Issue Title

The recent cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe has been reportedly contained while the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front government makes attempt to reposition the country’s economy.

On 15 September, Rwandan political prisoners Victoire Ingabire and Kizito Mihigo walked out of Nyarugenge Prison in Rwanda’s capital, along with nearly 2000 more Rwandan prisoners whom President Paul Kagame had granted “executive clemency.” Members of local and international media surrounded them with still and video cameras as they emerged. 

This essay explores the historical consciousness of young workers in South Africa, focusing on young black women workers. It draws on Lucaks ideas on history and class consciousness and Freirean participatory pedagogy to facilitate a critical reflection and dialogue between young Black working women on their memories and perspective of the conditions, realities and experiences of Black working women in colonial, apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa.  

The author’s essay seeks to bridge the gap between the concept of God and the worldly concepts of political economy by using a pan-African framework to conceptualise God as a global public good. 

The author discusses about Nigeria’s history of military regimes and whether some of them could be categorised as “democratic” or simply as “dictatorships”. 

A new Amnesty International report focuses on forced evictions of poor farmers in Swaziland carried out by local police. Land and forced evictions are central to Swaziland’s undemocratic system, says an activist who grew up in Swaziland’s rural areas.

The Egyptian-born social scientist and activist Samir Amin wrote extensively on political economy and the challenges for the peripheral capitalist states. He died in a Paris, France hospital on 12 August 2018 at the age of 86.

The cauldron of corruption and lies has been boiling non-stop 24 hours a day. The time has come to overturn it, for Haitians to begin to see the light of peace. Haiti is for all Haitians. – Fanmi Lavalas statement, 8 July 2018. Fanmi Lavalas is the party of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president, and represents Haiti’s poor majority.

The article explains how the United States of America destroyed Haiti’s domestic rice industry to the extent that farmers could no longer feed themselves. 

This work is creative non-fiction derived from what is known about the experiences of Leah Sharibu, a 15-year-old girl kidnapped alongside other schoolgirls by a faction of Boko Haram in Dapchi, in northern Nigeria.

The Zimbabwean’s own correspondent is absolutely right to warn Zimbabwe (as well as all Africa) of the dangers of China’s colonising activities. In this article, we are extending his warning to Western de facto colonialism, which still wields immense power over all Africa’s 54 nations.

The first edition of the Université Populaire de l’Engagement Citoyen was launched in Dakar, in July 2018, with the aim of bringing together social movements from the continent to reflect on Africa’s pressing challenges. Discussions focused on the legacy of Pan-Africanism, the political and economic challenges that Africa is currently facing and the need of greater solidarity between citizens and social movements. 

The Socialist Party of Nigeria sees the current internal fighting among the Nigerian ruling elite, as an opportunity to offer an alternative that is pro the masses working people of the country. 

The People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), the largest democratic movement in Swaziland, recently elected a new leadership at its General Congress. Mlungisi Makhanya was elected new President.

The Russia-Africa Trade and Investment Forum is one of the platforms that seek to promote business opportunities on the African continent and serves as a bridge between Russian and African business. It primarily seeks to deepen understanding of the business climate, accelerate investment and partnership possibilities in Africa.

The author argues that the 2018 general elections in Zimbabwe were largely non beneficial to the poor and the working class in general. They were rather a titanic battle of capitalists’ interests in form of neo-imperialism.

The author calls on the Nigerian Left to revive the journal “In defence of history” in order to assist young people to know, understand and appreciate the history of Nigeria and the history of the world.

This piece is a dialogue with Nigerian Leftists—and all those who feel they share essential attributes with Leftists (socialists and pro-people radical democrats) but, for one reason or another, reject the “label” Leftists. The dialogue is driven by current political happenings and is here presented in form of notes, observations and propositions.

The second quarter of 2018 has seen South Africa register a negative growth designated recession while the country’s currency, the rand, continues to be volatile. 

Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul was an outstanding manifestation of the African American struggle for dignity and freedom.

In this review of Ayobami Adebayo’s Stay with Me, the author recounts her personal experience with friends who were affected by sickle cell anaemia, a malady that adversely affects many families on the African continent.  

