Controversies of Sarah Baartman

Saartjie "Sarah" Baartman (before 1790 – 29 December 1815 (also spelled
Bartman, Bartmann, Baartmen) was the most famous of at least two Khoikhoi women who, due to their large buttocks ((steatopygia ), were exhibited as freak show attractions in 19th-century Europe under the name Hottentot Venus—"Hottentot" was the then current name for the Khoi people, now considered an offensive term,
and "Venus" referred to the Roman goddess of love.
LIFE

According to popular history, Saartjie Baartman (more commonly known as Sarah or Sara Baartman) was born in 1789 in the Gamtoos Valley of South Africa. When she was barely in her 20s, she was sold to London[who?] by an enterprising Scottish doctor named Alexander Dunlop, accompanied by a showman named Hendrik Cesars. She spent four years in Britain being exhibited for her large buttocks (steatopygia). Her treatment caught the attention of British abolitionists, who tried to rescue her on the grounds that they felt her performance was indecent and that she was being forced to perform against her will. However, ultimately, the court ruled in favor of Cesars after a contract between Baartman and Dunlop was produced. Historians disagree as to the nature and authenticity of the contract itself, though its presentation at court is generally viewed as having been a ploy to win the case.[4] In 1814, after Dunlop's death, she traveled to Paris. With two consecutive showmen, Henry Taylor and S. Reaux, she amused onlookers who frequented the Palais-Royal. She was subjected to examination by Georges Cuvier, a professor of comparative anatomy at the Museum of Natural History. In post- Napoleonic France, sideshows like the Hottentot Venus lost their appeal. Baartman lived on in poverty, and died in Paris of an undetermined inflammatory disease in December 1815. After her death, Cuvier dissected her body, then displayed her remains. For more than a century and a half, visitors to the Museum of Man in Paris could view her brain, skeleton and genitalia until she was buried.


