In 1980 the Zimbabwean “povo” (people) celebrated a victory over settler colonialism and Western imperialism. We celebrated with them. For us, this was a step closer to Namibian sovereignty, even though the overwhelming victory of ZANU was time-wise a detour on our long road to Independence. The unexpected result had taught Western imperialism a lesson. It shattered its manic assumptions that one could orchestrate and manipulate an election, even if the people are allowed to cast a secret vote at the ballot. Without major intimidation the “povo” used the weapon of an electoral process, by voting for the cock (the symbol for Mugabe’s ZANU), and not the archbishop (Abel Muzorewa, who was considered the blue eyed boy of the West). The people knew what they wanted: a government of their own choice, which they had reasons to believe would represent their interests.

Almost three decades later, 18 years into Namibian Independence, we have to face the sobering realities: Mugabe and his loyal clique in ZANU/PF messed it up. By the end of the 1990s they had lost the “povo.” While they blamed Western imperialism for this, it was in the first place their own elitist neocolonial project, which betrayed the liberation gospel and thereby the people. From the start, the new rulers were not shy of ruthlessly violent practices. Remember the genocidal mass violence in Matabeleland shortly after Independence (“Gukuhurundi”). Tens of thousand innocent people were tortured, maimed, raped, mutilated and slaughtered between 1983 and 1985 by the North Korean trained Fifth Brigade. Only because being Ndebele they were considered guilty of being in support of Josuah Nkomo’s ZAPU, a competing liberation movement finally coerced into the ZANU/PF alliance. With a few exceptions (notably the Catholic church inside Zimbabwe), those who knew remained silent and thereby endorsed if not encouraged the perpetrators to further cultivate their dehumanizing version of “chimurenga” against the people.

“Leaders are meant to lead and to be led [by those who elected them]” - Lindela Figlan, Abahlali baseMjondolo movement

Fourteen years since the transition to democracy, leadership in South Africa is in a state of flux—and South Africans know a thing or two about leaders. For every Mandela, after all, there is an Mbeki. In his seven years of presidency, Mbeki has mistaken denialism for leadership and appeasement for diplomacy. The liberation victors in the ANC have tied up the ruling party in its own historical mythologizing, determined to hold its grasp on the state. Now, for every Mbeki, there is the possibility of a Zuma.

In May, immigrants living in the townships and shack settlements of South Africa woke to find that they no longer had a place in their adopted homeland, as their neighbors chased them out of their houses and shops. Yet for ten days while pogroms burned, their country’s leader was nowhere to be found. Even afterwards, Mbeki and other leaders, in failing to acknowledge the profoundly xenophobic nature of the state, and blaming the violence on the poor themselves, did little to calm the storm. Thousands have since left in mass exodus.

Of course, turning to neighboring Zimbabwe to provide a shining example of good leadership in this dearth finds none as Robert Mugabe and his military junta continue their absurdist drama: struggle heroes turned autocrats, fighting their own people instead of fighting for them. For South Africans, whose roster of liberation fighters reads off names like Tambo, Sisulu, Biko, First and Hani, the present situation is somewhat of an anomaly.

But in midst of this crisis, hope for a new kind of leadership can be found in an unlikely place: the Kennedy Road shack settlement , in Clare Estate, Durban. In the middle of a Saturday night in June, a group of thirty odd women and men , some as young as 17, has gathered in a small room that serves as a community-driven crèche during the week. They are here to induct newly elected leaders of their organization of shack-dwellers who collectively call themselves Abahlali baseMjondolo. The Abahlali, since emerging in 2005, has grown to become the largest social movement in the country, with members in more than 40 settlements and over 30,000 active supporters in the province of KwaZulu-Natal.

The industrial and mining towns on the Eastern outskirts of Johannesburg are unlovely places. They’re set on flat windswept plains amidst the dumps of sterile sand left over from old mines. In winter the wind bites, the sky is a very pale blue and it seems to be all coal braziers, starved dogs, faded strip malls, gun shops and rusting factories and mine headgear. All that seems new are the police cars and, round the corner from the Harry Gwala shack settlement, a double story facebrick strip club.

But even here the battle for land continues. The poor are loosing their grip on the scattered bits of land which they took in defiance of apartheid more than twenty years ago. The state is, again, sending in bulldozers and men with guns to move the poor from central shack settlements to peripheral townships. In every relocation many are simply left homeless. It is very difficult to resist the armed force of the state but people do what they can. Officials are often stoned. In principle the courts should provide relief from evictions that are not just illegal but are in fact criminal acts under South African law. There have been notable successes but it is often difficult to get pro bono legal support, legal processes are slow and the evictions continue.

In the Harry Gwala settlement the poorest women are on their hands and knees searching for bits of coal to bake into lumps of clay to keep the braziers burning. S’bu Zikode from Abahlali baseMjondolo in Durban and Ashraf Cassiem from the Anti-Eviction Campaign in Cape Town are here to meet with the Harry Gwala branch of the Landless People’s Movement. These are all poor people’s movements that have been criminalised and violently attacked by the state. The meeting is to discuss strategies for holding onto the urban land that keeps people close to work, schools, libraries and all the other benefits of city life. This is what it has come down to. Militancy is about holding onto what was taken from apartheid.

"What does this mean? Quite simply that the African child sees writing a book as something he or she can never achieve." Mukoma Wa Ngugi's on the stifled opportunities for African children to be literarily creative struck a cord. Creative imagination is not a chance occurrence; it is nurtured from the cradle.

This has wide-ranging ramifications for educational role-players and parents.In order to instill the impetus for reading and creative writing in our children, African governments have to invest in well-equiped libraries, community reading centers, literary competitions, book clubs, and more. This takes a lot of political good-will, and the wisdom to perceive the long-term benefits of childhood literacy. A reading nation is a productive nation. We cannot continue to put literacy on the back burner and persist in the self-delusion that one day our children will be able to compete with their peers on the ideas-oriented market at par.

A wise man once said that "if you want to hide something from a black person, all you need to do is put inside a book. He will never find it because he abhors reading." Insulting as this adage may sound, there is a grain of truth in it! How many parents in Africa invest in books for leisure reading? I spent seven years in primary school without reading a single novel! This had nothing to do with lethargy on my part toward reading. It was simply due to the fact that there were no books at school or at home for me to read.

As we speak today, there are K-12 schools in Africa without libraries. Most of our college and university libraries are window-dressings! I taught high school kids for five years in the Northern Province in South Africa, where classes are still being held under trees in some villages for lack of classrooms! Yet our politicans continue to play tango with the future of our children by misappropriating public funds and doing stupid things like taking safari trips to Europe and America in the company of their concubines. This mentality has to change.

The onus is on educated Africans at home and in the Diaspora to play the leading role. And let's not forget, writers are political animals. Our lives are tainted on a daily basis with decisions, sane and insane, taken by politicians. On this count, therefore, the African writer cannot afford to be apolitical.

, Mukoma. Delicately nuanced. I might have put words differently but couldn't agree more.

"I understand that there are South Africans here tonight - some of whom have been involved in the long struggle for freedom there. In our struggle for freedom and justice in the United States, which has also been so long and arduous, we feel a powerful sense of identification with those in the far more deadly struggle for freedom in South Africa. We know how Africans there, and their friends of other races, strove for half a century to win their freedom by non-violent methods. We have honoured Chief Lutuli for his leadership, and we know how this non-violence was only met by increasing violence from the state, increasing repression, culminating in the shootings of Sharpeville and all that has happened since…Today great leaders - Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe - are among many hundreds wasting away in Robben Island prison.

-Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (London 1964)

In the eyes of the African Diaspora Nelson Mandela came to represent an image that was “larger than life.” In his years of prominence Mandela represented the deep historical voices of Black Nationalism and the Pan African dreams of a cross Atlantic Ocean connection. Nelson Mandela was a voice for a world wide struggle for African liberation and a global movement that would by 1990 secure his release from the prisons of South Africa.

The roots of the Pan African connection extend well beyond the beginnings of the Pan African Congresses of the early 20th century. These early efforts would be continued in the organizing of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association, the Harlem Renaissance, the Council on African Affairs, and the birth of the Civil Rights movement. As the African American movement increased its challenges to racism and exclusion the voices of Black Nationalism were fueled with the three visits of Malcolm X to Africa, the leadership of Kwame Ture, the Black Power Movement, the Black Panther Party, and the consistent presence of Queen Mother Moore.

Malcolm X emphasized the urgency of a Pan Africanist struggle when he presented his last major speech of 1965 “The Last Message”- one week before his assassination. In that speech Malcolm highlighted the assassination of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and spoke clearly on the complicity of the United States and Western powers in the events in South Africa. A few years earlier the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had declared in its founding manifesto that “we identify ourselves with the Africa struggle as a concern for all mankind. “ If there was one African leader that represented that Pan African struggle in the latter part of the 20th century, it was indeed Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.

