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ChickenBones: A Journal for Literary & Artistic African-American Themes |
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The African World Progenitor of Peoples, Nations, and Ideas DuBois Speaks to Africa Malcolm X Speaks to Africa Transitional Writings on Africa |
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Julius Kambarage Nyerere (1922-1999) / Ujamaa By Junious Nyerere |
Kwame Nkrumah, Kenyatta, and the Old Order / African Liberators of Nigeria |
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Responsibility of a Pan-African Socialist A speech by Osagyefo Osagyefo on African Renaissance The Wealth of the West Was Built on Africa's Exploitation (Richard Drayton) |
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Remembering Ahmed Sekou Touré as Guinea Turns 50 By Norman Otis Richmond |
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Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall's African Journey (2008) Thurgood Marshall became a living icon of civil rights when he argued Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court in 1954. Six years later, he was at a crossroads. A rising generation of activists were making sit-ins and demonstrations rather than lawsuits the hallmark of the civil rights movement. What role, he wondered, could he now play? When in 1960 Kenyan independence leaders asked him to help write their constitution, Marshall threw himself into their cause. Here was a new arena in which law might serve as the tool with which to forge a just society. In Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall's African Journey (2008) Mary Dudziak recounts with poignancy and power the untold story of Marshall's journey to Africa
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Amilcar Cabral Bio / The Quotable Cabral / Cabral Sketch / Murder of Amilca Cabral (poem) / Island (poem) |
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Photos by Runoko Rashidi |
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Difficulties of Colonization (Albert Schweitzer) / Albert Schweitzer Receives No Negro Applause / Dr. Banda Grandfather of New African Politics |
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International Criminal Court Calls for the Arrest Of Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir for Genocide Blood, Ink, and Oil President Omar al-Beshir Restriction of Humanitarian Aid |
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Genocide, slavery, rape, and colorism are wrong.—It is now less than a month since I was appointed National Chairwoman of the United States branch of South Sudan's Sudanese Sensitization Peace Project (the SSPP). This was a most ironic appointment considering the fact that I am a half-Arab Northerner, originally born Muslim, a "traitor" to the North. I did spy work for the SPLA (South), and now, in my job rounding up celebrities and politicians to take a stance on behalf of Darfur and the 2011 secession of South Sudan, I find myself greatly pained that absolutely none of the African Presidents of the African Union are doing what they should to challenge and confront President Bashir's regime in Khartoum, even as they acknowledge that he, and in full disclosure, my former boyfriend, Hasan al Turabi, are responsible for carrying out genocide. Millions of blacks around the world—whether their worlds be Johannesburg, Harlem, Dakar, London or Los Angeles—love to evoke the names "Nubia" and "Cush" to the point of overkill, yet as we get high linking ourselves to some glorious ancient past, we place little stock in fixing our present or constructing our future. Kola Boof Nuba-Darfur-South Sudan Table |
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The Lynching of Robert Mugabe: Critique of Empire, History and Memory! (Part 5) By Emmanuel Franklyne Ogbunwezeh The Lynching of Robert Mugabe (part 1) Empires and Lynching (part 2) Witnessing in Perilous Times (part 3) Instruments of Imperial Domination (part 4) The African World Nuba-Darfur-South Sudan Transitional Writings on Africa |
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Report on Leimart Park Village Book Fair (Larry Uklai Johnson Redd) Towards a Strategic Geopolitical Vision of Afro-Arab Relations By Kwesi Kwaa Prah Where Obamaism Seems to be Going By Adolph Reed, Jr. |
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My Master, My Husband Bible Killers of Sudan SUDAN: Purple Eye Gone Dry Every Little Bit Hurts Christmas on the Nile |
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What Can We Learn from Darfur? Book Reviews by David Morse |
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With the Lost Boys in Southern Sudan (Morse)
Nuba-Darfur-South Sudan Table Wole Soyinka & Chinua Achebe on Darfur Crisis (Orikinla Osinachi) It is Darfur again and the misery goes on (E. Ablorh-Odjidja) |
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Wild Life Returns En Masse to South Sudan by Ngor Arol Gerang |
