negrita's chronicles: genocide

Showing posts with label genocide. Show all posts

Thursday, April 7, 2011

17 years later...

seventeen years have passed, and the people of rwanda are going about the business of building our future. honouring memory, without being paralyzed by the past. telling our stories so that they may continue to be heard...so that we never forget. rebuilding our country and our people so that we are empowered to ensure that the horror of genocide may never again be repeated.

today, we remember the lives lost over the course of 100 days in 1994.

today, we honour the lives of those lost in the years leading up to the genocide.

today, we pray for the survivors, as their struggle continues.

today, we pledge to preserve our dignity and uphold the truth.

and whether or not we can ever understand how such horror of such magnitude took place...today, we remember and we vow, 'never again'.

'i'll never understand' by shad

Friday, July 31, 2009

soul food: iyaDede

out of monumental pain and darkness can arise true, exquisite beauty and light.

i've been meaning to write about fellow nomadic afropolitan, iyaDede, since i first discovered her a few months ago...and her voice is currently the soundtrack to these chronicles. it is a voice that is at once both delicate and powerful, her style uncategorizable, her talent unrefutable.

'love robot'

loVE RobOT (iyaDedE/Blessoill/Charlemagne graphix) from Iya Dede on Vimeo.

a survivor of Rwanda's 1994 Genocide, iyaDede has overcome pain, trauma and incredible loss and has emerged with an inspirational strength and spirit. after leaving Rwanda, she lived in Belgium [where she awesomely sang back-up for the incredible Zap Mama], and then ultimately in the US where she currently resides in Brooklyn. her passion and love for her home country and continent is evident in her words and i am so proud she is representing with such soul, beauty, grace, funk, and fire.

her forthcoming album is entitled 'talking to god' and is an eclectic mix of electronic pop funkadelic hotness. this woman's star is rising and i cannot wait to see what happens in the coming months. in the coming years.

here she performs her powerful 'in my darkest hour' at the Brooklyn Museum (spontenously accompanied by Rwandan dancers).

Monday, April 13, 2009

lift every voice: never again

east african musicians collaborate on 'never again'--written and recorded in commemoration of the Genocide, sung in the various languages of the region.

aerial footage of the commemoration ceremony

never again.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

remembering the victims

the faces

the names

the stories

all images from Gisozi Memorial Site, Kigali.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

the justice myth ctd...

this has been such a violation from day one...we all knew that eventually things would start to unravel and the truth would come out. provisional liberty is far from enough.

this never should've happened in the first place.

this was and remains a flagrant abuse and misuse of the international judicial system and we should remain defiant until that is recognized.