Isn't WWW weird annals 1: Are you going to relocate to Dohoun, Burkina Faso?

Then according to this site, there's a library there that your kids can use... ;-)

"Global Libraries"... FAVL mentioned in paper by Cody Yantis, LIS600 Global Libraries I.S.

Found on the Internet, here!

While FAVL, like IFLA, addresses human rights on an international level, it does so without the massive organizational support that IFLA garners, being, rather, a non-profit, grass roots community organization, started by a business professor from Santa Clara University. a brief but worthwhile aside, it is insightful to point out that the grass roots example of FAVL gestures at another element of Globalization to which Global Libraries must provide alternative. This is the idea of top-down versus bottom-up approaches. Returning to Prahalad, he shows that in business, as in libraries, for initiatives and ventures to succeed globally, one must begin at the bottom, rather than at the top, for the “trickle down” ideas of the past—whether they are applied to business ventures or information initiatives—have been proven to only benefit the elite at the top.¹⁶ One can see evidence of this idea even in the difference between IFLA’s approach—authoring a Resolution and publishing texts on information science—and FAVL’s approach—actually going into communities and constructing, managing, and supporting community libraries. This is not to say that IFLA’s efforts are in vain—quite the contrary—but it does illustrate the importance of approaching Global Libraries issues from the bottom-up, rather that the top-down, to avoid similar issues, inequalities, and oppressions that have arisen from the top-down ventures by corporations and multi-national organizations (which have shown the significant shortcomings—to put it lightly—of Globalization in the realm of human rights and general equality on a global scale).

An article in a Montreal student newspaper!

dimanche 9 décembre 2007 — Version imprimable

par Pascal Dessureault

Tous n’ont pas la chance d’avoir des grandes bibliothèques comportant des centaines de milliers de documents de toutes sortes comme c’est le cas dans les pays plus riches. Heureusement, grâce à un organisme appelé Friends of African Village Libraries (FAVL), certaines régions rurales des pays les plus pauvres d’Afrique ont la chance d’avoir accès à une bibliothèque communautaire. FAVL existe surtout grâce aux dons d’argent. Ceux-ci sont utilisés pour la construction de bibliothèques (souvent à partir de la remise à neuf de bâtiments locaux), pour l’achat de livres, pour l’embauche d’un bibliothécaire, pour l’installation de panneaux solaires dans le but d’éclairer les salles de lecture, etc.

Ces bibliothèques comportent environ 2000 ouvrages en anglais, en français, en arabe et dans la langue locale. Jusqu’à maintenant, 9 bibliothèques ont été ouvertes et supportées par FAVL au Burkina Faso (5), au Ghana (2), en Tanzanie (1) et en Ouganda (1).

L’initiative de cet organisme est bénéfique pour de nombreux enfants qui autrement n’auraient pas (ou peu) accès aux livres. En effet, peu de livres convenables sont offerts dans les écoles. Non seulement ces bibliothèques favorisent-elles la lecture, elles informent aussi la population sur différents sujets la touchant, tels les maladies ou l’environnement.

Pour avoir plus de renseignements et peut-être même faire un don, je vous invite à visiter le site suivant : www.favl.org.

Teachers for East African Alumni

... is one of the organizations that collaborates with FAVL -- chiefly, recently, by donating the eGranary to the
Kitengesa Community Library in Uganda. It maintains a website which has now become a terrific resource for information about education in East Africa at http://www.tea-a.org/.. Please check it out. The sender is TEAA's Chair/President, Brooks Goddard. Thanks Brooks!

Memoirs for popular reading

Had a nice chat this evening with Senegalese professor Babacar Fall, who was kind enough to give me a copy of a book he had published, Dialogue Avec Abdoulaye Ly, which is a transcription of a series of interviews done by Fall and some of his students, as part of an oral history project. Just had time tonite to read the introduction and skim through the contents... very nice job all around. Fall and I chatted about how much in demand memoirs are by the reading African public. I wish there were more of them. Oddly, last night in the hotel I could not sleep so I was watching Havana, with Robert Redford. Dreadful movie. But it got me thinking about what had happened to Fulgencio Batista, the dictator who fled Dec. 31, 1959. Turns out he went to Spain and wrote his memoirs! I love the title of one: To Rule is to Foresee. Hmmm. He surely must have been aware of how the title would "play"? Was it a work of self-criticism?

