African leaders sought to hammer out a fresh approach to Zimbabwe's crisis on Thursday as President Robert Mugabe's government was hit with new charges of widespread human rights abuses.

Egyptian security forces broke up an opposition protest in Cairo on Sunday, on the eve of a referendum on constitutional changes which opponents fear will strengthen the ruling party's grip on power.

On a typical weekday in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, a group of women sits chatting under the shade of a tree a few metres away from a long, winding queue of 20-litre plastic containers and buckets. At the head of the queue, a barefooted boy pulls a half-cut container with a rope from a handmade well and pours the water into one container after the other.

Since the beginning of this month there has been all kinds of memorials, lectures, prayer meetings and other kinds of public activities commemorating two-hundred years of the abolition of the cross-Atlantic slave trade in Britain. They have provoked all kinds of reactions and generated a lot of interest, debate, reconstructions and deconstructions.

Unfortunately this is more in the diaspora than across Africa, outside of Ghana which has managed to weave the painful experience into a creative tourism package. In a year in which Ghana celebrates 50 years of independence and is guaranteed to be partying throughout the year, the anti-slavery commemorations have become another value added in a state-sponsored 'feel good' hysteria.

Ghana is not the only country from where slaves were captured and forcibly bounded and hounded on to ships, in chains, transported in the most inhuman conditions to the plantations in the Caribbean and North America, the other Americas and Europe. Nations of East, Central and Southern Africa and other parts of West Africa including present day Senegal and Nigeria were part of this shameful trade that went on for 400 years!

If the history touches all of us why are so many Africans and African leaders not interested in this barbaric experience whose impact continues to reveal itself in the continuing negative image of Africa and Africans in relation to the rest of the world? Slavery was followed by colonialism, which in many ways was a legal distinction without a practical difference in terms of the negative impact on the lives of our peoples. In a sense slavery formally ended in Europe but continued in the colonies.

Maybe one of the reasons Africans are not excited is that slavery reminds us, in too painful ways, of our subjugation, the indignities inflicted on us made more unbearable by the fact that the existence of many of our peoples today whether in Africa or in the diaspora bear too much parallel to slavery.

So for many regardless of the history and legal finesse slavery is not dead, it has mutated into other forms of exploitation and domination in which we still remain bottom of the pile on most indices of human progress. Like chiefs and emperors, kings and other slave dealers of old our Presidents and Prime Ministers preside over a system of power that continues to make our peoples 'hewers of wood and drawers of water', while the riches of this continent continue to be siphoned off by others; content to play junior partners for as long as their grotesque and gratuitous consumption lifestyles and that of their immediate family and hangers-on can be guaranteed.

They will sell anything having already battered their souls. So if they are sleep-walking through all the remembrances of slavery it is because the past is still weighing too heavily on the present and they may be afraid that such events may draw uncomfortable comparison to their collaboration in keeping their peoples in modern slavery in the name of thw free market, privatization, modernisation and globalization.

The slaves were captured in wars, slave raids, and forcibly sold but today we are willingly financing our own slavery. Just go in front of any Western embassy across this continent and see the hordes of our people (mostly young) willing to do anything to get the visa to go abroad. Anywhere will do as long as it is outside Africa, even if the former slaving countries of Europe and America remain favorite destinations! Look at the risks many take traveling, hitch hiking, facing all kinds of abuse, exploitation and indignities to smuggle themselves through the straights of Gibraltar into Spain from North African countries.

Even at the height of slavery millions of our peoples resisted, and many died, in what is euphemistically called the Middle Passage. Many as a result of being thrown overboard due to illness or because they were 'difficult to handle', and many also dived into the sea, preferring to be eaten by sharks, crocodiles and other sea predators than be taken into plantations.

On the plantations resistance was rampant in all forms through culture, the rise of the African churches, music, drums, etc; the most decisive being the successful slave revolt in Haiti. Haiti may be a by-word for all kinds of inhumanities today with the dubious title of 'poorest country in the western hemisphere' but it used to be the prized jewel of slavery economies as the leading sugar cane producer. It has a glorious role in the resistance against slavery which we should not forget. In the jungles of Brazil former slaves established the Zoumbi kingdom after overthrowing slavery.

It is important to remember these struggles because what we are getting through the Western media and the shameful 'cut and paste' uncritical coverage in our tech-dependent and intellectually lazy African media is that the Anti Slavery Society in the UK, the church and missionaries and good people in Europe and America helped to bring slavery to an end.

How come their conscience only woke up after four centuries? And that same conscience did not prevent them from supporting so called 'legitimate trade' (between unequal peoples which echo what we still face today) for another century, and colonialism after that!

Africans need to be aware of their own history to understand how and why we are where we are in order to be able to fashion out the best strategy to lift us up and fulfill the aspirations of our peoples to be rid of poverty, disease, want and shameful misery in the midst of plenty. That was the point that the Young Man, Toyin, from the African Campaigning Group, Ligali, was making when he 'allegedly' disrupted the service last Sunday at Westminister Abbey to which all the great and mighty of that slaving nation (who's Greatness has always been built on iniquities) were gathered.

The Queen, her arrogant but thankfully expiring PM Blair, and the ruling class of Britain, all of them including the church, heirs to slavery and beneficiaries of its illegal and immoral earnings up to now. The Anglican Archbishop, Rowan Williams, is a sincere and frank man who is a pain on the side of the powers-that-be. He was open in expressing remorse and confronting the painful past and the complicity of the British establishment.

But the British PM can only express regret and cannot find it in him to say 'sorry'. But his sorry is meaningless since he has been exposed to be a compulsive serial liar.

The bigger shame is that some African leaders (Museveni being the first to say there was no need for reparations and his current successor in Western adulation, John Kuffour, has loyally joined the queue) and poodle cousins among the few leading black tokens in Blair's government like Baroness Amos (she was in Elmina castle in Ghana recently and all she could say, with all her posh accent, was that the slaves, definitely including her ancestors traveled in 'difficult circumstances'!) think that it is not necessary.

Together with former top guard-dog of Bush, Colin Powell, Baroness Amos led the British and US delegations to the World Conference against Racism in which they tried but failed to scuttle any attempt to link Israeli occupation to racism and apartheid and also seek reparations for slavery. Thy do not need reparations because they have been more than amply rewarded by their House Nigger status. As good Christians, all of them, even if they are not Catholics, have they forgotten the relationship between: confession, resmorse, absolution and forgiveness?

Blair thinks (wrongly again) that he is being smart by stopping short of an apology because of the implication of guilt and subsequent legal obligation to compensate for his ancestors through reparations to the victims. But the issue will not go away even if they are ignoring it now.

When Africa becomes united and more assertive it will no longer be possible to ignore our demands. For me the challenge is to put our house in order first, then reparations will become a mainstream issue. Then issues of debt cancellation, aid and reform of the modern slavery economic system forced on humanity by IMF/World Bank/WTO will not be favors to us but part of the reparations.

The Reparations Movement should not despair. The answer is simple to any member of the Pan African Movement: "Do Not Agonise! Organise!!

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the Deputy Director for the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned Pan-Africanist.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

This short email is addressed to Jacques Depelchin. I want to congratulate him and say thanks in the name of Haiti where I am from. His article Africa: In Solidarity with Cité Soleil in Haiti is brilliant and thought-provoking.

Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries Haitians knew exactly who to fight. Their enemies were obvious.

Now Haitians are so high on cheap opium (Karl) and their minds so full of Platonism (Nietzsche) that they can not distinguish their enemies who have cloaked themselves as priests, pastors, Christians, humanists, democrats.

The poor in Cite Soleil face the agents - or demons - of a global system that prey on people. While they are themselves part of a nightmarish matrix resembling the film of the same name.

If the global poor becomes or is made aware of what they face, they may have a better chance of creating a little respite like the one after 1804 in Haiti.

However, if one becomes complacent, one could end up like Toussaint at Fort de Joue or worsee.

