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Peoples' justice: The international tribunal on hurricanes Katrina and Rita

Kali Akuno

2007-08-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/43104

In August, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans leaving unparalleled devastation in its wake. The Black communities bore its full weight. More than 1,000,000 people, mainly poor Blacks, were forcibly dispersed across the US. The US government had neither prepared nor mobilised to evacuate thousands of people displaced from their homes. Two years on, if the US government had its way, it would bury the issue. But a coalition of grassroots Gulf Coast organisations and their supporters throughout the world have organised an international tribunal to try the US government for human rights violations and crimes against humanity.


Why a tribunal is necessary

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast leaving death and unparalleled devastation in its wake. The poor Black communities of New Orleans, Mississippi, and Alabama bore the full weight of the storms and floods. Local, state and federal governments had at least four days advance notice that the levees did not have the capacity to contain mass flooding expected from a category three hurricane. Yet, despite these warnings, the US government had neither prepared for evacuation, nor mobilised to evacuate thousands of people displaced from their homes and left to die on their roofs and in the rubble of the devastation.

In the face of this abandonment, the population of New Orleans took their survival into their own hands and neighbour-to-neighbour attempted to save lives and reach secure ground. In the chaos of their own incompetence and racist rumors, local, state and federal governments sent military and mercenary personnel to New Orleans. They launched a military invasion aimed at removing the Black population and containing a potential rebellion, rather than sending a relief effort. New Orleans became a battle zone between government and mercenary forces seeking to 'protect' the white neighbourhoods of the city and the surrounding suburbs from the Black mass fleeing the floods and seeking refuge from the disaster and race induced neglect. Dozens were murdered and arrested by various government forces and mercenaries as the media fuelled and justified human rights abuses by their unfounded, later to be found completely untrue, reports of mass looting and rape.

To this day, the government has produced no accurate count of the number of people killed. What is known is that some 1,000,000, mainly poor Black people, were forcibly dispersed to over 44 states across the US. They herded people onto buses and trains at gunpoint, separating mothers, children, grandmothers and cousins. They uprooted and separated families, friends, neighbours and support networks, and violently ripped apart the social fabric of peoples lives in order to transform the ethnic and racial make up of New Orleans and the region forever.

Over the past two years, the US government has fundamentally ignored the plight of the more than 1,000,000 people directly impacted and displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. When the government has been pressed to answer for its actions, it has ducked and dodged and basically washed its hands of any responsibility or liability. While the Army Corp of Engineers acknowledged its responsibility for the faulty and racially discriminatory design and maintenance of the New Orleans levee system, the government has not corrected its errors, nor provided restitution or recourse for its fatal policies. The net result of the systematic policies of intentional neglect and depraved indifference being executed in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is ethnic cleansing of the historic and politically strategic Black communities in the region.

This ethnic cleansing is being conducted through a deliberate and strategic collusion of government and multinational corporations, particularly real estate developers. In complete violation of the human right to return and the statutes on internal displacement adopted by the US government as outlined in its USAID policies, the government has made no policy, or financial provisions, to return displaced people to their homes and communities. Delays in rehabilitating and refortifying the region's infrastructure, including the levees and the provision of utilities like water and power, and services like health care and education have, by design, prevented people from exercising their right to return.

Then there is the diversion, mismanagement, profiteering by disaster capitalists and delay of relief and restorative aid by agencies like FEMA and the Red Cross. These are compounded by a ruthless application of neoliberal free-market logic and policy and systemic racism in the insurance, mortgage, and other money lending industries that deny financial resources to Black and working class families to repair their homes, purchase new ones, or make down-payments on rentals. Add to this skyrocketing and super-exploitative rents, the hyper-promotion of gentrification, the demonisation and criminalisation of Black youth and the homelessness, and an oppressive military occupation in New Orleans. The results are the massive depopulation of the Black community in New Orleans, Biloxi, Gulf Port and other devastated cities and regions in the Gulf Coast with concentrated Black populations. In New Orleans a mere 35 per cent of its pre-Katrina Black population has returned and resettled over the course of two years.

This ethnic cleansing cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. If they get away with it in New Orleans - after the tragic consequences of deeply entrenched racism horrified both national and international audiences - the gentrification and ethnic cleansing of other communities will accelerate. Where the US government refuses to hold itself accountable or allow itself to be tried for its repressive policies and human rights violations within its own courts, its victims have a responsibility to seek justice themselves. As an expression of the will of the peoples of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast for justice, the People's Hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF) and the Mississippi Disaster Relief Coalition (MDRC) have organised the International Tribunal and called on the international community for solidarity and an impartial hearing. It is only by thoroughly exposing the human rights abuses and inhumane policies of the US government before the world, and isolating it on this basis, that the displaced and dispossessed peoples of the Gulf Coast will attain the recognition, restitution, and justice they so deserve.

What human rights abuses and crimes are the US government being demanded to account for at the tribunal?

To expose the US government and bring it to account, there are several critical questions that must and will be posed at the tribunal to reveal the true depth of the crimes committed and the utter disdain exhibited for Black life. A sampling of these questions include:

1. Why did it take five days for the US government to implement an evacuation in New Orleans? Who where the individuals and institutions responsible for this delay in humanitarian relief?

2. Why were no ready response evacuation and medical teams in place to deal with the calculated damage of Hurricane Katrina? Who was responsible for the organisation and deployment of these teams and resources? Why weren't they prepared and deployed?

3. Why was no independent investigation of the Industrial Canal and its levee system permitted?

4. Why were survivors forcibly removed and dispersed from New Orleans to over 44 states in the US? Who determined who went where and why?

5. Why were 'shoot to kill orders' given in New Orleans? What authority did Governor Blanco have to issue these orders?

6. Why were Black survivors forcibly denied safe escape entry into the city of Gretna and the suburbs surrounding New Orleans?

7. Why were white survivors often separated and removed from Black survivors during the evacuation and relief operations? Who mandated this policy and treatment? What purpose did this policy serve?

8. Why were mercenary and foreign soldiers operating in New Orleans during and after the flood? Who authorised their use? By what authority and under what jurisdiction were they employed?

9. Why were curfews and quarantines implemented at evacuation centres throughout the US? Who were the authorities and institutions responsible for these orders?

10. Why was the Davis-Bacon Act suspended? Why were no bid contracts awarded during the first phase of the reconstruction process?

Similar questions can and must be raised regarding the treatment of women, youth, the elderly, the infirm, migrants and other vulnerable groups, and as regards the rights of oppressed nationalities, indigenous peoples, the right to vote and to freely assemble, the right to food, housing, health care, and education - all of which have been systematically violated by the US government.

What is the tribunal seeking to accomplish?

Appeals to the international community of peoples and nations for justice against the racism, national oppression, and tyranny of the US government have a long and rich history within the Black Liberation Movement going back more than 200 years. Black freedom fighters in the 19th century appealed to Haiti and many European nations against enslavement and for repatriation or national independence. In the 20th century, efforts were made by the likes of Callie House, W.E.B. DuBois, William Patterson, Paul Robeson, Queen Mother Moore, Malcolm X and organisations like the Republic of New Afrika (RNA), the National Black Human Rights Coalition, and the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA).

The International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita stands squarely within this tradition, and builds on the precedent and foundations laid by these initiatives. It also draws inspiration and lessons from the 1993 International Tribunal on Hawaiian sovereignty, the 1984 Permanent Peoples Tribunal on Nicaragua, and recent tribunals and human rights commissions on the impact of the Tsunami in various parts of Southeast Asia.

There are five fundamental objectives of the tribunal:

1. To fully expose to the world the human rights abuses committed by the US government and its agencies and operatives in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

2. To attain national and international recognition as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) for the all the survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

3. To attain comprehensive financial restitution and reparations for all Gulf Coast IDPs (including migrant workers and communities).

4. To strengthen the Gulf Coast Reconstruction Movement and build a broad national and international movement in support of its aims and demands.

5. To hold the rogue US government accountable for its human rights abuses and crimes against Gulf Coast IDPs.

But yet, the tribunal is in itself only a tactic to further the development of a mass Gulf Coast Reconstruction Movement, the ultimate aim of which should be self-determination for the oppressed Black Nation in the US South. The findings, verdict, and corrective remedies mandated by the Tribunal will be used to help frame the agenda and programme of the Second Survivors or Reconstruction Assembly and the initiative to create a Reconstruction Party.

The Second Survivors Assembly will be held December 8 and 9, 2007, in New Orleans. The Survivors Assembly is a constituent body of the peoples most affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The main purpose of the Survivors Assembly is to create a collective vision, platform, programme and coalition to guide the Gulf Coast Self-Determination and Reconstruction Movement.

The Reconstruction Party is a proposal for the creation of a strategic instrument that will enable the Gulf Coast Self-Determination and Reconstruction Movement to implement the restorative measures called for by the tribunal through the institution of the state.

It is through these initiatives that PHRF and MDRC aim to build relationships of solidarity with justice loving peoples and nations throughout the world and campaign within the international arena through organisations and institutions to expose the US government and attain justice and restitution for the survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

For more information on the International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita visit www.katrinatribunal.org or www.peopleshurricane.org

* The opinions expressed do not represent the views of the International Tribunal planning committee, PHRF, or MXGM. The views are solely the opinion of the author. Assistance for this article was provided by Hakima Abbas and Arlene Eisen.

* Executive Director, People's Hurricane Relief Fund, National Organiser, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

New reality in Haiti

The re-ascendance of a wealthy elite backed by US/UN occupation

Leslie Mullin

2007-08-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/43105

Leslie Mullin reports from Haiti, a 'deeply African country', where, after Aristide, there is 'a deliberate and violent attempt to reverse a truly democratic effort that stood firmly for the poor majority...a violent, brutal counter-insurgency, a counter-revolution', blame for which she lays at the door of the US and the UN.


The experience of travelling to Haiti is amazing, because Haiti is so deeply an African country and people. The first time I was there, three years ago, I was astounded by the sights and sounds of Haiti which are so resonant of West Africa: the market women; the young girls riding donkeys in the countryside, huge baskets on their heads; the vigour of massive demonstrations - the pounding rhythmic feet, visions of Soweto. Everywhere in the darkened poor city neighbourhoods at night, without electricity, in their cinderblock houses stacked on top of each other rising up hillsides, people sing, blast radio music, play instruments.

It is my privilege to have travelled on two trips to Haiti with fiercely political Black activists who have embraced Haiti as a cherished symbol of liberation to African people everywhere. They evoke deep bonds of shared experience among African people of Haiti and America, who came on the same slave ships. They point out that the same people who are killing and oppressing Haiti's people left Black people to die by the thousands in New Orleans after Katrina, and now attempt to steal their land. Haiti's grassroots movement recognises this powerful bond among the two peoples. Everywhere we spoke about the San Francisco 8 or about New Orleans. Lavalas activists sent a message of solidarity.

It is taking things out of context to try to talk about what exists in Haiti now without acknowledging what was achieved by Haiti's grassroots movement under Aristide. Because it is not just that things are bad right now, but that what is happening is a deliberate and violent attempt to reverse a truly democratic effort that stood firmly for the poor majority. It is a violent, brutal counter-insurgency, a counter-revolution.

For a brief moment, after decades of dictatorship and a long history of resistance, Haitians achieved the dream of social justice and freedom. The poor had power. During that brief period of time, there were no boat people leaving Haiti. During that brief period of time, massive projects were undertaken to support the poor. The goal was to move Haiti's people from misery to poverty with dignity. Beautiful public parks were built in poor neighbourhoods; schools, health clinics, a medical school; micro-loans to market women and literacy projects flourished. During that brief period, poor street kids swam in the presidential pool; Haitian legal teams held Truth Commissions, took on the tonton macoutes. Death squads who had terrorised, tortured and killed thousands, were prosecuted and imprisoned.

This is why Aristide is so revered in Haiti. As one Lavalas activist put it, Aristide never gave up; he stood up to the Western powers, and fought for those who cannot speak. He is a symbol of hope and democracy for Haitians.

What we found in Haiti now are activists struggling everywhere to resist the renewed assaults on Haiti's poor, to move in a period once again dominated by foreign guns, foreign economic clout and terrorism. 24,000 march on Aristide's birthday; a transport workers' strike blocks roads and shuts down traffic throughout the country. 50 grassroots activists, the elderly women in dresses and straw hats, mark the 92nd anniversary of the 1915 US invasion in a spirited protest at UN headquarters. We are there to see the dozens of heavily armed UN troops aligned against them, ensignia marking their countries of origin - Sri Lanka, Jordan, Philippines, France, Bolivia, and among the unmarked Westerners, surely Americans. The Haitians are undeterred - chanting, yelling, dancing, singing, photo displays of UN and other coup victims prominent.

Why must the poor be shot down by UN troops in Cite Soleil? Why are the market women beaten, even killed, by petty bureaucrats and police thugs to drive them off the streets, why burn the markets and deprive them of their meagre income? Why must armed thugs storm into a school of 700 poor children, headed by Lavalas activists, breaking the blackboards, desks, drinking fountain - the few artifacts needed to teach those who could not afford $100 a month to go to school? Why must their teacher be beaten? Why must prisons be filled with those who fight for democracy, starving on diets of foreign white rice, deprived of clean water to drink, sleeping in shifts in stifling cells built for 20, housing 80? Why must life be nearly impossible - transport workers up against heavy license fees and fuel costs, telephone workers laid off? Why?

Because Haitians are a deeply political people; they have tasted democracy; they insist on their human rights. Western powers cannot enforce their elite, global agenda on Haiti unless they can contain this massive popular movement and destroy its righteous vision.

Here is what Randall Robinson says in his new book, An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, from Revolution to the Kidnapping of President:

'What was it, though, about Haiti that made the place so different from other Caribbean places, so especially combustible? What property, what special character did it have that would incite the rich white West to engage a poor, largely black nation with such glowering, unrelenting hostility...The Haitians knew their history. The Haitian peasants may have had few material possessions to speak of, but they knew what their slave ancestors had done to the French, to the English and to the Spanish. They also knew what they had done to liberate all of Latin America, as well as themselves. No matter how poor they were, the Haitians knew these things about themselves, things that made them special to themselves, that made them resilient and independent, that gave them great art, that unsettled, even now, those nations the peasants' slave ancestors had once soundly thrashed.'

US 'low-intensity' warfare is so termed, not because it is mild, but because it comes under the radar of the American people, as does mostly anything having to do with Haiti. What did the UN come to do in Haiti? As one Lavalas activist put it, they came to make the country go backwards. They spend $500 million a year to maintain UN troops - money that could provide water, schools, healthcare for Haiti but instead the UN does nothing for Haiti.

What do the Haitian people want from us? They want our solidarity. They want us to expose and mobilise people against what is happening. They want us to demand the UN mandate in Haiti not be renewed; to support the return of Aristide to Haiti; oppose privatisation; to insist on freedom for Haiti's political prisoners.

* Leslie Mullin is a long-time San Francisco-Bay Area human rights activist who returned in late July 2007 from a week-long Haiti Action Committee delegation to visit Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. The delegation met with organisers across the breadth of Haiti's grassroots movement.

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Solidarity with Zimbabwe: Another side to the xenophobia story

Koni Benson

2007-08-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/43112

Koni Benson from the International Labour Research and Information Group in Cape Town argues that contrary to stereotypes in the South African mainstream media, there is solidarity and a common agenda between South Africa's poor, and asylum seekers and migrants in the region, notably from Zimbabwe, and amongst women's groups, with roots in the liberation struggles.


The dominant story in the mainstream press in South Africa is that the South African poor act out of desperation when migrants and refugees are violently attacked. That the 'problem' is competition for scarce resources and that SA must first get its house in order, and solve the poverty crisis; and then desperate South Africans will stop lashing out at desperate asylum seekers.

This story of displaced frustration and resentment does not fairly represent the range of opinions, and even more importantly, the organised actions of the poor and working class in South Africa who invest precious resources in directly supporting refugees and migrants, especially in the case of Zimbabweans right now.

In fact, new research is showing that while xenaphobia is rampant and often played out amongst the poor in South Africa, it is also precisely some of the poorest South Africans living in shack and townships who have been most sympathetic to the struggles of Zimbabweans worst affected by the current crisis.

South African movements of the working class have mobilised around the politics playing out in Zimbabwe right now. In fact, the issue of Zimbabwe has captured the attention and has been prioritised by grassroots activists in South Africa. These are groups of people, many of whom are unemployed, and struggle with the challenge of solidarity within the same neighborhoods and the same city to fight for basic survival like water, housing, electricity, and health care. Yet they are taking a stand about Zimbabwe. Why?

This support is not only forthcoming out of sympathy for the hardships inflicted by the power wars of Mugabe and the like, but rooted in the belief that, like during repression of activism during the liberation struggle in South Africa, international solidarity is decisive right now for Zimbabweans who are resisting an 'elite transition', which will not change the structures of inequality in any meaningful way for the poor.