In Dakar but analyzing data from Ouagadougou

Hopefully in the coming days I'll have something interesting to blog about, but so far it has been a working trip to Africa: I spent a lot of time holed up in the hotel analyzing data from the November reading test that my Ouagalais colleagues Alain Sissao and Felix Compaore sent me. So I would be able to see how the three reading groups that were in FAVL's summer reading program fared over the summer, except... I forgot the crucial file that listed who was in each program! Well, I will get it soon enough, and meanwhile there are other things to analyze. Here, for example, are two graphs that show indices that aggregate various scores on various components of the reading test, for male and female students in grade level CM2 (about 5th grade). As can be seen, boys performed slightly better than girls. Everybody performed very poorly on the reading comprehension (multiple choice) tests; the teachers themselves were surprised.

Off to Dakar for 10 days

My posting may be a little slower. I am going to work in the Senegal National Archives on my biography of Dim Delobsom, the first important indigenous colonial civil servant of Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso). If you have never working in an archival setting, I strongly suggest a reading of A.S. Byatt's Possession.

While in Dakar I will meet Sare Elisee and Koura Donkoui, two of FAVL's Burkina Faso coordinators. We will do some training after the Archives close at 5pm (yes, I would stay in there all night if I could). We will also visit some community libraries in Dakar.

Somalia collapsed, but byproduct is a great publisher

This is pretty amazing:

SOMALI BOOK FAIR
Bandhigga Buugta Soomaaliyeed
STOCKHOLM, KIST TRAFF
25th-26th October,2008

Jointly Arranged by

Scansom Publishers, SSUF, Somali Publishers and Writers Association

WELCOME, SOO DHAWAAD

Saturday 25th October, 2008

Opening and welcoming statement by: SSUF Chairman: Ahmed Hassan

Opening speeches and introduction Scansom Publishers: Mohammed SH. Hassan The enocuragement of minority languages by the Swedish National Council for Cultural Affairs ( Kulturradet).

Keenadid Mohamoud who currently teaches Somali at Goteborg University will illuminate us about the newly started Somali course programe. The initiative has been widely welcomed by the Somali community in the Diaspora.

Stockholm Stad Bibliotek Rinkeby & Tensta Libraries – Karin Sohlgren

Bashir Osman: Somali Teachers Association in Sweden.

Book Tour & Lunch

The Somali Publishing Industry in the Diaspora, Mohammed SH. Hassan, Scansom which is the leading Somali Publishing house in the Diaspora. The Company has published and distributes as well over 170 different titles of Somali books covering a wide range of issues and topics.

Karin Sohlgren: A librarian at Rinkeby Public Library and consultant to the Swedish Agency of School Development. Karin is in charge of finding good and relevant books for pre-school children. Karin will share her experiences with us and will give as well the information of the Somali resources and material collections in Rinkeby and Tensta Public Libraries.

Axmad Farah “Idaaja” and his publications: A leading Somali Cultural Historian, Author and a former member of Somali language Commission board. Wrote and published over 10 titles of Somali books covering a wide range of issues and topics. Currently lives in Nairobi

Khalid A. Gul and his Publications: A leading Somali writer, Poet and cultural Historian living in Denmark. He has written and published over 13-15 different titles of Somali books covering a wide range of issues.

Bashir Amaan ( The Principal of Al-Azhar Islamic school in Stockholm. The challenges and the opportunities of running private schools in Sweden )

Abdiaziz Xildhibaan living in UK Is one of the promising Somali writers of the future. So far the author has published 5 excellent books. The Author will share his elaborate His publications.

Axmad Farah Idaaja and his diverse Publications, including the just released play Dabkuu Shiday Darwiishkii

Said Shire living in UK has just published a new book about business ( Furaha Ganacsiga). It is one of the rare publications about such an important subject. The book is a new release in 2008

Abdifatah A. Abubakar (The author lives in Italy) and His Publications include Asaaska Suugaanta Soomaaliyeed, which is a very difficult subject and the author has written it in a very simple and clear method. Currently his 2nd book is under publication ( The Somali Trees), and hopefully should be ready during the book fair event.

