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features
Celebrating Tajudeen, the OAU and AU: which way Africa?
Ama Biney
2013-05-23, Issue 631
cc O OThis special issue celebrates not only 50 years of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and its successor, the African Union (AU), but also the life of the late Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, a staunch Pan-Africanist. Some of the themes of this issue are set out, as well as future challenges facing the AU and Pan-Africanists
State of the Union
Dlamini Zuma
2013-05-23, Issue 631
cc L F Address by the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, H.E. Dr. Dlamini Zuma to the Third Pan African Parliament
6 May 2013
The African Union speaks about the 50th anniversary
Jeff DeKock
2013-05-23, Issue 631
[url=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erastus_J._O._Mwencha]
cc Wiki [/url]Pambazuka News interviewed various officials of the AU Commission and an Oxfam official about the accomplishments of the AU as well as some of the challenges and future of continental integration. Follow the links below to listen to the interviews:
Deputy Chairperson, H.E. Mr. Erastus Mwencha
http://youtu.be/W7Ag1CWzpyo
Commissioner for Social Affairs, H.E. Dr. Mustapha S. Kaloko
http://youtu.be/Ipfzeuh6MyA
Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture, H.E. Mrs. Tumusiime Rhoda Peace
http://youtu.be/_f2JD0FMjDs
Deputy Head of Communication and Information, Wynne Musabayana
http://youtu.be/7jhgHnumUpY
Oxfam International, Head of Office, Desire Assogbavi
http://youtu.be/kJFndQ6cJ5M
* The interviews were coordinated by Jeff DeKock, Assistant Professor of Communication Arts, Trinity Christian College, and Coordinator of the Semester in Kenya
The Organization of African Unity (OAU)/African Union at 50
The Quest for New Foundations of African Solidarity in the 21st Century
Mehari Taddele Maru
2013-05-23, Issue 631
cc A U The AU has now entered the new fifth era of delivery and democracy to avoid uprisings and revolutions and to ensure human security by re-inventing Pan-Africanism for 21st century Africa
The African Union at 50: Missed opportunities and lessons for the future
Yves Niyiragira
2013-05-23, Issue 631
cc H A Post-independent African leaders have failed to realise the aspirations and hopes of self-determination and unity of the African people. There are five basic steps that AU member states need to take now to put Africans on the path to full integration
Pan-Africanism and African renaissance
More questions than answers as the African Union celebrates 50 years
Antony Otieno Ong’ayo
2013-05-22, Issue 631
cc E C The AU is well placed to articulate the Pan-African agenda for the benefit of the people, yet the majority of African presidents are busy with self-preservation and less supportive of initiatives that promote regional and continental integration. When will the Union to stop being a talking and become a serious institution?
Where is Nkrumah’s United States of Africa 50 years on?
Samwin Banienuba
2013-05-22, Issue 631
cc R A The African Union must cultivate a united Africa and national governments need to be keenly wary of the divide-and-rule tactics of external powers pursuing selfish interests
How far is the United States of Africa?
Motsoko Pheko
2013-05-22, Issue 631
cc E H How is it that 50 years on, the OAU/AU has failed in the main objective for which it was founded? Because the United States of Africa cannot be brought about by leaders who are not Pan-Africanists
Culture and communication as tool of diplomacy
Dele Meiji Fatunla
2013-05-22, Issue 631
cc K G Africa is undergoing an artistic renaissance that could be a part of the African Union’s approach in communicating the aspirations of Africa and Africans, engaging Africans in critical discussion and representing the potential strength in the diversity of the continent
The African Union: is it time for cultural diplomacy to take centre-stage?
Ade Daramy
2013-05-22, Issue 631
cc S H It is time for the African Union to push for cultural diplomacy in the form of a Museum of African Music, Arts and Culture as an entity for both preservation and a celebration of our similarities as well as the richness of our cultural diversity
Development and the double-sided mirror
Tunde Jegede
2013-05-22, Issue 631
cc C H There is a need for a cultural rebirth in Africa as part of the radical economic and social transformation of the continent. A new African consciousness that is free from the chains of ‘colonial’, ‘post-colonial’ and ‘decolonial’ must be located in African reference points
Our future grown in Africa
Agriculture in the African Union
Mbongeni Ngulube
2013-05-23, Issue 631
cc M M Food security has been a major concern for Africans over the decades but, surpringly, the OAU/AU did little to support agriculture and other forms of food production. This needs to change, beginning with effective support for the small-scale farmer
Peace in our time
Onyekachi Wambu
2013-05-22, Issue 631
cc O W Given that the roots of so much intra-state conflict is lack of social justice, inequality and marginalisation suffered by different groups, strategies on removing these obstacles and building intra-group solidarity should be the key peace-building pan-African project of the next 50 years
Tajudeen memorial 2013
Taju’s love for young and old
Dede Amanor-Wilks
2013-05-22, Issue 631
cc Fahamu I believe that Tajudeen loved young people because he could see in them the potential to transform society for the better before it transformed individuals for the worse
Four years on the spirit of the African soldier the indefatigable Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem lives on
Sonny Onyegbula
2013-05-22, Issue 631
[url=newsnigeria.onlinenigeria.com]
cc N N [/url]In a personal reflection of the late Dr.Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, a foremost champion of Pan-Africanism in recent years, he is remembered as one who spoke truth to the powerful and the powerless with indefatigable commitment to the poor of Africa
A different ‘Jubilee’: Fresh chance at 50 for AU on justice?
