Group items tagged

Port Harcourt was chosen as the World Book Capital for 2014 “on account of the quality of its programme, in particular its focus on youth and the impact it will have on improving Nigeria’s culture of books, reading, writing and publishing,” according to the Selection Committee.

Funding has also been approved in principle for a Garden City Library Complex to be built in Port Harcourt which would include a bookshop, performing arts theatre and a library—this alone will change the artistic map of Nigeria, orienting the country towards our third great cosmopolis, Port Harcourt, and away from the noise and urban stresses of Lagos, the business capital, and of Abuja, the rather austerely designed political capital of Nigeria. Of particular delight is the Meet the Author literary readings planned, in which authors will interact with an audience of book enthusiasts, get to read from their work and answer questions, and generally add to a discourse about books and writing in Nigeria.

To suggest that rising global wealth and global poverty are interrelated, and that the former is premised upon the latter, is not something that most players in international development want to do because it would reveal the sordid foundation of their vision of development.

UN Millennium Project director Jeffrey Sachs defends sweated labour across the global South, saying the “sweatshops are the first rung on the ladder out of extreme poverty” (1).

One of neoliberalism’s founding fathers, Friedrich Hayek, wrote: “I have not been able to find a single person even in much-maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet than it had been under [deposed former president] Allende” (3).

Among the many factors impacting on the bill’s fortunes over time, however, its use as a political instrument by various actors at specific moments has been widely acknowledged. Less commented on has been the degree to which this fits in a broader pattern of behaviour in Uganda since the mid-2000s, and the implications of this trend for Uganda’s fragile democracy.

These issues are explored in a new research article on the politics of lawmaking in Uganda, which examines how the government uses the legislature to make political gestures aimed at outmanoeuvring particular opponents, often stimulating violent urban protest and even more violent government crackdowns in the process.

The politics of this odious law is further laid bare the more that it is trumpeted as evidence of independence at home while being dismissed as meaningless abroad.

Will de facto U.S. security policy toward the continent focus on anti-terrorism and access to natural resources and prioritize bilateral military relations with African countries? Or will the United States give priority to enhancing multilateral capacity to respond to Africa's own urgent security needs?

Will de facto U.S. security policy toward the continent focus on anti-terrorism and access to natural resources and prioritize bilateral military relations with African countries? Or will the United States give priority to enhancing multilateral capacity to respond to Africa's own urgent security needs?

Will de facto U.S. security policy toward the continent focus on anti-terrorism and access to natural resources and prioritize bilateral military relations with African countries? Or will the United States give priority to enhancing multilateral capacity to respond to Africa's own urgent security needs?

this is not limited to the public sector. In the private sector, tribalism promotes the creation of self-sustaining and mutually supportive bubbles based on ethnicity. During the hiring process, tribalist bosses will preference people from their own social grouping for top jobs. In workplace disputes, they will not be impartial but will often favour their tribal comrade. During business deals, especially within corporates and multinationals, ethnic affiliation becomes a big factor in building trust between two parties and often in concluding mutually beneficial deals.

It’s shocking that in this day and age – in the so-called “new” South Africa – there are few public figures willing to call the actions and voting patterns of Afrikaans- and English-speaking white South Africans for what they are: narrow-minded tribalism.

The real tribalists (and racists) who Mbeki failed to mention are white South Africans, who effectively come together to vote as a bloc for only two political parties: the white-led Democratic Alliance and the smaller white nationalist Freedom Front Plus.

Duarte was most direct. “AMCU and the formation of EFF show similar characteristics. The platinum belt has become counter-revolutionary. They are working together to destabilise the ANC government and the country,” she said.

The electoral campaign also coincided with serious challenges to the unity of Cosatu, and the emergence of a right-wing, populist demagogic movement, the EFF, posing as left wing.”

Nzimande went on to say: “We must also bear in mind the fact that it has always been the intention of imperialism, monopoly capital, and the apartheid regime, to work towards driving a wedge between the national liberation movement and the progressive sections of the organised working class like Cosatu. Also, it has been the intention of these very same enemy forces to particularly drive a wedge between Cosatu and the SACP.”

It is obvious that in the conceptual framework of the sub-imperialist theorists there is simply no room for regionalism in Africa or regional struggles against the imperialist countries of the US and Europe. I find this most disempowering. For the last almost 30 years some of us have been actively engaged in battling against Europe’s attempt to impose a totally iniquitous ‘Economic Partnership Agreements’ (EPAs) on our countries – among them, for example, that our countries stop all domestic production and export subsidies. The latest deadline for signing the EPA is October 2014. If we fail to sign it, Europe will impose sanctions on Africa. Civil society organisations – such as the Southern and Eastern African Trade and Information Institute (SEATINI) and the human rights organisations in the region - have been carrying out a sustained struggle against the EPAs and have so far succeeded in holding back their governments to signing the EPAs. Should they stop doing their campaigns?

Dr Rodney was assassinated in 1980 against the backdrop of a mass movement for political change in Guyana, which was being led by his party, the WPA, and inspired partly by him as a symbol of the times. After years of inaction by both the PNC and PPP governments, the Ramotar-led PPP in 2014 mounted a Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the assassination.

It immediately became clear that this move was meant more as a political manoeuvre by the PPP than as a search for the truth. The PPP, leading a minority government, was prepared to do anything, including pimping the martyr, to regain total power.

As was the case with many intellectuals of his generation, Dr Rodney did not confine his energies to the traditional classroom. Rather, he extended the classroom to include the street corners and bottom-houses where the masses of people could be reached. Walter Rodney was the consummate public intellectual, whose academic work was first and foremost a tool and avenue for socio-political change. As a product of the Caribbean decolonisation and Independence moments, he saw his primary role as one of service to the wider community in aid of making independence and freedom meaningful to all citizens, especially the poor.