Pambazuka News 311: Interrogating Barbie democracy: Africa in the new millennium
Pambazuka News 311: Interrogating Barbie democracy: Africa in the new millennium
As mountains of garbage expand in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, the UN Environment Programme has called on the government and private sector to repair the country’s broken system for collecting trash. “Solid waste management is arguably the greatest public health threat in Monrovia,” UNEP’s Michael Cowing told IRIN. “There is virtually no waste management secto
Women in Sierra Leone stand to enjoy unprecedented rights under new laws making wife-beating a criminal offence, allowing women to inherit property, and protecting young women against forced marriage. One human rights coalition said the three laws, enacted by Sierra Leone’s parliament 14 June, will “help to radically improve the legal position of women in Sierra Leone.”
Most Swazi women who face domestic violence do not take their children and walk out of the house. "They say, 'who is going to feed me?'" Nonhlanhla Dlamini, Director of the Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse (SWAGAA), told IRIN. But this is changing. An innovative SWAGAA programme to empower women economically in Swaziland's patriarchal society is helping many out of a cycle of abuse and dependency.
Ethiopian journalistPaulos Kidane, a journalist with the Amharic-language service of state-owned Eri-TV and radio Dimtsi Hafash (Voice of the Broad Masses), died in June 2007 in an attempt to flee on foot across the border into Sudan.
An editorial critical of Gabonese President Omar Bongo, Africa's longest-serving head of state, has led authorities in the capital, Libreville, to arrest a publisher and suspend his newspaper, according to news reports and local journalists. Guy-Christian Mavioga, director of the private periodical L'Espoir, has been in police custody since Thursday on accusations of offending the head of state in connection with a June 14 editorial headlined "The last days of Bongo," local journalists told CPJ.
Esther Wakilongo, a journalist with privately-owned Vision Shala Television (VSTV), was detained by Lieutenant-Colonel Anicet Muhimuzi, head of intelligence for the national police, while she was covering the parade organised for the anniversary of the country's independence in Bukavu (the largest city in South Kivu province, in the country's east). Although she presented her press card, the lieutenant-colonel seized her camera on the grounds that she did not possess "the badge granting authorisation to take pictures."
Philip Neville, the editor of the privately-owned "Standard Times" daily newspaper, was released from Pademba Road prison late on 3 July 2007 after paying bail. No date has yet been set for his trial. On 2 July, a Freetown court charged Neville with "libel", "malicious propaganda" and "publishing false news", and set very tough conditions for his provisional release.
Experts have long assumed that the violence, wide-scale rape and refugee crises are the inevitable by-products of war that fuel HIV/AIDS epidemics, but an analysis of HIV prevalence surveys from seven sub-Saharan African countries with similar recent histories found no evidence that higher HIV infection rates accompany conflict.
Swaziland's first Demographic Health Survey has found that 26 percent of sexually active Swazis are infected with HIV. The last prevalence survey, based on tests of pregnant women at antenatal clinics, had found a 38.6 percent HIV infection rate. The new figure was derived from a house-to-house survey by the Central Statistics Office for the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.
Daily Graphic - The President of Liberia, Mrs Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, has urged African leaders to endorse without delay the concept of a United States of Africa. She has also prodded them to instruct, in no uncertain terms, all regional economic commissions and community institutions to formulate and adopt the road map and the time table for the achievement that goal.
“This will allow institutions to move forward in peace with progress.” she added.
The African diaspora needs a voice in the African Union and any future African unity government to reflect the influence it exercises across the world on the continent’s behalf, civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson said.
But while he supported a push for greater African integration, Jackson said issues like the conflict in Sudan"s western Darfur region and the crisis in Zimbabwe must be tackled if unity was to carry moral authority.
The UN has admitted that a report on the disputed Western Sahara region, a long-standing row between Morocco and the Polisario Front, was biased in favour of Morocco, Al Jazeera reports. A new report was issued on Monday, after Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, acknowledged the bias.
As part of the ongoing ‘Gender is My Agenda Campaign,’ aiming to mainstream gender in the African Union (AU), the women’s civil society networks have organized the 10th AU Pre-Summit Consultative meeting which was held in Accra, Ghana, on the 23rd and 24th June. This meeting precedes the 9th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union and will be the 10th in a series of consultative meetings of civil society networks concerned with gender issues and the promotion of women’s human rights in Africa.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their homes by almost daily fighting in Somalia's capital Mogadishu. The UN says more than 400,000 Somalis fled the city in the last five months, many of those have headed north towards Puntland, a semi-autonomous region in the north east of the country. Al Jazeera's Mohammed Adow reports that Bosaso, the region's largest city, is now struggling to provide for its growing refugee population.
The Accra Declaration was (www.pambazuka.org/aumonitor/images/uploads/ACCRAJuly2007AUSummitDECLARAT...) adopted by Heads of States at the conclusion of the African Union Summit. The Declaration reflects some of the demands of civil society, particularly in regards to “the importance of involving the African peoples in order to ensure that the African Union is a Union of peoples and not just a “Union of states and governments”, as well as the African Diaspora in the processes of economic and political integration of our continent” and the need for “freer movement of persons, goods, services and capital” as were elaborated in the final CSO Communique on the Grand Debate (www.pambazuka.org/aumonitor/images/uploads/Final_Accra_CSO_communique.pdf).
Egypt has announced that it is imposing a complete ban on female circumcision, also known as genital mutilation. The announcement follows a public outcry after a young girl died during the operation. A ban was introduced nearly 10 years ago but the practice continued to be allowed in exceptional circumstances.
A statement from the Rastafari People at the African Union Grand Debate was issued on July 2, 2007. It states: “The World Conference Against Racism declared the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade as a crime against humanity. This year, Britain and America have celebrated the 200th Anniversary of the end of that wickedness. The Republic of Ghana, for its part, has also seen fit to do something to atone for this crime against humanity and the complicity of some chiefs in the deportation of their own people into what became the MAAFA - an African Holocaust.
If it is morally and spiritually correct to talk about the wrongness of forcibly transporting African people from Africa to the Americas, then it is absolutely correct at this time to talk about the rightness of transporting African people from the land of their captivity to their ancestral homeland which is this continent known today as Africa."
Timelines and the method for Africa’s integration are to be set out according to the Accra Declaration, adopted late on Tuesday night by the 9th Ordinary Session of the African Union Heads of Summit.
“We emerged from the Grand Debate with a common vision,” AU Chair John Kuofor and President of Ghana said on Tuesday, minutes before midnight.
The World Bank announced Monday that it provided a record US$5.7 billion in credits and grants to Sub-Saharan Africa in the fiscal year ending 30 June 2007, up from US$4.7 billion in fiscal 2006.
A statement from the bank in Accra, venue of the ongoing 9th AU Summit, said the development arm of the bank – International Development Association (IDA) - provided the funding.
African nations are used to being plundered - the West perfected the art. Now the new scramble for Africa's resources is coming from the east. With a voracious economy to feed, China is devouring raw materials - oil, copper, cobalt and zinc. And it is wooing governments, including those who trample on human rights, with soft loans, aid and arms sales.
China's biggest oil company CNPC has reached a deal with Sudan to search for oil and gas in the north of the country on the coast of the Red Sea. The exploration will be carried out jointly with the Indonesian state oil and gas company PT Pertamina.
This weekend Uganda joins the growing number of East African countries which have banned the plastic bag in an attempt to clean up cities and prevent environmental damage including blocked drains.
Edited by one of Africa's foremost intellectuals, former deputy chair of CODESRIA and deputy chair of the International Council of Philosophy and Humanistic Studies (ICPHS), this work investigates how reason, an attribute of all of humanity, expresses itself in different cultures, in diverse, plural and unified forms.
The extensive and comprehenive work is divided into three parts, on explorations of 'rationality', rationalities and cultures, and theoretical and social practices. Essays in both French and English are included.
The work stems from a conferences organised by Unesco and the Centre africain des hautes etudes in Porto-Novo, Benin to coincide with the 26th general assembly of the ICPHS.
The contributors of over 36 chapters include Richard Rorty, Bonaventure Mve-Ondo, Honorat Aguessy, Abdoulaye Elimane Kane and Ariane Djossou-Segla.
ISBN: 978-2-86978-181-8, 476pp., 2007 CODESRIA
Orders - Africa,
N.America - Michigan State Univ. Press, www.africanbookscollective.com
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/broadcasts/Sindy-Mkhize.jpgSindy Mkhize of the Abahlali baseMjondolo Shackdwellers Movement of Durban speaks to Sokari Ekine of Pambazuka at the Pan African Mobile Activists workshops held in Nairobi in June. Sindy who is a member of the Abahlali Women's League discusses the pressure of living under constant attack from local government and local police and also the recent detention of members of the Kennedy Road location on charges of murder. Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement is the largest organisation of the militant poor in post-apartheid South Africa and is presently engaged in .
For more see the Abahlali website.
Music in this podcast is brought to you by Busi Ncube from Zimbabwe, kindly provided by Thulani Promotions.
Recently, Nigerian author, Chinua Achebe was awarded the Man Booker International Prize for 2007. Stephanie Kitchen argues that although the prize is decided by the literary establishment and still embodies the values of the former colonial power, African writers are fighting back as 'active definers and custodians of society’s values'.
‘The colonialist critic, unwilling to accept the validity of sensibilities other than his own, has made particular point of dismissing the African novel…did not the black people in America, deprived of their own musical instruments, take the trumpet and the trombone and blow them as they had never been blown before, as indeed they were not designed to be blown? And the result, was it not jazz? Let every people bring their gifts to the great festival of the world’s cultural harvest and mankind will be all the richer for the variety and distinctiveness of the offerings.
…
My people speak disapprovingly of an outsider whose wailing drowned the grief of the owner of the corpse… One last word to the owners…most of what remains to be done can best be tackled by ourselves.’ – Chinua Achebe[1]
At a ceremony in Oxford on 28 June 2007, Chinua Achebe, Nigeria’s great living novelist, for some, the greatest, ‘the founding father of African literature’, and the founding editor of the groundbreaking African Writers Series, was awarded the second Man Booker International Prize (http://www.manbookerinternational.com/home).
Achebe has written over 20 books, including novels, short stories, essays, collections of poetry and children’s books. Things Fall Apart, published in 1958, has sold over 10,000,000 copies around the world and been translated into 50 languages. Achebe is the recipient of over 30 honorary degrees and numerous awards for his work. Now 77, and paralysed from the waist down in a car accident in 1990, he did not attend the ceremony.
In conjunction with the award, the prize hosted a public panel discussion of the jury, comprising Elaine Showalter (the chair), Colm Toibin, Nadine Gordimer and Ion Trewin, the Booker prize administrator. It was an extraordinary moment, a rare opportunity to listen to Nadine Gordimer, one of Africa’s greatest authors pay tribute to the work of another whom she deeply and publicly admires. Gordimer’s participation on the jury was doubtless instrumental in this much deserved, for many, too long delayed, recognition of Achebe by the international literary establishment.
The Man Book International Prize is intended as a ‘global’ literary prize, awarded to a writer ‘whose body of work has make a major contribution to world literature’, rather than to an individual book. It may be awarded to any writer whose work is available in English and deserves to be better known or more widely translated. In the words of John Carey, chair of the judges for the inaugural prize ‘This new prize will reward high international achievement, but unlike other global prizes, it will target fiction in English, or translated into English, and so will celebrate English-language fiction as a major cultural force in the modern world’.[2] The prize differs from other book prizes in that the judges, not publishers, authors or academics, nominate the candidates. Each year, the jury inherits and may discard or add to the shortlist from the previous year. The prize does not have hard-coded standards or criteria.
This new ‘international’ Booker prize should not bypass debates about its legitimacy unchecked. Once again, it raises questions about the British establishment’s all too familiar tendency to slide from national, parochial literary concerns into uncritical notions of the ‘international’ or ‘universal’ (for which, read London, Oxford, New York, Washington…). Worse, arguably, it plays to colonial and neo-colonial practices of the literary and publishing industries, whereby it is deemed not unethical, at least acceptable and inevitable, for the former colonial power to sit in judgement and exercise power over the books, authors and literatures produced by descendants of the empire. As the prize develops, these suspicions must be kept under scrutiny.
But for the moment, such a happy and imaginative choice doubtless increases the stature of this nascent award in the eyes of the international literary and publishing communities. The International Man Booker may raise lesser known writers out of the ghetto, for example the dubious, and for many discredited - on literary and ethical grounds - Commonwealth Writers Prize (which, for example, has disqualified Zimbabwean writers from entry - imagine, African literature without Shimmer Chinodya, Yvonne Vera, Dambudzo Marachera...), and into the mainstream. No one can be more deserving of that than Achebe after all he has given as enrichment to our different and shared cultures. If the award leads to the revival, promotion, translation and dissemination of all his works, then it will have made its mark.
