By Edward Paice and Jonathan Bhalla of the Africa Research Institute
China Africa Project - August 16, 2013
“China: friend or foe?”
was the title of a special Q & A session with the BBC’s World
Affairs Editor, John Simpson, on Tuesday 30 July. Of course loaded
leading questions – cast in binary terms – tend to produce answers that
are of little value. “China is neither good nor bad. China is a
combination of these things”, says Zhong Jianhua, China’s Special
Representative on African Affairs – a far more satisfactory starting
point for discussion.
Nowhere is the debate about China’s motives and practices more live
than in Africa. China is either the saviour the continent has long
awaited, or neocolonialist gargantuan solely intent on sucking up oil
and minerals as fast as it can in the murkiest possible fashion. The
reality is more complex – and it is evolving far more rapidly than the
stilted relations between Africa and the West.
In March 2013, Lamido Sanusi, Governor of the Central Bank of
Nigeria, delivered the boldest assessment to date of China-Africa
relations by a senior African policymaker. In an open letter to the Financial Times,
he argued that Sino-African trade patterns were “a significant
contributor to Africa’s deindustrialisation and underdevelopment” and
smacked of “the essence of colonialism”. He called on Africans to
“remove their rose-tinted glasses through which we view China”. The
dragon-slayers cheered. The immediate response from China was muted and,
when it came, more considered.
Zhong Jianhua is the most senior Chinese government official to have
voiced his reaction to Sanusi’s accusations in detail and on the record.
In an interview with Africa Research Institute,
an independent and non-partisan think-tank in London, Zhong was
characteristically urbane. “I would argue that Mr Sanusi made a number
of important points that have been overlooked”, he says. A highly
respected career diplomat, Zhong knows the form. But his take on the
broadside from Nigeria, China’s fourth largest trade partner in Africa, is also illuminating.
To read more....
Thursday, October 31, 2013
China Africa Project
https://soundcloud.com/chinatalkingpoints
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
East African countries launch single customs territory
The Africa Report - 29 October 2013
Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan and Rwanda have launched a single customs territory to boost business among the partner states, agreeing to eliminate the remaining non-tariff barriers.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Uganda's Yoweri Museveni, Salva Kiir of South Sudan and their host Paul Kagame of Rwanda agreed the move at a summit on Monday, which also resolved to hasten transit cargo from Kenya's port of Mombasa.
Transit cargo would be weighed once at the point of entry into each member state territory, they said in a statement.
The time for cargo to reach Rwanda from the port of Mombasa would fall to eight days from 21 now, and shipments to Uganda from Mombasa would take five days from 15 days.
The summit was convened to review progress on the implementation of decisions reached during a previous meeting that focused on infrastructure in Mombasa on August 28, where Kenya commissioned a new berth expanding its main port.
At an initial summit on June 25, Uganda agreed to a plan to build a pipeline from its oilfields to a new port being developed on Kenya's northern coast, enabling crude exports and boosting its oil industry.
Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan and Rwanda have launched a single customs territory to boost business among the partner states, agreeing to eliminate the remaining non-tariff barriers.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Uganda's Yoweri Museveni, Salva Kiir of South Sudan and their host Paul Kagame of Rwanda agreed the move at a summit on Monday, which also resolved to hasten transit cargo from Kenya's port of Mombasa.
Transit cargo would be weighed once at the point of entry into each member state territory, they said in a statement.
The time for cargo to reach Rwanda from the port of Mombasa would fall to eight days from 21 now, and shipments to Uganda from Mombasa would take five days from 15 days.
The summit was convened to review progress on the implementation of decisions reached during a previous meeting that focused on infrastructure in Mombasa on August 28, where Kenya commissioned a new berth expanding its main port.
At an initial summit on June 25, Uganda agreed to a plan to build a pipeline from its oilfields to a new port being developed on Kenya's northern coast, enabling crude exports and boosting its oil industry.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Zimbabwe: Reading between the political lines
By Stephen Chan
The Africa Report - Monday, 28 October 2013
The big questions – leadership succession in the two main parties, economic strategy and foreign policy – remain unanswered despite the peak of international interest in the elections. But many voters wanted little more than to avoid the murderous violence of 2008.
