Back Issues

Egyptian activists talk about the state of the revolution

Samir Amin, Mamdou Habashi, Firoze Manji

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Dakar2011/70792

cc PeriodikoOn February 4, Pambazuka News editor Firoze Manji walked in on Egyptian theorist Samir Amin and Mamdou Habashi, a well-known Egyptian activist talking politics, and joined right in. Here's the recording he made (46.11 MB).

What you're about to hear is an impromptu conversation between Egyptian theorist Samir Amin, Pambazuka editor Firoze Manji and Egyptian activist Mamdouh Habashi. Amin is probably best known for developing the theory of Eurocentrism. Habashi is a well-known Egyptian left-wing activist. And Manji's publication Pambazuka is produced by a Pan-African network of over 2,600 volunteers and organisations. 

The three men met on February 4 at the World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal. A few hours before, Mamdouh had arrived straight from Tahir Square in Cairo. This was not a planned interview – Manji began recording as he saw where the discussion was going. Although the sound quality reflects the spontaneity of the recording, this is rare opportunity to hear these three in discussion, with analysis fresh from the events unfolding in Egypt.

We hope you'll enjoy this first collaboration between rabble.ca and Pambazuka News.

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

Egypt: The movement with no leader

Mamdouh Habashi

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Dakar2011/70780

Zahra Moloo speaks with Mamdouh Habashi [mp3], vice-president of the World Forum for Alternatives and board member of the Arab and African Research Centre in Cairo. Habashi explains the causes behind the recent popular uprising in Egypt, the crisis of democracy that led to its creation and its potential and weaknesses as a ‘movement without a head’. Egypt, he says, does not have a real democracy, despite the presence of unions, elections and a so-called political opposition. But despite having the biggest and most powerful anti-demonstration police in the world, the government was unable to contain the people’s movement.

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* Interview conducted by Zahra Moloo, an independent journalist from Kenya, currently based in London, UK.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Will we need a second earth?

Agrarian questions in India and China

Ritu Devani et al

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Dakar2011/70776

Below are excerpts from a World Social Forum workshop on the agrarian question. Ritu Devani from the University of Mumbai talks about 'agrarian distress' or the agrarian crisis in India [mp3]. This year is the 20th anniversary of the country's loan from the IMF and the formal inauguration of globalization. She explains the enormous decline in the agricultural sector and the reasons for the unprecedented number of farmer suicides in the country.

The second excerpt looks at China and the right to development [mp3]. According to this speaker, the most frequently repeated phrase these days is that China is 'too big'. Thirty years ago, China was 'too red'- if China is too big to develop according to the West, what about India and what about the entire third world? If China follows America's model of development, will we need a second earth?

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* Recorded and edited by Zahra Moloo.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Who benefitted from Zimbabwe's land reform?

Sam Moyo

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Dakar2011/70778

Zahra Moloo speaks to Sam Moyo, director of the African Institute for Agrarian Studies (AISA) [mp3]. Moyo talks about the successes and contradictions of Zimbabwe’s land redistribution strategy in the context of agrarian reform and the media’s tendency to misrepresent the issue, including continued accusations that only the elite have benefitted from the country's land redistribution programme. He says that in fact the degree of land distribution which took place benefitted a large number of people in Zimbabwe.

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* Interview conducted by Zahra Moloo, an independent journalist from Kenya, currently based in London, UK.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Capitalism deepens underdevelopment

Samir Amin

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Dakar2011/70789

cc G SRenowned Egyptian economist Samir Amin talks about reinforcing cooperation between countries of the global South [mp3]. History has proved that capitalist development in countries of the South only reproduces and deepens underdevelopment. He seeks to answer the questions, why a South-South cooperation, what are its objectives and what are the difficulties and contradictions of this cooperation.

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* Recorded and edited by Zahra Moloo.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Houses for men, slums for women

Rkia Bllot

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Dakar2011/70779

In Morocco, women from a number of different ethnic groups experience great difficulties accessing collective land. Rkia Bllot, an activist from the Hededa group in Morocco [mp3], living in the suburbs of Kenitra, 50 kilometres from Rabat, explains to Zahra Moloo how the patriarchal system in place excludes women from accessing land. Bllot says that the while the land belongs to the Hededa ethnic group, only married men have access to land. All the women are excluded - the women live in slums while their brothers live in proper houses.

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* Interview conducted by Zahra Moloo, an independent journalist from Kenya, currently based in London, UK.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Egypt: Who will take the movement forwards?

Mamdouh Habashi

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Dakar2011/70781

cc L AMamdouh Habashi explains the recent popular uprising in Egypt[mp3] and the historical factors that led to it. He outlines the unique way in which Egyptians organised the uprising through the internet and talks about the revolutionary creation of the first association of independent labour unions. But the question remains, who is going to lead this movement toward a concrete objective in the future?

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* Recorded and edited by Zahra Moloo.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Ivory Coast: Fighting for a more just society

Interview with Maurice Fahe

Zahra Moloo

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Dakar2011/70782

cc P M MZahra Moloo talks to Maurice Fahe, an independent researcher from Ivory Coast [mp3] and a member of the World Forum for Alternatives. Fahe talks about the current situation in the Ivory Coast, following explosive elections in November 2010, which led to the formation of two governments and two presidents assuming power. He says this has led to serious consequences on conditions of life in the country, including an increase in inflation and the cost of food. Fahe also explains the concept of ‘Ivorité’ in a country where much of the population is not indigenous and talks about the continued colonisation of the country as ordinary Ivorians continue to fight for a more just society.

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* Zahra Moloo is an independent journalist from Kenya, currently based in London, UK.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Let Ivorians shape their own destiny

Talk by Maurice Fahe

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Dakar2011/70783

In the following presentation, Maurice Fahe attempts to answer the question, how do Ivorians understand what is happening in their country today? [mp3] The media and other international actors have failed to correctly analyse the situation in the country, according to Fahe. He says the country has remained a semi-colony since the government of Houphouet-Boigny, and that the form of democracy that has since prevailed has not and will not lead to the transformation of society. Now is not the time to support or follow Outtara or Gbagbo, but to let Ivorians themselves decide and shape their own destiny.

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* Recorded and edited by Zahra Moloo.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Philippines: The price of democracy

Talk by Antonio Tujan

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Dakar2011/70784

cc R VIn the following presentation, Antonio Tujan describes the current situation in the Philippines [mp3] and the price that people have had to pay to bring about a genuine democracy. The Philippines, he says, is the deadliest place for the media, surpassing Iraq. More than 800 extrajudicial killings have taken place in the past decade. Tujan says this demonstrates that democracy is not institutionalised – people continue to fight for justice on the streets and in the past have even managed to roll back an IMF (International Monetary Fund) prescription and to challenge a law favouring foreign mining companies at the national level, but such gains remain short-lived.

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* Recorded and edited by Zahra Moloo.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Self-reliance and the revival of Pan-Africanism

Aziz Fall

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Dakar2011/70785

cc GuledIn an interview with Zahra Moloo [mp3], Aziz Fall, member of the Group for Research and Initiative for the Liberation of Africa, talks about the potential of cooperation between countries of the South and the revival of Pan-Africanism. He refers back to the Bamako Appeal and calls for a true, genuine integration between African countries including self-reliant development, agrarian reform, a renewal of the tri-continental approach and the need to work with radical forces from below to transform society. Fall says it is necessary to go beyond the comprador regimes that have failed in Tunisia and Egypt and to put in place a monitoring body to stop the ongoing pillage of resources across the African continent.

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* Interview conducted by Zahra Moloo, an independent journalist from Kenya, currently based in London, UK.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Bring back Bamako

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Dakar2011/70786

cc F SIn the following presentation, Professor Aziz Fall [mp3], member of the Group for Research and Initiative for the Liberation of Africa, talks about the combination of the concepts of ‘Pan-Africanism’ and ‘Auto-Centrage,’ i.e ‘Pan-Afri-Centrage.’ in the context of South-South solidarity. Fall says that many of the movements from Africa have been co-opted by imperialism and we now have a historical responsibility to revive the demands of the Bamako Appeal.

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* Recorded and edited by Zahra Moloo.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

China, Africa and the people

Wen Tiejun

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Dakar2011/70787

cc S MIn an interview with Zahra Moloo, Beijing-based Professor Wen Tiejun [mp3], who teaches sustainable development and comparative studies in developing countries, talks about the role of China in reinforcing cooperation between countries of the global South. Tiejun says that there is a need for mutual communication between China and Africa so that both can benefit from business as well as helping to improve the livelihoods of people. China has already signed contracts with several state-owned companies in Africa and Tiejun says that future cooperation must be carried out by governments and people, rather than by private companies.

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* Interview conducted by Zahra Moloo, an independent journalist from Kenya, currently based in London, UK.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

China and the South

Wen Tiejun

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Dakar2011/70788

cc G SIn the following presentation, Wen Tiejun talks about the global economy and China’s place in the context of South-South cooperation [mp3], specifically in relation to Africa. He outlines some of the major issues facing world today, including the global food problem and suggests some alternatives.

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* Recorded and edited by Zahra Moloo.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

China in Africa: Colonisation or co-operation?

Abdoul Guarmo Lo

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Dakar2011/70790

cc WikimediaIn the following presentation, Abdoul Guarmo Lo talks about the role of China in Africa [mp3] – is China’s involvement a new form of neocolonialism or is China new strategic partner for the continent? China’s presence has been seen by the media as an ‘invasion’ in Africa. The African continent has always been, for Western powers and for capitalism in general, the site for resource extraction or for the provision of labour. Is China continuing this trend and how does its socialist-oriented history influence its involvement in Africa?

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* Recorded and edited by Zahra Moloo.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

D2D – World Social Forum Dakar 2011

Priority Africa Network

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Dakar2011/70793

Egyptian peoples’ power persists: Revolution continues

Horace Campbell

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/70794

cc MoghawemtAs Egypt’s extraordinary social and political protests against Hosni Mubarak’s regime continue, the renewed energy of those seeking a new start is ensuring that the government is forced to implement more than mere cosmetic changes, writes Horace Campbell.

The renewed energy of the popular power in the streets of Egypt ensured that the political initiative remained in the hands of the grassroots mobilisers who had come together to trigger an uprising that is now called ‘the people’s revolution’. Their continued tenacity and strategic planning shocked observers, who were already reporting that ‘the protests were running out of steam’, and that ‘life was returning to normal in Cairo.’ What was considered ‘normal’ for the international capitalist forces that supported the Mubarak regime was the fact that banks were opening and there were traffic jams on the bridges across the Nile. But these stories could not conceal the floods of freedom as more people surged onto the streets to demand the immediate removal of the Mubarak regime. This reenergised outpouring of support for the revolution was beamed around the world as citizens everywhere who wanted genuine democracy watched and calculated the balance of forces in the revolutionary process. Was the tide shifting toward revolt elsewhere? This was the question being raised in all continents as ideas of sharing, cooperation and repair were challenging greed and obscene wealth in the midst of grinding poverty.

In all revolutionary situations, small acts of groups and individuals acquire historical importance. The coming-together of the grassroots organisers to form the ‘Unified Leadership of the Youth of the Rage Revolution’ represented one moment of historical significance. At this stage of the revolution, the interview of Wael Ghoneim, who was released from state detention on Monday 7 February, became one more barometer of the temperature of the people who wanted change. Wael Ghoneim, a business operator for an international information-age company, had been arrested by the secret police. His testimony on the brutality and murder of those picked up by the secret police again exposed to millions the nature of a police state in Egypt that was called a stable democracy. As the revolution gained new momentum, people demonstrated in differing parts of urban centres, even around government offices and the disgraced parliament. Thousands of workers intensified industrial actions to cripple the regime.

MAINTAINING THE FOCUS OF THE REVOLUTION

Esam al-Amin, in his writing on the leaders of the youth movement who are emerging as core organisers and future leaders (‘Meet Egypt's Future Leaders’), spelt out the principal demands being made. Inter alia, these demands were: the resignation of Mubarak, the immediate lifting of emergency law, release of all political prisoners, the dissolution of both upper and lower chambers of parliament, the formation of a national unity government to manage the transitional period, investigation by the judiciary of the abuses of the security forces during the revolution and the protection of the protesters by the military.

From their statements on the internet and in interviews, the youths have made it clear that their demands are not only for the removal of Mubarak but that they are also calling for constitutional reforms in the areas of civil rights, political freedoms and judicial independence, and economically addressing poverty, unemployment, social justice and fighting corruption. It is clear however that political freedoms and social justice cannot be realised within the context of the present mode of economic organisation. Moreover, as in Tunisia, the corrupt and discredited members of the oligarchy want to remain within the national unity government for the transitional administration.

One of the many challenges of current stage of what some analysts have called ‘the Nile Revolution’ is how to take the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt through the twists and turns of the counter-revolutionary planning and scheming coming from the remnants of the old order. How could the Egyptian and Tunisian peoples achieve the ultimate goal of the revolutions? The goal of these revolutions, as expressed by the millions who took to the streets, is a society that would ensure the human dignity of its citizens by dismantling the old order of government corruption, repression of freedoms, political alienation and denial of economic rights. The challenge is now how to build on the momentum of the ongoing revolutionary process for a structural reorganisation of the economies to meet the basic needs of the people over and above the interests of local and foreign capitalists and militarists.

From Alexandria to Suez, and in some cities that did not play a significant part in previous demonstration, workers are building industrial actions to support the new energy. In particular, the emergence of judges, lawyers and other professional strata on the streets of Cairo at a time many thought the revolution was losing steam has pointed to the realisation by sections of the elite that they can no longer be silent in the face of the corruption of the values of the society. In a society of over 7,000 years of traditions, where sharing and collective security had defined the birth of human civilisations, these social forces are seeking redemption from the devaluation of human life by the system that placed profits over human life. The constant renewal of this energy and the consolidation of the revolutionary gains made so far are critical to maintaining the focus of the revolution.

With each passing day, the news of the formations of popular committees points to a new form of democratic participation by the people. These efforts at popular power increased as public information circulated on the level of theft and corruption by the ruling family. In a society where there are over 5 million homeless persons in the capital, information on the palatial homes of the ruling elements included facts of the more than US$70 billion accumulated by the Mubarak family and friends. This information was being discussed in the streets and factories as the demands of the revolutionaries were refined to sharpen the need for structural transformation of the society. Indeed, it is this structural transformation of society that the workers and all protesters have to make sure become a reality. Egyptian workers must beware of palliative measures to appease them in lieu of an overhaul of political and economic structures of their society. The popular capital of the reenergised people’s power must be used to refocus attention on the ultimate goal of the structural transformation of the social and economic system.

The flood of revolutionary change from the Nile seems to be flowing to other societies, and the challenges for progressive persons in the advanced capitalist countries are to mobilise so that their societies are not reorganised for war to beat back an evolving era of popular struggles for justice.

MONEY, POWER AND POLITICS

As the popular forces sustain their momentum across Egypt to reorganise the society, there is greater exposure of the nexus between politics, money, corruption and power. Ahmed Ezz has emerged as one of the top politicians and business tycoons who were at the helm of the police state of Mubarak. Ahmed Ezz, a steel magnate and friend of the son of Mubarak, is a poster image of the kind of capitalist who used the power of the state to get rich while millions were poor and exploited. Ezz is now under investigation on charges of corruption and there are now judges and lawyers assisting in the compilation of evidence of corrupt use of state power. It is in the process of exposing Ahmed Ezz that the citizens are learning of the roles of the banks, international financial institutions and the political leadership. Small- and medium-sized entrepreneurs are also joining the struggle to lend their weight to the evidence that state-controlled banks acted as kingmakers, extending loans to families who supported the government but denying credit to local industrialists and business persons who lacked the right political connections.

Exposure of power brokers such as Ahmed Ezz ensured that there is a coalescing of the popular forces around the demands for change in Egypt.

The discussions about the wealth and interconnections between different branches of the political class widened the divide in the Egyptian society between the corrupt forces and decent citizens who want to put an end to the police state. But the repression of the regime and its attempt to roll back the revolution are educating the youth that two weeks of demonstrations are not enough to break the entrenched power of the Egyptian oligarchs. The social division between the very rich and the massive poverty is everywhere to be seen in the human development indices that point to millions living on less than US$2 per day. In Egypt itself, the young revolutionaries understand the fact that 40 per cent of the Egyptian population lives on US$2 a day, while Mubarak’s wealth is estimated to be US$70 billion.

THE REVOLUTION CONTINUES

It was in an effort to blunt the coalescing of the democratic forces that the regime released Wael Ghoneim on Monday 7 February, and sought to dampen the popular anger by announcing concessions. Omar Suleiman, a vice-president who has been tarred with the history of the police state mechanisms, especially the intelligence services and the secret police, seeks to blow hot and cold in the face of the resolute spirit of the forces who are building popular democratic formations in the streets. Suleiman announced on one day that Mubarak had endorsed a timetable for a ‘peaceful and organised transfer of power’ in September. He also announced that Mubarak has ‘set up a committee to recommend constitutional amendments to remove tight restrictions on who can run for president, and promised there will be no reprisals against protesters’. Suleiman announced that: ‘The president welcomed the national consensus, confirming that we are putting our feet on the right path to getting out of the current crisis.’ However, these announcements belied the reality that the regime was gearing up for further thuggery and the unleashing of death squads and goons. Omar Suleiman threatened the democratic forces, arguing that: ‘We can't bear this for a long time, and there must be an end to this crisis as soon as possible.’

In an effort to give the oligarchs time to arrange their transfer of money outside, the vice president is putting forward a bold front by rejecting the immediate departure of Mubarak when it is known that Egypt had changed fundamentally and that the police state apparatus cannot be reconstituted without massive shedding of blood. Suleiman promised martial law and a military coup if the revolutionaries did not go home and allow the police state and repression to continue. It is against this background that the revolution continues and the peoples’ power persists. Esam al-Amin captured the essence of the sophistication of the new leaders of Egypt when he noted that ‘the revolution has adapted to the manoeuvring of the regime and has adopted a comprehensive program of activities that are creative and extensive. Time is no longer on the regime’s side. With the passing of each week more Egyptians are joining the revolution. A culture of freedom and empowerment is on the rise.’

WHITHER THE EGYPTIAN ARMED FORCES?

The possibility of massive bloodletting sharpens the maturation of the new stage of the revolution, as a front against counter-revolution. Counter-revolutionary elements refer to the opposition to revolution, particularly those who act after a revolution to try to overturn or reverse it, in full or in part. This designation of counter-revolution has been most appropriate in the actions and statements of Omar Suleiman, who is signalling ahead that the armed forces and police powers will be used to roll back the demands of the people. This counter-revolution comes up against the work that has been done by the networks of workers, farmers, lawyers, judges, women, students, patriotic business persons, writers, religious persons and the mass of ordinary people who built new organisations for emancipation.

The strength of the networks of networks among the revolutionary forces is being harnessed so that the people can consolidate self-defence structures while sharpening the connections between the dismantling of the police state and subdue the culture of crony neoliberal capitalism. This is where the strength in numbers of those opposed to the police state will prove decisive. The decisiveness and confidence of the popular forces is already evident by the massive numbers that turned out on Tuesday so that the army was outnumbered by 40,000 to one. These numbers were one response to the warning from Vice-President Omar Suleiman that there could be a coup if popular forces do not accept the regime's timetable for a transition to democratic rule.

What Suleiman and his foreign handlers mean by democratic rule is the exit of Mubarak with some cosmetic changes to reconstitute the police state of neoliberalism with new persons at the helm. In this new struggle, there is an intense campaign within the military to buy the allegiance of the top brass of the military into accepting the discredited form of rule that has kept down the people of Egypt. There are now divisions within the military. There are disagreements between some elite officers who were bought off by the regime and the rank and file of conscripted persons who will be crucial to the decision at the crossroad between rivers of blood and the tides of freedom. In the first test at this crossroad, the police state fell on the wrong side of history by attempting to stifle information and abort the revolution.

