Review: La crise ivoirienne, un homme Choi (2012)

Posted on May 11, 2012 by admin

Last night was the premiere in Abidjan of a new documentary on Young Jin Choi, former head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast (2007-2011). The producer also claimed it was the first documentary on the Ivorian post-election crisis. As usual, the premiere started late in the reasonably full conference hall at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

It’s interesting to see the contrast between cultural events organised by the government and ones organised by others. The same director Idrissa Diabate had shown a new documentary on the Ivorian botanist, Laurent Ake Assi, at the Institut Goethe a few months back. There, the creative piece was centre stage – as ever, there are brief, often off-the-cuff speeches and then we all enjoy the film. At government events, the dignitaries get centre stage – so much so that the director himself almost wasn’t included in the ‘photo de famille’ (family photo) at the end of the event. Things rarely start on time, you get long speeches in which everything is the best it could possibly be in the best of all possible worlds. Then comes the film as a sort of post-script, and there is very little critical appreciation.

For the record, Choi, a South Korean diplomat, arrived in 2007 and did a reasonable job of gaining the confidence of all sides. His big moment came after the second round of voting in 2010 when it was clear to everyone that Gbagbo had lost. Gbagbo made his infamous attempt at doing a Mugabe/Kibaki – losing an election and staying in post, while Choi affirmed that Alassane Ouattara had won the election. Choi played a key role in the subsequent crisis, UN helicopters eventually intervening during the final days of fighting in Abidjan.

Anyway, on to the film. Sadly it was a big disappointment. A colleague told me afterwards that after the 55 minute showing she hadn’t learned one new thing. I felt the same. A diplomat I spoke to afterwards who wasn’t here during the crisis, told me that he thought anyone who didn’t know the Ivorian crisis in detail wouldn’t have understood a thing. So the documentary seems to have achieved the rare feat of being too complex for new-comers and too shallow for those who’ve followed the crisis. There was a serious fault of story-telling here. Not only was the narrative difficult to follow, jumping about, from comments about Choi to commentary on the crisis, but interviewing lacked interrogation and all contributors were accepted at face value. I felt there was too much background on the negotiations and far too little detail on Choi himself.

Technically the film had few faults, though it was far from exceptional and some of the interview framings were very odd. Looking back it’s hard to remember a single memorable image or moment. The music was good (as often with Diabate) and the highlights were the interviews with Ibrahim Sy Savane and Choi’s personal secretary.

Overall, it leaves me a bit worried. Ivorian culture needs to aim a lot higher. In the world of the web good material is in easy reach and its not hard to come across benchmark examples. We need intellectuals and creative types who can ask big questions, occupy space that is separate from the politicians and their camps, and touch on universal themes that will take Ivorian art to a wider audience. Of course, it’s getting increasingly easy to take good photographs and film pretty images, but the craft of story-telling and production is a completely different skill. Another opportunity missed here.

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Review: Une Passion Interrompue

Posted on May 7, 2012 by admin

At the age of 24, Yehni Djidji is Ivory Coast’s newest published author and quite probably the youngest as well. I picked up my copy of ‘Une passion interrompue’ (A passion interrupted) at the weekend at the first official book signing, in Rivieria. At the risk of being a bit too ‘niche’ (reviewing in English a book written in French and only available in Abidjan), here are a few of my thoughts.

The book is a quick read, so you shouldn’t have any problems even if you’re not a native French speaker. At less than 200 pages, large type, it’s digestible in an afternoon (as was the case for me on Saturday). Without giving too much away, the storyline is of a young couple about to be married who come across a dark family secret. The couple falls apart, each go their separate ways, but as the story unfolds we wonder if true love will prevail.

Well, actually we don’t really, as the ending is no real surprise. We get plenty of twists and turns along way, but we kind of know things will turn out fine. In some ways the book resembles the Brazilian soap operas women love watching every evening on the Ivorian state television channel. The plotlines and characters aren’t too deep and we know things will work out.

