C. Raja Mohan
Indian Express | May 7, 2014
On his first visit to Africa this week, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang
has once again underlined the importance of high-speed railways in
Beijing’s diplomacy. From America to Asia and Europe to Africa, Chinese
leaders are offering technology, finance and project management in the
construction of high-speed rail networks. In Addis Ababa on Monday, the
first stop in a four-nation tour of what he called the “continent of
hope”, Li outlined a plan to connect all major African cities through a
high-speed railway network. The project is at the heart of a new
framework for Sino-African partnership that Li elaborated upon in his
address to the African Union in Addis Ababa.
In talking about the “Chinese dream” for a continent-wide railway in
Africa, Li was not playing with words. He was invoking China’s enduring
romance with railways. Sun Yat Sen, who led Beijing’s first republic in
the early 20th century, believed railways would modernise and unite
China. Sun’s rail strategy was not limited to the borders of China; he
wanted to extend Chinese railroads to India, the Middle East and Africa.
Read more....
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Who are Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamists?
By Farouk Chothia
BBC Africa - May 7, 2014
Boko Haram promotes a version of Islam which makes it "haram", or forbidden, for Muslims to take part in any political or social activity associated with Western society.
This includes voting in elections, wearing shirts and trousers or receiving a secular education.
Boko Haram regards the Nigerian state as being run by non-believers, even when the country had a Muslim president.
Read more....
BBC Africa - May 7, 2014
Nigeria's militant
Islamist group Boko Haram - which has caused havoc in Africa's most
populous country through a wave of bombings, assassinations and now
abductions - is fighting to overthrow the government and create an
Islamic state.
Its followers are said to be influenced by the Koranic phrase
which says: "Anyone who is not governed by what Allah has revealed is
among the transgressors". Boko Haram promotes a version of Islam which makes it "haram", or forbidden, for Muslims to take part in any political or social activity associated with Western society.
This includes voting in elections, wearing shirts and trousers or receiving a secular education.
Boko Haram regards the Nigerian state as being run by non-believers, even when the country had a Muslim president.
Read more....
Friday, April 25, 2014
'Never keep silent': Tunisia confronts racism
A number of black-rights advocacy organisations have emerged in recent years to tackle legacy of discrimination.
By Afifa Ltifi
Al-Jazeera - 24 Apr 2014
Tunis - For four consecutive days last month, black Tunisians marched against racism, travelling from the island of Djerba in the southeast to Tunis in the north.
The "Equality Caravan", which marked the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, was organised by a group of black Tunisian citizens who hoisted banners reading "Wseef is not a colour," referring to a pejorative racial epithet sometimes used against black Tunisians.
"We wanted to raise awareness, break the taboo subject of racism through this march. We wanted to shock people about the reality of discrimination," said event organiser Maha Abdulhamid, the co-founder and a former member of the black rights' organisation ADAM for Equality and Development in Tunisia.
Read more....
By Afifa Ltifi
Al-Jazeera - 24 Apr 2014
Tunis - For four consecutive days last month, black Tunisians marched against racism, travelling from the island of Djerba in the southeast to Tunis in the north.
The "Equality Caravan", which marked the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, was organised by a group of black Tunisian citizens who hoisted banners reading "Wseef is not a colour," referring to a pejorative racial epithet sometimes used against black Tunisians.
"We wanted to raise awareness, break the taboo subject of racism through this march. We wanted to shock people about the reality of discrimination," said event organiser Maha Abdulhamid, the co-founder and a former member of the black rights' organisation ADAM for Equality and Development in Tunisia.
Read more....
ANC's glory fades as South Africa's 'born free' generation votes
By David Smith
Twenty years after South Africa's first multiracial election, political history cuts little ice with the young electorate
The Guardian, Thursday 24 April 2014
Six months pregnant, Elizabeth Kganyo was determined to cast her vote, even if it meant standing in a sun-baked queue for hours on end. "I was so excited because it was the first time," she recalls, sitting on an upturned plastic basket outside her shack in Diepsloot, north of Johannesburg. "Everybody wanted to vote. Everybody was happy."
South Africa held its first multiracial election 20 years ago on Sunday, defying bombs, bluster and the threat of civil war to conjure a spectacle of voters in long, winding lines that ravished the world. But for Kganyo, like millions of others who put a cross beside the face of Nelson Mandela, those days of miracles and wonder are a fading memory. "It's not the same now. We're not happy to vote any more. It's not like the first time."
Next month, South Africans return to the polls for the first election since Mandela's death and the first in which the so-called "born free" generation – those whose lives began after racial apartheid – are eligible to vote. The African National Congress is in no doubt of a fifth consecutive victory on 7 May but faces an unprecedented long-term challenge both on the streets and at the ballot box.
Read more.....
Twenty years after South Africa's first multiracial election, political history cuts little ice with the young electorate
The Guardian, Thursday 24 April 2014
Six months pregnant, Elizabeth Kganyo was determined to cast her vote, even if it meant standing in a sun-baked queue for hours on end. "I was so excited because it was the first time," she recalls, sitting on an upturned plastic basket outside her shack in Diepsloot, north of Johannesburg. "Everybody wanted to vote. Everybody was happy."
South Africa held its first multiracial election 20 years ago on Sunday, defying bombs, bluster and the threat of civil war to conjure a spectacle of voters in long, winding lines that ravished the world. But for Kganyo, like millions of others who put a cross beside the face of Nelson Mandela, those days of miracles and wonder are a fading memory. "It's not the same now. We're not happy to vote any more. It's not like the first time."
Next month, South Africans return to the polls for the first election since Mandela's death and the first in which the so-called "born free" generation – those whose lives began after racial apartheid – are eligible to vote. The African National Congress is in no doubt of a fifth consecutive victory on 7 May but faces an unprecedented long-term challenge both on the streets and at the ballot box.
Read more.....
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
French, Korean consortium to build $1.4 bln Abidjan rail line
By REUTERS
Ivory Coast said it had signed an initial agreement with a consortium including France's Bouygues and South Korea's Hyundai and Dongsan Engineering to build a 1 billion euro ($1.4 billion) urban rail line in Abidjan.French-speaking West Africa's largest economy has been emerging from a decade-long political crisis that ended in a brief civil war in 2011, and the government is now seeking to improve long neglected infrastructure. The proposed project would involve construction of a 37 km (23 mile) rail line from Abidjan's international airport in the south of the city, through the city centre to its northern suburbs. The line would transport an estimated 300,000 passengers a day, alleviating the traffic jams that currently plague the city of around 5 million inhabitants, the government said in a statement. "The estimated cost of the project is around 1 billion euros," an official with Ivory Coast's transport ministry said, declining to give a timetable for when construction was expected to begin.
Read more...
Ivory Coast said it had signed an initial agreement with a consortium including France's Bouygues and South Korea's Hyundai and Dongsan Engineering to build a 1 billion euro ($1.4 billion) urban rail line in Abidjan.French-speaking West Africa's largest economy has been emerging from a decade-long political crisis that ended in a brief civil war in 2011, and the government is now seeking to improve long neglected infrastructure. The proposed project would involve construction of a 37 km (23 mile) rail line from Abidjan's international airport in the south of the city, through the city centre to its northern suburbs. The line would transport an estimated 300,000 passengers a day, alleviating the traffic jams that currently plague the city of around 5 million inhabitants, the government said in a statement. "The estimated cost of the project is around 1 billion euros," an official with Ivory Coast's transport ministry said, declining to give a timetable for when construction was expected to begin.
Read more...
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Stage set for South Africa's biggest election
The Africa Report - 8 March 2014
South Africa's electoral body, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) says all is in place for the country's fifth democratic elections, set for 7 May.
IEC chief electoral officer, Mosotho Moepya said the body had certified the voters' roll, with 25,390,150 registered to vote.
Moepya said there had been a 9.5% increase in the number of people registered to vote, from 2,208,153 five years ago, while the number had gone by almost 40% from when the roll was first established ahead of the 1999 elections.
Meanwhile, all parties interested in contesting the poll in the nine provinces and the national election had to pay a deposit, submit documentation, including candidate lists last Wednesday,
"A total number of 33 political parties have indicated their intention to contest the election of the National Assembly – although four parties are yet to fully comply with prescribed deposits and may be ruled out before the election," IEC spokeswoman, Kate Bapela, said, although she did not name the parties.
Read more...
South Africa's electoral body, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) says all is in place for the country's fifth democratic elections, set for 7 May.
IEC chief electoral officer, Mosotho Moepya said the body had certified the voters' roll, with 25,390,150 registered to vote.
Moepya said there had been a 9.5% increase in the number of people registered to vote, from 2,208,153 five years ago, while the number had gone by almost 40% from when the roll was first established ahead of the 1999 elections.
Meanwhile, all parties interested in contesting the poll in the nine provinces and the national election had to pay a deposit, submit documentation, including candidate lists last Wednesday,
"A total number of 33 political parties have indicated their intention to contest the election of the National Assembly – although four parties are yet to fully comply with prescribed deposits and may be ruled out before the election," IEC spokeswoman, Kate Bapela, said, although she did not name the parties.
Read more...
Friday, March 14, 2014
Gambia to stop using "colonial relic" English
BANJUL
Reuters - Wed Mar 12, 2014
(Reuters) - Gambia will drop English as an official language soon because it is a colonial relic, President Yahya Jammeh has said, without indicating which language the tiny West African country would use in its place.
Gambia's 1.9 million people speak several African languages including Mandingo, Fula and Wolof, the most widely spoken language of Senegal, its only direct neighbour. The country gained independence from Britain in 1965.
"We no longer believe that for you to be a government you should speak a foreign language. We are going to speak our own language," Jammeh said in an address in English last week that was broadcast on Tuesday.
Read more...
Reuters - Wed Mar 12, 2014
(Reuters) - Gambia will drop English as an official language soon because it is a colonial relic, President Yahya Jammeh has said, without indicating which language the tiny West African country would use in its place.
Gambia's 1.9 million people speak several African languages including Mandingo, Fula and Wolof, the most widely spoken language of Senegal, its only direct neighbour. The country gained independence from Britain in 1965.
"We no longer believe that for you to be a government you should speak a foreign language. We are going to speak our own language," Jammeh said in an address in English last week that was broadcast on Tuesday.
Read more...
Sunday, March 2, 2014
South Africa's largest union eyes new political party
By AFP
Africa Review | Monday, March 3 2014
Read more......
Africa Review | Monday, March 3 2014
South Africa's biggest trade union, the 340,000-strong National
Union of Metalworkers (NUMSA), said Sunday it was laying the ground for a
new "working class" political party.
Union spokesman Castro Ngobese announced the
launch of a new platform, called the United Front Movement for
Socialism, that would group together left-leaning organisations to fight
for better education, healthcare and municipal services for South
Africa's poor.
This would be "a build up to the formation of an independent political party of the working class," he told AFP.
Last year, NUMSA broke with the ruling African
National Congress (ANC), complaining the policies of the former
liberation movement had become too capitalist.
"We should work closely with social and community
organisations as part of making sure that we connect NUMSA with working
class issues," stressed Mr Ngobese.
Read more......
Manufacturing in Africa
An awakening giant If Africa’s economies are to take off, Africans will have to start making a lot more things. They may well do so.
The Economist - Feb 8th 2014 | ADDIS ABABA
LESS than an hour’s drive outside Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, a farmer walks along a narrow path on a green valley floor after milking his cows. Muhammad Gettu is carrying two ten-litre cans to a local market, where he will sell them for less than half of what they would fetch at a dairy in the city. Sadly, he has no transport. A bicycle sturdy enough to survive unpaved tracks would be enough to double his revenues. At the moment none is easily available. But that may be about to change.