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Sudanese Moving North to Israel—Excessively harsh socio-economic conditions and racist attitudes in Egypt seem to be the main reason why Sudanese refugees want to relocate to Israel. Of the Sudanese refugees now resident in Israel 71 per cent report verbal and physical abuse as the main reason for their fleeing Egypt. Some 86 per cent had refugee status with the UNHCR in Egypt, though those crossing the border spent an average of six months in detention upon arrival in Israel. Others are subject to indefinite detention. Sudan is considered an enemy state by the Israelis and Sudanese refugees are viewed as suspect. This is especially the case with Muslim Sudanese from Darfur and northern Sudan. Southern Sudanese are culturally more attuned to Israeli culture, and Israelis warm up to them. "The Israelis are suspicious of us because we are Muslim," complained a Sudanese originally from Darfur. . . . There are an estimated 400,000 Sudanese refugees in Kenya, 400,000 in Chad and 100,000 in Egypt. Yet on the UN human development index, Israel stands at 23, Egypt at 111 and Kenya at 152. Chad is among the world's poorest and least developed nations and Sudan is not far behind. –Gamal Nkrumah. Sudanese refugees fleeing Egypt for Israel |
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Black Girl in Her Search for God Tending One’s Own Garden (Shaw) |
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Fit to Govern: The Native Intelligence of Thabo Mbeki South Africa and Darfur -- Fact Sheet By
Abdelbagi Jibril, Executive Director Nobody ever chose to be a slave (Mbeki) / South African Oppression and Poverty (Mfanelo Skwatsha) |
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In South Africa, Chinese is the New Black—A high court in South Africa ruled on Wednesday that Chinese-South Africans will be reclassified as “black,” a term that includes black Africans, Indians and others who were subject to discrimination under apartheid. As a result of this ruling, ethnically Chinese citizens will be able to benefit from government affirmative action policies aimed at undoing the effects of apartheid. In 2006, the Chinese Association of South Africa sued the government, claiming that its members were being discriminated against because they were being treated as whites and thus failed to qualify for business contracts and job promotions reserved for victims of apartheid. The association successfully argued that, since Chinese-South Africans had been treated unequally under apartheid, they should be reclassified in order to redress wrongs of the past. WSJ News Jacob Zuma, President of the African National Congress, with Hu Jintao in Beijing last week (Reuters) |
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The Land Question in South Africa: The Challenge of Transformation and Redistribution—The editors, Lungisile Ntsebeza and Ruth Hall, have brought together a useful and interesting collection of papers presented at a 2004 conference in Cape Town about the land question in South Africa, a central and still highly controversial problem, as the divergent views within this book demonstrate. Readers of this volume will get both a sampling of some of the main analytical approaches to the land question as well as a sense of the direction in which the different positions lead, especially concerning the impasse of large-scale land redistribution and transformation of the rural economy in South Africa. . . . The content and scope of the discussion in this book as a whole manages for the most part to get beyond the state-market continuum that tends to dominate much of the debate today. The editors' cautionary note about the dangers of a technicist approach evident at the 2005 National Land Summit is well taken, and they, along with several authors, stress that the resolution of the land question is essentially a political process. H-Net Reviews |
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I
Am an African
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Christian Missionaries in Phokeng Excerpts from The Autobiography of an Unknown South African By Naboth Mokgatle Doctors Naboth Mokgatle, The Autobiography of an Unknown South African |
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Steve Biko Speaks on Black Consciousness Bantu Stephen Biko: A Profile Where the White Man Can't Win |
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South African Oppression and Poverty Under Mbeki and Mandela—“Worse than Apartheid!” Mfanelo Skwatsha (PAC) On Tour |
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Nobody ever chose to be a slave by Thabo Mbeki & a Note from Ezili Dantò Global News: Politics—Literature & the Arts |
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Apartheid dead but racism endures—Under apartheid, black education was purposely substandard and certain skilled jobs, notably in big corporations such as the railroad, were reserved for whites. Now white South Africans complain about government affirmative action programs that work against them. Yet despite these programs and a booming economy, more blacks are out of work than under white rule. Government statistics show that 10 percent of black households are in the top income bracket compared with 65 percent of white households. Blacks are 85 percent of the 48 million population. President Thabo Mbeki hoped business friendly policies would create a trickle-down effect, but they didn't, and many blacks criticize Mbeki for leaving the reins of the economy in white hands. In 2004, in its most recent available figures, the Department of Trade and Industry said black ownership of businesses had gone from zero to 10 percent and blacks occupied 15 percent of skilled positions. Whites-only suburbs and restaurants have been desegregated, but few blacks can afford their prices. Most still live in black townships and work for whites as laborers, farm hands or domestic workers. Oakley-Smith says she can list scores of racist incidents — segregated toilets in big companies, rude and racist remarks by white supervisors in the mines, whites posting pictures of monkeys under the names of black supervisors.— Yahoo News |