At the recent 'Towards an Africa Without Borders' conference in Durban, one Bulawayo debt cancellation activist argued for solidarity between the poor in South Africa and in Zimbabwe, because our interests are in the same pot. South African activists at the conference likewise argued that 'we see our problem as rooted in poverty and elite deal-making, which sees no international boundaries'. In this view, President Mbeki and his SADC counterparts will not act against the Mugabe regime in defence of the Zimbabwean people. Rather, they are angling for an 'elite transition' similar to the ones in South Africa, Namibia, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where those who have the backing of the rich and powerful, work out among themselves how to divide the power and money. From this perspective, the majority of the people are excluded from the process, and, inevitably, the resulting system leaves them at the mercy of the oppressors and exploiters and trapped in the associated poverty and social crises.

With this motivation to mobilise, over 2,500 people come out in protest in Durban to criticise the Mugabe regime. Abahlali baseMjondolo has hosted members of the Combined Harare Residents' Association (CHRA) in shack settlements, worked with the Zimbabwe Crisis Coalition, and written comparisons of Murambatsvina and shack demolitions in South Africa. In Cape Town, People Against Suppression and Oppression of People (PASSOP) have held regular pickets. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the Social Movements Indaba have appointed Africa desks to better address the issues. These movements have an impressively clearly defined 'enemy', and it is not displaced Zimbabweans crossing the border in search of survival.

In Cape Town, for example, women from a range of grassroots organisations from seasonal women farm workers, to refugee women, to anti-eviction activists, to unionists, to wellness centre organisers came together after the violent attacks on women activists in Zimbabwe in March, to analyse the relationship between state and domestic violence and speak out on the way elite politics were being played out across women's bodies.

They argued: 'We see no distinction between domestic and state violence, or between Zimbabwe and South Africa when it comes to responding to the attack on our sisters... the violent the victimisation of everyday women through demolition of houses and businesses in Operation Murambatsvina, and as political and feminist activists has a specific dynamic where women are hardest hit, and attacked on multiple levels at once.'

They collectively wrote a solidarity statement and in April held a picket on the days the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) convened a stay away. 'We write this statement to acknowledge and listen to the pain of Zimbabwean women and to support their quest to become full citizens which we in South Africa are also fighting for. We recognise that in the context of poverty, displacement, violence, and exclusion state oppression adds another unbearable layer to women's oppression which we are determined to fight together...we in South Africa know too well the gap between the hard earned theories set out in law, and the reality of women's access to justice in practice.'

Most interestingly these women welcomed Zimbabweans into South Africa, arguing: 'We recognise the national boundary between us and Zimbabwe as a colonial creation and just as we were welcomed into Zimbabwe during our struggle, we welcome Zimbabweans fighting for a free Zimbabwe into South Africa.'

These organisations of the working class may be small and weak but they are adamant to support Zimbabweans worst affected by the ongoing power struggles. Their perspectives and actions are being overlooked in official talk about Zimbabwean refugees 'flooding' across the border and the rhetorical questions of how South Africa can possibly help because of poverty issues 'at home'. In fact, the South African poor are arguing that the meltdown in Zimbabwe shares its roots with the same forces rapidly entrenching poverty across the region. It is precisely this support by struggling South Africans for Zimbabweans attempting to organise for an alternative Zimbabwe that is being ignored in the press. They are falling further and further off the radar of the South African imagination in which the poor are continually painted as inherently xenophobic.

* Koni Benson is a researcher at the International Labour Research and Information Group in Cape Town.

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Africans in academia: Diversity in adversity

Grada Kilomba

2007-08-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/43110

Grada Kilomba analyses hierachies of race and gender with respect to the privileging of authority, scholarship and knowledge production. 'Academia is not a neutral location', she says. 'This is a white space where Black people have been denied the privilege to speak... It is not that we have not been speaking; but rather that our voices - through a system of racism - have been systematically disqualified as valid knowledge; or else represented by whites, who ironically become the 'experts' of ourselves. Either way, we are locked in a violent colonial hierarchy.' Derived from her experiences of working in Germany, her comments are widely applicable to debates about academia, identity, power, the centre and the periphery.


Every semester, on the very first day of my seminar, I play a quiz with my students. We first count how many people are in the room in order to see how many of us will be able to answer the questions. I start by asking very simple questions such as: What was the Berlin Conference of 1884-5? Which African countries were colonised by Germany? How many years did German colonisation over the continent of Africa last? I conclude with more specific questions, such as: Who was Queen Nzinga and which role did she play on the struggle against European colonisation? Who wrote Black Skin, White Masks? Who was May Ayim?

Not surprisingly, most of the white students are unable to answer the questions, while the Black students answer most of them successfully. Suddenly, those whose knowledge has been hidden, become visible, while those who have been over-represented become unnoticed and invisible. Those who are usually silent start speaking, while those who always speak become silent. Silent, not because they cannot articulate their voices or tongues, but rather because they do not possess the knowledge.

This exercise makes us understand how the concepts of knowledge and the idea of what scholarship or science is, are intrinsically linked with power and racial authority. What knowledge is being acknowledged as such? And what knowledge is not? Who is acknowledged to have the knowledge? And who is not? And who can teach knowledge? And who cannot? Who is at the centre? And who remains outside, at the margins? So, who can indeed speak in the academy? And who cannot?

Academia is not a neutral location. This is a white space where Black people have been denied the privilege to speak. Historically, this is a space where we have been voiceless, a space we could not enter. Here, white scholars have developed theoretical discourses which formally constructed us as the inferior Other - placing Africans in absolute subordination to the white subject. We were made the objects, but we have rarely been the subjects.

This position of object, which we commonly occupy, does not indicate a lack of resistance or of interest, as it is commonly believed, but rather a lack of access to representation by Blacks themselves. It is not that we have not been speaking; but rather that our voices - through a system of racism - have been systematically disqualified as valid knowledge; or else represented by whites, who ironically become the 'experts' of ourselves. Either way, we are locked in a violent colonial hierarchy.

As a scholar, for instance, I am commonly told that my work is very interesting, but not really scientific; a remark which illustrates the colonial hierarchy in which Black scholars reside: 'you have a very subjective perspective'; 'very personal'; 'very emotional'; 'very specific'; 'are these objective facts?'.

Within such masterful descriptions, the discourses and perspectives of Black scholars remain always at the margins - as deviating, while white discourses occupy the centre. When they speak it is scientific, when we speak it is unscientific.

Universal/specific; objective/subjective; neutral/personal; rational/emotional; impartial/partial; they have facts, we have opinions; they have knowledge, we have experiences.

These are not simple semantic categorisations. They own a dimension of power which maintains hierarchical positions and upheld white supremacy. We are not dealing here with a 'peaceful coexistence' of words, but rather with a violent hierarchy, which defines who can speak.

We have been speaking and producing independent knowledge for a long time. But when groups are unequal in power, they are also unequal in their access to the resources which are necessary to implement their own voices (Collins 2000). And because we lack control over such structures, the articulation of our own perspective outside the group becomes extremely difficult, if not unrealisable.

Moreover, the structures of knowledge validation, which define what true and valid scholarship is, are controlled by white scholars. So, as long as Black people and 'people of colour' are denied positions of authority and command within the academy, the idea of what science and scholarship are, prevails, of course, intact - it remains an exclusive and unquestionable 'property' of whiteness.

So, it is not an objective scientific truth that we encounter in the academy, but rather the result of unequal power race relations, which define what counts as true and in whom to believe. The themes, the paradigms and the methodologies of traditional scholarship - the so called epistemology - reflect nothing but the specific political interests of a white colonial patriarchal society.

Epistemology derives from the Greek words: episteme=knowledge and logos=science, the science of the acquisition of knowledge. It determines, therefore, which questions merit being questioned (themes), how to analyse and explain a phenomenon (paradigms), and how to conduct research to produce knowledge (methods). And in this sense, it defines not only what true scholarship is; but also in whom to believe and trust, because who is defining which questions merit being asked? And who is asking them? Furthermore to whom are the answers directed?

Interesting, but unscientific, but subjective, but personal, but emotional and partial, 'you do over-interpret', said a colleague, 'you must think you are the queen of interpretation'. Such comments, reveal that the endless need to control the Black subject's voice and the longing to govern and to command how we approach and interpret reality. By using these remarks, the white subject is assured of her sense of power, and of her own authority over a group which she is labelling as 'less knowledgeable.'

The last comment, in particular, gives two powerful insights. The first is a form of warning which describes the standpoint of the Black woman as a distortion of the truth, expressed here through the word 'over-interpretation'. The female colleague was warning me that I am over-reading, beyond the norms of traditional epistemology, and therefore, that I am producing invalid knowledge. It seems to me that this idea of over-interpretation addresses the thought that the oppressed is seeing 'something' which should not be seen, and is about to say 'something' which should not be said. 'Something' which should be kept quiet, as a secret - like the secrets of colonialism that most of my students could not answer.

Curiously, in feminist discourses as well, men try to irrationalise the thinking of women, as if such feminist interpretations were nothing but a fabrication of the reality, an illusion, maybe even a female hallucination.

Within this constellation it is the white woman who irrationalises my thinking, and by doing so, she defines to the Black woman what 'real' scholarship is, and how it should be expressed. This reveals how complex the intersection between gender, 'race' and colonial power is, and how the idea of a unitary category of women based on the assumption of an absolute patriarchy which divides the world into powerful men and subordinate women is problematic: for it neglects white women's role as oppressors and the reality of oppression experienced by both Black women and Black men.

In the second instance, she speaks then of hierarchical places, of a queen she fantasises I want to be, but who I cannot become. The queen is an interesting metaphor. It is a metaphor for power. A metaphor, also of the idea that certain bodies belong to certain places: a queen or a king naturally belong to the palace of knowledge, but not the plebeians; they can never achieve the position of royalty. They are sealed in their own subordinate bodies. Such a demarcation of spaces introduces a dynamic in which Blackness signifies 'being outside place'. I am told to be outside my place, for I cannot be the queen, only the plebeian. My body is improper. Within racism, Black bodies are constructed as improper bodies 'outside place', while white bodies are always proper, they are bodies at home, 'in place', bodies which belong. The same way in academia, in which Black scholars are persistently invited to return to 'their place', at the margins, where our bodies are at home and where they are proper.

Such dynamic reveals how dominant scholarship performs a fruitful combination of power, intimidation and control, which succeeds in silencing oppressed voices. Fruitful indeed, for after this last episode I remember I stopped writing for more than a month. I became temporarily voiceless. I had a 'white-out', was waiting for a Black-in.

Speaking about these positions of marginality evokes, of course, pain. They are reminders of the places we can hardly enter. The places we never 'arrive' at or 'can't stay' in (Hooks 1990). Such pain must be spoken and theorised. It must have a place within discourse, because we are not dealing here with 'private information'. Such apparent 'private information' is not private at all. These are not personal stories or intimate complains; but rather, accounts of racism. They mirror the historical, political and social realities of 'race relations' within the academic spaces, and should be articulated in both theory and methodology.

Such experiences confirm that academia is not a neutral space. It is not only a space of knowledge and wisdom, of science and scholarship, but also a space of violence. This violence remains as long as we remain outside at the margins, while white others are inside the centre, speaking in our own name. That is the essence of the violence - the violence of always being placed as the white subject's 'Other', who defines how to speak.

Therefore, I call for an epistemology which includes the personal, the subjective and the emotional. For as I mentioned earlier, there is no neutral, no objective no rational. Only the results of specific political interests of a white colonial patriarchy. Besides, once we find our voices, as Black writers, it is impossible to speak or to write disembodied of such emotions, of such passion or pain, because we are transgressing sorrowful boundaries. We are moving from the margins to the centre.

This is in remembrance of our ancestors.

Grada Kilomba is writer, researcher and psychologist from the West African Islands of Sao Tomé e Príncipe. Having studied clinical psychology and psychoanalysis in Lisbon, she is living and working in Berlin, Germany where she researches and writes within the area of cultural studies.

She is a guest lecturer at the Berlin Humboldt and Freie universities in the gender studies and psychology departments respectively. In her research and teaching, she focuses predominantly on psychoanalysis, slavery, colonialism, trauma and memory.

This article is based on a presentation she gave at an AfricAvenir dialogue-forum in May 2007 at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin.


References:

Collins, Patricia Hill (2000), Black Feminist Thought. Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge.
Hooks, Bell (1990), Yearning. Race, Gender and Cultural Politics. Boston: South End Press.

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Woza Africa!

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem

2007-08-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/43131

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem exposes the humour and absurdity in cultural and racial prejudices, and situations where Africans have absorbed ridiculous and pernicious colonial rules and persist in inflicting them on their fellow citizens. 'The main reason why many of the anti-African biases and petty apartheids persist is because too many of us put up with them. We really need to wake up', he writes.


There are so many prejudices, insults and stereotypes between different peoples, races, religions, nationalities and other social groups in the world. Many of the violent conflicts unnecessarily claiming so many lives use such prejudices to justify themselves. But prejudice need not to be openly violent in order for it to be injurious to human beings. There are many such irrational attitudes commonly displayed in action, speech and conduct whose cumulative effect is to rob other human beings of their dignity, self esteem and right to equality with other human beings.

While prejudices are generally expressed by 'others' towards 'others' over time, some of the victims of such prejudices may actually internalise them and use them against themselves or believe them to be true. An obvious example is the widely used notion of 'African time'. If a European, American or Chinese person is late, nobody blames it on Britain or Sweden, America or China. But if Tajudeen is late the whole of Africa takes the blame. Even Africans use it to justify their lateness.

There are many other examples. But the one that triggered this week's column was a recent experience I had in Lusaka, capital city of Zambia. We had gone to one of the many South African-owned or designed shopping malls that are springing up in capital cities across Africa, paying homage to Africa's growing middle-class consumerism. We had scheduled to meet up with my good friend, veteran agitator, Sarah Longwe and her equally cantankerous partner, Roy Clarke of the famous Kalaki Corner, a satiric column in The Post Newspaper that irks Zambia's establishment so much that, but for the courts, they would have deported him back to the England he left decades ago, and in spite of being married to a Zambian woman.

Our rendez-vous was a popular restaurant and bar called Rhapsodies. I had gone with another friend and colleague in the UN Millennium Campaign, Salil Shetty. I was in my 'native' Nigerian up-and-down Kaftan and trouser with a traditional hat to match. As we made to enter, a burly security man in an ill-suited tight uniform beckoned me to stop. I asked why and he said I had to take off my hat because men are not allowed to wear hats in the bar. Roy and Sarah, who could see us from the open air verandah, were already agitated and leapt to their feet screaming at the security man.

They needed not have bothered because I was very prepared to deal with the situation. It has happen to me a few times in southern Africa before. The last time it was in Zimbabwe. I was staying at the Great Zimbabwe hotel by the Zimbabwe ruins. I had gone for supper, when this huge bouncer by the gate in ridiculous multi-coloured English costumes with bowler hat and long tail suit tried to deny me entrance because 'gentlemen are required to take off their hats for supper'. I told him that part of his statement was correct: I am a man, but as for being gentle, that may not fit, as he was to discover soon after. I asked him why I needed to take off my hat, and he said it was the rule. Set by whom? And how many years after liberation from the Rhodesians?

I asked him if I had been wearing a Jewish skull cap and looked Jewish if would he have stopped me. His answer was that the Jewish skull cap was a religious symbol. How did he know that my hat was not a religious one? He drew blank because these rules and conventions were imposed to keep Africans away. Or model Africans in a particular way in order for them to belong! Needless to say I did not take my hat off. The good sense of the manager prevailed after I threatened to leave without paying for the accommodation since I was not welcomed.

So my Lusaka expwerience was just an echo of that experience. When I pointed out to my Zambian bouncer that he was also wearing a hat his only response was that 'it is part of the uniform'. So I humored him that my hat could also be part of my cultural uniform but it was above his programmed mind to see the joke. By this time Sara was at the entrance and Roy was ready for a fight. Just imagine the scene: an Englishman defending the right of an African to wear African dress including his hat to another African in an African country! How insane can our world get?

I was not budging and Salil, an Indian, was just enjoying the spectacle. The opposition was unyielding and nobody came to his rescue so he stepped aside and I entered.

It is true that we live with ridiculous rules but there is nothing that says we have to implement them, especially when they offend our good taste and sense of being. In many of the cultures of west Africa the wearing of a hat is considered part of a normal or formal dress code. I know that in eastern and southern Africa the wearing of a hat has acquired religious connotation.

When I was living in Uganda when I wore a hat people generally greeted me with ' salaam alaykum', whereas when I was not wearing one, even if I was wearing west African tie-and-die clothe, they would not assume I was a Muslim. Christian missionaries and later colonialists attacked many aspects of our culture in their 'civilizing mission' but continuing with some of these petty rules so many years after the formal end of colonialism is a sign of the enduring legacy of the colonial mindset. Most of them are like a petty-apartheid, which we can do away with. For instance have you ever wondered our five star hotels and no-star ones offer 'continental breakfast' on their menu which does not mean the African continent? Can you imagine being in a hotel in Europe and asking for a continental breakfast that does not mean the European continent?