Knowledge and information are the only weapons against that colossal ever growing monster that has its tentacles in everything and everywhere. Ignorance is bliss. Knowledge is power. These are the choices in the arsenal.

The Strategies for Hope Trust announces the launch of 'Time to Talk: a guide to family life in the age of AIDS'. 'Time to Talk' is intended for use with church groups by pastors, lay preachers, religious Sisters, catechists, trainers, leaders of Christian men's and women's organisations and other lay church leaders. It is based on a series of workshops for local church leaders and their spouses, run by the Anglican Diocese of Southern Malawi.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/297/blogs_acacias.gif reports on a return to traditional building materials and methods in the Sahel region of Burkina Faso. The sad thing is that these methods were lost in the first place as obviously people built using local materials and in a way that suited the environment and climate.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/297/blogs_politics.gifhttp://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/297/blogs_afromusing.gif The answer I reckon would be the good fuzzy gooey touchy feely collective altruistic feelings that will wash over us when we realise that China will get… “cash”. How does that make you feel? huh? does it affirm your belief that nations have an underlying sense of caring and exhibit random acts of extreme kindness, preferably dispensing with oil exploration rights to later be sold off? Makes you feel all nice and happy doesn’t it.'

Looks to me like the only thing Kenya has got out of this is the rug pulled from under their feet or possibly they have been taken for a ride along the Great Wall of China.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/297/blogs_bankelele.gifBankelele has a rant about bad driving in Nairobi and comes up with the 'bad driver index'.

'While the most aggressive drivers appear to be matatus, taxis, citi hoppas, we are all to blame as regular motorists because we are equally bad drivers. Driving along the roadside, changing or creating extra lanes, doing u-turns etc.'

Apparently you can report matatus (kombi taxi) by sending an SMS to the Ministry of Transport – a great idea – but you cannot do that for regular motorists. Imagine the chaos if there was a sms number to report bad motorists in Nairobi, Cairo, Lagos, Joburg etc – the whole scheme would probably combust in a day from sheer overload of complaints!

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/297/blogs_uglybetty.gifWordsbody writes about the 'Ugly Betty' series which she is watching only to see a blast from the past in the form of 'Funmi Desalu's on Ugly Betty!!!' and even managed to catch a screen shot of her momentary passing. Apparently Wordsbody (Molara Wood) and Funmi were part of a London set known as the 'North West Set' – a glamorous group of Nigerians in London!

'In this episode of Ugly Betty (starring producer Salma Hayek and Vanessa Williams, who is astonishing as Wilhemina Slater), Funmi is credited for a non-speaking role, playing an assistant in a conference scene with Ugly Betty star America Ferrara. And in the following week's episode, it was a game of 'Spot Funmi' as she could be seen as one of the extras in the elaborate choreography of background office workers walking back and forth behind the main players. My curiousity piqued, I googled Funmi only to find that she's credited for a string of small roles as "Fumi Desalu" (somebody please put the 'n' back into that name! At least Ugly Betty got the spelling right). As a result, I'm now paying better attention to episodes of 'How I Met Your Mother' in case my old friend turns up one day as a 'bar waitress'.'

So if you get the chance to see any Ugly Betty repeats look out for Funmi Desalu.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/297/blogs_koranteng.gifKoranteng’s Toli is one of the few blogs I love to read but never quite understand what exactly he is trying to say. In this post he writes about what must be one of the most undesirable areas of London anyone has the misfortune to live in (I await a blasting from Catford livers) – Catford Bridge. Just the mere name leaves me with a murky grey run down feeling. I used to drive through it years ago on the way to well down South. Koli has a nasty experience on his arrival in Catford…

'The fight that I stepped into right as I walked out of Catford Bridge station… As I took my first 3 steps into Catford, this was the scene… On the left: 15 or so drunk black (Jamaican?) youths. To my right: 20 white guys (football yobs?) - Liverpool had won the Champions Cup the day before beating AC Milan. I can't believe I missed that match, but that's what happens when you leave your packing and shopping to the last minute. In the middle: 10 or so policemen trying to calm things down and keep things from spiraling out of control… The dozen or so women standing outside the pub egging the fight on.

As I looked up, I saw the first punch being thrown. Thus I walked straight into a melee of about 30 people yelling at each other and exchanging furious blows… A bunch of them almost knocked my suitcase off as they fell on me in one of those pub brawl tangled scuffles. Exciting introduction to South London. 6 or so police cars began streaming into the place. Flashing lights, sirens, tangled limbs, dirty streets. Screams of women. The fighters were more methodical and mostly kept quiet as they went about inflicting damage on each other.'

I do concede that this experience could have happened anyway in the big city – nonetheless the whole thing is made worse by the sheer nonentity of Catford. One of those 'nowhere' kind of places. Someone recently told me that it was in fact the cheapest place to buy a property in London – well that explains a lot – no one wants to live there.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/297/blogs_blacklooks.gifBlack Looks Rethabile writing on Black Looks asks if there should be reparations for slavery.

'It comes as a bit of a surprise to some that an organisation as benign as the Church of England might have to consider such a question…But its leader, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, thinks it must.' So, what do you think? What kind of apology should slave drivers make? Should there be reparations? Financial reparations? If so, why?…

Based on the comments (only 5) 4 say yes and 1 comes up with all sorts of deflective reasons why there shouldn’t be? My response to his comment:

'[email protected] you completely side step the question posed by Rethablile. Your deflection of his point to that of modern day slavery and slavery that existed in traditional African societies pre the Trans Atlantic slave trade is typical of those who wish to negate the Trans Atlantic Slavery as merely a continuation of something that had been taking place around the world since ad infinitum. Your reference to Arab slavery is another method of deflecting the role played by England (a primary role I might add) in the slave trade and speaks of childish reasoning “well we weren’t the only ones” which is not what is being discussed here. These are typical examples of selective reality whereby white people cannot see Black people, because they cannot see themselves in relationship to Black people and are incapable of reflecting upon their own racist realities.'

* Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks, and is Online News Editor of Pambazuka News.

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa has sacked his junior Lands Minister, a close ally, in a corruption crackdown aimed at stopping illegal allocation of housing plots, a presidential aide said on Monday. Deputy Lands Minister Moses Muteteka, who is married to a niece of Mwanawasa's wife Maureen, was sacked over allegations of illegal allocation of housing plots, press spokesperson David Kombe said.

Aids patients in Zambia are abandoning their life-prolonging drugs in exchange for bogus cures that have hit the market in recent weeks, a leading HIV/Aids advocacy group said on Monday. The Network of Zambian People Living with HIV/Aids (NZP+) said it has received reports that some of its members were stopping the use of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) for fake cures being promoted in the media.

Twelve-year-old Woinishet Wujura's dedication to her gardening duties would be surprising in someone her age, but the land she is tilling has been a lifeline for her and her family because the farm is run exclusively by and for women and children affected by AIDS. The farm, called 'Gordeme', is part of a successful urban gardening project that started in 2004 and now has several farms across Ethiopia, all managed and maintained by about 10,000 women or children.

A welter of multi-billion dollar projects to rebuild Angola's devastated roads, airports and administrative buildings are part of a post-war reconstruction boom that is changing the face of the country. Much of the development has been dependent on oil-backed commercial credit agreements from countries such as China.

Health authorities in Burkina Faso have launched a mass vaccination campaign in the capital, Ouagadougou, to combat a rapidly spreading meningitis epidemic that has claimed more than 800 lives. “Ouagadougou has been hit to an extent that we did not expect,” said Jean Gabriel Wango, secretary general of the country’s health ministry.

The Mail & Guardian Online has created a new service that tracks the South African blogosphere.

Benin's President Thomas Boni Yayi has said he believes an attack by gunmen on his convoy last week was an assassination bid by enemies opposed to his campaign to stamp out corruption in the small West African state. Yayi, a technocrat banker who was elected last year on a platform promising change, escaped unhurt when unidentified attackers opened fire on Thursday while he was campaigning in the north for parliamentary elections to be held on Sunday.