The jury had begun with a longlist of 70 names, around 250 novels, collections of short stories, which included writers from 29 countries in 20 languages. They had met three times, in Washington, Toronto and Dublin. At the second meeting, the list was reduced to 30 names. At the final meeting, the shortlist drawn up and winner decided. The final shortlist comprised Margaret Atwood, John Banville, Peter Carey, Don DeLillo, Carlos Fuentes, Doris Lessing, Ian McEwan, Harry Mulisch, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje, Amos Oz, Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie and Michel Tournier.
The judges were keen to respond to anticipated media criticisms, such as the dominant presence of Anglo-Saxon writers on the shortlist, of their own national prejudices and the fact the list included few authors of books in translation. They asserted that they had made an enormous effort to be as wide-ranging and inclusive as possible, acknowledging the genuine difficulty that whilst one of the missions of the prize is to encourage translation, they could only review writers whose books had been translated into English, reflecting the challenge more generally for more books from languages other than English to be translated.
Nadine Gordimer was keen to keep the discussion focused on the shortlist, the purpose of the prize being to make important works better known, and to give them as much publicity as possible. Anthills of the Savannah has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987; this award gave opportunities for wider promotion of the book. ‘It would be presumptuous to say we chose the greatest writer in the world’, but nevertheless ‘Chinua Achebe’s early work made him the father of modern African literature as an integral part of world literature. He has gone on to achieve what one of his characters brilliantly defines as the writer’s purpose: “a new-found utterance” for the capture of life’s complexity’. Achebe’s books ‘explore the mystery of life…bringing ‘a new found utterance’ to what we are as human beings, to what life is and its changing circumstances’. Additional to the famous trilogy of novels, Things Fall Apart (1958), No Longer at Ease (1960) and Arrow of God (1964), she spoke warmly of A Man of the People (1966), ‘a prophetic book, an exposure of corruption in a newly independent African state after colonial oppression; in its attendancy to the corruption, not only in Africa, also in other parts of the world, eating away at our humanity…preventing the establishment of true democracy’.
The other judges commented on Achebe’s achievement in his original synthesis of the psychological novel, the Joycean stream of consciousness, the post-modern breaking of sequence traditions and arriving at a new prescription thereby out-dating any prescriptivity. They commented Achebe describes changes taking place that are momentous. He had written books that could be given to anyone in the world, to any general reader who loves books. Elaine Showalter described Achebe as ‘a wonderful choice’. It had been ‘the year of judging dangerously…in the current state of the world, we can’t pretend fiction does not have some political repercussions’. Gordimer added that governments feared literature because it makes people think, ‘true thought is a danger to governments that are oppressive in the weight of propaganda’.
The judges stressed they had not been overtly concerned with ‘politically correct’ categories of the gender, sexuality or nationality of the writer. There had been no discussions about ‘balancing the list’. ‘What matters is the quality of writing…writing is the important issue…nor did we sweep anything under the bookcase’. Nadine Gordimer stressed that concerns of sex or race had been irrelevant to the literary question of ‘new found utterance’, and ‘literature being about the mystery of modern life’ – echoing and inversing Achebe’s thoughts on the matter, expressed elsewhere: ‘it is not even a matter of color. For we have Nadine Gordimer’.[3]
James Currey, the eminent African studies publisher and inspirational force behind the African Writers Series (AWS) asked about the extent to which the judges had taken into account the ‘general literary situation of the writer’. After all, Achebe’s contribution to literature had not only been his own books, but the ‘massive contribution he had made to the African Writers Series’. In this sense, the award celebrated not only Achebe, but the body of literature, not always uncontested, he had inspired. Gordimer agreed about the importance of the publication of the AWS, which had brought African literature ‘out beyond the borders’. It had been ‘an assertion of the freedom of expression’ and had served as ‘an encouragement to younger writers’. In the end though, she felt Achebe’s lasting and greatest achievement remained his ‘new found utterance’. It is ‘all there, he synthesises all these things’. From all ideas and thoughts about what it takes to be a writer, ‘there must be some special quality’. For as the writer, you are ‘going to bear the chalk around your eye’. Writers are engaged in the endless task of finding new modes of telling our stories as human beings, and ‘Achebe has gone very far in that’.
Gordimer, now 84 years old herself, is one of the most exceptional novelists and short story writers in English. She won the Booker Prize in 1974, whose work has been translated into over 20 languages. With acute intelligence and her deep, long and intimate understanding of the art of writing and literature, she spoke in almost mythical proportions. For many of us present, and for others throughout the world, she has helped shape and deepen our understanding of apartheid South Africa and the human dimensions of its injustices and horrors. Her now canonical and classic texts will doubtless go on elucidating that period of history and lived present for generations to come.
African literature and its appreciation are currently in rude health from our perspective in Britain. There has been Achebe’s Booker prize award; the passing of Sembene Ousmane to accolades of his massive contribution to literature, film and culture globally; Wole Soyinka’s multitude of appearances in conjunction with his new work You Must Set Forth at Dawn: A Memoir; and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s marvellous success at winning the Orange Prize for her new novel Half a Yellow Sun, and achieving popular status, including TV recognition.
This said, there remains a long way to go to achieve true cultural exchange and dialogue between North and South, ‘…the problem of dialogue which has plagued Afro-European relations for centuries’ that will persist ‘until Europe is ready. Ready to concede total African humanity’. But in the literary domain – involving ‘the active definers and custodians of society’s values…literature giv[ing] us a second handle on reality; enabling us to encounter…the same threats to integrity that may assail...in real life’[5] – Achebe’s prophecy is being fulfilled: ‘I have no doubt at all about the existence of the African novel. This form of fiction has seized the imagination of many African writers and they will use it according to their differing abilities, sensitivities and visions without seeking anyone’s permission. I believe it will grow and prosper. I believe it has a great future.’[6]
Stephanie Kitchen
July 2007
References
1 ‘Colonialist Criticism’ in Chinua Achebe: Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays, New York: Doubleday, 2003 edition, 1st publ. 1989, p. 89
2 Press release of the inaugural prize,
3 ‘Thoughts on the African Novel’, in Chinua Achebe, Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays, New York: Doubleday, 2003, p. 93
4 ‘Impediments to dialogue between North and South’ in Achebe, Hopes and Impediments, p. 23
5 ‘What has literature got to do with it’, in Achebe, Hopes and Impediments, p. 170
6 ‘Thoughts on the African Novel’, in Achebe, Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays, New York: Doubleday, 2003, p. 99
* Stephanie Kitchen is Publications Manager for Pambazuka News.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
APC-Africa-Women, in partnership with Women'sNet, invite you to submit an application to participate in a digital storytelling workshop. This workshop is aimed at women who document (as content developers, librarians, archivists, journalists, mediators, translators, information activists etc.) the lives of women affected by violence in Africa.
Deadline 19th July
For more information see the APC website at:
African leaders have again squandered yet another opportunity, an historic one, to lead decisively. Instead they have gone for the least common denominator, the line of least resistance, by deciding not to decide. The all-important issue of a Government of the Union that was billed as The Grand Debate at the recently concluded AU summit, has been referred to yet another committee that will report at the next summit in January in Addis Ababa.
We are all familiar with the saying that the best way to kill an idea is to form a committee about it. How many more committees do we need to make this decision?
The so-called debate itself was the result of a study presented to the heads of state that has taken almost two years to complete. All the arguments for and against were contained in the report and the three options were clear. One, immediate formation of a Union government. Two, a gradual process leading to Union Government by consolidation of regional economic communities and economic convergence. And last, the formation of a Union Government that gives political authority to the AU in specified areas, aligns national policies to continental policies, and rationalises the RECS to become affective building blocs for the Union Government.
Wherever one stands on this debate, deciding on these issues is vital to move forward. Too many decisions, agreements, protocols have been made, agreed or signed at the continental level without any implementation at the national level. The suggestion of a Union Government was meant to give an effective legal and political framework to these agreements and a mandatory enforcement mechanism.
Unfortunately, the huge ego, razzmatazz and showmanship of the brother-leader, Muammar Gaddafi, the champion of the accelerated Union-track, has beclouded the real issues feeding the prejudice of all Gadaffi-phobic and Arab phobic and sub-Saharan obscurantists. President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa who is leading the anti-Gaddafi and anti-Union Government charge, liberally exploited these sentiments to actually subvert the debate due to the interests of South African capital and its expansion across this continent without any obligation towards our social commune.
The South African manoeuvre also tapped into the deep-seated alienation of many Africans about our governments, their distrust of political leaders, and cynicism that our leaders don't mean what they say or say what they mean.
Unfortunately, Mbeki's neoliberal agenda was unwittingly aided and abetted by the ambiguity displayed by Nigeria's new President, Umar Musa Yar' Adua. Yar' Adua was obviously not properly briefed by his benefactor and the Nigerian foreign policy elite about a third position championed by former President Obasanjo, and supported by Uganda, Senegal and other leaders in the Heads of State committee set up to look into the issue. They were supposed to report to the Summit but with clear timelines and concrete steps about what will be Union issues, further reforms of the charter, strengthening of representational institutions like the Pan-African Parliament and also taking a decision on the RECS.
But when Yar Adua spoke in his maiden Summit address, he sounded like all he was interested in were the RECs, thereby strengthening the Mbeki supporters.
Obasanjo was too busy trying to get Yar' Adua to Aso Rock to update him on Nigeria's position on African and global matters. The enemies of the Union Government are not just neoliberal governments but also must be some of the bureaucrats in the Union and NEPAD. The old OAU bureaucrats were afraid of the Union and fought its restructuring before and after the extraordinary summit in Shirte in 1999. Now they are fighting to defend the Union they opposed because we now want to reform it further to create a viable institution with political authority.
Many of them are incompetent and got their positions due to political barter and horse-trading and want to maintain them at all costs. But all is not lost yet. At least no one dares to argue against the Union and the Union Government in principle any more. What they are arguing about is when and how.
Therefore, the debate in the next six months in all our countries should shift to the streets, seminar halls, parliaments, county halls and at all levels to challenge our leaders and democratise the discussion so that by the January Summit there is a clear and unambiguous message that we are ready for a Union Government with a clear timetable. South Africa is happy for its businesses to be free to exploit the rest of the continent. Their attitude is like that of Britain towards Europe. However, British reluctance did not stop the Germans and the French and other Europeans to move forward.
Those countries that are willing and ready should begin to take the necessary steps that will make unity concrete for our peoples and not wait until everybody agrees.
* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the Deputy Director for the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned Pan-Africanist.
* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
We are all familiar with the saying that the best way to kill an idea is to form a committee about it. How many more committees do we need to make this decision?
The so-called debate itself was the result of a study presented to the Heads of State that has taken almost two years to complete. All the arguments for and against were contained in the report and the three options were clear. One, immediate formation of a Union government. Two, a gradual process leading to Union Government by consolidation of regional economic communities and economic convergence. And last, the formation of a Union Government that gives political authority to the AU in specified areas, aligns national policies to continental policies, and rationalises the RECS to become affective building blocs for the Union Government.
Wherever one stands on this debate, deciding on these issues is vital to move forward. Too many decisions, agreements, protocols have been made, agreed or signed at the continental level without any implementation at the national level. The suggestion of a Union Government was meant to give an effective legal and political framework to these agreements and a mandatory enforcement mechanism.
Unfortunately, the huge ego, razzmatazz and showmanship of the brother-leader, Muammar Gaddafi, the champion of the accelerated Union-track, has beclouded the real issues feeding the prejudice of all Gadaffi-phobic and Arab phobic and sub-Saharan obscurantists. President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa who is leading the anti-Gaddafi and anti-Union Government charge, liberally exploited these sentiments to actually subvert the debate due to the interests of South African capital and its expansion across this continent without any obligation towards our social commune.
The South African manoeuvre also tapped into the deep-seated alienation of many Africans about our governments, their distrust of political leaders, and cynicism that our leaders don't mean what they say or say what they mean.
Unfortunately, Mbeki's neo- liberal agenda was unwittingly aided and abetted by the ambiguity displayed by Nigeria's new President, Umar Musa Yar' Adua. Yar' Adua was obviously not properly briefed by his benefactor and the Nigerian foreign policy elite about a third position championed by former President Obasanjo, and supported by Uganda, Senegal and other leaders in the Heads of State committee set up to look into the issue. They were supposed to report to the Summit but with clear timelines and concrete steps about what will be Union issues, further reforms of the charter, strengthening of representational institutions like the Pan-African Parliament and also taking a decision on the RECS.
But when Yar Adua spoke in his maiden Summit address, he sounded like all he was interested in were the RECs, thereby strengthening the Mbeki supporters.
