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Life as African Hungarian—Klara
Bassey
By Hakeem Babalola
|
She is 24 and already
separated from her father for 22 years. She
often thinks of her father but doesn’t miss
him. As a child, only sweet things she
heard about him until adulthood when her
mother decides to reveal the darker side of
the man she once married to. Her mother told
her: your father didn’t allow me to pick
quinine, so I had malaria four times and you
had it twice. It was malaria that killed
your younger sister in Nigeria. Your father
was not a bit kind to me . . . Meet Klara
Bassey who says she can’t actually judge her
father because he’s not here to defend
himself. |
Please briefly
say something about yourself?
My name is
Klara Orsolya Eme Bassey. I was born in Budapest in 1983
February 2nd. So now I'm 24. After High School, I tried
a University (Eötvós Lorand Tudomány Egyetem) but I left
before the first exams. It turned out quite early that
I've got nothing to do with teacher's classess neither
the library sciences. After a year of thinking, being
confused, and having a serious nervous break down, I
went to School of Design. Decoration, Interior and Outer
shop design (visual merchandising) became my trade. This
course only gave me mid-level certification.
During this
two years I studied in Pannonia Animation film studio. I
learned how to make animated cartoons manually and some
animated film history. After Design school, I still
didn't feel talented enough to go to the University of
Applied Arts so I started another two-year course, but
didn't finish. Actually I didn't know what to do with
myself. Finally, one of my best friends found me a job
where I work as a decorator. Funny, isn't it?
During school
years I used to be a dancer at Tunde Komolafe's group—the
Bongo Men. I also did some hostess as well as waitress
jobs, which I disliked later. My main job is decoration.
With the B.O Decoration Corporation we are working for
the Pafumeria Douglas. I have been doing this for almost
two years, and in spite of my interest in textile
designing, I couldn’t make up my mind what to do with my
talent. Though I consider my talent in drawing and
fashion designing as hobbies, I would like to make it
bigger.
On the other
hand, I really want to be a mother soon. But this does
not depend on me alone. Anyway, I think it's quite clear
that I do not know where I am going in general. So I
don't want to act as if I knew something special about
life. I could describe only one thing as my practical
ambition: I'd like to do my best at whatever I do. In an
abstract meaning, my ambition is to give fashion a new
base. I would like people to see beauty in a compact
way. I have had enough of men with perfect bodies, and
girls with ill-looking slim frames! Let beauty be more
than that.
The other
thing I'd like to change is the picture people have
about eroticism. It's ugly and flat to advertise
everything with naked women. Sex is something discreet;
should stay between two people. If we consider the truth
that eroticism has a wider meaning than sex, then we
could exchange nakedness with mystery, which I think
could give more than the 'pure facts' of a body! I would
design not only clothes but styles and general effect of
pictures. After making my own trade mark, building up a
style empire, then I could find that utopistic colony
where homeless people would find a new home; a new
chance to recover like getting new trades, jobs, and a
new life entirely.
Do you feel
African or European? Please be honest
It's a good
question but the answer won't be that simple. I am an
African European. As a child I was brought up to be a
Hungarian girl, though I wasn't really. I know about my
Nigerian root. I know my father’s home town.
Yet I've always felt myself European, and it's how I
think because of the kind of education I received. The
history of arts and the history I studied so hard—all
determined my person as European. But the most important
subject (from this point of view) was the literature.
How could I tell anyone what language means to me,
though I am the visual type. If I summarise what I've
told you so far, then it even changes the question. I
don’t even feel European because I'm Hungarian.
The word
"Afro-Hungarian" means nothing for me, as it's just an
expression. At the moment it doesn't cover any
homogeneous communities. We're just finding our cultural
and social base. It's very exciting on one hand, but
brings a lot of responsibilities and problems. We (the
1st and 2nd generations of Afro-Hungarian) should not
act as many of us do now. I have experienced
snobbishness and prissiness that I could not identify
myself with. Of course many white Hungarians behave
likewise, but I see this type of behaviour more in
Afro-Hungarians. We should be much more careful because
it's obvious that the minorities are always under heavy
criticism.
