Global Voices Online » Mayotte

French Overseas Departments: Questioning the “Estates General”

Fabienne Flessel — Mon, 04 May 2009 18:09:14 +0000

Guadeloupean Mycho blogs [Fr] about her doubts concerning the “Estates General of the French Overseas Departments” to re-think the status of its distant departments, while bloggers Anba pyé mango-la and indiscrétions [Fr] also report on developments.

Mayotte in Blue

Jennifer Brea — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 22:29:48 +0000

Mayotte, l'île au lagon [Fr] shares photos of Mayotte, in blue.

Madagascar hosts Indian Ocean Island Games

Lova Rakotomalala — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 16:12:53 +0000

The Indian Ocean Island Games are underway in Madagascar and people are quite thrilled about it.

Harinjaka gives us a preview of the anticipation back home:

“C’est parti pour le 7 ème Jeux des îles de l’Océan Indien (JIOI).
La flamme olympique arrive aujourd’hui au stade de Mahamasina (Tananarive) pour annoncer l’ouverture des 7èmes JIOI, qui se tiendront du 9 au 19 août à Tananarive.
Plus de 200 athlètes originaires de sept îles de l’océan Indien, à savoir les Comores, les Maldives, l’île Maurice, Mayotte, La Réunion, les Seychelles et Madagascar, participeront à 16 différents sports pour cette competition.[..]

j’ai pu ressentir l’excitation des malgaches dont l’émotion est vraiment palpable [..]
Sachez quand même que 86 pays vivront en direct la plupart des compétitions. ”

« the 7th Indian Ocean Island Games are underway (IOIG).
The Olympic flame arrives today at the Mahamasina stadium (Antananarivo) to signal the opening of the 7th IOIG, which will be held from the 9 to the 19th of August in Antananarivo.

More than 200 athletes from seven islands in the Indian Ocean: the Comoros, Maldives, Mauritius, Mayotte, Reunion, Seychelles and Madagascar, will take part in 16 various sports for this competition. [.]

One can sense the excitation of the Malagasy people whose enthusiasm for the event is undeniable[.]
Note that 86 countries will be able to follow live most of of the matches.”

Su adds in the comment section that the event is so important that the day of the opening ceremony has been declared a national holiday.

( Ravi, the official mascott of the Indian Ocean Island Games. Photo credit: http://www.jioi2007.mg/)

African Journalists on Franco-African Relations

Jennifer Brea — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 11:40:58 +0000

African journalists working in France are calling on the two remaining French presidential candidates, Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal, to begin a new chapter in Franco-African relations (Fr), according to the blog of the Alliance for Democratic Progress. “We have to reconsider everything, make a fresh start, a sort of “big bang,” so that France stops treating us like children. Africa must be a partner.” (Fr)

Mayotte: En Route to the Farmer's Market

Alice Backer — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 08:12:29 +0000

Expat blog Mayotte L'Ile au Lagon posts (Fr) annotated pictures of a stroll to the farmer's market of Labattoir. Says the blog: ” Wild mint grows along the road and invades the atmosphere with its tonic smell. Toothpaste in the outdoors…!!!”

Mayotte: Who Lives There?

Alice Backer — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 04:01:56 +0000

Reunion Passion usually blogs on her homeland but recently she focused on nearby Indian Ocean French overseas department Mayotte (Fr): “Many cultures cohabitate in Mayotte, the first, of Comorian origin, constitutes 60% of the population, the second is Malagasy and is heavily influenced by the first and finally the French and Western influences the first two increasingly.” The blogger posts an original slideshow of the featured island.

