The US House of Representatives passed a bill on 22 May that would impose a 3.5 per cent tax on immigrants' remittances abroad, down from the initial 5 per cent proposal. The 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act' that now moves to the US Senate for approval before needing US President Donald Trump's signature would affect part of the over $100 billion annually that streams from the global African diaspora back to their native countries.

Continued….. The UN says 2023 remittances amounted to more than twice foreign governments’ ‘development assistance’ and direct investment in Africa. Critics describe the proposed tax on remittances as an attack on the Global South, as they pay for school fees, medical expenses, housing and businesses on the continent. 

Republican lawmakers proposed the bill to allegedly curb illegal immigration, but all it appears to do is extract from already-taxed wages, illustrating how imperialist states control colonised people’s financial capacity.

For centuries, we have fought European colonisers who imposed taxes and exploited our lands and peoples. If this bill passes, our continent’s brain drain will be transformed into a cash drain.

This begs the question: Will the African countries defend their citizens abroad or keep quiet while the West remakes imperialism for the 21st century on the backs of their people abroad?

Sources

https://gfrid.org/diaspora-remittances-grow-to-record-sh671-billion-in-a-year

https://familyremittances.org/idfr-2024/events-activities/kenya

https://www.facebook.com/cgtnafrica/posts/the-kenya-national-bureau-of-statistics-reports-that-diaspora-remittances-rose-b/1142198744613175

https://peopledaily.digital/business/diaspora-remittances-jump-14pc-to-sh674-1b-in-2024

https://www.financialexpress.com/business/investing-abroad-internet-slams-us-bill-to-impose-5-tax-on-nri-remittances-says-this-is-new-form-of-stealing-3844915

https://www.kenyans.co.ke/news/112092-how-new-5-us-excise-tax-remittances-could-impact-money-sent-kenya

https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/trump-remittance-tax-impact-on-indians-us-diaspora-nri-13888902.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/republicans-tax-remittances-immigrants-send-home-rcna206842

https://www.un.org/osaa/news/digital-remittances-africa

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1/all-actions?overview=closed&q=%7B%22roll-call-vote%22%3A%22all%22%7D

PALESTINIAN CHILD TRYING TO ESCAPE ISRAEL’S SCHOOL BOMBING

This clip shows 5-year-old Ward Jalal Al-Shaikh Khalil looking for a way out of a classroom after Israel's 26 May airstrike on a Gaza City school where she and her family had sought shelter. Israel k*lled at least 35 people in the Fahmi al-Jerjawi School.

Before managing to escape, she watched her mother and four siblings - Abd al-Rahman (17), Muhammed (14), Maria (13) and Silwan (11) - burn to death, according to the Middle East Eye. Speaking to the news outlet, her uncle, Iyad Muhammed al-Sheikh Khalil, said, ‘She is devastated. Her situation is indescribable. I don't know how she will recover, or if she ever will.’

Israel's onslaught that began on 7 October 2023 has k*lled one or both parents of nearly 40,000 children.

Continued……It is the ‘largest orphan crisis in modern history,’ as Dr. Ola Awad, president of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), reported in a 5 April statement. Although Ward’s father also survived the bombing, he was left in a critical condition and rushed to the intensive care unit (ICU).

Francesca Albanese, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said in March, ‘There are reasonable grounds to believe Israel is committing g*nocide.’ Yet, despite widespread reporting of Israel's atrocities and the world watching a plausible g*nocide unfold on our screens in real-time, Israel has not been held accountable.

Efforts to seek justice for Palestinians, such as South Africa’s g*nocide case at the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Galant, have been met with resistance. On 6 February, long-time Israel ally, the United States, placed sanctions on ICC ‘officials, employees, and agents, as well as their immediate family members.’ Washington also slashed funding to Pretoria, in a move many view as a retaliation for challenging Israel at the ICJ and standing with the Palestinian people against settler-colonialism.

