ACTIVISTS REJECT HAITI INTERVENTION

There are good reasons why another US-backed intervention in Haiti must not happen. While Western powers and media push for another armed mission, activists from the Americas told us it will fail, like all the ones before it. Instead of bringing peace, it’s feared it will cause more deaths and deepen the island’s political crisis. We hear from several groups, including the Black Alliance for Peace.

Armed gangs have taken control of Haiti’s capital after the recent resignation of President Ariel Henry. It’s a critical situation, but history shows foreign interventions make things worse, not better.

How should the crisis be resolved?

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Revolutionary Guyanese writer and activist Walter Rodney was born on this day in 1942. We remember the guerrilla intellectual, who left a lasting legacy on academia and the struggle for social justice.

Rodney's intellectual journey began at university in Jamaica, where he rejected the path of a technocrat and instead focused his curiosity on Africa during its period of independence.

He earned is PhD from London’s School of Oriental and African Studies aged 24. His research challenged established historical narratives on Europe’s role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and exposed the detrimental effects of European colonialism on Africa's development.

Rodney's determination to make a difference took him to Tanzania‘s Dar Es Salaam University, where, in the late ‘60s, he taught and left his mark on a generation of historians living under the leadership of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere.

Continued…..Returning to Jamaica, he embraced the struggles of the marginalised and connected with students and the working poor through his teachings and community engagement. His ability to bridge the gap between intellectuals and the masses was met with government surveillance and eventual expulsion from Jamaica. This sparked widespread riots and cemented his radical legacy.

Throughout his life, Rodney remained dedicated to the cause of social justice, forging alliances with intellectuals, including Rastafarian leaders and Black-power activists. Notably, his impact extended to figures such as Ralph Gonsalves, who now serves as the prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

After his expulsion from Jamaica, Rodney returned to Tanzania, where he played a key role in the Dar Es Salaam school of intellectual inquiry. There, he completed his magnum opus, "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa," which continues to provoke passionate debates among historians and Pan-Africanists today.

Tragically, his life was cut short when he was killed by a car bomb in 1980, leaving behind a legacy of courage, intellectual astuteness, and a commitment to social transformation. 30,000 showed up to send him off at his funeral, illustrating how dearly he was held by the people.

Walter Rodney's story serves as a testament to the power of ideas, the pursuit of justice, and the impact one individual can have on society. His legacy remains alive, inspiring current and future generations to challenge oppressive systems and strive for a more equitable world.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: ‘KILLING CHILDREN IS JUSTIFIED’

On this day two years ago, the 64th US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, died aged 84. Her legacy in Africa and the Middle East is grim.

Between 1993 and 1997, she was the US envoy to the UN. In that capacity, she obstructed UN efforts to take action over the genocide being perpetrated in Rwanda, thereby allowing the massacres to go on for longer, resulting in the deaths of over 800,000 Rwandans.

She was State Secretary from 1997-2001 - overlapping with UN sanctions on Iraq, pushed for mainly by the US and the UK, under which an estimated half a million children lost their lives.

The astonishing callousness of US foreign policy comes out crystal clear in this 1997 clip of Albright - in which she is asked whether the huge cost in children’s lives was worth it. Her response is worth bearing in mind when we think of the child death toll in the US-funded war in Gaza right now. Can you guess her answer?

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EXCLUSIVE: AFRICAN STREAM TALKS GADDAFI WITH EX-SPOX

Muammar Gaddafi’s often mentioned along with the likes of Kwame Nkruhmah, Julius Nyerere, Patrice Lumumba and Thomas Sankara. All are leaders who spared no effort realising the liberation of Africa from foreign domination. African Stream recently had the chance to interview Gaddafi’s former spokesman and communication’s minister, Moussa Ibrahim. In this snippet, he sheds light on just how much Libya’s leader achieved in a short period of time after the revolution. He kicked out foreign military, ensured oil profits stayed in Libya, and used the wealth thereby acquired to fund vital infrastructure. It’s all very reminiscent of what’s starting to happen in the Sahel at the moment. Let us know your thoughts on this. If you want to hear more insights from Moussa Ibrahim, we’ll be posting more clips of our interview here - and the full interview on YouTube soon.

