Issa G. Shivji (2009) Where is Uhuru?.
Books & arts
RSS FeedReview of Lindsay Whitfield's (ed) 'The Politics of Aid'
David Sogge
2009-07-02, Issue 440
cc Wikimedia CommonsDavid Sogge reviews 'The Politics of Aid: African Strategies for Dealing with Donors'. Edited by Lindsay Whitfield, the book finds that donors continue to call the shots on aid, despite the promise behind new recipient-friendly policies. If anything, donor dominance and influence are becoming even greater.
Africa: Africa in Motion 2009
CAS symposium on realities and representations of reconciliation in Africa
2009-06-25, Issue 439
Africa in Motion 2009 aims to incorporate a number of screenings and events that confront issues of trauma, conflict and reconciliation. This symposium aims to foster discussion and understanding of old and new research dealing with the various reali...
Review: Yasmin Alibhai-Brown's The Settler's Cookbook
A Memoir of Love, Migration and Food
Yash Tandon
2009-06-11, Issue 437
Yash Tandon is drawn into a state of melancholic nostalgia by fellow Ugandan Yasmin-Alibhai Brown's The Settler's Cookbook: A Memoir of Love, Migration and Food, which, despite its 'beguiling distractive title', has a 'serious political side'. In a 'beautifully carved memoir of a brave woman', Alibhai-Brown 'draws from forgotten sources a memorabilia of facts and foibles to spin out the multiple contradictions in a country that slowly, but painfully, metamorphosed from a colony to a politically independent neo-colony of Britain'. Alibhai-Brown's accounts of 'daily life caught in the maelstrom of national and global politics' are interspersed every few pages 'with a cornucopia of culinary delights'. 'It is a compelling odyssey worth reading, both for its political message and for its gastronomic delights', says Tandon.
Corruption and the World Bank
A review of Steve Berkman's The World Bank and the Gods of Lending
Peter Bossard
2009-06-11, Issue 437
Despite promises from former World Bank President James Wolfensohn back in 1996 to take vigorous action to combat bribery, a new book by bank insider Steve Berkman suggests that nothing has changed, writes Peter Bossard. Citing case studies from Nigeria and Gambia, Bossard says Berkman's The World Bank and the Gods of Lending 'combines number crunching with vivid detail and moral outrage'. Berkman concludes that not one of the more than 100 projects he worked on 'did not reek of corruption', says Bossard, estimating that depending on the country, 15-40 per cent of the World Bank’s disbursements for any given project are lost to corruption. But Berkman 'does not give up all hope', arguing that the World Bank 'needs to spend less and supervise more' and proposing that 'the bank fully disclose all anti-corruption investigations, government agencies involved and funds stolen in its annual report'.
Review: Brian Chikwava’s Harare North
Stanley Makuwe
2009-06-11, Issue 437
After reading one paragraph of Zimbabwean writer Brian Chikwava's debut novel Harare North, Stanley Makuwa knows he has found the kind of book he has been looking for. Chikwava's tale of a youth militia trained to kill enemies of the state for the Mugabe government and who migrates to London (Harare North) is 'a very sad story told in a very funny way' that exposes the hardships of trying to live in a foreign land. Full of praise for 'an honest book that you feel the author wrote from his heart', Makuwa writes, 'Chikwava is an international award winner and this is clearly another triumph for him. If this comes with another major award, it shouldn’t be a surprise.'
Rwanda: Film: Genocidaires face off with their victims
2009-06-05, Issue 436
In 1994, hundreds of thousands of Tutsi were slaughtered by their Hutu neighbours, friends, and family members across Rwanda. Nine years later the killers came home from prison to live side by side again with their victims. The complexities of this h...
The West's child soldiers
Mahmood Mamdani with Ruben Eberlein
2009-05-28, Issue 435
In an interview with Mahmood Mamdani, Ruben Eberlein questions the author about his views on the Darfur conflict and his latest book Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror. Contending that children and teenagers in the US mobilised under the Save Darfur campaign should be considered as 'child soldiers' supporting a military effort, Mamdani argues that what essentially represents a form of political mobilisation for war has been effectively promoted as a moral crusade. Mamdani will be speaking at an event organised by Pambazuka News in Oxford, UK, on Tuesday 2 June.