The ease with which Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) won the 31 July 2013 elections was like a dawn where all seems calm, but the storm clouds sit on the horizon. Those elections were won because of two key reasons.
The first was because Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) performed appallingly. Outwardly confident, it made the same mistakes it had in previous elections – as if internal reflection, self-criticism and learning from mistakes were impossible.
The second was because ZANU-PF took advantage of all the opportunities available to it to 'condition' the election. Many said ZANU-PF stole it. The problem with the accusations of a stolen election was that evidence collated from local instances of electoral malpractice could not be extrapolated into one national picture.
All the accusations assumed a single 'rig' and none of the civic and observer groups examined the possibility of several strategies to ensure victory.
To read more....
The Africa Report - Monday, 28 October 2013
The big questions – leadership succession in the two main parties, economic strategy and foreign policy – remain unanswered despite the peak of international interest in the elections. But many voters wanted little more than to avoid the murderous violence of 2008.
The ease with which Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) won the 31 July 2013 elections was like a dawn where all seems calm, but the storm clouds sit on the horizon. Those elections were won because of two key reasons.
The first was because Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) performed appallingly. Outwardly confident, it made the same mistakes it had in previous elections – as if internal reflection, self-criticism and learning from mistakes were impossible.
The second was because ZANU-PF took advantage of all the opportunities available to it to 'condition' the election. Many said ZANU-PF stole it. The problem with the accusations of a stolen election was that evidence collated from local instances of electoral malpractice could not be extrapolated into one national picture.
All the accusations assumed a single 'rig' and none of the civic and observer groups examined the possibility of several strategies to ensure victory.
To read more....
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Elephants and tigers
Chinese businessmen in Africa get the attention, but Indians are not far behind
The Economist - Oct 26th 2013 | DAR ES SALAAM
ABHIJIT SANYAL is sitting on a beach-chair watching frothy waves roll in from the Indian Ocean. He arrived in Tanzania a year ago after a career in his native India with Unilever, an Anglo-Dutch consumer-goods giant. ChemiCotex, an industrial company in Dar es Salaam, hired him as chief executive to oversee the expansion of its “tooth-and-nail business”, which dominates the Tanzanian market for dental care and metal goods.
“A lot of the challenges here are familiar to someone like me from India,” he says. “And so are the solutions.” Distribution is hampered by poor infrastructure, as is the electricity supply. Ancient and modern manufacturing processes co-exist uneasily. Most customers are middle- and upper-class; the rest are too poor.
What surprised Mr Sanyal when he arrived was how often people in Tanzania mistook him for a local. “On a new continent you expect residents to recognise you instantly as an outsider—but not here.” East and southern Africa host large populations of people from the subcontinent, mainly India. Most distributors of Samsung goods in Kenya are Indian. Many of their ancestors came as railway-workers and traders in the early 20th century. The rupee was then east Africa’s main currency. Mahatma Gandhi spent two decades in South Africa and Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India’s first prime minister, backed African nationalist movements in the 1950s. Until 1999 India’s trade with Africa exceeded China’s. “It’s not called the Indian Ocean for nothing,” says Mr Sanyal.
To read more....
The Economist - Oct 26th 2013 | DAR ES SALAAM
ABHIJIT SANYAL is sitting on a beach-chair watching frothy waves roll in from the Indian Ocean. He arrived in Tanzania a year ago after a career in his native India with Unilever, an Anglo-Dutch consumer-goods giant. ChemiCotex, an industrial company in Dar es Salaam, hired him as chief executive to oversee the expansion of its “tooth-and-nail business”, which dominates the Tanzanian market for dental care and metal goods.
“A lot of the challenges here are familiar to someone like me from India,” he says. “And so are the solutions.” Distribution is hampered by poor infrastructure, as is the electricity supply. Ancient and modern manufacturing processes co-exist uneasily. Most customers are middle- and upper-class; the rest are too poor.
What surprised Mr Sanyal when he arrived was how often people in Tanzania mistook him for a local. “On a new continent you expect residents to recognise you instantly as an outsider—but not here.” East and southern Africa host large populations of people from the subcontinent, mainly India. Most distributors of Samsung goods in Kenya are Indian. Many of their ancestors came as railway-workers and traders in the early 20th century. The rupee was then east Africa’s main currency. Mahatma Gandhi spent two decades in South Africa and Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India’s first prime minister, backed African nationalist movements in the 1950s. Until 1999 India’s trade with Africa exceeded China’s. “It’s not called the Indian Ocean for nothing,” says Mr Sanyal.
