Weinstein, the former Hollywood movie producer accused by nearly 100 women for sexual abuse, stands trial for rape.
In Karachi, Pakistani women of the AuratMarch2020 movement performed the song in Urdu. They are calling for people to join them on March 8, 2020, International Women's Day, to march “for economic, reproductive, environmental justice, and the right to our city,” as mentioned on their Twitter profile.


text:
Chen Qiushi: A citizen journalist on the frontline of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Screenshot from Chen Qiushi's youtube channel.
Former human rights lawyer and well-known citizen journalist Chen Qiushi arrived in Wuhan city, the center of the coronavirus outbreak, on January 24, 2020, to report from inside the quarantined city.
Although the first case of the coronavirus emerged on December 8, Chinese media outlets only started covering the news on December 31, and the real scale of the outbreak came on January 20 when prominent Chinese pulmonologist Dr. Zhong Nanshan admitted that the outbreak had entered the human-to-human transmission stage. After Beijing announced Wuhan's city-wide quarantine on January 23, the independent journalist circle was worried that no one would report on the situation in the sealed city.
Chen built his reputation by covering the Hong Kong protests in August. Though he was harassed and silenced by Chinese authorities after his trip to Hong Kong, he continued speaking out using Twitter and Youtube.
Below is a summary of his reports from the center of the epidemic outbreak from January 24 to February 2.
After arriving in Wuhan around 10 pm, Chen urged citizens to contact him via WeChat and promised to report on the real situation in Wuhan. He anticipated that the national security police would go after him and made three public promises: 1. He would not spread rumors, would not create social panic and would not cover up the truth; 2. He would protect himself and would not reach out to patients who were in serious condition; 3. Until the outbreak is under control, he would not leave Wuhan even if he caught the virus. He stressed that the spread of SARS (17 years ago) and the Wuhan coronavirus was due to a cover-up of the virus outbreak and the Chinese people should not repeat the same mistake; information should travel faster than the virus.
Chen's WeChat account was suspended for one month after he published his January 24 video. According to WeChat’s notification, he was accused of spreading rumors and other illegal content.
At 2 a.m., Chen visited the Wuhan Central hospital where he found a relatively uncrowded emergency ward of 30 patients. Before noon, Chen was forced to check out from his hostel as local authorities handed out the order that hostel operators should not accept non-local residents.
Chen also visited a number of friends in Wuhan, one of them made a DIY face mask:
今天见了几个武汉当地的市民朋友，他们带我去了金银潭医院，只是在外面跟医生聊了聊，没办法深入医院。但是武汉人的乐观和坚定真的是震撼到了我！他们勇敢、自信、热爱生活、苦中作乐~ pic.twitter.com/dsuQ8YkwaE
— 陈秋实（陳秋實） (@chenqiushi404) January 25, 2020
Today I visited a few friends in Wuhan. They took me to Jinyintan hospital. Just managed to talk to the doctor and could not enter the hospital. I was impressed by courage and optimism of the Wuhanese.
Chen interviewed a nurse from Wuhan No.11 Hospital who said that the situation was far better than before the lunar new year when the ward was flooded with thousands of patients. At that time, the government was not providing any assistance and medical workers were left without basic protective gear. Instead of going through official channels, the hospital was forced to make public appeals through social media. The nurse also denounced some government efforts to ‘fact-check’ social media saying: “They claimed that the video showing three dead bodies from the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital was fake. I told you, they were really corpses, though we could not verify if they died because of the coronavirus.”
Chen expressed his worries about human-to-human transmission inside the hospital as all the patients shared the same ward. He noted that the hygiene outside the hospital was also pretty bad — used masks, gloves, and vomit were everywhere.
Chen expressed frustration about the lack of citizen initiative to help each other out during the crisis: “Everyone is divided. They keep complaining and arguing about government policy but can’t even volunteer to help receive and distribute the resources sent from outside of Wuhan.”
