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Thursday, February 8, 2018
English

CONTENTS: 1. Features  2. Announcements


Features


 

Hugh Masekela: No room for compromise

Horace G. Campbell

For over 60 years Hugh Masekela had been at the forefront of world revolutionary trends and made his mark at the site of the global anti-racist struggles. His sounds of struggle, inspiration, revolutionary change and love are now part of the history of revolutionary music of the end of the twentieth century and early twenty first century.

 

Another look at Martin Luther King Jr.

Norman (Otis) Richmond

If Martin Luther King Jr. was among us today, it is safe to say he would oppose the wars in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. He probably would attempt to broaden the anti-war movement to take an active role in the wars on the African continent. It is safe to say that King would be on the side of the movement for reparations.

 

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 50 years later: The struggle against racism, war and poverty continues

Abayomi Azikiwe

Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his life for the elimination of national oppression, the war policy of the Pentagon and the necessity for the lifting of the masses of people out of poverty. His assassination was a by-product of a system built on forced removals of the indigenous people, the enslavement of Africans and the super-exploitation of workers in general. 

 

“I Raila Amolo Odinga:” Kenya’s political conundrum of two presidents

Odomaro Mubangizi

Raila Odinga's swearing himself in as a people’s president could have both political and legal implications. Legal scholars are already divided on this and this swearing in of Raila Odinga has attracted the attention of foreign governments, calling for dialogue, and a possible power deal.  So what can we make of this juicy and appetising unfolding story and new chapter in Kenya’s political history?

 

People’s everyday practices, not the elites of Davos, hold the human economy answer to inequality

Marc C. A. Wegerif

Oxfam has been successful in highlighting the gross and rapidly growing inequalities in the world in international fora, but their approach of asking the rich elites and their allies in governments to do the right thing is not bringing change and worse it is perpetuating the myth that we have no alternative other than to depend on large corporations. It is in people’s everyday practices, not from the elites that we are far more likely to find meaningful solutions to inequality and the seeds of a more human economy.

 

31 December 1981: How the "IMF baby" betrayed its parents

Zaya Yeebo

The 31 December 2018 revolution in Ghana was a political upheaval that promised and had the potential to deliver a Castro/Sankara type social and political revolution, but was wasted on the rubbish heap of personality power grab fuelled by the ambitions of one man, the collective theft of national resources by a cabal of opportunists and nation wreckers who perpetuated their vile corrupt values on the rest of the nation.  

 

New evidence of Africa’s systematic looting, provided by an increasingly schizophrenic World Bank

Patrick Bond

A recent World Bank reportThe Changing Wealth of Nations 2018, offers evidence of how much poorer Africa is becoming thanks to rampant minerals, oil and gas extraction. Yet World Bank policies and practices remain oriented to enforcing foreign loan repayments and transnational corporate profit repatriation, thus maintaining the looting.

 

The US informal empire: US African Command expanding the US economic-frontier

Khaled Al-Kassimi

The US informal empire, through the US African Command (AFRICOM, is expanding the US economic-frontier by discursively securitising Africa using exceptional speech acts.

 

 

Struggle for democracy: Problems with plunderocracy and imperialist intervention

Farooque Chowdhury

Challenges in the struggle for democracy assume definite shape and character: no scope for ignoring imperialism and plunder, and lending space to imperialists and its proxies while organising the struggle for democracy. So, the stand is: oppose imperialism and plunder, and don’t deactivate the march to democracy. 

 

Trump’s insult is fed by deep ignorance about Africa among Americans

Julius A. Amin

President Trump’s insult is fed by deep ignorance about Africa among Americans. To most Americans, Africa is as an exotic place where animals roam around freely. There is really need to educate them. 

 

 

Beyond the hijab controversy

Wole Olubanji

The Nigeria legal system is not only conservative; it is elitist. More and more the system is programmed to inculcate in lawyers a mechanical adherence to elitist practices that are dangerous to progressive evolution of law. The hijab of Firdaus is not a case about religion; it is about a lady challenging a contradictory status quo. 

 

“Most visits are trouble-free”

Peter Kenworthy

Swaziland is Africa's last absolute monarchy. While some foreigners might have problems while visiting the kingdom and get or seek for help from their governments; Swazi people seem to have nowhere to seek for help. The story of Peter Kenworthy confirms that. 

 

 

Nigeria demands unconditional return of looted artefacts: A season of miracles?

Kwame Opoku

Nigeria should abandon its ineffective policy of quiet diplomacy while seeking to recover its stolen artefacts, and pursue vigorous and open policies to bring back its artefacts. 

 

 

What immigrants from Africa and their children do for America

Olurotimi Osha

African Americans and their children need to tell their own stories, instead of enabling misguided bigots to seize the narrative – a false narrative that misrepresents them, as a people and threatens their uniqueness, as individuals.

 

Spirit is eternal: A conversation with filmmakers Dalian and Verona Spence-Adofo

Dellvin Roshon Williams

The linking of our ancestors who are gone, ourselves here, those coming, our continuation, our flowing along our living way, the way: it is that remembrance that calls us. That remembrance not only birthed successive waves of global insurrection, but directed the everyday lives of millions of forcibly dislocated Africans. 

 


Announcements


Call for papers

Interdisciplinary Journal for the Studies of the Sahel

The Interdisciplinary Journal for the Studies of the Sahel is seeking submissions from all disciplinary fields of academic inquiry, including the arts, humanities, social sciences and STEM-related fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) for its June and December 2018 publications. 

 

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.to cater for changing readers' requirements and experiences.
App download Link

 

 

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Editors, Pambazuka News

Yves Niyiragira - Executive Director, Fahamu


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