Continued…. In this clip from a longer 6 February presentation that can be viewed on YouTube, Butch Ware, a history professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said many of our ancestors had already concluded in the late 19th century that Zionism, a political ideology that some say hijacks Judaism to justify settler-colonialism, is a white supremacist movement that European imperialists back.

Ware says Black anti-Zionism is born out of a deep-rooted sense of revolutionary solidarity against the white-supremacist ethnic cleansing of an indigenous brown population.

What do you think of his argument? Let us know in the comments.

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REPARATIONS IN AMERICA ARE A MUST!

In 2022, Howard University School of Social Work hosted Nikole Hannah-Jones, Pulitzer Prize winner and creator of the 1619 Project, for an intellectual sit-in.

Jones argued for paying reparations to Africans who are descendants of enslaved people in the United States. She called out the US government for saying it could not afford reparations. Still, it can print money for military spending and pandemic relief packages for businesses.

The key takeaway from this intriguing discussion was, in her own words, that 'slavery was a system of economic exploitation and racism is what justified it.' Moreover, she chided some who use the term 'Jim Crow' to refer to a system of discriminatory practices after US slavery ended, saying creating a class of exploited people based on race should be referred to as apartheid.

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RACISTS CAN’T STOMACH AFRICAN-BORN WALES LEADER

Vaughan Gething is the new leader of Wales and some people are not taking it well. Not because they have problem with his leadership style or qualities, but because of his background. He is mixed race and was born in Zambia.

Shortly after he was announced as Wales first minister, racist social media tropes went into overdrive bitterly complaining about how ‘non-Europeans’ are taking up leadership positions across Britain. Some even said it was a ‘tragic’ day for Wales. They argue someone with European ancestry would not be allowed to hold a similar position of power in Africa. African Stream’s Wambura Mwai explains why this claim is not only racist, but also false.

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TWINCREDIBLE AFRICA’S AMAZING TWIN BIRTH RATE

Africa has the highest rate of twins in the world, no kidding! In fact, there’s one town in Nigeria where moms give birth to lookalikes at three times the rate of women in Europe. Scientists can’t work out why, although some people put it down to local food. Whatever the reason, they’re a wonderful source of pride and represent a unique aspect of our culture and society. Are you a twin? Do you have twins in your family? Let us know 👶🏿👶🏿

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ALINE SITOÉ DIATTA: SENEGAL’S MYSTIC ANTI-COLONIALIST

We often bandy about terms like ‘visionary’ when describing our heroes in the struggle - but in the case of Senegal’s Aline Sitoé Diatta, she really was!

What turned her into a leader of the resistance against French colonialism was a vision from a higher, divine power - which she quickly learned not to disobey!

If you know your Senegalese football stadiums or have ever caught the famous ferry service in Dakar - you’ll know that her name still means a lot to the nation.

African Stream’s Wambura Mwai dives a little deeper into why.

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MONEY FOR WAR, NO MONEY TO FEED THE POOR

Since October, the Biden administration has been trying to influence the US Congress to pass a $95 billion supplemental funding bill, which is a request for money outside of the allocated US budget. The funds would provide military aid to Taiwan and Ukraine, as well as $19.3 billion in military assistance to Israel, which has killed more than 33,000 Palestinians, with 12,500 being children. The bill has stagnated in the US House of Representatives after passing in the Senate.

Meanwhile, as historian Bilal Ware points out in this video, times are tough on the US domestic front. Nearly half of the US population does not have $500 in their savings accounts, 40 per cent hold healthcare debt, more than 44 million face hunger and homelessness has spiked in recent years in major US cities.

Could this contradiction turn the US working class against the ruling class? Let us know what you think in the comments.

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The wealth of the world’s most successful enterprises and richest nations has long been built off of the exploitation and plunder of Africa. The Democratic Republic of Congo especially has served as the backbone of the world economy, providing many of the materials needed for the accumulation of wealth - while reaping almost none of the benefits.

Apple is one example of a company that relies heavily on the use of coltan in order to develop technologies such as its laptops, smartphones and tablets. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is home to 64% of the world’s coltan. Coltan allows for electrical charges to be stored in small devices known as capacitors, making the mineral indispensable for the production of many modern electronics.

Coltan mining has been the source of tremendous conflict and violence in the eastern DRC.

Continued…. Neighbouring countries Rwanda and Uganda are accused of waging warfare by proxy in order to smuggle coltan and other minerals across their borders. Due to conflict, roughly six-million people have been killed in the DRC since 1996. Furthermore, the coltan-extraction sector is notorious for the exploitation of children, who often labour in the mines in high-risk conditions. About 40,000 children and adolescents are estimated to work in coltan mines in Congo.

Other companies that rely on coltan for their production include Microsoft, IBM, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Samsung, Toyota, Tesla, Dell, Ford, BMW, General Motors, LG, Sony, Volkswagen and many more. Apart from laptops, smartphones and tablets, coltan is also used in the production of electric cars, jet engines, rockets, X-ray film, hearing aids, pacemakers, digital cameras and camcorders, prosthetic devices, video game consoles, GPS systems, airbags and more.

So why isn’t DRC among the richest nations on the planet right now?

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NYERERE: ‘SELF-RULE IS NOT A FAVOUR’

Today marks the 102nd birthday of Julius Kambarage Nyerere, Tanzania’s first president.