AS THE REVOLUTION MATURES

We have been studying the trajectory of this revolutionary process, which started in Tunisia and has matured to a new stage in Egypt: that of reconstruction and consolidation of the gains of revolution. The first four stages were spelt out in our previous writings. At this juncture, it is critical to grasp the balance of forces so that counter-revolutionary elements – whether in the military, among the old ruling elites, religious zealots, local and international capitalist/militarist interests or new fronts of power elites – do not hijack the goal of the revolution.

From the voices of revolution it is clear that the network of organisers among the April 6 movement and from the ranks of the militant workers are readying themselves for a prolonged and protracted struggle. Those who would be bought off to be thugs are being exposed as alternative political and social organisations emerge to defend the people. The working poor and the organised workers are now coming out to support the youth, and the April 6 youth movement is showing new determination to stand up to the challenges of the struggle. As one youth said and reported in the UK Guardian:

‘He [Suleiman] is threatening to impose martial law, which means everybody in the square will be smashed… But what would he do with the rest of the 70 million Egyptians who will follow us afterwards?’

These statements from the mobilized and self-organised youth point to the reality that the shift in confidence has devolved to the people, who have dropped all fear. People have decided to occupy the liberation square until the new process of change takes root.

Wael Ghoneim summed up the feeling in his statement that: ‘This is the revolution of the youth of the Internet, which then became the Revolution of the youth of Egypt. And now it's become the revolution of all of Egypt. There is no [one] hero... We all are heroes. That's it.’

The Egyptians are in the process of removing a corrupt, incompetent and arrogant government. They will not accept another corrupt, incompetent and arrogant regime to replace Mubarak.

With the maturation of the revolutionary process, the information battles within the struggles for freedom are clarifying the reality that far more than ‘cosmetic’ changes are needed to ensure that the economy is reorganised so that all citizens can have a better quality of life. I concur with the view of one columnist in the British paper, the Guardian, who noted:

‘For whatever happens next, Egypt's mobilisation will remain a revolution of world-historical significance because its actors have repeatedly demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to defy the bounds of political possibility, and to do this on the basis of their own enthusiasm and commitment.’

Indeed, the flame of the revolution continues to be fuelled by the persistence, enthusiasm and commitment of ordinary people who are bent on achieving the goal of transforming the Egyptian society. These people are the ones who now hold the keys to what is possible about 21st century revolutions.

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* Horace Campbell is a teacher and writer. Professor Campbell's website is www.horacecampbell.net. His latest book is 'Barack Obama and 21st Century Politics: A Revolutionary Moment in the USA', published by Pluto Press.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Egypt: liberal democracy or an African democracy?

Patricia Daley

2011-02-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/70771

cc AbusalahIn the context of the popular uprisings in North Africa, Patricia Daley draws on the work of Nigerian scholar Claude Ake and asks how social justice scholars can operationalise the democratic principles he articulated.

As I watched the scenes of revolutionary protest in Egypt and the reluctance of democratic western nations, self-claimed champions of democracy, to support the will of the Egyptian people, I started to ponder why the use of the term ‘liberal democracy’ has always made me feel uncomfortable, even though I am opposed to dictatorships, one-party rule, and other systems of governance that deny the participation of citizens. In contemporary political rhetoric, democracy is often seen as the gold standard. Yet, those who uphold it at home and cite it as a reason to pursue warfare, when confronted with people power, are left bumbling. The humanity and dignity of the Egyptian people are at odds with geo-political interests - even when exposed to the full glare of international attention. It seems as if the empire has no clothes.

These events force us to consider the relationship between liberal democracy, empire, global economic dominance, and social Darwinism. The Nigerian scholar Claude Ake, in his book ‘Democracy and Development in Africa’, considers democracy within the history of colonial and post-colonial Africa. Writing of the North’s attitude to democracy in Africa, Ake notes that:

‘Even at its best, liberal democracy is inimical to the idea of the people having effective decision-making power. The essence of liberal democracy is precisely the abolition of popular power and the replacement of popular sovereignty with the rule of law (p.130).’

The evolution of democracy since its origin in ancient Greece has been well-documented and its variants have occupied political philosophers, especially with regards to its manifestations in western societies. Ake discusses how western social science constant clarification of the meaning of democracy has ended in redefining it to the detriment of its democratic values. For example, in the protective theory of democracy, the people are protected from the state through a vibrant civil society. Political stability is dependent on people surrendering participation and political apathy is interpreted as a sign of people being content with rulers.

Ake is critical of the political conditionality of the 1990s and the emphasis placed on multi-party elections, however manipulated, as the marker of a democratic state. This crude democracy is, however, undermined by the political authoritarianism of structural adjustment and poverty reduction and growth strategies, and the continued militarization of African societies through the sale of weapons and military policy interventions such as AFRICOM. Such forms of democracy reinforce the idea that those who reside in developing countries have less right to the benefits of development. As the Caribbean writer, CLR James, points out, Africans in the diaspora have for centuries known the limitations of bourgeois democracy.

Ake concludes by outlining the sort of democracy that Africa needs:

‘…a democracy in which people have some real decision-making power over and above the consent of electoral choice…a democracy that places emphasis on concrete political, social and economic rights as opposed to a liberal democracy that emphasises abstract political rights…a democracy that puts emphasis on collective rights as it does on individual rights…a democracy of incorporation (p.132).’

For Ake, the only way this democracy can be achieved is if Africans take hold of the process; not the elites who, he argues, have ‘ceded the initiative to the international development community’, and appear to ‘neither knowing what to do about the mounting crisis nor being in control of events…they have been weakened by their sheer lack of control, their poverty of ideas, and their humiliation’ (p.132).

To effectuate democracy, one has to address policies of development and ideologies of militarism that leave the masses of people unemployed and impoverished, whilst the elites accumulate wealth through facilitating contracts with multi-national corporations and the purchasing of weapons. Despite the billions of aid that Egypt has gotten from the west, the majority of its people continue to live in impoverished circumstances. Development aid, in this instance, is to sustain an autocratic regime that subjects its people to the will of global and regional hegemonic powers, at a cost to their well-being. It’s instructive that the 2010 Human Development Report for Egypt, notes:

‘…the most striking and unusual finding of this Report is the extent to which youth are excluded from political and civic participation, especially since the definition of youth for this Report is 18-29 years [numbering 30 million], at which time youth are legally empowered to vote and make important social decisions (http://www.undp.org.eg/Default.aspx?tabid=227).’

The report refers to the state of limbo most youth find themselves in, what it terms ‘waithood’ - waiting to start a living, to have the resources to become an adult. This feature of contemporary life is not peculiar to Egypt and, though the report refers to cultural and political factors that contribute to this state, it fails to acknowledge the economic reforms that have destroyed the structures that sustained the societies. The mix of state retreat from social welfare provisioning, privatised education, reduced public sector, and high unemployment, combined with economic policies of extraction, have destroyed the future prospects of young people.

Proposals to include young people through creating separate political institutions fall short because they are envisaged within an economic system that marginalises them. True development and democracy are two sides of the same coin. Both have to be participatory to be effective, and at their core is the principle of self-reliance and direct action by the people - as primary agents of change.
Recently, I watched again an episode of the late Basil Davidson’s 1980s series on Africa. This particular episode focused on early African communities and how they mastered the continent.

Davidson considered the systems of governance that worked and created stability in these communities. It was a system where the communities came together to ensure the survival of each and every member, what people in Africa term ubuntu. This is how the historian, Walter Rodney, in his book ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’, understood the concept of development; as being dependent on ‘the coming together of the societies in the struggle against natural hazards and to protect their freedom; on this basis humans developed tools and organized their labour to enable social development (p. 2).’ The personal development of the individual is intertwined with that of the collective.

Capitalist development, with its focus on individual choice, may have appeared to deliver material benefits to many in the industrialised countries but this came out of the struggle of the working people fighting for better living and working conditions. Such struggles, what Karl Marx termed, class struggles, are on-going, and are bound to intensify in the late neo-liberal era, as the safety blankets in some welfarist societies in the west are pulled away. As David Harvey and Samir Amin have shown us, inequalities and uneven development are inherent to the capitalist system. Accumulation by dispossession in the global south and former colonial territories continues apace, assisted by comprador elites. Such practices are set to intensify as a result of the economic crises that have recently beset advanced capitalist economies.

Advocates of social justice in Africa and everywhere have to sharpen their tools of analysis to provide directions for non-violent revolutions and to think creatively about the sorts of socio-political organisations that will provide genuine representation. The focus on ‘community’ by international development institutions has sought to de-politicise and de-mobilise transformative collective actions in many states. While the old ideas of socialism may have lost their relevance and organising power after 1989, the principles of collective action, social justice, and popular participation remain as rallying cries for revolutionaries. The lesson from the recent uprisings in North Africa is that the quest for human freedom can never be extinguished.

The Tunisian and Egyptian peoples’ call for an end to dictatorship, military brutality, and their assertion of the right to self-determination forces scholars of social justice to think through how to operationalise democratic principles like those outlined by Ake and long articulated in the philosophy of ubuntu. The people know what they want, but, as social scientists, do we know how to give them what they want?

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* Dr Patricia Daley is a lecturer in human geography at the University of Oxford, and Chair of Fahamu Trust.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Ake, Claude (1996) ‘Democracy and Development in Africa’. Washington DC: The Brookings Institution.
Amin, Samir (2010) ‘Ending the Crisis of Capitalism or Ending Capitalism’. Pambazuka Press.
Davidson, B. (1980s) ‘Africa: Mastering a Continent’. Channel 4, UK
Harvey, David (2006) ‘Spaces of Global Capitalism: Towards a Theory of Uneven Geographical Development’.
Grimshaw, A. (1992) ‘The C.L.R. James Reader’. Oxford: Blackwell.
Rodney, Walter (1972) ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’. London: Bogle L’Overture

After Mubarak: What's next for Egypt?

Khadija Sharife

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/70774

cc AbusalahAs global attention remains focused on events in Egypt, Khadija Sharife considers the role of the country’s military in the uprising and its political role in planning for the future.

The lessons for the authorities in Cairo echo those learned too late in Tunis: cracking down on dissent is not so easy when social network sites and citizen bloggers can gain a global audience in a matter of days. But how does Egypt’s low-profile military actually view the changes now sweeping the country?

There was probably no way for the authorities to prevent the uprising of millions of citizens in Egypt, a country characterised by staggering inequality, human rights violations and corruption. This was especially true after the uprising in neighbouring Tunisia toppled the dictatorship of President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali with such astonishing speed. In Cairo alone, there may have been as many as two million protestors at some recent rallies. A nation of usually non-confrontational people has awoken to reclaim the streets, their human rights, and their dignity.

In many ways, the sustained resistance of the youth, drawing strength from their courage and conviction, their rage and despair, is a genuine intifada borne of the old and the new. Traditional methods of communication such as pamphlets, faxes, landlines and ‘stealth meetings’ in homes, street corners and mosques, have been augmented by virtual congregations on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

These cyber-rallies have the obvious advantage of bypassing the dangers inherent to geographically fixed meeting points. In an age where information moves at the speed of light, the internet has become both a brawny social muscle that can be collectively flexed, as well as a vehicle used by repressive states to track and counter activists.

In Iran, where internet penetration rates are estimated at 35%, most service has been disrupted during periods of unrest. However, the government has usually allowed citizens to continue accessing Twitter as a means of intelligence gathering to monitor protests.

In Tunisia, Facebook proved critical when 26-year-old Tunisian fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi, who fatally set himself alight in protest at constant police harassment, left a message on the networking site asking his mother for forgiveness. After this was picked up by the Al Jazeera news network, global awareness of the mounting Tunisian rebellion was generated, becoming instrumental in the uprising gaining such swift momentum.

CITIZEN NARRATIVES VS. GOVERNMENT BACKLASH

The extraordinary recent events in Tunisia and Egypt have been documented in large part through the use of citizen-generated social media – a substitute for traditional reporting following the suspension of many publications – allowing ordinary people to ‘narrate’ their own struggles.

Moreover, traditional media outlets have often used citizen narratives as a form of transmitting information, leveling the playing field in countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Israel where news outlets are often heavily influenced by, or in favour of, the regimes in power.

Unlike Tunisia, where over a third of the population has internet access, penetration is much lower in Egypt at around 15%. And those accessing the internet in Egypt, such as followers of the April 6 Facebook movement, face a number of obstacles. Among the biggest of these is that operating licenses for internet services are provided by the government, allowing them to access data and know the locations of users, as well as being able to cut connectivity without prior warning.

This makes life very difficult for people such as Wael Ghonim, Google's head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa. Ghonim was released on Monday having spent a week in custody after attending a protest organised by the April 6 movement on 25 January. He rejoined protests in Tahrir Square and went straight back on Twitter.

As in Tunisia, where leaked cables provided by WikiLeaks disclosed that the US did not consider Ben Ali an ‘ally’ and preferred his removal from power, Washington has long been collaborating with key leaders from the April 6 movement. The WikiLeaks cables confirmed a change of government in Egypt was predicted in 2011, allowing for negotiations with other parties.

Generally portrayed by the American media as the lesser of two possible evils, President Hosni Mubarak's rule has long been justified by the US as a bastion against militant Islam. But in recent years, bloggers pushing for democratic change have peeled back the myth of the regime. One of Egypt's best-known English-language bloggers, Sandmonkey, was arrested on 2 February while delivering medical supplies to Tahrir Square. He claims he was then roughed up in prison and his blog suspended until his release the next day.

ACTIVISTS CAN ACHIEVE GLOBAL PROFILES

In one of his previous blog posts, he described his extreme fatigue, having been on the run for days. He wrote how ‘the situation here is bleak to say the least. It didn’t start out that way. On Tuesday January 25 it all started peacefully, and against all odds, we succeeded to gather hundreds of thousands and get them into Tahrir Square, despite being attacked by anti-riot police who are using sticks, tear gas and rubber bullets against us.’

Sandmonkey went on to write: ‘I was shot at twice that day, [once] with a semi-automatic by a dude in a car that we, the people, took joy in pummeling. The government announced that all prisons were breached, and that the prisoners somehow managed to get weapons and do nothing but randomly attack people. One day we had organized thugs in uniforms firing at us, and the next day they disappeared and were replaced by organized thugs without uniforms firing at us. Somehow the people never made the connection.’

Ahmed Maher, a leader of the April 6 movement whose protest plans have been regularly intercepted by security agents, was also presumed to have been arrested or detained. In an interview with Maher on 2 February, Wired magazine learned he had not been arrested, but would not say whether or not he had been roughed up by the police.

Rewind two years. On 6 February 2009, Philip Rizk, an Egyptian-German filmmaker, was abducted from a police station by secret service agents in the city of Qalyubia, north of Cairo. Rizk had been arrested while campaigning for humanitarian support to Gaza. He claims he was taken to a secret location three floors beneath the surface in unidentified facilities and constantly interrogated about ‘my activism, my writing, everything.’ He was released after being held for four days.

In all likelihood, Rizk may not have been freed so soon, if at all, had his friends and colleagues not mounted an international campaign that caught the attention of the New York Times. Such abductions are par for the course in Egypt, where detainees are routinely held without trial or access to legal representation.

WHAT IS THE PRESENT ROLE OF EGYPT’S MILITARY?

Under the guise of ‘reform’ at the state level, the military has further embedded itself within Egypt’s newly appointed cabinet. When asked about the elevation to vice president of Omar Sulieman, Egypt's former chief of intelligence and Mubarak’s right-hand man, Rizk told The Africa Report that ‘Egyptians understand this for what it is. It represents no change. As soon as the announcement was made, protestors began chanting against Sulieman, identified as a man of the regime.’

The military has been portrayed by international media as sympathetic, or even protective of the protestors. But very little is known about who controls the armed forces.

Egypt specialist Joshua Stacher of Kent State University recently told CNN that ‘the military's refusal to act is a highly political act which shows that it is allowing the Egyptian regime to reconstitute itself at the top and is highly, utterly against the protesters.’

But will the US listen? If the military is the power backing the regime, and is financed annually to the tune of $1.3bn by the US government – the US's second largest aid recipient in the world, after Israel – who is responsible for Mubarak's dictatorship?

According to Na'eem Jeenah, executive director of the Johannesburg-based think tank Afro-Middle East Centre, ‘the whole notion that we've been exposed to recently of these soldiers as benevolent protectors is a myth. In the lower and middle ranks, there is certainly potential for soldiers to switch sides. But it has been a move by those on top to provide a good image of the military, and those from below, who want to win over the soldiers. Some thought it was a great thing when the cabinet was dissolved, but what we're really seeing is the removal of business people and the entrenchment of the military, to ensure that they have the control in the new government.’

Jeenah told The Africa Report that the military had long been in control of key sectors of the country's political economy. In his view, it has ‘a well designed plan to pace the process and timing of change, to secure the army's role in government and the economy.’

‘Once the sun sets,’ said Jeenah, ‘the army will go in and clean up the protestors.’

Even without its figurehead, the Mubarak machinery will be able to ensure the continuation of the same repressive and brutal tactics. Social media can act as the watchdog, when and if the Egyptian government allows it, but who in Egypt will respond to the watchdog?

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* This article was originally published by The Africa Report.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Shaping the struggle: Tunisia’s uprising

Hassania Chalbi-Drissi

2011-02-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/70769

cc MagharebiaThe sustained protest in Tunisia in the wake of Mohamed Bouazizi’s immolation are far from ‘Islamist’, writes Hassania Chalbi-Drissi, and the appeal of the upheaval among ordinary people across the region has instead been the effective challenge to the ruling regime.

‘No one will offer us democracy, we will take it ourselves’ has been the chant of demonstrators in the Tunisian streets since the 17 December upheaval.

Although the trigger of the Tunisian revolution was the death of Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old salesman who committed suicide by immolation, an uprising of social injustice has been growing among the Tunisian citizens for a long time.

Since then, all kinds of demonstrations have taken place in the country daily to protest against the high cost of living, unemployment and marginalisation.

It has become crucial to put an end to oppression (there is no room for fear), and likewise with regards to any obstacles to freedom and to the will of the people.

Thus, the protests have since then become politicised and radicalised.

In addition to the ‘freedom, work and dignity’ protest, which has been at the core of the rebellion, the aspiration to democracy was in fact the main message.

This message, which was strongly put across by the people to their leaders during the rebellion, was transformed into insurrection when the government of the day underestimated the gravity of the issue.

And more so, as a result of the lack of national debates on this aspiration to democracy, the protests became more and more radicalised and the Tunisian people were no longer only complaining about social injustice but also contesting the political power in place. Tunisians were suggesting their own model of democracy.

Indeed, to better understand what happened in the Tunisian society’s struggle for democracy, it is first important to admit that the problem, which currently represents a danger, is not Islam, as certain Westerners have insinuated, but more the need to put a democratic process in place.

In any case, the resolution of the Islamic problem will be made within the framework of democracy on the basis of internal negotiations, without the intervention of any external force, once Tunisians have acquired their sovereignty.

Secondly, the social evolution of Tunisia is significant: a fertility rate similar to that of prosperous Western countries, a trend towards urbanisation, the high status of Tunisian woman and a high literacy level. Tunisia thus enjoys a model of social evolution that is comparable to well-known social models in the West.

In addition, the dynamics of the model of democracy that the protesters are demanding has been deemed vital. Certainly, it will take long to come, but it will truly move countries where there is a democratic deficiency, particularly in the Arab world.

