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. 
oppression
South Africa: Structural oppression and the future of democracy
Pedro Alexis Tabensky
2010-12-16, Issue 510
cc I G NFollowing the ANC Youth League disruption of a UPM-convened public meeting to discuss the water crisis affecting poorer areas of an Eastern Cape municipality, Pedro Alexis Tabensky observes that ‘sadly for our democracy, this sort of oppressive behaviour in the name of the ANC seems to be part of a general trend of violence exerted against social movements’ .
Egypt’s election: Power, actors and … ‘change’
Tarek Osman
2010-12-02, Issue 508
cc W E CThe iron rule of Hosni Mubarak has dominated Egypt for three decades. The regime he heads is preparing for the succession and seeking to channel Egyptians’ hunger for change into a tool of retrenchment. The secular opposition is absorbed by the effort of staying in the political game; the Muslim Brotherhood has larger ambitions. What place does a parliamentary election have in this landscape? Tarek Osman provides an assessment from Cairo.
Western Sahara and Morocco’s physical and symbolic violence
Konstantina Isidoros
2010-11-25, Issue 507
cc Western SaharaWith tensions coming to a head over the past two weeks, Morocco is once again under the international spotlight for its alleged illegal territorial occupation of Western Sahara. In the wake of a raid on the Sahrawi encampment of Gdeim Izik by Moroccan forces on Monday 8 November, Konstantina Isidoros argues that such ‘events shed illuminating insights into Morocco’s illegal occupation’.
Tragic end for Eritrean family's reunion attempt
Mihret Goitom
2009-07-16, Issue 442
cc C T SnowUK-based lawyer Mihret Goitom tells how his sister–in-law’s attempt to escape Eritrea and join her husband ended in tragedy, after she and her children were incarcerated in a refugee camp in Sudan en-route.
Isaias Afewerki and Eritrea: A nation’s tragedy
Selam Kidane
2009-07-02, Issue 440
cc gordontourSince winning its de facto independence in May 1991, Eritrea has come to represent a tragedy, laments Selam Kidane. Having fought and suffered alongside one another during the country's liberation struggle, Eritreans have seen their country embroiled in conflicts with every one of its neighbours under the leadership of Isaias Afewerki. With President Isaias increasingly viewing power as 'a weapon of self-aggrandisement' and surrounding himself with a sycophantic clique of military associates, the hope of the post-independence years has tragically faded, Kidane concludes.
Kenya's civil society needs a new vision
Zaya Yeebo
2009-07-02, Issue 440
cc MothersFightingForOthersWhile acknowledging that Kenya's Grand Coalition Government (GCG) has given rise to much debate and commentary, Zaya Yeebo argues that civil society's ability to influence change without violence is often ignored. Though other African countries see their people's voices expressed through groups such as trade unions and youth organisations, Kenyans' voices are muted by the noisy contestations of the country's political elites. The tendency of the last few years to 'franchise' the role of civil society out to international NGOs must be challenged, Yeebo contends, and Kenyans must look to the recent examples provided by Ghana, Sierra Leone and South Africa of how people power can bring about change. But while Kenyan civil society can draw inspiration and even support from outside, it alone must work to stoke popular pressure if effective and lasting political reform is to be achieved, Yeebo concludes.
Propping up Africa's dictators
Khadija Sharife
2009-07-02, Issue 440
cc TV Boy‘Lone-ranger’ dictators Bongo (Gabon), Nguessor (Congo) and Obiang (Equatorial Guinea) have in fact been sustained by neocolonial relationships set up by France and the international financial system, writes Khadija Sharife. Françafrique, France's postcolonial Africa policy, was designed to create structural dependence and domination by reasserting geostrategic control over natural resources through the use of black 'governors', says Sharife. Illegitimate governments representing external interests have shaped and normalised the inherited legacy of colonialism, Sharife argues. These leaders, Sharife adds, have thus subsequently ‘internalised the economic, cultural, and political imperialism and cultivated an atmosphere of compliance concerning French interests in Africa.’ Unlike the United States, Sharife notes, ‘France treads lightly, attracts little or no attention, and leaves few footprints behind.’
Unfinished business: Moving Kenya forward
Korir Sing’Oei
2009-06-18, Issue 438
cc wikimedia.orgWith Kenya still in the throes of an entrenched crisis, Korir Sing’Oei considers the broader history behind the deficiencies of the country's political system. Arguing that there are clear similarities to be drawn between events such as the state's response to the 1963 Shifta War and today's military crackdowns at Mt. Elgon, Sing’Oei stresses that the government continues to have a single method of conflict resolution, that of state-sponsored violence. But if Kenya's dream of a new constitution is to come to fruition, Sing’Oei concludes, there must be firm resolve to see accountability for its leadership, beginning on the first day of the country's truth commission with an apology from President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga for the post-election violence.