An affiliate of SRAM, the world’s second-largest cycle-components maker, based in Chicago, is aiming to invest in Ethiopia. Its Buffalo Bicycles look ungainly but have puncture-resistant tires, a heavy frame and a rear rack that can hold 100kg. They are designed and assembled in Africa, and a growing number of components are made there from scratch, creating more than 100 manufacturing jobs. About 150,000 Buffalo bikes are circulating on the continent, fighting puncture-prone competition from Asia.
Read more....
The Economist - Feb 8th 2014 | ADDIS ABABA
LESS than an hour’s drive outside Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, a farmer walks along a narrow path on a green valley floor after milking his cows. Muhammad Gettu is carrying two ten-litre cans to a local market, where he will sell them for less than half of what they would fetch at a dairy in the city. Sadly, he has no transport. A bicycle sturdy enough to survive unpaved tracks would be enough to double his revenues. At the moment none is easily available. But that may be about to change.
An affiliate of SRAM, the world’s second-largest cycle-components maker, based in Chicago, is aiming to invest in Ethiopia. Its Buffalo Bicycles look ungainly but have puncture-resistant tires, a heavy frame and a rear rack that can hold 100kg. They are designed and assembled in Africa, and a growing number of components are made there from scratch, creating more than 100 manufacturing jobs. About 150,000 Buffalo bikes are circulating on the continent, fighting puncture-prone competition from Asia.
Read more....
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Africa & the Struggle Against Imperialism
Why neocolonialism should be opposed in the western capitalist states
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Pan-African News Wire - March 1, 2014
Note: Below are excerpts from remarks made at two public meetings in Boston and Philadelphia on Feb. 22 and 24 respectively. The events were part of an African American History Month tour sponsored by Workers World Party and the International Action Center branches based in both of these cities.
Feb. 21, 2014, marks the 49th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, El Hajj Malik Shabazz, who was gunned down before hundreds of people in Harlem at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem in 1965. Nearly five decades since his murder there are still many remaining questions about the conspiracy to eliminate this heroic and iconic figure who was a legend in his own time and has been immortalized since he was taken away from his family, comrades and supporters worldwide.
Malcolm X represented the best within transformational leadership during the 20th century. He was born into a Garveyite family with both of his parents playing leading roles within the Universal Negro Improvement Association—African Communities League (UNIA-ACL).
Read more......
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Pan-African News Wire - March 1, 2014
Note: Below are excerpts from remarks made at two public meetings in Boston and Philadelphia on Feb. 22 and 24 respectively. The events were part of an African American History Month tour sponsored by Workers World Party and the International Action Center branches based in both of these cities.
Feb. 21, 2014, marks the 49th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, El Hajj Malik Shabazz, who was gunned down before hundreds of people in Harlem at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem in 1965. Nearly five decades since his murder there are still many remaining questions about the conspiracy to eliminate this heroic and iconic figure who was a legend in his own time and has been immortalized since he was taken away from his family, comrades and supporters worldwide.
Malcolm X represented the best within transformational leadership during the 20th century. He was born into a Garveyite family with both of his parents playing leading roles within the Universal Negro Improvement Association—African Communities League (UNIA-ACL).
Read more......
Friday, February 21, 2014
A New Book: Africa's Urban Revolution
Zed Books, 2014
Table of Contents
1. Africa's urban revolution in context - Edgar Pieterse and Susan Parnell
2. Conflict and post-war transition in African cities - Jo Beall and Tom Goodfellow
3. Sub-Saharan African urbanisation and global environmental change - Susan Parnell and Ruwani Walawege
4. Linking Urbanisation and development in Africa's economic revival - Ivan Turok
5. Religion and social life in African cities - Carole Rakodi
6. Feeding African cities: the growing challenge of urban food insecurity - Jonathan Crush and Bruce Frayne
7. Transport pressures in urban Africa: practices, policies, perspectives - Gordon Pirie
8. Decentralisation and institutional reconfiguration in urban Africa - Warren Smit and Edgar Pieterse
9. The challenge of urban planning law reform in African cities - Stephen Berrisford
10. The education and research imperatives of urban planning professionals in Africa - James Duminy, Nancy Odendaal and Vanessa Watson
11. Filling the void: an agenda for tackling African urbanisation - Edgar Pieterse
12. Infrastructure, real economies and social transformation: assembling the components for regional urban development in Africa - AbdouMaliq Simone
13. National urbanisation and urban strategies: necessary but absent policy instruments in Africa - Susan Parnell and David Simon
14. Urbanisation as a global historical process: theory and evidence from sub-Saharan Africa - Sean Fox
Postscript: Building new knowledge and networks to foster sustainable urban development - Thomas Melin
LSE Review of Books - Reveiwed by Jonathan R. Beloff - February 7, 2014
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Ben Affleck to Testify Before Congress as an Africa Expert
BY John Hudson
Foreign Policy - FEBRUARY 20, 2014
With a vicious spate of mass killings plaguing the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a Senate panel is calling on experts to appear before U.S. lawmakers next week. One of them is Hollywood actor and serial activist Ben Affleck, The Cable has learned. Affleck is slated to appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next Wednesday to discuss the troubled central African country of 75 million people. The Argo director has shown a keen interest in Congo in recent years through his philanthropic organization, the Eastern Congo Initiative. But not everyone thinks Affleck's resume qualifies him to testify on Capitol Hill. When the Seattle-based advisory firm working for Affleck, WilliamsWorks, tried to set up a similar event in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, Republicans did not accept, according to a Congressional aide familiar with the matter. "It was floated and turned down," said the aide.
Read more.....
Foreign Policy - FEBRUARY 20, 2014
With a vicious spate of mass killings plaguing the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a Senate panel is calling on experts to appear before U.S. lawmakers next week. One of them is Hollywood actor and serial activist Ben Affleck, The Cable has learned. Affleck is slated to appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next Wednesday to discuss the troubled central African country of 75 million people. The Argo director has shown a keen interest in Congo in recent years through his philanthropic organization, the Eastern Congo Initiative. But not everyone thinks Affleck's resume qualifies him to testify on Capitol Hill. When the Seattle-based advisory firm working for Affleck, WilliamsWorks, tried to set up a similar event in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, Republicans did not accept, according to a Congressional aide familiar with the matter. "It was floated and turned down," said the aide.
Read more.....
Friday, February 7, 2014
Manufacturing in Africa
An awakening giant If Africa’s economies are to take off, Africans will have to start making a lot more things. They may well do so
The Economist - Feb 8th 2014 | ADDIS ABABA
LESS than an hour’s drive outside Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, a farmer walks along a narrow path on a green valley floor after milking his cows. Muhammad Gettu is carrying two ten-litre cans to a local market, where he will sell them for less than half of what they would fetch at a dairy in the city. Sadly, he has no transport. A bicycle sturdy enough to survive unpaved tracks would be enough to double his revenues. At the moment none is easily available. But that may be about to change.
An affiliate of SRAM, the world’s second-largest cycle-components maker, based in Chicago, is aiming to invest in Ethiopia. Its Buffalo Bicycles look ungainly but have puncture-resistant tires, a heavy frame and a rear rack that can hold 100kg. They are designed and assembled in Africa, and a growing number of components are made there from scratch, creating more than 100 manufacturing jobs. About 150,000 Buffalo bikes are circulating on the continent, fighting puncture-prone competition from Asia.
Read more....
The Economist - Feb 8th 2014 | ADDIS ABABA
LESS than an hour’s drive outside Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, a farmer walks along a narrow path on a green valley floor after milking his cows. Muhammad Gettu is carrying two ten-litre cans to a local market, where he will sell them for less than half of what they would fetch at a dairy in the city. Sadly, he has no transport. A bicycle sturdy enough to survive unpaved tracks would be enough to double his revenues. At the moment none is easily available. But that may be about to change.
An affiliate of SRAM, the world’s second-largest cycle-components maker, based in Chicago, is aiming to invest in Ethiopia. Its Buffalo Bicycles look ungainly but have puncture-resistant tires, a heavy frame and a rear rack that can hold 100kg. They are designed and assembled in Africa, and a growing number of components are made there from scratch, creating more than 100 manufacturing jobs. About 150,000 Buffalo bikes are circulating on the continent, fighting puncture-prone competition from Asia.
Read more....
Thursday, February 6, 2014
The Question of International Aid
Chérie Rivers Ndaliko
Africa is a country | February 6th, 2014
In 2013, Alkebu Film Productions released a 34-minute documentary, Mabele na biso (Our Land), that profiles a community in the Isangi region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that has staunchly refused to be controlled by international aid. Within the matrix of extraordinary initiatives organized in this region, the film focuses primarily on the Mabele Community Radio, that not only offers local programming, but is powered by a generator fuelled by locally produced palm oil. Through its programs, the radio has made significant impacts in the domains of education, agricultural production, women’s rights, and health. As such the radio emerges almost as a character of its own in the film’s larger critique of international aid in Africa. Yet, while the radio is an admittedly inspiring example of community empowerment, the analysis of aid policy offered by key figures in the region is arguably the most compelling aspect of this project.
And this is precisely where things get complicated, for this is a project that both criticizes international aid and is–at least in part–funded by it. What follows is a brief reflection on this film and the ways in which the process of its creation and its potential future shed light on some larger questions of international aid. Here’s the film’s opening scene:
Read more and watch the short documentary.. ..
Africa is a country | February 6th, 2014
In 2013, Alkebu Film Productions released a 34-minute documentary, Mabele na biso (Our Land), that profiles a community in the Isangi region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that has staunchly refused to be controlled by international aid. Within the matrix of extraordinary initiatives organized in this region, the film focuses primarily on the Mabele Community Radio, that not only offers local programming, but is powered by a generator fuelled by locally produced palm oil. Through its programs, the radio has made significant impacts in the domains of education, agricultural production, women’s rights, and health. As such the radio emerges almost as a character of its own in the film’s larger critique of international aid in Africa. Yet, while the radio is an admittedly inspiring example of community empowerment, the analysis of aid policy offered by key figures in the region is arguably the most compelling aspect of this project.
And this is precisely where things get complicated, for this is a project that both criticizes international aid and is–at least in part–funded by it. What follows is a brief reflection on this film and the ways in which the process of its creation and its potential future shed light on some larger questions of international aid. Here’s the film’s opening scene:
Read more and watch the short documentary.. ..
2014 APSA Africa Workshop CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
“Distributive Goods and Distributive Politics”
June 30 to July 11, 2014
Maputo, Mozambique
The American Political Science Association (APSA) and the Higher Institute of Public Administration (ISAP) are pleased to announce a call for applications from individuals who would like to participate in a workshop on “Distributive goods and distributive politics” in Maputo, Mozambique. The two-week workshop will be held from June 30th to July 11th 2014 at the Higher Institute of Public Administration in Maputo, Mozambique. The organizers, with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will cover all the costs of participation (including travel, lodging, meals, and materials) for up to 26 qualified applicants. This year's workshop will be conducted in English.
The workshop leaders are Anne Pitcher (University of Michigan, USA), Rod Alence (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa), Brian Min (University of Michigan, USA), Carlos Shenga (Higher Institute of Public Administration, Mozambique) and Sylvia Croese (Stellenbosch University, South Africa).
Workshop Theme
This two-week workshop will focus on the theme of distributive politics — the study of how governments allocate goods and services and how these allocations affect political outcomes. Some questions we will examine are: Why do governments offer such goods? What kinds of goods do they deliver? Do distributive strategies seek to reward supporters or win over opponents? How do such strategies vary with regime type and electoral institutions?
To understand patterns and outcomes of distributive politics, the course will combine discussion of classic and contemporary theoretical and methodological research on goods provision with hands-on statistical training in the use of R, a publicly available statistical package. Fellows will work with a range of datasets and strengthen their ability to analyze the distribution of public and private goods and their political impacts. In addition to the substantive elements of the course, students will have opportunities to share their work and to receive helpful comments on their research projects.
Follow this web link to the online Application Form. The application deadline is March 14, 2014. Follow this link to download a digital copy of this Call For Applications.pdf.
