Nobel Literature Prize eludes Africa again

By TREVOR ANALO in Nairobi and Agencies

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...

African Facebook Users in 2013

African Facebook Users in 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"[The] government has withdrawn its membership of the British Commonwealth and decided that the Gambia will never be a member of any neo-colonial institution and will never be a party to any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.....

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.....

Pan-Africanist and Black Revolutionary: George Padmore

By Manning Marable
www.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.

How to Rob Africa

When You Kill Ten Million Africans You Aren’t Called ‘Hitler’

By Liam O'Ceallaigh On 22 December 2010

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.

To read more.....

Mugabe is demanding that an African nation have a seat at the table

African nations push for permanent UNSC seat Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe is demanding a UN Security Council seat for an African country.

By Gift Phiri

Al-Jazeera - 26 Sep 2013

Harare, Zimbawe - Calls to include one the 54 African states in the world body’s security council are gaining traction as the 68th session of the UN General Assembly continues at the UN headquarters in New York. President Robert Mugabe has said he would press for Africa to have a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
“We don’t understand why you have three countries out of five countries on the Security Council as permanent members with a veto coming from Europe,” Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, Zimbabwe’s Foreign Affairs minister said. “We all know that Europe is no longer such an important part of the world as it was in 1945. And then you look at Africa, 50-plus odd countries and not a single country sits on the Security Council as a permanent member wielding the veto, representing Africa and African interests.”
Set up in 1946 by the winners of the World War II, the UN Security Council comprises of 15 members, five of them - Britian, France, China, the United States and Russia - are permanent, while 10 are non-permanent members that serve for two years on a rotational basis.
The council is the UN’s most powerful body and helps shape international law. It has the power to make binding decisions about war and peace. Critics say it represents an international order that no longer exists - that of France, UK, US, China and Russia as world “gendarmes”.

To read more....

President Jakaya Kikwete appeals to international community on DRC

By The guardian reporter - 26th September 2013

IPPMedia

President Jakaya Kikwete has called upon the international community to do all it can to end political conflicts and civil wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

He said ending the political conflicts and wars in the DRC will help the Congolese to live in peace and embark on development activities for their nation.

“ They have a right to peace and rest from such wars and conflicts,” the President told the second meeting for head of States that signed a cooperation agreement for peace for DRC under the United Nations that convened in New York on Monday.

Kikwete noted that the peace seeking mission in the troubled DRC is going on well and that the secret behind the success in DRC was to ensure that what was agreed upon during the first conference on DRC is implemented.

“The secret behind finding a solution to DRC is by ensuring that each and everyone of us is doing what we agreed upon during the first meeting. The measures that we have taken so far in DRC are a good development as far as the peace seeking mission is concerned. It is important that we find a solution for DRC.

People have suffered for long there. They have a right to live peacefully and they have a right to carry on development activities instead of always thinking about war,” Kikwete told the Monday conference under UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

The first sitting for the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on February 24, 2013. Leaders for ICGLR and others who signed the peace seeking deal for DRC attended the meeting.

Apart from Tanzania’s President, other leaders who were in attendance at the New York conference include, Malawi’s Joyce Banda – Southern Africa Development Community SADA) Chairperson, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, DRC’s Joseph Kabila, South Africa’s Jacob Zuma, Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni who is the chairman for ICGLR, African Union Commission Chairman, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon. Also in attendance were vice presidents and representative from Congo Brazzaville, Zambia, Angola and South Sudan.

Most leaders insisted that there was no true peace in DRC. Great Lakes Regions agreed to speak and agree with different groups that were involved in the fighting.

Zuma painting censored by Percy Mabandu

City Press - 27 September 2013

A new work by Ayanda Mabulu, the politically outspoken painter from Cape Town, was removed from the walls of the FNB Joburg Art Fair 2013 for fear, says the artist, that “it will offend sponsors and important people”.
The incident marks another chapter in an ongoing tale of censorship against the controversial, dreadlocked artist who became infamous for painting President Jacob Zuma with his penis exposed – before Brett Murray did the same with The Spear.
Mabulu told City Press that he received a call from his gallery, Commune1, yesterday, the day of the opening of the fair, informing him that the painting would no longer be shown.

To read more....

Zimbabwe is a Victim of Outsiders’ Fantasies

By Percy Zvomuya

Africa is a country | August 12th, 2013

In 2008 or so, I registered for a Masters degree at Wits University with a rather interesting research component that I never got to finish. My thesis was to be an examination of the coverage of Zimbabwe in South Africa’s Sunday Times; the use of the prism of Zimbabwe to debate local issues. The idea was to look at opinion and comment pieces on the Times’ pages and show these as not really examining Zimbabwe but using the country to the north as a touchstone to critique the local.
Words like “Zanufication” and “Zimbabwe”; phrases like “go the way of Zimbabwe” and even stock ones such as “bread basket to basket case” are handy tools in this exercise. They are, in fact, not meant to shoot down whatever is wrong about Zimbabwe but, instead, to bend the barrel of the gun and target it at the self, right at South Africa.
When I conducted some of this research, Thabo Mbeki was president and his battle with Jacob Zuma couldn’t have been more toxic. Among other issues Mbeki, it was argued, was too soft on Zimbabwe; he was stifling debate in the liberation movement; he was going to commit the cardinal Mugabe sin- seeking a third term as ANC president. (If Mugabe finishes his term, he would have been in power for 38 years.)

To read more.....

Office Of Net Assessment Hires Booz Allen Hamilton To Conduct Study On Africa ...

Move Illustrates United States Pre-Occupation With Militarism And Intelligence On The Continent

By Abayomi Azikiwe

Pan-African News Wire - 3 September 2013

As the corporate media focuses on the current war drive against the Middle Eastern nation of Syria, Washington's militarist policies toward Africa continue to go relatively unnoticed by the public. At present oil and other strategic resources imported into the United States from the continent serves as the motivating factor behind the increase in Pentagon troops in Africa.
In 2008 the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) was formed to ostensibly provide the Pentagon with a consistent military focus on the continent. The Bush administration sought to place the headquarters of AFRICOM on the African soil but the proposal attracted such opposition that no state would openly provide its territory for the Command.
However, the administration of President Barack Obama has continued AFRICOM and enhanced its funding and operational capability. The overthrow of the government of Col. Muammar Gaddafi was coordinated by AFRICOM, representing its first full-blown operation in Africa.

To read more....

The Startling Size of US Military Operations in Africa

The Pentagon's Africa Command will tell you there's one military base on the entire continent. Don't believe them. 