A stream that has sliced a narrow channel down the side of a rocky plateau in southern Malawi represents the best hope for making the refugees of Luwani Camp self-sufficient. If the UN refugee agency succeeds in finding the funds it seeks, a 15-metre-high dam will be built to block the gap through the extremely hard hornblende rocks and a portion of the Nkhombe River will be diverted into a pipe to transform agriculture at the refugee camp some 12 kilometres away.

The Egyptian authorities have evicted hundreds of peasants from a village in southern Egypt because their mud-brick houses, which have sat atop some of the world's most treasured and ancient tombs for centuries, were leaking sewage onto priceless antiquities. The families have been resettled in a nearby planned community with running water and telephones.

The nearly 400 migrants who thought they were sailing to Europe from the West African nation of Guinea ended up ill, stranded and broke in Mauritania. Not that the gang smuggling them much cared. By the time the engines on the migrants' rust-eaten vessel, Marine I, failed far from European shores, the gang had long since cleared hundreds of thousands of euros in cash.

On 20 March 2007, journalists working in al-Jazeera's Nouakchott offices received death threats by phone. Then, at about 4:00 p.m. (local time), eight people marched into the premises. Journalist Mohammed Nema Oumar, head of communications for Rashid Mustapha, a failed first round candidate, was among this group. Police arrested four people and opened an investigation to find the other assailants.

Kenya has called on developed nations to extend support to developing countries to strengthen their capacity in tackling environment challenges. Addressing a two-day international conference on sustainable development underway in Nairobi, President Mwai Kibaki said African governments could not contain the enormous challenges of energy and environmental conservation on their own.

The United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has announced the launching of a global initiative to improve remittances services that allow foreign workers to send money back to their families in rural areas around the world.

African Commonwealth countries are attending the inaugural meeting of Commonwealth ICT ministers and industry experts taking place in Delhi this week. The ministers will discuss five key areas of ICT development including policy and regulatory capacity, modernising education and skills development, entrepreneurship for poverty reduction, promoting local access and connectivity, improving regional networking and local content and knowledge.

Nearly 14,000 inhabitants have fled the burned-out wreck of the main town in north-eastern Central African Republic (CAR) since this month’s resumption of fighting between Government and rebel forces, United Nations officials have reported.

The United Nations refugee agency is helping to move hundreds of Chadians from a volatile border area to a camp deeper in Sudan at the refugees’ own request because of ongoing insecurity.

Although the world has made significant strides in the battle against racial discrimination in recent decades, recent reports point to “a disturbing rise” in incidents of a practice that constitutes a formidable obstacle to national development, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned.

The African Union and the Algerian Ministry of Family and the Status of Women held a Sub-Regional Workshop on human rights education for North Africa in Algiers, between March 17th and 20th. At its conclusion, delegates agreed that the concept of human rights should be taught to children by integrating it within school texts.

The Botswana government has banned the Kalahari Bushmen from using their own water , even as the world commemorates UN World Water Day. A Bushman leader is travelling to London this week to protest against the ban.

The XO laptop is intended as an incredibly cheap and remarkably robust tool to aid children, particularly in developing countries, improve their education. Although the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) is branded as "an education project, not a laptop project," the technical specifications of the XO laptop deserve some mention

Sexuality and Social Justice is an exhibition of 10 portraits with audio and text based interviews from the World Social Forum in January 2007. The exhibition pays tribute to activists who are doing brave work with sexuality and social justice in diverse ways.

Toward an Africa Without Borders is dedicated to opening borders, both physical and metaphorical, and to promoting unity and solidarity between groups in the Diaspora and Africa by facilitating strategic alliances and discussions that lead to partnerships for positive action in the name of Pan-Africanism. The conference [to be held in Durban from 5th-8th July] will feature discussions on issues such as “Activism Across Borders”; “Africa and the Media: Borders of Perception”; South Africa's Role in Africa and the World; Literature of Africa and the Diaspora; African Women: Struggle and Strength; Language and Africa; Religion, Ethnicity, and Identity in Africa and the Diaspora; and much more.

A new report by the Commonwealth Secretariat summarises the key issues regarding HIV and AIDS and the education sector and is based primarily on a review of published literature and the findings of the recently held regional workshop organised by the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA).

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/296/haiti.jpgJacques Depelchin challenges global citizens to make links between poverty across the world both historically and in the present day: From Cite Soleil in Haiti; to Abalhali in Durban, South Africa; Kibera, in Nairobi, Kenya; Maroko in Lagos, Nigeria; and Ndjili in Kinshasa, DRC.

In the age of globalisation why do we not see, on a world scale, cases of twinning in solidarity with cities such as Cité Soleil in Haiti; Abalhali in Durban, South Africa; Ndjili in Kinshasa, DRC? All are places, like favelas the world over, brimming with youth and creativity, but confronted with easily eradicable unhealthy conditions of living.

Why, given its namesake, does Sun City in South Africa not come out in solidarity with the poorest of the poorest in the alleged poorest country of the Western Hemisphere?It may sound childishly naïve, but would not such a move be immanently expected from a city in the country that got rid of apartheid thanks, in part, to the selfless work of millions around the world?

From the inhabitants of all these places, there seems to only be one call that could, should bring us all together: Fidelity to Haiti, 1804.Thought through, away from nation state ideologies, away and against the corporate models of accumulation, such a call has the potential for healing humanity, taking it to the level many dreamed of while battling apartheid in South Africa.

Sun City in South Africa is known as the capital of gambling, where fortunes are spent in hopes of making even bigger fortunes. To those who would rather visit Sun City in South Africa than Cité Soleil in Port-Au-Prince, poverty is something to be running away from, not something to embrace. Even if these same people will make sure that their admiration for the one who epitomised poverty, Francis of Assisi, is well advertised and known. Should not such ongoing contradictions lead one to ask why more and more people are getting poorer and poorer, while a few accumulate wealth?

Since the end of apartheid, South Africa now boasts black billionaires, just like other African countries. Is it not possible to ask what would happen if the mindset which drives gambling turned to eradicate the differences between the Cités Soleil and Sun City?

Cité Soleil means Sun City in French, and that is where President Jean-Bertrand Aristide trained himself, beyond the reach of the mindset of the Haitian elite and beyond the bureaucratized seminarian teachings of love which sterilize at the same time as the teachings are going on.

But it was through such tight embracing solidarity with the poor people of Haiti, and not just those of Cité Soleil that President Aristide broke the comforting and comfortable chains of charity. Which is also why politician theoreticians, theologians and ideologues of all stripes, and from opposite corners, do not, or pretend not to, know where he belongs. Why, one hears them thinking, does he side with losers?

Of the admirers of Francis of Assisi we may ask: if your idol were to come back to earth, say in Haiti, where would he most likely go to ask for hospitality? Isn’t condemning poverty from the confines of billions in wealth and property the surest way of intensifying poverty and increasing the ranks of the poor? Canonised, Francis must be good to have on one’s side.

The mindset, which has been in place among the owners of capital, which led them to treat human beings as a means of further accumulation, is still as entrenched as ever: capital reigns supreme, not only through its own corporate structures, but also through subservient nation states which have become so submissive that they willingly dissolve themselves in front of it; and not just in the countries where structural adjustment programmes of the World Bank and the IMF were pioneered, such as in Mobutu’s Zaïre.

Although invented by the military for military purposes, low intensity warfare against the poor can best be conducted using both economic, financial and real weapons, especially if, as is the case in Cité Soleil, it is done through hired soldiers from such places as Sri Lanka, Brazil, Jordan and Nigeria. Black on black violence has always been easier to defend and ignore ideologically than the white on black kind, especially in Haiti.