Well, I know
why it is so. I mean it's hard to be African Hungarian
here without own culture. We have no clear root or past
to guide us through the challenges of life. Many do not
even know their fathers. That's why they use their
exotic look as a weapon and act like a conqueror,
criticizing anything Hungarian and glorifying everything
African. I'm not saying this in order to hurt anybody's
feelings. And of course I might be wrong. Anyway, I'm
sure things would be better in a few years. In our life
many changes come. Hungarian borders have opened up a
bit, and that gives new opportunities and widens
people's horizons.
Would you have
preferred your parents to be from the same race?
It is out of
question. Of course had they been from the same race, I
wouldn't have become who I am and I would not have been
in a precious position to give you honest answers.
Are your
parents still together?
They divorced
after my mother came back from Nigeria (Bauchi). She had
lived there for two years. She could not stay there
anymore though she loved my father. My father loved her
too but he could not put up with the situation in
Hungary. It's now 22 years they parted.
Do you have
any regret beingAfrican-Hungarian?
Jesus, no of
course. Even in my childhood when I regularly had bad
experiences I never mind that I'm African as well. I
used to think I was ugly…inside too. I didn't consider
myself a nice girl. Nowadays I have started enjoying
it's advantages. I'm rather happy to be
African-Hungarian.
Then you must
be proud of yourself as African-Hungarian
This has
nothing to do with being proud. One can be proud of
his/her own achievements. It's not within my power to be
born who I am. First, I have to work hard to make my
race recognised, and then we can come back to this
question. No, really I'm quite happy recently. But I
think it's a gift, and trying my best to stay humble.
Your father is
from Nigeria and you haven't met him for 22 years. Do
you miss him?
Yes, He -
Solomon Frank Abassiekong - is from Nigeria, Calabar. As
far as I know he lives now in Akwa Ibom State. As I told
you before we have been living separately for 22 years
now. I was 2 years old when last I saw him. I can't
really miss him but of course I think of him. I'm sure
he misses me a lot; just as I'm sure if we could meet
again he would be as frightened as I would be.
As a kid,
did
you feel different?
In some ways I
was always different. But it's rather because of my soul
structure. I'm very moody and always hold extreme views
far beyond the norm. It's easier to be an adult because
I have beter control over myself.
Have you ever
been racially discriminated against either by the
Hungarian government or the people?
Yeah, I have
many stories that happened to me. Most of them when I
was only a child. I'll tell you one that was quite
frightening and it happened not so long ago. Two young
guys forced me down from a local train. They said
'niggers' should not travel on vehicle; they should use
their feet. I was a student at that time. What pained me
most was not even the incident but the fact that I was
not travelling alone on the train, yet nobody bothered
to help me. I hate to remember it, and I hope this kind
of things will never happen to me again.
Your teachers?
No teacher
discriminated against me, but some of my classmates
didn't really like me in primary school. I never knew
whether it was because of my colour or my strange
manners. In the kindergarten the bigger children hated
me and gave me nicknames like the beast, lucifer, etc.
Sometimes they hit me on the playground. Kids are cruel.
I was not more discriminated against than the girl with
glasses, or the boy who is deaf.
Do you
recollect what happened in Nigeria?
After I was
born here in Hungary, Mom and I travelled with my father
to Nigeria. We spent two years there. First, we stayed
near the coast in southern Nigerian village, where my
grandpa lived. Then we moved to Bauchi, where my mother
sufferings began. I don't remember anything; it's mom
telling me stories about how it was. She said everybody
was
nice to her but language was the first obstacle. She
could not make friends neither could she find a good and
permanent job. Dad's bank account was locked up; food
vanished from the market so we had nothing to eat. Mom
was pregnant with my younger sister, who died right
after she was born. She was
myonly
my sister from the same father.
Mom said she
could endure everything but that Dad was not a bit kind
to her. She told me that Dad became a different person
at home in Nigeria. He became arrogant and
authoritative. He didn't allow mom to pick quinine, so
she had malaria four times. I only had it twice. That
was the only reason my sister died. I just couldn't
comprehend this. My father is an educated man—agricultural
engineer. How on earth could he command his Hungarian
wife not to pick quinine? He should have known better
than anyone what malaria can do to foreigners.
