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Africa Is a Country
2024-03-18T14:55:59Z
https://africasacountry.com/2024/03/climate-as-border/
Climate as border
2024-03-18T14:55:59Z
2024-03-18T00:00:09Z
<p>Boats full of African migrants set sail from North and West African shores destined for Europe.</p>
<h3>Although little evidence suggests a direct link between climate change and mass migration, Europe is using “climate migration” to militarize its borders.</h3>
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Refugees on a boat crossing the Mediterranean sea from Turkey to Lesbos, Greece, 2016. Image credit <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/54244487@N00/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">callmonikm</a> via Flickr <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CC BY 2.0 Deed</a>.
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Boats full of African migrants set sail from North and West African shores destined for Europe. Whether they reach their destinations or not, climate is to blame. In life so in death: climate and environmental factors are, paradoxically at once, the drivers, the detractors, and the solutions to the “pathology” of human mobility. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Countless pirogues leave Senegalese and Mauritanian shores—and many more </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">flayk</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> and dingy boats leave Moroccan shorelines headed for the Canary Islands. Others in the backway enter Dante’s nine circles of Hell in the Sahara Desert before embarking on perilous journeys in the Mediterranean Sea. Climate vagaries, amplified by a politics of putschism, are blamed for being the root causes of migration to be addressed and redressed at home.<br />
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Militarized border infrastructures along traditional desert trails and sea routes have strategically weaponized environmental actants. In moments of tragic loss of migrant bodies, it’s also the inhospitable conditions of the Atlantic Sea and the Sahara Desert to blame. From a </span><a href="https://neighbourhood-enlargement.ec.europa.eu/news/commission-launches-global-alliance-counter-migrant-smuggling-and-proposes-strengthened-eu-legal-2023-11-28_en" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">policy perspective</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, the blame is quite often placed on “</span><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12117-023-09488-z" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">unscrupulous smugglers</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">” who risk migrants’ lives in the treacherous waters of the Atlantic or abandon them in the shifting sands of the desert. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">My stance here is that an emergent discourse of climate-migration nexus has persistently formed and informed academic and policy understandings of the life </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">and</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> death of Europe-bound African migrants. Of course, much has been written to critique the </span><a href="https://chooser.crossref.org/?doi=10.46692%2F9781529201277.003" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">causal link</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> between climate change and migration, and how slow- or rapid-onset climate changes deracinate affected communities. Critical scholarship on how border regimes outsource the death and disappearance to environmental, </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Land-Open-Graves-California-Anthropology/dp/0520282752" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">nonhuman actants</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> is not in short supply either. Yet migration, in its connection with climate and environmental factors, is approached generically. My task here is to show how the EU’s migration regimes mobilize climate factors and embed them in their security logics to control African migrants along the West African Route and the Sahara Desert. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The EU’s migration regime embeds environmental factors in three crucial phases of human mobility. The first one is predeparture, where some of the root causes of mobility are ascribed to local environmental issues that massively dislodge community members and morph them into climate refugees. Their potential displacement toward the gated communities of Europe is foreseen as a security threat that should be tackled, in time and space, from afar. The second phase is reminiscent of purgatory: migrants die or go missing in the hellish Sahara Desert as a form of expiation of their sinful decision to leave home. Death and disappearance have, in effect, become the twin technologies of deterrence. On the Atlantic Ocean, thousands of other African migrants, too, die or go missing in the middle passage before finding their way into the Spanish Archipelago. The last phase is the post-arrival one, and it’s where border control comes into full circle through deportation. Deported migrants are sent home. Migration regimes couch such inhuman practices in a humane parlance of “readmission,” “migrant returnees,” and “voluntary return.” Switching gears and chasing one’s dream beyond national borders is treated as a pathology, and racialized migrants are diagnosed as a mentally deranged social category that should undergo psychological therapy and support at the hands of humanitarian actors.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">There is no shard of evidence that establishes a direct link between climate change and mass migration. Yet the EU’s anti-migration knowledge systems are unwilling to relinquish this militarized approach to “address the root causes of migration.” And it’s no surprise either to see some EU member states consider African climate migrants as a </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/spain-wants-nato-flag-migration-hybrid-threat-policy-roadmap-says-foreign-2022-06-08/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">hybrid threat</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> engulfing the southern flanks of Europe. Beyond the climate change-migration nexus, a novel nexus conflating climate, migration, and military defense emerges along the EU’s external borders. In its joint communication for the “</span><a href="https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/joint_communication_renewed_partnership_southern_neighbourhood.