Continued…. South Africa was eyeing Namibia’s vast natural resources, such as uranium, vanadium, lithium and tungsten. The South African apartheid regime also wanted to use Namibia as a buffer zone, keeping the guerrilla war in Angola well away from South Africa. Namibians suffered the same apartheid policies as their brothers south: no political rights, as well as restrictions on social and economic freedoms.

SWAPO used Angola as a rear base for guerrilla attacks against South Africa in Namibia. In 1972, the United Nations General Assembly recognized SWAPO as the ‘sole legitimate representative’ of Namibia’s people. Starting 1978, South Africa made periodic retaliatory land and air strikes into Angola. The involvement of Cuban forces in Angola bolstered the resistance. South Africa eventually lost against the combined African and Cuban force, with the battle at Cuito Cuanavale in southern Angola proving decisive, marking the beginning of the end of White-minority domination in southern Africa, the dismantling of the apartheid system and the total liberation of Africa from European occupation.

Negotiations between SWAPO and South Africa’s government ran for more than a decade, with South Africa finally agreeing to a ceasefire, the withdrawal of its troops and free elections amid increasing international isolation and the growing cost of military occupation. On 21st March, 1990, Namibia became independent.

VIOLENCE BY THE WEST IS NOT VIOLENCE

Lawyer and organiser Kamau Franklin argues that corporate media has cultivated the belief there’s no violence when the West commits acts of violence. He cites the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 by the U.S. Yet, Western corporate media accuses other nations of raising the nuclear spectre, conveniently ignoring who actually killed hundreds of thousands in an instant using nukes.

Continued….. In Africa, Libya was destroyed by a US-led NATO coalition in 2011 on the false charge that its
leader, Muammar Gaddafi, was killing his own people. Kamau brings the point home by saying anyone who dares raise even a stick in defence is the one accused of aggression and brutally put down, as Gaddafi found out. To add insult to injury, independence movements across Africa, like the Mau Mau in Kenya and the African National Congress in South Africa, were labelled as terrorist organizations by colonial powers as they fought for their independence.

When Malcolm X spoke of African liberation ‘by any means necessary,’ what he meant was that the white-supremacist imperialist system that has come to control the world today was founded in imperialist violence, and fueled each and every day by violence. We cannot forget that when the oppressed launched an attack, it came after the Western imperialists had declared war on Africans and on other colonised peoples of the world, when they decided to build their wealth through conquest, plunder and our suffering.

What do you make of Kamau’s assessment? Let us know in the comments.

Video credit: HermelaTV

JAMAL TRULOVE: ‘KAMALA HARRIS LAUGHED AT MY SENTENCING’

On 9 February 2010, a jury convicted Jamal Trulove, at the time an aspiring rapper in San Francisco, California, for first-degree murder with a firearm and being a felon in possession of a firearm. The court sentenced him to 50 years to life in prison. 

On his Instagram page, @jamaltrulove, Trulove said US Vice President and presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who was the district attorney for San Francisco at the time, laughed at his sentencing.

On 11 March 2015, after five days of deliberation, the jury acquitted Trulove, releasing him from prison. In January 2016, Trulove filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city and county of San Francisco. In April 2018, a jury awarded Trulove $10 million. 

Continued….. Black people bore the brunt of Kamala Harris’ time as prosecutor in California, reports indicate that she tried to keep inmates locked up for as long as possible, denying parole even to non-violent offenders, all so that the Golden State could rely more on their cheap labour while incarcerated.

Studies estimate 4 per cent to 6 per cent of inmates are wrongfully convicted. While Black people only make up 12 per cent of the US population, 38 per cent of our people comprise the prison population. Since 1989, 3,175 people have been exonerated.

What do you make of Trulove’s story? Let us know in the comments.

Video credit: @jamaltrulove

WHITE AGENDA CONTROLS AFRICAN  CONSERVATION?

Tourism and conservation have been designed to advance the White man’s agenda. That’s the verdict of Mordecai Ogada, an animal ecology and conservation policy expert who co-wrote the book: ‘The Big Conservation Lie’.

He argues the management of Africa’s natural resources is controlled by foreign interests at the expense of Africans. If you want an example, look no further than the Maasai herders. They’ve been forced to water their flocks away from the best locations, so tourists can get the perfect view of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Continued….. So, why don’t local conservationists speak out? Mordecai says it’s because many have been ‘bought’ with big offices and cars and are happy to further a Western agenda. An agenda that’s rooted in the racial hierarchies and imperialism pushed by US President Theodore Roosevelt in the 20th century.

Mordecai’s illuminating book gives the low down on what’s happening. In the meantime, this clip will give you a taste. Tell us what you think in the comments.

Video credit: @LynnNgugi (YouTube)

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HULK HOGAN FIRED BLACK BRAND AMBASSADOR

Do you enjoy watching World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)? Well, many have accused one of its legends, Hulk Hogan, of being racist.

Influencer Sean Alston (@three04joe on IG) broke down how Hogan did not want his daughter dating Black people (news reports say he used the N-word against her boyfriend) and how he got a Black female influencer fired from being his drink’s brand ambassador. The beverage is called ‘Real American Beer.’ 

At last month’s Republican National Convention, Hulk Hogan spoke on stage in support of Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump, known for calling African states ‘sh*thole countries.’