To read more....
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Ayn Rand in South Africa
Benjamin Fogel
Africa is a country | October 22nd, 2013
Prince Albert, a backwater town in South Africa’s Karoo region, was the site of a truly world historic event on October 20th, 2013. The event in question was the official launch of the latest addition to our growing register of political parties — namely the South African Libertarian Party. (BTW, at their launch they also made sure they didn’t elect the only black member, who helped found the party.) Claiming inspiration from the prehistoric congressman from Texas, Ron Paul (he is also a Tea Party favorite), and that notorious Roman crank Cato the Younger — the Libertarian party looks set to storm the ballot boxes “Atlas Shrugged” in hand as they get crank South African reddit users to the polls in numbers.
But are they really necessary when there is another new entrant to the political scene talking libertarian master theorist Friedrich Hayek’s language of “economic freedom”? I am of course talking the Economic Freedom Fighters, led by former ANC Youth League president Julius Malema.
Surely their radical program based upon land expropriation without compensation, nationalization and their commie pinko headgear is the very antithesis to libertarianism worship of property rights? One might ask. But is this really the case? I for one believe the only rational position for South African libertarians to take in our current political context is to Juju and co in EFF if they are to stay true to their own ethical and moral imperatives demanded by their ideology.
To read more....
Africa is a country | October 22nd, 2013
Prince Albert, a backwater town in South Africa’s Karoo region, was the site of a truly world historic event on October 20th, 2013. The event in question was the official launch of the latest addition to our growing register of political parties — namely the South African Libertarian Party. (BTW, at their launch they also made sure they didn’t elect the only black member, who helped found the party.) Claiming inspiration from the prehistoric congressman from Texas, Ron Paul (he is also a Tea Party favorite), and that notorious Roman crank Cato the Younger — the Libertarian party looks set to storm the ballot boxes “Atlas Shrugged” in hand as they get crank South African reddit users to the polls in numbers.
But are they really necessary when there is another new entrant to the political scene talking libertarian master theorist Friedrich Hayek’s language of “economic freedom”? I am of course talking the Economic Freedom Fighters, led by former ANC Youth League president Julius Malema.
Surely their radical program based upon land expropriation without compensation, nationalization and their commie pinko headgear is the very antithesis to libertarianism worship of property rights? One might ask. But is this really the case? I for one believe the only rational position for South African libertarians to take in our current political context is to Juju and co in EFF if they are to stay true to their own ethical and moral imperatives demanded by their ideology.
To read more....
Monday, October 21, 2013
Listening to the voices from Kenya's colonial past
The culling of imperial archives led me to turn to oral history. But for many scholars, the official myths of the British Empire persist
By Caroline Elkins
The Guardian, Sunday 20 October 2013
'Africans make up stories." I heard this refrain over and again while researching imperial history in Kenya. I was scarcely surprised when it came from former settlers and colonial officials living out their days in the country's bucolic highlands. But I was concerned to find that this position took on intractable proportions among some historians.
At the time of decolonisation, colonial officials destroyed and removed tons of documents from Kenya. To overcome this, I collected hundreds of oral testimonies and integrated them with fragments of remaining archival evidence to challenge entrenched views of British imperialism.
My methods drew sharp criticism. Revising the myths of British imperial benevolence cut to the heart of national identity, challenging decades-old scholarship and professional reputations.
Some historians fetishise documents, and historians of empire are among the most hide-bound. For decades, these scholars have viewed written evidence as sacrosanct. That documents – like all forms of evidence – must be triangulated, and interrogated for veracity using other forms of evidence, including oral testimonies from colonised populations, mattered little.
To read more.....
By Caroline Elkins
The Guardian, Sunday 20 October 2013
'Africans make up stories." I heard this refrain over and again while researching imperial history in Kenya. I was scarcely surprised when it came from former settlers and colonial officials living out their days in the country's bucolic highlands. But I was concerned to find that this position took on intractable proportions among some historians.
At the time of decolonisation, colonial officials destroyed and removed tons of documents from Kenya. To overcome this, I collected hundreds of oral testimonies and integrated them with fragments of remaining archival evidence to challenge entrenched views of British imperialism.