Silencing silence and resisting repression
A commentary on Brian Chikwava’s Harare North and Petina Gappah's An Elegy for Easterly
Tendai Marima
2009-05-28, Issue 435
Brian Chikwava's comedic new novel Harare North and An Elegy for Easterly, Petina Gappah's courageous collection of short stories, confirm that Zimbabwe is still a literary powerhouse, writes Tendai Marima.
Review of Wangari Maathai's ‘The Challenge for Africa'
Helen Mukholi
2009-05-21, Issue 433
Helen Mukholi reviews Nobel Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai's ‘The Challenge for Africa: a New Vision for an Emerging Continent'. While suggesting that some of the book's ideas may sound a little familiar, Mukholi finds the book to be an inspiring read.
Shailja Patel: Rebel and renaissance woman
Phanuel Akubueze Egejuru
2009-05-14, Issue 432
Phanuel Akubueze Egejuru is awed by Kenyan poet Shailja Patel’s ‘eye-popping phraseology’ in Migritude, a volume of work around the theme of migration and its impact on human relationships. ‘Too delicate and too good to be touched’, Egejuru warns that the book may make painful reading for those who experienced direct colonisation, as Patel takes the reader ‘through years of exploitation…in Africa and Asia’. It is however ‘a must-read’, devoured by Ejeguru in one sitting, which ‘forges fresh expressions that invigorate and inspire budding poets to take risks and experiment’.
Like a goddess rides a tiger
Phanuel Akubueze Egejuru
2009-05-14, Issue 432
Phanuel Akubueze Egejuru is ‘totally enthralled’ by poet Shailja Patel’s performance about Zanzibari musician Bi Kidude at an Africa Literature Association conference in April. She describes here her experience of watching what the Igbo call ‘oha kara lama’, an event whose memory travellers carry and disperse in distant lands.
Kenya: Cut Off My Tongue
Sarakasi Fund Building - 30 April 2009
2009-04-30, Issue 430
Cut Off My Tongue explores the truths that shape us as Kenyans - our beliefs, the way we behave and why. It is no ordinary reading of poetry, but a spirited invocation to Africans to colonize and mold their own history. It is a show about land, about...
Zimbabwe: Nguva Yedu - Post Festival report
2009-04-03, Issue 426
A spectacular concert in an atmosphere of joy and freedom marked the end of the inaugural Nguva Yedu ~ Thuba Letu ~ Our Time youth arts festival in Harare. 600 people packed the Book Café car park for the final concert on Saturday 28 March, which pr...
Mobile Activism in African Elections
Review
Sokari Ekine
2009-03-19, Issue 424
The ubiquitous mobile phone in the hands of millions of Africans working as the primary tool for communication is fast becoming the core technology for supporting social change and the empowerment of citizens. Mobile phones are being used in innovati...
Discourses on Civil Society in Kenya
2009-03-20, Issue 424
The African Research and Resource Forum last year held a 3 part seminar series on Discourses for Strengthening the Civil Society in Kenya. As a result, a book ‘Discourses on Civil Society in Kenya’has been published. The book is currently on sale at ...
Review of Francis B. Nyamnjoh’s The Travail of Dieudonné
Peter Wuteh Vakunta
2009-03-11, Issue 423
The Travail of Dieudonné is the tale of a triple estrangement. Nyamnjoh’s protagonist is physically separated from his homeland (Warzone), beloved wife (Tsanga) and opulence associated with materialism. The writer adumbrates, ‘Dieudonné misses his ho...
South Africa: Youth Survival Guide
A lifestyle guide to the law in South Africa for young adults
2009-03-12, Issue 423
Covering sex, pregnancy, HIV and AIDS, drugs and the law, health, violent crime, self defence, abuse, sexual assault, keeping safe, education admission, rules and regulations, exclusion, reports and records, examinations, safety, student finance, stu...
