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INSIDE AFRICA
The History of Christmas in Africa
Aired December 22, 2001 - 12:30:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
TUMI MAKGABO, CNN ANCHOR: On this edition of INSIDE AFRICA: a journey along some historic paths as we take in the Christmas holiday with one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. Away from the commercialism of Christmas, the holiday season takes on a special meaning for the people of Mozambique. Plus, a dream come true for a young boy from Togo. The heartwarming story of a master pianist in the making.
Hello and welcome to INSIDE AFRICA and our weekly look at news and life on the continent. I'm Tumi Makgabo.
We begin in Egypt and Christmas celebrations with one of the world's earliest Christian communities. The Copts traced their religion back to the first century when St. Mark brought Christianity to Egypt. Now, they make up only about 10 percent of the country's population.
James Martone takes a look at what Christmas means to them.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMES MARTONE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They're a minority here, but Copts say they lived happily in Egypt, a land the believe Jesus and his parents visited. Celebrating his birth starts in the Catholic Church with prayers that begin a month before, called Khiak, an ancient Coptic.
KARAM NASSAN, SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER: It's a new year with God. Yes, it's a new year with Jesus. I feel that I should remember what I have done last year and the previous year and to try to do better in the next year.
MARTONE: On the bank of the Nile, these Copts meet in the weeks before Christmas, which is celebrated here on January 7. They have come to this spot because like many others in Egypt, it's considered a place Christ traveled.
Father Tadros Fuad (ph) says these underground passages led his Christ and his family safely to a boat on the Nile when they were escaping persecution.
"The entire place is placed because the Holy Family visited it," he says. He says, "Christians come at Christmas for miracles."
(on-camera): Miracles abound in Egypt not least of all at this church where Christians say the Virgin Mary appeared in 1968.
(voice-over): Lighting candles to the Virgin who even some Muslims say they saw, Christians say they pray this Christmas for peace at a time the world is at war.
"Christmas is the road to salvation," says Nashat (ph), a tax collector, "Despite Muslim-Christian clashes of wrath," he says, "Copts and Muslims in Egypt love each other."
This love between religions is being preached by Egypt's Catholic pope in the weeks before Christmas when some Copts say Muslims here might hold them somehow responsible for U.S. led attacks in Afghanistan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some of our more sense of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) say you're as American, you do something wrong with our brothers in Afghanistan.
MARTONE: Afghanistan is on the mind of Christmas tree vendor, Sulk Heam (ph), a Muslim, who says he loves Christians and Muslims and Jews alike.
"But this year, sales are down," he meant, "because of the wars in the world."
James Martone, CNN, Cairo.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MAKGABO: Now, for more on Egypt Coptic, Christians and other news on the continent, there's our Web site. That's CNN.com/INSIDEAFRICA. And while you're there, remember to take part in our quick vote and also post your thoughts on our message board.
To Mozambique now, it's nearly 12 years since the government abandoned Marxism. Among the changes that came about as a result, the official recognition of Christmas. We sent Paul Tilsley to the capital, Maputo, for Christmas celebrations there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAUL TILSLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The prestigious 24 of July Avenue in downtown Maputo and not a Christmas decoration in site. But take a closer look and you'll find signs that the festive period is upon Muslim beacons.
More than 50 percent of the people here are Christians, but they're still trying to get back the holiday spirit. The old government did not recognize Christmas. December 25 was officially observed as Family Day.
ENRIQUE MALELE, METHODIST BISHOP: The Marxism government says that today is no God, but this government must come positively to the problem. It should say that there is a God.
TILSLEY (on-camera): The people are getting confused?
MALELE: Yeah, because people are getting confused.
TILSLEY (voice-over): The new government is trying to get rid of that confusion, making Christmas a public holiday.
JOAQUIM CHISSANO, MOZAMBICAN PRESIDENT: In Mozambique, many religions and Christianity is a very strong presence. But Christmas became now a holiday almost for everybody. Everybody celebrates Christmas.
TILSLEY: With high humidity and temperatures daily going over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, there's a distinct lack of snowmen in Maputo and...
(on-camera): There could be another reason why the streets are not full of Christmas decorations, many Muslim beacons are devout Christians and believe that Christmas should not be as commercial exploited as it is in say, Europe or the U.S.