Abdullahi Diiriye Carralle ( The author currently lives in Denmark) is one of the pioneers Who substantially contributed in developing and translating the structure of Somali poetry (iisaanka Maansada) in the mid 70`s. The Author has laid a solid foundation for For this difficult subject. His first book was published in the early 70`s. An updated and Revised Version of the authors research was again published in Sweden 2003 which is still so far probably the only published book about this subject. The Author will share his experiences with us during the event.

Abdi Bashir & Yusuf Hassan ( from Sweden) will present their respective publications, We shall listen as well a poem conducted by Abdi Bashir.

Books honored at African Studies Association meetings

RISE OF THE GOLDEN COBRA

A young scribe with revenge on his mind. A pharaoh’s war for the honor of Egypt.

During a picnic overlooking the Nile, 14-year-old scribe Nebi spots the riders first. Led by the treacherous Count Nimlot, the raiding party slaughters Nebi’s master, the region’s head of police. Although wounded, Nebi escapes, the only living witness that the pharaoh’s northern territory is no longer secure.

Nebi is quickly catapulted into events that will change history. Set in 728 B.C., RISE OF THE GOLDEN COBRA surrounds the actual reign of Pharaoh Piankhy, the brilliant and compassionate leader whose astonishing campaign united Ancient Egypt.

IKENNA GOES TO NIGERIA

British-born Ikenna explores Lagos, Onitsha, and Abuja and gets to meet his mom's relatives when he visits Nigeria. (Grades K-3)

[francais] Commentaire sur les camps de lecture d'été et tests

Notre collegue SARE Elisée fait des observations:

Durant le test de lecture effectué dans les différentes écoles primaires des villages abritants les bibliothèques il est ressorti que le niveau général de lecture des élèves évolue en dents de scie. Il a été en effet constaté qu’une catégorie élèves à un niveau de lecture vraiment bas (médiocre), c’est a dire que ceux-ci n’arrivent même pas a déchiffrer correctement les mots élémentaires et confondent quelque fois des syllabes. Donc ils n’ont pas pu répondre aux questions qui leurs ont été posées. Ceux-ci, dans l’ensemble ont refermé leurs textes les ont mis a coter, sans savoir que les réponses aux questions qu’on leur pose se trouvent dans les textes qu’ils viennent de lire. Une seconde catégorie d’élèves (la majorités) ont un niveau passable mais ne comprennent pas toujours ce qu’ils lisent ; ils se contentent plutôt de déchiffrer les mots sans vraiment en connaître les sens. Le mot « embonpoint » a causé de sérieux problèmes de lecture a ces élèves. Une troisième catégorie lisaient plutôt bien et répondaient assez bien aux questions a eux posées. Cette catégorie se composait en grande parties des élèves ayant participés au programme de lecture d’été.

Je me suis par la suite entretenu avec les deux instituteurs qui nous ont suivi durant toute la tournée dans les 5 villages, à savoir monsieur Sanogo et monsieur Zomba. Pour ceux-ci, une telle initiative est la bien venue. D’un point de vue pédagogique c’est intéressant a plusieurs titre : ce genre de tests facilite l’évaluation d’une classe et permet a travers le plan de la Gestion Axée sur les Résultats (GAR) de définir des stratégies d’amélioration de la lecture. Pour ma part, le test de lecture montre a quel point les bibliothèques de villages de FAVL sont déterminants dans l’amélioration du niveau de lecture des élèves dans cette région, vue que les meilleurs lecteurs de ce test fréquentent pour la plupart, régulièrement les bibliothèques et ont activement pris part au camp de lecture. Donc des initiatives telles que le camp doivent êtres promues. Cela contribuera à mon avis, à améliorer sensiblement les résultats scolaires des élèves. Car la lecture est une discipline (discipline instrument) dont l’élève se sert pour comprendre les autres matières. Donc la maîtrise de la lecture (en plus du fait qu’elle est un bon passe-temps) a nécessairement un impacte positif sur les résultats scolaire d’un eleve.

