Numbers by Mia Couto

Another Mia Couto text published in the Magazine "Mais", about AIDs numbers in Mozambique. My translation.

NUMBERS

By  Mia Couto



Nobody doubts it anymore: AIDS is a big tripping fall not only to the development of our country but to our own survival. No government, no political agenda can dodge that obstacle. We will go on losing the best of our lives, we will go on losing the most productive of our age groups. We will go on spending millions that could be directly invested in the creation of wealth.

All of this is known. But it is worth bringing it up to talk about how lightly we discuss the AIDS numbers. Recently the press has focused on AIDS patients who will receive medical treatment. And numbers were announced. This year, about 50.000 patients will be treated. Expressed like this, with no context, it seems like a victory. I have spoken with workers in my company and they all seemed impressed. Fifty thousand is an important number.

No one doubts it is a victory. For a poor and ill prepared nation to deal with such a cast epidemic, magic passes can not be expected. However that number can only be considered in the context of a total number of the people infected by the virus. And in Mozambique that number is approximately one million and five hundred thousand! When we say we will treat fifty thousand people, we are also saying that one million, four hundred and fifty thousand people will not have access to the treatment. Put in the right context, the apparently grand headlines are immediately  destroyed. The same math can be done with the number of pregnant women who benefit from the treatment to avoid transmission of the virus to their babies.  They are about 4 thousand. The immediate question is: how many will have access to treatment?

The real news would not be how many people are treated but those who will remain untreated. The real headlines should inform of the million and four hundred and fifty thousand excluded. Terrible ethical problems arise: how to decide who will benefit from the program?

What just happened is not the responsibility of the Ministry of Health. After reading the communications of its leaders we understand at once the cautious tone and the absence of any affirmation of victory. On the contrary, extreme apprehension prevails, as substantiated in the words of the Health Minister: "it is a matter of the nation's survival". A subject this serious can not be treated lightly. We are talking about the lives of our fellow Mozambicans.

February 2005

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One small word to apologize for the terrible translation! It conveys all the ideas, and that's really what matters, but I could never get even close to Mia's style, even in a clean, simple magazine article such as this one.

SQL free online course

My free hours have been taken by a new website I'm trying to put together for my brother. He owns a small, recent business and wanted to put some information out there. That much is fine, I've given up totally on Freewebs for hosting, their server is down all the time and I've taken a chance with Starlogic. So far so good, it's really easy for a basic newbie like me.

The problem is that once my brother saw the project-webpage he started thinking of selling stuff online. My basic html/Frontpage skills are miles away from websales and even more miles away from database building. As an intense MS user, I've built several databases on Access but that's as far as I'll go, so I've decided to check what the heck is SQL and was is it for. For dummies, just like me, here's the cool place to have a little, dim light: SQLcourse.com. It's free, interactive, easy and pretty cool.

The Last Flight of the Flamingo, a review

I always find something I hadn't seen before about Mia Couto or his work. This particular review totally reflects what I think about The Last Flight of the Flamingo, one of the few books that have been translated into English. It was written by Jesse Berrett and published City Pages in Sept. 7, 2005. Here it is:

Mia Couto and the Case of the Dismembered Members

Norman Rush is a white man in Africa. J.M. Coetzee is too. Alexandra Fuller, the manliest literary figure of any nationality since Norman Mailer, is still a white woman in Africa. They're fine writers all, but their prose maintains a distance from the continent's black majority, that hint that something essential hides itself from white eyes and ears.

Mia Couto, a novelist, journalist, and scientist, is the first white writer I've ever read who, to my eyes, pierces that veil. The Last Flight of the Flamingo (Serpent's Tail), Couto's odd, dislocating novel about his native Mozambique, keeps tilting you this way and that. You finish it with the shaky uprightness of a sea voyage, an inability to rely on formerly reliable concepts like "reality" and "dreams." For the first time, a white African novelist has helped me see through black African eyes.

We enter the remote village of Tizangara on the heels of an Italian official, Massimo Risi, who has shown up to conduct an investigation. UN peacekeepers have begun exploding, leaving only their genitals behind. The investigator soon gets more than he bargained for--not in the typical thriller's sense of intrigue, but in a metaphysical manner. "The only facts [here] are supernatural ones," our unnamed narrator sort-of helpfully explains.