(voice-over): Take Anastasia Matsintse and her family. Christmas in their apartment in Maputo's District Number One will be spent at home.
ANASTASIA MATSINTSE: We stay all together. We have lunch together. If they -- I can say that it's a family day.
TILSLEY: Others will be spending time with family at some of Maputo's famous beaches.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Christmas, I will go to church first and at that time, we go to beach and have a party with my family.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Christmas is important because my family gets together. I guess few people that starting overseas and even in the streets, people are more kind, more given and that's it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Amen.
TILSLEY: In a land hit first by a long and brutal war and then in the past two years by devastating floods, many here feel they have a reason to be thankful.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thank God for everything. I thank God for me for each day that I'm surviving.
MALELE: When people are facing troubles in their lives like floods, wars, people are recognizing that the presence of God. They need to abide to God.
TILSLEY: In Mozambique, many are happy for the simple pleasure of saying Amen to that.
Paul Tilsley for INSIDE AFRICA, Maputo, Mozambique.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MAKGABO: And still ahead, is Somalia next in the U.S. war against terrorism? That story and more when INSIDE AFRICA continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MAKGABO: And welcome back. German and U.S. officials have indicated that Somalia could be next in the U.S. led war against terrorism. Washington has complained of al Qaeda links in the country. The fragile interim government in Somalia is struggling to maintain control while facing the stiff opposition from many factions. Catherine Bond reports on one group that already has the attention of U.S. officials.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CATHERINE BOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One indication the U.S. might soon set its sites on Somalia, plain closed Americans who described themselves as U.S. military coming to this remote and battered region in central Somalia.
Faces so many town and group of Americans visited. Here, they met members of an opposition alliance. Members of that alliance say they got the impression the Americans were on a fact-finding mission.
ABDULLAHI SHEIKH ISMAIL, OPPOSITION POLITICIAN: Regarding some sort of information, they can ask these men about an al Qaeda network presence in Somalia.
BOND: The al Qaeda links, say regional security sources, are to a hard-line Islamic fundamentalist group called Al-Ittihad. The Americans say locals went away with a list of names, a list said to be much like this one.
A former Al-Ittihad militant himself, Ishmael Mamood (ph) says American officials were interested in what he had to say, though it goes back some years.
Ishmael says he was one of about 600 Al-Ittihad fighters in the early 1990s when the group took control of a region of Somalia called Gedo. Men from countries like the Sudan, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Chechnya used to come and go, he says, usually in pairs.
"Those people were al Qaeda," he says, "because I was among them and I used to work with them."
He claims they trained Somalis to fight against so many countries in the world, Christian countries. But in the late 1990s, troops from the Christian dominated neighboring state of Ethiopia crossed the border into Somalia and attacked Al-Ittihad spaces. This Ethiopian state television footage proves Ethiopia says the terrorists from elsewhere.
But some say that was not the end of Al-Ittihad. This group of men, the group the Americans met with (UNINTELLIGIBLE), are leaders of various Somali clans. They accused of fledgling government in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, known as the TNG, the Transitional National Government, was making Al-Ittihad fighters its militias. And they contend, that with a little help, they can identify Al-Ittihad militants and hunt them down.
"We told them," says Mohammed Ibrahim (ph), referring to the American officials, "that we're ready to fight those elements."
The government rejects that accusation, saying Al-Ittihad is dead. The government weak, but recognized by the international community, says it's willing to cooperate with the U.S. war on terror. That presents a challenge to the U.S. -- a weak government that denies terrorism exists and an opposition that insists the government supports it and the recent history of chaos and the failed intervention of the mid 1990s. Since that time, southern Somalia has been largely ignored by the international community.
In that vacuum, Arab influence, schools where Arabic is the language of instruction. Dress codes for girls, strict to the normal in Somalia's secular society.
The government's opponents claim that since September the 11th, Al- Ittihad ex-leaders and sympathizers, businessmen, war moguls and sheikhs, some of them individuals suspected of links to al Qaeda, have gone underground or fled, making the U.S. task against terrorism in Somalia, say analysts, more of a manhunt than military campaign.
