This blog has moved

This blog is now located at http://blog.ifatunji.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://blog.ifatunji.com/feeds/posts/default.

Study: Most Africans are now Muslim or Christian

BY NIRAJ WARIKOO
APRIL 15, 2010

Most Africans are now Muslim or Christian, but many of them retain their traditional religions, according to a major new survey released today.

More than 90% of people who live in sub-Saharan countries in Africa are either Muslim or Christian – a big change from 100 years ago when less than a quarter practiced the two religions. In 1900, most practiced traditional African religions, the report said.

The survey was done on behalf of the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life in more than 60 languages in 19 African nations, representing about 75% of the total population in sub-Saharan Africa.

In metro Detroit, the African immigrant community is also generally Muslim or Christian. Nigerian-Americans in metro Detroit, for example, are usually either Muslim or Catholic, say local leaders.

The survey showed the sweeping religious changes in Africa over the past 100 years as more increasingly became Christian or Muslim due to the influence of Arabs and Europeans. But many keep their ancient traditions. About 27 percent, for example, maintain traditions related to the revering of ancestors and spirits.

The survey also showed that Africans tend to be highly religious. About 90% say religion is very important in their lives.

The Pew Survey was based on more than 25,000 interviews. It comes at a time of renewed interest in the ancient religions of sub-Saharan Africa.

V.S. Naipaul, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, is to have a book published in October entitled "The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief,” which is about the old religions of Africa that are fading away.

To read the full Pew report, visit http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=515

Police reports perpetuate racism

Racially infused police reports are not worth the marginal safety benefit.

04/11/2010
BY NICHOLAS ORTH

I am writing to support the April 6 letter to the editor “‘East African accent’ is offensive” and to stand in solidarity with the minority communities negatively impacted through the engendering of racist messages by our University of Minnesota police reports. The author explains that “The use of the phrase ‘East African’ is distasteful, offensive, unnecessary and … stereotyping” and “burdens the Somali minority with [its] implications.”

When I categorize the “East African accent” description of racism I do not mean that University police Chief Greg Hestness consciously holds attitudes of superiority or disdain over people of color. I hope and expect that he does not, but that doesn’t mean the unconscious messages he distributes through police reports do not embed damaging assumptions within minds throughout our student body.

This is especially important for those of us with white skin who often fail to realize that assumptions we make on a daily basis and seemingly innocuous institutional practices carried out all around us have a real impact on a society that creates unequal opportunities for people of color, especially the East African immigrant populations residing throughout these cities.

When we white students personally know not a single member of our East African community, which describes many of us, what will be the first thing that comes to mind when walking alone at night and crossing paths with a dark-skinned stranger?

When the only time we learn about these people is through crime descriptions, it may very well be a negative, unjustified and racist assumption, since we don’t know that statistically we are all most likely to fall victim to the crimes of our own racial group.

We may not always be cognizant of this oppressive behavior, but as members of a diverse urban society we have an obligation to attempt an honest, critical reflection upon our subtle motivations, assumptions and actions that, if left without reflection, will continue to marginalize people of color without our awareness.

I understand that the police need information in order to better conduct investigations, but does that make this necessary? When considering the greater social good, should we be more concerned with catching (mostly) petty thieves and throwing them in jail or spreading racism throughout our campus via mass emails? The answer is clearly the latter.

While I can perhaps understand the need for mass awareness of serious violent crimes such as the recent stabbing, which has a white suspect, it is gratuitous to alarm the community and engender fear of a people when little good will come of apprehending these suspects in the first place.

Racially infused police reports engender statistically unjustified, racist assumptions throughout the University community at the negligible benefit of occasionally leading to the temporary incarceration of criminals. They must end.

Nicholas Orth. University undergraduate student

CENSUS’ CARIBBEAN MEDIA ADVERTISING CRITICIZED

by NICOLE WHITE

Every person and every household counts in the U.S. Census, the federal government’s effort to get an accurate measure of the country’s population.

In addition to getting a true reflection of the nation’s populace, the Census also establishes demographic changes such as growth in neighborhoods and immigration trends.

These figures determine how programs are funded by the federal government, so an accurate count is critical.

This is the issue that worries Maxine Tulloch, president of the Caribbean American Journalists and Media Association (CAJMA), a recently formed non-profit national association with members from radio, TV and print media, as well as marketing and public relations agencies.

Tulloch and others have long maintained that the Caribbean community was largely undercounted in the 2000 census, and there are concerns of a repeat performance in 2010.