Madagascar: The First Indian Ocean Musical Network

Alice Backer — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 08:35:01 +0000

El Sono Mondial announces that (Fr): “A seminar about financial management of cultural enterprises specializing in music (organized by the International Organization of La Francophonie) took place last week [in Madagascar] … The participants discussed creating the first Indian Ocean musical and cultural network.“

Africa: renewable technologies

Ndesanjo Macha — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 07:47:39 +0000

Africa Unchained writes, “Karekezi, S…surveys (PDF) the dissemination of renewable technologies in Sub-Saharan Africa…and attempts to evaluate the potential for these technologies to meet the energy needs of Africa’s poor…“

Africa: Moving on from the digital indaba

Ndesanjo Macha — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 03:44:50 +0000

Meskel Square on “Moving on from the Digital Indaba“:
“Overall it was a huge success. One way of judging that is to look at all the discussions that are still carrying on in posts and comments and Technorati links. The discussions started with the race debate which I now wish I hadn't joined (there was just something about that pig/hairless-bulldog). But it has now moved on to thinking about what should come next.”

Africa: Is the Battle against AIDS Lost?

Alice Backer — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 11:32:38 +0000

Forum Realisance believes (Fr) former colonial powers and pharmaceutical companies are partially to blame for the AIDS crisis but saves harsher words for Africans and failed African leaders: ” Ignorance and illiteracy reproduce AIDS blindly without the least use for reason. Isn't it sacred and legitimate to protect oneself? Why not do it? By weakness in front of the beauty of orgasm? Weakness because of the taboo of sexuality? Curious logic.”

French-Speaking Bloggers on Rabat Conference on Migration

Alice Backer — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:07:44 +0000

What Will the Conference Bring?

Says France-based African blogger Le Pangolin,

Du 10 au 11 juillet 2006, s'est tenue à Rabat au Maroc, la première rencontre interministérielle euro-africaine sur les problèmes des migrations entre ces deux continents.Elle a regroupé 57 pays africains et européens et certaines organisations humanitaires qui se sont bruyamment invitées à la table de négociation.

From July 10 to 11, 2006, the first interministerial Euro-African meeting on the problems of migrations between the two continents was held in Rabat, Morocco. The Conference attracted 57 African and European countries and a couple of humanitarian organizations that insisted on inviting themselves to the negotiation table.

Though cautious in his wording, Senegalese blogger-mayor Robert Sagna, was willing to give the conference's resolution the benefit of the doubt:

L’Europe, l’Asie, l’Amérique, l’Australie et même l’Afrique connaissent le phénomène migratoire ; il faut savoir le gérer ; la répression n’est sûrement pas la meilleure manière, comme le souligne la Déclaration de Rabat, il faut engager un dialogue politique, mais les solutions durables à mon avis passe par la Croissance et le Développement d’une part, et une répartition équitable des résultats de cette croissance et de ce développement, d’autre part.

Europe, Asia, America, Australia and even Africa are all familiar with migrations; it is important to manage the phenomenon properly. Repression is probably not the best way, as the Rabat Declaration emphasizes, we need to start a political dialogue but durable solutions in my opinion should involve growth and development on the one hand and an equitable distribution of the results of that growth and development on the other.

France-based African blogger Le Pangolin agreed that policing was a short-sighted solution and had mostly harsh words for the conference, for Europe and for Morocco:

De ce qui est ressorti de cette conférence c’est une impression générale d’une rencontre pour rien, même si pour certains observateurs optimistes c’est signe que l’Europe reconnaît son échec et surtout le Maroc malgré ses exactions envers les négro-africains de l’année dernière passées sous silence internationale, ne peut continuer à jouer au gendarme de l’Europe, car le Maroc lui-même est un pays qui offre que l’émigration à sa jeunesse malgré son potentiel économique.

There is a general feeling that the meeting was useless even though some optimistic commentators took it as a sign that Europe is recognizing its failure. Also, Morocco despite its internationally silenced abuses vis-a-vis Negro-Africans last year, cannot continue to play the role of Europe's cop because Morocco itself is a country that offers only emigration to its youth.

