Diamonds Are Forever

Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix)

Jay Z:

Good Morning, this ain't Vietnam still

People lose hands, legs, arms for real

Little was known of Sierra Leone

And how it connect to the diamonds we own

When I speak of diamonds in this song

I ain't talkin bout the ones that be glown

I'm talkin bout Rocafella, my home, my chain

These ain't conflict diamonds, is they Jacob? Don't lie to me mayne

See, a part of me sayin' keep shinin',

How? When I know of the blood diamonds

Though it's thousands of miles away

Sierra Leone connect to what we go through today

Over here, its a drug trade, we die from drugs

Over there, they die from what we buy from drugs

The diamonds, the chains, the bracelets, the charmses

I thought my Jesus Piece was so harmless

'til I seen a picture of a shorty armless

And here's the conflict

It's in a black person's soul to rock that gold

Spend ya whole life tryna get that ice

On a polo rugby it look so nice

How could somethin' so wrong make me feel so right, right?

'fore I beat myself up like Ike

You could still throw ya Rocafella diamond tonight, 'cause

Diamonds Are Forever.

Let Them Eat (Chinese) Cake...

President Mugabe

on one of his birthdays...

On the 21st of February 2010, President Mugabe turned 86 and threw a big bash

bankrolled by the Chinese Government, so says the Washington Post. 

How will the nation of Zimbabwe ever re-pay this gesture of kindness by our longtime communist friends of the east? For having spared the national coffers from being the President's personal withdrawal account this time around, three platinum mines and a diamond field would suffice.

Having stood unoppossed in the ZANU party elections in December '09, Mugabe is to stand for office in the next Presidential election in 2013.

 He will be 89...

Given this longevity streak - good genes and all,

would it be too early to predict he will stand for

the parliamentary elections in 2016?

He will be 91...

And no signs of dementia. (or so we think mmm)

  and when presidential elections come again in 2019, 

he will be standing strong at 94

and 2021 at 97 and 2025 100 and 2027 at 104!

Long Live Jongwe, only the weak die young.... 

.

Terrorist: The American Definition

Fist tap to www.subrealism.blogspot.com for the linkup to www.wittysparks.com, the source.

Why Hugo Chavez Is The Man

There's been a little storm brewing in the Falklands since a British oil company; Desire Petroleum began drilling for oil. The dispute over the Falklands dates back to the 19th century, when the islands were seized by the British. Argentina has sought their return ever since, invading in April 1982 and holding them until June, when British forces retook the territory. Full diplomatic relations were restored in 1990 and both sides have since largely agreed to disagree on the issue of sovereignty. But anger over the issue still lingers and has been exacerbated by the prospect that Argentina could lose out on mineral wealth discovered offshore.

The issue had been relatively calm until a British oil exploration company recently announced drilling plans there. Desire Petroleum PLC said that it has started drilling for oil about 60 miles north of the disputed Falkland Islands, despite strong opposition from Argentina. The country claims the south Atlantic islands as its own and calls them Las Malvinas. "The well is being drilled to an estimated target depth of circa 3,500 meters (11,500 feet)," the company said in a statement. "Drilling operations are expected to take approximately 30 days."

...In oppostion to the drilling, Latin American and Caribbean nations have backed Argentina's claim of sovereignty to the Falkland Islands in a growing dispute with Britain over plans to drill for oil off the islands in the Atlantic. In a public address to the Queen Elizabeth II, Hugo Chavez said:  "Look, England, how long are you going to be in Las Malvinas? Queen of England, I'm talking to you," said Mr Chavez. The time for empires are over, haven't you noticed? Return the Malvinas to the Argentine people."
Still addressing the Queen, he went on: "The English are still threatening Argentina. Things have changed. We are no longer in 1982. If conflict breaks out, be sure Argentina will not be alone like it was back then." He described British control of the islands in the South Atlantic as "anti-historic and irrational" and asked "why the English speak of democracy but still have a Queen".

President of the Argentina, Mrs F deKirchner sought to win new allies in Argentina's claims to the islands when she made a direct appeal for support at a meeting in Mexico of the Rio Group of Latin American and Caribbean countries. Venezuela and Nicaragua rallied to Argentina's side even before Mrs de Krichner's appeal, and it was reported that Brazil was ready to support any resolution backing Argentina's sovereignty claims.