By Nick Turse

Mother Jones - September 6, 2013

They're involved in Algeria and Angola, Benin and Botswana, Burkina Faso and Burundi, Cameroon and the Cape Verde Islands. And that's just the ABCs of the situation. Skip to the end of the alphabet and the story remains the same: Senegal and the Seychelles, Togo and Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia. From north to south, east to west, the Horn of Africa to the Sahel, the heart of the continent to the islands off its coasts, the US military is at work. Base construction, security cooperation engagements, training exercises, advisory deployments, special operations missions, and a growing logistics network, all undeniable evidence of expansion—except at US Africa Command.

To continue reading.... 

Call for Papers: In whose interests? Exploring Middle East involvement in Africa

The Afro-Middle East Centre (AMEC) will convene an international conference from 5 to 6 November 2013 in Pretoria, South Africa, to examine the nature and extent of the penetration of Middle Eastern states into Africa. Potential presenters are invited to submit abstracts for consideration.

Decision date: 22 September 2013

Full paper Submission Date: 31 October 2013

About the conference
The conference is framed within Africa’s history of colonialism and of African states and non-state actors being used as proxies on an African battlefield during the Cold War. It will explore the nature of the relationship that exists between both that of state and non-state actors on the continent and the Middle East.  Aside from responding to the paucity in research around the penetration of the Middle East into Africa, and what this means for the continent, the conference further looks to explore ways of enhancing balanced and mutually beneficial relations between Africa and the Middle East region.

Africa’s colonial past and the implications of a postcolonial world defined by neoimperialism and neoliberalism continue to manifest in the socioeconomic reality of the majority of Africans. The recent assertiveness of Africa on the global stage, growing markets, diverse geography, geostrategic importance, and vast natural resources continue to attract the attention of global powers. China, for example, in its unquenchable quest for resources and global partners, turned its focus on Africa, and has succeeded in becoming the continent’s largest trading partner. The past three decades have, however, also seen the entry of new players into Africa, such as India and Brazil. Some of these states share experiential colonial histories as well as similar development experiences and challenges with countries on the continent. This interaction has facilitated the emergence of South coalition blocs such as the India, Brazil, South Africa (IBSA) Dialogue Forum, to promote cooperation amongst these states.

In a postcolonial era, however, the attention that Africa attracts is uneven, sometimes paternalistic, and often under the guise of development, aid and humanitarian assistance. This has often seen the evolution of asymmetrical political and economic relations between African states and these external powers.

Of course, Africa is not a singular monolithic and homogeneous entity.  On the whole, however, it has often been the disadvantaged partner in exploitative relationships.

Scope:
Middle East in Africa
Apart from states that are well-known for their involvement in Africa, such as the USA, China, Brazil and India, the continent has also been targeted by a number of states whose role has garnered relatively little attention. These include states from the Middle East whose strategic involvement in, and outreach to, Africa range from extending their sphere of influence to pursuing ideological interests, and includes economic, business, political, military and religious relations. In particular, Israel, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Gulf states have set their sights on Africa. Certain non-state actors from the Middle East have also looked to Africa to export their ideologies. This manifests in diverse forms: from religious and ideological education projects to involvement in civil or interstate conflict, such as in the Sahel region and Somalia.

Relations between the Middle East and Africa have a long history going back centuries. This has seen beneficial as well exploitative exchanges for Africa. Due to their geographical, cultural and religious proximity to Africa, there is a centuries-old flow of people, ideologies, and sociopolitical undercurrents from countries in the Middle East into Africa, particularly North Africa, East Africa and the Sahel region.

The objectives of the various Middle Eastern countries involved in Africa are numerous, diverse, yet also converge as they jostle to increase their dominance over each other. Due to Iran’s global isolation, Iran sees resonance in Africa, with the continent’s own experience of marginalisation. Africa thus holds the potential to reduce the isolation forced on Iran by western sanctions. Turkey’s revitalised foreign policy under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has seen it extending its global influence. Since 2002, Africa has become part of its revamped foreign policy that looks to see Ankara develop and strengthen ties with countries which Turkey previously had neglected. Today, Turkey has the largest foreign diplomatic and business components in Somalia compared to any other state. With the world’s attention drawn to Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian lands, Israel has attempted to win favour from African countries through its use of soft power under the guise of development, and the sharing of agricultural and technological expertise.  Israel has also recently agreed to provide certain African states with assistance in exchange for the transfer of African refugees from Israel. Tiny Qatar, aside from seeing the opportunities that the continent’s physical expansiveness offers, hopes to extend its global clout and sphere of influence through Africa. This has seen it involved in mediation in African conflicts, for example between Sudan and Darfur rebels. It has also attempted to insert its influence through involvement in the NATO-led overthrow of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.

Paper and Abstracts
AMEC invites submissions of abstracts from people that might be interested in presenting a paper at this conference on the issues discussed here.

Prospective paper titles and abstracts must be in English, and may be emailed to Nazlie Jada at nazlie@amec.org.za by no later than 15 September 2013. Abstracts should not be more than 200 words in length, attached to the email, and in ‘.odt’, ‘.doc’, or ‘.docx’ formats.

If your abstract is accepted, AMEC will expect an original paper submitted prior to the conference. Papers should be between 4 000 and 6 000 words in length, and conform to AMEC’s style guide, which will be provided to authors on the acceptance of an abstract. It is hoped that papers will be published in an edited volume after the conference.

The cost of flights to Johannesburg and accommodation during the conference for speakers will be covered by AMEC.

About the Afro-Middle East Centre (AMEC)
AMEC is a Johannesburg based think tank that looks to understand and enhance relations between Africa, particularly South Africa, and the Middle East and North Africa region.  AMEC seeks to shape public discourse and engage decision makers on issues affecting the region. It further looks to produce and disseminate the highest quality of research on the Middle East, and on issues related to the Middle East and North Africa.

