Pambazuka News 757: Terrorism as Empire's new tool

Climate change has brought on a severe drought in Swaziland. The solution to the crisis is literally to pray for rain, says the country’s absolute monarch. No, we need a democratic government that does not treat its people as enemies, says a young activist.

Iran, now emerging from years of diplomatic isolation by the West, is hell-bent on destabilizing nations in the Arab world and beyond in it is attempts to put Shi’a Muslims in power. That is the context in which the current worsening relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia should be understood.

Zuma has a very warm, self-effacing and jovial personality. He is also humble. Because of these traits many people often easily trust him. Others easily mistake his self-depreciating style, combined with his humble beginnings and bearing and his lack of formal education, for weakness. But how long will his cunning last?

By engineering chaos in Libya with the violent of Gaddafi in 2011, NATO effectively turned over the entire armoury of an advanced industrial state to the region’s most sectarian militias, including Boko Haram. Moreover, the success of Boko Haram is strategically beneficial to the US in its attempts to sabotage the country's development and in particular its burgeoning relationship with the People's Republic of China.

The latest executions in Saudi Arabia should make it very clear that the Western powers' "war on terror" has nothing to do with opposition to chopping off heads and sectarian religious fanaticism. Instead of condemning this crime, the US, UK and other Western powers have continued to give the Saudi regime, if not their public political blessing, at least their practical backing – in the name of the necessary alliances they claim flow from that "war on terror".

Why does Ghana want to be put on a list of countries who have defined themselves as those who tacitly approve of senseless US actions that often cause the deaths of innocent people, including women and children? Did this African country consider its own security when accepting the Al Qaeda men?

The book offers first-hand testimony to social, political, literary, educational, and internationalist aspects of the World War I-era “New Negro” movement and to Harrison’s role in its development. The need for new interest in the life and work of Harrison is even more pronounced today among the many people challenging injustice and seeking a better world.

During the China-Africa meeting in South Africa last month, where China pledged $60 billion for Africa’s industrialization, the hype continued about the Asian giant’s beneficial role in the continent. But the truth is that China has undermined Africa’s development for nearly 30 years now.

Pambazuka News 756: Nairobi and Paris: How the people were conned

The outcome of the meeting, the so-called Nairobi Package, was a slap in the face for the peoples of the South. It was especially egregious that the US used the 10th Ministerial, with the help of the Kenyan leadership, to undermine the future of Pan-African trading relations and to drive a wedge between the BRICS societies and those that the US wants to manipulate in the poor countries. The 10th Ministerial has hastened the demise of the WTO.

Paris witnessed both explicit terrorism by religious extremists on November 13 and, a month later, implicit terrorism by carbon addicts negotiating a world treaty that guarantees catastrophic climate change. The first incident left more than 130 people dead in just one evening’s mayhem; the second lasted a fortnight but over the next century can be expected to kill hundreds of millions, especially in Africa.

As the world continues to search for viable solutions to the issues of sustainable development and climate change, why not look at the ordinary men and women who have done extraordinary things in fighting poverty and preserving the environment? One such inspirational figure is Tadeo Nyabirweki.

Climate politics will go nowhere as long as peoples' movements remain locked into debates over arithmetic. It is time to re-set the start line for climate struggles in a place that transcends the old episteme.

The West has forced millions to become wandering, destitute refugees, as it destroys nations and peoples that get in the way of Empire. Palestinians have lived this reality for 67 years. Beirut sits at the lip of the volcano.

Tagged under: 756, Features, Glen Ford, Governance

The first generation of African leaders had some excellent qualities like nationalism, patriotism, vision and less corruption. But they suffered from the grave original sin of staying in power too long by undemocratic means. The continent is still harvesting the sour fruits of their legacies in the likes of Mugabe, Museveni and Kagame.

The new book is a genuine and significant contribution to the understanding of one of the worst tragedies of this century, an indispensable resource for anyone who wants to know what the human costs of regional poverty and underdevelopment are today, and a much-needed voice for the actual victims of the tragedy.