The late martyr of the anti-apartheid struggle, and Black Consciousness of Azania leader, Steve Biko, once observed that one of the best weapons in the hands of the oppressor is to set up his General Headquarters in the head of the oppressed. How true, sadly so, this is, in all manners and in every day things of our lives. In some countries it is still being debated whether African dresses could be accepted as 'proper dress' for formal occassions. The main reason why many of the anti-African biases and petty apartheids persist is because too many of us put up with them. We really need to wake up.

Woza AFRIKA!

* Tajudeen Abdul Raheem is the Deputy Director for the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in a personal capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

East African leaders go into slow motion

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem

2007-08-28

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/43066

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem comments on African leaders' apparent contradictions between regionalism and contintenal unity, and how their quest for regional integration is becoming a smoke-screen for slowing political union. But, he says, 'How can you argue for gradualism at the continental level and not concede the same at regional and national levels? That is the ridiculous but logical conclusion of the gradualist argument about pan-Africanism. They will never be ready.'
At the historic summit of the African Union in Accra in July 2007, President Museveni was one of the surprise leaders of ‘pro-gradualism’, who made it easy for the others, principally Thabo Mbeki, interested only in Africa and Africans as markets rather than as peoples, to gain their pyrrhic victory.

His reason for becoming a latter day gradualist at the continental level, having been a ‘faster-faster unionist’ and ardent promoter of the political federation of East Africa, was that regional integration needs to be consolidated; because there was more likelihood that convergence on economic, social, political, and, even historical, non-state linkages would make union possible.

That was the mantra of all the leaders in Accra. Many of them, not known for caring much about their peoples’ wishes, also became listening leaders in Accra, arguing that the bulk of the people have not been consulted.

How one wishes that this love for consulting the people were genuine! How many of them bother to even consult their own cabinet, parliament or political parties before signing away the future of their countries to foreigners in the name of encouraging investment? Did any one of them subject their neoliberal policies to the masses’ consent?

The main political gain in Accra for those of us who believe in immediate political union was that nobody, no head of state, argued against political union. What they lacked was the courage to agree on concrete steps towards it; instead, hiding behind ‘step-by-step’ approaches and the need to consolidate Regional Economic Communities (RECs): a very seductive argument used to subvert the African unity agenda.

For instance, if post-apartheid South Africa had indeed been interested in regional integration in the SADC region, instead of just expanded markets for South African goods and services, then that region could have been more integrated, with full freedom of movement, by now. Confronted with the prospects of African union, President Mbeki suddenly discovered the virtue of regional integration!

President Museveni must be reflecting over his opportunistic switch in Accra, his pet dream of the faster political integration and federation of East Africa having been deferred at the recent summit of the east African states.

How can you argue for gradualism at the continental level and not concede the same at regional and national levels? That is the ridiculous but logical conclusion of the gradualists' argument about pan-Africanism. They will never be ready.

In the 1960s, they used to argue that the nations newly liberated from colonialism were too young, needed consolidation and therefore could not go for political union continentally. More than four decades later, not many of them have been united. If gradualism had been the route, we should all be one happy family. But are we? So now they have shifted the goalposts to: ‘let us unite the region first’. And even that they want to do gradually!

Even those of us who believe in immediate union have no illusions that it will happen overnight. But if we agree on that destination, the way we approach it will be radically different. We will give the required political authority and financial resources to the AU to carry out clearly defined functions on our behalf, and align our regional and national policies accordingly. The route of the RECs would have been more sensible, if so many of them were not wrecking any prospect of unity.

We declared them to be the building blocs of the pan-African enterprise. But for more than four decades, we have remained at the foundation level. Actually, we keep building new foundations. Hence our states belong to more than one regional economic grouping. If you have so many foundations, when are you going to finish the building?

There are practical reasons why the timelines of the East African federation needed to be changed, given its recent enlargement with the ascension to full membership of Rwanda and Burundi. But these are not reasons enough to halt the march towards political union. The presidents must stop looking at this as an either/or issue. How can the East African Community (EAC) leaders expect to negotiate the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) dictated by the European Union regionally, or form custom unions, when they all belong to more than one regional economic block? Tanzania, which, ironically, is now the most reluctant regional integrator, is in SADC; all east African countries are in EAC and COMESA [the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa]. The same is true among west African states and in the SADC countries. They are talking about aligning economies that they do not control. Nyerere must be turning in his grave because he even offered to delay Tanzania's independence for the sake of a greater east Africa.

The Chinese, Asians and globalisation are already aligning us forcibly, and you can see this across the continent. Our only leverage is to have the political will to act together, instead of being picked out one-by-one for the slaughterhouse! African leaders have to stop treating African unity as an à la carte menu. They are either committed to it in total, and will take the necessary steps, including abandoning their narrow ‘big man in Africa’ complexes, which, they conveniently interpret as ‘sovereignty issues’; or, they should quit deceiving us with a unity agenda that in effect means: not in my life time!

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the deputy director of the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in a personal capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

What is in a name?

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem

2007-08-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/43057

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem surveys the state and status of names in Africa, in particular the legacy of Western colonialism, and identity politics around 'Arab' names. He argues that although names are very important both culturally and symbolically, they do not in themselves confer Africanness or commitment to Africa, which is measured by 'what we do, what our values are, and our concrete actions'.


'What's in a name?' Shakespeare once asked through one of his fictional characters. The Bard also provided the answer by observing that Rose by any other name would still smell as sweet. It may be true for flowers, but for Africans, in general, names mean a lot. They define our identity; our place in the social order within the clan; the community and even the circumstances of our birth. In many cases, our ethnic and cultural identities are either obvious from the names or can be guessed. For instance, if you hear someone called Tanko among the Hausa, it means a male child amongst several female children; while Delu is for a female child that follows several male ones.

Among the Yoruba, Idowu means the child following twin siblings. The Baganda will not call someone Nalongo or Salongo without a reason. These are not names that anybody can bear because they are specific to being twins, mothering or fathering them. However, more than just the circumstances of birth, names may also reflect our material situation or parental expectations; define our access to land, traditional authority and powers of appropriation in societies that are still very much agrarian even as we develop mega-cities.

Why am I talking clans this week? I have not taken up Ethnic studies or become a latter day tribal anthropologist! One of the hazards of being a self-opinionated columnist is that you get all kinds of unsolicited responses, requests, invitations and suggestions. Not all of them will be complimentary or flattering. Some may expect you to have answers for all kinds of issues and scenarios that you may not have even thought about or that are unlikely to be your cup of tea. In this day and age of instant gratification by SMS texts and emails, the responses are bigger in volume. They mostly go unanswered, even from the most conscientious columnist. You may spend the whole week responding without finishing them and having no time to think of your next column!

However in some cases there are responses or queries that you simply cannot ignore. Such were two emails I received recently. One asked: 'why are you, a strong pan-Africanist, that we look up to, bearing a foreign, non-African name, don't you have an African name?' The other was more direct. The subject of the email ordered: 'change your name'. The text itself pulled no punches: 'Please sir, after a heated discussion on acculturation and loss of identity, I find it imperative to bring to your attention that your name does not fit someone of your academic status. You should know better and be proud of your roots. At first we thought you were an Arab. Why do you have to despise your cultural identity today? And take 100 per cent Arabic names? Be proud of your roots and have some African names, even if not 100 per cent. At a class discussion, students were asking why this man who looks like an African calls himself Arabic names. Concerned African students are tired of being asked by Americans 'don't you have African names?'

It is not first time that I have been asked this question. The answer is a simple truth. I do have 'African' names: ABAYOMI, AMAO. However they have not stuck like the TAJUDEEN ABDUL-RAHEEM with which everyone is familiar. I did not shed them consciously. They are middle names by which no one but my late grandmother and very few older people of my mum's generation will ever call me.

Thus the names have become like those irritable letters in some English words that can never be pronounced because they are supposed to be silent but are part of the spelling!

The Arabisation or Westernisation of Africans is part of the legacy of both our cultural and material conquest and domination by extra-African forces. That is why during the anti-colonial struggles there was resistance against foreign names and the reassertion of African cultural identities. There was a movement called 'Boycott the boycottables' which inspired nationalists to drop their Christian/Western names in favour of African ones. It also encouraged Africans to avoid anything colonial/Western they can do without such as clothes, food, music, even using forks and knives.

In the context of colonialism, where everything African, including our culture, traditions, language, ways of life, our names, our gods and beliefs were treated as 'heathen and backward', it was important for our self-esteem that we were proud of who we were. The earlier generation of non-Christian pupils and students who went to mission schools were forced to change their Muslim or cultural names. As late as the early 1980s, when I arrived in Oxford, a kindly English rose of a college secretary asked me for my 'Christian' names. My longish Arabic names were not sufficient for her! And they did not give her any indication that I was not a Christian!

It is sadly true that several decades after the formal end of colonialism, colonial mentality is still rampant in the attitude of many Africans about themselves, our societies and our relationship with the rest of the world. Many are still steeped in inferiority complexes that make them despise anything African and ape the West in the most bizarre ways. The worst expressions of this are those mobile human laboratories we call 'Fanta face coca cola legs' in Kampala (men and women bleaching themselves in order to become 'basungu' or at least 'brown').

Thus it is still very important to proclaim 'I am and am proud to be African'. In the famous lines of James Brown: 'say it loud I am black and proud'. We need to get rid of the self-hatred induced by slavery and perfected under colonialism that makes us to seek validation for our humanity.

However, as we struggle to regain our collective self-esteem and exercise our equality with other peoples, it is important that we do so in non-chauvinistic ways, and do not become Black fascists seeking the 'pure African race'. Our dignity should not be built on notions of superiority over other races or peoples. We should also avoid turning being African into a kind of identity prison or cultural desert, or an island that is not in contact or conversation with other cultures and peoples.

We touch other peoples just as they touch us, and do so in very fundamental ways, many of them painful, but also in positive ways. However, we inhabit and have to live in the same world, victims and villains.

My second young reader who demanded I change my name did not even consider his own first name which is Michael! Somehow we have been brainwashed into thinking that biblical names are acceptable, but that somehow, Muslim/Arabic names are suspect. There is a not-so-subliminal Arabo Islamophobia at stake here, which we imbibe most uncritically. Being a Muslim or a Christian should not make us cultural stooges of others, or carry on others' battles and prejudices.

On the other hand, there are many Muslims who think that being Muslim meant taking on Arabic names - often misleadingly confused as Islamic names. It is not all Arabic names that are Islamic names. Also, being a Muslim does not mean that one has become an Arab. Allah understands all languages and that's why the Quran is translated into other languages. There was a time too when the Bible was only in Latin, and priests mesmerised 'converts' in the same way that Islamic scholars who may not even understand the Arabic language mesmerise their flock in the language!

It is like the way early educated Africans and their descendants today think that the more bombastic their European grammar, the better educated they have become. A few years in England or France, many of them returned home claiming they could not speak their mother tongues anymore, and spoke to their relatives through even less educated and more pretentious interpreters! Kamuzu Banda was probably one of the worst examples of a cultural 'coconut'. Fighting this kind of colonial mentality demands more than posturing about names.

A majority of Africans today may define themselves in religious terms as either Muslims or Christians. There will be significant minorities amongst us that could be of 'traditional faith' or other faiths. We are no less African by sharing with others. There are many Africans today who are not of Negroid origin. More than half of Arabs in the whole world are in North Africa. We have Asians in southern and eastern Africa; and other African citizens whose ancestors were settlers of European origin; just as we have the Lebanese in West Africa with all kinds of names and faiths and cultural permutations with indigenous Africans. In the words of Lucky Dube: 'different colors one people'.

Go to Zanzibar, Mombasa, Cape Town, Lagos, Accra, Abidjan, Kano and most of our big cities, coastal areas and see the cultural intercourse and encounters that will make you wonder: whether where we are coming from is as important as where we are heading?

The contact with the rest of the world has had and will continue to have both positive and negative impacts for Africa. But Africa also continues to have an enduring impact on the rest of the world in all kinds of fields of human endeavour. There were many things, including names, that were of foreign origin which we have and continue to Africanise, including even colonial languages.

At the end of the day, although names are very important both culturally and symbolically, in themselves they do not confer Africanness or commitment to Africa. It is what we do, what our values are, and our concrete actions that will prove our commitments or lack of them to the genuine causes of Africa and Pan-Africanism. Similarly, bearing a Muslim or Christian name does not make you a devout Muslim or practising Christian. They do not make you an Arab or a European either.

There was once a self-promoted field marshall, who changed his name from Joseph Desire Mobutu to Mobutu Sese Seko kuku Ngendu Waza Banga who used to wear leopard skin suits (ironically imported from France and Belgium), who advocated 'African authenticity', yet who misruled, pillaged and looted the resources of his country and kept his ill-gotten wealth in foreign banks. After his death neither his family nor the government of the DRC have been able to lay hands on most of the money. How very authentic is that? You may change your name, but what about your attitudes?

There was another cultural nationalist in South Africa (not dead but now politically neutered). A book about him dubbed him 'the chief with a double agenda'. Mongosuthu Buthelezi, a Zulu chief turned warlord was on the side of apartheid in opposition to courageous Africans bearing names like Nelson and Winnie (Mandela), Oliver (Tambo), Steve (Biko), Victor (Sabelo-Phama), Chris (Hani) and others who were unrelenting in fighting and defeating Gatcha and his apartheid allies.

Being Muslim or Christian or of any other faith, and bearing any name, should be a question of your circumstance and choice. You could be Johnson or Davis, Aderemi or Oyugi, Wanjiku or Wanyiri, Bilal or Mohammed, Firoze or Friday, Ruth or Joe, Emeka or Ama, whatever you are named or you decide to call or rename yourself. It should not really matter as long as we are proudly African. You can bear any name and still be a full member of the pan-African movement, and contribute your quota to the uplifting of our peoples. An obviously African name does translate into being a better African.

I am very happy to remain TAJUDEEN, son of Africa, doing my best for the mother continent!


Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the Deputy Director for the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in a personal capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Giving voice to the voiceless

Samson Eyassu

2007-08-23

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/43058

I understand what Pambazuka is about - a platform, and outlet for those angry indignant people who have experienced an injustice and raised their pen to wage a war against it, with a pent-up feeling simmering inside them. It is there for them. I know what it really means because I was in search of such a platform myself for a few years and I tell you it has never been easy to find one. But it is not for those who have already spent their anger and indignation. I really appreciate your service in providing this platform as it gives voice for the voiceless.

Kumekucha, not Pambazuka

Taha Baharoon

2007-08-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/43056

I think 'Kumekucha', a thought-provoking title, is more attractive for your newsletter than the current 'kumepamabazuka'. The two words have more or less same meaning but there is a stronger emphasis in 'Kumekucha'. Experts in Swahili language will agree with me in this proposal. Just a thought I wanted to share with you if you really care to popularise your newsletter to a Swahili speaking readership.

African Writing

2007-08-31

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/43132

African Writing is a new monthly print and online journal, published full colour in newspaper format in the mode of the Africa Review of Books or the New York Review of Books. It promises to be ‘a leading quality, literary paper…committed to reflecting writing and literary work from all the countries, literary generations and official languages of Africa...our Africa-centred but international outlook is evident in the varied perspectives, interests and subjects of the contributors’.

It is produced by a small team of writers, editors and publishers ‘...from our Oxford base we hope to become a magnet, especially, but not exclusively, for African literary talent, wherever it may be found’.

Some 35 contributors make up an impressive line-up from African and diaspora literatures. Brian Chikwava writes the story of Zimbabwe. George Ngwane comments on ‘Cameroonian literature in transition’. Uzor Maxim Uzoatu contributes an essay on Ahmadou Kourouma. New fiction comes from Helon Habila, Ike Okonta and Femi Osofisan.

Remi Raji, the award winning poet and cultural activist pays tribute to Niyi Osundare ‘the most important trailblazer of the sub-tradition of tabloid poetry in Nigerian literary culture’: ‘I celebrate the faith, the commitment of your art, the persistence of your vision’. A rich poetry section includes the work of Tanure Ojaide, Femi Oyebode and Harry Garuba.

The journal includes a useful survey of 50 African writers of the post-1960, Achebe and independence generation: ‘the writers of a disillusioned Africanist enterprise, who are not naïve about international realities but who have become more hesitant about blaming outsiders because they have experienced a lot of enemies within…the writers of the internet age, the age of theory, globalization, exile and its fractured identities’, whose ‘peculiarly alienating experience of recent African history has made them the first generation of African writers to live and write mostly outside Africa’, a statement characteristic of the editorial feel of the journal overall.

The lead essay confidently deals with the shambolic gestures of the British to deal honestly with the historical narrative of slavery: ‘it has to be remembered that trans-Atlantic slavery went on for about four centuries… Together with aspects of the colonial experience that followed, the devastating impact on Africa of slavery cannot be understated – in much the same way, as you cannot successfully seek to diminish the advantages it gave to the slaving nations’.

African Writing strikes an important note then, situating the subject of slavery firmly within British post-colonial African literature and history, where there is still a tendency to think of it as an ‘American’ subject - of little concern, Britain’s role as the largest trader in African slaves notwithstanding… It is opportune moment for such a new publication from a growing confident and articulate younger generation of Africans and peoples of African descent no longer prepared to put up with the crass racism and crude distortions of spun historical narrative in official, academic and media contexts.

