Qadhafi’s horror show

In the The Moor Next Door:

The spectacle of 24 September is that a world of misery will go without any meaningful attention from Western presses, leaders or diplomats and it will have been the fault of everyone involved that serious issues were ignored in favor of continual stupidity and bluster. While the rich may laugh, in rewording Qadhafi for his despotism, murder and gas, Western states have ensured that many peoples’ plight will go without advocacy. Dominated by Libya, Africans will not be heard. As miserable as many African leader may be, few in the biggest and most important states come as close to Mr. Qadhafi in their vulgarity and destructiveness.

More here

Quick Hits

Trust Africa seeks to secure the conditions for democracy and development throughout the continent.
A history of Nigeria's Coup Culture by Max Siollun
The contours of an aid alternative: An abrupt rupture?-Samir Amin
The ICC: Is Kenya a Failed State?-African Executive
Education and Finance in Africa by Shanta Devarajan

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Baobab Connections

"...Baobabconnections is a non-profit internet based media project of Both-ENDS. We encourage youth from across the world to get together on our website and exchange ideas about globalisation and sustainable development..."
A recent project of theirs is a film by Petna Ndaliko Katondolo,Mad-ia:

Mad-ia (short film by Petna Ndaliko Katondolo)
by juma4

'The Gentlemen of Bakongo'

What does one make of the 'The Gentlemen of Bakongo 'from the Congo? A misplaced sense of consumption without production or as they contend, 'The Importance of Being Elegant'.Dylan Jones writes in the Guardian:

As with all dress, the Sapeur style is a form of self-aggrandisement, the cult of appearance. To them, to be well-dressed is to be successful, which is not just the essence of bling, it is a cri de coeur. But they do look extraordinary. They wouldn't look out of place strolling down Savile Row, resplendent in their multicoloured finery, carrying canes and cigars, putting one white buckskin loafer in front of the other and smiling as though they haven't a care in the world.

One wonders have they thought of making any of these items themselves?
via ToeJam

The Ujima Project

Via Maneno

The Ujima Project is a new experiment in journalistic transparency. The Web site offers African journalists, nongovernmental organizations and others seeking factual data access to information that is not readily available in many African countries. The project operates on the premise of reverse transparency, taking database, documents and other information from donor countries -- The United States, European Union, for example -- and providing it in an easily seachable manner. Want to know what NGOs are doing in your country? The Ujima Project can provide some of the answers. Want to know how much your government is spending to influence policy in the United States or to promote its image abroad? The Ujima Project can assist with that as well.

Patterns Beyond Traces

Creative African Network profiles Patterns Beyond Traces

This mixed-abled dance theatre piece is set up in the emotional field outlined between tradition and urbanity: in a world between worlds. Tradition, belief, ritual and ritualised daily grind - five dancers with and without physical disabilities explore what has been passed on to them and reflect it within the ways of their own daily life.

The Next Frontier

Mugure Mugo writes in the Next Frontier:

I can only imagine what Africa must seem like to the outside observer, with stories of war, poverty, illness and so on constantly portrayed in the media. But to me and numerous other African entrepreneurs born into post-colonial Africa, these issues are merely a challenge that we must overcome in order to succeed.
Africa’s Cheetah Generation is ready to take the continent to the next level. We seek opportunities in commerce, industry, education, health and other sectors where we can actively and gainfully engage the rest of the world. We believe the days of aid are over, and are eager to prove our worth to our counterparts in other parts of the world.

More here

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Africa's Becoming more Despotic and Nepotistic

Nkwazi Mhango writes in the African Executive:

Though Africa is more democratic than it was 40 years ago, its future has nary treaded water with me. How can it make sense if it still has stinking legacy of having dictators that ruined their countries for over 40 years such as Gadaffi, Omar Bongo, Gnassigbe Eyadema and other that have been in power for over thirty years?
How can Africa make it democratically if all we see is the coming back of ruling dynasties hell bent to prolong and extend their stays in power in order to conceal their dirty linens-by the way of passing the batons over to their kids or cronies?

More here

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Mamadou Tall Diedhiou's recycled Bird Statues.

Cheikh Seck reports on the work of Mamadou Tall Diedhiou:

Senegal: Recycled Art from Humanwire on Vimeo.