From Peace Corps volunteer Meghan Coughlin

Just received the library report for Niankorodougou for the month of October. The number of library visits and books borrowed has continued to go up with the opening of the school year. In the report, Moussa wrote that he is "tormented" every day by the need for more reading space for library visitors. I am currently working on getting an outside covered area built for this purpose. This past week we held an official library opening with community leaders/officials. More information about the opening ceremony and library activities will be updated on the blog shortly.

More details at her blog, all4nianko.

5 seconds in a school in Burkina Faso

The reading test team took this on a cell phone I presume... we're almost at my dream, where we have a web cam in each library and I can see how hard the librarians are working... of course, electricity has to come first? Cell phones may be affordable to us pretty soon though. Just think how much more reading will happen if the librarians are monitored....? Foucault, anyone?

Ingse Skattum, in a short article on teaching in Bamankan in Mali

The government of Mali has made desultory attempts over the years to teach primary schooling in Bamanankan [Bambara], the main national language. (Instruction has been and continues to be largely in French.) Skattum in a 2006 article in Mande Studies notes that one problem is:

Bambara and other national languages remain essentially oral languages, and the pupils do not see, so to speak, any printed Bambara that would permit them to internalise its spelling.

This simple fact is so stunning in the light of a Malian government policy to have about 2,000 schools teach the first years in Bambara, knowing full-well that there was no reading material for the students to read in Bambara!

Sukie, by the way, proudly spelled "bib" and "run" on her Etch-a-Sketch this morning. She "sounded them out." It is so much more interesting to be thinking of literacy issues in developing countries when you run your own experimental literacy lab at home ;-)

Le Siecle des Sauterelles

While attending the African Studies Association meetings I spent a little time finishing Malika Mokeddem's decent novel published in 1992. I think really it doesn't work as a novel; sorry to be blunt for those of you who maybe loved it. It opens with a searing image of a desert rape and murder. But then seems to turn more into an adventure/existential/love story... The tone and "voice" was not developed. Great introduction to the Algerian desert and ending days of French colonialism...

From an interview with Obi Nwakanma

What were the major factors that inspired you into writing?

It was simply, principally, the great allure and romance of the spoken word. There was a magic to it all. There was even the chivalry; our great loves; the young, beautiful women – our peers of course – to whom we addressed great love letters; and long agonized poems declaring love in bold, exaggerated verse. They were mostly the beautiful girls from the Holy Rosary School – the Girls Secondary School in Umuahia. But of course, one absorbed the nature of words from reading. I remember quite clearly, when I was in primary four, and my mother was reading Alan Paton’s Cry the Beloved Country, Ngugi’s Weep Not Child, and Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God. And that was when I read her copy of those books. I was moved by the landscape of Weep Not Child, and Njoroge’s experience within it. As children, we would go to the beautiful Umuahia Divisional Library, which had a fine children’s section in those days, and opened on Saturdays from 9 am to 3:00 pm, and we encountered books, and such things. It was a healthy place to be. That absorption with books, indirectly inspired my own efforts, and in many ways, it was always, not a philosophical question, but a simple attraction to utterance for its own sake. I wrote to amuse my friends and myself. In some ways, occasionally, to impress the beautiful maiden of one’s dream of that season, with what one felt was the important, even sometimes, blinding genius of one’s utterance.

The full interview is on this fine blog EverythinLiterature by Sumaila Isah of Kaduna's New Nigerian Newspapers.

[francais] site web Le Club des rats de biblio-net

Plein de critiques de livres en francais. Formidable!

[non-Africa posting] Literary songsmithing

It is true that I am at the annual African Studies Association meetings (manning a table for another project I work on, UnderstandingSudan), but on the flight out here I listened to a band that was one of the top 2008 on emusic, Neutral Milk Hotel. The album seems to have come out long ago though... (update: I just read the very interesting story of singer Jeff Mangum on Wikipedia). The song Holland, 1945 in particular caught my ear... after two listenings, I was pretty sure it was Anne Frank, and of course you have to be endeared to someone who can craft such an amazing song about Anne Frank... Here are the opening lyrics:

The only girl I've ever loved
Was born with roses in her eyes
But then they buried her alive
One evening, 1945
With just her sister at her side
And only weeks before the guns
All came and rained on everyone
Now she's a little boy in Spain
Playing pianos filled with flames
On empty rings around the sun
All sing to say my dream has come

And here is an acoustic version. It is much better in the recorded version.