A couple of small suggestions to the editors: include longer biographies of the contributors on the contents page: celebrate your writers. Women are also underrepresented, although writing by women is present in a feature article on Femrite, the Ugandan women writers’ collective; Chika Unigwe’s fascinating piece on being elected to a political position in Belgium; and Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie’s recent success in the Orange Prize is covered in a useful literary news section.

African Writing has announced itself as a serious literary news journal, deserving of wide international dissemination. One senses the fighting spirit and sheer bloody mindedness behind its achievement ‘…we hear it say often that Africa can’t be done. We say with African Writing that Africa can be done, and we wish to prove over time that Africa can be done quite brilliantly, successfully.’

– Well, all of us at Pambazuka News can echo that! To all of you at African Writing, we send our warm congratulations. We wish you, the editors and your authors the very best of luck.

Contacts for submissions, subscriptions, review and media enquiries:

publisher (at) african-writing (dot) com
editor (at) african-writing (dot) com
subscribe (at) african-writing (dot) com

ISSN: 1754-6664
Issue 1: August 2007, 40pp
Published by Fonthouse Ltd., Oxford, UK.
Subscriptions: £18/ €30/US$40, individual; £30/ €50/US$40, institutional.
www.african-writing.com

Review of African blogs

Dibussi Tande

2007-08-29

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/blog/43083

Dibussi Tande, who produces the blog Scribbles from the Den, brings this week's selection which covers: Zambians living abroad; the vulnerabilities of South Africa; identity and belonging in Africa; political invovlement and the younger generation in Malawi; persecution of members of the African LGBTI community in a number of African countries; and the elections held in Cameroon in July 2007.


The New Zambia comments about the exclusion of Zambians living abroad from the planned National Constitution Conference (NCC):

"The Government has responsibility to ensure Zambians abroad were brought into the fold to take part in such crucial issues. Equal responsibility also lie with Zambians abroad who should not wait for Government and other people to 'remember' them! Zambians abroad must seize the initiative to define their destiny - unless they gave up being Zambian long time ago! It is for this reason that I fully support what ZASN is trying to do in creating a framework where Zambians abroad can leverage their skills and expertise back home. Our hope surely must be that may be one day an organisation like ZASN can push for such representation in other areas of decision making e.g. voting (which I currently oppose but maybe future technology will overcome my worries)."

Eliesmith argues that the South Africa has the potential to become another Zimbabwe:

"But the truth is that, if care is not taken, South Africa may become second Zimbabwe in less than two decades. The current economic, political and social ruin in Zimbabwe, engineered by a clique headed by Robert Gabriel Mugabe, has made that country (Zimbabwe), not just to become a metaphor for countries on the highway to economic, political and social oblivion, but, she has also shown the vulnerability of a country like South Africa, which, apparently have stronger institutions than countries on the rest of the continent. Well, that is, in a situation where, people with similar ideologies now leading Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe's ruling ZANUPF, takes over the ANC in South Africa and thus wins political power in 2009.

But South Africa is not yet Zimbabwe and we are all still impressed and bewildered at the same time, how that country, has succeeded to sail through apartheid to a multiracial democracy, without the expected bloodbath baptism. Some say, the South African miracle or political feat happened because, the creation of what is/was labelled the rainbow nation, which bore and wore, the consensus and the no-need-for-revenge-attitude of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. And this question: What will happen after the fatherly figure of Nelson Mandela is gone? Perhaps Frederick Willem De Klerk will take over. However, It is true that, since 1994 and until now, the Mandela effect is there, casting his strong shadow over the country."

Senegal-based blogger Francis Nyamnjoh nyamjoh.com sheds light on the multiple dimensions of belonging in Africa in a research document for African Americans eager to trace their roots:

"Recently I have been contacted by some African-Americans and agents of African-Americans who have traced their origin to the Tikar of Cameroon and would like to know more about this group of people. I have therefore written up these notes to assist them and interested others in their quest to capture their multiple dimensions of belonging...

What these brief notes on the Tikar tell us is that pre- and post-colonial identities in Cameroon and throughout Africa are complex, negotiated and relational experiences that call for a nuanced rather than an essentialist articulation of identity and belonging (Nyamnjoh 2002; Pelican 2006). With the Tikar, as well as with any other group in Cameroon, Africa, America or elsewhere, being 'authentic' is a function of the way race, place, culture, class and gender define and prescribe, include and exclude.

Being or not being Tikar should thus be understood within this framework of the politics of recognition and representation. It should also be understood in terms of how cosmopolitan communities have been and are being forged in Africa despite colonial and post-colonial politics of strategic essentialism and divide-and-rule. The Tikar experience, both imagined and real, in a way is an invitation to contemplate a deterritorialized mode of belonging where relationships matter more than birthmarks and birthplaces in whether or not one feels at home."

White African commends the efforts of 4 bloggers from Madagascar who have launch a joint online environmental campaign:

"4 African bloggers from there have united on a project to make a difference. They aren't just talking, they are doing something. Their goal is to focus on one village in the Southeastern region of Madagascar, with one of their goals being to help save their forests, you can follow it on their new site called Foko. In their own words:

'The project is multi-pronged with emphases on tackling environmental issues that directly affects the villagers, building sustainable infrastructures, empowering the villagers to seek manageable solutions, especially the women and providing an efficient health care program.

The underlying philosophy behind the project is that all programs initiated in the village will be able to self-sustain in the long run because emphasis will be put on an effective cost-revenue strategy.'"

According to Malawi Politics the young Malawians do not seem interested in playing leading roles in the country's political life:

"When you look at what is happening in Malawi now, one would think there are no fresh faces in our politics. All we hear from are the same recycled tired old politicians all of them groomed by Malawi congress Party.

Why does the young generation refuse to get involved? To serve requires sacrifice. A lot of our brothers are in the Diaspora building a future for themselves and their kids...

It is the intention of Malawi Politics to encourage our readers and contributors to bring up fresh names to this dialogue. Our generation should not so easily concede to the old Gladiators. Their time came and went. Africa and Malawi is looking for economic freedom and fresh ideas.

It is our time to fight for Malawi."

Blacklooks writes about the persecution of members of the African LGBTI community in a number of African countries in recent weeks:

"The African LGBTI community has been under attack this week in Cameroon, Nigeria and in Uganda...In Nigeria there were riots in Bauchi state after some of the men arrested were released on bail and faced a barrage of stone throwers from the crowds... The case for the 4 young men [arrested] in the Cameroon is worrying as only last year 9 men were released after spending a year in prison for charges of homosexuality which were eventually dropped."

Scribbles from the Den comments on the joint communique of the US, UK and Netherlands embassies in Cameroon on the municipal and legislative elections which took place in that country in July:

"Close to 15 years after the [National Democratic Institute] argued that "While several parties were responsible for election irregularities [in the 1992 presidential elections], the overwhelming weight of responsibility for this failed process lies with the government and President Biya", another Cameroonian election has again received a fail grade. As the August 16 2007 joint statement by the United States, United Kingdom and the Netherlands points out:

'On the whole, however, these elections represent a missed opportunity for Cameroon - a missed opportunity to continue building public confidence in the democratic process as Cameroon looks ahead to its next election.'

... there is every indication that the more things change, the more they stay the same as Cameroon's tumultuous democratization continues its relentless march backwards."


*Dibussi Tande produces the blog Scribbles from the Den, www.dibussi.com

Africa: Taxing matters

2007-08-30

http://www.newint.org/radio/

This programme considers net outflows of financial assets from Africa, the region with the fastest growth of millionaires in the world; and how the tax burden is being pushed back on to those who can least afford to pay.


Most Africans are poor. Everyone knows that. But they needn't be. On current estimates, for every dollar of aid that flows into Africa, five dollars of financial assets flow out into private bank accounts in the rich world. Money that's never taxed. Africa has the fastest growth of millionaires in the world, but the burden for building much needed infrastructure keeps on getting pushed back to those who can least afford to pay. In what is emerging as a major social justice issue for this decade, the programme's guests challenge the accountants and politicians of the world to 'go figure!'

Zimbabwe: China is to withdraw backing for Mugabe

2007-08-31

http://tinyurl.com/yv6yrc

Robert Mugabe is to lose vital support from one of his few remaining allies on the world stage, China. One of the Zimbabwe president's oldest diplomatic friends, China told Lord Malloch Brown, the Foreign Office minister, that it was dropping all assistance except humanitarian aid according to a report in the Telegraph. The move follows a decision by China, a permanent member of the United Nations security council, to work more closely with the international community in bringing pressure to bear on "rogue regimes".

Africa: China emerges as key investor in Chad

2007-08-29

http://www.bicusa.org/en/Article.3460.aspx

China's "no-strings-attached" investments in Africa appear to many a welcome alternative to the conditional loans offered by the World Bank and IMF. But what consequences will China's growing involvement on the continent have for Africans? China has become the new lead developer in many African countries, out-funding the international financial institutions and other bilateral donors in some cases.

AU Monitor

Issue 101, 2007 – Weekly Roundup

2007-08-30

http://www.aumonitor.org

In this week’s AU Monitor, the African Development Bank’s Vice-President, Dr. Mandla Gantsho, discusses the Union Government and the potential role of the Bank in providing knowledge and technical assistance, while Dr. Issa Shivji reflects on the roots of Pan Africanism in the struggle against imperialism and how the current resurgence of the unity debate must also be situated in the global anti-imperialist framework. Dr. Shivji highlights the potential lessons learnt from experiences in the East African and Great Lakes region for broader continental unity. As regional summits conclude in East and Southern Africa, the AU Monitor brings you the final communiqué’s from both meetings and an article by Evans Sinjela highlighting the prohibitive NGO bills which plague Southern Africa, paying particular attention to the currently tabled NGO Bill in Zambia, the location of the recent Southern African Development Community summit. Also in official African Union news, a summit of women in science and technology will be held in South Africa from 29 to 31 August aimed at enhancing women’s participation and access to the benefits of science and technology.

The AU Monitor also bring you news of Presidents Kadhafi of Libya and Sarkozy of France consultations in which preparations for December’s Africa-Europe summit were discussed and during which the French president expressed support for the United States of Africa. Further, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela will address the African Union on September 3rd to discuss continued South-South cooperation and the forthcoming Africa-South America summit to be held in Venezuela in November 2008. While in Afro-Asian news, an African-Chinese ministerial consultative meeting will take place in New York on September 26th presided by Egypt, with, top of the agenda, discussion of the progress towards implementation of the Beijing Plan of Action and preparation for the 2009 Afro-Chinese meeting. Lastly, Tim Murithi of the Institute for Security Studies writes of the Panel of the Wise, an organ of the African Union made up of eminent Africans to support and advise the Peace and Security Council. The author provides several recommendations to increase the potential effectiveness of the Panel, not least the immediate discussion of the operational modalities of the Panel by the AU Peace and Security Council.

Liberia: UN envoy stresses need to end violence against women

2007-08-30

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=23640

The United Nations envoy to Liberia has called for an end to violence against women, while stressing that security is paramount for everyone throughout the West African nation as it works to rebuild after a brutal 14-year civil war. Special Representative of the Secretary-General Alan Doss made his remarks as he handed over a new UN-built police station to the people of Kronowroken, Webbo District, in River Gee County, along Liberia’s border with Côte d’Ivoire.

Global: Meeting the needs of impoverished women

2007-08-30

http://www.unfpa.org/upload/lib_pub_file/712_filename_empowerment.pdf

Many studies have recognized the importance of improving the status of impoverished women. This UNFPA workshop report describes a number of approaches used to date to empower women economically, including microcredit. The report includes a review of the literature on women's economic empowerment and a summary of presentations from the workshop.

South Africa: Hate crimes and State accountability

Wendy Isaack

2007-08-30

http://www.africafiles.org/article.asp?id=15869

In deeply homophobic and patriarchal South African society what does Women’s Month and National Women’s Day means for vulnerable, marginalised women? The State must enact legislation that punishes acts of violence against women and enforce policy that prevents violence and the re-assertion of patriarchal norms.

Southern Africa: Women need platforms of opportunity

2007-08-30

http://www.newera.com.na/archives.php?id=17120&date=2007-08-14

Thirty-two parliamentarians at the 7th sub-regional workshop on capacity building of the Network of African Women Ministers and Parliamentarians from seven SADC countries (Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) on capacity building advocacy, leadership and resource mobilisation recommended the creation of a network of opportunities and platforms to empower women. Women are profoundly affected by decisions related to development that are made without consulting them.

Southern Africa: Mirror on the media: gender and advertising

2007-08-30

http://www.genderlinks.org.za/page.php?p_id=371

A ground breaking study on gender and advertising in Southern Africa, conducted by Gender Links, has revealed that while women are more likely to feature in asdvertising than in news content, they are more likely to be seen than head. They predominate in billboards and still images and hardly feature in voice-overs; and it is in these still images that we see blatant stereotypes at their worst.

Kenya: Muslims say U.S. backed torture, detention

2007-08-30

http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL30339529.html

Kenyan Muslims marched on police headquarters in Nairobi on Thursday in protest against what they called the illegal detention and torture of fellow Muslims in an anti-terrorist drive urged on by the United States. The protest involving a few dozen Kenyans followed months of simmering tensions between the east African nation's Muslim community and authorities they accuse of persecuting and arresting them on U.S. government orders.

Sudan: Government not cooperating on arrests of war crimes suspects, says prosecutor

2007-08-30

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=23625

The Sudanese Government has not moved to arrest two suspects wanted to stand trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan’s war-wracked Darfur region, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has said, calling on Khartoum to cooperate immediately with the court. In an interview with the UN News Centre, Luis Moreno-Ocampo said that it is “totally unacceptable” that one of the two suspects, Ahmad Muhammad Harun, is currently Sudan’s Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs.

Zimbabwe: Freed political detainee suspended by employer

2007-08-30

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news290807/zesa290807.htm

An MDC senior official who spent 174 days in prison on trumped up charges of terrorism is facing another battle as a free man. Morgan Komichi was released on the 9th August but when he reported for work on the 15th he was told that he had been suspended on allegations of absenteeism. This is despite his lawyers having written to his employer, the Zimbabwe Power Company, a subsidiary of the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority, informing them about the arrest.

Zimbabwe: WOZA activists arrested during door to door raids in Bulawayo

2007-08-30

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news240807/woza240807.htm

Police in Bulawayo reportedly abducted six women and a baby from the organization, Women of Zimbabwe Arise during early morning raids on August 24. WOZA coordinator Jenni Williams said the group received an alert around four in the morning from the children of the arrested women, saying police officers were going door-to-door arresting the activists.

Zimbabwe: Disability is much more than a physical contraint

2007-08-31

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74038

The disabled are becoming increasingly marginalised, with the state and civil society neglecting their basic needs, says The forgotten tribe, people with disabilities in Zimbabwe, a new report. Data for the report, recently published by Progressio, an international development agency, in collaboration with the Zimbabwe National Association of Societies for the Care of the Handicapped, was provided by a 2006 survey based on interviews with experts on disability, and disabled people themselves.

CAR: Bush war leaves villages deserted

2007-08-31

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L30802845.htm

The village of Korosigna in northern Central African Republic is barely recognisable to those who once lived there. Every house is either demolished, abandoned or burned to the ground. Weeds and bushes have taken hold. Many homes are barely visible as the forest has moved in and engulfed the ruins. According to locals, government soldiers attacked Korosigna without warning in January 2006, part of a two-year-old bush war fought against rag-tag rebels across northern parts of the former French colony, landlocked in the heart of Africa.

Somalia: Thousands gather in port as Gulf of Aden sailing season nears

2007-08-30

http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/46d6cf054.html

Some 3,000 Ethiopians have gathered in the dusty northern Somalia port of Bossaso, joining Somalis preparing to make the risky trip to Yemen across the Gulf of Aden when the annual sailing season resumes. The bad weather that kept smugglers' boats ashore in July and August is coming to an end and the people traffic is expected to begin in earnest in the next few days. Those making the journey risk everything; at least 367 people died during the crossing during the first six months of this year.

Sudan: Summary expulsion of migrants from Israel

2007-08-30

http://www.hrea.org/lists2/display.php?language_id=1&id=5647

Israel should stop summarily expelling Sudanese nationals who enter the country illegally from Egypt and reinstate its policy of allowing them to remain in Israel pending refugee status determination, Human Rights Watch has said . Egypt's official refusal to accept them combined with recent allegations of mistreatment by border guards suggests that Sudanese returnees are likely to be treated harshly and with no guarantees that they would not be returned to persecution.

Zimbabwe: SA Home Affairs considers residence permits for refugees

2007-08-30

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news290807/sahome290807.htm

In a tacit admission that the Zimbabwean crisis has gone out of hand, South Africa’s Home Affairs Minister broke new policy ground by saying they were considering issuing temporary residence permits for those who had fled the country. On Tuesday Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula is reported to have said the government needed to adopt a new approach to deal with Zimbabwean citizens flocking into South Africa and that allowing them to work until the political problems had been resolved was a possibility.

