The 20 Best Videos By African Artists (and Those Inspired By Africa) of 2014

Afripop - December 29, 2014

Mookho Makhetha

African artists have released some amazing visual work these past 12 months. Some videos gave us a powerful introduction to new artists, powerful enough to etch them in our memories and encouraging us to keep an eye on them in the New Year. Others cemented the popularity of already established artists. Some musicians opted to produce more filmic, iconic music videos. As is customary at this time of year, we have sifted through the huge library of musical releases to find the best visual accompaniments to those releases. We have compiled a list of those, in no particular order, for your viewing pleasure.
Okmalumkoolkat – Holy Oxygen
Director: Wim Steytler
Holy Oxygen is the title track off Okmalumkoolkat’s EP released on Affine Records. Quite like the song itself, the video for Holy Oxygen explores rejection, neglect and redemption. A group of people are cast out of society for a perceived physical or social illness. Rapper Okmalumkoolkat is part of this group of outcasts who are carried off into the boondocks wrapped in thick layers of plastic because presumably whatever malady they suffer from is contagious. However, out in the acrid boondocks and led by the rapper, a new society is born where everyone is treated equally. It is very interesting that this video came out when the world was gripped with fear about the growing Ebola epidemic.

READ MORE...

Our Man in Africa By Michael Bronner

Foreign Policy - 1/24/2014

On the last night of november 1991, the city of N’Djamena, the capital of Chad, was on edge. President Hissène Habré, who had seized control of the country in a coup eight years earlier, was in power -- but the vice was closing.
Rebels were converging on the city in Toyota pickup trucks mounted with machine guns and packed with fighters -- turbaned against the dust and sand, armed to the teeth, and screaming pedal-to-the-floor across the desert. Supplied and funded by Libya, they had crossed into Chad from their camp on the Sudanese border some 700 miles to the east, led by Habré’s former chief military advisor, Idriss Déby.
It was an odd time, then, for a diplomatic dinner party.
The gathering was a last-minute affair organized by the wealthy and well-connected Lebanese consul at the urgent personal request of a key minister in Habré’s cabinet. The presence of some two dozen Chadian elites, French businessmen, and notable expats was really just a ruse to invite the one guest who really mattered: Col. David G. Foulds, the U.S. defense attaché.
The minister pulled Foulds to a quiet corner. “He was chain smoking -- extremely nervous, shaking all over,” Foulds recalled. Habré’s forces had beaten back Déby’s rebels once before, and conventional wisdom, including in Washington, which had long been starstruck by Habré’s military prowess, was that they’d prevail again. But the Americans knew little more than the optimistic picture Habré’s camp was giving them, and the minister knew better. The rebels could reach the capital that night, he said, much sooner than anticipated.

READ MORE.....

Decolonising white Berlin

Cornelia Knoll

Africa is a country - December 19, 2014

The myth of an all-white, Christian German society largely persists. So does the idea that anyone who is black only arrived here in the late 20th century or the 21st as refugees, or for economic reasons. Though many Germans actually remain unaware or do not acknowledge it, German colonialism did exist—and no, it was not a “benign” form of colonialism, either; German forces were responsible for the genocide of indigenous Herero populations in Namibia (to find out more: see here and here). These are facts that are difficult for Germans to bear, especially since they also bear the responsibility for the trauma and genocides during World War II So colonial atrocities – and the fact that the nation was involved in slave trade and exploitation of Africans – are, for the most part, happily forgotten. And since German society represents itself as racially white, black lives and bodies are invisible and voices of resistance against this dominant narrative of Germany – those that question Germany as a “white space” without a colonial history in Africa – are hardly ever heard.

READ MORE.....

China 'shocked' by deaths at Madagascar plant

Violent labour dispute at Chinese-run factory kills four as workers demand better wages.

Al-Jazeera - 13 Dec 2014

China's embassy in Madagascar has said it was "very shocked" by a violent labour dispute at a Chinese-run sugar factory in the west of the island that resulted in four deaths this week.
A spokesman at the embassy told the AFP news agency in a statement it was "regrettable" that "troublemakers incited by people with bad intentions" were using violence at the Sucoma plant.
The embassy also complained that Malgasy authorities were not upholding a duty to protect the factory.
On Wednesday, clashes between police and Sucoma workers demanding the release of two of their leaders who had been arrested turned deadly, with two people killed and nine wounded. The plant's sugar stocks were also looted.
On Thursday, a policeman and a soldier posted to the factory were slashed to death with knives.

READ MORE.....

Africa Ugandan leader calls on Africa to quit ICC

On a visit to neighbouring Kenya, Yoweri Museveni says International Criminal Court is a tool for "oppressing Africa".

Al-Jazeera - 12 Dec 2014

oweri Museveni, the Ugandan president, has called on African nations to pull out of the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, amid accusations that it unfairly targets Africans.
Museveni's comments, made at a ceremony to mark Kenya's 51 years of independence from Britain, came a week after the chief prosecutor at the Hague-based court dropped crimes-against-humanity charges against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Museveni criticised the ICC for continuing with Kenya's deputy president William Ruto's case despite an African Union (AU) resolution that no sitting African head of state or deputy should be tried at the court.
"I will bring a motion to the African Union's next session. I want all of us to get out of that court of the West. Let them [Westerners] stay with their court," he said in Swahili.
Although prosecutors dropped charges against Kenyatta, the trial of Ruto on similar charges is under way at the ICC.
"With connivance, they are putting Deputy President Ruto, someone who has been elected by Kenyans, in front of the court there in Europe," Museveni said
The AU is scheduled to hold its annual summit of heads of state at its headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at the end of January, but has not announced a specific date.

READ MORE.....

John Pilger - Apartheid Did Not Die

James Baldwin Debates William F. Buckley (1965)

Remembering Slavery in South Africa

Africa is a country - December 7, 2014

“I recognized Cape Town the first time I saw it,” Deborah Thomas revealed at a lecture she gave in the city in July 2014. A sociologist who works in Jamaica, she knew instantly that she was looking at a place shaped by slavery.
What do you see when you recognize slavery?
December 1st, 2014 marked 180 years since the abolition of slavery in South Africa. Few remember that apartheid was built on the systemic violence, displacement, racial formation and institutions of social control that marked slavery in the South African colonies from 1658 to 1834.
In fact, for 176 years, slavery was the central form of social and economic organization in the territories that would form South Africa. People were captured in Mozambique, Madagascar, India and South-East Asia to be brought as slaves to the Cape, the first and largest of the colonies that would form South Africa. Though the Dutch East India Company was forbidden from enslaving indigenous people at the Cape, the latter were subjected to genocide and conditions as brutal as slavery. Over the course of almost two centuries of slave-holding, enslaved people came to constitute the majority of the population of the Cape Colony, numbering more than 60,000 people (Ross, 1999, 6).

READ MORE....

