Pambazuka News is produced by a pan-African community of some 2,600 citizens and organisations - academics, policy makers, social activists, women's organisations, civil society organisations, writers, artists, poets, bloggers, and commentators who together produce insightful, sharp and thoughtful analyses and make it one of the largest and most innovative and influential web forums for social justice in Africa. 
capitalism
Oil politics: Charge them with manslaughter
Nnimmo Bassey
2011-04-14, Issue 525
cc US Coast Guard‘People who have suffered the impact of unjust practices and those who have been victims of abuse from corporate impunity will heave a sigh of relief the day directors of such companies are brought to court from behind their corporate shields,’ writes Nnimmo Bassey, amidst talk that ‘top guns at BP’ may be charged with manslaughter over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
West makes Côte d'Ivoire safe for cocoa chocolate soldiers
Kalundi Serumaga
2011-04-14, Issue 525
cc NestleGiven Côte d'Ivoire’s history, 'Alassane Ouattara’s entry into State House… will no more prove a cure than Laurent Gbagbo’s presidency ever was,’ writes Kalundi Serumaga.
The transformation of the global system and its implications for Africa
Dani W. Nabudere
2011-04-13, Issue 525
cc D PThrough the eyes of protestors who have filled the streets of North African protests, what might a new society look like? Dani Wadada Nabudere, drawing on the meaning of social network use and principles of Ubuntu, explores.
The glossary of greed
Joan Baxter
2011-03-30, Issue 523
cc D AWith the 2011 Forbes List of the world’s billionaires recently released – and acutely aware of the huge volume of unaccounted for money found in offshore havens – Joan Baxter discusses the ‘highly stratified world that has become treacherously top-heavy’.
Transnational capitalism or collective imperialism?
Samir Amin
2011-03-23, Issue 522
cc A Z RResponding to the work of scholars like William Carroll, Samir Amin considers the evolution and shape of globalised capitalism and the extent to which it might be termed ‘transnational’ or ‘collective imperialism’. He stresses: ‘Globalisation is an inappropriate term. Its popularity is commensurate with the violence of ideological aggression that has prohibited henceforth the utterance of “imperialism”.’
Imperial duplicity and the ‘colour revolutions’
Nicholas Tucker
2011-03-09, Issue 520
cc nebedaayWho defines true liberation? Watch out for the role of the global elite in manipulating the outcome of the Middle East and North Africa revolutions, writes Nicholas H. Tucker.
Talking about the market
Samir Amin
2011-03-10, Issue 520
cc markwainwrightBeginning by praising the work of Rod Hill & Tony Myatt and Ha-Joon Chang, Samir Amin highlights the complete absence of adequate critical reflection across contemporary economics. ‘The true aim of the “science” of conventional economics’, he writes, ‘is simply to divest it of its political aspect and pretend it is something “neutral”, hence “objective”. The result is the annihilation of the capacity for critical thinking and reducing the citizen to being a mere spectator of history.’
Out of touch in the Horn of Africa?
Alemayehu G. Mariam
2011-02-24, Issue 518
cc A HIt’s true that the Ethiopian ‘political opposition is weak and disunited’, but ‘Western governments seem to be conveniently oblivious of the reasons for the disarray in the opposition’, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam.
Declaration of the Conference of the Democratic Left
20 - 23 January 2011, Wits University, South Africa
2011-01-26, Issue 514
cc T STwo hundred and fifty activists from across South Africa met last week to form a united front against big capital. In the concluding conference statement, they called for unity and mobilisation.
Notes on contemporary imperialism
Phases of imperialism
Prabhat Patnaik
2011-01-13, Issue 512
cc WikimediaPrabhat Patnaik explores ‘the third phase’ of modern imperialism, ‘marked by the hegemony of international finance capital’, globalisation, and the pursuit of neo-liberal policies’, and the opportunities opened up by the capitalist crisis for transitions to socialism.