African Americans in the Diaspora knew well of Kwame Nkrumah, the Mau Mau in Kenya, Ahmed Ben Bella in Algeria, Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, Samora Machel in Mozambique, and Amilcar Cabral in Portuguese Guinea. Mandela’s legacy for African Americans was that he was one part of a growing awareness of southern African and the entire African continent. The same zeal that African American communities and their supporters brought to the anti apartheid struggle was manifested in support of SWAPO, FRELIMO, ZANU, ZAPU, and the PAIGC. It was however, South African that was seen as the almost invincible levee that ensured white privilege and colonialism throughout the “Motherland.” At times we chose to debate our allegiances to either the PAC, the ANC, ZANU or ZAPU. At the end of the day our goal was to ensure that there was a victory for African people on the African continent.

It was a remarkable nation wide movement with Nelson Mandela as the “stamp” that reached into churches, labor unions, universities, organizations, and grassroots communities. When we sponsored anti apartheid benefits , and raised high the demand of freeing Nelson Mandela it was in many senses about finishing some parts of a Civil Rights Movements that had been left semi done.

Perhaps it is too early to make a thorough analysis of Nelson Mandela and his transition from liberation fighter to president to diplomat. The liberation that we all fought for of the African continent is not yet in its final stages-either in Africa or abroad. It is not however too early to realize that African liberation and self determination will require much more than timely rhetoric. Its mandatory that Pan Africanists remain engaged with Africa and the struggles throughout the Diaspora with the same principles that we utilized to ensure the release of Nelson Mandela.

Happy 90th Birthday!

*Walter Turner is host of Africa Today, KPFA Radio (www.kpfa.org), co- author of "Africa Libertation and American Activists over a Half Century, 1950-2000" and Chairperson of the Social Sciences Department, College of Marin.

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

Mandela is, in some ways the perfect embodiment of post colonial Africa, a continent blessed with so many possibilities but consistently producing so much disappointment. The African dream of liberation has become a long nightmare. As Mandela turns 90 the country he helped found some 14 years ago is in a mighty mess. Its hatred of black people has reached the apex with the mass slaughtering and displacement of black Africans (apparently a good 20 or more of the more than 60 dead are South Africans). Post 1994, has been much celebrated for the benefits it bestowed upon a few, silence has befallen the fate of the black majority which has been bequeathed a bestial existence.

Mandela’s 85th birth day was a Coca Cola affair. The multinational corporation was given full rights to throw a party for our founding father. Coke milked his name dry, everything was branded, serviettes to programme - the whole affair was televised live. This forced a friend to remark that we need another “Free Nelson Mandela Campaign." At 90 Mandela must be allowed his well deserved rest. But it’s hard to think of this likable man of the 20th century Africa outside politics. He is resistance, Robben Island, freedom, magnanimity, compromise and hope for many, but what is his real legacy?

A few years ago Chinweizu wondered loudly about the icon of liberation who voluntarily builds his house as a replica of the prison house he was kept him during the last days towards his release. Who build a prison for a house? Our Mandela is a symbol, like his country, of things shiny and good and things horrendous.

Prof Wole Soyinka was moved to comment on the “soulless truly horrendous” sculpture of Mandela which presides over the Mandela Square in Sandton our Mecca of consumption, which lives cheek by jowl with the sprawling Alexandra township. Sandton feeds on the blood of Alexandra, the place from which the recent spade of Negrophobic attacks emanates. Cornel West, firstly praised Mandela as a the Socratic spirit of “going against the grain” then on reflection from the distance of the USA he warned against the “Santa Clausification of Mandela - Big smile, domesticated, tamed, defanged with toys in a bag."

At 90 Mandela is all these things, but more, he is the African dream that never became. His 90th bash will be held in London, what the official website says is his second home, images of Toussaint Louverture perishing in the loving embrace of his friend Napoleon Bonaparte flashes by. Now we wait for Barak Obama to conclude a circle started in 1994 in South Africa, White Supremacy today needs a little melanin too. Black suicide is endemic, 1803 it was Haiti, 1994 South Africa, and maybe 2008 December the USA. Happy 90 Tata!

*Andile Mngxitama is a Johannesburg based land rights activist and member of the We write editorial collective.

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

9th July, 2008
The Office of the President
Cause Way
Harare
Zimbabwe

Your Excellency,

RE: WE STAND UP FOR DEMOCRACY IN ZIMBABWE

The African Women Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), a Pan- African Network working for the promotion and protection of the rights of women and children in the Africa Region is greatly disturbed by the unfolding events in this great African country Zimbabwe.

We note with concern the continued suffering of women and children in this country who have been victimized for no apparent reason or cause. Ironically their alleged crime is that they or their male relatives have participated in the democratic process of their country and expressed their choice of leadership for their country!!! The sham runoff election for presidency held on the 27th of June was marred with pre- and post election violence which has led to untold suffering for the people of Zimbabwe, loss of life (for example over 220 people linked with the opposition have died since March 2008), destruction of property and forced displacement of people majority of whom are women and children and in the process many have become victims of sexual abuse and other forms of violations of their body integrity.

Mr. Mugabe, you have a great history as one of the freedom fighters of Zimbabwe and you will always be acknowledged and remembered for the great contribution and sacrifice you personally made to bring freedom to all the people of Zimbabwe. We acknowledge the complexity of the situation in Zimbabwe. However, we believe that your continued unlawful stay in power as the President of Zimbabwe is not benefiting the majority of men and women of your country. Women and children of comrades in the opposition have been deliberately attacked, many have been forced out of their homes and fled the country, and others are currently in safe custody with embassies of foreign countries that still exist in your country. This is a real shame and a total mockery of democracy. We strongly believe that your autocratic leadership is a total disgrace to the people of Zimbabwe and the whole of Africa.

FEMNET joins the Presidents of Africa countries and other civil society organizations in Africa to condemn in the strongest terms the undemocratic elections that took place in Zimbabwe on the 27th of June 2008. Your political conduct is unacceptable and shameful to the entire continent of Africa.

We therefore call upon you Mr. Mugabe to do the following:

- To lead a process not exceeding six months, that will result into a peaceful hand over of power to new leaders that have credibility in the eyes of the people of Zimbabwe, the African people and the international community;

- To ensure that an environment of peace, free from intimidation and political violence is guaranteed by the Government of Zimbabwe for all people both supporters of the ruling party and those in opposition. This is an essential prerequisite for the peaceful process of transfer of power and authority to the new leaders of Zimbabwe. It is a constitutional right for citizens to have protection of their rights to personal security and not to be subjected to any form of abuse, torture, or inhuman treatment;

- To respect the rights of the people of Zimbabwe to associate and form political parties as part of the democratic process and to choose their leaders. These rights are guaranteed in Article 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 10 of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights to which Zimbabwe is a party. The Constitution of Zimbabwe also guarantees these rights in Article 20 and 21.

- To ensure that women and children of Zimbabwe are protected from unscrupulous elements in society that are taking advantage of the unrest and uncertainty and are abusing and disregarding their rights and freedoms.

- To work towards a legacy of facilitating a peaceful transfer of power to new leaders in Zimbabwe by the end of 2008.

Note that in solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe especially the women and children of this great country, the women of Africa through FEMNET:

- Urge the African Union and its member states and also SADC countries to prevail upon you Mr. Mugabe to hand over power peacefully by December 2008 in order to transform the electoral and political crisis in your country into an opportunity for the development of a sustainable democracy.

- Demand for the immediate cessation of all acts of political violence and intimidation and all those engaging in acts of political violence, especially militia and youth groups supported by your party in power should be dealt with expeditiously in accordance with the law. We urge all political parties of Zimbabwe to exercise restraint and desist from employing intimidation and violent tactics.

- Call upon your Government to guarantee the safety and freedom of all people in Zimbabwe, especially women and children, irrespective of their political beliefs and choices.

- Are committed to stand with the women of Zimbabwe in and outside the country at this very precarious moment. We shall continue speaking out with courage against the undemocratic behaviour exhibited by different parties involved in this crisis.

- Will continue to strongly pressurize other leaders in the region to stand up against Mr. Mugabe and for democracy in Africa.

Democracy shall prevail.

*Norah Matovu Winyi is the executive director of FEMNET. This letter was written on behalf of the women’ rights movement in Africa.

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

Over the past six months or so I have been talking with about a dozen high-profile mobile companies, IT companies and mobile specialists to gauge interest in a new project, one which builds on the work of Nathan Eagle in East Africa (see http://web.mit.edu/epromfor details). I have also been speaking with a major US Foundation, who have expressed interest in funding the initial scoping phase of the project.

