May 2006
Issue No. 389
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Back to the Future
Chris Brazier is reunited not only with the village of Sabtenga, in Burkina Faso, but also with the remarkable Mariama Gamené.
The Big Question
Have people’s lives improved in the last 20 years?
Some things stay the same... Some change dramatically
From pounding millet to David Beckham T-shirts – a photographic tour of village life.
Wives and Daughters
Have women managed to hold the line against genital mutilation? Does polygamy have a future?
4 wives, 19 children
The changing fortunes – and multiplying numbers – of the family at the heart of the NI film 20 years ago.
A Tale of Two Girls
A visit to the local school brings hope – but a visit to one of its former pupils tells a different story.
The Kick Inside
Too many mothers dying in childbirth – and the clinic that would have saved them if they could only have paid the fees.
Local Heroes
The people’s organizations that are changing things from below – and reflections on two decades in the life of a village.
News, views, and & voices
Currents
Radiating heat
A new report on the long-term damage done by French nuclear testing in the Pacific
Worldbeaters
His idea is simple, but it is wowing governments, bankers and aid agencies the world over: legalize the shadow economy and you’ll save the poor. But the free market rarely pulls off this magic trick, whatever Hernando de Soto may claim.
Mixed Media
Music
Not Alone by various artists
Music
Balancê by Sara Tavares
Film
Paradise Now directed by Hany Abu-Assad
Book
The Battle for Saudi Arabia by As’ad AbuKhalil
Book
1000 Peace Women Across the Globe by Association 1000 Women for the Nobel Peace
Prize 2005
Book
Pedalling to Hawaii by Stevie Smith
Southern Exposure
A watchmaker in old Mumbai, captured by Indian photographer Pablo
Bartholomew
View from Delhi
The opening of Delhi’s new subway line has been a cause for much celebration and joyriding, as Urvashi Butalia explains
Essay: Cartoon conflict
The furore over the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad should teach us some important lessons about the new global culture, according to Sharif Gemie.
Big Bad World
Polyp unveils the latest new wonder drug.
Making Waves
Diego Rozengardt is part of a new generation of political activists in Argentina – they are known as Generación Cromañón, after a notorious
nightclub fire.
Letter from Mauritius
The shock after the last election was when the new Labour Government actually started to implement parts of its programme, writes Lindsey Collen.
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from
THIS MONTH'S EDITOR
A single African village? Why should we read about that? That might very well be your response when you see the title of this issue. And if I add that this village is in one of the poorest countries in the world, Burkina Faso, in an unpromising environment far from the nation’s capital, you might be even more reluctant to turn the page. But you can often learn a lot more by looking at the lives of people in one small community than by reading a thousand learned tomes full of theories and statistics. That’s certainly been true for me. I spent my 30th birthday in this village, Sabtenga, in 1985. Its people invited me into their homes, told me their life stories and suddenly I understood, in a way that I never had before, how much I had in common with them – despite all the vast differences in culture, education and wealth.
And I think I could make a case that the stories they have told me since – on my return in 1995, and again now, two decades on – teach us as much as a whole conference worth of academic papers on African poverty. This, after all, is the acid test for a world that claims to care about the poor: have these villagers’ lives improved? Has the gap between us and them narrowed or widened? How have they been affected by globalization? Have they even been touched by ‘development’?
The people you will meet in the pages that follow – Mariama and Ousmane, Zenabou and Adama – have no learned qualifications, no letters after their name. But on these subjects they are the real experts.
Chris Brazier
for the New Internationalist Co-operative chrisb@newint.org
Voices from the margins:
Multimedia: video, podcasts, and more.
- Poetry Slam in Zimbabwe
- The House of Hunger poetry slam held in Zimbabwe in 2006, and organised by the Pamberi Trust, showcased young artists performing inspirational work on issues from corporate power to child soldiers. The video features four of the poets.
Published by Pambazuka News.
- Iranian women speak out
- 3 March 2007, London. Women's rights activists marched through the English capital last week to celebrate International Women's Day with a protest against the misogyny of the Islamic regime in Iran and the threat of invasion by the US. Hear the voices of Iranian feminists Azar and Leila Parnian and the sounds of the demonstration as it passed through the heart of the city. Click here to learn more about the campaign.
Produced by Heidi Bachram.
- Raised Voices audio:
- Benny from West Papua on Corporate Power
- Vinayan from India on agriculture
New Internationalist (NI) workers' co-operative exists to report on issues of world poverty and inequality; to focus attention on the unjust relationship between the powerful and the powerless worldwide; to debate and campaign for the radical changes necessary to meet the basic needs of all; and to bring to life the people, the ideas and the action in the fight for global justice.
Except where otherwise noted, images on this site are copyright of the photographer/illustrator or representative agency.Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.
