African Affairs

Kenyan intellectuals have to lead the way in nationalist thinking

Wandia Njoya — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:49:35 -0800

As the presidential elections appear around the corner, Kenyans are getting anxious about how they are going to manage an election in a toxic political environment poisoned by ethnic animosity.

In such troubling times, the role of intellectuals is crucial: to help Kenyans clarify the issues, and to help them imagine a different scenario that would help us vote peacefully and with our conscience and intellect - as opposed to violently and according to our primal instincts.

An Uhuru presidency could be Kenya's doom

Wandia Njoya — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 00:47:07 -0800

Hassan Omar Hassan's article on Kibaki's Kikuyu-centric presidency captured the very disturbing scenes in the TV news reports about the soaring fuel prices and the volatile Kenyan shilling. read more »

Africa is People, Nigeria is Nigerians: Provocations on Post-Mendicant Economies

Pius Adesanmi — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 11:18:01 -0800

I guess it is in the character of my friend, Sharif Khalill, CEO of Aga Khan Foundation Canada, to put one on a podium before a distinguished assemblage of guests comprising members of the diplomatic community, Members of Parliament, Directors in the Canadian Foreign Affairs Ministry, staff of international development agencies, CEOs from corporate Canada, senior academics, and ask one to get the discussion rolling with a ten-minute ope read more »

Sparing the knife and spoiling the child is abuse

Wandia Njoya — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 01:28:35 -0800

Now that Kenyan media have made it their mission to attack women's empowerment campaigns in the name of concern about the boy child, I have decided, as a Kenyan woman, to now fight for the boy child. My first target: traditional initiation rights.

Thinking and Freedom

Wandia Njoya — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 10:41:01 -0800

Once again, I am pained to read and respond to yet another anti-human article published by the Nation newspaper which blames women for everyone's problems. I am compelled to repeat what I said in a previous post.

The African Media on the Occupy Wall Street Movement

PTZeleza — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 22:49:16 -0800

How have the African media and commentators covered the Occupy Wall Street Movement in the United States and elsewhere in the global North? The following reports give a glimpse on African perspectives on the movement, what they see as its causes, resonances with age-old African social and political struggles, and the implications for the continent, Euroamerica, and global capitalism. PTZeleza, Editor, The Zeleza Post.

UGANDA: Anti-capitalism Rebellion in Progress in US By Dani Wadada Nabudere read more »

The Need for the ‘Global African Worker’ By Bill Fletcher, Jr

Guest Blogger — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:55:30 -0800

The African World and Pan-Africanism itself have undergone dramatic changes over the last 40 years. On the African continent, for instance, the last remaining colony is the Western Sahara, and their coloniser is another African nation (Morocco). The apartheid system, as we knew it in Southern Africa, is gone. In the diaspora legalised racial segregation is largely a thing of the past. read more »

Why the Attempted Remilitarization of Africa Will Fail By Horace Campbell

Guest Blogger — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:45:43 -0800

At the same moment when the Libyan adventure backfired with the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) retreating from taking credit for the end of the Gaddafi regime, the US government announced the deployment of 100 troops to Uganda to assist the government of Yoweri Museveni to track down the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Later the same month in October 2011, there was news that the Kenyan army had been deployed into Somalia in pursuit of armed Somalians known as Al-Shabaab (‘The Youth') that Kenya blames for a series of kidnappings on its soil. read more »

Between imposing a hero and listening to the truth of the victims: Open Letter to Katrina Lanto Swett

Guest Blogger — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 10:47:35 -0800

Minnesota, November 15, 2011

Open Letter To Katrina Lantos Swett,

President, The Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice

Dear Ms. Lantos Swett,

The Lantos Prize: There's no controversy; just cowardice

Wandia Njoya — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 15:08:53 -0800

Katrina Lantos Swett issued a rude response to the protests against the award of her human rights prize to Paul Rusesabagina, the hero created by a Hollywood movie.