Into the heart of the Niger Delta oil war

An extract from Michael Peel's ‘A Swamp Full of Dollars: Pipelines and Paramilitaries at Nigeria’s Oil Frontier’ FT:

As our speedboat casts off from Yenagoa, in the heart of the Niger Delta, I feel as if I am being propelled into a more welcoming world. A bracing wind replaces the humid closeness of the town, a monument to disorder clustered around a single, thunderous main road. The foliage on either side of the water is thick and lush, with oil palms peeping over the top of the tree line. The river traffic – mainly canoes loaded with goods such as fish, wood and plantains – clings to the banks to avoid being capsized by our wake.
I am traveling with a few guides and a fellow journalist, Glenn ­McKenzie, in search of the Niger Delta’s main militant movement: the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or Mend. The organisation had attacked oil installations and kidnapped dozens of oil workers, prompting the big companies to send non-essential staff home and shut down hundreds of thousands of barrels a day of production.

More here
See Niger Delta Solidarity for further coverage

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"My Father would feel vindicated"-Ken Saro Wiwa Jr

Ken Saro Wiwa Jr," son of murdered writer and Ogoni activist talks about his father, Ken Saro Wiwa, and his work with the Nigerian government."

Part 1

Part 2

The Deep South & Northern Nigeria, A Parallel?

Pius Adesanmi writes in Sahara Reporters:

The lack of exclusive dependence on illegal slave labor and plantations by the North created a pluralistic conceptualization of the material base of society in that part of the United States. This in turn led to a diversification of the sources of wealth creation and a boundless spirit constantly seeking more diverse ways of societal progress and advancement that would later eventuate in manufacturing and industrialization. Theirs was a philosophy of building society yourself...[continue reading]

Photo courtesy of Sahara Reporters

The Crisis of Islamic Civilization

Robin Yassin-Kassab reviews The Crisis of Islamic Civilization By Ali A Allawi:

The economic news is worse still. For all the oil wealth and untrammelled capitalism, the 57 member countries of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (the OIC) account for 22 per cent of global population yet generate only 6 per cent of world GDP. An Islamic alms tax (zakat) of 2.5 per cent on the sovereign wealth funds of Gulf countries would produce an annual $75bn wealth transfer to the poorest Muslim states, but this isn’t on the agenda. Key Islamic values like justice, fairness and education have been ignored. Meanwhile, an illusory counter-movement to the collapse has been led, in the Sunni world, by Wahhabism. This puritanical reform movement is painfully literalist, unimaginative, and viciously sectarian. As anti-intellectual as it is anti-mystical, it rejects the flexibility of the traditional schools of law. Its influence has been projected far beyond the central Arabian desert by oil money and the ungodly Saudi-US alliance. The result is a schizophrenic response to the west—passivity and collaboration on the one hand, nihilistic terrorism on the other.

More here
via 3Quarks daily

Beyond Superficial Indices

In Saraba Orimolade Tosin issues a clarion call to the literary community:

For writers it is time to start exercising power with responsibility. The responsibility we owe the common people whose hearts long for development. We must focus on the real people and the real issues that confront them. We must make the economy strong and vibrant and empower the state to stand for what is right and make it responsive to popular needs and desires. The state must be a state for all. We cannot live these people perpetually at the backwaters of development. Sustainable economic development means that we must put these peoples at the radar of our developmental efforts. For writers, these issues must receive adequate exposure in our writings, be it fiction or non-fiction. We must write the biography of our country not as hagiographers

More here(pdf)

France’s Corrupt Role in Gabon’s Politics Unchanged

France's destructive France Afrique policy continues in Gabon. VOA reports:

The clashes that erupted following Gabon's disputed presidential elections reflect not only anger at the results of the August vote - which proclaimed Ali Bongo the winner - but also at former colonial ruler France. Paris has denied any involvement in the vote, but the unrest raises new questions at what has changed - and what has stayed the same - when it comes to France's relations with its onetime African colonies.
They call it France-Afrique. France's historically close - critics argue suffocatingly close - relations with its former African colonies, and sometimes with African strongmen and undemocratic regimes.

More here
via Yahyasheikho786
HT Harinjaka!