1. From Haiti to South Africa: 1804-1994-2004

For 13 years, 1791 to 1804, people from various parts in Africa, about 500,000 people, half of whom had been born in Africa, decided that slavery was inhuman. Rather than live under it, it was better to fight it, to death, if necessary. Without generals trained in military academies, without outside help of any kind. The Wretched of the Earth gave a 13 year long lesson in organisation, discipline, solidarity in order to bring about equality, fraternity and liberty. They did so without the help of human rights. Indeed, as will be argued below, this massive and successful trespassing played a crucial role in triggering human rightism as we know it today, a charitable way of helping, while preventing the kind of solidarity called for by the revolutionary slogan 'equality, fraternity and liberty'.

The slaves went further than the enlightenment philosophers ever thought possible. They went further then the leaders of the French Revolution were prepared to go in 1789. It was not until 1792-94, during the period of the Convention (known as the Terror) that slavery was finally abolished. The slaves had done the improbable, the impossible, the forbidden. In short, they had surpassed themselves and, in the process, they also trespassed.

The overthrow of slavery is still difficult to comprehend today. It does not fit easily into the ideological narratives of the left or the right. Aside from CLR James’ The Black Jacobins, that feat was so exceptional, given the times and probability of success, that it has not received the attention it deserved from historians, philosophers, theoreticians. At the same time, it receives persistent negative attention from the powers that be in the form of imposition of debt repayments (so-called compensation for the slave and plantation owners), invasions, occupations, international kidnapping of an elected president, prison, torture, and collective punishment of people from all walks of life whose only crime was fidelity to 1804.

With president Jean-Bertrand Aristide currently in involuntary exile in South Africa, it is difficult not to examine the relationship between anti-slavery and anti-apartheid, two battles which unfolded at different times, under different conditions, both with the common objective of seeking freedom.

Given the quasi house arrest under which Aristide is held in South Africa, is it unreasonable to ask oneself how the South African political leadership sees its role in the battle to bring Haiti to where it should have been, in the first place, since 1804? Could it be that Mbeki sees his role as reasoning with Aristide to accommodate to the demands of those who are in charge of the world today? The question may sound unfair and unreasonable. But is it? After all, Mbeki was the lone African head of state at the 200th independence anniversary in January 2004. The entire South African white owned press was rabidly against it.

Too many questions which should be raised, are not being raised. Why such a deafening silence only after President Aristide was given asylum in South Africa? Could it be that the two centuries of punishment, which has been inflicted on Haiti, has dampened the enthusiasm of those who might be tempted to stand by in solidarity?

Final question, how can any country, let alone an African one, lend its services to a process which included the kidnapping of a democratically elected president? It bears striking similarity to what happened more than 200 years ago when Toussaint L’Ouverture, the leader of the Haitian Revolution, was taken prisoner by the country which is known in history for its 1789 Revolution. By then, in 1802, everything was being done to quash what the Africans had done. Could it be that the leadership of South Africa has become so subservient to the powers that be (US, France, Canada, Vatican) as to allow itself to be seen as a willing participant in an operation more reminiscent of the times when Steve Biko was arrested?

From our collective histories, we might look at the role being performed by the South African leadership as similar to the one performed by Tshombe in Katanga, when the West needed to get rid of Lumumba.

2. From trespassing to collective, relentless, punishment (1825-1938/46)

With the rise of Napoléon, the process of collective punishment was initiated. Military attempts to reverse the victory of the Africans in Haiti failed. The Africans were able to repel the three best armies of the day: French, Spanish and English. By 1825 however, the Haitian government was forced by France, with the help of the US, Canada and the Vatican, to agree to pay compensation to the slave and plantation owners, in exchange for being accepted as a nation state. Repayments for the liberty of the former slaves were made until 1938, according to some, to 1946, according to others. Having lost militarily and politically, the former slave owners sought to reassert their authority, in the international arena, where their control was unchallengeable.

From the viewpoint of the former slave and plantation owners, they had to show that emancipation by the slaves, in their own terms, could not be acceptable, regardless of whether those terms (emancipation) replicated ideological tenets held by the slave and plantation masters.

The collective and severe punishment which followed 1804 is in line with the syndrome of discovery, which can be stated as follows: discoverers shall always be discoverers, and should discovered ones discover anything, especially something universally acceptable such as emancipation, they shall be put back in their place.

In the case of the slaves overthrowing slavery in Haiti, the virulent vengeance of the response has not abated, two centuries after the event. Indeed, the arsenal has grown bigger, multi-headed, more sophisticated.

Opponents of the eradication of slavery are still being corralled by the United States which has seen itself as guardian of the treasures and resources accumulated by and through their discoveries: USA, France, Canada, the Vatican; and they are not the only ones. The resort to the political and financial punitive measures mentioned above, combined with secular and religious ideological orthodoxies, were meant to divide the Haitian people.

As it has been observed in many post-colonial situations, a small privileged elite saw itself as the only worthy Haitians. The syndrome of discovery has remained as virulent as ever: slaves must not free themselves; the poor must not end poverty on their own terms. The poor of Sité Soley, by definition, according to the elite, must not have a voice, except as filtered or reframed by the media controlled by the elite.

3. From Full rights to human rights

The slaves wanted to be treated as full human beings with the same full rights available to the masters. In their battle, there was no plan B, no halfway to freedom. From the 1804 event, those who continue to suffer from injustices, structural and circumstantial, have been told the same message, over and over: only the discoverers can discover the solutions to injustices. Whereas the slaves battled for full rights, their descendants in Haiti and all over the planet are being told that their way out of oppression and exploitation can only take place through the charitable detours of Human Rights. The average person in the world can see for herself that the 1804 event has been followed by institutionalising processes aimed at sterilising all the possible consequences which could, and should, have led to more and more emancipation from the shackles born out of the capital accumulated through slavery, land theft in North America and colonial occupation.

Despite the pious mantras coming out of political, religious and financial centers of power, the majority of humanity continues to be enslaved by a dominant economic system which thrives on poverty. When US defence secretary McNamara left the Pentagon for the World Bank after the Vietnam debacle, he vowed to end poverty within a decade.

Having lost, the slave masters, the plantation owners and their allies did everything to ensure that the process of change should never be set by those who had suffered and been dehumanised the most.

The 100 plus years of repayments were about denying the Haitians the ability to invest in their future. And so it has been since: in the US, the abolition of slavery went hand in hand with measures aimed at ensuring that former slaves did not think they could just walk away from their masters. Angela Davis, in Are Prisons Obsolete?, highlighted what other writers before her had noticed: abolition gave way to the introduction of legislation aimed at keeping the former slaves in check, leading seamlessly to what has become known as the Prison Industrial Complex. In the south, the majority of the prison population turned, almost overnight, from white to black. It took a century for the former slaves to get the right to vote, but this voting has come with all kinds of institutionalised limits.

During colonial rule in the DRC, the end of colonial rule could only be envisioned as a series of half measures. The colonial subjects were forced or indoctrinated to think of themselves through the legal, administrative, social and political prism of the subjugators. By now, it should be clear: there must always be a sharp and unbridgeable gap between the rich and the poor, as there had to be between the coloniser and the colonised. Visible and non-visible 'no trespassing' signs are everywhere with the result that the poor keep getting poorer and the rich, richer.

4. From Kongo to Haiti to DRCongo: 1706-1757-2007

The way world history has been written by the victors had one prerequisite: make sure that the vanquished have no doubt about their vanquished status. It is not just that given episodes have different names (eg enlightenment, civilization, Cold War, development, globalisation). It is above all the erasure of the mindset of those who, against all odds, refused to submit to dehumanisation, not just in their own name, but in the name of the larger community, including those who were dehumanising them.

If the French government has finally passed a law acknowledging that slavery had been a crime against humanity, why then, have those who did fight it not been acknowledged as heroes, heroines, saints? Not just in France, but also in their own countries? Why hasn’t Kimpa Vita, (Dona Beatrix), burnt at the stake for denouncing the Kingdom of the Kongo's King for allowing the slave trade and slavery to continue, not been considered for sainthood by the hierarchy of the Catholic church? What prevents the current Congolese government from declaring her, and explaining in detail why, she is a national heroine?