For more information visit http://www.amec.org.za or email info@amec.org.za

A New Issue of African Studies: Volume 72, Issue 2, 2013

Dear all,

New special issue of African Studies on the staging and governing of African diasporas and the state is out now. It is edited by Nauja Kleist and Simon Turner and with articles by Selenia Marabello, Cindy Horst, Victoria Bernal, Turner and Kleist. More info at http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cast20/current

Best regards,
Nauja

********************************************************
Nauja Kleist, PhD
Senior Researcher
Danish Institute for International Studies
Østbanegade 117
2100 Copenhagen Ø

E: nkl@diis.dk
W: www.diis.dk/nkl; www.diis.dk/hope
P: DIIS reception: +45 3269 8787, direct: +45 3269 8667

6TH AASR CONFERENCE IN AFRICA Religion, Ecology, and the Environment in Africa and the African Diaspora

University of Cape Town, South Africa
July 30-August 3, 2014
http://www.a-asr.org/meetings/

CALL FOR PAPERS

The African Association for the Study of Religion (AASR) invites
proposals for indi­vid­ual papers, panels, roundtable, and poster
presentations for its biannual conference to be held at the University
of Cape Town, South Africa, from July 30 to August 3, 2014. The AASR
returns to the theme: Religion, Ecology, and the Environment in Africa
and the African Diaspora to un­derscore its commitment to the growing
environmental crisis and the impact it has on all areas of life and
society in Africa and the African Diaspora. As scholars of religion, we
have an im­portant responsibility, in collaboration with other scholars
in other disciplines to study religion, ecology, and the environment.
This conference offers participants to present research, engage in
dialogue, develop relevant curricula and inform public policy on this
vital and critical issue.

Religion and the stu­dy of religions, ecology, and the environment in
Africa are a major concern for reasons that include radical climate
change; the disappearance of vegetation and wetlands; ex­tensive
exploitation of natural resources; frequent and severe draughts; the
impact of cli­mate changes on population density in major cities; water
and food crises. The field of religious studies offers a variety of
methodological and theoretical approaches to understand and interpret
such phenomena and developments.The aca­demic study of religions as a
field provides an opportunity to examine these issues on different
levels: the­o­ret­ical, methodological, experiential, pedagogical, and
the pragmatic. We believe that unique insights will emerge if religion
is deliberately made a lens through which to unlock the reality of the
preceding themes within the context of the African continent and its
Diaspora.

We invite papers from scholars of religions, the social sciences, the
natural sci­ences, interdisciplinary research groups, and institutes
focusing on ecological and en­vironmental issues that will address,
among other things, the state of knowledge and science on ecology and
environment, ecological and environmental degradation, man­age­ment and
sustainability, and ways of establishing scholarly dialogue on
ecological balance. Papers and round tables could also study and analyze
current and past projects on the continent that relate to religion,
ecology, and the environment. Examples of these would be the tree
planting and ecological ministries of the Christian wing of the
Zimbabwean Institute of Religious Research and Ecological Conservation
(ZIRRCON), or large national initiatives like the Green Belt Movement.
Papers might explore the aims of the projects, current status, their
finances, as well as the environmental challenges that may be posed by
the projects themselves and the prospects for sustainability.

Sub themes and related topics to be considered include the following:

Climate change and the debates on climate change
Nature, nature religions, and sacred spaces and environmental challenges
Religious authority and environmental challenge
Eco-feminism and religious dialogue
Religion, the environment, and food security
The environment and the crisis of safe drinking water
Ecology and economics in religious perspective
Religious, philosophical, and ethical perspectives on ecology
Comparative religious view of environmental action
Theology, ecology, and environmental challenges and promise
Environmental ethics
Faith Based Organizations and sustainable development
Ecology, environment, and political responsibility
Religion and the economics of climate change
Religious perspectives on pharmacopeia, health, medicine and the environment
Religion, biodiversity, and global bio-politics
Religion and environmental pollution
Religion Education and the Environmental Crisis
Critical Religious Terms (rituals, myths, spaces) and Ecology

Abstracts

We invite abstracts of proposed panels, papers, and poster presentations
of two hundred and fifty (250) words. Abstracts should include the title
of the presentation, indicate if audio-visual equipment will be needed
for the presentation and include the author’s contact information
(institutional af­fil­iation, email address and phone number). All
abstracts should be submitted online by November 30, 2013 and full
papers and power point presentations should be submitted by March 30,
2014 on the following:

Online Abstract Submission:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1U7yMexjmqrQDF8YyypVuAaqtu2dtjWKL_xAdOuMV09M/viewform

Papers submitted for publication after the conference will go through a
peer review process when the editors find a publisher.

Accommodation, Registration and Meals

The Conference will be held in Cape Town at the Conference Facilities of
the Breakwater Lodge. A number of rooms have been set aside for the
Conference at this hotel at preferential rates. When booking, mention
the AASR. There are also numerous hotels around this site. Further
options will be posted here soon. Lunches and Dinners will be organized
at additional costs. Arrangements are being made with the hotel
management, and will be posted on this page.

Looking forward to your participation in Cape Town!

Planning Committee:
Adbulkader Tayob: abdulkader.tayob@uct.za
Madipoane Masenya

The Rise of BRICS in Africa The Geopolitics of South-South Relations by Pádraig Carmody

Zed Book, 2013

A little over a decade ago Africa was being spoken of as the 'lost' or 'hopeless' continent in the media. Now it has some of the fastest growing economies in the world, in large part because of the impacts of a group of large developing countries - the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). In this first book to be written about the BRICS as a collective phenomenon, Carmody reveals how the BRICS powers' engagements with Africa, both individually and collectively, are often contradictory, generating new inequalities and potentialities for development. Crucially, Carmody shows how the geopolitics of the BRICS countries' involvement in Africa is impacted by and impacts upon their international relations more generally, and how the emergence of these economies has begun to alter the very nature of globalization, which is no longer purely a Western-led project.

A path-breaking examination of Africa's changing role in the world.

Contents: 
1. Introduction: New Models of Globalisation
2. China in Africa: Globalisation and the Rise of the State?
3. South Africa: Another BRIC in the Wall?
4. India: The Geo-Logics of Agro-Investments
5. Russia: Unalloyed Self-Interest or Reflections in the Mirror?
6. Brazil: Globalising Solidarity or Legitimating Accumulation?
7. Conclusion: Governance and the Evolution of Globalisation in Africa

A New Book: The Democratic Republic of Congo Between Hope and Despair

Michael Deibert

Zed Books, 2013

Over the past two decades, the Democratic Republic of Congo has been at the centre of the deadliest series of conflicts since the Second World War, and now hosts the largest United Nations peacekeeping mission in the world. In this compelling book, acclaimed journalist Michael Deibert paints a picture of a nation in flux, inching towards peace but at the same time solidifying into another era of authoritarian rule under its enigmatic president, Joseph Kabila.


Featuring a wealth of first-hand interviews and secondary sources, the narrative travels from war-torn villages in the country's east to the chaotic, pulsing capital of Kinshasa in order to bring us the voices of the Congolese - from impoverished gold prospectors and market women to government officials - as it explores the complicated political, ethnic and economic geography of this tattered land. A must-read for anyone interested in contemporary Africa, The Democratic Republic of Congo: Between, Hope and Despair sheds new light on this sprawling and often misunderstood country that has become iconic both for its great potential and dashed hopes.