The challenge was this. How do we empower individuals in developing countries to develop and build their own mobile applications? EPROM has already been teaching computer science graduates in a number of East African universities, but how can we scale this initiative, allowing universities in other parts of the developing world to do the same? And with software development largely taking place on desktop computers, how can we empower users to build applications on the phones themselves? And if we could, what would a mobile-based programming environment look like?

Within the next couple of months or so, “mobility” hopes to start exploring these questions. The potential is huge if we can find appropriate, sustainable solutions.

On the eve of the Pan African Conference on Sexual and Gender Based violence that ACORD and seven other like minded partners [1] deemed necessary in order to re-mobilize energies on ending impunity on SGBV, I would like to engage with the subject through a slightly different lens. The question of violence against women has been a constant pre-occupation of mine; professionally, academically and in the personal space. Perhaps my re-engagement with it was more vivid during the recent post election crisis in Kenya not because the experience unparalleled other contexts but because this was my home and as a woman this became a real fear for me in ways that it never had been before. I would like to concern myself with the young people; those popularly referred to as youth whose Africa’s future is said to rest with.

On the 25th of May 2008, a number of like minded organizations [2] came together in Nairobi to commemorate Africa liberation day. I was requested to contribute to the discussions through a speech on Africa’s liberation and youth. It serves to reason that on this day (and thereafter), a day that we are aptly reminded crystallized the youthful nature of our continent, given that most of our independence leaders were in their thirties, we should take time to problematise this category called youth and what hope or vision it holds for this continent.

I find ‘youth’ a particularly difficult subject to engage with, despite the fact that the UN officially considers me to fall within this category. This difficulty arises due to the transitional nature of the term youth and its very constituency. Further, the connotations of youth particularly in my context (Kenya) are unsavory to say the least. The term youth has for a very long time been used to refer to unruly groups of young men, mobilized by politicians to bully, steal and harass their opponents often in the run up to elections. These outfits then morph into vigilante groups, who in the absence of quick money and a job description linked to elections find alternative ways to exist and this comes in the form of thuggery.

In considering the wars in the Central African Republic (CAR), Darfur, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where the use of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) is widespread, this paper seeks to accomplish two tasks. The first task is descriptive: to give an overview of the manner in which the International Criminal Court (ICC) has responded to SGBV in the three countries. The second task is a modest attempt to analyze why SGBV continues to be inadequately addressed. Here, the paper considers the practical challenges that are inherent in transitional justice as a tool, particularly in its preference of some harms and narratives over others.

The paper also considers the conceptual challenges that come with understanding SGBV itself, in particular the implications of a focus on sexual violence over other forms of violence, and that of a focus on women over other feminized identities. The paper concludes with the suggestion of some useful debates for the consideration of scholars and practitioners, including the possibilities of a consideration of rape as torture, and the ramifications of focusing on criminal outcomes of political crises, to the neglect of necessary political solutions. In sum, the paper offers that transitional justice can only make a modest contribution to addressing SGBV, and that complex political crises underlying and causing violence must not be left on the wayside as we advocate around the criminal symptoms.

TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE RESPONSES TO SEXUAL AND GENDER BASED VIOLENCE

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC (CAR)

Between October 2002 and March 2003, CAR President Ange-Félix Patassé invited the forces of Jean-Pierre Bemba, the Commander in Chief of Mouvement de Libération du Congo (MLC) to fight a rebel movement led by François Bozizé, the former Chief of Staff of the CAR army. In February 2003, FIDH referred the case to the ICC, following an extensive field mission to the conflict-affected areas where they found widespread rape, particularly from the forces of Bemba [1].

A key feature of in the CAR conflict was the high reported number of victims of rape. Under the presidency of Bozizé, who won the war, the highest court in the CAR determined that they would not be able to address the rape cases. In December 2004, the CAR government made a state referral to the ICC. According to the OTP, CAR became “the first time the Prosecutor ... open[ed] an investigation in which allegations of sexual crimes far outnumber alleged killings [2].

It is now fashionable in academic and activist circles to speak of transitional justice in normative, inflexible terms that suggest a utopian certainty. Nothing could be further from the truth. At the outset, we need to understand that transitional justice concepts are experimental – good experiments to be sure – but that they do not offer us tested panacea because they are essentially works in progress. This is not meant to diminish the utility of the concepts or to throw cold water on them as a beachhead for recovering societies with a legacy of traumatic conflict. Rather, it is to recognize their limitation so that we do not stampede to the temple only to find it empty of the goddess of truth. What is more useful for us to do is to imagine transitional notions as one incomplete vehicle through which we can understand and start the recovery of a tormented society. If we keep this perspective, then we are more likely to achieve a more realistic result.

In the last two decades, the concept of transitional justice has come to represent the midwife for a democratic, rule of law state [1]. The script for the construction of such a phase is now regarded as an indispensable building block for sound constitutionalism, peace-building, and national reconciliation in post-conflict societies or societies emerging out of abusive, authoritarian, and fractured periods [2]. In fact, policy-makers and statesmen now increasingly realize that a human rights state that internalizes human rights norms cannot be created unless the political society concretely addresses the grievances of the past. There is no future without a past, and the future is largely a result of the past. Unless we construct a future based on the lessons of the past, we are bound to repeat our own mistakes and retard the development of our society.

The term transitional justice captures two critical notions. First, it acknowledges the temporary measures that must be taken to build confidence in the construction of the post-despotic society. Secondly, by its own definition, transitional justice rejects a winner-take-all approach as a beachhead to the future. In other words, transitional justice calls for deep concessions on either side of the divide. No one party or faction can be fully satisfied. Unyielding, none concessionary demands can only foil the truce that is essential for national reconstruction. But equally important is the realization that transitional justice rejects impunity for the most hideous offenders. To shield egregious perpetrators would only encourage a culture of unaccountability for past abuses. Hence a balance must be struck between justice for the victims and retribution against offenders [3].

The vast majority of states lack the requisite political will to effect transformative transitions. That is why most political transitions are either still born or aborted affairs. For Africa, this calls for soul-searching at all levels of society – within the political class, among the intelligentsia, in civil society, and the general public. In other words, Africans must ask themselves: Is transitional justice a necessity for us if we are to create a democratic polity? If so, what vehicles should we construct to effect transitional justice, and what mandate shall we give such vehicles? But even as we ask these questions, we must remain mindful about the cost of abandoning transitional justice measures. The reason for this is simple: We cannot exorcise the ghosts of the past without confronting them. The past will always be with us.

Even if we accept as a basic premise – which we do – that transitional justice processes and institutions are desirable and indispensable, we would be derelict not to interrogate the internal contradictions of the project. I say so because the human rights project, which encompasses transitional justice, is an incomplete doctrine that is afflicted by gaping holes [4]. One of the blind spots of the human rights movement was for a long time women’s rights. There is no doubt that international law – which includes human rights – as a discipline has historically been inattentive to women’s rights. In fact, Hilary Charlesworth and Christine Chinkin, leading feminist scholars, have accused international law of its male, patriarchal construction [5]. For a long time, at least until the 1995 Beijing UN Conference on Women, women’s rights were a backwater in human rights, in spite of the existence of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Only in the last decade have we seen serious attempts to remove women rights from the ghetto of the rights discourse.

This is our challenge at this conference, and in the human rights movement, particularly in the context of transitional justice in Africa. How do we demarginalize women’s rights questions in the construction of transitional justice vehicles? In particular, how do civil society, academics, states, funding organizations, and intergovernmental organizations address – in serious ways – the problems of sexual and gender violence in transitional justice contexts? We know from the historical record that sexual and gender violence is arguably the most predominant abomination in civil conflicts and wars. Yet we also know that this egregious form of violence is either never reported, or rarely attracts the attention of the media. Even more distressing is the fact that gender and sexual violence is almost never calibrated in transitional justice processes, and is usually an afterthought when it is. This has been true in many of the transitional justice processes that have been put in place in the last two decades, although that is beginning to change.

In Africa, as indeed in other parts of the world, women are the pillar on which the fabric of society is built in the home and outside of it. In a very real sense, both the public and private squares are made possible by women, although in the former their invisibility is obscene. This invisibility pertains to the official public square in terms of public power defined as official positions within the state, civil society, and the market. Paradoxically, the invisibility extends to women victims and survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in the public square during civil conflicts and wars. The challenge for Africans is to develop both conceptual tools and strategies – at the political and intellectual levels – to smash the walls of invisibility and exclusion so that sexual and gender-based violence can be exposed to the sunlight of the public domain. Without this first critical step transitional justice mechanisms will continue to exclude sexual and gender-based violence.