In 1757, in Haiti, a man known Makandal was caught and burned at the stake in 1758 because he had been accused of having killed, by poisoning, many slave owners. A generation later, in 1791, another slave, Boukman, played a crucial role in the ritual which is considered as the start of the uprising which led to the 1804 victory. These are the well known names, but over and above them, millions of anonymous people battled dehumanisation, often falling into dehumanizing violence, but holding on to the conviction that slavery was a crime against life, against humanity. Why do we not see schools, hospitals and research institutes, from Mozambique, around the Cape to Senegal bearing the above names, as a way of reintroducing the way they thought and fought into our collective consciousness?

Haitian elites, generally, with a few exceptions, have ended up siding with the descendants of the slave owners, and it is these elites who worked hard to comply with the repayments. Theoretically, Aristide was a bona fide promising member of the elite, but he veered away from the elite and the Catholic Church hierarchy to follow a course reminiscent of that of Reverend Beyers Naude in South Africa, when he refused to go along with the Dutch Reformed Church's support of apartheid. The virulence with which some members of the Haitian elite have attacked Aristide makes one wonder whether it is less of a crime to discriminate against the poor in Haiti than to discriminate against the blacks in South Africa.

5. From Toussaint L’Ouverture to Patrice Lumumba to Samora Machel

These three leaders are national heroes in their own country. At the same time, it is not difficult to see that the current elites in those countries would rather maintain some distance from them. In all three cases, there has been reluctance on the part of those states responsible for their death to go beyond formal apology.

In the case of France and Toussaint, Louis Sala-Molin suggested that full recognition of responsibility and apology, say during the 1989 bicentenary of the French Revolution, could have been followed with placing Toussaint’s remains next to Napoleon’s sarcophagus in the Pantheon in Paris. Later on, the French state gave itself another opportunity to do exactly that by proclaiming slavery a crime against humanity. We are still waiting.

Following Ludo de Witte’s book The Assassination of Lumumba, coming after Adam Hochshild’s King Leopold’s Ghost, the Belgian state showed the same kind of cowardice. Again, it is not difficult to suspect the reasons: fear that people would seek revenge. This is the same mindset which prevented white South Africans from opening up for a long time: if they - the blacks - win, they will throw us into the sea. But, at the same time, just as in Haiti, a black South African elite has emerged which finds itself closer to those who have always vilified the likes of L’Ouverture, Lumumba or Machel. All the while, of course, singing the praises of Nelson Mandela.

The case of Samora Machel is the most interesting because it is the most recent. His figure is in the process of being erased from the historical conscience of Mozambique. Having died in a plane crash on 19 October 1986, the 20th anniversary was a low key celebration. And the reason why is obvious: 20 years after his death, things going on in Mozambique which would have been unacceptable to Samora Machel.

6. An open letter to world citizens

Dear friends,

203 years since the slaves of Saint Domingue overthrew slavery, against the most formidable armies of the day, humanity, not just the descendants of slaves, should be celebrating that event. But instead of celebration, one sees almost the exact opposite. UN troops, in Haiti are carrying out regular killings of babies, women, old people in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Port-Au-Prince, Cité Soleil. We should do better than just to stand by, shaking our heads, protesting occasionally. Should we not change gear in our daily lives and vow not to stop till Haiti is completely free as it was meant to be in 1804?

Instead of outraged solidarity, there is a massive silence, aside from a few solitary voices expressing solidarity, in various cities around the world. Sadly, some of the most well known anti-apartheid leaders, outside and inside South Africa have been ingenious at explaining the apathy, which really boils down to refusing solidarity with the inhabitants of a small island.

Why? One well known and courageous anti-apartheid leader (non-South African) went for the generic, easy, comment: 'until Haiti has an ANC type party which could be supported, it is not worth doing anything'.

Then there has been the vicious attacks against Jean-Bertrand Aristide, by members of the Haitian elite, who had no shame in publishing a letter in the white owned press of South Africa saying that Aristide is no Mandela. Well, thank God for that. Because even Mandela himself would hope that there are others from the continent and beyond, to carry on from the point reached in the battle against South African apartheid.

When looking in the rear mirror of history, from the surrounding extremes of wealth and poverty, of stupendous spending on weapons systems as against the avariciousness for caring for people, it is easy to ask oneself: whether slavery, or more precisely, the mind set unleashed by the system, was ever abolished? More and more, it appears that slavery was simply modernised to get rid of the aspects standing in the way of cheapening labour.

With Auschwitz and Hiroshima/Nagasaki, it is not just labour which became cheaper. Life lost its sacredness and became dispensable on a massive scale. Leading Einstein to say, right after Hiroshima/Nagasaki that with the splitting of the atom, everything changed completely - except the way we think. Surely, my friends, it is high time to change the way we think if we are going to move on from that mindset. The same preoccupation could be asked differently: 'When did thinking as humans began to disappear?'

7. Who defines terror?

From the viewpoint of the discoverers, terror is only terror when it terrorises them, their descendants or their friends. Never, or so it seems, are they willing to imagine the terror which was experienced by the anonymous couple which, on any day in the 18th century, somewhere on one of those slave routes to the atlantic, armed mercenaries coming out of nowhere kidnapped them in the middle of the night and dragged them, screaming and crying at the same time.

Their terror can only be comparable to what would happen later during WW II, in Europe, when people would be dragged out of their houses to be put on cattle trains and sent to an unknown destination. The Africans were taken like cattle to waiting ships, packed like sardines. How would one document the terror they felt? Through their numbers, costs, bills of lading? Conceivably and imaginatively, the only archives where their terror could be found would be in the archives lying at the bottom of the Atlantic, and retrievable only through specially conducted healing ceremonies. Such terror, if it could be brought back to life for healing purposes, might help the monopolisers of terror and violence see for themselves the roots where it all begun.

Retaliating against terror with more terror can only mean the triumph of the terrorizing mindset, of terror as the best possible weapon. Fighting terror with terror is another way of taking us back to the mindset of the Cold War, which is but a continuation of the mindset which underlay slavery. It is a mindset which leads to death, not to life.

The anonymous couple was quickly separated: women on one side and men on another. Their peaceful lives had been violated, but what was to follow was beyond anything they thought other human beings could inflict onto others. Soon, their separation would be completed when she found herself on one ship; he, on another. Still, like any human being, she began to look on the positive side of things: she was still alive, in relatively good health, and, with a new life inside her womb, she had with her a bit of her husband: her duty was to protect this new life to the best of her ability. Being at peace in a context of violence is one of the most stressful tasks ever.

To summarise, it suffices to say that the ship captain had spotted her among the others, and informed the sailors to prepare her as one of his travel companions. The question is how, and who will ever tell the story of how she was raped repeatedly. How, she eventually decided to take her life by throwing herself off the ship.

More to the point, where and how to heal from such massive individual and collective indescribable wounds which are still rippling across the descendants, centuries later?

8. Who defines poverty?

Haiti, 'the poorest country of the, so-called, "Western" hemisphere' reads the lamentation billboards of the Western media. As if Haiti and its poverty is a stain on the image expected to be projected by the West. Or a tortuous way of warning those who might be interested in following the same route? You shall be crushed so badly that no one else would be tempted to think outside of the path traced by the discoverers and abolitionists.

The so-called poor of Cité Soleil do not see themselves as the poor framed by the crocodile tears shed by humanitarianists. The triumph of the slaves in 1804 happened because they did not dwell on being slaves; and so it is with the poor. The poor see themselves as being endowed with the capacity to overthrow the mindsets which keep insisting that they, the poor, can only be helped out of poverty by charitable gestures and structures.

Overthrowing poverty, like overthrowing slavery, can only be tackled, and succeed, as a political gesture. But because everything has been done and continues to be done by those who did not want the slaves to succeed, the battle over slavery, and its history, continues to this day. It extended into colonial rule, with the same message: do not ever trespass over the boundaries of power. If you do, expect the worse kind of punishment.