Reparations and the slave trade
Bernard Founou-Tchuigoua
2011-01-11, Issue 512
cc WikimediaDemands for reparations around the transatlantic slave trade have been absent from United Nations conferences on racism. Bernard Founou-Tchuigoua discusses the history and context behind them.
Regulating land grabbing?
Saturnino Borras Jr and Jennifer Franco
2010-12-16, Issue 510
cc M f BPreviously reviled as ‘land grabs’, international institutions increasingly paint the global land rush as ‘large-scale land investments’, providing fertile ground for ‘win-win’ development schemes. But, caution Saturnino Borras Jr and Jennifer Franco, ‘any scheme that guarantees only winners and no losers deserves our scepticism and a closer look.’
Globalising economic apartheid
Khadija Sharife
2010-12-15, Issue 510
cc VaxzineSanctions-busting was a game perfected by the apartheid regime, but modern-day corporates are also adept at finding ways to exploit Africa's minerals, writes Khadija Sharife.
Africa’s failings and the global system
Samir Amin
2010-12-08, Issue 509
cc WikimediaAt 79, Samir Amin has lost none of his militancy. A leading thinker around ‘Third World-ism’, close to particular fathers of independence – like Modibo Keita – and the author of some 50 works on politics and economics, he tracks capitalism and international imperialism in all their forms. Interviewed by Christophe Champin, he discusses the last 50 years of relations between African states and the rest of the world.
World Forum for Alternatives: Network of networks
Samir Amin
2010-12-08, Issue 509
cc A H BThird World Forum’s (TWF) director, Samir Amin, discusses the background to the World Forum for Alternatives (WFA), ‘a network of networks which organises its own activities with a view to contributing to the progress of a positive alternative to the dominant capitalist and imperialist system’.
Capitalism in crisis: An obsolete system
Samir Amin
2010-12-02, Issue 508
cc S A NWith Samir Amin speaking in the UK this week, Pambazuka Press is pleased to announce the publication of three of his books, ‘Eurocentrism’, ‘Global History: A View from the South’ and ‘Ending the Crisis of Capitalism or Ending Capitalism?’ In an interview with Zahra Moloo, Amin discusses capitalism in crisis, global financialisation and moving beyond capitalism. This interview is also available as an audio file [mp3].
Building Africa's tax havens
Khadija Sharife
2010-12-02, Issue 508
cc G WFrom the Seychelles to Liberia, African countries are creating financial centres that demand little or no taxation. Khadija Sharife provides a run-down of the places to hide away money from the taxman.
Global currency wars and US imperialism
Samir Amin
2010-11-25, Issue 507
cc J M RSamir Amin speaks to Pambazuka News on the misleading rhetoric over the so-called currency war. The real problem, he argues, is the disequilibrium in the global integrated monetary and financial system in which the US insists legitimately on the right to control their currency, but denies the same rights to others, such as China, who seek to do the same. The countries of the global South need to leave the US and its allies to sort out their own problems and concentrate on developing regional currencies and exercising strict control over capital flows, Amin argues.
The revolution will not be funded
The role of donors in the movement for social justice in Africa
Hakima Abbas
2010-11-17, Issue 505
cc anolobbAccess to flexible funds, solidarity, nurturing and safe environments, and a willingness to engage for the long term are some of the key needs of movements for change, writes Hakima Abbas.
What the Wal-Mart fight really means
Terry Bell
2010-11-17, Issue 505
cc Brave New FilmsIt has 8,692 retail outlets in 15 countries and an annual turnover that exceeds South Africa’s gross domestic product by nearly $110 billion. But unions in South Africa are opposed to Wal-Mart’s expansion into southern Africa. And they’re not alone, writes Terry Bell.
Naspers: Where art thou, and why?
Khadija Sharife
2010-11-18, Issue 505
cc stockvaultMedia and entertainment giant Naspers ‘has engaged in the kind of “aggressive” tax planning devised to strategically move such assets into low-tax regions’, writes Khadija Sharife.