Obasanjo was too busy trying to get Yar' Adua to Aso Rock to update him on Nigeria's position on African and global matters. The enemies of the Union Government are not just neo-liberal governments but also must be some of the bureaucrats in the Union and NEPAD. The old OAU bureaucrats were afraid of the Union and fought its restructuring before and after the extraordinary summit in Shirte in 1999. Now they are fighting to defend the Union they opposed because we now want to reform it further to create a viable institution with political authority.
Many of them are incompetent and got their positions due to political barter and horse-trading and want to maintain them at all costs. But all is not lost yet. At least no one dares to argue against the Union and the Union Government in principle any more. What they are arguing about is when and how.
Therefore, the debate in the next six months in all our countries should shift to the streets, seminar halls, parliaments, county halls and at all levels to challenge our leaders and democratise the discussion so that by the January Summit there is a clear and unambiguous message that we are ready for a Union Government with a clear timetable. South Africa is happy for its businesses to be free to exploit the rest of the continent. Their attitude is like that of Britain towards Europe. However, British reluctance did not stop the Germans and the French and other Europeans to move forward.
Those countries that are willing and ready should begin to take the necessary steps that will make unity concrete for our peoples and not wait until everybody agrees.
* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the Deputy Director for the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned Pan-Africanist.
* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
Last week Atlanta, Georgia hosted the first US Social Forum. Sokari Ekine provides some reflective thoughts on the gathering.
10,000 people came together last week in Atlanta to celebrate grassroots activism across the United States (US). This was the first social forum to be held in the US. That it was held in Atlanta Georgia, home of the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King was not lost on many participants. On the downside, there was the overbearing presence of the Market Place; exclusion of some citizens; over-representation of the Latino community and under-representation of other immigrant communities. However as good opportunities to network and some valuable issues emerged, such and the need to be less self-congratulatory and more reflective.
The opening march was attended by about 10,000 people. It was an uplifting experience to be amongst so many mainly African American and Latino activists from across the US. The main focuses were Katrina/the Gulf Coast, immigration, sexuality and social justice. In contrast to the World Social Forum (WSF), the US forum was not hijacked by the large NGOs, though there were a fair number of smaller US based ones present. Still, the majority of participants appeared to be from truly grassroots community organisations.
Logistically the forum was spread out across various hotels as well as the main Civic Center. This made it difficult to move from one workshop to another, with only a 30 minute break allocated between each one. It also felt very strange to be discussing neoliberalism and anti-imperialism in downtown Atlanta hotels, such as the massive phallic design of the Westin, where the only food available was provided by Starbucks. Atlanta is a city dominated by Coca Cola, the headquarters of Coca Cola with its own museum round the corner from the downtown hotels. Similar to the WSF, the issue of exclusion, cost of hiring space for organisational tents (as high as US$1000), exorbitant cost of food and the excessive Forum Marketplace were all features of the USSF. To enter the Civic Center you had to pass through not one, but a group of ‘guards’ who demanded to see your pass, thus preventing local Atlanta citizens, including a large homeless population, many of whom where just round the corner, from participating. Rumour had it that there had been a discussion over searching people’s bags but fortunately this idea was abandoned.
The $15 minimum entry fee also added to the exclusion of the homeless. You had the ironic situation of activists supposedly working with the marginalised communities having to walk past the homeless everyday as if they were a group of invisible men and women. Close by there was a sign reading ‘Commercial solicitation prohibited. No direct verbal address allowed’, presumably aimed at preventing the homeless from engaging with the rest of the public.
Three notable sessions were the on Gulf Coast reconstruction in the post-Katrina era, ‘Race and Immigration – Immigration Rights’, and from the Africa Tent, ‘Zimbabwe: The Way Forward?’. The Gulf Coast panel brought the house down with reports and moving testimonies from all the activists working on the ground. The main issue was that of the ‘Right to Return’, the right to land and housing as per pre-Katrina, and the struggle against developers and forced removal of local people.
Like the Gulf Coast session, these sessions were well attended. However it was clear that the US immigration activists’ movement is very Latino-centric and even within the Latinos it is very ‘Mexican’ centric. This is something that seriously needs to be addressed, as large numbers of immigrants are being marginalised and made invisible within the movement. African Latinos from across South America, people from all parts of the Caribbean, African and Arab immigrants were very much under-represented. A number of participants felt they had no voice whatsoever. Despite their speaking out, one still left wondering whether or not there needs would be addressed.
The discussion on Zimbabwe was excellent, though very polarised between those who supported the Mugabe regime and those that felt Africans and African Americans needed to condemn Mugabe and other dictators across the continent and work towards democracy and human rights, with social movements and civil society groups taking a lead. There was an assumption amongst some people that because Mugabe was condemned by America and the West that Mugabe himself was the victim; rather than of the reality, which is that the ordinary people of Zimbabwe are the victims of Mugabe’s repression and face resultant daily economic misery.
I missed the People’s Movement Assembly but attended the closing ceremony which was basically a couple of hours of self-congratulatory speeches around the forum with very little reflection and self-critique. I spoke with many participants. There were complaints that too many of the workshops were like lectures with short question and answer sessions and not solution orientated and participatory enough. The real success of the forum was outside the workshops, and the networking that took place between groups and individuals. For many grassroots groups this was the first opportunity to meet with people from other parts of the US working on similar issues. If contact between the various movements can be maintained, then there is hope that the forum will be the beginnings of a strong grassroots opposition to mainstream America, neoliberalism, racial oppression and criminalisation of the poor and immigrant population.
Future social forums must seriously address the issue of exclusion whether through the cost of participation, or as in Nairobi and Atlanta, the physical prevention of sections of the local community being refused entry and by virtue of being economically challenged, prevented from eating, let alone having access to water. Water was being sold outside the Civic Center at the USSF for $1 for a small bottle of water – people would not have had to buy this if sufficient water barrels were available. Two friends of mine who had applied for ‘camping space’ from the list of accommodation provided by the USSF website. On arriving they were told by the ‘commune’ that they had to pay $10 each per night – an amount they could not afford. They were then in the position of having to look for alternative space to stay. Eventually they found a household that agreed for them to stay in their backyard but refused them the use of any of their facilities. Thus to use the toilet they had to sneak into the ‘commune’ and use the bathrooms in the Civic Center. This is not acceptable at a social forum whereby so called progressive peoples take advantage of their comrades by adopting the very same market principles that they claim to object to.
Despite all this, I did however feel privileged to have met many US grassroots activists working on a range of issues and from across the country. It is important to know that there are people living in the ‘belly of the beast’ that are fighting from within and are aware of the impact of that beast on the people of the global South.
* Sokari Ekine is online editor of Pambazuka News
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
During the opening of the African Union Executive Council on June 28, President Alpha Oumar Konare, Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union (AU), referred to the issuance of the first diplomatic African Union passports in May 2007 as a symbolic gesture toward African citizenship. Civil society organisations (CSOs) attending the summit called for the AU to move beyond symbolism to action.
Launching a campaign to demand full freedom of movement across the Continent for every African, CSOs created African Citizens’ passports “valid until the member-states of the African Union issues an African Passport as required to fulfill the vision of a people driven African Union and a United Africa”. The passports were personally issued to the Hon Nana Akufo-Ado, Foreign Minister of Ghana, Hon Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, Foreign Minister of Senegal, Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aidoo and South African artist Hugh Masekela as well as being distributed to 53 national delegations attending the Executive Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the AU.
The African Citizens’ passport is a response to a growing demand for an end to the humiliations and violations of rights suffered by Africans at borders throughout the Continent. Millions of African refugees, travelers and undocumented workers currently living outside of their countries of birth are exposed to discrimination and the denial of the rights to an identity, to freely work and access essential services. Women are disproportionately affected by arbitrary arrest, harassment, extortion and intimidation at border crossing as they represent the majority of cross-border and informal traders.
“We make all the noise about African unity yet Africans live within their Continent as refugees”, stated a young Ghanaian poet, DK Oseir Yaw on the need for African citizenship.
Mrs. Julia Dolly Joiner, Commissioner for Political Affairs of the AU Commission stated the benefits of freedom of movement across Africa at the Launching of the African Union Diplomatic and Service Passports. She noted that “free movement in the Continent will ultimately have a positive impact on the political, social, economic, cultural and developmental fronts, and contribute to greater integration, increased trade, investment, tourism, technological advancement, labour mobility and employment opportunities, student exchange through diverse educational opportunities, peace and security, larger markets for African goods and services, reduced brain drain, greater unity and prosperity, amongst others.”
The pan-Africanist vision of a unified Africa with one identity and one citizenship was espoused by leaders from Nkrumah to Nyerere but has yet to find concrete undertaking other than in national laws. Renewed momentum was given to the call for African citizenship and the establishment of the African passport during the First Conference of Intellectuals of Africa and the Diaspora, organized by the AU Commission in October 2004 in Senegal. Indeed, the right to freedom of movement is enshrined in several international and African instruments including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community.
The launching of the African Union Diplomatic and Service Passports in May was part of the AU's Priority Programme on Free Movement of Persons detailed in the 2004 - 2007 Plan of Action to Speed Up Integration of the Continent. The objective of the Plan of Action is said to be the promotion of rapprochement between the people of Africa and their interests and the building of collective awareness through free movement of people, goods and services across the Continent. As the Grand Debate on a Union Government concluded this week with the Accra Declaration, Heads of States recognized “that opening up narrow domestic markets to greater trade and investment through freer movement of persons, goods, services and capital would accelerate growth thus, reducing excessive weaknesses of many of our Member States” but failed to take concrete action to enable this freedom of movement. In order to move the debate into action, Heads of States of the AU could begin by abolishing the need for visas for African citizens traveling within Africa. Currently, an African from Kenya requires a visa to travel to Senegal and is forced to submit to the colonial paradigm by having to apply for such a visa from the French embassy. Conversely, a Senegalese citizen traveling to Kenya is forced to apply for the visa from the British embassy in Dakar. Yet, the abolition of visas is not unprecedented in Africa. In the ECOWAS region, citizens of West African States can travel without visas throughout the 15 countries. It is only this type of action that would directly and concretely affect the lives of millions of Africans and capture the imagination of the people which would revive a faith in the pan-African sentiment of State leaders. As Emmanuel Akwetey of the Ghana AU Civil Society Coalition argues, “We cannot have a union of African states or even a continental government without continental citizenship. If citizenship is the fundamental basis of any democratic national state, why shouldn’t it be so at the level of the Africa Union?”
FEATURES: Francis Nyamnjoh interrogates 'Barbie doll democracy'
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- Marie Huchzermeyer on anti-poor legislation in KwaZulu Natal
- Stephanie Kitchen discusses Chinua Achebe and the Man Booker International Prize
- Sokari Ekine reflects on the US Social Forum
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Tajudeeen Abdul Rahameem – Another wasted opportunity at the Africa summit in Accra
LETTERS: on the removal of African agency by David Soori
BOOKS AND ARTS:
- Review of Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie
- Review of 'Migritude' - an oral poetic performance by Shailja Patel
WOMEN AND GENDER: Egypt bans female circumcision
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: Consolidating the peace in Congo
HUMAN RIGHTS: Ethiopian crackdown punishes civilians
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: South African slum dwellers oppose bill
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: Funding sought for hungry refugee children
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: Nigerian party rejects coalition
AFRICA AND CHINA: China to search for oil in Sudan
DEVELOPMENT: Africa in the new millennium
HEALTH AND HIV/Aids: Algerian imams join in fight against Aids
EDUCATION: Higher education drives Uganda’s development
LGBTI: Radio show back on South African airwaves
ENVIRONMENT: Why Uganda hates the plastic bag
LAND & LAND RIGHTS: Reducing poverty in rural Uganda
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Gabonese publisher jailed
NEWS FROM THE DIASPORA: African Americans celebrate Lumumba’s birthday
INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY: Rwanda leads Africa in ICT revolution
PLUS: e-newsletters and mailings lists; courses, seminars and workshops and jobs
*Pambazuka News now has a Del.icio.us page, where you can view the various websites that we visit to keep our fingers on the pulse of Africa! Visit
Leading up to the 200th commemoration of the abolition of the slave trade and the 50th anniversary of Ghana’s independence, Pambazuka News carried a series of four special issues during 2006 and 2007 that included articles designed to raise awareness and debate on issues of trade and justice. These and other articles from Pambazuka News have been gathered in this book.
We have chosen a deliberately provocative subtitle for this book: ‘How trade undermines democracy and justice’. Two years ago saw large mobilisations around the world, calling for ‘trade justice’. The campaigners were lobbying for the introduction and implementation of new world trade rules, ones that would work for all people, instead of benefiting those who already have the most. They argued that the global trading system should be rebalanced, taking into account the needs of the poor, human rights and the environment.
But, can trade in the era of globalisation be ‘fair’ or ‘just’?
