Shalom

Little by little, the tyrants are depopulating the earth and the End of history is getting closer.

Maurice Papon, former French official from the Vichy Government (1944-1946), died Saturday 17th February 2007. In 1998, he was convicted for crimes against humanity after collaborating with Nazi Germany and participating in the extermination of more than 1500 jews.

Maurice Papon was probably the most detested person in France for the last ten years.

Horoscope

In METROscope today:

Buck up Leo. The weekend's here and you can at least put your feet up at some point. OK, so something or someone has let you down. OK, you feel low or confused. But it's not terminal.

Zegué Bamba's lament

At the Frontline Club today, Bamako. It looks like a poem.

In Melé and Chaka's courtyard, a trial court has been set up. The plaintiff is the African civil society, the defendant the World Bank, IMF and other International organisations. While the focus concentrates on the short-comings of international bodies, Abderrahmane Sissako's portrayal of African society is also critical: an elite that is often unwilling to make necessary changes and the population struggling to deliver them.

In the meantime, life goes on in the courtyard. Women endlessly wash the loincloth. A goat wants to break free. Children play, cry, watch. A wedding suspends the trial. At night, Melé sings in a bar. A beautiful photo gallery. Even better, a film. I haven't been moved by images for a long time.

We have paid the debt says an African woman. We need fresh money. The World Bank talks about corruption. Corruption is a cold and planned spoliation. What punishment shall we claim for the International bodies? Community work for eternity.

Bamako does not give an answer. The people is unchanged, sensual and restrained. But there you also meet women, writers, politicians, the African intelligentzia is aware, not undergoing globalisation.

Bamako opens on 23rd February at selected cinemas nationwide, released by Artificial eye.

Pandora calls Danyel Waro

In fact, the European Union stretches to the Indian Ocean. From 1984 to 1989, la Reunion meant France to us who were living in Antananarivo. The place where I could eat petits suisses. Now la Reunion is sleeping in a little box that smells of bougainvillea and I see it as a bridge to Africa.

Last summer, Danyel Waro played in a small village, lost in the mountains of Ardêche. He brought his music from a valley to another, and opened the box. Let's do it together this time.



If I really think of it, I can say... 9 years now and I am still an immigrant in this too talkative and un-sensual civilisation.