Les politiciens européens en manque d’idées et d’audace préconisent le durcissement des lois envers les étrangers et l’exclusion d ‘une partie de leur population. C’est ce qui ressort du plan adopté à Rabat ce sont des mesures vagues du genre :
ØCoopération entre l’Europe et l’Afrique dans le contrôle des frontières
ØRéduction de la pauvreté
ØAccroissement de l’aide au développement
ØEt l’Europe sans scrupule souhaite contrôler les flux financiers émanant des ressortissants africains à destination de leurs pays.
A lire ces mesures on comprend vite que les ministres africains et européens n’ont rien compris à la chose.
Pour les ministres africains c’était l’occasion de remettre à plat les rapports économiques existants, mais hélas les ministres africains n’ont pas encore saisi tous les contours du problème.

Unimaginative European politicians advocate a hardening of the laws against foreigners and the exclusion of a part of the population. That is what transpires from the plan adopted in Rabat, vague measures such as:
*Cooperation between Europe and Africa on the control of borders
*Poverty reduction
*Increase in development aid
*And an unscrupulous Europe hopes to control the financial flows between Europe-based Africans and their homelands
Reading these measures, it is obvious that African and European ministers don't understand this crisis. For the African ministers this was an opportunity to rehash the existing economic relations but alas African ministers have not yet wrapped their heads around the extent of the problem.

What is Behind the Migration of Africans to Europe?

Both bloggers attempted to put migrations of Africans to Europe in perspective.

Zinguinchor, Senegal mayor Robert Sagna thought:

Les flux migratoires ont toujours existé et sous des formes diverses : violentes ou pacifiques.
De nos jours, la libre circulation, des biens et des hommes, constitue l’élément essentiel d’un brassage planétaire, au cœur de ce qui est appelé « mondialisation ». Les biens et les services ne peuvent pas circuler sans les hommes, et les nouvelles technologies de l’information et de la communication ont fini de faire de ce globe terrestre un village planétaire, un vase communiquant où la richesse et l’opulence des uns sont une soupape d’appel des plus pauvres en quête de moyens de survie. Cela impose à l’humanité toute entière, une nouvelle attitude faite d’ouverture, de générosité et de tolérance. La notion de frontière fermée n’est plus de mise et il est illusoire de vouloir arrêter la mer avec ses bras.

Migrations have always existed and in various forms: violent or peaceful.
These days, the free circulation of goods and persons is an essential element of a global melting pot and at the heart of what is referred to as “globalization.” Goods and services cannot circulate without people and new information and communication technologies have completed the process of making a global village of the planet, a pipe where the wealth and opulence of some serves as a valve sucking in the less fortunate looking for means of survival. This imposes on humanity as a whole a new attitude made of openness, generosity and tolerance. The notion of closed borders is no longer possible and it makes no sense to want to stop the ocean with one's bare arms.

Le Pangolin looked closely at structural and historical issues:

Sur le plan économique, l’Afrique a du mal à nourrir sa population, sa production agricole détournée vers les cultures d’exportation pendant la colonisation, puis poursuivie les années d’indépendance a scellé le sort alimentaire des Africains. (…) Un pays comme le Congo pour un budget annuel d’Etat de près de 1000 milliards de francs cfa, dépense près de 200 milliards de francs cfa pour subvenir à ces besoins alimentaires (et dire que dans ce pays il pleut en moyenne 9 mois sur 12 et que près de 60% de sa superficie est constituée de foret).
Tant que les pays du Nord et de l’Asie continueront à subventionner leur agriculture et que le FMI et la banque Mondiale continueront à imposer le libéralisme à tout va aux pays africains en empêchant les gouvernements africains de subventionner leur agriculture, du coup tous ces éléments rendant l’agriculture pas du tout lucrative en poussant les paysans vers les villes (le taux d’urbanisation des pays africains a dépassé celui des pays d’Europe et des USA, on relève de chiffres dépassant 65% ) tout cela ayant pour conséquences :
L’augmentation de la pauvreté rurale
Ø Augmentation des bidonvilles
Ø Augmentation d’insalubrité donc des maladies infantiles et de sa mortalité
Ø Augmentation du taux de chômage, les migrants ruraux n’ayant pas pour la plupart de formation professionnelle, ces derniers manqueraient de tout (école, loisirs, santé, travail) d’où criminalisation de la vie privée et politique en Afrique.
Ø Augmentation des importations des produits alimentaires européens, asiatiques et américains avec conséquences augmentation de l’achat des devises étrangères.