Drawing on lessons from the slave trade, studies of the international finance institutions and the struggles of many African people to make a living, these essays provide insights into how free trade policies have a profoundly negative impact on democracy and justice in Africa. Whether it is the effects of trade policies on informal street traders, who in Africa are often women, the decimation of a country’s health system as a result of the World Bank’s obsession with low inflation, or the sacrificing of community rights in the interests of multinational corporations, it is clear that ‘free’ trade policies impose a profit first and people last regime in Africa.
Many of the book’s contributors will be familiar to the readers of Pambazuka News. They include Charles Abugre, Tope Akinwande, Soren Ambrose, Nnimmo Bassey, Patrick Bond, Jennifer Chiriga, Cheikh Tidiane Dièye, M.P. Giyose, Manu Herbstein, Mouhamadou Tidiane Kasse, Salma Maoulidi, Stephen Marks, Mariam Mayet, Henning Melber, Winnie Mitullah, Patrick Ochieng, Oduor Ongwen, Robtel Neajai Pailey, Liepollo Lebohang Pheko and Jagjit Plahe.
The publication of this book was made possible with the support of HIVOS,
ISBN: 978-0-9545637-1-4. 180pp, July 2007, Oxford and Nairobi: Fahamu
Price £11.95
For further information and details of how to order, please see http://www.fahamu.org/pzbook.php For review or inspection copies, or any additional information, please contact Stephanie Kitchen, Publications Manager, [email][email protected]
Issa Shivji has long been one of the most articulate critics of the destructive effects of neoliberal policies in Africa, and in particular of the ways in which they have eroded the gains of independence.
In two extensive essays in this book, he shows that the role of NGOs in Africa cannot be understood without placing them in their political and historical context. Aid, in which NGOs play a significant role, is frequently portrayed as a form of altruism, a charitable act that enables the wealthy to help the poor. As structural adjustment programmes were imposed across Africa in the 1980s and 1990s, the international financial institutions and development agencies began giving money to NGOs for programmes to minimise the more glaring inequalities perpetuated by their policies. As a result, NGOs have flourished – and played an unwitting role in consolidating the neoliberal hegemony in Africa.
If social policy is to be determined by citizens rather than the donors, argues Shivji, African NGOs must become catalysts for change rather than the catechists of aid that they are today.
Issa Shivji is one of Africa’s most radical and original thinkers and has written frequently for Pambazuka News. He is the author of several books, including the seminal Concept of Human Rights in Africa (1989) and, more recently, Let the People Speak: Tanzania down the road to neoliberalism (2006).
ISBN: 978-0-9545637-5-2. 84pp, July 2007, Oxford: Fahamu
Price £7.95
For further information and details of how to order, please see For review or inspection copies, or any additional information, please contact Stephanie Kitchen, Publications Manager, [email][email protected]
A Belgian court sentenced a former Rwandan army major to 20 years in prison on Thursday for the murder of 10 Belgian peacekeepers and an undetermined number of Rwandan civilians at the start of the 1994 genocide. Bernard Ntuyahaga was earlier acquitted on two other charges of involvement in the murder of then Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and killing civilians in the Butare district.
Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua's list of 35 proposed ministers was announced on Thursday and political insiders said it was a tentative break with the era of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. The portfolios were not specified, prolonging the suspense over who would get the key oil and finance jobs.
The Somali government on Thursday carried out its first formal executions, killing two suspected Islamist insurgents convicted of murdering a government official just three days earlier. But even as the administration meted out capital punishment for the first time since its formation in late 2004, rebels kept up a campaign targeting government officials with a trio of blasts.
In neo-liberal circles, The Market is packaged and presented as omnipotent, omniscient and infallible. It is said to guarantee success for those disciplined by its orthodoxies. It chastises resistance, dissidence and creative difference by a ruthless and reckless extravagance of force, propaganda and self-proliferation, writes Francis Nyamnjoh in his paper, "Africa in the New Millennium: Interrogating Barbie Democracy, Seeking Alternatives".
The Kenya government is launching a Digital Village Project to establish information and communications technology centres throughout the country. To jump-start the process, the programme is designed to train 1,000 digital village managers to manage the centres in the 210 constituencies in the country.
A large study of immediate versus deferred antiretroviral treatment in South African infants has found a significant advantage to immediate treatment after just eight months of follow-up, and researchers monitoring the trial have decided that the `deferred treatment` arm of the study should be closed and all children not yet receiving treatment should be evaluated to determine whether they should start antiretroviral therapy.
Laws criminalising behaviour that may transmit HIV are “the product, not of rational public health choices, but of irrational fears, which provide an inveterately poor basis for rational law-making,” according to South Africa’s Justice Edwin Cameron. Speaking last night at Birkbeck College in central London, at an event co-hosted by NAM and the National AIDS Trust, Mr Justice Cameron argued that the law’s current place in the AIDS epidemic is primarily to create “legislation specially protecting the rights of those with HIV.”
HIV prevention campaigns in Africa and Asia are often tilting at the wrong target and wasting money because of a basic lack of information about who is becoming infected in a country, David Wilson of the World Bank told the 2007 HIV Implementers’ meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, last month.
In a departure from tradition, religious communities in Algeria have become increasingly involved in AIDS education in the country. To this end, the Ministry of Religious Affairs organised a seminar on Monday (July 2nd) in Algiers, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on the role of religious leaders in the fight against AIDS.
Tunisian bloggers were angered recently by police intimidation of independent magazine Kalima starting May 17th, raising questions once again about the lack of press freedom in the country. In his post, "Kalima Tunisie: libérez la parole," Tunisian blogger Cos-Maux-Polis joined the World Association of Newspapers in its condemnation of "the intimidation and repression of the independent press in Tunisia".
The UN refugee agency has begun the resettlement in the United States of some 700 ethnic Kunama refugees from Eritrea, flying out a first group of 29 from Addis Ababa after years of exile in northern Ethiopia. The refugees left Shimelba camp earlier this week and flew out from the Ethiopian capital on Wednesday evening after a pre-departure briefing by staff of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which is handling the logistics of the resettlement operation.
Amid a rising number of deaths among boatpeople making dangerous voyages across the Mediterranean Sea, the Gulf of Aden and other stretches of water, the UN refugee agency and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) are calling for more action to prevent this humanitarian tragedy.
Portugal, the new holder of the European Union's rotating presidency, has promised that Africa will be one of its key priorities for the next six months. Prime Minister José Socrates, whose government took over the Union's helm Jul 1, is hoping to fulfil a long-standing Portuguese ambition of hosting a summit between the EU and African heads of state in Lisbon this December.
Less than fifteen years after the genocide that destroyed much of Rwanda's human capital, infrastructure, and socio-economic fabric, the country is set to become sub-Saharan Africa's hub for information and communications technology (ICT).
Hindou Mint Ainina presses for women's rights and political reform editing a weekly paper that regularly makes enemies. With her Quill, though, she has found ways to prod for change amid censorship and a culture where women have little power.
The Ethiopian military has forcibly displaced thousands of civilians in the country's eastern Somali region in recent weeks while escalating its campaign against a separatist insurgency movement, Human Rights Watch has reported. Both the government and rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) must protect civilians and ensure their access to humanitarian relief.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has voiced concern at the recent decision by a military court in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to acquit all defendants of killings, torture and other abuses that occurred during an operation by the country’s armed forces.
Three United Nations agencies are seeking $32 million from donors to help cut malnutrition rates which they warned have reached “crisis levels” among children under five living in refugee camps in Kenya.
An independent United Nations human rights expert has called on Côte d’Ivoire’s Government to ensure that the thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the divided West African country have the necessary means to make a safe and sustainable return to their home towns and villages.
Recent evidence suggests higher education is both a result and determinant of income. A report by Uganda's Economic Policy Research Center examines the impact of higher education in Uganda’s development process and identifies ways to enhance its impact.
Rising poverty in rural Uganda is linked to increasing landlessness, as the latter drives land degradation and reduces agricultural productivity. A paper published by Uganda's Economic Policy Research Centre examines the complex relationship between owning land and poverty. It identifies effective strategies and land policy guidance to address this concern.
An important debate is underway in South Africa, on whether it should protect its deteriorating textile industry. A paper published by South Africa's Poverty and Economic Policy Network examines whether implementing trade barriers will result in better domestic policy objectives. It provides a dynamic analysis on the link between textile protection and poverty.
A national gay radio show, Tuesday Night, which was elbowed by the South Africa Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) in 2005 returns to the airwaves in July. The show was off-air for almost two years after “the SABC placed unreasonable terms” that lead to closure broadcast, according to producers. The show promises a variety of educational, informative and entertaining programmes such as current affairs, community events, arts and talk.
Gays in Uganda call upon Minister of Ethics and Integrity James Nsaba Buturo to disclose emails expressing animosity that he claims to have received. The allegation is being condemned by a couple of gay organisations in Uganda. Victor Juliet Mukasa, chair of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), has denied knowledge of such hate mail but advised that if Buturo “is really receiving the mail, let him expose it so that it can be addressed.”
It is not often that families of murder victims petition the courts to forgive their killers. But in Uganda, almost an entire tribe whose relatives were slaughtered and children kidnapped by Lord's Resistance Army rebels are lobbying for them not to be tried before an international tribunal. Fugitive LRA leader Joseph Kony and three deputies are wanted by The Hague-based International Criminal Court on charges including mass killing, mutilation and using child soldiers. But in northern Uganda, few want them jailed.
The United Nations is supposed to play global policeman, but what happens when its own peacekeepers break the law? That's a question raised by a string of incidents allegedly involving Pakistani and Bangladeshi peacekeeping troops in war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo in 2005.
Jennifer Brea of African Beat questions the involvement of celebrities, politicians and countries in providing aid instead of investment in Africa. While the intentions of Bono and his counterparts is positive, perhaps his approach needs to be re-evaluated. Brea emphasizes the need for Africans to lead themselves instead of creating a new dependency on aid donors for future development. Her solution? Ask Africans what they want and how they plan to achieve it.
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), is currently seeking a committed individual to join us as Africa Research and Policy Associate (Horn, East and Central Africa), for a fixed-term, one-year position. Our program staff works both regionally and thematically. The position will be based in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Africa Research and Policy Associate’s primary function will be to provide research, writing, and campaign leadership as well as programmatic and administrative support as part of our 3-person Africa Program Team.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office currently has a vacancy for an International Terrorism Research Analyst. The job provides an excellent opportunity to become one of Whitehall's leading experts on International Terrorism and to contribute to and inform the evolution of UK policy towards both at very interesting points in their development.
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) is seeking an international human rights lawyer with a comprehensive knowledge of international human rights and humanitarian law with practical experience of human rights legal advocacy and an understanding of the history, politics and legal systems of East and Southern Africa. The ICJ seeks a Legal Officer with a well-developed network in East and Southern Africa.
Please find a generous list of opportunities in different organizations that are involved with peacebuilding initiatives around the world.
Transcend Peace University announces a series of online Expert Courses, specifically designed to address middle to senior level experts and mediators, who, due to their on-field or in-country assignments, can not travel to participate in intensive training programs. The training process will be constructed basing on groups of peace practitioners from various countries, joined together for 10-12 weeks in an online community, guided and advised by experienced TRANSCEND Course Directors, internationally recognized Experts and Global Consultant in peace-building and war transitions.
The Peacebuilding/Governance Program Manager will provide leadership and technical support to implement and grow the CRS / Sudan Peacebuilding program, including activities in the areas of Grassroots Peacebuilding, Advocacy and Global Solidarity, and Civil Society and Good Governance. The Peacebuilding/Governance Program Manager will also supervise the Peacebuilding project officer and provide guidance for CRS / Sudan’s Capacity Building and Partnership activities.
The Council for American Students in International Negotiations Inc. (CASIN) is pleased to announce the annual call for papers for Eyes on the ICC, a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal devoted to the study of the International Criminal Court. Eyes on the ICC invites high quality papers and book review submissions from various disciplines that examine issues related to the ICC. Eyes on the ICC encourages scholars and related professionals of all nationalities to submit their original work; student papers deemed to be exceptional will also be considered.
The New York Office of the International Service for Human Rights' (ISHR) seeks an intern to monitor and report on the 39th session of the Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) at United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York to be held from 23 July to 10 August 2007. The internship offers a unique opportunity to view the UN human rights system at work in New York.