Catherine Bond, CNN, Baidoa, Somalia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MAKGABO: And it's time now for business news from the continent. For that, we turn to Valerie Morris in New York -- Valerie.
VALERIE MORRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Tumi. The Senegalese capital, Dakar, played host to two important economic gatherings this week. The first was a one-day summit of the West African and Monetary Union, better known by its French acronym, UEMOA. UEMOA is a group of five French-speaking countries and Guinea-Basau. Their goal is to establish a common market to help the sub region deal with the impact of economic globalizations.
Globalization was also one of the many issues discussed at the two-day gathering of the 15 nation economic community of West African states. The group comprises the six members of UEMOA and eight other West African countries.
The Dakar gatherings were the latest in the series of meetings to discuss the effects of globalization on the continent. This was one of the reasons behind the formation of the African Union; a continental body that will replace the OAU come next year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. R. OMOTAYO OLANIYAN, SENIOR ECONOMIST, OAU: In view of the marginalization of the continent of Africa in the ongoing globalization that was in need to address this issue of who provide the education much more effectively within the rule of integration called the African Union.
So the African Union will aim at the harmonization of admonitory and the fiscal policies of African countries.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORRIS: Another concern of African countries is the need to increase foreign investment. Many are having a tough time convincing the international community that there are benefits to doing business on the continent. But now, they're getting help from the U.S. Export-Import Bank.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN RICHTER, U.S. EXPORT-IMPORT BANK: There is good profit to be made in Africa. One of the statistics that comes out of the World Bank is that of the foreign direct investment that goes into Africa, there's a 30 percent return on that investment. Now, that's the highest in the world.
For the lenders, where typically they're fighting for a few basis points in a transaction here in the United States, they can get two full points, percentage points, of interest on a loan going into Africa because they're -- the resource they bring is so scarce on the continent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORRIS: Richter says U.S. goods make up only seven percent of the African market.
Now, a check of this week's closing numbers. That's business. Tumi, back to you.
MAKGABO: Valerie, thank you very much. Another break now and then the story of an amazing young man from Togo, but first, this tribute.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Statesman, philosopher, poet, all describe Senegal's first president, Leopold Sedar Senghor. Mr. Senghor died at the age of 95 at his home in Normandy, in northern France on Thursday. Elected in 1960, he held office until his resignation in 1980.
As poet and philosopher, Mr. Senghor developed the concept of "negritude," his term for the common cultural and spiritual heritage of Africa's people. Mr. Senhor was also the first black African to become a member of the prestigious French Academy.
Leopold Sedar Senghor, Senegal's poet president dead at 95.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MAKGABO: Hello once again. Now, INSIDE AFRICA wouldn't quite the same without Femi Oke and this week she's at the only hotel in downtown Atlanta and she brings us the story of a young piano player from Togo who has overcome unusual circumstances to achieve his goal of becoming a concert pianist -- Femi.
FEMI OKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on-camera): (UNINTELLIGIBLE) we find ourselves bringing you good music, so I better stop playing. The young man you're about to see and hear is truly amazing. He certainly inspired me to start practicing again.
Alphonso Van Marsh has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALPHONSO VAN MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A candy break in a South Carolina high school English class and Kheli Fiadjoe, in the short sleeve shirt with black hair is gunning for a second piece. In many ways, the 16-year-old Kheli is like any student here, trying to pay attention in class, but Kheli, from the West African country, Togo, is playing catch up. French is his native tongue and travel problems after the September 11 attacks made him miss the first few weeks of school.
KHELI FIADJOE, STUDENT: It was kind of difficult. I couldn't get what the teacher say all the time because English is not my first language, but it's supposed to be hard at the beginning, but it's coming better now.
MARSH: Kheli is a junior at the Governor School For The Arts and Humanities. The school nurtures teenagers gifted in drama, dance, music and the arts.
MARSH (on-camera): Put into a competitive environment like this South Carolina boarding school, Kheli almost seems ordinary. But to understand what he makes extraordinary, some even say a prodigy; you have to understand his journey here from Africa.
Classical piano, music that patients outside of medical clinic in Togo's capital, Lome, hear everyday. The clinic and neighboring villa belong to Kheli's parents, both respective medical doctors. The music on the September afternoon comes from the same teenager better built to play football than Frederick Chopin.
