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. 
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Santiago’s Festival of Fire
Cubans hug up their Caribbean culture
2011-07-14, Issue 539
cc J EAttending Santiago de Cuba’s Festival of Fire to deliver a lecture on CLR James at a colloquium on Pan-Africanism in the Caribbean, Norman Girvan finds that ‘culture is to Cubans what shopping is to Americans’.
Cry woman cry, cry beloved Zimbabwe!
Grace Kwinjeh
2011-07-07, Issue 538
cc V VWhen Zimbabwe’s political temperature rises, women and children are the most vulnerable, writes Grace Kwinjeh.
The situation of Africa
Declaration of the Group for Research and Initiative for the Liberation of Africa (GRILA)
2011-06-02, Issue 532
cc W MThe Group for Research and Initiative for the Liberation of Africa (GRILA), an organisation consisting of researchers and activists, issued a statement on the situation in Africa on African Liberation Day, 25 May 2011. The statement calls on the peoples of Africa and its diaspora to ramp up resistance, both locally and globally, and to unite on the basis of internationalism and Pan-Africanism.
Wal-Mart South Africa deal 'a race to the bottom'
Khadija Sharife
2011-05-19, Issue 530
cc ColleenMultinational Wal-Mart is trying to acquire South African retailer Massmart. Khadija Sharife explains why the deal would be bad for the country and bad for workers.
If Sexuality were a human being ...
Introduction to 'African Sexualities: A Reader'
Sylvia Tamale
2011-05-11, Issue 529
‘African Sexualities’ is a groundbreaking new volume, forthcoming from Pambazuka Press. As well as using popular culture to help address the ‘what, why, how, when and where’ questions, the book’s contributors provide a critical mapping of African sexualities that informs readers about the plurality and complexities of sexualities on the continent – desires, practices, fantasies, identities, taboos, abuses, violations, stigmas, transgressions and sanctions. At the same time, the contributors pose gender-sensitive and politically aware questions that challenge the reader to interrogate assumptions and hegemonic sexuality discourses, thereby unmapping the intricate and complex terrain of African sexualities.
The following article by ‘African Sexualities’ editor Sylvia Tamale comprises the book’s introduction.
Bob Marley and emancipation from mental slavery
Horace Campbell
2011-05-12, Issue 529
cc S MReflecting on the life and work of Bob Marley, Horace Campbell discusses the positive messages of hope, mobilisation and self-esteem at the core of the legendary reggae artist’s music.
Revisiting Ethiopiawinet!
Mammo Muchie
2011-05-12, Issue 529
Ethiopia should build on its long and proud history as a nation rather than allowing itself to be fragmented by ethnic divisions, argues Mammo Muchie, in a reflection on the country’s past and future.
Rising up: Looking for Bob Marley and Fela Kuti
Alemayehu G. Mariam
2011-01-12, Issue 512
cc Coca-Cola SAFrom African-American gospel music to the soul of James Brown, the reggae of Bob Marley and the Afrobeat of Fela Kuti, Alemayehu G. Mariam charts the rich history of protest music and the need for new battle songs to rally around.
Global: Are instruments of human rights law incompatible with Islam?
2009-07-17, Issue 442
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and subsequent instruments of international human rights law and international humanitarian law play a vital role in providing protection for refugees and IDPs. Yet the claim to universality has been d...
Africa and the end of hunger
Eric Holt-Giménez and Raj Patel
2009-07-16, Issue 442
'Africa and the end of hunger' is an extract from Pambazuka Press's groundbreaking new book Food Rebellions! Crisis and the Hunger for Justice by Eric Holt-Giménez and Raj Patel. Recommended by figures like Walden Bello and Wangari Maathai, the book is available to Pambazuka News readers at 20% off the recommended retail price of £16.95 and comes with a free ebook copy. Simply enter 56784813 as the discount code when ordering online. The Food Rebellions! ebook is also available on its own for only £5.
A call to action: Implement the Africa Women's Rights Protocol
Norah Matovu Winyi
2009-06-25, Issue 439
cc Juan FalqueIn the five years since the adoption of the Protocol to the Africa Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, some 26 countries have ratified Africa's first regional human rights instrument. But with 27 countries yet to do so, the challenge remains to see each African nation commit to fully upholding women's rights. Moral arguments aside, implementing women's rights offers clear social and developmental benefits for all, argues Norah Matovu Winyi, benefits which will only be realised through sustained political will.