The author reviews the book The Lost Boys of Bird Island, which reveals how black children in South Africa were kidnapped, violated, raped and molested by senior apartheid government ministers and businessmen in the 1980s.

The author talks about Bitcoin’s bid to get a share of Africa’s banking system, especially among the technology-savvy entrepreneurs. 

The Saharawis of Africa’s last colony Western Sahara don’t have many friends in high places around the world. But if Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour wins the next United Kingdom election it might prove to be a breakthrough in the protracted conflict and prevent a war. 

A young Ugandan who is concerned about the current situation in the country sends an open letter to President Yoweri Museveni. 

This article is framed around three important questions: Is the case of Bobi Wine, a youthful talented musician turned politician, taking on President Museveni something to be worried about? Is this the case of David vs. Goliath, or even “new wine in Uganda’s political wineskin? And should President Museveni be worried for his political future?

This paper deals with the meaning of Mwalimu Marcus Garvey and the Afrikan Revolution in the 21st century. Mwalimu Garvey is without doubt one of the most important figures of the Afrikan Revolution in the last 50 years and today, more than 70 years after his passing, his mission of total and unapologetic independence for the Black race, remains unfinished.

In this paper, the author argues that Professor Mahmood Mamdani’s essay, “The African University”, though timely, has significant flaws along several fronts including being a simplistic version of history, having major errors of fact and omissions, making unwarranted generalisation, and using unreal and extreme dichotomies among other flaws. 

State brutality is integral to the electoral cycle in Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda. There are campaign beatings, ballot beatings and post-election beatings. When the election cycle is over, the country reverts to ordinary beatings.

The author argues that the People Power movement in Uganda has reached a point of no return in their efforts to bring about change in the country, but that they would require more coordination and a united front to achieve their objective.  

This is a brics-from-below reader put together for the 23-24 July 2018 Johannesburg Teach-In ahead of the July 2018 BRICS Summit hosted by South Africa. 

The Trump administration withdraws from the United Nations Human Rights Council, while racism, social deprivation and war intensify. The administration, however, denies the escalating oppression and impoverishment of the masses. 

The timely City Press article by Benzi Ka-Soko on Sunday, 15 July 2018, titled “Affirming Sobukwe’s Legacy Is Imperative”, is an excellent and timely intervention in acknowledging Sobukwe’s towering, yet concealed and obscured, role in the Azanian (South Africa) liberation struggle, both as a political ideologue, an intellectual and a philosopher par excellence. 

On the 18 July 2018 the world celebrated the international centennial anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s birth. It was a significant moment in history for us to pause and reflect on the intrinsic values exhibited by one of Africa’s greatest sons, our very own global leader and icon – Madiba.

The late Ali Mazrui speaks in this article to major political issues relevant to Ethiopia today, as the country undergoes a peaceful revolution.  In his own words, he speaks through my adaptation of his various writings, speeches, and lectures on constitutionalism in Africa.  The reader should also take pleasure in Mazrui’s witticism, in the ease with which he clarifies complicated concepts, and in his neologism (electoral polygamy)—qualities for which he had earned worldwide recognition.  In the article, Mazrui’s ideas have been Ethiopianised where necessary.

He is the President of Rwanda and the current President of the African Union, feted by the Brookings Institute, one of the most venerable ideological pillars of US capital interests. So why is Paul Kagame manifesting more and more signs of paranoia? Let us consider just a few possibilities: 

Outlining a number of reasons, the author explains that the government of South Africa  is still planning to expand its nuclear energy generating capabilities. 

This is an edited version of a keynote address by Professor Horace Campbell at the emancipation wreath laying at the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park on 25 July 2018 under the theme “Our heritage our strength, Celebrating the African Resilience”.

The following talk was given by Ameth Lô in a French-language panel, “L’aurore de notre libération,” in Montreal on 20 May 2018, at “The Great Transition: Preparing a World Beyond Capitalism” conference.  

Delegates at the recently concluded BRICS Summit in South Africa made a public declaration against unilateralism coming from Washington. 