Another
question is, how can a father see his first born
suffering? I try not to judge him because he is not here
to defend himself. Mom helped him when he was miserably
homesick, when he was lost in Budapest during his
university years. Mom even left her family for a while
because of him. He accepted mom's help, but when she
needed him he didn't help her fitting in. I guess he
treated us as his properties. Mom told me these things
after many years, when I became
an adult. As a child I only heard about my father as a
great person, who I'm sure he is. However, mom later
told me he might have been under pressure at home. In
Nigeria he had to show everybody that the 10 years he
spent in Hungary did not make him a European.
Do you speak
any of Nigerian languages?
Unfortunately
I don't speak any of African languages. I only speak
English, some of which I understand from pidgin.
Do you have
any favourite African dish?
I love gari. I
also like kus-kus, fried plantain, and spiced jam. Yeah,
I'm not much of a cook, even simple dishes. So most of
the West African dishes I have never even heard of.
What can you
say about mixed marriage?
Mixed marriage
could be great when two similar tempered people tight
their lives together. They could enjoy a colourful
interesting life together. But they must have great
respect for each other. They have to tolerate each other
a lot. Sometimes the family causes the problem. I think
it's wise to choose a neutral country to live.
What is your
preference when it comes to relationship? I mean do you
prefer Hungarian or African man?
I have never
had any serious relationship with a black man, but I
don't think it's because they are African. My mother
tongue is Hungarian and that determines my
possibilities. I think the most important thing is for
the couple to understand each other very well.
Words
cannot express everything but help to show what is
inside.
I almost
forgot to tell you two of my favourite hobbies after
drawing and painting—they
are reading and writing. It would be tragic for me if I
couldn't share my opinion with my love about a novel or
a poem. And I expect him to do the same. So if I don't
choose to live with African man, it's not just because
of cultural differences, but because of language.
Anyway, thank
you for the chance. And I'm sorry for being late for the
interview. Oh, I read your article about business men
Ball 2006. I enjoyed it a lot. I think you're the
journalist who is not afraid to tell the truth.
©
2007 copyright
mysmallvoice@yahoo.com
posted 16 August
2007
Hakeem
Babalola is
currently teaching English Communication in Budapest,
Hungary. He loves writing, a vehicle by which he rides
to relieve himself of certain emotions. His articles
have appeared in Nigerian newspapers including
Nigerian Tribune,
Daily Champion,
Vanguard,
Daily Trust
respectively. He is also a contributor to several online
magazines like Nigeriavillagesquare.com,
Chatafrikarticles.com, voiceofnigerians and a
host of others. Hakeem is a member of Association of
Hungarian Journalists.
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Escape from Slavery: The True Story
of My Ten Years in Captivity and My
Journey to Freedom in America
By
Francis Bok
Seven-year-old Francis Piol Bol Buk was
living happily on his family's southern
Sudan farm. One day in 1986, he was sent on
errands to the marketplace. There, a slave
raid ripped him from his contented life and
threw him into a wretched existence serving
under a northern Sudanese Arab. After he
escaped at age 17, Buk made his way to Cairo
with a black market passport incorrectly
listing his name as Bok and became a U.N.
refugee allowed to settle in the U.S. in
1999. |
Although he found contentment in Iowa
among other refugees, the following year Bok decided to
work with an American antislavery organization, and
testified before Congress about the atrocities in Sudan.
While this is a remarkable story, its power is conveyed
most effectively through Bok's simple retelling. His
sincerity compels, especially when he describes the
decade of mistreatment he endured. After two failed
escape attempts, he's told he'll be killed in the
morning, and while bound, he thinks of the morning
ahead: "I would be dead and finally through with this
place and this family. My mind preferred death." Yet
when his master changes his mind, Bok immediately starts
plotting again. For all his emotional strength, though,
Bok remains humble. He thanks God and everyone who helps
him escape slavery. This is a powerful, exceptionally
well-told story, equally riveting and heartbreaking.
