The Re(Public) of Salsa: Afro-Cuban Music in Fin-de-Siècle Dakar

Africa ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard M. Shain
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Fin De Siecle ◽  
World War ◽  
New Model ◽  
Music Clubs ◽  
Fin De Siècle ◽  
Cafe Society ◽  
Younger Generation ◽  
Independence Era ◽  
Second World

This article explores why, despite its diminished popularity, Afro-Cuban music remains among the most performed musics in Senegalese music clubs. Since the Second World War, many Senegalese have associated Afro-Cuban music with cosmopolitanism and modernity. In particular, Senegalese who came of age during the Independence era associate Latin music with a new model of sociability that emphasized ‘correct’ behaviour – elegant attire and self-discipline. Participating in an emerging ‘café society’ was especially important. The rise of m'balax music in the late 1970s, deemed more culturally ‘authentic’ by a younger generation coming into its own, challenged many of the values associated with Senegalese salsa. As an enlarged Senegalese public embraced m'balax, the older generation stopped going out to Dakar's nightclubs where they felt increasingly uncomfortable. However, the model of sociability this generation has championed calls for public displays of distinction and refinement. In fin-de-siècle Dakar, a number of venues emerged where Afro-Cuban music is played and powerful older Dakarois congregate, even if less frequently than formally. This article describes these venues and documents their patrons and the performances that take place there.

The Younger Generation: The Labour Party and the 1959 Youth Commission

2002 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Full Employment ◽  
Extended Period ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Standard Of Living ◽  
World War ◽  
Tropical Plants ◽  
Younger Generation ◽  
Political Apathy ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Welfare State

In 1956, Martha Gellhorn spent an evening exploring the uncharted territory of London's espresso bars. Her impressions were recorded in an article on “the younger generation”: “Full of expectations and ignorance, I made the long sight-seeing trip through the Espresso-bar country of London, stared at the young natives, and came gladly home at last with many pictures in my mind but little understanding …. The youthful Espresso-ites remained hopelessly strangers, in their strange, small, chosen land; I can only report what I have seen.” Gellhorn's account was punctuated by references to the “strangeness” of her experience. The decor of the bars invoked “distant places” with “bull-fight posters, bamboo, tropical plants, an occasional shell or Mexican mask.” As she traveled through this “strange country,” the sight of a tortilla was “terrifying,” the customers' clothing was breathtakingly exotic, and their skin tones suggested amalgams such as “Chinese-Javanese-Siamese” or “Spanish-Arab-Cuban.” At times, Gellhorn heard French and Italian spoken freely among the espresso bars' young patrons.The foreign topography of youth culture described by Gellhorn was not unusual among accounts of young people in the 1950s, yet until recently this period has been characterized principally as a time of social peace and political apathy, “an age of prosperity and achievement” shaped by “consensus” and a return to normality after the disruption and sacrifices of the Second World War. Following an extended period of austerity, the welfare state and the managed economy seemed to have ensured full employment and an unprecedented standard of living, while the election of successive Conservative governments in 1951, 1955, and 1959 has been explained as the political reflection of rising personal prosperity and security.

Non-Alignment: Its Continued Relevance

1986 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 432-449
Author(s):  
Rama Rao
Keyword(s):  
Economic Condition ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Body ◽  
World War ◽  
Precise Shape ◽  
National Leaders ◽  
The Common ◽  
Independence Era ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World