My methods drew sharp criticism. Revising the myths of British imperial benevolence cut to the heart of national identity, challenging decades-old scholarship and professional reputations.
Some historians fetishise documents, and historians of empire are among the most hide-bound. For decades, these scholars have viewed written evidence as sacrosanct. That documents – like all forms of evidence – must be triangulated, and interrogated for veracity using other forms of evidence, including oral testimonies from colonised populations, mattered little.
To read more.....
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Malema promises political change in S Africa
Former ANC official launches Economic Freedom Fighters party in town where 34 striking miners were killed by police.
Al-Jazeera - October 14, 2013
South Africa's fiery young politician Julius Malema has told a rally of his new party that a "giant" has been born which should be feared and will fight for the poor.
Thousands had gathered near the Marikana mine on Sunday where 34 striking workers were shot dead by police in September 2012, to cheer the 32-year-old leader and his newly-formed Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party.
"A different baby is born today, a giant ... A child that walks immediately. The baby that fights for your living wage," said Malema, who was last year expelled as head of the governing ANC Youth League (ANCYL) for bringing the party into disrepute,
"You must be afraid of that child," he warned, wearing his trademark red beret.
"This is the home for the hopeless."
Malema apologised for once backing President Jacob Zuma, saying he had given the country mediocrity by promoting a singer who was neither a thinker nor a reader.
Malema said there was no difference between the Marikana massacre and Sharpeville massacre of 1960, when apartheid police opened fire on protesters, killing 69 people.
Malema said he picked on Marikana as the venue for the party's launch because the slain miners were economic freedom fighters, the City Press newspaper reported.
Security forces last year opened fire on striking workers at a platinum mine in Marikana, killing 34 miners in a crackdown reminiscent of the apartheid-era police brutality.
The government has since instituted a commission of inquiry to investigate the fatal shootings which were preceded by an attack in which police officers were allegedly killed by miners.
To read more...
Al-Jazeera - October 14, 2013
South Africa's fiery young politician Julius Malema has told a rally of his new party that a "giant" has been born which should be feared and will fight for the poor.
Thousands had gathered near the Marikana mine on Sunday where 34 striking workers were shot dead by police in September 2012, to cheer the 32-year-old leader and his newly-formed Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party.
"A different baby is born today, a giant ... A child that walks immediately. The baby that fights for your living wage," said Malema, who was last year expelled as head of the governing ANC Youth League (ANCYL) for bringing the party into disrepute,
"You must be afraid of that child," he warned, wearing his trademark red beret.
"This is the home for the hopeless."
Malema apologised for once backing President Jacob Zuma, saying he had given the country mediocrity by promoting a singer who was neither a thinker nor a reader.
Malema said there was no difference between the Marikana massacre and Sharpeville massacre of 1960, when apartheid police opened fire on protesters, killing 69 people.
Malema said he picked on Marikana as the venue for the party's launch because the slain miners were economic freedom fighters, the City Press newspaper reported.
Security forces last year opened fire on striking workers at a platinum mine in Marikana, killing 34 miners in a crackdown reminiscent of the apartheid-era police brutality.
The government has since instituted a commission of inquiry to investigate the fatal shootings which were preceded by an attack in which police officers were allegedly killed by miners.
To read more...
A New Movie: The President
http://president.weltfilm.com/
The President
Director: Jean-Pierre Bekolo
When the Cameroonian president disappears just a few days before the elections after 42 years in power, the country’s media go into overdrive, speculating on what happened. Meanwhile, the president’s kidnappers, who remain unnamed, are taking him on a tour of the country, forcing him to interact with the people that he has so wistfully ignored all this years. The president is forced to answer for what he has done – which is not much. A controversial “mockumentary” that mixes fiction and reality, THE PRESIDENT questions the phenomenon of Africa’s “president-for-life” and the threat that the incertitude over their succession poses to their countries’ stability.