Her concerns are based on the lack of Census advertising in Caribbean media outlets, despite claims from the Census Bureau that such ads have been purchased.

Census officials acknowledge the concerns raised by CAJMA and say they are making improvements.

“The money doesn’t seem to have trickled down quite the way we wanted,” said Pam Page-Bellis, regional senior media specialist with the Census Bureau. “We have heard the voices of our partners. There is more advertising dollars coming to these outlets.”

The fallout forced a meeting last week with Census officials and state representatives, including Hazelle Rogers, Perry Thurston and state Sen. Chris Smith.

Tulloch said the meeting was productive, and that she believes Census officials will execute advertising campaigns soon.

“We got some action based on what we did. We’ll sit and wait for another week,’’ she said.

The Census database shows advertising purchases for over 23 local African-American and Caribbean media outlets, including South Florida Caribbean News, Caribbean Today and Jamaicans.com.

But Tulloch says no ads have appeared in any of those outlets.

“They have made promises to the Caribbean media, not actual buys, ’’ Tulloch said. “We were quite perturbed, angry because we always get empty promises.’’

Census advertising has, however, appeared in some media that target the Caribbean community, including the South Florida Times.

An accurate count of the Caribbean community is critical, Tulloch said, because funding from the federal government for social services, lunch programs, family and children services is determined by the Census count.

“If you don’t show that you have the demographics of people, you won’t get that money, so it’s very important that people fill out the Census forms,” she said.

The Caribbean media uproar is not the only fallout facing the Census Bureau this year. It has also faced criticism for including the word “Negro” on Census forms. For many African Americans, the word is a derogatory reminder of the Jim Crow era of segregation, when black people were forced to live in separate neighborhoods, eat in separate restaurants, and learn in separate and unequal schools from whites.

Despite the criticism, the word will remain, Page-Bellis said.

The word was included on forms because some 56,000 people wrote in the word “Negro” on their forms in 2000, she said.

“It told us that it is still a term that is used and some people prefer it,’’ she said. “It is something that we looked at very carefully and used it because we prefer to be as inclusive as we can.’’

She added: “The term is not a throw-back nor was it meant to alienate anyone at all. If you don’t see a word there that describes you, then by all means write it in. We want people to write what they are comfortable with.”

The 10-question Census forms will arrive in mailboxes between March 15 and 17.

Medianikk@Comcast.net

Wade calls for United States of Africa

2010-04-04 07:10

Dakar - Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade on Saturday called for the creation of a United States of Africa during the unveiling of a controversial statue which he said marked the moment for the continent to "take off".

"The time has arrived for Africa to take off," he said in a speech at the foot of the bronze statue, built by North Korea and higher than the Statue of Liberty.

Addressing a large crowd and 19 African heads of state, Wade called for "the exploration of new horizons" and the formation of a "United States of Africa" modelled on "large unions" such as the US and European Union.

Faced with new challenges of globalisation "only a political integration of the United States of Africa will shelter us from potentially fatal marginalisation" of the world's poorest continent, which holds the richest economic potential, he added.

After "five centuries of ordeals, slavery, Africa is still there, folding sometimes, but never breaking. She is upright and resolute to take her future in hand", Wade said.

"The slave traders have left, the last colonialist has left. We have no more excuses. We must seize this opportunity so that history does not repeat itself."

Symbol of unity

Despite local resistance against the cost and style of the monument, African leaders seized it as a symbol of unity, praising Wade and urging the continent to throw off the shackles of its past.

Former Nigerian president and African strongman Olusegun Obasanjo who cut a ribbon in the colours of the Senegalese flag, said the statue was "a monument for black people all over the world".

"We have a symbol to remind us, to inspire us" of and against years of slavery and abuse. "A united union of Africa can make it not happen again."

African Union chief and Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika praised Wade, saying he would go down in history as "a man with vision, a man with courage, a man with great resolve".

He also urged a new African unity: "We have more things that unite us, than those that divide us... Let us return to our countries with a new hope of a new Africa."

United States activist Jesse Jackson, praising the symbolism of the monument said: "I wish so much Martin Luther King could be here tonight."

Long on the table, a United States of Africa has been planned by the African Union by 2025, but doubts have been raised about the ability of the continent to unite amid widespread poverty and conflict.