Denied the right to a dignified life
The forgotten women of Africa
Anushka Sehmi
2009-06-25, Issue 439
cc United Nations PhotoTraditionally African culture dictated that elderly citizens be treated with respect, writes Anushka Sehmi, but as economic constraints erode the extended family system and fuel rural-urban migration, many old people languish in villages with no-one to care for them. With a quarter of African women left widowed by mounting conflict, disease and poverty, Sehmi explores abuse of and discrimination against elderly women in the light of cultural practices such as widow-inheritance and land ownership. Noting that ‘there is almost no legal or policy framework’ that safeguards the rights of elderly women in Africa, Sehmi calls for states to ratify and implement treaties that protect them, such as the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa and for marginalised groups to ‘be engaged and educated regarding their civic and political rights’. It is up to us to lobby and push our governments to perform this task, says Sehmi, or ‘these forgotten women will forever be denied the right to a dignified life’.
Democratising the Internet
Interviewed by Riaz Tayob
Parminder Jeet Singh
2009-06-04, Issue 436
cc flickr.comIn an audio interview [mp3], Parminder Jeet Singh, executive director of IT for Change, discusses the history behind the US government's supervision of the Internet, the debate around sovereignty over its basic structures, and the global push for a more democratic approach to overseeing the World Wide Web.
Climate justice: Turning up the heat
Collins Cheruiyot
2009-06-04, Issue 436
cc OxfamIn anticipation of Denmark's hosting of the United Nations Climate Change Conference – the COP15 – in December this year, Collins Cheruiyot says that now is the time for Africa to be proactive in asserting its right to be heard. Calling upon its leaders to seize the opportunity to represent their continent in Copenhagen, Cheruiyot stresses that Africa must not allow itself to be short-changed on so crucial a challenge.
Lessons in Liberation: Remembering Tajudeen
The Pambazuka News team highlights 15 of our favourite Pan-African Postcards
Pambazuka News Editors
2009-05-28, Issue 435
Pambazuka News has published Tajudeen’s weekly Pan-African Postcard regularly since 2004. While we joke that Tajudeen’s writing was ‘an editor’s nightmare’, it was first and foremost a source of penetrating, incisive insight into pan-African affairs, expressed with humour and an underlying sense of optimism and belief that, however great the challenges the continent faces, by uniting and organising, we can build Africa into a great place for all its citizens.
In celebration of Tajudeen’s commitment and contribution to Pan-Africanism – and to the Pambazuka community – we have picked a few of our favourite postcards to share with you. These postcards, listed in chronological order, demonstrate Tajudeen’s uncanny ability to see to the heart of the matter, to understand the workings of the human heart, to clarify complex and controversial issues and to inspire people to work for change.
Imperial projects and the food crisis in the periphery
Ng’wanza Kamata
2009-05-21, Issue 433
cc flickr.comConsidering Tanzania's position in relation to food crises around the world, Ng’wanza Kamata laments the inability of Jakaya Kikwete's government to develop the 'agricultural revolution' it once promised. Highlighting that food production difficulties have over the years invariably been attributed to drought and peasant farmers' supposed laziness and poor agricultural methods, Kamata argues that the government should now begin to look in the mirror and acknowledge its own shortcomings. With the budget for agriculture consistently low despite the sector's support for around 80 per cent of Tanzania's total population, the author contends that the country's producers essentially remain subject to the same exploitative relations first imposed during the colonial period. In the face of contemporary political elites' willingness to embrace biofuel production methods, Kamata stresses that the touted agricultural revolution should prioritise the needs and role of the country's poor agricultural majority and not simply bend to the will of foreign corporations.
Some things we know about genocide
10 years, 10 lessons
Gerald Caplan
2009-05-21, Issue 433
cc David BlumeHaving been asked in 1998 to write a report on Rwanda's 1994 genocide by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), Gerald Caplan outlines a series of 10 broad lessons about genocide. Stressing his conviction that the ultimate purpose of knowing about genocide should be to have something to say about its prevention, the author argues that there should be no hierarchy when considering genocides committed around the world. Citing the ultimate conclusions of Primo Levi, a Jewish–Italian survivor of Auschwitz, Caplan underlines the troubling reality that rather than increasing the resolve not to see history repeated, the existence of one genocide merely affirms the possibility of future tragedy elsewhere in the world. While history suggests that there is ample reason for cynicism, Caplan concludes however that committed action on the part of the public and civil society represents a genuine means of forcing the UN Security Council to put the welfare of those suffering above its members' interests.