This sociological novel provides readers with an opportunity to read the kind of Africanized French that is spoken in the streets and neighborhoods in Gabon’s major cities such as Libreville. The text is replete with standard French words, argot and indigenous language words and expressions that endow it with a reasonable dose of cultural authenticity.

Zimbabwe’s violent dictator is once again the darling capitalist of the West. The reason is the standard and most simple: Zimbabwe has the world’s second largest reserves of platinum, its uranium production is going westwards and Mugabe has agreed to toe the line on the marketing of the world’s largest ever single field diamond operation, Marange.

Namibian President Geingob's image as a flamboyant intellectual filling the shoes of a skilled statesman is showing wear and tear. Intolerance and temper limit his ability to engage with critical views constructively. Add to that an aloof and dismissive attitude bordering on arrogance, and the people of Namibia have reason to worry about the prosperity promise.

East and Central Africa’s largest media house, Kenya’s Nation Media Group, has this week sparked a national storm after suspending a senior newspaper editor for publishing an editorial sharply critical of the government of President Uhuru Kenyatta. Kenyans are wondering whether the disciplining of Denis Galava indicates NMG’s growing coziness with the scandal-ridden regime that is relentlessly dragging the country back to dark days of dictatorship. Below is the controversial editorial published by Daily Nation on January 2, 2016.

At least 300 Shia sect members, and likely many more, were killed and hundreds more injured in December when the Nigerian army confronted the group in the north of the country. This deadly encounter reveals – once again – a country that is sleepwalking to a catastrophe.

Conversations with Ugandans reveal that people at the grassroots see ethnic federalism as one possible way of restoring and guaranteeing both socio-political accountability and economic security in a system that relies too much on increasingly narrow ethnic and political clientelistic networks.

If 1965 consists of the first time in recorded history of contemporary Burundi that people lost their lives simply because of who they were ‘ethnically’ considered to be, 2015 is yet another moment in the post-colonial history of Burundi that people are losing their lives simply because of who they are ‘politically’ considered to be.

Islamic militancy which targets non-Muslims, often Christians, is deeply rooted in the historical discord that exists within Islam itself. Prophet Mohammad preached peaceful co-existence particularly with Christians. Muslims who promote wanton violence in the name of their religion are simply misguided about its true teachings.

He was known as a founding member of what was described as the “Sons of Toussaint”, a group of nationalist leaders who initiated the armed struggle against French imperialism on November 1, 1954. He is a national hero in Algeria.

This is the year of ‘A Man of the People. 2016 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Chinua Achebe’s fourth novel, the gripping satire.

Pambazuka News 755: Crossing the red line: Burundi, WTO and Biafra

We, members of the Pan African Movement-East Africa together with the Global Pan African Movement make this call to the citizens of East Africa, all peace loving Africans globally and concerned citizens of the world to join together in this petition to mobilize our resources and empower our voices to demand immediate action to halt the deteriorating conditions in Burundi. There is an ongoing loss of life and a general disruption and breakdown of law, social cohesion and personal security fuelling the fears of a possible reemergence of ethno-political violence and genocide in the Great Lakes region. The situation threatens to undermine all efforts to establish regional stability and peace.

After extending for a final non-stop 24-hour negotiation between the major trading powers, the 10th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) concluded with a Ministerial Declaration that marks a turning point for the multilateral trade body according to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman.

At the ongoing WTO Ministerial in Nairobi, Kenya, Africa must be prepared to accept no deal than accept a bad one. It is time for progressive forces in the Global South to act in peaceful non-violent resistance against the injustices of the Empire and its cynical deployment of the WTO as a weapon of war against the people of the world for the benefit of the small, corrupt, coterie of mega-corporations for whom profits come before humanity.

Should Africa expect much from the WTO talks in Nairobi? The WTO political game is played with complete lack of any democratic or moral scruples. The Empire speaks of democracy and good governance, ad infinitum, but there is not a morsel of it within the WTO system of global economic governance. The Empire gets away with total impunity.

