Ghana's women farmers resist the G7 plan to grab Africa's seeds

Heidi Chow

Ecologist - 22nd May 2015

Sharing and saving seed is a crucial part of traditional farming all over Africa, writes Heidi Chow. Maybe that's why governments, backed by multinational seed companies, are imposing oppressive seed laws that attack the continent's main food producers and open the way to industrial agribusiness. But Ghana's women farmers are having none of it.

My mother gave me some seeds to plant. And I'm also giving those seeds to my children to plant.
"So that is ongoing, every time we transfer to our children. And that is how all the women are doing it. We don't buy, we produce it ourselves."
Sitting together in the heat of the Ghanaian sun, Esther Boakye Yiadom explained to me the importance of seeds in her family and the transfer of knowledge between the different generations of women.
Esther continues to explain the role of the community in sharing and preserving seeds: "I am having tomatoes and I don't have okro. And another woman has okro. I'll go to her and then beg for some of her okro seeds to plant.
"And then if another person also needs tomatoes from me and I have it, I'll have to give to the person. Because you know every season changes, because maybe mine will not do well. But that person's will do well. So next season we can get to plant. That's why we exchange them."
An oppressive new law is putting all this under threat
The ability to save and exchange seeds after each growing season is an age-old practice that ensures that small scale farmers have seeds to sow the following year.

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Deep Racism: The Forgotten History Of Human Zoos

POPULAR RESISTANCE - February 18th, 2014

Racism is deeply embedded in our culture.  Slavery of African people, ethnic cleansing of Native Americans and colonialist imperialism are seeds that intertwine to create racism that still has impacts today.  One example of the sad human history of racism — of colonizers seeing themselves as superior to others — is the long history of human zoos that featured Africans and conquered indigenous peoples, putting them on display in much the same way as animals. People would be kidnapped and brought to be exhibited in human zoos.  It was not uncommon for these people to die quickly, even within a year of their captivity. This history is long and deep and continued into the 1950s.  Several articles below with lots of photos so we can see the reality of this terrible legacy. KZ

Through the 1950s, Africans and Native Americans Were Kept In Zoos As Exhibit
By M.B. David
Political Blindspot, February 13, 2013

Throughout the early 20th century, Germany held what was termed a, “Peoples Show,” or Völkerschau. Africans were brought in as carnival or zoo exhibits for passers-by to gawk at.

Brussels, Belgium in 1958
Only decades before, in the late 1800′s, Europe had been filled with, “human zoos,” in cities like Paris, Hamburg, Antwerp, Barcelona, London, Milan, and Warsaw. New York too saw these popular exhibits continue into the 20th century. There was an average of 200,000 to 300,000 visitors who attended each exhibition in each city.
Carl Hagenbeck of Germany ran exhibits of what he called, “purely natural,” populations, usually East Asian Islanders, but in 1876, he also sent a collaborator to the Sudan to bring back, “wild beasts and Nubians.” The traveling Nubian exhibit was a huge success in cities like Paris, London, and Berlin.

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The Numbing Spectacle of Racism

What the ugly history of a 1906 Bronx Zoo exhibit tells us about ourselves today.

Pamela Newkirk

The Nation - June 1, 2015

At the dawn of the 20th century, a young 103-pound, 4-foot-11-inch tall African named Ota Benga was exhibited in the Bronx Zoo monkey house. The year was 1906, eight years after the consolidation of the five boroughs transformed New York into one of the world’s largest cities, a dazzling hub of finance, publishing, culture, and trade. The New York Zoological Gardens was one of the city’s crown jewels, a sprawling neoclassical wonderland of lush forest, soaring statuary. and gleaming white beaux arts–style pavilions. What became known as the Bronx Zoo had been willed into being by the city’s social elite, who positioned it as the world’s largest and most scientifically advanced facility with an unrivaled array of exotic animals.
On September 8, the unveiling of its latest acquisition, the so-called “pygmy” from the Congo, garnered sensational headlines. “Bushman Shares a Cage with Bronx Park Apes,” screamed the New York Times headline on the following day. According to the article: “The human being happened to be a Bushman, one of a race that scientists do not rate high in the human scale. But to the average non-scientific person in the crowd of sightseers there was something about the display that was unpleasant.”

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US Military Expansion in Africa Is About Domination and Exploitation, Not Humanitarian Concerns

By Mark Karlin

Truthout | Interview - Tuesday, 02 June 2015 

The reach of the US military has expanded into nearly every corner of the world, but it is Africa that US officers describe behind closed doors as "the battlefield of tomorrow, today." In his essential new book, Nick Turse tenaciously details the growth of the Pentagon's secretive mission in Africa and the resulting harmful impact on the continent, its countries and its people. Order your copy of Tomorrow's Battlefield now by making a donation to Truthout!

Since before the heinous ravaging of Africa as a source of human beings denied their humanity, lives and freedom as chattel in the slave trade, the continent has been brutally exploited by European colonial (and later US) powers. Now, the continent is targeted by developing nations as a rich source of natural resources and for its coveted geopolitical military positioning. Researcher and author Nick Turse, managing editor of TomDispatch.com, offers a sobering, thorough account of the extension of the US military mission in Africa, known as Africom.
Mark Karlin: What is Africom and how does it fit in with the structure of the US military presence around the world?
Nick Turse: In 2008, US Africa Command or Africom became the newest of the Department of Defense's six geographic combatant commands with a responsibility for all military missions in Africa (aside from those in Egypt, which fall under the purview of Central Command or Centcom). After 9/11, the US military began to focus increased attention on Africa, ramping up counterterrorism operations, proxy interventions and the training of local allies while constructing an increasing number of outposts from which to launch missions.

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