Continued….. In March 2024, the UN reported that the number of internally displaced people in DRC had reached 7.2 million, with more than 80% of displacements caused by armed attacks and clashes.

Sources:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn8g540wz3jo

https://qrius.com/congo-sues-apple-alleges-firm-used-pillaged-minerals-in-products/

https://nation.africa/kenya/news/africa/congo-files-criminal-complaints-against-apple-in-europe-over-conflict-minerals-4860252

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-17/congo-sues-apple-alleging-pillaged-minerals-in-products

https://abcnews.go.com/International/us-court-absolves-top-tech-companies-congos-child/story?id=107839639

https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/democratic-republic-congo/democratic-republic-congo-internally-displaced-persons-and-returnees-march-2024

WASTEFUL PENTAGON REVELS IN IMPUNITY

The US often sanctions African officials for corruption.

For example, in May 2024, it slapped five Ugandan officials with visa restrictions, including Parliament Speaker Anita Among, accused of ‘significant corruption tied to her leadership of Uganda's Parliament.’

In contrast, watch as US Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, whose department failed yet another audit, dismissed US comedian and commentator @jonstewart (X) when he pressed her on the Pentagon's failure to account for billions of taxpayer dollars in expenditures. In November 2024, US Under-Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)/Chief Financial Officer Mike McCord announced the Pentagon had yet again failed an audit of its $824 billion budget.

Continued…..Continued….. In this clip from a more extensive reaction video that you can view on X and Rumble, we provide a Pan-Africanist context to this exchange between Stewart and Hicks.

Join the conversation by subscribing to our X handle, @african_stream. You can also find us on Bluesky, Telegram, Patreon and Rumble.

Sources:

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/us-sanctions-current-former-ugandan-officials-for-corruption-human-rights/3235595

If you want to support our work, please consider joining our Patreon! Our African-centered videos take many hours to conceptualise, develop, research, noscript, present and edit. We need your support to sustain the production value of the channel and to help us reach new audiences. Join our community at patreon.com/AfricanStream, where we'll provide some of our members with great perks! Link in Bio!

SAHELIAN WOMEN SPEAK OUT AGAINST IMPERIALISM PART 1

Over the past couple of years, since military leaders in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger military seized power to chart a path towards pan-African unity and sovereignty, life has changed dramatically for the working class and farmers across Africa’s western Sahel and Sahara region.

Perhaps no sector has been as impacted as women. While we hear their voices less often and these conservative cultures tend to minimise them, women are at the forefront of defending and building the trio of nations’ Alliance of Sahel States (AES).

African Stream journalist Inemesit Richardson travelled to each of the three countries to talk to women, who say the Western imperialist warfare - which armed terror groups that have wreaked havoc on the Sahel over the past decade - has disproportionately impacted women.

Continued……Gender-based violence is a reality in wars and, in the Sahel, paramilitary death squads have specifically targeted women. Women also suffer from increased poverty as they lose their husbands and sons to the fight against terrorism. This situation has only politicised women, who have become some of the most well-organised and outspoken critics of the imperialist system.

Nigerien women have joined organisations such as Les Femmes Engagées pour la Sauvegarde de la Patrie (Women Engaged to Safeguard the Homeland) and Les Sentinelles de la Patrie (Sentinels of the Homeland), which have recruited several hundred to several thousand women since the 26 July 2023 coup d’état that ousted a Western aligned leader. Meanwhile, women across the Sahel draw inspiration from assassinated Burkina Faso President Thomas Sankara (1949-87), who spoke incessantly about the need to emancipate women within the African liberation struggle.

Sahelian women place themselves within an obscure tradition of female militantism and political leadership, as represented by Aoua Keïta, the pan-African feminist and socialist who worked alongside Modibo Keïta (no relation) in Mali, and Sarrounia, Niger's brave woman warrior who fought the French colonising army in the 19th century.