The facts on the ground are indeed murky and tendentious. And since the narrator--the town's translator--can't speak Italian, he's not going to be much help anyway. In the aftermath of a crippling civil war, a place that was once ravaged by ideology is now being ravaged by neoliberal economic policies. The old banners celebrating proletarian internationalism, however, can't be replaced by celebrations of capitalism. The paint to make new ones has "disappeared," and the cloth has been "stolen."

That's about as logical as things get. The narrator's father removes and hangs up his skeleton every night; his dead mother continually offers him advice and admonitions. I'm not sure I could explain precisely why the peacekeepers are exploding, or what happens at the end of this mystery. But plot resolution isn't really the point. Couto's animist distrust of everyday knowledge makes for an energetic, off-putting education in just how much of this planet remains for us First-Worlders to try to understand.

Jesse Berrett

quê

Tarde
Clara Santos

O dia caía morno sobre a cidade. Parou o carro junto ao miradouro. Saiu. Subiu até à capela. Junto ao muro, deixou-se estar a fumar algum tempo. Erva seca e beatas no chão. Depois foi embora devagar.

Coffee and Cigarettes by Jim Jarmusch

"Coffee and Cigarettes is a black and white film from established US indie director Jim Jarmusch. Well, its really 11 short black and white films with one obvious link - Coffee and cigarettes. Made over a 17-year period as kind of a hobby in between other projects, each piece involves conversations between two or three people whilst they drink and smoke. Sounds quite simple yet in some ways it is very ambitious. "

This is the beginning of the film's review by Paul Thompson at britfilms.co.uk, a cool website. I had never seen anything by Jim Jarmusch until my brother decided to give me this Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), that I loved. The movie is totally unexpected and totally different from anything we're used to when we say the word movie or film. It is a series of sketches with nothing is common, apparently, but the fact that the characters are drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes at a table. It seems that this movie took 17 years to complete, being an ongoing project for Jarmusch that probably never even wanted to put it all together in a movie, who knows. But in the end it all comes together with some cross references and some characters using the same words as others in different situations.

The whole film is in black and white and funny enough, B/W makes it more realistic and closer to real life. Any of us could be there, in one of those situations, if we disregard the fact that all the situations are really strange and the characters exotic, to say the least.

The list of characters is played by a list of great names that do not disappoint. I liked the Tom Waits and Iggy Pop scene the best. My favorite acting scene was Cate Blanchett's where she plays herself and a looser cousin that she politely meets in a hotel lobby between marketing engagements. Cate manages to be 2 people with no effort at all, I had to check the DVD backcover to make sure it was her. My favorite story or non-story is probably Renée French's segment, "Renée".

One of those films to watch on a melancolic evening, when it's warm inside and pouring raining  outside.

Blogcode's best matches

I have recently discovered Blogcode, probably through Blog Explosion. It is a very cool website where you code your own blog or others by answering an online questionnaire. Blogcode then tells you the blogs that best match it. So cool!

So here are the best matches for Bloggingburt:

These are the blogs that - according to their readers - best match Blogging Burt in terms of style, content and delivery. (Hint: anything above 80% is a very strong match) We have developed an easy to implement tool which allows Bloggers to display the top BlogCode matches for their sites on their own blog. Click here to find out more ...

Posthegemony (http://posthegemony.blogspot.com/) 76.15 %
Gia Milinovich (http://giagia.blogspot.com/) 72.95 %
Smokewriting (http://ccgi.bluesmokedesign.plus.com/) 71.49 %
Backword (http://backword.me.uk/) 71.07 %
Sampsa Daily (http://sampsak.blogspot.com/) 70.79 %
This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours (http://aidanbrack.blogspot.com/) 70.75 %
Kitty Killer (http://kittykittykillkill.blogspot.com/) 70.71 %
A Big Stick and a Small Carrot (http://bsscworld.blogspot.com/) 70.62 %
Le Blog De Leerdammer (http://leerdammer.blogspot.com/) 70.57 %
Chicken Yoghurt (http://chickyog.blogspot.com/) 70.47 %
Stephen Newton`s diary of sorts... (http://www.stephennewton.com/) 69.76 %
Books, Inq. (http://booksinq.blogspot.com/) 69.72 %
Councillor Bob Piper (http://councillorbobpiper.blogspot.com/) 69.56 %
Two for Tea (http://www.two4tea.org/) 69.44 %
Murky.org (http://www.murky.org/) 69.34 %
Peter Black AM (http://peterblack.blogspot.com/) 69.23 %
East Ethnia (http://eastethnia.blogspot.com/) 69.17 %
Jawbox (http://www.jawbox.co.uk/blog/) 69.10 %
Quaequam Blog! (http://www.theliberati.net/quaequamblog/) 68.83 %
Nick Robinson`s Newslog (http://blogs.bbc.co.uk/nickrobinson/) 68.58 %