....Maybe the Brits needed to be violently colonized and have foreign powers support internal coups in the last 50 years so they might begin to understand why Caribbean and Latin American countries have taken a united stand in support of Kirchner. Chavez is not a crazy man like the Plantation media likes to report. I find this whole brouhaha to be quite hilarous - apparently Chavez stepped out of line by addressing the Queenn so directly - errr excuse me whose Queen is she? Whose protocol? The Brits. Is Chavez a Brit? No. This is public dialogue between international diplomats. If the Brits themselves are constantly debating whether the monarchy is a relic of the past and whether Britain should become a Republic then why the sudden rise to Her Majesty's defence? ....Because of oil and the delusions of imperial superiority...

400 years later and hypocrisy is still not a good look.

bits of this story and the pic were taken from www.telegraph.co.uk

My Heartfelt Congratulations To Brian Chikwava & Petina Gappah

Congratulations to my good friend and comrade with an infectious laugh; Brian Chikwava for winning the Zimbabwe NAMA (National Arts and Music Award) award for his first book, Harare North and to my FB friend, the amazing Petina Gappah whose book An Elegy For Easterly has been a trailblazer, winning and being nominated for various prizes all over the world. She is one person I never tire of heaping praise upon; it's well deserved, and Brian is one person I really admire and feel, "if I only I could write like that and be so funny...", "if only I was so cool, calm and collected like that...."

Here is an excerpt from a review published in Pambazuka News:
(see http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/books/56610/print)

"Harare North is a tale of a ‘paper-free’ immigrant who comes to the UK and claims asylum. Yet ironically in Zimbabwe, the migrant was part of the ruling party’s 'Green Bombers' who were instrumental in the political violence against the opposition MDC and the violent seizure of farms. Cleverly written in first-person narrative, Chikwava tells of the unnamed narrator's experiences in London, commonly known to Zimbabweans as Harare North because of the long history of large numbers of Zimbabweans who have gone to live and work there.

Chikwava’s comedic tale experiments with private voice and language to capture the immigrant experience of London. Arriving at Gatwick Airport as an asylum seeker, the narrator makes it past immigration to meet his cousin in-law. This first encounter shows how family changes when abroad, as he is made to feel very unwelcome at the home of his cousin Paul and Paul's wife, Sekai. Sekai’s manner toward him is so cold that he describes her 'a lapsed African'. Becoming increasingly aware he is an imposition and eager to fulfil his mission to raise £3,000 so he can return to Zimbabwe and live comfortably, he leaves Paul’s home in search of work and finds his way to Brixton where he meets Shingi who works as a carer or a BBC ('British Bottom Cleaner').


In this share-flat, the main characters of the novel are low-income earners who live on the margins of Britain’s middle-class society in the ghettoes of Brixton, where they work as fish 'n' chip shop workers, porters and hair shampooists and braiders. The most striking thing about these characters is the familiarity of their conditions. Many Zimbabweans and immigrants of other nations work in intensive labour low-paying jobs and suffer multiple, inter-connected forms of social discrimination that Chikwava’s novel brilliantly portrays. As the story unfolds, the somewhat good-intentioned narrator changes and the witty and humorous tone of the novel shifts to an embittered critique on the individual, and the collective circumstances which led to his demise.

...An Elegy for Easterly is a collection of thirteen tales about life in Zimbabwe that offers an intimate view of the everyday lives of ordinary people. Each of the stories shows how people survive in the hyper-inflationary, politically volatile and plagued society we are often (rightly or wrongly) told is Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe. This text shows the survival strategies people use in order to live from day to day. Despite the mass exodus of Zimbabweans to neighbouring countries and abroad since 2000, it is not everyone who can or wants to leave.

For as many reasons that people left Zimbabwe, there were as many reasons to stay and make life work as best one could. This, in my reading of Gappah’s book, seems to be strongest message: That life must go on in Zimbabwe. Despite the harsh conditions faced, people still live and they have triumphs and tribulations just like anyone else in any other part of the world. This is evident in the characters of Mai Toby who sews for a living and Martha the socially ostracized woman in "An Elegy for Easterly" and Emily in "The Annexe Shuffle", who is a promising, ambitious university student but has some deep psychological issues.

Gappah courageously tables issues that often produce deathly silences when raised among strangers for fear of persecution as one never knows to whom they are expressing their political opinion. The book is also filled with some truly hilarious stories like "Our Man in Geneva" and "The Mupandawana Dancing Champion" that the reader will love...." So far the book has won The Guardian UK 2009 First Book Prize and has been nominated for award the LA Times Art Seidenbaum First Book Award and the Sunday Times in Johannesburg.



