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ELLY ODHIAMBO: Let music be the driver of your dreams

ROCK on 2021. Let us all have a good year that will have less manmade pain. Soundbites detected. Music will be the driver of our dreams this year, artists don’t sing for the day, theirs is a fairy-tale of lyrics but this is what will continue cheering our souls: songs. The lively Nigerian Afrobeat artist Fela Anikulapo Kuti used to remind the world that the resistance lyrics he was writing in his day to shame elite ruling classes would haunt them infinitely if they didn’t behave. His genre of music was a fusion of Western jazz, traditional African beats and storytelling. I have learnt over time to respect my genetic formula of protesting against injustices in our society. Kuti used to sing truth to oppression: don’t give up any time soon, sing the songs of joy, tears, dance until you can’t sweat no more but don’t stop, because if you do, the clever powers at the top will forget that you have been singing about them. Then oppression will continue and this shouldn’t happen. With confidence, an optimist hopes that 2021 is the year of transition from the total chaos of 2020 to one resembling reforms. Immigrants working here want to be taken seriously, not by virtue of much-hyped multiculturism festivals, but by being treated fairly at work. Recruitment drives are essentially biased towards one direction, things should change, it is up to your employer to do what is right and that is not positive discrimination but equality at all levels. Here in Northern Ireland, the nation retains some European Union characteristics in the economic sphere and this is a good thing. Despite the hollow reassurances of Downing Street that the Brexit Deal is workable, Britain has forced itself to be the unwanted former partner. On her way home from Brussels, London jived with self-assurance that she has bagged what she always craved once and for all: sovereignty, no interference by Germany and France in disguise. On a lighter note, there is a character who has been keeping everyone posted. A relentless Anna Richardson on our TV sets, the host of Naked Attraction, is something else. Given the nature of the Naked Attraction, her confidence, professionalism and ability to maintain eye contact is not to be underestimated. Richardson has helped Channel 4 to preserve its creative, witty, provocative no-holds-barred approach to anything on our screens when we are used to seeing people turning up spinning out of control with political rhetoric on current affairs interviews. Every culture has its thing that they will answer for in death, purgatory. I doubt Naked Attraction should be one of those, it has kept audiences entertained and this is good. Some don’t like it; people don’t like to know what is happening underneath the skins of strangers so they would like to be spared from a nude parade. Not really, nudity as a model for modern and old-fashioned dating is not something from planet Mars. To date many cultural heritages in Africa embrace appearing in front of others in a birth suit. If Richardson continues this way, many previously nervous people will be the principal beneficiaries. Our little one, soon bidding bye to nappies, got the attention of her mum when the old Donald was on TV the other day. We were listening to the now infamous Georgia State audio recording of the US President. It is easy for children to recognise Trump. So, the three-year-old snaps and says to mum rather diplomatically: “He only likes you, Trump likes you.” When mum looked across and asked why her daughter said this, she said: “Mummy, because you are white.” She just had to get a reassuring hug that Trump may be eccentric but he likes you! I can see who really needed the hug.

ELLY ODHIAMBO: Facing down the bigots and a Kenyan reunion on Zoom

THIS year I met a handful of Joseph McCarthys.These are people who think anyone with a contrary opinion is a communist or a Marxist.

