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).

Continued……Take Pythagoras’ Theorem - a bedrock of geometry and physics. Why is it ‘his’ theorem when the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians had worked it out long before him? But that’s just the tip of the ice berg.

In this clip, Instagram’s self-declared ‘cool fact sharer’ @humantenleven takes us on a lightning tour of theorems, laws, identities and principles that should all, really, be renamed in honour of non-Westerners. It’s not so much about priority, even - but, as he notes, a (currently missed) opportunity to learn more about other cultures.

Video Credit: @humantenleven/Instagram

Today, we remember Afro-Jamaican historian, journalist and activist Joel Augustus Rogers, whose work challenged scientific racism and the social construction of race, and helped popularise the study of African history. Rogers ‘looked at the history of people of African origin,’ said historian John Henrik Clarke, ‘and showed how their history is an inseparable part of the history of mankind.’

Rogers was born on 6 September 1880, in Negril, Jamaica. After serving in the British Army, he migrated to Chicago in 1906. Rogers then moved to Harlem in 1921 at the start of the Harlem Renaissance, when African artistic and intellectual pursuits flourished.

Rogers’s extensive travels and research provided the basis for disputing that Black people were inferior to white people. He wrote books on the history of Africa and the African diaspora, with his work spanning the academic fields of history, sociology and anthropology.

Continued….. Rogers’ noscripts include ‘100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof: A Short Cut to the World History of the Negro’ (1934), the ‘Sex and Race’ book series (1941-44) and ‘World’s Great Men of Color’ (1946). 

Despite some referring to him as an ‘amateur’ historian, Rogers’ work plays a critical role in the study of Africans, with his writings still used as reference points.

He passed away after a stroke on 26 March 1966, leaving behind his wife, Helga.

Rest in power, J.A. Rogers.

WAR AGAINST H*MAS OR WAR AGAINST HUMANITY?

While all eyes are on G*za, Israeli forces have launchd a major military offensive on the West Bank. At least 39 Palestinians have been killed and 130 wounded since the assault began last week, according to news outlet Al Jezeera.
Thousands of soldiers were seen assaulting Jenin, Tulkarem and the Far’a refugee camp near Tubas.

However, can this really be framed as Israel’s war on H*mas, given the region is not a Hamas stronghold? The AP news agency reported 10 H*mas fighters were k*lled in the first few days.

In this episode of Africa in 90, African Stream’s Ahmed Ghoneim (ahmed.ghoneim.official) blasts the mainstream narrative.

And he says media reaction would be entirely different if White Europeans were getting k*lled, displaced and colonised.

As the great Kwame Ture once uttered, ‘racism is not a question of attitude; it is a question of power.’

ACTIVIST: ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE ATTACKS BLACK PEOPLE

In this clip, Nick Cruse (@socialistMMA), an activist with Revolutionary Blackout Network (@revblacknetwork on X), breaks down how the pro-Israel US-based group, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and other Zi*nist organisations target Black people in the United States through smear campaigns. Judith Varnai-Shorer, the former diplomat to Israel’s consulate in Atlanta, said young Black people are a problem for Israel.

Pro-Israel supporters have raised the alarm about the growing support for the Palestinian liberation movement, particularly among Black people in the US, who increasingly understand the connection between African and Palestinian oppression, with Israeli military forces training US police in deadly tactics.

Continued….. Former ADL staffers told the press in January that the CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, has ‘redirected the ADL’s day-to-day work to target pro-Palestine activism rather than focusing on antisemitism in American life.’

Aside from the ADL, another group, the pro-Israel lobbying group, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), announced it would spend $100 million to oust anti-Zi*nist US politicians in this year’s elections. At least two Black congresspeople, Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, lost Democratic primaries to AIPAC-backed candidates.

Haaretz reported that Israel secretly targeted primarily Black US lawmakers through fake social media accounts and websites.

Recently, Mondoweiss reported on how US universities are collaborating with Zi*nists, the FBI and local police forces to clamp down on pro-Palestine student activism on campuses this autumn semester.

Video credit: @hotspothotspot (X)

Continued….. However, her shocking death has again raised concerns over femicide in Kenya. Between 2016 and 2023 there have been over 500 cases, according to Africa Data Hub. It estimates 75 per cent of the killings are committed by a person who knew the murdered woman.

Kenyan Sports Minister, Kipchumba Murkomen, said Rebecca’s death, ‘is a stark reminder that we must do more to combat gender-based violence in our society, which in recent years has reared its ugly head in elite sporting circles.’

Rebecca is the third sportswoman to be killed in Kenya since October 2021.

May she rest in eternal peace.