Streets Urban Festival Kasserine

From: Streets Urban Festival Kasserine

Tuesday’s update from the Streets team:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdmrlweMXqA

The frigid air crystalized the anticipation in the streets of Kasserine this Tuesday morning. As motorbikes coughed by, struggling past horse-drawn carts, most Kasserinis wouldn’t have dreamed that in a few hours the avenues and back alleys of their city would be home to giant graffiti murals; courtesy of world-class artists the likes of Zepha, Shuck 2, Sim, and Tire. Nor would anyone have expected the vibrant workshops in rap, photography, and breakdancing that animated the conference rooms and courtyards of the local youth complex, seated behind a low dusty wall on Kasserine’s outskirts.

But as locals and artists alike finished lunch and walked out of the dining hall at the youth complex, they were greeted by local youth contorting themselves in the middle of a circle

in an old-skool B-boy battle; onlookers cheering loudly at their best moves. Despite the chill, the battle was hot, and dancers pulled off their shirts before plunging back onto the mat while classic breaks played from the DJ booth behind them. The competition was fierce, but the B-boys kept the battle peaceful, throwing fake blows at each other and dodging them with laughs and backflips.

Just steps down the road from the youth center, graffeurs Tire and Shuck 2, both from the cités of Paris were putting their mark on a wall facing a municipal building. Both characters are as colourful as the calligraffiti murals they were creating. Tire, originally from France, has been living in Montréal for the last three years. He’s a former streetball player, and after leaving Tunisia will be moving to Yemen with his wife and children. Shuck 2 began his graffiti career in the late 1980s with his gang in the Parisian suburbs, and was one of the first to practice graffiti using Arabic script.

Even farther down the road, French street artist Zepha balances precariously on a motorized lift, dragging his spray can over the top edges of an apartment building with broad strokes, assembling a twisted formation of Arabic letters with shapes of natural objects. On a crumbing wall below him, Tunisian graffeur Slim fills in the outlines of his work in progress with bright pink paint. Local boys, who were practicing parkour nearby, or Free Running, stand at the street’s edge in rapt attention.

Haron Hesi, 16 years old, said, “The graffiti here encourages us to be creative. If someone has creativity, he can imagine, he can become someone else. Creativity gives us hope.”

Written by Sam Kimball. You can also follow Sam on Twitter @SamOnTheRoad

Wednesday’s update from the Streets team:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzpoQcYH7SI

As the chill of the morning wore off on Wednesday, young men from Kasserine warmed up on yellow and blue mats in the open Air beside the local youth center. The smallest children imitated the bigger kids on another mat just meters away. As time went on, renowned break dancer Selim, the founder of French dance crew Pokémon, began his workshop with the youth. With simple electro beats lording over the crowd, they youth all moved in unison following Selim’s lead. Still later, the rows of dancers turned into a circle with one-on-one battles exploding within, Selim serving as judge.

Walid Kafi, a filmmaker from Montréal, had his lens focused on the dancers before turning it to Seifeddine, a twenty year-old from Kasserine who is the focus of a documentary film about the Streets Festival. Kafi shot a scene with Seifeddine and American journalist Sam Kimball as they walked slowly along a path beside the youth center, as they spoke about Seif’s interest in graffiti and acting as forms of expression, and his hopes for the festival.

Later in the afternoon, up the hill from the municipal youth center at a private arts center called Al Rawabi (The Hills), children sat in rows before a local teacher of the oud, a traditional Arab stringed instrument. Following his notes in unison, their voices climbed climbed through traditional songs. But minutes later, as Canadian-Iraqi rapper The Narcicyst and French rapper Medine entered the courtyard of the center, the children poured from their classrooms and stood quietly before Medine as he spoke to them about the importance of positive creative outlets. Then with beats from producer Sandhill pounding, Narcicyst and Medine took turns freestyle wrapping in Arabic, French and English. In an interview outside the center, Medine said, “Our professors educate us. Our parents educate us too. But I think at this festival, the artists have educated us.”

When night fell and the deep cold returned, the local basketball stadium packed with the bodies of contorting their bodies before a stage where a local DJ spun old breaks. The final B-boy battle had begun. In round after round, dancers went in round after round, first one-on-one, then two-on-two, then crew versus crew. There was even a special round for children, 8 and 9 year-olds. After hours of round after round, Selim made his decision and one of the crews won the battle. The prize for the winners is an international show with Selim’s celebrated Pokémon dance crew.