ELLY ODHIAMBO: Mixing those Christmas myths and stories

I DO this column weekly to provoke a cultural exchange. I am not here to convert people from this to that, I think that I am the most unconvincing person, less charismatic than you think, especially in my private sphere. Okay let’s throw away the ‘I’ carry-ons because it will begin sounding like Stephen Nolan on a really good day. My close friend ‘Mushroom’ P had a close shave with her child’s school the other day. Someone said that she ruined it for other kids, that because her daughter knows that Santa is fiction, the other children were gobsmacked. Respect of culture and myths is not a bad thing but there is an imperative that comes with it. I believe that every culture, nation, tribe, country has its principal hero, villain and future saviour. So, the iconic symbol of Christmas is Santa, to Western society and even in the global South, people are dressing up like this fellow with a red hat in the hope of inspiring a cheerful mythical Christmas festival in the neighbourhood. He has been commercial to the power of ten. Some things will never be absolute, never. Myths and historical snapshots of this or that culture will be interpreted differently depending on who says what. Parents who don’t believe in Santa have their universal right to stick to that. Those who fly the flag – or fleg – of Santa have their perfect reasons too. We will never be the same, so my multilingual, multicultural, very friendly Mushroom P did a good thing or two to break with the Eleventh Commandment of Though Shall Not Tell the Kids that Santa is Not Coming Downing the chimney.

ELLY ODHIAMBO: Black people are forever climbing a mountain of racism

Every year at a time like this, I stage a one-line critique of Bob Geldof’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? The other line reminds Band Aid enthusiasts that there wont be even a flake of snow in Africa. I can’t remember any snow falling in my village but Geldof and Midge Ure, whatever they were smoking, insisted on that in their lyric, but fiction is art so I digress.

ELLY ODHIAMBO: Refugees riding high in the saddle

THIS week I met three gentlemen doing worthy work for the refugee and asylum-seeker community here in Belfast. I went to the newly established All Nations Ministries Bike Workshop. They opened in January this year with a mission to support refugee families and individuals who were in need of bicycles to get them from point A to B. Ultimately, poverty is the underlying factor of why these families cannot move around the city to do shopping at far distances for specific things they want.

ELLY ODHIAMBO: Let's rethink our donation of used clothes to Africa

EVERY year,a typical household in Northern Ireland will take dozens of clothing items to a recycling facility near their home.

ELLY ODHIAMBO: Let's open up to our new citizens – it costs nothing

WHEN we think of diversity, we generally make sweeping statements about a population rich in cultures, races, beliefs and nationalities from Siberia to South Africa, the Americas to the far back of Australia.

ELLY ODHIAMBO: Lorry driver John provides a different view of the migrant crisis

PRESIDENT Donald Trump is continuing to undermine the confidence of Americans in their electoral democracy. He has refused to accept defeat, he and the millions who voted for Trump believe that Joe Biden did not win fair and square. Is Donald Trump preparing America and the world for a US civil war? If this was an African country, journalists would be nodding their heads in admission that another bloody conflict is in the offing and thousands of refugees will be streaming to the global south. Conflict is a push factor of migration and right now many parts of Africa are receiving African Americans who are settling in Africa. They have been returning to their original homeland where their ancestors came from in unprecedented scale during the slave trade. But if the current trend of American trauma continues, if the racial conflict goes on, there will be killing fields that have been sparked off by the 2020 election: the powder keg election.

ELLY ODHIAMBO: Belfast rediscovered as a top filming destination

SINCE Belfast rediscovered itself as a top filming destination, many interracial casts have featured in big and low budget movies. Over the years, thousands of scenes have been shot in Belfast and other parts of Northern Ireland. In 2011, the popstar Rihanna shot her We Found Love hit in the New Lodge, a location with residential high-rise buildings. She was welcomed there without any odd preconditions and she loved it. The locals were happy to see her. This was quite different from her negative experience at a Co Down farm owned by a DUP councillor who requested her to stop shooting the music video because it was too raunchy! How is a 21st century popular music footage supposed to look? Many a film critique would probably have trailer trucks of opinions about how Rihanna was received in Co Down, a world that I have seen at its best and worst (my own experience in a supermarket at Springhill, Bangor). Perhaps these are isolated cases. But can you imagine what Rihanna felt when she was booted out of the farm dancing and wearing sexy things? Cardy Band Megan Thee Stallion, those two trophies of daring black music, would not have lasted a couple of seconds on that farm that said no to Rihanna. On a positive side, imagine how much Northern Ireland could bring when farmers and other land owners decide not to be too conservative about the props and styles of music genres that international artists can bring. Not forgetting the impact in job creation and a sense of happiness that some dull places within the country are re-energised by fantastic art, music and films.