I greeted the news from a friend of Chimamanda Adichie winning the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction for Half of a Yellow Sun with ambivalence. It was more in regards to the book than the talent of the author. I must preempt the following explanation by stating how much I admire Adichie as a writer. I think without question she is one of the most gifted and refreshing authors to come out in recent years. Her first novel Purple Hibiscus took me unawares and left me with no doubt that it was a seminal piece. It was one of those books that became a yardstick by which I measured other novels and writers. Its beauty is in its simplicity. Ask me to tell you what it’s about and it’s a stretch – in short not a lot happens. Through it’s main character Kambili, it deals with very familiar topics like domestic violence, religious zealotry and hypocrisy and coming-of-age. Here lies the genius of Purple Hibiscus. In the hands of any ordinary writer the book would have been derivative but Adichie masters the art of taking age-old issues and presenting them in a refreshing, sensitive and accessible way. Not overly reliant on elaborate imagery and with a similar prosaic narrative-voice so effectively used in Chinua Achebe’s Things fall Apart (one of Adichie’s literary heroes) her first outing managed to be at once empathetic and emotive without the reader feeling they were being manipulated to react this way.
I cannot however say the same for Half of a Yellow Sun. Having held her debut in such high esteem I could not wait to get my hands on the follow-up and pre-ordered my copy. It soon became apparent to me that what made Purple Hibiscus so special was missing in the second novel. There was a sense of self-consciousness in the writing that was not apparent in her debut, as if she wanted this to be regarded as an epic piece. The young author admitted in a recent interview with BBC Africa Beyond that there was not the same sense of expectation with ‘Purple Hibiscus’, obviously because she was a new kid on the block. This self-awareness made the book seem less sincere in parts.
‘…Yellow Sun’ ticks all the boxes of what makes a controversial and sensational novel – sex, war/violence, issues of class, badass language – and yet it lacks the soul of Purple Hibiscus. The debut did not need to resort to these plot devices to be such a worthy read. If you think this is coming from a socially conservative standpoint think again. I recently discussed the book with a friend who is not prone to prudishness by any count. To my surprise he commented the book was overly reliant on graphic scenes when he said, and I paraphrase, that he doubts any one anywhere would have been so liberal sexually even in the swinging 60s, let alone a middle class family in Nigeria. This is a country that still has a very conservative outlook on many things, as I experienced on my recent trip there.
‘…Yellow Sun’ is told from multiple viewpoints but the characters in the first novel seem a lot more 3-dimensional and easy to relate to despite the fact it is told from one perspective. Now this could be down to my own predilection for character as opposed to plot-driven stories. However the majority of people I know who have read both novels, with the exception of one, found it easier to connect with ‘Purple Hibiscus’ and an altogether better book. And whilst the first novel was short and sweet and got to the point, ‘…Yellow Sun’ seemed too long in parts and much was superfluous to the novel’s needs. Ironically I think it’s Adichie’s skill as a writer that saves ‘…Yellow sun’ from being barely-readable melodrama.
Now Adichie should be commended for tackling such a sensitive topic as the Biafran war. She has certainly achieved what I believe she set out to do in raising awareness of the war especially amongst young Nigerians of her generation, like myself. As a result of reading the book I started to take an active interest in researching the causes of the war although finding texts with a non-Biafran bias has proved difficult indeed. I don’t doubt that her desire to deal with this subject has been a long time coming. In a recent interview in the Guardian Miss Adichie reflects on how she started writing about Biafra at 16. Being of the Igbo tribe of eastern Nigeria, who suffered great loss of life prior to and as a cause of the war, she felt the need to explore this dark and seldom-discussed part of the country’s history.
Nevertheless I have my own cynical view as to why she chose such a monumental and ambitious subject matter and it is the same reason I believe the Orange Prize judges decided to award her with the prize this year. It seems little do with the actual quality of writing but more to do with literary politics. Adichie was long listed for the Man Booker Prize and short listed for the UK Orange Prize for Fiction with 'Purple...’ in 2004 but lost out on the latter to another epic novel Andrea Levy's 'Small Island' which also had a good dose of sex, war and questionable language in parts. Don’t misunderstand, ‘Small Island’ is a great novel but Levy had several books to her credit by this time. Yet even as a debut novel ‘Purple…’ was in a league of its own. But it seems that for the panels judging these book awards the more sensational the novel and ambitious the topic the better and more likely it is to win. I imagine Miss Adichie felt slighted and cheated when she did not win the prize 3 years ago – and so she should. Miss Adichie wants to win awards too and it's my estimation she feels the need to play 'the game' – hence a change of tack. But surely it takes more dexterity to write a novel that takes the simple and mundane aspects of the quotidian, makes the reader care about the protagonist(s) daily struggles without it all becoming a bit too self-indulgent. The debut novel had that quality –despite it’s ‘ordinary’ subject matter.
I cannot say I am familiar with most of the other books short-listed for this year's Orange Prize except the ‘Inheritance of Loss’ by Kiran Desai, which won the 2006 Man Booker Prize. Ms Desai has undeniable skill but I found the novel less inspired than it was acclaimed to be. Once again we find the author deals with major issues such as class conflict in post-colonial India, the repercussions of colonialism, disenchantment with the American dream, romance, cultural displacement and anything else that has plagued man since the dawn of the modern age. The novel tried to deal with so much at once I was distracted and much of the sympathy and sense of engagement that I should have had for the characters didn’t have a chance to develop. But what do I know? ‘Inheritance…’ is an epic novel and the Man Booker judges duly rewarded Ms Desai for her efforts.
The same theory could be applied to Zadie Smith. One of the most prodigious and distinctive writers of the new millennium and a personal favourite, Smith’s gift of characterisation is second to none. She is also very adept at writing books, which are not big in the way of story line but make compulsive reading nonetheless. Her characters are so believable the reader could be convinced they have always known them and that they are merely a phone call away. She won the Orange Prize 2006 for ‘On Beauty’. This too is a good book – I believe Smith is incapable of writing an unengaging read – but not necessarily her best work. Yet it has a healthy dose of sensationalism, graphic scenes and yes, ticks those all-important boxes. I also think Smith’s winning of the Orange Prize last year was to compensate for her two previous books, the iconic ‘White Teeth’ and ingenious but underrated ‘Autograph Man’ being snubbed by the prestigious award. That leads to the second reason I feel Miss Adichie won this year – a consolatory gesture for what was denied her in 2004.
Of course all of this is conjecture and without a signed confession from the judges of these awards, hard to prove. But there does appear to be a pattern forming for what it takes to win these awards – and quality of work I fear is not always the paramount consideration.
There is hope that the simple but effective novel can sometimes triumph. Diana Evans was awarded none other than the Orange Prize for New Writers in 2005 for the sublime ‘26A’. Once again this is not a book so heavy on plot and more interested in exploring the diverse personalities of the two main characters, twins Bessie and Georgia, the dynamics of their relationship with each other, their family and the big wide world around them. Not to say that there are not meaty issues addressed in the book but these are discussed and driven by way of the characters and not vice versa.
I should be ecstatic that Miss Adichie is being recognised for her indisputable gift as a writer even if I do not feel as strongly about her second book as I do about ‘Purple Hibiscus’. Still it seems a phyrric victory that ‘…Yellow Sun’ is receiving so much attention compared to her, arguably, superior debut. Perhaps Richard & Judy and the like feel obligated to laud her efforts due to the topic of the Nigerian civil war and how it’s packaged in the book as oppose to the quality of writing itself. It is my hope that Miss Adichie’s third novel will see a return of the style and magic that set ‘Purple Hibiscus’ apart.
* is a trainee solicitor living in London.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Elimination and Prevention of Re-emergence of Slum Act - Abahlali baseMjondolo is committed to opposing the Slums Bill via legal and political strategies
The president of Sudan, Omar Al Bashir, has agreed to an initiative to tackle the problem of water shortage in northwestern Sudan. The "1,000 Wells For Darfur" initiative was agreed on during a meeting (20 June) in Khartoum between Al Bashir and the Egyptian scientist Farouk El-Baz, director of the Center for Remote Sensing at the US-based Boston University, who proposed the initiative.
A new policy report from the United Nations University (UNU) urges governments to adopt a more coordinated approach to desertification. The report, 'Rethinking Policies to Cope with Desertification', was presented on 28 June at the United Nations headquarters in New York, United States and is based on the input of 200 experts from 25 countries.
The course runs from 19th May to 28th June 2008, and aims to strengthen the capacity of trainers, training organisers and educators working in or for the broadcast sector to assess training needs and design, develop and deliver effective and efficient training solutions. These training solutions will enable broadcast organisations to meet the challenges of increased competition, technological change and professional mobility and to improve the quality and appropriateness of their output.
The proposed Elimination and Prevention of Re-emergence of Slums Act by the Provincial Government of KwaZulu-Natal is the latest in a long list of anti-poor legislation in South Africa dating back to the period of apartheid rule. Marie Huchzermeyer asserts that the Bill is anti-poor, not in the interest of the 'slum dwellers' and is unconstitutional.
The proposal for an Elimination and Prevention of Re-emergence of Slums Act by the Provincial Government of KwaZulu-Natal was preceded by seven years of slum eradication rhetoric. Since the launch of United Nations Millennium Development Project in 2000, which includes as Goal 7 Target 11 to improve the lives of 100,000,000 slum dwellers by 2020, President Mbeki has mandated the national Department of Housing to work towards achieving ‘shack-free cities’. The aim to eradicate informal settlements by 2014 has since been a controversial element of housing politics at national, provincial and city level throughout South Africa.
100,000,000 slum dwellers, the target of the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) was a mere 10% of slum dwellers globally in the year 2000. Why was this modest goal to improve the lives of some slum dwellers translated in South Africa into slum eradication or elimination? Why are Provinces not instead preparing legislation to ensure the improvement of the lives slum dwellers?
The South Africa government are not the only culprits for having misinterpreted a global commitment. UN-Habitat, the United Nation’s Human Settlement Programme based in Nairobi, officially refers to the slum MDG as the ‘Cities Without Slums MDG’. The slum improvement MDG target of 100,000,000 slum dwellers by 2020 was drawn in 2000 from an inappropriately titled programme, ‘Cities Without Slums’, of Cities Alliance, a UN-Habitat and World Bank supported initiative. Its promotional material, which advocates for participatory city- and country-wide informal settlement upgrading, is branded with the ‘Cities Without Slums’ slogan.
As any marketing expert could have predicated, the brand said more than the content. Many country governments have failed to differentiate between the normative principle of the slogan, that cities should not have slums, and the operational target of improving the lives of 10% of slum dwellers. Instead, tragically, the slogan became the target, namely to eradicate slums – through mass evictions in Zimbabwe in 2005 and Abuja, Nigeria, in 2006 and through slum elimination legislation in South Africa in 2007.
Measures taken in most provinces to eradicate informal settlements are not constitutional. Illegal evictions are rampant, be they through the use of force, in the absence of court orders, or in contempt of court interdicts. Very few informal settlement dwellers have access to legal representation and can fight for their rights in the courts. And yet, numerous court records exist to prove the proliferation of illegal and unconstitutional slum interventions.
To improve the lives of slum dwellers in this country requires in the first instance strengthening and enforcement of the legislation that prevents illegal evictions. Any new legislation must focus on ensuring that the state fulfils its constitutional obligations in relation to the right to housing, and in particular, as required by the Grootboom Constitutional Court ruling in 2000, in relation to those living in intolerable conditions.
New legislation should mandate (a) the recognition of informal settlements and other so-called ‘slums’, (b) emergency preparedness and (c) participatory upgrading as promoted by UN-Habitat as ‘best practice’, with relocation as a last resort. Chapter 13 of the National Housing Code provides the methodology and funding for such intervention, including rehabilitation of informally occupied but unsuitable land. This may be land that is waterlogged, threatened by floods, unstable due to mine or refuse dumps or geotechnically compromised through steep slopes, clay or dolomitic soils.
Instead, the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature has approved a Bill that, while mentioning the progressive realisation of the right to housing in passing, introduces draconian measures to remove the phenomenon of informality from the urban landscape and to prevent it from re-emerging in any possible form. Owners of informally occupied land are mandated to institute evictions within a period stipulated by the municipality, and owners of vacant land are mandated to prevent informal occupation through measures such as fencing off and posting of security guards.
These measures were contained in the notorious 1951 ‘Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act’ of the apartheid government. They were unacceptable then, and remain so today. According to UN-Habitat (and Cities Alliance/Cities Without Slums for that matter), the first and most important measure for improving the lives of slum dwellers is to ensure security of tenure, i.e. to put an end to evictions. While the Bill does not recognise tenure insecurity as a criteria for identifying slums (whereas UN-Habitat does), by approving the Slum Elimination Bill the Provincial Legislature has overnight reduced tenure security for millions of slum dwellers in the Province, increasing fear and uncertainty and thereby worsening their lives.
Indeed, most slum dwellers are aware that the Bill is approved. Many official ‘hearings’ were held on the Bill, although none of the objections that were raised were taken seriously by the legislature. The process and content of the Bill, as well as experience of tenure insecurity and illegal interventions, have increased the mobilisation of slum dwellers. Media coverage on the Bill has been extensive and critical, contrasting the phenomenal public relations exercise of the MEC for Housing, who pulled wool over the eyes of the Legislature and of many influential experts and commentators regarding the intentions and measures of the Bill. Slum dwellers, as often argued by Abahlali’s leaders, are the real experts of poverty – and they are rightly living in fear because of the Bill.