Workshop Fellows
The workshop is targeted at university and college faculty in the social sciences residing in Africa who are in the early stages of their academic careers. APSA welcomes applications from scholars who have completed their Ph.D. as well as those who are working towards completion. Up to four advanced U.S. Ph.D. students will also be accepted. All Workshop Fellows must be actively engaged in a research project in political science or an area of inquiry related to politics. Fellows should be working on a manuscript, paper, book chapter, or article during the workshop that can be developed into an eventual publication. Preference will be given to scholars working on projects related to the theme of the workshop on distributive politics, but this is not required. All instruction will be in English and all participants should command a high level of proficiency in English. In addition, opportunities to converse informally in Portuguese will be available and Portuguese-speaking scholars are encouraged to apply.
Applications
To submit an application for participation in the workshop, first review the eligibility requirements on APSA’s Africa Workshop website and then follow this web link to the online 2014 Application Form: https://apsa.wufoo.com/forms/2014-apsa-africa-workshop-application-form/. If preferred, a copy of the Application Form in Microsoft Word can be e-mailed to you upon request. Complete applications, including all necessary supporting documents, should be sent to APSA electronically by March 14, 2014; please email all materials directly to africaworkshops@apsanet.org. The final list of selected Workshop Fellows will be announced in early April.
Applications must be submitted in English, and must include:
The completed Application Form (online at www.apsanet.org/africaworkshops).
A detailed, recent Curriculum Vitae/resume.
A 500-word statement that describes your current research plans or ideas and how it relates to the workshop theme.
The draft working paper or manuscript in progress that you propose to take with you to the workshop. This can be a work-in-progress drawn from your current research, or part of a paper, article, or chapter under development. At a minimum, this should be a 2,500-word document that includes: 1) a 150-word abstract; 2) a description of research design; 3) a one-page bibliography of literature most relevant to your paper.
Two letters of reference on official letterhead and scanned as electronic files. If you are a graduate student, one letter should be a letter of introduction from your supervising professor. If you are a researcher or faculty member, the letters can be from a former dissertation supervisor, a colleague or collaborator at your home institution or elsewhere, a university official, or an employer.
For questions, contact Andrew Stinson at africaworkshops@apsanet.org. Please do not contact the workshop leaders directly.
June 30 to July 11, 2014
Maputo, Mozambique
The American Political Science Association (APSA) and the Higher Institute of Public Administration (ISAP) are pleased to announce a call for applications from individuals who would like to participate in a workshop on “Distributive goods and distributive politics” in Maputo, Mozambique. The two-week workshop will be held from June 30th to July 11th 2014 at the Higher Institute of Public Administration in Maputo, Mozambique. The organizers, with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will cover all the costs of participation (including travel, lodging, meals, and materials) for up to 26 qualified applicants. This year's workshop will be conducted in English.
The workshop leaders are Anne Pitcher (University of Michigan, USA), Rod Alence (University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa), Brian Min (University of Michigan, USA), Carlos Shenga (Higher Institute of Public Administration, Mozambique) and Sylvia Croese (Stellenbosch University, South Africa).
Workshop Theme
This two-week workshop will focus on the theme of distributive politics — the study of how governments allocate goods and services and how these allocations affect political outcomes. Some questions we will examine are: Why do governments offer such goods? What kinds of goods do they deliver? Do distributive strategies seek to reward supporters or win over opponents? How do such strategies vary with regime type and electoral institutions?
To understand patterns and outcomes of distributive politics, the course will combine discussion of classic and contemporary theoretical and methodological research on goods provision with hands-on statistical training in the use of R, a publicly available statistical package. Fellows will work with a range of datasets and strengthen their ability to analyze the distribution of public and private goods and their political impacts. In addition to the substantive elements of the course, students will have opportunities to share their work and to receive helpful comments on their research projects.
Follow this web link to the online Application Form. The application deadline is March 14, 2014. Follow this link to download a digital copy of this Call For Applications.pdf.
Workshop Fellows
The workshop is targeted at university and college faculty in the social sciences residing in Africa who are in the early stages of their academic careers. APSA welcomes applications from scholars who have completed their Ph.D. as well as those who are working towards completion. Up to four advanced U.S. Ph.D. students will also be accepted. All Workshop Fellows must be actively engaged in a research project in political science or an area of inquiry related to politics. Fellows should be working on a manuscript, paper, book chapter, or article during the workshop that can be developed into an eventual publication. Preference will be given to scholars working on projects related to the theme of the workshop on distributive politics, but this is not required. All instruction will be in English and all participants should command a high level of proficiency in English. In addition, opportunities to converse informally in Portuguese will be available and Portuguese-speaking scholars are encouraged to apply.
Applications
To submit an application for participation in the workshop, first review the eligibility requirements on APSA’s Africa Workshop website and then follow this web link to the online 2014 Application Form: https://apsa.wufoo.com/forms/2014-apsa-africa-workshop-application-form/. If preferred, a copy of the Application Form in Microsoft Word can be e-mailed to you upon request. Complete applications, including all necessary supporting documents, should be sent to APSA electronically by March 14, 2014; please email all materials directly to africaworkshops@apsanet.org. The final list of selected Workshop Fellows will be announced in early April.
Applications must be submitted in English, and must include:
The completed Application Form (online at www.apsanet.org/africaworkshops).
A detailed, recent Curriculum Vitae/resume.
A 500-word statement that describes your current research plans or ideas and how it relates to the workshop theme.
The draft working paper or manuscript in progress that you propose to take with you to the workshop. This can be a work-in-progress drawn from your current research, or part of a paper, article, or chapter under development. At a minimum, this should be a 2,500-word document that includes: 1) a 150-word abstract; 2) a description of research design; 3) a one-page bibliography of literature most relevant to your paper.
Two letters of reference on official letterhead and scanned as electronic files. If you are a graduate student, one letter should be a letter of introduction from your supervising professor. If you are a researcher or faculty member, the letters can be from a former dissertation supervisor, a colleague or collaborator at your home institution or elsewhere, a university official, or an employer.
For questions, contact Andrew Stinson at africaworkshops@apsanet.org. Please do not contact the workshop leaders directly.
We may soon learn France's real role in the Rwanda genocide
In a milestone court case in Paris, unprecedented testimony could reveal the Elysée's links to the 1994 génocidaires
By Linda Melvern
The Guardian, Wednesday 5 February 2014
The trial this week of a Rwandan genocide suspect in a Paris courtroom is a well-earned victory for the French human rights groups who lobbied so hard and so long for justice. The milestone trial signals the end of France as a safe haven for génocidaries. But more than this, the trial is likely to see intense public scrutiny of one of the great scandals of the past century – the role of France in the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi of Rwanda, which for 20 years journalists and activists have tried so hard to expose.
Pascal Simbikangwa, the defendant in Paris, is said to have been a member of an inner circle of power in Rwanda that devised genocide as a planned political campaign. Developed by Hutu ideologues, it was intended to prevent a power-sharing system of government that was to include the minority Tutsi. The genocide claimed up to a million lives.
A captain in the Rwandan gendarmerie until 1986, when he was paralysed in a car accident, Simbikangwa – a fanatic who hoped to create what was known as "a pure Hutu state" – worked for the security services in the capital Kigali. He was eventually found hiding out in the French department of Mayotte, an island group in the Indian Ocean, with 3,000 forged identity papers – more than enough for the hundreds of Rwandan fugitives still at large. He denies all the charges, and his lawyer says he is a scapegoat.
Read more....
By Linda Melvern
The Guardian, Wednesday 5 February 2014
The trial this week of a Rwandan genocide suspect in a Paris courtroom is a well-earned victory for the French human rights groups who lobbied so hard and so long for justice. The milestone trial signals the end of France as a safe haven for génocidaries. But more than this, the trial is likely to see intense public scrutiny of one of the great scandals of the past century – the role of France in the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi of Rwanda, which for 20 years journalists and activists have tried so hard to expose.
Pascal Simbikangwa, the defendant in Paris, is said to have been a member of an inner circle of power in Rwanda that devised genocide as a planned political campaign. Developed by Hutu ideologues, it was intended to prevent a power-sharing system of government that was to include the minority Tutsi. The genocide claimed up to a million lives.
A captain in the Rwandan gendarmerie until 1986, when he was paralysed in a car accident, Simbikangwa – a fanatic who hoped to create what was known as "a pure Hutu state" – worked for the security services in the capital Kigali. He was eventually found hiding out in the French department of Mayotte, an island group in the Indian Ocean, with 3,000 forged identity papers – more than enough for the hundreds of Rwandan fugitives still at large. He denies all the charges, and his lawyer says he is a scapegoat.
Read more....
Monday, February 3, 2014
80,000 South African Platinum Miners Strike For A Living Wage
By JESSICA DESVARIEUX, TRNN PRODUCER
Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore.
The Real News - Feb. 3, 2014
In South Africa, miners have rejected a 9 percent wage increase offer from the platinum industry as their strike enters its second week. Tens of thousands of members of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, or AMCU, walked off the job last week to protest harsh working conditions. They are also asking for a living wage that will double their current wages. Tensions have been high between the sides, with the media reporting several acts of violence in mining towns. This is the largest strike in the mining sector since the Marikana strike in 2012. South Africa is the leading supplier of the world's platinum, and the strike is expected to take a toll on its economy. Now joining us to discuss all this is Patrick Bond. Patrick is the director of the Centre for Civil Society and professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.
Read more....
Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore.
The Real News - Feb. 3, 2014
In South Africa, miners have rejected a 9 percent wage increase offer from the platinum industry as their strike enters its second week. Tens of thousands of members of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, or AMCU, walked off the job last week to protest harsh working conditions. They are also asking for a living wage that will double their current wages. Tensions have been high between the sides, with the media reporting several acts of violence in mining towns. This is the largest strike in the mining sector since the Marikana strike in 2012. South Africa is the leading supplier of the world's platinum, and the strike is expected to take a toll on its economy. Now joining us to discuss all this is Patrick Bond. Patrick is the director of the Centre for Civil Society and professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.
Read more....
14 African Countries Forced by France to Pay Colonial Tax For the Benefits of Slavery and Colonization
By Mawuna Remarque KOUTONIN
Silicon Africa - Jan. 28, 2014
Did you know many African countries continue to pay colonial tax to France since their independence till today!
When Sékou Touré of Guinea decided in 1958 to get out of french colonial empire, and opted for the country independence, the french colonial elite in Paris got so furious, and in a historic act of fury the french administration in Guinea destroyed everything in the country which represented what they called the benefits from french colonization.
Three thousand French left the country, taking all their property and destroying anything that which could not be moved: schools, nurseries, public administration buildings were crumbled; cars, books, medicine, research institute instruments, tractors were crushed and sabotaged; horses, cows in the farms were killed, and food in warehouses were burned or poisoned.
The purpose of this outrageous act was to send a clear message to all other colonies that the consequences for rejecting France would be very high.
Slowly fear spread trough the african elite, and none after the Guinea events ever found the courage to follow the example of Sékou Touré, whose slogan was “We prefer freedom in poverty to opulence in slavery.”
Read more.....
Silicon Africa - Jan. 28, 2014
Did you know many African countries continue to pay colonial tax to France since their independence till today!
When Sékou Touré of Guinea decided in 1958 to get out of french colonial empire, and opted for the country independence, the french colonial elite in Paris got so furious, and in a historic act of fury the french administration in Guinea destroyed everything in the country which represented what they called the benefits from french colonization.
Three thousand French left the country, taking all their property and destroying anything that which could not be moved: schools, nurseries, public administration buildings were crumbled; cars, books, medicine, research institute instruments, tractors were crushed and sabotaged; horses, cows in the farms were killed, and food in warehouses were burned or poisoned.
The purpose of this outrageous act was to send a clear message to all other colonies that the consequences for rejecting France would be very high.
Slowly fear spread trough the african elite, and none after the Guinea events ever found the courage to follow the example of Sékou Touré, whose slogan was “We prefer freedom in poverty to opulence in slavery.”