Modern Controversies
Two centuries ago Sarah Baartman died after years spent in European "freak shows". Now rumours over a possible Hollywood film about Baartman's life have sparked controversy.
Sarah Baartman died on 29 December 1815, but her exhibition continued.
Her brain, skeleton and sexual organs remained on display in a Paris museum until 1974. Her remains weren't repatriated and buried until 2002.
Brought to Europe seemingly on false pretences by a British doctor, stage-named the "Hottentot Venus", she was paraded around "freak shows" in London and Paris, with crowds invited to look at her large buttocks.
Today she is seen by many as the epitome of colonial exploitation and racism, of the ridicule and commodification of black people.
Reports of Beyonce planning to write and star in a film about Baartman have been denied by the singer's representatives. But the rumours were enough to generate concern.
Jean Burgess, a chief from the Khoikhoi group that Baartman was from, argued that Beyonce lacked "the basic human dignity to be worthy of writing Sarah's story, let alone playing the part". But Jack Devnarain, chairman of the South African Guild of Actors, said filmmakers had the ""right to tell the stories of people you find fascinating and that's what we must be careful not to object to".
Even in denying any link to a film, Beyonce's representative said: "This is an important story that should be told."
Baartman's life was one of huge hardship. It is thought she was born in South Africa's Eastern Cape in 1789, her mother died when she was two and her father, a cattle driver, died when she was an adolescent. She entered domestic service in Cape Town after a Dutch colonist murdered her partner, with whom she had had a baby who died.
In October 1810, although illiterate, Baartman allegedly signed a contract with English ship surgeon William Dunlop and mixed-race entrepreneur Hendrik Cesars, in whose household she worked, saying she would travel to England to take part in shows.
The reason was that Baartman, also known as Sara or Saartjie, had steatopygia, a genetic condition resulting in extremely protuberant buttocks due to a build-up of fat.
These made her a cause of fascination when she was exhibited at a venue in London's Piccadilly Circus after her arrival. "You have to remember that, at the time, it was highly fashionable and desirable for women to have large bottoms, so lots of people envied what she had naturally, without having to accentuate her figure," says Rachel Holmes, author of The Hottentot Venus: The Life and Death of Saartjie Baartman.
On stage she wore skin-tight, flesh-coloured clothing, as well as beads and feathers, and smoked a pipe. Wealthy customers could pay for private demonstrations in their homes, with their guests allowed to touch her.
Her arrival in England coincided with speculation over whether Lord Grenville and his coalition of Whigs - known as the "broad bottoms" because of Grenville's own large behind - would try to seize government. This was a gift for cartoonists. One creation, entitled A Pair of Broad Bottoms, shows Grenville and Baartman standing back-to-back, with another figure measuring their respective posterior sizes.
Baartman's promoters nicknamed her the "Hottentot Venus", with "hottentot" - now seen as derogatory - then being used in Dutch to describe the Khoikhoi and San, who together make up the peoples known as the Khoisan.
The British Empire had abolished the slave trade in 1807, but not slavery itself. Even so, campaigners were appalled at Baartman's treatment in London. Her employers were prosecuted for holding Baartman against her will, but not convicted, with Baartman herself testifying in their favour.
"The question remains - was Baartman coerced, as abolitionist/humanitarian campaigners claimed, or was she acting on her own free will?" says Christer Petley, a history lecturer at Southampton University. "If she was coerced, she might have felt too intimidated to tell the truth in court. We'll never know.
"The case is complex and the relationship between Baartman and her handlers was certainly not equally weighted, even if she had some element of choice or felt she could gain something - material or otherwise - from her performance."
Holmes says Baartman's show also included dancing and playing several musical instruments, and that a "sophisticated" audience in London, a city in which ethnic minorities weren't rare even at that time, would not simply have stopped and looked at her for long on account of her race.
After the case, Baartman's show gradually lost its novelty and popularity among audiences in the capital and she went on tour around Britain and Ireland.
In 1814 she moved to Paris with Cesars. She became a celebrity once more, drinking at the Cafe de Paris and attending society parties. Cesars returned to South Africa and Baartman came under the influence of an "animal exhibitor", with the stage name Reaux. She drank and smoked heavily and, according to Holmes, was "probably prostituted" by him.
Baartman agreed to be studied and painted by a group of scientists and artists but refused to appear fully naked before them, arguing that this was beneath her dignity - she had never done this in one of her shows. This period was the beginning of the study of what became known as "racial science", says Holmes.
Baartman died aged 26. The cause was described as "inflammatory and eruptive disease". It's since been suggested this was a result of pneumonia, syphilis or alcoholism.
The naturalist Georges Cuvier, who had danced with Baartman at one of Reaux's parties, made a plaster cast of her body before dissecting it. He preserved her skeleton and pickled her brain and genitals, placing them in jars displayed at Paris's Museum of Man. They remained on public display until 1974, something Holmes describes as "grotesque".
"The domination of Africans was explained with the aid of science, thereby establishing the Khoisan ('the Hottentots') as the most ignoble group in the progression of mankind, purported to mate with the orangutan," wrote Natasha Gordon-Chipembere, editor of Representation and Black Womanhood: The legacy of Sarah Baartman.
After his election in 1994 as President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela requested the repatriation of Baartman's remains and Cuvier's plaster cast. The French government eventually agreed and this happened in March 2002. In August of that year, her remains were buried in Hankey, in Eastern Cape province, 192 years after Baartman had left for Europe.
Several books have been published about her treatment and cultural significance. "She has become the landscape upon which multiple narratives of exploitation and suffering within black womanhood have been enacted," wrote Gordon-Chipembere. She argued that, amid all this, Baartman "the woman, remains invisible".
The 2010 film Black Venus and the 1998 documentary The Life and Times of Sara Baartman have covered her story. Even for those outside South Africa who are unaware of Baartman, there have been subtle cultural references.
In 2014, the cover of Paper magazine showed reality television star Kim Kardashian balancing a champagne glass on her protruding bottom. Some critics complained the image was reminiscent of contemporary drawings of Baartman. The Kardashian photo referenced a 1976 image by the same photographer - Jean-Paul Goude - which showed black model Carolina Beaumont naked and in a similar pose.
Last year, a plaque at her burial site in Hankey was splashed with white paint, causing further distress. This happened a couple of weeks after the removal from Cape Town University of the statue of Cecil Rhodes, the 19th Century businessman and politician who declared the British to be "the first race in the world", following protests by students.
"People are working out how they want to deal with these issues over time," says Petley. "Often they've been covered up and it's now time to re-evaluate them. The important thing is to do so in a way that avoids mud-slinging and look seriously at these aspects of our past.
Reference:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35240987


wikipedia.com

— Biography of Thomas Sankara.
Thomas Sankara was Burkina Faso’s president from August 1983 until his assassination on October 15, 1987. Perhaps, more than any other African president in living memory, Thomas Sankara, in four years, transformed Burkina Faso from a poor country, dependent on aid, to an economically independent and socially progressive nation.