ELLY ODHIAMBO: More blacks appear in the media, but will it last?

THE print and broadcast media have been doing a round of introductions of distinguished and previously unknown black people to the cover of their products. Hopefully, black people are suddenly being mainstreamed. It is well known that across the water, in the United States or for our case here in Ireland, the British press has often carried a distorted overall presentation of the black community. There is a caricature of the black male who is up to no good and whose best form of defence is the race card. They wanted positive discrimination to be the Eleventh Commandment, though that is often taken care of by the bias in the job market, healthcare, education opportunities and housing. So these stereotypes have been there in media for ages. It is good to see that finally some of the old media houses and even relatively new ones are putting lead positive stories of black people and promoting them on their cover pages and television stories. Is it a eureka moment? No. But it is good to see that changes are taking place at a certain pace, slow of course still. Writing this column in the Belfast Media Group newspapers which circulate in the North, West and South of the city was for me initially no mean feat. Being a black man doing a writing gig for a newspaper in post-conflict society away from Africa, where I come from, is a learning curve in itself and I love it. It is also an eye-opener for the natives of Ireland/Northern Ireland who would rather indulge in something more important than reading my weekly rants, bouquets and sometimes officially dry humour. I feel honoured to share stories with you here. An Irish acquaintance asked me one time to explain to her why our lives matter, is it not all lives that should matter?, she posed. It is because some of those people who hold the levers of power outside Africa believe that we are a junior race which must be aided by the white saviour syndrome and that is why for years, movements like the benevolent charity organisations went to take the lead of helping young Africa! She was not having it. Let us just say Miss B concluded that compassion knows no colour. This is mostly true. Then she went on to imply that because this is not our motherland and we are part of minority populations in Europe, America and Asia, why should we demand absolute equality in comparison to our white brethren and sisters? Why? I think the undertone here is this, one cannot pull a cart before a horse. For many years, here and elsewhere, I have met people who believe this and they will tell you that importance comes with numbers, so for example, absolute equality is only negotiable for Africans in Africa and other geographical locations like the Caribbean where their population is not the minority. Phew! So for the newspapers to develop this new attitude, not some cosmetic ploy, it is a good thing for addressing the historical bias. The young black people and other ethnic minority groups should enjoy such a new movement, but will it really last? Is the media finding it extremely difficult to produce and reproduce black faces without jeopardising their advertising revenue? Was this a historical exaggeration?

OPINION - ELLY ODHIAMBO: Nigeria protests resonate with thousands in the North

WE are supposed to be talking about local issues here but we cannot pretend that we are strictly an island. Nigeria has been playing with fire in the last couple of weeks. Killing the youth is playing with fire. When young people are demonised because some of them are committing petty socio-economic crimes while the big lords of poverty, the political, religious and business elite of society in Nigeria are swimming in violent wealth, what follows is a major uprising, not an accident waiting to happen. This country has the highest population in Africa, 207 million people. With that demographic in mind, I am not sure why the security forces there think that they can win against an oppressed people. There is an international part of Ireland which has a mix of impacts locally. In these past few weeks, Nigeria, once the undisputed leader of Africa, has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. The tension in Nigeria has been high. The Nigerian police have been committing shameless acts of brutality and killing young people, homeless youth in particular. What happens to Afro-Americans, the force used by trigger-happy racist white law enforcement agents in America, is no different from the social divide in Nigeria.

