Pambazuka News 672: Missed opportunities: Sham elections, colonial legacies and a forgotten heroine
Pambazuka News 672: Missed opportunities: Sham elections, colonial legacies and a forgotten heroine
Major General Nkonyeni was a true Pan Africanist and a hero of the South African liberation struggle in the fearless tradition of the freedom fighters. His exploits will remain an inspiration for future generations
Hankering over the ‘glorious’ past as we confront our present struggles is not really helpful. Rather we should dare to invent the future, as Thomas Sankara challenged us
A recent incident underscores the magnitude of lack of professionalism and corruption among police officers in Zimbabwe. There is an urgent need for reforms
On 20 March 2014, human rights defender Mr Mohamed Salah Mohamed was forcibly disappeared at Khartoum International Airport as he was travelling to a workshop in Tunisia. His family have not been provided with any information about his whereabouts, nor has he had access to legal counsel
In Orwellian Ethiopia, the government is using foreign technology to bolster its widespread telecom surveillance of opposition activists and journalists both in Ethiopia and abroad. Addis Ababa uses control of its telecom system as a tool to silence dissenting voices
Pambazuka News 671: Racist attacks, looted art, jailed scribes and state wastage
Pambazuka News 671: Racist attacks, looted art, jailed scribes and state wastage
Prime Minister Netanyahu has called African asylum seekers infiltrators and several other right-wing politicians have openly incited violence against them. Besides tough laws, the interior ministry’s plan is to make the lives of the Africans so miserable that they are forced to leave on their own
There is a generalized Western dismissal of the Global South and its peoples, as exemplified in the racist attack on Jamaican President Manley and reggae star Bob Marley. It is quite unlikely that anyone growing up in a culture which constantly touts itself as ‘the greatest in history’ will not be cursed with delusions of a superior heritage
Kenya is struggling with a huge public wage bill. Much of the money goes into the pockets of ghost workers and greedy government officials. At all levels, there is breathtaking wastage of taxpayers’ money
Kwadir Felton, one of Sen. Cory Booker’s constituents, faces 30 years in prison for allegedly assaulting the Jersey City police who shot and blinded him. But Felton can expect no constituent services from Booker. Black people demand next to nothing from their politicians.
Her principled stance for truth and justice in defiance of government and injustice, has earned her international accolades. You can join the campaign for her release
Funds meant for informal settlement upgrading and urban regeneration diverted to upgrading the President’s home
Even though only 9 percent of the DRC population has access to electricity, the power generated by Inga 3 will primarily benefit mining companies and export markets
On the occasion of the 4th edition of the West African peasant seed fair, held in Djimini, Senegal, from March 11-13, 2014, 350 participants, representing 54 delegations from Benin, Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Niger, Mali, Togo, Senegal, Guinea, India, Europe and Canada assembled to promote peasant seeds.
Brazilian rage against Fifa’s Soccer World Cup is revealed in a new documentary film ahead of the event planned for June this year
Freshly smuggled from a gulag in Ethiopia, this is a poignant, albeit long, letter from a journalist of exceptional courage: the brilliant veteran editor Eskinder Nega who is serving an 18-year prison sentence based on trumped-up terrorism charges in reprisal to his 2011 articles about the implications of the Arab Spring in his country
Six people were killed and several others injured in Mombasa in the latest terror attack on 23 March. Police have announced a shoot-to-kill order against terror suspects, a decision civil society rejects
The actor George Clooney has in the past campaigned on Darfur. Yet in his recent film he is now campaigning for the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece and fails to make the same argument for Africa’s stolen artefacts scattered across the Western Hemisphere
Morocco appears to a adopt a schizophrenic behavior towards the Saharawi Republic by officially sitting down in international forums side by side with the Saharawi delegation. Yet behind closed doors it continues to wage a campaign to discredit the rights of the Saharawi for full independence
The proposed external evaluation seeks to find out to what extent members of the Board of Trustees, Senior Management Team and other members of staff of Fahamu have implemented recommendations provided by the Change Manager as part of the transition process of the organisation
The April 2014 issue of the Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter is now available: Please help us distribute it, and consider contributing in the future. You can also like our Facebook page, and follow us on Twitter!