From 1804 to this day, the history of Haiti continues to unfold along two distinct paths: the one left by Toussaint and those who did overthrow the system; and the one which the slave owners, plantation owners and their allies could never ever let go, at the risk of losing more than their own possessions.

With globalisation, the stakes have not changed: on the one hand, there are those who state that the slaves were wrong. They did not know what to do with what they achieved, economically, politically. They inherited the economic jewel of the French colonial possessions, and 'ruined' it. Those who had lost that battle in Saint Domingue resorted to their allies to impose conditions on the new state which ensured that whatever economic gains the former slaves made would be siphoned off to those who had insisted on compensation.

In today’s world where everyone is being called to globalise or else in the wake of a system which has relentlessly modernised itself since the days of industrialised Atlantic slavery, should we not be proud to have amongst us people who are saying no to such a call? In these times of addiction to wealth seeking, is it not admirable to have people, known and unknown, who are refusing to be seduced by the promises of a system, the annihilating capacity of which, physical and spiritual, has reached incomensurable proportions?

We face today the same odds that the slaves in Haiti faced against the system, then in its infancy. Is it not true that we keep hearing that the only way to improve the lot of humanity is to forget our humanity in order to save ourselves later, by following the very mindset which has brought us to such a precarious point? Is it not true that, individually and collectively, we are being asked to stop exercising our capacity to think? Is it not true that we are being trained to look, with fear and mistrust at some of our best, non-violent life instincts?

The process of destroying humanity over the last 500 years never stopped. Now and then, it slowed down, but on the whole, from trespassing life to trespassing living, the system which emerged out of glorifying itself by attrition, against existing damning evidence, has now reached an unprecedented level of domination. By pretending that one suffering was worse than another, by pretending that comparing suffering was insulting to those who considered themselves the worse sufferers, that which was indivisible was cut to pieces.

Contemplating the disaster of Hiroshima/Nagasaki, Albert Einstein is alleged to have said: 'With the splitting of the Atom, everything changed except the way we think'. Should we not change the way we think? Should we not trace back some of the thinking which was ignored?

From Hispaniola to Hiroshima, the splitting mindset did not just attack the atom. Long before the physicists got their turn, the process had proceeded, practically unopposed, against so-called savages and barbarians, with occasional defenders. The native Americans' land was taken away from them, with it, a way of thinking diametrically opposed to splitting the atom. From Hispaniola to Saint Domingue, the Arawaks were wiped out and replaced with people stolen, highjacked, terrorised away from their homes, their land, their fields in Africa. And yet, in Saint Domingue, the spirit of refusing to be split from humanity rose again, and against all the odds, triumphed, briefly, before revenge and collective punishment started again.

9. Who is the enemy?

The arsenal in place to eradicate humanity is visible everywhere: the armament industry could wipe out life on the planet and the planet itself several times over. Yet still, it keeps growing and being modernised. Have we not heard the argument before: if we shut down this or that factory, we would be taking jobs away from working people? But is it right to have a mindset which is always looking for enemies, even though such enemies only exist in the mindset of warmongers seeking to make sure that their products shall always have buyers?

Do we not live in a world dominated by advertising and entertainment industries living off the by products of warfare? It has been shown that war fought with weapons has become obsolete. That it is possible to annihilate your enemy by just manipulating the market. Has the triumphant mindset, such as it is, left only one exit for those looking for freedom? Have we not realised that this exit, framed by such a lethal mindset shall take us to a variation of something we have already seen, but only this time, worse? Could it be that little by little, by attrition, humanity has completely given itself and its capacity to think, and its sense of balance between the spiritual and the material, over to the market?

10. Is there really any interest in wiping out poverty?

It is not difficult to see that the poor are the potential enemies of the global system, as run by the corporations and their crumbling nation state allies. A social, political and economic system which has prospered on the basis of dividing, discriminating to death and thriving on competition is wired to reproduce competition and discrimination. There will be conventions against poverty, just as there has been conventions against genocide. Charitable structures shall be used to spread some of the dispensable, tax reducing profits. The system’s growth has thrived on generating poverty. But, ideologically speaking, it must present itself as wanting to do something about poverty.

The abolitionist mode did not work with slavery. There is no reason why it would work in abolishing poverty, unless anchored in building greater social solidarity between all members of humanity. In short, fidelity to humanity as affirmed at turning points such as in 1804 in Haiti would be the way of seriously getting rid of poverty. Such fidelity will not happen overnight, but can grow out of healing processes initiated away from corporations and states, between members of humanity.

* Jacques Depelchin, Ota Benga Alliance for Peace, Healing and Dignity

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Ethiopian tanks guarding a Somali government base in Mogadishu opened fire on unidentified attackers on Thursday as clashes broke out in the capital for a second straight day.

Al-Jazeera reports that an Algerian court has sentenced several former banking executives to jail after finding them guilty of corruption following the collapse of the country's largest private bank.

Uganda's prime minister has approved a plan for thousands of hectares of a rain-forest to be replaced by a sugarcane plantation, a state-owned news agency told Al-Jazeera on Wednesday. Government officials said they were not aware of Apolo Nsibambi's decision to give part of Mabira Forest to a local sugar company.

Reporters Without Borders have reported that it had uncovered a major imbalance in election coverage of the two candidates to the presidential election run-off, ex cabinet minister Ould Sheikh Abdellahi and long-time opposition figure Ould Daddah, after a third week of monitoring state-run media.

FEATURES: Jacques Depelchin challenges global citizens to make links between poverty across the world
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- Activist group Sokwanele: Talkin' about a revolution in Zimbabwe?
- Chenjerai Hove on the lack of leadership vision in Zimbabwe
- There is rising hostility towards China’s investments in Africa, says Peluola Adewale
LETTERS: On Mugabe and solidarity
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Tajudeen wonders who our friends and who are our foes in Kenya
BLOGGING AFRICA: Nigerian elections, global warming in Africa, Miss Landmine 2007 in Angola
CULTURE & ARTS: News about Fespaco 2007, a poem by Khadija Heeger

WOMEN AND GENDER: Ghanaian women call for change
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: Fighting in DRC Capital
HUMAN RIGHTS: Djibouti court jails rights activist
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: Toward an Africa without borders
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: Burundi massacre survivors resettled
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: Nigerian court delays Vice-President’s case
AFRICA AND CHINA: Chinese money flows in Angola
CORRUPTION: Algerian bankers jailed for fraud
DEVELOPMENT: Initiative to improve remittance services launched
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: Rising TB cases in Tanzania link to HIV/AIDS
EDUCATION: All children must be educated together
LGBTI: Online exhibition on Sexuality and Social justice
RACISM AND XENOPHOBIA: Rising racial discrimination undermines development goals
ENVIRONMENT: Freak waves swamp southern coastal areas
LAND & LAND RIGHTS: Namibian government gives Bushmen long-lost land
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Somali journalist arrested
INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY: Google moves into Rwanda, Kenya
PLUS: Courses, Seminars and Workshops and Jobs

*Pambazuka News now has a Del.icio.us page, where you can view the various websites that we visit to keep our fingers on the pulse of Africa! Visit

In an article by Thomas Rehle et al. in the March 2007 edition of the South African Medical Journal (SAMJ), an unparallelled large sample of 15 851 blood specimens was analysed to estimate HIV incidence on a national scale for South Africa, indicating that the availability of laboratory-based tests for recent HIV infection now offers a direct measure for tracking the epidemic and evaluating the impacts of prevention interventions.

The case of the Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who needs to be cleared from corruption charges to stand as a presidential candidate, could not proceed following the absence of a presiding judge, the court announced. The judge for the case, who flies from Lagos to Abuja, is expected to preside over the case on Tuesday

Mugabe – leadership without vision or a brutal power-drenched dictator who has lost all sense of reality and humanity?

Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe, once said the problem of Africa is a problem of leadership without vision. That cannot be truer than recent events in Zimbabwe have proven.

Battered bodies, broken bones, bleeding human flesh. That is all President Robert Mugabe has been able to give to the people he is supposed to protect and lead, in the past few weeks, even before. The president can only offer brutal violence to a nation suffering from so many human catastrophes: economic collapse, shortages of food and fuel, massive unemployment, unprintable inflation figures, and finally, national hopelessness.

'Our people have bad eating habits. They should eat rice and potatoes', he said in the midst of a critical shortage of the staple maize in a country which produces neither.

For President Mugabe, the national vision ends with him. 'L'etat, c'est moi', the leader seems to say. The state is him, and he believes he owns every citizen, and so can do whatever he wants with them. The outside world must not interfere in the 'domestic affairs' of Zimbabwe. The president's vision ends with his own power and self-preservation. Inflicted with deafness and blindness, the president has lost the capacity to see anything else around him. 'He has lost the plot,' as some have said. But the reality is that he has lost any sense of reality. He is totally out of touch with the real world around him.

Zimbabwe introduced a massive education programme in the 1980s, enabling every child to go to school. And the children did. Mugabe's ambition was to have a secondary school in every cluster of villages. He almost succeeded. With such a high thirst for education, the children and teachers flooded the countryside and the cities. Almost every secondary school acted as two: one group comes in the morning, and another in the afternoon, two schools in one.

The educational yields were unbelievable. Zimbabweans still believed in the power and efficacy of education. It was the only way they knew that would take them and their children out of poverty and ignorance. From school, the child would get a job, thus help to save the whole family, including uncles and the whole village. Parents would sell the last chicken, goat or cow to send the child to school, their economic saviour. Teachers, too, were trained in guerrilla-style courses. Those of us already qualified to teach were assisting new teachers to train on the job. This went on until the late 1980s when the World Bank intervened, claiming that Mugabe was giving Zimbabweans too much education which would flood the country with educated but jobless people.

Mugabe had not realised that the education system was producing people who would begin to think for themselves without being necessarily grateful to him. Who could analyse the problems of society on their own, including the root causes of those problems. Unfortunately, they discovered that the Mugabe government had made no plans for a concrete skills programme to equip them to enter the economy at a productive level. Students then started to revolt, and Mugabe was furious. That was when he declared that he had 'degrees in violence', challenging the students and calling them hooligans. If Mugabe had realised the importance of his education programme, he would also have realised that the youths were being given skills to analyse everything and everyone, including him. Now he hates the youth of the country, except those he hires to kill and break the bones of his critics.

Mugabe would have preferred all Zimbabweans to remain illiterate. That is his biggest regret. Even when he addresses villagers, he uses impeccable English, better than Tony Blair and George W. Bush - his arch-enemies.

Like most African leaders, Mugabe hates the situation in which the citizens know their rights and are able to demand them. His philosophy on democracy is what he calls 'guided democracy', which means, as one of his vice-presidents, the late Simon Muzenda, once said, 'If Zanu PF gives you a monkey as a candidate, you have to vote for it'. This arrogance is typical of the Mugabe government since he seriously believes that he is the most intelligent leader in Zimbabwe and the rest of the continent. Mugabe's rule is arrogance - 'arrogancocracy', if such a word exists. His ministers have also taken the cue. And it flows down the ladder to his members of parliament and village leaders who hardly ever visit or consult their constituents.

The current violence in Zimbabwe has also to be understood in the context of the 'liberator mentality'. No liberation war has ever produced a democrat of substance.

'If you don't vote for me, there will be war', Mugabe declared during the presidential campaign of 2002. And being the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the army commanders were soon to appear at a press conference in which they declared that they will never salute a president who did not come out of the liberation war. That was a silent military coup. So, even if the opposition leader had won the presidency, he would never have been allowed to go to state house.

The 'liberator' mentality also produces the 'father of the nation' mentality. Mugabe intensely hated Joshua Nkomo because Nkomo was establishing himself as 'the father of the nation' long before anyone knew Mugabe. Hence the violence in the southern provinces from 1983 to 1987. The purpose was to destroy Nkomo's political base and make his supporters realise that Nkomo was vulnerable and easy to destroy. The image had to be destroyed, even if it meant destroying the man himself.

'I liberated you, so I can subdue you and rule as I wish. You must be forever grateful to me', is the thinking. When Mugabe attacks his opponents and critics, he uses the liberation war as a licence to subdue all and sundry, by whatever means.

Former liberation war leaders love things and places named after them. In every town in Zimbabwe, there is a Robert Mugabe street, usually cutting through the centre of the city. In every government building and office, the framed picture of Mugabe looks down at you as if you are under the omnipresent eye of the President. It becomes a god-like symbol reminding every citizen that the demi-god, Mugabe, is watching you, day and night.

In the quest for glory and grandeur, the presidential palace is full of charlatans, praise-singers and flatterers. First they used to call him 'the son of God', and then one minister publicly said 'Mugabe is our Jesus Christ'. Next the minister of education and culture has recently designed and installed a 'throne' in parliament, for 'king Mugabe.' Then the minister of local government would not be outdone. He has decided to build 'a shrine' in Mugabe's home village. A shrine is a place of worship. So the president has become a god who deserves a 'shrine.' Thus, from VaMugabe ndibaba' (Mugabe is our father) to 'the son of God' to 'Jesus Christ' to a 'shrine' a place of worship, God.

When a mortal human is elevated to the status of a god, what can he not do? In biblical terms, God said, 'I am the God of war. I punish children for the sins of their fathers.' Hence President Mugabe, having elevated himself to that level, does not hesitate to inflict pain and death on men, women, children and the rest. All the problems of the country have nothing to do with him. It is all because of the West, Tony Blair and George W. Bush. Were he to admit a mistake, he would lose his infallibility. So, when he was asked many years ago, if he had made any mistake in the governance of the country, he answered, with a straight face: 'none at all'. The violence in Zimbabwe is Mugabe's 'rightful' demand to rule like a god.

African leaders have developed the capacity to transform themselves from elected leaders to royals, then to demigods and finally gods, from a presidential medal to a royal throne to a shrine, in their own lifetime.

Unfortunately, Africa is an extremely religious continent. We love to worship, even if it means creating our own gods in the name of a president. Religious hymns initially meant to praise gods are soon adapted to praise The President. Church uniforms normally depicting angels and Jesus Christ are soon flooded with images of The President. Bank notes are also soon covered with pictures of The President.

Africa is a continent of love and generosity, so we always believe. But somehow it produces such these monstrosities of political and financial power that it boggles the mind. We have a reputation of creating laughter at every occasion, including death. We have the capacity to produce an Idi Amin, a Bokassa, a Mobuto, a Banda, a Mugabe, at the same time that we laugh and dance. Could it be that we laugh and dance too much at the expense of serious business? All one can think of is: if Africa did not laugh, it would be crying all the time. 'We laugh in order not to cry', an African once said.

Not many African leaders have ever bothered to develop the language of democracy. President Mugabe is known to be probably the most foul-mouthed president in the world. There is no word he will not use against the opposition. At one time they are 'dogs', at another they are 'stooges', 'terrorists', 'tea boys,' 'traitors', 'sell-outs', and many other vulgarities only the mother tongue can pronounce. The ethics of language usage do not exist for President Mugabe and his cronies. He has no capacity to realise the implications of using a certain vocabulary in the political arena. When he says 'we will crush the opposition', he does not seem to realise that his youths will physically 'crush' the heads and limbs of his opponents.

'Power is a desolating pestilence,' an Indian scholar once observed. Power consumes human memory and conscience. President Mugabe has been so totally consumed by power that his memory does not seem to be about to rescue him. By training youths to murder and maim, he has destroyed a whole generation which has to be brought up again so they can learn to respect human life, freedom, dignity and compassion. All this in the insane pursuit of power for its own sake, power to loot and plunger the material and spiritual resources of a country.