Sources

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/gaza-girl-devastated-after-family-killed-israeli-strike

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz9yjj54v3xo

https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c4g39x87q0go

https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2025/5/26/palestinian-child-filmed-trying-to-escape-fires-after-israeli-attack

https://www.pcbs.gov.ps/portals/_pcbs/PressRelease/Press_En_ChildDay05042025E.pdf

https://www.un.org/unispal/document/genocide-as-colonial-erasure-report-francesca-albanese-01oct24/

https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-state-palestine-icc-pre-trial-chamber-i-rejects-state-israels-challenges

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/imposing-sanctions-on-the-international-criminal-court/

'AIN’T I A WOMAN?’ AIN’T THE TRUTH

On 29 May 1851, at the Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, Sojourner Truth - an unflinching abolitionist, formerly enslaved African woman and women's rights advocate - delivered one of the most revolutionary speeches in Black liberation history that’s famously known for the line, ‘Ain’t I a woman?’ 

Historians have since challenged whether Truth uttered those words. Nonetheless, many regard Sojourner's speech as a direct rebuke to both white supremacist patriarchy and the racist erasure of Black womanhood in early feminist movements.

Today, her legacy remains a rallying call, not only for Black women rights, but also for the liberation of all oppressed people across the globe. Here, we break down the controversy surrounding Sojourner’s speech.

Continued……Sources

https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/this-day-history-may-29-1851-sojourner-truth-delivers-aint-i-woman-speech

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-29/sojourner-truth-delivers-aint-i-a-woman-speech

https://www.thesojournertruthproject.com/compare-the-speeches

MAURICE BISHOP’S MESSAGE TO AFRICANS IN THE UNITED STATES

Today marks what would have been the 81st birthday of Maurice Rupert Bishop, a revolutionary from Grenada and one of the Caribbean’s fiercest champions of people-powered liberation.

Bishop, born on 29 May 1944, led the New JEWEL Movement (NJM) that ousted the corrupt US-backed dictatorship of Prime Minister Eric Gairy (1922-97) through a bloodless coup on 13 March 1979. The NJM aimed to advance Black liberation, education, land reform and socioeconomic development on the island.

With the rise in popularity of Pan-Africanism in Africa and the diaspora, it's the perfect time to revisit Bishop's 1983 speech in New York regarding the threat that Grenada's revolution represented to the US, as Grenada’s predominantly Black population could communicate in English to Black people in the US. 

Continued…….. NJM - New Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education and Liberation - swiftly established the People's Revolutionary Government in 1979, ushering in an era of socialist programmes. Under Bishop's leadership, Grenada underwent a profound socioeconomic transformation marked by extensive reforms and initiatives to uplift the primarily poor population. By 1982, the following developments had occurred: A literacy campaign, the construction of new schools and the establishment of agricultural cooperatives that benefited unemployed youth in rural areas. Cuban aid provided expertise in education, healthcare, and infrastructure development, including in constructing a modern international airport to replace a hazardous airstrip. Unemployment plummeted from 49 per cent to 14 per cent within four years, while illiteracy dropped from 35 per cent to 5 per cent. Symbolising the shift in priorities, vibrant billboards promoting education adorned the island, a departure from those that had advertised cigarettes and alcohol.

Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard, now 80, orchestrated Bishop’s assassination on 19 October 1983.

Long live the spirit of Maurice Bishop!

Sources

https://jacobin.com/2019/09/grenada-revolution-maurice-bishop-reagan

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/grenada-revolution/

https://nacla.org/remembering-grenada-revolution

https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.490876

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/25/the-us-invaded-the-island-of-grenada-40-years-ago-the-legacy-of-revolution-lives-on

https://www.marxists.org/history/grenada/1973/manifesto.htm

THE AUDACITY OF GERMAN SETTLERS IN NAMIBIA

This viral clip features a German settler expressing astonishment at indigenous Namibians demanding settlers return occupied lands, demonstrating that the fight against colonialism continues more than a century later.

On 28 May, Namibia held its first G*nocide Remembrance Day to commemorate when German forces k*lled as many as 100,000 people of Herero and Nama ethnic origins between 1904 and 1908. This g*nocide is considered the first of the 20th century.