North Africa: 'Smuggled' people's boat traced

2007-08-30

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cornwall/6968315.stm

Almost 60 people suspected of being trafficked off the Libyan coast have been rescued after being abandoned without supplies in a leaking boat. Coastguards in Falmouth co-ordinated a rescue operation after an Ethiopian in the UK took a call from the inflatable boat from his half-brother on board.

Southern Africa: Stop the EPAs' offensive by the EU against SADC

2007-08-30

http://www.zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=2778&cat=2

Hundreds of representatives of social and labour organisations, faith-based, community-based and health networks, small farmers, traders, women and youth organisations, and developmental, human rights and environmental NGOs from across the whole of the Southern African region have gathered in a Peoples Summit in Lusaka, Zambia, 15-16 August 2007, parallel to the SADC Heads of State summit.

Kenya: The National Civil Society Congress

2007-08-29

http://www.ncsckenya.org/

The National Civil Society Congress is a representative and legitimate voluntary Civil Society membership umbrella body, which reflects the diversity, growth, evolution and sophistication of the Kenyan Civil Society. The National Civil Society Congress anchors its coming into being and existence more on a broad based popular legitimacy than on legality and legalese. Among its core objectives is to provide and function as the platform for all Civil Society (CS) sectors to interact, share information and harmonize their interventions and proactive approaches on key national issues.

Morocco: Two parties boycott elections

2007-08-30

http://tinyurl.com/2d4wgb

Thirty-three political parties have fielded candidates for Morocco's September 7th legislative elections, according to a Magharebia report. Two additional parties, Annahj Addimocrati (The Democratic Path) and the Moroccan Amazigh Democratic Party, plan to boycott the poll. Founded in 1995, Annahj Addimocrati has never taken part in an election. Its main ally, the Parti de l'Avant-garde Democratique et Socialiste (Avant-garde Democratic and Socialist Party, or PADS) has ended its own boycott of the elections and will run for the first time since its creation in 1984.

CAR: Deadlock on who should dialogue

2007-08-30

http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/11031

The issue of civil society’s participation or not to the advocated political dialogue is dividing Central African Republic stakeholders as two opposed camps are confronting their viewpoints on the issue in a debate took place last week. Organised by the UN Peace Building Support Office in the CAR, BONUCA, at the National Assembly’s palace, the 22-24 consultation meeting focused on the political dialogue that many have called for to discuss national issues.

Kenya: Political intrigues and wrangles as Moi backs Kibaki

2007-08-30

http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/10994

Kenya’s president Mwai Kibaki got a boost when influential former leader Daniel Moi publicly endorsed him as the best choice for president in the upcoming election slated for December. In a move seen as sidelining fireband politician Raila Odinga, the leader of the popular Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), the former president insisted Kibaki should be handed a second term.

Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe's crisis, civil society's responsibility

Grace Kwinjeh

2007-08-29

http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?2,40,3,1279

Why were we colonized? And were we ever really decolonized? These are the central questions that should be at the core of liberation discourse in Zimbabwe and Africa at large, in order to start dealing with neo-colonial ‘ghosts’. These ghosts are real enough when they take the form of dictatorships, exploitative neo-liberal capitalism and repression of our growing resistance to these.

Sierra Leone: UN S-G voices concern over post-election violence

2007-08-30

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=23633

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed concern about the rising tensions and violence over the past week in Sierra Leone, which earlier this month held its first presidential and parliamentary polls since United Nations peacekeepers departed in 2005. “He calls on all parties and their leaders to do everything necessary to prevent the situation from escalating,” his spokesperson said in a statement.

Senegal: Ruling party sweeps senatorial polls

2007-08-31

http://www.afrol.com/articles/26579

A constitutional council in Senegal yesterday confirmed a landslide by the ruling Senegalese Democratic Party of President Abdoulaye Wade in the 19 August senatorial polls. The council confirmed that ruling polled 34 of the 35 senatorial seats in what it called an open contest. A single seat was won by an opposition And-Jef/African Party for Democracy and Socialism (AJ/PADS).

The looting of Kenya under President Moi

The missing Kenyan billions. A suppressed report into Presidential corruption

2007-08-31

https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/KTM_report.pdf

The intricately detailed report, commissioned by President Kibaki after his 2002 election victory but later suppressed, forensically investigates corrupt transactions and holdings by several powerful members of the Kenyan elite. The figures in the report sum to billions of US Dollars - comparable in magnitude to the looting of infamous kleptocrats such as Mobutu (Zaire), Marcos (Philippines), Abacha (Nigeria), Suharto (Indonesia) and Fujimori (Peru). The leaked material is extremely politically sensitive. Ex-President Moi has become a key player in political life in Kenya, and is now an essential pillar in President Kibaki's campaign for re-election in December 2007.

Kenya: Changing bribery trends in Kenya

2007-08-31

http://tinyurl.com/yw5lzy

Trends in bribe paying and rent seeking in Kenya have changed over the last six years despite the still significantly low willingness of Kenyans to report corruption cases. This is the resounding conclusion of the Kenya Bribery Index 2007, launched recently by Transparency International. Although some sectors have seen reform and a decline in bribe-paying, the Kenyan public still bears a huge cost. “This survey shows that while bribery is reducing in some sectors, the mwananchi still bears the largest brunt of corruption. In the legal arena, bribery is being channelled through the bar.

Africa: : Science, tech needed to lead Africa's development

2007-08-31

http://www.buanews.gov.za/view.php?ID=07082915451002&coll=buanew07

South African Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka says science and technology should not be viewed as "elitist" but rather as sectors whose growth can spearhead Africa's development. The Deputy President was addressing the first African Union (AU) Conference of African Women in Science and Technology.

Rwanda: Report urges for a new push to achieve the MDGs

2007-08-29

http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/rc/ItemDetail.do?itemId=1111612

The National Human Development Report 2007 released on Thursday in Kigali has called for a new agenda of scaling up of investment, increase in the quantity and quality of Official Development Assistance (ODA). The report further urges development stakeholders in Rwanda to promote a greater coordination and management of aid. The report entitled “Turning Vision 2020 into Reality: From Recovery to Sustainable Human Development” has been commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Rwanda and prepared by a group of researchers from the National University of Rwanda.

Africa: Over 40% of IFC projects fail to deliver development results - report

2007-08-29

http://www.bicusa.org/en/Article.3466.aspx

The Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), found that 41% of the IFC projects studied had low development ratings. IFC performed particularly poorly in Africa and Asia, where only half of its projects had positive development outcomes. In Africa, the quality of IFC work was particularly poor, rated as “high” in only 45% of projects, as compared to 68% in other regions.

Liberia: Post-war challenges exposed

2007-08-31

http://www.afrol.com/articles/26495

A report released by Partnership Africa Canada in Ottawa, and Green Advocates in Liberia outlines out the huge post-war challenges facing the new government of Liberia. Liberia had gone through a 14-year brutal civil war, which was fuelled mainly by looted natural resources. The West African country is blessed with natural resources, but the country remains one of the poorest and least developed places on earth, with an average per capita income of US $152 per annum and 40% adult illiteracy. Most Liberians die before they attain 40 years.

Swaziland: Only $3.1 million to feed 400,000

2007-08-31

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74005

Despite the worst harvest in the country's recorded history and the aftermath of fires that destroyed crops and plantations, Swaziland's appeals for international assistance are falling on deaf donor ears. In July UN agencies appealed for US$18 million to feed about 40 percent of Swaziland's one million people, who are facing acute food shortages. So far, only $3.1 million has been forthcoming, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

Global: Improving the health of mothers and babies

Barbara McPake

2007-08-30

http://www.id21.org/insights/insights-h11/pdf.html

Improving maternal health remains the most elusive of the Millennium Development Goals. Every minute, at least one woman dies from pregnancy-related causes: 99 percent of these are in developing countries. The majority of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, and are avoidable through using standard interventions and health care which all pregnant women and their newborns need.

Africa: Advancing public health calls for wider public health skills

K Tibazarwa

2007-08-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/43085

With the major public health challenges that are found in Africa, making progress in public health clearly demands a significant spread of public health skills. While health workers are making tireless efforts to address preventable diseases across the continent, and many successful experiences exist, revitalizing primary health care oriented systems calls for revitalized public health leadership and skills.
With the major public health challenges that are found in Africa, making progress in public health clearly demands a significant spread of public health skills. While health workers are making tireless efforts to address preventable diseases across the continent, and many successful experiences exist, revitalizing primary health care oriented systems calls for revitalized public health leadership and skills. Part of the challenge is filling the gaps created by out-migration. At a conference held in mid-June 2007 on 'Sustaining Africa's Development through Public Health Education', hosted by the University of Pretoria School of Health Systems and Public Health, Professor Erich Buch, health advisor to NEPAD, depicted the prevailing health worker situation in Africa, including the extensive brain drain, low funding and insufficient, often inadequately compensated, staff. He emphasised the need to shift focus from the current responses taking place country-by-country to building wider continental responses, informed by vision, leadership, and energy. This leadership demands public health skills, and Professor Buch asserted that building 'centres of excellence and networks in Africa are key . to strengthen[ing] public health capacity at public health schools and institutions across the continent'.

The meeting discussed options for how to achieve this. With limited financial and institutional resources, governments and institutions can best maximise what is available by sharing existing African expertise across organisations and countries, and strengthening formal mentorship programmes for public health practitioners. This needs to be backed by investments in user-friendly technology to support the communication, collaboration and networking between research institutions, and to stimulate collaborative research and discussion forums and strong alumni systems.

Networking between institutions and professionals in Africa is sometimes weaker than between Africans and colleagues in the developed world. Building African networks needs active support and investment. One key area of concerned raised in the NEPAD strategy is establishing and maintaining an inventory of public health education capacity in Africa, enabling standardisation and accreditation of training institutions and encouraging innovative methods of training and the use of technology supported learning.
As Professor Buch stated "We need to . build more cost-effective capacity on the continent'.

In line with these goals, the AfriHealth Project at the University of Pretoria recently completed a three-year mapping project of public health education and training institutions in South Africa. The project has developed a database of public health workers and educators to inform collaborations in Africa. While the mapping focused on South Africa, the information would be useful to strengthen the networking of institutions and individuals in Africa and to share these institutional resources. The AfriHealth Project seeks to secure a Pan-African Public Health body that is effective, inclusive, scientifically and politically supported, and well-resourced. The project has identified the strategic importance of developing a continental approach to improving public health in line with new socio-political realities, strengthening public health capacity by networking institutions, programmes and individuals, and promoting technology-supported learning and communication.

These initiatives do not see current skills scarcities as being an insurmountable block to development of new skills. Mentors can be drawn from existing academic institutions. But public health education must also move beyond universities, to provide other skills not always available from university education, such as for cultural sensitivity in health practice, or for strategic management. Short courses for public health practitioners can also bridge the gap between different entry levels and Masters' degrees in public health. Public health educators and researchers must also bridge the gap in research to reduce the drop out rate in Masters' courses. There are new and emerging challenges to public health in the rapidly changing global environment. The content of public health training needs to match the new needs and opportunities for action in public health. Gender issues have a major impact on health in the continent, and institutions should include gender in public health curricula. Improving women's rights, eliminating violence against women and advancing health rights more generally calls for recognition of the central role played by women in providing health care. This doesn't only mean looking at women's roles. As Dr Alena Petrakova from WHO (Geneva) noted at the conference, mainstreaming gender in public health curriculum design and development also means involving men and examining their impact on health. A recently-formed African Network for Public Health Educators on Gender (ANPHEG) is taking the issue of how gender is mainstreamed in the public health curricula on a sustainable basis.

Achieving the commitments set out in the continent and those set globally, like the Millennium Development Goals, calls for clear skills to best protect, use and advance the health resources in the region. Much focus has rightly been placed on retaining and valuing health workers. Beyond this, equal concern is now being voiced in the continent that those who do work in African health systems are adequately equipped at all levels with the knowledge and skills to lead effective and innovative responses to the continent's public health challenges. K Tibazarwa is a masters' student, School of Public Health at the University of Cape Town. Please send feedback or queries on the issues raised in this briefing to the EQUINET secretariat admin@equinetafrica.org

Global: International spread of disease threatens public health security - WHO report

2007-08-30

http://www.who.int/whr/2007/en/index.html

More than at any previous time in history, global public health security depends on international cooperation and the willingness of all countries to act effectively in tackling new and emerging threats. That is the clear message of this year's World health report entitled A safer future: global public health security in the 21st century.

Africa: Male circumcision doesn't affect women's HIV risk - study

2007-08-30

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/863ED8A3-78C8-4C9C-BF22-FA0685E5D140.asp

Male circumcision has “little influence” on a woman’s HIV risk, according to a study conducted in Uganda and Zimbabwe published in the August 20th edition of AIDS. However, the study did show that women with high levels of sexual risk were slightly less likely to contract HIV if their partners were circumcised, and the investigators suggest that this finding should be explored in further studies

South Africa: Food cannot replace medicine for HIV/AIDS and TB, experts say

2007-08-30

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/F68D0774-8E9E-489B-B7E2-6438B23F8007.asp

An extensive analysis of all scientific research on the links between improved nutrition and the treatment of both HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) has found no evidence that healthier eating is any substitute for correctly-used medication.

Zimbabwe: Condom promotion will have more impact than discouraging `sugar daddies`, study shows

2007-08-30

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/03323C3B-A098-4D69-A7F9-7885F590762A.asp

Without better uptake of condoms among older men, the promotion of later sexual debut and discouragement of cross-generational sexual partnerships may do little to limit the spread of HIV in African countries, according to epidemiological modelling carried out by researchers from Imperial College, London.

Global: Scientists must fight Internet AIDS denialism

2007-08-31

http://tinyurl.com/3565le

The impact of the AIDS denial movement — which refuses to accept that HIV is the cause of AIDS — is a ripe area for research because of its potentially lethal consequences, argue Tara C. Smith and Steven P. Novella in this PLoS Medicine article. Many doctors and researchers are unaware of the existence of organised denial groups or ignore them as an inconsequential fringe, they say.

South Africa: Computers leave students in pain

2007-08-29

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=105&art_id=vn20070817125045458C461343

Computers, deemed essential in schools to help improve education, are in fact leaving as many as three-quarters of city pupils suffering preventable back and neck pain. In a study to track computer-related pain in our children, it was found that 74 percent of more than 1 000 pupils who took part reported headaches, lower back and neck pain in the month before they were surveyed.

Botswana: Secondary schools to be networked

2007-08-30

http://www.balancingact-africa.com/news/current1.html#computing

About 100 secondary schools will at the beginning of next term be linked together through the computerised school Internet connectivity project. This was revealed through a Savingram circulated to all the 235 secondary schools Head teachers in the country.

Burkina Faso: School and books necessities not luxuries

2007-08-31

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74001

The Burkina Faso government will distribute millions of free books to primary school students and launch a pilot project to give no-fee schooling in a push to curb the number of people in the country growing up without even basic education. “This is the end of the time when reading and maths textbooks are seen as luxury items for parents,” pledged Odile Bonkoungou, minister of basic education and literacy, on 27 August, launching the free books project.

Somalia: Skipping school to attend school - children take charge of their education

2007-08-31

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73959

It is 10.30am on a sunny Thursday morning in the self-declared republic of Somaliland’s capital and 15-year-old Mohamed Yusuf is skipping school. Mohamed is not playing soccer or smoking cigarettes or shining shoes for a few extra shillings; instead he and a half-dozen of his classmates have trekked 5km through the dusty streets of Hargeisa to attend a session of Biyo Dhacay primary school’s Child-to-Child (CTC) club.

Uganda: Government accused of "state homophobia"

2007-08-31

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=uganda&id=1676

An international human rights group has accused President Yoweri Museveni's government of promoting "state homophobia" in Uganda and urged the repeal of a colonial-era law against sodomy. Human Rights Watch's attack added to a fierce social debate in the east African nation, where gays and lesbians have been increasingly vocal in demanding rights while Christian groups have taken to the streets to denounce them.

Africa: Gays Under Government Attack in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Uganda

2007-08-30

http://direland.typepad.com/

August has proven to be a perilous months for gays in Nigeria and Cameroon, where large-scale arrests have taken place, and in Uganda, where gay activists have gone into hiding after government ministers called for their arrest.

Nigeria: Tension as 18 homosexuals appear in court

2007-08-31

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=nigeria&id=1675

Charges against the 18 Nigerian men arrested in Bauchi at Denco Hotel have changed from those of alleged sodomy and alleged attendance of a same-sex marriage to those of indecent dressing and vagrancy. Aged between the ages of 18 and 21, the men are now charged with contravening Article 372 section 2(E) of the Bauchi State Islamic code which prohibits cross-dressing and the practice of sodomy.

South Africa: gayness 'worse than divorce and euthanasia' – study

2007-08-31

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=southafrica&id=1680

While most South Africans view homosexuality as more acceptable than prostitution or abortion, they still regard it as worse than mercy killing or divorce. And many do not want to live next door to gay, drug addicted or heavy drinking neighbours. This is according to a nationwide public opinion survey of values by market research company Markinor and the University of Stellenbosch’s Centre for International and Comparative Politics.