Still Chasing Freedom: South Africa's Struggle After Mandela

God, Not Again: White People and an ‘Out of Africa’ Wedding in Kenya

Africa is a country -  December 5, 2014

Oh no. Africa has “touched” someone “deeply” again. This time, it’s Melbourne-based wedding photographer Jonas Peterson, who has reportedly “shot brides and grooms in all sorts of beautiful places around the world,” but none like this infamous lothario of a continental landmass, which “sung to [him] in a way [he] didn’t know possible, found new chords and played on strings [he] didn’t know [he] had inside [him]”. Africa! You sure know how to make white men swoon.  Surely, Peterson knew what he was getting into when he went to photograph the wedding of Nina, “a wildlife photographer and senior marketing advisor to wild cat conservation organization Panthera – and her fiancé Sebastian” in Masaai Mara in Kenya. This is primal Africa central. White people go there, and bam! They get touched and their chords get strummed. Then they usually end up throwing themselves all over “tribal jewellery” given to them by their close and personal Masaai, dancing about some acacias, taking pictures with smiling African children, and the rest is history.

READ MORE....

Angola's diplomatic dancing

By Zoe Eisenstein and Patrick Smith

The Africa Report - 02 December 2014

The four horsemen of the apocalypse seemed to be galloping towards delegates in New York in September for the UN General Assembly.  Top of the agenda was climate change and the devastation it could cause to Africa and other developing regions, then the growth of terrorism and religious intolerance and finally the most serious public heath emergency for half a century – the spread of the Ebola virus in West and Central Africa.  At the special summit on climate change on 23 September, Angola's vice-president Manuel Vicente spelt out the stakes: "We are at a unique moment of opportunity to safeguard the global climate system on which sustainable development and sustained economic growth depend."

READ MORE....

China trades investment for resources in Africa

Western countries increasingly see Beijing’s relationship with the continent as a threat

Bill Corcoran

The Irish Times - December 2, 2014

The crucial role China has played in Africa’s economic development over the past 15 years has become so pronounced that western countries now see it as a significant threat to their interests across the continent.

The Asian giant’s stated objectives in Africa are to promote development and mutually beneficial trade, much like the goals cited by the US and European Union in regard to their involvement on the continent. But the manner in which China goes about its business there is very different to that of western nations.

China has adopted a policy of “non-interference” when getting involved with African nations, which means it usually does not publicly intervene in countries’ internal affairs or impose political preconditions as part of its rules of engagement with them.

READ MORE....

Africa Cup of Nations Group Draw 2015: Date, Time, Seedings, Live Stream Info

By Tom Sunderland

Bleacher Report - Dec 2, 2014

Only six weeks remain until the Africa Cup of Nations makes its triumphant return to the football calendar, with Equatorial Guinea waiting to welcome the continental elite to its shores in January.

Wednesday's draw brings us a massive step closer to the competition, where we'll find out who will face off against who for the 2015 title.
To ensure you don't miss a minute of this week's draw, read on for viewing information detailing where and when to watch the event, along with discussion of which sides warrant extra attention.

READ MORE....

Robtel Neajai Pailey on Band Aid 30

Faces of Africa - Franco: King of Rumba

Faces Of Africa- The Jerry Rawlings story

Thomas Sankara: Africa's Best President - By Adeola Fayehun

Lobbying in Africa: Nightmare on K street

The Africa Report - Friday, 28 November 2014 

The mission is to ensure that their candidate wins a decisive victory in what is set to be Nigeria's closest presidential elections next February.
US President Barack Obama's former campaign adviser, David Axelrod, has signed with the opposition All Progressives Congress. Likely to work alongside him are BTP Advisers, an up-and-coming British outfit that advised Uhuru Kenyatta in his successful election battle against Raila Odinga in Kenya last year.
On incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan's team is veteran strategist Joe Trippi, who pioneered mass fundraising on the internet.
Trippi worked with Atiku Abubakar on a presidential bid in 2007 and then with Jonathan on his successful 2011 election campaign.
Alongside Trippi and well placed for another contract with Jonathan is Bell Pottinger, a British company whose founder Tim Bell helped Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher win three consecutive elections in Britain.
Nigeria is, just ahead of Egypt and Morocco, Africa's biggest spender on image-making.
Each year it spends tens of millions of dollars on registered lobbyists, law firms and public relations companies to get its case across to foreign governments and media.
Egypt and Morocco hire lobbyists in Washington DC with specific goals: Cairo wants to protect its billions of dollars of US military aid, and Rabat wants to build US support for its claims on Western Sahara.
Beyond state spending, Africa's political parties and companies are fuelling a massive expansion in the communications business, in and about the continent.
Foreign campaign advisers are a feature of almost every African election, from Angola to Zimbabwe.
African companies are raising capital and their profiles across the world, and hiring image-makers to help them. This is by far the biggest growth sector.
Back in Nigeria, the gloves are off ahead of the 2015 election. A colleague of Trippi's tells The Africa Report that Jonathan is clearly headed for victory as the opposition politicians struggle to pick a presidential candidate.
READ MORE....

BandAid30: Have we learned nothing?

Cecelia Lynch

AFRICA IS A COUNTRY | November 18th, 2014

Have we learned nothing?! Thirty years ago, the Band-Aid video showed pop stars with 1980s hair raising funds for “Africa.”  But it wasn’t for Africa, even though the resulting record featured a guitar in the shape of a continent.  It was Ethiopia, and the resulting “documentary” began with BBC clips of starving people lined up for food in a camp, with the usual flies swarming, hollowed eyes, and white doctors being interviewed regarding their plight.  The songs, the recordings, the video — all identified all of Africa with these images of helplessness, sounding the call of the  “white savior industrial complex”for a new generation.  Despite the feel-good super sales of the song, controversy continues around the question of whether the effort did more material harm than good.
Fast forward to today:  the just-released remix of the principal song of the 1984 Band-Aid concerts — Do they know it’s Christmas — plays to the same sentiments with many of the same stars (and some new ones, like One Direction) — and has all of the same problems.  Again, have we really learned nothing???  The video opens with what was known in the 1990s as “aid pornography” (a term and debate which unfortunately has dropped from the radar screen )– [see my post on the film "When the Night Comes" and Ayesha Nibbe'spost on #KONY2012]– shots of dying people — shots that these stars would never allow of themselves.  Then we see them filing into the studio one-by-one in the requisite shades, every move (but looking good, not in the throes of death) captured by paparazzi, then emotionally singing, then holding each other, giggling and smiling after they have done their good deed.

READ MORE.....

How to write about children in Africa

Maria Hengeveld

AFRICA IS A COUNTRY | November 8th, 2012

In early October this year, PBS released the documentary ‘Half the Sky’, based on the book by frequent AIAC target and New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn (a former Times journalist) focusing on the lot of girls and women in the Global South. As part of Kristof’s mission to replace their oppression by opportunity, he visits a number of sites. The action usually revolves around Kristof accompanied by a famous American actress. The first stop had to be in Africa, of course.