The Bill undoubtedly is not in the interest of slum dwellers. It does not recognise insecurity of tenure as a problem and deepens the insecurity of slum dwellers as a first step to eliminating slums. By prohibiting and preventing unlawful occupation of unutilised land or buildings, the Bill pushes responsibility for sheltering the poor onto already under-housed people – relatives and acquaintances living in formal but already overcrowded units. It is they, and not the middle class, that may open their doors in solidarity when informality is no longer tolerated as an option.
Preventing the invasion of unutilised land through fencing off and guarding is exclusionary, and rewards those that hold undeveloped strategic land for speculative purposes. It indicates that despite a decade of Brazil-South Africa dialogue on urban policy (particularly in Ethikwini/KwaZulu-Natal, facilitated at great cost and funfair by Cities Alliance/Cities Without Slums), South Africa has still not grasped the concept of a social function of land, which the Brazilian Constitution and subsequent legal statues use to ensure that strategically located, unutilised, privately owned land is developed for the poor.
What KwaZulu-Natal has also still not learnt from Brazil is that slums, as embarrassing as they may be to city managers, must be understood as temporary relief to the housing crisis, and that improvements must involve the occupants rather than displace them. Instead, the Bill signals scepticism about the viability of improving or upgrading slums. In its preamble, it suggests that formal housing projects require protection from ‘slums’, ignoring the reality that slum dwellers are, more often than not, threatened by housing developments for which they make way, or to which they are forcefully removed and which have little relevance to their lives and economies.
The Bill, if not rejected outright, requires fundamental revision (and renaming) so as to centre on the protection of poor communities from state and market driven displacement. This is particularly pertinent in the wake of the 2010 Soccer World Cup. The Bill needs to be sensitive to what it really means to improve the lives of slum dwellers.
The Bill is as yet not gazetted. It is the Constitutional responsibility of the Premier to ensure that the Bill does not contradict the Constitution. Social movements and housing rights groups are already preparing to challenge the Act in court, should the Premier ignore their advice and go ahead with gazetting the Bill.
* Marie Huchzermeyer, School of Architecture and Planning - Wits University
Inspired by the market logic, the world is currently hostage to a stifling vision of democracy informed by a very narrow idea of what it is to be beautiful, healthy, successful and free. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the colossal investment that consumer capitalism has made in slimness, the greatest icon of which is Barbie. This image is made and sold aggressively around the world by global consumer and entertainment media to be consumed as the ideal to which all must aspire, if they are to attain the good life. Francis Nyamnjoh assesses the lessons Africa has learned from the implementation of Barbie democracy and examines alternatives to the market model for Africa.
The idea of writing a paper on Barbie democracy came to me from reflections on the idea of ‘The Market’ and the sort of socio-political institutions this model has tended to inspire. In neoliberal circles, The Market is packaged and presented as omnipotent, omniscient and infallible. It is said to guarantee success for those disciplined by its orthodoxies. It chastises resistance, dissidence and creative difference by a ruthless and reckless extravagance of force, propaganda and self-proliferation. By downplaying the positive dimensions of its sacred aura, The Market has demonstrated it has little tolerance for human sentiments of compassion, solidarity, sociality, conviviality, negotiation, and community, which render one vulnerable in the face of it. The Market comes across as an autocratic and demanding catalogue of insensitivities. As a God-substitute, it trains its followers to develop hearts of stone, which it prescribes to people seeking a better life and to those merely committed to staying alive. Disciples present The Market as the one best solution for the predicaments facing individuals and communities globally. They blame everything and everyone but The Market in case of falls and detours on their way to Calvary. The logic and motto are simple: in victory The Market takes credit, in failure or mitigation, The Market is not to blame. Heads or Tails, The Market always wins.
Among external factors championed in the face of The Market are values that insist on success as a collective pursuit, where achievement is celebrated when it accommodates the dregs of humanity as well. Although portrayed as a constraint by The Market, these values and the notions of success they engender are informed by ideas of personhood and agency that see the individual in the community and the community in the individual. Following this view, people cannot be considered successful individuals independent of the relationships forged with others in their communities. Such an understanding discourages the distinction between the rich and the poor, since it refuses to endorse the privatisation of talent, luck and success, even when these can be traced to particular individuals and communities. This outlook is, instead, informed by a view of humanity as simultaneously free and constrained, and therefore subject to a negotiated, interconnected and interdependent existence.
The Market thus equates success with the actions of those who discipline and punish their own humanity and that of others. The Market recognises sterile accumulation and celebrates individuals who sacrifice the sociality and humanity it perceives as standing in the way of individual self-fulfillment. Hence the slogan: there are no sentiments in business. The Market privileges statistics over people, just as it does profit, and is more comfortable with figures than with actual cases of human victims of its exploits. This makes of surveys and quantification methodologies of collusion and subservience, and ethnographies and qualifications methodologies of emancipation vis-à-vis The Market and its diktats.
The Market, in a way, is comparable to the psychoanalyst. The couch is to The Psychoanalyst what structural adjustment is to The Market. Both The Market and The Psychoanalyst are insensitive to external factors (except when it comes to apportioning blame), and are stubbornly standardised, routinised and predictable in their assumptions and prescriptions. While ready to claim success, both refuse their share of failure. To both, there is no possibility that the structures and assumptions which inform their existence and functions could be part of the problem for which their patients are seeking solutions. The formula for success and failure are to be found in the patient, exclusively. Every individual or community must look within for inspiration to overcome predicaments.
It is within this framework of the real or assumed omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence of The Market that this paper examines Barbie democracy in Africa, where states have inadequately asserted themselves vis-à-vis orthodoxies informed by The Market, despite popular and ongoing processes to harness the continent’s distinctive creativity, adaptiveness, sociality and conviviality in relationships.
Inspired by The Market logic, the world is currently hostage to a stifling vision of democracy informed by a very narrow idea of what it is to be beautiful, healthy, successful and free. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the colossal investment that consumer capitalism has made in slimness, the greatest icon of which is Barbie. This image is made and sold aggressively around the world by global consumer and entertainment media to be consumed as the ideal to which all must aspire, if they are to attain the good life. With a focus on consumption as the ultimate unifier, a supreme indicator of cultural sophistication and symbol of civilization, individuals are seen and treated as autonomous agents glued together by a selfless Market slaving away for their cultural freedom, development and enrichment as global citizens. By emphasising the ‘unregulated flow’ and ‘transnationalisation’ of the streamlined, standardised and routinised cultural products of the global media industries, The Market is able to slim all differences down into Barbie proportions. Barbie-like celebrities are recruited to endorse slimming diets, which more ordinary people are then persuaded to follow, with results that entail varying degrees of disappointment.
Its rhetoric of benevolence and munificence notwithstanding, The Market is more about closures than free flows. The agents that sustain it globally promote a largely one-way flow in consumer products that favours a privileged minority as it compounds the impoverishment of the majority. The Market and its corporate media police global material possibilities and consciousness, mostly by denying access to creativity perceived to stand in the way of profit, power and privilege. The result is a Barbie-like socio-cultural, political and economic world devoid of complexity, richness and diversity. In the light of such an impoverishment of difference, plurality is mistaken for diversity, as if an appearance of plenty could not conceal a poverty of perspectives.
Ordinary individuals and marginal communities are thus left literally at the mercy of the Barbie-like information and entertainment burgers served them in the interest of profit. There is a tendency towards convergence in outlook and content, regardless of the nationalities or cultural identities of individuals and communities at the beck and call of The Market and its global gendarmes, the corporate media. The Market and its advocates are most comfortable with passive, depoliticised, unthinking consumer zombies who guarantee profitability at the least possible cost in the name of consumer sovereignty.
Seen in terms of democracy, Barbie (slimness) is imbued with the mission of freeing the individual of relationships or the excess bulk (obesity) of responsibilities standing in the way of personal consumer success. Salvation is to be found in slimness. According to this perspective, the slimmer an individual’s burden of relationships and responsibilities, the better their life chances. Instead of encouraging the rich to get fat with responsibilities and relationships of support to the hungry, consumer capitalism systematically invests in the rich to be thin and unburdened, as it fattens the poor with unfathomable responsibilities, dependencies and a pounding sense of worthlessness and self-persecution.
This Barbie model takes the form of a dictatorship that makes a misery of ordinary lives. But Barbie-isation is at best a bazaar to which millions are drawn but few rewarded or given real choices. Just as obesity is considered an abnormality, so are relationships and sociality seen as dangerous if not watched at close range. A real or false sense of success means that people need not be obsessive about coping with deprivation. In the words of The Economist, [1] ‘People are perfectly tuned to store energy in good years to see them through lean ones. But when bad times never come, they are stuck with that energy, stored around their expanding bellies’ [2]. Persuading people to get thinner becomes an obsession to be supported with public-health warnings and media pressures.
In America for example, the risks notwithstanding, obesity-related stomach stapling operations are on the increase, as people desperately seek to lose weight [3]. According to Dr Trisha Macnair, the despondency of many people who are overweight ‘means that they will go to extremes to reach their goal, try wacky diets which defy common sense, pay large amounts of money for dubious “quick fix” remedies, and even turn to drugs from anonymous clinics, in the hope that somewhere there is an easy answer’[4]. It seems so easy: if only ordinary, overweight or overburdened consumers could follow the slimming menus prescribed by those who know best, they just might realise their dream body, beauty, health, comfort and freedom. In this way, relationships or ties with others are seen as fat that stands in the way of a perfect dream: something that must be burnt out of existence with health foods, slimming pills, fitness exercises, etc. The bulk and bulky are, at the end of the day, mostly disillusioned and disaffected, as the more they strive, the less the satisfaction that comes their way. Instead of learning meaningful lessons on how to bear the burdens of life, they are being schooled on how to shed the burdens of life.
If Barbie has been sold to the rest of the world as an American icon, to most Americans she remains a distant dream and a constant source of embarrassment. Obesity is the order of the day, spawning an industry that generates billions of dollars from products and services consumers hope will help them keep fat in check. According to a recent article on ‘the obesity industry’[5] , nearly one-third of adult Americans ‘are thought to be obese’, and ‘American girls today shop for clothes that are roughly two sizes bigger than those worn by their mothers’. While ‘most Americans are well aware of the risks of obesity’ and believe themselves ‘personally accountable for their weight’, and while ‘miracle slimming drugs and the latest dieting fads become best-sellers’, ‘people are not prepared to give up taste as their solution to this problem’. They refuse to translate Barbie into reality through embracing ‘more healthy lifestyles’, even if they would rush to try out new ‘easy and tasty ways to lose weight’ proposed by those seeking ‘fat profits in fat people’. Sales of healthier foods may be booming, but few are getting thinner as a result. As The Economist observes [6], ‘once people get fat, it is hard for them to get thin’. The future, far from being one of slim Americans paying tribute to Barbie in their fantasies or realities, The Economist foresees ‘a growing herd of fat people’ providing ‘lots of demand for firms supplying everything from bigger towels to bigger beds and, alas, bigger coffins’ into ‘an early grave’[7]. Everywhere, bulk seems to be winning over slimness, with global estimates rising from 200,000,000 adults in 1995 to 300,000,000 in 2003. Whether motivated by culture or by gene, Americans, like everyone else, are, to quote The Economist [8] once more, ‘constantly trying to pack away a few more calories just in case of a famine around the corner’. The same is true of communities and cultures, hence the resilience of relationships and responsibilities even amongst those individuals, communities and cultures most rigorously committed to shedding the burdens of life.
Barbie may well not be anyone’s reality after all, even as she is projected, celebrated, appropriated, and aggressively marketed as an icon. Indeed, those who most passionately pursue the Barbie ideal, quite paradoxically, never really become Barbie at the end of the day. If they don’t simply grow into a muscular Ken as global gendarme high off imperial dogma, they become sickly (as in the case of anorexia, for example) from all the sacrifices they have made, and are hardly, at a closer look, worth all the investments, torture and deprivations endured [9]. The pursuit of Barbie is at best a mirage, at worst a consumer misadventure. If Barbie epitomises consumer capitalism, obesity is to be likened to the community of ties, which individuals are under sustained pressure to break in order to realise consumer success. But since individuals, even in the worst of circumstances, are social beings above all else, shedding relationships and responsibilities is seldom an easy option, and very few succeed in being happy when their ties with others are dead and buried.