Reviews
'Michael Deibert has connected the thousands of threads linking the Democratic Republic of Congo's conflicts in a way that allows us to see the tattered fabric of this tragic country. Deibert writes with verve, clarity, passion, and obvious empathy for all of the peoples of the Great Lakes region, and his understanding of the regional and global contexts of the Congo wars is outstanding. His story-telling ability is unsurpassed, and even veteran observers of the region will be grateful for his marvelously distilled synthesis of the ordeals Congo has endured over the past 20 years.' - John F. Clark, author of The Failure of Democracy in the Republic of Congo (2008)

'In this remarkable tour de force of reporting, analysis, historical inquiry, and personal experience, Michael Deibert delivers the story of Congo's bloody recent history in unflinching, often bitingly acerbic prose, setting forth in the clearest terms the causes, perpetrators, and disastrous effects of the seemingly endless Congo wars. Anyone searching for a genuine way forward for Congo needs to read this book.' - Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

'A work of excruciating yet compassionate clarity through the political history and unspeakable violence and suffering of civilians in the lands of the Congo, this book is mandatory reading for anyone interested in building lasting peace in the heart of Africa. International donors who support governance and development in the DRC should pay close attention to Michael Deibert's compelling account.' - Markus Schultze-Kraft, Institute of Development Studies

'Michael Deibert's work is the very model of what strong independent journalism can accomplish. His Congo book is no ordinary achievement. It bulges with both the grand sweep of history and a rich variety of voices gathered through enterprising, on the ground reporting.' - Howard W. French, author of China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants are Building a New Empire in Africa

'Michael Deibert's exhaustively researched history of the Congo takes us from the dark days of Belgian conquest and tyranny to the modern day atrocities carried out by warring militias and their legions of child soldiers. The promise driving the madness: abundant natural resources, from gold to diamonds to tantalum. Deibert lays bare complexities of power and he names names, not only those of the Congolese but also of the world leaders who've either turned a blind eye to or directly fomented the misery of the Congolese people.' - Gerry Hadden, author of Never The Hope Itself: Love and Ghosts in Latin America and Haiti

'Michael Deibert restores balance to analysis on the Congo with a holistic view grounded in history and the sociopolitical dynamics at play in the nation. A must-read book to understand the complexity of the crisis in the Congo.' - Kambale Musavuli, spokesperson for Friends of the Congo

'A comprehensive first-rate account of the tragedy of Congo DR: the human suffering, rape and plunder of its immense mineral wealth. Riveting and brutally honest' - George Ayittey, author and president of Free Africa Foundation

Table of Contents

Prologue: the killing fields
1. Kingdom of Kongo to first Congo Republic
2. Fire in his wake
3. The great Congo wars
4. Enter his father's house
5. One hundred per cent Congolese
6. Glittering demons
7. Threats from within and without
8. A false peace
9. Elections, encore
10. Rebellion after rebellion
Epilogue

About the Author:

Michael Deibert is an author and journalist, whose writing has appeared in the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Wall Street Journal, the Miami Herald, Le Monde diplomatique and Folha de São Paulo, among other publications. He has been a featured commentator on international affairs for the BBC, Channel 4, Al Jazeera, National Public Radio, WNYC New York Public Radio and KPFK Pacifica Radio. In recent years, Michael has worked to increase and sustain dialogue on international peace-building and development issues, with a particular focus on Africa and Latin America. He is the author of Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti (2005).

Comes the Voyager at Last: A Tale of Return to Africa by Kofi Awoonor

Comes the Voyager at Last: A Tale of Return to Africa 

by Kofi Awoonor

Comes the Voyager At Last is a work of mythic and consciousness, and affirmation of the life forces of love and humanity in the face of the devastating forces of destruction characterized here in the historical racism that oppressed and continues to oppress black people both on the continent and in the diaspora. The mythic journey of the protagonist ends on the African soil, in the miracle of love, in the affirmation of the black man's ultimate and enduring humanity. 

This Earth, My Brother by Kofi Awoonor

 This Earth, My Brother by Kofi Awoonor 

Set in Ghana, this novel echoes many of the obsessive themes of the author's poems. The story describes the pain of Awoonor's voluntary exile and his spiritual return to his native land.

Obama’s Africa visit: US playing catch-up with China

Russia Today - June 27, 2013

US President Barack Obama began his African tour in a bid to strengthen ties and investment opportunities. But experts say the task might prove difficult as China already has significant influence in the region and US is forced to play catch-up.

Obama arrived in Senegal on Wednesday and is also set to visit South Africa and Tanzania.
The president’s tour is happening as US is taking on a bigger military role in Africa, RT’s Gayane Chichakyan reported.

“We hear about new drone bases popping up on the African continent in countries whose governments receive aid from the US in one form or another. We hear US arming and training US security forces in a number of states in Africa, then we learn how some of those forces commit horrible atrocities and yet the US does not stop to take a second to look who they empower,” Chichakyan said.

Just a few recent examples of US-backed violence include, a UN report about US trained troops in Congo guilty of mass rape and other atrocities and a Human Rights Watch report documenting abuse, rape and torture of at least 1,000 Somali refugees by US-backed Kenyan police forces.

To read more.....

White House unveils strategy for Africa: intensified militarization and war on terror

By Glen Ford

Voltaire Network| New York (United States)| 24 June 2012

The White House has put in writing its policies for sub-Saharan Africa. The problem is, there’s hardly a word of truth in the document, and not a single mention of AFRICOM, the U.S. military command on the continent. The presidential paper repeats Obama’s 2009 lecture to Africans on “good governance.” He also warned that they avoid the “excuses” of blaming “neocolonialism” and “racism” for their problems. Meanwhile, AFRICOM is “positioning the U.S. to launch coups at will against African civilian, or even military, leaders that fall out of favor with Washington.”

To read more....

Political Implications Of Burgeoning Africa-China Relations ...

U.S. Imperialist Militarism On The Continent Seeks To Maintain Dominance Over Growing Efforts Aimed At Genuine Independence

By Pan-African News Wire
June 11, 2013

There has been a considerable amount of discussion and debate over the growing economic and political relations between the People's Republic of China and the African Union member-states. China is reported now to be the largest trading partner with the 54 independent states on the continent.

Since the 1949 Socialist Revolution in China, the country has made tremendous strides in economic development and political status. In just six-and-a-half decades China has grown into the second largest economic power globally. Beijing's opinions and political alliances are always taken into consideration by various imperialist states as well as developing countries of the so-called Global South.

