GAZA’S FATE IN EGYPT’S HANDS?

The plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza is unfolding, with immense pressure on Egypt to accept a US proposal that would relocate about 2 million Palestinians. This plan could effectively end the dream of Palestinian statehood, weaken Palestinian resistance, and bring Israel closer to its settler-colonial goal of establishing ‘Greater Israel,’ stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates. 

However, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has rejected the idea, fearing domestic unrest among the ardently pro-Palestine population. Plus, if Palestinian resistance fighters wind up as refugees in Egypt, Sisi has pointed out Israel could use that as a reason for a pre-emptive military campaign that could occupy Egypt, harkening back to Israel’s past occupations of Sinai.

Egypt’s alliance with the US came after acknowledging Israel’s existence in 1980, already delivering at least $84 billion in US aid despite Egypt’s human rights violations. 

Continued….. The question remains: Will Egypt succumb to US pressure and accept the relocation plan, or will it stand firm, risking the wrath of imperial forces?

African Stream journalist Wambura Mwai (@mwaibrenda on IG) takes a look.

Sources

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/14/trumps-gaza-takeover-plan-puts-egypt-in-a-tough-spot

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy4m3wx9w04o

https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2025/feb/13/trump-doubles-down-on-plan-to-empty-gaza-this-is-what-he-has-said-and-whats-at-stake

https://themedialine.org/headlines/egypt-rejects-trumps-gaza-plan-warns-of-regional-fallout

https://www.newarab.com/news/what-could-egypts-alternative-trumps-gaza-plan-include

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-spearheads-arab-scramble-alternative-trumps-gaza-plan-2025-02-14

https://abcnews.go.com/International/trumps-threats-pull-aid-egypt-jordan-accept-palestinians/story?id=118757291

EPISODE 4: BEFORE ROSA PARKS, THERE WAS CLAUDETTE COLVIN

On this day 70 years ago, 2 March 1955, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat to a white woman. Her courageous act of defiance led to her arrest nine months before Rosa Parks’ (1913-2005) infamous civil disobedience, igniting the flame for a legal battle that would ultimately dismantle racist bus segregation in the United States.

In this episode of ‘Decolonised Minds,’ we explore the now 85-year-old’s story.

Despite her pivotal role, the public largely forgot Colvin’s role, perhaps buried under the weight of time and overshadowed by more widely recognised figures of the US Civil Rights Movement. Yet, her bravery as a teenager helped lay the groundwork for the historic Montgomery bus boycott and a Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation on public buses unconstitutional.

Her story is a powerful testament to the importance of every voice—no matter how young or marginalised—in the fight for justice.

RAMAPHOSA SERVES WHITE ELITES - MALEMA

Accusations and counter-accusations of being apartheid-era agents, spies or collaborators have flown around the South African political landscape for decades. One of those who frequently faces these allegations is the country’s current president, Cyril Ramaphosa. Ramaphosa’s opponents claim that he was planted in the country’s liberation movement in the 1980s by the White elite to protect their economic interests in a future Black-led government after the fall of apartheid.

In this February 2024 clip, Economic Freedom Fighters party leader Julius Malema adds his voice to those who allege that Ramaphosa is a sellout. According to Malema, Ramaphosa was a project of the Oppenheimer and Menell families, rich White South Africans that have owned and controlled a vast segment of the country’s economy, especially the mining sector, for decades.

Continued……Malema asks how Ramaphosa, who has never been a mine worker, set up and rose to the top of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), a powerful union and a strong ally of the African National Congress (ANC) in the 1980s. He concludes that Ramaphosa’s rise was a result a backroom deals with the Oppenheimers and other powerful White South African capitalists. He also accuses Ramaphosa of bringing these businessmen into the inner circle of Nelson Mandela, the country’s first post-apartheid leader, hence compromising him as well.

While no solid evidence has been provided to back the accusations against Ramaphosa, his meteoric rise from an activist to a businessman worth more than $450 million, according to Forbes, will always raise questions and speculations.

Credit: Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)

Sources

https://www.forbes.com/profile/cyril-ramaphosa/
https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-02-14-cyril-denies-lekotas-claims-of-selling-out-comrades-during-apartheid/

This week’s proverb is a reminder that your actions are what define you the most. Think of Kenya posing as regional peace broker while giving a platform to the genocidal Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group as it unveiled plans to carve up Sudan.

Hear Us Roar: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AfricanStream

ANCIENT EGPYT WAS A BLACK AFRICAN CIVILISATION

In a bid to present our ancestors as primitive people, European anthropologists and historians would discount the contributions of Africans towards civilisation. Ancient Egyptian civilisation is a case in point. Its achievements were often presented as the products of a White culture - for example, by the likes of French Egyptologist Gaston Camille Charles Maspero (1846-1916).

More recently, British writer Graham Hancock even suggested that Egyptian civilisation was (at the time) impossible to achieve without assistance from an advanced race - be it alien or some lost civilisation.

Continued……In this clip from the Cairo Museum, a lecturer in African history, civilisation, religion and culture dispels these myths using hair samples from ancient Egyptians to show that they were undoubtedly Black Africans.