In conclusion, a decent enjoyable well-written read, though no real surprises. As so often with Ivorian culture, the setting is Abidjan bourgeois life – Ivorians regularly seem desperate to prove how developed they are. At dinner last weekend I heard an Ivorian recount the visit of Rene Dumont, author of ‘Afrique noir est mal partie’ (Black Africa has started badly) in the 1960s. He got a poor reception from Ivorians shortly after its publication in 1963, who argued ‘certainly not here’. My friend lamented on how Dumont had been proved right in the end (his view not mine).

I think Yehni could move on to greater things. She writes very well (there are more young Ivorians who produce great photos than who write well) and I’d like to see deeper themes and more original plot twists – a bit too much of the regular Ivorian tropes of infidelity and wealth here for my liking. I thought more could have also been done to develop tensions and suspense – in this case dark secrets were quickly confessed without us having the time to feel their grip. I get the impression that it’s been a while since we had a great Ivorian literature produced here, so there’s a gap to be filled.

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Ivory Coast economic outlook

Posted on May 1, 2012 by admin

What are we to make of the immediate economic outlook for Ivory Coast? Here in Abidjan there’s a range of views, but I wanted to share the perspective of an important economic operator I chatted with at the weekend who had spent the previous weeks meeting with key people in government. He’s pro-Ouattara but he’s worried about the next six months. He says that lots of investors are coming to visit on the back of positive economic reports, but many for the moment are choosing not to invest until at least late 2012/early 2013. The key problems seem to be i) visibility about the immediate future ii) a lack of government funds. On the latter, the government are keen to see plenty of BOT schemes, but for the moment it has absolutely nothing to contribute – wanting foreign companies to accept all the risk and the upfront investment. On the former, there are concerns about the political scene and particularly about the disruptive capacity of the opposition who seem undecided between participating in normal political life and staying on the extremes. Will there be disruptive protests/strikes in the near future? There’s a fear that Ouattara may have over-estimated the reconciliatory impact of a better-run economy.

My personal view is that it’s going to take time for confidence to come back and 2012 could well be another year of gradual progress, allowing water to pass under the bridge after the crisis. Economic growth of 8% if realised would put the country back in investors sights, and debt relief under the HIPC process should free up the country to seek more funds abroad. In some ways the government has done an amazing job of giving the impression of a great economic revival when the post-electoral crisis came at a very high cost.

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Millenarianism and the pro-Gbagbo camp

Posted on April 15, 2012 by admin

In those final moments before the Ivorian state television channel (nicknamed TV Mille Collines by pro-Ouattara supporters) was taken off the air during the battle for Abidjan, a scrolling ticker along the bottom of the screen, apparently the last thing that was working, threatened the coming apocalypse with a Bible verse from Revelation. In the end, it was the Pentacostal religious extremism that proved the hardiest element of the pro-Gbagbo ideological camp – long after the leaders of the “Patriotic Galaxy” had fled the bunker to Ghana, the prayer meetings continued by those who believed that what was happening was all in line with the sayings of a local prophet called Malachi.

Twelve months on, that extremism seems to be the element that animates the exile community of pro-Gbagbo elites who fled to Ghana and Togo. The ethnic element could only ever tie in a small number of people (Ivory Coast has 60 ethnic group, none which covers more than a quarter of the population). The anti-French discourse doesn’t seem to carry much weight locally for a number of reasons; it hadn’t been a major part of the Gbagbo electoral campaign, the Gbagbo government hardly showed itself averse to giving French multinationals big contracts without tender and Ivorians are nostalgic about the pro-French Houphouet years of prosperity. (This position has ironically more traction in France itself where pro-Gbagbo intellectuals have been able to ally with other African diasporas, particularly Cameroonian.)