Biofuels and world hunger
Mae-Wan Ho
2010-11-18, Issue 505
cc tonrulkensA damning report confirms critics’ accusation that industrial biofuels are responsible for the world's food and hunger crisis, writes Mae-Wan Ho.
My life as a security guard
Oppressors gain at expense of the oppressed
Mashumi ‘Lindela’ Figlan
2010-11-04, Issue 503
cc WikimediaFaced by high unemployment South Africans are ‘queuing up to be exploited’, writes Mashumi ‘Lindela’ Figlan. But there’s no reason why ‘each and every person cannot have their dignity.’
Why Ghana gave in to the cocoa baron
A bad example from Britain
Cameron Duodu
2010-11-04, Issue 503
cc Flickr.comGhana has lifted its ban on a business caught smuggling cocoa out of the country, after lobbying by Britain at the request of the company’s owner. As long as African countries are dependent on aid, they will find it hard to refuse the demands of potential donors, muses Cameron Duodu.
The global capitalist crisis and Africa’s future
Part 2: What is the way forward?
Dani W. Nabudere
2010-09-30, Issue 498
cc B SIf we are to create and provide space and a platform for African autonomous thinking on issues of the future of the continent, we have to begin by liberating ourselves from Western ways of thinking and draw knowledge and inspiration from our own heritages, argues Dani W. Nabudere, in the second half of a two-part article based on his inaugural address to the newly formed Nile Heritage Forum on political economy.
World Bank land grab report: Beyond smoke and mirrors
GRAIN
2010-09-23, Issue 497
cc CIATThe World Bank’s long-awaited report on the global farmland grab is ‘both a disappointment and a failure’, writes GRAIN. The bank provides little ‘new and solid on-the-ground data’ and is silent about its own ‘neck-deep involvement’ in ‘large scale land acquisitions’. Looking ‘beyond the smoke and mirrors effect’, the report is ‘more significant for what it doesn't say than what it does’, says GRAIN.
The global capitalist crisis and Africa’s future
Part I
Dani W. Nabudere
2010-09-23, Issue 497
cc A KIf we are to create and provide space and platform for African autonomous thinking on issues of the future of the continent, we have to begin by liberating ourselves from Western ways of thinking and draw knowledge and inspiration from our own heritages, argues Dani Nabudere, in a two-part article based on his inaugural address to the newly formed Nile Heritage Forum on political economy.
System change not climate change
Ama Biney
2009-12-23, Issue 463
cc oxfam internationalA capitalist economic system dependent on fossil fuels and the exploitation of natural resources to generate profit has left people and ecosystems across large parts of the planet – including swathes of Africa – vulnerable to climate change, Ama Biney writes in this week’s Pambazuka News. The ‘derisory’ funding developed nations have offered to ‘assist developing countries to adapt to climate change’ is not enough to solve the problem, Biney argues. The real focus, says Biney, should be on ‘transforming the exploitative, unsustainable, profit-driven ethos that underpins the current system of wealth accumulation that simultaneously damages the environment’.
Socialists, the environment and ecosocialism
Why socialists need to safeguard nature
Trevor Ngwane
2009-12-04, Issue 460
cc S O KThe causes of world’s ecological crisis can be traced to capitalism, Trevor Ngwane writes in this week’s Pambazuka News, but socialism still needs to give greater weight to environmental considerations – not least because it is the working class which is most vulnerable to the negative impacts of the crisis.
Beyond Bandung: Awakening of the South
Challenging the imperialist dimensions of capitalism
Samir Amin
2009-10-29, Issue 455
cc WikimediaCapitalism is in crisis, Samir Amin writes in Pambazuka News, creating new opportunities to challenge its imperialist dimensions. While the first wave of struggles for the emancipation of workers and people simply wore itself out, Amin asks whether this time round bridges can be built that ‘associate the anti-imperialist and popular struggles in the South with the progress of a socialist conscience in the North’, converging struggles from the North and South in ways that previous movements of the 1950s failed to.