Chimurenga Vol. 14: Everyone Has Their Indian
(april '09)

The latest issue of the Cape Town based cultural and literary journal, Chimurenga, features words and images on the Third World project and links, real and imagined, between Africa and South Asia.

Chimurenga 14, “Everyone Has Their Indian”, seeks to unpack the relation between Africa and South Asia. Born out of the ongoing conversation between divergent temporal registers, between different territories and bodies of thought, it can be seen both as a map of the actual lines that criss-cross the Mediterranean and Indian oceans and a log of possible journeys into a real and imagined territory called the "Third World". Theory runs adjacent to fiction, and photo essays share the space as hand-drawn maps, post cards and fragments of itineraries.  

The contributions cover a wide variety of themes, ranging from security, sovereignty and sex, to mobility and music, issues of access, control and censorship, power and identity.

For example, Vivek Narayanan offers a poetic ode to Historical Anthropology, while Manu Herbstein and Achal Prabhala use a free flow of images, memories and realities to map hidden connections. Amitav Ghosh confesses of “xenophilia” and J.S. Saxena’s “Coffee-Brown Boy” asks “If that black cat can be White, why can’t I?” Artworks by Rigo 23, Kakudji, Rasheed Araeen and Ernest Mancoba redraw the boundaries and limits of identity and Philippe Rekacewicz’s itineraries retraces the African connection as a question and not a destination.

Other contributors include Mahmood Mamdani, M. Neelika Jayawardane, Martin Kimani, Shailja Patel, Rustum Kozain, Akin Adesokan , Girija Tropp, Neo Muyanga, Binyavanga Wainaina, Pravasan Pillay , Andile Mngxitama , Naeem Mohaiemen , Tsuba Ka 23, Aleksandra Mir, The Speculative Archive and many more.

View the webverts (by Stacy Hardy, Tahier Variawa & Francois Naude) here and here.

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Chimurenga 14 Contents:  

A

Moving into 1949 (by Vivek Narayanan)

Jai Hind! (by Manu Herbstein)

Confessions of a Xenophile (by Amitav Ghosh)

Despatches from the Third World (by Achal Prabhala)

Preliminary Notes for a Mediterranean Manifesto (text and maps by Rasheed Araeen)

B

Koltan Kills Kids… (text and images by Tsuba Ka 23)

Verkope Lys (1980s sales list drafted for the apartheid government’s CBW/Project Coast chemical and biological warfare programme)

Uranium for Africa (by Gabrielle Hecht)

C

Escapism (text by M. Neelika Jayawardane and drawings by Aleksandra Mir)

The Coffee-Brown Boy Looks at the Black Boy (by J.S. Saxena)

D

Smarts - Terror Hot – Unpronounceable (by Liesl Jobson)

Fabric – Recess – Permanent Funk (by Girija Tropp)

Untouchable (by Stacy Hardy)

E

Ibadan, Soutin and The Puzzle of Bower’s Tower (by Akin Adesokan)

Rumblin’ (text by Dominique Malaquais and artwork by Kakudji)

Art History as an indicator of the Future (text by Rasheed Araeen and drawings by Ernest Mancoba)

F

Why Music is Better than Photography: An Argument in Two Parts (by Sean O’ Toole)

Duke Ellington – The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse (by Neo Muyanga)

The Postcolonial Lavatory – A Review (by Dennis Dutton)

G

You Can’t Get Lost in the Samoosa Triangle (by Rustum Kozain)

Passing of Renishaw Folklorist – Songs of Sivakami – Letter to the Park Rynie Gazette (Unedited) – Songololo Man – Email to Priya – Songololo Song (by Pravasan Pillay)

Mugabe’s Tailors (by Percy Zvomuya)

Kombol-Kata Mujib Coat (by Naeem Mohaiemen)

H

A Lowercase condition of Humanity – A Conversation (an interview with Martin Kimani by Clementine Deliss)

Addendum: excerpts from the Chile Declassification Project (by The Speculative Archive)

We Are Not All Like That (by Andile Mngxitama)

Stammer, Mumble, Sweat, Scrawl, and Tic (by Raqs Media Collective)

Itineraries (text and maps by Philippe Rekacewicz)

I

Dispersed Islands (by Kai Friese)

A Flaneur in Granada (by Emily Raboteau)

Tricky (by Nicole Turner)

At the Auberge Cheval Blanc (by Kurt Ackermann)

J

The Ugandan Asian Expulsion: Twenty Years After (by Mahmood Mamdani)

A Day in the Life of Idi Amin (by Binyavanga Wainaina)

Central Reserve Police Force (text and photographs by Ryan Lobo)

Shilling Love (by Shailja Patel)

Menu Sheet 1 – Menu Sheet 2 (from the archives of Robben Island Museum)

‘Naked Traffic in Anti-Indian Racism’ – A Footnote (by Ronald Suresh Roberts)