A recent finding suggests that art may have first emerged on the African continent. What seems like a drawing was found in the Blombos cave in South Africa and dates back to more than 70 000 years ago. If classified as art, this is the oldest art finding ever. But the scientists are divided on the subject.
Read more here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/science/oldest-drawing-ever-found.html
And here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/09/news-ancient-humans-art-hashtag-ochre-south-africa-archaeology/
This finding aside, African art has inspired famous artists, most notably Pablo Picasso.
If you happen to like both my hometown Stockholm and ancient Egypt, then you can go to The Mediterranean Museum (Medelhavsmuseet) in Stockholm. Here you can find remainings from different civilizations around the sea, including ancient Egypt.
In several African countries, the older leaders have often been challenged by younger politicians in recent years, a subject which the newspaper The Guardian brings up in this article. This is interresting because of the demographics in Africa, where in the future a lot of young people will vote.
But as is stated in the article, Nic Cheeseman, a professor of democracy at the University of Birmingham, has another idea about what will matter in future African elections.
"Youth alone is not enough to effect radical change. The really important element is urbanisation. The biggest divide is between urban and rural. When the majority of national votes are urban... that will massively transform opposition parties and politics", says Nic Cheeseman to The Guardian in the article.
The music recommendations continue. This time I will talk about somehing a little bit more modern, a song that was released earlier this year by South African rapper Sho Madjozi (a woman and I know I don´t have presented so many women yet in this blog, but I will get better at that.)
In this blog I will occasionally give some names of African musicians and bands that I think is worth listening to. I am a big musiv fan, so this will probabl be one of my favurite parts about running this blog.
So let´s kick start with one of my absolute favourites. Ebo Taylor from Ghana (born in 1936) has had a long career in music and mixes afrobeat, highlife and other genres. I watched him myself in a concert in Stockholm in the club Fasching a couple of years ago. And I have to tell you, it´s impossible not to fell the rhytms in his music and just dance. Watching Ebo Taylor live is probably one of my all time greatest music experiences. The energy level Ebo Taylor and his band created that night is very hard to reach for any musician - in the world.
According to the World Health Organization, Uganda is the fittest nation in the world. In the country, only 5,5 percent of the population is not getting enough physical activity. According to this BBC article, while some in Uganda enjoy working out, it may simply be that some people are so poor so they can´t afford transport. It may be that people just have to walk to work instead of going by car.
But a very good representative of all the fit people in Uganda is marathon runner Stephen Kiprotich. He won the Olympic gold medal in the event at the 2012 Olympics in London.
It´s always nice to talk about what scientific contributions that has been done by people from the African continent. I have earlier mentioned Edmond Albius, an African slave who invented a way to pollinate the vanilla in a more effective way, which really helped to launch the big vanilla industry.
But moving away from the natural science to social sciences, we find a man called Ibn Khaldun. He was born in 1332 in Tunis in North Africa and lived until 1406. His works has had a great impact on sociology, economics and history. He brougt forward new ideas such as that the environment can shape how people act. One of the reasons for this conclusion is his studies with the bedouins in the desert.
If you want to learn more about Ibn Khaldun, listen to this BBC radio show on Youtube in the clip below.
Today i took a trip with my car to Upplands Väsby outside Stockholm. There, a Swedish-Congolese association had prepared African food for everyone to try (pictured). Most of the dishes were different ways to prepare cassava, which is no surprise as cassava is a staple food in some parts of the continent. It was the first time I tried cassava and it tasted good.
If true, this is surprising since Botswana is usually known for taking good care of elephants. I was there myself earlier this year and elephants was a safe card to see on the safari. Everywhere you looked there were a lot of elephants. In fact, Botswana has the highest population of elephants in Africa.
For those of you who speak Swedish or Danish, Swedish television (SVT) is now showing a Danish series about the new cuisine in Africa. The idea that runs through the show is that new African chefs are inventing new dishes, but still with the roots in the traditions of the continent. The host are sometimes speaking English with the chefs.
If you want to learn more about African dishes and be inspired, read here and here.
There are some noteworthy contributions from the African continent to food that is consumed throughout the world. One such example is Edmond Albius, an African slave who managed to find an effective way to poolinate the vanilla in the 19th century. This helped to launch the vanilla industry into a much bigger industry. Edmond Albius was born on Réunion and another African island, Madagascar, is today the biggest producer of vanilla.