The current outbreak of homophobia and enactment of laws against LGBTI persons in Africa have their roots in colonialism. African cultures are generally tolerant of difference
Whether China’s growing presence in Africa is cause for celebration or caution is a matter that has left analysts scratching their heads in the past decade or so. Perspectives range from Sino-optimism, to Sino-pragmatism to Sino-pessimism
Pambazuka News 688: SPECIAL ISSUE: GMOs, food sovereignty and Africa
Pambazuka News 688: SPECIAL ISSUE: GMOs, food sovereignty and Africa
Pambazuka News needs volunteers to translate articles. Published weekly in English and French, and every 15 days in Portuguese, our electronic newsletter sometimes translates articles from one language to another. Through this, we aim to break down language barriers, give more audience to relevant analysis for our contributors and encourage exchanges between linguistic communities in Africa and around the world. In this Pambazuka is unique.
To deal with our increasing translation needs, we are looking for volunteers to strengthen our team of volunteer translators who assist us in this task and contribute to what Pambazuka is.
We engage to sign all translated articles with the name of their authors.
If you are a student or professional translator, we are counting on you. Write to the editors at the following address:
For more than 50 years, we’ve been campaigning for human rights, wherever justice, freedom and truth are denied. We’ve reshaped policies, challenged governments and taken corporations to task. And in doing so, we’ve changed thousands of lives for the better.
Ten sponsored places are available for applicants for this course that intends to strengthen civil society's understanding of and engagement with Global South nations whose presence is growing in Africa
On account of population pressures and diseases that are affecting Uganda’s coffee, maize, banana and cassava production, GMOs are necessary to address the food insecurity and hidden hunger in the country
GMOs are presented as a magic bullet to the problems of agricultural productivity without seriously examining the alternative route to industrial agriculture. Agro-ecology with an emphasis on ecosystem farming and local knowledge development of African farmers is the alternative that Zimbabwe should adopt
The debate in Ghana over the cultivation of genetically modified seeds provided by international aid agencies demonstrates that foreign aid often comes with an agenda determined by foreign financial and political backers, not by the end-users of the assistance.
The debate around Genetically Modified Organisms has been characterized by lack of information and understanding of the complexities around biotechnology. Any state must undertake careful consideration about potential benefits and risks before deciding to introduce GMOs into the country.
Myths and outright lies about the alleged benefits of genetically engineered crops (GE crops or GMOs) persist only because the multinationals that profit from them have put so much effort into spreading them around.
The conservative views of international agencies and rich-world environmentalists are denying Africa access to technology that could improve its own food security, and is transforming agriculture elsewhere in the developing world
Food Sovereignty Ghana calls for an indefinite Moratorium or ban on the propagation, cultivation, raising, and growing of Genetically Modified Organisms in Ghana.
The religious organisations insist that Ghana’s dwindling food production cannot be attributed to our non-usage of GMO technologies but due to poor access roads to farms, lack of credit, unavailability of ready market, lack of storage facilities and agricultural processing
Monsanto and friends, the biotech industry, its lobbyists and its paid media representation continue to push for monopoly control over the world’s food through its seed supply.
In addition to questions of human health, environmental impact and corporate control over the food value chain, there are a number of other issues which must be addressed as part of the debate around genetically engineered crops and food.
In a response to Mr Rhodes-Vivour’s article on the danger posed by GMOs to the Nigerian population, El-Kurebe now contends that such crusades by a misinformed and gnorant minority are denying the majority of the population the real benefits of genetically modified organisms.
African governments are under intense pressure from within but also from big agribusiness and Western governments to embrace GMOs. Governments must resist all forms of arm-twisting and food colonialism and make their biotechnology choices based on the facts
A new propaganda effort to convince Africans is vigorously pursued by corporations and the development industry trying to convince us that we need genetic engineering to overcome malnutrition and food shortages.
Pambazuka News 670: Saving our peoples, forests, foods and the weed
Pambazuka News 670: Saving our peoples, forests, foods and the weed
The new biography does a great job of demonstrating the intellect, selflessness, commitment and absolute courage that characterized Kwame Ture’s work in the US in the 1960s. But the author fails to research, analyze and critically assess the value of Ture’s work in Africa, whose influence continues to this day.
