COULD IMPERIALISM EXPLAIN THE SLOW MPOX RESPONSE IN AFRICA?

Since its emergence, mpox has been largely ignored, even as it threatens to become a full-blown crisis in Africa and beyond. Vaccines have been available since 2022, but remain largely inaccessible for much of the continent, with critics arguing a strategy of containing the outbreak in Africa rather than solving the crisis, has been deployed.

The mpox outbreak in Africa has made one thing clear: The continent’s continued dependence on external powers for its health.

Hundreds of thousands of vaccines are being pledged by the West to counter the spread of the virus across Africa.
It’s killed over 600 people and there are currently nearly 23,000 cases.

So, why can’t the continent find its own solutions, instead of relying on others? William Sakawa explains how imperialism, old and new, has played its part.

Continued…. Colonialism dismantled African health practices, while unethical Western experiments on Africans undermined trust. Even today, IMF reforms enforce austerity that cuts investment in local health systems.

There is a cure, though. Africa needs to break its dependency on foreign powers for the sake of its own wellbeing.

Have a watch and share your thoughts.

Israel is not allowed to fight its enemies to the finish, British journalist Jake Wallis Simons opines in an article for the right-wing leaning Daily Telegraph newspaper.

He argues that while the West ‘is happy to win wars for itself, whether against Nazi Germany, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or the Islamic State, different rules apply to the Jews.’ The implication is that Israel is hamstrung by international laws that prevent it from ‘winning’ against its foes.

Simons, who also edits The Jewish Chronicle believes this has to change, even though Israel’s war on Gaza has k*lled over 40,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children officially and as many as 186,000 as of early July, according to a Lancet medical-journal report. .

Continued….. Tel Aviv has also ignored orders by the International Court of Justice to prevent g*nocide.

The Telegraph is regarded as a mouthpiece for Conservatives (Tories) and is nicknamed the ‘Torygraph’ by some. Under Conservative leadership, the UK sent $53.2m of military hardware to Israel in 2022 and $22.8m in 2023. London also granted over 100 arms export licences with undisclosed amounts between 7th October 2023 and May 2024. Something that new Labour leader Kier Starmer has no interest in stopping anytime soon.

We’ve fixed the Telegraph’s headline for a more accurate presentation of the facts. Let us know what you think in the comments

Today, we remember the 1875 massacre in Clinton, Mississippi, where a white militia shot more than 50 Black people during a post-Civil War Reconstruction-era political gathering.

According to the Mississippi Encyclopedia, white Democrats provoked the riot to reclaim control of the state from recently enfranchised freedmen (once enslaved Africans) whom the Republican Party supported ahead of the 1875 election. This reportedly paved the way for Jim Crow discriminatory laws. At the time, Republicans presented themselves as the liberal party in complete contrast to today’s Republicans, and sought to garner support in the US South after the Civil War devastated the landscape and economy. Meanwhile, white people of the losing Southern Confederacy comprised the Democratic Party. It was quite different from the dynamics of today’s parties.

Continued……But, back to what happened on 4 September of that year. At least 1,500 Black Republicans convened on the grounds of the former Moss Hill plantation for a barbecue and political rally. Approximately 100 white people also attended, including a few Democrats. To ensure peace prevailed, the hosts banned alcoholic beverages and w*apons, and invited both a Democratic and Republican candidate to speak.

When Republican speaker and editor of the Jackson Times, Captain H.T. Fisher, gave his remarks, shots filled the air, leading the crowd to run frantically. At least five Black people—including two children—and three white people, were k*lled, and nearly 30 others were wounded. Sadly, the shooting was a prelude to the violence that was to come.

Later that night, a white militia (named ‘Modoc’ after an Indigenous tribe in what is now California and Oregon) associated with the Mississippi Democratic Party began a hunt for Black people in Clinton. Violence and bloodshed marked the following days, as the white mob indiscriminately shot and k*lled nearly 50 Black people in the area. Many of our people hid in the woods and swampland. Meanwhile, US President Ulysses Grant denied requests for a federal troop deployment and adopted a policy of non-intervention.

May the victims of this massacre continue to rest in peace.

‘DON’T OUTSOURCE SECURITY TO THOSE WHO WANT OUR MINERAL RICHES!’

Why buy weapons or other ‘security solutions’ from the very people who have an interest in destabilising your country so that they can carry on exploiting it? That, essentially, is the question put to a recent security symposium in Kigali, Rwanda by Zimbabwean Pan-African activist Brian Kagoro. Likewise, guns-for-minerals swaps ought to be abandoned, he argues. As he elaborates in this clip, we should instead be guided by the freedom fighters who brought us independence - whose ideals focused on bringing about and protecting a better society. Given what was (and is) going on in neighbouring DRC - whose east is in an ongoing crisis of violence amid a battle for control of resources, fuelled, it’s widely believed, by Rwandan backed rebels - did his words strike a chord at the symposium? What do think of them?