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AIDS in Africa A Book of Hope,Healing, Wisdom & Inspiration |
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The problem of the Africans in the 21st century is the problem of poverty, underdevelopment, and marginalisation. --Thabo Mbeki, 2003 If way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst. --Thomas Hardy |
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Ban Firearms in South Africa By Mpumelelo Toyise / Back from Rwanda Tourism of Death (Spring Ulmer) |
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“Amandla": A new voice from within the South African Left—A very unusual and exciting project was launched in South Africa this past June. Amandla www.amandla.org.za ), an on-line and hard-copy journal, emerged from within overlapping sections of the South African Left. At a point when the radical Left internationally desperately needs innovative theory, Amandla appeared on the scene as a means for the summation of the South African experience and a mechanism for badly needed debate within that significant movement. . . .Amandla is important for those of us in the USA both for giving us insight into the thinking within South Africa, as well as for, hopefully, inspiring us to do likewise in the USA. In terms of giving us insight into South Africa, the South African Left, regardless of any problems it faces, remains among the most vibrant on the planet. It is confronting issues of national and regional economic development in the face of imperialism, as well as attempting to address the challenge of building a pro-socialist movement in a post-liberation society. The latter is noteworthy for many reasons, not the least being that the South African Left often finds itself up against former comrades, individuals who know all the right words and phrases of the Left, but who use them to advance a different set of class interests. Bill Fletcher. Zmag |
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Alhaji Ahmadu, Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe |
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In Nigeria, Yar’Adua Reigns, Obasanjo Rules The Impact of Girl's Education on HIV and Sexual Behaviour / Nigeria's Last Virgins / The African Writer Is an Orphan |
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The Impact of the
Internet on Journalism Practice in Nigeria
-- African Renaissance:
June/July 2004
Sept./Oct.
2004 Nov/Dec
2004
Jan/Feb 2005 |
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Emmanuel Franklyne Ogbunwezeh Nigeria A Failed State in the Making? / The Inauguration of Illegitimacy Scaffolds of Primitive Corruption Roguery Incorporated Explaining the African Predicament A Letter to Chinweizu and Rudy by Emmanuel Franklyne Ogbunwezeh |
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Pope
John Paul II: A Life with a Mission A Mission of Grace and Moral
Strength |
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The Fourth World Multiculturalism as Antidote to Global Violence Chinua Achebe: The Man and His Works (2006) Of St. Augustine, the African Restless Heart, and Search for Peace |
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Rose Ure Mezu Index Chinua Achebe Introduction Reading Rose Ure Mezu Achebe Another Birthday in Exile |
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African Workers and Scholars Unite (Bond) / Interview with Issaka K Souare / Poems by Godspower Oboido |
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LEON SULLIVAN: Summits and Opportunism by Omoyele Sowore |
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The Osu Caste Discrimination in Igboland Impact on Igbo Culture and Civilization By Victor Dike |
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Books by Victor E. Dike, Democracy and Political Life in Nigeria & The Osu Caste System in Igboland: A Challenge for Nigerian Democracy |
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An individual has to take a decision . . . take stock of himself and act—"The writer is first and foremost a citizen and the writer's responsibility is not different from that of a citizen. . . . People sometimes take a snobbish attitude, saying we cannot engage on this level because it's not pure enough for us. . . . On all levels humanity is involved. And wherever humanity is involved, that's my constituency.”—Wole Soyinka, the 1986 Nobel literature prize winner—the first black writer to receive the award. |
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A Poet Engages the Head of a Nation
Dear President Obasanjo: Another
Letter Niyi Osundare At 60 (Ugochukwu) / Niyi Niyi Osundare (poem) by Lee Meitzen Grue / PraiseSong for Niyi Osundare (Mona Lisa Saloy) |