Beyond mere 'brotherhood' and 'sisterhood'
Godwin Murunga
2009-05-14, Issue 432
cc J FrancisIn a response to 'Kenyan men should zip up and grow up' in last week's Pambazuka, Godwin Murunga charges that Wandia Njoya's letter smacks of intellectual laziness. Suggesting that Njoya's argument ignores entirely the attitudinal gains in gender relations made over previous years, Murunga emphasises that it is highly misleading to cast all men as equal recipients of 'patriarchal dividends'. Stressing that the problem of 'flawed masculinity' is in some respects actively fuelled by women themselves, Murunga underlines the inherent destructiveness of short-sighted generalisations.
Riven with divisions: Kenya’s singular tragedy
Kwamchetsi Makokha
2009-05-07, Issue 431
cc Humanitarian CoalitionDisillusionment with the failure of the 2008 peace deal is the only point of consensus in Kenya, writes Kwamchetsi Makokha, with Kenyans using their shared sense of despondency to hide their frustrations with the decision to force two ideologically parallel political systems to work together for five years. Outlining the demise of the country’s institutions from the judiciary to parliament, Makokha argues that ‘unless the international community forcefully reengages with Kenya and progressive civil society finds a way to engage the middle class to reflect more on their role in rescuing the country, the future looks bleak’. While those who wish to ‘provide leadership face innumerable risks and palpable threats’, the absence of individuals with ‘unquestionable moral authority in the public sphere… feeds the despondency that has come to characterise Kenya’, Makokha concludes.
Political, economic and climatic crises of Western civilisation
Dangers and opportunities
Yash Tandon
2009-04-02, Issue 426
cc HitchsterWestern civilisation has been going through a deepening crisis over the last 120 years, writes Yash Tandon, and it is deeper than most people realise or are willing to acknowledge. Focusing on the present systemic crisis – the most recent manifestations of which are the global financial crisis and the ecological crisis – Tandon sets out how progessive forces both in the South and the North could respond to the array of challenges the world currently faces. The time has come he says, for ordinary people to take back the right to think and plan their futures from the institutions, that have in part, been the authors of the situation we find ourselves in.
Can Africa’s new foundations break the dependency cycle?
Bhekinkosi Moyo
2008-09-17, Issue 399
In a review of the current state of philanthropy on the African continent, Bhekinkosi Moyo argues that African organisations are becoming progressively more autonomous from northern donors and able to pursue their own agendas. With organisations such...
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....
Peace is a mere illusion when rape continues
Stephen Lewis
2008-09-10, Issue 395
Here is an unassailable truth: if sexual violence is not addressed during the course of a conflict, then sexual violence will haunt the post-conflict period, and make of the ostensible peace a mockery for half the population....
Censorship in Nigeria
Interview with Hausa novelist Sa’adatu Baba
Amina Koki Gizo
2008-09-10, Issue 395
While formal publishing companies in Nigeria languished through the economic crises that accompanied the structural adjustment programmes of the late 1980s and early 1990s, young Hausa writers began writing about their lives and contemporary problems they faced. Bypassing formal publishers, they self-published their novels, often with the help of a writers' cooperative....
The future of aid
Yash Tandon
2008-08-26, Issue 394
The following is an excerpt from the concluding chapter of Yash Tandon's new book, Ending Aid Dependence, published by Fahamu Books, September 2008. For more information please visit, http://www.fahamu.org/publications
European Development Fund: The illusion of assistance
Mouhamet Lamine Ndiaye
2008-09-03, Issue 394
Equitable and sustainable structural transformation of African economies is a prerequisite for improving livelihoods across the continent. Despite decades of reform often led under structural adjustment programmes, and a very high level of openness, ...
The destruction of African agriculture
Walden Bello
2008-08-05, Issue 392
Biofuel production is certainly one of the culprits in the current global food crisis. But while the diversion of corn from food to biofuel feedstock has been a factor in food prices shooting up, the more primordial problem has been the conversion of economies that are largely food-self-sufficient into chronic food importers. Here the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) figure as much more important villains....
Food shortages: stories of strife across the globe
Azad Essa
2008-08-05, Issue 392
The current food crisis has been heralded as the worst since the 1970s. Ordinary people, from South Africa to Egypt, India to Turkey, have been forced to make severe adjustments to their lives to deal with food hikes that continue to rise exponential...
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...
Invoking Mandela: How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Fazila Farouk
2008-07-30, Issue 391
It's just been a few weeks since Nelson Mandela was taken off the United States terrorism watch list. No doubt so that they too could join in the celebrations of this living icon, without the embarrassment of hoisting up a revolutionary....
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