. . DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION . .
an article by Africatime
The Femua, a music festival bringing together ten renowned African artists will be held from April 21 to 26 in Abidjan in favor of “peaceful elections” on the continent, where several elections will be held this year, said the organization.
click on photo to enlarge
“We can not sit idly by when there are very controversial elections in both Congo (DRC and Congo -Brazzaville), Burkina Faso and Togo,” according to Salif Traoré (stagnate: A’Salfo) the leader of the Ivorian group Magic System.
“Music unites our vibrations, lowers our blood pressure and get across a message for peaceful elections”, said A’Salfo, who has been an Ambassador of Unesco for “Literacy and Culture of Peace” since 2012.
The festival of urban music in Anoumabo (Femua), created in 2008, brings together for the 8th edition ten renowned artists including Fally Ipupa (DRC), Freshlyground (South Africa), Joel Sebunjo (Uganda), Bracket (Nigeria), Philip Monteiro (Cape Verde), Habib Koité (Mali) and Smarty (Burkina Faso).
From 21 to 26 April, the Femua mainly take place in Anoumabo, a poor neighborhood of Abidjan with muddy streets, and both precarious dwellings and modern homes.
“We will launch a message from the ghetto, where the disputes arise that inflame the country,” insisted the singer, A’Salfo.
The ghetto of Anoumabo saw the birth of Magic System, star group of Ivorian music, which since its first success “Premier Gaou” , has been shown often on the screens of Africa and Europe.
Nigeria, the richest country in Africa has just experienced a democratic change applauded by the people and the international community, but the conduct and outcome of other African elections seem more uncertain.
The UN expressed its alarm Wednesday “about the directions being taken” by Burundi before its parliamentary and presidential planned in May and June. This is also an election year in Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Togo and Guinea.
(click here for the original French version of this article)
How should elections be organized in a true democracy?
What place does music have in the peace movement?
Latest reader comment:
CPNN receives more and more articles from Africa about initiatives that contest the European model of “winner-takes-all” elections, and demand that elections should only be part of a broader democratic process that seeks consensus and compromise.
This fits with the pre-colonial systems of justice in Africa, when there was no monotheism and no single supreme god, no single supreme law, no single “truth” provided by divine intervention, but rather a compromise among many different “gods,” perspectives and “truths” arrived at through a process of mediation, for example, the “palabra.”