It is therefore ‘another model of democracy’ which is being marketed: a ‘people to people’ model.

It is different from that which is based only on the vote.

It requires that sovereignty be given back to the people, which is exceptional in Arab and Muslim countries where a deficiency of democracy is rampant.

It is a model which rallied up the youth.

Ironically, it is ‘thanks’ to the censorship exerted by the Tunisian regime that young activists who have a master's of arts mobilised others and accelerated the rebellion by exchanging information.

Indeed, upon hearing ‘the first cry for freedom of the Tunisian people’ who have lived under an oppressive regime for 23 years, scores of young internet surfers mobilised themselves to denounce the absence of freedom of expression and the spoliation of the nation’s wealth.

Social networks became the driving force behind the rising revolts. On Facebook and Twitter, several groups and people continued to post photos and articles of demonstrations not only in Tunisia but also in Algeria, Libya and Syria where the cries of the people joined those of Tunisians.

It is a model which gave legitimacy to the people’s revolt and enabled its visibility.

It keeps the link between average citizens and the middle class in a structured society.

The Tunisian revolution would have remained a simple revolt were it not for the young Tunisian cybernauts who relayed the people’s protests by bringing together their ideas and by calling for general mobilisation. ‘United we stand’ was one of the major slogans of the revolt.

Thus, the whole world saw the true players of the events being killed and in real time. As a result, the role played by the internet and social networks in Tunisia during the demonstrations became predominant and, even more so, a determining factor in the fight for social justice and for democracy.

The immediate consequences are:

- a clearly expressed public sovereignty
- freedom of expression rehabilitated at the speed we all observed.

To achieve this freedom of expression, young Tunisian bloggers launched the battle against ‘Ammar’, the name attributed to internet censorship, this notwithstanding the already stringent Tunisian internet.

Since the beginning of the events, ‘Ammar’ was under the scrutiny of a group of ardent hackers who worked non-stop against the censorship throughout the world. This mode of communication, by automating the detection of ‘devices’ and systematising the cross-checking of stored information (identification, interception and recording of communication) on the one hand and promulgating on the other hand more repressive legislative measures to criminalise certain practices and stigmatising certain social groups, has now been revealed.

Note that, in this upheaval, Islam is not on the agenda of the Tunisian revolt. The resolution of the Islamist issue will be made within the framework of the democracy recommended, on the basis of internal negotiations and without intervention of any external force to the Tunisian people once the people would have acquired their sovereignty.

To better understand what happened in the Tunisian society’s struggle for democracy, it is important to admit that the problem is neither Islam nor its interpretation, but rather the need to find a specific path to democracy.

Tunisians are condemned to subservience, corruption and being at the periphery of the free world. They are good at hiding their misfortunes from tourists!

Tunisia wants to end unemployment, the marginalisation of most of its population and the lack of confidence in its leaders.

The Tunisian people aspire to other values. It is in this context that one should place the model of democracy that Tunisians seek and with this, through the national hymn, adapt the path to the proposed model of democracy.

In her blog, Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian journalist, explains the reasons behind the passion of the ‘Arab people’ for the Tunisian revolution:

‘If all Arab leaders followed the Tunisian events with fear, each Arab citizen followed them with hope because the demonstrators are not Islamist – a threat used for a long time by our leaders to frighten and thus remain in power. Neither is it foreign troops that toppled the dictator but ordinary citizens.’

Can one thus talk of a contagious effect of this revolution which could bring about democracy?

Until now, the contagious effect of this model seems to affect only the states that have used the Islamist threat to justify the autocracy and the repression of any opposition movement. By imitation perhaps, several suicide attempts by immolation have taken place in other Arab countries (in Cairo, in Mauritania and Algeria) in the name of ‘freedom to life’.

Should there be as many tragedies to achieve democracy?

As regards the method used, the example of the revolution in Tunisia showed that the people can protest with an affirmed political objective and without the usual extremes portrayed by certain media.

The firm determination to drive out a dictator and to take back the control of their destiny is what the Tunisian demonstrators illustrated.

The Tunisian revolution also means the constitution of a vocal public opinion able to produce changes; it already achieved this under particularly repressive conditions.

The voice of the Tunisian people is the expression of a political and media movement in which everyone participated, including lawyers, doctors, artists and journalists.

The voice of the Tunisians succeeded in surpassing the individualism which one generally attributes to the West; real solidarity was at work.

It is the voice of a people oppressed by a regime which has ensured that all revolts against it were subdued with violence.

However, despite a style of protest which initially looked desperate, the Tunisian people have managed to start a process of democracy.

The hour is grave for Tunisians and for the hope to finally see the Arab world devoid of dictatorships. But the revolution is active and democracy has been initiated and this without compromise nor respite, with a never-seen-before formula from Tunisia and with the help of the Army!

As for the countries which seem more open to democracy like Algeria, Egypt and Jordan, it is the better for them if their people rise and take power. However, the most important bit remains to be done.

So what is ‘the free world’ waiting for to help the Tunisian army, which, with hardly 27,000 men faces the 120,000 militiamen of the former regime to trample on its people?

Because, for these forces who refuse democracy, it is a question ‘of killing the example quickly and showing that without the tyrants, there would be chaos!’ and that there cannot be democracy.

It is necessary to think of the economic and strategic interests of these forces that refuse democracy and whose consequences justified the movement.

Indeed, from the point of view of the order of the world economy, it is not favourable for the West to have democratised regimes. After having supported and brought to power dictators all will be done to avoid the aggravation of the situation anywhere else. The Israelite policy is likely to change if the Arab people succeed in democratising their institutions and likewise for the Western economies given that tough regimes are more reassuring for the sale of arms, where oil money goes to purchase rifles instead of being put to the service of the people.

In short, the model of democracy currently promoted in Tunisia has gone a little further to bring about equilibrium in the world economy. This example could well be the only one for a long time to come; vigilance is key.

The idea is thus to maintain Western and Far East capitalism against the freedom and dignity of the Arab people, these people who for a long time have had but areas of limited freedom – Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – where authoritarian regimes close to the West reign.

It is all for the better if the people of such countries rise and take power. However, the most important aspect remains to be done. The world economic order does not fear a 10-million-habitant Tunisia, which will become democratic. Let us hope that Tunisia can for its part take on good leadership in order to find its equilibrium in which all components can express themselves in the framework of a system of power which is not a religious dictatorship.

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* Translated from the French by Caroline Sipalla.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

South Africa's service delivery myth

Richard Pithouse

2011-02-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/70770

cc YandiWith 'service delivery protests' a common occurrence in South Africa, Richard Pithouse exposes some of the myths associated with the phrase.

The service delivery myth wasn't invented in South Africa. But our chattering classes have taken to it with more enthusiasm than a Karoo duck waddling towards the first puddle at the end of a drought. Given that one of its key tropes is that development should be governed by expertise and that this re-inscribes the rule of the few in the name of the many, we shouldn't be too surprised by this enthusiasm.

But we should recall that in the 1980s struggles to democratise society from below gathered real force and that ideas like people's education and practices like land occupations in order to found rent free shack settlements became part of the common sense of some strands in the anti-apartheid struggle.

In the 1990s the idea that development would be put in the hands of ordinary women and men by extending democracy beyond the polling booth was rapidly abandoned. This was one consequence of the unstable pact forged between the ANC and older elites in which concessions were negotiated, formally and informally, in exchange for a cessation of hostilities.

What had been rendered as political and therefore as subject to public discussion and action during the struggle against apartheid was rendered, by mutual agreement between old and new elites, as technical, and therefore a matter for experts, at the dawn of parliamentary democracy.

‘Depoliticisation,’ Jacques Rancière tells us, ‘is the oldest task of politics, the one which achieves its fulfilment at the brink of its end, its perfection at the brink of the abyss.’

The service delivery myth is so ubiquitous that service delivery is often assumed to be the natural metric for measuring the performance of the state with the result that justice, dignity, lived experience and the day to day practice of democracy fade into invisibility.

The myth is so powerful that it is often able to impose an a priori meaning on dissent. It is a rare journalist who sees a need to actually ask someone on a road blockade what she is protesting for before writing about the latest service delivery protest. So even when that dissent is, in fact, rebellion against service delivery as it is currently practised rather than a demand for it to be speeded up, it is often recuperated into the symbolic logic of the dominant system as a demand for that system to strengthen itself.

The service delivery myth tells us that justice and redress are largely a matter of technical efficiency on the part of the state. It tells us that progress is something that can be graphed, tabulated and turned into percentages. The myth tells us that we don't need to ask, ‘what is to be done?’ because that is obvious and a waste of time and we just need to do what must be done faster.

At the heart of the myth is an idea of the people as passive consumers or beneficiaries who just need to be plugged into the grid of serviced life by a benevolent state. The myth assumes that people who aren't yet plugged in are still wallowing in the legacy of apartheid and that as backlogs are steadily overcome they'll join the rest of us and enjoy a better life. It makes us assume that patience is a virtue and that dissent at anything other than the pace and efficiency of service delivery is perverse and probably the result of malicious conspiracy.

Of course the state does need to be efficient, statistics can give us important information, some things are obvious and do need to be done with urgency and we do all need decent homes, clean water, sanitation, electricity, refuse collection, safe streets and all the rest. But when we start to take the service delivery myth seriously we start to collapse into some assumptions that are, to put it politely, fantastical.

For instance, the idea that service delivery is steadily chipping away at backlogs inherited from apartheid isn't always true. Our current social arrangements are producing new inequalities with the result that, for instance, the number of people living in shacks is growing despite the two million houses built by the post-apartheid state. And the number of electricity and water connections that have been installed tells us nothing about the affordability of the commodities that flow through them.

There are plenty of women with an electricity connection that have to get up at four in the morning to chop wood to make a fire to heat water to get their children bathed and fed before school because they cannot afford to pay for electricity. The fact that a house has been built tells us nothing about its quality, location, size or who actually lives in it and how the decision to allocate that house was made.

Moreover, progress is not always delivered by the state. There are times when an unlawful land occupation or connection to water and electricity will do much more for people than the delivery on offer from the state.

When service delivery is presented as the alpha and omega of what the state can do for the people and all protest is assumed to be a demand for service delivery, commentators are sometimes puzzled by that fact that popular protests often accompany service delivery.

In some cases this apparent paradox leads people to conclude that these protests are either the work of malevolent conspirators or that they are motivated by jealousy as some see delivery arriving for others. But one reason why protest often accompanies the moment of delivery is that delivery can be a disaster for people. When delivery means an eviction from a shack in a community of which you are a valued member and which is near to your work and your children's schools to a transit camp filled with strangers in the middle of nowhere it can be a catastrophe. When delivery means the installation of a water or electricity metre to someone who previously, legally or illegally, had non-commodifed access to water or electricity, it can also be more of a curse than a blessing. Delivery, in the form that the state currently offers it to people, is fairly frequently refused and it’s not unusual for it to have to be implemented at gunpoint.

Another reason why protest and delivery are often connected is that, at least in some places, it is routine for delivery to be mediated through local party structures for the benefit of local party leaders and their followers rather than through any kind of rational allocation. This doesn't just produce inefficiency. It also produces active exclusion that is defended by an increasing authoritarianism at the base of society. It is not at all unusual to find that people live in fear of local councillors and their ward committees and the branch executive committees of the local party structures.

When the technocrats point to the graphs in their power-point presentations the numbers they allude to will often refer to real progress. But they will sometimes also refer to new forms of exclusion, sometimes backed by state and party violence.

Society is a lot more complicated than the service delivery myth is capable of recognising. The simplicity of the myth is part of its attraction, but while it may lead to elegant PowerPoint presentations and snappy newspaper headlines, it doesn't function to simplify a complex reality on the ground. On the contrary, it masks that complexity and blinds us to the fact that the forms of development that we are pursing with the same monomania with which Ahab chased the white whale around the oceans of the world, are in fact, often producing new forms of oppression.

Statistics can be useful tools but they will only be able to speak to the lived reality of ordinary people with more fairness if we democratise our thinking about development and subordinate the state, and its experts, to society.

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* Pithouse teaches politics at Rhodes University. This article was first publishing by The South African Civil Society Information Service (www.sacsis.org.za).
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

LGBT: Transgender rights not simply gay rights

Audrey Mbugua

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/70777

There is a systematic ploy to erase the transgender community, experiences and lives. The ubiquitous actions that are slowly expunging transgender people from our civilisation and their pernicious nature are weighing heavily on the transgender community. It’s worth dissecting the issue for human rights activists to get a better perspective of how their activism is of benefit to transgender people. Luckily, there is a growing momentum in the transgender community to ensure the restoration of the dignity and autonomy of the community. There is a plethora of pitfalls – and mostly among the people who are targeted for re-education about the transgender concept.

Richard Feynman, an American physicist, once said that if you think you understand quantum mechanics then you don’t understand quantum mechanics. Without the fear of sounding cocky, I will say this: if you think you really think you understand the transgender concept, then there is a chance you don’t have the slightest clue what its all about, and might never be able to get it. The field of human rights activism targeting the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community is overflowing with fundamental flaws on the subject and issues of transgender people. The problem is further compounded by a similar lack of awareness among a large section of the donor community. The result of course is that you end up having a huge chunk of funds being utilised to marginalise and spread misinformation about transgender people. While I appreciate and recognise people’s freedom of speech – the right to say anything under the sun or moon (but away from the police) – and that there are communities out there who have been vilified and their rights violated, I will not don kid’s gloves in addressing the matter at hand due to the people involved. This is an educational approach and it would be immature for anyone to blow a gasket because they have been told they are wrong.

‘BE A REAL WOMAN, DON’T CONFUSE PEOPLE’

There are a number of stereotypes about women: they are soft, don’t fight back, are timid, cry for no reason, walk swinging their hips and, the most ubiquitous one, they all have broken wrists. There is a whole array of laws transsexuals have to abide by, some extending to who they should date. This phenomenon is referred to as gender-normative garbage (GNG). Some activists refer to it as hetero-normative (they are wrong) but that’s a topic for another day. Pamela Hayes[1] reveals that transgender women get entrapped by this to the point of being defenceless in the face of oppression.

‘Some transsexuals are so concerned with how they appear to people, that they come across like robots. I have been in the company of trans women who seem like they have no personality. They are so preoccupied with being sweet and ladylike that they come off acting like a machine.

‘So many times, trans women have been out in public and have been insulted by a store clerk or have had people to get in their face and utter pejoratives… “Why didn’t you say something to the person who insulted you?” … “But I don’t want to be unladylike.”

‘I don’t think saying something derogatory to someone who has insulted you is being unladylike. And maybe trans women need to knock it off with this perpetual ladylike garbage. Sometimes you can’t be ladylike. Circumstances preclude that.’

This gender policing means that transgender women have to conform to these laws or face censure, which can take the form of being called a man in a dress, sissy boy or bottom. At times the pain of seeing what transgender people have to put up with is so intense you nearly get an anger stroke. For example, we all recall the arrest and trial of Auntie Tiwonge and her boyfriend Steven in Malawi that sparked condemnation from local and international human rights fora. Despite the evident transgender status of Tiwo, these activists humiliated her over and over again for them to perpetuate the gay agenda in Africa. Instead of these activists taking the opportunity to educate others about the transgender concept and challenge the lack of laws that cater for people who are changing sex, they branded her and her boyfriend as male homosexuals. It’s only after their release that some gay activist made token noise that Tiwonge is indeed transgender, but the damage had already been done.

The gaynisation trend at times just catches you unaware. I was recently reading an article going by the name ‘Transgender rights are gay rights’ by Nathan Tabak.[2] The intention to write the article is clearly positive but was done is a manner that evokes pity towards him and those who share his philosophy. The philosophy is of mislabelling transgender people – by calling them gays – so as for gays to agree to support the transgender movement. It’s sad.

He first admits that the gay environment is not very friendly to transgender people:

‘While many gays and lesbians are fully accepting of transgender men and women, there's no question that transphobia is a major issue in the gay community.’

But, he shies off at the last fence in doing something positive by an indefatigable moral and intellectual cowardice:

‘The freedom transgender people deserve isn't just for them. It's for every person — gay, bi, straight, or anything else — who wants to be able to express their identity freely.’

But, if you put to account what transgender/transsexual is, you would realise that the issues of transgender people are not those of gays. Accessing sex-change operations is not an issue for gays or lesbians and neither is it an issue of all cissexual people. The ability to change your names and sex in academic papers is a transgender issue but it never features in the minds of gays. It’s even ironic that Nathan talks about people expressing their identities freely while he is busy shoving the gay label down transsexuals’ throats. For what? Maybe he thinks by transsexuals taking up the gay label, the gays will better accommodate them and see them as part of them and in need of their support. As we shall see below, such a move is a colossal waste of time and saliva.

But, should we compromise the transsexuals’ right to identity, self-determination and their autonomy for the gays to support their activism? Any gay or lesbian worth his or her salt would ridicule this idea because it is simply oppressive. Would it be okay if heterosexuals told gays that they had to cease being gay for them to accept them and support their activism for non-discrimination?

This gaynisation trend by some gays among gays is spectacularly unnecessary and in fact yields more transphobia by some gays and lesbians towards transsexuals.

Nathan’s article is followed by comments from some gays and lesbians whose blasphemous tongues are simply diametrically opposed to the spirit of the respect of the human rights of transgender people. Look at these:

‘I am a lesbian. I do not like transsexuals … I think to remove your penis, and insert said flesh inside of your body, or the other way around, is a cheap cop-out and a lazy way around the problems that really plague your heart… I am so incredibly tired of psychologically ill people using cross-dressing, third genders, and transgendered platforms to carry out their own fantasy, while the rest of us have to suffer…’

This lesbian (she said she is one) has some backing (as expected):

‘I'm a big butch I totally agree with Laureen… these cases need of mental help… there is a line between play and believe your own fantasies or desires as reality. This point or line makes the difference between sane or insane minds… I believe some people just played so hard that they lost the plot at some point in relation to their sexual identities and they trapped themselves in this situation… Gender must be defined by physical appearance not by a subjective personal opinion about who we want/believe about ourselves.’

I admire the courage of these people (the ability to say those words) but these words do have a negative effect on other people’s lives. We are sick and tired of people saying ‘I don’t have a problem with trans folks but…’ Why but? I don’t see their beeswax in our lives. No one asked for their opinion about us.

Nathan presents a section of gays who are burning the midnight oil, scrapping at the bottom of the barrel to find reasons to call transgender people gays. Even when he knew his move would draw a backlash against transsexuals, he went ahead to write his shenanigans in the name of supporting the transsexuals (by the way, no transsexual asked him for this favour) and which has resulted to a lot of psychological pain among transsexuals. Isn’t it crystal-clear that you don’t fight transphobia among gays and lesbians by calling transgender people gays to appease gays?

Also, there is the culture of using transgender people and lives during pre-colonial times to support the notion that homosexuality has always existed in the untainted African culture. Murray[3] is one such person who (among others) will use the African transgender phenomenon and their private affairs to pimp the idea that homosexuality is as African as heterosexuality. True, but it’s scandalous for these scholars to call transgender women homosexuals and use some of their sexual activities to pimp up their gay research.