Chen also mentioned how current affairs writer Wang Yajun was threatened by the Hubei authorities over his comments about the outbreak.
Chen helped deliver medical supplies and food to the Wuhan Union Hospital in the morning. He then visited the Huoshenshan hospital construction site, one of the two hospitals Beijing vowed to finish within 10 days.
At night, he interviewed a Wuhan citizen who criticized the local authorities for failing to alert local residents about the outbreak and their lack of public support for the quarantined city on the first day of the Lunar New Year. The young man compared Wuhan to hell: people could not take public transportation to the hospitals and no one answered the emergency line. Even if the patients managed to go to the hospitals, they were only given anti-inflammatories. The majority were not tested if they had been infected with the virus and were told to quarantine themselves back home.
Chen's video went viral on Twitter and YouTube within two days.
Chen visited the Wuhan No.5 hospital and there were about a hundred people. A nurse broke down and screamed out in the hospital car park as she was infected at the hospital but could not get a bed in any hospital. Rumors spread online saying that the hospital had a number of medical workers infected but doctors were ordered not to talk to media.
Chen said his name and face were blocked on WeChat, and any distribution of his video could result in a WeChat ban. He said that taxi drivers had been aware of the virus outbreak since mid-December. According to sources from a Wuhan taxi driver chat room, there were 20,000 taxis in Wuhan and only 6,000 were in operation during the quarantine. Residents had to contact district administrators to arrange a taxi.
Chen said that the day before he had followed a patient to Tongji Hospital where patients were having treatment but there were not enough beds. According to Chen, his friend asked for a test but there were not enough coronavirus testers to check on his infection.
Chen attempted to visit a family which had four confirmed infected patients. Two were hospitalized and the 84-year-old mother passed away in the morning. The son was confirmed infected on January 23 but there were no beds available. Chen eventually could not pay the visit to this family as the residential district was locked down with guards standing in front of the gate.
Chen posted several videos from other citizen sources on Twitter and Youtube.
The first one showed large crowds outside of a pharmacy attempting to buy a Chinese medicine called “shuanghuanglian.” On January 31, The Chinese Academy of Sciences released a report in The People Daily News claiming that the medicine could repress viral replication. While the medical experts admitted that there wasn’t any clinical evidence about the effectiveness of the medicine, panicked shoppers bought up all the medicine from the market.
The second one showed national security officers disguised as disease control officers visiting Wuhan citizen reporter Fang Bin late at night claiming that they suspected he was infected. On January 31, Fang Bin uploaded a video taken from Wuhan No.5 hospital which showed how corpses from the hospital were sent to a funeral house and he believed that was the real reason for his arrest.
Fang was released the following day and talked about the incident via Chen’s Youtube channel. The police had accused him of creating social panic.
Both Fang and Chen were trying to dig into the stories about the death toll of the Wuhan coronavirus. Chen visited the Hanhou Funeral Home on January 29 and found out that within a period of 1.5 hours four vehicles had entered the funeral home, a designated cremation center for bodies infected with the coronavirus. On January 31, Fang Bin found out that a vehicle parked at the entrance of the No.5 hospital was loaded with 8 bodies.
During Fang’s arrest, law enforcement officers claimed that they needed to quarantine Fang as he had been in contact with the infected. On February 2, a new administrative regulation was released stating that the disease control officers were authorized to take away any individual who was in contact with the infected. Chen pointed out that the new regulation could be used as an excuse to arrest citizen reporters, including himself. He urged others to speak out for themselves.
the impact of the Wuhan coronavirus