To watch the movie:
The President
Director: Jean-Pierre Bekolo
When the Cameroonian president disappears just a few days before the elections after 42 years in power, the country’s media go into overdrive, speculating on what happened. Meanwhile, the president’s kidnappers, who remain unnamed, are taking him on a tour of the country, forcing him to interact with the people that he has so wistfully ignored all this years. The president is forced to answer for what he has done – which is not much. A controversial “mockumentary” that mixes fiction and reality, THE PRESIDENT questions the phenomenon of Africa’s “president-for-life” and the threat that the incertitude over their succession poses to their countries’ stability.
To watch the movie:
Christina Aguilera feeds war-torn Rwanda
By Natacha Nsabimana
Africa is a country | October 13th, 2013
Christina Aguilera, ambassador for World Food Program (WPF), recently went to “war-torn Rwanda” People Magazine tells us. Well thankfully she made it back home safe. War is not an easy thing. Although, I’m not sure exactly which war she is referring to – last I checked, the civil war and genocide in Rwanda ended twenty years ago. Well, Rwanda has other problems and its government is implicated in violence in neighboring DRC, but it is not war-torn. Also, Rwanda is an entire country. Where in Rwanda was Aguilera?
The song the children are singing in the video is of course inaudible but Aguilera’s is crystal clear. Her Light Up The Sky forms the background to the video. We hear her sing “When skies are grey, I’ll light your way, I’ll be your shoulder, You can lean on me” while seeing her feed “starved African children.”
Interestingly, one word from the kids’ song in Kinyarwanda is clear: Tuzarwubaka: We will build it (i.e. the country); clearly indicating that meaningless charity is not what they have in mind but rather that they are actively engaged. This is of course lost to all the non-Kinyarwanda speakers.
“The people of Rwanda touched me in a way I cannot express or put into words. They are in a place that needs our help and I am so proud of the work that we are doing there,” Aguilera insists. “This trip came at a time when I needed to step away and connect with bigger issues in the world,” she continues.
To read more....
Africa is a country | October 13th, 2013
Christina Aguilera, ambassador for World Food Program (WPF), recently went to “war-torn Rwanda” People Magazine tells us. Well thankfully she made it back home safe. War is not an easy thing. Although, I’m not sure exactly which war she is referring to – last I checked, the civil war and genocide in Rwanda ended twenty years ago. Well, Rwanda has other problems and its government is implicated in violence in neighboring DRC, but it is not war-torn. Also, Rwanda is an entire country. Where in Rwanda was Aguilera?
The song the children are singing in the video is of course inaudible but Aguilera’s is crystal clear. Her Light Up The Sky forms the background to the video. We hear her sing “When skies are grey, I’ll light your way, I’ll be your shoulder, You can lean on me” while seeing her feed “starved African children.”
Interestingly, one word from the kids’ song in Kinyarwanda is clear: Tuzarwubaka: We will build it (i.e. the country); clearly indicating that meaningless charity is not what they have in mind but rather that they are actively engaged. This is of course lost to all the non-Kinyarwanda speakers.
“The people of Rwanda touched me in a way I cannot express or put into words. They are in a place that needs our help and I am so proud of the work that we are doing there,” Aguilera insists. “This trip came at a time when I needed to step away and connect with bigger issues in the world,” she continues.
To read more....
Friday, October 11, 2013
African Union summit opens with attack on ICC
By ANDUALEM SISAY in Addis Ababa
African Review | Friday, October 11 2013
African Review | Friday, October 11 2013
Ethiopia’s Foreign Affairs minister Tedros Adhanom has condemned
the manner of trial of Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy
William Ruto by International Criminal Court (ICC).
Mr Tedros said the demand for the two to attend all the court proceedings at The Hague was a threat against Kenya’s sovereignty.
“ICC’s decision does not only undermine the
ability of the Kenyan leaders in the discharge of their constitutional
responsibilities, but also poses significant threats against the
country's sovereignty,”
said Mr Tedros, in his address to the African ministers gathered in Addis Ababa Friday.
“We should not allow the ICC
to continue to treat Africa and Africans in a condescending manner. That
is the reason why we are gathered here today and I am confident that
our deliberations will help us to come up with appropriate
recommendations for the consideration and adoption of our Heads of State
and Government,” he said.
The ministers' meeting was
expected to draft a resolution for the heads of state and government,
who are furious at ICC’s recent action and apparently afraid of the
court’s next move.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Nobel Literature Prize eludes Africa again
By TREVOR ANALO in Nairobi and Agencies
Africa Review | Thursday, October 10 2013
To read more...