What other consequences are there as a result of this mislabelling? Homosexuality is criminalised in Kenya – note the difference for some gays and lesbians say that LGBT people are criminalised (it’s wrong). You go around telling members of the public LGBT people are the gay community (but being transgender does not make one gay), then a transgender woman goes to the hospital for gender reassignment. Don’t you think she will be denied access to medical services because the doctors will think by providing hormones and surgery to her they are assisting to legalise homosexuality? And, extrapolate the same on changing names in identification documents like the ID card. Additionally, transgender people are more visible than gays and lesbians. During and after the transition, the parents/guardians or family and relatives will actually know about the transition (unless they are blind). Then amidst these ‘difficult’ times, they see some LGB individuals calling transgender people gays/homosexuals. What will be the reaction? They form a twisted and wrong picture of who their daughters or sons are. Note that I am not saying it’s okay for gays to be denied access to medical services. But you cannot turn transgender people into sacrificial lambs for the sake of activism. You are messing up people’s lives and surely they never gave you their consent for you to do so. Who loses out of this misinformation?

And let’s consider the ever-ridiculous habit of the images that LGBT organisations use to depict transgender people. What happens is they use a picture of a person busy applying a tonne of make-up and a wig. Then this person has to have features that are meant to say ‘it’s a man putting on make-up’, or a picture of a person with a very hairy torso and in a dress. This results in the world believing that transgender people are female impersonators, pretending to be women and going late at night to get unsuspecting straight men to sleep with them. They get accused of the crime of deception, which results in hostility and violence against transgender people.

Most people would point out at my imbalanced perspective of the dynamics of the LGB and transgender activism. There are some gays who are mature and don’t oppress transsexuals. I totally agree but am not in the business of counting evil sheep. I have so far refrained from making sweeping generalisations about gays and lesbians. Not all gays and lesbians oppress transgender people and in fact some great strides that have benefited transgender people have been made with the support of some gays and lesbians. And still there are people who are not gays and lesbians or bisexuals who have also made significant contributions in the lives of transgender people. We appreciate all these contributions but that should not preclude us from challenging all forms of oppression by the LGB community. If it’s a trade where some gays help us in return for us acquiescing our identities and lives and take on theirs then that’s unacceptable and we shall resist it to our graves.

And, is it wrong for transgender people to voice these concerns? I am not a confrontational person but I don’t support the idea of sucking up and apple-polishing, pretending the shoe ain’t pinching. Some may say it’s more prudent to let the issue pass; the gays might think we are being homophobic. Let’s give them more time; they will learn and understand us. Or maybe we might lose their support if we criticise the poverty of their activism when it comes to trans matters; they might think we are separating ourselves from them. These sentiments aren’t new to me. I have encountered these so many times that my head is still spinning. Well, the lack of courage among these individuals makes them fence-sitters, weak tea and frozen bacteria. Let’s stop ignoring the elephant that’s in the room. We have to acknowledge there are problems and create remedies to end the violation of the rights of transgender people within the LGB community.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Audrey Mbugua is a member of Transgender Education and Advocacy, a Kenyan organisation formed to address social injustices committed against the country’s transgender community.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

[1] Pamela Hayes. How Dare You? TransGriot http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2010/12/pams-ponderings-how-dare-you.html
[2] Nathan Tabak. Change.Org. Transgender Rights are Gay Rights. http://news.change.org/stories/transgender-rights-are-gay-rights
[3] Stephen O. Murray. Homosexuality in “Traditional” Sub-Saharan Africa and Contemporary South Africa. http://semgai.free.fr/doc_et_pdf/africa_A4.pdf

Tshombe, Spain and the DRC's independence

Agustín Velloso

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/70773

cc J KSpain’s willingness to allow an exiled Moise Tshombe entry into the country and to turn a blind eye to his criminal record may well have changed the course of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) history, writes Agustín Velloso.

Spain's relations with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which began soon after independence in 1960, are marked by their support for Belgian plans against it, backed up by the United States.

Moise Tshombe, executor of those plans, visited Spain several times between 1963 and 1966, but his only official visit as president of Katanga was in 1965. Much less known than his involvement in the murder of Patrice Lumumba, 50 years ago, is his subversive activity during those visits.

The Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation (MAEC), through its directorate general for external cooperation, publishes periodic reports on countries with which Spain maintains relations of various kinds. A publication in April 2008 was dedicated to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

It summarizes ‘Spanish VIP visits the DRC and vice versa.’ The first, in 1965, is presented in concise form: ‘04/06/1965 Moise Tshombe, Prime Minister’.

There were no more official VIP visits until 1973, and up to 2008 there was no cooperation agreement between the two countries. There were few official exchanges, but what is interesting is that the official visit by Moise Tshombe recorded by the MAEC was not his first one to Spain. Nothing is said of the Spanish stage Tshombe played on in 1963 and during a subsequent stay in 1966.

STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE

On 30 June 1960, the DRC declared its independence and Patrice Lumumba was its democratically elected prime minister. Belgium, the colonial power, formally recognised it, but worked against it even before it happened. Immediately after, the United States was prepared to get rid of Lumumba by all means at its disposal, including assassination.

Tshombe declared Katanga's secession on 11 July 1960. He requested military aid from Belgium, and got it. Then Lumumba broke relations with Belgium and sought UN intervention. Belgium's first goal was to ensure its control of Katanga’s natural resources, putting them beyond the reach of the state to gradually undermine the position of Lumumba through other actions, and finally to deprive him of power.

On 6 September 1960, the Spanish daily newspaper ABC questioned the ability of the government of Lumumba to restore national unity (not mentioning the imperialist alliance against him of course) and highlighted the views of Tshombe (due to this very same alliance). Conflicts multiplied in the country.

Of course, what really worried the ABC, as well as the US and Francisco Franco's Spain, was not Tshombe's attack on the integrity of the DRC and the legality of his government, but that ‘Soviet intervention must be countered’.

Thus the newspaper presented the US argument as expressed by Nelson Rockefeller, who said: ‘If the Soviet Union intervenes in the Congo, the United States should also take action, but through the United Nations. If we are for freedom, we must be willing to fight for it, whether it's in Korea, the Congo or Hungary, or anywhere else that's threatened. We must be willing to protect the forces of freedom. I don't think the Soviets have acted in good faith in this case.’

Lumumba was imprisoned by order of General Mobutu, who sent him handcuffed to Katanga, where he was tortured and killed along with a couple of comrades, probably with the personal involvement of Tshombe, on 17 January 1961.

On 23 June 1961, the ABC returned to the fray with its anti-communist material. Gathering information from EFE news agency, the ABC wrote: ‘Tshombe said he had reached agreement with General Mobutu to form a common front against communism. He added that there was complete military agreement to organise all the Congolese armed forces, including Katanga’s, without help from the United Nations. The United Nations aren't necessary he said, “since for the moment we have, in General Mobutu, a man who can be trusted completely”.’

Tshombe attempted to get rid of the UN politically and militarily, but ultimately the secession ended two years later when the UN gained control of the province. Tshombe left the country and settled in Spain.

The ABC used this opportunity to insult the dead and victims caused by the war organised by Tshombe and felt it appropriate to recall the 9 January 1963 words of the perpetrators of the crime: ‘US Senator Thomas Dodd of Connecticut said the other day: “The attack on Katanga is a blatant and inhuman act of aggression by the new imperialism of the United Nations. The UN initiative, intervening militarily in a country to force unification and impose a certain constitution, establishes an extremely dangerous precedent that could end one day in a moral and political disaster.”’

A week before the 21 January 1963 defeat of Tshombe's forces by the UN, the ABC reported on the 10th three opinions on the situation, all opposed to international law and the DRC legislation. There was the US position: ‘The US Commission for Assistance to the Freedom Soldiers of Katanga has published a petition asking Congress to vote the necessary funds to arm Katanga. Vote early and with generosity the necessary funds to send them the weapons they need’, Republicans and Democrats asked together.

JOURNEY TO POWER

In Madrid Tshombe devoted himself to organising his return to power in the DRC. He was in a convenient place, away from black Africa and near the diplomatic services (read intelligence services from the USA and Belgium).

On 25 June 1964 Tshombe met the Belgian foreign minister at the ministry's headquarters and then with the US ambassador in Brussels, after which he left by plane for the DRC. The ABC reported the next day that the first visit consisted of a half-hour chat and that the second was a courtesy visit. On arrival in the DRC he joined a coalition government as prime minister.

Through Radio Kinshasa, the DRC government accused Tshombe of organising attacks by his troops in Kisangani from Madrid, devastating the town, killing its inhabitants and burning houses. Riots, assaults, murders, robberies and other abuses occurred in the DRC. All this was presented in the West as tribal fighting, while hiding the role of the spies and multinationals operating in the DRC.

Meanwhile, Tshombe continued his regular political activity and also made a visit to Italy. The Italian communists spread leaflets in the streets of Rome to denounce the visit of ‘those who asked foreign mercenaries to carry out the extermination of their own people’, showing that ‘the Italian government is guilty of tolerating this infamous presence on our soil’ and demanding ‘the immediate expulsion of Tshombe from Italy’. The ABC correspondent wrote that he was just passing through Rome on the way to the US to ‘try to see Paul VI’.

The ABC wrote that ‘whatever the personal and political characteristics of Tshombe, there could be no more talk of his being on the side of the victims or the murderers. Tshombe has been with the victims, for order in their country and with understanding toward Europe. It is Italian communism that is on the side of the murderers.’

Therefore, for the newspaper, responsibility for the disaster in the DRC was not Tshombe's, but ‘at the hour of truth we can see how communism is the tool mounted in the service of attitudes that have little to do with civilisation.’

MUCH INFORMATION, BUT LITTLE OF INTEREST

Meanwhile, what happens in the world that the Western press does not see is that Mobutu, free of Lumumba, negotiated with Tshombe, President Kasavubu and foreign powers until he could also get rid of the first two. After a coup against Kasavubu, he charged Tshombe with treason. In order to escape death he returned to Spain in 1966. Ironically herein lies his political decline. During another trip he is arrested and imprisoned in Algeria and as compensation gets a tomb there.

Once Mobutu settles into power with US support, it's his turn, with his wife and ministers, to travel to Spain mainly for stop-overs, on their way to Belgium and the United States. In fact, Spain's support isn't for Tshombe and Mobutu in the main, but for US imperialism, which finally decides to bet on Mobutu amongst the contenders for power in the DRC.

The bottom line is that Spain allowed Tshombe to carry out political activity from Madrid and turned a blind eye both to his criminal record and his subversive plans for the DRC. While doing this Spain supported the survival of imperialism in Africa on behalf of Belgium, the United States and the multinational extractive industry corporations in Katanga, as well as the gross violations of the human rights of the Congolese.

It is impossible to measure the harm caused by this partnership, but it is known that the DRC is a country which has suffered before and since independence under foreign powers, and that Spain has some responsibility for this tragedy, even as a minor accomplice of the perpetrators of the disaster.

It is not unreasonable to think that if Spain had refused to welcome Tshombe, or better yet, if it had denounced him to the UN, the history of the DRC may have been different. At least Spanish history would have been.

However, the relationship of subservience to the United States – as happens also today – made Spain carry out activities unrelated to its own interests and which were certainly contrary to international law, and to the right of peoples to struggle to be free from imperialism.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article was first published by Mundo Negro: ‘España y la independencia de la República Democrática del Congo’, Mundo Negro, no. 559, febrero, 2011, 30–33.
* Translated from the Spanish by Bob Thomson.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Namibia's Swapo: Forfeiting the ‘moral high ground’

Henning Melber speaks to Khadija Sharife

Henning Melber

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/70775

cc ClemalexTwo decades after Namibian independence, scholar, activist and longstanding Swapo (South West Africa People’s Organisation) member Henning Melber pulls no punches in his judgement of the party’s moral failures, power struggles and willingness to trade on its liberation legacy, in an interview with Khadija Sharife.

KHADIJA SHARIFE: What is your opinion on the changes made to the Regional Councils Act allowing the president to appoint regional governors?

HENNING MELBER: The new law, which empowers the president to appoint local 'governors' (who, strictly speaking, are not governors, but are rather the elected executive members of the regional councillors) is in breach of the original constitutional provision.

This stipulates that these 'governors' are elected by and from the group of regional councillors, who in turn were elected by the voters. This would allow for a truly regional representation. The 'governor' is acting in direct responsibility to the appointing president and can come from any region or political party. He or she is therefore no longer necessarily a representative of the factual political situation on the ground in the region, but is de facto a representative of the head of state.

This is toxic for democracy and is another step towards a kind of ‘democratic centralism’ that has as much to do with democracy as torture does with human rights.

KHADIJA SHARIFE: Is it true that the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) has yet to remove dead people from voter roles, while some people in Ovambi, the Swapo stronghold, allegedly have multiple IDs and voters’ cards?

HENNING MELBER: It was indeed documented by referring to subsequent voters roles that they were invalid. They had listed persons known to be dead, Among these were some who were very prominent, whose funerals had been widely covered in the local media. Multiple voters’ cards also were identified. It is difficult to judge if this is sheer incompetence, or if this ‘incompetence’ is part of a system. I am reluctant to reach a conclusion. It is striking, however, how long this problem has dragged on, despite numerous previous initiatives to correct it. This seems to suggest that the ECN has no sense of urgency in addressing the situation.

KHADIJA SHARIFE: Has Swapo ever initiated a transparent commission into accountability within the party for actions committed during the liberation struggle?

HENNING MELBER: The only thing genuine about Swapo in this context is the arrogance of power, claiming that a liberation struggle requires sacrifices. If known then, the leadership would most likely have used the term 'collateral damage'. Swapo never, ever was willing to deal with the matter. This is one of the reasons why I claim that Swapo have forfeited the moral high ground we occupied during the struggle against apartheid. If we are willing to close our eyes when it comes to human rights violations in our own ranks, we are no better than those we accuse of human rights violations.

KHADIJA SHARIFE: Like South Africa, Namibia is governed by a one-party system functioning largely through a system of patronage. Could you deconstruct this issue for us?

HENNING MELBER: It's pretty obvious that the 'patriotic history' of a liberation movement as government produces similar characteristics of dominant party rule in both countries. In contrast to South Africa, Swapo has been seen even more so as the only recognised and legitimate 'liberator', now ‘cashing in’ in both senses of the term. The new rulers have been pursuing a [class conflict] and were co-opted into the existing socio-economic structures on the basis of the political and administrative powers seized. Two decades into independence, they still claim that they deserve popular support because they were the liberators and freed the country from apartheid and settler colonialism. But the fundamental socio-economic structures continue to reproduce the same features, just in a less racially biased version.

KHADIJA SHARIFE: Does Namibia have a similar black economic empowerment (BEE) system to South Africa's?

HENNING MELBER: Exactly the same. The difference might be that South Africa is a much more differentiated and industrialised society, which allows for more access and more diversified manipulation. In Namibia, it is almost exclusively a system of rent-seeking through the proclaimed 'Namibianisation' of resources. This translates into privatisation with some local beneficiaries sharing crumbs of the cake with the same or similar external actors than before.

These might now be coming more from other countries like China than in the old days, when it was only ‘Western imperialism’ reigning. But the exchange patterns have not fundamentally shifted, only that a rent-seeking new elite can now cash in on its positions in the political and administrative offices and structures. Self-enrichment through privileged access to state tenders and other forms of appropriating public funds is a popular means of achieving this.

KHADIJA SHARIFE: What tensions exist within Swapo between different factions vying for power, if any?

HENNING MELBER: There are massive conflicts and power struggles. Currently, at least three factions are seeking to position their candidate for the succession race, both with regard to the party presidency and, by implication, the succession to President Hifikepunye Pohamba as head of state. Pendukeni Ithana, secretary general of the party, Hage Geingob, vice president of Swapo, and Nahas Angula, currently prime minister - all from the old guard - are in the race. Former President Sam Nujoma's son Uutoni, now foreign minister, also features in some of the speculations. So do a few more. It is pretty messy and difficult to assess, but we will observe a lot behind the facade over the next two years. Tensions are massive, as far as one is able to read the signs.

KHADIJA SHARIFE: What is the reality of poverty and income inequality in Namibia today and could you contrast this to the state of Namibia's political economy two decades ago?

HENNING MELBER: Namibia remains among the countries with the highest income discrepancies in the world. Statistically a middle-income country, it has more than a 50% unemployment rate and massive poverty. The colonial economy has not been fundamentally transformed. The self-enrichment strategy of the new elite sacrificed any redistribution of wealth on a national scale in favour of the majority for their own luxury and privileges. We have a pact among elites, old and new, but no true emancipation from colonial rule. The real scandal is that we once again sold out the ordinary people for the benefit of a few.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Henning Melber is a Namibian analyst. He is currently the executive director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation and research fellow with the Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria.
* Khadija Sharife is the southern Africa correspondent for The Africa Report magazine and a visiting scholar at the Centre for Civil Society (CCS) based in South Africa.
* This interview was first published by The Africa Report.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

6 Billion Ways

2011-02-09

http://6billionways.org.uk/

From the grassroots to the global, communities and movements are imagining and creating a world where people and planet come before profit, and democracy trumps corporate power. 6 Billion Ways is a day that explores this resistance through discussion, ideas, action and the arts. With speakers and practical workshops for all ages, debates, films, music and art, 6 Billion Ways is your chance to inspire and be inspired, and to make connections with others who want to challenge injustice and inequality, both in the UK and globally.

Fahamu events at 6 Billion Ways include:

- Africa: Empire and Resistance

Africa is still portrayed as a hopeless, famine-struck continent in need of rescue. In this session, leading thinkers will paint a more positive picture, and assess the hopes and prospects for African resistance in the twenty-first century.

Speakers

Samir Amin, Third World Forum, Senegal
Firoze Manji, Pambazuka News
Patrick Bond, Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal

- Film: Tin Town

Promised housing by the South African government, more than a hundred Cape Town families found community through their struggle as squatters on a sandy road known as Symphony Way. Recently moved by court order to an indefinitely temporary relocation area dubbed ‘Tin Town’ or ‘Blikkiesdorp’ in Afrikaans, community members reflect on that road in their past and on the road ahead.

This is a short film followed by a discussion with Firoze Manji, Editor-in-chief at Pambazuka News.

The book 'No Land! No House! No Vote! Voices from Symphony Way' will also be launched at the screening.

Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter - February issue

2011-02-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/70900

Fahamu’s Refugee Programme is pleased to announce the February issue of the Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter , a monthly publication that aims to provide a forum for providers of refugee legal aid. With a focus on the global South, it aims to serve the needs of legal aid providers as well as raise awareness of refugee concerns among the wider readership of Pambazuka News.

Mauritius: sex workers deserve protection

Loga Virahsawmy

2011-02-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/70772

cc ICRSELoga Virahsawmy writes about the difficulties facing sex workers in Mauritius and the rest of the SADC region.

Port Louis, Mauritius. Never forget Marie Lourde Collette and Marie Ange Milazar. These may not be household names for most, but they are engraved in my memory. They were considered less than animals by their torturers: brutally raped and sodomised, their stomachs slit before they were murdered. Their faces were unrecognisable.

What were their sins? They were selling their bodies to feed their families.

With the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development signed by all Heads of States except those in Mauritius and Botswana, many SADC women thought there would be some light at the end of the tunnel for those on the margins of our society. But is there really hope?

While Mauritius is cited as a regional model for democracy it is also known for its poor performance in combating gender-based violence (GBV). There has never been any substantial research to quantify, measure, or prevent GBV. Politicians and stakeholders want immediate results and therefore do not finance research that might take time. It makes us a nation of fire fighters, always putting out the flames but not trying to find ways to stop them from igniting in the first place.

Articles 20-25 of the SADC Protocol stipulate that: ‘By 2015 state parties shall enact and enforce legislation forbidding all forms of gender-based violence; ensure that laws on gender-based violence provide for comprehensive testing, treatment and care of survivors of sexual assault; review and reform criminal laws and procedures applicable to cases of sexual offences and gender-based violence; enact legislative provisions, and adopt and implement policies, strategies and programmes which define and prohibit sexual harassment in all spheres, and provide deterrent sanctions for perpetrators of sexual harassment.”