On the economic front, Africa has a hard time feeding its population, its agricultural output having been channeled towards exports during the colonization period [and since the trend] continued during the years of Independence, Africans' fate was sealed. (…) A country like the Congo for an annual state budget of 1000 billion of CFA Francs spends about 200 billion CFA Francs to feed its population (this despite the fact that it rains about 9 months out of 12 and that 60% of is surface is covered by forests).
The countries of the North and of Asia continue to subsidize their agriculture and the IMF and the World Bank continue to impose liberalism at the drop of a hat to African countries while preventing those countries from subsidizing their agriculture, making agriculture non-lucrative by pushing peasants to the cities (the rate of urbanization in Africa surpasses that of Europe and USA at up to 65%), with the following consequences:
*Increase in rural poverty
*Increase in city slums
*Increase in sanitary and hygiene problems and hence in infantile diseases and mortality
*Increase in unemployment rates, rural migrants not having for the most part any professional training, they lack everything (schooling, entertainment, health, work) hence the criminalization of private and political life in Africa
*Increase in imports of food from Europe, Asia and the USA ensuing an increase in the purchase of foreign currencies.

Using Drained Brains Differently

Senegalese commentators on Robert Sagna's blog tried to offer solutions.

For Kader, brains being drained out of Africa need to be managed to the continent's advantage :

L’un des facteurs favorisant le flux migratoire est la possibilité de travail (même au noir)
N’oublions pas qu’une nation qui vieillit a besoin de sang neuf; c’est malheureusement le cas des pays européens
un renouvellement de la population est toujours à l’ordre du jour . Celà participe de la dynamique des populations.
un autre facteur qui se dessine est la volonté de moins investir sur la formation des cadres et de pomper les ressources humaines des autres nations: c’est la volonté affichée des USA et aujourd’hui de la France à travers la fameuse loi sur l’immigration
Quelle attitude développer? Réorienter la coopérations? L’heure n’est elle pas venue pour que nos ressortissants hautement qualifiés soient des “coopérants” de type nouveaux?

One of the factors favoring migrations is the availability of work (even on the black market). Let's not forget that a nation that is getting older needs new blood; that is unfortunately the case of European countries. A renewal of the population is always needed. That is part of dynamics of populations. Another factor is the will to invest less in the training of cadres and to pump the human ressources of other nations: that is the will of the USA and today of France through its new immigration law. What attitude to develop? Reorienting cooperations? Isn't it time that our highly qualified nationals become new kinds of “cadres”?

France: The Beginnings of Affirmative Action

Alice Backer — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 16:06:23 +0000

Says (Fr) France-based Senegalese blogger Seckasysteme about the allegedly affirmative-action induced hiring and debut of Black French newsanchor Harry Roselmack on French national television: “Roselmack's (…) professional competence and the recognition he has earned from his peers is so obvious that even the detractors of affirmative action are starting to admit the need to favor the blooming of all the hidden and underexploited talents that exist among French minorities so shamefully relegated to our ghettos.”

Africa: Lessons Learned from Mittal Steel

Alice Backer — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 02:29:46 +0000

Lessons drawn by Le Pangolin from the recent acquisition by Indian-owned steel company Mittal Steel of European-owned Arcelor (Fr): ” Economic actors of developing countries can really change the world if they are so inclined. (…) The West is not invincible.”

French DOM/TOMs: Sarkozy-Led Convention

Alice Backer — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 12:25:59 +0000

Jean-Claude Halley from Guadeloupe Attitude posts (Fr) an invitation to an upcoming convention on the issues of French overseas departments and territories (a.k.a. DOM/TOMs) organized by controversial French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and his UMP party. The invitation enumerates issues faced by the DOMs including unemployment, discrimination, social tensions, inadequate housing, discrepancies with continental France and Sarkozy's pet issue, immigration.

