Tales from the Geisslers in Africa

What hope?

2009-12-15T00:26:00.001-08:00

This picture is running on the front page of the Times in South Africa today. It shows a 48 year old man, Mohamed Abukar Ibrahim, being buried to his waist by members of a paramilitary group, who then stoned him to death. He'd been convicted of committing adultery.

I'll spare you the other shots from this series, but they clearly show Ibrahim's fellow villagers gathered around. They had, it was said, been forced to watch his execution. It was a reminder that Shariah law must be obeyed.

While the picture is certainly shocking, the story itself is nothing new. Since the emergence of the militant "Al Shabaab" group, public executions have become common in Somalia. Shabaab are, as the Americans never tire of reminding us, "an Islamist group with links to Al Qaeda" - although quite what those links are is unclear.

What's different this time is that it was caught on camera. it's one thing to read about a stoning, but quite another to look into the eyes of the victim moments before his death.
AP deserve credit for obtaining these pictures which will, hopefully, focus more attention towards the plight of a country most people seem to have written off.

Just as troubling as the images themselves, though, is the detail, buried in the copy, that the masked fighters who are preparing the man for his death don't belong to Al Shabaab. They're part of a rival group, Hisb-Al Islam.
I found that fact to be profoundly depressing, and here's why:

I filed a story last month about the spread of militant Islam in Somalia.
We spent a week in the country filming with people who've been displaced by the ubiquitous violence, and then a week in Kenya speaking to Somali exiles, some of whom had been involved with Al Shabaab.
Many of our contacts spoke optimistically about a group of brave men fighting under the banner Hisb-Al Islam. They were not prepared to tolerate Shabaab's ultra-militant rule any more and had raised arms against them.
This was the future for Somalia, we were told. The group were on the verge of reclaiming Kismayo, one of the major cities, and their support was spreading with every victory.
It wasn't just street-talk, seasoned Somalia analysts, while more cautious, confirmed that Hisb-Al Islam provides at least a cause for some optimism.

Well, these pictures obliterate all that rather effectively. Mohammed Abukar Ibrahim's horrific death confirms what many must have suspected. That, given a whiff of power, Hisb-Al Islam would hammer home their authority using the Quran as a shield.

At least this time there are pictures. A tiny snapshot from a country left to fester for almost 20 years.
It's unpleasant subject matter for the breakfast table, but people need to be shocked by pictures like this.
Somalia has been written off by the outside world and if these images go even some way towards pricking the conscience of one of the many Governments who've let it's people down, then perhaps poor Ibrahim's death won't be completely in vain.

Posted via web from martin's posterous

Still got it!

2009-12-14T08:22:00.001-08:00

Download now or watch on posterous

mobile.m4v (11190 KB)

Right,

I'm really writing this as a means of testing whether or not "Posterous" is as clever as it claims to be.
If it is, I should be able to post this note and attached video to all sorts of different accounts via one email. Which is, to be fair, pretty smart.

I shot the video on my stills camera at a concert in Jo'Burg on Saturday night. It was a bit loud, so the audio distorted horribly - I've tried to edit some of the band's stuff over the pictures but do yourself a favour and get hold of their first album - caught in the loop - it's on i-tunes and it's tremendous.

The band are "Goldfish", a house/ jazz act from Cape Town who are beginning to make a big name for themselves internationally. Talented musicians as well as very slick DJs, they play double bass, sax and flute live without missing a beat.
They played Glastonbury this year, then festivals in Moscow and Miami before returning to SA. They're a couple of really unpretentious young guys who clearly love what they're doing. When they come home they are as likely to play small bars/clubs as the big venues they could easily fill. We saw them in a garden centre on the outskirts of the city(!). It was a bit like going to see Paul Oakenfold at Dobbies! And what's more, an hour or so after they'd finished their set, I found myself dancing beside them in the middle of the crowd.

Anyway, it was a tremendous night. We had feared we'd be the oldest swingers in town, but that wasn't the case. As ever at these events, no-one really cares how old you are or what you look like, as long as you're enjoying yourself. I think we left around 3 but it's all a bit blurry. Lots of things to cringe about the next morning, which is usually the sign of a good night out!

Posted via email from martin's posterous

Quick update...

2008-01-23T22:52:00.000-08:00

Right, we're back... happy new year and all that.
The reason for the delay in posting is straightforward and slightly embarrassing, I forgot my password, so couldn't sign in to my own blog!

Since the last post a fair amount has happened, some of which I'll describe in more detail in posts to come, but here are the headlines...