Justice for the revered public intellectual remains elusive 35 years after his assassination. The Commission of Inquiry instituted by the government, and which was recently forced to end its operations amidst questions about its credibility, seems to have been set up for political expediency. Whatever the findings of the Commission, Guyana and the world will not stop demanding the truth about Rodney’s death.

Tagged under: 755, David Hinds, Features, Governance

The Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) announces the second round of its small research grants competition in memory of Lionel Cliffe, the founder member who died in 2013. It is intended to promote research in the spirit of his work, and is restricted to African scholars and/or activists based in Africa.

Last month, upwards of 20,000 Brazilians of African descent, predominantly women, came together to protest the deep seated racism, including the targeting and murder of Black youth by the police, and gender based violence in Brazil. This single act of protest shatters the myth of a racially harmonious nation.

Tagged under: 755, Features, Governance, Sokari Ekine

The Pope’s visit was not just about Africa. He used Africa as a platform to air his views of global concern. The Pope was basically pleading the cause of Africa before the international community, but also assuring the ordinary African people that he is on their side.

Not many years ago Kenya’s flowers were produced by hundreds of small producers, providing livelihood for thousands. Now they are produced by a handful of multinationals. Those who own the farms in Naivasha as well as middle agencies make enormous profits, but the direct producers – the wage workers – get very little.

Tagged under: 755, Features, Governance, Yash Tandon

No solution in sight from a system that breeds the world’s problems, warns global activists a day ahead of the 10th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Nairobi, Kenya

As the violence escalates to a kill a week – sometimes more - illegal evictions continue unabated, women are are raped by gun-toting triggermen, and freedom of movement and association has ground to a halt in this poor South African neighbourhood, anyone who suggests ‘bringing warring factions together at the ‘negotiation table’ has clearly been drinking Molotov cocktails, or they are on the thugs’ payroll.

It is a matter of international solidarity to side with the oppressed, advocating their rights and thereby also promoting fundamental human rights universally. Namibia itself benefitted from such solidarity in its struggle for freedom. So how come the country is withdrawing from the International Criminal Court?

China’s cooperation with Africa promises great benefits for the continent. But the Chinese government owes it to its people not to allow the fruits of the suffering of the Chinese to be monopolised by corrupt African elites. They must carry out thorough due diligence before they give the Chinese people's money as loans to African regimes.

There is renewed agitation in Nigeria to actualize the break-away republic of Biafra. While this demand is unrealistic in many ways, it points to an urgent need to address the unresolved question of Nigeria’s nationhood once and for all.

Tagged under: 755, Chido Onumah, Features, Governance

A commission of inquiry must be transparent. Its work is not over until its report is presented, following which those in charge of the secretariat are expected to hand over the records of the proceedings for safe-keeping. There is uncertainty in Guyana as to responsibility and accountability of the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry.

Engler masterfully lays out the ways in which Canada participated in the exploitation of Africa during slavery, through colonialism, via Canadian mining companies that operate in Africa and through aid and Structural Adjustment Programs, and through implementing global neoliberal policies.

Self-described Africa scholar Gerald Caplan’s recent praise of Canada’s relations with Uganda is superficial and misleading. He ignores Canada’s support for imperialism in East Africa that goes back to the days of the slave trade.

In September, there were high hopes in some parts of Swaziland’s civil society and democratic movement that a dialogue with the county’s absolute monarch King Mswati III was on the table. Not least because of pressure from the Commonwealth, the USA and the EU. Three months later no such meeting has taken place and that hope seems all but shattered.

In my interactions with the youth, I have discovered that we are in a very serious situation in this country. The average Nigerian youth is not independent, but their mind is focused on conformity and adherence to the rules. If the youthful minds of our country are busy doing what they have been told, then who will challenge the status quo?