The powerful in Africa seem to be infected with the diseases of deafness, blindness, and lack of vision of a past, and a future without them. They will kill their own mothers, sisters and brothers, if it makes them remain in power. When they inherit the instruments and technology of torture and oppression, they seem to be so grateful to their colonial masters whom they take pleasure in blaming for other convenient things: 'As Africans peacefully walked to the townships in the afternoon, just as they had walked to work in the morning, they were beaten up, and dogs were let loose on women and children', words of the late Zimbabwean nationalist, Maurice Nyagumbo, as he remembers the colonial rulers' treatment of Africans in Southern Rhodesia in the 1950s.

History, especially in Africa, seems to repeat itself, in different colours of skin and flag.

* Chenjerai Hove is a Zimbabwean writer living in exile in Norway.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/296/blog_shirts.gif - comments on global warming and what he as an individual is prepared to do to 'save his own skin'. – 'Stop flying, stop driving, stop tumble drying?'

Flying is a particularly pollution filled activity but nonetheless Nkem states he is not prepared to give it up and I have to agree with him to some extent. How else can you travel from Spain to South Africa? by boat - how many weeks? By road – the cost of a specialised vehicle will be 10 times if not more the cost of a flight not to talk of the dangers involved. One of the comments though makes a good point.

'I don't think that the intention is to ban you from flying. I think the idea is to make you think about whether you really need to fly or not - perhaps it would be better to take a holiday where you live rather than flying half-way across the world? Or perhaps that meeting is best held via videoconferencing facilities?'

We do have the technologies available now that can reduce the amount of business travel and conference hopping and yes we can all take holidays nearer our homes and travel by train or bus or if you are really fit by cycle.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/296/blog_blackstar.gifBlack Star Journal - writes that Europeans are becoming more conscisous of the issue of climate change and the need to make changes in their behaviour such as buy local goods and holiday closer to home and Euro governments have made a commitment to reduce green house gases.

However despite the fact that Africa is the continent most affected by climate change, some people are complaining about the European campaign harming Africa’s tourist industry. As BSJ states some people will whine about everything.

'Some people will whine about whatever's done or not done. The west is blasted for contributing to climate change that hurts Africa, but when Europe tries to take actions to mitigate this problem, it's blasted for that too...Maybe the populist whiners can figure out what they want the west to do. But I guess it's easier to instead of criticizing everything instead of coming up with constructive solutions.'

I completely agree – you cannot have your cake and eat it. Africa like the rest of the world will have to make some serious and sometimes uncomfortable decisions around the issue of climate change which will require innovative thinking and as BSJ states “constructive solutions”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/296/blog_unchained.gifAfrica Unchained - posts on an organisation called “Self Help” whose

'philosophy is to help:...people to help themselves. Innovative and appropriate technologies and techniques are employed by Self Help's staff, who work in partnership with beneficiary communities and government agencies to create a real and lasting change'.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/296/blog_grandiose.gifGrandiose Parlor - receives an email alerting him to a website for the presidential candidate and VP, Governors Umar Yar’adua and Goodluck Jonathan . GP comments that it is a

'Great idea, but with about one month to the elections, this is a bit too late!'

He also provides a useful list of websites by other Presidential candidates as well as Gubernatorial ones. I note that Goodluck Jonathon did set up a blog some time ago when he was hoping to be a Presidential candidate himself but I have not been able to find it so I am not sure whether it is still running.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/296/blog_thysdrus.gifThysdrus - comments on an article written by an American woman visiting Tunisia asking 'is she aware of her platitudes?' She writes:

'As an independent American woman, I have never felt inferior because of my gender. I have never been treated as less of a person than the man standing next to me, until I went on vacation to Northern Africa. As a tourist in Tunisia, I was exposed to much more than beautiful beaches, warm weather, and bustling markets. The male-dominated, largely Muslim population opened my eyes to gender inequality we have all heard so much about...'

She continues in this vein stating 'The deeper we went into the culture of the country, the more we noticed about the gender inequality' and ends up by saying how wonderful it is to be free to walk the streets (presumably in the US) and be free – of course we all know that the US and the West women don’t get sexually harassed on the streets, in their offices, in shops, parks and son on – this is something that only happens in the lands of the 'OTHER' .

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/296/blog_congogirl.gifAdventures of a Retired Armchair Traveller - Congo Girl - comments on the $128 million just allocated to rebuild Kinshasa by the World Bank.

'I am curious to find out who gets the contracts on this one. Halliburton just moved to Dubai, is it? Are there connections between Cheney and Wolfowitz that we don't know about yet? Or will most of the funds be channelled through contracts to companies based in other northern (previously colonizing) countries? ...Millions of people live in Kinshasa (estimates are as high as 9 million), and roads, medical facilities, water infrastructure are sorely needed. But what about the rest of the country? This situation vaguely reminds me of New Orleans - post Hurricane Katrina, the first spots to get attention were not the most populous or needy, but the most likely to be on a parade route or downtown where the conventioneers go. Is the World Bank considering the dense population as a primary weight, or the idea that refurbishing the capital will lead to more (perceived) stability, and therefore a better presentation and (perceived) environment for investors?'

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/296/blog_blacklooks.gifBlack Looks - comments on a beauty pageant in Angola to highlight survivors of landmines called Miss Landmine 2007.

'my gut reaction to this is that it is highly offensive, disgusting exploitation of African women. In the background of some of the photos there are these white people smiling and glowing as they make up and dress the women - like mannequins. Putting the issue of beauty pageants aside and the patronising comments on Western opinions and African cultural traditions etc, it is still an inappropriate tool which objectifies women beside landmine survivors are men as well as women. Even the use of the words Miss Landmine is horrible. And who the hell is going to be buying these glossy magazines and wearing these fancy clothes? Certainly not the women survivors who are poor unemployed women?'

* Sokari Ekine is author of Black Looks blog and Editor of Pambazuka News

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org

On March 6, the U.S. Department of State released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2006. As in previous years, the State Department pointed the finger at human rights conditions in more than 190 countries and regions, including China, but avoided touching on the human rights situation in the United States.

The African Union Commission is calling for African women in the area of Science and Technology to submit their CVs. For further information contact: [email][email protected]

The Women's Movement in Ghana has said that it is time for government and the people of Ghana to recognize and support women's struggle for full citizenship on the auspicious occasion of the 50th independence anniversary celebrations.

The Africa Advocacy Advisor will lead in developing and implementing a comprehensive advocacy strategy targeting the main Regional Economic Block in the Area. The Africa Advocacy Advisor reports to the Senior Africa Advocacy Advisor. As a member of the World Vision (WV) Area Office, the Africa Advocacy Advisor also has a dotted line reporting commitment to the Area Director. The Africa Advocacy Advisor is expected to operate with a high degree of independence, under the broad strategic direction of the Senior Africa Advocacy Advisor.

For further information:

VENUE : School of Oriental & African Studies, Main Building , Thornhaugh Street, London WC1.

SATURDAY 24 MARCH, 2pm to 5pm .
1)Background To Kwame Nkrumah's Journey To North America And Europe . Room G52
SATURDAY 31 MARCH, 2pm to 5pm.
2)Kwame Nkrumah in North America And Europe.Room G52, SATURDAY 14 APRIL, 2pm to 5pm.
3)Kwame Nkrumah In Anti-Colonial Movement in The Gold Coast And Politics Until 6 March 1957. Room G52
SATURDAY 21 APRIL, 2pm to 5pm.
1)Kwame Nkrumah As Prime Minister And President Of Ghana. (Room to be announced later)
SATURDAY 5 MAY, 2pm to 5pm.
1)Kwame Nkrumah From 24 February 1966 To 27 April 1972. Room L67
SATURDAY 19 MAY, 2pm to 5pm.
1)Kwame Nkrumah Legacy Politics From 27 April To Today. Room 67