Getting American schoolchildren involved to help reading in Africa

FAVL friend Lola Galla writes:

I had a pretty successful visit to St. John's School in Ottsville, Pennsylvania, this past Monday. I was invited by the prinicpal to be a guest speaker to meet with students K through 8th grades about my visit to Chalula because the school is planning on having a fundraiser for Chalula in the coming year. The students were well prepared and greeted me with maps of land forms and interesting facts about Tanzania which they displayed in the classrooms. One door even had written "KARIBU", meaning "Welcome" in Swahili. I brought some items from out trip like kangas, jewelry, coffee, etc. and shared some of my Photographs. I taught some Swahili greetings and animals names.

You can buy some of Lola's photos with proceeds going to FAVL at her store: www.lolaoppd.etsy.com

Unfair, and from NY Times but further evidence of importance of reading

From Maureen Dowd:

Here’s Palin defending herself on the contention that she got confused about Africa:

“My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.”

Ouch. What she should have said, and would have if she were a good reader, was this:

I am very concerned about the atrocities in Darfur. Those atrocities led my state and myself as governor to confront the issue of divesting the Alaska Permanent Fund from stocks related to Darfur and Sudan. I think it is a tragedy that so many corrupt African dictatorships are ruining the lives of their citizens.

That's what Laura Bush, a *very* good reader, by all accounts, would have said.

If you know French speaking undergraduates... please share

More on Thomas Sankara's speeches

I continue to read the speeches of Thomas Sankara, revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso from 1983-87. An interesting speech he gave in 1984 was at the inaugural session of the People's Revolutionary Courts. He argued that bourgeois justice was a sham, because it favored those in power. For example,

In a society such as ours, here the population is 95 percent illiterate and held in obscurantism and ignorance by the ruling classes, bourgeois law , defying all common sense, dares assert that "ignorance of the law is no excuse."

The alternative? Some kind of informal and educational people's justice. he does not in the speech explain how this justice is to get by without written rules, nor how such written rules would once again quickly become the mechanism by which the powerful evaded the law. Sankara was a broad-brush thinker, operating in a small country; he seemed to think that the twenty of them who were in charge could basically make all the decisions about everything. For them, Burkina was like a medium-sized city. A firm hand could easily "master" order and justice. His rhetoric of people's justice I take to be basically rhetoric. If it were not rhetoric, he would at least have devoted some thought to what it would mean to have "people" judging complex cases. Did he think a tailor could investigate the complex financial transactions of a bank? Sankara was silent on these matters.

Libraries do really simple things to encourage reading and literacy

It occurred to me the other day, that the libraries FAVL supports are not doing some of those simple things. I know why not: in the village environments where FAVL operates, even very basic literacy functionality is not part of local common-sense. None of the librarians, nor any parents, have ever seen the simple literacy-encouraging techniques that well-developed school systems are so adept at: making posters, drawings, plays, "projects", puppet theater, etc. So one of our goals for 2009 is to foster more of that spirit in the libraries. So we'll go out and hire a literacy consultant to work out and implement a program, right? Wrong. Money we have, for that? No Yoda, no money. So we'll do it ourselves. And one place to start is by "edicting." So here's my thought for the memo to the librarians. Starting January 2009, every month of the year is a theme month. Your job is to program activities in the month that will tie into that theme, especially for children and new literates, as a way of encouraging literacy. You have no budget for this (that is why it is an edict). An unfunded mandate! And we expect results.

January - Politics month. Who are political leaders? What are different systems of government? Question and answer session with mayor.
February - The World Geography month. Learn about different countries of the world. Map quizzes. Color maps.
March - Artist month - Learn about drawing and painting. Art competitions. Learn about artists of the country and the world.
April- Masks month. Draw and make masks. Learn the meaning of masks of different ethnic groups.
May - Agriculture month. Do activities relating to seeds and crops. Drawings of crops. naming crops. celebrating rare crops. Spelling bee for names of crops.
June - Summer reading month - Learn what are good books to read in the summer on your own. share best books.
July - Break for rainy season
August - Break for rainy season
September - think of something!
October - think of something!
November - think of something!
December - think of something!