Uganda: Dam project goes ahead

2007-08-29

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.dam27aug27,0,4765674.story

Bujagali Falls, roaring and frothing just downstream from where Lake Victoria flows into the Nile River, has long been treasured as a resting place of ancestral spirits, a thrilling rapids for whitewater rafters and a spectacular feature of the natural landscape. It will be a memory. Construction has begun on a $772 million hydroelectric dam that will turn the falls into a reservoir. The project, financed by the World Bank, is intended to reduce the acute power shortages that have badly hampered this East African country's development.

Sudan: Dozens killed in floods

2007-08-31

http://tinyurl.com/2oxq4m

More than 100 people have died in flooding that has also spread disease and destroyed agricultural crops, officials have said. The release of the toll comes a day after the United Nations appealed for $20m to provide clean water, food and shelter to more than three million people affected by flooding from the River Nile and its tributaries.

Global: Carbon dioxide could make grasslands 'unusable'

2007-08-31

http://www.scidev.net/gateways/index.cfm?fuseaction=readitem&rgwid=4&item=News&itemid=3859

Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels could change the nature of grasslands and decrease their usefulness as grazing pastures, say researchers. The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week (27 August).

Mauritius: Diego Garcia anti-imperialist land struggle

2007-08-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/land/43099

The Chagos Archipelago is a group of seven atolls comprising about 55 islands, with a total land area of 60 km2. Between 1967 and 1971, an estimated 2,000 inhabitants of Chagos were evicted from their island home of Diego Garcia, the largest island in the archipelago, to make way for a US military base. The majority were forced to exile in Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius and some in Seychelles.
I am Abdool of Mauritius, found in the Indian Ocean. Previously our island was colonised by the French and later by the British. In 1968 we obtained independence (political) - still the British kept one of our islands called Diego Garcia and surrounding islands of Peros Banos and Salomon as part of the 'British Indian Ocean Territory'. Later, Britain hired out Diego Garcia to the Americans to build a military base. They expelled many of our citizens from there; these people are still living in extreme poverty in Mauritius.
Refugees have taken legal action against the British government and the high court of England has even accepted that the British government should let these refugees back to their homeland. Maybe one day ..

Moderators' note:
The Chagos Archipelago is a group of seven atolls comprising about 55 islands, with a total land area of 60 km2. The first settlers were of African origin, brought as slaves from Mauritius by the French in 1776. Others, mainly from India, arrived as coconut plantation workers during the 19th century. The Archipelago passed to the control of the United Kingdom in 1814.

Between 1967 and 1971, an estimated 2,000 inhabitants of Chagos were evicted from their island home of Diego Garcia, the largest island in the archipelago, to make way for a US military base. The majority were forced to exile in
Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius and some in Seychelles.

The Chagossians have since been fighting for their right to return to their homeland and for compensation. After a long legal battle, they won a high-court ruling in 2000 allowing their return to the outlying islands, excluding Diego Garcia, which is under lease to the US till 2016. In 2004, the British government announced two 'orders in council' (use of a royal decree that bypasses parliament) to ban the Chagossians from returning even to the outlying islands. However, in 2006, the high court overturned the 'orders in council' of 2004. Another appeal by the UK government followed, but on 23 May
2007 the court rejected the appeal saying that the methods used to stop the Chagossians to return to their islands were 'unlawful' and 'an abuse of power'.

The Chagossians in exile now number around 4,500 and although the above court rulings make it legal for them to return to all islands other than Diego Garcia, many questions and uncertainties remain ...

Ghana: Communities appeal to Inspection Panel about landfill project

2007-08-29

http://www.bicusa.org/en/Article.3472.aspx

The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) filed a request for inspection of the World Bank's Kwabenya landfill project in Accra, the capital of Ghana. They argued that the project would displace a significant portion of the Agyemankata community and cause health problems for residents, who were not adequately consulted.

Nigeria: Demolition plans bring new ethnic twist to Port Harcourt conflict

2007-08-31

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73978

State government plans to demolish several slums in the unstable southern Nigerian city of Port Harcourt could spark ethnic tensions, fuel violence, and leave up to 100,000 homeless. Rivers State Governor Celestine Omehia announced on 21 August his government would demolish 25 slum districts in the ramshackle waterfront area of the city that currently houses between 50,000 and 100,000 people, according to local estimates.

Africa: Civil Society gets toolkit to amplify marginalized voices

2007-08-31

http://www.kabissa.org/ict/sangonet-and-hivos-press-release.html

Scour the Net and you're sure to be deafened by a mushrooming of sites dedicated to a novel megaphone in the media world: Citizen Journalism. This advocacy tool is rapidly changing the media landscape and its potential in enabling ordinary citizens to evolve into shapers of news has been seized upon by Hivos (Humanist Institute for Cooperation with Developing Countries) and SANGONet (South African NGO Network). Together they have launched the Citizen Journalism in Africa project.

DRC: IFJ Condemns dismissal of eight journalists by newspaper

2007-08-30

http://www.ifj.org/default.asp?Index=5254&Language=EN

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the dismissal of eight journalists at Congolese newspaper L’Avenir after the management said they had to cut jobs due to economic concerns and then subsequently advertised for new workers to replace them.

Somalia: IFJ Condemns killing of radio journalist

2007-08-30

http://www.ifjafrique.org/anglais/index.php?page=lire&id=343

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the shooting of a Somali radio journalist – the seventh killing this year - and reiterated calls for international action over the crisis in Somalia where reporters have become prime targets in spreading violence.

Kenya: Rejection of media bill applauded

2007-08-30

http://www.ifjafrique.org/anglais/index.php?page=lire&id=341

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has applauded Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki for rejecting a media bill that could have required reporters to reveal their sources in court. "We applaud President Kibaki's decision, which acknowledges that protection of confidential sources is a cornerstone of press freedom

DRC: Thousands flee renewed fighting

2007-08-30

http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN043729.html

Thousands of civilians fled heavy fighting in Democratic Republic of Congo's troubled North Kivu province after clashes erupted before dawn on Thursday between government forces and renegade soldiers. Some 1,000 fighters loyal to rebel Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda attacked a Congolese army brigade headquarters in Katale, around 60 km (38 miles) northwest of the provincial capital Goma, at around 4 a.m. (0200 GMT), witnesses said.

Burundi: Finalising Peace with the FNL

2007-08-30

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5034&l=1

This latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines the need for a negotiated solution with the PALIPEHUTU-FNL to break a dangerous stalemate that could seriously undermine the consolidation of peace and democracy. Little progress has been made since the signing of the ceasefire agreement on 7 September 2006. At the end of July, the hasty departure from Bujumbura of the rebel delegation negotiating implementation of that agreement precipitated widespread fears fighting could resume.

Sudan: New photos expose arms violations

2007-08-30

http://web.amnesty.org/pages/sdn-240807-news-eng

New photo evidence shows that the Sudanese government is continuing to deploy offensive military equipment in Darfur, despite the UN arms embargo and peace agreements. Amnesty International (AI) today released new photographs that show Sudan's breathtaking defiance of the arms embargo and the Darfur peace deals.

DRC: UN mission urges end to fighting in troubled eastern region

2007-08-30

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=23638

Deploring clashes among opposing factions of the armed forces in the volatile east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the vast country has said that it is fully committed to helping find a peaceful solution to protect civilians from further violence.

Sudan: UN still seeks specialized troops for Darfur force

2007-08-31

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N30176248.htm

The United Nations is short of aviation, transport and logistic personnel necessary for the functioning of a new force of up to 26,000 troops and police in Sudan's Darfur region, according to a report issued on Thursday. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who issued the report, said the Aug. 31 deadline for troop contributors would have to be extended because "offers are still lacking for some critical military capabilities."

Mali: Landmines kill 11 in desert conflict

2007-08-31

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=318008

At least 10 civilians and one soldier were killed in northern Mali on Thursday when their vehicles hit landmines planted by suspected Tuareg rebels, Malian military officers said. The casualties in the north of the Sahel state followed three attacks this week by the Malian rebels in the desolate mountain region near the border with Algeria and Niger.

Africa: Who needs free software in a world of dwindling charity?

2007-08-30

http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=25&newsid=105136

The software battle that has been raging for a while among online communities and computer users in general on whether to adopt open source or closed source software is unlikely to end soon. It is a war mainly between the proponents of proprietary software like Microsoft Word and the free and open-source software (FOSS) which offer similar products like openoffice.org.

Africa: Can technology save Africa?

2007-08-29

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20363166/site/newsweek/

As Africa strives to pull itself out of grinding poverty, more and more countries are looking to technology to give them a leg up. The goal, supported by the United Nations and the African Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), is to get the continent IT-ready by next year, when a fiber-optic cable running alongside the east coast is scheduled for completion, bringing broadband access to 22 nations.

Global: Civil Society warns Microsoft on OOXML

2007-08-29

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/internet/43082

African Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) may be spoiling for war with the global software giant, Microsoft Corporation, over its bid to have its DIS 29500 'Office Open Extensible Markup Language (OOXML)' endorsed by the International Standard Organisation (ISO). African Civil Society Organisations are of the opinion that it is not in the best interest of the continent for any country to endorse OOXML, in line with the United States, Spain, South Africa and Kenya who have already voted 'No' to the OOXML.
Highway Africa News Agency

African Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) may be spoiling for war with the global software giant, Microsoft Corporation, over its bid to have its DIS 29500 'Office Open Extensible Markup Language (OOXML)' endorsed by the International Standard Organisation (ISO).

African Civil Society Organisations are of the opinion that it is not in the best interest of the continent for any country to endorse OOXML, in line with the United States, Spain, South Africa and Kenya who have already voted 'No' to the OOXML.

For instance, South Africa voted 13 against 4 and Czech went for 'NO' on the OOXML among others.

Noteworthy is that on Sunday, September 2, 2007, ISO is expected to vote on Ecma 376, "OOXML." Various countries have been allowed to arrive at a consensus at their convenience before this date. Nigeria is expected to hold a one-day stakeholders consultative forum at the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) office, next week Wednesday, August 29, 2007 at its Lekki office.

The CSOs squabble borders on the fact that OOXML has many flaws disqualifying it from being globally applicable and acceptable, especially by ISO.

XML is a programmable code initiative by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which permits information and services to be encoded with meaningful structure and semantics, which computers and humans could understand.

Also software experts have described XML as a great formula for information exchange, and easily extendable to include user-specified and industry-specified tags.

Commenting on the development, the Executive Director of Paradigm Initiative Nigeria, Mr. Gbenga Sesan, said that even the United States (U.S.) delegate at the ISO international standards body has concluded plans to vote against the approval of Microsoft's Office Open XML file format as a standard next month.

The U.S. decision was arrived at after the proposal failed to get enough support from members of the group's board.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) consultant, and chairperson of the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA), Ms Nnenna Nwakanma, told HANA that Nigeria like any other African country stands to gain by properly investigating the issue on the ground, stressing that Microsoft lobbyists have not been able to convince stakeholders how the OOXML document formats would benefit the public except for those who have Office 2007, which is a proprietary software .

"Only those using Office 2007 can benefit from it. If you use any Office apart from 2007, you first have to upgrade. I cannot understand why norms cannot be used unless certain proprietary changes had to be made," she said.

On the implication of voting 'No' to OOXML being proposed by Microsoft to Africa, especially in relation to e-School initiative, she said, already some African countries are warming up to embrace Open Document Formats (ODF), as an alternative file format.

She cited an instance with South Africa, saying it has taken a firm decision to migrate to ODF.

The challenge, according to her that Africa has now is to build own tropicalised technology.

"In Africa we have to build up our own tropicalized technology. Open Source offers the best option for this. Anyhow, if the most advanced IT nations in the world and in Africa says NO to OOXML, Africa as a whole should listen," she advised.

CSOs insisted that the DIS 29500 'Office Open XML' (OOXML) does not meet the criteria defined by ISO and others for an International Standard, adding that OOXML is an immature documentation of one vendor's proprietary document format, which depends on software patents held by this vendor.

Africa: Africa 4th in broadband penetration - study

2007-08-29

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/internet/43084

Africa has been rated fourth in broadband penetration among six continents that were sampled by the Economist Intelligence in the year 2007. The study conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) rated Africa as fourth in its uptake of broadband services within the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region scoring 7.4 behind North America 10, Western Europe 9.9, Central and Eastern Europe 7.6. After MEA came Latin America with 7.3 and Asia Pacific 7.1 within the six regions under review.
Highway Africa News Agency

Africa has been rated fourth in broadband penetration among six continents that were sampled by the Economist Intelligence in the year 2007.

The study conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) rated Africa as fourth in its uptake of broadband services within the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region scoring 7.4 behind North America 10, Western Europe 9.9, Central and Eastern Europe 7.6. After MEA came Latin America with 7.3 and Asia Pacific 7.1 within the six regions under review. "Scores are on scale of 1-10, with 10 representing the highest level of affordability," EIU stated.

Africa's positive but slow response to broadband is attributed to Africa's gradual liberalisation of the telecommunications market.

EIU precisely cited South Africa as an example of where broadband deployment progress has made broadband access much more affordable in recent years if online retails sales are anything to go by, said the report.

"South African e-commerce consultancy World Wide Worx reports that online sales of consumer goods grew by 25 per cent in 2006 to the tune of R688 million (about $94 million), and expects it to expand by another 35 per cent in 2007," EIU added.

South African enterprises, the study indicated have in turn leveraged online services to manage growth more efficiently, particularly in newly competitive industries: low-cost airlines have burgeoned in South Africa in the post-apartheid era, in large part owing to online bookings.

EIU explained this phenomenon by citing four primary airlines who sell online tickets and have made a fortune of R1.8 billion in 2005, with Kulul.com accounting for 60 per cent of that trade, thus becoming the country's largest online commerce site.

The study further noted that as broadband goes increasingly wireless, consumer familiarity with mobile devices such as phones and handheld computers would help individuals make the most out of the Internet.

The survey also showed that the ability to tap into broadband while on the move is increasingly becoming a contributor to improved employee productivity in many countries.

The EIU also said that this influence is not in the area of penetration only but equally its affordability to households in developing economies most of which are in Africa matters.

"Broadband is increasingly affordable in the developing world," the white paper made available to Highway Africa News Agency (HANA) stated.

In addition, EIU pointed out that the goalpost has shifted in terms of connectivity based on broadband accessibility.

The study also shows that certain types of connectivity are proving better than others in enabling e-readiness and broadband has been found to be enjoying more effect in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry worldwide.

The study was written in co-operation with the International Business Machines (IBM) Institute for Business Value.

South Africa: Putting South African IT first

2007-08-30

http://www.southafrica.info/doing_business/economy/development/safirst-230807.htm

A new campaign, South Africa First, was launched at the GovTech 2007 conference in Cape Town with the aim of encouraging both the public and private sector to make more use of local content when spending on information technology (IT). An initiative of the SA Local Procurement Advocacy Trust, focusing initially on the IT sector, South Africa First seeks to ensure that local businesses benefit from an estimated R1-billion a week spend on products and services in SA as a result of the country's economic boom.

Africa: Call for Papers: ISS Conference on HIV/AIDS

2007-08-29

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/43068

The MilAIDS Project of the Defence Sector Programme (DSP) at the ISS is planning to host a three-day conference from Wednesday 21 November until Friday 23 November 2007 in Tshwane (Pretoria). The conference is designed to harness multi-disciplinary research skills within the field of HIV/AIDS and the Armed Forces in Africa, bringing together policy-makers, practitioners and scholars whose research interests coincide with the activities of the Security Sector and Peacekeeping Missions in Africa.
Call for Papers
ISS Conference on HIV/AIDS: Trends, Impact Studies and Policy Development within Armed Forces in Africa

The MilAIDS Project of the Defence Sector Programme (DSP) at the ISS is planning to host a three-day conference from Wednesday 21 November until Friday 23 November 2007 in Tshwane (Pretoria). The conference is designed to harness multi-disciplinary research skills within the field of HIV/AIDS and the Armed Forces in Africa, bringing together policy-makers, practitioners and scholars whose research interests coincide with the activities of the Security Sector and Peacekeeping Missions in Africa.

Background: Since the 1980s, the Security Sector in Africa has experienced the increasing incidence of HIV/AIDS within uniformed and non-uniformed members. Yet, there is still no cure available leaving the numbers of those infected and affected, escalating drastically. As the evidence gathered in the baseline study: The Enemy Within: Southern African Militaries' Quarter-Century Battle with HIV/AIDS (ISS, 2006) has shown, the phenomenon of HIV/AIDS has left nations struggling to put into place appropriate policies that deal with the diverse challenges of recruitment; care and support for those affected; nutrition; home-based care and early retirements based on deteriorating health, whilst still maintaining effectiveness and required operational outputs such as participation in peace support operations. The same is also true of policy-making institutions that are responsible for deploying forces in response to the many conflicts in Africa. In this regard, because of the nature of HIV/AIDS, a disease that has the ability to mutate and change shape and form, this has left affected bodies and actors dependent on ad-hoc and under-developed policy options to guide their responses and strategies while continuing to uphold the primary functions of national and regional security.