Thomas Sankara began by purging the deeply entrenched bureaucratic and institutional corruption in Burkina Faso.
He slashed the salaries of ministers and sold off the fleet of exotic cars in the president’s convoy, opting instead for the cheapest brand of car available in Burkina Faso, Renault 5. His salary was $450 per month and he refused to use the air conditioning units in his office, saying that he felt guilty doing so, since very few of his country people could afford it.
Thomas Sankara would not let his portrait be hung in offices and government institutions in Burkina Faso, because every Burkinabe is a Thomas Sankara, he declared. Sankara changed the name of the country from the colonially imposed Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, which means land of upright men.
Thomas Sankara’s achievements are numerous and can only be summarized briefly; within the first year of his leadership, Sankara embarked on an unprecedented mass vaccination program that saw 2.5 million Burkinabe children vaccinated. From an alarming 280 deaths for every 1,000 births, infant mortality was immediately slashed to below 145 deaths per 1,000 live births. Sankara preached self-reliance, he banned the importation of several items into Burkina Faso, and encouraged the growth of the local industry. It was not long before Burkinabes were wearing 100% cotton sourced, woven and tailored in Burkina Faso. From being a net importer of food, Thomas Sankara began to aggressively promote agriculture in Burkina Faso, telling his country people to quit eating imported rice and grain from Europe, said, “let us consume what we ourselves control,” he emphasized.

In less than 4 years, Burkina Faso became self-sufficientin foods production through the redistribution of lands from the hands of corrupt chiefs and land owners to local farmers, and through massive irrigation and fertilizer distribution programs. Thomas Sankara utilized various policies and government assistance to encourage Burkinabes to get education. In less than two years as a president, school attendance jumped from about 10% to a little below 25%, thus overturning the 90% illiteracy rate he met upon assumption of office.
Living way ahead of his time, within 12 months of his leadership, Sankara vigorously pursued a reforestation program that saw over 10 million trees planted around the country in order to push back the encroachment of the Sahara Desert. Uncommon at the time he lived, Sankara stressed women empowerment and campaigned for the dignity of women in a traditional patriarchal society. He also employed women in several government positions and declared a day of solidarity with housewives by mandating their husbands to take on their roles for 24 hours.
A personal fitness enthusiast, Sankara encouraged Burkinabes to be fitted and was regularly seen jogging unaccompanied on the streets of Ouagadougou; his waistline remained the same throughout his tenure as president.
In 1987, during a meeting of African leaders under the auspices of the Organization of African Unity, Thomas Sankara tried to convince his peers to turn their backs on the debt owed western nations. According to him, “debt is a cleverly managed reconquest of Africa. It is a reconquest that turns each one of us into a financial slave.” He would not request for, nor accept aid from the west, noting that “…welfare and aid policies have only ended up disorganizing us, subjugating us, and robbing us of a sense of responsibility for our own economic, political, and cultural affairs. We chose to risk new paths to achieve greater well-being.”
Thomas Sankara was a pan-Africanist who spoke out against apartheid, telling French President Jacques Chirac, during his visit to Burkina Faso, that it was wrong for him to support the apartheid government and that he must be ready to bear the consequences of his actions. Sankara’s policies and his unapologetic anti-imperialist stand made him an enemy of France, Burkina Faso’s former colonial master.
 He spoke truth to power fearlessly and paid with his life before which one week before his assassination, he declared: "While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas." On October 15, 1987, Sankara was killed by an armed group with twelve other officials in acoup d'étatorganised by his former colleague Blaise Compaoré.


 Upon his assassination, his most valuable possessions were a car, a refrigerator, three guitars, motorcycles, a broken down freezer and about $400 in cash.

