Reshuffle puts 'right person in right place': government

www.mmtimes.com
International World 37
Protest songs rock a volatile Spain
IN a dark bar, Diego Rodriguez and
his friends are thrashing out some of
the wildest, angriest music in Spain:
blistering guitars, keening punk vocals,
barking saxophone and trumpet.
This is protest music, Spanish style
– and after five years of on-and-off
recession, it has an enthusiastic audience
here in the working class Madrid
suburb of Vallecas.
Dressed in black, young fans pogo
on the dance floor, slamming into
each other as the band rampages
through “Familia Y Real”, its anthem
against Spain’s increasingly unpopular
monarchy.
“An illegal system, imposed by the
sons of fascism! The Bourbon king
is robbing me from dawn to dusk!”
Diego sings, breaking off to lay on a
catchy Caribbean ska rhythm with his
trumpet.
“It is a very direct form of music,
which deals with social issues,”
says Diego, 32, a teacher by profession
but currently unemployed, with
brown hair down to his tattooed
shoulders.
“Ska punk wasn’t very popular in
Spain until about 10 years ago. But I
think slowly people are starting to appreciate
the spirit of punk,” he adds,
smoking wearily after an hour roaring
and hopping about on stage.
“A lot of our songs are about how
bad the jobs situation is, and the political
system that we don’t believe
in. We try to focus the songs on our
own experiences: being unemployed,
earning no money, having to pay the
mortgage.”
Like much alternative music in
Spain, the songs by Diego’s band Oferta
Especial – currently planning a new
album – echo the mass street protests
in Spain over recent years.
Like the demonstrators, singers
complain of social injustice, economic
hardship and political corruption,
outraged by scandals that have even
touched the conservative Prime Minister
Mariano Rajoy.
At the hip-hop end of the spectrum,
June saw the release of a new
Spanish musician Mala Rodriguez performs on the stage of the Mulafest Festival in Madrid. Photo: AFP
‘An illegal system,
imposed by the sons
of facism...Bourbon
king is robbing me
from dawn till dusk!’
Lyric from ‘Famalia Y Real’ by
singer Diego Rodriguez
album by Mala Rodriguez, the Latin
Grammy-winning princess of Spanish
rap.
The first single from it, “La Rata”,
alludes to what she calls a “crisis of
values” in the country.
“There’s the prime minister, that
bastard, why did we vote for him?”
she moans, dropping her consonants
in her sultry Andalusian accent as
the rap mounts to a climax.
“I have heard a lot of musicians
in Spain who are politically engaged
and not afraid to express their anger,”
said Rodriguez, 34, known as
“La Mala”, or “Bad Girl”.
“Rap was the only way I found
to do it when I was young,” she
told AFP. “Right now, in hard times
when things are tight, you see who is
armed for the fight.”
Observers say the mainstream music
industry is resisting the wave of
protest, however.
“La Rata” has made no mark on a
Spanish top-40 chart dominated by
international stars such as Jennifer
Lopez and Rihanna.
La Mala’s new album is “an invective
against complacent cultural attitudes
towards the crisis our country
is undergoing”, according to the
editor-in-chief of the Spanish edition
of Rolling Stone magazine, Beatriz G.
Aranda.
“The groups that grab the attention
of the media and public have a
naive and individualistic vision of the
world,” the editor told AFP.
“The protest song has taken on
pejorative connotations in Spain and
that has not helped.”
Known for rapping on social
themes, Mala Rodriguez is proud of
her roots in her native southern Andalusia
– one of the parts of Spain hardest
hit by the recession.
She says her style of rap is influenced
by flamenco, the traditional
gypsy lament native to her home region
and itself an age-old form of social
protest.
“Flamenco, like rock, is a music
form created by those excluded and
marginalised in a capitalist society,”
explained Aranda. “Flamenco has
been politically engaged since the beginning.”
Another Andalusian musician with
flamenco roots, Chico Ocana, says he
plans to release a new album of protest
songs later this year.
Since the early 1990s he has fused
flamenco vocals with blues and rock
‘n’ roll, singing poignant satirical ballads
in a gravelly voice with soaring
choruses.
His new album will mix in funk,
rock and Latin styles, with lyrics about
corruption scandals and the evictions
of ruined homeowners that have
sparked outrage in Spain.
“The songs are about protest, the
crisis, the cuts, the war of the rich
against the poor,” says, Ocana, 56, recalling
his own deprived upbringing
in the south.