- AFP

Canada fails to speed up visas for Haitian family members: critics

Fri Apr 02 2010
Andrew Chung
Quebec Bureau

MONTREAL – While more than a million Haitians remain homeless, many still without protection from the driving rains, Canada has not fulfilled its promise to accelerate the reunification of family members here in the wake of the Jan. 12 earthquake.

In fact, examining numbers provided by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the government has given virtually the same number of permanent resident visas as last year by this time, and appears to be well under its own immigration targets for Haiti.

The number of permanent resident visas issued between Jan. 13 and Mar. 27 – the latest statistics available – was 311. Last year 302 were issued up to Mar. 19.

The government has also given out 104 temporary resident permits, usually meant for those who don’t meet normal immigration requirements, but which could turn into permanent residency if extensions are granted.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything to indicate expedited processing,” said Montreal immigration lawyer David Cohen. The number of visas given so far, he added, “really isn’t impressive.”

The internal department target for Port-au-Prince for 2010 is between 2,358 to 2,435 people.

The current rate of visa issuance would yield about 1,500 for the year.

Given the epic scale of the disaster, the situation has Haitian families, most of whom live or have settled in Quebec, worried and frustrated.

“They promised to accelerate the process, but we don’t see any sign of that and it’s been three months,” said Marjorie Villefranche, program director for La Maison d’Haiti, a community centre in Montreal.

The Canadian government points to the fact that Canada’s embassy was severely damaged in the earthquake, limiting access to paper files.

It also says it has increased staff working on Haiti applications from four in Port-au-Prince before the quake, to 30 now, in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Ottawa.

On Thursday the department issued a notice saying it hopes to make final decisions on applications completed before the earthquake by June, and on those after, by the end of July.

If it succeeds at the latter commitment, the normal processing time of 23 months would be dramatically cut down.

Ottawa also points to another figure to show its humanitarian commitment. Accompanying the thousands of Canadians airlifted out of the country were more than 1,700 Haitians. The airlifts have since ended.

They were issued temporary resident visas – usually given to those going on vacation or to work or study in Canada. Some already held work or study permits.

By contrast, Canada gave out 562 temporary visas by this time last year.

“All these people we’ve helped leave Haiti and are now safe with their families here in Canada,” Immigration department spokesperson Mélanie Carkner said.

But these people have little to do with the promise of the government to give “priority” to new and existing sponsorship applications of family members in Haiti.

Instead, experts say, they were “lucky” enough to make it out as thousands clamoured at the gates of the embassy seeking evacuation.

They are, in some cases, family members of Canadians given passage at the discretion of an embassy officer. Or, Haitian parents might have had a Canadian child and were therefore able to go with the child, explained Villefranche.

“They were lucky,” she declared. “Normally they wouldn’t have been able to come so quickly.”

“My guess is that ordinarily they would not have gotten the (temporary resident visa),” Cohen added. “In that sense Canada extended a hand, and in that sense they were lucky because there are way more people who would have wanted the TRV.”

Cohen said these people might be able apply to stay in Canada on humanitarian grounds, something that is usually done from abroad.

Eline Occessite, a Haitian refugee, wanted to bring to Canada her 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son.

They’re currently living in Haiti, under a tent, with an adult friend. They have active immigration files to reunite with their mother.

But when Villefranche, while in Haiti recently, tried act on Occessite’s behalf to persuade the embassy to grant them temporary resident visas to expedite the process, they were refused on grounds that they did not meet that visa’s criteria.

“I was asking for humanitarian reasons,” Villefranche explained. “They are in danger; let them come.”

“I was shocked they did not accept them,” Occessite, 45, said. “There are bandits, and my children are not protected.”

There has been “zero change, zero progress” in the case of Canadian retiree Marie-Gerta Fanor, 66, who has been trying to bring her husband Roland Noel to Canada since they married in 2004, a family member said Friday. Noel now lives in his car in Port-au-Prince and Fanor had hoped his circumstances might favour his case.

There is also criticism about Quebec’s contribution to helping Haitians come to Canada.

In February, Quebec began allowing families to sponsor not only spouses, parents and children under 18, but also brothers, sisters and adult children.

But as of Mar. 19, only 19 cases had been approved, for a total of 40 people.

Even if more had been approved earlier, “it would not have changed anything,” said Claude Fradette, spokesperson for Quebec’s Ministry of Immigration and Cultural Communities.

The reason? Quebec’s role is to select immigrants; Canada issues the visas. There is already a backlog of 1,500 files approved by Quebec awaiting visas in Port-au-Prince.