In 2000, the Forum on Africa-China Cooperation (FOCAC) was formed. Over the last thirteen years, some five summits of this organization have been held with concrete results that have been beneficial to both Africa and the China.

China is still a socialist state despite the adoption of capitalist methods of production and trade. The government is controlled by the Communist Party and central planning of the economy provides the country with an advantage that is lacking within Europe and North America where the anarchy of capitalist production has driven down the living standards of working people and rendered hundreds of millions to unemployment, poverty, social insecurity and escalating political repression.

To read more.....

African leaders put ICC to task over Uhuru trial

By EDITH FORTUNATE

African Review | Monday, May 27  2013

African leaders on Sunday supported a petition calling on the International Criminal Court to drop crimes against humanity charges facing Kenyan President Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto.

The leaders want the trials sent back to the national courts.

However, an international human rights NGO was on Sunday pushing back, asking the African leaders to reject what they saw as an attempt to shield Kenyan leaders from justice. The motion for the petition was brought by Uganda and was said to have the support of 53 presidents.

Formal communiqué

Only the President of Botswana opposed it, arguing that the ICC should be allowed to handle the case in accordance with its mandate.

President Kenyatta and Mr Ruto are charged at the ICC in connection with the 2007 post-election violence in which more than 1,000 died and 600,000 others displaced.

To read more.....

Mugabe says Mandela too soft on whites, in documentary

By AFP | Monday, May 27  2013

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe criticises Nelson Mandela for being too soft on whites, in a documentary giving a rare and intimate look into the family life of one of Africa's longest serving and most vilified leaders.

In a cosy lunch setting with his wife and children, the 89-year old speaks on a wide range of issues from his controversial hold on power, to his relationships with former British premiers Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher.

The two-and-a-half hour interview, described in detail by British and South African media ahead of its airing, shows the usually bellicose and sharp-tongued Mugabe as a loving family man.

Dali Tambo, the son of South African anti-apartheid hero Oliver Tambo, produced the documentary, which will be broadcast on South African public television next Sunday.

In the programme, Tambo dines with Mugabe's family at his wife Grace's dairy farm.

The interview comes just months before crucial general elections in the country which in recent decades has gone from being the breadbasket of southern Africa to its biggest problem child.

To read more......

AU at 50: Land issues plague Africa as states lease out community land to foreigners

By RAY NALUYAGA

Africa Review | Sunday, May 26   2013

This week the African Union celebrates its 50th anniversary. How far has the continent come in those fifty years?

For one thing, the land that Africans fought to reclaim from foreign colonisers is being once again taken away from them, this time not by force but through purchase — their leaders are literally selling it from under their feet.

This is perhaps the most urgent continent-wide issue the African Union needs to address.

More than 60 per cent of the African population lives in rural areas and depends on land for its survival. However, reports show that in 2010, up to 123.5 million acres of African land — double the size of Britain — had been grabbed from peasants with the help of their governments.

Also READ: Oxfam report raises red flag on land grabs in Africa

According to Human Rights Watch, as many as 70,000 people in western Gambela region in Ethiopia have been relocated, against their will, to new villages that “lack adequate food, farmland, healthcare and educational facilities.”

To read more....

Envoys welcome Turkey’s belated interest in Africa

SİNEM CENGİZ, ANKARA

Today Zaman - 26 May 2013 

African ambassadors in Ankara welcome Turkey’s belated engagement in Africa, lauding Turkey’s commitment to the continent as a strategic partner to the African Union since 2008.

In an exclusive interview with Sunday’s Zaman on the sidelines of the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), now known as the African Union (AU), African ambassadors in Ankara shared their views on current Turkish-African relations. Over the past several years, Turkey has pursued a multidimensional and multilateral foreign policy towards the African continent.
The policy of opening up to the African continent, which was initiated in 2005, occupies a special place in Turkey’s foreign policy.
Aware of this policy, Ethiopian Ambassador to Turkey Mulatu Teshome Wirtu believes that all African countries consider Turkey a friendly state.
“Turkey opening up to Africa was indeed late, but better late than never. Now, we are compensating for this gap with increasing cooperation,” said Wirtu.
Wirtu maintained that there are excellent political, diplomatic and economic relations between Turkey and African countries. “Turkey interacts with the continent in many fields, including education. The number of students from African countries coming to Turkey for an education is increasing enormously,” said Wirtu.

Turkey has no hidden agenda for Africa.

To read more....

A New Book: The Morality of China in Africa

The Morality of China in Africa: The Middle Kingdom and the Dark Continent 

Stephen Chan

Zed Books 2013 

Edited with authority by the influential and respected Stephen Chan, this unique collection of essays gathers together for the first time both African and Chinese perspectives on China's place in Africa. The book starts with an excellent introductory essay from Stephen Chan, written in his usual elegant prose and featuring some very fresh insights organised with great clarity. Featuring useful historical context, this brave book analyses the 'moral' aspects of the policies and ensuing migration.

The book completely undermines existing assumptions concerning Sino-African relations, such as that Africa is of critical importance for China; that China sees no risk in its largesse towards Africa; and that there is a single Chinese profile/agenda. The resulting collection touches the issue of racism but is equally about moments of pure idealism and 'romance' in Sino-African history.

Table of Contents
Preface
Part1:
The Middle Kingdom and Dark Continent: An Essay on China, Africa, and many fault-lines - Stephen Chan
Part 2: Chinese Responses
Sino-African Cultural Relations: Soft Power, Cultural Statecraft and International Cultural Governance - Jerry C.Y. Liu
From Revolution to Business: China's Changing Discourses on Africa - Qing Cao
Zhuge Liang and Meng Huo: A Metaphor for Sino-African Relations? - L.H.M. Ling
Back to Basics: It could be anyone and, anyway, it's all hard work - Xiaoming Huang
Part 3: African Outlooks
China and Africa: An African View - Patrick Mazimhaka
Competition or Partnership? China, United States and Africa - An African View The African members of the Trilateral Dialogue on China, Africa and the United States - Lopo do Nascimento, William Lyakurwa, Patrick Mazimhaka, Greg Mills, Joe Molo, Sydney Mufamadi, Michael Spicer.
And what about India and Africa? The road ahead - Sumit Roy
The Future of China and Africa - Stephen Chan

Stephen Chan OBE is Professor of International Relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and was a member of the Trilateral Dialogue on China, Africa, and the United States.
www.stephen-chan.com

How China is educating Africa

– and what it means for the west  In an extract from a new book, China's aspirational approach to education and investment in Africa is distinguished from the west's focus on basic needs.