Against this background, the goal of the conference is to expand the work established under 'The Enemy Within' - namely expanding the baseline study towards informing policy options for comprehensively combating HIV/AIDS within the Armed Forces in Africa and by extension, throughout African communities.

Themes: The research focus areas are divided in the three themes of:
1. Understanding the impact of HIV/AIDS on security forces in specific countries and sub-regions and evaluating the adopted policy options.

2. The policy challenges that HIV/AIDS poses to peace missions in Africa and related policy recommendations.

3. The implications of and responses to the UN position on Male Circumcision (MC) as part of the wider set of options to combat the pandemic.
Papers should address one or more of the following issues:
• Understanding the emergence and spread of HIV/AIDS in a particular country or sub-region and the policy response that have been attempted to address the problem
• Challenges of regeneration of Armed Forces: Recruiting and HIV/AIDS
• Options for administrative re-mustering of infected and affected members and financial burden implications
• Evaluation of the effectiveness or otherwise of external support to Armed Forces in combating HIV/AIDS
• Effectiveness of national sub-regional and regional policies
• Culture, peacekeeping and HIV/AIDS
• Male Circumcision (MC), attitudes and roll out challenges
• Challenges of drug procurement, distribution, availability as well as access of regimes
• Interrogating existing (policy) options on HIV/AIDS at the UN and AU levels
• Examining synergies between Armed Forces and society for combating HIV/AIDS

Authors wishing to present a paper at the conference must submit in advance, as a requirement for acceptance, a summary or abstract in English of the proposed content with a maximum of 500 words, setting out the general interest of the paper for the participants at the Conference, describing the contents of the paper and its relevance to the chosen theme. Abstracts should be submitted to Dr Martin Rupiya at mrupiya@issafrica.org by 31 August 2007. They must include the following details:

- Title of the proposed paper.
- Name of the author, organization to which he or she belongs and email address.
- If there are several authors, please give the particulars of each of them.

Authors of accepted abstracts will be notified by 17 September regarding acceptance of abstracts. Accepted papers should average around 5 000 words and must be submitted to Dr Martin Rupiya by 31 October 2007. Early submission of articles is strongly encouraged. Authors should adopt the style guideline for the in-house ISS publication, the African Security Review available at http://www.issafrica.org If you have any queries regarding the submission of abstracts and papers, please contact:

Dr Martin R. Rupiya,
MilAIDS Project Manager,
Tel: +27(12)346 9534 Fax: +27(12)460 0998
Cell: +27 84654 8718
Email: mrupiya@issafrica.org

Ghana: Internships at ISSER and RIPS

2007-08-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/43092

The Institute for Social, Statistical and Economic Research (ISSER) is based at the University of Ghana in Legon and has a long track record of research on regional economic and social issues in West Africa. The Regional Institute for Population Studies (RIPS), also at Legon specialises in the demography of West Africa. All internship applications should be sent to Meera Warrier at m.warrier@sussex.ac.uk[/email] by Monday, 3 September 2007.
INTERNSHIPS AT ISSER AND RIPS, ACCRA, GHANA

The Institute for Social, Statistical and Economic Research (ISSER) is based at the University of Ghana in Legon and has a long track record of research on regional economic and social issues in West Africa. The Regional Institute for Population Studies (RIPS), also at Legon specialises in the demography of West Africa. Together, these institutes provide a strong core of trained researchers with experience of work with a wide range of governmental and international institutions including the Word Bank, UNECA and UNDP.

ISSER and RIPS have worked under the following DRC themes:

Social Protection: research project on 'Social Protection of Workers in Global Agriculture: Pilot Study in Ghana' Child Migration: research project on 'The North-South Migration of Children in Ghana' Forced Migration: research project on 'Liberian Refugees and Rights in Accra, Ghana' Skilled Migration: research project contributing to 'International Comparisons of Mobility of the Highly Skilled' In the 2006-8 phase, ISSER is providing support to a more extended study on the social protection of workers in the pineapple-growing sector in Ghana. They are also researching \'The Re-integration of Return Migrants in the North-South Independent Child Migration in Ghana\' and preparing a country migration report on the state of migration in and from Ghana.

Current Internship Opportunities in ISSER-RIPS

ISSER and RIPS are interested in receiving applications from current social science postgraduate students or recent social science graduates who are interested in migration generally, and particularly in the context of Ghana and West Africa. More specifically, we are interested in interns who could work on the following projects:

The re-integration of child migration research project. At the moment, this study is at the analysis stage and the intern would be involved in the analysis and report writing. He/she could also be made to think through and do further analysis on the data (both quantitative and qualitative) to come out with any dimension of the re-integration of the child migrants as a separate paper.
The migration country report is still on course though some data gaps exist. The prospective intern would assist in both data collection and final writing of this report.
The intern will also have the opportunity to be involved in the implementation of the communications strategy whose implementation is ongoing. He/she will however, be given the opportunity to think through other research activities that may interest him/her while here.

Experience
The intern is expected to have experience in the following areas: Knowledge in migration issues Good communication and writing skills Literature review Questionnaire design and piloting Field survey and interviewing techniques for data collection The use of Excel and or SPSS for data analysis Working as a team Duration Internships will start in October, and last between 3 and 6 months.

Funding

Interns are self-funded, however, ISSER and RIPS will support research costs incurred by the intern. Basic monthly expenses in Accra amount to about USD 300 for accommodation, and USD 100 for food.

Some discretionary funding is available from the Migration DRC for students who are nationals of and currently living in either Bangladesh, Egypt or Ghana, who are seeking an internship with either of the two partner institutions not located in your country of origin (i.e. RMMRU in Dhaka, ISSER in Accra, or FMRS in Cairo). Please indicate in your covering letter if you are eligible and wish to be considered for this funding.

Visa

ISSER will provide a formal letter of invitation to be used by the prospective intern to apply for a visa for the period specified.

Contact Person(s) Professor John Anarfi can be contacted at: jkanarfi@isser.ug.edu.gh Please note that ALL internship applications should be in response to adverts, and sent to Meera Warrier at m.warrier@sussex.ac.uk by Monday, 3 September 2007.

Global: 17th Biennial Conference of the International Telecommunications Society - Call for papers

2007-08-30

http://www.itsworld.org/Montreal2008/

The International Telecommunications Society is pleased to issue a call for papers for its 17th Biennial Conference to be held in Montreal, Canada, June 24-27, 2008. The theme of the conference is “The Changing Structure of the Telecommunications Industry and the New Role of Regulation. The submission deadline is October 31st, 2007.

Global: CODESRIA Workshop - Development and Social Movements in the Countries of the South

2007-08-29

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/43072

The Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA), the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) are pleased to announce the Africa/Asia/Latin America scholarly collaborative initiative encompassing joint research, training, publishing and dissemination activities by researchers drawn from across the global South. The workshop will take place in Rio de Janerio, Brazil, from 19 to 20 November, 2007.
The Africa/Asia/Latin America Scholarly Collaborative Program

APISA – CLACSO – CODESRIA International Workshop

Theme: Development and Social Movements in the Countries of the South: Successes, Dilemmas and Challenges

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 19-20 November, 2007

Call for Applications



The Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA), the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) are pleased to announce the Africa/Asia/Latin America scholarly collaborative initiative encompassing joint research, training, publishing and dissemination activities by researchers drawn from across the global South, and to call for applications for participation in the South-South workshops they are organising within the framework of the initiative. The theme that has been selected for the third workshop being hosted under the auspices of CLACSO is: Development and Social Movements in the countries of the South: successes, dilemmas and challenges. The workshop will take place in Rio de Janerio, Brazil, from 19 to 20 November, 2007.



Within the ambit of the APISA-CLACSO-CODESRIA collaboration, a series of activities and programmes has been scheduled for implementation over the period to the end of 2007, among them three annual workshops. The workshops are designed to serve as a research forum for the generation of fresh and original comparative insights on the diverse problems and challenges facing the countries of the South. In doing so, it is hoped also that the workshops will contribute to the revival and consolidation of inter-regional networking among Southern researchers, foster a culture of Southern scholarly cross-referencing, and contribute to a type of theory-building that is more closely attuned to the shared historical contexts and experiences of the countries and peoples of the South. The workshops are rotated among the three continents where the lead collaborating institutions are located, namely, Africa, Asia and Latin America. This way, participants in the workshops who are also drawn from all three continents are exposed to the socio-historical contexts of other regions of the South as an input towards the broadening of their analytical perspectives and the improvement of the overall quality of their scientific engagements. The inaugural workshop was held on the Asian continent, with Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, serving as the host city; other workshops have been held in Caracas, Venezuela; Pretoria, South Africa;Kampala, Uganda; Bangkok, Thailand; and San José, Costa Rica.



1. THE 2007 WORKSHOP:

For the 2007 session of the South-South international workshop that is to take in Latin America, it has been decided by APISA, CLACSO and CODESRIA to host it in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. CLACSO will assume overall responsibility within the tri-continental partnership for the session. The workshop will run from 19 to 20 November, 2007. It is a requirement that prospective laureates should have a demonstrable working knowledge of the English language. APISA, CLACSO and CODESRIA will work together with the local host to facilitate the procurement of entry visas to Brazil for the prospective participants whose applications are successful. At the end of the workshop, each participant will be expected to produce a publishable article which will be considered for inclusion in the book of proceedings that will be issued.

As a complementary activity, it is expected that the selected scholars also participate in an open International Seminar on Social Movements, to be held on 21, 22 and 23 November at the premises of the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ).

2. ELIGIBILITY FOR PARTICIPATION:

Scholars resident in countries of the South and who are pursuing active academic careers are eligible to apply to participate in the workshops. Each applicant should have an advanced university education and an established track record of research and publishing in any of the disciplines of the social sciences and humanities. Selection for participation will be on the basis of a competitive process. All together, 12 people will be selected for participation in the institute on the basis of four each from Africa, Asia and Latin America. The full participation costs of the selected laureates will be covered, including their travel costs (economy return air tickets), accommodation and subsistence.

3. APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS:

Every researcher wishing to be considered for selection as one of the 12 scholars to be invited to participate in any of the research workshop organised within the framework of the APISA-CLACSO-CODESRIA tri-continental partnership is required to submit an application that will comprise the following key items of documentation:

a) An outline research proposal, written in English, on the subject on which s/he would like to work. The topic selected must be related to the theme of the workshop and should have a demonstrable comparative potential. Proposals should not exceed 10 pages in length and should have a clearly defined problematic which can be followed through further research and culminate in a publishable scientific paper;

b) A covering letter, of one-page, which should indicate the motivation of the prospective researcher for wanting to participate in the workshop and explaining how they envisage that they and their institution will benefit from the programme;

c) An updated Curriculum Vitae complete with the names of the professional and personal references of the researcher, the scientific discipline(s) in which s/he is working, the nationality of the applicant, a list of recent publications, and a summary of the on-going research activities in which the applicant is involved; and

d) A photocopy of the highest university degree obtained by the applicant and of the relevant pages of his/her international passport containing relevant identity data;

4. APPLICATION PROCEDURES AND DEADLINE

As the international workshop involve the participation of researchers from Africa, Asia and Latin America, it has been decided that applicants resident in Africa should submit their applications to CODESRIA, those resident in Asia to APISA and those resident in Latin America to CLACSO. The full contact details for APISA, CLACSO AND CODESRIA are reproduced below for the attention of all prospective applicants. The deadline for the receipt of applications is 1 October, 2007. Applications found to be incomplete or which arrive after the deadline will not be taken into consideration.



An independent Selection Committee charged with screening all applications received will meet shortly after the deadline for the receipt of applications. Successful applicants will be notified immediately the Selection Committee completes it work.



African applicants should send their applications to:

CODESRIA,

(2007 South-South Research Workshop),

BP 3304, CP 18524, Dakar, SENEGAL

Tel: (221) 825 9822: Fax: (221) 824 1289

E-mail: south.seminar@codesria.sn

Website: http://www.codesria.org

*****

Asian applicants should send their applications to:

APISA,

(2007 South-South Research Workshop)

Strategic Studies and International Relations Program

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, MALAYSIA

Tel: 603- 89213647; Fax: 603-89213332

E-Mail: secretariat@apisanet.com

Website: www.apisanet.com

*****

Latin American and Caribbean applicants should send their applications to:

CLACSO,

(2007 South-South Research Workshop)

Callao 875, 3º (1023) Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA

Tel: (54 11) 4811-6588 / 4814-2301; Fax: (54 11) 4812-845

E-mail: programa_sur-sur@campus.clacso.edu.ar

Website: www.clacso.org

**********

Concept Paper

Development and Social Movements in the Countries of the South: Successes, Dilemmas and Challenges

Since the decade of the 90s, there has been a rapid multiplication of social movements across the South, a trend which continued into the new millennium as to become a distinguishing feature of the 21st century. In addition to traditional unions and civil society and human rights organizations, a variety of new urban land and rural movements, organizations of indigenous peoples and feminist groups, among others, emerged both to play a major socio-political role and to contribute to shifting the frontiers of praxis. Some of these movements came to fill important spaces in the terrain of politics, and to assume decisive decision-making functions. Others developed a major international profile, animating sessions at big international conferences organized by the United Nations. The fields covered by the social movements are broad: Environmental issues, sustainable development, education, health and housing, cultural rights, and the fight against discrimination and other forms of intolerance. The new movements have enriched the debate of ideas on global change, including participation in successive World Social Forums organized in different cities of the world where the struggle for the democratisation of national and international institutions, among other issues, have been pursued with a view to securing sustainable human development, reducing inequalities between the rich North and the poor South, and guaranteeing decent conditions of life and livelihood for all.



Without doubt, the social movements of the South have contributed in an original way and in no small measure to the ideas’ debates and to the promotion of concrete interventions for change. Some of them have performed an important role of solidarity-building and the re-composition of the social fabric in different local contexts, thereby expanding and consolidating their discursive and representative platforms, especially in those countries where the state has been weakened and/or has abdicated its responsibilities in crucial social sectors such as education and health. Although it is true that the social movements of the South rarely have a trans-national character and - in comparison with the national conglomerates and multi-national companies that dominate the agro-business industry, the media and the financial sector - exercise a limited degree of direct influence on many states, it is also clear that, in the light of recent changes, they have built up a capacity for local action and the mobilisation of international solidarity. In Africa, this has, for instance, manifested itself in the creation of an international network of associations that have sought to couple human security and democratic governance. In parts of Asia, a trans-national network to combat discrimination on the basis of the circumstances of birth has emerged to play a frontline role in the struggle for democracy. And in Latin America, indigenous movements have built up their influence to fight for cultural rights and land justice. In sum, the social movements have contributed to the promotion of debate around the idea of a pluricultural and democratic state that accommodates the citizenship of all without sidestepping difference.



The challenges arising from the efflorescence of social movements at the beginning of the 21st century are many. Sociologists and Political Scientists have focused on their defensive role, a role the movements assumed on account of the erosion of the social responsibilities of the state, particularly with regard to education, health and social security, among others, and the privileging of a socio-economic logic whereby individualism prevails against collective ties. But there has also been a proactive aspect to the interventions of the movements. Such proactivity has given momentum to the quest for alternative sustainable development strategies that are sensitive to the livelihood concerns of the populace and to the challenges of diversity. One of the central pillars of the discourses promoted by the social movements and the actions they have taken is their critique of a monocultural and linear conception of development and modernization, a model which has become visible in the new extractive-productive models that are generalized in the different regions of the South. These models are integral to various elements of neo-liberal globalization that has marginalized a considerable part of the humanity and fundamental human rights. The social movements have championed social demands which not only question the assumptions of neo-liberalism but also seek to ensure that the quest for integration is subordinated to human development.



The workshop on Development and Social Movements in the countries of the South is designed to focus attention on the plethora of social movements active in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean with a view to understanding their processes and impact, as well as their discourses on sustainable human development. Of particular interest will be their role as protagonists of a critical perspective that seeks to challenge a dominant discourse on development and democracy. If the elasticity of the concept of social movements contributed to the success of their multiple objectives, there are also numerous challenges which expose them to criticism and menaces – open and subtle – from various power interests, state and non-state, public and private. Indeed, over the last few years, attempts have been made in different parts of the South to criminalize social protest and close public spaces in the name of citizens’ security. Attempts have also been made to militarize territories considered strategic to the development of private (monopoly) capital. These efforts at containing the social movements will be explored at the workshop with emphasis on their consequences. Workshop participants will also be invited to examine the extent to which full independence of action is indispensable to the capacity of the social movements to produce alternative types of politics that go beyond classical forms of struggle against inequality. Additionally, attention will be paid to the conditions under which alternatives advanced by the social movement produce emancipatory possibilities.