In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands of peaceful Biafrans have turned their cities and towns and villages into panoramic freedom park marches, unprecedented in Africa, demanding the restoration of the sovereignty of their beloved Biafra. Biafrans will surely free their land. It is high time BBC editors got used to this eventuality.

If those crusading for a separate state are doing so because of the failures of previous governments to serve the needs of Nigerians adequately, that is not a good enough reason to seek secession. The grievance is shared across Nigeria. Moreover, the idea of a separate nation based on religious and ethnic calculations is unworkable.

A child born in the U.S.A. will consume more—and cause more greenhouse gas emissions—during his lifetime than several children born in a developing country. It is no longer in doubt that there exists a clear link between population and the climate crisis.

Our identity no longer resides in the nation-state but is located rather as human earthlings within the unfolding evolutionary journey of the universe. A new ethic of care and compassion to build our common home – the Cosmos - is essential.

The tendency of attributing to Islam everything a Muslim does harbours a major fallacy, which simply presumes that all Muslims are devoted to ‘their creed’ and that whatever they do is necessarily guided by what ‘their religion’ sanctions. In fact, however, the bulk of those identified with Islam, like other people everywhere, attend to their worldly things largely motivated by the mundane logics of desire and power.

She was among the most well-known Muslim feminists and her courageous writings sought to undermine the ideological and political systems that silence and oppress women. Her influential pieces were well crafted and accessible to thousands of minds across the Muslim world and beyond.

Joseph Kabila is doing everything to remain in power in DR Congo. He knows that he cannot hold on to power solely by force, hence he is in a mad pursuit to establish any form of legitimacy to justify holding on to the presidency. His options are increasingly limited and in the end, his schemes are likely to fail.

Immigration waves to Western countries are not only ‘manageable’ ( in terms of sufficient space and resources to accept immigrants); rather, they continuously bring advances in innovation, knowledge and wealth regeneration, keeping the West leading the most important sectors in modern global economy. Progressive arguments that say the West has a moral responsibility towards immigrants only tell half the story.

Is Rwanda building a rebel force composed of Burundian refugees to overthrow the government of Pierre Nkrunziza in Bujumbura? A former U.N. official who has recently returned from Rwanda believes this is the case and calls on the international community to intervene before it’s too late.

The government-appointed Commission was wound up last month and directed to compile its report by 30 November. The report is expected to be published on 15 December. The Commission faced a lot of huddles deliberately thrown on its way including a campaign mounted by government figures to discredit it.

The progressive pan-African stance that guided Tanzania’s politics in the 1960s and 1970s is gone: its place has been taken by tribalism and chauvinistic nationalism. The political demands enshrined in the Peasant Manifesto of 2015 offer an alternative to the bankrupt politics of giant parties and the 5-year elections.

Pambazuka News 754: A sip, a laugh and a legacy: Remembering Sam Moyo

I met Professor Sam Moyo at a seminar in the 1980s after he joined the University of Zimbabwe where I was then teaching, and was immediately struck by his quiet brilliance.

Prof enriched our lives in an immeasurable way. We have lost a caring father, a leader, a mentor, a friend and above all a fine human being.

The first heavy snow in the winter of Beijing,
With the heartbreaking chill,
Came the message of the sudden death of my old friend, Sam Moyo.
He seemed to be quietly leaving amidst the fleeting snowflakes…

Beijing, Chongqing, Hong Kong -- his traces were everywhere,
Conference halls, villages, classrooms -- his voices echoed around,
In my mind, I see his image active in different places in China,
In my heart, I cherish his warm smiles and sharp views.

Sam Moyo has departed. Yet, he is still among us.

* Prof Wen Tiejun is with Rural Reconstruction Movement, Beijing, China.

I knew Sam before Independence. I worked with him on land, energy and forestry issues. My abiding memory of him is his open, radical, good natured approach to life. He was a true geographer, driven by the empirical evidence that landscape meant lifescape and that lifescape was built by bias in race, class and gender.