Africa Review | Thursday, October 10 2013
It was yet another miss for Africa when Canada's Alice Munro was Thursday declared this year's Nobel Literature Prize winner.
Munro was awarded for her short stories that focus on the frailties of the human condition.
She becomes just the 13th woman to win in the history of the coveted award. It was first awarded in 1901.
Kenyan novelist and playwright Ngugi wa Thiong'o was touted among the favourites for the prize.
Ngugi is acclaimed for his works like A Grain of Wheat,The Wizard of the Crow and In the House of the Interpreter.
Nigerian novelist Wole Soyinka was the first black person to win a Nobel Literature Prize in 1986.
The late Chinua Achebe consistently failed to win the prize, and it seems Ngugi may be joining him on that list.
The Swedish Academy honoured Munro, 82, as a "master of the contemporary short story".
To read more...
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Thursday, October 3, 2013
No to ‘extension of colonialism’: Gambia quits Commonwealth
Russia Today - October 02, 2013
Gambia announced it is immediately leaving the Commonwealth of Nations, saying it will not be part of an “institution that represents an extension of colonialism.”
"The general public is hereby informed that the government of the Gambia has left the Commonwealth of Nations with immediate effect," the government said in a statement.
The Commonwealth is made up of over 50 countries, most of which are former territories of the British Empire. Gambia is located in western Africa, enveloped on all sides by Senegal.
"[The] government has withdrawn its membership of the British Commonwealth and decided that the Gambia will never be a member of any neo-colonial institution and will never be a party to any institution that represents an extension of colonialism."
Government officials did not respond to press inquires Wednesday, Reuters reported.
However, one anonymous foreign ministry official told AFP the decision was made after the government disagreed with a 2012 proposal by the Commonwealth to create commissions in the Gambian capital of Banjul to address human rights, media rights, and corruption. Following the proposal, Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma met with Gambian President Yahya Jammeh and other top officials.
To read more.....
Gambia announced it is immediately leaving the Commonwealth of Nations, saying it will not be part of an “institution that represents an extension of colonialism.”
"The general public is hereby informed that the government of the Gambia has left the Commonwealth of Nations with immediate effect," the government said in a statement.
The Commonwealth is made up of over 50 countries, most of which are former territories of the British Empire. Gambia is located in western Africa, enveloped on all sides by Senegal.
"[The] government has withdrawn its membership of the British Commonwealth and decided that the Gambia will never be a member of any neo-colonial institution and will never be a party to any institution that represents an extension of colonialism."
Government officials did not respond to press inquires Wednesday, Reuters reported.
However, one anonymous foreign ministry official told AFP the decision was made after the government disagreed with a 2012 proposal by the Commonwealth to create commissions in the Gambian capital of Banjul to address human rights, media rights, and corruption. Following the proposal, Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma met with Gambian President Yahya Jammeh and other top officials.
To read more.....
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Top 6 Countries That Grew Filthy Rich From Enslaving Black People
Atlanta Black Star - October 1, 2013
Netherlands
The Dutch West India Company, a chartered company of Dutch merchants, was established in 1621 as a monopoly over the African slave trade to Brazil, the Caribbean and North America.
WIC had offices in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Hoorn, Middelburg and Groningen, but one-fourth of Africans transported across the Atlantic by the company were moved in slave ships from Amsterdam. Almost all of the money that financed slave plantations in Suriname and the Antilles came from bankers in Amsterdam, just as many of the ships used to transport slaves were built there.
Many of the raw materials that were turned into finished goods in
Amsterdam, such as sugar and coffee, were grown in the colonies using
slave labor and then refined in factories in the Jordaan neighborhood.
Revenue from the goods produced with slave labor funded much of The Netherlands’ golden age in the 17th century, a period renowned for its artistic, literary, scientific, and philosophical achievements.
Slave labor created vast sources of wealth for the Dutch in the form of precious metals, sugar, tobacco, cocoa, coffee and cotton and other goods, and helped to fund the creation of Amsterdam’s beautiful and famous canals and city center.
To read more.....
Netherlands
The Dutch West India Company, a chartered company of Dutch merchants, was established in 1621 as a monopoly over the African slave trade to Brazil, the Caribbean and North America.
