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	Bringing the Streets to Politics: Hip-Hop Promotes Openness in Senegal by Amanda Fortier   After floods swept through the suburbs of Dakar in 2006, a popular local rapper recruited youth to organize a fundraising concert for the newly homeless. The cohort morphed into Africulturban, a youth development organization using music, media, and educational programs to help engage some of Dakar’s most “at risk” young people—those living in poverty, lacking access to education, and often more susceptible to criminal activity. Hip-hop reaches these people and opens them to new experiences.   In March 2014, Africulturban launched YUMA (Youth Urban Media Academy). The initiative offers formerly incarcerated youths filmmaking and photography classes, among others. The YUMA project helps young men surmount the stigma that follows former prisoners.   It gives them an opportunity to tell their stories, and ultimately help reshape the narrative around young persons and urban life in Senegal. And it does this confidence-building work through a channel they can relate to: hip-hop.   Before hip-hop’s arrival, Senegalese culture had a long history of rhythmically arranging words to song—a tradition known as tassu—that helped educate the then mostly illiterate masses.   Mbalakh, the Senegalese national dance that fuses western rock music with jazz and soul, also held a prominent cornerstone as a musical genre sung in praise of successful businessmen and politicians. It is often referred to as “the Senegalese opium,” as it allowed people to forget their problems. Rap, by contrast, has sought to be a more radical and legitimate means of facing reality, and calling for change.   This boldness reflects how Senegalese youth have adopted hip-hop culture. When hip-hop culture first made its way from the United States and France to Senegal in the late 1980s, it quickly attracted young Senegalese for its anti-establishment ethos and its Western sensibility.   At the time Senegalese youth could be seen wearing Western clothes–acid-wash jeans, t-shirts, open jackets, and shoulder pads—but the distinctive hip hop style of dress with its baseball caps, neon jackets, and gold chains were not yet commonplace.   Soon, though, rap music in the gritty suburbs of Dakar took on a more localized identity replete with primarily Wolof lyrics about local issues. The art scene in the suburb communities of Pikine and Guediawaye had primarily focused around entertainment—live theatre, group dancing, and mbalakh.   Hip-hop’s arrival spoke to youth and provided a much-needed space for political and social expression to denounce patrimonialism and encourage more social justice and better governance.   Today there are several examples of prominent Senegalese hip-hop artists like Awadier, Duggy Tee, Matador, Thiat, Khalifa, Keyti, Xuman, and Fou Malade, who have made names for themselves as politically engaged artists. The prominent Y’en a marre (“I’ve had enough”) group, who were instrumental in keeping the former president from seeking constitutionally illegal re-elections in 2012, were made up mainly of hip-hop artists.   This brought disconnected youth into political life while democratizing the artistic scene and providing a platform for anyone to criticize Senegalese political, social, cultural, and even religious affairs.   Regardless of ethnicity, social class, or caste, a rap artist can be—and often is—from any segment of Senegalese society. It is generally inexpensive—as no instruments are required—and demands relatively low musical skills or access to start.   Traditionally, Senegal’s various ethnic groups have specifically allocated roles and responsibilities as it relates to the established social order. Everything from cooking and dancing to singing and farming to educating and running businesses is often predetermined by one’s ethnicity. But rapping is open to everyone.   Another key democratizing aspect of rap is in its content matter—there are hardly any taboo issues. Just about any topic can be broached in its lyrics, even the ones local Senegalese media tend to shy away from. Though rappers may still treat them with some degree of subtlety, it is not unusual to hear songs about corruption within the government or even among its leading religious figures (the latter whom play a monumental role in Senegalese society).   Of course, liberation runs into walls. In a country of 12 million where an estimated 300,000 call themselves “rappers,” censorship and cultural mores hold sway. Senegal is a 95-percent Muslim country where traditional practices, including carefully defined gender roles, marital expectations, and the like, are well-entrenched.   While many young Senegalese feel free to rap, and are fuelled by an initial desire “to be famous” or to simply “speak out” against their governments or what they feel is ailing in their society, few actually make it so far as to reach the masses.   This makes rap a vehicle for civic awareness, if not a rocket for policy change. As Amadou Fall Ba, 33, one of the founding members of Africulturban and a former rapper himself explains, “The force of hip-hop is about forming something from nothing.”   http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/bringing-streets-politics-hip-hop-promotes-openness-senegal