Written by Sam Kimball. You can also follow Sam on Twitter @SamOnTheRoad

Thursday’s update from the Streets team:

For Kasserinis tuning into the radio this Thursday morning, they heard the program host introducing Montréal-based rapper The Narcicyst, and announcing his upcoming performance scheduled for that night. Next they heard The Narcicyst’s song Batal (Hero) produced by fellow visiting artist Sandhill. Following, festival founder Karim Jabbari jumped on the microphone and updated Kasserine on the festival’s progress.

As the sun began to lift into the midday sky, the day’s activities opened once-again at Dar Esh Shabab (Youth Center) on the edges of Kasserine. Imen, a young woman from Kasserine recently graduated from a fashion and design program at the local university, was demonstrating to children seated around a table how to make simple sculptures from various types of pasta. The children used fingers and rollers to shape dough into faces and stars. Girls, who hitherto hadn’t had a strong presence in many of the workshops, made up nearly half the group. Nadir Soultani, 15, who participated in the workshop, said, “Workshops like this are important because they allow us to be creative, they give knowledge to the local kids, and provide a model for how we can be.”

On the other side of the courtyard, producer and beatmaker Sandhill was assembling drums and guitar samples on a mixing console, while heads of curious local youth nodded with the rhythm. Sandhill encouraged some of the rappers in the crowd to pick up a microphone, and within minutes a crowd had formed, with a freestyle rap battle in full swing. The Narcicyst, who had seen the battle and come running, spit a few bars between some of the local talents.

And just as the sun fell that night, The Narcicyst appeared on stage at Kasserine’s indoor sports complex in a woolen bournous (cloak) and Tunisian skullcap with mic in hand and Sandhill at the sound booth behind him. While videos for Narcy’s various songs flitted across a projector screen beside him, the eager youth piled up in front of the stage rocked their fists in the air to the beat. After Narcy finished his mixed English/Arabic set and the audience settled down, Tunisia’s own MC Killa and the group Debo came to the stage for a freestyle battle, Kasserini youth filling the sports complex further in support of local talent.

Written by Sam Kimball. You can also follow Sam on Twitter @SamOnTheRoad

Friday’s update from the Streets team:

On the final day, the atmosphere was light. With a bright sun shining, the air of Kasserine’s dusty streets was warm. Renowned Chilean graffiti muralist Saile One was raised three stories above Kasserine’s downtown on a hydraulic lift. The mural, a collection of different collaged faces, began on Tuesday and is still in progress. Saile says he’ll stay in Kasserine as long as it takes to finish.

Filmmaker Walid Kafi continued filming his documentary on the festival, taking up-close footage of artists Tire and Shuck 2. Both had completed their expansive graffiti pieces on the wall facing a mosque and a municipal building, Tire’s composed of elaborate but bare Arabic letters, Shuck 2’s old-skool latin script with Kasserine written in neon green Arabic splashed in the middle. By today they had moved on to another wall closer to the center of town, Shuck 2’s rapidly assembled and simple Arabic mural covering a huge swath of the wall, while Tire’s giant tag was made up of a few latin letters adorned with crowns and paint drips. Kafi’s camera hovered below spray cans and behind ladders, capturing every movement.

Later on, Kafi, along with The Narcycist, Tamara Abdul Hadi, Sandhill, graffers Vajo and Kim, and Seifeddine, around whom Kafi’s documentary is oriented, all went to a Roman amphitheater just outside Kasserine. The Narcicyst gave an interview on his experience at Thursday evening’s concert and spoke about his hopes for the festival, but also about his understanding that it will not immediately change the economic and social situation most Kasserinis live in. Photographer Tamara Abdulhadi explained the techniques she used in her photography workshop, particularly allowing students to take their own photographs as a means of allowing them to choose how they are represented.

Kafi then turned his lens back on Seifeddine. In front of one if his Graffiti murals, Seif explained to journalist Sam Kimball the meaning behind his writing “My Country is My Responsibility.’” He painted this during a graffiti competition shortly after military operations against extremists, which left many locals angry and fearful. The piece was Seif’s attempt to give Kasserinis hope and strength in a period of uncertainty.

Streets Festival wrapped up with a three-on-three freestyle basketball competition, with local youth up against a French freestyle basketball team, along with Tire.

The local youth tried as best they could to catch up with the French team’s Harlem Globe Trotters-like moves. The Kasserini youth didn’t come out on top for this one, but the game ended with high-fives and pats on the back; a warm end to the festival as cold night fell once again.