WIC had offices in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Hoorn, Middelburg and Groningen, but one-fourth of Africans transported across the Atlantic by the company were moved in slave ships from Amsterdam. Almost all of the money that financed slave plantations in Suriname and the Antilles came from bankers in Amsterdam, just as many of the ships used to transport slaves were built there.
Many of the raw materials that were turned into finished goods in
Amsterdam, such as sugar and coffee, were grown in the colonies using
slave labor and then refined in factories in the Jordaan neighborhood.Revenue from the goods produced with slave labor funded much of The Netherlands’ golden age in the 17th century, a period renowned for its artistic, literary, scientific, and philosophical achievements.
Slave labor created vast sources of wealth for the Dutch in the form of precious metals, sugar, tobacco, cocoa, coffee and cotton and other goods, and helped to fund the creation of Amsterdam’s beautiful and famous canals and city center.
To read more.....
Pan-Africanist and Black Revolutionary: George Padmore
By Manning Marablewww.blackstarnews.com
I recently delivered a keynote address in London celebrating the life and contributions of a leading figure of Pan-Africanism and Black liberation, George Padmore, at the invitation of the Borough of London. It was part of a year-long celebration of Afro-Caribbean history and culture in Britain. Such occasions always allows me to reflect on people who have contributed to the upliftment of Black people.
Born in Trinidad in 1901, Padmore would come to personify the hopes and aspirations for Black freedom throughout his native Caribbean and Africa. The English-speaking Caribbean is in ways unique in the Black world for the remarkable tradition of political intellectuals it has produced. In the six generations since the abolition of slavery in the Caribbean, there have been a series of Black intellectuals whose activities and social analysis greatly shaped and denied insurgent political movements in their region and elsewhere.
Just a short list of these extraordinary figures includes Henry Sylvester Williams, born in Trinidad in 1869, educated in North America and England, and the coordinator of the first Pan-African Conference held here in London in 1900; Jamaican Black nationalist and Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey, born in 1887, the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1914, which became one of the most dynamic and influential mass movements in Black history; Jamaican journalist W.A. Domingo, born in 1889, who briefly edited Garvey's newspaper, The Negro World, and who subsequently helped found the pro-independence Jamaican Progressive League in New York City in 1936; and Cyril V. Briggs, born in Nevis in 1887, who created the first international political organization based on revolutionary nationalism and socialism, the African Blood Brotherhood, and who later became the first major Black leader of the U.S. Communist Party.
One of the greatest social theorists of the twentieth century was Trinidadian scholar-activist C.L.R. James, author of the acclaimed history of the Haitian revolution, The Black Jacobins. Others in this Black radical Caribbean tradition include: Jamaican activist and writer Amy Jacques Garvey, who contributed to building the movement of Pan-Africanism; Jamaican Communist and feminist leader Claudia Jones, who fought for Black people, women and workers both here and in the United States; and the great historian and Guyanese political revolutionary Walter Rodney, author of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Within this rich intellectual and political tradition stands the son of Trinidad, born with the name Malcolm Nurse, who would later be known as George Padmore.
Among historian and activists through the Black world, the biography of Padmore is well known. As a university activist student in the United States in the 1920s, Padmore joined the Communist Party and quickly rose in its ranks. As head of the Negro Bureau of the Communist Trade Union International, Padmore organized an elaborate network of thousands of anti-colonial militants throughout the Caribbean and Africa during the Great Depression. In 1931, Padmore wrote The Life and Struggles of Negro Toilers, which championed the cause of Black labor throughout the world.
After breaking bitterly with the Communists over their colonial policies, Padmore returned to London with few resources. Still, from his modest apartment, he charted a course of action which would deeply influence anticolonialist movements in both Africa and the Caribbean.
Padmore established the International African Service Bureau, a network that coordinated voluminous correspondence between African and Caribbean nationalists, trade unionists, editors and intellectuals. Padmore's small journal, the International African Opinion, became an invaluable source of information and analysis for Black radicals. Padmore was the mentor and influential theoretician to an entire generation of Black leadership, including Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya and the charismatic Pan-Africanist Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana.
It is difficult to overemphasize Padmore's crucial ideological and political role in the emergence of political nationalism and movements of independence in English-speaking Africa. C.L.R. James went so far as to assert: "It is impossible to understand the development of the revolution in the Gold Coast that brought Ghana, unless you realized from the start, the man behind it was Padmore."