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">New Agenda for the Mediterranean</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">,” the European Commission writes, “The EU will strengthen and mainstream work on the climate, security and defence nexus, including through increased action on climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction, as well as collaboration with the UN and regional organisations.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The rise of the “foresight regime” relaying </span><a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2022/729334/EPRS_ATA(2022)729334_EN.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">apocalyptic scenarios</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> about the locomotive force of climate change propelling African migrants toward Europe’s southern borders is faulty at its core. When they move, African migrants are captured in an environmental, or rather disastrous, parlance of “waves,” “flows,” “floods,” and “avalanches,” a repertoire that nourishes the myth of invasion and justifies military response to human mobility. In fact, the link between climate change and migration is complex, multi-causal, contextual, and, above all, experiential. The lived experiences of individual migrants are unique and irreducible to sweeping labels such as “climate migrants.” Underlying the decision to migrate varies from one person to another, and from one community to another. Running counter to the idea that rapid- and slow-onset climate change will massively dislodge affected communities, the expansion of the “</span><a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520282520/illegality-inc" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">illegality industry</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">” has made crossing beyond national borders the preserve only of those who can afford it. Looking at the life (and death) experiences of many African migrants, the decision to migrate is a life project that needs moral and financial support. I have in mind the diverse stories of families who sold a patch of land or yearly crops or cattle to support their sons. I also have in mind the stories of families who still struggle to pay back the debt of their missing sons’ crossing. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Before it’s anything else, migration is a culture. It’s deeply enshrined in the sociocultural imaginaries of West and North African countries. In Morocco we think of </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Zmagria</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">; in Niger we recall </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">les exodants</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">. Putting the blame on climate as the driver of mass mobility not only uncovers the redundancy of this securitized approach but also obscures the socioeconomic ills deeply entrenched in colonial legacies of climate injustice, environmental destruction, and exploitation in Africa. The continent has barely </span><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/4/how-much-does-africa-contribute-to-global-carbon-emissions" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">4 percent</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> of the global share of carbon dioxide emissions, and its riches and resources are deemed the Pharmakon of the World, to use a phrase by </span><a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/brutalism" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Achille Mbembe</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. Yet Africa is the hardest hit by climate change and bears the brunt of the world’s combustion. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Once migrants embark on unseaworthy boats in the Atlantic or cram into long-bed pickups to cross the Sahara Desert, climate and environmental factors take on a different shape and task. From being the locomotive force that drives out migrants from their national habitats, climate and environmental factors become the strategic slayers of migrants crossing sea and desert routes. The West African Route has been reactivated following the </span><a href="https://www.frontex.europa.eu/what-we-do/monitoring-and-risk-analysis/migratory-routes/western-mediterranean-route/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">closure</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> of the Western Mediterranean Route in 2020. Quite recently, migrants are pushed away from the already deadly sea routes on the Moroccan coastlines of Tan-Tan, Tarfaya, and Laayoune to deadlier ones, sailing off from the shores of Agadir, Safi, Casablanca, and Salé. Others depart from Senegalese and Mauritanian beaches, sea-weary after weeks of meandering the Atlantic waters only to land in El Hierro.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In the Sahara Desert, the adoption of Law No. 2015-16 on the illegal trafficking of migrants, which criminalizes the cross-Saharan mobility infrastructure, </span><a href="https://www.borderforensics.org/investigations/niger-investigation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">forced transport drivers</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> away from the trodden desert routes along the civilian towns of Séguédine, Madama, and Toumou. The installation of border infrastructures (police stations, checkpoints, roadblocks, and customs) has rerouted migrant transportation to more dangerous, less invisible desert trails. Wind velocity, aridity, air temperatures, solar irradiance, and dune slopes affect vehicle speed and functioning. When stranded, migrant bodies reach “dehydration threshold” and “cognition threshold,” affecting their ability to walk away from the heat funnels.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Less visible tracks in the desert lead to water loss and dehydration. More detours along sea routes lead to water leakage and hypothermia. Environmental actants, and their inhospitable climate conditions, are harnessed by border regimes, rendering migrant bodies untraceable and their death and disappearance depoliticized. