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Thursday, January 12, 2017
English

CONTENTS: 1. Features  2. Announcements  
 


Features


African Union faces turbulent headwinds

Horace G. Campbell

The current efforts to elect a new Chair of the AU Commission have been caught in the crosswinds of the impact of illicit capital outflows, the question of the reseating of Morocco in the AU and the challenges that Africa will face during a period of the ascendancy of the ideas of Donald Trump and Marie Le Pen. The AU will survive this turbulence. But the rise of the Pan African Movement’s demands for real reconstruction and transformation of Africa will likely sweep away.
 

 

Après Zuma: Can the African Union save itself?

Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

The upcoming AU Summit will be “closed”, allowing only the accredited delegations and staff to participate in and witness its deliberations. What is clear is that it will give the current class of Africa’s Heads of State a once-in-a-generation opportunity to re-shape the organization.
 

 

A new beacon of hope for The Gambia

Alagi Yorro Jallow

For over two decades under President Jammeh, independent views were considered seditious. Secret police were everywhere listening for hints of subversion. Jammeh’s name was spoken only in whispers, unless you were praising him, in which case you genuflected and shouted yourself hoarse at rallies, thanking Allah for loving The Gambia so much as to bless it with a leader of such peerless morality, wisdom and compassion. That is why the people elected Adama Barrow on 1 December 2016.

 

The Gambia, Jammeh and the proverbial bull in a China shop

Paul Ejime

The political crisis in The Gambia remains unresolved as January 19, the date for President Yahya Jammeh to leave office, nears. Jammeh must be told in unequivocal terms that he has to respect the will of Gambians who voted him out of power. But he should also be provided with a “safe-landing” to avoid possible bloodshed.

 

 

Who were those soldiers revolting in the Ivory Coast?

Gary K. Busch

The Ivory Coast’s tranquility has been shaken by a revolt of a group of soldiers in the Ivorian Army shooting up Bouake, Korhogo, Daloa and marching to Abidjan. They are demanding the pay they claim has been promised them and free house which the Ouattara Government agreed to provide them for fighting against the legitimate Ivory Coast Army commanded by the elected President of the country, Laurent Gbagbo, when Ouattara, the French and the UN made their successful coup in 2011.

 

 

Ghana’s lesson for Africa

Akin Rotimi

From the peaceful conduct of the 7 December 2016 general election, to the prompt concession by former President John Mahama; from the seamless transition programme through to the orderly inauguration of the new president on 7 January 2017, the Black Star has once again shone brightly as the lodestar of African liberation.

 

Lessons from the Ghanaian elections: No 1, don’t sign a deal with the IMF

Dede Amanor-Wilks

Opposition candidate Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo has been sworn in as Ghana's new president. Beyond the current euphoria sweeping through much of the nation, the winning party is stuck with Ghana’s IMF programme at least for the next two years.  It remains to be seen how they will rise above the country’s worrying high debt ratio, currently around 70 per cent of GDP, to achieve their ambitious campaign promises.

 

Will Washington’s new pro-Moscow, anti-Beijing gang drive a wedge through the BRICS in 2017?

Patrick Bond

Relations among the BRICS member states could destabilise to breaking point this year. While the Brasilia, Moscow and New Delhi regimes are shifting towards Washington, Pretoria and Beijing continue spouting well-worn anti-imperialist rhetoric, just as Donald Trump and his unhappy mix of populists, paleo-conservatives, neo-conservatives and neo-liberals take power on January 20.
 

 

Reflections on post-US elections geopolitics: Part Four

The deep state and the imperial Establishment

Yash Tandon

The future is still largely open-ended. Trump could try to make a difference, but whether he would succeed or not depends on many systemic and structural constraints at both national and global levels.

 

Walter Rodney and the racial underpinnings of global inequality

Tianna Paschel

While inequality has become a topic of increased popularity and politicization in recent years, most of the attention has focused on how 1% own an increasingly large share of the world’s wealth, rather than on inequalities between nations. In a global context in which national borders and citizenship pose few barriers to the mobility of capital, the reality is also a story of the world’s richest nations continuing to reap a disproportionate amount of the globe’s profits.

 

Ibori and a nation united by corruption

Chido Onumah

The wild celebrations in honour of top-level thief James Ibori's release from prison, though detestable, are quite understandable. Nigerians seem not to be in agreement on what constitutes corruption or who a corrupt person is. What one Nigerian sees as corruption, another sees as a "blessing from God".

 

The death of Nigeria's civil society

Godwin Onyeacholem
The golden era of Nigeria’s civil society featured names such as Wole Soyinka, Alao Aka-Bashorun, Gani Fawehinmi, Beko Ransome-Kuti, Olisa Agbakoba, Femi Falana, Baba Omojola, Comrade Ola Oni, Ayo Obe, Dr. Segun Osoba, Idowu Awopetu, Clement Nwankwo, Frank Kokori, Chidi Odinkalu, Abdul Oroh, Richard Akinnola…But today things are sadly different.

