|
CONTENTS: 1. Features 2. Announcements
Features
 The judgment has been handed down on Helen Zille, leader of South Africa’s opposition Democratic Alliance, muzzling her from any party related communications in future. She said that colonialism wasn’t all bad. Her tweet was insensitive but true, the backlash furious and nonsensical. Why? I blame black guilt, which I understand very well, because I’m white.
First post-apartheid finance minister denies existence of white monopoly capital
 “Sir, you have served white monopoly capital with distinction. You have worked for them as an agent and a counter-revolutionary, selling out our right to have transformation of the apartheid economy. You have betrayed the values that define a disciplined cadre. Today you live large in arrogance and attempt to lecture us when we, as soldiers for our liberation, are dying as paupers.”
 The labour movement has been unable to de-link itself from its archenemy: capital. As its structures bureaucratise, as its leaders become career unionists, as it opens investment companies and pays staff increasingly inequitable salaries, it increasingly mirrors the very thing it is fighting. If the South African Federation of Trade Unions is to meet its promise, it must be fundamentally different from the organisation it was born out of.
 The political climate remains fragile and the mentality of most opposition politicians hardly offers meaningful alternatives. This is possibly an explanation – but no excuse – for the undemocratic practices permeating almost every one of the region’s nations. Beyond multi-party systems with regular elections, they resemble very little of true democracies.
After spending years as a political prisoner the leader served as an inspiration to oppressed peoples worldwide
 A man of strong beliefs and convictions, Cde Toivo dedicated his life to the fight against oppression by the then South Africa authorities, rejecting apartheid South Africa’s reduction of sovereign Namibia into its colony. His life was the personification of solidarity, the quest for self-determination and unyielding commitment to the liberation of his people.
 The crisis in Cameroon continues to fester without much international concern about serious human rights violations. With his close ties to France and his support for the American-led war against Boko Haram terrorism in the north of the country, President Paul Biya may ignore local pressure. But the conflict between the French-speaking and English-speaking parts of Cameroon will not simply vanish.
 Shutting down and criminalizing use of the internet has become a weapon in the government’s cyber warfare strategy against the Ethiopian people, particularly the youth. The internet is making it exceedingly difficult for dictatorships to cling to power and rule tyrannically. It has created a walless, borderless, wireless, seamless, restless and fearless world.
 A group of Nigerian citizens has expressed serious concern about the state of the nation, citing rising intolerance, violence and division. They call upon leaders at all levels and the people to confront the growing sense of uncertainty and fear by taking action to reassure all that there is a clear pathway to equity, unity and security in Africa’s most populous nation.
 Recognising the structural basis of the organisational failure of the socialist movement is necessary for arriving at a correct conception of the organisational challenge confronting the movement. Explaining this failure by the contingent factors commonly adduced, it is only possible to arrive at a structuralist and mechanistic conception of the challenge. Only by recognising the structural character of the failure is it possible to realise that the challenge before the movement is to transform itself into an organic element and instrument in the struggle of the oppressed.
 Mahmood Mamdani, the executive director of Makerere Institute of Social Research, is not an angel. And certainly the programme is not his fiefdom. MISR’s current mission takes seriously Frantz Fanon’s resolute plea to the African revolutionary intellectual to not simply revert to our world of yore - the pre-colonial, pre-modern, primordial, etc. - but to rethink it anew.
Announcements
 We invite interested applicants to join a small team of dedicated editors who produce Pambazuka News each week. This is an opportunity to deepen your understanding of and support to social justice struggles and to strengthen your editorial skills.
 Pambazuka News calls for articles for a special issue on the legacy of this eminent Nigerian-born writer, considering her reflections on and representations of both the personal and political elements which shaped the experiences of Africa and its diaspora.
 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.to cater for changing readers' requirements and experiences.
App download Link
DONATE AND SUPPORT PAMBAZUKA!
 Kindly forward this email to family and friends to help spread the message.
Thank you for your support. Click here to donate.
Henry Makori and Tidiane Kasse - Editors, Pambazuka News
Yves Niyiragira - Executive Director, Fahamu
Websites: Fahamu.org, Pambazuka.org
|