Read more.....
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Strengthen Stability in Africa
By Michael E. O'Hanlon
Brookings - January 23, 2014
The United States should, with a focused effort and in partnership with other states, make a significant push to improve security in Africa. No massive deployments of U.S. troops would be needed, and in fact no role for American main combat units is required. But we should step up our game from the current very modest training efforts coordinated through Africa Command (AFRICOM).
The continent is too big for a comprehensive approach or one-size-fits-all initiative. However, the United States could make a major difference by deploying several thousand Americans to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and several hundred trainers to Libya. In the case of the DRC, by supplementing the U.N. mission that has achieved some recent battlefield successes against rebel forces, Americans could help train and mentor a DRC army so that it can gradually replace the U.N. while establishing control over much of the country’s interior (especially in the east). The Congolese war has probably been Africa’s most lethal over the last 15 years; success here could be game-changing.
Read more...
Brookings - January 23, 2014
The United States should, with a focused effort and in partnership with other states, make a significant push to improve security in Africa. No massive deployments of U.S. troops would be needed, and in fact no role for American main combat units is required. But we should step up our game from the current very modest training efforts coordinated through Africa Command (AFRICOM).
The continent is too big for a comprehensive approach or one-size-fits-all initiative. However, the United States could make a major difference by deploying several thousand Americans to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and several hundred trainers to Libya. In the case of the DRC, by supplementing the U.N. mission that has achieved some recent battlefield successes against rebel forces, Americans could help train and mentor a DRC army so that it can gradually replace the U.N. while establishing control over much of the country’s interior (especially in the east). The Congolese war has probably been Africa’s most lethal over the last 15 years; success here could be game-changing.
Read more...
Friday, January 24, 2014
Our Man in Africa
America championed a bloodthirsty torturer to fight the original war on terror. Now, he is finally being brought to justice.
By Michael Bronner
Foreign Policy - January/February 2014
On the last night of november 1990, 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 vise 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.
Read more....
By Michael Bronner
Foreign Policy - January/February 2014
On the last night of november 1990, 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 vise 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.
Read more....
Thursday, January 23, 2014
DEAR WHITE FOLKS: You Need Black Studies Classes (and Here's Why)
Could racism be dismantled with a little education? David Leonard says it's worth a try
By David Leonard
Ebony - January 17, 2014
Recent months have seen a wave of campus racism at America’s colleges and universities, including Fordham University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Cornell University, Northwestern University, and the Ohio State University. While racism is as commonplace at America’s “liberal” training grounds as binge drinking, I found myself wondering about occupying America’s universities. I found myself wondering how Black studies and ethnic studies have the potential to change America’s racial path. How Black studies and understanding the ongoing history of racism is essential to a quest for a “more perfect union.”
Imagine if every student took at least one Black studies course per year during college alongside of Chicano Studies, Asian American Studies and Native American Studies. What if students, what if white students, starting in kindergarten and through graduate school, American’s future leaders, teachers, and voters learned a 4th R – racism – alongside 'reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic? Surely institutional racism would remain an obstacle, but Whites who inhabit those institutions, from the classroom to the Capital, would likely be changed.
Learning about minstrelsy and the history of racist imagery would surely impact the decision from White students to don blackface for the sake of fun, parties and Halloween. Learning about the history of slavery and lynchings would hopefully encourage thought from entire communities the next time a noose appeared on campus, the next time someone scrawled lynch on a chalkboard or dorm room door. There would be no more excuses and claims of ignorance about these histories.
Read more....
By David Leonard
Ebony - January 17, 2014
Recent months have seen a wave of campus racism at America’s colleges and universities, including Fordham University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Cornell University, Northwestern University, and the Ohio State University. While racism is as commonplace at America’s “liberal” training grounds as binge drinking, I found myself wondering about occupying America’s universities. I found myself wondering how Black studies and ethnic studies have the potential to change America’s racial path. How Black studies and understanding the ongoing history of racism is essential to a quest for a “more perfect union.”
Imagine if every student took at least one Black studies course per year during college alongside of Chicano Studies, Asian American Studies and Native American Studies. What if students, what if white students, starting in kindergarten and through graduate school, American’s future leaders, teachers, and voters learned a 4th R – racism – alongside 'reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic? Surely institutional racism would remain an obstacle, but Whites who inhabit those institutions, from the classroom to the Capital, would likely be changed.
Learning about minstrelsy and the history of racist imagery would surely impact the decision from White students to don blackface for the sake of fun, parties and Halloween. Learning about the history of slavery and lynchings would hopefully encourage thought from entire communities the next time a noose appeared on campus, the next time someone scrawled lynch on a chalkboard or dorm room door. There would be no more excuses and claims of ignorance about these histories.
Read more....
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
The amazing, surprising, Africa-driven demographic future of the Earth, in 9 charts
By Max Fisher
The Washington Post - July 16, 2013
The United Nations Population Division, which tracks demographic data from around the world, has dramatically revised its projections for what will happen in the next 90 years. The new statistics, based on in-depth survey data from sub-Saharan Africa, tell the story of a world poised to change drastically over the next several decades. Most rich countries will shrink and age (with a couple of important exceptions), poorer countries will expand rapidly and, maybe most significant of all, Africa will see a population explosion nearly unprecedented in human history.
If these numbers turn out to be right – they're just projections and could change significantly under unforeseen circumstances – the world of 2100 will look very different than the world of today, with implications for everyone. It will be a place where today's dominant, developed economies are increasingly focused on supporting the elderly, where the least developed countries are transformed by population booms and where Africa, for better or worse, is more important than ever.
Here is the story of the next 90 years as predicted by UN demographic data and explained in nine charts. The charts are interactive; move your cursor over them to track and compare the data.
Read more...
The Washington Post - July 16, 2013
The United Nations Population Division, which tracks demographic data from around the world, has dramatically revised its projections for what will happen in the next 90 years. The new statistics, based on in-depth survey data from sub-Saharan Africa, tell the story of a world poised to change drastically over the next several decades. Most rich countries will shrink and age (with a couple of important exceptions), poorer countries will expand rapidly and, maybe most significant of all, Africa will see a population explosion nearly unprecedented in human history.
If these numbers turn out to be right – they're just projections and could change significantly under unforeseen circumstances – the world of 2100 will look very different than the world of today, with implications for everyone. It will be a place where today's dominant, developed economies are increasingly focused on supporting the elderly, where the least developed countries are transformed by population booms and where Africa, for better or worse, is more important than ever.
Here is the story of the next 90 years as predicted by UN demographic data and explained in nine charts. The charts are interactive; move your cursor over them to track and compare the data.
Read more...
Monday, January 20, 2014
Tribute to an African giant: Komla Dumor
By Josef-Israel
Theafricareport.com - Monday, 20 January 2014
My Eritrean colleague was on the phone when I got to the canteen, but as I approached, he put his mobile phone away, giving me his undivided attention. "It's a sad day for us isn't it?" he uttered in a lowered reverend voice. It was a question that required no answer.
I sighed and pointed behind him to the seating area, to one of those classy looking but never ending long benches you find in the dining halls of secondary schools across Ghana. "He was sitting right over there having breakfast just before Christmas and I wished him "Afi Hyia Pa" (Merry Christmas).
Read more...
Theafricareport.com - Monday, 20 January 2014
My Eritrean colleague was on the phone when I got to the canteen, but as I approached, he put his mobile phone away, giving me his undivided attention. "It's a sad day for us isn't it?" he uttered in a lowered reverend voice. It was a question that required no answer.
I sighed and pointed behind him to the seating area, to one of those classy looking but never ending long benches you find in the dining halls of secondary schools across Ghana. "He was sitting right over there having breakfast just before Christmas and I wished him "Afi Hyia Pa" (Merry Christmas).
Read more...
The good white folks of the Academy
By Willie Osterweil
Al-Jazeera - January 15, 2014
How Oscar-nominated films misrepresent African-American history
The Academy Awards have made progress in terms of racial representation. This year a film about slavery is the clear front-runner in many of the major categories, and if “12 Years a Slave” or “Gravity” wins best picture, it would be the first time a movie by a nonwhite director takes the prize. It’s also possible that Lee Daniels (“The Butler”) could join Steve McQueen (“12 Years”) and Alfonso Cuaron (“Gravity”) to make best director a majority-minority category for the first time ever.
It’s certainly a relief to see Oscar-nominated films about black experience actually written and directed by black people (unlike, for example, recent Oscar darlings “Django Unchained,” “The Help,” and “The Blind Side”). But it’s the movie’s producers — who have more power over a film’s content than most recognize — who will actually walk up to accept the best picture statuette. Unsurprisingly, most of them are still white.
That might be one reason why the representations of black experience that the Academy deems best-picture-worthy remain fundamentally unchallenged. Out of the 120 films that received a best picture nomination in the last 20 years, only 17 featured nonwhite protagonists or major characters. In all but four of those films these characters were either extremely poor or criminals. Out of the four remaining, one featured a slave (“Django,” 2012), another an entertainer (“Ray,” 2004), another an athlete (“Jerry Maguire,” 1996). Needless to say, the white characters in these and the other 103 films nominated for best picture held a much wider variety of occupational and socioeconomic positions.
Read more.....
Al-Jazeera - January 15, 2014
How Oscar-nominated films misrepresent African-American history
The Academy Awards have made progress in terms of racial representation. This year a film about slavery is the clear front-runner in many of the major categories, and if “12 Years a Slave” or “Gravity” wins best picture, it would be the first time a movie by a nonwhite director takes the prize. It’s also possible that Lee Daniels (“The Butler”) could join Steve McQueen (“12 Years”) and Alfonso Cuaron (“Gravity”) to make best director a majority-minority category for the first time ever.
It’s certainly a relief to see Oscar-nominated films about black experience actually written and directed by black people (unlike, for example, recent Oscar darlings “Django Unchained,” “The Help,” and “The Blind Side”). But it’s the movie’s producers — who have more power over a film’s content than most recognize — who will actually walk up to accept the best picture statuette. Unsurprisingly, most of them are still white.
That might be one reason why the representations of black experience that the Academy deems best-picture-worthy remain fundamentally unchallenged. Out of the 120 films that received a best picture nomination in the last 20 years, only 17 featured nonwhite protagonists or major characters. In all but four of those films these characters were either extremely poor or criminals. Out of the four remaining, one featured a slave (“Django,” 2012), another an entertainer (“Ray,” 2004), another an athlete (“Jerry Maguire,” 1996). Needless to say, the white characters in these and the other 103 films nominated for best picture held a much wider variety of occupational and socioeconomic positions.
Read more.....
12 Years a Slave: Yet Another Oscar-Nominated 'White Savior' Story
The Academy, like the movie industry overall, tends to gravitate toward stories about slavery when they feature a merciful white man bringing freedom.
By Noah Berlatsky
The Atlantic - Jan 17 2014
A few weeks back, I noted that there are not many movies about slavery. Given that, though, the list of slavery films that have been real contenders come Academy Award season has been surprisingly large. Besides 12 Years a Slave, which won a Golden Globe for Best Picture of the Year (Drama) on Sunday night and yesterday received nine Oscar nominations including one for Best Picture, films recognized in major categories on Oscar night over the past 30 years include Glory, (1989, Best Supporting Actor award), Amistad (1998, Best Supporting Actor nomination), Lincoln (2012, Best Actor award), and Django Unchained (2012, Best Supporting Actor award, Best Original Screenplay award).
Despite the number of films, though, there's a relative paucity of thematic range. All of these critically acclaimed films use variations on a single narrative: Black people are oppressed by bad white people. They achieve freedom through the offices of good white people. Happy ending.
Read more....