Similar to South Africa’s white-settler minority, who comprise less than 8 per cent of the population but own over 70 per cent of private farmland, Namibia’s 6 per cent of settler-colonialists own over 70 per cent of farmland, according to Namibia’s 2018 land statistics, and dominate businesses, according to former President Hage Geingob (1941-2024). 

Continued……Through brutality and cruelty, German settlers dispossessed indigenous Africans of their ancestral lands from 1884 to 1915. When Namibians resisted colonial rule, the Germans responded by meting out violence. German settlers k*lled the Herero and Nama in concentration camps and through military actions, with survivors forced to labour and subjected to diseases, abuse, exhaustion, s*xual exploitation, and medical experimentation. These camps are considered Germany's first concentration camps. Experts estimate German colonial forces wiped out up to 80 per cent of the Herero and 50 per cent of the Nama populations. The German military executed those who refused to surrender their land, imprisoned those who protested and drove the Herero into the Omaheke Desert, where many died of dehydration, starvation and food poisoning.

It was not until 2021 that Germany officially acknowledged its ugly history in Namibia, promising $1.2 billion in funding over 30 years, a mere $40 million a year on average, but only on the condition that Germany approve the expenditures. However, Germany has not returned looted land to its rightful owners to address the stark inequities between white settlers and Black people. 

Video credit: @vicenews

Sources

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/28/namibia-marks-inaugural-genocide-remembrance-day-with-call-for-reparations

https://thisisafrica.me/politics-and-society/whites-namibia-own-70percent-of-land

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/namibian-communities-demand-return-land-dispute-over-german-genocide-legacy-2024-03-07

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-56583994

https://www.reuters.com/article/world/namibia-to-make-white-owned-businesses-sell-25-percent-stakes-to-blacks-idUSKBN17F20F

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/3/16/namibia-tribes-lodge-case-against-germany-over-genocide

https://www.gov.na/documents/146489/243786/Genocide+Remembrance+Day+2025.pdf/943da8fe-f23f-ccf3-0765-522d4797a547?t=1748336599780

https://p-crc.org/2019/04/06/not-the-holocaust-but-the-herero

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/3/16/namibia-tribes-lodge-case-against-germany-over-genocide

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-56583994

https://nsa.org.na/document/namibia-land-statistics-2018

https://www.ecchr.eu/fileadmin/Publikationen/ECCHR_NAMIBIA_DS.pdf

https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/what-was-the-holocaust/what-was-genocide/the-herero-and-namaqua-genocide

SENEGALESE STUDENTS CHASE OFF ISRAELI ENVOY

Student protests have long been a potent force for social and political breakthroughs, igniting broader movements to challenge the establishment that is often in cahoots with imperialist interests.

It’s no different with Senegalese youth standing in solidarity with Palestinians against Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza.

On 27 May, students at the prominent Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD) in Dakar demonstrated the West African state’s solidarity with Palestine when they chased away the Israeli ambassador from the campus. Yuval Waks was planning to deliver a talk on international relations practices at the institution.

Continued…….. Popular support for Palestine in Senegal has endured despite Dakar restoring diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv in 1995, 22 years after founding president Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906-2001) cut ties in 1973. The election of 45-year-old President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and 50-year-old Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko in 2024, propelled to power by largely youthful voters, saw a shift in Senegal’s relations with Israel. Under former President Macky Sall, Dakar mended a rift over the illegal Israeli settlements, with the West African state promising to back Tel Aviv’s candidacy as an observer at the African Union. In June 2024, Sonko called for Senegalese solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Senegalese youth join their counterparts all over the globe demanding an end to Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza. The British medical journal, The Lancet, reported in July 2024 that the death toll could have surpassed 186,000. UN Women states that since 7 October 2023, Israel has k*lled more than 28,000 women and girls, averaging one woman and one girl every hour. Israel has k*lled nearly 3,000 Palestinians after re-imposing a total blockade on humanitarian aid in March, ending a ceasefire that began on 19 January. As of 12 May, the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification indicates that about 470,000 Palestinians are facing ‘catastrophic hunger’ and the entire population is experiencing ‘acute food insecurity.’