Continued……The 71-year-old wrestler asked the audience if he should body slam and ‘drop the leg’ on Democratic presidential candidate and US Vice President Kamala Harris, who is a woman of mixed Afro-Jamaican and Indian descent.

As a Pan-African news outlet, we encourage Africans to build Africa. While we do not condone our people seeking riches outside of a Pan-African context (such as through a racist wrestler or as a US president who drone-strikes Africa), we understand most our folks are trying to make a living in the most principled way they can as working-class people, wherever they are in the world.

What do you make of Hulk Hogan’s behaviour?

Video Credit: @three04joe (IG)

On 13 March 2020, Breonna Taylor's life was tragically brought to an end as police officers murdered the 26-year-old in her apartment, where she had been sleeping.

Now, US District Judge Charles Simpson has dismissed significant charges in her murder case, saying her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, holds responsibility. The judge left the remaining criminal and civil-rights charges on the former police officers, Joshua Jaynes and sergeant Kyle Meany.

Continued……Both officers falsified information to secure a search warrant to raid Taylor's home. This allowed the police department to bust into the home unannounced after midnight. Confused about who was breaking in, Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, fired a single warning shot at the time officers battered open the door. He even called 911 for help, not knowing officers were raiding. In response to this, the officers fired 32 shots, k*lling Taylor, whom police shot at least five times. The two officers who shot Taylor were never charged.

Taylor's family has promised to continue fighting for justice.

Mali has taken French media outfit La Chaîne Info (LCI) off air for two months for allegedly broadcasting ‘false information’ about its army and Russian allies. On 27th July, LCI ran a programme analysing an ambush on Malian troops and Wagner mercenaries by Tuareg-led rebels in the northern part of the Sahel country. The broadcast, noscriptd “Wagner Decimated in Mali: the Hand of Kyiv,” suggested the influence of Ukrainian intelligence in the ambush. In it, Bamako claims, military consultant Michel Goya “disparaged and made gratuitous assertions” about Malian troops and Wagner forces. 84 Malian troops and 47 Wagner soldiers were reportedly killed in the Tuareg-led attack. Mali broke off relations with Ukraine on 4th August following the incident.

In April 2022, Mali permanently suspended French broadcaster France 24 and Radio France Internationale (RFI) and also temporarily took France 2 off air in February 2024.

This is a quote form a 2005 column in the New Yorker’s satirical Shouts & Murmurs section by US humorist Jack Handey noscriptd ‘What I’d Say to the Martians.’ But its strikes us as a fitting denoscription of Western foreign policy over the last half millennium.

Western Europe developed through the enslavement of Africans and colonialism in the Americas, Africa and Asia. 532 years ago, Christopher Columbus landed on the island of Quisqueya and renamed it Hispaniola. He and his men then proceeded to brutally enact one of the most thorough and rapid genocides in human history. The Europeans sought two things: gold and slaves. And they were willing to unleash an apocalypse to achieve their goals. Columbus enslaved around 1,500 Indigenous Taíno people and made every Taíno over the age of 14 search for gold or face death. The Indigenous population of the island was massacred - reduced from around 300,000 to a mere 500 within 56 years of Columbus’ arrival.

Continued….. This is just one example of the brutality that lies at the heart of Western development. Once the Indigenous population of the Americas was practically eradicated, the European enslavement of Africans went into overdrive, leading to the shipment of tens of millions of Africans to the Americas. Places in Western Europe such as Liverpool, Bordeaux, Nantes and Sevilla grew from villages to large wealthy urban centres thanks to the slave trade. Africa was ravaged, first for its people and later for its raw materials.

Now, Western countries claim that the people they colonised are ‘invaders,’ flocking to Europe in large numbers. But, given the past five centuries of history, who really invaded whom?

Seen at Nottinghill's Carnival. Children defending children 🍉

3D MOSAIC ART FROM THROWN AWAY FLIP-FLOPS

Flip-flops are the footwear of choice for many Africans but these rubber and plastic slippers have a very short life. Most of them end up in landfills and can take up to 80 years to decompose.

Nigerian artist and environmentalist Konboye Ebipade Eugene is using his art to raise awareness about plastic pollution and social stigmas. He collects discarded footwear from dumpsites and riverbanks and transforms it into colourful portraits.

African Stream went to Abeokuta in Nigeria and sat down with Eugene to learn the ins and outs of his craft.

How do you rate his work and philosophy?

Artist: @konboyeeugene (Instagram)

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AKALA ON CULTURAL APPROPRIATION

Nothing wrong with enjoying another person’s culture or adopting some of its trappings and rituals - so long as you respect that culture. So argues British rapper and activist Akala in this clip from an Oxford Union debate.

One of the examples he gives is London’s Notting Hill Carnival - the 2024 edition of which has just wrapped up. The event began in response to race riots in the area and the murder of a Black man from Antigua- something that seems to have been forgotten by some of the participants in recent years. Like many events with radical roots, its commercialisation has defanged it.

This point is especially relevant given the return of race riots to the UK’s streets a few weeks back, when far-right thugs sought to harm Black and Brown people, attacking mosques and migrant hotels. The battle Claudia Jones (the Carnival’s ‘mother’) started in 1966 goes on.