Continued….Dwindling support for the ANC has been attributed to its failure to oversee a thorough dismantling of apartheid-era economic structures that are widely blamed for high levels of poverty among the country’s majority Black population. Rising crime and the increase in rotational electricity rationing, locally known as load-shedding have also contributed to voters fleeing from the ANC.

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Namibia’s minister of justice gave a strong speech at the International Court of Justice. Yvonne Dausab called for an end to the decades of injustice suffered by the Palestinian people. Speaking at a UN-instigated hearing into the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories, she spoke of Namibia’s shared pain and sense of moral duty to appear before the court, and urged the world “not to ignore the carnage waged against the Palestinians.”

But she also referenced Namibia’s brutal, colonial occupation by the Germans, and the genocide they perpetrated - massacring as many as 100,000 indigenous Namibians in what’s seen as the first genocide of the 20th century. Berlin has defended Tel Aviv against South Africa’s recent genocide case against Israel at the ICJ. Germany claims the case has 'no basis’ and accuses Pretoria of a 'political instrumentalisation' of the charge of violating the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention.

What do you think of Germany’s position and Namibia’s less-than-subtle rebuke?

NIGERIANS PROTEST WORST ECONOMIC CRISIS IN DECADES

Thousands of Nigerians are rallying against high costs of living that have left hungry about 26 million people, or 12.4 per cent of the population.

The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), an umbrella organisation for trade unions, had called for two days of protests starting 27 February to pressure the government to tame inflation and boost a depreciating Naira, all of which has caused the worst economic crisis in decades in Africa’s biggest economy.

Nigeria’s central bank raised the interest rate by four percentage points on 27 February to 22.75 per cent, after the inflation rate reached a three-decade high of 29.9 per cent in January.

Continued…After being elected last year, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu removed fuel subsidies and currency controls, immediately tripling petrol prices and spiking living costs as the Naira currency slid by 70 per cent against the US dollar. Tinubu has asked Nigerians to be patient, saying the moves are intended to attract foreign investment. However, Nigeria’s favourite jollof rice has doubled in price over the last year. Many are now eating poor-grade rice typically fed to fish.

If you are in Nigeria, have you joined the protests? If so, please let us know how it has gone on the ground.

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UNRESOLVED CIVIL RIGHTS MURDER OF CLIFFTON WALKER

Clifton Walker was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan on February 28th, 1964, as he drove home from the International Paper Plant in Mississippi.

It was close to midnight, and he took a shortcut on Poor House Road to avoid the long drive via Woodville to go home to his wife and five children. The KKK Klansmen stopped his car, on the unpaved road, surrounded him and shot him at point-blank range in the face.

The next day, he was found dead with his feet on the floorboard under the wheel and his upper body flung across the passenger seat. This was believed to be the first act of racial violence and murder by the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

Continued….No arrests were made.

About two weeks before Walker's murder, some 200 members of the White Knights met and declared it a nationwide organisation in response to the growing civil-rights movement at the time. They held cross burnings and agreed to exterminate Blacks.

Walker was a Black American US Army veteran of the Korean war.

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PINTO AND X: OVERLAPPING VISIONS AND FATES

Fifty-nine years ago, two Pan-African greats were taken from us. Kenya’s freedom fighter Pio Gama Pinto and Black civil-rights legend Malcom X were assassinated within the space of just three days, in February 1965. African Stream’s Sefu Sanni visited a memorial gathering at the former’s grave in Nairobi - and relates what other fascinating connections existed between the two icons, who are inspirations to this day. Please share your thoughts on these intertwined heroes.

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BLACK KIDS TAUGHT TO CALM DOWN WHEN FACED BY COWARD COPS

Racism is rampant in the United States of America and its various institutions. Most notorious of all are the American police who are known to commit a number of homicides and other violent offences against Black civilians. It has gotten so bad that young children are taught how to be submissive and subservient to police rather than learning how to stand up for their rights and resist oppression.

In the long run, the Black liberation struggle has benefitted most when Black people have had the courage to contest settler authority and fight for their self defence. This was at the core of the Black Panther Party’s principles and actions.

What do you think of this approach? Will it keep SOME of our children safe? Is there any guarantee that the police won’t harm us? Ultimately, should we encourage submission or self-determination and self-defence? Share your thoughts below.