Otsieno Namwaya and Elizabeth Evenson
2013-05-22, Issue 631
cc S O In accordance with its founding principles, the AU must actively encourage its members to strengthen domestic justice mechanisms and, where they are either weak or blocked politically, to embrace the ICC as a court of last resort
Africa and US imperialism
Post-colonial crises and the imperatives of the African revolution
Abayomi Azikiwe
2013-05-23, Issue 631
cc U F A reflection on five decades since the formation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), while the Pentagon and NATO escalate their war drive on the continent
AU coming of age a cause for celebration?
Titi. A. Banjoko
2013-05-22, Issue 631
cc D C The focus of the next 50 years for the African Union should be to move from being a rigid bureaucracy to an agile organisation, which is able to flex and move at speed in a global society
50 years after, is the AU, formerly the OAU, a success or failure?
Theodore Menelik-Mfuni
2013-05-22, Issue 631
cc E W In terms of Africa’s decolonisation and integration the OAU and the AU have a mixed score. It is important to allow time for some of the AU’s policies to start biting.
The birth of the OAU
Cameron Duodu
2013-05-23, Issue 631
cc M K Africans yearn to come and go within the continent without visas; to work where they like; and expect to be treated as if they were ‘home’ – despite being far away from the territorial limits into which they were originally born
Swaziland: Wither absolute monarchism?
Moses Tofa
2013-05-16, Issue 630
cc R E In Africa’s last monarchy – the kingdom of Swaziland, the major question is: for how long multi-party politics should be construed as incompatible with Swazi tradition, when that tradition is static? It appears that Swazi tradition was not only hijacked by the monarchy but has arrested the development of genuine democratic participation of Swazi citizens
Diversity and inclusion
Do NGOs practice what they preach?
Fairouz El Tom
2013-05-15, Issue 630
cc A There is a clear disjunction between the world NGOs seek to create, and the world their governance structures reproduce
Saints of dictatorship versus prisoners of defunct legitimacy
Putting Zimbabwe’s forthcoming general elections in the context of 2008
Moses Tofa
2013-05-16, Issue 630
cc G M The events of 2008 in Zimbabwe led to bloodshed and the present-day Government of National Unity. ZANU PF has exposed its cast-iron willpower to thwart the implementation of any meaningful reforms and the prognosis for the 2013 elections appears bleak
Capital's insatiable drive for profits at the heart of South Africa's wage and employment crisis
Dale T. McKinley
2013-05-16, Issue 630
cc N R If capital is to be believed, it is the worker who is the main source of South Africa’s contemporary social and economic problems
Monkey business in Ivory Coast
Gary K Busch
2013-05-15, Issue 630
cc D S Two years after French-led forces brought Allassane Ouattara to power, he is not yet in control of the country. Rebels run a parallel taxation system and looting of the country’s resources is in top gear
South Africa’s sub-imperial seductions
Patrick Bond
2013-05-09, Issue 629
cc J G South Africa is this week hosting yet another major conference, the World Economic Forum for Africa, amidst increasing evidence that the nation is fast growing as a sub-imperialist power
Bangladeshi textile factory collapse: Over 900 dead, Lessons for Africa
Horace G. Campbell
2013-05-09, Issue 629
cc O N The kind of tragic exploitation of workers in Bangladesh is present all over Africa, where people are denied basic labour rights as part of state efforts to attract and retain foreign investment. Militant and sustained efforts are needed to resist this trend
What’s behind renewed attacks on African American freedom fighter Assata Shakur?
Exiled Black Panther Party veteran has lived in Cuba for three decades
Abayomi Azikiwe
2013-05-07, Issue 629
cc F S P On the 40th anniversary of the shooting and capture of Assata Shakur, the FBI and the State of New Jersey has now placed the African American revolutionary on the most wanted terrorist list
A Candid Conversation with President Kim on institutional racism
Justice for Blacks
2013-05-07, Issue 629
cc S N A year ago, we were hopeful that your presidency would open a new chapter in overhauling the World Bank’s justice system. But a year later, the presidential mantle that we had hoped would dismantle the racist institutional culture seems to be drawn toward the center of gravity of the status quo
Mr Nafie Goes to Washington
Eric Reeves
2013-05-07, Issue 629
cc A For Sudan which listed as a sponsor of terrorism and whose president is a suspected war criminal, the invitation to Washington of Al Bashir’s aide is an extraordinary reward to a regime that craves nothing so much as legitimacy, and to a man who is utterly ruthless and savagely cruel