Nyerere was born in 1922 in a small village in Butiama, in Tanganyika, then administered by the British under a League of Nations mandate before becoming part of a larger country in 1964 that is known today as the United Republic of Tanzania.

Nyerere, affectionately known by the honorific noscript, ‘Mwalimu’ (Swahili for teacher), was an anti-colonialist, political theorist and president of Tanzania from 1964 to 1985.

Continued…. But the struggle wasn’t easy. Nyerere, a beacon of resilience, stood against the West, which argued Africa wasn’t ready to govern itself. No better example exists than this classic 1960 interview of a young Nyerere answering emphatically and pushing back against colonialist lies. He asserted that Europeans granting us independence was merely returning a stolen right, as it were. Therefore, the question of whether Africans were ready for self-rule was meaningless. We Africans had managed our affairs well before colonisers arrived.

After a battle with leukaemia, Nyerere became an ancestor on 14 October 1999 in London.

Let us know what you think of Nyerere’s remarks.

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Continued…Her late son was pan-African revolutionary and musician, Fela Kuti, who many regard as the pioneer of Afrobeats. He proudly recalls his mother leading marches against the British regime, and in particular the time she led a protest against the local colonial administration. Funmilayo was insulted by an arrogant White official, but she put him in his place, calling him a ‘rude little rat’ and a ‘bast**d’. Fela said, ‘Imagine insulting the highest representative of the British imperial crown in Abeokuta; oh man! I was proud. People in Abeokuta talked about nothing else but that incident.’

May she continue to rest in peace and power!

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HOW BILLIONAIRES PLUNDER AFRICA

So, just how much is a billionaire worth? The GDP of multiple African countries combined, apparently. Some people say they earned their money fair and square. Others say the children mining cobalt for them in Eastern Congo are lining their pockets. Here’s our take. Tell us if you think we’re on the money!

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COLONIAL METAPHOR IN ‘GOLDEN BALLS’ GAME SHOW?

In the British game show, ‘Golden Balls,’ which aired between 2007 and 2009, contestants competed to win as much money as possible by choosing from balls containing prizes ranging from £10 to £75,000 (or $12.74 to $95,580 in today’s dollars). In the game’s final round, the two remaining contestants must choose whether to ‘split’ or ‘steal’ the jackpot.

In this episode, a Black contestant trusted her white rival to split the prize money so that she could donate the proceeds to her church. This came after the white contestant told her that she, too, was a Christian like her. However, shockingly (although we weren’t shocked), that was just a ploy to bring down the Black player’s guard so she could steal the entire prize money.

Some online are saying the episode itself is a metaphor for the relationship African people have with European people: Too trusting and easily fooled when it comes to promises predicated on religion.

Continued…. When the Portuguese first arrived in Africa in 1418, they came initially for trade, but it soon turned into a land grab to extract our resources for as little as possible whilst trading our people as slaves. Conversions to Christianity were used early on as a diversion only for religion to be imposed on the masses over time.

The late South African Bishop Desmond Tutu described the process best when he said: ‘When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible, and they had the land.’

For many online, this clip symbolises how many of us have not learned from the past. Or is this just another case of the internet overthinking stuff?

Let us know in the comments.

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BRAZILIAN RAPPER MANO BROWN ON BLACK PEOPLE’S AGENCY

Mano Brown is the lead lyricist of Brazilian rap group Racionais MC’s a collective that included KL Jay, Ice Blue and Edi Rock. They stormed parties and stages in São Paulo in the early 1990s, galvanising a politically charged hip-hop movement that swept the South American country.

Their music sparked greater social consciousness and mobilisation of adolescents and young adults in the favelas (slums), ‘quebradas’ (ghettoes), and other working-class city and rural communities, all of which helped to propel Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva to his first presidential victory in 2002. Three previous presidential runs for Lula (1989, 1994 and 1998) proved unsuccessful despite receiving support from traditional, big-name, left-wing, progressive and liberal political, social and religious organisations and movements.

Continued…. In 2020, Campinas State University, one of Brazil’s most prestigious educational institutions, included Racionais MC’s’ seminal album, ‘Surviving in Hell’ (1997), in its readings for students preparing to take the school’s entrance exam. That was the first time a music CD became study material. The designation drew ire because ‘Surviving in Hell,’ like other hip-hop albums, dispelled Brazil’s creation myth and the narrative of ‘racial democracy.’

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WATCH ROBERT MUGABE DEFEND ZIMBABWE’S PROCESS

We’ve all heard that Robert Mugabe was a brutal dictator who ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist. And that he destroyed the economy and created widespread suffering. Or, so the story goes.

In this 1980 clip, hours after Zimbabwe was admitted into the United Nations, Mugabe laid out his country’s progress in an exclusive interview with a US journalist.

Under Mugabe, Zimbabwe provided free primary education and health services, which is more than what most African countries have today.

Continued…. Before Western sanctions on Zimbabwe’s economy, the country was considered a beacon of progress and development throughout the continent. Some say things started to go downhill with Mugabe ‘overstaying’ in office. But a closer look demonstrates that really began in the early 1990s when Zimbabwe started to ‘structurally adjust’ Western loans. Then, in the early 2000s, the European Union and the United States hit the country with sanctions.

Do you think Mugabe deserves his bad reputation? Let us know in the comments.

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