Over the weekend the news site Koaci published an interview with a former pro-Gbagbo government minister, Charles Dosso, currently in exile. “It pleased God to put me here at this moment…it’s a moment of penitence [ed - because of the suffering not repentance] that brings us close to God with the goal of preparing us for entry into the new Jerusalem, the promised land, a new Ivory Coast…When human despair grows and the suffering becomes more and more atrocious, that means the divine hand is not far away. We are getting ever closer to the end of the Ivorian crisis. At that moment, the just will be justified and evil will reap what they have sown. We are calm and fix our eyes on the new Ivory Coast, which is already appearing on the horizon. Certainly, like all births, it will be painful, even horrible, but the joy will be at the end. The cries of pain will be transformed into joy.”

Let’s be clear – these comments were made last Friday, not a year ago during the actual conflict. When asked about president Alassane Outtara, he quotes from the apocalyptic chapter 8 of Daniel [he quotes the first verse here, I quote the following as well]: “In the latter part of their reign, when rebels have become completely wicked, a fierce-looking king, a master of intrigue, will arise. He will become very strong, but not by his own power. He will cause astounding devastation and will succeed in whatever he does. He will destroy those who are mighty, the holy people. He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior. When they feel secure, he will destroy many and take his stand against the Prince of princes. Yet he will be destroyed, but not by human power.”

So, what are we to make of all this? Firstly, it all makes the task of reconciliation extremely difficult. This is black and white religious language transposed into the political life of a second-tier African state; Jesus’ second coming is equated to Gbagbo’s return, Satan is at times Nicholas Sarkozy, at times Ouattara, and always people are called to ‘keep the faith’ for deliverance is just around the corner.

Secondly, this sort of millenarianism which frequently makes use of Christian material, has always been outside the main stream Church and has never had much time for the central ideas of the Christian faith – sin, repentance, the Gospel and a life of love. These movements tend to be tied to moments of incredible social and political upheaval and lose their force as life normalises. This is more about politics than religion. That doesn’t of course mean that such positions don’t do an incredible amount of damage to the Church.

Finally, the presence of such believers in the region, means there will be a residual outside threat of violence in the coming years. True, the possibility of regaining the state is almost unthinkable given the presence of international forces and the lack of any regional support for such a project. But an extremist terrorist attack can’t be ruled out, even if many people would say ‘it’s not in Ivorian blood’. For me the existance of extremist views, easy access to weapons and the presence of ex-professional Ivorian soldiers in exile, means this sort of thing can’t be excluded, even if, almost inevitably, exiles will return (as perhaps all do) to find the country that existed in their imagination has long since moved on, and with perhaps a touch of disappointment that it doesn’t turn out to be the living hell they had thought.

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The anniversary

Posted on April 11, 2012 by admin

On the anniversary of the arrest of Laurent Gbagbo, I find myself in a maquis (local restaurant/bar) with more than ten supporters of the former president, from his Bete ethnic group. This wasn’t planned, but I was in Yopougon, Abidjan’s most pro-Gbagbo district for an interview with a cultural figure (nothing related to politics). Afterwards came the invitation for a few beers under the shade of some local trees. The conversation in the all-male group turned around the party-buzz that remains in Yopougon and how beautiful the women were. Life in this most pro-Gbagbo of places has in some sense returned to normal.

A year and a couple of days ago, I was 100m from there with the military forces trying to take the city. The road into the city was strewn with bodies.

Now, the traffic was heavy. Life you could say is returning to normal, politics has drifted into the background, and people have learned to live again.

Today’s anniversary has been the occasional for a resurgence of bitter partisan comment on Facebook of the type we saw in the worst moments of the crisis. Each side’s ‘brave intellectual combattants’ is the other side’s ‘corrupt ignorant extremist’. Perhaps most poignantly, one comment said words to the effect that after 3,000 deaths, no-one learned anything. And that’s part of the sad truth of what happened. No side has admitted defeat, asked for forgiveness or moved the country forward. The contrast with Senegal is evident. In the end, it all came down to a military struggle, which made it obvious that one side was physically stronger than the other, but didn’t resolve any arguments in people’s heads.

Ivorians on all sides are moving on at least chronologically. The past – except for those outside the country – is the past, and people are getting on with things in a newly peaceful country. Yet, I worry that too much is still unresolved in the hearts and minds.