                                                                                                                              

             Makorokoto, Amhlope, Congratulations to both of you.  

picture of Brian jacked from www.africanwriter.com and picture of Petina jacked from www.faber.co.uk

The Games Are A-Coming!

On the ball: recently unveiled at the African Art Centre, Johannesburg, RSA is a series of paintings and sculptures by Lalelani Mbhele and Bhekinkosi Gumbe.

source: Mail & Guardian SA http://www.mg.co.za/section/arts

Coming Soon To A Store Near You...

Just a few mins ago I was checking out something online & found

www.yearoftheblacksmythe.com/forum  and this is the truth

Talib had to say....

How can you be an atheist if you don't know everything? What do you call the unknown? I call it God. Can you deny that all living things maintain necessary relationships? Trees take in CO2 and expel O2, we take in O2 and expel CO2, science tells us that. But what created these relationships? According to science, music is not necessary, but can you imagine a world without music? I can't. This is what I call God. I have seen the birth of my son. Science cannot explain the joy I felt in that moment. My life is proof of God's existence. (yea tell 'em Talib!)

Most atheists confuse religion with God (yep!). I do not believe in or subscribe to religion. The holy books are filled with allegories and stories meant to show us values, but many religious people take that stuff literally. But there is something that connects all of us spiritually. I think if you open yourself to the God power inside yourself you will love it. God is not some supreme being sitting in the clouds judging us. God is that inner beauty that makes us strive for knowledge and love. (lookup the Mapping God Genome study, it's very interesting) You dont even have to call it God to acknowledge it. But I think it's a mistake to say it doesnt exist, by whatever name you call it. One love!

I hope my atheist friends got that msg loud and clear ; )

A Li'l History Lesson

Between 135,000 and 75,000 years ago, the East-African droughts shrunk the water volume of  Lake Malawi by at least 95%, causing migration out of Africa. Which route did they take? Researchers say their study of the tribes of Andaman and Nicobar islands using complete mitochondrial DNA sequences and its comparison those of world populations has led to the theory of a "southern coastal route'' of migration from East Africa through India. This finding is against the prevailing view of a northern route of migration via Middle East, Europe, south-east Asia, Australia and then to India.

source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Aryan-Dravidian-divide-a-myth-Study/articleshow/5053274.cms                                                                           

Decapitating Neo-Colonial Capitalism

 How To Blow Up Two Heads At Once (Ladies)

by

Yinka Shonibare (2006)

with mannequins, guns,

Dutch wax-printed cotton textile,

shoes, boots and plinth.

Distant Relatives (GSBS)

Damian Marley and Nas

pic jacked from www.liberatormagazine.com (a site well worth checking it out)

Strong Will Continue is one faya tune! (Recommended volume level: MAX) I love the ol' school sound on; As We Enter; Nas & Damian sound real nice in Swahili. Lovers of real hiphop go out n get the album, Distant Relatives when it hits your stores, wherever y'all are on the planet. 

My Brother From Another Mother

"James Baldwin and I were invited to speak at an African literature conference somewhere in the South, and what Baldwin said in talking about me to the audience is that “This is a brother I had not seen for 400 years,” and people laughed. And he said that it was not intended that he and I should ever meet. That’s what you asked me. Part of the center of the plan was that we should not know each other. So that’s why our task is, in my view, so very important: that in spite of that intention to keep us apart, there will be some people who would refuse and insist on knowing their brothers and sisters who had been sold away and lost. There are some people who knew that it was important to discover them, and I’m not talking in the past, because the problem remains. There are so many of us on both sides of the Atlantic who do not know the importance of that recognition, that this is my brother, this is my sister, that their story is the same as my story. Whatever variations, it is basically the same story."     
Chinua Achebe

http://weblog.liberatormagazine.com/2008/04/interview-with-chinua-achebe.html

planetwalkers

i dreamed i walked across the oceans
from the horned temples of axum
i walked to yemen to malaysia
then swam south to the shores of australasia
then back home again to zanzibar,
and migrating westwards,
i gave birth to a son in nigeria whose
dna matches, the twin who walked
on water to papua new guinea.

the news of my twin son caused me
to walk back south, then east to olduvai
in search of my sister who'd left a trail
of how she climbed up the rock of gibraltar,
to germany and england
where she birthed a set of caucasoids
who went as far north as siberia,
skating on ice
and walking on water to america

and down,
down
south
she went
to the basin of the amazon
while some of her children crossed to the caribbean.
 
we have walked
and
walked                                                                                       
and
walked
and
walked
till
there was nowhere left to walk.                