Kristof visits Sierra Leone where he, along with actress Eva Mendes, takes on the case of a 14-year old girl Fulamatu, who has been raped repeatedly by a next door neighbor, passing as a “pastor.” Kristof and Mendes visit the shelter where the girl was taken by her mother. Over the next few minutes, Kristof proceeds to do his own police work, and takes it upon himself to arrest the rapist. He also counsels the young girl. By the end of the segment however, it is unclear whether the rapist will stay in prison and pay for the crime and whether Fulamatu will be safe (her father throws Fulamatu and her mother out of the house because of the “shame” and attention they bring to the family). The whole ends with an odd scene, with Mendes — who looks as she does not want to be there — saying goodbye to Fulamatu, offering her a necklace and hugging her: “You are so beautiful, brave and strong.” Kristof then moves on to Thailand and Mendes goes back to the US.

READ MORE....

Consuming Africa (at Christmas Time)

Elliot Ross

Africa is a country | December 24th, 2012

In 2004, the British press reported that the album cover Damien Hirst had designed for Band Aid 20’s re-recording of the 1984 single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” had been rejected by the organizers, for fear it would frighten small children. “The record, that’s the important part,” explained Midge Ure. “The cover doesn’t really matter. Throw the cover away. Buying it is the important thing.”
Hirst had depicted an emaciated black child perched on the Grim Reaper’s knee, while on the other side of the album a white child cradled in Santa’s lap clutched wads of banknotes. There was a sense that this particular juxtaposition could be considered distasteful, but the reason that got around was that the kids would be scared. An alternative cover arrived, in which an emaciated black-and-white black child walks naked through the snow into a full-color fairytale landscape, menaced on either side by a herd of outsized cartoon reindeer and a large family of hungry looking polar bears. Hirst’s excessively disturbing double image had been replaced by what was plainly a playful riff on “Vulture stalking a child,” the world-famous photograph of a Sudanese girl taken in 1993 by South African photographer Kevin Carter, who committed suicide months after the image was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

READ MORE....

Why I had to turn down Band Aid Fuse ODG

Saying no to Bob Geldof was hard, but when I saw how negatively the lyrics portrayed Africa I had no choice

The Guardian - Wednesday 19 November 2014

Saying no to Bob Geldof is one of the hardest decisions I have had to make this year. However, seeing what looked like the corpse of an African woman being carried out of her home on primetime TV when the video was premiered on X Factor crystallised my concerns about this strategy to combat the Ebola crisis. For me it is ultimately flawed.
A week before the recording of Band Aid 30, I received a call from Geldof asking if I would take part. I was honoured to be asked and, connecting with his passion for wanting to tackle the Ebola crisis, said I wanted to offer my support.
But I also had my concerns. I was sceptical because of the lyrics and the videos of the previous charity singles, and I worried that this would play into the constant negative portrayal of the continent of Africa in the west. Geldof and I spoke at length about this and he agreed with me on many levels, assuring me that we could use it as an opportunity to showcase the positives of Africa.

READ MORE.....

Burkina Faso Coup Leader Trained By Pentagon:

Lt. Col. Yocouba Isaac Zida Follows Pattern Of Other Military Officers Who Enter Politics

By Abayomi Azikiwe (Pan-African News Wire)

Modern Ghana - 10 November 2014

After over a week of intense discussion between opposition parties, mass organizations and religious leaders of Burkina Faso, there was an announcement made on Nov. 10 that a roadmap had been agreed upon for a transition to civilian rule.
This consensus among the political parties and mass organizations must now be negotiated with the military to set the terms of the transition.
Popular organizations had rejected the military’s attempt to lead a transition team. Three leaders from Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal representing the regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) visited the capital of Ouagadougou on Nov. 7 calling for a rapid process that would lead to national elections. The plan put forward from discussions among the opposition parties and mass organizations is calling for elections by Nov. 2015 after the appointment of an interim civilian president to guide the entire process.
Earlier on Oct. 30, demonstrations attended by hundreds of thousands demanded the resignation of the 27-year dictator President Blaise Compaore. When members of parliament were set to approve a bill that would have provided legal cover for Compaore to run for another term of office, thousands gathered outside the Place de la Nation while many stormed the parliament, the ruling party headquarters and other symbols of authority, setting them on fire.

READ MORE....

The World War One in Africa Project

What happened in Africa should not stay in Africa

By Jacques Enaudeau and Kathleen Bomani

Africa is a country | July 30th, 2014

For the next four years, the world is celebrating the Centenary of World War I,  and once again Africa is not invited to the party.
The story of Africans’ involvement in the Great War is unheard of outside of academia, and thus remains to be told: the tens of thousands of African lives lost at home and abroad, defending the interests of foreign powers and the lives of complete strangers; the forced recruitment of African soldiers to fight Europe’s war, and of African workers to replace the labour force gone to the front; the battles between colonies pitting Africans against each other on their own soil; the reshaping of Africa’s borders and inner workings after the war under new rulers.
It was supposed to be the “war to end war” and yet, by the proxy of colonial empires, it created war where no one cared for it, dragging an estimated two million Africans into the conflict, originating from Algeria to South Africa. Such bitter irony is lost on today’s France, Britain, Germany, Belgium and Portugal, all colonial powers who sat at the Berlin conference in 1885 to finalise the scramble for Africa.

READ MORE.....

Who Wants To Be A Volunteer?

Flying under the radar in Central Africa, Chinese companies may be wreaking environmental havoc

Daniel Stiles - Mongabay Special Reporting Assignment Fellow

Mongabay.com - November 07, 2014

"Tchimpounga is not just a sanctuary," shouted Rebeca Atencia above the din of the outboard motor, as she pointed to our progress up the Kouilou River on her tablet, donated by Google, which included access to high-resolution satellite maps. The GPS tracking showed us as a small, blue diamond moving slowly up the murky river.  I marveled once again at 21st Century technology. Here we were, in a remote part of the Republic of Congo (RoC) in Central Africa, with thick tropical jungle on both banks and no roads inland, yet there was access to GPS tracking and cell phone service.  Atencia was giving me the history of the Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Centre as we headed for three islands in the Kouilou River that were being transformed into chimpanzee preparation sites for pre-release into the wild. Here orphaned chimpanzees would learn, under supervision, how to fend for themselves.

READ MORE....

The US ruined Libya

By Stephen Kinzer

The Boston Globe | November 07, 2014

Just three years have passed since an American-led bombing campaign destroyed the regime of Moammar Khadafy in Libya. At first that operation felt like a victory for peace and freedom. By bringing down the dictator, we presumed we had “liberated” Libyans and that they would quickly settle into pro-American democracy.

The speed with which we have been proven disastrously wrong, however, is breathtaking. So is the sweeping scope of unintended consequences that have flowed from this intervention. Not even those who opposed it imagined how far-reaching its effects would be. This is likely to go down in history as the most ill-conceived intervention of the Obama era.