Barbie democracy in Africa
What lessons has Africa learnt from its encounters with the Barbie import labelled ‘liberal democracy’? It is commonplace to claim that liberal democracy and Africa are not good bedfellows, and how apt! Implementing liberal democracy in Africa has been like trying to force onto the body of a well-built, well-fed person, truly rich in bulk and all the cultural indicators of health Africans are familiar with, a dress made to fit the slim, de-fleshed Hollywood consumer model of a Barbie-like figure. But instead of blaming the tiny dress or its designer, the tradition has been to fault the popular body or the popular ideal of beauty for emphasising too much bulk, for parading the wrong sizes, for just not being the right thing. Not often is the experience and expertise of the designer or dressmaker questioned, nor their audacity to assume that the parochial cultural palates that inform their peculiar sense of beauty should play God in the lives of regions and cultures where different criteria of beauty obtain. This insensitivity is akin to the behaviour of a Lilliputian undertaker who would rather trim a corpse than expand their coffin to accommodate a man-mountain, or a carpenter whose only tool is a huge hammer and to whom every problem is a nail. The history of difficulty at implementing liberal democracy in Africa attests to this clash of values and attempts to ignore African cultural realities that might well have enriched and domesticated liberal democracy towards greater relevance. And this call for domestication must resist the ploy by opportunistic agents that have often hidden behind nebulous claims of African specificities to orchestrate high-handedness and intolerance.
The greatest shortcoming of liberal democracy is its exaggerated focus on the autonomous individual, as if there is anywhere in the world where people can exist outside of communities or in total absence of relationships with others. Losing the weight of community, solidarity and culture is not an easy feat even to the most dedicated disciples of the Barbie model. By investing so much rhetoric in the rights of the independent, liberal democracy is left without a convincing answer pertaining to the rights of the dependent. Although in principle liberal democracy promises rights to all and sundry as individuals, not everyone who claims political rights is likely to have them, even when these are clearly articulated in constitutions and guaranteed legally. The American democratic system for instance, which champions the Barbie model, offers some interesting examples of how Americans, assumed to be autonomous individuals by law, find themselves bargaining away their political, cultural and economic freedoms in all sorts of ways under pressure from the consumer capitalist emphasis on profit over people.
Notwithstanding the Barbie rhetoric, The American Dream does not come true for everyone who embraces it. The citizenship and consumer sovereignty promised all Americans, can in reality be afforded only in degree and by those who manage to harness the limited economic, cultural and social opportunities that translate into reality, legal and political rights or abstract notions of the autonomous individual. The rest, to get by, must negotiate themselves various levels of subjection and alienation, often with devastating costs to their humanity and that of their dependants or others. Being a rights-bearing individual ceases to be as automatic in reality as is claimed in principle. For those who succeed after hard struggle, the tendency is to monopolise opportunities, since it is, quite paradoxically, only by curbing the rights of others that advantages are best guaranteed in effect. Like with fighting obesity, the majority are those who struggle on a daily basis to fulfil themselves, with varying degrees of failure. This is an effort which, under consumer capitalism, is blamed on the individual to the extent that he or she has failed to sacrifice others through the sacrifice of history, memory, relations or community. Most acquire few advantages despite the profound alienation, inequality, violence, cultural and social malaise, psychic and emotional disorders and exploitation taking place in America today (and increasingly elsewhere) linked to consumer capitalism’s suffocating grip on human imagination and creativity. These limitations of Barbie democracy in the American context may well appear a more palatable form of subjection to some Africans by comparison, but the need to address the rights of the casualties of independent success is no less compelling in America.
Since Barbie democracy appears uncomfortable with salient relationships, community and creative diversity, Africans who subscribe to its rhetoric as leaders find themselves reduced to a Jekyll-and-Hyde democracy: tolerant in principle but muffling in practice. Such African leaders, whether in government, the opposition or civil society, are forced to keep up appearances with Barbie democracy in a context where people are clamouring for recognition and representation as cultural, religious and regional communities. The competing claims for their attention by internal interest groups and external forces explain the apparent contradictions, hypocrisy and double standards that ensue when their actions are appreciated exclusively from the standpoint of Barbie democracy.
Africa’s alternative to Barbie democracy
Despite the noted shortcomings of Barbie democracy, the quest for the missing cultural link in African democracy requires serious negotiation and flexibility, to avoid throwing the Barbie baby out with the bath water. It requires a creativity and nuance that emphasise interdependence between the individual and the community, and between the state and the various cultural configurations that dwell within it. The vision should be a democracy that guarantees not only individual rights and freedoms, but also the interests of communal and cultural solidarities, big and small.
A compelling argument can be made to the effect that the problem in Africa has been undomesticated Barbie democracy, not democracy as pursued in broader forms and possibilities. For democracy to be meaningful in the new millennium, there is a need for honesty about the limitations of the Barbie model, and for recognition of the complex realities, interconnections, and diversities that animate the lives of social actors everywhere. The direction and quality of democracy in the new millennium would depend on an open marriage or conviviality between individual aspirations and community interests, since individuals continue to belong to solidarities despite attempts at conversion by Barbie. It is a fact of life that most people are committed to primary forms of belonging, to which state and country are only secondary, and promoters of Barbie democracy ought to be more honest about this, to avoid opportunism. It is by acknowledging and providing for the reality of individuals who straddle different margins of identity and belonging, and who are willing or forced to be both ‘citizens’ and ‘subjects’, that democracy stands its greatest chance anywhere. If harvesting rights and entitlements requires the denial of rights and entitlements, the only democracy that would make sense in the new millennium is one that reconciles autonomy with dependency, citizenship with subjection. And as the most subjected continent where opportunism has blossomed, Africa should play a leading role in bringing about a democracy more in tune with the rights of dependants.
REFERENCES
This is an updated version of an earlier paper in Dutch published in Internationale Samenwerking (Publication of Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Development Cooperation), No.12, December 2003, pp.28-30.
1] December 13, 2003, p.11
2] I would extend it beyond people to include communities and solidarities of various kinds.
3]
4] http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/features/obesity_surgery.shtml
5] The Economist, September 27, 2003, pp.68-69
6] December 13, p.11, 2003
7] The Economist, September 27, 2003, pp.68-69; December 13, 2003, p.11.
8] December 13, p.11, 2003
9] Just by way of a quick example, the UK Daily Mail of October 22, 2003, pp.24-25, carried the confessions of five women who tried celebrity diets for six weeks, and all complained about the disturbing unseen effects on their bodies. One found the diet a nightmare that didn’t seem healthy, made her feel nauseous, and gave her stomach pains all the time. To another, her diet was horrible, tiring and difficult to follow because too prohibitive. A third branded the diet an expensive hassle, and a fourth, who was ‘incredibly tired and desperately missed tasty, easy food such as pasta and rice’, wondered if ‘anyone could live like this for long’
* Francis B. Nyamnjoh is Associate Professor and Head of Publications and Dissemination with the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA). Email: [email][email protected], Website: www.nyamnjoh.com
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Although the earth is awash with water, the world is facing a global water crisis. Global freshwater supplies are dwindling fast. Climate change, rapid urbanisation, environmental degradation, the growth of industries that either pollute water sources or consume vast water volumes like agro-business and hydro generation of power, climate change and our very modern lifestyle are contributing to an increase in demand that outstrips supply. For instance, 'Lake Chad has shrunk to 20% of its size in 1962', and 'one flush of a toilet takes as much water as a person in 30 of the world’s poorest countries'. It is expected that inter-state violent conflict in future will be waged to secure water supplies.
The environmental degradation that is characteristic of many urban areas necessitates water supply networks, and anything in short supply, and therefore high demand, is fodder for profit maximisation. Thus enters water privatisation and its attendant failures.
World Water Crisis: A Challenge to Social Justice brings together articles by various authors from different fields and backgrounds, offering wide perspective on the world water crisis. Including economic, sociological and theological reflections on water, the articles also propose solution to the supply and management of water in ways that address the crisis sustainably.
Cost of living in Nairobi slums higher than minimum taxable income
The assets of the African and Third World exceeds all the capitalisation of all the major stock markets, which in turn are capitalised by legitimised instruments in traded paper (Fiat money). The only way for Africa and the rest of the Third World to lift themselves is to address the Money Supply. If there is a desire as to how this can be done, please come back.
CALL FOR ABSTRACTS - RAPE JOURNAL Call for Abstracts. Abstracts and contributions must be written in English language and a style accessible to a wide audience. Please submit abstracts to [email][email protected]
All abstract submissions must:
* Specify the specific key area you would like to write on;
* Count 200-300 words;
* Include contact details: your name, institution/organisation, telephone, email and the country in which you reside/country of origin.
Deadline: Please submit no later than 11 July 2007.
An in-depth reading of Shailja Patel's Migritude alongside new work from Ngugi wa Thiong'o sets both in the context of new cultural production from the African diaspora.
In the past two weeks lovers of literature in Nairobi and Mombasa have had the exceptional chance of celebrating the official homecoming of Migritude, a powerful, one-woman oral poetic performance by Kenyan-born, US based Shailja Patel. The gifted artist entertained and educated enthusiastic spectators for four days at the Phoenix Theatre, Nairobi a week ago. She then staged her show in Mombasa at the Aga Khan Academy, Likoni this week. Her homecoming performances are courtesy of Ford Foundation, which is doing a laudable job supporting the revival of the arts and literature in post-Nyayo Kenya.
Shailja represented Kenya during the World Social Forum and has performed Migritude in East Africa before. She thrilled crowds at the Zanzibar International Film Festival as well as at the international Kwani LitFest last year. A third generation East African Asian who defines herself as both an Asian and an African, an 'Asian African', Shailja coined the term Migritude in 2005 from three cultural terms: migrancy, attitude and negritude. She uses it to name the spirit of 'a generation of migrants who do not feel the need to be silent to protect themselves'. Migritude then is a spirit of envoiced migrants who take up the challenge of making themselves narrators of their own (hi)stories to their nations and the world.
This nomadic narrative spirit comes to Shailja naturally considering East African Asians are the quintessential symbols of postcolonial migration from East Africa. Descendants of South Asian migrants who have in successive waves immigrated to East Africa, 'Asian Africans' are beginning to audibly challenge (n)atavistic accounts of the national histories and cultures of countries they have called home in Africa for more than a century.
Whether from East Africa or from the new homelands where they now live in Europe, America or Australia, East African Asians' efforts to 'remember Africa' and 're-membering themselves to Africa' are now becoming increasingly visible especially in the area of culture. In 2000, the Asian African Heritage Trust hosted an exhibition on the community's identity and culture at the National Museum of Kenya in Nairobi. Kenyan-born, MG Vassanji, has been awarded twice the prestigious Giller Prize for his novels: The Book of Secrets (1994) and The In-Between World of Vikram Lall (2003). His writings which include a new novel coming out in September, The Assassin's Song, treat the experiences of East Africans of South Asian descent through pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial times.
Zahid Rajan and Zarina Patel, the biographer of A. M. Jeevanjee as well as Makhan Singh, run an informative Nairobi-based journal on South Asian personalities, histories and cultures in East Africa called, Awaaz. They also organize the annual South Asian Mosaic of Society and the Arts (SAMOSA) cultural festival at the GoDown Art Center in Nairobi. Mubina and Sanaula Karmali have collected an anthology of diasporic oral literature, The Oral Literature of the Asians of East Africa, published by the East African Educational Publishers in 2002.
Shailja's solo artistic work further strengthens this East African Asian self-identification through art, culture and lifestories of an otherwise often misunderstood community; a misunderstanding evident in the April Anti-Asian riots in Kampala. Her poetic work traces the contours of her identity as an Asian African, as a woman and as a migrant East African living in the Diaspora. The Asian exodus out of Africa of the 1960s and 1970s occasioned by racialist nationalization programs and policies as well as racially-instigated (post)colonial gender violence are some of the major themes that run throughout the collection of poetic works that make up Migritude.
As a literary text therefore, Shailja's rich performance questions issues of history, politics, identity, place, culturo-racial diversity and migration. Structurally, Migritude takes the form of fourteen episodal poetic pieces, which hatch out of a multiracial yolk spiced with synchronized movements, stage effects manipulation and topical themes dramatically narrated in-between the lifestories and memories of the artist and her motherland.
However, the term 'migritude' can actually be expanded to capture the spirit of African peoples through their more than two thousand years history of migrations, settlement and re-migrations that continue to date. Loaded with memory, estrangement, history, politics and both local as well as global forces, 'migritude' appears to be the right word to describe that experience of present day Africans as they quest for their identities through the rubbles of slavery, colonialism, neocolonialism and globalisation.
When Ngugi wa Thiong'o delivered his official homecoming public lecture, Re-Membering Africa: Burial and Resurrection of African Memory at the University of Nairobi early this year, one could discern that his literary politics and cultural ideology have also migrated beyond his standpoints of yesteryears. The renown writer appears to be shifting beyond examinations of the internal dynamics working against African nation-states towards the re-examination of those global forces identified under the mantra of globalization that continue to obstruct ways forward for African countries.