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A dream – Abidjan Coding camp 2012

Posted on April 9, 2012 by admin

Let me talk about an event that doesn’t exist (except in my imagination). Every year hundreds of Ivorians take part in summer camps to use up the long holiday period. Some are based around arts & crafts, others extra school studies, others travel to neighbouring countries. How about one camp dedicated to giving people a foundation in the IT professional? Last year we saw e-school, but how about something much bigger and longer? Say, four 1 week camps with up to 30+ students each. Take people who can already move a mouse – recruiting through online networks and cybercafes – but making an effort to get ‘not just the same old faces’ but a wider catch of young and enthusiastic Ivorians (although I think there needs to be some chance of them having regular contact with technology). This would be the equivalement of Jean-Marc Guillou’s nationwide recruitment for the Asec Mimosas academy in the early 1990s – finding the enthusiastic and the talented even in unexpected places.

The camp would consist of a week of training from local professionals, enthusiasts and outside teachers from Europe – these could be tech students from European universities looking for some practical volunterring opportunities in their summer. Sessions should aim to take people from Facebook/Twitter enthusiasts towards people who can i) set-up blogs ii) design sites with WordPress/Joomla iii) create simple web pages using html (at least to understand how it works) iv) understand some of the conceptual work around apps and design a basic Facebook app v) get a bit deeper into coding vi) learn basic business skills. Perhaps the crucial thing would be to try and launch people into the world with a vision of where technology is going and with a knowledge of how to learn more themselves (auto-didact skills). By the end of the summer you should have 120 young people with a vision and a passion to start developing tech enterpise in Abidjan and if only a quarter intensify their knowledge and start ‘doing interesting stuff’, then the ball could be rolling towards making Abidjan a real and exciting tech centre. From these students will no doubt come the start-ups that will fill the new Tech-Hub in a year or so. What do you think? Ivorians are rightly proud of some past achievements but how about building a new basis for raising the national head beyond the beautiful game?

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Happy Paquinou

Posted on April 6, 2012 by admin

Easter weekend takes its own Ivorian twist here with the festival of Paquinou among the country’s largest ethnic group, the Baoule. For the last couple of centuries the traditional Baoule lands have been in what is now central Ivory Coast, but Baoule farmers are found throughout the southern forest zone having migrated to new forests where they frequently became cocoa and coffee farmers.

Taking advantage of the long Easter weekend (Paque in French), the community have made this the traditional weekend for Baoule to return to their home villages for community meetings and a good dose of partying. For the past few days the bus stations in Abidjan have been packed with hundreds sleeping out in an effort to get a seat on buses heading up country. Huge amounts of beer and palm wine will be drunk and in nine months time expect a glut of new borns. Last year’s festival was muted due to it coinciding with the post-election violence, so this year is expected to be bigger than ever. One cultural entrepreneur is even trying to profit from the event by organising a ‘Paquinou in Abidjan’, for those not willing to travel.

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Cocoa corruption trials

Posted on April 5, 2012 by admin

If I didn’t have a day job, it’d be quite tempted to spend my time at the Abidjan courts this past month, where after nearly four years of waiting the trial of the country’s former cocoa sector managers is underway. It’s not making headlines internationally, but a few papers are following the trial closely and there are some simply stupendous stories coming out each day. Surely this sort of thing would make a fantastic book. One headline today suggests some 1.8 billion dollars of sub-grade cocoa was illegally exported – every day there are similar stories of scams.

All this is creating barely a stir here. For context, the cocoa sector here in the world’s biggest producer was liberalised in 1999/2000 and put under the control of various semi-private agencies. The whole thing was very badly organised leaving agencies that had ambiguous legal foundations controlled by unaccountable managers, many of whom had little formal training. In addition, the period coincided with instability in Ivory Coast following the late-99 coup d’etat. The result of the cocoa reforms was theft on an incredible scale.