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LUPITA NYONG’O: ‘I PREDATE RACE!’

Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong’o was in for a surprise when she met in April 2023 with Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., on his PBS programme, ‘Finding Your Roots.’ He could trace her ancestral DNA to a group of women who lived in Africa 100,000 to 200,000 years ago, long before humans ventured out of the continent in search of resources. Gates said those women existed when all humans were Black. To that news, Nyong’o replied, ‘I predate race.’

Lead study author Rebecca Cann said she and her colleagues first theorised ‘Mitochondrial Eve’ in 1980. She called the choice to use Eve ‘a playful misnomer’ because it referred to the first woman mentioned in the Bible. They said the study didn’t imply that Mitochondrial Eve was responsible for all human origins, as many women existed before and at the same time this theoretical figure lived. Instead, this Eve is the most recent female ancestor to whom all modern humans can trace their genealogy.

Continued…..Genetic testing has become popular over the past two decades among many Black people in the United States, as we have only been able to trace our people’s roots to names listed on the manifests of trading ships that carried our kidnapped and chained ancestors from West and Central Africa.

Companies began offering consumer genetic testing in the early 2000s in the United States. Europe is another major hub for testing, while companies are looking at Asia and the Pacific Islands as potential sources of revenue and genetic material.

However, the fine print for some companies indicates they reserve the right to use DNA results in other ways. That has raised privacy concerns, especially given multiple people in the United States have landed in jail after their relatives’ DNA—not theirs—implicated them in crimes.

Have you taken a DNA test? Kindly share what you learned.

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S. AFRICAN SISTER SLAMS CAPE INDY MOVEMENT

You’ve heard of Brexit, but have you heard of CapeXit? It’s a movement calling for South Africa’s Western Cape - as well as potentially other parts of the Cape - to break away from the rest of the country.

What little support it currently has comes mainly from the region’s White population, who say Western Cape - currently run by the Democratic Alliance, which has roots in what was the ruling party under apartheid - is better managed than the rest of the country, and better off going it alone.

But in this clip, a South African sister exposes the movement for what it really is: a land project driven by a colonial sense of ennoscriptment to divide Africans even further.

Continued….As she notes, White people in South Africa - including in Western Cape - are descended from Dutch colonisers, and hence have no right to be trying to subdivide the country further. If anything, we should be removing borders, not imposing them: as she says, Nigeria is as much her home as Kenya is, and as South Africa - in its entirety - is.

Do you agree with her?

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CAMEROON’S MARTHE MOUMIÉ VS THE FRENCH

Cameroon’s Marthe Moumié (1931-2009) fought tirelessly for the independence of her home country and other African states, especially Equatorial Guinea. Her first husband was the nationalist Félix Moumié, who was assassinated. Her next partner would also be killed - executed for his role in a coup attempt. Marthe was imprisoned and tortured during her struggle against French imperialism, but that didn’t stop her from continuing to push back against the colonialists. She led the women’s wing at the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon. African Stream’s Wambura Mwai looks back at her life.

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WEST BEHIND SOUTH AFRICA’S BLACKOUTS?

Despite being Africa’s second-largest economy, South Africa’s been battling power blackouts for years. Many blame the corruption and inefficiency plaguing the state-owned power firm Eskom. However, some allege it’s being deliberately sabotaged to collapse it ahead of a cheap sell-off to the private sector.

Among those convinced this is happening is South African author and entrepreneur Mpho Dagada. He claims the public would never sanction Eskom’s sale unless it were on its last legs. He alleges Western capitalists are now encouraging senior members of the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), to help do that by embezzling Eskom funds. It’s an outlandish allegation, but could it be true?