A keen reading of Ngugi's cultural politics beyond Moving the Centre (1993) locates his concerns beyond the scope of the limiting boundaries of African nation-states. He is no longer interested in national cultures and national languages as such. In the transnational spirit of migritude, the writer is embracing the whole continent as the arena of twenty-first century cultural contestations.
This spatial expansion is further illustrated through the critical observation that the fictional setting of the new novel, Wizard of the Crow. The 'Free Republic of Aburiria' is a metonymic post-colonial nation-state that could be many a post-colonial state in Africa and even Asia or Latin America. Aburiria is not easily identifiable as a former African settler colony (read Kenya) like the fictional settings of Ngugi's earlier novels. This spatial expansion can also be observed in his choice of abstract names such as His High Mighty Excellency the Ruler, Machokali (Sharp Eyes) and Sikiokuu (Great Ear) that cannot be typically identified with Kenya.
Characters from his early works had names such as Waiyaki, Mugo, Wanja, Njoroge that give cue to a reader familiar to East Africa as to which particular post-colonial African state Ngugi treats in the 1960s-1980s. This early period arguably reveals the novelist's interest in the welfare of former settler colonies in general, specifically Kenya, where issues of land, race and neocolonialism combine to produce postcolonial disillusionment, injustice and inequalities.
More than two decades of forced exile and university teaching away from East Africa has led the professor to reexamine cultural politics in deeper and broader terms. His magisterial lecture in January shows that the professor who now lives and works by choice in the Diaspora, finds clarity in post/transnationalist concepts such as Negritude, Pan Africanism, African Renaissance and Globalization when describing the complex cultural past, present and future of African societies and peoples. His recent most essay on the language question in Africa, 'Europhone or African Memory: The Challenges of the Pan-Africanist Intellectual in the era of Globalization' published in 2003 further attests to the metamorphosis.
Colonialism to Ngugi is no longer the preserve of Western Europe and its twentieth century oppression of Africa. His colonial discourse analysis has migrated deeper into history and farther away from Africa to also engage the subjugation of Ireland and New Zealand under the Great Britain as well as the colonization of some Far East nations under imperial Japan.
Ngugi's reexamination of twenty-first century Africa in light of growing interconnectedness betwixt and between African nation-states and the rest of the world is necessary in our incessant efforts to understand the emerging phenomena that is transnational African culture. In fact his new novel is a dramatization of the two thousand year epic journey Africans have made to the present as they get buried by local and global pressures only to resurrect and forge on towards their elusive homecoming—-their true Uhuru.
As diasporic artists such as Shailja demonstrate, this epic African quest for a place and time where Africans can finally feel at home is still on today. New African diasporas are mushrooming in Western Europe, the Far East, America and Australia as Africans continue to emigrate from the continent due to the political activities of post-independence African governments like that of the Ruler in Wizard of the Crow.
Seeing that more Africans such as Shailja and Ngugi find new homes outside the continent whether by volition or compulsion, the need for them to re-member themselves to the continent through remittances and the arts becomes urgent. To us in Literature, this urgency is already being reflected in celebrations of what is being referred to as the 'new diasporic African literature'.
Over the past ten years, 'Re-membering Africa' types of writings have grown into an amazing cultural enterprise supporting writers, publishers, critics and teachers of African/Postcolonial Literary Studies. For artists, diaspora themes, diasporic narrations and coming-home-from-diaspora homecomings are en vogue. For publishers, identifying and associating with potentially award-winning diasporic writers is considered a smart commercial venture. For critics, most of them being teachers, privileging diasporic theories in literary criticism is a strategy of identifying oneself with the avant garde of contemporary literary theory such as Homi Bhabha.
Respected outlets of learned discussions on African literatures such as Research in African Literature and English Studies in Africa celebrate the rise to prominence of diasporic writings of Abdulrazak Gurnah, Moses Issegawa, Jamal Mahjoub, MG Vassanji, Binyavanga Wainaina, Leila Aboulela, Doreen Baingana,Yvonne Owuor and Shailja Patel among other prominent East African as well as other new African writers. Kwani? currently East Africa's liveliest literary outfit, has brought some of these internationally-acclaimed writers to Kenya besides supporting that cosmopolitan literary spirit diaspora writers espouse.
Avtar Brah in her brilliant book, Cartographies of Diaspora (1996) tells us postcolonial Diasporas sustain that limited sense of belonging to any particular nation or culture, which in turn accentuate diasporic critiques of the postcolonial nation-state besides generating desire for new kinds of identification. In Africa today, these new kinds of identification can be discerned in most Africans who increasingly view themselves as citizens of the continent (i.e Pan Africans), citizens of the world (transnationals) or citizens of two or more nations (leading to calls for dual citizenship in Kenya). In the later case the first citizenship is usually ones country of birth and the second that of ones country of flight.
Diasporic literature with roots in post-independence Africa, to quote Brah once more 'offer a critique of discourses of fixed origins while taking account of a homing desire, as distinct from a desire for a homeland'. In light of these developments, we can venture the view that quests for new homes are not the main preoccupation of African migrants, writers or otherwise. Rather, it is quests for those places where African people will feel at home that really lead to the 'homing desire' epitomised by Ngugi's own emblematic rather than enduring homecomings since 2004.
Shailja's just concluded homecoming goes beyond the artistic effort of bringing Migritude to lovers of literature. It seems to suggest an invitation to expand the temporal and spatial dimensions of our narrations of African nations in the manner of Ngugi's Wizard of the Crow. In such expanded narrative spaces both indigenous and migrant memories and buried (hi)stories can be resurrected and given a long overdue homecoming.
* Justus Siboe Makokha, B.Ed, MA Dept of Literature, is a literary critic based at Kenyatta University.
* Read more on Shailja Patel at
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
Pambazuka News 310: The denial of agency from Africa
Pambazuka News 310: The denial of agency from Africa
Madaraka Nyerere, son of former President of Tanzania Julius Nyerere talks to Adam Ma'anit from the New Internationalist magazine for Pambazuka News. In London to relaunch the Arusha Declaration with the Global Women's Strike, the document is the foundation of socialist principles practiced by Nyerere's government. In this interview Madaraka explores the reasons why Nyerere's policies have been demolished by capitalism and the relevance of the his father's work for modern Africa and the women's rights movement. See Global Women's Strike (http://www.globalwomenstrike.net/) for more on the publication of the Arusha Declaration. Music in this podcast is brought to you by Busi Ncube from Zimbabwe and kindly provided by Thulani Promotions (http://www.thulani.net).
The government of Seychelles shows its commitment to the use of ICTs in education despite simmering opposition to its tendering procedures. The first consignment of subsidized laptops promised to Seychellois teachers earlier this year was delivered this week. The 1500 Inspiron 1501 and 6400 Dell laptop computers are selling at only 25% of the local market price in order to popularise the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in education.
Telkom SA has bought Africa Online (AFOL), an Internet service provider for 125 million rands from the African Lakes Corporation. AFOL which offers dial-up, lease lines, VSAT and broadband services to both retail and corporate entities operates in eight African countries namely Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Swaziland and Cote D'Ivoire. The company however has active affiliates in South Africa, Mozambique, Mauritania, Nigeria, Malawi, Senegal, Angola and Cameroon.
Join author, commentator, and talk show host Tavis Smiley, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, LCCR President and CEO Wade Henderson, and other distinguished speakers for a one-of-a-kind event on the importance of media diversity to be held on June 29, 2007 at the Jack Morton Auditorium, George Washington University, 805 21st Street, NW, Washington, DC.
One solution to South Africa's land-reform problem is to make available some of the "huge tracts" of state-owned land around the country, says Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille. "This land is currently unproductive, under-utilised and under-resourced," she said in her weekly newsletter, published on the DA's SA Today website on Friday.
Zimbabwe has lifted a ban on political rallies and protests in Harare which the opposition had likened to a state of emergency, but police permits are still required for such gatherings. President Robert Mugabe's government imposed a three-month ban on rallies and demonstrations in February over fears of an opposition uprising in the face of a growing economic crisis, and had renewed the restrictions in the past two months.
Sudan's laws governing rape expose rape victims to further abuse, shield perpetrators from prosecution, limit the ability for survivors to receive medical services and generally deny any access to justice, according to a new analysis. The Washington-based organisation Refugees International today has released a report - "Laws Without Justice: An assessment of Sudanese laws affecting survivors of rape" - looking into the Sudanese legislation.
While one US company this week announced a new oil discovery offshore Equatorial Guinea this week, other oil companies announced an internal dispute that will delay the exploitation of at least two offshore wells. With last year's new Equatoguinean Hydrocarbons Law, the "crazy years" of sky-high revenues have come to an end.
A court in the French city of Bordeaux ordered the President of Gabon, Omar Bongo Ondiba, to compensate the son of a French citizen, René Cardona, who was jailed in Gabon in 1996. The court found Mr Bongo guilty of official corruption. The court portrayed Mr Cardona as an “accomplice of President Bongo and his family in arms and fishing equipment firm” when a judicial inquiry that led to his jailing in Libreville was launched.
Climate change may be one of the causes of the Darfur crisis, but to consider it the single root cause would obscure other important factors and could hamper the search for solutions, climate and conflict analysts say. A number of commentators, journalists and analysts have recently focused on competition for natural resources, increasingly scarce due to global warming, as the trigger of the conflict in western Sudan.
As Uganda's AIDS epidemic matures, bringing altered behaviour patterns, prevention messages must be adjusted to reflect the new dynamics of the pandemic, senior health officials have said. "The landscape has changed; it's important to understand what is driving the epidemic," Dr David Apuuli Kihumuro, director-general of the Uganda AIDS Commission, told IRIN/PlusNews.
In Maputo, Mozambique's capital, the neighbourhoods of Serrano and Mafalala are the most popular places for buying drugs. Users visit small, ordinary-looking houses there to buy and shoot up heroin, cocaine and amphetamines. "Addicts always leave syringes that others pick up and use," said Ezequiel, a former heroin and cocaine user, who did not wish to give his full name. "Buying a syringe costs money; addicts prefer to use their cash to buy more drugs."
When some of the world's largest donors to the global AIDS response organise a conference for "implementers", there is none of the chaos and rush of larger AIDS gatherings, or any of the free goods and gimmicks hawked by large pharmaceutical companies: no conference bags; no protests; no glittering opening ceremonies - it was all business last week when conference delegates met in Kigali, Rwanda, at the 2007 HIV Implementers' Meeting.
As seasonal rains start to fall across the Sahel, climatologists warn that the region is entering a cycle of unpredictable heavy rains that could destroy crops and leave thousands of people homeless. “It’s raining more now in the Sahel than it was in the 30 years before,” said Sylwia Trzaska, a climatologist at Colombia University’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society in New York.
Poor planning, maintenance and technical support are amongst the factors threatening to undermine an ambitious effort to electrify Senegal’s remote Sine Saloum Delta using solar energy. Another major problem is people’s lack of willingness or ability to pay the fees for the photovoltaic systems.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has condemned continuing attacks on schoolchildren and educational facilities in conflict zones around the world, citing recent incidents in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. “Attacks on schoolchildren are unacceptable,” said UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman. “Schools must be safe environments for children to learn and thrive.”
The United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has announced a new $10.9 million programme to bring small loans and jobs to the young people of rural Sierra Leone, benefiting 34,000 households in the West African country that saw the end of civil strife and the installation of an elected Government in 2002.
Residents of northwest Cote d’Ivoire have enjoyed cheap motorbikes and TVs from neighbouring countries thanks to the absence of customs controls since rebels chased out the government in 2002. On balance, however, the unrest has dealt a heavy blow to the region’s economy. Unprecedented violent crime, shuttered banks and the absence of state workers and their purchasing power mean residents are eager to see the government return.
A Nigerian man who arrived in Ireland as an asylum seeker seven years ago has become the country's first black mayor. Rotimi Adebari has been elected as first citizen of Portlaoise in County Laois. The 43-year-old fled from Nigeria in 2000 because of religious persecution. After a few weeks, he and his family settled in the County Laois town.
Twenty years since the UN convention against the use of torture came into force, a Ugandan victim of torture, who wishes to remain anonymous, tells the BBC how he was picked up in the capital, Kampala, by government security forces after being accused of robbery. He said he was tortured in a so-called "safe house" for about eight days before he passed out and woke up in a military hospital. He remained in custody for 11 months until the case against him collapsed about three years ago.
Four Kenyan women, who were set to share their personal stories about undergoing abortion, had to pullout of a discussion forum at the last minute following threats and intimidation from anti-abortion activists.The forum, organised to initiate discussion on unsafe abortions, was disrupted by activists claiming to represent the rights of unborn children.