Although legal strides have been made, with the help of
people like Bok, the persistence of slavery in the world
makes this a work that can't be ignored.—Publishers
Weekly
* *
* * *
As a seven-year-old
boy growing up in the southern Sudan, Bok was caught up
in a raid on a regional market center when marauders
from the north set upon the market, killing the men and
kidnapping the women and children to work as farm
slaves. He went from a loving and supportive extended
family to the brutality of slavery in a strange land and
culture, dominated by Muslims who considered him a
Christian infidel. After enduring 10 years of slavery,
Bok escaped to freedom in Cairo, where he became a U.N.
refugee, eventually making his way to the U.S. at the
age of 21. Having learned Arabic in Northern Sudan and
English in America, Bok, with incredible determination,
became involved in the antislavery movement, speaking
around the country while seeking to earn a high-school
degree. Yet it is his simple account of being a child
cut off from his family and culture that shows the
inhumanity of slavery. Bok's saga provides another—more
contemporary—perspective on slavery for Americans
reckoning with their own troubling history of such
inhumanity. Vernon
Ford—Booklist
* *
* * *
|
Slave: My True Story
By
Mende Nazer
Born into the Karko tribe in the Nuba
mountains of northern Sudan, Nazer has
written a straightforward, harrowing memoir
that's a sobering reminder that slavery
still needs to be stamped out. The first,
substantial section of the book concentrates
on Nazer's idyllic childhood, made all the
more poignant for the misery readers know is
to come. Nazer is presented as intelligent
and headstrong, and her people as peaceful,
generous and kind. In 1994, around age 12
(the Nuba do not keep birth records), Nazer
was snatched by Arab raiders, raped and
shipped to the nation's capital, Khartoum,
where she was installed as a maid for a
wealthy suburban family. (For readers
expecting her fate to include a grimy
factory or barren field, the domesticity of
her prison comes as a shock.) |
 |
To Nazer, the
modern landscape of Khartoum could not possibly have
been more alien; after all, she had never seen even a
spoon, a mirror or a sink, much less a telephone or
television set. Nazer's urbane tormentors—mostly the
pampered housewife—beat her frequently and dehumanized
her in dozens of ways. They were affluent, petty, and
calculatedly cruel, all in the name of "keeping up
appearances." The contrast between Nazer's pleasant but
"primitive" early life and the horrors she experienced
in Khartoum could hardly be more stark; it's an object
lesson in the sometimes dehumanizing power of progress
and creature comforts. After seven years, Nazer was sent
to work in the U.K., where she contacted other Sudanese
and eventually escaped to freedom. Her book is a
profound meditation on the human ability to survive
virtually any circumstances.—Publishers Weekly
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 |
Alek: My Life from Sudanese Refugee to
International Supermodel
By
Alek Wek
"When I
cleaned toilets, I only saw it as work to
give me the means to achieve my goals. Of
course I hated it," the Sudanese supermodel
exclaimed. "Waking up at 4 a.m. when it's
freezing cold is not easy, followed by Uni,
coursework and my evening baby-sitting job,
but it made me disciplined and gave me a
huge sense of self-appreciation."
Born
the seventh of nine children Alek, meaning
'black-spotted cow' (one of Sudan's most
treasured cows, which represents good luck),
never dreamt of becoming a model. Both in
her motherland, where she was considered to
be inferior due to her Dinka tribe (dubbed
as 'zurqa', meaning dirty black) and again
in Britain when she arrived in 1991, she
faced hostility. |
Since being scouted
Wek has been in several high-profile music videos, done
ads for Issey Miyake, Moschino, Victoria's Secret and
Clinique, as well as strutted the runway for fashion
designers John Galliano, Donna Karen, Calvin Klein and
Ermanno Scervino - to name a few. The Dinka beauty who
was the first black model who didn't conform to a
Caucasian aesthetic also scored an acting role in 2002,
debuting in The Four Feathers as Sudanese princess Aquol.
. . .
"When I was granted
permission to re-enter the country and I had the
opportunity to revisit my old life, I realised that I
need closure because my life has transformed so much.
But with the closure I was seeking, I also realised that
I had an open book to move forward. Once I returned to
my new home in Brooklyn, I had a burning desire to
transcribe my feelings into memoirs," she said. . . .