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NO MORE WHITE LIES

Africa may have rid herself of colonisers, but many history books are still woefully under the yoke of colonial narratives. Europeans liked to paint themselves as having brought ‘civilisation’ to the ‘savages’ of Africa. But really, theirs is a story of rape, murder and pillage - of the destruction of native customs, culture and identities by the imposition of foreign rule.

In this clip, singer-songwriter Erica LeShai lashes out at what she calls the ‘White lies’ still dominating not just historical discussions but people’s beliefs. In particular, she vents her frustration at how people become really upset when these falsehoods are pointed out to them. Whether these ‘lies’ are conscious or subliminal, she insists that until there is a proper reckoning and admission - until a correction of the narrative is embraced by all sides - progress is impossible.

Do you think that’s true?

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BRICS DOLLAR THREAT EXPLAINED

Watch this video to understand why the West is worried about the BRICS economic alliance expanding to include five more member states.

For those who don’t know, BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Last year, it welcomed Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

These countries are rich with resources and increasingly use their currencies instead of the US dollar. If they successfully replace the dollar’s hegemony, it could be a nightmare for the United States and its European allies.

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BLACK HISTORY MONTH HIJACKED

Imperialists have tried to appropriate everything from African music to artefacts and other sectors of African identity.

In this clip, Abbas Muntaqim, a community organiser and podcaster, broke down how Western imperialism and corporate media have hijacked Black History Month. Historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History began ‘Negro History Week’ in 1926 in the United States. In 1970, Kent State University (Ohio) students launched a month-long event to highlight the historic oppression of Black people and celebrate our achievements in the face of systemic white supremacy. After it gained popularity, US President Gerald Ford announced in 1976 that every February would be commemorated as Black History Month.

Now, it is commemorated in a few European countries and, as of 2020, Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Ivory Coast, Comoros, Senegal and Cameroon take part, too.

What do you think of Muntaqim’s remarks? Let us know in the comments.

ISRAELI RACISM TOWARDS AFRICAN REFUGEES

Israel is home to tens of thousands of African refugees, the majority from Eritrea and Sudan. However, despite being a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, it refuses to grant asylum to the majority - treating them instead as economic migrants.

Prominent Israeli politicians have often been guilty of whipping up anti-African sentiments. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for example, reportedly called for all Africans to be deported after violent clashes within the Eritrean community in the streets of Tel Aviv in September last year.

But it’s not just politicians. Some Israelis have actively protested against the presence of Africans in their country, fearing their further integration - for example, by rallying against the inclusion of the children of refugees in Israeli schools.

Continued….In this clip from a few years back, US journalist Abby Martin visited one such rally - and captured on film some of the vile anti-African sentiments expressed by participants, including placards calling for refugees to stop having children.

While racism and xenophobia are by no means unique to Israel, the decades-long mistreatment of Palestinians and the sheer brutality of the current war in Gaza - widely seen as genocidal - make one wonder just how deep the rot is.

As always, your thoughts on this are most welcome.

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CONGO REFUGEE TENTS SOAKED IN RAIN

Heavy rain has soaked mattresses and makeshift tents for hundreds of thousands of displaced people in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to footage X user @joe__bassey has posted.

Around Goma, the capital of the North Kivu province, these shelters made of plastic tarps litter the landscape. Congolese have fled recent escalating violence between the M23 militant group and DRC government troops.

Continued…Humanitarian organisations are stretched to the limit as they struggle to provide enough water, shelter, medical support and income-generating opportunities for the stream of newly displaced people. The UN says more than 25 million people—a quarter of the 104-million population—require urgent assistance in the eastern provinces. About 6.5 million Congolese are internally displaced, 2.6 million have returned from escaping abroad, nearly 1 million have fled to neighbouring countries, and 527,000 non-Congolese have taken refuge. That makes the DRC’s displacement crisis second only to Sudan’s.

In 2023, the UN reported 50,000 suspected cholera cases that caused 470 deaths. Measles transmission more than doubled from 2022 to 2023, exceeding 320,000 cases and causing more than 6,000 deaths.

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SAHELIAN TRIO’S EXIT REVEALS ECOWAS’ WEAKNESS

The West African bloc ECOWAS has had a bit of a change of tune lately. It was threatening to take military action in Niger not long ago - and imposed harsh sanctions on the country over its revolutionary new leadership. But after Niger and its allies Burkina Faso and Mali exited ECOWAS in protest and solidarity, the bloc now says it wants to extend an olive branch. But really what’s happened is that it’s realised it’s nothing without the Sahelian trio - as African Stream’s Ahmed Ghoneim explains in 90 seconds.