By Stephen Chan
The Guardian - May 12, 2013

The da xue (Mandarin: the big study, or the big reading) or dai ho(k) (Cantonese: the big learning) are Chinese terms for a university. In the romance of the "old days", learning was the only way to bypass the class system. China's annual imperial exams allowed even the poorest subject to step outside his poverty and feudal status to become an official. When, later, learning became concentrated in universities, the institutions became prestigious and symbolic. They were the portals of escape.

With this in mind, it is amazing that Chinese aid to Africa has not seized earlier upon the building of universities. The addition of universities was unremarked in the original Chinese proposal for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2008. China pledged a $9bn loan, $3bn of which was to develop mines, over which China entered a 68/32% joint venture involving Sinohydro Corporation and DRC's previously almost defunct Gecamines; and $6bn was for infrastructure, with China Railway Engineering Corporation playing a major role.

The Chinese expected to gain 6.8m tonnes of copper and 620,000 tonnes of cobalt over a 25-year period. However, China would also build huge expanses of road and railway and, along those transport routes, a large number of clinics, schools and universities. It was an unheard-of proposal; it would have transformed development in the south of DRC, with provision for a huge increase in the national pool of trained personnel; and it thoroughly alarmed the west, which saw an exponential increase of Chinese influence in central Africa.

To read more....

Failure Has Many Fathers: The Coup in the Central African Republic

The Seleka rebels have taken control of Bangui. What does this mean for the future of the long-troubled central African country?

Think Africa Press
28 March 2013 

By Thierry Vircoulon

On Sunday, 24 March 2013, the Seleka rebel alliance in Central African Republic (CAR) took the capital Bangui. President François Bozizé fled to Cameroon. A number of South African troops in Bangui were killed in a fight with the rebels. Seleka leaders now claim to be in control of the government. One of its leaders, Michel Djotodia, reportedly declared himself president and said he would remain in that role for three years. The African Union imposed sanctions on the coup leaders and urged others to do the same.

What is Seleka?

The Seleka – which means alliance in the national language, Sango – is a coalition of several armed groups such as the Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (UFDR), the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP) and the Wa Kodro Salute Patriotic Convention (CPSK), joined by fighters coming from Chad and Darfur. This coalition came from the northeast of the Central African Republic and reached the doorstep of the capital city, Bangui, at the end of December 2012.

To continue reading.......

Africa and China: More than minerals

Chinese trade with Africa keeps growing; fears of neocolonialism are overdone

The Economist
Mar 23rd 2013 | NAIROBI

A GROUP of five tourists from Beijing passes low over Mount Kenya and into the Rift Valley in their private plane before landing on a dusty airstrip surrounded by the yellow trunks and mist-like branches of fever trees. They walk across a grassy opening where zebras and giraffes roam, snapping pictures while keeping an eye out for charging buffaloes. When they sit down at a table, they seem hungry but at ease. “Last year I went to the South Pole with some friends,” says one of two housewives, showing off iPhone pictures of a gaggle of penguins on permafrost.

Chinese are coming to Africa in ever greater numbers and finding it a comfortable place to visit, work in and trade. An estimated 1m are now resident in Africa, up from a few thousand a decade ago, and more keep arriving. Chinese are the fourth-most-numerous visitors to South Africa. Among them will be China’s new president, Xi Jinping, who is also going to Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo on his first foreign outing as leader.

To continue reading.....

Review of Chinua Achebe's There Was a Country

Dear all,

you will find some reviews for Chinua Achebe's most recent book, There was a country below. This is an interesting and complicated book.

There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra by Chinua Achebe Allen Lane, 333 pp, £20.00, September 2012, ISBN 978 1 84614 576 6.



Things Left Unsaid

Reviewed by Chimamanda Adichie

London Review of Books
Vol. 34 No. 19 · 11 October 2012 pages 32-33

Nigeria, at independence from British rule in 1960, was called the Giant of Africa. With a large population, an educated elite and many natural resources, especially oil, Nigeria was supposed to fly the flag of democratic success. It did not, and it is clear now, in retrospect, that it could not possibly have done so. Colonial rule, as a government model, was closer to a dictatorship than a democracy. Nigeria was a young nation, created in 1914, as Nigerian children would learn in history class in the endlessly repeated sentence: ‘Lord Frederick Lugard amalgamated the northern and southern protectorates to form one country and his wife gave it the name Nigeria.’

To continue reading..... 

Chinua Achebe Died

A great African novelist, politician and academician, Chinua Achebe died on Friday. I read his famous novel, Things Fall Apart, several years ago  and was amazed at how he used a native African narrative in order to summarize the traditional relationship between people in a small African village and their struggle with colonialism. His most recent book, There was a Country, is a kind of biography of him, and was published in October 2012. I used this book in my African Studies class in the winter semester. However, I was a little surprised to see how he views the Nigerian-Biafran war separately from the colonial conditions of Nigeria. I think his Igbo background shaped his political and personal views. Therefore, he was criticized by many African intellectuals for being tribe-centric. However tribe-centrism is  to me, an outcome of the colonial conditions he wrote of. I recommend everyone to read his novels Things Fall Apart and There Was A County. We have lost a great African thinker, writer and intellectual.  

Best to all,

Tugrul


Prof Chinua Achebe is Dead By Idris Akinbajo All Africa22 March 2013

Nigeria's literary icon and publisher of several novels, Chinua Achebe, is dead.

Mr. Achebe, 82, died in the United States where he was said to have suffered from an undisclosed ailment.

PREMIUM TIMES learnt he died last night in a hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.

A source close to the family said the professor had been ill for a while and was hospitalised in an undisclosed hospital in Boston.

The source declined to provide further details, saying the family would issue a statement on the development later today.

Contacted, spokesperson for Brown University, where Mr. Achebe worked until he took ill, Darlene Trewcrist, is yet to respond to our enquiries on the professor's condition.

Until his death, the renowned author of Things Fall Apart was the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana Studies at Brown.

The University described him as "known the world over for having played a seminal role in the founding and development of African literature."

"Achebe's global significance lies not only in his talent and recognition as a writer, but also as a critical thinker and essayist who has written extensively on questions of the role of culture in Africa and the social and political significance of aesthetics and analysis of the postcolonial state in Africa," Brown University writes of the literary icon.

Mr. Achebe was the author of Things Fall Apart, published in 1958, and considered the most widely read book in modern African Literature. The book sold over 12 million copies and has been translated to over 50 languages worldwide.

Many of his other novels, including Arrow of God, No Longer at Ease, Anthills of the Savannah, and A man of the People, were equally influential as well.