READ MORE.....

Chinese Corporations in Africa: Saints or Sinners?

A China in Africa Podcast     

By ERIC OLANDER, COBUS VAN STADEN, OJUMI OKUMU    

China File - 10.20.14

“The African way of life is under attack by Chinese corporations,” argues University of Technology, Sydney doctoral candidate Onjumi Okumu. The Kenya native contends that a combination of weak governance in African mixed with no legal restraints on Chinese corporate behavior encourage PRC companies to behave illegally and destructively in Africa, destroying the continent’s fragile social capital. Okumu focuses, in particular, on the effects Chinese investments are having on the people of Kenya. It’s a provocative, controversial, and fascinating thesis.

READ MORE....

The Spectre of Global China

Ching Kwan Lee 

New Left Review 89, September-October 2014

After three decades of sustained growth China, an economic powerhouse of continental proportions, is becoming choked by bottlenecks: overcapacity, falling profits, surplus capital, shrinking demand in traditional export markets and scarcity of raw materials. These imbalances have driven Chinese firms and citizens overseas in search of new opportunities, encouraged by Beijing’s ‘going out’ policy. Their presence in Africa has drawn a vast amount of attention, despite the fact that the prc only accounts for a tiny fraction of foreign direct investment there—4 per cent for 2000–10, compared to 84 per cent for the Atlantic powers. [1] In the ensuing rhetorical battle, the Western media has created the spectre of a ‘global China’ launching a new scramble for Africa, while Beijing for its part claims simply to be encouraging South–South cooperation, free of hegemonic aspirations or World Bank-style conditions. These seemingly opposed positions, however, share the implicit assumption that Chinese investment is qualitatively different from conventional foreign investment. What, if any, is the peculiarity of Chinese capital in Africa? What are the consequences of China’s presence, and what prospects does it offer for African development?

READ MORE....

Belonging–why South Africans refuse to let Africa in

 Sisonke Msimang

Africa is a country | October 22nd, 2014

Any African who has ever tried to visit South Africa will know that the country is not an easy entry destination. South African embassies across the continent are almost as difficult to access as those of the UK and the United States. They are characterised by long queues, inordinate amounts of paperwork, and officials who manage to be simultaneously rude and lethargic. It should come as no surprise then that South Africa’s new Minister of Home Affairs has announced the proposed establishment of a Border Management Agency for the country. In his words the new agency “will be central to securing all land, air and maritime ports of entry and support the efforts of the South African National Defence force to address the threats posed to, and the porousness of, our borderline.”
Political observers of South Africa will understand that this is bureaucratic speak to dress up the fact that insularity will continue to be the country’s guiding ethos in its social, cultural and political dealings with the rest of the continent.
Perhaps I am particularly attuned to this because of my upbringing. I am South African but grew up in exile. That is to say I was raised in the Africa that is not South Africa; that place of fantasy and nightmare that exists beyond the Limpopo. When I first came home in the mid 1990s, in those early months as I was learning to adjust to life in South Africa, I was often struck by the odd way in which the term ‘Africa,’ was deployed by both white and black South Africans.

READ MORE....

Documentaries: Ancient Africa and Prof.Ali Mazrui: Tools of Exploitation In Africa

Lost Civilizations: Africa


Prof.Ali Mazrui: Tools of Exploitation In Africa

100 African Cities Destroyed By Europeans

WHY there are seldom historical buildings and monuments in sub-Saharian Africa!

Did you know that in the 14th century the city of Timbuktu in West Africa was five times bigger than the city of London, and was the richest city in the world?

By Mawuna Remarque KOUTONIN

Silicon Africa - Saturday, November 1st, 2014

When tourists visit sub-Saharan Africa, they often wonder “Why there are no historical buildings or monuments?”
The reason is simple. Europeans have destroyed most of them. We have only left drawings and descriptions by travelers who have visited the places before the destructions. In some places, ruins are still visible. Many cities have been abandoned into ruin when Europeans brought exotic diseases (smallpox and influenza) which started spreading and killing people. The ruins of those cities are still hidden. In fact the biggest part of Africa history is still under the ground.
In this post, I’ll share pieces of informations about Africa before the arrival of Europeans, the destroyed cities and lessons we could learn as africans for the future.
The collection of facts regarding the state of african cities before their destruction is done by Robin Walker, a distinguished panafricanist and historian who has written the book ‘When We Ruled’, and by PD Lawton, another great panafricanist, who has an upcoming book titled “The Invisible Empire”.
All quotes and excerpts below are from the books of Robin Walker and PD Lawton. I highly recommend you to buy Walker’s book ‘When We Ruled’ to get a full account of the beauty of the continent before its destruction. You can get more info about PD Lawton work by visiting her blog: AfricanAgenda.net

READ MORE....

Funding: Mind the gap

The Africa Report - Monday, 03 November 2014

Finding money for transformative investment has always been a struggle in Africa - but now banks and governments are joining forces to mobilise Africa's own resources, and find long-term funds.  Africa has development challenges that require immediate attention, like roads, housing and agriculture.
Glossy brochures in the reception rooms of upmarket private equity funds in the United States (US) and Great Britain vaunt the upward trajectory of the continent, but these vital sectors do not attract many financiers from outside the continent, except for a few backing self-contained projects such as high-end apartments, plantation agriculture for export and toll roads.
Local banks, despite the recent progress and pauses, often lack the asset bases to do the heavy lifting associated with infrastructure.
They do not have the long-term funds needed to provide housing finance, and they do not trust farmers or utility companies to pay them back. This is changing, and banks in some countries are now large enough to tackle expensive projects.
Wole Tinubu, chief executive of Nigeria's Oando used local banks to finance about 50% of the $1.5bn purchase of ConocoPhillips's Nigerian assets in July.

READ MORE.....

Jomo Kenyatta Documentary

Tanzania says construction of China-funded port to start in 2015

By Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala in Dar Es Salaam

The Africa Report - 27 October 2014 

Construction of a Chinese-funded port and special economic zone in Tanzania worth at least $10 billion will start in July 2015, the East African country's president's office said in a statement on Monday, for the first time setting a start date for the delayed initiative.     Tanzania aims to build a huge port at Bagamoyo, 75 km (47 miles) north of commercial capital Dar es Salaam, the site of the country's main port, where shippers complain of congestion and inefficiencies.
A construction agreement for the port and associated zone was signed on Sunday and follows a framework deal signed last year.
An official said a start date for building work had taken time to set because of other negotiations about infrastructure to link the port to national transport networks.
The planned Bagamoyo port, new investment in Dar es Salaam and other spending on roads and railways are part of Tanzania's efforts to become a transport hub that could challenge the dominance of Mombasa in neighbouring Kenya.

READ MORE.....

Chinese Corporations in Africa: Saints or Sinners?