Africa: Is Homosexuality a Religion?

Alice Backer — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 04:56:47 +0000

France-based Togolese Blogger Kangni Alem reflected on homosexuality in Africa recently. Namely, he tackled claims by some on the continent that homosexuality is a heretic religion. In the process, he mentioned recent “outings” of public figures. A debate ensued that involved Martinique's lesbian blogger Le Blog de [Moi] who'd read an excerpt of the post on Global Voices.

Homosexuality and Religion

J’écoutais RFI (…) quand je suis tombé sur un reportage sur l’homophobie à travers le monde. Et là, de la bouche d’un militant des droits de l’homme camerounais, j’appprends que certains auraient peur, au pays de Paul Biya et de William Eteki Mboumoua, des homosexuels, parce qu’ils sont censés propager une nouvelle religion. (…) tout cela relève de suppositions liées à la superstition, à une conception désagrégée de la sexualité en Afrique, suite aux mutations et rencontres civilisationnelles, et d’un tissu d’incompréhensions tenaces.

I was listening to RFI [Radio France Internationale] (…) when I fell on a report on homophobia across the world. And there, from the mouth of a Cameroonian human rights activist, I learn that some, in the country of Paul Biya and William Eteki Mboumoua, are afraid of homosexuals, because they are supposedly disseminating a new religion. (…) All of that comes from presumptions linked to superstition, a disagregated conception of sexuality in Africa caused by mutations and clashing civilizations and of a fabric of stubborn ignorance.

même la métaphore biblique sur l’homosexualité n’attribue pas aux “sodomites” un quelconque prosélytisme religieux, sinon une tendance à la déparavation dont la conséquence directe a été la punition divine. Mais bon, depuis plusieurs décennies, dans les caves du Vatican, cette histoire de “punition divine” ne fait plus rire les prêtres homosexuels!

Even the biblical metaphore on homosexuality does not deem “sodomites” to be religious heretics. What it does say is that they tend towards depravation which has divine punishment as a direct consequence. But since many decades in the Vatican's caves, the story of “divine”punishment only has gay priests laughing!

Recent Gay Scandals in Cameroon

Il faut dire que le Cameroun tient l’actualité quant au sujet. Il y a 2 ou 3 ans, je crois, deux hommes s’étaient présentés à la mairie de Yaoundé ou Douala pour demander qu’on les unisse par les liens du mariage civil; l’affaire avait fait couler beaucoup d’encre, puisque le maire n’avait jugé bon répondre à la “provocation” qu’en faisant intervenir les policiers. Récemment encore, le directeur de publication du journal La Météo avait été condamné à six mois de prison avec sursis pour avoir publié dans ses colonnes le nom d’un ministre sur une liste d’homosexuels présumés. Dans la foulée, plus d’une dizaine de plaintes en diffamation ont été déposées devant le tribunal de Yaoundé contre des journaux qui ont publié (…) les noms de plusieurs dizaines de personnalités politiques, religieuses, artistiques ou sportives camerounaises accusées de “déviances” homosexuelles. Rappelons qu’au Cameroun, les rapports sexuels entre personnes du même sexe constituent un délit puni de six mois à cinq ans de prison et d’une amende de 20.000 à 200.000 francs CFA (30 à 300 euros). Seulement, diraient les plus homohobes!

Cameroon is at the forefront of headlines on this topic. Two to three years ago, two men showed up at Yaounde's or Douala's city hall, asking to be married; much ink flowed from the affair since the mayor only responded to the “provocation” by calling the police. Recently, the editor in chief of the paper La Météo was sentenced to six months in jail for having published the name of a minister in a list of presumed homosexuals. More than a dozen defamation complaints were made to Yaounde's tribunal against papers who had published (…) the names of dozens of Cameroonian political, religious, artistic and sports personalities accused of homosexual “deviances”. Note that in Cameroon, sexual acts between people of the same sex are a crime punishable by six months to 5 years in jail and of a fine of 20,000 to 200,000 African Francs (30 to 300 Euros). “Only,”add the most homophobic.