Public opinion is fast shifting in South Africa about the use of marijuana, which is criminalised. A key legal argument in the debate is that prohibiting dagga use while allowing tobacco and alcohol amounts to discrimination, which violates equality as guaranteed by the Constitution
The US leads the world in the global war against terror. It has ranked Sudan among nations that support terrorism. Yet despite ample evidence of Khartoum’s terrorist activities within and outside the country, the US treats the Sudanese regime as a cherished ally
Despite a sustained international outcry about the expected devastation of the Omo Valley and loss of livelihoods for thousands of local people due to construction of a mega dam, Ethiopians and people in Eastern Africa are inexplicably silent. The indigenous people of the Omo Valley need your voice
Food Sovereignty Ghana organized a capacity building and skills sharing workshop on 27-28 February to discuss the Biosafety Law, the Plant Breeders Bill and the Plant and Fertilizer Act (seed law). Civil society organizations, smallholder farmers, the media, scientists and concerned members of the public attended the meeting. Here are the thoughts that came out of the meeting
There are three kinds of promises. There are promises made among equals, freely kept and just as freely disregarded with no lasting hard feelings. There are promises the poor are obliged to make to the rich and to the state, which are enforced at gunpoint. And there are promises the wealthy and powerful make to the poor, which are almost invariably broken. Turns out this is a handy guide for which promises the Obama Administration has chosen to kept.
To voice our outrage at increasing police brutality and the growing attacks on the right to protest, the Right2Know Campaign will hold a protest rally on Friday, 21 March (Human Rights Day), at the Johannesburg Central Police Station.
The second thematic session of the Leadership for Change initiative started today [March 17] in Gaborone Botswana, with 12 participants selected from South Africa, Mauritius, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho.
Among the many issues the current national conference in Nigeria should examine is how to equitably generate and distribute wealth as well as redefine the meaning of citizenship
Namibia needs to tackle the problem of gender based violence in the country. A new degree in gender and development studies will assist in grappling with such problems. However, some argue that dealing with the epidemic of gender violence facing Namibia will require more than developing academic programmes
Nigerians and Kenyans have different sensibilities including very different attitudes to the stresses of life, whilst their politicians are very much the same as they continue to line their own pockets
Dire poverty has pushed Northern Uganda communities that are recovering from war to massive cutting down of trees for charcoal. This is rapidly depleting native forests and posing environmental threats to the rural communities and the greater Uganda
As China gathers its state and non-state resources to buy back its looted historical treasures, questions arise about the legitimacy of this method for reclaiming stolen cultural history.
Reviled by the right wing British press, Crow and Benn championed the interests of the working people of Britain and struggled for social justice issues of workers around the world.
Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni recently signed a law that outlaws miniskirts in the east African nation. This poet attempts to make sense of the new law
Beyond the ‘moral’ and ‘scientific’ justifications for the draconian anti-gay law in Uganda, a new nationalism is proposed, based not only on a supposed moral purity of Ugandans, and Africans in general, in opposition to the decadence of the whites, but also eugenics. It was the same with German Nazi’s policies of eliminating ‘unworthy lives’
The death of jobless youth last weekend brings to the fore the crisis of unemployment in Nigeria. Successive government of Africa’s most populous nation, a leading oil producer, have failed to create jobs. Now the youth need to rise and demand a better life from the rulers
Pambazuka News 678: Harming Africa: Boko Haram and the Obama legacy
Pambazuka News 678: Harming Africa: Boko Haram and the Obama legacy
What kind of Africa do women, youth, trade union activists, environmentalists, human rights, LBGTI and sex worker activists envision? What are the dreams of African writers, poets, scientists, engineers, agronomists, musicians for the continent in 50 years time? Pambazuka would like to hear from you.
News reporting about South Sudan is fast becoming a farce, with international news outlets routinely misrepresenting the political crisis as ethnic conflicts. This contributes to local tensions and is sadly not a unique case across Africa.
Americans seem to be offended by racist rants especially in sport, but are impotent to resist the more devastating expressions of white supremacy reflected in national and global institutions dedicated to upholding the power of a racialized, white male, capitalist/ colonialist elite
The logic of capitalism is economic growth at any cost. And that is what breeds inequality. The global economy is a wealth extraction system that robs the majority of people to further enrich the top 1%.
At least 20 journalists have been arrested in recent months in the crackdown on refugees by the Kenyan government in its efforts to improve security.
