Sneaking in a post as I lay between a hammer and a hard place.

As my friend Chinmay pointed out, I really should not be blogging (or reading blogs) at this time because time is of the essence right now (as far as the thesis goes). Therefore, this should be my last post from here, hopefully the next post will be from either Johannesburg or Addis-Ababa.
Speaking of Africa, White african wrote a nice piece about the African blogosphere noticing how the Malagasy bloggers' community was growing. He says:

"These communities tend to operate, grow and strengthen within their own echo chamber. If enough noise is made, they grow. If enough independent thought is encouraged and a lack of centralized control is maintained, it is healthy."

I think that Malagasy bloggers, thanks to the dynamism of a few people (back home but also in Europe and Canada) fit that description. There are a few communitarian blogs but there are also a flurry of independent blogs without centralized control and when necessary, they do make some noises (cyclones, humanitarian causes, immigration issues...etc..). I would just like to emphasize that we consider ourselves as an integral part of the African blogosphere despite a few contradicting voices. So the recognition by platforms such as Muti or White African means a great deal.

One last unrelated rant before the issue becomes too old. I wanted to ignore the few ignorant comments made by some celebrities about homosexuals: Actor Isiah Washington calling a colleague the "f... word", former NBA player Tim Hardaway saying he hates gay people and Ann Coulter also using the "f... word." (I believe the French equivalent of the "f..word" would be "le mot qui commence par p...")

There will always be people who voices less than enligtened opinions, it is not a big deal. What I have an issue with is that association with social responsibilities such as the NAACP should know better than to give an award to I. Washington knowing the issue he was involved in. The lack of condemnation from NBA players of Hardaway's comments (beside Charles Barkley) was already a bit disturbing, leading to innuendos that the black community was slightly homophobic. It is of course not true; however, awarding isiah Washington an Image award at a ceremony for the advancement of colored people reinforces this unwanted perception.

As Barkey put it best, " we, as a black community, should know better than to discriminate against another community given our own history" ( I am citing from memory so these might not be the actual words he said.
And Isaiah, when you get mentioned on the same side with Ann Coulter (who makes Le Pen look like Harlem Desir) , you know things have gone really bad.

Rant over,
See you soon, from the southern hemisphere, hopefully.


As a parting gift, here is a video of the roots tribute to Bono for his effort in Africa during the same NAACP Awards:

The roots are without question the most underrated band of this decade. And even though Bono's ego might be a bit out of control, given all he has done for Africa, I could care less. In fact, I wished people's egos would get more inflated if it meant that they achieved something in fighting extreme poverty.