So now someone has to come up with a librarian "packet" to help the librarians organize each months activities, and think of the materials they might need, and ask what could be done with a $10 budget per library per month.

Well, this is just my thought of the day. Now to consult with FAVL board members, regional coordinators, and librarians themselves. Let's see if it is an idea with legs. it sure walks a long way in our libraries here in San Jose. But, honestly, this would be a experience revolution in village sin Burkina Faso.

A good source for African children's literature

Is at the University of Florida Africana collection website:

The purpose of this web page is to introduce scholars interested in African children's literature to a variety of material that is available for research in this area. I hope that what I have gathered here will serve as a useful starting point to anyone else interested in studying or doing research in African children's literature.

Teaching reading to kindergartners

Kindergartners are guided to learn how to read, through repetition and positive feedback, and by using time-tested strategies such as rhyming songs, alphabet exercises, phonetics lessons (The P says "pah"), sight words, and simple books that contain a small vocabulary of short words with good illustrations ("Hop on Pop" by Dr. Seuss). Schools in rural Burkina Faso have none of that, and most teachers have little training in how to deliver these strategies. An important component of rural village libraries is to have librarians who are trained and who can train others in these strategies. This seems to me to be an essential medium-term focus for library support organizations like FAVL. But with present resources, we can barely scratch the surface.

Calling all "friends"

What books are great for kids in African villages to read? A question that we all wonder about. Theresa Jolly Holt wrote in with some new suggestions:

Akimbo & the Elephants $4.99 paperback Alexander McCall Smith
Akimbo & the Lions $4.99 paperback Alexander McCall Smith
Akimbo & the Snake $4.99 paperback Alexander McCall Smith
Beatrice’s Goat @Uganda (USA) 7.99 P 9780689869907 McBrier

Coincidentally this morning I was thinking about a great book to share with young adults in Ghana and other English-speaking countries (and even in Burkina, where there are some English readers)... and it is Dreams from My Father, by, guess who? Barack Obama.

So go support your local used bookstore owner, or go garage-saling this weekend, and send some of these books off to the libraries in Ghana:

Sumbrungu Community Library

c/o CESRUD

Box 267
Bolgatanga GHANA

More Sankara speaks... about reading?

Continuing my reading (previous post) of the collected speeches of Thomas Sankara, today I read the famous 1983 "Speech of Political Orientation" (Discours d'orientation politique) that intellectual Burkinabè still know of today, 25 years later. Supposedly, the speech was written by Valère Somé, whom I happened to meet this summer, ever so briefly! Well, mostly I overhead him "discoursing" in the hallway while I was coding survey responses... I didn;t get up to wander over and engage. How's that for revealing where I stand? My PhD mentors (and still much admired) Michael Watts and Pranab Bardhan will be shuddering if they ever read my callousness. Well, young revolutionaries never really inspired me. Almost always provoked a yawn more than an accelerated heartbeat. Hmm, have to re-examine my Durruti fixation in the light of that comment.

Anyway, and apropos of this blog, the interesting part in the speech is the emphasis placed on self-education and moral reform through reading. The young intellectuals of the revolution wanted everyone to be like themselves, reading and debating exciting works. They had absorbed a lot of Marxist-inspired readings, and it shows clearly in the speech. All that reading finally got turned into writing that mattered.

The more I think about it the more the speech reflects a certain kind of modernization ideology, where bringing material prosperity relies on transformation of the self. You have to want to work hard, honestly, and together for realization of the dream. Reading lots of books will help you do that. So then the interesting question is: Is that right? How much truth might there be in the whole "changing values" hypothesis? There are some development economists who work on this, and I'll try to come back to their work in another post, after I get a chance to see whether any of them mention reading itself as a way that certain values are brought into play.

I'll write more on the speech proper demain.

How fast can Elliot read when he wants to?

He read The Battle of the Labyrinth in about five hours. 381 pages of pure fun, apparently.

A great blog and a link to John Ryle

An excellent blog called Scarlett Lion, by a photographer in Uganda. She has a link to this article which I had not read before.