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RESPONSE VIDEO TO MICHAEL RAPAPORT’S
‘NO APARTHED IN ISRAEL’

Michael Rapaport has struck again. In a self-filmed, expletives-ridden rant, the US actor thinks he’s proved to the world that there is no apartheid in Israel - by walking down a Jerusalem street asking people if they can tell him where to find it and getting no answer. Our man William Sakawa blows his ‘methodology’ out of the water in this response video - in which he ‘proves’ there are no slums in Nairobi… by wandering around the high-end suburb of Karen in search of them!

The Kenyan capital’s biggest slum is just a minute’s drive away, of course - just as what’s been described by many as the world’s biggest concentration camp, the Gaza Strip, is not far from Jerusalem.

Israel’s discriminatory policies against Palestinians are well recorded. In a report, the Jerusalem-based human rights group B’Tselem found that Israel’s governance systematically promotes Jewish supremacy.

Continued…..Palestinians, even those who are citizens, frequently face unequal treatment in terms of access to basic services such as education, healthcare and infrastructure when compared with Israeli citizens.

Israel has implemented laws and policies that systematically favour Jewish citizens over Palestinians in areas such as land ownership, residency rights and access to resources. This includes restrictions on Palestinian movement, control over building permits and differential treatment in legal proceedings.

Palestinians in the occupied territories encounter numerous checkpoints, roadblocks and barriers to movement - while Jewish settlers enjoy unrestricted movement on roads and infrastructure that Palestinians are prohibited from using. Israel’s ongoing construction of settlements in occupied Palestinian territories, deemed illegal under international law, is also seen as a deliberate effort to alter the demographic makeup of these areas and maintain Jewish dominance, further entrenching the apartheid-like conditions.

What do you think - does apartheid (do slums) exist in Israel (Kenya)?

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GHANA PARLIAMENT PASSES ANTI-LGBTQ LAW

Ghana’s parliament just passed an anti-LGBTQ+ bill that imposes a five-year prison sentence for anyone who identifies as such and/or for the ‘willful promotion, sponsorship or support of LGBTQ+ activities.’

The bill now moves to President Nana Akufo-Addo’s desk to be signed into law. He previously said he would do so if that is the will of Ghana’s majority.

The US State Department said it was ‘deeply troubled,’ and urged a review of the bill’s ‘constitutionality.’

Same-sex relations have been illegal since the colonial era, and the ban is enshrined in Ghana’s constitution. Offenders face three years in prison.

The US further warned the bill would undermine ‘Ghana’s valuable public health, media and civic spaces, and economy.’

Winnie Byanyima, executive director of the United Nations AIDS agency, warned punitive laws make it harder to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic, undermining public health.

What do you think about this bill? Let us know in the comments.

WHEN ISRAEL ROLLED OUT THE RED CARPET FOR A NAZI SYMPATHIZER

Whenever anyone criticises Israel’s atrocities they are swiftly labeled as anti-Semitic at best and a N*zi at worst. Even Nelson Mandela, not long after being released from 27-years in prison, was described as such for his support of the PLO and Yasser Arafat. But what many don’t realise is that Israel once warmly welcomed and feted a well-known N*zi sympathiser, that is, the one and only apartheid-era South African prime minister John Vorster.

In 1976, Vorster visited Israel as a guest of then-prime minister Yitzhak Rubin. However, three decades prior, in the 1940s, Vorster was arrested and detained for 14 months for being a member of Ossewa Brandwag, a right-wing racist organisation infamous for its rabid support of Ad*lf H*tler and his N*zi party.

Continued….In fact, he was a co-founder of the group, which gained notoriety in the 40s due to its opposition to South Africa backing the United Kingdom during the Second World War. Vorster’s Ossewa Brandwag organisation, whose members publicly wore swastikas and performed N*zi salutes, preferred H*tler’s Germany. They also allegedly spied on the South African government on behalf of Hitler and threatened the African country’s Jewish population.

All of that, yet Vorster’s disreputable history was not enough to stop the Israeli government from rolling out the red carpet for his visit.

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