By Noah Berlatsky
The Atlantic - Jan 17 2014
A few weeks back, I noted that there are not many movies about slavery. Given that, though, the list of slavery films that have been real contenders come Academy Award season has been surprisingly large. Besides 12 Years a Slave, which won a Golden Globe for Best Picture of the Year (Drama) on Sunday night and yesterday received nine Oscar nominations including one for Best Picture, films recognized in major categories on Oscar night over the past 30 years include Glory, (1989, Best Supporting Actor award), Amistad (1998, Best Supporting Actor nomination), Lincoln (2012, Best Actor award), and Django Unchained (2012, Best Supporting Actor award, Best Original Screenplay award).
Despite the number of films, though, there's a relative paucity of thematic range. All of these critically acclaimed films use variations on a single narrative: Black people are oppressed by bad white people. They achieve freedom through the offices of good white people. Happy ending.
Read more....
Saturday, January 11, 2014
The U.S. and South African Connection: The Budget Deal and Neoliberals
By AMAJU BARAKA
Counter Punch - January 10-12, 2014
It was a fitting historical coincidence that during the same week President Obama was in South Africa to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela, whose Presidency ushered in the South African turn to neoliberalism, a budget deal was brokered by the republicans and democrats that reflected the continued bipartisan commitment to neoliberal policies in the U.S. Hammered out behind closed doors and presented as a done deal to the House of Representatives, the agreement reflected the agenda and demands of the corporate and financial oligarchy that Congressional representatives do what they were sent to Washington to do – ensure that economic and social policies conform to their interests and priorities. Voted on and passed by the House without debate, questions from the public or opportunity for adjustments, the Senate dutifully followed, quickly passing the agreement that was then signed into law by President Obama from his holiday vacation retreat.
Read more...
Counter Punch - January 10-12, 2014
It was a fitting historical coincidence that during the same week President Obama was in South Africa to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela, whose Presidency ushered in the South African turn to neoliberalism, a budget deal was brokered by the republicans and democrats that reflected the continued bipartisan commitment to neoliberal policies in the U.S. Hammered out behind closed doors and presented as a done deal to the House of Representatives, the agreement reflected the agenda and demands of the corporate and financial oligarchy that Congressional representatives do what they were sent to Washington to do – ensure that economic and social policies conform to their interests and priorities. Voted on and passed by the House without debate, questions from the public or opportunity for adjustments, the Senate dutifully followed, quickly passing the agreement that was then signed into law by President Obama from his holiday vacation retreat.
Read more...
12 Years a Slave fails to represent black resistance to enslavement
While there is much to praise in film, omissions from Northup's original memoir miss opportunity to break Hollywood mould Beta
By Carole Boyce Davies
theguardian.com, Friday 10 January 2014
The legendary African-American historian John Hope Franklin used to say that black resistance in stories of enslavement tended to be erased in favour of the narratives of domination and degradation. Yet scholars tell us that while there was often acquiescence under the inhumane conditions of American slavery, there was also always resistance.
Take Harriet Tubman, who was born into slavery but deliberately escaped – and went on to help many more people to freedom. "There are two things I've got a right to and these are death or liberty … one or the other I mean to have," Tubman said. "No one will ever take me back alive; I shall fight for my liberty."
But this resistence is almost entirely missing from Steve McQueen's film 12 Years A Slave, which opens in the UK today. While the 1854 memoir by Solomon Northup, on which the film is based, describes several stories of attempted escapes and fighting back on the part of the enslaved, none of these appear in the film. It does show Northup's emotional resistance to his enslavement and there is one scene where he fights back against the man to whom he was mortgaged, but nobody else in the film seems to be allowed that.
Read more....
By Carole Boyce Davies
theguardian.com, Friday 10 January 2014
The legendary African-American historian John Hope Franklin used to say that black resistance in stories of enslavement tended to be erased in favour of the narratives of domination and degradation. Yet scholars tell us that while there was often acquiescence under the inhumane conditions of American slavery, there was also always resistance.
Take Harriet Tubman, who was born into slavery but deliberately escaped – and went on to help many more people to freedom. "There are two things I've got a right to and these are death or liberty … one or the other I mean to have," Tubman said. "No one will ever take me back alive; I shall fight for my liberty."
But this resistence is almost entirely missing from Steve McQueen's film 12 Years A Slave, which opens in the UK today. While the 1854 memoir by Solomon Northup, on which the film is based, describes several stories of attempted escapes and fighting back on the part of the enslaved, none of these appear in the film. It does show Northup's emotional resistance to his enslavement and there is one scene where he fights back against the man to whom he was mortgaged, but nobody else in the film seems to be allowed that.
Read more....
Blog blossoms into network
By Li Lianxing in Johannesburg
China Daily Africa - 2014-01-10
Website an antidote to ignorance on China, Africa development issues
Online platforms are fast becoming the venue of choice for African nations to broaden their social participation and connections with China and the rest of world.
Eric Olander, a veteran new media and broadcast journalist, who runs the popular website China Africa Project, says his online platform is dedicated to exploring every aspect of China's growing engagement with Africa.
Olander says the website, which relies on a combination of original content and third party material, has been growing in popularity, with more than 140,000 followers on Facebook. According to Olander, most of the followers are from Africa judging from the vibrant and enthusiastic responses to the various development issues pertaining to the continent.
"We started in 2011, and already have the largest online community in Africa. Every month, we get at least 7,000 new followers," he says.
"Though we focus on China and Africa, we ensure that our coverage is neutral and unbiased. We do not follow any particular agenda or favor anyone, be it the Chinese, the Africans, the Europeans or anyone for that matter. Our objective is to use social media to engage in discussions and not to promote an agenda."
Read more....
China Daily Africa - 2014-01-10
Website an antidote to ignorance on China, Africa development issues
Online platforms are fast becoming the venue of choice for African nations to broaden their social participation and connections with China and the rest of world.
Eric Olander, a veteran new media and broadcast journalist, who runs the popular website China Africa Project, says his online platform is dedicated to exploring every aspect of China's growing engagement with Africa.
Olander says the website, which relies on a combination of original content and third party material, has been growing in popularity, with more than 140,000 followers on Facebook. According to Olander, most of the followers are from Africa judging from the vibrant and enthusiastic responses to the various development issues pertaining to the continent.
"We started in 2011, and already have the largest online community in Africa. Every month, we get at least 7,000 new followers," he says.
"Though we focus on China and Africa, we ensure that our coverage is neutral and unbiased. We do not follow any particular agenda or favor anyone, be it the Chinese, the Africans, the Europeans or anyone for that matter. Our objective is to use social media to engage in discussions and not to promote an agenda."
Read more....
The Black Students Who Wouldn't Leave the Lunch Counter
On civil rights, the Sixties actually started on February 1, 1960. And one of the four men who started it was Franklin McCain, who died Thursday at the age of 73.
By Andrew Cohen
The Atlantic - Jan 10 2014
What happened in Greensboro, North Carolina on February 1, 1960, took even John Lewis by surprise. In his memoir, Walking With the Wind, the future civil rights icon (whose most intense days at the head of the movement were yet ahead of him as that decade began) recounted the episode:
Read more....
By Andrew Cohen
The Atlantic - Jan 10 2014
What happened in Greensboro, North Carolina on February 1, 1960, took even John Lewis by surprise. In his memoir, Walking With the Wind, the future civil rights icon (whose most intense days at the head of the movement were yet ahead of him as that decade began) recounted the episode:
Read more....
Amiri Baraka (1934-2014): Poet-Playwright-Activist Who Shaped Revolutionary Politics, Black Culture
Democracynow.org - January 10, 2014
We spend the hour looking at the life and legacy of Amiri Baraka, the poet, playwright and political organizer who died Thursday at the age of 79. Baraka was a leading force in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. In 1963 he published "Blues People: Negro Music in White America," known as the first major history of black music to be written by an African American. A year later he published a collection of poetry titled "The Dead Lecturer" and won an Obie Award for his play, “Dutchman." After the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, he moved to Harlem and founded the Black Arts Repertory Theatre. In the late 1960s, Baraka moved back to his hometown of Newark and began focusing more on political organizing, prompting the FBI to identify him as "the person who will probably emerge as the leader of the pan-African movement in the United States." Baraka continued writing and performing poetry up until his hospitalization late last year, leaving behind a body of work that greatly influenced a younger generation of hip-hop artists and slam poets. We are joined by four of Baraka’s longtime comrades and friends: Sonia Sanchez, a renowned writer, poet, playwright and activist; Felipe Luciano, a poet, activist, journalist and writer who was an original member of the poetry and musical group The Last Poets; Komozi Woodard, a professor of history at Sarah Lawrence College and author of "A Nation Within a Nation: Amiri Baraka and Black Power Politics"; and Larry Hamm, chairman of the People’s Organization for Progress in Newark, New Jersey.
Read more....
We spend the hour looking at the life and legacy of Amiri Baraka, the poet, playwright and political organizer who died Thursday at the age of 79. Baraka was a leading force in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. In 1963 he published "Blues People: Negro Music in White America," known as the first major history of black music to be written by an African American. A year later he published a collection of poetry titled "The Dead Lecturer" and won an Obie Award for his play, “Dutchman." After the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, he moved to Harlem and founded the Black Arts Repertory Theatre. In the late 1960s, Baraka moved back to his hometown of Newark and began focusing more on political organizing, prompting the FBI to identify him as "the person who will probably emerge as the leader of the pan-African movement in the United States." Baraka continued writing and performing poetry up until his hospitalization late last year, leaving behind a body of work that greatly influenced a younger generation of hip-hop artists and slam poets. We are joined by four of Baraka’s longtime comrades and friends: Sonia Sanchez, a renowned writer, poet, playwright and activist; Felipe Luciano, a poet, activist, journalist and writer who was an original member of the poetry and musical group The Last Poets; Komozi Woodard, a professor of history at Sarah Lawrence College and author of "A Nation Within a Nation: Amiri Baraka and Black Power Politics"; and Larry Hamm, chairman of the People’s Organization for Progress in Newark, New Jersey.
Read more....
Friday, January 10, 2014
Africa’s New Struggle Against Financial Imperialism
By Garikai Chengu
Countercurrents.org - 08 January, 2014
Read more...
Countercurrents.org - 08 January, 2014
One hundred
years ago, the European colonists conquered and plundered Africa because
they had far superior technology. To this very day, European nations
continue to plunder Africa because they posses advance weapon. This time
the weapon of choice in the re-conquest of Africa is financial warfare;
it is no longer military force. The end result is the same: Western
corporations profit, whilst Africa remains underdeveloped and
over-exploited.
Financial imperialism is the system
through which a dictatorship of Western capital exercises authoritarian
control over African economies in order to perpetuate the exploitation
of Africa, for the benefit of the West’s capitalist class.
Africa is a paradox that underscores the
ongoing power of financial imperialism. She is spectacularly rich, yet
the natural capital that is extracted from above and below her
children’s feet continues to enrich, not Africans, but the people who
facilitate Africa's impoverishment: Western capitalists.
Read more...
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Thousands of African migrants protest Israel detention policy
TEL AVIV
Reuters - Sun Jan 5, 2014
(Reuters) - Thousands of African migrants, many holding banners demanding freedom for compatriots jailed as illegal job-seekers by Israel, protested on Sunday in a main Tel Aviv square against a new open-ended detention law.
Human rights groups say more than 300 people have been arrested since the law, which allows authorities to detain migrants without valid visas indefinitely, was passed by Israel's parliament three weeks ago.
Some 60,000 migrants, largely from Eritrea and Sudan, have crossed into Israel across a once-porous border with Egypt since 2006, Israeli authorities say.
Many live in poor areas of Tel Aviv and say they want asylum and safe haven. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he views the presence of many of the Africans as a threat to Israel's Jewish social fabric and his government.
An Israeli border fence has since cut off the influx from Egypt, but migrants who have already crossed can be sent to what the government describes as an open prison in Israel's southern desert.
To read more....
Reuters - Sun Jan 5, 2014
(Reuters) - Thousands of African migrants, many holding banners demanding freedom for compatriots jailed as illegal job-seekers by Israel, protested on Sunday in a main Tel Aviv square against a new open-ended detention law.