Sources

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/archaeology-v-graham-hancock-joe-rogan-hosted-showdown

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/history-of-egypt-volume-i-gaston-maspero/1120323247

CONGO RAP PRODIGY SHINES AMIDST WAR

Dogo Browny, a remarkable 13-year-old rap prodigy from Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), is making waves in the vibrant music scene of his war-torn city.

Recently, local event organizer and dancer Bush Sebar offered Browny (@dogo_browny243 on IG) the opportunity to showcase his freestyle skills in the studio, perhaps marking a turn in the life of a young artist navigating the chaos brought on by the three-decade-long, Western-backed conflict over minerals. In January, Rwanda- and Uganda-backed M23 rebels seized Goma, k*lling at least 3,000 people and displacing over 700,000, as reported by the UN.

Fans of Browny celebrate his authenticity in a rap landscape increasingly dominated by commercial interests. The teen pours emotion and personal stories of orphaned children into his tracks. His lyrics confront harsh realities like child soldiers, gender-based violence, displacement, massacres, the exploitation of natural resources and political assassinations.

Continued……He is honing his exceptional talent at the Invisible Kids Academy, a non-profit in Goma that helps orphaned children express themselves through art, dance, and music, providing security amidst the violence.

For 30 years, Western powers have funded proxies, armed and trained by Rwanda and Uganda, to control the DRC’s estimated $24 trillion in mineral wealth. The violence had k*lled around 6 million people by 2010 and possibly many more since. The ongoing conflict has displaced over 7 million individuals, leaving more than 25 million facing food insecurity, according to the UN. The recent surge in violence has resulted in the displacement of over 700,000 people just since January.

Video credit: @invisible_kids_academy243 (IG) @bush_sebar_congo (IG)


Sources

https://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-republic-congo/drc-faces-persistent-food-insecurity-crisis-affecting-over-25-million-people

https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/children-eastern-democratic-republic-congo-increasingly-exposed-sexual-violence

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgy0d3pgv0o

https://www.icrc.org/en/document/sexual-violence-survivors-democratic-republic-congo

https://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-republic-congo/children-young-nine-face-mass-sexual-violence-and-mutilation-drc-save-children

caritas.org/2010/02/six-million-dead-in-congos-war

AARON BUSHNELL'S 1ST DEATH ANNIVERSARY

WARNING: Graphic images

This week marks the first anniversary of US airman Aaron Bushnell dying after setting himself ablaze outside the Israeli embassy in Washington on 25 February 2024 as a protest against the US Air Force providing targeting intelligence to Israel in its military onslaught against the Palestinians in Gaza.

The 25-year-old recorded himself approaching the embassy, stating his refusal to be ‘complicit in g*nocide.’ He then doused himself in a flammable substance and shouted, ‘Free Palestine!’ as he ignited the flames. Bushnell succumbed to his injuries on the same day. One individual named Xylem, who had collaborated with Bushnell in efforts to assist the homeless in San Antonio, Texas, described him as ‘one of the most principled comrades I've ever known.’

Continued……The US has been the largest provider of military, financial and political support to Israel since World War II. On 1 March, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked emergency powers to circumvent Congress and deliver $4 billion worth of weapons to Israel. Shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington in early February, the Trump administration notified Congress of a more than $7 billion arms sale to Israel, bypassing the usual review process. 

The Biden administration had also bypassed Congress in reinforcing Israel’s onslaught. Plus, it vetoed three UN Security Council resolutions that called for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Since 2019, the US has allocated $3.8 billion annually in aid to Israel. 

Israel's military onslaught against the Palestinian people in Gaza has k*lled over 46,000, including around 18,000 children, by the time the ceasefire deal was agreed upon in January, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. In July 2024, the Lancet, a British medical journal, mentioned that the death toll could be more than 186,000. A peer-reviewed study published in January 2025 in The Lancet indicated that the death toll had been undercounted by 40 per cent during the first nine months of the conflict.

Sources

https://il.usembassy.gov/military-assistance-to-israel/

https://www.dsca.mil/press-media/major-arms-sales/israel-munitions-and-munitions-support
https://archive.ph/AXxZT

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/us/politics/rubio-arms-israel.html

https://www.state.gov/military-assistance-to-israel

https://apnews.com/article/israel-weapons-us-sale-netanyahu-trump-gaza-c53a61873314be2336c3733b97d89ff3

https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-many-palestinians-has-israels-gaza-offensive-killed-2025-01-15/

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/gaza-war-toll-likely-significantly-undercounts-deaths-says-study-2025-01-09/

JULIUS MALEMA: APARTHEID ECONOMY NEVER ENDED

Julius Malema, the leader of South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, was born on this day in 1981. He has been a prominent feature of the political landscape since 2008, when he was elected president of the Youth League of the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC). In that role, he addressed issues that the ANC leadership had been skirting around since coming to power after the fall of apartheid in 1994 - namely, the lack of progress on land reform and the nationalisation of key sectors of the economy, such as mining, as promised in the ANC’s guiding document, the Freedom Charter. He accused the ruling party of straying from its revolutionary course by maintaining apartheid-era social and economic structures that excluded Black people from meaningful participation in the country’s economy.