There was an incredible amount of corruption under former president Laurent Gbagbo, but in this case it was he who arrested the twenty leading figures in the sector in June 2008. What surprises me most is not the figures (which are breath-taking) but the lack of current outrage. It’s evidence of just how little power and influence the Ivorian cocoa farmer has – this is their money stolen by Abidjan-based elites and most of us don’t seem to care. Here’s a prediction – no money will be returned to farmers, no-one will apologise either among those who organised the crime or those who didn’t bother to stop it, and no-one will question the morality of a society that lets the rich steal so openly from the poor.

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Garba story – a review

Posted on April 2, 2012 by admin

Last weekend, I received a free ticket to a performance of “Garba Story” – it’s unfortunately rare to see theatrical performances in Abidjan, so this was something of a treat. The performance was written and put together by the Lebanese cultural extraodinaire Zein Abass, who somehow manages to get these things off the ground. I’m not sure of the exact reason why they didn’t use the Palais de la Culture, the normal venue for these sorts of things, but they used a dedicated venue – a large tent put up in the grounds of a local school. This allowed them to try and add value to the performance by creating a temporary exhibition area and restaurant as well where all guests were entitled to a free plate of garba (local Ivorian fast food).

As with his previous Chwarma stories, this was a very Ivorian comic look at life in Abidjan, complete with a good range of local stock characters: Lebanese businessmen, corrupt policemen, prostitutes, uneducated Burkinabe migrant visitors, communal living, visitors enamoured by Abidjan, and a rather stuck-up French wife who just found everything so frustrating. There were a good number of Lebanese in the audience, but the crowd had a good mix – with Ivorians, whites, metisse and all in between.

In all, the performance was well done – frequently comic and sometimes impressive (with performing youngsters in the intervals). Anyone whose been to a few theatrical events here, will know that there’s not a huge pool of actors (or perhaps the same ones get chosen for the main roles all the time), but that only meant we were seeing well-loved figures on stage. At 15,000 cfa the evening was on the expensive side and out of reach of most, but there’s an audience that can pay in the Zone 4 area and in the week-long run, the venue was apparently close to full every night (at least a thousand seats). I hope we see more of the same, and I’m grateful for those who work tirelessly and frequently thanklessly to put these sort of cultural events on.

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Ivory Coast Facebook culture

Posted on April 1, 2012 by admin

As promised, I wanted to write about Facebook in Ivory Coast. Having joined Facebook many years back when you needed a university email address from an elite university to open an account, I’ve been around for longer than most. My impression is that my European friends are using FB a lot less (perhaps they’re concerned about their social media image), but in Ivory Coast the FB scene is really dynamic and bustling. Let me explain why.

Firstly, it’s extremely common for Ivorians to add friends who are complete strangers, something Facebook creators seem to want us to avoid. I receive about 40 friendship requests a week, 99% of which are from Ivorians I don’t know. I can’t accept them because my account is already full, but if people look interesting, I’ll add them and every few weeks I organise a cull of FB friends that I don’t know personally and that don’t seem to be doing much interesting.

Why do Ivorians invite people they don’t know? Well, a minority are still online, so you’re still a member of a certain exclusive club. And also Ivory Coast (by and large we’re talking about Abidjan) is small enough to feel that if a fellow Ivorian wants to connect with me, we probably share a fair amount of interests in common already (or at least certain experiences).

What this then creates is a community of FB friends that feels genuine even if most of us have never met. I’ve formed some good friendships (among my best here) with people who I first came across on line, and these people form a sort of central base for the community – and people who join in. If you want to complain about a new advertising campaign, talk about a music track, or break the news that a local celebrity has died, it provides an interesting discussion form and a real community. It also means communities of people with similar interests should be far simpler to form.

I get the sense that Ivorian facebook culture is quite different in this sense from the way things work elsewhere (outside Africa). Perhaps this will change when Facebook membership becomes more widespread and diverse, but for the time being it looks less like a few friends around a table at a restaurant/bar, than the restaurant/bar itself where you have a mix of strangers and friends, but there’s a certain amount of interaction permitted and people can chat to (in some cases chat up) complete strangers. I feel connected to ‘society’ in a way perhaps that I’ve never come across elsewhere.

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