ERIC OLANDER, COBUS VAN STADEN, OJUMI OKUMU   

CHINA FILE - 10.20.14

“The African way of life is under attack by Chinese corporations,” argues University of Technology, Sydney doctoral candidate Onjumi Okumu. The Kenya native contends that a combination of weak governance in African mixed with no legal restraints on Chinese corporate behavior encourage PRC companies to behave illegally and destructively in Africa, destroying the continent’s fragile social capital. Okumu focuses, in particular, on the effects Chinese investments are having on the people of Kenya. It’s a provocative, controversial, and fascinating thesis.

READ MORE....

Mozambique: Asian buyers line up to import natural gas

By REUTERS

The Africa Report - Friday, 31 October 2014

Countries across Asia are quietly reaching deals to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Mozambique, which could transform its economy and give it a front-row seat in tapping rising global gas demand.     The unannounced agreements, five in total, show how war-scarred Mozambique is elbowing past rivals from the United States to Australia by offering flexible contract terms on 20-year deals.  U.S. oil major Anadarko Petroleum is building the first two of up to 10 plants in Mozambique to liquefy gas for export.  Preliminary deals have been reached to sell its LNG to China National Offshore Oil Corp, Japan, Indonesia's state-run Pertamina, the United Arab Emirates, Thailand's PTT and companies in India, according to company and industry sources close to the talks.  If all goes as planned, Africa-focused Standard Bank expects an LNG windfall to swell the state purse of the former Portuguese colony, one of the world's least-developed nations.

READ MORE.....

"Beijing Road" in Algiers tells China-Algeria stories

By Qian Ruisha

Xinhua - 2014-11-01

There is a street, called "Beijing Road" in downtown Algiers, which zigzags uphill about one kilometer, linking the presidential office at one end, and the city's bustling commercial district at the other.
Many old locals are familiar with the "China story" on the road, and there are always visitors coming from distant China to pay a visit to this road and have a photo with it.
Walking in a sunny October day along the road to trace its history and Chinese element, you will meet a lot of local residents greeting you naturally with Chinese "ni hao", equivalent to "hello" in English.
In a coffee bar on the road, an old man in his 70s, who grew up there, was very delighted when he saw Chinese visitors.
He put his index fingers together, a gesture meaning that Algeria and China are "good brothers."

READ MORE....

Chad to double oil output by 2016, develop minerals

THE AFRICA REPORT -  Tuesday, 07 October 2014

Chad expects to double oil production by the end of 2015 as new fields come on stream and has appointed firms to inventory potential mineral deposits in an effort to diversify the economy, its finance minister said.  The former French colony, one of the poorest nations in the world, has been rocked by humanitarian crises over the past decade including conflicts in the east and south, drought in the arid Sahel region and flooding.  That has been compounded since 2012 by instability on its borders with Libya, Nigeria and Central African Republic, forcing Chad to increase its security budget to handle thousands of new refugees and counter a growing cross-border threat.  The landlocked central African country has, nevertheless, seen strong growth over the past decade as it has become an oil producer, although GDP growth slowed to 3.5 percent in 2013 due primarily to lower income from ageing wells in its Doba oilfield.

READ MORE....

Mubi battle: 300 Nigerian soldiers flee to Cameroon again

By Bisong Etahoben

Punch - November 2, 2014

No fewer than 300 Nigerian soldiers fled to Cameroon when Boko Haram insurgents overran Mubi, the second largest city in Borno State from security forces on Wednesday, SUNDAY PUNCH has learnt.

Cameroonian military sources told our correspondent that Nigerian soldiers fled the north-eastern part of Nigeria, where the insurgency launched by the sect was raging, and crossed the Nigeria-Cameroon border.

The sources also said more Nigerian troops might have fled to other border towns in Cameroon after the Mubi attack. However, he added that their number had yet to be ascertained.

READ MORE....

Botswana: Angolan President Salutes Botswana Counterpart

AllAfrica - 31 October 2014

The Angolan head of State José Eduardo dos Santos Thursday in Luanda congratulated his counterpart of Botswana Ian Khama on his victory in the recent election for one more presidential term.
In his message, president Dos Santos says that the choice of the Botswana people expresses, in an unequivocal way, their trust in the governing action of the Botwana Democratic Party and in the leadership of president Ian Khama in favour of stability, sustainable development and prosperity of the country.
According to a press release from the Civil Affairs Office to the President of the Republic, José Eduardo dos Santos reiterated the Angolan Government's wish to have the ties of friendship and cooperation between the two countries reinforced.

READ MORE....

Zooming in on Namibia's fashionable, young OvaHimba men

By Sean O’Toole

Mail and Guardian - 31 Oct 2014

It is a 700km drive northwest of the Namibian capital of Windhoek along a tarred road to Opuwo, a town of roughly 15?000 people. The OvaHimba, pastoralists, who tend Nguni cattle in the drought-prone Kunene region and sometimes pose for photographs taken by travellers, speak of the settlement as a place of “iron oxen” and drunkenness.
A German anthropologist, who for more than a decade studied the broader economics and culture of boozing here, has characterised Opuwo as “a frontier town drinking its way into modernity”. But a very different version of Opuwo’s modernity caught the attention of 22-year-old Kyle Weeks when he passed through the town by car early last year. Driving north along Mumbijazo Muharukua Avenue, the Windhoek-born photographer saw a group of fashionable young OvaHimba men wearing traditional neck rings and shirts declaring allegiance to global fashion brands and faraway football clubs. Their noticeable self-confidence intrigued Weeks.

READ MORE....

Senegal’s Child Beggars On Increase

by Momodou J Darboe, News Editor

JOLLOF NEWS - Friday, 31 October 2014

Despite efforts in combating street begging in Senegal, child beggars are increasingly visible on the streets of Dakar and other cities and towns of the West African state. Hundreds of children at residential Quranic schools in Senegal are subjected to slavery-like conditions and severely abused.
Children, as young as five years in rags and with empty tomato paste tins in hand, are familiar sights in many busy places of Dakar, the Senegalese capital and other cities.
Child begging is seemingly becoming an insurmountable problem in Senegal as children come from across the border from Guinea Bissau, neighbouring Gambia and Mali to Senegal as the country is a source, transit, and destination country for children trafficked for the purposes of forced labour and commercial exploitation.
Internally, Quranic teachers traffic boys, commonly referred to as Talibe, by promising to teach them the Quran but subjecting them instead to force begging and physical abuse.

READ MORE....

Mozambique elects Nyusi as new president

By Agency Staff

BUSINESS DAY - October 30 2014

Mozambique has elected Filipe Nyusi of the governing Frelimo party as the next president, the National Electoral Commission said on Thursday in announcing final results of polls two weeks ago.
The former defence minister won 57% of the vote — which is sharply down on Frelimo’s 75% victory in the 2009 presidential election. Mr Nyusi’s nearest rival, Afonso Dhlakama of the former rebel Renamo party, garnered 37% of the votes — more than double the 16% he won in 2009.
Incumbent Armando Guebuza, who was constitutionally barred from seeking re-election to a third term, will hand over early next year to Mr Nyusi, ho will steer the country as it starts to tap vast natural gas resources recently discovered in the north.
Frelimo, which has ruled the former Portuguese colony since independence nearly 40 years ago, also won the majority of seats in parliament, taking 144 to Renamo’s 89. A new party, the Mozambique Democratic Movement gained 17 seats.