Not my judgement, but one of his doctoral examiners left the room after questioning Sam about his doctoral thesis, obviously on land in Zimbabwe. “It was like asking Bismark about his foreign policy” was the judgement. What a loss felt around the world!

Phil O’Keefe. Newcastle, UK.

Tagged under: 754, Contributor, Features, Governance

Sam was a great thinker and fearless scholar. At the height of the political crisis in Zimbabwe and the fast track land reform programme, or invasions if you wish, Sam was amongst the few scholars who acknowledged that reform had benefitted small scale farmers, the rural poor.

I enjoyed my research assistant work although it was not an easy job, given Sam’s high academic expectations. However, through it, Sam taught me hard work, discipline and persistence. Sam was a professional at heart, by experience, dedication, and commitment to land and agrarian issues.

Professor Sam Moyo reached the pinnacle of academia and stayed true to his vocation to the end.

As teenagers, we used to good-humouredly call him Sam ‘Mudzanga’ (because of his new-found love for smoking, “mudzanga” being the Shona word for cigarette) or Sam Kanhunzi (because of the dark mole by his nose which stood out in contrast to his very light complexion, “kanhunzi” being a small housefly or domestic fly). He was born with more than enough charisma, but he remained down-to-earth as he rose higher and higher.

Moyo was neither an Afro-pessimist with a colonial mentality hankering after servitude like a house nigger nor a hopeless optimist as to blind himself to the post-independence failings and evils like oppression and corruption. Moyo’s colleague Professor Ian Scoones encapsulated this in an obituary he wrote this week: “Sam has often been inaccurately pigeonholed as being on ‘one’ side or another . . . Whether inside the State and the party (Zanu PF), among opposition groups or with the World Bank and other donors, no one could ignore what Sam had to say.”

His free academic spirit could not be shackled by ideology and this made him “challenge oppression and exploitation in whatever form”.

Moyo did not erect barriers, but built bridges. He interacted with all sides — from the ruling party to various opposition formations.

Moyo, true to academia, adhered to highest standards of scientific analysis, earning himself a global reputation as an eminent scholar bringing real value to humankind.

What more can I really add except that a whole library has gone?

Rest in peace, Sam Mudzanga.

*Conway Nkumbuzo Tutani is a Harare-based columnist.

There was a time when Prof Moyo stood alone with the revolutionary people of Zimbabwe. In international academic platforms he refused the seductive embrace of colonisers which comes with a litany of personal rewards.

Tagged under: 754, Contributor, Features, Governance

Sam stood for integrity and steadfastness, a calm intelligence and a cool deliberation, a level head in a crisis situation, and a free spirit in a party that was sure to follow every difficult episode.

Sam was highly regarded for his sharp intellect and rigor. Among the young and old, men, women, children, he was a welcome presence wherever he journeyed. He was warm and kind, going out of his way to assist; he made people feel good; and he loved laughter.

Pambazuka News 753: Paths beyond Paris: Movements, action and solidarity towards climate justice

Dear Reader,

In the light of the UN climate conference (COP21) taking place in Paris, France, this week we bring you a special issue of Pambazuka News dedicated to the urgent climate crisis.

The collection of articles in this edition is the work of Carbon Trade Watch, working with several specialist individuals and organisations over the course of several months. The articles have recently been published as a booklet that is available at the website.

Pambazuka News Editors are grateful to the individual contributors to the booklet and to CTW for allowing us to reproduce this stimulating and timely collection.

The central line of the articles is an urgent call to all humanity to do everything they can to end the climate crisis gripping the world at this moment. The authors unanimously reject the false neo-liberal, financialized solutions as being of little use for meaningfully addressing the crisis. They propose alternatives that are based on the simple fact that the Earth is finite; human beings must live responsibly or we will destroy ourselves and the rest of life.

What are you prepared to do personally to avoid this catastrophic eventuality?

PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDITORS

The December 2015 issue of the International Refugee Rights Initiative’s Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter (formerly the Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter) is out. Find the full newsletter .