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I have visited Posthegemony , the top of the list and I've been totally flattered by the unseemingly comparison. What a good, content-rich and serious blog. It certainly will not fit the blog explosion and similar devices greed for points and "increased hits". Very recommended! And just for now, read the Chávez article.

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Comments

Well, thank you. And let me say I like the fact you have a Perec quotation up the top there. I posted a little thing on Perec for a group blog I contribute to. I've been meaning to write more. Life, A User's Manual is one of my all-time favourite books.
Jon

Thank you for your note, Jon. I have found your post on the www.long-sunday.net group blog (http://www.long-sunday.net/long_sunday/perec/). Obviously by my chosen quote, Life, A User's Manual is one of my favorite books of all time. Not very often do I come across with someone who even knows the book. Guess Blogcode has its merits after all. Cheers!

Why Gmail is so much better than Hotmail

I've come to use Gmail more and more, leaving Hotmail only for Messenger. Why?

- Much more memory to put all your stuff.
- Let's you forward all mail to any other account.
- Many more options.
- Nicer to look at and use.
- Does not get deleted after 1/2 hour of non use! I've had my hotmail account deleted about 5 times in the last 10 years. So upsetting!

Ena Swansea

I've realized with the help of Kate (tks again!) that the Saatchi Gallery  has an online exhibition showing all their "The Triumph of Painting". Having browsed through the several artists, even to re-visit the paintings I saw last Summer in London, I have come across Ena Swansea. I have chosen this "Gay Wedding" but the choice was difficult, any other could have been here. Vist Ena's page at the Saatchi's Gallery here.

And here is the text provided by the Gallery about this "Gay Wedding":

In Ena Swansea’s Gay Wedding, the artist draws unexpected narrative from painterly abstraction. Playing light against dark, Ena Swansea’s forms billow and writhe with delicate fancy: fairytale ‘goddesses’ of chastity, unblemished in their virginal gowns. Enshrined in silvery celebration, Ena Swansea’s scene is contorted with a certain stiffness: staged like actors in a play, the figures’ choreographed position carries underlying significance. Redolent of Paula Rego’s scenes of contemporary mythology, Ena Swansea’s monumental burlesque brides convey tumultuous undertones: demur beneath their flouncy parasol, wristwatch hidden behind a back, Ena Swansea portrays glorified romance as a folly of seduction.

Eric Bana and the pipe of peace

I've watched Spielberg's Munich today. A two year gap before I had been on a movie theatre, babies do change your life.

What a great movie. Intelligent, deep, well made, the work of a master. There is really nothing that I liked less. The story was good, the ators were great, including Bana, another beautiful Australian, the fast pace. This movie is one to think about: how the Israelis and Palestinians have been at war for so long, how it will never stop, how violence only breeds more violence, how the opportunistic middle men of the so-called civilized West work. The most frightening idea is that while Munich is about Israel and Palestine, we now know how much this war has escalated and spread to a us/them, Islam and the West, one God against the other. It just got bigger and bigger and somebody has to stop first but nobody will. Spielberg gives us killers to turn movie goes into smokers of the peace pipe. We realize how Bana's character is so much alike Ali, the Palestinian terrorist. They want the same and they do exactly the same to get it.

Apparently and to no surprise, Israeli intelligent officers question facts in "Munich". After all, Israelis don't come out so well in the picture. The French neither, nor any other Europeans for that matter. There's also the criticism by Israelis that the film has been based on the book Vengeance which they claim is totally unrealistic, although claiming to be the truth. Spielberg has been accused of ignoring Israeli sources and of not verifying the facts. I think that none of this matters. The final message is stronger, who cares if this person didn't kill that other one in this manner? Those Palestinians were killed, the Munich massacre happened, the war has gone on for years, aren't those the facts that matter?

According to a retired Mossad deputy chief , this is how the killings happened: "word to our people who were posted in various countries to look out for top Black September members. When these were located, then we sent out the right agents to take care of business, on a more ad-hoc basis." Great, so where's the big difference?