Video credit: @RT_com (X), Ambassade d'Israël au Sénégal (Facebook), @GeoPwatch (X)

Sources

https://trt.global/afrika-english/article/1e39424c43c4

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/israeli-ambassador-chased-off-campus-by-pro-palestinian-protesters-in-senegal/3581465

https://www.nytimes.com/1973/10/29/archives/ghana-and-senegal-break-diplomatic-ties-with-israel.html

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/senegal-s-prime-minister-calls-for-solidarity-with-palestinians/3245174

https://www.newarab.com/news/hundreds-rally-gaza-senegal-rare-west-africa-protest

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250416-senegalese-to-continue-protesting-against-genocide-in-gaza-groups-say

https://www.leftvoice.org/u-s-students-protest-israels-genocide-and-universities-complicity-in-commencement-speeches/

https://www.girlsglobe.org/2024/05/29/student-movement-for-palestine-voices-against-genocide/

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext

https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203454

https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147976

https://www.un.org/unispal/document/ocha-un-chief-alarmed-by-worsening-hunger-crisis-in-gaza

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3d4kz8p00eo

https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/news/2025/05/un-women-estimates-over-28000-women-and-girls-killed-in-gaza-since-october-2023

RAMAPHOSA VISIT EXPOSES WASHINGTON'S THEA-TRICKS

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s 21 May visit to the White House turned out to be nothing short of feeding into a theatrical performance to advance imperial narratives on blatantly false claims. However, we expected that.

In this commentary, African Stream’s @sannario_ provides a breakdown of the charade that ensued, in which both leaders performed embarrassingly.

Continued……While US President Donald Trump recycled debunked allegations using articles and videos that relied on unfounded claims of a ‘white g*nocide,’ Ramaphosa failed to set the record straight by dispelling the white-settler lies and asserting South Africa’s position as a sovereign state working to redress the ugly legacy of apartheid. Instead, he timidly lent credence to the spectacle by engaging with the ridiculous proceedings.

Indeed, more than 30 years after South Africa dismantled apartheid, the white-settler minority continues to hold most of the country’s wealth, and South African natives remain impoverished and marginalised. While the US dismisses South Africa's inequality and promotes the false narrative of a non-existent ‘white g*nocide,’ it supports and funds Israel’s siege on Gaza. In March, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, said ‘there [were] reasonable grounds to believe Israel is committing g*nocide.’

Sources

https://www.saps.gov.za/services/crimestats.php

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/21/politics/fact-check-white-farmers-south-africa-trump

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-makes-false-claims-white-genocide-south-africa-during-ramaphosa-meeting-2025-05-21/

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/africa/trump-musk-south-africa-refugee-claims-white-farmers-genocide-rcna206327

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-makes-false-claims-white-genocide-south-africa-during-ramaphosa-meeting-2025-05-21/

https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts

https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203447

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/02/let_s_talk_about_africa_which_is_where_tribalism_takes_you.html

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/03/black_terrorists_talk_seizing_the_means_of_production_in_south_africa.html

https://www.news24.com/southafrica/debunking/donald-trump-confronted-cyril-ramaphosa-with-a-collection-of-misinformation-20250522-0311

https://irr.org.za/media/how-many-more-must-die-2019-2013-farmers2019-plea-to-ramaphosa-agri-news-net

https://www.un.org/unispal/document/genocide-as-colonial-erasure-report-francesca-albanese-01oct24/

UNITY WINS: LANGLEY BACKTRACKS ON TRAORÉ LIES!

If anyone doubted that Pan-African unity could prevail, US Africa Command's General Michael Langley backpedalling on his baseless accusations against Burkina Faso’s revolutionary president, Ibrahim Traoré, is all the evidence we need!