Rusesabagina: An imposed hero

Wandia Njoya — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 03:18:16 -0800

On November 16, Paul Rusesabagina, on whom the Hollywood film Hotel Rwanda is based, will receive a human rights prize from the Lantos Foundation, named after former congressman Tom Lantos. The reward has been contested by survivors of the genocide against Tutsis, describing Rusesabagina in their petition as an "imposter without equal."

Capitalism and Memory: Of Golf Courses and Massage Parlors in Badagry, Nigeria

Pius Adesanmi — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 12:16:45 -0700

(Keynote lecture delivered at the annual conference of the Stanford Forum for African Studies, Palo Alto, California. Saturday, October 29, 2011) read more »

Let's talk about tribe

Wandia Njoya — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 10:16:43 -0700

A very welcome challenge from Comrade Pius Adesanmi via facebook has given me the gap through which to introduce the tribe into my conversations on Kenyan politics.

My comrade in the quest for intellectual revolution wondered if infrastructure minus a political ideology is not a good problem to have.

I think the Kibaki government has proved that that is not a good problem at all.

Kenya and the poverty of theory

Wandia Njoya — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 05:53:46 -0700

There is a bizarre common ground between the falling shilling and Kenya's military mission to Somalia quash the Al Shabaab.

It's called a deplorable political ideology.

We've come a long way, but we've still got a long way to go

Wandia Njoya — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 15:39:03 -0700

Within just over a month, Kenya lost great women who have had a huge impact on our country. These are pediatrician and novelist Margaret Ogola, politician Wambui Otieno, scientist Sophia Githinji and Nobel peace laureate and environmentalist Wangari Maathai. As we mourned them, we praised their accomplishments and the strides they made for freedom for not just women, but also for human and non-human members of our universe.

Terror in Malawi: The Martyrdom of Robert Chasowa

Guest Blogger — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 11:52:02 -0700

Malawi is sinking deeper into political crisis and paralysis under President Bingu wa Mutahrika's ruthless dictatorship. The regime is resorting to open terror against the opposition, subjecting activists to constant surveillance, arrests, beatings, arson attacks, and murder. read more »

Malawi on International Day of Peace: uMunthu, Education and a Global Paradox

Steve Sharra — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:26:39 -0700

On the surface, it would seem paradoxical that while the rest of the world is today celebrating the United Nations' International Day of Peace, the air in Malawi is thick with fear, anxiety and a premonition for violence. Last evening in Lilongwe, the capital, hundreds of people were out shopping into the night, creating long check-out lines in shops that normally close early, and are usually never crowded. There was absolutely no parking space left at People's in downtown Old Town. Bread had sold out in most shops, and bakeries had no fresh stocks. read more »

The Fall of the Gadhafi Dictatorship: The Lessons for Africa and the Arab World

PTZeleza — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 11:00:14 -0700

After six months of protracted and ferocious fighting the end for the regime of Moammar Gadhafi, the colorful, eccentric, irascible, and ruthless tyrant of one of Africa's most enduring dictatorships, finally came with electrifying swiftness. In the last few days, the rebels have made lightening advances as they seized one city after another following months of setbacks and apparent stagnation. read more »

Flies on the meat: Tutsi genocide deniers and human rights activists

Wandia Njoya — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 11:01:24 -0700

In a book chapter entitled "Cultural poetics and the study of African literature," Louis Tremaine tells an interesting story of an African film-maker testing a new film on American students. During a market scene in the film, "the narrator's commentary was drowned out by exclamations from around the room: ‘The meat's got flies on it! Look at the flies on the meat!" The film-maker's remedy was to "re-dub the commentary, reassuring the audience that the meat will be cooked before it is eaten - not to worry about the flies." read more »

Their own Worst Enemy? The Predilections of African Leadership & the Undermining of the African Cause

Steve Sharra — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 07:20:22 -0700

Wednesday July 20^th found me at Katoto Teacher Development Centre (TDC), less than a kilometer away from Katoto Freedom Park, ground zero for Mzuzu demonstrations. We had a teacher professional development workshop with 20 educators from Mzuzu City and Mzimba North. Hardly had we started the day when we heard the chants and songs. It was tantalizing.