VEHICLES FOR TRANSTIONAL JUSTICE

Transitional justice measures can be effected through a number of avenues. While truth commissions or similar vehicles stand out, there are many other possibilities. For instance, one could think of institutional reformist measures that are legislative, judicial, political, economic, social, administrative, educational, sectoral, or a combination of some, or all of the above. To complicate the picture, civil society – broadly defined – could also initiate its own transitional justice measures, including peoples’ commissions or mock tribunals. However, in spite of this wide array of possibilities, the truth commission has since the 1980s been regarded as the most effective tool for coalescing the agenda of transitional justice [6]. Even so, cognizance must be taken of the fact that the truth commission has performed its political and social functions with mixed results. The reason for this has not been with the instrument of the truth commission per se. Rather, the varying degrees of success of the truth commission have been in the particular conception and construction of each specific truth commission. In most instances, the truth commission was deeply compromised by former regime elements. In others, the emergent ruling elites were either too timid or hypocritical in their understanding of transitional justice. Most importantly, however, is the reality that most truth commissions have focused on a narrow, limited agenda that did not have the potential to transform society or provide the possibility of social justice.

But truth commissions are not the only vehicle for realizing transitional justice. There is a rich tableau of devices that have the possibility of creating a bridge between an unforgiving past and a hopeful future. Regimes can opt for sectoral reforms that, when put together, amount to an aggressive transitional justice agenda. One can imagine judicial reforms – such as purging corrupt and incompetent judges; aggressively prosecuting perpetrators of past abuses; writing a democratic constitution; repealing repressive legislation; and reforming law enforcement agencies – as a credible transitional justice approach. While all these measures are critical and necessary to reconstruct and heal society, they should not preclude a truth commission, the only omnibus instrument that has the potential to create a cathartic experience for the whole society. To center women’s rights in a transitional justice project, one can imagine the repeal or enactment of laws that make the female gender visible in the legal system. These would include, but not be limited, to laws that sanction without pity sexual and gender-based violence. Or one could think of educational initiatives that develop a gender consciousness in the judicial system such that sexual and gender violence is not an afterthought or absent from the minds of judges.

In this paper, I argue that African states need both truth commissions in certain cases, and the specific, targeted sectoral reforms in other cases to overcome the deep distortions and legacy of despotism and social hatreds that afflict their bodies politic. But I want to argue – rather emphatically – that Africa should avoid the traps of most transitional justice programs that have focused on the so-called human rights violations alone while leaving completely untouched the equally important arena of economic crimes, which are intrinsically connected to sexual and gender based violence.

In fact, I would argue that economic powerlessness – which is connected to political powerlessness – lies at the root of sexual and gender based violence. I regret to say that this blindness of targeting civil and political rights violations while completely overlooking economic, social, and cultural rights is one of the major drawbacks of the human rights corpus. In my view, such an approach cannot address the real causes of powerlessness – which ought to animate the human rights agenda [7]. We must remember that rights are fights over resources, and not abstract struggles taking place in the outer orbit without going to the fundamentals of the human condition. That is why no credible transitional justice program can fail to address the difficult, but necessary, subject of economic powerlessness for women.

In any case, as a matter of logic and conception, it is nonsensical to imagine the human rights corpus as a bifurcated dogma of two unrelated and completely independent categories of entitlements. There can be no watertight distinctions between civil and political rights, on the one hand, and economic, social, and cultural rights, on the other. Every right, no matter its ideological categorization, has at its core aspects of both sets of rights. To reduce the argument to the level of absurdity, we may want to ask: Can a person really eat the right to vote? Conversely, how can the right to food be guaranteed if citizens do not have the franchise to elect a responsible and accountable government? The right of women to own land and to control it and other economic resources is central to combating the kind of powerlessness that leads to sexual and gender-based violence. Human powerlessness and human dignity does not know these categories. That is why it would be spurious for us to address one set of rights violations, and not the other [8].

RECONCEIVING WOMEN AND GENDER

In virtually all societies around the world – even in the liberal industrial democracies of the West – women still labor under an avalanche of disadvantages. The patriarchy, a system of social ordering that has historically placed the male as the superior of the female, is the conceptual justification for the insubordination of women to men. Hetero-patriarchy, hetero-normativity, and phallocentrism – or male-centeredness, to be simple – describe a world view in which the male occupies a hallowed place in human civilization. Pseudo-scientific, religious, cultural, moral, and biological attempts to justify this gender hierarchy have held sway over millennia [9]. As a result, discrimination and privation has been the lot of the majority of the world’s women. Not even formal equality and abstract autonomy, the two key tenets of liberalism, have sufficed to combat the deep seat of gender bias and misogyny. Africa’s patriarchal cultures mirror others elsewhere in the world, although they are exacerbated by the continent’s underdevelopment and its grinding impoverishment in an unforgiving global economy. Nevertheless, progress on limiting the cancer of the patriarchy and ultimately eliminating it in Africa is both a conceptual and material task.

But this is a task that is easier said than done. Social transformation is an arduous task. But taking a cue from CEDAW, we can identify several starting points. One cannot overemphasize the importance of early learning in the home. Children initially learn through mimicry and the modeling of those within the home. To raise new men – and women – it is absolutely essential that what is learned at home in the early stages of life is not misogynistic. Keep in mind that both men and women can teach misogyny. This is the first line of defense against the patriarchy. It is important that parents, if they are more than one, model the right behavior in the home for children. This early consciousness about the sharing of labor in the home, the relationships between the genders in the family, and the absence of pre-conditioned male dominated hierarchies within the home is likely to create more gender sensitive progeny. But this begs the question. Where do parents get gender and political awareness that allows them to transmit those values to their offspring? This, I believe, is fundamentally an obligation of the state to create an educational system that forges a citizenship that is averse to misogyny. This requires a curriculum and an instructional faculty in primary and secondary schools that is designed to transform the individual. Waiting to develop a different citizen after these stages is an often futile exercise. NGOs and intergovernmental organizations such as UNESCO and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights can play important roles in curriculum conception and teacher training in gender and human rights. There is new scholarship on masculinities that opens a dialogue on how to create a better man devoid of the hatred of women [10]. In my view, changing worldviews at the earliest stages of human development will be key to reformulating our understanding of sexual and gender-based violence.

But this alone will not suffice. The society as a whole needs to undergo a catharsis about women as human beings, and not objects of sex or work. Societal stereotypes which are based on myths of misogyny need to be combated at various levels. For example, there is no reason why women’s rights work is seen as the preserve – or responsibility – of women’s rights organizations. In Kenya, for instance, FIDA and the League of Kenya Women Voters have been tagged as the groups invested with this mandate. Many other human rights organizations have marginal programs on women’s rights. Even when so so-called mainstreaming of women’s rights was all the rage, nothing fundamentally different happened. It was a song for donors without a political commitment. What we realize today is that women’s rights have to be explicitly part of the agenda of every civil society organization. But beyond that, the state in all its iterations must address women’s rights. This means the full inclusion of women in its political, economic, judicial, and bureaucratic structures so that they are not aliens in decision-making where laws and public policies are determined. In other words, the entirety of society must be engendered.

Finally, it is not possible to reconceive women without unpacking the myth from fact about sexuality, gender-based violence, and womanhood in a cultural, legal, social, and political context. In most cultures, including African ones, the woman is viewed primarily as a sexual object for the pleasure of the man. It is not an extreme view to state that many cultures see women as akin to property for possession by men. In such cultures, women’s bodies and their sexualities are not the preserve of the individual, but of the community and the man. In Uganda, for instance, these dehumanized conceptions of women result in rape, defilement, and various brutalities against girls and women [11]. In other cultures, even the concept of rape may not exist within marriage, or outside of it, and sexual assaults and other forms of gender-based violence are blamed on the victim. How does society re-educate men – and sanction them when they deviate – to understand that women’s bodies are not chattel? Many laws on the books either condone sexual stereotypes, men’s control over women’s bodies, or proscribe the ability of women to control their own sexuality. To transform these deep-seated and utterly backward universes will require new constitutional and legal orders, a judiciary and state with the political will to stand up for women, and inclusion of women at all levels of social and political engagement.

UNPACKING SEXUAL AND GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE

In the history of civil conflict and wars, the most vulnerable populations are usually women, girls, and the elderly. However, only women and girls are targeted for their gender. In the most recent conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Darfur in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and even in Kenya after the disputed elections in 2007, women and girls have borne the brunt of the atrocities. This is often the case even though women and girls are rarely direct participants in the conflicts, or the bearers of arms. Since women are regarded as property in many cultures, violating them is seen as a diminution of the men who “own” them. That is how women and girls become weapons of war and for which men fight over. This view of the woman as the appendage of the man has deep rooted bases in religion and traditional notions of nationalism. Imagine, for instance, the biblical story of the woman as having been created out of a single rib of a man!