Continued……This put him on a collision course with his party superiors, ultimately leading to his expulsion from the ANC in 2012. However, if they thought expelling him would extinguish his flame, they were wrong. Months after being expelled from the ruling party, Malema announced the formation of the EFF, a party that has, in the last decade, significantly altered the country’s political discourse. The EFF has ensured that tough questions about the post-apartheid South African economy stay in the limelight. It was the party’s relentless advocacy for land expropriation without compensation that eventually led the ANC government to push through the Expropriation Act to address anomalies in the country’s land-ownership structure, which is rooted in apartheid-era legislation.

Malema’s commitment to the fight to break the systems that continue to shackle the majority of Black South Africans to poverty more than three decades after the fall of apartheid has been unwavering. To mark his birthday, we share this 2016 clip of him explaining how the ANC has failed to dismantle apartheid structures completely.

Happy birthday, comrade Malema!

Video credit: BUSINESSLIVE/YouTube

Hear Us Roar: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AfricanStream

NOT ‘SAVIOUR’ BUT SERVANT OF WEST

The UK’s adversarial style of parliament lends itself to the exchange of jibes across the House floor. But Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s recent quip that the woman opposite him - Nigerian-descent Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch - was a self-appointed “saviour of Western civilisation” who is desperately seeking relevance, had deeper significance than mere political points-scoring: he was reminding her that she will never be more than a ‘House Negro’ of the British establishment.

Badenoch has gone to great lengths to fit in. She is fond of criticising Black and Brown immigrants while rolling out the red carpet for European immigrants. She recently condemned the decision of a UK court to grant status to a Palestinian family of six on a scheme - which she supported when intended for Ukrainians - that has provided refuge to over 200,000 Ukrainians.

Continued……. At every turn, she has fought to prove her supposed Britishness, distancing herself from her own roots in a relentless quest for acceptance. For example, she insists that she has nothing in common with Northern Nigerians who, according to her, are extremist terrorists - yet proclaims loudly that she would give her life for Britain, one of the world’s biggest neo-colonial powers. Try as she might, her efforts to be accepted within a still White-supremacist system have been futile.

It’s another reminder that the system is like that by design, and no amount of pandering to the oppressor will make him accept you as kin.

Sources

https://www.kemibadenoch.org.uk/news/kemis-column-statement-ukraine

https://news.sky.com/story/englands-top-judge-condemns-starmer-and-badenoch-comments-on-gaza-family-coming-to-uk-on-ukraine-scheme-13311847

https://research.senedd.wales/research-articles/wales-and-ukraine-three-years-on

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/i-will-die-protecting-this-country-kemi-badenoch-on-where-she-plans-to-take-the-tories/

THE USAID-BOKO HARAM CONNECTION

US Congressman Scott Perry has alleged that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been indirectly funding Boko Haram, as well as other prominent terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS.

Despite the US firmly denying these claims, the Nigerian government is now investigating the allegations. With rumours of foreign support for Boko Haram circulating for years, could there be more to the story than meets the eye?

Watch as we break down the allegations, the reactions and the broader political implications behind this explosive controversy.

Hear Us Roar: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AfricanStream

SOUTH AFRICA NO ‘RAINBOW NATION’

In light of the waves South Africa recently made by enacting a land reform law, we bring back this clip from South Africa’s ‘Big Debate.’ The law seeks to remedy—in part—the unjust legacy of apartheid, which robbed Black South Africans of their lands, leaving over 70 per cent of privately owned farmland in the hands of white settlers, who make up less than 8 per cent of the population. This law led US President Donald Trump to issue an executive order freezing aid to South Africa and offering refugee status to South Africa’s white settlers.

Here, social justice advocate Lovelyn Nwadeyi broke down why apartheid ended, poking holes in the notion that South Africa is a ‘rainbow nation.’ She also distinguished that white South Africans can remove themselves from the struggle that continued after apartheid ended in the early 1990s. Meanwhile, Black people do not have the same luxury.

Let us know in the comments what you make of her argument.

MAKEBA: I’D CHOOSE OPPRESSED, ALWAYS

Miriam Makeba would have turned 93 today. An extraordinary musician and champion for human rights, her impact still reverberates around the world. Not only was she a remarkable singer, she was a powerful advocate for Africans, bravely speaking out at the highest levels - including at the UN, where she exposed the injustices of the apartheid regime in her homeland of South Africa.

Despite having her citizenship revoked, Makeba continued to shine a light on the struggles faced by people in Cameroon, Congo, Guinea, Mozambique, South Africa and Black communities in America. Her music became a beacon of hope and awareness, touching hearts everywhere.

In this clip, she eloquently explains why she would always choose the side of the oppressed over that of the oppressor. Happy birthday, Mama Makeba! Your legacy lives on in the hearts of those who continue to fight for justice and equality.

Video Credit: Conversations with Felicia, The Africa Channel, 2011