In this essay, the author argues that, for Africa and the global South, the BRICS countries offer a promising tangible alternative to the declining Western powers and their institutions of global economic and political governance. 

The heads of state from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) are meeting in Johannesburg’s corruption-ridden financial district of Sandton for a two-day annual summit. Pretending to challenge Western imperial hegemony over poor nations of the South, this bloc has itself proved to be no different. 

When it comes to control of the populace, what are the imperialist, anti-imperialist or sub-imperialist characteristics of the BRICS network of countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa? Can the BRICS deliver progressive outcomes – as some of its proponents claim – or not?

Ten years after the 2008 global financial crisis, the global economy is still stagnant and there are few prospects for a recovery. As a result, we have seen a deepening of the social crisis with rising unemployment and inequality, which is what underpins the war against women, increased crime and violence, and the unravelling of the social fabric, especially here in South Africa.

Can the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) bloc rise to the occasion, as Donald Trump jerks Western imperialism out of traditional alignments? With war-talk against Iran blowing through Trump’s tweets, and with Washington’s trade wars raging against both China and traditional allies, there was talk here in Johannesburg about counter-hegemonic prospects during the last week of July. 

The author’s investigation reveals how Germany uses South Africa—and other African countries—as its air borders to prevent some Africans, with valid Schengen visas, from travelling to Germany. The article uses the case of Zimbabwean congregants. 

Special Issue: Celebrating the life and legacy of Samir Amin

In this special tribute, the author narrates how the writings of Samir Amin helped him to answer many questions he was confronted with, as a young revolutionary socialist and Marxist. 

Honouring the legacy of Samir Amin, Professor Togba-Nah Tipoteh calls on all progressives the world over to draw inspiration from the work of Samir Amin in order to enhance the work to liberate the oppressed from the oppressor. 

The author recounts his first meeting with Samir Amin more than three decades ago and shares his working experience with this distinguished African scholar who was a mentor and father figure to many young researchers. 

In a letter to his comrades, workers, activists and friends, Samir Amin outlines his [last] request to establish a new International of Workers and Peoples. 

Samir Amin is proposing a way out of the current situation of capitalism in crisis. Nations should socialise the ownership of monopolies, de-financialise the management of the economy and de-globalise international relations.

In his book,  Le bicentenaire de Marx, Samir Amin reflect on the work of the man who has immensely influenced his own work and life. 

In his book,  Le bicentenaire de Marx, Samir Amin reflect on the work of the man who has immensely influenced his own work and life. 

Samir Amin was an exceptionally humble person. In spite of his huge influence on younger generations, he never treated them patronisingly or with condescension. Samir did not see himself as a leader, teacher or mentor. He treated younger scholars and comrades as his equals, engaging with them and critiquing them where necessary.   

Honouring Samir Amin as he celebrated his 80th birthday in September 2011, Horace Campbell paid tribute to Amin’s tireless work “to strengthen effective forms of popular power” and underlined his enormous contribution to our understanding of global capitalism’s increasing destructiveness.

Reflecting on the current crisis in the capitalist system, Samir Amin wonders whether China would be attempted to try to cure the system. 

To understand the present capitalist economic crisis, Ama Biney contends that there is an urgent need to revisit the works of Egyptian political economist Samir Amin. His bold proposals on ending global inequalities and injustices are timely.

Immanuel Wallerstein, one of the close colleagues and comrades in the struggle of Samir Amin, shares a personal experience of working with him. 

I was requested by the Pambazuka News editors to give a brief tribute to Samir Amin.  I will do precisely that—a brief tribute to one of Africa’s leading intellectual luminaries, whose intellectual legacy offers great potential for African Renaissance in the 21st century.  

Yash Tandon dedicates a poem to his close friend and comrade in the struggle, Samir Amin. 

Natasha Issa Shivji, a young Tanzanian academic and activist, gives a moving tribute to Professor Samir Amin. 

Samir Amin was as ruthless a critic of extreme religious movements as he was of neoliberal imperialism. (Ricardo Ramirez)

Samir Amin was an economist and intellectual, that has left his marks on academia, as well as on activists.