As long as industrial bioenergy remains included in the definition of renewable energy in the EU and elsewhere, higher renewable energy targets will, perversely, translate into more land grabbing, more forest destruction, more biodiversity loss and even more greenhouse gas emissions.

The green economy does not present a contradiction to the continuity of the current extractive and energy intensive economy; the “green” mechanisms are designed to create value and to be complementary and interdependent on the current economy.

Are people standing up to corporate power, shutting down the polluters and building and defending their own solutions to climate change? Yes. Is it time for the rest to stand up in solidarity and do the same? Yes.

Regardless of the reality of carbon trading contradictions, if policy continues to favour corporate strategies, an even greater speculative bubble in carbon finance can be anticipated in the next few years.

Tagged under: 753, Features, Governance, Patrick Bond

False solutions are a way to turn away from real alternatives to the global environmental crisis. The true path requires transforming a society of petro-addicts, curbing the rise in world consumption of cars, and questioning the energy-intensive Global North and its historical responsibilities for global emissions.

We need to think beyond Paris and to stand in active solidarity with those who are at the frontlines of fighting the climate and environmental criminals. We need to hear what they have been saying for a long time and in different ways. Building radical solidarity with social movements and communities in resistance may be a way forward.

Mainstream thinking on climate change governance is dominated by neoliberal ideologies and constrained within neoliberal policy frameworks. Therefore, practitioners accord primacy to narrowly conceived, financialized solutions, despite the lack of evidence that climate problems can be solved through financial means or institutions; and the growing decade of evidence that financial approaches can even be counterproductive.[1]

We urgently need to stop the expansion of exploitation. How? By echoing the feminists of the 80s: “We have the right to say NO!” We need to build a plan towards de-growth and deceleration. And, of course, by practicing alternatives to the patriarchal capitalist machine.

The policy contains the same old package of unfounded assumptions, pseudo-science, half-truths and lies, which forms the core of the delusion that climate change and greenhouse gas emissions can be regulated and controlled by the neo-liberal capitalist market that demands more intensive use of fossil fuels like coal and petroleum.

We now posses tools that are so powerful they enable us to create, recreate, resurrect and redesign life forms that evolved on earth over millions of years. Or do they? Perhaps what they really enable us to do is mess things up royally.

Since the intergovernmental agreements for the construction of the huge EU pipeline were signed in 2013, the government of Azerbaijan has felt politically covered to arrest every non-embedded voice in the country, to close every independent media and every international organization in the attempt to cut connections between civil society in the country with the rest of the world.

The “green economy” is nothing more than capitalism of Nature. It is a more extreme attempt by corporations, extractive industries and governments of mainly the industrialized countries towards developing mechanisms for cashing in on Creation. This is achieved by privatizing, commodifying and selling off all forms of life.

Contrary to UN hype, REDD+ is destroying biodiversity and damaging ecosystems including forests, while undermining local communities and Indigenous People’s rights

Tagged under: 753, Features, Governance, Wally Menne

The need to talk about the real causes of climate change and capitalism, the transformation of production and consumption fueled by oil addiction, social and environmental justice, democracy and the rights of nature is gaining momentum globally. At least two-thirds of proven fossil fuels must be left underground in order to avoid social and environmental disasters.

Why does the internationally accepted definition of “forest” only include trees and not the human beings and animals that inhabit forests? This definition is at the heart of the global plunder of forests and the false solutions imposed by the industrial North ostensibly to mitigate climate change.

The entry of financial markets into environmental issues can only be disastrous. All the functions of Nature can be converted into financial assets that can be bought and sold in a market. Those who can buy them can use them and those who can use them can continue to pollute.

A world that capital is constantly trying to bifurcate between a monolithic society and a monolithic nature – and partially succeeding – is one of the worlds we occupy. For that very reason it must be one of the targets of popular struggle.