Human rights groups say more than 300 people have been arrested since the law, which allows authorities to detain migrants without valid visas indefinitely, was passed by Israel's parliament three weeks ago.
Some 60,000 migrants, largely from Eritrea and Sudan, have crossed into Israel across a once-porous border with Egypt since 2006, Israeli authorities say.
Many live in poor areas of Tel Aviv and say they want asylum and safe haven. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he views the presence of many of the Africans as a threat to Israel's Jewish social fabric and his government.
An Israeli border fence has since cut off the influx from Egypt, but migrants who have already crossed can be sent to what the government describes as an open prison in Israel's southern desert.
To read more....
Thursday, December 19, 2013
An Interactive Study Map of African States
Laura J. Mitchell
Africa is a country | December 19th, 2013
“Africa is a country,” some say with irony. Or derision. Or perhaps in sheer frustration, as those of us resident in some other part of the world try to share our interest in the vast, variegated topographies, cultures, and political constellations all called “Africa.” A critique of continents, the etymology of Ifriqiya, and a European fascination with Bilad al-Sudan are well-rehearsed elsewhere. Here in the U.S., we all operate politically and intellectually in a world-view shaped by the U.S. State Department and an area studies model of regions that presents Sub-Saharan Africa as separate from the Maghreb and Mediterranean Africa.
As Africanists, our stock-in-trade includes pushing back. As teachers, scholars, and commentators we poke and prod at constructed geographies, charting unities across previously demarcated sub-regions and identifying particularities in eco-zones or communities that are conventionally grouped with larger nations. In a post-modern landscape, geography is admittedly malleable. But that does not make it optional. I may be hopelessly old-school to say so: but to make sense of a place, you still have to find it on a map.
To read more...
Africa is a country | December 19th, 2013
“Africa is a country,” some say with irony. Or derision. Or perhaps in sheer frustration, as those of us resident in some other part of the world try to share our interest in the vast, variegated topographies, cultures, and political constellations all called “Africa.” A critique of continents, the etymology of Ifriqiya, and a European fascination with Bilad al-Sudan are well-rehearsed elsewhere. Here in the U.S., we all operate politically and intellectually in a world-view shaped by the U.S. State Department and an area studies model of regions that presents Sub-Saharan Africa as separate from the Maghreb and Mediterranean Africa.
As Africanists, our stock-in-trade includes pushing back. As teachers, scholars, and commentators we poke and prod at constructed geographies, charting unities across previously demarcated sub-regions and identifying particularities in eco-zones or communities that are conventionally grouped with larger nations. In a post-modern landscape, geography is admittedly malleable. But that does not make it optional. I may be hopelessly old-school to say so: but to make sense of a place, you still have to find it on a map.
To read more...
Looking for Africa
An African Studies graduate student investigates the program's decline and Yale's new focus on Africa
By Scott Ross
Yale Daily News - Sunday, December 1, 2013
My welcome to Yale was quieter than I expected. On orientation day in August 2012, I took my seat among the seven other first-year African Studies Master’s students in a small classroom on the first floor of Luce Hall. We could hear chatter and laughter coming from other department meetings upstairs, but the atmosphere in our room was subdued. We introduced ourselves and waited for the meeting to begin. The eight of us came from all over — the West Coast, the East Coast, China, Ethiopia — but we had all come to Yale for the same reason: to learn about Africa.
I had just graduated from Arizona State University, where I’d fallen in love with Africa after getting involved with campus advocacy efforts to raise awareness about the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel group in Uganda and Congo. I’d fundraised to rebuild schools in the region, met with elected officials to discuss U.S. involvement, and devoted hours and hours to learning about the conflict.
To read more...
By Scott Ross
Yale Daily News - Sunday, December 1, 2013
My welcome to Yale was quieter than I expected. On orientation day in August 2012, I took my seat among the seven other first-year African Studies Master’s students in a small classroom on the first floor of Luce Hall. We could hear chatter and laughter coming from other department meetings upstairs, but the atmosphere in our room was subdued. We introduced ourselves and waited for the meeting to begin. The eight of us came from all over — the West Coast, the East Coast, China, Ethiopia — but we had all come to Yale for the same reason: to learn about Africa.
I had just graduated from Arizona State University, where I’d fallen in love with Africa after getting involved with campus advocacy efforts to raise awareness about the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel group in Uganda and Congo. I’d fundraised to rebuild schools in the region, met with elected officials to discuss U.S. involvement, and devoted hours and hours to learning about the conflict.
To read more...
Sunday, December 15, 2013
If Nelson Mandela really had won, he wouldn't be seen as a universal hero
Mandela must have died a bitter man. To honour his legacy, we should focus on the unfulfilled promises his leadership gave rise to
By Slavoj Žižek
theguardian.com, Monday 9 December 2013
In the last two decades of his life, Nelson Mandela was celebrated as a model of how to liberate a country from the colonial yoke without succumbing to the temptation of dictatorial power and anti-capitalist posturing. In short, Mandela was not Robert Mugabe, and South Africa remained a multiparty democracy with a free press and a vibrant economy well-integrated into the global market and immune to hasty socialist experiments. Now, with his death, his stature as a saintly wise man seems confirmed for eternity: there are Hollywood movies about him – he was impersonated by Morgan Freeman, who also, by the way, played the role of God in another film; rock stars and religious leaders, sportsmen and politicians from Bill Clinton to Fidel Castro are all united in his beatification.
Is this, however, the whole story? Two key facts remain obliterated by this celebratory vision. In South Africa, the miserable life of the poor majority broadly remains the same as under apartheid, and the rise of political and civil rights is counterbalanced by the growing insecurity, violence and crime. The main change is that the old white ruling class is joined by the new black elite. Second, people remember the old African National Congress that promised not only the end of apartheid, but also more social justice, even a kind of socialism. This much more radical ANC past is gradually obliterated from our memory. No wonder that anger is growing among poor, black South Africans.
To read more...
By Slavoj Žižek
theguardian.com, Monday 9 December 2013
In the last two decades of his life, Nelson Mandela was celebrated as a model of how to liberate a country from the colonial yoke without succumbing to the temptation of dictatorial power and anti-capitalist posturing. In short, Mandela was not Robert Mugabe, and South Africa remained a multiparty democracy with a free press and a vibrant economy well-integrated into the global market and immune to hasty socialist experiments. Now, with his death, his stature as a saintly wise man seems confirmed for eternity: there are Hollywood movies about him – he was impersonated by Morgan Freeman, who also, by the way, played the role of God in another film; rock stars and religious leaders, sportsmen and politicians from Bill Clinton to Fidel Castro are all united in his beatification.
Is this, however, the whole story? Two key facts remain obliterated by this celebratory vision. In South Africa, the miserable life of the poor majority broadly remains the same as under apartheid, and the rise of political and civil rights is counterbalanced by the growing insecurity, violence and crime. The main change is that the old white ruling class is joined by the new black elite. Second, people remember the old African National Congress that promised not only the end of apartheid, but also more social justice, even a kind of socialism. This much more radical ANC past is gradually obliterated from our memory. No wonder that anger is growing among poor, black South Africans.
To read more...
Africa and the Chinese Way
The New York Times - December 15, 2013
The Kamba people of Kenya claim they were warned about the evils of colonialism long before the first colonialist arrived. The legend goes that the prophet Syokimau, back in the early 19th century, told her people of “a long narrow snake spitting fire” that would make its way up from the East African Coast, bringing with it “red people” who would take away their land. She was right; it was the railroads more than anything else that enabled European colonialists to exploit Kenya’s people and extract its wealth during the first half of the 20th century.
The 1,000-kilometer track stretching from the Kenyan port of Mombasa to Uganda was Britain’s most ambitious project in Sub-Saharan Africa. The railroad, begun in 1895, was famously disrupted by the so-called man eaters of the Tsavo, two lions that stalked and attacked construction workers. More than 130 people are said to have been killed — the exact number is uncertain — before the animals were finally hunted down. Within the next five years the railroad was completed and the way opened to British domination of the region.
To read more..
The Kamba people of Kenya claim they were warned about the evils of colonialism long before the first colonialist arrived. The legend goes that the prophet Syokimau, back in the early 19th century, told her people of “a long narrow snake spitting fire” that would make its way up from the East African Coast, bringing with it “red people” who would take away their land. She was right; it was the railroads more than anything else that enabled European colonialists to exploit Kenya’s people and extract its wealth during the first half of the 20th century.
The 1,000-kilometer track stretching from the Kenyan port of Mombasa to Uganda was Britain’s most ambitious project in Sub-Saharan Africa. The railroad, begun in 1895, was famously disrupted by the so-called man eaters of the Tsavo, two lions that stalked and attacked construction workers. More than 130 people are said to have been killed — the exact number is uncertain — before the animals were finally hunted down. Within the next five years the railroad was completed and the way opened to British domination of the region.
To read more..
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Mandela has been sanitised by hypocrites and apologists
The ANC liberation hero has been reinvented as a Kumbaya figure in order to whitewash those who stood behind apartheid
The Guardian, Wednesday 11 December 2013
We have now had a week of unrelenting beatification of Nelson Mandela by exactly the kind of people who stood behind his jailers under apartheid. Mandela was without question a towering historical figure and an outstanding hero of South Africa's liberation struggle. So it would be tempting to imagine they had been won over by the scale of his achievement, courage and endurance.
For some, that may be true. For many others, in the western world in particular, it reeks of the rankest hypocrisy. It is after all Mandela's global moral authority, and the manifest depravity of the system he and the African National Congress brought to an end, that now makes the hostility of an earlier time impossible to defend.
To read more....
The Guardian, Wednesday 11 December 2013
We have now had a week of unrelenting beatification of Nelson Mandela by exactly the kind of people who stood behind his jailers under apartheid. Mandela was without question a towering historical figure and an outstanding hero of South Africa's liberation struggle. So it would be tempting to imagine they had been won over by the scale of his achievement, courage and endurance.
For some, that may be true. For many others, in the western world in particular, it reeks of the rankest hypocrisy. It is after all Mandela's global moral authority, and the manifest depravity of the system he and the African National Congress brought to an end, that now makes the hostility of an earlier time impossible to defend.
To read more....
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
A New Book: Claim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amílcar Cabral
Claim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amílcar Cabral.
Edited by Firoze Manji and Bill Fletcher Jr.
Dakar, CODESRIA and DARAJA Press, 2013
CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS: Senai Abraha • Makungu M. Akinyela • Kali Akuno • Samir Amin • David Austin • Ajamu Baraka • Jesse Benjamin • Angela Davis • Demba Moussa Dembélé • Jacques Depelchin • Mustafah Dhada • Jean-Pierre Diouf • Miguel de Barros •Aziz Fall • Grant Farred • Bill Fletcher Jr • Mireille Fanon-Mendès France • Hashim Gibril • Nigel C. Gibson • Patricia Godinho Gomes • Lewis Gordon • Adrian Harewood • Augusta Henriques • Wangui Kimari • Redy Wilson Lima • Ameth Lo • Richard A. Lobban, Jr • Filomeno Lopes • Brandon Lundy • Firoze Manji • Perry Mars • Bill Minter • Explo Nani-Kofi • Barney Pityana • Maria Poblet • Reiland Rabaka • Asha Rodney • Patricia Rodney • Carlos Schwarz • Helmi Sharawy • Olúfémi Táíwò • Walter Turner • Stephanie Urdang • Chris Webb • Nigel Westmaas • Amrit Wilson
2013 marks the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Amilcar
Cabral, revolutionary, poet, liberation philosopher, and leader of the
independence movement of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde. Cabral’s
influence stretched well beyond the shores of West Africa. He had a
profound influence on the pan-Africanist movement and the black
liberation movement in the US. In this unique collection of essays
contemporary thinkers from across Africa and
internationally commemorate
the anniversary of Cabral’s assassination. They reflect on the legacy
of this extraordinary individual and his relevance to contemporary
struggles for selfdetermination and emancipation. His well-known phrase
“Claim no easy victories” resonates today no less than it did during his
lifetime. The volume comprises sections on Cabral’s legacy; reflections
on the relevance of his ideas; Cabral and the emancipation of women;
Cabral and the pan-Africanists; culture and education; and Cabral’s
contribution to African American struggles. A selected bibliography
provides an overview of Cabral’s writings and of writings about Cabral.
Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) and DARAJA Press ISBN-13: 978-2869785557 ISBN-10: 2869785550 BISAC: Political Science / World / African 518 pages List Price $25.
Edited by Firoze Manji and Bill Fletcher Jr.
Dakar, CODESRIA and DARAJA Press, 2013
CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS: Senai Abraha • Makungu M. Akinyela • Kali Akuno • Samir Amin • David Austin • Ajamu Baraka • Jesse Benjamin • Angela Davis • Demba Moussa Dembélé • Jacques Depelchin • Mustafah Dhada • Jean-Pierre Diouf • Miguel de Barros •Aziz Fall • Grant Farred • Bill Fletcher Jr • Mireille Fanon-Mendès France • Hashim Gibril • Nigel C. Gibson • Patricia Godinho Gomes • Lewis Gordon • Adrian Harewood • Augusta Henriques • Wangui Kimari • Redy Wilson Lima • Ameth Lo • Richard A. Lobban, Jr • Filomeno Lopes • Brandon Lundy • Firoze Manji • Perry Mars • Bill Minter • Explo Nani-Kofi • Barney Pityana • Maria Poblet • Reiland Rabaka • Asha Rodney • Patricia Rodney • Carlos Schwarz • Helmi Sharawy • Olúfémi Táíwò • Walter Turner • Stephanie Urdang • Chris Webb • Nigel Westmaas • Amrit Wilson
Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) and DARAJA Press ISBN-13: 978-2869785557 ISBN-10: 2869785550 BISAC: Political Science / World / African 518 pages List Price $25.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
How Many Times Did Cable News Mention Steve Biko This Week?
By Tommy Christopher
mediaite.com | December 7th, 2013
The death of global civil rights icon Nelson Mandela this week has sparked hours of coverage, including some welcome (and unwelcome) revisitation of Apartheid’s history and impact. While the lion’s share of the coverage has rightly focused on the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela, the retelling of Apartheid’s history has also included many important touchstones and leaders in the struggle against South Africa’s white supremacist government, save one conspicuous omission: Steve Biko.
Even as cable news networks, to varying degrees, recounted important milestones like the Sharpesville Massacre, Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment, the Reagan-ea politics around sanctions against South Africa, and to a much lesser extent, the Soweto Uprising, even as white apartheid figures like P.W. Botha and F.W. de Klerk were written into cable news’ remembrances of Mandela’s lifelong struggle, the name of Stephen Bantu Biko was not uttered. According to the TV Eyes television transcript database and the Internet Archive TV database, Biko was not mentioned once by any of the cable news networks this week.
To read more...
mediaite.com | December 7th, 2013
The death of global civil rights icon Nelson Mandela this week has sparked hours of coverage, including some welcome (and unwelcome) revisitation of Apartheid’s history and impact. While the lion’s share of the coverage has rightly focused on the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela, the retelling of Apartheid’s history has also included many important touchstones and leaders in the struggle against South Africa’s white supremacist government, save one conspicuous omission: Steve Biko.
Even as cable news networks, to varying degrees, recounted important milestones like the Sharpesville Massacre, Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment, the Reagan-ea politics around sanctions against South Africa, and to a much lesser extent, the Soweto Uprising, even as white apartheid figures like P.W. Botha and F.W. de Klerk were written into cable news’ remembrances of Mandela’s lifelong struggle, the name of Stephen Bantu Biko was not uttered. According to the TV Eyes television transcript database and the Internet Archive TV database, Biko was not mentioned once by any of the cable news networks this week.
To read more...
Friday, December 6, 2013
Madiba (Tata) and Western Imperialism
West praises Mandela for own interests
Interview with Abayomi Azikiwe
Press TV - December 6, 2013
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/12/06/338562/west-praises-mandela-for-own-interest/
Mandela's African legacy
By William Gumede in Johannesburg and Patrick Smith
Theafricareport.com - 06 December 2013
http://www.theafricareport.com/News-Analysis/mandelas-african-legacy.html
C.I.A. TIE REPORTED IN MANDELA ARREST
By DAVID JOHNSTON
Special to The New York Times - June 10, 1990
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/10/world/cia-tie-reported-in-mandela-arrest.html
The Conservative Movement’s Long-Time Hate Affair With Nelson Mandela
By BILL BERKOWITZ
TRUTHOUT - December 6, 2013
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18354-conservative-hate-nelson-mandela
The real Mandela: Don’t let his legacy be abused
By John Wight
Russia Today - December 6, 2013
http://rt.com/op-edge/mandela-legacy-abused-cameron-obama-846/
Six Things Nelson Mandela Believed That Most People Won’t Talk About
By Aviva Shen and Judd Legum
Think Progress - December 6, 2013
http://thinkprogress.org/home/2013/12/06/3030781/nelson-mandela-believed-people-wont-talk/
Lest We Forget, on Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel, Mandela Was a Radical
By Mehdi Hasan
The Huffington Post - 06/12/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-hasan/nelson-mandela-iraq-israel_b_4396638.html
Nelson Mandela – an African nationalist
Socialist Resistance - December 5, 2013
http://socialistresistance.org/5331/nelson-mandela-an-african-nationalist
Nelson Mandela: Icon of Africa’s Liberation Struggle, Creation of the Real Movers and Shakers of the Global Scene
By Mike Molyneaux
Global Research - December 06, 2013
http://www.globalresearch.ca/nelson-mandela-icon-of-africas-liberation-struggle-creation-of-the-real-movers-and-shakers-of-the-global-scene/5360531
It was the CIA that helped jail Nelson Mandela
Crocodile Tears to Mask US Imperialism’s Role as the Enemy of African Liberation
By Brian Becker
Liberation - July 18, 2013
http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/cia-helped-jail-nelson-mandela.html
Mandela on U.S. imperialism in Africa in 1950s
By Nelson Mandela
The Militant - Vol. 74/No. 45 November 29, 2010
http://www.themilitant.com/2010/7445/744549.html
Interview with Abayomi Azikiwe
Press TV - December 6, 2013
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/12/06/338562/west-praises-mandela-for-own-interest/
Mandela's African legacy
By William Gumede in Johannesburg and Patrick Smith
Theafricareport.com - 06 December 2013
http://www.theafricareport.com/News-Analysis/mandelas-african-legacy.html
C.I.A. TIE REPORTED IN MANDELA ARREST
By DAVID JOHNSTON
Special to The New York Times - June 10, 1990
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/10/world/cia-tie-reported-in-mandela-arrest.html
The Conservative Movement’s Long-Time Hate Affair With Nelson Mandela
By BILL BERKOWITZ
TRUTHOUT - December 6, 2013
http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18354-conservative-hate-nelson-mandela
The real Mandela: Don’t let his legacy be abused
By John Wight
Russia Today - December 6, 2013
http://rt.com/op-edge/mandela-legacy-abused-cameron-obama-846/
Six Things Nelson Mandela Believed That Most People Won’t Talk About
By Aviva Shen and Judd Legum
Think Progress - December 6, 2013
http://thinkprogress.org/home/2013/12/06/3030781/nelson-mandela-believed-people-wont-talk/
Lest We Forget, on Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel, Mandela Was a Radical
By Mehdi Hasan
The Huffington Post - 06/12/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-hasan/nelson-mandela-iraq-israel_b_4396638.html
Nelson Mandela – an African nationalist
Socialist Resistance - December 5, 2013
http://socialistresistance.org/5331/nelson-mandela-an-african-nationalist
Nelson Mandela: Icon of Africa’s Liberation Struggle, Creation of the Real Movers and Shakers of the Global Scene
By Mike Molyneaux
Global Research - December 06, 2013
http://www.globalresearch.ca/nelson-mandela-icon-of-africas-liberation-struggle-creation-of-the-real-movers-and-shakers-of-the-global-scene/5360531
It was the CIA that helped jail Nelson Mandela
Crocodile Tears to Mask US Imperialism’s Role as the Enemy of African Liberation
By Brian Becker
Liberation - July 18, 2013
http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/cia-helped-jail-nelson-mandela.html
Mandela on U.S. imperialism in Africa in 1950s
By Nelson Mandela
The Militant - Vol. 74/No. 45 November 29, 2010
http://www.themilitant.com/2010/7445/744549.html
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Don’t Sanitize Nelson Mandela: He’s Honored Now, But Was Hated Then
By Peter Beinart
The Daily Beast - December 5th 2013
If we turn the late South African leader into a nonthreatening moral icon, we’ll forget a key lesson from his life: America isn’t always a force for freedom.
Now that he’s dead, and can cause no more trouble, Nelson Mandela is being mourned across the ideological spectrum as a saint. But not long ago, in Washington’s highest circles, he was considered an enemy of the United States. Unless we remember why, we won’t truly honor his legacy.
In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan placed Mandela’s African National Congress on America’s official list of “terrorist” groups. In 1985, then-Congressman Dick Cheney voted against a resolution urging that he be released from jail. In 2004, after Mandela criticized the Iraq War, an article in National Review said his “vicious anti-Americanism and support for Saddam Hussein should come as no surprise, given his longstanding dedication to communism and praise for terrorists.” As late as 2008, the ANC remained on America’s terrorism watch list, thus requiring the 89-year-old Mandela to receive a special waiver from the secretary of State to visit the U.S.
From their perspective, Mandela’s critics were right to distrust him. They called him a “terrorist” because he had waged armed resistance to apartheid. They called him a “communist” because the Soviet Union was the ANC’s chief external benefactor and the South African Communist Party was among its closest domestic allies. More fundamentally, what Mandela’s American detractors understood is that he considered himself an opponent, not an ally, of American power. And that’s exactly what Mandela’s American admirers must remember now.
We must remember it because in Washington today, politicians and pundits breezily describe the Cold War as a struggle between the forces of freedom, backed by the U.S., and the forces of tyranny, backed by the USSR. In some places—Germany, Eastern Europe, eventually Korea—that was largely true. But in South Africa, the Cold War was something utterly different. In South Africa, for decades, American presidents backed apartheid in the name of anti-communism. Indeed, the language of the Cold War proved so morally corrupting that in 1981, Reagan, without irony, called South Africa’s monstrous regime “essential to the free world.”
To read more...
The Daily Beast - December 5th 2013
If we turn the late South African leader into a nonthreatening moral icon, we’ll forget a key lesson from his life: America isn’t always a force for freedom.
In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan placed Mandela’s African National Congress on America’s official list of “terrorist” groups. In 1985, then-Congressman Dick Cheney voted against a resolution urging that he be released from jail. In 2004, after Mandela criticized the Iraq War, an article in National Review said his “vicious anti-Americanism and support for Saddam Hussein should come as no surprise, given his longstanding dedication to communism and praise for terrorists.” As late as 2008, the ANC remained on America’s terrorism watch list, thus requiring the 89-year-old Mandela to receive a special waiver from the secretary of State to visit the U.S.
From their perspective, Mandela’s critics were right to distrust him. They called him a “terrorist” because he had waged armed resistance to apartheid. They called him a “communist” because the Soviet Union was the ANC’s chief external benefactor and the South African Communist Party was among its closest domestic allies. More fundamentally, what Mandela’s American detractors understood is that he considered himself an opponent, not an ally, of American power. And that’s exactly what Mandela’s American admirers must remember now.