Social worker Nicole Tremblay said families are also having trouble meeting the financial criteria to sponsor the relatives, even with a co-guarantor. To sponsor a family of four, for instance, would require an income of almost $70,000.

“I’m a single mother,” said Manoucheka Masson, a cook in Montreal, who wants to sponsor her sister. “Where am I going to find the kind of money they require?”

And yet, she says, her sister is living under a tarp with a baby and 9-year-old child and complains to Masson they are hungry. “I can barely talk to her on the phone, it hurts my heart so much.”

Tremblay has begun telling Haitian families to contact their members of parliament to press their cases. “We have sent letters, we have called; I don’t know what is causing the delays,” said Tremblay, of the Volunteer Action Centre of Montreal-North.

“If they wanted to really do something, they could,” Masson ventures. “They can’t bring everyone here from my country, of course, but they could do their best to help some.”

Ethiopian Children Imprisoned in Their Yemeni Homes

April 6 2010 Heather Murdock

In almost every corner of Yemen, you can find suffering children. But in the darkest corners of city slums, children from Ethiopia, refugees with no official Yemeni legal status, are hard to locate. Parents say they lock up their children while they are at work to keep them safe from accidents, and force them to stay inside to keep them safe from racially charged violence.

In this household, on most days, the girls, Husnia, who is 5, and Dunia, who is 3, are tied to the bedposts while their parents go to work. The door is locked from the outside. Their big brother, 9-year-old Akram, is not tied up. He is allowed to wander the two concrete window-less rooms and the dank hallway.

Their mother, Asha, says Akram is now old enough to avoid household accidents that commonly kill refugee children in Yemen's urban slums. But, she says, when Akram was little, she chained and padlocked him to the bed to keep him safe.

Not long ago, Asha's neighbor went to work, and didn't tie up her toddler. The baby crawled into the clothes-washing water, and was dead before she got home.

Asha says she locks up the children to keep them alive. She cannot afford day care, and school is out of the question. When a visitor opens the front door, the three bolt towards the white sunlight. "They are like animals," she says- always trying to get out.

Asha is an ethnic Oromo, and one of thousands of Ethiopian refugees in Yemen. Ethiopian officials say there is no ethnic majority among Ethiopian refugees in Yemen. But aid workers and refugees say they are almost all from the Oromo.

This girl, whose name is Oromia, has spent seven of her 10 years inside a cave-like room with a leaky tin roof, and a single window, which is squished up against her neighbor's wall. She went to school for one day, but her classmates beat her and her sister. The school principal did nothing to stop it, so her father took them home.

Oromia says she has no dreams because she has no future. She and her brothers and sisters don't fight, and they don't play. She says she doesn't know any games.

No legal standing

Khader, the father says he never lets his children go outside. He says he is afraid they will be beaten up because they are black, and he has barely any legal standing to complain.

In Yemen, Somalis fleeing war are granted automatic refugee status, which gives them the right to live and work. Non-Somalis from Africa, however, who are mostly from Ethiopia and Eritrea, are sometimes granted legal refugee status from the United Nations refugee agency. The Yemeni government, however, does not recognize this status.

Abdul Karim al-Iryani, a former prime minister, says that Ethiopians are not recognized because they are not really refugees. He says they came to Yemen looking for work, not fleeing political persecution.

"There is no war in Ethiopia, like in Somalia, to justify their classification as refugees, like Somalis, but this has been the case between Yemen, and Eritrea and Ethiopia, particularly during famines, and lack of rains," said al-Iryani.

Ethiopian parents insist they fled human rights abuses, like arbitrary arrests, torture, and killings at home. UNHCR refugee status means protection from deportation, and access to some refugee services. But because the government does not recognize them as refugees, their letters, that are supposed to serve as ID cards, are virtually useless.

No education, no future

And for all African refugee children in Yemen- from Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea- abject poverty stunts their education as much as racism or politics. Adventist Development and Relief Agency project manager Soo-Rae Hong says many families simply cannot justify the cost of sending their kids to school.

"In general, I don't think there are a lot of refugee children that attend schools because even though its relatively free of charge, provided by the government, you still need to have a birth certificate and a lot of those children don't have that. You also need to pay for a school uniform and school supplies, and parents can't afford that," said Soo-Rae.

Many children, like Oromia, say they no longer dream of education, because it won't happen. Oromia's 7-year-old sister, Ilily, however, says when she grows up, she wants to be the school principal. When that day comes, she says, refugee children will never get beaten when they try to go to school.