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If you want to support our work, please consider joining our Patreon! Our African-centered videos take many hours to conceptualise, develop, research, noscript, present and edit. We need your support to sustain the production value of the channel and to help us reach new audiences. Join our community at patreon.com/AfricanStream, where we'll provide some of our members with great perks! Link in Bio!

FUSE ODG: WHY ‘BAND AID’ SUCKS FOR AFRICA

In 2014, Ghanaian-British artist Fuse ODG declined an invitation to join Band-Aid's 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' 30th-anniversary remake. The charity single was first released in 1984 to fundraise for famine relief in Ethiopia.

This year, on the 40th anniversary, he's released his response track called 'We Know It's Christmas' - and has been vocal, as in this clip from a recent LBC radio interview, in his criticisms of patronising and counterproductive Western aid initiatives for Africa.

He argues that although Band-Aid has raised millions over the years for those affected by various humanitarian catastrophes - from famine in East Africa to ebola in West Africa - its narrow portrayal of the continent as a charity case and a place eclipsed by war, suffering, and disease, has done more harm than good.

Continued……. This, he says, has resulted in Africa and its people being dehumanized by undignified imagery and its potential not being realized as the negative depiction discourages investment into the continent as a viable market of opportunity - contributing to the perpetual cycle of poverty rather than alleviating it.

Many agree with his critique: in a Guardian newspaper article in 2023, Nigerian author Moky Makura wrote that the charity song "triggered the birth of a patronizing industry whose mission it was to 'save Africa.'" Since its release, aid has become an entire industry, seemingly helpful in the short term but whose longer-term impact is ultimately negative - as many, like Fuse ODG, contend.

Research has shown that Africa loses more each year than it receives in aid and that aid has only stunted development and economic growth on the continent - something Zambian economists and author Dambisa Moyo terms 'Dead Aid.'

Furthermore, Fuse ODG argues that not only do Band-Aid's lyrics perpetuate stereotypes and offer a one-dimensional view of the continent, but they are also offensive and reductive.

Video credit: @LBC

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/oct/10/live-aid-led-to-the-patronising-save-africa-industry-we-dont-need-a-musical-about-it

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/19/turn-down-band-aid-bob-geldof-africa-fuse-odg

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/dec/20/world-of-dread-and-fear-bob-geldof-try-eating-catfish-lagos-bush-bar-band-aid-elnathan-john

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If you want to support our work, please consider joining our Patreon! Our African-centered videos take many hours to conceptualise, develop, research, noscript, present and edit. We need your support to sustain the production value of the channel and to help us reach new audiences. Join our community at patreon.com/AfricanStream, where we'll provide some of our members with great perks! Link in Bio!

HOW APARTHEID MADE WHITE SOUTH AFRICANS RICH

According to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), 64 per cent of Black South Africans are living in poverty. However, only one per cent of their White counterparts are poverty-stricken.
The anomaly is not just in the numbers; the reality on the ground also shows that South Africa is still a country of two different societies existing side by side, one rich and primarily White, and the other, poor and Black.

This glaring inequality between the two demographics has been a source of intense debate for decades. One question that is often asked is why this situation remains unchanged even after the fall of the apartheid system in 1994. Could White people be more prosperous because they are more hardworking?

Continued……South African media personality Dan Corder has got the answer to this question. It is an answer that most racists might not like. In this video clip, Corder explains the different racist policies and laws that the apartheid regime put in place to give White people a head start - one that they’re still profiting from today.

Source

https://www.power987.co.za/featured/sas-poverty-statistics-64-black-6-asians-1-white/

https://youtu.be/ZhM__MrjBpk?si=b4kXY3A49YDgx5X5

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Léopold Sédar Senghor was Senegal’s first president, and a prominent poet. He is also accused of further entrenched Senegal into France's sphere of influence after flag independence. As a politician he promoted and maintained close relationships with France. He became a French citizen in 1933 and he served as a minister in France before serving as the president of Senegal. He was the first African elected into Académie Française, a French institution that serves as the worldwide authority on the preservation of the French language. He also served as the dean of the National School of Overseas France (ENFOM), a French school designed to prepare the future generation of African leaders to serve French interests. By the time he came to political prominence in the 1940s, he advocated for further integration within the French empire rather than independence.