70 000 years later,
we meet again                                                         
you : me,
do you remember, sister?

copyright konwomyn 2010

jacked from http://www.foundingfathers1776.com/

The Love Push

The Love Push

fading stars and

falling snowflakes

glisten

on a misty mornin'

in london town.

rhyme pushes love

through grime beats,

when i think of him;

my brixton bwoy,

missin' in this missive

written on a misty mornin'

in islington town.

copyright: konwomyn 2009

Stupid Cupid

I'm your Mister, you my Mrs. with hugs and kisses
Valentine cards and birthday wishes?

Please!
We on another level of planning,

of understanding

the bond between man and woman, and child

The highest elevation,
cuz we above

All that romance crap,

just. show. your. love.

- Method Man ft Mary J. All That I Need

                                                              

"For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others."

- Nelson Mandela

fist tap to Dan K for post.

Celebrating Legends

Today is a special day for two reasons; it is the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release after being incarcerated for 27 years and it is also the day Robert Nesta Marley was born. The day Mandela was freed I was still quite young, I had gone with my parents and younger sister to visit my brothers in boarding school and as the family sat in the car, we heard over the radio that Nelson Mandela had been freed. My parents were ecstatic and even though I was a kid at the time, I knew what it meant for Mandela to be free; it meant South Africa was free, free from the apartheid regime.  Having grown up around stories and images of what was happening across the Limpopo; it was hard to imagine Mandela free and South Africa at peace, but after a long and hard struggle it was. Today, things are different there is a new South Africa, all thanks to Madiba and all the freedom fighters; Biko, Hani, Tambo, Sisulu, Tutu etc. Others may call what Mandela did a great betrayal, but it takes alot more human strength to forgive than it does to persecute. South Africa may have walked the long walk to freedom, but the long walk to equality is far from over and in some ways a more complex journey. However, there is reason to be hopeful the Rainbow Nation will succeed - as someone reminded me on Facebook this morning pashoma ne pashoma, as we say in Shona, little by little the struggle for equality shall be attained.

"Bless my eyes this morning, Jah sun is on the rise once again." Those lines would always ring in my head every morning for the longest time in giving thanks to the Most High for a new day and today is one day I give thanks to the Almighty JAH for His Prophet, the son of Joseph, Bob Marley. His music is as revolutionary as it is spiritual and it is truth to this day. The song "Zimbabwe" is evidence of this truth; if anyone truly understands what is happening in the country (and what is also caused by those outside) today, they would know why...

To divide and rule could only tear us apart;
In every man chest, mmm - there beats a heart.

So soon we'll find out who is the real revolutionaries;

And I don't want my people to be tricked by mercenaries.

Brother, you're right, you're right,

You're right, you're right, you're so right!
We'll 'ave to fight (we gon' fight), we gonna fight (we gon' fight),

We'll 'ave to fight (we gon' fight), fighting for our rights!

Natty trash it in-a Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);

Mash it up in-a Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);

Set it up in-a Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);

Africans a-liberate Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);

Africans a-liberate Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe);

Natty dub it in-a Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe).

The New Ships

Mammies crowded with cloths,

flowered and laughed;

white teeth,

smooth voices like pebbles

moved by the 

sea of their language.

Akwaaba they smiled

meaning welcome

akwaaba they called

aye koo

well have you talked 

have you journeyed

welcome

you have come back a stranger

after three hundred years

welcome

here is a stool for 

you; sit; do

you remember

here is water

dip

wash your hands

are you ready to eat?

- The New Ships by Kamau Brathwaite in The Masks (1968)

sampled from a paper by Robert Cancel "Whose Africa is it anyway?..." (2000)

jacked from www.impeachforpeace.org

She's Gonna Be A Star

This is a masterpiece by my six year old neice. This is one of a large collection on my laptop done in the Dec hols. One of these days she'll be an artiste, watch her grow!

One of the Baddest Sistas on the Planet...Nneka

My main message is to wake people up...

To make them feel themselves;

to make them feel their spirit;

to be in touch with their innermost.

Concrete Jungle will be released February 2010 at a store near you...in Europe, the UK or North America

Baptizing The Gun

Special thanks to Africa Is A Country for the image and posting this story.