Although there are measures to accompany and help survivors, legislation prohibiting all forms of GBV is not covered under the Mauritius Protection from Domestic Violence (Amendment) Act. The Sexual Offences Bill has been shelved. Such bills sit on similar shelves in other SADC countries.

Lack of protection, stigma and fear mean many women and most sex workers do not even report instances of gender-based violence and rape.

Of the 3,440 gender violence cases officially reported to the police between January and September 2010, and the 2,215 reported to the Ministry of Gender Equality during the same year, it is unlikely that a single case was from a sex worker. Statistics are blind when it comes to sex workers; there is a general view that rape and violence form part of their work.

Sex work is also illegal in Mauritius, so sex workers are not protected under any legislation. They are arrested and put in jail while their clients get away with murder. Sex workers cannot even seek treatment in hospitals. Stigmatisation and discrimination are rife.

‘Antiretroviral (treatment) is free in Mauritius but sex workers who are HIV-positive are afraid to go for treatment. Sometimes they go for testing and are afraid to go back to get their results and prefer to live with the virus rather than being stigmatised,’ said Marlene Ladine, director of Chrysalide, a residential centre for female substance users and sex workers.

In July 2009, Chrysalide won the United Nations Red Ribbon Award at the International Conference on HIV and AIDS in Vienna. Ladine said the conference allowed her to see how similar issues are addressed in other parts of the world.

On her return to Mauritius she sought out new ways to help local sex workers know about their rights. Two former sex workers are now her field officers working to complete an audit of sex workers in the country, hoping to better understand their problems and ways to solve them.

‘We are encouraging other countries of the region to do the same. Each country has its own challenges,’ said Ladine. ‘In Madagascar, for example, mothers are not allowed to feed their newborn babies on bottled milk. This is a major problem for mothers who are HIV-positive. Fortunately Seychelles has now realised that there is a relation between drug users and HIV and AIDS and they are moving quite fast on prevention programmes.’

With these realities in mind, a network of Indian Ocean countries has recently been formed. Two representatives of the Women’s Samaritan Association (Association des Femmes Samaritaines -AFSA), who work with sex workers in Madagascar, were in Mauritius during the 2010 16 Days campaign. They had the chance to share their experiences of working with sex workers with participants during a cyber dialogue facilitated by Gender Links.

With the help of the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC) several organisations and social workers are now in the process of setting up Red Umbrella groups in each country of the IOC. The red umbrella is a symbol for sex workers’ rights around the world.

‘The NGO will focus on training of sex workers, empowering them so that they can protect themselves from pimps and other forms of gender-based violence,’ said Ladine. ‘Train them so that they know their rights. Help them to go for medical treatment and get access to medication. Give them proper skills, empower them so that they can apply for jobs if they so wish.’

It is never too late to save human lives. Never forget those who have already been killed or abused. Never forget that sex workers are human beings with human rights and they too must be protected.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Loga Virahsawmy is the director of the Gender Links Mauritius and Francophone office. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Via Campesina joins the World Social Forum opening march

2011-02-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/70767

Dakar, 8 February 2011 - The 11th World Social Forum, in Dakar - Senegal began on February 6, with something halfway between a march and parade: a march, in the sense of people using the act of walking to send an explicit political message, and a parade, in that the joy of the participants was so infectious, even the police had to chuckle as La Via Campesina’s delegation added, “Oye, Securitie” to their usual chant honoring the presence of over 50 representatives from all over the world - “Oye, Senegal, Mali, Togo, Congo, Mozambique, Indonesia, Guatemala, South Africa, Tanzania!” This first day of the World Social Forum was exhilarating for all the delegates, though the 5 kilometer walk under the Senegalese sun was just a small foreshadowing of the effort it will take to truly prove, over the next 5 days, that “another world is possible.”

One of the principal messages that La Via Campesina came to share in the march, and in the forum more generally, was, “Farmers of the world against land grabbing: land for those who work the land and feed the world,” as one of their banners exclaimed. This theme will be developed through various workshops that La Via Campesina will host throughout the forum. In addition, La Via Campesina will focus on climate change, violence against women, and the need to preserve peasants local seeds.

“Today was inspiring—the number of people, the countries they represented, the solidarity we felt, and the willingness of people to create change; to support each other,” said Bigambo Ladslaw from Tanzania, La Via Campesina delegate. José Mateus, delegate from Mozambique, added, “Today was extremely positive. The exchanges with organizations were great, and the long march reflected the strength of the efforts we all take to work and organize.”

The march ended at the University of Dakar, where various speakers including the Bolivian president Evo Morales shared a message against neo-liberalism and neo-colonization, and a vision of a future where public policies are based upon the needs of the people rather than the hunger of capitalism. Morales also mentioned that, having been both a workers and peasants leader in the past, he recognizes the great importance of people's movements in building political power.

* Daily updates, pictures and videos are available from the Via Campesina website.
* Via Campesina is an international movement of peasants, small- and medium-sized producers, landless, rural women, indigenous people, rural youth and agricultural workers. We are an autonomous, pluralist and multicultural movement, independent of any political, economic, or other type of affiliation. Born in 1993, La Via Campesina now gathers about 150 organisations in 70 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.

International Operational Secretariat:
Jln. Mampang Prapatan XIV no 5 Jakarta Selatan, Jakarta 12790 Indonesia
Tel/fax: +62-21-7991890/+62-21-7993426
Email: viacampesina@viacampesina.org

AU calls special session on Egypt

Gado

2011-02-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/cartoons/70791

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

Mubarak digging in

2011-02-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/cartoons/70768

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

Zimbabwe: Biti may boycott trip to China to seal fraudulent deal

2011-02-15

http://www.thezimbabwemail.com/zimbabwe/7250.html

Zimbabwe's Finance Minister Tendai Biti is likely to boycott a forthcoming trip to China to tie up a controversial $3-billion platinum deal which has provoked a political storm. Government insiders and diplomatic officials say relations between Harare and Beijing could become strained if Biti snubs the talks. China is anxious to secure huge platinum deposits in Zimbabwe worth about $40-billion for a market price of $3-billion. This has angered Harare officials, who think the Chinese want to swindle the country.

Zimbabwe: Close to two million still need food aid

2011-02-09

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news080211/closeto080211.htm

A new food assessment report says that close to two million Zimbabweans will still need food aid in the coming months, despite 'better economic conditions'. The US-funded Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET) reported this month that about 1.7 million Zimbabweans will be in need of food aid during the next two months. Both FEWSNET and the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC) last year estimated that about 1.3 million rural households will be food insecure between January and March.

Zimbabwe: Mutambara refuses to resign

2011-02-08

http://zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=7152&cat=1

Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara refused to resign, defying a directive from his party to step down and accept a ministerial position after he lost the party’s leadership. Mutambara was replaced by Industry Minister Welshman Ncube as head of the faction of the Movement for Democratic Change at its congress in January, after which the party said he would move to the Minister of International Co-operation and Regional Integration.

Africa: Civil society, media women seek enforcement of texts on women's rights

2011-02-15

http://bit.ly/epEdk6

African women's rights activists have called on governments on the continent to enforce the texts, conventions and protocols they signed on the protection of women's rights. The associations, from the Gambia and Senegal, are holding a panel discussion on 'Gender and the Media: what approaches for more visibility of the actions conducted by women in the media'. Organised by the Inter-African Network for Women, the Media, Gender and Development (FAMEDEV), the meeting was aimed at identifying major constraints to women's access to decision-making positions and the improvement of the image of women in the media.

Africa: Political support needs financial backing

2011-02-15

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54449

'The agenda for women’s rights and empowerment in each country must be supported by the political leadership,' says Norah Matovu-Winyi, Executive Director, African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET). In this interview with IPS, she said in future World Social Forums 'there is need to support more women to participate in the dialogues', Matovu-Winyi said. Women learn a lot from each other and in many instances discover that their struggles are the same despite coming from different continents.

Botswana: News reports still not gender sensitive, workshop hears

2011-02-15

http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?sid=1&aid=623&dir=2011/February/Wednesday2

Media in Southern Africa still has a long way to go towards gender sensitive reporting in newsrooms, a study by Gender Links has revealed. Most Southern African media houses in 14 countries had very few reports on gender based violence from mid October to mid November in 2009 in a study carried out during that period. A media progress study and gender in media education audit workshop by Gender Links in Gaborone also revealed that Botswana remained in the lower ranks of most categories of the study.

Côte d’Ivoire: The impact of the political crisis on women's rights organisations

2011-02-09

http://www.wunrn.com/news/2011/02_11/02_07/020711_ivory.htm

Côte d’Ivoire has been in a political impasse since the declaration of contested results of a second round of presidential elections held in November 2010. Since both candidates claimed victory and have been sworn in, the country has two presidents and two governments. In order to understand the impact of this situation on women and women’s rights organisations, AWID spoke with two women’s rights defenders, Mata Coulibaly President of SOS EXCLUSION and Honorine Sadia Vehi Toure, President of Génération Femmes du troisième Millénaire (GFM3), as well as with an Ivorian politician who prefers to remain anonymous and to whom we have given the pseudonym of Sophie.

Global: More women needed in peacekeeping efforts, says UN study

2011-02-09

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/EGUA-8DVQVB?OpenDocument

Greater action is needed by United Nations peacekeeping missions – working with local women, national authorities and UN Member States – to increase the limited participation of women in peace negotiations, national security institutions and governance in post-conflict situations, says a UN study. The impact study – conducted a decade after the adoption of landmark Security Council resolution 1325 on women and peace and security, the first to address the specific impacts of conflict on women and call for women's engagement in peace processes – reports a mixed record on the overall contribution of UN peacekeeping to the implementation of the resolution.

Somalia: Al-Shabaab outlaws mixed-gender classrooms

2011-02-15

http://www.africareview.com/News/-/979180/1106594/-/hrnvccz/-/index.html

Boys and girls should not sit in the same classroom, radical Islamist group Al-Shabaab has ordered. All lectures must also stop at ten minutes to noon, while teachers must inculcate in their students the importance of Jihad (holy war), said a senior official of the group which controls most of central and southern Somalia.

South Sudan: Window of opportunity for women

2011-02-15

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/JARD-8E43D2?OpenDocument

With the triumphant success of the South Sudan referendum, the transitioning state is looking ahead toward consultations regarding the new constitution and government. Although this transitional phase poses major challenges, it also holds an unparalleled window of opportunity for marginalised groups to push for inclusive rights and representation - especially women. Overall the largest gains for women in Africa have been in states experiencing post-conflict transition, particularly because it allows for a complete restructuring of the government and constitution.

Uganda: Students design ultrasound for Ugandan midwives

2011-02-08

http://bit.ly/eVCYdD

A low-cost maternal ultrasound system that began as a class project by a group of college students at the University of Washington in Seattle is to be tested by midwives in Uganda, a country with one of the world's highest maternal mortality rates. Around 10 Ugandan midwives will be selected to participate in the field test project. The experiment will evaluate whether the device matches the midwives' needs and skills. The device is designed to enable midwives to detect conditions that can complicate pregnancies and birth.

Egypt: Egypt remembers

2011-02-15

http://1000memories.com/egypt

Visit this page to meet those who sacrificed themselves in the effort to overthrow Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt: Google executive released

2011-02-08

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-02-08-google-executive-released-in-egypt

Google executive Wael Ghonim said after his release that he was kept blindfolded for two weeks while being detained by Egyptian state security. Activists said Ghonim had been involved in founding 'We are all Khaled Said', an anti-torture Facebook group named after an activist who rights groups said was beaten to death by police in the port city of Alexandria.

Kenya: Uhuru says Hague case 'political'

2011-02-08

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/politics/-/1064/1103596/-/7ocxco/-/index.html

Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta has termed his pending case at The Hague as a 'political strategy' by his detractors to lock him out of the 2012 General Election. Kenyatta also dismissed International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo’s application that the six Kenyans he suspects to be the key perpetrators should not meet with each other.

Liberia: Taylor snubs war crimes trial

2011-02-09

http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE71806720110209

Former Liberian president Charles Taylor snubbed his war crimes trial for a second day on Wednesday (09 February), prompting judges to adjourn the case as they consider whether to allow a defence appeal over key documentation. Taylor, the first African ruler to stand trial for war crimes, has denied 11 charges of instigating murder, rape, mutilation, sexual slavery and conscription of child soldiers during a civil war in Sierra Leone in the 1990s.

Malawi: US follows Germany to withhold aid to Malawi

2011-02-08

http://bit.ly/f4v5jN

The US has followed Germany's footsteps to withhold about $350 million that was supposed to be disbursed to Malawi this month through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). Last month, US Government announced that Malawi had qualified for the $350 million grant to improve the energy sector. The signing of the same was supposed to take place mid February in Washington. However, Washington has put a plug to the whole process citing Malawi’s failure to observe governance and human rights issues.

South Africa: Court victory in grant appeals case

2011-02-08

http://bit.ly/eh4NyP

The Black Sash has accepted a settlement offer after taking the government to court on behalf of tens of thousands of people waiting to have their social grant appeals heard. The human rights organisation and 24 disabled people from the Eastern Cape launched a legal application in June last year following persistent attempts to persuade the Department of Social Development to clear the huge appeals backlog and deal with excessive delays. According to the Department's own figures, more than 65,000 people across the country are trapped in a systemic appeals backlog in the office of its Minister and at the tribunal appointed to hear the appeals of those who've had their grant applications rejected.

Algeria: Saharawis at unease over Algeria, Morocco unrest

2011-02-15

http://www.afrol.com/articles/37310

Saharawis in Algerian refugee camps and in Morocco-occupied Western Sahara are watching the revolution wave in North Africa with jubilation and unease. Mass protests in Algeria have been announced - Algeria being the main ally of Saharawis fighting for their independence and the host for around 150,000 Saharawi refugees. For next weekend, marches are announced in Morocco - their occupying power.

Cote D’Ivoire: Bringing health care to displaced women

2011-02-09

http://bit.ly/easydU

In the aftermath of post-election violence here, almost 18 thousand people - 70 per cent of them women, children and older persons – have been temporarily re-settled in the Western part of the country, fleeing from clashes between communities in the city of Duékoué. In the wake of the crisis, and in the absence of supplies, maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity increased, according to the local health authorities. 'We had to run here and there to perform a childbirth or a Caesarean section and there were no drugs available,' said Dr. Moïse Tetchi, gynaecologist at the General Hospital of Duékoué, recalling the situation in the early stages of the crises.

Global: Destitution among UK asylum seekers

2011-02-08

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=91856

Oxfam has added its voice to a growing chorus of concern about Britain’s system for deciding on asylum claims, and the suffering it causes, in a report on destitute asylum seekers, who are forbidden to work but cannot claim state benefits. These men and women, who told their stories anonymously in 'Coping with Destitution: Survival strategies of asylum seekers in the UK', live in the shadows, penniless and dependent on the charity of others.

Horn of Africa: Women refugees and the stigma of rape

2011-02-15

http://mediaglobal.org/article/2011-02-07/insult_to_injury_women_refugees_and_the_stigma_of_rape

The road to safety does not always guarantee deliverance, especially not for many women refugees fleeing conflict in the Horn of Africa. Increasing cases of sexual abuse against women refugees en route to sanctuary in Egypt and Israel have raised concerns about providing victims with proper mental health care to survive not only the psychological remnants of rape, but also the resultant stigma.

Kenya: UN urges Kenya not to turn back Somali refugees

2011-02-08

http://bit.ly/huEh51

The United Nations (UN) has expressed concern over the rising insecurity in Somalia, saying it would worsen the humanitarian crisis created by the ongoing drought in the region. UN Under Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Valerie Amos, said at the weekend that insecurity made it difficult to reach and assist internal refugees in need of assistance. She noted that one in every four children in the country was extremely malnourished while at the same time asking Kenya not to send any Somali refugees back.

Somalia: Somaliland clashes displace thousands

2011-02-15

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=91887

More than 3,000 people have been displaced from settlements in Somaliland's eastern region of Toghdeer following a five-hour-long battle on 7 February between the Somaliland National Army and clans loyal to the Sool, Sanag and Cayn (SSC) militia group. A long-standing dispute exists over the territories of Cayn, Sool and Sanag, with both the self-declared republic of Somailiand, in northwestern Somalia, and the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland in the northeast claiming them.

Sudan: Migrants in Israel attacked

2011-02-15

http://bit.ly/eSPch8

In West Jerusalem, a group of young people attacked two Palestinians in the centre of town, punching and stabbing them, killing one and seriously injuring the other. In Bnei Brak, a group of religious youth jumped two Sudanese refugees with pipes and knives, injuring one moderately. In both cases, the Israeli police did not report the incidents as racist attacks. The two events this past weekend represent a dangerous trend occurring in Israel in recent years, says this article from the Alternative Information Centre.

Tunisia: Thousands of migrants leave for Italy

2011-02-15

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12446555

Italian authorities are struggling to cope with a crisis on the tiny island of Lampedusa after thousands of migrants arrived from Tunisia. A holding centre designed for 850 people is reported to be overflowing. More than 4,000 migrants are said to have arrived there in recent days.

South Africa: The rebellion of the poor

Press Statement by the Unemployed People's Movement, Grahamstown

2011-02-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/socialmovements/70859

'The rebellion of the poor has been spreading from town to town, from squatter camp to squatter camp, since 2004. Last week it arrived in Grahamstown. There is no third force, political party or communist academic behind our struggle. It is oppression at the hands of the African National Congress that has driven us into the rebellion of the poor. We are in rebellion because we are being forced to live without dignity, safety or hope.'
Press Statement by the Unemployed People's Movement, Grahamstown

Sunday 13 February 2011

The Rebellion of the Poor Comes to Grahamstown

The rebellion of the poor has been spreading from town to town, from
squatter camp to squatter camp, since 2004. Last week it arrived in
Grahamstown.

There is no third force, political party or communist academic behind
our struggle. It is oppression at the hands of the African National
Congress that has driven us into the rebellion of the poor. We are in
rebellion because we are being forced to live without dignity, safety
or hope.

For more than ten months we had to live without water all over the
township. When we do get water it is unfit for human consumption.
Temporary teacher's contracts are not renewed and so there are 11
vacant teacher's posts at the Mary Waters School. How does SADTU allow
this? The unions are leading the working class and poor people into
defeat. In Thembeni, Phaphamani, Extension 6 and 7, Zolani, Tantyi,
and eLuxolweni people are still using the bucket system. Half of
Grahamstown does not have toilets 17 years into democracy.
Unemployment is at around 70%. The jobs that do exist are allocated on
the basis of party political loyalty. There are no lights on our
streets. There is an attack on women and girls in Grahamstown. There
were around 40 cases of rape in December alone and a number of
killings. One of the people that was raped and killed was Zingiswa
Centwa a standard ten learner from Nombulelo High School. She was the
only hope for her family as she was the only one at school. She was
raped and killed in December. In January her results came. She got
aggregate B.

We cannot be expected to live like this. Under these conditions it is
right to rebel. It is moral to rebel. It is necessary, as a matter of
survival, to rebel.

The Unemployed People's Movement and the Women's Social Forum called a
march in protest at the rapes and attacks on women for Wednesday last
week. We applied for permission to protest and complied with all our
obligations in law to stage a legal march. But the Makana Municipality
said that our march was prohibited. They never consulted with us and
this unilateral decision of the Makana Municipality was an illegal
banning. This is not the first time that our basic democratic rights
to organise and to express ourselves have been denied. Of course we
could not accept a unilateral and unlawful ban on our right to protest
and so we went ahead with the march in defiance of the ban.