Pambazuka News 752: Causes and cures of global terrorism

In the light of the recent attack at Bamako’s Radisson Blu Hotel, Cameron Duodu looks at the context of Malian political instability, and how French involvement needs to be re-strategized if it is to have a positive impact.

Despite a long list of abuses by Canadian mining companies in Africa - and elsewhere - it’s very difficult to hold them accountable at home. Will the new government of Justin Trudeau defy the powerful mining industry and adopt legislation to constrain their abuses abroad?

Another round of the annual circus game on climate talks is here with the COP 21 about to start. Would you like to amplify your radical perspective on the crisis of climate change to over 600,000 readers all over the world? Then send your reflections, rants, insights, critique, arts-speak and much more to before Dec 3rd, 2015 to be published in a special feature themed: Climate Justice: Is a New Ambitious Climate Regime a Possibility!

If we are to effectively tackle terrorism, there needs to be some truth-telling, historical perspective and a genuine desire to get to the heart of the beast. We must acknowledge that terrorist organisations are often a product of real or perceived injustices and are borne out of a sense of desperation. And they are often supplied with arms by the very forces that claim to be fighting them.

The world is in crisis. The nation-state and the international system have failed to serve the needs of all humanity fairly. While privileging a minority, this unjust system has marginalized most of the world’s people. Global terrorism is a reaction to this failure. A new international political economy is urgently needed.

The horrendous terrorist attacks in the French capital last week brought the whole world to a stand-still. Yet similar violence elsewhere has not attracted comparable outrage and sympathy. What’s more, the daily deaths of impoverished people condemned to a sub-human existence by White supremacist ideologies hardly make the news.

The book is a concise, intimately researched and continuously readable account of how Angola’s changing domestic interactions since the end of the civil wars have affected its mode of insertion into the global system.

Yes, the attacks in Paris were brutal. But what of the terror that has been instigated in the name of empire? Is it less of terror to bomb cities, villages and country-sides? Is the control and manipulation of the financial world a morally justifiable act? Are ‘free trade’ agreements free when they subjugate poor nations to terms that essentially destroy them? Is the blatant theft of the resources of the Global South moral?

Tagged under: 752, Features, Governance, Jim Miles

The victims of the violence in Paris may have been innocent, but France was not. French crimes against Arabs, Muslims and Africans are ever-present in the historical memory. Those memories became the toxic mix that resulted in the blowback on November 13.

Tagged under: 752, Ajamu Baraka, Features, Governance

No sensible American would want the world to judge all Americans by the hateful actions of the Ku Klux Klan, a hate organization that has committed its share of atrocities and terrorism over numerous decades. Yet many are ready to use their positions, status and wealth to demonize, dehumanize, criminalize, anathematize and generalize about a group of people because of a few evil individuals who commit violence in the name of Islam.

If France is “at war”, as President Hollande announced after the horrific attacks in Paris last week, then it is an unjust war between reactionary forces equally disdainful of human life, neither of them less deliberately and consciously cruel in the pursuit of reactionary political objectives. Supporting either France or the Islamists will only worsen the dynamic between two unacceptable alternatives.

“We have lost one of our great comrades: utterly committed, a most unassuming scholar and an absolutely decent human being.” - University of Dar es Salaam Professor Emeritus Issa Shivji.

Tagged under: 752, Contributor, Obituaries, Resources

In Zimbabwe’s land debate nearly everyone at different times disagreed with him, but they all listened. Whether inside the state and party, among opposition groups or with the World Bank and other donors, no one could ignore what Sam had to say.

Tagged under: 752, Ian Scoones, Obituaries, Resources

An unimaginable loss has happened. Our phenomenal intellectual pan African giant on land issues, Professor Sam Moyo, has died following injuries sustained during a terrible car accident in New Delhi, India. We are in disbelief. We are waiting for him to come home. We feel ripped apart with pain.

Universal Children’s Day was marked on Friday, 20 November. In September this year, the UN included a target to end violence against children in the Sustainable Development Goals, explicitly linking, for the first time, a violence-free society for children to economic growth.

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