Celebrating his legacy, the author offers a critical analysis of a number of Samir Amin's books. 

Former Chief Justice of Kenya, Willy Mutunga, gives a special tribute to Samir Amin. 

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) wishes to officially inform members of the African intellectual community of the passing on of Professor Samir Amin on Sunday, 12 August 2018. For CODESRIA, this marks nothing less than the end of an era in the history of African social research given the many pioneering roles the late Professor Amin played as a scholar, teacher, mentor, friend, and revolutionary. 

Samir Amin (1931-2018) was one of the thinkers of the global South who contributed decisively to starting the epistemological break with the Eurocentric discourse that permeates the social sciences and humanities. His passing on 12 August is a huge loss for his family, friends, collaborators and many sympathisers around the world. 

On Sunday, 12 August 2018, shortly after 4pm (local) Professor Samir Amin passed away in a hospital in Paris, France where he had been flown for emergency treatment at the end of July.

With the demise of Samir Amin—an indispensable component of the new genre of the Radical Political Economy School of Marxism—the global South has lost an important intellectual prime mover of its history. 

Egyptian economist Samir Amin observed the dangers of our world but also its possibilities. 

Samir Amin, already a major figure in the political economy of development, was the author of the first article in the first ever issue of ROAPE, in 1974. As the editorial noted, the article was “a summary of his basic model of the workings of the international system as a whole, presented at length in his two recent books” (the two- volume Accumulation on a World Scale, Monthly Review Press, 1974).

Samir Amin was an exceptionally humble person. In spite of his huge influence on younger generations, he never treated them patronisingly or with condescension. Samir did not see himself as a leader, teacher or mentor. He treated younger scholars and comrades as his equals, engaging with them and critiquing them where necessary

I met Samir Amin only once. I was lucky though as our meeting was spread over three days at a conference and I later interviewed him by telephone for The Review of African Political Economy. I described him to friends and colleagues, who heard that I had been fortunate enough to spend time with him, as indefatigable – he would stride out ahead of the group to locate the baladi (local) place to eat and places to visit. 

The author looks at the theories of one of Africa’s greatest radical thinkers.

I was a friend of the late Samir Amin – we met a number of times in our long and peripatetic lives and never without personal warmth and delight at the shared opportunity to compare and contrast our opinions and to further discuss them. 

The anti-imperialist scholar was very critical of the models of development and of the institutional structures of nation-states in developing countries that slavishly imitated the West, which he felt enabled colonialism to easily transmogrify into neo-colonialism.

Samir Amin revolutionised economics by centering the global South. The Real News Network’s Ben Norton explores the radical legacy of the Egyptian-French anti-imperialist Marxist with scholar Ali Kadri.

Pambazuka News 872: Honouring Samir Amin, the Battle of Omdurman and Africa’s elusive democracy 

The attempt to assassinate Nicolas Maduro, President of Venezuela, has failed. This news is days-old, but the facts are reiterated here starkly. The event raises serious questions for “progressive” critics now in close collaboration with imperialism.

Looking at the spate of rape allegations in the halls of power and trust – is it starting to make sense now that America has a long-established bully culture that has fed its pervasive rape culture?

Judging by media and popular accounts, with all the inherent limitations therein and biases attached thereto, President Putin’s recent visit to South Africa for the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Summit was an overwhelming success. Based on the tone of commentary and analysis prepared thereon, President Putin is widely admired in South Africa and across the African continent for his strong leadership qualities, although not everybody agrees with his country’s policies. 

The March undertaken by the women of South Africa to mark the opening of Women’s month is a stark reminder that women are still demanding basic respect, and the right to be treated as equals even amongst their most intimate partners. The struggles of women across the world are far from homogenous. From Cape to Cairo, Morocco to Madagascar: the atrocities committed against women are an indictment on humanity.

Major developments related to internal and external relations are taking place in Horn of Africa states. However, those new breakthroughs are threatened by western economic and military imperatives. 