Antiquated notions of masculinity and nationalism still hold sway in forging misogyny. In the case of the former Yugoslavia, for example, Serbians sexually violated Bosnian Muslim women with a view to committing genocide. In one particularly chilling incident, Serbs carried out a massive rape of as many as 20,000 Bosnian Muslim women [12]. Todd Salzman characterized the violations as “an assault against the female gender, violating her body and its reproductive capabilities as a weapon of war [13].” He traced the genesis of these atrocities to a Serbian culture that usurps the female body and reduces the woman to “her reproductive capacities in order to fulfill the overall objective of Serbian nationalism by producing more citizens to populate the nation [14].” According to him, this view of the female body is deeply rooted in Serbian culture, the Serbian Orthodox Church, and Serbian official policies. This view of the woman is analogous to some African cultures in which men who are HIV positive defile virgin girls to “cure” themselves. Obviously, infecting the girls is unimportant to them, as long as it “cures” the men.

Sexual and gender-based violence in Sierra Leone, Rwanda, and now in Darfur is a sadistic impulse on the part of the perpetrator, and is intended to psychologically “kill” the victim. Frequently, the sexual predator actually physically kills the victim. This certainly was the case in Rwanda, as demonstrated in the famous Akayesu case before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda [15]. In that case, it was clear that Hutu attackers targeted Tutsi women and their bodies as an instrument of genocide. The same has been largely true of the atrocities of the Janjaweed in Darfur. However, what has been so disturbing is that public outrage and international opinion still fails to understand the gender dimensions of genocide – that women are targeted at several levels as a racial or ethnic identity in addition to the fact of their gender. This failure to center gender in the understanding of sexual violence erases women from the face of genocide and treats them as non-existent. As a result, responses to women as such are few, if any. This means that women who survive sexual and gender-based violence have no place to turn for their traumas. Their communities often regard them as “damaged” and official transitional justice institutions have generally had little to offer.

LEGAL, POLITICAL, AND STRATEGIC RESPONSES

It is clear a full frontal approach to the problem of sexual and gender-based violence is indispensable to understanding and addressing the problem in whatever transitional justice vehicle is chosen by a country. A number of responses should be contemplated because of the multifaceted nature of the problem. For instance, criminal sanctions against perpetrators are necessary, even in the context of a truth commission. Thus adjudicatory responses form one of the core vehicles. We should keep in mind that adjudication has several purposes – these can be punitive, deterrent, compensatory, or correcting a historical wrong. They can also be civilizational. Some of these focus on the perpetrator, others on the victim or survivor. But others can and should be rehabilitative – that is, seeking to heal the traumas of victims and survivors as well as their families. Here, one of the purposes is to ease the reintegration of the survivors and their families back into society. Sometimes truth telling and public acknowledgement will play a role in this process.

Whatever strategies are employed, it is essential to have a legal and policy framework for addressing these societal deficits. It is clear to us that the law – itself a product of the patriarchy in virtually all states – is woefully underdeveloped in dealing with sexual and gender-based violence. This is doubly the case in the wake of civil conflicts and wars where the fabric of society has been badly damaged or even decimated. Imagine that in peacetime it is virtually impossible to get most societies to deal honestly with sexual and gender-based violence. This is true whether such abuses take place with the home or outside of it in the workplace or other locales. The machinery of the state and law enforcement have never been eager in any society to interrupt the lives of perpetrators. This means that civil society must work extremely hard and remain vigilant to make sure that the requisite laws are passed and that enforcement authorities do their job.

The law has not been a great friend to women. Take for example, the international criminal law in this area. Both the statutes of the Yugoslav and Rwanda tribunals did not exactly center sexual offenses in their frameworks, although they recognized rape as an egregious offense. That is why the Akayesu opinion, which is a path-breaking ruling in terms of making international law, is so important. It recognized for the first time in such a tribunal the seriousness of rape and other sexual offenses in the context of conflict and war as an element of genocide and crimes against humanity. Why it took so long for an international tribunal to make such a critical finding is ample demonstration of the blindness of international law to gender. This is a blindness that is directly lifted from municipal laws. It is this lacuna that has to be filled at the jurisprudential level if sexual violence is to be addressed seriously.

One of the major challenges for any transitional justice vehicle is finding the facts about sexual and gender based violence. Often, the victims may not report such abuses, even to truth commissions. This was the case with the South African truth commission. Women either refuse to come forward, or minimize their own suffering, when they do. As Priscilla Hayner has written:

Even with a flexible mandate and the intention of fairly gathering information about all patterns of abuse, a commission [truth] may well fail to document certain widely experienced abuses. Perhaps the most commonly underreported abuses are those suffered by women, especially sexual abuse and rape. Many commissions have received far less testimony about sexual abuse than in the numbers or proportion that they suspected took place [16].

This is both a political, cultural, and legal problem. Societies in transition need to de-stigmatize sexual and gender-based violence so that women can come forward to report such atrocities. A number of approaches, such as testimonies given without revealing the identity of the victim may yield better results in more conservative societies. In other cases, women statement-takers may be more successful than their male counterparts in getting information out of survivors. Whatever the case, it is important that transitional justice mechanisms be victim-centered in sexual and gender-based violence situations. Otherwise, women and girls will stay away because they will feel either as a means to an end they do not understand or endorse, or as pawns in a larger political game. There is no substitute for making sure that reparatory measures are put in place to assist victims and to raise public consciousness of the problem. This is true no matter what transitional justice vehicle is adopted. Ultimately states and societies in transitional justice contexts need to arrive at a high national consensus or convergence on the importance of tackling sexual and gender-based violence otherwise nothing much will happen.

CONCLUSION

The invisibility of sexual and gender-based violence in society in general, and transitional justice contexts in particular, is intrinsically bound up with the invisibility and marginalization of women in public life. Until societies decide that women are as important as men – and that human dignity means dignity for all genders – the failure to take seriously and address sexual and gender based violence will persist. Unfortunately, this means that the fundamental reforms that societies emerging out of conflict or war need will not be thoroughgoing. A society’s progress can be measured by the way it treats women. That’s because the patriarchy – the source of most subordination – thrives on the exploitation of the female gender. If transitional justice is to become a bridge to the society of the future, it will have to center the rights of women in its agenda.

*Makau Mutua is Dean and SUNY Distinguished Professor at Buffalo Law School, the State University of New York.

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

Notes:

Led by President Isaias Afewerki since gaining independence from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, Eritrea has, by some indicators, one of the worst human rights records in the world. The organisation Reporters Without Borders (known by its French acronym RSF), for example, has documented how dozens of journalists have been detained incommunicado since 2001, with several of those believed to have died in custody. According to RSF's latest annual report, Eritrea "deserves to be at the bottom" of a league table for press freedom.

The Launch of the Gender-Based Violence Recovery Centre by Kenyatta National Hospital and other stakeholders is a milestone for Kenyan women who have been suffering silently without knowing where to seek suport and treatment after sexual violation. The establishment of the centre is very unique, as it is the first of its kind that offers a comprehensive approach to the management of women and girls who have been sexually violated.

An emerging initiative could pave the way for fundamental change in the way forests are managed, boosting efforts to fight both poverty and climate change, says research published today by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

Africa's only female President Liberian Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has urged world leaders to back targeted sanctions against members of Zimbabwe ZANU-PF Government. President Sirleaf was speaking to reporters in South Africa during her short visit to attend the 6th Nelson Mandela annual lecture at Walter Sisulu square in Kliptown, Soweto.

Cameroon has blocked all exportation of foodstuff to Equatorial Guinea and closed all its borders with neighbours following a directive by the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralisation, Marafa Hamidou Yaya. Security officials say it's a security measure.

South African President and SADC mediator on the Zimbabwean crisis, Thabo Mbeki has been quoted by media as admitting that President Mugabe who won the one man presidential race boycotted by the opposition MDC party is an illegitimate leader and that is why a government of national unity was necessary.

South Sudan's army said on Saturday it had finished pulling out of the oil-rich Abyei area where southern troops clashed with Khartoum's forces in May, but accused the northern army of foot-dragging on its own pullout.

An HIV-positive former waitress has won a precedent-setting case in the Kenyan High Court, after suing her doctor for unlawful disclosure of her HIV status and her employers for dismissing her based on that information. The case is remarkable because Kenya's constitution does not specifically prohibit HIV-related discrimination.

Governments and advocacy groups rallied to lobby leaders of of the G8 for billions of dollars to help prevent maternal deaths, the leading killer of women of childbearing age in developing nations. The G-8 economic summit of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States convened for three days beginning July 7 in Hokkaido Toyako, Japan.

Participatory Forest Management (PFM) describes systems in which communities (forest users and managers) and government services (forest departments) work together to define rights of forest resource use, identify and develop forest management responsibilities, and agree on how forest benefits will be shared. This manual describes the key elements of PFM in the Ethiopian context. It is aimed at both community forest managers and forestry professionals and can be used as a training manual and field guide.

