Dynamic Africa
Formerly, "This is Africa/fyeahAfrica".
(Profile Photo by Mama Casset)
DISCLAIMER:
I do not endorse any of the products or opinions shared on this site, nor do I claim any of the work posted here to be my own - except where stated. All posts originally made by me are credited. If no credit is given then the work is either my own/written by me or reblogged from another source.
A LITTLE ABOUT ME:
Student, 24
Based in Cape Town, South Africa
From Lagos, Nigeria
Want to advertise through us? Send an email to dynamicafricablog@gmail.com
(As an unemployed media student, all donations go into ensuring my survival in this cruel world and future projects I hope to embark on).
hit counter
(since Oct. 21th 2012)
AFTERNOON TUNE: In her new video for her latest single ‘Restless’, Nneka bares her vulnerable side with this emotionally-charged heartbreaking ballad from her album ‘Soul is Heavy’.
Arrival at Mora. The capital of Mandara. From Narrative of travels and discoveries in Northern and Central Africa, in the years 1822, 1823, and 1824. Vol I & II (published 1826).
The Mandara Kingdom (sometimes called Wandala) was a West African kingdom in the Mandara Mountains of what is today Cameroon. The Mandarawa people are descended from the kingdom’s inhabitants.
Tradition states that Mandara was founded shortly before 1500 by a female ruler named Soukda and a non-Mandarawa hunter named Gaya. The kingdom was first referred to by Fra Mauro (in 1459) and Leo Africanus (in 1526); the provenance of its name remains uncertain.
For the kingdom’s first century of history, its rulers warred with neighbouring groups in an effort to expand their territories.
After conquering the Dulo (or Duolo) and establishing the capital at Dulo c. 1580, the dynasty of Sankre, a war leader, began. When the Dulo made an attempt to seize the throne, the Bornu kingdom supported the claim of Aldawa Nanda, a member of Sankre’s house. Emperor Idris Alaoma of Borno personally installed Nanda as king in 1614. Bornu thus attained an influential position over Mandara.
Mai Bukar Aji, the 25th king, made Mandara a sultanate c. 1715, which it would remain for nearly two hundred years. Muslim visitors converted Bukar to Islam, and the Islamicisation of the kingdom would continue for most of the next century. The kingdom experienced a golden age of sorts under Bukar and his successor, Bukar Guiana (1773-1828). Around 1781, the Mandara defeated the kingdom of Borno in a major battle, further expanding their control in the region. At the peak of her power at the turn of the century, Mandara received tribute from some 15 chiefdoms. However, the kingdom faced a setback in 1809, when Modibo Adama, a Fulanidisciple of Usman dan Fodio, led a jihad against Mandara. Adama briefly seized Dulo, though the Mandara counterattack soon drove him from the kingdom’s borders. Adama’s defeat prompted Borno to ally with Mandara once again against the Fulani invaders.
Upon the death of ruler Bukai Dgjiama, Mandara’s non-Muslim tributaries rose up, and the Fulani attacked once more. By 1850, Borno could not pass up the opportunity to attack the weakened kingdom. This renewed conflict began to sap the kingdom’s strength, paving the way for the invasion of Muhammad Ahmad’s forces in the 1880s. In 1895 or 1896, Muhammad Ahmad’s army destroyed Dulo, marking a further decline in Mandara power. However, the kingdom continued to exist, repelling continual Fulani raids until it finally fell to them in 1893.
English explorer Dixon Denham accompanied a slave-raiding expedition from Borno into the Mandara kingdom in February 1823; though he barely escaped with his life following the raiders’ defeat, he brought back one of the first European accounts of the kingdom. In 1902, the kingdom was conquered by Germany, passing then to France in 1918. In 1960, the Mandara kingdom became a part of newly-independent Cameroon.
AFTERNOON TUNE: Nneka performing ‘Come With Me’ live and acoustic for Baeble Music in NYC
In 1903, after 20 years of colonization, 712 European women lived among 3,970 European men in German South-West Africa. What to do? Rape. Although rape by German men of Herero and Nama women was common, prior to 1904 not a single case of a white man raping an African woman came before a German court. This became particularly acute in the attempted rape, and then murder, of Louisa Kamana.
Louisa Kamana was married to the son of Chief Zacharias. The two gave a ride to a German settler, who, that night, “made sexual advances” on Louisa Kamana. She refused. He killed her. The Court acquitted him. The case was appealed, and the settler was given three years in prison. Rape and murder of Herero women were common occurrences. The case only went to trial because a Chief’s family was involved, and no one among the Herero thought three years made up for a Herero woman’s life and dignity.
That’s the story of the genocide as well. Women and children were targeted. When the Herero were ‘allowed’ to escape into the Kalahari Desert, it was assumed most would die. It was also assumed more women and children would die. That assumption was correct. The German authorities explained that Herero women and children had to die because they carried dangerous diseases. Meanwhile, the German press shrieked that Herero women were ‘black amazons swinging clubs and castrating their foes’.
And so good riddance.
Out of Africa
Don’t miss this gorgeous exhibition of paintings, sculptures, and photography by 14 African Contemporary artists, debuting at Galerie Frank Schlag & CIE on August 25, 2012.
Seven of the artists work out of Africa and will be present at the exhibition, while the other artists are based in Europe and the United States.
Discover the broad spectrum of African Art.
MUST-WATCH DOCUMENTARY: The Namibian Genocide
Thirty years before Hitler came to power in Germany, and about forty years before Raphael Lemkin authored the word genocide, there had already been one at the hands of Germany. This genocide did not take place in Europe. This ‘forgotten’ genocide took place in Southwest Africa, or what is today, Nambia.
In the early 1900s, Germany invaded Namibia. This documentary from the BBC outlines the events that lead up to the deaths of at least three-quarters of the population of Herero people, and at least half of the population of Nama people.
This systematic form of ethnic-cleansing was done to create Lebensraum for German settlers, where space was running out in the over-crowded cities of urban Germany, and create a satellite state for Germany interests and prosperity.
“The dark racial theories that helped inspire the Nazis run much deeper into German and European history than most people want to acknowledge”