Africa in the North of Ireland’s peace

AFRICA played a very big role in the Northern Ireland Peace Process. A continent which was itself ravaged with many Cold-War conflicts intervened. The current President of South Africa Mr Cyril Ramaphosa was one of the two chiefs of weapons decommissioning in Northern Ireland. He was preferred for the hard job because of his background in conflict resolution and management. Ramaphosa was the Chief Negotiator of the African National Congress (ANC) when the South African apartheid State of President Frederick De Klerk was starting to realise that white minority rule was not going to work, people had enough of it, that included white people. So, the former Secretary General of the ANC, Ramaphosa, was headhunted to work alongside the former President of Finland. Martti Ahtisaari, to untie the difficult part of the peace process: weapons decommissioning. The two gentlemen were made very aware of the sensitivities of the conflict. Ramaphosa did not chest-thump. We have seen this before, the situation in the South Africa conflict was dangerous and fatalistic, thousands died in the process of the long conflict. However, Ramaphosa did not pretend to compare the ghastly legacy of apartheid with the lethal and toxic conflict and politics of the sectarian North. The fact that Ahtisaari-Ramaphosa was a working combination because they had known each other before was a no-brainer. This made their work easier and nil conflict between the two of them only served well for the peace process in Northern Ireland. An African man from a far-off land was ready to indulge in very delicate negotiations whose objective was to bring a rainbow nation, a new Northern Ireland. So far, the peace process has done well. Every time other pressing issues try to jump the queue, the peace is staying put, it is the only way for future generations. Cyril Ramaphosa, an eminent public figure from Africa contributed a lot to the current dispensation in this part of the world. Of course, it will be unwise to think that everyone was/is happy with the mission of Ramaphosa but for the sake of the new generation of migrant workers, children, men and women here, this is an African who should be given a thumbs up. It is over twenty years now since he did his work in Northern Ireland and a celebration of the decommissioning part of the Peace Process is long overdue.Elly Omondi Odhiambo is a writer based in Belfast. He can be reached at ellyomondi@gmail.com

OPINION - ELLY ODHIAMBO: They’re killing George Floyd all over again

AROUND the world, there is a disturbing development: people are killing a dead man again. They haven’t had enough of their grotesque attention-seeking. George Floyd was mercilessly murdered by American law enforcement. Last week some thug(s) decided that they had had enough of the Floyd mural in West Belfast then invoked their cowardice and soiled the dead man’s face with pitiless white paint. In America, the phenomenon is as old as the civil rights movement when ultra-right-wing reactionaries in the 1950s and 1960s used to spray-paint anything they found that depicted black liberation campaigns. In that same America, dozens maybe hundreds now, of Floyd murals and symbols have been disfigured since the time of his death less than six months ago. In Minneapolis, where he died, they haven’t stopped killing him; a mural is defaced, it is repainted, again and again. Vandals are busy across the water, in Dundee, Scotland, where a Floyd memorial painting had a neo-Nazi symbol put on his face. In Manchester, England, a similar stunt was displayed: graffiti over Floyd with a racial slur not worth printing here. It was gross.

OPINION - ELLY ODHIAMBO: Annie shone light on black children of Ulster

THERE are books out there that are simple to read, straight to the point, a mixture of reality, pain and humour and we are not finished – addressing the audience in a very diverse way. Yes, there is family, faith groups, poverty and the struggles of identity. We are talking about the book, For the Love of a Mother: The Black Children of Ulster, published in 2017. Annie Yellowe Palma (pictured) wrote this unique autobiographical work to lift the lid off some of the realities of Northern Ireland that society was and still is indifferent about.

OPINION - Elly Odhiambo: Black Belfast right to be concerned over Noah's death

14-year-old Noah Donohoe went missing in Belfast on the evening of Sunday, June 21, whilst cycling to meet friends. Six days after he disappeared, his body was found in a storm drain in the Shore Road area of the city. Not long after, the PSNI stated that there was no foul play involved. There was very moving nationwide public sympathy in Northern Ireland for Fiona Donohoe, the mother of schoolboy Noah. In Belfast the public joined hands in solidarity with the family of Noah, it did not matter what district of the city one was from, people were united in grief and, more importantly, the slogan ‘’Justice for Noah became loud and clear. Posters and murals can be seen in various parts of Belfast and on digital media. People are asking, what happened to Noah? Is what we have been told by the Coroner’s office enough? Is it really the end of the story?

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Elly Omondi Odhiambo

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