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) supporters of Khwezi*, slammed the recent call by the African National Congress (ANC) leadership, requesting Khwezi to apologise for her rape allegations against the ruling party president, Jacob Zuma.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the government’s decision on 8 July to suspend independent Radio Despertar’s broadcasts for 180 days on the grounds that their current range, 400 km, is much more the 50 km stipulated in its licence. The suspension comes just one month before an election campaign is due to begin on 5 August.

The Bujagali Dam, now under construction on the Nile River in Uganda, racked up at least 22 violations of key African Development Bank (AfDB) policies, according to a new report by the Bank's internal investigative panel.

Amid mounting fears of phone surveillance by state security agents, Botswana Telecommunications Authority (BTA) remains adamant with going ahead with the registration of all prepaid mobile phone sim-cards on 15 September 2008.

Ignacio Milam Tang, until now Equatoguinean Ambassador in Spain, has been named new Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea, according to government sources in Malabo. He replaces what the President has called the "worst government ever" in the country.

Cholera which first broke out in Guinea Bissau in May in the southern region of Tombali has now broken out in the capital Bissau killing four people and infecting 214, according to Daniel Kertesz, representative of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Somewhere in the dark in Albert Park are about 120 refugees, mostly women and young children. These are not young jobseekers from Mozambique and Malawi, doing the African renaissance equivalent of a post-degree work holiday in London. These are documented refugees from the worst civil war of the last decade - a war that has already claimed 4 million lives. A war, as Human Rights Watch has already documented, funded in part by South African mining companies paying warlords in the Congo for the right to plunder the local mineral wealth.

A pregnant Congolese woman was beaten by private security guards hired by the eThekwini municipality on Thursday evening as foreign nationals displaced by xenophobia staged a sit-in on the steps of Durban's City Hall.

This collection looks at the on-going significance of Black Consciousness, situating it in a global frame, examining the legacy of Steve Biko, the current state of post-apartheid South African politics, and the culture and history of the anti-apartheid movements.

This study investigates the role of men in reproductive and contraceptive changes in urban Mozambique by analysing man-to-man communication on family planning issues. According to the author, the literature on issues related to family planning in sub-Saharan Africa does indeed recognise male partners' opinions and choices as an important factor in shaping couple's reproductive and contraceptive practices.

Gender Links, a dynamic Southern African NGO that promotes gender equality through its media, justice and governance programmes, seeks to fill the following senior posts: Research manager, Training manager and Gender and media diversity centre manager.

comments on the resignation of Kenyan Finance Minister, Amos Kimunya, following allegations of financial impropriety in the sale of the Grand Regency Hotel in Nairobi:

“… it is important to understand that history was made yesterday. Never in the history of the nation has parliament on its own volition or initiative caused the resignation of a cabinet minister in defiance of the executive… In the often quoted case of former Vice President and now deceased, Dr Josephat Karanja, the plot to censure him was hatched in State House as crafty former President Moi wanted to get rid of his VP without risking a fallout amongst the powerful Kikuyus whom Moi greatly feared throughout his reign. So he got some MP to move the motion in parliament and gave the necessary instructions through the house which was then a mere rubber stamp of the executive.

This was not the case this time. In fact, if truth be told, the house was packed yesterday because members were expecting fireworks. Kimunya’s hurried resignation just before parliament’s first session of the week in the afternoon was no coincidence. The timing speaks volumes and tells me that State house is getting a little anxious. And the main reason has more to do with the naming of certain names that State House does not want to see named in connection to the Grand Regency.

But Kenyans need to be even more vigilant now. Will we get to the bottom of the Grand Regency saga? That should be the top priority that we must pursue now with all diligence.

To answer that question, there is an ominous sign to look out for. That sign is who gets appointed to replace Kimunya... If the new Finance Minister is from the ODM arm of the Grand coalition government then Kenyans will need to head to the hills because that will be a ‘grand bribe’ to ‘maliza hio maneno ya Grand Regency’. We can breathe a wee bit easier if Kimunya’s replacement is from PNU.”

Expose Uganda Genocide
Reacting to praise heaped on Uganda’s national policy on the displaced by Mukirya Nyanduga, Commissioner for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Africa, Expose Uganda Genocide argues that the camps for IDPs in Uganda have caused more deaths than the LRA, and describes the Commissioner’s statement as “Aiding and Abetting Genocide” and “Distorting History of IDPs”:

“In a stunning pronouncement this week, a visiting diplomat has hailed the IDP policy created by government officials.

In reality, an extreme lack of water, sanitation and health care has cultivated disease epidemics, caused thousands of preventable deaths and produced thousands of highly malnourished children unable to enjoy their right to protection, health and education.

Conditions in these camps have caused the most deaths in the long-running civil war been the Ugandan Government and the Lord's Resistance Army.”

Palapala Magazine a recent addition to the African blogosphere, interviews Abidemi Olowonira, a Houston-based Nigerian visual artist, about the role of artists in reviving and preserving collective memory in Africa. According to Olowonira,

“Remembrance has always been a binding factor in African societies. A lot of Africans are named after their ancestors and events that occurred around the time the child was born. So, as the child grows, he or she becomes a walking reminder of a particular incident or a particular ancestor. In contrast to the West where everything is fast, Africa retains its past.

When you consider the trauma of slavery and colonialism on Africa it is very difficult for the African artist not to make remembrance an aspect of their work. Personally, even though I address 'in-the-moment' experiences, I still pull a lot of inspiration from my childhood experiences and my parents experiences, retained through stories. In fact, I also get inspiration from my grandmother's experiences. For instance, I use the 'bush lamp' in my paintings as a symbol from a parable my grandmother shared with me: ‘The person who turns on the light is a hero but the one who turns it off is the villain.’ At night in African markets, people use the 'bush lamp' to sell their wares. I think it is a way for us to retain our humanity in spite of our circumstances. Light becomes a significant symbol in our experience. When you see a bush lamp at night it symbolizes life, security and hope. So, if those lights are extinguished, they'll be chaos because that is the only way people can identify a path on which they can walk. I use light in my paintings to illustrate its importance in the African experience.”

[email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org/

Finally the nomination process in the search for Kenyan heroes has been launched. The debut nomination form was published in The Daily Nation on 4th July 2008 and in Taifa Leo on the same day. You can also nominate your Kenyan hero.

International Women's Programs invites proposals from local, national, regional or international organizations that reduce discrimination and violence against women, strengthen women's access to justice, and increase women's role as decision-makers and leaders.

The 5th European Gender and ICT Symposium will take a closer look at the complex interdependences between gender and ICT. Analyses of current ICT use and education on a global level and under various local conditions will be presented and new constructive approaches to gender-aware software design will be identified at the conference. Innovative solutions to overcome the barriers, to encourage participation, and to equally empower women and men by means of Information Technology will be discussed.

On Thursday the 3rd of July the Supreme Court of Uganda finally heard the constitutional appeal concerning the imposition of the death penalty in Uganda, three years after the constitutional court gave its original judgement on the case.

The Journal of Muslim Mental Health is seeking an Editorial Assistant in Cairo, Egypt who can offer approximately 10-12 hours weekly of professional service to the journal in close collaboration with the Editor-in-Chief starting August 1st, 2008 for a period of one year.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/387/49363betweenrock.jpgAt the summit of the African Union in Ghana in July 2007, Robert Mugabe was given a standing ovation. Later he went outside the conference to deliver a roaring anti–imperialist speech at a huge public rally. At the Nkrumah square Mugabe was hailed as one of the most steadfast revolutionary leaders in Africa. One year later, at the African Union Conference in Cairo, Egypt, Robert Mugabe was shunned by most leaders and condemned by those who opposed the authoritarian and dictatorial methods of rule. One day prior to the conference Mugabe had been sworn in as President after a non-election where he was the only candidate. This was a far cry from his initial inauguration in April 1980 when he was sworn in as Prime Minister before a throng of hundreds of thousands. Bob Marley had led the popular anti-racist and anti-imperialist forces to this celebration and had sung, Africans a liberate Zimbabwe. By June 2008 Robert when Mugabe was sworn in his regime had degenerated from a party associated with the legacies of Patrice Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah to an organization associated with the militarism and repression of Mobutu Sese Seko and Hastings Banda. Working peoples all across the region led and inspired by the Congress of South African Trade Unions opposed the Mugabe government and called for its isolation. Nelson Mandela was moved to declare that one was witnessing a “tragic failure of leadership in Zimbabwe.”