Booty Capitalism

Jibrin Ibrahim in 234Next:

The Sanusi Lamido Sanusi revolution in the financial system has revealed the extent of this booty capitalism and that is why they are after him. We know that a single individual who is the managing director of a bank will give himself a margin loan of 16 billion Naira, use the money to buy shares of the bank he works for and by that act becomes the main owner of the bank.
That individual has no interest in lending to industry or to commerce. He has no interest in serving the interest of the millions of people who had been encouraged to invest their had earned cash in bank shares. That individual becomes a dangerous agent of destruction whose life purpose is using the office for self aggrandisement. The Soludo banking reform was the final death knell to the possibility of capitalist development in Nigeria.

More here

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Football Made in Africa

"...Football Made in Africa demonstrates all the creativity and dynamism of the peoples obliged to deploy a fair amount of cleverness and resourcefulness on a daily basis to be able to indulge in their passion: football...Every episode offers an original angle on a story, a slice of everyday life, where football is present everywhere. From the production of goals in the outskirts of Maputo to the atmosphere in bars where matches are aired on tiny TV screens, the harvesting of rubber tree waste to make balls or the beaches of Cameroon where fishermen use their nets to play. The films are funny and poetic snapshots that reflect the unique imagination and energy of the African continent..."-website

Photo courtesy of TakeFive
via African Digital Art

P.A.P.A. Nigeria

From the Participating Artists Press Agency site:

...Big cities are the new centres to be connected into a global society that works together...Artists can take the lead here. They can make the trail by starting to walk.
P.A.P.A. will be developed in a Lab situation on the spot with artists and photojournalists on the four continents.

They ask the question:

What is news?
“News is what someone, somewhere decides that it is. It comes down to a judgment as to what is important or interesting to a particular audience”. (BBC)
So we will start to define what the particular audience is. We will go out on the street to uncover the news...P.A.P.A.Lab Lagos Nigeria will take place from 7th till 28 th of September 2009. The hosting organisation is The African Artists’ Foundation.

Image of Intercontinental Football Supporter courtesy of P.A.P.A.

Ethiopia: A Country behind Bars?

Etyopian Simbiro writes in Pambazuka

Yesterday’s oppressed have now become today’s worst oppressors, invalidating the meaning of fighting for freedom and exacerbating the culture of vengeance, ethnic prejudice, and discrimination. They are also destroying the possibility of a dissenting and freethinking in Ethiopia step by step. They have already let the country down, a country that listened to the wind of change carefully and hoped that a better future would come, free from state-sponsored terror, torture, rape, and murder. The last 18 years have brought more misery to Ethiopia than what people expected and hoped to see; the minor changes here and there don’t really count. Just like in the past, one group still dominates the rest of the population, a one party system deceptively dressed as a multi-party system.

More here

Africa’s Diaspora and the Cloud

Teddy Ruge Co-founder of Project Diaspora writes:

For the first time, Africa is also adding its rich history and collective voice to the human archive. No longer is Africa’s rich cultural heritage, development and identity championed and hijacked by those from outside and treated as a footnote to human history. Increasingly, Africa’s dispersed Diaspora are amassing a collective intelligence of their own; earning and editing their own Wikipedia entries...

More here

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Eye on Lagos

ABN Digital presents Eye on Lagos:

The business temperature here in Lagos is at boiling point, but like every major business destination there are challenges. Lets find out how businessmen and women in Lagos are adapting.

via Grandiose Parlor

Kenya's Slumdog Millionaires

In Bombastic Elements:

NTV's Janet Kanini Ikua finds new respect for teachers and school children in the heart of Kenya's Mukuru Kayaba slums:

Bongo's Disastrous Legacy

Alex Perry in Time Magazine

...it's worth remembering that Bongo was precisely the kind of leader Gabon, and Africa, could have done without. Gabon has a tiny population (1.4 million) and vast oil reserves, and after four decades of exporting hundreds of billions of dollars of crude,the biggest testament to the corruption and ineptitude of Bongo's rule is that he somehow contrived not to turn his country into an African Kuwait...[continue reading]

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The 'Mzungu' thing

Alex Halperin in Nplusone:

The safer parts of Africa have become a workshop for high-concept philanthropy, wrapping adventurism in a veneer of charity. Young Americans bring yarn to a small Ugandan town, where they teach women to crochet hats to sell back in the States. Two British girls on a gap-year teach kids photography in Nairobi slums. They plan on selling the kids' work from a London gallery and, if the plan works out, somehow reinvesting the profit in the kids.