Maintaining her
Dinka traditions while living in the Big Apple, Wek
always speaks to her mother in their traditional
language and talks Arabic with her sisters. Wek lives
with her boyfriend of four years, Riccardo Sala, an
Italian who works in property but, most importantly, Wek
brings her past life to the kitchen table by cooking
traditional Dinka food such as okra stew and dried fish,
creating aromas from her small town in Wau in her East
Side, New York, kitchen.—Jamaica-Gleaner
|
Word, Image, and the New Negro
By
Anne Carroll
The
author's analysis of how the illustrations
amplify and create tension with the writing
and how they empower and sometimes
disempower their subjects is the first
critical work in this important area.
Generously illustrated. Highly recommended.—
Choice
In
tracing the formation of the idea of the New
Negro through the vital interplay of
literature, art, and social criticism,
Word, Image, and the New Negro
makes a superb contribution to scholarship
on the Harlem Renaissance, the history of
African American publishing, and modern
American culture.—Eric
J. Sundquist, author of
To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making of
American Literature |
 |
The first detailed comparative analysis of the mix
of text and illustration in the major African
American magazines and anthologies of the 1910s and
1920s. It is a major advance in our understanding of
what amounted to innovative collage forms
articulated to race and politics. Carefully
theorized and rich with persuasive readings, the
book should appeal not only to literary scholars but
also to anyone interested in modernity and the
little magazine.—Cary
Nelson, author of
Revolutionary Memory
A very welcome contribution to the contemporary
rethinking of the period. By calling our attention
to the images that consistently and significantly
appeared alongside some of the well-remembered texts
of the Harlem Renaissance, Carroll foregrounds the
very modernity that the New Negro Movement sought
self-consciously to embrace.... Carroll's eye for
the particular will have both a helpful and
inspiring effect on readers who want to continue
building on the work she has done here.—Net
Reviews
This book focuses on the collaborative illustrated
volumes published during the Harlem Renaissance, in
which African Americans used written and visual
texts to shape ideas about themselves and to
redefine African American identity. Anne Elizabeth
Carroll argues that these volumes show how
participants in the movement engaged in the
processes of representation and identity formation
in sophisticated and largely successful ways. Though
they have received little scholarly attention, these
volumes constitute an important aspect of the
cultural production of the Harlem Renaissance.
Word, Image, and the New Negro marks the
beginning of a long-overdue recovery of this legacy
and points the way to a greater understanding of the
potential of texts to influence social change.—amazon.com
* *
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 |
Spectres of 1919: Class and Nation in the
Making of the New Negro
By
Barbara Foley
A carefully argued,
nuanced presentation of the genesis of the
Harlem Renaissance. Foley's breadth of
knowledge in American radical history is
impressive.—American
Literature
Foley's book is a lucid
and useful one... A heavyweight
intervention, it prompts significant
rethinking of the ideological and
representational strategies structuring the
era.—Journal
of American Studies
Foley
does a masterful job of analyzing the racial
and political theories of a wide range of
black and white figures, from the radical
Left to the racist Right... Students of
African American political and cultural
history in the early twentieth century
cannot ignore this book. Essential.—Choice
In our
current time of crisis, when ruling classes
busily promote nationalism and racism to
conceal the class nature of their
inter-imperialist rivalries, one can only
hope that readers will not be daunted by
Foley's dedication to analyzing the
ideological milieu of the 1920s that
contributed to the eclipse of New Negro
radicalism by New Negro nationalism.—Science
& Society |
With the New
Negro movement and the Harlem Renaissance, the 1920s
was a landmark decade in African American political
and cultural history, characterized by an upsurge in
racial awareness and artistic creativity. In
Spectres of 1919 Barbara Foley traces the
origins of this revolutionary era to the turbulent
year 1919, identifying the events and trends in
American society that spurred the black community to
action and examining the forms that action took as
it evolved.
Unlike prior
studies of the Harlem Renaissance, which see 1919 as
significant mostly because of the geographic migrations
of blacks to the North, Spectres of 1919 looks at
that year as the political crucible from which the
radicalism of the 1920s emerged. Foley draws from a
wealth of primary sources, taking a bold new approach to
the origins of African American radicalism and adding
nuance and complexity to the understanding of a
fascinating and vibrant era.— amazon.com
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Africans
hunted down in "liberated" Libya /
Kenya,
Niger, Mali troops support Ghaddafi?
* *
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updated 21 October
2007
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