READ MORE....

Angola brings oil firm Sonangol into local BES bank

LISBON

Reuters - Thu Oct 30, 2014

Angola's central bank has brought in state oil company Sonangol as a shareholder in the rescue of the BES Angola (BESA) bank, despite the objections of BESA's former parent, Portugal's bailed-out lender Banco Espirito Santo (BES).  National Bank of Angola said in a statement the move, which included renaming BES Angola as Banco Economico, was approved on Wednesday by the shareholders of BESA, and that BES's working successor Novo Banco would get a 9.9 percent stake as previously announced.  The central bank did not say what stake Sonangol will have in Banco Economico nor indicate the size of the bank. Some Portuguese media reports said the oil company would hold 35 percent.

READ MORE....

Thomas Sankara - A True African Leader

Burkina Faso: Ghost of 'Africa's Che Guevara'

In the weeks before violent protests, some Burkinabes' thoughts turned to slain leader Thomas Sankara for inspiration.

Kingsley Kobo

Al-Jazeera - 31 Oct 2014 

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso - In the early hours of a night in 1987, one of Africa’s youngest leaders, Thomas Sankara, was murdered and quietly and quickly buried in a shallow grave.
Now, the man widely believed to be behind it, Burkina Faso's president, has watched as his parliament was set ablaze by furious protesters who want him gone.
Many of the protesters say the history of the slain 1980s leader partly inspired them to rise against Blaise Compaore, who has been in power for 27 years and was trying, by a vote in parliament, for another five.
Though some see Sankara as an autocrat who came to office by the power of the gun, and who ignored basic human rights in pursuit of his ideals, in recent years he has been cited as a revolutionary inspiration not only in Burkina Faso but in other countries across Africa.
In the weeks before the current chaos, Al Jazeera spoke to people in the capital, Ouagadougou, and found many who predicted that Sankara’s memory, and Compaore's attempt to seek another five-year term, may soon spark an uprising.

READ MORE....

Burkina Faso declares state of emergency

Government and parliament dissolved after tens of thousands take to streets and parliament set ablaze, army chief says.

The Al-Jazeera - 30 Oct 2014

Burkina Faso's president has declared a state of emergency, after tens of thousands of people took the streets, setting parliament ablaze in violence that left at least one person dead.
Army General Honore Traore, the joint chief of staff, also said that the government and parliament had been dissolved on Thursday.
Some of the protesters, who are opposed to constitutional amendments that would allow President Blaise Compaore to stay in power for another term, ransacked state television and tried to storm other state buildings.
"A state of emergency is declared across the national territory. The chief of the armed forces is in charge of implementing this decision which enters into effect today," said a statement from the president read by a presenter on Radio Omega FM.
The president also said he would open talks with the opposition.

READ MORE....

Tanzania says construction of China-funded port to start in 2015

The Africa Report - Monday, 27 October 2014

By Fumbuka Ng'wanakilala in Dar Es Salaam

Tanzania aims to build a huge port at Bagamoyo, 75 km (47 miles) north of commercial capital Dar es Salaam, the site of the country's main port, where shippers complain of congestion and inefficiencies. A construction agreement for the port and associated zone was signed on Sunday and follows a framework deal signed last year.  An official said a start date for building work had taken time to set because of other negotiations about infrastructure to link the port to national transport networks.  The planned Bagamoyo port, new investment in Dar es Salaam and other spending on roads and railways are part of Tanzania's efforts to become a transport hub that could challenge the dominance of Mombasa in neighbouring Kenya.  "The Tanzanian government signed a memorandum of understanding with two major international institutions ... to develop the Bagamoyo economic zone," Tanzania's presidency said in a statement, adding construction would start on July 1 next year. 

READ MORE....

'Africa can learn from Zambia's unity', says Kenneth Kaunda, and he has no regrets

Lee Mwiti

Mail Guardian - 24 Oct 2014

Zambia on October 24 celebrates its 50th birthday as an independent nation, and to better appreciate the country’s  journey, Mail & Guardian Africa dropped in on His Excellency Dr Kenneth Kaunda, its first president. Excerpts.  
Mail & Guardian Africa: You have seen Africa though 50 years of post independence, longer than any of your peers—any founding father who was leading his nation at independence. What would you say is the secret to your long and rich life?
Kenneth Kaunda:  When you look at the creation of wealth, God taught us to love God your creator, with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength.  He also taught us to love thy neighbour, as thou lovest thyself. Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.
These commandments are in my view what God made to guide us, and where these commandments are followed, there is genuine peace.
MGA:  You were part of a golden generation of African independence leaders that quickened the end of colonisation in Africa, in the spirit of that song you like, Tiyendi Pamodzi (forward together). With the benefit of hindsight, would you have done anything differently during the struggle for independence?
KK: I cannot see how anyone could fail to identify the meaning of building a nation anywhere, any part of the world, because we need to move forward in one way, and think of certain things in our nations, especially in the meaning of development. Development can be in many forms and in various fields of human endeavour, its not just in one area. Your question becomes important even more when we realise man’s future is dependent on a number of things that he is required to do; if man doesn’t do these things in a necessary way, then what is there, it will all collapse, it will become nothing.

READ MORE.....

Ghana: Jamie’s Jollof rice recipe

By Jonny Garrett

June 21, 2014 | In Around the world, Foodie World Cup

It’s amazing how food can tell a story – how traces of it can be found throughout a continent, showing the diaspora of people and the spread of cultures across thousands of miles.
Jollof rice is more of a concept than a recipe, because it’s found in various guises all over West Africa. Its other name is Benachin, which means “one pot” in the language of the Wolof people who invented it – evidently throwing lots of lovely food in a pan and letting the heat do its thing has always been a popular cheat.
The Wolof ruled an empire from what is now known as Senegal between 1360 to 1549. For a while they were a powerful and wealthy kingdom, even trading with Europe before it fell apart through infighting among the different states. By the time it disintegrated though, its travels, trades and conquests had spread its people and cultures right throughout the area. So it’s no surprise that Jollof rice springs up in the list of favourite dishes for Ghana, about 2,000km from their homeland in Senegal. In fact, it springs up all even further east, in countries such as Nigeria and Cameroon. Because of this distance, and all the differences in culture and climate, the ingredients vary wildly, but the principle is that you cook your rice in a tomato sauce, so it soaks up all the flavours.

READ MORE.....