"Baptizing The Gun" by the amazing, Uwem Akpan is in the New Yorker

Here is an excerpt:

A female passenger starts to scream in the molue, or you-beat-me-I-beat-you bus, in front of my battered red Volkswagen Beetle, introducing another ripple of confusion into the midmorning Lagos traffic. She jumps out. Squatting by the roadside, she tilts her head so that the blood dripping from her torn ear won’t soil her yellow onyonyo dress. Someone had reached into the bus to steal her earring, tearing her ear in the process. A group of child hawkers, whose schools are on strike, gather around her, drumming consolations into the other ear. Each time I try to move my car, there are at least two motorcycles ahead of me. The traffic stops. Up front, there’s a throng of people chanting and dancing. They carry amulets, clubs, and locally made hunting rifles. They’re members of the Oodua People’s Congress, or O.P.C. They say that Lagos belongs to the Yorubas, so all others should understand that they’re just guests. They say they will not tolerate armed robbers or corrupt police anymore in Eko City, and that this year, 1999, it is their turn to rule Nigeria. Well, this madness could have happened in Onitsha or Abuja or Ugborodo, I console myself after waiting thirty minutes for them to pass. Besides, this isn’t my first time in Lagos... Read more here

Democracy is not Freedom

Kouraj, Ma Cherie

With thanks to Alice Walker; I got this email from her blog.

Sasha Kramer sent a message to the members of Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL).

Subject: Kouraj cherie: Update from Port au Prince

This afternoon, feeling helpless, we decided to take a van down to Champs Mars (the area around the palace) to look for people needing medical care to bring to Matthew 25, the guesthouse where we are staying which has been transformed into a field hospital. Since we arrived in Port au Prince everyone has told us that you cannot go into the area around the palace because of violence and insecurity. I was in awe as we walked into downtown, among the flattened buildings , in the shadow of the fallen palace, amongst the swarms of displaced people there was calm and solidarity. We wound our way through the camp asking for injured people who needed to get to the hospital. Despite everyone telling us that as soon as we did this we would be mobbed by people, I was amazed as we approached each tent people gently pointed us towards their neighbors, guiding us to those who were suffering the most. We picked up 5 badly injured people and drove towards an area where Ellie and Berto had passed a woman earlier. When they saw her she was lying on the side of the road with a broken leg screaming for help, as they were on foot they could not help her at the time so we went back to try to find her. Incredibly we found her relatively quickly at the top of a hill of shattered houses. The sun was setting and the community helped to carry her down the hill on a refrigerator door, tough looking guys smiled in our direction calling out “bonswa Cherie” and “kouraj”.

When we got back to Matthew 25 it was dark and we carried the patients back into the soccer field/tent village/hospital where the team of doctors had been working tirelessly all day. Although they had officially closed down for the evening, they agreed to see the patients we had brought. Once our patients were settled in we came back into the house to find the doctors amputating a foot on the dining room table. The patient lay calmly, awake but far away under the fog of ketamine. Half way through the surgery we heard a clamor outside and ran out to see what it was. A large yellow truck was parked in front of the gate and rapidly unloading hundreds of bags of food over our fence, the hungry crowd had already begun to gather and in the dark it was hard to decide how to best distribute the food. Knowing that we could not sleep in the house with all of this food and so many starving people in the neighborhood, our friend Amber (who is experienced in food distribution) snapped into action and began to get everyone in the crowd into a line that stretched down the road. We braced ourselves for the fighting that we had heard would come but in a miraculous display of restraint and compassion people lined up to get the food and one by one the bags were handed out without a single serious incident.

During the food distribution the doctors called to see if anyone could help to bury the amputated leg in the backyard. As I have no experience with food distribution I offered to help with the leg. I went into the back with Ellie and Berto and we dug a hole and placed the leg in it, covering it with soil and cement rubble. By the time we got back into the house the food had all been distributed and the patient Anderson was waking up. The doctors asked for a translator so I went and sat by his stretcher explaining to him that the surgery had gone well and he was going to live. His family had gone home so he was alone so Ellie and I took turns sitting with him as he came out from under the drugs. I sat and talked to Anderson for hours as he drifted in and out of consciousness. At one point one of the Haitian men working at the hospital came in and leaned over Anderson and said to him in kreyol “listen man even if your family could not be here tonight we want you to know that everyone here loves you, we are all your brothers and sisters”. Cat and I have barely shed a tear through all of this, the sky could fall and we would not bat an eye, but when I told her this story this morning the tears just began rolling down her face, as they are mine as I am writing this. Sometimes it is the kindness and not the horror that can break the numbness that we are all lost in right now.