Prof Achebe was born in Ogidi, Anambra State, on November 16, 1930 and attended St Philips' Central School at the age of six. He moved away from his family to Nekede, four kilometres from Owerri, the capital of Imo State, at the age of 12 and registered at the Central School there.

He attended Government College Umuahia for his secondary school education. He was a pioneer student of the University College, now University of Ibadan in 1948. He was first admitted to study medicine but changed to English, history and theology after his first year.

While studying at Ibadan, Mr. Achebe began to become critical of European literature about Africa.  He eventually wrote his final papers in the University in 1953 and emerged with a second-class degree.

Prof Achebe taught for a while after graduation before joining the Nigeria Broadcasting Service in 1954 in Lagos.

While in Lagos with the Broadcast ing Service, Mr. Achebe met Christie Okoli, who later became his wife; they got married in 1961. The couple had four children.

He also played a major role during the Nigeria Civil War where he joined the Biafran Government as an ambassador.

His latest book, There Was a Country, was an autobiography on his experiences and views of the civil war. The book was probably the most criticised of his writings especially by Nigerians, with many arguing that the professor did not write a balanced account and wrote more as a Biafran than as a Nigerian.

Mr. Achebe was a consistent critic of various military dictators that ruled Nigeria and was a loud voice in denouncing the failure of governance in the country.

Twice, he rejected offers by the Nigerian government to grant him a national honour, citing the deplorable political situations in the country, particularly in his home state of Anambra, as reason.

Below is how Brown University profiled him on its website.

"Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe is known the world over for having played a seminal role in the founding and development of African literature. He continues to be considered among the most significant world writers. He is most well known for the groundbreaking 1958 novel Things Fall Apart, a novel still considered to be required reading the world over. It has sold over twelve million copies and has been translated into more than fifty languages.

"Achebe's global significance lies not only in his talent and recognition as a writer, but also as a critical thinker and essayist who has written extensively on questions of the role of culture in Africa and the social and political significance of aesthetics and analysis of the postcolonial state in Africa. He is renowned, for example, for "An Image of Africa," his trenchant and famous critique of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Today, this critique is recognized as one of the most generative interventions on Conrad; and one that opened the social study of literary texts, particularly the impact of power relations on 20th century literary imagination.

"In addition, Achebe is distinguished in his substantial and weighty investment in the building of literary arts institutions. His work as the founding editor of the Heinemann African Writers Series led to his editing over one hundred titles in it. Achebe also edited the University of Nsukka journal Nsukkascope, founded Okike: A Nigerian Journal of New Writingand assisted in the founding of a publishing house, Nwamife Books–an organization responsible for publishing other groundbreaking work by award-winning writers. He continues his long-standing work on the development of institutional spaces where writers can be published and develop creative and intellectual community."

Foreign Interference in Kenya’s Elections? By Abayomi Azikiwe

Foreign Interference in Kenya’s Elections? 
Uhuru Kenyatta wins while facing charges by the International Criminal Court 

By Abayomi Azikiwe 
Global Research 
March 11, 2013 
Pan-African News Wire

Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta has won the national presidential elections in the East African nation of Kenya. Kenyatta, the son of the first president of the country, Jomo Kenyatta, has come under fire from International Criminal Court (ICC) as well as the governments of the United States and Britain.
Kenyatta representing The National Alliance Party (TNA) won 50.07 percent of the vote eliminating the need for a run-off vote. His closest rival Raila Odinga, representing the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) and the son of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, a leader as well in the Kenyan liberation movement of the 1950s and 1970s, won 43.2 percent of the vote.
Voter turnout was over 86 percent illustrating the high-level of interest in the poll. Odinga rejected the outcome of the election results and is challenging the electoral commission’s tallies through the courts.
The atmosphere surrounding the elections in Kenya was relative peaceful. Five years ago in the aftermath of the voting, violence erupted between supporters of the run-off candidates Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki.
During the unrest in December 2007 and January 2008, some 1,200 people lost their lives. An international team of negotiators from the United Nations and the African Union flew into the country and led talks resulting in the formation of a unity government between Kibaki and Odinga.
This time around both leading candidates have pledged to maintain the peace. Odinga, although challenging the outcome, has said that his opposition to the official results will take place in the courts and not in the streets.
The ICC charges against Kenyatta stem from the unrest in the aftermath of the last election. He is accused of financing and organizing attacks on supporters of Raila Odinga.
The tabulation process for the voting was delayed due to problems associated with a new electronic system. The delay in the results fueled some tensions in the country.
Violence five years ago took on an ethnic character since the majority of supporters of Kibaki were Kikiyu and those of Odinga are Luo. In Kisumu, a stronghold of Odinga, where the violence erupted in December 2007, some began to shout “No Raila, No Peace.”
Nonetheless, Odinga was quoted as saying “Any violence now could destroy this nation forever, but it would not serve anyone interests.” However, he did say that the elections were marked by “rampant illegality” and the electoral process had placed “democracy on trial in Kenya.” ((Reuters, March 9)
Implications for Foreign Interference
Although the Kenyan Supreme Court has stated that it will handle any challenges to the elections fairly and swiftly, the U.S. and Britain have both been accused of using the indictments against Kenyatta and the election results as a leverage to intervene in the internal affairs of the country. Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, who was appointed in 2011, said that “We at the Supreme Court are prepared to hear any petition that  may be filed impartially, fairly, justly and without fear, ill-will, favor, prejudice or bias and in accordance with our constitution and our laws.” (Reuters, March 11)
Kenyatta and his running mate, William Ruto, are facing charges before the ICC. Both men have denied the allegations and say that they will work to clear their names.
The fact that the electorate in Kenya voted in favor of Kenyatta is an indication of the rejection of the ICC and the western imperialists’ attempts to influence the voting. Kenyatta accused the British government of trying to shape the outcome of the vote by warning that any contact with his administration would be at a distance.
The U.S. and other imperialist states indicated that a victory by Kenyatta would complicate relations even though Kenya has been a close ally of Washington and London in the neo-colonial war being waged in neighboring Somalia. Kenya has over 2,000 troops in Somalia participating with the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) which is largely financed by Washington and coordinated through the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM).
According to Alex Perry writing in world.time.com, “If the result withstands Odinga’s challenge, a win for Kenyatta would represent the most stunning articulation to date of a renewed mood of self-assertion in Africa. Half a century ago, Africa echoed with the sound of anticolonial liberation. Today, 10 years of dramatic and sustained economic growth and a growing political maturity coinciding with the economic meltdown in the West and political dysfunction in Washington and Europe have granted Africa’s leaders the authority and means to once again challenge intervention on the continent, whether it comes in the form of foreign diplomatic pressure, foreign aid, foreign rights monitors or even foreign correspondents.” (March 9)
Kenyatta said in his victory speech that “Today, we celebrate the triumph of democracy, the triumph of peace, the triumph of nationhood. We expect the international community to respect the sovereignty and democratic will of the people of Kenya. The Africa star is shining brightly and the destiny of Africa is now in our hands.” (March 9)
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson said prior to the Kenyan elections that “choices have consequences.” This was designed to influence the outcome of the vote.
The ICC has been severely criticized in Africa due to the fact that all of its indictments are centered on leaders and political figures targeted by the U.S. and other imperialist states. Kenyatta will be the second head of state facing indictments by the court based in The Hague.
Republic of Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has been under indictment by the ICC for several years. He, too, has rejected the indictments as a tool utilized by western powers against Sudan.
Most states in Africa and the Middle East have ignored the indictments against President Bashir along with the African Union and the Arab League. Bashir has traveled to numerous African and Arab states for international conferences in defiance of the ICC and the western imperialist states, some of whom, like the U.S., are not party to the Rome Statue which established the ICC.
In an editorial published by the Zimbabwe Sunday Mail entitled “Lessons From Kenya’s Elections,” it states that “All indications point to the fact that this election will have far-reaching implications—not just for relations between Kenya and Western governments but also for relations between Western governments and the rest of the African continent. “ (March 10)
This same article goes on to point out that although Oginga Odinga, Raila’s father, was a true patriot of Kenya and Africa, his son is quite different in regard to his political orientation. Raila Odinga has served as a mouthpiece for U.S. imperialist interests in Africa attacking Zimbabwe and other states targeted by Washington.
The Zimbabwe Sunday Mail observes that Odinga “has come across as a puppet of the West, a man not given to independent thinking. Despite enjoying the support of some Western powers and benefitting from the advantages of incumbency, Raila has once again flattered to deceive.”
Noting the significance of the developments in Kenya, The Sunday Mail stresses that “Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory sends a strong message to the bullies in Washington, London, Paris and Brussels that the people of Africa will no longer be intimidated by racist overlords. In spite of the International Criminal Court charges that dangled above his head like the proverbial sword of Damocles, Uhuru has gone on to win a tough election. It is a huge achievement.”
It will be very interesting to see how the Obama administration proceeds in regard to its relations with Kenya. The country’s strategic location and role within the region will continue to make it a focal point for Washington’s involvement.
Abayomi Azikiwe  Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Kenya vote count 'gives Kenyatta victory'