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Osundare's Universe of Burdens The Poet's Pen & Other Poems by Niyi Juliad |
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Remembering Biafra: A Literary Review By Chioma Oruh |
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Africa—Where the Next US Oil Wars Will Be—Most oil from Saudi Arabia and the Middle East winds up in Europe, Japan, China or India. Increasingly it's African oil that keeps the US running. "West Africa alone sits atop 15% of the world's oil, and by 2015 is projected to supply a up to a quarter of US domestic consumption." A foretaste of American plans for African people and resources in the new century can be seen in Eastern Nigeria. US and multinational oil companies like Shell, BP, and Chevron, which once named a tanker after its board member Condoleezza Rice, have ruthlessly plundered the Niger delta for a generation. Where once there were poor but self-sufficient people with rich farmland and fisheries, there is now an unfolding ecological collapse of horrifying dimensions in which the land, air and water are increasingly unable to sustain human life, but the region's people have no place else to go. Twenty percent of Nigerian children die before the age of 5, according to the World Bank. Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of oil have been extracted from the Niger Delta, according to Amnesty International in 2005. But its inhabitants “...remain among the most deprived oil communities in the world - 70 per cent live on less than US$1 a day. In spite of its windfall gains, as global oil prices have more than doubled in the last two years, the Nigerian government has failed to provide services, infrastructure or jobs in the region." Black Agenda Report |
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Poems by Jumoke Verissimo: Skirting around dustbin dreams A note from my neighbourhood |
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A Letter in Response to "Nigeria A Failed State in the Making?" By Chinweizu Reparations for Darfur USAfrica: A Mortal Danger for Black Africans Nuba-Darfur-South Sudan Table |
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The Igbo and Jewry / Igbos: A Lost Tribe of Israel? By Adeyinka Makinde |
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Can Greed Save Africa? Fearless investing is succeeding where aid often hasn't |
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Chronicle of Shame and Deceit By S. Okechukwu Mezu |
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Some Brothers Do Have 'Em Oh Virtuous Matriarchs (A Tribute To African Women) / Boosting Brand Nigeria With the Golden Eaglets Win |
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Fiction by Onyeka Nwelue Men in Suit? Give ’Em A Chance Onyeka Nwelue Interviews Jude Dibia The Train Journey (short story) Interview with Onyeka Nwelue |
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Conversations with Anne Mordi A Driver in the Dark Tunnels of the London Underground By Uche Nworah |
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The Role of Traditional Rulers in an Emerging Democratic Nigeria Equality in African Relationships (Folasayo Dele-Ogunrinde) / Women We Hate (Uche Nworah)
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Fearing Forced Female Genital Mutilation Nigerian Pamela Enitan Izevbekhai Flees to Ireland with Daughters |
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Lumumba: A Biography (Robin McKown) Letter to Pauline Independence Day Speech (June 30, 1960) Congo White King Red Rubber, Black Death A Belgium King’s Sins Revealed in Film |
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The Invisible War Democratic Republic of Congo—It’s the deadliest conflict since World War II. More than 5 million people have died in the past decade, yet it goes virtually unnoticed and unreported in the United States. The conflict is in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Central Africa. At its heart are the natural resources found in Congo and multinational corporations that extract them. The prospects for peace have slightly improved: A peace accord was just signed in Congo’s eastern Kivu provinces. But without a comprehensive truth and reconciliation process for the entire country and a renegotiation of all mining contracts, the suffering will undoubtedly continue. In its latest Congo mortality report, the International Rescue Committee found that a stunning 5.4 million “excess deaths” have occurred in Congo since 1998. These are deaths beyond those that would normally occur. In other words, a loss of life on the scale of Sept. 11 occurring every two days, in a country whose population is one-sixth our own. Truthdig |
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The Significance of Pan Afrikanism in Present Day Namibia Henny H. Seibeb, Bernadus C. Swartbooi and T. Elijah Ngurare |
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The Population Emergency—Sub-Saharan Africa has been experiencing phenomenal population growth since the beginning of the XXth Century, following several centuries of population stagnation attributable to the slave trade and colonization. The region's population in fact increased from 100 million in 1900 to 770 million in 2005. The latest United Nations projections, published in March 2007, envisaged a figure of 1.5 to 2 billion inhabitants being reached between the present and 2050. . . .And although two-thirds of its population still live in rural areas, massive migration to the towns and cities is under way. Thus, whereas in 1960, just one city, Johannesburg, had a population of over one million, Africa now has about 40 of them. Science Daily |