Special Issue on China in Africa - Journal of Contemporary China, Volume 23, Issue 90, 2014

China–Africa Cooperation: promises, practice and prospects

Sven Grimm
pages 993-1011

China in Africa: presence, perceptions and prospects

Fei-Ling Wang & Esi A. Elliot
pages 1012-1032

A Neo-Colonialist Predator or Development Partner? China's engagement and rebalance in Africa

Suisheng Zhao
pages 1033-1052

Workforce Localization among Chinese State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in Ghana

Antoine Kernen & Katy N. Lam
pages 1053-1072

Bashing ‘the Chinese’: contextualizing Zambia's Collum Coal Mine shooting

Barry Sautman & Yan Hairong
pages 1073-1092

China's Libya Evacuation Operation: a new diplomatic imperative—overseas citizen protection

Shaio H. Zerba
pages 1093-1112

China Goes to Africa: a strategic move?

Jianwei Wang & Jing Zou
pages 1113-1132

IMF warns African countries over Eurobond borrowing

The Africa Report - Tuesday, 21 October 2014

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned African countries against rushing to issue Eurobonds, saying they may face exchange rate risks and problems repaying debts.
African governments facing falling levels of foreign aid are on a borrowing spree to pay for new roads, power stations and other infrastructure, prompting concern from many analysts that this could raise debt levels and undermine growth.
"It comes with some risks," the director of the IMF's African Department, Antoinette Sayeh, told Reuters in an interview on Monday.
"Whereas what it costs the countries to issue these bonds can often look lower than what they would pay on domestic borrowing ... the real cost in the final analysis will also depend on the evolution of exchange rates in the course of the life of the bond issuance."

READ MORE....

Uganda says oil revenue possible alternative to Chinese cash for railway

By Karin Strohecker in London 

The Africa Report - Tuesday, 21 October 2014 

Uganda could rely on income from future oil exports to finance an $8 billion railway if funding talks with China fail to bear fruit, its president said.
Yoweri Museveni confirmed that Uganda had started negotiations with China on building the line that would link to Kenya, speeding up freight transport in the region.
He gave no details about how far the talks had progressed. "But if they don't (offer financing), we shall fund it ourselves," Museveni told Reuters on Monday on the sidelines of an African investment conference in London.
"Remember we have our oil, which we shall start harvesting in 2017, and that money will deal with these projects - railway and electricity ... China or no China, we shall build that railway."
The new line would run from the Kenyan border to Kampala, then north to South Sudan and west to the oil fields.
It would supersede a narrow gauge line that now only operates to Kampala.

READ MORE.....

Zimbabwe mobile operators to slash rates

By Janet Shoko

The Africa Report - Tuesday, 21 October 2014

Zimbabwe's mobile regulatory authority – the Postal and Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) – has ordered all three mobile network operators to slash voice tariffs to 15 cents per minute with effect from December, down from 23 cents per minute.
A new pricing model, known as long run incremental cost (LRIC) is being implemented in favour of COSITU pricing framework.
This could be a relief for mobile users, who have complained that tariffs are too steep.
In an update, POTRAZ said it would, for now, leave data charges to be determined by market forces.
"The COSITU model that was used from 2004 to 2009 was designed for circuit switched circuits, has since been rendered obsolete due to technological and market developments in terms of newer services that are packet-based across the board," the authority said.

READ MORE.....

Mining: End of Iron Age

By Honore Banda in Douala 

The Africa Report - Tuesday, 21 October 2014

Low prices and high supplies are driving iron ore prices down. Analysts say large companies will survive the crunch but many smaller producers and explorers may be faced with tough decisions.
In a red and muddy clearing along Cameroon's densely forested border with the Republic of Congo, a fleet of diggers stands idle.
High above the canopy of trees, dark clouds start to gather. It is an ominous portent for an iron ore project billed as transformative for the country.
Three years ago, the Mbalam mining project, spearheaded by Australian explorer Sundance Resources, was hailed by Cameroon's President Paul Biya as a potential game changer for the Central African country.
Now, as Sundance courts fresh investors to shore up its dwindling cash reserves while iron prices fall, the prospects look bad for the construction of a $5bn railway needed to make the mine economical.

READ MORE.....

A Gaddafi returns to Libyan politics

By Konye Obaji Ori

The African Report - Tuesday, 21 October 2014

hmed Gaddaf al-Dam, a cousin and former aide of Gaddafi has emerged to take part in proposed talks between Libya's warring parties.
Gaddaf is highly connected among Arab and African governments such as Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
He also has links with some European countries, and carries political authority among certain militant groups including factions run by former officers of the old regime.
Since uprisings brought an end to the 42 year reign of Gaddafi, rival armed groups in Libya have battled for power, raising fears of a full-blown civil war.
The fighting has prevented the internationally-recognised government from operating in the capital, Tripoli.

READ MORE....

Culture:The beat goes on in Lagos, Nigeria

By Tolu Ogunlesi in Lagos

The Africa Report - 17 October 2014

Freedom Park, a former colonial prison, has become the symbol of an artistic renaissance in Lagos – a city of 21 million people that can itself sometimes feel like an overcrowded prison.
Where the prison's gallows once stood is an open-air stage that overlooks an art gallery named for Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka.
Terra Kulture is another popular arts venue, home to the annual Taruwa Festival of Performing Arts and a year-round schedule of visual arts exhibitions and theatre.
Alongside Freedom Park, it hosted a recent series of plays to commemorate Soyinka's 80th birthday.
Adenrele Sonariwo, a curator of arts events and founder of the Modern Day School of Arts, says: "There are really interesting things going on in the cultural space in Lagos, some superficial, some with a lot of depth. Either way, it takes a lot of courage to do anything in Lagos, so everyone deserves commendation."

READ MORE....

Mozambique President elect - Filipe Nyussi

The Africa Report - 20 October 2014

The rise of Filipe Nyussi as the presidential candidate of the ruling Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO) party in national elections on 15 October augured an historic change for the country.
Nyussi, who won a bitter succession battle in March, is the country's first northern president after decades of southern domination. Backed by FRELIMO's formidable election machinery, he took 61.7% of the vote.
Nyussi is a low-profile figure close to out-going president Armando Guebuza, who will step down after his two terms.
Aged 55 and representing a generational succession for FRELIMO as the first leader that did not fight in the country's civil war from 1977 to 1992, Nyussi has strong connections to the party's liberation aristocracy.
Both of his parents were FRELIMO members during the war for independence and he was raised in exile in Tanzania.

READ MORE.....