 

 

Social media nightmare, Nigerian ageism, self-serving interpretations of African culture and the many versions of truth

James Ogunjimi

Someone asked whether the younger generations ever read Frantz Fanon. But how can they read Fanon when the education system recommends books that teach children that heads are for carrying loads? The older generations should be grateful then that the youth have not read Fanon, Nkrumah or Cabral, because if they had, they would be out on the streets attempting to tear down the system.

 

 

Jacob Zuma’s improbable power

Sanya Osha

President Zuma has always openly derided the intellectual class as “the clevers” because he knows that, at the end of day, they are not prepared or even able to carry out the donkey work of building and nurturing political constituencies and kissing naked, impoverished snotty-nosed kids just to win the vote. The “clevers” are probably too busy analysing the worth of their shares on the stock market. Perfunctory calls for the resignation of a sitting president would entail far more than this attitude.

 

Zumandla: The Year of the Meme

Lebohang Liepollo Pheko

The Year of the Meme concealed a new cynicism and deeper fragmentation in South African politics. Other than the country’s diminished international stature, the ruling ANC and President Zuma demonstrated a rare talent for obfuscating essential national issues from broad scrutiny.
 

 

Cuban medical internationalism: Fidel Castro’s legacy lives on

Stephen Bartlett

Cuba’s medical intervention in international health crises is unparalleled among nations. As of 2014 there were 50,000 Cuban doctors and nurses working in 60 developing countries. This outstanding legacy of Fidel Castro demonstrates what can be achieved when a very high value is placed on human life, every human life.

 

Racism and reconciliation: Lessons from Cuba

William Gumede

What are the lessons from Cuba in dealing with racism? Denial of racism is clearly not an option. Discouraging public discourse about it can not help either. Greater awareness is needed of the systemic nature, the multiple forms and the seeming invisibility of racism in institutions, social spaces and relations.

 

From Enlightenment to Colonialism: It has always been post-truth

Yusuf Serunkuma

Facts are overrated – who has them anyway? World Bank reports, IMF figures, Human Rights Watch narratives, national GDP figures, CIA fact files, entries in the Lancet, government stats, etcetera are not facts in any benevolent sense. As means of control and manipulation, they are instead the most supported (and perhaps most persuasive) opinion of the day.

 

 

Behind a possible apology for German genocide in Namibia

Three decades before the rise of fascism in Europe, Africans were displaced and exterminated

Abayomi Azikiwe

Negotiations with descendants of the Herero and Nama people massacred by Germany in Namibia have been difficult. The government of Chancellor Merkel does not want to pay compensation for the genocide. But at the same time Germany is attempting to reassert its political and economic influence in Africa.

 

‘Washington Post’ attacks Burundi

Ann Garrison

Aside from its reliance on anonymous witnesses, the Washington Post story – while criticizing Burundian soldiers - failed to mention that the top ten contributors of UN peacekeeping troops include infamous human rights abusers Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Rwanda, Nepal, Egypt and Indonesia.

 

Book Review: ‘Postcolonial Modernity, Informal Subjectivity and Democratic Consensus’

Richard Obinna Iroanya

The book’s central theme focuses on the serious impact of modernism, colonialism, and post-colonialism on Africa. It is an interesting work, which contributes to knowledge of democracy, economy, social conditions and globalism in the African context.
 


Announcements


 

CONFERENCE CALL FOR PAPERS AND PRESENTATIONS

Blackness, Indigeneity, Colonialism, and Confederation: 21st Century Perspectives

Black Canadian Studies Association and Brandon University

The Black Canadian Studies Association, in partnership with Brandon University (Manitoba), invites submissions to its third biennial conference, 11-13 May 2017, “Blackness, Indigeneity, Colonialism, and Confederation: 21st Century Perspectives." This conference will explore the achievements, challenges, contributions, histories and futures of African Canadians at Canada's 150th anniversary.

 

A Civil Society Survey on South-South Cooperation: Emerging Powers and Africa

Edwin Rwigi

Fahamu Africa’s Emerging Powers in Africa project is undertaking this Civil Society survey to understand the role and experience of Africa’s Civil Society in the Emerging Powers (for example, Brazil, India, China, Turkey, South Korea, Gulf States) in Africa discourse – otherwise referred to as South-South Cooperation (cooperation among traditionally Developing Nations).
 

 

Pambazuka Android App is now on Google Play Store

As a way to reach more people and to make your experience with Pambazuka News better, we have developed an android app as another tool to create a better reading experience with mobile devices. The app will have periodic updates to cater for changing readers' requirements and experiences.
App download Link

 

 


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Henry Makori and Tidiane Kasse - Editors, Pambazuka News

Yves Niyiragira - Executive Director, Fahamu


Websites: Fahamu.orgPambazuka.org