So, don’t believe Anderson Cooper when he says that Haiti is a hotbed for violence and riots, it is just not the case. In the darkest of times, Haiti has proven to be a country of brave, resilient and kind people and it is that behavior that is far more prevalent than the isolated incidents of violence. Please pass this on to as many people as you can so that they can see the light of Haiti, cutting through the darkness, the light that will heal this nation.


We are safe. We love you all and I will write again when I can. Thank you for your generosity and compassion.

With love from Port au Prince,
Sasha

 

from london to dar: copyleft konwomyn

“If the United States of America

or Britain is having elections, 

they don't ask for observers from

Africa or from Asia.

But when we have elections,  

they want observers.”

Nelson Mandela, 

So Whatchu Know Abt The Pirates Who Terrorize The Oceans?

from viewzone.com/pirates.html

"The town's residents are more concerned with the dumping of toxic waste than piracy... this dumping has been going on for a very long time. In 1991 the government collapsed in this African Nation and certain large corporations took advantage of this. European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping thousands of barrels of toxic waste into the ocean. The coastal population began to get sick. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies and many other symptoms but lacking proper medical attention much was overlooked. Then after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness and more than 300 died.

A few nights ago, some tanks came out from the high sea and they cracked it seems and now they are leaking into the water and into the air.

The first people fell ill yesterday afternoon. People are reporting mysterious illnesses; they are talking about it as though it were chicken pox -- but it is not exactly like that either. Their skin is bad. They are sneezing, coughing and vomiting.

This is the first time it has been like this; that people have such very, very bad sickness. The people who have these symptoms are the ones who wake early, before it is light, and herd their livestock to the shore to graze. The animals are sick from drinking the water and the people who washed in the water are now suffering. "

Words of Ex-Somali Army Colonel Mohamed Nureh Abdulle lives in Harardhere - the town closest to where the hijacked Saudi oil tanker, Sirius Star is moored.

May 2008

from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7740417.stm 

Mi Piace Le Nero - NOT!

Black nativity angers Italy's "White Xmas" party

Is anyone really surprised? Certainly not me after having lived in Northern Italy for a few months. Beautiful country, met some great people I love and came up against some of other kinda racism.

ROME (Reuters) - A nativity scene featuring a dark-skinned Jesus, Mary and Joseph that has gone on display in a Verona courthouse has created heated debate in a city with strong links to Italy's anti-immigration Northern League party.

The nativity's appearance coincides with the League's controversial operation "White Christmas," a two-month sweep ending on Christmas Day to ferret out foreigners without proper permits in Coccaglio, a small League-led town east of Milan.

The Christmas scene -- featuring a dark-skinned baby Jesus dressed in a red shirt and lying in a manger -- was the idea of Mario Giulio Schinaia, the chief Public Prosecutor in Verona.

"History teaches us that baby Jesus and his parents were very probably dark-skinned," Schinaia told Reuters. "This nativity belongs to a universal Christmas tradition that brings together the whole of Christianity in celebration."

The nativity has caused heated reactions in the rich northern town, where resentment toward foreigners has spread as the number of immigrants, particularly from north Africa and eastern Europe, continues to rise.

"It is a useless act of provocation, just like the suggestion not to have a nativity scene at all, in order not to offend Muslims," Northern League farm minister Luca Zaia told one paper, referring to proposals in recent years that town halls and stores should no longer sponsor Christmas scenes.

"Magistrates have other problems to deal with: I hope they spend as much time thinking about lawsuits and trials," he said.

The Northern League, an ally of conservative Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi with key cabinet posts including the interior ministry, has used its growing political clout to secure tough new laws including making illegal immigration a crime.

League proposals have ranged from separate buses and trains for immigrants to banning new mosques and forbidding the serving of Chinese food and kebabs in towns under its control.

Schinaia defended his black nativity scene, saying it was not intended to be polemical but to encourage debate.

"There shouldn't be a white or black Christmas, only a merry Christmas for everyone, of every skin color, ethnic background and nationality."

(Reporting by Ella Ide; Editing by Stephen Brown) thanks to AfroEurope for the heads-up.

Music Monday

One of the Best Unsigned UK Indy Bands:

The Thirst
Listen to I'm Falling and You're My Everything on YouTube
and tell me you don't feel them!

One of the Best UK Indy Bands of the Moment
Pic: Lead Singer Shingi Shoniwa [yea she's from Zim ; )]