Spent the first couple of weeks of the year in Kenya watching another wonderful African country commit suicide.
Professionally it was a good trip, lots to report on, amazing pictures and a strong story. But personally I found the whole experience profoundly depressing. I have a real fondness for Kenya and its people. Tensions there have been simmering pretty close to the surface for a long time, but I don't think many people foresaw them boiling over in such a dreadful way.
Anyway, more on that later.

Domestically the usual grind continues, set against the backdrop of the worst Summer in living memory! It rains every day and is neither hot nor cold, just that irritating mild climate. Just like home, I suppose - roll on the South African winter!
Our gate is still knackered. Our roof is still in dire need of repair. And our back wall needs to be rebuilt to provide extra security.
But at least Jennifer's back! She seems to have made her peace with lover boy. That's another story for another post.

Finally, we appear to have a civet living in our attic! For those who aren't familiar with Civettictis civetta, it's a bloody great cat with a huge tail. Apparently a mating pair have been living in the trees in our neighbourhood for a while. I'm firmly of the opinion that we should reduce the pair to one and have called in a pest control expert to take the beast out. But Teresa's horrified that we should even conside killing a "pussy cat" (to quote her).
For the record, here's a civet...

... apparently they were responsible for carrying the SARS virus around Asia!
Maybe T should go into the attic tonight and shoo the "pussy cat" away... I wouldn't have thought so!!
Anyway, the beast is scratching around in the loft, ten feet above our sleeping children, with such ferocity that it wakes us all up. I'm convinced it's going to dig right through the attic floor and fall out of our ceiling. In my nightmare it lands on my face!
Right, that's it, the civet's a gonner.
I'll let you know how we get on....

MG

Just in case....

2007-12-10T22:57:00.000-08:00

.... you thought we were living the life of riley out here, let me bring you up to speed with the current frustrations we're facing. I'm sure this will become a regular feature on this site.
Firstly, power... eskom, the South African electricity supplier, is frazzled. They can't make enough power to go round. They've now resorted to the desparate measure of "load shedding". That's a fancy term for "robbing Peter to pay Paul". Basically, the neighbourhoods in our area take it in turns to have electricity at the moment... "Sorry, Bryanston, Rivonia wants to borrow your electricity for the afternoon... " and out go the lights!
Yesterday we were powerless from 7am until 9.30, then from 6pm until 8.30. candlelit dinners are bginning to lose their appeal.
Secondly - and more pressingly - our troublesome front gate continues to enjoy a life of it's own. Recently it's taken to opening at will and noisily clanking it's message to passers by "I'm unlocked - come in, why don't you?"... an inconvenience in normal circumstances, but a real worry in Jo'Burg.
For three mornings now Teresa and I have walked up to collect the papers and found our first line of defence flapping wide open in the breeze!
Of course, we've called in the gate repair company. As I write they assure me a mechanic is on his way - but that's what they said on Saturday and he still hasn't arrived!
Thirdly, Jennifer, our "housekeeper" disappeared in a blaze of glory at the weekend. She's gone back to Zimbabwe for a four week holiday but given the circumstances of her departure, we're worried she might not come back.
On saturday she discovered Emmanuel, her boyfriend of some years sanding, has been cheating on her (a real worry in these parts, especially, for obvious reasons). She found this out at five o'clock in the morning... it came to our attention at around 5.02!
The buglar alarm doesn't wake you up gently, it's like being run over by a police car.. we shot out of bed, Teresa staggered for the keypad and I went to check outside.
In the garden I found the bold Emmanuel in a considerably aggiated state. "It's Jennifer" he said, "you must come, there's a real problem".
I assumed he'd killed her (this is Jo'Burg after all), but it seems it was the other way round! "she's gone crazy" he yelped, "crazy, crazy".
Now, many of you will have met Jennifer, and you'll understand how hard it is to immagine her attacking anything more imposing than a basket full of dirty laundry, but he had the cuts and scratches to back up his story, so we set off to find her and calm her down.
It was a heartbraking sight... there she stood, behind the (now buckled) door of her little flat, 6ft 1in of Plumtree's finest sobbing her heart out. The story, when she told it, was considerably less dramatic. She'd uncovered the infidelity, hit the roof, and tried to block her man's escape.
Emmanuel, 6 ins shorter than Jennifer and (it seems) more of a lover than a fighter, mounted an "all or nothing" bid for freedom and tried to rip the locked door off it's hinges. There's some debate as to how he came to suffer the cuts on his hands and arms but a sinister-looking screwdriver was sitting on the worktop beside the door!
Jennifer did confess to what must have been a fairly spectacular loss of temper (the killer moment coming when she picked up a still-steaming kettle and announced that she wanted to "boil him"!).
We gave the disconsolate Emmanuel R15 for a taxi and kicked him off the premises. I explained to him that the circumstances were their business and no-one elses (although I'm somewhat hypocritically publishing them on the internet now!) but she is part of the family so I'd side with her in the same way as I'd stick up for my wife or daughter.
Jennifer calmed down, packed up and set off after that. She left us with her apologies and a box of emmanuel's belongings which I will deliver to him later today.
He called Teresa yesterday to apologise for his behaviour. He's vowed to try to patch thing's up with J in Zimbabwe over Christmas. Good luck to him, I say. He'll need it!
So, there you have it... the last four days or so at Geissler towers... it's not always easy, but it's rarely dull!