‘THE WEST’ DOESN’T EXIST

‘The West’ is a mere fiction - born from imperialist fantasies of White racial superiority. So argues British-based journalist Afua Hirsch (@afuahirsch) in this selfie video, taking her cue from a recent book she’s been reviewing: ‘How the World Made the West’ by historian Josephine Quinn. The book (published February 2024) challenges that idea that the so-called West pushed civilisation outwards to the rest or the world, arguing instead that it’s the other way round: interactions with cultures from all over the world for millennia went into the creation of what bills itself as the superior West. Hirsch is clearly excited by Quinn’s book. Will you be reading it? Have you already? What did you think?

Video Credit: @afuahirsch

MBEKI: AFRICAN LEADERS HAVE TO BE HONEST WITH EACH OTHER

The African Union (AU) has become a club to defend the interests of African heads of state, not the people. That’s according to Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s president from 1999 to 2008.

He said part of the problem lies in a lack of accountability. Take the case of Ivory Coast’s Allasane Ouattara, who performed a constitutional coup to extend his presidential term in 2020. We hear not a murmur from the African Union.

Compare that with the AU’s response to revolutionary coups that have swept Africa’s Sahel region in recent years which were backed by the masses on the streets. The continental organisation suspended Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger for throwing off the neo-colonial yoke, even as Western-aligned African leaders keep their AU seats.

Have a listen, and please share your thoughts.

IS DEMOCRACY HOLDING AFRICA BACK?

Western style democracy was widely adopted after independence in Africa. But when it comes to economic management of our resource riches, the people have had very little say and these democratic systems have failed to break the colonial bonds of economic entrapment. So what you find is that many economies in Africa continue the management and the extractive use of mineral resources, primarily by foreign or international or multinational companies without the participation of the majority of locals.

That’s the observation, in this clip, of South African economist Nthabiseng Moleko. Local communities are in no way benefiting from exploitative relationships between African governments (however fairly elected) and multinational firms. So what’s gone wrong? Has Western-style democracy been badly implemented? Is it the wrong political system for us? What’s the alternative? How do we start sharing the wealth?

Video credit: @NelsonMandelaUniversity

U.S. GAMING WAYS TO MEDDLE IN AFRCIA

Here’s an interesting insight into how the US is in its everyday meddling in Africa. Censorship expert Mike Benz talks us though how the US military gamed a situation in a ‘hypothetical’ West African country in which China was helping build a port - something that would be deemed a threat by Washington. The proposed response involved mobilising civil-society assets on the ground and on social media to generate an ‘instability event’ - for example, agitating to get workers working for Chinese companies in the country to go on strike and bring production at places like mines to a standstill. The US would then offer to help end the instability on condition the Chinese were kept out of the port project. All hypothetical, of course… right?

Video credit: @Winston Marshall Show

MOHAMMAD MARANDI COOKS JAMES WHALE ON GAZA

Iranian academic and commentator Mohammad Marandi recently unleashed on James Whale’s Talk TV programme, ‘James Whale Unleashed.’ 

Whale brushed aside Marandi citing British medical journal The Lancet’s report in July that Israel may have k*lled over 186,000 Palestinians since 7 October 2023. Whale’s argument was that Palestinians would still be alive and Gaza not destroyed had it not been for the ‘t*rrorists’ committing g*nocide. ‘The Israeli regime, right?’ Marandi replied. 

Not one to shy away from a debate, the Iranian professor of English literature and Orientalism at Tehran University said the UK is suppressing the truth about Palestine, citing the arrests of independent journalist Richard Medhurst and pro-Palestine activist Sarah Wilkinson. Medhurst was arrested under the UK’s Terrorism Act, Section 12, while Wilkinson was charged with supporting terrorism.

Video credit: Talk TV (@talktv) 

AFRICANS IN EUROPE ‘TREATED LESS THAN HUMAN’

Belgian youth worker, Maryline Thiry, had the chance to come to Ghana and experience not only the culture, but its bustling and thriving economy. And she says she would love it if Black people in Europe were welcomed as much as White people were in the West African state.

However, she claims ‘people in power’ peddle narratives that people from the ‘Global South’ come to Europe to ‘take our money.’ It’s worth stating neocolonialism is still present in Africa, with Western conglomerates continuing to make vast profits from the continent’s resources.

In Maryline’s opinion, Africans in Europe have been ‘treated less than humans’ and deserve dignity and respect.

She was being interviewed for the African Narratives Podcast during the Sfinks Mixed Festival in Boechout, Belgium.

video credits The African Narrative Podcast,