In death, Thomas Sankara’s burial place is unkempt and filled with weeds (click to see Thomas Sankara’s graveyard
http://youtube/ bY2UpSxXPlw).
The question is do fine Africans like Sankara n Madiba still exist?

21 Year Old Nigerian Wins 2015 Anzisha Price for young entrepreneurs

In South Africa, a 21-year-old Nigerian was announced as the winner of the 2015 Anzisha prize for young entrepreneurs.


Chris Kwekowe is the founder of Slatecube, which offers job placement services online. He won the $25,000 first place price money.

He is a true survival and through his Job platform for youths.

Santa came to Christmas early;Ebola gone before year Ends

A 3-week-old girl in Guinea believed to be the last victim of Ebola has recovered, potentially signaling the end of an unprecedented two-year epidemic in West Africa that claimed more than 11,300 lives.

"It suddenly looks like we really could be at an end before Christmas," said Margaret Harris, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization (WHO).


By global health standards, 42 days must pass without another case of Ebola for Guinea to be declared free of the disease. The incubation period for Ebola is 21 days and out of an abundance of caution, twice that period of time must pass before the WHO declares the disease is defeated in Guinea.

Two neighboring countries also ravaged by the Ebola epidemic, Liberia and Sierra Leone, have already been declared Ebola free.
Guinea was the last country plagued by the deadly virus, which at its peak last year infected 400 to 500 people a week in West Africa. Health workers say the poverty stricken nation remains particularly vulnerable to new cases because many of the latest victims were people not known to have been exposed to the virus.


"In Guinea, it's been a lot more difficult," Harris said. "A year and a half later, we're still getting people diagnosed after death. It means that the messages (about vigilance) are still not percolating through and all the importance of those actions are not being realized."
The potential final victim is a girl named Nubia who was born Oct. 27 in a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in Conakry. She is the first infant born with the deadly virus to have survived.

Nubia's mother died of Ebola hours after giving birth and the infant was found to be infected with the virus. But Nubia responded well to treatment at the facility where she was born and on Monday tested negative for Ebola, said Laurence Sailly, an emergency coordinator in Guinea for Doctors Without Borders.

Throughout her three weeks of life, Nubia has never felt a human touch because all medical care has been done by doctors and nurses wearing protective clothing. That may finally end next week, Sailly said.

"We've never had such a young survivor. So there are still a lot of things we are learning in taking care of her," Sailly said. "She's doing fine. She's eating well. She's gaining weight every day."


Sailly said the 42-day countdown toward declaring Guinea Ebola-free began Tuesday. "The government and communities have worked hard with us to arrive at this result. We must still remain vigilant for any potential new cases so that our achievements will not be destroyed," Sailly said.

The epidemic in West Africa triggered a global humanitarian response — and set off far-ranging fears, including in the United States, when a few cases surfaced of infected people who had returned to their home countries from Africa. Last year, President Obama dispatched 3,000 U.S. troops to assist in building clinics and training health care workers in Liberia.

Liberia was declared Ebola-free earlier this year. Sierra Leone followed suit earlier this month.


Harris said the challenge of defeating Ebola in Guinea was overcoming stigma and suspicions of outsiders in remote villages where the disease would surface. Guinea is geographically a far larger country than either Liberia or Sierra Leone and this allowed the virus to spread long distances to communities where health workers had to overcome local resistance toward them to defeat the disease.
Harris said a key factor in defeating the virus in recent months was a new vaccine known as rVSV developed by Iowa-based NewLink Genetics that has been administered to anyone exposed to Ebola in Guinea, as well as to an outer circle of people exposed to those who had been near the virus.

"The case numbers have really begun to come down," Harris said.
Only pregnant women and young children are not eligible for the vaccine because of safety reasons. Harris said that of the last six cases of Ebola in Guinea, two were pregnant women and the other four were children. In recent days, with the exception Nubia, all of those other patients had either died or recovered. Now that Nubia is testing negative for the virus, no other known cases exist, Harris said.
Still, there have been previous countdowns toward Ebola-free status in West Africa that have failed when new cases surfaced.
"We are in need of very strong surveillance for the next 42 days and even longer than that,"  Sailly said. "We are very happy. But we are very cautious."


Source:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/11/17/last-known-ebola-patient-baby-girl-recovers/75916410/