A good review here, by James Berardinelli, and Ebert's review here. Both found at goodle.com/reviews, another cool google feature.

A final word for Daniel Craig, the next James Bond, who happens to be blond. I had serious doubts about a blonde James Bond but the man is great, he's going to add a sexy spicy edge to the old hero. Can't wait to see it!

Max Lyonga against hunger

Although Cameroon seems to have many artists, I had to chose Max Lyonga to represent this country in my All 55 African Countries project because of his use of painting for the benefit of others. In his early thirties, Max Lyonga has partnered with the Word Bank to end poverty. This was not the first time Lyonga has tried to change the world around him through his painting. It was a pleasure to discover this young painter from the Cameroon, I wish him the best success as on top of it all his paintings are so good.

The painting above, The Child, has been sold, but other artwork can be purchased at Lyonga's page at Artnet. Here is his contacts, also provided by Artnet:

Contact:
Max LYONGA
Buea, Cameroun
Tel. : ++ 237 998.60.01 / Cellphone: ++237 748.26.75
E-mail: maxlyonga@yahoo.com

And a shot bio:

Born on the 12th of June 1968 in Tiko, in southwestern Cameroon, Max Lyonga Sako is a Cameroonian painter based in Buea, in his province of origin. His love affair with art began early in life and his father's death led him to embark upon an artistic career. He began painting in the impressionist style. He later met German tourists practicing abstract art which became a dominant aspect of his work. Max Lyonga received his art training at workshops run by the Franco-Cameroonian Alliance cultural center in Buea and at other French-run cultural centers in the country. He is today fascinated by mixed painting techniques, collage, acrylics , natural materials and gouache. He also works with cast-off objects of every description and has explored installations, routinely making use of canvas, plywood, tin sheets and even walls as supports for his art. He favors social aspects of life, the environment, intimate scenes and feelings in his art, ranging freely from pure abstraction to figurative works.
Max Lyonga has continued to enter his works at national plastic arts competitions, winning an "Épi d'argent" art prize in December 2002. A prolific and socially conscious artist, he contributed a work of his at a benefit auction for children affected by Aids. He also set up a facility for contemporary art called Magic Stick at the Franco-Cameroonian Alliance in Buea, where he opened his own exhibition space, Coha Gallery, in May 2004.

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Read an article about Lyonga here, at the Bakwerirama website: "Introducing Max Sako Lyonga: The Man with the Golden Brush" By Dibussi Tande

And an article by the Belgian Cooperation about Lyonga's work with street children here. The results, paintings by the children, are quite astounding as we can see here. Below is my favorite one:

And here some links to other Cameroonian painters. What a haven Cameroon is in Africa. May be that is why so many refugees have escaped from neighboring Chad and Congo.

Portrait of God by Richard Phillips

I have recently discovered Richard Phillips, a painter born in 1962 in Massachussets.

No doubt this Portrait of God (after Richard Bernstein), 1998, is a powerful one.

As is this Artist (below), oil on canvas, 2001:

And Sissel, oil on linen, 2002:

Some more images:
Money
Bukkake

"Richard Phillips is the David Bowie of painters, changing his painterly persona from show to show with frightening ease. He first rose to fame in the late '80s doing slick upholstered paintings made of colored leather and rubber stretched on supports; they were ironic and funny, and spoke of doubts about there being an acceptable next move for painters at that time. Then, after a few years of seclusion, Phillips reinvented himself with a series of crude, expressionist paintings of country living, nasty sex and people barfing from the sides of sailboats. Another reinvention landed him in the Whitney Biennial with giant Photo-Realist paintings of gorgeous women's faces that looked as if they had been derived from makeup ads. " by Bill Arning

Most images here were taken from the Friedrich Petzel Gallery.

Ramos Horta for the UN top position

As many newspapers have been reporting, the run for the UN top position is now under way. I want to cast my vote on Peace Nobel Laureate José Ramos Horta, "foreign minister of East Timor — the newest nation in the world and, until recently, itself a wartorn half-island in the South Pacific administered by the United Nations. Ramos-Horta is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and is well-known internationally, but his country is tiny, with only 800,000 people." (from The Toronto Star)

It would be good to know that the best person for the job is chosen. Ramos Horta is definitely a good candidate but I wonder how many Asian nations could converge behind tiny East Timor? Also, as you can see from the quotes below, Ramos Horta is more likey to send the UN on flames than to sit down and appease UN spirits.