Tropical baroque, African reality and the work of Ryszard Kapuściński
by JOHN RYLE
Ryszard Kapuściński, The Shadow of the Sun, translated by Klara Glowczewska, 336pp, Penguin, 2001

Ron Kassimir on Yoweri Museveni, president of Uganda

From the article:
Reading Museveni: Structure, Agency and Pedagogy in Ugandan Politics, Ronald Kassimir, Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines, Vol. 33, No. 2/3, Special Issue: French-Speaking Central Africa: Political Dynamics of Identities and Representations (1999), pp. 649-673

Anyone the least bit familiar with Museveni's writings and speeches knows that here is a soldier that reads, and reads....

Why the dot-dot-dot? Like Monty Python and the Holy Grail in the blood-thirsty rabbit's Cave of Caerbannog"? Argh, I can't access JSTOR from home... Have to wait until tomorrow to find out what he reads. But the imagination is so fertile. Poetry? No. The Bible? Yes, but that's not what Kassimir has in mind I'm sure. Veterinary tracts on cattle ranching? No again. Danielle Steel? Hard to imagine. What does such a person actually read, and how does it change him?

Foiled by the New York Times, again

What does reading do? This time a really interesting article, because by someone who actually knows what they are doing, though a little uncritical... An extract:

How to Read Like a President

... I just finished five years of work on Jackson and his White House years, and I found that the reconstruction of his literary interests, from youth to old age, illuminated much about the arrangement of his intellectual furniture. His heroic sense of possibility? He loved Jane Porter’s novel “The Scottish Chiefs.” His thunderous rhetorical habit of posing a question and then answering it? He grew up memorizing the Westminster Shorter Catechism of the Presbyterian Church. His provincial obsession with manners, bearing and etiquette? He was a fan of Lord Chesterfield’s letters. His reflexive characterization of enemies like Henry Clay as “Judases” and his dependence on imagery from the Old Testament? He cherished the Bible and his late wife’s copy of Isaac Watts’s translation of the Psalms. His shrewd political sense? He was an unlikely admirer of the French philosopher Fénelon’s “Telemachus,” a kind of Machiavellian guide to ruling wisely.

You can tell a lot about a president — or a presidential candidate — by what he reads, or says he reads. We know the iconic examples: George Washington and his rules of civility, Thomas Jefferson and the thinkers of the French and Scottish Enlightenments, Lincoln and the Bible and Shakespeare. Though a generation apart, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt both loved Alfred Thayer Mahan’s “Influence of Sea Power Upon History” and savored the imperial poems of Kipling. Together such works created a kind of Anglo-American ethos in their minds — an ethos Franklin Roosevelt would make concrete during World War II, when he and Winston Churchill quoted Edward Lear’s nonsense rhymes to each other as they fought Hitler and Japan. Full article here....

Another speech by Thom Sank

Sankara was a big reader, and largely self-taught. His second major speech was the radio address given on August 4, 1983 when his comrade Blaise Compaoré (who was to kill him, in 1987) freed him from arrest (the internal dynamics of the Voltaic army were very complicated!). For all the lament over Sankara's death in 1987 a the hands of Compaore, it should not be forgotten that he helped do the same thing to his former colleague, Colonel Gabriel Somé Yoryam, who was killed on August 9, 1983.

Anyway, back to the speech. My favorite line is about the traitors and betrayers of the nation, leaders of a "submissive and groveling regime"... imagine hearing this as a fifteen year old in Ouagadougou at night: "You know these individuals, because they fraudulently worked their way into the history of our people." The rest of the speech simply says that they are in power and will not do anything rash.

Two weeks later Sankara gave a news conference. The first part focuses on the personality of Sankara, that is, questioners try to ask whether he is in charge, whether this is what he wanted, and Sankara modestly denies much responsibility. He tries to blame the troubles of the past 9 months on Somé Yoryan. H then goes on to affirm a revolutionary character to the new military regime. He dichotomizes: either one is a revolutionary, or a counterrevolutionary to be battled.

A month later on October 2, 1983, Sankara gives the famous "Discours d'Orientation Politique", supposedly largely written by Valère Somé. The speech is thrity pages long... must have taken a couple hours to read. More on that later.