After several years of high-level consultations, Russian President Vladimir Putin has finally hinted that Russia would organise its first Russia-Africa summit of African leaders and ministers to roll out a comprehensive strategic road map outlining concrete economic sectors for investment, issues relating to trade and culture for Africa.

National harmonised parliamentary and presidential elections in the Southern African state of Zimbabwe were held on 30 July, but opposition forces rejected their outcome seeking to continue Western sanctions and attempted isolation.

The historic Zimbabwe presidential and parliamentary “harmonised’ elections of 30 July 2018 have just been concluded. The final results tally saw President Emmerson Mnangagwa getting 2,460,463 votes (50.8 percent), ahead of his nearest rival Nelson Chamisa who got 2,147,436 votes (44.3 percent). The 50.8 percent by the President meant he scrapped above the legal 50 percent plus one vote necessary to avoid a run-off election. 

Over the past two decades, the world could have been hoodwinked by Western governments’ imposition of targeted sanctions on then Zimbabwean president Robert Gabriel Mugabe’s tyrannical regime, on the pretext of human rights abuses and electoral fraud. However, was that the real reasons for these targeted sanctions on Mugabe and members of his ruthless regime?

Swaziland will hold national elections on 21 September. But according to reports that examine the country’s last national elections in 2013 and many Swazis, Swaziland’s political system is undemocratic and only serves to keep its absolute monarch in power.

By “the people,” Leftists include, principally, “those people who do not exploit other people, but are themselves exploited; those who stand at the lowest point of the social ladder, those who are essentially excluded from the governance of their country; those who, strictly speaking, have little or nothing to defend in the present social order; and those who cannot liberate themselves without liberating society as a whole”. 

Spike Lee adopted the Africana tradition of story-telling in his award-winning film about a 1970s Black detective, Ron Stallworth (played by John David Washington, son of Denzel) who, as the first black cop in the city, infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and also infiltrated a radical Black Students’ Union in Colorado Springs and eventually helped to save the life of the female president of the students’ union (Laura Harrier). 

For Nigerian Leftists currently studying or re-studying Nigerian politics, the month of July 2018 has offered fresh and interesting materials. But for me and some close comrades, what has so far happened this month further clarifies—not by any means solved—several existing problems that may here be grouped into four tasks.

This essay seeks to explain why the concept of Afro-centricity has been an important feature of the Pan-African tradition. 

Next month, the Sudanese people will commemorate the 120th anniversary of the Omdurman Battle, which is widely known in Sudan as the Kararey Battle after the name of its location, in the northern part of Omdurman. 

Samir Amin lives as long as peoples’ revolutionary journey moves forward. And, peoples’ revolutionary march is unending, as revolutionary advancement opens path for further revolutionary advancement. 

Samir Amin’s celebrated life was amongst the most trying, but also rewarding, of his generation’s left intelligentsia. Following Amin’s death in Paris on Sunday, his political courage and professional fearlessness are two traits now recognised as exceedingly rare. Alongside extraordinary contributions to applied political-economic theory beginning 60 years ago, Amin’s unabashed Third Worldist advocacy was channelled through unparalleled scholarly entrepreneurship when establishing surprisingly durable research institutions.

Pambazuka News 870: The struggle for self-determination continues 

Building on our history as the continent’s first indigenous activist-led fund for and by sexual and gender minorities and sex workers, UHAI is looking for a radical and visionary leader.

Tagged under: 870, Jobs, UHAI EASHRI

On 14 July 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin warmly received two African leaders, Gabonese Ali Bongo Ondimba and Sudanese Omar al-Bashir, within the framework of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. 

To say that I was shocked to read in the media that Zimbabwe president Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa – during his recent visit to the Johane Masowe Apostolic sect – accepted their declaration that women should not lead, would be a grave understatement, but, rather I was dumbfounded – such comments are not to be expected of a leader of a modern society in the 21st century.

The author discusses about trade and aid in Africa demonstrating that the two can complete each other when there is good governance. 

This article is a situational analysis of the current political environment in Madagascar prior to the November 2018 general elections. 

The article provides historical illustrations on the current political alliances in Nigeria. 

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