More here
Hat tip Ory

Pirate Bankers, Shadow Economies

Khadija Sharife writes in FPIF:

In Africa, political power is often used as a ‘get out of jail free’ card, immunising the venal political elite through various mechanisms. Transparency International, the global corruption watchdog renowned for its annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), argues that corruption is especially rampant in Africa. TI defines corruption as the ‘abuse of entrusted power for private gain’, a notion limited to the governing bodies in developing countries.
But this is only half the story. A respectable financial army plays an invaluable role in a global shadow economy. A coterie of bankers, accountants, and lawyers – based in ‘transparent’ London, New York, and Singapore – serve as the ‘postcard-island’ tax havens, and they're backed by multilateral financial institutions. Corrupt government leaders get away with graft much more easily and more frequently because of these international financial enablers

More here
Via Pambazuka

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Paying the Image Cleaners

Rather than governing their countries properly as is expected, African leaders waste scarce resources on image laundering.Patrick Mutahi writes in the Monitor:

Due to bad governance and human rights violations, African governments have sought to enhance their tattered images abroad since it can make the difference between more and less foreign Aid. In the process, they have paid millions of dollars to lobby groups at the expense of development and democracy instead pursuing the most cost-effective way— putting their houses in order

More here

A Eulogy for Gani Fawehinmi (1938-2009)

Toyin Adepoju writes:

Gani Fawehinmi was one of the ever resilient few,along with Nobel Laurete Wole Soyinka and other figures,who insisted on fighting causes whose primary or only relationship with their own well being was that it affected all Nigerians.He endured imprisonment,harassment and the climate of assassination created by the Babanginda and Abacha regimes in battling causes which,even though,they did not always succeed against totalitarian governments who controlled the organs of the law,succeeded in focusing national and international attention on the villainy represented by a significant number of the activities of such governments,as well as highlighting their illegitimate means of coming to power...[continue reading]

See here for further coverage
Photo courtesy of 234Next

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Madaktari Africa

Madaktari Africa works to create stronger, more self-sufficient communities in the developing world. Our physician-volunteers train local doctors to manage an expanding range of specialized medical needs. We help local caregivers learn the techniques and acquire the tools they need to care for the community. They can then teach others, creating a growing, self-propagating system of care. This process is proving to be a key element in helping these communities raise themselves from poverty to sustainable social and economic health.

Image:Dr. Dilantha B. Ellegala (left) teaches Tanzanian medical assistant Emmanuel Mayegga (right) shunt placement for treating hydrocephalus.

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Smallholders Farmers Rural Radio

Founded by Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, Smallholders Farmers Rural Radio intends:

To reach rural poor farmers living in rural Nigeria with sustainable agricultural, environmental management skills and daily market information derived from internet sources and established networks in the local Igbo Language. Generate feedback from them with advancement through interactive radio mobile devices. Boosting their agricultural productivity and income.

Watch Nnaemeka provide an overview of his organization here:

Poverty Porn courtesy of Médecins Sans Frontières

More on Poverty Porn in Aid Thoughts:

Aid Watch, after recently discussing the do’s and don’ts of intelligent charity advertising, have unearthed this new ad from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Take a moment and watch it:

More here
via Texas in Africa

SW Radio Africa

George Ayittey recently reissued a call for a Radio Free Africa Wikipedia describes a related effort SW Radio Africa as:

...an independent Zimbabwe radio station broadcasting from London in the United Kingdom. With the government of Robert Mugabe keeping a tight reign on the airwaves, the station produces and presents news and current affairs programmes for broadcast in Zimbabwe on short wave and medium wave. Staffed and run by Zimbabweans in exile it aims to promote democracy and free speech and to counter the mis-information and hate speech broadcast by the state media

Watch related video:

via SmartMobs

African Arguments Online

In African Arguments Online:

Africa has long been the locus and the focus for the most impassioned and intellectually-informed debates. But for many years, specialist Africa coverage in the world’s media has been in decline, alongside the withering of many African journals and magazines that used to provide a forum for debate and opinion. African news and views have moved to the web... But there has been no comparable Africa-wide site which provides in-depth analysis and debate of the issues and controversies that animate the continent today. With the launch of African Arguments Online we intend to fill this gap.

via KenyanPundit

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