Africa: Film on brutal Mengistu wins 'Africa's Oscars'
2009-03-12, Issue 423
An Ethiopian film about the regime of the country's former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam has won the chief prize at Africa's main movie awards ceremony. Teza was the unanimous winner of the Golden Stallion of Yennenga at the event in Ouagadougou, Bu...
Raila Odinga's Stolen Presidency
Reveiewed by Per Lindgren
2009-03-13, Issue 423
An explosive book about Kenya’s December 2007 bungled election has been launched in Stockholm. The book, Raila Odinga’s Stolen Presidency: Consequences and The Future of Kenya written by Mr. Okoth Osewe, a Kenyan author, takes the position that the D...
Global: Screening of 'A Place in the City'
2009-03-13, Issue 423
Nearly 15 years since apartheid ended, millions of black South Africans still live in self-built shacks – without sanitation, adequate water supplies, or electricity. But A Place in the City will overturn all your assumptions about ‘slums’ and the pe...
Review of Joseph Hanlon and Teresa Smart’s Do Bicycles Equal Development in Mozambique?
Lucy Corkin
2009-03-05, Issue 422
Behind the rather inane-sounding title lies an in-depth and complex investigation of the effects of Mozambique’s heavily aid-supported economic trajectory. Indeed, the image of bicycles and their presence in the country is used as a running theme thr...
The rise of elective dictatorship and the erosion of social capital
Peace, development, and democracy in Africa
Kasahun Woldemariam
2009-02-26, Issue 421
Kasahun Woldemariam’s book, The rise of elective dictatorship and the erosion of social capital: Peace, development, and democracy in Africa, has recently been published by Africa World Press.
Publishing, books & reading in sub-Saharan Africa
Mohammed Umar
2009-02-26, Issue 421
Hans M. Zell’s Publishing, books & reading in sub-Saharan Africa: A critical bibliography is unique and certainly one of the most useful reference resource books on publishing and the book trade...
ICT in education in Africa
2009-02-20, Issue 420
The free, online book - ICT and changing mindsets in Education - edited by Kathryn Toure, Therese Mungah Shalo Tchombe and Thierry Karsenti, draws on research in 36 schools and surveys of 66000 students and 3000 teachers. It has chapters in both Engl...
Review of Yoon Jung Park’s A matter of honour: being Chinese in South Africa
Stephen Marks
2009-02-05, Issue 418
South Africa is home to one of the largest Chinese communities in Africa, estimated at over 300,000. Most have arrived since the establishment of diplomatic relations between South Africa and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1988, many of them...
Review of Francis Nyamnjoh’s Married But Available
Researching sexuality in Africa
Omobolaji Olarinmoye
2009-02-05, Issue 418
The book Married But Available is a unique one, unique in the sense that it is first an exposé – a mischievous and daring one for that matter – on the issue of sexuality (in Africa and the discourse guiding research on the issue) and more importantly...
UNPROTECTED: Palestinians in Egypt since 1948
2009-01-23, Issue 416
Based on personal interviews with Palestinian families, Oroub El-Abed examines the effects of displacement and the livelihood strategies that Palestinians have employed while living in Egypt. The author also analyzes the impact of fluctuating Egyptia...
Forced Displacement: Why Rights Matter?
2009-01-23, Issue 416
Uprootedness, exile and forced displacement, be they due to conflict, persecution or even so-called \'development\', are conditions which characterize the lives of millions of people across the globe. While the international community has largely bee...
Kenya: All set for first Film Awards
2009-01-23, Issue 416
The maiden Kenya Film and Television awards would be taking place early this year. Stakeholders in the film industry said they are bent on witnessing the event being organized by the Kenya Film Commission. The annual event is to celebrate and recogni...
Senegal: Pre-FESPACO activities begin in Dakar
2009-01-23, Issue 416
Activities leading to the 21st edition of the Panafrican Cinema and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO), scheduled for 28 February to 7 March in the Burkinabe capital, began here Thursday, according to a press communiqué by the organisers tr...
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