‘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,

CORBYN GRILLS U.K. F.M. ON ARMS TO ISRAEL

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced this week that the United Kingdom has suspended 30 arms export licences to Israel. That amounts to not even one-tenth of its 350 licences to the settler-colonial state, which has k*lled more than 40,000 Palestinians since 7 October, and as many as 186,000 deaths as of early July, according to a Lancet medical-journal report.

Continued……In this 2 September clip, Jeremy Corbyn, a UK MP, long-time Palestine advocate and former leader of the Labour Party, asked Lammy what effect the suspension would have over Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza. Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) also questioned if the UK Royal Air Force base in Cyprus, RAF Akrotiri, launches surveillance drones that the UK flies over Gaza.

Lammy said the UK only exports 1 per cent of the arms Israel uses, saying the United States and Germany, among others, ship Israel far more. He declined to answer about the drones, referring to question as an ‘operational’ issue.

Video credit: @ukparliament

CHINA OFFERS AFRICA BILLIONS AND ‘STRATEGIC’
PARTNERSHIP

Chinese President Xi Jinping has pledged $50-billion in loans to African countries and promises to create one million jobs in the next three years. He made the offer at a Beijing summit this week, attended by over 50 leaders from the continent.

Xi said China was ‘ready to assist in the development of the African Continental Free Trade Area and deepen logistics and financial co-operation for the benefit of trans-regional development in Africa.’

Continued….. He added, ’the Western modernisation process has brought profound suffering to the vast majority of developing countries’ claiming China seeks to protect its interests and ‘resolutely defend each others’ legitimate interests.’

Although the president tried to present China and Africa as equals, referencing their shared experiences with European imperialism and colonialism, some scholars aren’t buying it. Macharia Munene, Professor of International Relations at Kenya’s United States International University, argued the lavish welcome for African delegates was designed to appeal to their ‘vanities.’

Do you agree, or can China and Africa really develop a powerful strategic partnership for the future?

CIA WHISTLEBLOWER: WE KILLED 6 MILLION

In this 1989 video, John Stockwell, a high-ranking CIA official-turned-whistleblower, reveals the appalling human cost of the agency’s covert operations around the world. Stockwell spent most of his 13-year career with the CIA in Africa. Between 1975-76, he was chief of the Angola Task Force - overseeing US involvement in the Angolan Civil War. He also served as a case officer during the Congo Crisis, a period in which Larry Devlin, the CIA’s station chief in the vast central African country, orchestrated the overthrow and murder of pan-Africanist leader Patrice Lumumba. Stockwell’s astounding estimate of six-million casualties resulting from covert US operations does not, of course, include the body count clocked up over the 30 years since this clip was filmed. His book ‘In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story’ provides detailed insights into the agency’s work and its profound implications, particularly in Africa. Does the six-million figure shock you?

DECOLONISING MATHS AND SCIENCE

Flicking through typical maths and science textbooks, you often get the impression that all the great discoveries were made by White European men - thanks to the fact they’re mostly named after White men! This then reinforces the illusion that Western civilisation is more advanced than other civilisations.

However, once you start decolonising the history of maths and science, it quickly becomes clear that many of the big theorems and laws had already been discovered long ago by non-Western cultures (not forgetting also that women often played key roles long brushed over).