author: Oiwan Lam


text:
Jair Bolsonaro’s government calls Oscar nominee ‘anti-Brazil militant’ · Global Voices
Fernanda Canofre

Protests pro and against Dilma Rousseff's impeachment in 2016 in front of Brazil's Congress. Photo: Screenshot by The Edge of Democracy trailer/YouTube
Since its premiere on Netflix in June 2019, film director Petra Costa’s documentary “The Edge of Democracy” has fueled the flames of Brazil's unending polarization. Opinions about the movie tend to fall neatly on political party lines — those who liked it are leftist radicals, those who didn't are Bolsonaro fanatics who supported a coup d'état. That kind of oversimplification is largely what the political debate amounts to in Brazil 2020.
Costa tells the story of the divisive events surrounding the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff in 2016, while delving into the recent history of the country's young democracy, from the end of the military dictatorship in the 1980s, through the election of former union leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2002, and finally the ascension of Bolsonaro.
Debates about the movie had been long buried by the daily tsunami of political news here, but they emerged again, with full force, last month when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science nominated it for an Oscar of best documentary.
On February 3, the official Twitter account of Jair Bolsonaro’s communication office posted a video of Costa’s interview with U.S. TV channel PBS while calling her an “anti-Brazil militant:”
Nos Estados Unidos, a cineasta Petra Costa assumiu o papel de militante anti-Brasil e está difamando a imagem do País no exterior. Mas estamos aqui para mostrar a realidade. Não acredite em ficção, acredite nos fatos. pic.twitter.com/NLnf8gA87c
— SecomVc (@secomvc) February 3, 2020
In the United States, filmmaker Petra Costa took the role of an anti-Brazil militant and is defaming the country’s image abroad. But we are here to show the reality. Do not believe in fiction, believe in facts.
Experts heard by Brazilian legal news outlet Conjur diverged whether the tweet violated any norms. Some say it breaks the impersonality principle of public institutions, while others claim that, even if it did, the tweet would still be within limits of freedom of speech. Congresswoman Maria do Rosario — who has a history of clashing with President Bolsonaro — filed a complaint with the Public Prosecution's Office about the tweets.
Before that, President Bolsonaro himself had said the movie was “fiction” and “crap,” while his youngest son, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, called Costa “a scumbag.”
Dilma Rousseff's official Twitter account published a thread defending Costa, and saying that “there is no one else more “anti-Brazil” today, and more harmful to the country’s image abroad, than President Bolsonaro himself.”
If “The Edge of Democracy” wins best documentary on February 9, it'll be the first Oscar awarded to a fully Brazilian production (co-productions with other countries have won the awards before).
As the granddaughter of the founder of one of the largest construction firms in Brazil — and one embroiled in the Car Wash operation –, and the daughter of leftist militants who fought against the military dictatorship (1964-1985), Costa tells the story of Brazil's democracy as a backdrop of her own personal life.
The narrative is sympathetic towards the Workers’ Party, who ruled the country after winning three elections from 2002 until Rousseff's impeachment in 2016. It subscribes to the idea that Rousseff was ousted by a parliamentary coup led by the opposition for minor charges (accounting trickery that hid the size of a growing debt) when compared to corruption scandals many of those congressmen were themselves entangled.
Costa indeed had access to the upper echelons of the party — she managed to film Dilma's moving out of the presidential house and used exclusive footage by Lula's personal photographer.
At the time when the movie was launched, the media questioned Petra’s mother‘s relationship with Lula’s family, which is not fully disclosed in the movie. Revista piauí, a Brazilian monthly magazine, identified that a forensic photograph from 1976 used in the movie had been digitally altered. The photo shows Pedro Pomar, an anti-dictatorship guerrilla fighter and Costa's parents mentor, laying on a pool of blood floor after being killed by the military police. In the movie’s version of the image, a shotgun and a revolver that were near his body had been erased.
To piauí's reporters, Costa claimed she was waiting for someone to pick up the detail. She said she digitally removed the firearms because they had been planted by the police to incriminate Pomar and others who were killed. Indeed, there is plenty of public documentation backing the claim that the authorities planted the weapons after the killings.
Many of the film's critics say Costa is biased, while many others praise Petra precisely for incorporating her personal point of view. Journalist Renato Terra, in an article to Folha de São Paulo, said:
O bom documentário, aprendi ali, é o que provoca uma experiência. A ideia de que um documentário tem que ser imparcial, didático, informativo já foi superada há muito tempo. O gênero que mais evoluiu, que mais permite inovações, que mais valoriza a criatividade é o documentário.
The good documentary, I’ve learned it, is the one that provokes an experience. The idea that a documentary has to be impartial, didactic, informing, has long been overcome. The genre that has evolved the most, the one that allows for most innovations, that values creativity the most, is the documentary.
Costa's film was recommended by several artists that are usually aligned with leftist views. Queen Latifah, for example, shared the film's endorsement by Brazilian star Caetano Veloso:
pic.twitter.com/KqxwKuM9cP
— Queen Latifah (@IAMQUEENLATIFAH) February 3, 2020
Costa herself has pinned a tweet with a video in which filmmakers such as Jane Campion and Wim Wenders, with actor Tim Robbins, praise her film:
Here Jane Campion, Wim Wenders and Tim Robbins talk about our #TheEdgeofDemocracy and the global crisis of democracy. So much gratitude for their generosity! @timrobbins @NetflixFilm @JuliaPacetti @jojonata pic.twitter.com/sDHOGw0VjA
— Petra Costa (@petracostal) January 6, 2020
Among Costa's critics is former president Michel Temer’s marketing chief, who announced he is also preparing a version to the impeachment story that will be named “Plot against democracy”.
Abroad, Petra's film is seen as “a warning for democracies worldwide” (CNN), as a powerful film that “charts the state’s descent into populism and the fraying of its democratic fabric” (The Guardian), as “an outraged and heartbroken look at Brazil” (The NY Times) or as “heartfelt, unforgettable requiem to Brazil’s broken democracy” (The New Yorker Magazine).
About the attacks coming from an official government institution, Costa said:
The Brazilian government used its Secretary of Communication official account on social media to attack me calling me an anti-patriot. This is yet another step towards authoritarianism, in face of which we should not remain silent #TheEdgeofDemocracy https://t.co/4rJ9VmRNsy
— Petra Costa (@petracostal) February 4, 2020

author: Fernanda Canofre