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U.S.-Ethiopian Occupation of Somalia Millions Displaced in "Worst Humanitarian Disaster" By Glen Ford The "War on Terror" and Africa's Worst Humanitarian Crisis (Sadia Ali Aden) |
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The Population Emergency—Sub-Saharan Africa has been experiencing phenomenal population growth since the beginning of the XXth Century, following several centuries of population stagnation attributable to the slave trade and colonization. The region's population in fact increased from 100 million in 1900 to 770 million in 2005. The latest United Nations projections, published in March 2007, envisaged a figure of 1.5 to 2 billion inhabitants being reached between the present and 2050. . . .And although two-thirds of its population still live in rural areas, massive migration to the towns and cities is under way. Thus, whereas in 1960, just one city, Johannesburg, had a population of over one million, Africa now has about 40 of them. Science Daily |
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George W Bush's six-day tour of Africa—Johnson-Sirleaf is the ideal African leader as far as the Bush administration is concerned. Other preferred African leaders are Tanzanian president, Ghanaian President John Jufour and, of course, Beninois President Boni Yaye. The momentum behind the Americans in Africa is not what it was during the Cold War era. The war on terror, Africa's potential as a major oil supplier to the US (currently 16 per cent of US oil imports), and AFRICOM are the superpower's priorities in Africa today. The continent is no longer enemy turf, not even with Chinese competition for hydrocarbons and raw materials. There is also progress on the ground for champions of what is mistakenly called free trade, and there are no obvious socialists to be found. The botched handling of Africa's underdevelopment concerns is America's opportunity on the continent. Bush made smarmy speeches of little substance and even less consequence. Few understood what he was talking about, but most pretended that they did. Weekly Aahram |
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An African President Addresses US Congress (March 15, 2006) After All the Flame Deposing Charles Taylor I, Momolu, Liberia The African World |
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The End of An African Nightmare—Monrovia was in chaos as rebel groups shelled the city in an effort to oust Taylor. By that point the 14-year civil war had killed 270,000 people – an astonishing one out of every twelve Liberians – and forced another 250,000 to become refugees. The economy had completely collapsed, with GDP falling by more than 90 percent between 1989 and 1996, one of the largest collapses ever recorded anywhere in the world. Children as young as ten had become pawns in the violence, with warlords abducting them from their families, stuffing them with drugs and arming them with AK-47s (for a first-hand account from a former child soldier in neighboring Sierra Leone, read the riveting A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah). But United Nations peacekeepers put an end to the conflict in 2003. Taylor first went into exile in Nigeria and is now in The Hague facing war crimes charges for atrocities committed in Sierra Leone. The U.N. and thousands of brave Liberians organized elections in late 2005 which resulted in President Sirleaf’s election. And she is resolutely moving the country forward by rebuilding institutions, restoring basic services, reviving the economy and beginning to heal the deep wounds of war.—Steve Radelet NYTimes Blog |
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My Grandma Rocks the Cradle and Rules the World & Other Poems by Ellen Dunbar |
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What Dirge When I Get to Heaven Finding My Family Patricia Jabbeh Wesley Is Survivor & Witness to War in Liberia By Randy Wells What I Tell My Daughter In the Beginning Monrovia Women Surrender |
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Fathia Nkrumah Profile by Gamal Nkrumah
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Juneteenth and the Emancipation of Whom: Niggers or Enslaved Africans? By Professor Gershom Williams Market for Ni$$as / My New Orleans with Quo Vadis Gex / What Black Men Think (Film, 2007) / Eluard A. Burt II Obituary For Eluard on his Birthday |
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The Effects of Time and Place on the Nomads of Niger By K.L. Barron Niger and the National Museum of Niger (Runoko Rashidi) |
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Cape Verde—We are pleased with what has been achieved, but our aspirations for a higher level of development are much greater, regardless of the opinion the rest of the world may have of us. At independence we had an illiteracy rate of nearly 70 percent, but today it is 24 percent. Life expectancy stood at 50 years, and now it is between 75 and |