All citizens of conscience are invited to join in the solidarity day of action to speak out against increasing fundamentalisms and oppressive systems of patriarchy and domination which perpetuate injustice.
Hundreds of Nigerian girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram fighters four weeks ago. The abductions got very little media coverage, so the wave of U.S. revulsion is only now surfacing. Americans urge their government to “do something,” but know next to nothing about the Nigerian political crisis, since there has not been a single television news story about Boko Haram in 2013.
With U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Ethiopia, the recent spate of harsh crackdowns in the country has raised serious questions about the U.S. and international community’s ongoing support for the Ethiopian government
Words in a poem, in reaction to the abducted Chibok girls; there are many more such stories around the world. It is dedicated to women and girls suffering from similar or same circumstances. At the same time, I am compelled to add to this, words from Amina Mama delivered in a speech at the AU’s 50th anniversary: "Let us make it clear to the world that violence and tolerance of violence are not endemic, not an “African tradition”, nor simply what black men do to women. Rather they are the results of systemic injustices."
New book tells how a global anti-apartheid movement helped South Africa win its freedom, and its lessons for us
In an open letter to the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, who recently made a tour of several African countries, the Secretary of State is asked to address US policies towards Africa that are broken, counter-productive, and harmful
The Saharawi people have for over 40 long years managed to establish a functioning society in the refugee camps in the Algerian desert, near Tindouf. They are ensuring the survival of their people and for the time when independence is won
Antoine Roger Lokongo celebrates 50 years of China-Africa cooperation, examines dissimilarities to African cooperation with the West and claims, rather controversially, that China is the best ally in Africa’s development
In this review, Kwaku Kushindana questions whether the book’s optimistic conclusions are grounded in a framework that is realistic for all of contemporary Africa.
The American president likes to hector those he believes are not ‘on the right side of history’. But a look at his administration’s engagement with Ethiopia and Africa reveals that in fact Obama is on the wrong side of history
The terrorist group Boko Haram is a vital element in the fight over state power by various political groups in Nigeria. Both Nigeria’s continued politics of corruption and the Al Qaeda link to Boko Haram point to a grim future of continued insecurity
South Africa’s largest shack-dwellers’ movement decided to back the Democratic Alliance in last week’s election, citing frustration with the ruling ANC over the last 20 years. Although they knew that ANC would not lose the election, the shack-dwellers were intent on weakening the party
African Liberation Day will be celebrated in Africa and around the world on Sunday, 25 May, 2014. Its objective is to advance the total liberation and unification of Africa under scientific socialism.
After eight years of electoral boycott, Abahlali baseMjondolo controversially decided to support the Democratic Alliance in South Africa’s 2014 National and Provincial Elections. The shackdwellers’ movement claims to have suspended ideological concerns and to have made this choice on strategic grounds. The author suggests that this is not the case.
Pambazuka News 669: Africa's assorted barbarians and lootocrats
Pambazuka News 669: Africa's assorted barbarians and lootocrats
African progressives must stand up and speak out against the wave of anti-gay laws now blowing across the continent – aided by American Christian fundamentalists pursuing a white supremacist agenda. The rights of same-gender loving persons are human rights that are inextricably linked with the rights of every person in society
Civil society in Kenya is under pressure from the increasingly repressive regime of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto. But these groups are themselves fragmented, with well-funded elite NGOs disconnected from the concerns of the grassroots. The best way for the groups to find strength is by connecting their struggles
The reaction of the Obama Administration and the American elite generally to the crisis in Ukraine reveals an astounding double standard, which arise from not just capitalist avarice and cynical ruling-class self-interest but is rooted in the pathology generated by the disease of white supremacy.
Statement by Speciosa Wandira-Kazibwe, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for HIV/AIDS in Africa, on the signing into law of the Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda
It is nearly half a century since Cabral’s heroic rousing speech in Cuba, but many of the points he made at the time remain valid. Crucially, ‘it is not by shouting or uttering insults against imperialism that we will achieve its liquidation.’ What will win the fight is ‘the daily practice of the struggle.’
Africans are intoxicated with profound religiosity that fails to respect the secular. Yet, the reality is that God-intoxicated prelates, alfas, and imams do not realize how arrogant their pronouncements are and how their inebriation makes them unaware of how ungodlike their behavior is