Here are some quotes that may strongly contribute for his dismissal:

"In almost 30 years of political life, I have supported the use of force on several occasions and sometimes wonder whether I am a worthy recipient of the Nobel Peace prize. Certainly I am not in the same category as Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu or Nelson Mandela."

"Some may accuse me of being more of a warmonger than a Nobel laureate, but I stand ready to face my critics. It is always easier to say no to war, even at the price of appeasement. But being politically correct means leaving the innocent to suffer the world over, from Phnom Penh to Baghdad".

Read the whole article "Sometimes, a War saves People" here , at the Wall Street Journal.

"Look at what the Belgians have done in Congo, or France. How many governments has France overthrown in Africa? The only thing you can say about the French is that they are a bit more efficient than the Americans, because when they try to overthrow a president they bring along in the plane with the paratroopers the new president. So they don't wait a few months of consultations and a people’s assembly, they bring a ready-made president in the plane, as it happened with the Central African Empire about 15 years ago. The Russians were equally efficient, when they went into Afghanistan in the late 1970's they brought along the new president. They picked him up in Prague. He was the Afghan ambassador in Prague, and they made him the new president. So these are only minor nuances, but they all were involved in overthrowing governments. The French are notorious for saving Mobutu. How many times did they not intervene in Zaire to save Mobutu?"

All interview here.

"China today is no longer a socialist, Marxist country. It is more a fascist, Leninist capitalist system. So where is the legitimacy of the leadership?"

"Supported by everybody--United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan--everybody support Indonesia, not only with money, but with weapons as well. Weapons were used in East Timor. We're only 700,000 people, and no one supported us. All alone fighting on the ground in East Timor, and we are winning. It is Indonesia's collapsing, all over--all around it, all around the dictator--it's collapsing. We are going to win this battle. And that must be some sort of miracle. And that's why I'm also convinced that Tibet one day will find its place in the community of nations. Its history, the power of its convictions, its long--thousands of years--civilization, will survive all these temporary doctrines like Marxism and the challenges from the Indonesian--from the Chinese communist party and so on."

All interview here.

"The ASEAN countries are a club of dictators, oligarchies that are alien to their own people, that live in luxurious palaces, away from the peasants who in the streets of Java, and many other places in Indonesia, are battling the security forces, who want freedom, who want labour rights, who want better pay. In Thailand, in Malaysia it is the same. Mahathir talks all the time criticising the West. But he is the biggest hypocrite of this region. He criticises the West for not doing much on Bosnia in the past. But he himself has done absolutely nothing on the Achinese in Sumatra. Thousands of Achinese, are being raped, killed in Sumatra, just a few minutes flight from Malaysia".

All interview here.

You have to admire the man!

Cartoons

Recently cartoons have become a weapon against muslims, or so they say. Although I believe some respect is never a bad thing, cartoons pretty much make fun of eveything and eveyone, Mahommed or muslims are not excluded. If everybody who has been targeted by cartoonist took to the riffles there woulnd't be riffles enough.

Here's my cartoon selection for the day:

Great cartoon about Darfur, it kind of says almost all, by Mohammed Raees

Here's one of the sources of discontempt. I found a slideshow of all the original cartoons published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten by the Little Green Footballs weblog. Here it is. All the cartoons can also be viewed here, at the Brussels Journal.

One on opposite sides. In Mohamed Al Ashi homepage.

An another one that I took from the great blog www.eyranian.net.

Just another one. I've been at home sick for almost a week, needed to post a few fun things.

As for all the cartoon controversy, I still feel I should say that freedom of expression is as much to respect as religious beliefs. I believe this all controversy against the Danes of all people has been orchestrated by some islamic groups. How else could there be such a big gap between their publication and all the unrest? Some groups are just on the look for excuses for violence and hatred. As i've heard a journalist say, we should not live by their ideals, as they want to force us to, but by what we believe in, those ideals of freedom and democracy that took so many centuries and lives to build.

Fortunately newspapers around the world are not intimidated by the threats and displays of violence. Blogs aren't either. There is no way people can be silenced these days. And if you don't like it, you are always free to turn the page, read other newspaper, visit some other website. Choice is something that we fortunately have today.