Continued……In his own words from the time, his people must “assimilate the spirit of French civilization,” so that it “ fertilizes indigenous civilizations and brings them out of their stagnation... “ While others began calling for independence, Senghor called for a federation which would have maintained Senegal's status as an "overseas territory of France."

As the president of Senegal, Senghor was often criticised for promoting and maintaining neo-colonial policies turning Senegal into a bastion of la Francafrique (as French neo-colonialism came to be known). France maintained the CFA franc, a French military presence and deep financial and cultural ties with the 'former' colonial power. Revolutionaries including Omar Blondin Diop waged serious struggle against Senghor resulting in Diop's political imprisonment and death.

After more than 20 years in power, he quit to dedicate himself entirely to his passion for writing poetry. He died at the age of 95 on December 20, 2001.

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If you want to support our work, please consider joining our Patreon! Our African-centered videos take many hours to conceptualise, develop, research, noscript, present and edit. We need your support to sustain the production value of the channel and to help us reach new audiences. Join our community at patreon.com/AfricanStream, where we'll provide some of our members with great perks! Link in Bio!

SUDAN’S FIRST FEMALE POLITICIAN

Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim began her fight against imperialism at a young age. Fighting for the emancipation of women in Sudan and the people as a whole, she shattered gender barriers to become Sudan’s and Africa’s first female parliamentarian member in 1965. Fatima used her political power to push for women’s rights and fiercely challenged social norms. Quite the task in what was a fiercely conservative country that less than ten years prior was being ruled by both the British and Egyptians, with the British colonialist really calling the shots. What a woman! Let’s peek into Fatima’s life and how she inspired the next generation of Sudanese women.

On 20 December 1956, the Montgomery bus boycott ended after 13 months. The political and social mass action started on 5 December 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama. It was triggered by the arrest of a Black woman, Rosa Parks, four days earlier.

On 1 December, Parks refused to comply with an order to vacate a row of seats in the ‘Coloured’ section of a bus to make room for a White passenger. She was arrested and charged with violation of the Montgomery City code. Under the Jim Crow-era laws, the city’s buses were segregated on a racial basis.

Her arrest for civil disobedience motivated the African community to boycott Montgomery buses. Though the boycott was initially supposed to be a one-day event for the day Rosa appeared in court, its success prompted the organizers to continue it indefinitely.

Continued……. They formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to coordinate the boycott. Dr Martin Luther King Jr was chosen as its leader.

Under the MIA’s guidance, Black people devised various means to avoid using buses. These included walking, cycling, and carpooling. The boycott greatly impacted the income of the bus company that operated the buses, as Black people accounted for more than 60% of its customers. Despite the hardball tactics of the city authorities to end the boycott, the Black community refused to yield.

On 1 February 1956, the MIA took their fight to the courtroom when they filed a lawsuit in the US District Court challenging the legality of the city’s bus segregation system. In a June judgment, the court ruled that segregation was unconstitutional. Unsatisfied with the judgment, the city appealed to the US Supreme Court.

On 13 November, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s ruling and ordered the desegregation of buses in Montgomery and all parts of the country where such laws were present. The order went into effect on 20 December 1956, 381 days after the boycott had started.

The boycott’s success proved that nothing is out of reach once Black people unite.

Sources

https://www.wesleyan.edu/mlk/posters/rosaparks.html
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/montgomery-bus-boycott

AFRICAN CURVES: ENVY OF 19TH-CENTURY EUROPEAN WOMEN?

The bustle dress was a very popular dress during the Victorian era. It was a fashion accessory for upper-class women. Even though this dress was integrated into the couture fashion industry during the 19th century, the origin of its design lies in a very dark past: the exploitation of African women's bodies.