Homophobia and Ignorance

Evidence des temps, l’homosexualité ne peut plus être perçue comme un mythe en Afrique. même moi je l’ai cru longtemps, jusqu’au jour où je suis tombé sur l’évidence qui me pendait au nez, lorsque j’ai surpris une de mes meilleures amies, dramaturge africaine célèbre, en train de draguer ma copine de l’époque, dans un festival à Cotonou. On a beaucoup ri de l’histoire, nous sommes restés amis, et moi j’ai beaucoup découvert des stratégies des homos en Afrique pour survivre à un environnement hostile, stratégies dont je parle un peu dans mon roman Cola cola jazz, à travers le personnage de la dame Omoneh.

Sign of times, homosexuality in Africa can no longer be perceived as a myth. Even I believed it for a while until the evidence stared me in the face when one of my best [female] friends, a famous African playwright, hit on my then girlfriend at a Cotonou Festival. We laughed, stayed friends and I found out a lot about the strategies that homosexuals in Africa use to survive a hostile environment, strategies I touch upon in my novel Coca Cola Jazz through the character Omoneh.

Et si l’homophobie, au Cameroun comme ailleurs, n’était en définitive que la religion de l’inculture?

What if homophobia in Cameroon as elsewhere was just the religion of ignorance?

Thanks to GV, Martinique's Le Blog de [Moi] Chimes in

Several of Alem's regular readers posted responses to his post.

According to Naomi:

Tu te souviens de Mugabe, Robert Mugabe, Président du Zimbabwe? Lors de son discours d’ouverture de la foire du livre à Harare en août 1995, hors de lui, il définit les homosexuel(le)s comme « (valant) moins que les porc et les chiens ».
(…)il faut y rajouter Sam Nujoma, Président de Namibie, Yahya Jammeh, président de la Gambie, déclarant gaiement ceci sur la très sérieuse chaîne BBC : « Je peux vous déclarer avec certitude qu’il n’y a pas de gays ni de lesbiennes parmi (les) animaux (de mon zoo privé). Ils se conduisent, eux, selon les lois normales de la nature. la nature, ah la nature, elle a bon dos la nature.

Do you remember Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe? During a recent speech in 1995, he defined gays as “being worth less than hogs and dogs”. (…) I have to add Sam Nujoma, President of Namibia, Yahya Jammeh, President of Gambia, declaring happily to the BBC: “There are certainly no gays and lesbians among the animals (in my private zoo). They live according to the normal laws of nature.” Nature is always used as an excuse.

Sami adds:

Pas d’homsexualité chez les animaux? Son Excellence Monsieur le Président n’est pas friand des documentaires animaliers comme moi, il aurait vu que tout ce que nous autres humains classons dans la catégorie perversions se vit chez certains animaux selon les décrets de la nature.

No homosexuality among animals? Mister the President doesn't watch as many documentaries on animals as I do, he would have seen that all that we humans call perversion is lived by certain animals according to nature's decrees.

The Specialist from Le Blog de [Moi], a lesbian Martiniquan blog that recently waxed nostalgic on the travails of being closeted at work, posted the following, confirming the great connections facilitated by the Global Voices community:

J’ai eu la chance de découvrir ton blog grâce Global voices Online (…). J’ai trouvé tres interressant ton analyse sur l’homosexualité en afrique (j’avous que je ne savais rien sur le sujet). “Et si l’homophobie, au Cameroun comme ailleurs, n’était en définitive que la religion de l’inculture?” Je pense également comme toi, la relagion également de la peur de l’autre et de la différence.

I discovered your blog through Global Voices (…). I found your analysis on homosexuality in Africa very interesting (I knew nothing of the topic). You say: “What if homosexuality in Cameroon as elsewhere was the religion of ignorance?” I might add also the religion of fear of the Other and of difference.