It is this failure that needs to be contextualized not simply as a Zimbabwean phenomenon, but as one of the forms and content of politics and political engagement in an era of economic depression and discredited neo-liberalism. All over the African continent the poor and oppressed have borne the brunt of the food crisis, the energy crisis, the health pandemics, and the crisis of the financial markets. This is the cataclysm that is being termed the worst capitalist crisis since the depression of the 1930’s. While spokespersons for capitalism such as Alan Greenspan have noted the depth of the contradictions between capitalist wealth and the impoverishment of the peoples of the globe, the G8 discourse on increasing aid flows block serious analysis of the impact of the capitalist depression in Africa and other parts of the downtrodden world. Food riots and other forms of spontaneous expressions of resistance have been taking place in the absence of clear organizational forms to respond to this capitalist depression. It is in South Africa where the workers are organizing against the high food prices with marches.

Inside a country such as Zimbabwe the internal political contradictions and the dire economic conditions serve to compound the oppression of the Zimbabwean peoples. It is this oppression that calls for both clear analysis and action on the part of those who want support the oppressed and are not accessories to their oppression by overt and covert support for the Mugabe regime. The Zimbabwean working peoples have been well organized and it is in part the quality of their organization that exposed the Mugabe government and the ZANU-PF party. These organized workers and human rights activists exposed a clique of political careerists and militarists that represented itself as an anti-imperialist force in Africa. From among the ranks of the working peoples emerged various political organizations. The political party that emerged out of this alliance of working peoples is the Movement for Democratic Change. (MDC).

African Lens,The Story of Priya Ramrakha commemorates the work of a remarkable photographer who defined his career by embracing the people and events of Africa as a personal subject. One of Africa's first international photojournalists, Ramrakha traveled the continent, documenting the lives of ordinary people for the world press.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/387/49322g8leaders.jpgThe Group of Eight came into being in 1975 as the G7 at a time that the world was embroiled in deep economic crisis, much like today. Its main aim was to coordinate the macroeconomic policies of the rich countries at a time of stagflation as well as to forge a common strategy vis-a-vis the developing world, which had loosened its political and economic dependency on the First World during the heady days of decolonization, national liberation struggles, and the emergence of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as an economic power.

The G7 were not successful in coordinating their policies, with the US under Ronald Reagan aggressively pursuing a cheap dollar policy that brought on recession in Germany and Japan. They did, however, come together in a united front against the developing countries, putting their weight behind the neoliberal structural adjustment policies imposed by the World Bank and IMF on more than 90 developing and transition (post-socialist) economies. The structural adjustment programs rolled back the economic gains achieved by the South in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

In the 1990’s, the G7 became the main promoters of corporate-driven globalization, for which the road had been paved by the radical deregulation, radical liberalization, and radical privatization that took place in developing countries under structural adjustment. The G7 also provided strong support for the World Trade Organization (WTO) as the main agency for the process global trade and investment liberalization demanded by their corporations.

The late 1990’s, however, brought about, not the increasing prosperity for all promised by neoliberal, pro-market policies but rising absolute poverty, increasing inequality, and the consolidation of economic stagnation in the South. The collapse of the third ministerial of the WTO in Seattle in December 1999 marked the achievement of a critical mass by the forces of opposition created by the contradictions of globalization.

With the realities of globalization exposed, the summits of the G7—now G8 with the incorporation of Russia—became a lightning rod for the rising global opposition. At the G8 Summit in Genoa in June 2001, three hundred thousand people came together under the uncompromising program of “No to the G8.” The battle lines were clearly drawn, with the Italian police or carabineri contributing immensely to polarization by erupting in a riot that took the life of one activist and injured scores of others.

Elements within the G8 realized that the image of being a hegemonic directorate of globalization was not good for the future of the body. Led by the New Labor government of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in Britain, the G8 underwent a facelift. A new discourse was forged, the key substantive elements of which were debt forgiveness for the poorest countries, the raising of aid levels to 0.7 per cent of the GDP of the G8 countries, a massive aid package for Africa, making trade serve development, and tackling climate change. The new watchwords when it came to process were “partnership,” “consultation,” “global social integration,” and the “millennium development goals.” The battle was for the soul of global civil society. The high point of this new look was the Gleneagles Summit in 2005, which was choreographed by an alliance between the Labor Government, entertainment superstars Bob Geldof and Bono, and influential British NGO’s. Several hundred thousand people who journeyed to Scotland found themselves manipulated into becoming a chorus for the glittering Aid for Africa concerts that were staged simultaneously in different parts of the globe.

By the time 2007 came along, the glitter was gone. The idea of global civil society partnering with the G8 had soured as none of the G8 governments reached the 0.7 of GDP target, aid to Africa fell short of the $20 billion promised at Gleneagles, the “Doha Development Round” had become a big joke, and serious action on climate was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the G8 communique at the Heiligendamm or Rostock Summit emphasized techno-fixes for climate change, lectured developing countries about not restricting investment by transnational corporations, and issued a thinly veiled warning about China getting preferential access to raw materials in Africa. Under the leadership of civil society in Germany, militant denunciation and confrontation of the G8 was the preferred civil society response, with thousands of demonstrators trying to penetrate the site of the leaders’ meeting to shut it down. With the dominant cry being “G8—Get out of the way,” the Heiligendamm protests retrieved the militant tradition of Genoa that had been suppressed at Gleneagles.

So we come to the G8 Summit here in Hokkaido, Japan. We have not only in Bush, Sarkozy, Brown, and Fukuda a group of discredited leaders with very low ratings at the polls in their own countries. We have as well a G8 that is, more than ever, lacking in legitimacy as the typhoon unleashed by the project of globalization that it has promoted is wracking the globe in the form of the simultaneous crises of skyrocketing oil prices, rising food prices, global financial collapse, and worsening climate change. Against this backdrop, Japanese and Asian social movements are faced with the choice of taking either the Road of Genoa or the Road of Gleneagles—that is, to deepen the G8’s crisis of legitimacy or, as in Gleneagles, to salvage the G8 once again. The greatest gift that the Japanese movement can give to global civil society is by leading the struggle to make the Hokkaido Summit the final summit of the G8.

*Walden Bello is president of the Freedom from Debt Coalition and senior analyst of Focus on the Global South. This essay was first given as speech at the opening plenary of the People’s Summit, Sapporo Convention Center, Hokkaido, Japan, July 6, 2008.

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

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/386/49336pen.jpgIs the pen mightier than the panga? This was the question confronting Kenya’s literary establishment in the opening days of 2008, as war spread throughout Kenya’s urban centers and across the fertile Rift Valley in the nation’s heartland. As belligerent armies of unemployed youth paraded before news cameras armed with the one weapon all Kenyans have access to, pangas (machetes) once again became the symbol for death and destruction in Africa. Spoken words, it seemed, coming from the podiums of politicians of every stripe, were what helped ignite this chaos in the first place; was it possible that written words from a more thoughtful source might help reverse the spread of violence? Or barring that, could it at least make sense of the chaos and thereby ensure that when peace returned, it stayed?

Kenya’s writing community didn’t wait long to find out. Three days after the killings began, a truly unique creature was born: the Concerned Kenyan Writers group, a broad and passionate coalition of almost one hundred thinkers, philosophers, poets, journalists, novelists, film-makers, and just about every brand of outraged humanist a person could imagine.

The CKW began simply, as a ‘google group’ whose members submitted prose for the whole group to debate and critique; part workshop, part battleground of ideas, the stories, essays, poems and rants that were posted to the google group would go on to grace the pages of newspapers like The New York Times and the Mail & Guardian, magazines like Nigeria’s Farafina, and dozens more international publications. And despite its name, the CKW quickly grew to include writers who didn’t hold Kenyan passports, but nevertheless felt a strong enough connection to the country to play an active role in its rehabilitation – writers like Kalundi Serumaga, the Ugandan radio and print journalist, and Petina Gappah, the Zimbabwean writer/activist.

But the impact was greatest inside Kenya’s borders. Within a month of its creation, the CKW had grown to encompass virtually every literary institution; Kenya’s three major newspapers, for instance, were ably covered by Rasna Warah, a columnist for the Daily Nation, Martin Kimani, writing for the weekly East African, and Tony Mochama, whose weekly ‘Smitta’ column in the Standard reaches more of Kenya’s youth than any other printed space in the country. Together, these three (and many more like them) presented stories to millions of Kenyans that went beyond the usual stenographic political coverage. They poked and prodded the consciences of not just politicians, but of readers themselves, urging the public to share in the responsibility for what befell the country.