This dress design was inspired by the body features of Sarah Baartman, who was an enslaved Khoi Khoi woman from Cape Town, South Africa. She was displayed as a freak throughout her life in Europe and even after death because of these features.

It’s ironic that a woman whose body features and race, which was considered inferior, were the inspiration behind a fashion trend that once was a marker of wealth and European sophistication.

AFRICAN STREAM CEO TO FATHER: WHY DID YOU LIE TO ME

In this clip from a recent interview on our Pan African Attitude Podcast, African Stream's CEO Ahmed Kaballo, sits down with his father, Sidgi Kaballo - a prominent economist, academic and Central Committee member of the Sudanese Communist Party - to discuss life under occupation by the UAE- backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary in Sudan's capital Khartoum.

Sidgi, who stayed on for seven and a half months in the capital after the outbreak of the proxy war (15 April 2023), recounts his first-hand experience of the hostile RSF militia, including an incident where one of them struck him with a stick while they ransacked his home.

Continued……The clip begins on a lighthearted note, as Ahmed asks his father why he lied about his injury. Sidgi had insisted he was fine when his concerned son shared, via the family WhatsApp group, a dream he’d had about a bomb hurting Kaballo senior. Humorously, Sidgi replies that he didn’t lie because it wasn’t a bomb that hit him.

You can watch the full episode on X, Patreon and Rumble.

MACRON BERATES STORM-HIT MAYOTTE

‘You’re lucky to be part of France!’ That was the message from French President Emmanuel Macron to the frustrated residents of Mayotte, an Indian Ocean archipelago, who are dealing with the aftermath of a severe cyclone.

Macron visited Mamoudzou, the capital of this ‘overseas territory’ (which has been under French control since 1843), a day after Cyclone Chido hit on 18 December, causing massive destruction to the island, which has some 320,000 residents.

The cyclone left homes in ruins, knocked out power, damaged water facilities and blocked roads with debris. It’s the worst storm to strike Mayotte in nearly a century.

Continued….. Reports indicate that 31 people have died, with many more unaccounted for, so the actual numbers could be even higher. Locals are frustrated with the slow response in getting much-needed aid.

Macron's chilly welcome points to bigger issues in Mayotte. The island faces a staggering poverty rate of nearly 80%, which is five times that of mainland France, and almost 40% of the population is unemployed. Critics argue that Paris, located 12 hours away by plane (8,000 km), tends to ignore the archipelago. France keeps its grip on Mayotte, along with other territories such as Réunion and New Caledonia, to strengthen its claims in the Indo-Pacific region.

Is it time for Mayotte to break free from its long-standing reliance on France?

Video credit: @brutofficiel (TikTok)

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/19/world/europe/mayotte-france-cyclone-destruction.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c89x0j1le4lo

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/19/world/emmanuel-macron-france-mayotte-cyclone-intl-hnk/index.html

https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/5039943?sommaire=5040030

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14650045.2023.2294794#d1e119

https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/country-files/regional-strategies/indo-pacific/the-indo-pacific-a-priority-for-france/france-in-the-south-west-indian-ocean/article/the-union-of-the-comoros-and-mayotte#:~:text=Mayotte%20became%20an%20official%20French,%2C%20and%201892%20for%20Moh%C3%A9li).

https://www.melusinapress.lu/read/1981-5500-mxxx/section/5dec61e6-5565-4ba6-b08f-6232a01f5526

ZIMBABWE'S PLAN TO PAY WHITE FARMERS CAUSES CONTROVERSY

In October, Zimbabwe's Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube announced that the country would spend $20 million to pay some white farmers whose land was expropriated in early 2000 during its land reform programme.

According to Ncube, only farmers who were citizens of countries with Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (BIPPA) during the land reform programme would be eligible for the payments. BIPPAs are treaties between two countries that aim to protect and promote investments made by citizens in each other’s countries. Zimbabwe had BIPPAs with Denmark, Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland during the land reform programme.