Jacob's Ladder

2007-12-10T20:29:00.000-08:00

This is a big week for South Africa. Christmas is coming, the shopping malls are unbearably busy, the Summer sun is shining (at last!) but no-one's talking about any of that. By this time next week, the country could have a new leader. And, if things go as expected, it'll be the biggest change this place has seen since the end of apartheid.
The battle for the presidency of the ANC is reaching a head. It'll be settled at a conference starting this weekend. It's a two horse race but there's one clear favourite. Stand aside President Thabo Mbeki, step forward one Jacob Zuma.
If you haven't heard of Zuma, you soon will. He's a news man's dream. And, perhaps, an unlikely candidate for the top job.
This is, after all, the same Jacob Zuma who stood trial for raping a friend's daughter last year. The same Jacob Zuma who still has serious corruption charges hanging over him. And the man who proclaimed that the risk of HIV is removed if you shower after sex (in the country with the worst AIDS rate on earth!). Oh, and he's not interested in disguising his homophobia either, announcing that in his younger days if a gay man had stood in front of him, he'd punch him to the ground!
Not, perhaps, the kind of baggage you could carry easily into number ten, but then this isn't Britain. And when you're woo-ing the South African electorate, different rules apply.
Zuma has one massive advantage in the race for the top job - he isn't Thabo Mbeki. The President has the air of a dead man walking at the moment. His failings on crime, Aids and the "troublesome neighbour" Zimbabwe are all coming home to roost. And Zuma's using each one as a lever to dislodge him from office.
Zuma's campaigning has provided plenty headlines, but not much substance... "AIDS is a national emergency", "people shouldn't live in fear of crime", "we can't stand by and watch the collapse of Zimbabwe" it all sounds refreshing after years of Mbeki's denialist leadership. But while Zuma has laid out what he stands against, he's been less clear on what he stands FOR and how he'll sort out the mess he inherits.
There's a veilled suggestion he'll bring back the death penalty, which is the cause of much excitement among the chattering classes. But in a country where only a tiny percentage of crimes result in conviction, that's not the answer.
It seems you have to be very unlucky to end up in jail here. For a few rand slipped ito the right palm, criminals can have their files removed from police stations or courtrooms. No file, no trial. Easy as that.
It'll be entertaining, no doubt... for all his failings Zuma undeniably has the popular touch... the poor (and there are many) reckon he's their best chance of salvation. The rich believe he's going to lurch to the left and wreck the country's booming economy. In reality, they're probably both wide of the mark. Chances are he'll "raid the biscuit tin" - most African leaders seem to - but at least this one will have an arm round your shoulder while the other hand's picking your pocket!
So, bring it on then Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma (chillingly, his middle name means "he who laughs while endangering you")! You'll have to go some to sort things out for your people, but you should make life busy for me!

Down With The Pygmies!

2007-12-08T03:37:00.000-08:00

I've just returned from a trip to the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), not the most comfortable 10 days I've spent on the road but certainly among the most memorabe.

I can't go into too much detail about the story we were covering, as it won't go to air until sometime in January, but the details don't really matter - it was the place and the people I'll find hard to forget.

The country (formerly Zaire) is the size of Western Europe, its population has been subjected to generations of tyrrany - this is the place Joseph Conrad referred to as the "heart of darkness". A five year civil war ended recently leaving 4 million dead - the biggest loss of life through conflict since WW2 - and the West hardly turned a hair.

With all of that in mind I expected to find a distrustful, aggressive people. After all, what reason would they have to welcome a couple of "mzungus" passing through town? In fact I'd been specifically warned by colleages with real pedigree in Africa that it's the most difficult and dangerous place they'd been.

Well, happily, either they have no bottle, or things are improving. We had a wonderful time!