We must remember it because in Washington today, politicians and pundits breezily describe the Cold War as a struggle between the forces of freedom, backed by the U.S., and the forces of tyranny, backed by the USSR. In some places—Germany, Eastern Europe, eventually Korea—that was largely true. But in South Africa, the Cold War was something utterly different. In South Africa, for decades, American presidents backed apartheid in the name of anti-communism. Indeed, the language of the Cold War proved so morally corrupting that in 1981, Reagan, without irony, called South Africa’s monstrous regime “essential to the free world.”
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America’s Shameful Treatment of Mandela Still Lingers
During his trip to South Africa, President Obama graciously and reverentially praised Nelson Mandela as a leader who inspired people around the world and that included himself. This was more than just praise for one of the planet’s most respected leaders, the man Obama called by his traditional tribal (and affectionate) name Madiba. He also accurately noted that Mandela was a driving force in the freedom struggle against apartheid and the post-apartheid struggle for democratic, non-racial rule in South Africa. Obama’s heartfelt remarks about Mandela have been part of the consistent U.S. government’s narrative about Mandela since the official dumping of apartheid in 1990 and black majority rule in 1993.
But the embrace of Mandela and the reality of black majority rule in South Africa have come at a steep price. The price was the U.S. government’s decades old assault on Mandela’s character and leadership. The malign treatment by the U.S. of Mandela didn’t end with his release from prison in 1990, the official unbanning of his African National Congress, or even his becoming the first democratically elected President of South Africa in 1993. It didn’t end when he took the rare, tactful and universally praised step of stepping down from the presidency in 1999 after one term. It didn’t even end as then Democratic presidential candidate Obama in 2008 inched close to his election as America’s first African-American president.
The U.S. government still continued to brand Mandela a terrorist and the ANC a terrorist organization. This ridiculous tag on Mandela as a terrorist chilled U.S. relations with Mandela and the South African government even after the power takeover. The chill began with the Reagan administration’s well-documented fierce resistance to the demand that corporations and non-profits divest their financial investments in South Africa, and the administration’s refusal to support UN and international trade sanctions and an arms embargo against South Africa. The Reagan administration’s line was that the ANC was Cuban backed and posed a communist threat to South Africa and by extension U.S. investments. Mandela by then was well into his second decade in prison on Robbins Island, posed no threat to the South African government, and had no direct say in the political or military operations of the ANC. Yet he was still regarded by the Reagan administration as a dangerous subversive. Mandela’s release from prison, the recognition by the apartheid government of the ANC, and his subsequent presidential election changed little, except the terminology of how Mandela was tagged. This dovetailed with the U.S.’s shift to the global fight against terrorism. Mandela instead of being a communist and a subversive simply had the terrorist label slapped on him. Though Regan had dumped him and the organization on the terrorist watch list in the 1980s and it stood unchallenged during those years. It took a concerted effort by civil rights activists and many congressional Democrats to end the political targeting of Mandela. But it was not a slam dunk. As late as 2007, ANC officials, and that included Mandela, who sought to travel to the U.S. still had to get a State Department waiver or special certification in order to enter the country. Mandela had to get that even for his White House visit with George W. Bush in 2005.
The issue finally came to a head that year when Barbara Masekela, the former South African ambassador to the United States, was denied a visa to visit a dying cousin in the United States. A chagrined Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called it “embarrassing.” In April, 2008, she urged Congress to remove Mandela and the organization from the terrorist watch list
With a big prod from the Congressional Black Caucus, Congress finally voted to remove the now 90 year old (and Nobel Prize winner in 1993) Mandela and ANC from the U.S. government’s official terrorist watch list. But even the language of the bill that removed him from the list was hardly a full throated, ringing praise of the ANC and Mandela, or a disavowal of the disgraceful history of his treatment. It did not acknowledge the towering role and stature of Mandela in the fight for justice. It simply said that it would add the ANC to a list of groups that should not be considered terrorist organizations. The closest Congress came to repudiating the official maltreatment of Mandela was then Massachusetts Senator John Kerry’s retort that it was “a great shame” that his name was on the watch list. Rice, for her part, followed this and called Mandela “a great leader.”
Bush promptly signed the bill in July, 2008 after Senate passage. This seemingly closed the book on not a 20 year but the forty year branding of Mandela as a political pariah by the US government. This vicious legacy left a deep scar of suspicion and doubt, and distance from South Africa’s government leaders, and colored relations between the governments that hasn’t ended even today as the U.S. and the world publicly celebrate Madiba’s colossal place in history.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new ebook is America on Trial: The Slaying of Trayvon Martin (Amazon). He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KTYM 1460 AM Radio Los Angeles and KPFK-Radio and the Pacifica Network.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
South Africa's Future Foreign Policy By Nelson Mandela
Foreign Affairs November/December 1993 Issue
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/49408/nelson-mandela/south-africas-future-foreign-policy
NEW PILLARS FOR A NEW WORLD
As the 1980s drew to a close I could not see much of the world from my prison cell, but I knew it was changing. There was little doubt in my mind that this would have a profound impact on my country, on the southern African region and the continent of which I am proud to be a citizen. Although this process of global change is far from complete, it is clear that all nations will have boldly to recast their nets if they are to reap any benefit from international affairs in the post-Cold War era.
The African National Congress (ANC) believes that the charting of a new foreign policy for South Africa is a key element in the creation of a peaceful and prosperous country. Apartheid corroded the very essence of life in South Africa. This is why the country's emerging political leaders are challenged to build a nation in which all people-irrespective of race, color, creed, religion or sex-can assert fully their human worth; after apartheid, our people deserve nothing less than the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
This vision cannot be realized until South Africa can again participate fully in world affairs. For four decades South Africa's international relations were dogged by the apartheid issue. By the end of the 1980s, South Africa was one of the most isolated states on earth. Recovering from this will be no easy task. Conscious of this difficulty, the ANC is involved in developing those policies which will be necessary to take South Africa into the new world order as a responsible global citizen. Additionally, it is concerned with the need to forge a truly professional diplomatic service which will serve all of South Africa's peoples and represent their rich diversity. Fortunately, foreign governments have recognized the importance of this and are generously providing training for young South Africans who wish to make careers in foreign affairs.
Within the context of the current multiparty negotiations, preliminary discussions are also under way between political parties with an interest in foreign affairs in an effort to bridge the divides between them on important policy questions. The pillars upon which our foreign policy will rest are the following beliefs:
To read more....
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/49408/nelson-mandela/south-africas-future-foreign-policy
NEW PILLARS FOR A NEW WORLD
As the 1980s drew to a close I could not see much of the world from my prison cell, but I knew it was changing. There was little doubt in my mind that this would have a profound impact on my country, on the southern African region and the continent of which I am proud to be a citizen. Although this process of global change is far from complete, it is clear that all nations will have boldly to recast their nets if they are to reap any benefit from international affairs in the post-Cold War era.
The African National Congress (ANC) believes that the charting of a new foreign policy for South Africa is a key element in the creation of a peaceful and prosperous country. Apartheid corroded the very essence of life in South Africa. This is why the country's emerging political leaders are challenged to build a nation in which all people-irrespective of race, color, creed, religion or sex-can assert fully their human worth; after apartheid, our people deserve nothing less than the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
This vision cannot be realized until South Africa can again participate fully in world affairs. For four decades South Africa's international relations were dogged by the apartheid issue. By the end of the 1980s, South Africa was one of the most isolated states on earth. Recovering from this will be no easy task. Conscious of this difficulty, the ANC is involved in developing those policies which will be necessary to take South Africa into the new world order as a responsible global citizen. Additionally, it is concerned with the need to forge a truly professional diplomatic service which will serve all of South Africa's peoples and represent their rich diversity. Fortunately, foreign governments have recognized the importance of this and are generously providing training for young South Africans who wish to make careers in foreign affairs.
Within the context of the current multiparty negotiations, preliminary discussions are also under way between political parties with an interest in foreign affairs in an effort to bridge the divides between them on important policy questions. The pillars upon which our foreign policy will rest are the following beliefs:
To read more....
Nelson Mandela, Former Leader of the ANC and President of South Africa, Has Died at 95
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, the father of the nation, has died on December 5 2013 at the age of 95.
05 Dec 2013 23:27 Staff Reporter
South African Mail & Guardian
http://panafricannews.blogspot.com/
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, the father of the nation, died on December 5 2013 at the age of 95.
President Jacob Zuma made the announcement from the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Thursday night. He said Mandela passed away at 20:50 in his Houghton home surrounded by his wife, Graça Machel and members of his family.
Zuma said Mandela would have a state funeral and that the flags would fly half-mast from December 6 until after the funeral.
Long illness
Court affidavits soon confirmed that the former statesman was on an assisted-breathing, life support machine. More reports emerged about Nelson Mandela in the days that followed, that he was in a "permanent vegetative state", although the presidency denied these, maintaining that he was "critical yet stable".
On his 95th birthday, July 18, President Jacob Zuma announced an improvement in Mandela's health. Mandela was discharged from hospital in September and transported to his home in Houghton. In November, his family said he remained "quite ill", but his pneumonia had cleared up. President Jacob Zuma visited Mandela on November 18 and said Mandela was still in a critical condition, but that he continued to respond to treatment.
On December 3 his daughter, Makaziwe Mandela, said the former president was "strong" and "courageous", although he was "on his death bed". Mandela's grandson, Ndaba Mandela, said his grandfather was "not doing well", although, "he is still with us".
His declining health has been the subject of much speculation over the past few years. He was diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer in 2001 but made a full recovery. In 2011, he was admitted to hospital following a severe respiratory infection and a year later underwent a scheduled surgery for a longstanding abdominal complaint.
Mandela was plagued by recurring lung ailments in recent years. He spent 18 days in hospital at the end of 2012 and, despite receiving home-based high care thereafter, was back in hospital in March and April 2013.
There were renewed fears for his health when he returned to hospital in June. Despite assurances from the presidency that he was in a "serious but stable" condition, South Africans began preparing themselves for the worst as Mandela's family members flocked to Johannesburg, struggle stalwarts paid visits to the icon, and the world's media gathered in Qunu, Houghton and at the Pretoria hospital where he was treated.
The much-loved Mandela, known affectionately as Tata Madiba, became increasingly frail and retired from public life in 2004 at the age of 85.
Mandela's last public appearance was a brief one, at the end of the 2010 soccer World Cup. Since then, he has split his time between his home in Houghton, Johannesburg, and his ancestral home in Qunu in the Eastern Cape.
Mandela became the symbol of the struggle against apartheid after he was convicted in the Rivonia Trial of charges of sabotage and was sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island.
Mandela, a key figure in the African National Congress, who helped found the party's youth league and armed wing,Umkhonto We Sizwe, was imprisoned for 27 years before he was finally released in 1990 at the age of 71.
Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, together with former president FW De Klerk, for the 'peaceful termination of the apartheid regime and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa". A year later, he was elected president in the country's first democratic election.
He stepped down from the presidency in 1999 after one term in office but continued with a busy public schedule. He brokered negotiations for peace in Rwanda, established the Mandela-Rhodes Foundation for educational scholarship, and launched the 46664 Aids fundraising foundation.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Why Central African Republic is slipping close to catastrophe
By Paul Melly, Associate Fellow, Chatham House,
Special to CNN December 2, 2013
Is the Central African Republic the world's next Rwanda? That's the question some are beginning to ask about a crisis that has been going on for most of this year but has only just burst through into the mainstream international mass media.
To read more...
Special to CNN December 2, 2013
Is the Central African Republic the world's next Rwanda? That's the question some are beginning to ask about a crisis that has been going on for most of this year but has only just burst through into the mainstream international mass media.
Warlords ruling the countryside by terror, a government that is almost toothless and the collapse of institutions have forced 0.4 million people to flee their homes and left a million dependent on aid.
And now reports of Muslim
and Christian communities engaged in inter-communal violence have
sparked concern about a slide into religious conflict. The "G-word" --
genocide -- has even been floated as a real risk by some observers.
In fact the country has
not yet sunk that far. There is no sign of ideological motivation or the
systematic political organization of mass killings.
To read more...
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