Provisional figures show deputy prime minister winning presidency with slim margin of 50.03 percent of votes cast.

Al-Jazeera
09 Mar 2013

Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya's deputy prime minister, has won Kenya's presidential election with a slim margin of 50.03 percent of votes cast, according to provisional figures announced by the election commission.

Kenyatta, 51, who faces international charges of crimes against humanity, secured 6,173,433 votes out of a total of 12,338,667 ballots cast, the commission announced on Saturday, indicating that he had secured the more than 50 percent of votes needed for a first round win.
The national election commission said it expected to announce the final result at 11am (08:00 GMT) on Saturday.

Senior advisors to Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who was placed second, have said he will take his case to court if Kenyatta is declared the winner.

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Zulu Song - Miriam Makeba

Zulu Song - Miriam Makeba 

French imperialism engulfs Mali

Abayomi Azikiwe

The Herald Online
February 18, 2013

French defence ministry officials have said that they are planning to make a withdrawal from Mali by April. Since January 11, when the French military began to bomb and launch a ground invasion into

this resource-rich country, the government in Paris has declared that its operations are limited and they were only there as a precursor to the intervention of a regional force from the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas).
Although several thousand troops from various African states, including Chad, Nigeria as well as the national army of Mali, have entered the battle alongside the French, the former colonial power also made an appeal for the United Nations to take over the operations which are really designed to secure the resources of Mali for the benefit of Western industrialised states.
Earlier UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had publicly stated that direct intervention by the international body would jeopardise its personnel carrying out humanitarian work inside the country and throughout the region.
On February 10, in the northern city of Gao, armed combatants opened fire on Malian military forces in the downtown area. Soon French helicopters entered the fray firing into areas in the centre of the city in a battle that lasted well into the evening.
According to a report of the fierce battle published by the Associated Press, “The attack in Gao shows the Islamic fighters, many of them well-armed and with combat experience, are determined and daring and it foreshadows a protracted campaign by France and other nations to restore government control in this vast Saharan nation in north-west Africa.
“The Islamic radicals fought against the Malian army throughout the afternoon and were seen roaming the streets and on rooftops in the center of Gao, which has a population of 90 000. (Feb. 10)
“The fighters involved in this round of clashes were thought to be from the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA). Since the French were reported to have entered Gao on January 26, MOJWA has been firing on their military units from outside the city.” French General Bernard Barera claimed that the MOJWA combatants utilised small boats to cross the Niger River into Gao. On February 9 a bomb was detonated at a checkpoint near the entrance of the city.
Abdoul Abdoulaye Sidibe, a member of the Malian parliament based in the capital of Bamako in the south of the country, said that MOJWA had held Gao prior to the French intervention. In relationship to the battle that began on February 10, Sidibe said that, “There was a whole group of them who took up positions in front of the police station and started firing in all directions.” (Globe and Mail, Feb. 10). Just two days before on February 8, a reported suicide bomber driving a motorcycle detonated explosives at the same entrance to Gao. During the fighting on February 10, people remained in their homes to avoid injury and no civilian casualties have been officially acknowledged.
During the clashes on February 10, a police station was taken over by the MOJWA guerrillas. The next day, February 11, French combat helicopters bombed the station in an effort to drive out the fighters.
Journalists who observed the French military assault on the police station said that the building was destroyed and bodies were left lying in the rubble.
These clashes over a three-day period illustrate clearly that the previous claims by France that the targeted groups had been driven from the cities and towns of Konna, Gao, Sevare, Timbuktu and other areas must be viewed with skepticism. (Al Arabiya, Feb. 11)
French military spokesmen have also claimed that the Islamist groups have fled into the north-east mountainous region of Adrar des Ifoghas. Fighter jets have been carrying out bombing operations under the guise of destroying the bases of the fighters and disrupting their supply lines in the area.
The overall security situation in Gao has been deteriorating for several weeks. A number of Malian soldiers have been reported killed by landmine explosions on the main road leading further north.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS.

Abayomi Azikiwe is editor, Pan-African News Wire.