Honest anti-racists lose out to Zionist lobby
Gabriel Ash
2009-05-07, Issue 431
Zionist efforts to keep Palestinian rights off the agenda at the Durban Review conference have undermined the efforts of participants to eliminate other kinds of discrimination around the world, writes Gabriel Ash. Nine countries boycotted the entire conference on the basis of anti-semitism, and the official declaration ‘dropped all mention of Palestine, beyond reaffirming the anodyne original declaration’ says Ash. ‘Their sabotage of the conference, their contempt for the work that it embodies, for the principles it represents and the goals it seeks to achieve left a bitter taste in the mouth of every organisation and every human rights worker and activist who was there for honest reasons'.
Who dropped the baton?
Njonjo Mue
2009-05-07, Issue 431
cc WikimediaKenya is a country of runners, writes Njonjo Mue, but for all its athletic prowess the country has yet to prove medal-worthy in the relay race of building true nationhood. With the baton passed from race leg to race leg, the Kenyan people have seen participation in the race restricted to a select, exclusivist and often brutal few, with many who have sought to champion the right of others to be involved being severely crushed. The finishing line of true nationhood remains a distant dream, with the runners even having dropped the right baton altogether, and if Kenya is not to perish entirely, the race's next leg can only be run by all Kenyans together.
Zionism: An endless river of blood?
Rabbi Weiss speaks to Riaz Tayob
Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss
2009-04-30, Issue 430
cc Amir Farshad EbrahimiZionism is the root cause of suffering, bloodshed and the rift between Arabs and Jews, Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, spokesperson for Neturei Karta International – an organisation that represents anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews – has said. In an audio interview [mp3] with Riaz K. Tayob at the Durban Review Conference, Weiss said that Zionist movement transformed Judaism into ‘a materialistic, political, nationalistic goal’, which presented its critics as ‘anti-Semitic’ or ‘self-hating Jews.’ Speaking of his hopes too see the Palestine question addressed, he added that the Holocaust should not be used to further Zionist goals or to justify the oppression of another people.
Zimbabwe on the edge of the precipice
Mary Ndlovu
2008-12-17, Issue 413
With its power-sharing agreement manifestly failing, Zimbabwe is on the brink of collapse, writes Mary Ndlovu. The author argues that in the face of an entrenched kleptocratic elite, life grows ever more difficult for the country’s population, a situation markedly exacerbated by a broader political culture of selfishness undermining the development of any form of effective collective action. Without an internationally sponsored, technocratically based transitional authority to replace ZANU-PF as soon as possible, Zimbabwe may yet be spoken of in the same breath as Somalia and the eastern DR Congo, she concludes.
Mamdani, Mugabe and the African scholarly community
The Africanisation of exploitation
Horace Campbell
2008-12-18, Issue 413
Concerned scholars should revitalise their opposition to Zimbabwe’s Mugabe regime, writes Horace Campbell. While against any form of opportunistic, external intervention in the country, Campbell argues that scholars must come to offer an effective challenge to ZANU-PF’s persistent retreat into spurious anti-imperialist discourse. Heavily critical of writers like Mahmood Mamdani for echoing ZANU-PF’s simplistic claims around the effects of economic sanctions levied against Zimbabwe, Campbell argues that blocking international payments would prove a far more efficacious means of tackling Mugabe’s misappropriation of funds.
Steve Biko's paradise lost
Andile Mngxitama, Amanda Alexander and Nigel C Gibson
2008-09-10, Issue 395
The following is taken from the introduction to Biko Lives! Contesting the Legacies of Steve Biko is edited by Andile Mngxitama, Amanda Alexander and Nigel C Gibson and published by Palgrave Macmillan....
Third world prospects in an Obama presidency
Steve Sharra
2008-08-11, Issue 393
The exclamatory commentary that has accompanied Barack Obama’s ascendancy to the presumed nomination of the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate has excited, beneath it, the question of what the nomination itself, and a possible Obama presidency, might mean for the Pan-Africanist world as well as the Third World. While much of the commentary has been laudatory, there have also been cautionary tones, not to mention ambivalent ones. Beyond the excitement, caution and ambivalence of what a possible Obama presidency might entail for Pan-Africa and the Third World, what Obama himself has said in his writing, and has not said, might prove to be revelatory in attempting to explore the discussion that has exercised many minds around the world. We take this exploration by examining some of the issues that have been raised by editorialists and columnists, bloggers and other commentators in Africa and beyond. We also delve into what Obama himself has said in his two best-belling books, as we ponder how the significance of a possible Obama presidency may be realized more in the symbolic transformation of perceptions of race, racism and racial identity in the US and in the world, than in what the office of the US presidency itself is capable or incapable of achieving.