We went to the Magistrate's Court to demand justice for ourselves, for
our mothers, our sisters, our daughters, our neighbours, our comrades.
It is obvious that the violence against women is linked to the
hopelessness and desperation that we are experiencing as well as the
lack of street lights, safe places to go to the toilet and so on. So
after marching on the court we marched on the Municipality. This was a
peaceful march of around 300 people.

This was not our first march on the Municipality. We have marched many
times and we have never received answers to our questions from the
Municipality. All we are told is that the issues that we have raised
are being addressed but they are never addressed. It has been too much
for too long.

So we decided to stage a sit in at the Municipal offices. We organised
our own little Tahrir Square here in Grahamstown. We occupied the
Municipal offices for the whole day. They closed the offices and sent
the workers home. We demanded to speak to the mayor. We were
eventually promised a meeting with the mayor within 48 hours but it
hasn't happened.

The municipal manager, Ms. Ntombi Bart, said that she would come back
to the people with answers but instead of coming back she sent the
police to move the people out of the municipal offices by force. They
forced people out by threatening to shoot and saying that they are
entitled to use force.

This is when the anger started. People felt that they were being
treated like criminals when they were having genuine demands and
questions. The anger and frustration that has been building for the
last 17 years came to a head at this moment.

The protest was dispersed and people then spontaneously organised road
blockades in Phaphamani, Joza and Phumlani. In Phaphamani people burnt
tyres and dug up the new tar road. People never wanted the tar roads.
They wanted houses, electricity, toilets, water and jobs. The tar road
is for the officials to be able to drive in comfort. This is an
indication that when services are delivered they are not delivered in
the interests of the people.

The police responded with violence – with rubber bullets, dogs and
pepper spray. A number of people were beaten, bitten by the dogs,
pepper sprayed and shot with rubber bullets at close range.

On Thursday morning the people woke up and started where they left
off. The UPM received a call from people on the road blockades and we
ran there to see what was happening. When we arrived we went to ask
the police why they were resorting to violence. They refused to talk
to us but just put us in handcuffs and in the van They could not even
say what was the charge.

The people who were arrested were Ayanda Kota (UPM Chairperson), Xola
Mali (UPM Spokesperson), Nombulelo Yame (UPM Deputy Chairperson) and
Ntombentsha Budaza, an ordinary citizen. Ntombentsha was beaten by the
police.

The comrades were detained for five hours without being charged and
the police tried to compel them to sign statements saying that they
were the leaders of the road blockades which was not the case.

We are not the leaders of the people. People lead themselves. People
continued to meet and to discuss their issues and to take action even
though we were locked and not part of them. Therefore it is clear that
people can lead themselves.

The four comrades were detained overnight and released on Friday
morning at 11:30 on R500 bail each. Their bail conditions are that:

they can't participate in any march or demonstration and they can't
address any crowd

they must stay at least 100m from the Makana Municipality and the
Magistrates Court.

They must never been seen inciting people to protest

The Municipality has now hired private security guards to protest the
councillors, the mayor and various officials. It is amazing to us that
the politicians and officials feel the need to use public money to
protect themselves from the same public that they are supposed to be
serving. It is amazing how quickly they can do this when they can't
build a toilet in 17 years. It is amazing to us that, as S'bu Zikode
has said, any challenge to oppression is taken as an offence. A demand
for dignity is taken as criminal. It is incredible that our demand for
justice is taken as violence while the way that we are supposed to
live without jobs, houses or toilets or basic safety is taken as
normal. Where are the private security guards for the women facing
rape and even murder?

We are not struggling for service delivery. We are struggling for
justice and dignity. We are struggling for land, jobs, decent schools
and homes, safe streets, equality between men and women and a
democracy that includes the poor and allows poor people to plan their
own communities and their own future.


When the arrested comrades were in the police station they saw that
someone who was on the march and encouraging people on one of the road
blockades was there working in the police station. She was part of us
in the whole process and then we saw her working at the police
station. We are well aware of the role of the National Intelligence
Agency and the Crime Intelligence unit in trying to destabilize
popular movements elsewhere in the country. We know that, for
instance, an officer in Crime Intelligence was present throughout the
attack on Abahlali baseMjondolo in the Kennedy Road squatter camp in
September 2009. The Anti-Privatisation Forum, the Landless People's
Movement and the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign have all had
their own experiences with the intelligence services. Now they are
doing their work here in Grahamstown too.

We know the price of struggle. We know the stories of Mandela Park, of
eTwatwa, of Harrismith, of Protea South, of Pemary Ridge, of Kennedy
Road. But the price of obedience is joblessness, hunger, rape,
disease, depression and an epidemic of hopelessness. The price of
obedience is a generation that has no way forward – no jobs, no
opportunity to study, nothing. Therefore we are willing to pay the
price that will have to be paid in the the struggle against
oppression.

Around the world the road blockade is recognised as the weapon of the
unemployed, of those who have no jobs at which they can strike. Those
who condemn the road blockade as a tactic do not understand that our
everyday lives are lived in crisis – in serious crisis. They want to
deny the oppressed the right to disrupt the system that oppresses us.
They want to deny us the right to demonstrate our anger. They want us
to accept the paternalism of civil society. We are not blind to the
fact that there is always a class element and often a racial element
to the paternalism of most of civil society. We will, in solidarity
with our comrades around the country, insist on our right to take our
struggles forward as we think best. We have always seen people's power
and not civil society as the way forward. After Tahrir Square the
whole world can see the logic of this position.

We continue to take inspiration and courage from our political
ancestors, from Leon Trotsky to Steven Bantu Biko. We continue to
learn from our intellectual ancestors. Some of us are reading and
discussing Frantz Fanon in the squatter camps and broken RDP houses.
But it is clear that a new politics is required. We are inspired by
movements and communities in struggle around the country and around
the world. We need what has been called a living politics, a politics
that is rooted in the everyday lives of the people, a democratic
politics, a politics of the people, for the people and by the people.

The African National Congress and their goons in the ANC Youth League
are the party of the national bourgeoisie They are not the party of
the people. We cannot accept a society of sushi parties, ever bigger
BEE deals for the rich and broken RDP houses, transit camps,
hopelessness, joblessness, rape, prison and murder for the poor. The
debates within the ANC are debates between those who think that they
can get away with naked oppression – rubber bullets for some and sushi
parties for others – and those who think that oppression needs to be
dressed up with a little bit of misdirected top down service delivery
and calls for patriotic patience. We will not be intimidated or bought
off. We insist that everyone has the right to dignity and justice.

We continue to reject the sectarianism, gutter politics and cults of
personality that have done so much damage to the left in
post-apartheid South Africa. We continue to support all attempts to
build what Abahlali baseMjondolo have called a living solidarity
between all the struggles across the country. We believe that the
formation of the Democratic Left Front is an historic opportunity to
build such a unity.

Like popular movements across South Africa and across the world we are
deeply inspired by the commune in Tahrir Square. We salute the heroes
of Tunis, Cairo and Algiers, We would like to see a Tahrir Square in
every town in every country. Tahrir Square has reminded us that the
will of the people will be realised when the people are sufficiently
united and determined.

We thank everyone who stood with our movements outside the police
station and the court while the four comrades were locked.

Kwanele! Kwanele!

Genoeg is genoeg!

Enough!

Contact people:

Xola Mali – 072 299 5253 – xola.mali@yahoo.com

Ayanda Kota – 078 625 6462 – ayandakota@webmail.co.za

Nombulelo Yame – 078 328 9740

South Africa: Tyres burnt in Cape housing protest

2011-02-09

http://westcapenews.com/?p=2687

Black smoke billowed across morning rush hour traffic as angry backyarders in Nyanga blockaded Lansdowne road with burning tyres on Tuesday, forcing commuters to find alternative routes to work.The Backyarders from Nyanga’s Mau-Mau, Old Location and White City areas were protesting over the lack of housing for them and demanding the provincial government allocate houses to backyarders in housing projects in the area.

Egypt: Workers join the revolution

2011-02-15

http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/5358.aspx

Thousands of workers of the Mahalla Textile Company held a strike last week demanding better wages. According to the Center for Trade Union & Workers’ Services (CTUWS), 24,000 workers took part in the protest. The workers from the morning shift had joined their colleagues from the night shift and gathered in front of the company’s headquarters, where they announced their strike.

Latest Edition: Emerging Powers News Roundup

2011-02-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/70863

In this week's edition of the Emerging Powers News Round-Up, read a comprehensive list of news stories and opinion pieces related to China, India and other emerging powers....
1. China in Africa

DR Congo signs $367m hydro deal with China
China has signed a $367-million deal to build a hydroelectric dam in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Chinese embassy in the central African country said. The country's ambassador to Congo signed off on the contract with the Congolese government on January 29, according to a news release from the embassy. The Central Zongo II project in Bas-Congo province, will be undertaken by Sinohydro, the company behind the Three Gorges Dam in China. When completed it is hoped the dam will produce 860 gigawatts of electricity a year.
Read More

China offers Zimbabwe $3 bln for platinum-report
China has offered Zimbabwe $3 billion for vast platinum reserves, a local private newspaper reported on Friday but said the deal was likely to be rejected by the government over its terms. Zimbabwe, with an estimated $6 billion yearly economy, has the world's second largest platinum reserves after South Africa. It has relied heavily on Chinese investment to prop up a staggering economy largely shunned by the West over President Robert Mugabe's suspected human rights abuses.
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Chinese Foreign Minister, Visiting Zimbabwe, Sparks Hopes For Investment
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi arrived Thursday for a two-day visit to Zimbabwe amid hopes in Harare for billions of dollars in foreign direct invesment investment from Beijing. Yang is leading an 11-member delegation and is expected to sign economic co-operation agreements, China’s Ambassador to Zimbabwe said in a statement. "China is ready to work with Zimbabwe to further enhance political mutual trust, expand mutually beneficial cooperation and steadily elevate our friendship and cooperation," Yang said in a statement issued on arrival.
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China to build primary schools in Kenya
China will put up 10 ICT-driven model primary schools in Kenya as part of a project that aims at constructing 1000 such schools across the African continent. The Chairman of the World Eminence Chinese Business Association Mr. Junqing Lu said this when he paid a courtesy call on Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka at his Jogoo House office. Mr. Lu said the project dubbed "China-Africa Project Hope", which is driven by Chinese entrepreneurs has set aside approximately Ksh. 1.2Billion (15 million US dollars) towards the continental project.
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Cracks show in China's Angola partnership
Sino-Angolan relations took off at the end of Angola's three-decade conflict in 2002, when the Portuguese-speaking country was desperate for cash and know-how, just as China was embarking on its "Going Out" strategy of securing natural resources and new investment markets. In 2010, trade between the two countries was just under US$25 billion; in the past seven years, more than $10 billion of Chinese credit has been extended to Angola, with the latter paying back its debts in oil. But as China's presence in Angola has grown, so too has Western suspicion, and even though Brazil has also extended oil-backed credit to Angola, it is China that has been labeled in some quarters, particularly the US, as resource-hungry and neo-colonialist. Lucy Corkin, a research associate at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies Africa-Asia Center, said much of the "hysteria" around Sino-Angolan ties was based on "confusion about what is Chinese investment and what is Chinese aid".
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Angola, China seek cooperation to boost cereal production
Angola will benefit from Chinese support in Agricultural development, mainly in boosting cereal production in the African country, the Angolan Ambassador to China, João Manuel Bernardo, announced here Monday. The Angolan diplomat was speaking at the opening of a three-day 4th Broad Consultative Council of Foreign Affairs Ministry (Mirex). Bernardo said that the project was meant to take advantage of the wide Chinese experience in the cultivation of rice, maize, Soya and other cereals produced in Angola.
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China, Zambia trade at US$2bn
China's trade balance with Zambia, Africa's largest producer of copper remained robust at more than US$2 billion because of the close relationship with the East Asian country. This makes Zambia the third largest beneficiary in the Southern African region. Chinese ambassador to Zambia, Li Qiangmin said the relationship between the two countries has remained cordial, resulting in the trade balance swelling to US$2.2 billion in recent years because of the closer bilateral relationship the two countries enjoy.
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China supports Egypt's efforts to maintain social stability
China said Thursday it supported Egypt's efforts to maintain social stability and restore normal order, expecting ties between China and the Arab country to develop unaffected. "China holds that Egypt's affairs should be decided independently by the country without foreign interference," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told a regular press briefing.
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Chinese, Nigerian leaders exchange congratulations on anniversary of diplomatic ties
Chinese President Hu Jintao exchanged congratulatory messages Thursday with his Nigerian counterpart Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to mark the 40th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries. In his message, Hu said over the past 40 years, bilateral relations had witnessed smooth and healthy development. China-Nigeria relations have ushered in a new phase of fast development and yielded rich fruits since 2005, when the two countries established a strategic partnership based on mutual political trust, economic reciprocity and mutual support in international affairs, he said.
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2. India in Africa

India's Simhapuru targets S.African coal
India's Simhapuri Energy , a unit of the Madhucon Group , wants to buy new or existing collieries in South Africa from where it aimed to export a minimum of 5 million tonnes within five years, an official said on Tuesday. Indian companies are buying coal assets in top five global exporter South Africa as it moves to secure resources for a growing economy and to feed coal into new power plants. "We want to invest in coal and are looking at some acquisitions. From South Africa we are targeting a minimum of five milion tonnes of coal for export within five years," Nama Krishnaiah, director of Simhapuri Energy, told Reuters on the sidelines of an African mining conference.
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Ethiopia interested in signing DTAA with India
The government today said Ethiopia is interested in signing double taxation avoidance agreement with India. Visiting Ethiopian Finance Minister Sufian Ahmed "showed interest in signing of the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) between India and Ethiopia," the Finance Ministry said in a statement. A DTAA is essentially a bilateral agreement between two countries to avoid the taxation of income earned in one country by both of them.
Read More

3. In Other Emerging Powers News

Japan keen to invest 'billions' in Africa
Japan is keen to invest "billions of dollars" in minerals and infrastructure in Africa, trying to catch up to regional rival China for influence on the continent, a Japanese trade official said on Tuesday. Yoshikatsu Nakayama, vice minister of economy, trade and industry, said Japan was scouting for projects in which to invest, either through its state-owned oil and mining company Jogmec or joint ventures between local and Japanese companies. China has spent billions of dollars on projects in Africa, trying to secure the resources it needs to fuel its quickly accelerating economy. Analysts said the investment has given China an advantage in building trade in the emerging economies of Africa, leaving Japan behind for influence in the continent of one-billion consumers whose purchasing power is steadily increasing.
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TUSKON: Turkish-Nigerian trade can surpass $2 bln in short term
Rızanur Meral, the president of key Turkish business group the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists (TUSKON) has said the trade volume between Turkey and Nigeria should increase more than twofold as soon as possible to over $2 billion from last year’s figure of $900 million. Speaking at the TUSKON-organized Turkey-Nigeria Trade and Investment Forum that Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan attended together with Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek on Thursday in İstanbul, Meral said most of the products Nigeria needs today are manufactured by Turkey “at an equal quality but for lower prices than in Europe” and added that “there is potential to swiftly increase the trade volume between the two countries to $2 billion.”
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4. Blogs, Opinions, Presentations and Publications

Sino-Tanzania relations: At whose cost?
Last December, local newspaper reports dated December 10,11 and 18, and this year’s such report dated January 16, under the headlines: RC atangaza kusaka wazungu wazururaji; Government warns foreigners in petty business; Mbunge astushwa wageni kuwa wapishi; Waishi nchini kinyume cha sheria, led me to quickly think of the Chinese living or doing business in Tanzania, especially in Dar es Salaam. The three headlines in Kiswahili mean: `Regional Commissioner announces search for white loiterers in the streets’; `Member of Parliament appalled by foreigners being employed as cooks’, and `They live in the country illegally’. I believe that Tanzania should keep tabs on the Chinese like a married couple should respectively keep tabs on the best-man or bridesmaid of their marriage, so that either of the latter may not go too far.
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A new “Southern Tour”: Chinese investment enters a new decade
Since the initial meeting of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2000, the Chinese have made economic and political overtures to extend their substantial technical expertise and investment capital into Africa. At the fourth ministerial conference in 2009, China presented an eight-point plan that highlighted new areas for focus, including investment promotion, debt reduction, and emphasis on sustainable and social development issues.(2) Additionally, the plan outlines international exchanges, providing for African doctoral students to study in China and supplying Chinese medical and educational personnel to conduct training programmes and build the capacity of African countries to provide these social services.(3) Finally, the Government pledged to raise US$ 10 billion in preferential loan offers to African countries, of which 10% will go towards supporting small and medium enterprises.(4) Most of these funds will be managed by various development organisations, including the Beijing-based China Development Bank (CDB).(5) In 35 projects from Mauritius to Ghana to Zambia, the CDB, through its China-Africa Development Fund (CAD Fund), has expanded its role as a key investment player and driver of economic development on the continent. This paper will discuss the background to the CAD Fund and the role that this plays in strengthening China-Africa relations - both presently, and into the future.
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China, hip-hop and the new Sudan
For former child soldier and Sudanese hip-hop star Emmanuel Jal, Hong Kong's five-star Mira Hotel is just a bit too comfortable. "If it's too comfortable, I can't sleep properly," says Jal, recalling his days on the frontline of Sudan's bitter civil war. "I remember those nights I slept on battlefields with the sound of war all around me ... tat, tat, tat, boom!" "Of course, then you were never really asleep," he adds Sitting in an African diner in Hong Kong's Chungking Mansions -- the center of a booming trade in cheap Chinese knock-off mobile phones to Africa -- the Sudanese rapper is now perfectly at home, if a little stunned by the bizarre cultural mix in the restaurant. "Listen to the waitress," he marvels at a woman taking orders. "She's Chinese and speaks English with a perfect Nigerian accent. It's incredible!" Jal, in Hong Kong as part of the Make A Difference conference, a Hong Kong-based youth network, says his trip to China comes at a critical juncture for his country.
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The MENA, Egypt and Oil
No sooner had last week’s edition of MLM been published than tensions in Egypt reached a critical point. Users reported widespread Internet and mobile phone service disruptions. Units of “an elite special counterterrorism force” were reportedly deployed in preparation for protest gatherings to take place following Friday prayers. President Hosni Mubarak dismissed his government. Egyptians--millions of them--were not persuaded by Mr. Mubarak’s sacking of his government and naming of his first vice president (who happens to be a former chief of Egyptian intelligence), nor have they buckled since he declared he wouldn’t stand for re-election. Mr. Mubarak’s time in power is rapidly nearing its end. These 10 days, if they haven’t quite shaken the world, illustrate how delicate is the political balance in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA), a region of seemingly eternal promise but equally persistent strife that’s yet to come under the controlling influence of any one global power.
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Why is a billion-strong democracy silent on Egypt?
The parliament sat numbed, in an otherwise engaging November evening, when President Barack Obama, head of one of the two largest democracies, reminded the other that it had largely shied away from condemning suppression of democratic rights and movements. Obama's specific reference was to Myanmar and India's imperviousness to the military junta's rigged elections and repression of democracy groups. That this reference followed an exuberant praise of India's support to South Africa's anti-apartheid movement indicated a veiled rebuke of India's current policy of engaging whoever is in power in a country of interest. Neither is Washington an immaculate chevalier of the democracy sacrament. In fact, half of the world's autocrats owed their existence to American backing. Yet, at the risk of throwing stone from a glasshouse, Obama could question India's diminishing contribution to the global democracy cause, especially when it aspires to be permanently ordained in the UN Security Council.
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Egypt: Exchanging a dictator for a torturer

2011-02-15

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27423.htm

As it now stands, the United States appears content to contemplate exchanging Hosni Mubarak for Egypt's new Vice President, Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian spy master - that is, one dictator for another - to maintain the status quo. But as this article from Mother Jones points out, Suleiman 'looks to be a nasty piece of work'.