Global: CODESRIA Workshop - Theme: Rethinking development for the South

2007-08-29

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/43069

The Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA), the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), are convening an international workshop within the framework of the Africa/Asia/Latin America Scholarly Collaborative Program. The theme of the workshop is Rethinking Development Alternatives in the South: Prospects for Africa, Asia and Latin America. The workshop will be convened in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, from 5-6 October, 2007.
The Africa/Asia/Latin America Scholarly Collaborative Program

International Workshop

Rethinking Development for the South: Prospects for Africa, Asia and Latin America

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 5-6 October, 2007

Call for Papers



The Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA), the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), are convening an international workshop within the framework of the Africa/Asia/Latin America Scholarly Collaborative Program. The theme of the workshop is Rethinking Development Alternatives in the South: Prospects for Africa, Asia and Latin America. The workshop will be convened in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, from 5-6 October, 2007. The concept paper for the workshop and a tentative program are outlined below.



Application Procedure

Researchers on or from Africa, Asia and Latin America interested in participating in this workshop should submit an abstract and their curriculum vitae to the respective continental organizations, namely, CODESRIA, APISA and CLACSO. The full contact details for these organizations are reproduced below for the attention of all prospective applicants. The deadline for the receipt of applications is 15 September, 2007. An independent Selection Committee will screen all applications.



CLACSO

Callao 875, 3º (1023) Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA

Tel: (54 11) 4811-6588 / 4814-2301; Fax: (54 11) 4812-845

E-mail: programa_sur-sur@campus.clacso.edu.ar

Website: www.clacso.org

****

APISA

Strategic Studies and International Relations Program

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, MALAYSIA

Tel: 603- 89213266; Fax: 603-89213332

E-Mail: secretariat@apisanet.com

Website: www.apisanet.com

****

CODESRIA

BP 3304, CP 18524, Dakar, SENEGAL

Tel: (221) 825 9822: Fax: (221) 824 1289

E-mail: south.seminar@codesria.sn

Website: www.codesria.org

Concept Paper



Rethinking Development for the South: Prospects for Africa, Asia and Latin America

An apt analogy for capturing the South’s experience of development is offered by the twinning of the concepts of colonialism and development. A historicized reflection on the key concerns that have animated mainstream development thinking, and a review of the experience of neoliberal structural adjustment programmes remind us of colonial discourses on and practices in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and the transfer of the fundamentals of those discourses and practices into the period after colonial rule. A number of scholars have invested time and resources into an identification and a description of the continuities and breaks between colonialism and development, tangentially or directly. Some of these efforts attribute current impediments to development in the South to the colonial experience. Mahoney, for example, finds that colonies peripheral to the Spanish empire are more developed than those territories considered as its centers. Underdevelopment, in this case, then becomes a legacy of direct and intensive Spanish colonial rule. Also, Engerman and Sokoloff observe that the efforts of European colonialism to alter the composition of populations in colonized areas contributed to extreme inequality between colonists and “natives” which, in turn, evolved institutions that restrict access to economic opportunities as well as discourage public investment in the infrastructures that are necessary for growth. Other researches, meanwhile, find links between colonial and developmental practices. Cooke , for example, asserts that contemporary development management owes to colonial administration, specifically to indirect rule, its recently adopted set of participatory methods that promotes “ownership” of development interventions. Cooke argues that achieving “empowerment” through participation was subject to the colonial sovereign power and the seeming autonomy it granted was a way of reproducing that power. Also, Kothari explores how the professionalisation of international development facilitates the expansion of a neoliberal agenda in development agencies, and how "alternative" approaches are co-opted into this agenda. In relation to this, she draws attention to development "experts" and their role in the reproduction of systems of expertise and forms of authority. Her research on former UK colonial officers who worked in the post-colonial development industry is then drawn upon to illustrate the continuities and divergences of the colonial to current discourses of development.



The colonialism/development interface suggests the existence of many more legacies, continuities, overlaps, shared rationale, and common practices than is readily recognized or acknowledged. As demonstrated by the above literature, it challenges us to adopt strategies that demand a re-thinking of development in ways that are much bolder than has been the case to date. Such a re-thinking requires that we deal with the underlying assumptions of development, its theories, concerns and processes. Re-thinking also takes us into the terrain of critique and alternatives to development. If years and voluminous documentations of critical development reflections have not displaced the hegemonic role of the Bretton Woods institutions and their development models, it is partly because much of development scholarship and policy continues on the assumption that the South will get to where the North is by following what the North does (or did). Also, such radical re-thinking as has happened has, for a variety of reasons, largely remained marginal, producing alternatives that never quite make it into actual development policies and practices.



Taking the colonialism/development analogy further: What can decolonization and the after-colonial teach us about an after development that is dominated/determined by the supposed wealth and knowledge of Northern experience? How do we remedy the structural impediments to development in the South? How do we free ourselves from IMF-World Bank development models and commit ourselves to the wealth of development re-thinking that is available to us? Or is it really available to us as possible practices? What are the impediments to translating these alternatives into actual development strategies, plans, and policies? It is these questions that motivate this South-South workshop on (re)thinking our development re-thinking. The workshop aims to re-think critical development thinking and inquire into the how and why of its marginal or peripheral location vis-à-vis a development mainstream rooted in the neoliberal agenda and neoclassical economic assumptions. The workshop is organized around four broad sub-themes that are recurrent to development re-thinking: (1) The Challenge of theDevelopmental State; (2) The Technologies that Promote Development as a Means of Dominating the South; (3) The Possibility of Development without the North; and (4) The Political Economy of the Production and Reproduction of Poverty.



(Re)thinking Development Re-thinkings: Critical Perspectives and Alternatives in/to Development

The workshop’s main theme will evaluate the critical perspectives that have been deployed over the years against the development mainstream. The primary question to be answered is: How come mainstream development theory and practice remain unaffected by critiques from inside and outside? The same question must be asked of development alternatives, whether these are directed towards other ways of thinking about development or doing away entirely with the concept of development. What prevents the adoption or practice of these alternatives? Dominant thinking on development is underpinned by the assumptions and methods of neoclassical economic theory. Many of the efforts at re-thinking development do not sufficiently tackle these underlying assumptions and methods. Indeed, in some circles, the crises of development that has been observed has only served as a basis for arguing that the connection between neoclassical theory and development should be strengthened. Thus, the widespread perception that development has failed or is in an impasse, for example, prompted Krugman to call for renewing and strengthening its links with neoclassical economics.



Schuurman has attributed the impasse in development to two sources: The increasing levels of poverty, inequality and exclusion in the South and the crisis in development thinking, with mainstream theories losing their hegemony. According to him, the development impasse was also abetted by advances in critical development thinking, with feminism, post modernism and postcolonialism eroding the domination of mainstream theories, which further clears more space for their critical efforts. Yet these critical efforts remain marginal. The neoliberal agenda and neoclassical economic roots of development thinking continue to hold influence in national developmental strategies, as well as in development interventions supported by the IMF and World Bank. Pieterse offers a different fate to development alternatives. He suggests that alternatives can be argued to be successful and points to their adoption and integration into the orthodoxy as evidence. Alternatives such as sustainable development, gender and development, participatory practices, poverty alleviation as development goal, human development, among others, have entered the mainstream of development thinking. Such adoption and co-optation have, however, not left us with any viable alternatives and led to a watering down of the political and social contexts that necessitated them. The development impasse then seems to have been overtaken by renewed efforts to re-present mainstream development thinking as the only workable and relevant option to developmental problems such as poverty, and by the co-optation of alternatives and their integration into the orthodoxy. Jeffrey Sachs’ recent effort that promises the end of poverty is an example: all we need is to couple the neoliberal agenda with compassion and commitment and we are good to go.



Workshop Sub-Themes

1. RETHINKING THE DEVELOPMENTAL STATE

Current thinking on governance tacitly accepts the narrowing role of the state in directing society. Civil society organizations, thus, have taken on tasks traditionally within the scope of the state’s mandate. This, in addition to the neoliberal claim that development can be secured through a market that is largely left alone, contributes to the concept of development exceeding the horizon of the state’s developmental responsibilities. Yet, the developmental state is asserted to be still relevant. This comes from both mainstream and marginal development thinking. Two Nobel Prize recipients, for example, highlight the need for state interventions in the market. Sen goes against the Pareto principle and advocates some form of wealth reallocation to produce equity in the development of human capabilities. Stiglitz, meanwhile, blames the IMF and its rigid structural adjustment conditionalities that erode the role of the state for the negative experiences of developing countries and their people with globalization. In consideration of the foregoing, the more obvious question is: How is the state relevant in development interventions given its diminishing role, both domestic and global? A more subtle approach to the problem is achieved via the questions: What constitutes the basis for our continued belief in the developmental state? What alternatives are available beyond the triad of choices: state, market and civil society?

2. TECHNOLOGIES OF DEVELOPMENT

Offhand, there are at least two meanings that can be derived from this theme: the technologies that make development possible and the know-how and tools that perpetuate development as a means to the domination/determination of the South. Usually the two meanings exist on different planes. A goal of the workshop is to juxtapose them and maybe derive something new from their disparity. Questions at their intersection are: How do technologies that support and make development possible, including NGOs, contribute to the maintenance of the continued domination of the South? How does the South’s dependence on the North, in terms of development know-how and tools, orient its development thinking and its visions of developed selves?

3. DEVELOPMENT WITHOUT/DESPITE THE NORTH: SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION TOWARDS DEVELOPMENT

A reality of development that is deemed normal by its practitioners is the necessary role of the North in the development of the South. This role should either be bigger or stronger but never really absent. Rationalizations for this include restitution, responsibility, and charity. It is the North’s obligation, whether dictated by compassion or its guilt, to assume part of the South’s development burden. In practical terms: Technology, expertise, financing are things we expect to get from the North’s involvement in our development efforts. The North’s involvement in Southern development is aptly captured by the North-South dialogues of the 1970s and the early 1980s, and is exemplified by the Brandt Commission. It highlights the necessary linkage between the North and the South in a world economy that is increasingly becoming interdependent. Such conceptualization defuses the more divisive and antagonistic roots of alternative terms such as (semi-)periphery and Third World. The concept of periphery lays the blame of the South’s underdevelopment on the North’s development. Third World, meanwhile, originally had the same connotation as the phrase Third Estate in pre-revolutionary France. The point is that what was originally a relation of estrangement and conflict after the postcolonial has been defused into dependence couched as cooperation. The paramount questions then are: What are the effects of Southern dependence on the North for South-South cooperation for development? Is it possible for the South to pursue development without or despite the North?

4. THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF POVERTY

Development’s supposed final goal is the eradication of poverty. Yet, like development, economic emancipation for the world’s poor remains elusive. In real terms, the number of people suffering poverty continues to increase in tandem with worsening destitution. This occurs with a parallel increase in the wealth of the world’s already wealthy. The Pareto optimality principle that underlies neoliberal and neoclassical development thinking all but eliminates the option of redistributing the world’s wealth in favor of the poor. Development that supposedly leaves no individual worse off is, thus, poverty’s holy grail. Yet there is no trickle down effect that should erode poverty as it reaches the bottom poor. What we get is economic growth that leaves more and more people in worse conditions. This leads us to the questions: How come/why poverty? What are the politics and economics involved in the persistence (maintenance) of poverty?



Workshop Schedule

1. Workshop Duration

The workshop timeframe is two days. Participants are advised to arrive on Thursday, the 4th of October 2007. The workshop proper will take two days. Participants will leave on Sunday 7th of October, 2007.



2. Tentative Schedule

October 4, 2007 Arrival of Participants

7:00 pm Dinner

October 5, 2007 Workshop

8:00 – 9:00 am Registration

9:00 – 10:00 am Welcome Remarks and Preliminaries

10:00 – 12:00 pm plenary: (Re) thinking Development Rethinkings

(Coffee will be served during Plenary)

12:30 pm Lunch

2:00 – 4:00 pm Session 1: Rethinking the Developmental State

4:30 – 6:30 pm Session 2: Technologies of Development

8:00 pm Dinner and Socials

October 6, 2007 Workshop

9:00 – 11:00 am Session 3: Development without/despite the North:

South-South cooperation towards development

12:00 pm Lunch

2:00 – 4:00 pm Session 4: The Politics Economy of Poverty

4:00 – 6:00 pm Closing Plenary: Concluding Guest Speaker, Closing Remarks and Ceremonies

8:00 pm Dinner and Socials

October 7, 2007 Departure of Participants

Global: Human Rights Advocates Program (HRAP) at Columbia University

2007-08-30

http://humanrights.columbia.edu/hrap/application.htm

The Human Rights Advocates Program (HRAP) at Columbia University is now taking applications for the 2008 session. The 2008 HRAP focuses on human rights and globalization. The Program is designed for experienced lawyers, journalists, teachers, social workers, community organizers, and other human rights activists working with non-governmental organizations in labor rights, migration, health, social exclusion, environmental justice, and corporate social accountability.

Southern Africa: Call for Applications: Human Rights Fellows Program for Angola and Mozambique

2007-08-29

http://www.justiceinitiative.org/db/resource2?res_id=103833

The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) and the Open Society Justice Initiative (the Justice Initiative) are pleased to invite applications for the Human Rights Fellows Program for the 2008-2010 session. The deadline for applications is September 17, 2007. This program was launched in 2003 by OSISA and the Justice Initiative, in collaboration with Conectas Human Rights, the Open Society Foundation for South Africa, and civic organizations in South Africa, Mozambique, and Angola.

Southern Africa: Call for Applications: Human Rights Fellows Program for Angola and Mozambique

2007-08-30

http://www.justiceinitiative.org/activities/lcd/fellows/osisa_fellows

The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) and the Open Society Justice Initiative (the Justice Initiative) are pleased to invite applications for the Human Rights Fellows Program for the 2008-2010 session. The deadline for applications is September 17, 2007. This program was launched in 2003 by OSISA and the Justice Initiative, in collaboration with Conectas Human Rights, the Open Society Foundation for South Africa, and civic organizations in South Africa, Mozambique, and Angola.

Switzerland: Business for Human Rights Conference, 5 September 2007

2007-08-24

http://businessforhumanrights.wordpress.com/

This open conference brings together business, multilateral institutions, governments and civil society to discuss the role of business in respecting and promoting human rights. In today's business environment, companies play a critical role in ensuring that international standards of human rights are being upheld and promoted. This relation-ship is highlighted in the United Nations Global Compact, which lists adherence to human rights as its first principal, emphasizing the need for business to use its re-sources and expertise to rebalance global inequality.

Africa: Senior program officer, Africa - American Jewish World Service

2007-08-29

http://www.ajws.org/index.cfm?section_id=2&sub_section_id=1&page_id=177#f1

The Senior Program Officer for Africa will be based in New York and responsible for shaping and implementing the strategic direction of AJWS’ grantmaking in Africa and directly managing grants in Southern Africa. S/he will represent AJWS’ Africa program at international forums as well as AJWS Board and donor meetings. S/he will manage the work of the two Africa Program Officers and consultants in the field.

DRC: Researcher, Human Rights Watch

2007-08-24

http://www.hrw.org/jobs/docs/2007/08/02/africa16567.htm

The Researcher will be based in Goma, eastern DRC, after an initial period of orientation (in HRW's New York, Washington, D.C., Brussels or London offices). Responsibilities will include, but are not limited to, monitoring violations of human rights and international humanitarian law; curbing abuses through monitoring, investigating and documenting human rights violations in DRC (with a focus on the eastern provinces); applying sound judgment to investigation, reporting and advocacy work; writing and publicizing concise and accurate reports.

Global: International Advocacy Director - Center for Reporoductive Rights

2007-08-29

http://www.reproductiverights.org/ab_employment.html#ilpadvdir

The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) is a non-profit legal advocacy organization dedicated to promoting women's equality worldwide by guaranteeing reproductive rights as human rights. Reproductive rights, the foundation for women's self-determination over their bodies and sexual lives, are critical to all women's ability to achieve their full potential. CRR seeks an International Advocacy Director. Deadline for applications is October 31, 2007.

Global: Volunteer, United Planet

2007-08-24

http://unitedplanet.org/

United Planet undertakes a diverse and creative range of educational, humanitarian, and peace-building initiatives. People of all ages, backgrounds, and nationalities are invited to join United Planet's membership in "a community beyond borders." You can volunteer to support children and the disabled in communties throughout France and Italy. You can assist in agricultural, environmental, and community projects in New Zealand, Nepal, and India. You can help with AIDS/HIV programs in Uganda, Russia, Nigeria, and more. You can assist in human rights issues in Brazil, Bolivia, Mozambique, and Lithuania.

Netherlands: Forest Campaigner, Greenpeace

2007-08-24

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/about/jobs/forests-campaigner

The world’s ancient forests continue to be destroyed at an alarming rate – threatening both biodiversity and the global climate. Do you want to do something about it? Do you have a talent for creating positive change? If so, you might be the person we are looking for to join our international team as a forest campaigner. Closing Date: 21 September 2007.

UK: Director of Development, The Climate Group

2007-08-24

http://www.idealist.org/en/job/237182-49

The Director of Development is responsible for all aspects of the management of The Climate Group’s Development Office based in London, and is responsible for global co-ordination of fundraising activities in the regional offices of The Climate Group. He/she will report for all operational purposes to the Chief Operating Officer, but have a direct access link for the purpose of strategy and major gift approaches with the Chief Executive. He/she will be part of the International Management Team.

Fahamu