What about the black community, Obama?
Diop Olugbala
2008-08-13, Issue 393
On Friday, August 1st, I led a contingent of the Uhuru Movement into Barack Obama’s town hall meeting in St. Petersburg, Florida to raise the question, “what about the black community, Obama?” Without the benefit of a big media budget, our organization attempted to bring the serious issues experienced by African working class people across this country into the national political debate....
Obama and Palestine
Sameh A. Habeeb
2008-08-11, Issue 393
We, Palestinians, are aspiring to any glimpse of hope to establishing our promising country of Palestine. Originally, that glimpse of hope grew when Israelis realized in the nineties that a real peace will not be achieved apart from an Independent Palestinian state. That time, the world agreed on that concept and peace deal (Oslo) was held in Washington D.C, after the first Bush had left office....
Politics at stake: a note on stakeholder analysis
Mark Butler and David Ntseng
2008-07-31, Issue 392
People in government, business, and political and civil society organisations routinely talk about 'stakeholders'. They do exercises in stakeholder analysis to inform their 'strategic planning'. Invariably they use the stakeholder language to adverti...
Statement on the ICC
Communist Party of Sudan
2008-07-30, Issue 391
Statement of the Communist Party of Sudan The inclusion of the name of the President of the Republic of the Sudan among those wanted for justice by the International Criminal Court, increases the complications engulfing the crisis prevailing in th...
Zimbabwe CSO's call for a transitional authority
Zimbabwe Civil Society Organizations
2008-07-17, Issue 389
We, civil society organizations acting on behalf of the people of Zimbabwe, today reassert our commitment to the struggle for a transition to democracy. In doing so, we stand firmly by the principles of democratic constitutionalism that are embodied in the People's Charter and which represent the birthright of every Zimbabwean. ...
Barack Obama and the New Afrikan “National Question”
Kali Akuno
2008-06-12, Issue 380
Kali Akuno looks at the limits and contradictions of Obama and argues that the progressives have to use a "combined “outside-inside” strategy that seeks to advance a coherent set of principle demands and push him and the forces he has mobilized sharply to the left.
Towards African-American Unity and a Black United Front
Nationalities Committee
2008-05-22, Issue 374
Commemorating Malcolm X's Birthday, appraise existing African American leadership and call for a Black united front that can shake the foundation of a border-less neoliberal globalization.
South Africa: A person cannot be illegal!
Abahlali baseMjondolo
2008-05-22, Issue 373
Abahlali baseMjondolo Statement on the Xenophobic Attacks
Access to information as a tool for socio-economic justice
Mukelani Dimba
2008-04-08, Issue 372
In this article Mukelani Dimba shows how freedom of information legislation can be used by citizens to pursue their socio-economic rights. He argues that it creates the conditions in which government decisions about resource allocation can be effectively challenged.
South Africa: Mourning unfreedom day
Abahlali baseMjondolo
2008-04-24, Issue 365
Abahlali baseMjondolo, the South African shackdwellers' movement reminds us in this statement and call to action that the structures of apartheid are still thriving in South Africa. On Sunday it will be Freedom Day again. Once again we will be asked to go into stadiums to be told that we are free.
Kenya enters the Liminal Period
Steve Ouma Akoth
2008-04-15, Issue 365
Steve Ouma argues that for the promised social transformation in Kenya to take root, "political class and other parochial interests" have to give way to consensus and truth telling.
Tribute to Fidel Castro
Blade Nzimande
2008-02-24, Issue 348
Blade Nzimande gives a comradely appraisal of Fidel Castro the revolutionary theorist, practitioner and internationalist.
Youth Shout: An Agenda for the Youth or Youth Agenda?
Charles Otieno-Hongo
2007-12-17, Issue 333
Charles Otieno-Hongo argues that a youth agenda should be about giving young people the space to participate in decision making with respect to issues that concern their intellectual development, social identity and economic empowerment.
Feminist reflections on gender violence, political power and women’s emancipation
From Rhodesia to present day Zimbabwe
Grace Kwinjeh
2007-12-04, Issue 331
Grace Kwinjeh looks at the contradictions of liberation and nationalist parties through the critical eye of feminism.
Government leaders passive in the face of lesbian murders
Melanie Judge
2007-11-29, Issue 330
Melanie Judge writes about the apparent passivity of government leaders in the face of lesbian attacks and murders in South Africa.