Langley is in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi for the African Chiefs of Defence Conference 2025, an event attended by US military brass and defence ministers from 38 African countries. In his 27 May interview with Kenya-based Citizen TV, Yvonne Okwara (@yvonneokwara on X) asked him to clarify his 3 April claim at the US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing that he ‘doesn't mind calling out’ corrupt African leaders, alleging Traoré is using the country’s recently reclaimed gold reserves to protect a ‘junta regime.’ 

Continued…. Perhaps due to the outpouring of support for Traoré (@capitaineib226 on X) and Burkina Faso’s revolutionary process on the Internet and during solidarity actions held in the aftermath, most notably on 30 April across the continent and the diaspora, Langley seemed to backtrack.

In this clip, he claims his words were merely a 'cautionary' message, even going so far as to praise Burkina Faso's progress, a U-turn from his 3 April statement. 

Since Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger ousted Western-aligned leaders in recent years, they have embarked on decolonisation processes that have involved reclaiming natural resources, building infrastructure and booting foreign troops. On 6 July 2024, the three states established the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) to move toward a federal, Pan-African state on their territories. They have announced a radical goal of eventually uniting the continent under one governance.

Unlike before, when we watched imperial powers smear our revolutionaries to justify oustings or assassinations, this is a new era.

While it is satisfying to hear Langley back off, we are also aware that imperialists have a lengthy history of employing manipulation tactics to pacify the masses. Therefore, we must remain vigilant and continue to stand firmly behind the AES, which is paving the way for a new, dignified chapter for the African people in the 21st century.

Video credit: @citizentvkenya

Sources

https://www.africom.mil/document/35810/4325fulltrannoscriptpdf

https://www.africanews.com/2025/04/30/thousands-of-people-rally-in-support-of-burkina-fasos-transitional-president/

https://www.thezimbabwemail.com/opinion/why-the-west-fears-captain-ibrahim-traore-burkina-fasos-revolution-is-africas-awakening

https://www.mod.go.ke/news/president-ruto-opens-african-chiefs-of-defence-conference-2025

4 MUST-READ BOOKS BY NGŨGĨ WA THIONG'O

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, a towering figure in African literature and a staunch anti-imperialist who advocated for Africans to use African languages, died on 28 May in the US state of Georgia. 

Born James Thiong'o Ngũgĩ in British-ruled Kenya in 1938, the country's struggle for independence shaped his life and work. Ngũgĩ’s writings served as a mirror to society, challenging both colonial rule and post-independence leaders serving former colonisers. 

His novels like ‘Devil on the Cross’ (1980), written on toilet paper during a prison stint, expose the brutal grip of capitalism and corruption, while ‘Decolonising the Mind’ (1986) remains a foundational book of essays on postcolonial thought, urging African writers to reject colonial languages in favour of their own. Ngũgĩ’s decision to abandon English and write in his native Gikuyu was radical, aligning language with the cause of liberation.

Continued……In his novel, 'Petals of Blood' (1977), the characters fight African elites who are aligned with colonial powers.

In another novel, ‘Matigari’ (1986), Ngũgĩ weaves the tale of a freedom fighter returning to a newly independent fictional country, only to find it still in the clutches of colonialism. Hoping for peace but confronted by institutional violence and betrayal, the main character’s story becomes a parable for generational resistance and the need for continuous struggle against oppression. 

These works only scratch the surface of Ngũgĩ’s (@NgugiWaThiongo_ on X) literary legacy, which continues to resonate with their themes of justice, decolonisation and the betrayal of the postcolonial promise.

Video credits: @cccb_barcelona (IG) / @cececebe (X); 'Africa Addio,' Cineriz (1966)

Sources

https://archive.ph/7GcKs#selection-805.10-805.28

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/159334.Devil_on_the_Cross

https://www.businessradar.co.ke/blog/2025/05/28/the-ngugi-wa-thiongo-imprisonment-why-was-he-jailed-in-kenya-everything-you-need-to-know/

https://www.gradesaver.com/devil-on-the-cross/study-guide/summary

https://sujarithasaravanan.blogspot.com/2019/02/decolonising-mind-by-ngugi-wa-thiongo.html

https://www.gradesaver.com/matigari/study-guide/summary