Written by Sam Kimball. You can also follow Sam on Twitter @SamOnTheRoad

Tunis #1 - The Architects of Tunisia's "Undergound"

It's interesting to witness the growth of "underground" culture in Tunisia, or Tunis at the very least. I was at a concert last night at the École Nationale de l'Architecture et de l'Urbanisme (ENAU) in Sidi Bou Saïd, one of the more affluent suburbs north of the center of Tunis, where I found, before the mesmerized bobbing heads of young architecture students draped in empty dreadlock hats, a Canadian woman rocking anti-war songs with more than a mild Bob Marley flavor. Her pale dreadlocks were bound up in black cloth, and the beard of the drummer behind her tastefully overgrown. This was a better-off section of Tunisia's growing underground culture and music scene, which includes reggae.

But the university students packed the small courtyard in which she played, waving hands and heads, plugged in to her songs, which, being in English, may not have been understood by all (Hell, I didn't make out a lot of what she sang.) But the spirit of the music, which was defiant and overtly political, was lost on no one. And yet, the middle-class youth, most of whom who have been little-touched by the economic--and political?--woes of Tunisia before and after its national uprising, cheered her on as if she sang their class demands out loud (I realize, however, that many of the students come from elsewhere in Tunisia, including the generally impoverished interior regions. However, I don't think it would be way off to say that even those hailing from poor interior towns come from the local middle-classes or petty bourgeoisie, considering the kind of means it would require to put them up for several years in Tunis while at school. This is obviously a very general impression. Correct me if I'm wrong.)

What she was certainly connecting to, however, appears to me a general anti-authoritarian impulse among the students, who lived much of their lives under the silent iron grip of former president Ben Ali & Co., who participated in the protests of December 2010 onwards that precipitated in Benny boy's downfall, and who are now witnessing an elite battle in the halls of power with Islamists, old-regimers, and lefties that is keeping the economy stagnant and freedom of expression precarious. 

This impulse was illuminated even more so by the following act, whose name I didn't catch. A proper band this time,  also smelling strongly of reggae, I found myself really engaged by the singer/rapper's lyrics. Though they were all either in Standard or Tunisian Arabic, I was able to catch some song titles like "خدّام أوزينة" of Factory Worker in Tunisian dialect, and the lead vocalist's dedication of the songs to the "poor, the factory workers in Redyef, in Kasserine, Gafsa, and Sidi Bouzid (Where the Tunisian Revolution began)." I often heard him spit the word rāsmēlia (capitalism) over hid thickly-bearded face in his mildly Jamaican-sounding sing/raps. Exactly what his comments about capitalism were I couldn't tell you, but judging by his song titles, it was likely not positive. I don't think he was championing an international socialist revolution, as I've noticed a prominent anarchist bent among a lot of the hip hoppers (part of the underground) I've met with, but this was certainly an anti-business-as-usual concert.

Something else to note is the unusually high-level of pan-African sentiment I see displayed among Tunisian youth in the underground. The following act was a band called Mama Africa. Normally made up of 7 members, all from West Africa, only three played that night: one from Senegal, one from Guinea, one from Mali. They were pure percussion and vocals, complete with the hip too-modern dyed-blond hair or flat brim baseball hats. Though they were not Tunisian, and singing in West African languages which the audience DEFINITELY did not understand, the young architects when wild. The whole crowd shook in sync with the complex rhythms of Mama Africa's drums, and endlessly sung back choruses the band shouted over their drums, IN LANGUAGES THEY HAD NO KNOWLEDGE OF (Bambara? Wolof? Serer? Fulani?). After Mama Africa wrapped up a half dozen pounding pieces, the audience kept chanting one of their call-and-response choruses for a couple minutes until Mama came back on and did a messy quasi-encore. This surprised me for sure, for I often hear Tunisians speaking about "the Africans" as something else, separate from themselves but on the very same continent. Along with widespread acceptance among locals of their Berber (indigenous non-Arab) origins, and this limited but enthusiastic acceptance and solidarity with black non-Tunisin Africans, I was starting to feel as if the plates of Tunisian identity were beginning to shift under my feet in post-Ben Ali society.

A Lay Guide to Egypt’s Biggest Current Issues: The Genesis of Morsi’s Ouster (#1)

A Lay Guide to Egypt’s Biggest Current Issues

The Genesis of Morsi’s Ouster

Mohammed Morsi, the recently ousted president of Egypt, is the son of a farmer, born in Al-Sharqiya governate in northern Egypt in 1951. He joined the Muslim Brotherhood in 1979 while studying for his doctorate in engineering at the University of Southern California. Morsi returned to Egypt and rose in to the Brotherhood’s guidance bureau in 1995. In 2000 he was elected to the Egyptian Parliament as an independent, as the Brotherhood was banned from participation in official politics under President Hosni Mubarak.