FIADJOE: I went off (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and I felt like a dream, you know, like I see myself playing with orchestras and sort of doing their great musician, you know.
MARSH: Kheli began playing a used piano when he was three. He mastered Beethoven's First Piano Concerto by age nine.
This piano in a humid forged city where temperatures average 32 degrees Celsius, about 90 degrees Fahrenheit, has seen better days and its tuner lives five hours away in neighboring Ghana.
In a mostly rural, agricultural country often overlooked by the press, Kheli made news when his talent and family connections got him to the finals of a prestigious U.S. piano competition usually won by college students. Kheli was 14.
(on-camera): Neighbors sometimes complain about the classical music coming down into the street. Understand that despite Togo's rich cultural past, for Kheli's generation, there is no Togo symphony, there is no national orchestra. In terms of classical music, Kheli is about the best that Togo has.
(voice-over): Professionals say Kheli is a prodigy because he's come so far with less than six years of formal training. His teacher, the only pianist here better than Kheli, was in a car accident in April. Not knowing, Kheli waited four days for him to show up for his special lesson.
FIADJOE: I was to the phone calling his house and somebody told me he was dead and (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I couldn't believe it. That's how I knew that this because my parents didn't want to -- my parents didn't want to tell me.
MARSH: Neighbors heard a lot of music this summer as Kheli played through his grief.
FIADJOE: It was a time I just found that I -- you know, music -- I just have to play with my heart, you know and know it's still inside. I really love him and just play with my heart.
MARSH: Heart and family connections again earned Kheli the scholarship to the Governor's School. At a good-bye party, Kheli's mother said her son doesn't have to follow in his parent's relatively lucrative medical footsteps.
"For me, it's not about money, it's about the courage of the human spirit," she says. "It's that courage that creates a more worthwhile society."
Today, Kheli's teacher at the Governor's School has a musical doctorate from Yale. James Lent says he's never seen such a disciplined student learn so quickly.
JAMES LENT, PIANO INSTRUCTOR: There are times when I hear him play that, you know, I get goose bumps inside.
MARSH: An end of this semester recital and Kheli is the star of the show. He says he'll eventually return to Togo and music and open a music conservatory.
For now, Kheli says he's happy enough to soak up the best music and classroom education he can get his hands on.
Alphonso Van Marsh, CNN, Greenville, South Carolina.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OKE: That was inspiring. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) The reason why piano playing has improved rather than watching it.
Well, that's it for me. Enjoy your weekend whatever you're doing and I look forward to seeing you in 2002. See you then.
MAKGABO: I'm not convinced that she was playing that piano. Nevertheless, Femi, thank you very much.
And finally, let's take a look at our mailbag.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MAKGABO (voice-over): Our special on the growth of Islam on the continent generated a range of comments. One person questioned the need for an entire program on Islam. He writes, "it would be good if your program would focus your attention on the persecution of non-Muslim minorities by Muslims in African countries."
Others were moved by Jeff Koinange's report on the Nigerian woman, Safiya, who was sentenced to death for adultery. A viewer in Oman writes, "There is an Islamic judge and scholar here who is ready and willing to provide to the court in question a written legal opinion that Safiya has been wrongly convicted and sentenced under Sharia Law."
Our special on AIDS also brought in lots of letters. Anna writes from Tanzania, "I was watching INSIDE AFRICA program today, which touched me so much. I've lost three sisters in two years and now my brother is ill. Please tell me where to find the drugs to help my brother."
Finally, some of you were offended by our report on the bike safari in southern Africa. This conservationist notes, "I'm more than a little dismayed that CNN actually aired the "snippet" on the off-road cycling." He goes on, "I have to express my grave concern at the fact that anyone has even been permitted to organize such a safari."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MAKGABO: Well, no matter what your opinion is, we still enjoy getting your e-mails. So if you have a comment about the program, be sure to e-mail us at INSIDEAFRICA@CNN.com. Please include which country you are writing from. Also, remember to send us your recipes to post on our Web site.
And that's our look INSIDE AFRICA this week. I'm Tumi Makgabo. The news continues now here on CNN.
END
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