Like all public figures active in politics, Padmore was not perfect. Like Garvey, Padmore dreamed of an independent Black Africa, united around the principles of mutual cooperation and Pan-Africanism. However, his Pan-Africanist vision failed to recognize the power of British and French colonialists to coop independence movements, and to create "neocolonialism" with new Black elite taking the place of the white colonial elite.
After Padmore left the Communist Party, he became a bitter critic of Marxism. He argued in his 1955 book Pan Africanism or Communism that Black people must be "mentally free from the dictation of Europeans, regardless of their ideology." But Padmore's hatred of Communism pushed him into the arms of U.S. and British imperialism. Padmore, and his protégé Nkrumah, also failed to appreciate the importance of democracy in the development of new states in Africa. This failure ultimately contributed to the conditions leading to Nkrumah's overthrow by Ghana's military in 1966.
Despite his mistakes, Padmore committed his entire life to the ideal of Black liberation. After his death in 1959, dozens of new Black states in the Caribbean and Africa would enter the world stage. They owed their independence, in part, to the monumental contributions of Padmore. Black Americans must recognize that our monumental contributions of George Padmore. Black Americans must recognize that our struggle in the U.S. against racism is directly connected with the struggles of people of African descent worldwide.
When You Kill Ten Million Africans You Aren’t Called ‘Hitler’
By On 22 December 2010
Take a look at this picture. Do you know who it is?
Take a look at this picture. Do you know who it is?
Most people haven’t heard of him.
But you should have. When you see his
face or hear his name you should get as sick in your stomach as when you
read about Mussolini or Hitler or see one of their pictures. You see,
he killed over 10 million people in the Congo.
His name is King Leopold II of Belgium.
He “owned” the Congo during his reign as
the constitutional monarch of Belgium. After several failed colonial
attempts in Asia and Africa, he settled on the Congo. He “bought” it and
enslaved its people, turning the entire country into his own personal
slave plantation. He disguised his business transactions as
“philanthropic” and “scientific” efforts under the banner of the International African Society.
He used their enslaved labor to extract Congolese resources and
services. His reign was enforced through work camps, body mutilations,
executions, torture, and his private army.
Most of us aren’t taught about him in
school. We don’t hear about him in the media. He’s not part of the
widely repeated narrative of oppression (which includes things like the
Holocaust during World War II). He’s part of a long history of
colonialism, imperialism, slavery and genocide in Africa that would
clash with the social construction of the white supremacist narrative in
our schools. It doesn’t fit neatly into a capitalist curriculum. Making
overtly racist remarks is (sometimes) frowned upon in polite society,
but it’s quite fine not to talk about genocides in Africa perpetrated by
European capitalist monarchs.
Mark Twain wrote a satire about Leopold called “King Leopold’s soliloquy; a defense of his Congo rule“,
where he mocked the King’s defense of his reign of terror, largely
through Leopold’s own words. It’s an easy read at 49 pages long. Mark
Twain is a popular author for American public schools. But like most
political authors, we will often read some of their least political
writings or read them without learning why the author wrote them
(Orwell’s Animal Farm for example serves to re-inforce American
anti-socialist propaganda, but Orwell was an anti-capitalist
revolutionary of a different kind, and that is never pointed out). We
can read about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, but King Leopold’s Soliloquy
isn’t on the reading list. This isn’t by accident. Reading lists are
created by boards of education in order to prepare students to follow
orders and endure boredom well. From the point of view of the Education
Department, Africans have no history.
When we learn about Africa, we learn
about a caricaturized Egypt, about the HIV epidemic (but never its
causes), about the surface level effects of the slave trade, and maybe
about South African Apartheid (which of course now is long, long over).
We also see lots of pictures of starving children on Christian Ministry
commercials, we see safaris on animal shows, and we see pictures of
deserts in films and movies. But we don’t learn about the Great African
War or Leopold’s Reign of Terror during the Congolese Genocide. Nor do
we learn about what the United States has done in Iraq and Afghanistan,
killing millions of people through bombs, sanctions, disease and
starvation. Body counts are important. And we don’t count Afghans,
Iraqis, or Congolese.
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