Visiting the congo is like stepping into a time warp... it's as if they shut the place down in the 1950s, locked it up and opened the doors again last week. the buildings are crumbling, weeds grow out of the cracks in the walls and the few paved roads which haven't been reclaimed by the jungle have potholes big enough to swallow a truck!

Landing at Kisangani airport is an experience in itself... not only does the humid jungle heat hit you like a heavy, wet towel, the runway boasts some interesting ornaments.... the wheels fell off the 'plane in the back of this picture as it was heading for take-off!

Our assignment took us right into the heart of the Congo's vast rainforest. After the Amazon it's the biggest on earth, covering most of this country and many of its' neighbours too. We wanted to film with a group of pygmy tribespeople. More than half a million of them live across the forest but they're difficult to find. A combination of tradition and discrimination has kept them well away from urban areas. They live, as they have done for thousands of years, hunting and gathering in this ecological wonderland.

It was a ridiculous timeframe, really... a day to get into the jungle and find the pygmies, a night and a morning to film with them and a day to cover the 300km of tough dirt road back to Kisangani... but sometimes on these ambitious expeditions everything just seems to work. Through a combination of good luck and decent judgement we got the goods!

I'll save the details for the piece itself, but look out for the point where the evening entertainment threatened to get out of hand... the men of the tribe were sitting round the fire drinking some dreadfully powerful brew from a cup made out of leaves. True to my trade, I decided to gatecrash the moment. Newspaper reporters have it easy, they can watch events, take notes and file their copy. My lot, by contrast, are cursed with an awkward, embarrassing affliction - when we see a moment developing we need to get in there... as if the viewer needs to see us to believe we were present... when it works, it works, but when it goes badly this whole charade can turn a wonderful set of pictures into a scene from Brigadoon!

It was all going so well, the youngest man in the group downed a whole cupful of the home made spirit, his eyes rolled and he collapsed onto my knee. Cue laughter from all around and the international handsignals for "stupid boy". But then it became clear it was my turn... the cup was filled, thrust towards me and the friendly atmosphere round the fire seemed to evaporate. The message was clear enough - drink it and you're all right, but refuse and you're going home - camera and all.

When it hit my lips it seemed fine - not unlike whisky - but the effect on my palate was altogether more violent. It took me back 25 years to my parents' bathroom and the occasion I swigged out of the aftershave bottle (don't tell me you never tried it!), It was like oral napalm. This wasn't good. My lips pursed, I tried to feign enjoyment but there was no way out of this... spit it out in front of them and I'd offend the tribe and, no doubt their ancestors too. Cough it into the fire and the whole place might go up. So, down it went. Looking back at the pictures I was pretty impressed with my performance, a nonchalant spit over my shoulder then a round of backslapping to shift the focus. Watch it if you get the chance, I promise I'll put the shot in.

They really were a wonderful bunch of people, we must have seemed like visitors from another planet - armed with cameras which allowed them to see their own images for (as far as I could establish) the first time ever. They were patient, polite and welcoming. And boy can they drink!

Our story will explain the threat they face, it won't wipe them out but it may well have a big impact on their lifestyle and traditions.

Like most of the people in this bewitching country, they don't deserve the hand life has dealt them. The Congo is cursed by it's own resources, enough gold, diamonds, uranium, rubber and timber to put it up alongside the richest countries on earth. But perversely in Africa the richer the country the poorer it's people seem to be. Natural treasures bring greed, corruption, murder and misery.

Now it's latest war is over there is a slim hope for the Congo, but its only real chance lies in long lasting good governance and the few who hold the riches, sharing them with the rest. Ask the people here what the future holds and they give you a straight answer... sadly their natural optimism has long since been overwhelmed by bitter experience.

Welcome!

2007-12-08T03:20:00.001-08:00

Hi there,

Thanks for bothering to look us up. Hopefully this will become a place where those of you who know us and have any interest in our life out here will be able to catch up with what we've been doing.

With a bit of luck I'll post thoughts from the road on stories I'm covering, we'll also file updates from home, news from the kids etc etc. Basically, more of a memoir for ourselves than a bulletin board for you - but if it holds any interest at all, you're welcome to check in!

Alternatively, like so many of our well-intentioned projects, it may wither on the vine after the first few weeks - let's wait and see!

Still can't help feeling this blogging business is all a bit self-important, but I'm assured it's perfectly acceptable behaviour these days. Anyway, I've never been above a bit of self-promotion! Besides, T & I both quite enjoy sharing our pictures and tales of derring-do, so here goes!

Hope you enjoy it - if not, go out and do something less boring instead!

Martin

PS All feedback welcome and valued - good or bad!