“I’ve been a child of crisis since I
was born,” he says. “When nothing is
being done, you have to make something
happen. That is why I sing.”
– AFP
Life after the Islamists still a
grind in Malian city of Gao
BOUREIMA HAMA
name@myanmartimes.com.mm
AN ancient capital of West Africa’s
Songhai empire, the Malian city of
Gao was for centuries a bustling
trade centre for Tuareg nomads taking
lucrative camel caravans of gold,
salt and dates across the Sahara desert.
These days, visitors are unlikely to
find much business being done, the
dusty tree-lined avenues emptied of
many of the mud-brick shops which
thrived before Islamist invaders occupied
the city last year.
“Still no electricity, no banks, no
government -- Gao is living in a prehistoric
age,” sighs a resident.
Gao will join the rest of the country
in electing a president on Sunday,
and it is in northern Mali’s largest city
that the new head of state will have
perhaps the heaviest workload.
The city of around 90,000 people
on the banks of the Niger river, 320
kilometres (200 miles) southeast of
Timbuktu, fell to Tuareg rebels last
year along with the rest of the northern
desert area comprising about 60
percent of Mali.
But they lost control to al Qaedalinked
radicals who imposed a brutal
version of Islamic law, carrying out
amputations and executions before
Mali’s former colonial ruler France
sent in troops in January and took
back the cities of the north.
A United Nations stabilisation mission
has largely replaced the French
military and a post-election roadmap
for peace is in place.
Yet the people of Gao have little
reason for optimism.
In the gloom of a town hall typing
pool, secretaries working for the local
government strain to see their work
as they bend over old-fashioned typewriters.
Electricity is something of a prized
commodity, with each neighbourhood
getting power for just a few hours a
day.
Ravaged by conflict, the riverside
town hall is emblematic of the battle
faced by ordinary inhabitants to return
to something like normality.
The building has undergone a partial
revamp but “remains paralysed”
due to a lack of essential fixtures and
fittings, deputy mayor Aboubacar
Toure told AFP.
The grinding cogs of local government,
which seized up altogether during
the occupation, are only just beginning
to turn again.
“At least 80 percent of the officials
in the region who fled on the arrival
of the jihadists are not back yet,” the
deputy said.
Those who are in place -- the odd
teacher, forestry agent or water management
official -- are largely natives
of the region.
There is no visible police presence
on the streets, where Malian security
forces patrol, backed by French and
UN troops.
All is not hopeless, however, insists
local government officer Zakaria
Dicko.
“In a few months, we have managed
to restore some archives destroyed
by armed groups and we have
established birth certificates for children
born during the occupation,” he
said.
But while the municipal authorities
have managed to restart some
functions, money -- or the lack of it --
is impeding any serious progress.
“The mayor can no longer collect
taxes from traders. They say they have
been ruined by the crisis and have not
yet recovered,” deputy mayor Toure
added.
In downtown ‘Washington’ market,
traders explain that they simply cannot
afford to contribute to the rebuilding
of their city.
“Business is not doing well, so we
will not pay anything,” says Alhassane,
a grocer.
Leaning against the counter of his
clothing store, Elhadj Dramane awaits
customers who will probably never arrive.
He says he will vote on Sunday in
the hope that the election will “change
the game -- end injustice, corruption
and embezzlement”.
“If there is no change after, then
the war against the jihadists will have
been for nothing,” he says.
People pass by the closed entrance of an Ecobank branch, that was attacked by
armed men a few months ago. Photo: AFP
Access to safe drinking water has
also become a major problem in a
city where, according to the UN Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs, the volume available
decreased by 60 pc in the weeks after
the conflict.
Fatimata, a young mother with
her baby on her back, says she often
has to re-supply from the choleraridden
Niger river, “with all the risks
of diseases that brings, especially
since clinics lack essential medicines”.
Gao relies on the wet season to
nourish stocks of rice, one of the
main staples for its inhabitants, and
the lack of rain during July has piled
on the pain for a population facing a
daily struggle to survive.
“The rice fields that stretch along
the river for several kilometres are
drying out. This is a sign of bad harvests,”
said Ali, a boatman.
Poverty may be more deeply ingrained
since the occupation, but the
privations suffered by the people of
Gao are not new, says Idrissa Haman,
a former NGO worker, now unemployed.
His aspirations for the new regime
in Bamako are simply “that the new
president also thinks of us”, as all the
development efforts of previous governments
were concentrated in the
southern areas of the country. – AFP