Egypt: Joy erupts, now for change

2011-02-15

http://www.ips.org/africa/2011/02/egypt-joy-erupts-now-for-change/

'President Hosni Mubarak has decided to step down as president,' Vice- president Omar Suleiman announced Friday night on state television. In Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the popular uprising that began on 25 January, some two million protesters let out a cathartic roar heard for miles across the sprawling capital. A 30-second announcement had ended 30 years of repressive authoritarian rule. But while Mubarak is out, his regime remains deeply entrenched. There are still vast networks of corrupt public servants, monopolists, party loyalists and abusive police in place.

Morocco: Strike call goes out

2011-02-09

http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2011/02/07/feature-02

As a wave of protests is sweeping North Africa, many Moroccans wonder if similar events will occur in the Kingdom. The apprehension is palpable. A youth movement, 'Liberty and Democracy Now', used Facebook to send out calls for peaceful demonstrations across the country on 20 February. It is time for an independent commission to carry out a comprehensive reform of the constitution, according to their statement.

Nigeria: Clashes disrupt President Jonathan's northern campaign tour

2011-02-15

http://www.africareview.com/News/-/979180/1104894/-/hrp7mbz/-/index.html

There have been clashes between police and opposition protesters in Lafia in north-central Nasarawa state. Witnesses say police fired tear gas and shot in the air to disperse the crowds who were burning tyres in the streets. The unrest follows the stoning of President Goodluck Jonathan's convoy in Lafia earlier this week while he was campaigning for April's election.

South Africa: Local government elections and the will of the people?

2011-02-08

http://www.sacsis.org.za/site/article/616.1

South Africa is gearing up for its third local government election. In an attempt to break with the authoritarianism of his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, President Jacob Zuma has promised a new approach to these elections, where more responsive candidates are selected that genuinely represent the will of the people. But, asks Jane Duncan, Highway Africa Chair of Media and Information Society at Rhodes University, will the promise of these elections be realised? And will the ANC respect the will of the people if it clashes with the will of the party?

Sudan: Bashir officially endorses South Sudan independence

2011-02-08

http://www.sudantribune.com/South-Sudan-officially-voted,37905

Sudanese President Omer Hassan Al-Bashir officially accepted the final results of Southern Sudan Referendum paving the way for the proclamation of an independent state in the region. President Al-Bashir on Monday (07 February) issued a Republican Decree accepting the final result of the referendum which supports the separation of the South, after the official promulgation of the results in Khartoum on Monday.

Tunisia: The gains of the Jasmine Revolution

2011-02-08

http://ipsnews.net/newsTVE.asp?idnews=54386

Freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press are the big gains of Tunisia’s so-called Jasmine Revolution, according to a top Tunisian economist, writer and opposition figure. But he warns that dark days still lie ahead. 'Not even political scientists could have imagined people’s deep hunger for democracy,' says Mahmoud Ben Romdhane, author of the just published ‘Tunisie: Etat, économie et société’ and one of the keynote speakers at the 17th Maghreb Literary Fair (Maghreb des Livres).

Uganda: Comesa sends team to observe Ugandan polls

2011-02-15

http://www.africareview.com/News/-/979180/1107826/-/hrn4txz/-/index.html

A Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) team is in Uganda to observe this week’s elections. The team is led by Mr Simbi Mubako from Zimbabwe. The mission follows an invitation from the Ugandan Government. Comesa has in the past deployed similar observer missions to Rwanda, Burundi, DRC, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The regional bloc said in a press statement that the observation of Uganda’s polls is meant to contribute to transparency of the process.

Uganda: Six Ugandans locked up for 'insulting' Museveni

2011-02-08

http://bit.ly/fw5Hax

Six people were remanded at Buwama police prison in the outskirts of Ugandan capital Kampala for booing President Yoweri Museveni, police spokesperson Judith Nabakooba said. Speaking to the local Daily Monitor Monday (07 February), Ms Nabakooba said the matter was before court. Early reports, however, published by http://www.afrik-news.com, allege that 20 people were arrested for booing the President while on a campaign trail at Buwama market.

Nigeria: Calls for restructuring of petrol agency

2011-02-08

http://bit.ly/ifz4VN

The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, has recommended a drastic restructuring of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, in order to ensure greater transparency and credibility of certain oil sector payments and receipts in the national oil and gas behemoth. NEITI's recommendation was made in its latest reconciliation report, which covered the period of 2006 to 2008 and published on the website of the extractive industries watch-dog.

Africa: 'Poor Countries Have Already Given Enough in Doha Round'

2011-02-15

http://www.ips.org/africa/2011/02/trade-poor-countries-have-already-given-enough-in-doha-round/

South Africa has expressed sharp concern over concerted attempts by leading industrialised countries, particularly the US and the European Union (EU), to extract onerous commitments from developing countries as a condition to concluding the stalled Doha Round trade negotiations. 'We are deeply concerned over attempts to raise the level of ambition by leading industrialised countries in industrial goods and services that would call for a substantial payment from developing countries,' South Africa’s trade and industry minister Dr Rob Davies told IPS.

Global: Why World Bank Climate Investment Funds could do more harm than good

2011-02-15

http://www.eurodad.org/whatsnew/reports.aspx?id=4395

A new Eurodad report provides a critical analysis of the World Bank’s role in Climate Finance. Civil society actors have long been contesting the role of the World Bank as an appropriate channel for climate finance based on the Bank’s questionable green credentials and its history of advising economic policy reforms to developing countries. The report concludes by outlining the reasons why – in light of the analysis of the Bank’s delivery of climate finance as it relates to the financing instruments - the World Bank is not the best-placed institution to channel climate finance or to set the highest standards for a legitimate and development-friendly climate finance architecture for the future.

Mozambique: Poverty is not being reduced in Mozambique

2011-02-09

http://zunia.org/post/poverty-is-not-being-reduced-in-mozambique-1/

The paper presents a wide range of data on Mozambique and examines what this shows about changes to poverty and income levels over the past decade. The authors point to the lack of changes in farming practice which is contributing to the persistence of poverty and consider cash income and the poverty trap in Mozambique. The paper goes on to discuss the failure of donor-led development models.

Swaziland: Crisis as customs union revenue is slashed

2011-02-09

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54405

Apart from the looming job losses in Swaziland’s public sector, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have also warned of retrenchments following the government’s decision to suspend procurement from small businesses. The government of the southern African autocratic monarchy has been forced to cut expenditure after its receipts from the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) shrunk with 60 per cent.

Zambia: Development agreements and the soaring copper prices

2011-02-15

http://bit.ly/fc7udk

Since the discovery of copper deposits in Zambia during the 1930s, copper has spelled both doom and boom for the country’s social, political and economic activities. This paper looks at the current mining contracts (development agreements as they are officially called) entered into between the Government of the Republic Zambia (GRZ) and the different mining companies working in Zambia. The assumptions on which the bargaining theory is based are questioned in the light of the evidence emerging from the Zambian situation.

Global: Alcohol kills more than AIDS, TB or violence, says WHO

2011-02-15

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/11/us-alcohol-idUSTRE71A2FM20110211

Alcohol causes nearly four per cent of deaths worldwide, more than AIDS, tuberculosis or violence, the World Health Organisation has warned. Rising incomes have triggered more drinking in heavily populated countries in Africa and Asia, including India and South Africa, and binge drinking is a problem in many developed countries, the United Nations agency said.

Kenya: Life-saving vaccine rolled out in Kenya

2011-02-15

http://bit.ly/hbRXk3

Immunisation against pneumococcal disease, a leading killer of children in Africa, is beginning as a vaccine made by British company GSK is rolled out across Kenya. Thousands of lives will be saved - but could it have been done more cheaply? asks this blog article from the London Guardian.

Rwanda: Bloodless male circumcision to boost HIV prevention

2011-02-15

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=91919

The Rwandan government plans to expand its national voluntary male circumcision programme using a new device, the PrePex system, which officials say saves both time and money. The PrePex system works through a special elastic mechanism that fits closely around an inner ring, trapping the foreskin, which dries up and is removed after a week. A study conducted by the Rwandan Ministries of Defence and Health in 2010 found the device to be safe and effective.

South Africa: 'World's most ambitious HIV testing campaign' launched

2011-02-15

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2011-02-14-sa-launches-most-ambitious-hiv-testing-campaign-in-the-world/

In a venture aimed at getting tomorrow's leaders tested today, Innovative Medicines of South Africa (Imsa) has launched a university-based HIV counselling and testing (HCT) campaign called First Things First. 'First Things First aims to help South African students, as future leaders, to be responsible, get tested for HIV, know their status and commit to behaviour that will benefit themselves and their peers,' said Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi.

South Africa: HIV testing in schools is a minefield

2011-02-08

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=91850

South Africa is preparing to take HIV testing into the classroom as part of its national voluntary HIV testing and counselling (VCT) campaign, but testing kids is controversial and implementing the programme is fraught with challenges – just ask those already doing it. Government departments, together with the South African National AIDS Council, are holding nationwide consultative meetings with members of the education, children's rights and HIV sectors to formulate a national policy for school-based HIV testing, as well as guidelines and recommendations for the country’s nine provinces.

Tanzania: Male circumcision campaign targets 2.8 million

2011-02-08

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=91849

The Tanzanian government has embarked on a large-scale voluntary male circumcision programme aimed at reducing the HIV risk of men and boys in areas of the country with low levels of male circumcision. 'We have already completed a pilot project and we are now scaling up male circumcision,' said Bennet Fimbo, HIV/AIDS adviser to the Tanzania Ministry of Health. 'The target group in the campaign will be men and boys aged 10-34.'

Uganda: Can 'love wheel' stop infidelity in marriage?

2011-02-15

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=91875

Spin the wheel and get a tip to spoil your better half; spend more time together or go out for a romantic evening: A new Ugandan HIV prevention programme hopes a 'love wheel' will encourage couples to seek excitement within their own marriages rather than in the arms outsiders. The wheel, categorised into eight thematic areas such as family, fitness, fun, friends and finances, has a number of tips relating to each theme. Currently stocked in supermarkets in the capital, Kampala, its promoters say they have sold more than 1,500 units since its launch in November 2010.

Zimbabwe: Fear, social change drive down HIV rates

2011-02-09

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-02-09-fear-social-change-drive-down-zimbabwe-hiv-rates/

Fear of infection and mass social change have driven a huge decline in HIV rates in Zimbabwe, offering important lessons on how to fight the Aids pandemic in the rest of Africa, scientists said on Tuesday (08 February). In a study in the journal PLoS Medicine, British researchers said Zimbabwe's pandemic was one of the biggest in the world until the rate of people infected with HIV almost halved, from 29 per cent of the population in 1997 to 16 per cent in 2007.

Global: The power of persistence

2011-02-09

http://zunia.org/post/the-power-of-persistence/

The Power of Persistence report highlights the importance of recognising the evolving dynamics of national politics and institutions in achieving sustainable, long-term improvements in education systems. A section of the report reviews the introduction of education reforms in five countries over a 20-year period. The five countries - Egypt, El Salvador, Namibia, Nicaragua, and Zambia - are not intended to be broadly representative of all developing countries, but do capture a range of national contexts, including post-conflict recovery, democratic transitions and elections, scale of national bureaucracy, and role of civil society.

Kenya: Talks with private varsities collapse

2011-02-15

http://bit.ly/hkRZYV

Talks to have private universities absorb some government sponsored students have stalled, reports the Daily Nation. The drive started last September when suspended Higher Education minister William Ruto invited heads of private universities to a meeting on increasing access to higher education. Ruto said expanding university education 'would give the economy the much needed human capital to drive its long-term growth strategy in line with Vision 2030'.

Uganda: What David Kato's death can teach the world

Navi Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

2011-02-08

http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/newrels/david-katos-death.html

'If David’s murder stimulates discussion about the violence and discrimination facing people because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity, then his death will not have been completely in vain. That discussion must inevitably address the question of decriminalizing homosexuality. Criminal sanctions for homosexuality remain on the statute books in more than 70 countries, including Uganda. Such laws are an anachronism, in most cases a hangover from the old days of colonial rule.'

Algeria: Renewable energy strategy detailed

2011-02-09

http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2011/02/08/feature-02

Algeria needs to invest up to 120 billion dollars in renewable energy between now and 2030 to meet the goals of a new energy policy adopted by the council of ministers on Friday (February 4th), experts said. The investment needs to come from both the public and private sector, in addition to contributions by foreign partners, energy consultant Khaled Boukhlifa explained at an El Moudjahid forum on Sunday (6 February).

Chad: Climate change and Africa's vanishing lake

2011-02-15

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-02-15-climate-change-and-africas-vanishing-lake/

As South Africa prepares to host the United Nations climate change summit in Durban this year, Lake Chad is living proof of the continent's environment in crisis. It was almost double the area of Gauteng just four decades ago but has shrunk by 95%. It is now smaller than Johannesburg.

Global: Forest fest makes headway in protection, poverty reduction

2011-02-08

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54393

Political leaders have committed to ramping up restoration of the world's forests and tackling poverty in forest communities as part of pledges made at the ninth session Forum on Forests. Rwanda, in central eastern Africa, led the way with promises to launch a 25-year plan to tackle ecosystem degradation and improve rural livelihoods, a move hailed by environmental groups including the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Ethiopia: Local official dismissed over land grab protest

2011-02-15

http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/31493

Local elected officials in southern and western Ethiopia are bitterly opposing the selling away of farm land by the Woyanne ruling junta to foreign investors, reports Ethiopian Review. Some of the local officials who take a stand are receiving threats and being summarily dismissed by Meles Zenawi’s puppets who are installed as regional administrators.

Mozambique: Challenges of the peasant struggle in Mozambique

2011-02-15

http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/18157

Land grabbing in Mozambique by transnational corporations, that hire rural workers who are not able to access lands to produce, is one of the issues that concern peasants of that country the most. Real World Radio interviewed Jose Mateus, leader of the National Farmers Union of Mozambique, member of La Via Campesina, who is participating in activities at the World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal. Mateus regretted that many peasants of his country end up working for big agribusiness transnational corporations, because they don’t have the support of the State to access lands.

Namibia: President wants urgent action on land

2011-02-08

http://bit.ly/hYud7T

Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba has publicly expressed frustration at the slow pace of the country's land redistribution programme, a process which he urged government to swiftly address. Pohamba told the country's first cabinet session in 2011 that the largely discredited willing buyer willing seller principle had been a failure and implored the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement to speedily finalise the Consolidated Draft Land Bill and the implementation of small scale farming projects.

Senegal: Stop the global land grab

2011-02-15

http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/18168

'NGOs don't mobilise people, desperation mobilises people,' said a Cambodian land activist as he related the experience of Boeung Kak villagers who were driven off their land by their own government to make way for corporate profiteering. Such stories were abundant from all corners of the world this week at the World Social Forum in Dakar, Senegal. The forum, which celebrated its 10th anniversary this year, attracted representatives from civil society organisations, social movements and unions from more than 123 countries. Present among them were land rights activists and small farmers, who came to relate and decry the unfettered grabbing of their land.

Madagascar: Food insecurity tightens its hold

2011-02-08

http://www.IRINnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=91822

In parts of Madagascar's drought-prone south people have resorted to eating cattle-feed, as successive years of crop failures and the current lean season give food insecurity a firmer grip on the region. 'For some time now people have been changing their eating habits, with many eating red cactus that is usually given to cattle, or tamarind mixed with water and earth,' said Harinesy Rajeriharineranio, southern Madagascar coordinator for Actions Socio-Sanitaire et Organisation Secours (ASOS), an NGO focused on health and sanitation, based in the southeastern city of Fort Dauphin.

Côte d'Ivoire: Ivorians detained without charge; torture reported

2011-02-08

http://cpj.org/2011/02/ivorian-journalists-detained-with-charge-torture-r.php

The Committee to Protect Journalists said on 7 February that it was concerned about the well-being of two Ivorian journalists who have been detained without charge for 10 days amid reports that they have been tortured in custody. Aboubacar Sanogo and Yayoro Charles Lopez Kangbé have been held by the Ivorian military police in Abidjan since 28 January, according to local journalists and news reports. The journalists have been described as 'rebels' by newspapers supporting Laurent Gbagbo.

Egypt: Al Jazeera journalist speaks on his detention

2011-02-08

http://pulsemedia.org/2011/02/07/ayman-mohyeldin-on-his-detention-by-the-egyptian-military/

Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Cairo who was held by the military outside Tahrir (Liberation) Square, has spoken to the network about the experience following his release. Mohyeldin describes how he was taken to a separate holding area, where he was handcuffed with plastic strips, had his equipment taken off him and was interrogated.

Egypt: Blogger vows to continue despite brutality

2011-02-08

http://pulsemedia.org/2011/02/07/egyptian-blogger-sandmonkey-will-continue-on-despite-brutality/

To call the ongoing people’s revolts in Tunisia and Egypt Facebook revolutions is certainly overstating the case. In both countries, the time was ripe for revolution and social upheaval. Poverty, repression and hopelessness were enforced by greedy US-supported despots who were deaf to the needs of their people. But there is little doubt that the recent street-protest revolts in Tunis and Cairo were assisted by new social media: Facebookers, tweeters and a new generation of Internet bloggers.

Egypt: Death of Egyptian journalist condemned

2011-02-09

http://www.ifj.org/en/articles/ifj-deplores-inevitable-tragedy-as-egyptian-journalist-dies

The International Federation of Journalists has mourned the loss of the first journalist to die in the social unrest in Egypt. Journalist Ahmed Mohammed Mahmoud died in hospital in Cairo from injuries sustained after he was shot in the eye by a sniper. The journalist, aged 39, worked for the A’wada newspaper, a part of the Al Ahram media group. His death comes after a week of continuing unrest that has seen journalists and media staff among those targeted by groups loyal to the regime of President Hosni Mubarak.

Kenya: Media reject new law

2011-02-08

http://www.afriquejet.com/news/africa-news/kenya-media:-media-reject-new-law-20110208637.html

Journalists, broadcasters and media entrepreneurs on Monday raised a red flag over the proposed changes to the set of laws governing the operations of the media industry. Speaking at a consultative meeting at Nairobi's Sarova Panafric Hotel, the industry players said the government's draft Media Bill, 2010, was taking the industry 'many steps back'. According to the Media Council chairman, Dr Levi Obonyo, the proposal to limit the aspect of self-regulation in the new draft Bill is 'retrogressive'.

Libya: Libyan writer detained after protest call

2011-02-09

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/libyan-writer-detained-following-protest-call-2011-02-08

A Libyan writer and political commentator arrested and accused of a driving offence appears to have been targeted for calling for peaceful protests in the country, Amnesty International has said. Jamal al-Hajji, a former prisoner of conscience who has dual Libyan and Danish nationality, was detained on 1 February in Tripoli by plain clothes security officers. They accused him of hitting a man with his car, which he denies.

Tunisia: Banned rappers retake stage

2011-02-09

http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2011/02/08/feature-03

In the wake of the Tunisian revolution, the country's once repressed music and cultural scene is flourishing. Rappers whose songs were once banned under former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali held their first public concert on Saturday (29 January) in Tunis. 'I now started to breathe freedom and the field has now become mine,' rapper Mohamed Ben Hamada said after ascending to the stage and raising the Tunisian flag to enthusiastic applause.