‘There is no Ebola here’:

What Liberia teaches us about the failures of aid

By Sisonke Msimang

Africa is a country | October 19th, 2014

Professor Thandika Mkandawire is a development economist with a sharp mind and an even sharper tongue – one of Africa’s finest.  Last week I moderated a discussion on health and governance in Africa at a conference in Cape Town in which he gave the keynote address.  He demonstrated why he is such a celebrated public intellectual.  In front of an audience of over one thousand scientists, doctors and health systems researchers, Mkandawire paraphrased Georges Clemenceau’s famous quip that war is too important to be left to generals, by suggesting that ‘health is too important to leave to health practitioners.’
In the midst of an Ebola outbreak, and at a conference taking place in Africa, the words – which were intended to be light-hearted – stung.  In part I suspect that this was because they rang true.
While health professionals are crucial frontline responders, the Ebola crisis is indeed too important to be left to medical personnel. Like most responses to humanitarian disasters that are mounted by the international community, the Ebola response is focused too narrowly on the technical aspects of containing a problem, and too little on the underlying social and political reasons why the problem has been allowed to fester in the first place.

READ MORE....

The long-term cure for Ebola: An investment in health systems

By Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

The Washington Post - October 19, 2014

As the Ebola nightmare continues in Liberia and as we battle to contain the epidemic, it is important to look beyond the immediate crisis. Many more lives will be lost before this dreadful outbreak is beaten, but to properly honor the memory of the victims we need to ask how it happened in the first place and, more pressingly, how we can prevent it from happening again.  After 30 years of brutal civil and political unrest, Liberia was a nation reborn. We transformed our country from a failed state into a stable democracy, rebuilding its infrastructure and its education and health systems, and enjoying one of the most promising growth records in Africa. Then Ebola swept in, threatening to tear apart that progress. It is a terrifying reminder of the destructive power of infectious disease, one all the more devastating given how far Liberia has come. 

READ MORE.....

What's wrong with how the West talks about Ebola in one illustration

In West Africa, deaths from Ebola have now passed 4000, while in the US the death toll remains at one.

By Christopher Hooto

The Independent - Tuesday, October 14, 2014

The coverage of the outbreak has been largely disproportionate however, and while one death is obviously still tragic and cause for concern when there is the risk of it precipitating more, it suggests a disregard for the bleak situation in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and other countries.
Cartoonist André Carrilho, whose work has been published in the New York Times, Vanity Fair and more, focused on this disparity in an illustration he created back in August, which has since gone viral thanks to its moving depiction of death being ignored.

READ MORE.....

China’s war for Africa’s hearts and minds

By Mark Varga

Foreign Policy | October 17th, 2014

China has made a badge of honor out of Zheng Bijian’s term coined in a seminal 2005 Foreign Affairs article, which described the Middle Kingdom’s path toward modernization as a “peaceful rise.” At the time, Bijian was trying to counter the dominant Western narrative that viewed Beijing’s ambitions and the country’s rapid growth with suspicion. The article ended with one of the most unexpected statements of intent coming from a country that had been the world’s foremost power for the better part of a millennium “(China) does not seek hegemony or predominance in world affairs.” A decade has passed since and China is still unsure of the part it should play on the international stage. Torn between its commitment not to intervene in the affairs of other countries and the growing demands of the West to use its growing clout to share some of the burden of shaping the world order, all eyes have turned to China’s budding soft power.
To find an answer to this conundrum, one must look no farther than Africa, where China is dovetailing its “peaceful rise” while also bringing new allies onto its side. Driven by the need to secure reliable sources of raw materials, Beijing has seen bilateral trade with the Dark Continent grow 20-fold in the past two decades, surpassing both the U.S and the EU. Many have argued that the process has been eminently a political one, amounting to little more than “check book diplomacy”, the practice of lending money to largely benefit China’s own construction groups, buying alliances and access to commodities. More than 2,000 Chinese companies now have assets in Africa, especially in South Africa, Zambia, Nigeria, Algeria and Angola, spanning all economic sectors. As a result, some 20,000 Chinese are currently involved in local projects, a number that will only go up in coming years. Moreover, in November 2013, the government announced plans to invest $1 trillion by 2025, thus turning Africa into the one-stop shop for Beijing’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs). But China’s cold and pragmatic approach has managed to drive a wedge between the West’s historical interests in Africa and China’s nascent world reach, leading to numerous muffled conflicts. Two cases studies show how the traditional Western relationship with the continent are increasingly strained by China’s desire to win over the hearts and minds of Africans.

READ MORE......

A New Article: Isiokwu – The Simulacra of the Simulacra: The Obscenity of Nollywood Films

International Journal of Baudrillard Studies
ISSN: 1705-6411  Volume 11, Number 3 (September 2014)

Isiokwu – The Simulacra of the Simulacra: The Obscenity of Nollywood Films

Dr. Biko Agozino 
(Department of Sociology, Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA).

In honor of the Nollywood artists and producers who have popularized such common Igbo expressions as Chineke m eh! (Oh my God!), Igwee! (Chief!), and Kedu (Hello) among their teeming audiences in Africa and the Diaspora, I have followed the admirable style of Nwando Achebe (2011) in her Nollywood-like narrative of a female king in colonial Igboland, by using approximate Igbo translations in italics to start each sub-heading in this papyrus. I will also consistently use the word papyrus as a closer approximation of what ancient Africans had in mind when they invented writing as a serious discourse that was seen as a pharmakon or drug to be taken seriously lest the written drug is abused and the patient dies of the side-effects, according to Derrida(1968), quoting Socrates; unlike its European simulacrum that is mistaken for the original and quite unlike just any ordinary piece of ‘paper’.
This papyrus argues that films in general are not just pieces of communication but also attempts at simulation and that Nollywood represents efforts to simulate a simulation, making it obscene to a great extent. There is no attempt in this theoretical piece to review the contents of Nollywood films for the illustration of this thesis as is commonly the case in journalistic descriptions; rather the analysis will go beyond the structures of film narratives to radicalize the discourse by deconstructing the ideologies of deviance and social control in the enabling political economy, the cultural consequences of their propagation, the technological determinism of their sustainability, and their methodological challenges to scholarship and to the global film industry itself.

READ MORE.....

The long and ugly tradition of treating Africa as a dirty, diseased place

By Laura Seay and Kim Yi Dionne

The Washington Post - August 25, 2014

This week’s Newsweek magazine cover features an image of a chimpanzee behind the words, “A Back Door for Ebola: Smuggled Bushmeat Could Spark a U.S. Epidemic.” This cover story is problematic for a number of reasons, starting with the fact that there is virtually no chance that “bushmeat” smuggling could bring Ebola to America. (The term is a catchall for non-domesticated animals consumed as a protein source; anyone who hunts deer and then consumes their catch as venison in the United States is eating bushmeat without calling it that.) While eating bushmeat is fairly common in the Ebola zone, the vast majority of those who do consume it are not eating chimpanzees. Moreover, the current Ebola outbreak likely had nothing to do with bushmeat consumption.
Far from presenting a legitimate public health concern, the authors of the piece and the editorial decision to use chimpanzee imagery on the cover have placed Newsweek squarely in the center of a long and ugly tradition of treating Africans as savage animals and the African continent as a dirty, diseased place to be feared.  What can social science tell us about why Newsweek’s cover story is so problematic?

READ MORE...