The concept of non-alignment, as it is understood by the vast majority of people who wish to live in peace with their neighbours and the world at large, originated in India in the pre-Independence era. Indian national leaders had visualised that the Second World War would end Western colonialism in Asia and Africa and that India would regain its independence after two centuries of alien domination and exploitation. They had rightly judged that the Second World War, despite its ideological overtones of democracies versus dictatorships, was essentially a war initiated by one group of powers to regain, and of the other to retain their colonies. Whatever the precise shape of the post-War world, Indian national leaders were clear in their minds that their most important tasks on regaining independence would be to improve the economic condition of the mass of our people, secure social justice, and provide for minimum public health and educational needs. That after four decades of prodigious effort and expense, we seem to be standing still like the proverbial toiler trying to ascend a treadmill, is a different issue. The fact remains that Indian leaders, aware of the paramount and urgent need for improving the lot of the common man, wanted to be left alone to attend to their problems. They wanted no part in Great Power rivalries. They also saw the need, in the larger interests of all and especially of the poor and newly liberated countries, for the latter to recognise the virtues of non-alignment as well as its practical utility in a world torn by strife. The argument that the larger the body of non-aligned countries, the larger the area of peace and to that extent, the less the arena of conflict is irrefutable. Basically the concept of non-alignment is sound. It was very relevant when the idea first took shape in India and remains equally relevant and valid today.

Ján Kadár

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Hames
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
New Wave ◽  
World War ◽  
Main Street ◽  
Prague Spring ◽  
Younger Generation ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
International Awareness ◽  
Second World

When The Shop on Main Street (Obchod na korze, 1965) won the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1966, it marked the first ever for Czechoslovakia and the decisive breakthrough in international awareness of the Czechoslovak New Wave. Yet its co-directors, Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, were not part of the younger generation that emerged from the Prague Film School in the 1960s. Klos had begun his career before the Second World War and Kadár made his debut in 1945. After the success of The Shop on Main Street, they completed only one more film before the Soviet suppression of the Prague Spring brought an end to their partnership. In 1968-69, they shot Touha zvaná Anada (Adriftaka Desire is Called Anada), released in 1971, the only Czechoslovak-US co-production to be shot in the “socialist” era. ...

scholarly journals Ján Kadár

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Hames
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
New Wave ◽  
World War ◽  
Main Street ◽  
Prague Spring ◽  
Younger Generation ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
International Awareness ◽  
Second World

When The Shop on Main Street (Obchod na korze, 1965) won the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1966, it marked the first ever for Czechoslovakia and the decisive breakthrough in international awareness of the Czechoslovak New Wave. Yet its co-directors, Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, were not part of the younger generation that emerged from the Prague Film School in the 1960s. Klos had begun his career before the Second World War and Kadár made his debut in 1945. After the success of The Shop on Main Street, they completed only one more film before the Soviet suppression of the Prague Spring brought an end to their partnership. In 1968-69, they shot Touha zvaná Anada (Adriftaka Desire is Called Anada), released in 1971, the only Czechoslovak-US co-production to be shot in the “socialist” era....

Gender and the Second World War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corinna Peniston-Bird ◽  
Emma Vickers
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Second World

Kapitalistische Krisen mit und ohne systemischer Herausforderung.

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (185) ◽  
pp. 543-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingo Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
World Market ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Deep Penetration ◽  
World War ◽  
Major Overhaul ◽  
Domestic Markets ◽  
Global Restructuring ◽  
Social Divisions ◽  
Class Power ◽  
Second World

This article draws on Marxist theories of crises, imperialism, and class formation to identify commonalities and differences between the stagnation of the 1930s and today. Its key argument is that the anti-systemic movements that existed in the 1930s and gained ground after the Second World War pushed capitalists to turn from imperialist expansion and rivalry to the deep penetration of domestic markets. By doing so they unleashed strong economic growth that allowed for social compromise without hurting profits. Yet, once labour and other social movements threatened to shift the balance of class power into their favor, capitalist counter-reform began. In its course, global restructuring, and notably the integration of Russia and China into the world market, created space for accumulation. The cause for the current stagnation is that this space has been used up. In the absence of systemic challenges capitalists have little reason to seek a major overhaul of their accumulation strategies that could help to overcome stagnation. Instead they prop up profits at the expense of the subaltern classes even if this prolongs stagnation and leads to sharper social divisions.

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