Côte d'Ivoire: Ecowas criticises SA warship off West Africa

2011-02-09

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-02-09-ecowas-criticises-sa-warship-off-west-africa/

The chairperson of West Africa's regional bloc on Tuesday (08 February) criticised South Africa for sending a warship to the region amid Côte d'Ivoire's political crisis, but the South African government maintained it had sent the vessel as a negotiating venue. The dispute comes amid a growing rift between African nations on how to resolve the political stalemate in Côte d'Ivoire. Incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo has refused to cede power more than two months after the UN said he lost the election.

DRC: Ex-child soldiers drawn back into military ranks

2011-02-09

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/ADGO-8DVS4T?OpenDocument

A lack of community support and persistent discrimination is being blamed for the re-recruitment of former child soldiers by the army and militias in Masisi territory, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC. Former child soldiers are being especially targeted in Kitchanga, 80 kilometres north-west of Goma. The town used to be a stronghold of the National Congress for the Defence of the People, CNDP, a rebel group which has now been officially integrated into the armed forces.

East Africa: Illicit arms threaten integration

2011-02-09

http://www.tralac.org/cgi-bin/giga.cgi?cmd=cause_dir_news_item&news_id=98651&cause_id=1694

'The proliferation of illicit arms is posing a serious threat to the East African Community (EAC) partner states and if not tackled speedily could undermine the region’s concerted integration efforts.' Illicit arms are still circulating through different borders of member states because of armed groups operating from countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Somalia and armed criminal activities, stated Mr Ndabaneze Zenon, coordinator of the Burundi National Focal Point (NFP), when opening a two-day meeting of experts and coordinators of NFPs of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) of EAC Partner States in Moshi.

Nigeria: 11 die in crush at political rally

2011-02-15

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/11-die-in-crush-at-political-rally-2213968.html

A stampede at a political rally killed 11 people as Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan spoke, highlighting the insecurity in the country as it prepares for elections in April. As Jonathan began his speech at the soccer stadium in Port Harcourt, some people tried to leave to avoid the traffic out of the stadium, while others pushed inside. As well as the 11 who died, at least 46 others needed hospital treatment.

Nigeria: Muslim sect demands troop withdrawal

2011-02-08

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-02-07-muslim-sect-in-nigeria-demands-troop-withdrawal/

A radical Muslim sect responsible for killings across northeastern Nigeria demanded on Monday (6 February) that troops withdraw from the troubled region and that the government rebuild destroyed mosques. A spokesperson for the sect, known locally as Boko Haram, issued the demand after the group recently claimed responsibility for killing seven people, including the dominant gubernatorial candidate in Borno state.

Sudan: UN peacekeepers patrol site of deadly military clash

2011-02-09

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=37492&Cr=sudan&Cr1=

United Nations peacekeepers have positioned armoured personnel carriers and are patrolling an area in Sudan where units made up of Northern and Southern Sudanese troops clashed last week, killing 54 soldiers and wounding 85 others. 'The United Nations urges the parties to remain calm and exercise caution,' spokesman Martin Nesirky told a news briefing in New York, referring to the outbreak of violence in Malakal in Sudan’s Upper Nile State between 3 and 5 February.

Uganda: Efforts to demobilise Uganda's LRA not enough, says report

2011-02-15

http://www.ips.org/africa/2011/02/efforts-to-demobilise-ugandas-lra-not-enough-says-report/

The rebel group that terrorised Ugandan civilians for more than two decades, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), could continue to haunt the people of Central Africa if the Ugandan government fails to properly support demobilisation efforts, according to a new report. Compiled by the Washington-based Enough Project, 'Too Far From Home: Demobilizing the Lord's Resistance Army' tables the many challenges facing ex-combatants attempting to lay down their weapons, in what has become Africa's longest running armed conflict. The report shows the Ugandan government is complicating attempts to rehabilitate rebels by pressuring former combatants to fight with the army, sometimes without pay, and not adhering to the country's amnesty laws.

Africa: Social media and uprising in the Arab world

2011-02-09

http://zunia.org/post/social-media-in-the-arab-world-leading-up-to-the-uprisings-of-2011/

In 2009, this paper from the Centre for International Media Assistance says, the Arab region had 35,000 active blogs and 40,000 by late 2010. Although Egypt’s interior ministry maintains a department of 45 people to monitor Facebook, nearly five million Egyptians use the social networking site among 17 million people in the region, including journalists, political leaders, political opposition figures, human rights activists, social activists, entertainers, and royalty who are engaging online in Arabic, English, and French. This paper was commissioned and largely reported in the period leading up to the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere in the region in early 2011. It is published as a stage-setter for the events that are rapidly unfolding in the Arab world.

Southern Africa: What about tweeting for gender justice?

Saeanna Chingamuka

2011-02-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/internet/70861

A few weeks ago there was a revolution in Tunisia. Some sources say the revolution was not televised, but rather twitterised. On 14 January, Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali dissolved his government, called for legislative elections in six months and promised not to run in 2014. But this late decision did not quiet public anger on social media platforms, in particular Facebook and Twitter. Later that evening, the president fled Tunis.
Southern Africa: What about tweeting for gender justice?
Saeanna Chingamuka

A few weeks ago there was a revolution in Tunisia. Some sources say the revolution was not televised, but rather twitterised. On 14 January, Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali dissolved his government, called for legislative elections in six months and promised not to run in 2014. But this late decision did not quiet public anger on social media platforms, in particular Facebook and Twitter. Later that evening, the president fled Tunis.

Over the past several weeks we’ve seen the power of social media as it helped facilitate the organisation of protests so Egyptians, Yemenis, Serbians, Algerians and others could take to the streets in their numbers and demand political change.

Closer to home, in September 2010, there was unrest and deadly riots in Mozambique after the release of a simple anonymous text message: ‘Mozambicans, prepare yourself to enjoy the great day of the strike. Let's protest the increase in energy, water, mini-bus taxi and bread prices. Send to other Mozambicans.’

The power of new technology should not be underestimated. The Mail and Guardian’s Chris Roper recently said the internet will be Africa’s next battleground.

‘The true worth of social media lies not in its ability to make time pass in a blur, but in its disruptive potential politically,’ he noted. ‘All over the world, social media practitioners are using the power of the internet to fight despots, dictators, corrupt politicians, evil regimes and cellphone companies.’

So why don’t we add patriarchal structures, violence against women and gender disparity to that list?

Social media is on the verge of taking over in the absence of traditional media, especially in African countries where governments have created repressive media laws, and where the imprisonment of journalists is the order of the day.

It is important to note that 2011 marks the 20th anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration, a statement for press freedom principles signed by African journalists at a UNESCO seminar in Windhoek in 1991.

Considering press freedom has yet to be realised in many African countries, citizens are turning to cell phones and social media to protest societal injustices. These tools become an instrument of empowerment which can also motivate marginalised citizens and communities to voice their concerns.

In 2010 I attended the World Journalism Educators Congress (WJEC) in Grahamstown, South Africa. I remember my surprise when a young man walked up to me, introduced himself and said he was working for a Grahamstown youth newspaper called Upstart. He requested an interview and I remember thinking he didn’t look like a journalist. He wasn’t even carrying a notebook – and what is a journalist without a notebook?

But he then removed an ordinary cell phone from his pocket and began to ask me questions. Just as I was trying to figure out what was happening, he clicked a key on his phone and said ‘we start’. He was recording me on his phone. In a minute and a half we were done and seconds later the clip was posted to his website.

As I recalled this incident, I realised how empowering it was for me to be interviewed at this conference, attended by more than 700 participants.

In 2010 Gender Links released the Gender and Media Progress Study (GMPS), which found that women sources constitute just 19per cent of the total number of sources in Southern African media, a very slight increase from 17per cent in 2003.

But although women’s voices only increased two percentage points in seven years, maybe things are only changing now. If my voice could be heard at this conference, in a non-traditional format, it was a score for women.

And social media in Africa is on the rise. Writing in Africa Renewal Magazine last year, André-Michel Essoungou found that Facebook has seen incredible growth on the continent, with more than 17 million users, an increase of seven million from 2009.

‘More than 15per cent of people online in Africa are currently using the platform, compared to 11per cent in Asia,’ he wrote. ‘Two other social networking websites, Twitter and YouTube, rank among the most visited websites in most African countries.’

Just as social media is reshaping politics in Africa and beyond, it holds the same potential to challenge gender inequalities in society. From preventing violence against women to profiling the successes of ordinary women, cell phones and social media can enhance women’s empowerment in Africa’s communities.

Maybe rather than using cell phones for ‘sexting’, we should begin to cultivate a culture of employing technology for social change. What about cell phone messages or ‘tweets’ that castigate rape and sexual harassment in educational institutions? Or why don’t we use technology to hold leaders accountable when it comes to changing the lives of women for the better?

The lesson here is that technology can be controlled by us, the users, and women can produce their own content to assist in the fight for gender equality. How we choose to use this technology and the social media tools available to challenge patriarchy and unequal power relations will definitely be something to watch in the months ahead.

* Saeanna Chingamuka is the Gender and Media Diversity Centre Manager at Gender Links, which can now be accessed on Facebook and Twitter. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service.

Gay Kenya Newsletter February 2011 Issue

2011-02-15

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/516/Gay Kenya Newsletter Feb 2011.pdf

Gay Kenya has announced their February 2011 newsletter issue. The last issue focused on security of gay persons, which was further brought to fore with the killing of prominent Uganda gay rights activist, David Kato in late January. David Kato begins this issue, with the editorial and feature story focussing on him.

Kakuma News Reflector - A Refugee Free Press

2011-02-15

http://www.kakuma.wordpress.com

The newest issue of KANERE is available online. The Kakuma News Reflector, or KANERE, is an independent news magazine produced by Ethiopian, Congolese, Ugandan, Rwandan, Somali, Sudanese and Kenyan journalists operating in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya.

Is Eastern Africa Ready for China, India and Europe?

2011-02-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/70862

This training will have three main components: a high level brainstorming session that will bring together leaders from Eastern Africa, China, India and Europe; a scholars’ discussion and critique session; and a delegates’ workshop on the theme: Is Eastern Africa Ready for China, India and Europe?
Is Eastern Africa Ready for China, India and Europe ?

Political events are unfolding in Africa in a pattern never countenanced before. At the same time huge investments from the developed, re-emerging and emerging economies are penetrating deeply into sinuses of the region. The speed at which the goodies and the political confusion that accompanies them has hit Eastern Africa citizens is alarming.

How prepared are we to engage our friends? It is for this reason that the Inter Region Economic Network (IREN) has invited 4 keynote speakers, to stimulate discussion on these issues next month. We are looking for senior journalists, editors, and communication leaders who have interest in the above topic and have confidence to fire tough questions to our panel to be revealed in due course.

We have redesigned the 9th IREN Eastern Africa Media Training set for 9 -12 March 2011, to offer value to Eastern Africa journalists, media practitioners and communication experts on how to cover development issues in a changing global economic dispensation.

This training will have three main components: a high level brainstorming session that will bring together leaders from Eastern Africa, China, India and Europe; a scholars’ discussion and critique session; and a delegates’ workshop on the theme: Is Eastern Africa Ready for China, India and Europe?

The 9th IREN Eastern Africa Media Training will be held in Nairobi Kenya. Interested applicants should submit a letter of interest and brief bio by 18 February 2011. Participation is by invitation only.

Please email Edith edith@irenkenya.com and cc events@irenkenya.com if you would like to attend, or know someone who can attend. Limited scholarships covering travel and accommodation are available on competitive basis.

Training for Engaging Men and Boys in Achieving Gender Equality and Health Equity

World Health Organisation and Sonke Gender Justice Network

2011-02-08

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/70722

Sonke's Policy, Advocacy and Research Unit and the WHO's Department of Women, Gender and Health invites applications for a 2-day training on Engaging men and boys to achieve gender equality and health equity, taking place from 24-25 February 2011 in Pretoria.
World Health Organisation and Sonke Gender Justice Network: A Training for Engaging Men and Boys in Achieving Gender Equality and Health Equity

Sonke's Policy, Advocacy and Research Unit and the WHO's Department of Women, Gender and Health invites applications for a 2-day training on Engaging men and boys to achieve gender equality and health equity, taking place from 24-25 February 2011 in Pretoria.

This training is intended to build the capacity of people working on issues related to gender and health, particularly health managers in national departments and ministries of health, and staff in the UN, donor agencies, and in national and international NGOs/ civil society organisations. The training will showcase a new module developed by Sonke and WHO, designed to build participants' capacity to develop, implement and monitor evidence informed policies and programmes intended to: (1) increase men's participation in achieving gender equality, (2) strengthen men's support for their partners use of health services, and (3) increase their own use of health services.

The broad outline of the 2 day module includes:

· Introduction to the Training Module

· Global overview of men's health outcomes and links to women's health

· What methods and approaches work when engaging men for gender equality and health equity

· Principles to guide programmes and policies aimed at involving men and boys in achieving gender equality and health equity

· Strategies for developing and ensuring implementation of policy approaches to men, gender and health

Duration: 2 days - 24-25 February 2011 in Pretoria.

Training Fee: R2000 per delegate for local and national NGOs/R3000 for international NGOs, government and donors. Bursaries are available based on a letter of motivation.

Contact: Kindly email your confirmation to attend the training to Lauren Fok at sonkewhotraining@genderjustice.org.za | 084 582 0422

Deadline: 18 February 2011

Event type: Training

Event venue: Pretoria

Event start date: 24/02/2011

Event end date: 25/02/2011

Grappling with Governance: Perspectives on the African Peer Review Mechanism

2011-02-15

http://bit.ly/fmdAwM

Born out of the optimism at the new millennium that Africa’s time had come, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), a tool designed to promote good governance on the continent, is built on the belief that the continent does not lack ideas to advance its development, but that states have struggled to live up to their principles and implement their policies. The APRM rests on the fundamental belief that good governance is a precondition for taking Africa out of its spiral of conflict, underdevelopment, poverty and increasing marginalisation in a globalised world. Looking in the rear-view mirror almost a decade after the APRM was first conceived, Grappling with Governance: Perspectives on the African Peer Review Mechanism explores how this complex process has evolved from theory to practice in a variety of contexts. In a combination of case studies and transversal analysis, multiple voices from different African civil society actors - mainly analysts, activists and journalists - examine the process from their specialised perspective. The chapters tease out what can be learned about governance in Africa from these experiences, and the extent to which the APRM has changed the way that governments and civil society groups engage. The book is available for purchase on www.jacana.co.za

Legal Officer or Senior Legal Officer

London/Nairobi

2011-02-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/70867

Article 19 has new legal positions available, one in London with a focus on ICTs and one in Nairobi with a focus more generally on media. Click on the link to learn more.
Legal Officer or Senior Legal Officer
Starting salary £29,363 or £34,563 (depending on role)
Based: London

This is an exciting and demanding position that would suit someone keen to play a crucial role in protecting freedom of expression and freedom of information globally. You will be responsible for monitoring and analysing laws and policies with a specific focus on those related to new information and communication technologies (ICT’s) as well as engaging in international, regional and national litigation, developing resource materials, and delivering training where necessary. In addition, you will work closely with ARTICLE 19 regional offices and programmes to address emerging challenges to freedom of expression and ICT’s and be directly responsible for the management and implementation of legal projects.

Candidates should have a law degree with a specialization or proven experience in international and regional human rights law and/or media law. They should be able to demonstrate good research, analysis, writing and policy development skills together with experience in project management. Fluency in English is essential and preference will be given to those who have spoken and written proficiency in French, Spanish and/or Arabic.

This is an initial one year contract. The role offered will be dependent on substantive project management and legal/policy experience acquired to date.

All applicants must already have the right to work in the UK or be able to obtain.

For detailed Job Description and Person Specification.<http://www.article19.org/about/about/docs/legal-officer-or-senior-legal-officer.pdf>

Interested candidates should send a covering letter highlighting how they meet the person specification and a CV to Legalrecruit@article19.org<mailto:Legalrecruit@article19.org> or by post to ARTICLE 19, Free Word Centre, 60 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3GA marking the envelope “Legalrecruit”.

Closing date for receipt of applications: 21st February 2011
Interviews expected to be held during week commencing 28th February 2011.

Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.

Legal Officer
Gross starting salary 2,173,000 KES (17,000 GBP) per annum
Based: Nairobi, Kenya

Do you wish to play a crucial role in ensuring ARTICLE 19 promotes an enabling legal and policy environment for freedom of expression and freedom of information in East Africa? To do this you will analyse relevant laws and their conformity with international and regional standards, research and monitor freedom of expression developments and trends, undertake advocacy and assist with litigation. In addition you will represent ARTICLE 19 at conferences and meetings, develop and deliver training to local stakeholders and generally contribute to the work and activities of ARTICLE 19 in the region.

Candidates should have a law degree with at least some specialization in international and regional human rights law and/or media law. They should be able to demonstrate familiarity with human rights legal standards and mechanisms; good research, analysis, writing and policy development skills; have experience of working on legal and policy issues in the region; be an effective time manager with good public speaking and interpersonal skills. Fluency in English is essential and preference will be given to those who have spoken and written proficiency in French.

This is an initial one year contract. All applicants must already have the right to work in Kenya (or other country in East Africa if that proves possible).

For detailed Job Description and Person Specification.<http://www.article19.org/about/about/docs/legal-officer-for-east-africa.pdf>

Interested candidates should send a covering letter highlighting how they meet the person specification and a CV to Kenyalegal@article19.org<mailto:Kenyalegal@article19.org> or by post to ARTICLE 19, Free Word Centre, 60 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3GA marking the envelope “Kenyalegal”.

Closing date for receipt of applications: 21st February 2011
Interviews expected to be held during week commencing 28th February 2011.

Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.

Programmes Manager

The African Women's Development and Communication Network

2011-02-15

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/516/image001.jpg

The African Women's Development and Communication Network is looking for a suitable candidate to fulfill the position of Programmes Manager. The position offers possibility of gaining experience working for a lead African women's regional organisation in a stimulating, multicultural and dynamic environment.

Africa: Millions in overseas aid embezzled, say WikiLeaks documents

2011-02-08

http://bit.ly/gPSltc

The true scale of the theft of overseas aid money by corrupt foreign regimes is disclosed in leaked documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph. Tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been pocketed by their ministers and officials, much of it used to buy luxury goods. In one of the worst cases, £1.2million given to Sierra Leone by the Department for International Development (DfID) to 'support peacekeeping' was stolen by the country’s 'top brass' and spent on plasma television sets, hunting rifles and other consumer items.

Egypt: Suleiman demonised Islamists, WikiLeaks documents say

2011-02-08

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-02-06-wikileaks-egypts-suleiman-demonised-islamists

Egypt's new vice-president, Omar Suleiman, has long sought to demonise the opposition Muslim Brotherhood in his contacts with skeptical US officials, leaked diplomatic cables show, raising questions whether he can act as an honest broker in the country's political crisis. US Embassy messages from the anti-secrecy WikiLeaks cache of 250 000 State Department documents, which Reuters independently reviewed, also report that the former intelligence chief accused the Brotherhood of spawning armed extremists and warned in 2008 that if Iran ever backed the banned Islamist group, Tehran would become 'our enemy'.

Nigeria: UK pressured to drop charges against politician

2011-02-08

http://bit.ly/fbY32b

The Nigerian government refused to discuss a prisoner transfer agreement with Britain unless the Crown Prosecution Service dropped corruption charges against a favoured member of the ruling party, leaked documents disclose. Britain is keen to secure an agreement allowing the transfer of more than 400 prisoners back to Nigeria. But talks over the agreement stalled after Britain refused to drop charges against James Ibori, a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party, who is accused of stealing more than £196m of state funds and channelling 'dirty money' to Britain, report the Daily Telegraph.

Fahamu