And they went far beyond newspapers. Tony Mochama, normally known for his sharp-witted interviews and vodka-soaked poetry, published a short story, “The Road To Eldoret,” describing one man’s ill-fated drive through Rift Valley. The tale appeared in a small but vivid collection called After the Vote, alongside stories like Simiyu Barasa’s “The Obituary of Simiyu Barasa,” in which the journalist-turned-filmmaker describes his own death at the hands of imagined rioters; and an untitled essay by playwright Andia Kisia who, in imagining her parents’ witnessing the birth of Kenya, realizes that “the country was a continuous experiment with the ever present possibility of failure, a fragile thing that had only just come into being and might very well go out of being…”

Published in early May, After the Vote was the first post-election book to hit the shelves. Many other like-minded initiatives had already come to the public’s eye, though, like the special edition of Wajibu magazine that came out in mid April with doves and flames on the cover and words by every Kenyan writer of note inside. One of those writers was Wambui Mwangi, who had recently started a multimedia project called Generation Kenya aimed at exploring and celebrating the identity(ies) of post-independence Kenya.

Was it ironic that Mwangi should have sprung her project into motion in December of 2007, at almost the exact moment that Kenya revealed its darkest side to itself and the world? Certainly, “Kenyan-ness” suddenly seemed much less of a cause for celebration by the time December 27th came around. But Mwangi adapted her website, to the new circumstances and used it as a platform to profile the countless ‘mashujaas’ (champions) who had performed acts of heroism on grand and modest scales throughout the election. It turned out to be what Kenya needed most – true and heartening stories that spoke of hope and a fundamental integrity in the Kenyan character at a time when barbarians dominated the stage. The GenKen project resonated so well with the public that the Nation Media Group is now including it as a supplement in their pages, the most widely read in Kenya.

Not to be outdone, the diaspora intelligencia contributed from afar as blogs and websites roared to life – perhaps none more vocally than KenyaImagine.com, whose cast of writers provided an ongoing narrative of the Kenyan drama. Managed by a handful of editors living as far afield as England, the US and South Africa, KenyaImagine blended the humour and absurdity of the post-election period so deftly it was hard to imagine the people running it could be living anywhere but inside the heart of the story. Other sites used their cyberpens to do more than tell stories; they raised cash for aid, like like Dipesh Pabari’s Sukuma Kenya, which pulled in 1.2 million shillings and funneled it towards reconstruction efforts in Kisumu.

And then there is Kwani?, the annual anthology of east African literature spearheaded by Binyavanga Wainaina, who was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the CKW itself. Kwani? was halfway through production of their fifth volume when the election struck and rendered all other topics irrelevant. Instead of pursuing their original table of contents, the editors decided to clear the plate and start fresh; in February, Kwani? sent a dozen writers on the Testimonial Project; they gathered over two hundred interviews from across the country, drawing out voices that were involved in all sides of the conflict for an unprecedented glimpse of what January’s chaos looked like on the ground. Other writers, some of whom had already been commissioned to follow the campaign, were brought in to flesh out the narrative, bringing creative nonfiction, poetry, essays and analysis to the mix. The result will be launched in August, a special twin issue that promises to be the most authoritative and comprehensive reflection to date on this most indelible of historical periods.

That launch coincides with the Kwani Litfest. Writers from all over Africa are coming to Nairobi for the first week of August, an event that may provide the first real opportunity to reflect on a different sort of question – the most painful one for writers, of just how much difference their work has made. There is little doubt that the Kenyan crisis has inspired an already talented crew of writers and forced them to reach for new heights. But the question does remain: Can their collective pens defeat the swords that were drawn in January?

For now those blades are sheathed, while the scribes continue to wage their sharp-tongued war on the status quo. It will take some time to tell how deeply into Kenya’s conscience the country’s writers can cut with their words. In the meantime, the activation and engagement of Kenya’s literary community is already proof that at least one good thing has come from this country’s descent into madness.

*Arno Kopecky is a Canadian journalist and travel writer, currently based in Nairobi. His dispatches have appeared in several international publications, including The Walrus magazine, Utne, Harper's, The Toronto Star, and Kenya's Daily Nation, for whom he reported extensively on Kenya's post-election chaos. He is currently an editor with Kwani?, a literary anthology of east African words, photography and art.

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

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/386/49339afrilit.jpgEach generation of writers is confounded by the simple and clichéd paradox – the more the world changes the more it remains the same. The imagination wants to be freed from the hold of the past, and yet it finds that the present and the material worlds are indelibly tied to that past. I believe it is to this tension that James Baldwin was speaking when he wrote that a writer cannot write outside his or her times.

Each generation of writers wants to acknowledge the previous generation, but at the same time it begrudges them an unchanged world while claiming the new for itself. It is these tensions that in the end produce literature, and help draw a blurred line between one generation of writers and the next.

I remember a great moment around 2002 when South African poet and anti-apartheid activist Daniel Kunene read a poem he wrote soon after apartheid fell in 1994. The poem was about taking out the trash from the kitchen. By way of introducing the poem, he narrated how he had felt, after having spent all his life fighting this beast called apartheid, now that it was dead, that he could allow his imagination to work out other concerns - the mundane, the minutiae of day to day existence.

But that was 1994 when all seemed possible in South Africa. In 2002, Kunene was reading the poem as something written in a moment in time, before it was overtaken by change that remained the same. Today thinking about the xenophobic attacks, his poem about taking out the trash has deep metaphorical undertones. It could very well be about cleaning out the trash that the ANC has become.

Let me not put words in his mouth and say this: that in the xenophobic killings we find the paradox that allows the new generation of South African writers and Kunene’s generation to have a dialogue. In the same way that Mugabe’s one-man show and the recent Kenya crisis allows the older and younger generation of writers to have a conversation. If such a national crisis is seen as an occasion to blame, then an opportunity to move history and literature forward is lost. If it is used to build on the past and if we understand history as a process then the stage for the next generation of writers is set.

But let me also say this – that I do not know what it means to be a political writer. Perrhaps more than anything this designation has been used to take the African artist and the writer out of what he or she produces. The friendly critic thus says - the African artist is functional; the African writer is political. Yet, the imagination cannot be moved by ideology otherwise it simply gives the ideology a different form.

Imagination is moved by a profound desire to render tangible that which is around it. The artist is moved by beauty and ugliness, by the senseless and chaotic because deep down the imagination is haughty enough to believe that there is nothing it cannot grasp and make visible. The artist has to make music out of two, three or more dead and dying beats. A novel with ten characters means that the writer had to bring a Lazarus back from the dead ten times.

So the African writer lives somewhere between “making the ordinary extra-ordinary”, making the invisible visible and finding a “voice for the voiceless.”

And I think my generation of writers understands this very well. Look, during the post-electoral violence in Kenya, the Concerned Kenyan Writers did not put their pens down in order to be concerned citizens. They spoke as writers to a political situation without as much as giving a nod to those who see Africans as producing only functional art, or want the African writer to write about the snow caps of Mt. Kilimanjaro while ignoring the politics of global warming. So, yes African writers can be unapologetically political but as artists.

It is precisely for these reasons that I remain very partial, even protective of the work that Kwani? Magazine has been doing for the last 6 or so years. I do not think Kwani? blames; I think it just does. And when it comes to African literature, there is a lot of work to be done.

Consider this, in the United States there are thousands of literary journals, some national, and some local, some in universities and some in high-schools. In Britain, you find the same thing. Yet in a country like Kenya, you have only one literary journal that can be considered national and in Nigeria half a dozen or so. One cannot even think of regional or provincial journals let alone high school journals in Africa. In the whole continent, with an exception of African Writing, there is hardly a literary journal that can considered Pan-African in that it serves the concerns of the whole continent. Considering Africa has a population that is close to 700 million, we are in terrible shape.

Or take the question of literary prizes. Again in the West, there are literary prizes for all ages and regions in addition to national ones. In Africa there are only a handful with the most prestigious being Western. In the US there are state and national art councils with their own budgets: African governments see writing as an act of spontaneous combustion by a few ingrates who should in fact be jailed. This is not to say that we need to emulate the literary traditions of the West, but surely we should be able to use them to challenge our own.

What does this mean? Quite simply that the African child sees writing a book as something he or she can never achieve. To chase after a dream, there has to be a belief that it can be achieved. The African student reads a novel by Achebe or Ngugi as a finished product; there is no process, books just happen to be born.

So the work being done by Kwani?, and other magazines such as Chimurenga and Farafina, is very central to the future of African literature. It is these magazines that demystify the writing process for aspiring writers. They become a magnet and home for national and continental talent. It is around these magazines that Literary Festivals are being held and it is around them that we should build African literary prizes. We need to invest in the creation of more journals till Kwani and Chimurenga become one amongst many.

This is not say that we do not have a few failings some of them bordering on the tragic. T.S. Elliot once remarked that a poet’s responsibility is first and foremost to his or her language. It is only fair to say that on this count we are failing - happily. But if we do not pick up the responsibility for our languages, who will?

*Mukoma Wa Ngugi is the author of Hurling Words at Consciousness (poems, 2006), Conversing with Africa: Politics of Change and is co-editor of Pambazuka News (www.pambazuka.org).

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