Morsi, though detained for a period in 2006 in the wake of mass protests against the Mubarak regime and also in 2011, has little in the way of alternative social or economic programs to that of Mubarak. In an article for Le Monde Diplomatique titled Extreme capitalism of the Muslim Brothers, scholar Gilbert Achcar quotes a former member of the MB in Bloomberg BusinessWeek: “The core of the economic vision of Brotherhood, if we are going to classify it in a classical way, is extreme capitalist.” The MB’s Freedom and Justice Party, established in 2011 following the fall of Mubarak, according to Achcar and others, has been actively emulating the model of the ruling AKP party in Turkey—the party against whose policies hundreds of thousands of Turks have been revolting this summer. The AKP claimed to represent the interests of all capital, big, medium, and small, wedding their interests tightly with the state’s policies. The MB has done this, even including old crony businessmen tied up with the Mubarak regime in its embrace.

As a result, the priorities of the MB government during Morsi’s year in office, after winning the presidential elections in Egypt in May 2012, have been taking on an IMF loan of $4.8 billion, and Morsi “promised a delegation of businessmen on a September 2012 visit to Egypt organized by the US Chamber of Commerce that he will unhesitatingly carry out drastic structural reforms to put the country’s economy back on its feet.”

Anyway, I see how this is sinking into the esoteric minutia that Western media pundits love to indulge in in order to obscure general truths from listeners and viewers. So let me wrap up by asserting that the economic program of the Muslim Brotherhood, it appears to this newly-arrived foreigner, was actually an accelerated version of the neoliberal agenda Mubarak had been imposing on Egypt since the 1980’s if not earlier. This meant continued gutting of public services (already at a serious minimum here: for a global “megacity” like Cairo, I’m amazed by the very limited underground metro service and sparse and unreliable bus networks), severe repression of union organizing activity and workers’ actions like strikes or sit-ins, neglect of infrastructure, appropriation by the state of peasant land for commercial crop harvesting, invitations to foreign capital to invest in the now ultra-low wage industries available in Egypt which offer maximum returns, and taking on IMF loans for “development” which stipulate many of the above policies.

Further, the MB seemed more concerned about working out the nitty-gritty (and in my view, totally needless) religious agenda for Egypt, pushing hard for the committee charged with writing a new constitution for the country to include all kinds of sexist language that did not include rights for women, and only sanctioned the three Abrahamic religions for legal protection, thus actively encouraging the persecution of religious minorities, if I’m not mistaken (which I could be). All the while, inept MB ministers were badly handling the country’s affairs, and wouldn’t you know it? With continued cooperation with the corrupt Mubarak-era ruling elite in policymaking, and further cuts to the Egyptian working class’ social wage, unemployment soared to new heights, as we see in this recent UNICEF graphic:

 

At any rate, it appears that with ballooning unemployment and the weight of conservative Islamist governance bearing down on society (ex: I ride along the jam-packed, flashy Al Haram Street, once the go-to spot for clubs and places for dancing and drinks. I see that most of them were closed down since the Revolution of 2011, the rate of closures, I believe, accelerating during the MB’s time in the presidency: Just one sign that their priorities for getting Egypt back on its feet were oriented around traditionalist social reforms and restrictions), many Egyptians were fed up with the situation. This seems to include a wide swath of Egyptian society, from young middle-class folks in Cairo, to aged Coptic Christians, to farmers in the rural villages of southern Egypt. 

From here, the Tamarrud ("Rebellion") Movement was born. Who birthed it originally is still not clear to me, but I imagine it involved many of the liberal and radical revolutionary youth who were active in the uprisings between January 2011 and December 2012. They would have had the energy and the clearest understanding (generally speaking) of the political situation and that the Muslim Brotherhood were not protectors of the Revolution now Egypt's saviors. And they began their petitioning campaign around the country, asking people for their signature promising that they would demonstrate in the streets on June 30, 2013, demanding the resignation of Morsi from the presidency. By that date, they claimed to have collected 22 million signatures. And on June 30, (actually, protests kicked off at least 2 days before that) the largest protests in Egypt's history shook the nation. After 3 days, and with the intervention of the army, Morsi was toppled.

I just spoke to an Aussi photojournalist who's been in the country for well over 2 years, however. From what he knows, he confirms claims that have become widespread among Egyptian Morsi supporters that the Tamarrud Movement, at least after it gained traction, was funded by third-part elite elements interested in removing the MB from official power. Thus their success.

More on those claims to come.....