	Big Crimes Become Big Business by Ralph Nader Public Citizen   In May of 2014, financial firm Credit Suisse AG pled guilty to serious criminal charges. The giant bank aided and assisted approximately 22,000 wealthy U.S. taxpayers (whose names Credit Suisse AG escaped having to send to the Justice Department for law enforcement) for over a decade in filing false income tax returns and other documents with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).   The full extent of these crimes, according to a Department of Justice news release, are as follows: “assisting clients in using sham entities to hide undeclared accounts;” “soliciting IRS forms that falsely stated, under penalties of perjury, that the sham entities were the beneficial owners of the assets in the accounts;” “failing to maintain in the United States records related to the accounts;” “destroying account records sent to the United States for client review;” “using Credit Suisse managers and employees as unregistered investment advisors on undeclared accounts;” “facilitating withdrawals of funds from the undeclared accounts by either providing hand-delivered cash in the United States or using Credit Suisse’s correspondent bank accounts in the United States;” “structuring transfers of funds to evade currency transaction reporting requirements;” and “providing offshore credit and debit cards to repatriate funds in the undeclared accounts.”   These elaborate illegal acts over many years are quite revealing. They show a deliberate willingness by Credit Suisse AG officials to knowingly engage in profitable activities that defrauded the United States Treasury and burdened honest taxpayers. Credit Suisse paid a $2.6 billion fine—small compared to the size of the crimes and the company’s large revenues. These crimes were yet another sordid chapter in the ever-burgeoning tax-evading business that makes its waves with wealthy Americans and massive corporate entities. But the Credit Suisse story does not end there.   The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, or ERISA, was enacted to protect the retirement savings of retirement plan participants. The law, in theory, automatically disqualifies institutions like Credit Suisse AG who have committed serious crimes or pled guilty to serious crimes from serving as a “qualified professional asset manager” (QPAM) of ERISA assets or pension plans.   Unfortunately, the Department of Labor has not adequately enforced this law or its regulations in this area. Since waivers started being granted in 1997, 23 culpable firms have been granted exemptions from this disqualification rule and been allowed to continue their business of advising pension and other investment funds. Six of these waivers were granted to QPAMs that, like Credit Suisse AG, violated serious laws either in the United States or abroad. Remarkably, no waivers formally demanded by their corporate law firms have been rejected.   The Department of Labor (DOL) already has granted Credit Suisse a temporary waiver to continue conducting their pension management business. On January 15th, the DOL held a public hearing—where I testified— to discuss whether Credit Suisse and its affiliates can continue this troubling trend of avoiding the consequences of their actions indefinitely. Credit Suisse AG is hoping to completely sidestep the mechanisms of justice for their admittedly serious crimes and carry on business as usual—a result that in itself is, unfortunately, business as usual. Is it not astounding to think a company, which knowingly engaged in such illegal activities, would not be deterred from engaging in activities that could be harmful to retirees as well?   Public Citizen’s Bartlett Naylor wrote in a public comment to the Department of Labor:   “Firms that engage in criminal activity should face real consequences. Where those consequences are excused, the firm is invited to become a repeat offender; and the deterrence effect for other firms is nullified. Pension fund beneficiaries are especially vulnerable to Wall Street abuse because their savings may be managed by firms they do not even choose, let alone control. As overseer of the nation’s ERISA-governed funds, the Department of Labor bears the heavy responsibility of policing the integrity of the pension fund management industry. The DOL must apply all its tools to achieve this lofty goal. They should be used, not routinely discarded.”   This routine ability to evade proper punishment is the root of the issue of so much corporate and Wall Street crime—a slap on the wrist leads to a perpetual cycle of wrongdoing with no end in sight. Their corporate lawyers turn laws into “no-law” laws. Corporate crime pays.   James Henry, former chief economist at McKinsey & Co. and current chair of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice, estimates that the United States loses between $170 billion to $200 billion a year in tax revenue through offshore tax havens. He told the Corporate Crime Reporter in 2013:   “The idea that you would actually permit big ticket tax dodgers to walk off of the stage with a slap on the wrist — like the proposed [Credit] Swiss settlement — or that you would let companies like Apple and Microsoft, General Electric and Google — shift their most valuable corporate assets to places where they have almost no activity and evade corporate income taxes at a time when we are slashing aid to kids in schools, money for seniors — this is outrageous.”   The Department of Labor, which exists to defend workers, now has a unique opportunity to stand proudly at its post and to send a clear message—a firm signal—to other Qualified Professional Asset Managers that if they commit unthinkable criminal violations, they lose the ability to handle pension funds. On the other hand, allowing these institutions to continue to receive permanent waivers would be a clear signal that the DOL will tolerate cutting corners and criminal wrongdoing by powerful financial institutions at the expense of workers, complying taxpayers, democracy, and the rule of law.   Now is the time for advocates and citizens alike to speak out strongly against this manner of blatantly averting justice and fostering a culture of continual corporate criminality. Visit the related web page
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