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The rise of the “count regime” of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reveals the right hand of border regimes. The </span><a href="https://missingmigrants.iom.int/project" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">calculus of migrant death</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> is not only used for deterrence but also read against other datasets of crossings, interceptions, and incarcerations to gauge the efficiency of the border infrastructures put in place. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">When migrants escape the jaws of deadly climate borders, it still might not signal the end of climate borders. Deportation, masked as voluntary returns, takes a benevolent form, and comes with the promise of “green reintegration.” At the end of the migratory circle, climate factors and migrants are the solution for each other. Green reintegration is a correctional practice for the pathology of migration. It preaches the “</span><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781119372080.ch3" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">metaphysics of sedentarism</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">” and considers those who migrate as sociopaths or mentally deranged. Between November 2019 and October 2023, </span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cy3ByQMO-CD/?igsh=MWwyOHh3YmxtZWFoZA==" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">751</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> benefited from psychosocial and health support in the oriental region, and 2,639 returnee migrants benefited from reintegration programs. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Farming a patch of land or raising cattle at home marks the ultimate degree of success. IOM lauds reintegration stories as success stories, and those who migrate lead, by implication, failure stories. “We returned, we succeeded” is the catchphrase of this </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">bordering through climate</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> practice. At the same time, migration is seen as an adaptation strategy to climate change. Migration as adaptation answers the question “</span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/How-Migration-Really-Works-Divisive/dp/1541604318" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">What really drives African migrants to Europe</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">?” The answer is a labor shortage and the exploitation of cheap labor sugarcoated as circular migration. Spain launched a labor attraction scheme (GEOCCO), aiming to bring </span><a href="https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/54043/spain-migration-routes-became-busier-in-2023" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">16,000 seasonal </span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">laborers from Morocco to work in its agricultural sector. Climate borders are mobilized at full tilt by the EU’s anti-migration policies. We need to think about climate as border to unpack the elusive bordering practices insidiously embedded in the climate migration discourse. Climate as border primes us to rethink the entangled genealogies of modern climate injustice and the carceral geographies it produces.</span></p>
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Nabil Ferdaoussi
https://africasacountry.com/2024/03/the-new-antisemitism/
The new antisemitism?
2024-03-15T10:22:04Z
2024-03-15T12:00:15Z
<p>In today’s America, defenders of the indefensible don’t have to do much to convince people that</p>
<h3>Stripped of its veneer of nuance, Noah Feldman’s essay in 'Time' is another attempt to silence opponents of the Israeli state by smearing them as anti-Jewish racists.</h3>
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Israel-Palestine protest march, August 2014, Cape Town. Image credit
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/louisgeorge2011/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Louis Reynolds</a> via Flickr <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed</a>.
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In today’s America, defenders of the indefensible don’t have to do much to convince people that they have something new and interesting to say.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">This explains why </span><a href="https://time.com/6763293/antisemitism/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Time</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> magazine gave Harvard law professor Noah Feldman </span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">space to write an analysis of anti-Semitism, which looks balanced and thoughtful but is yet more propaganda for the Israeli state and its actions. And why the article has attracted attention in cyberspace.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Like many liberal Zionists these days, Feldman seems confused. Not long after the </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Time</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> article appeared, he wrote in the </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/05/noah-feldman-jews-israel-progressive-justice-theology-politics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Washington Post</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> on ideas in his new book on Jewish identity</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">.</span><span style="font-weight: 400"> The article is far from perfect, but it does acknowledge that young American Jews have good reasons for rejecting the Israeli state. It also assumes that opposition to the state will become a fixture of American Jewish life and discusses how Jews who reject it may live out their Jewishness. All of this is only possible if rejecting the Israeli state is a legitimate choice.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">But that is not what Feldman writes in </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Time</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">. His article purports to discuss why anti-Semitism, and anti-Jewish racism, survive. But, stripped of its veneer, his analysis is yet another attempt to silence opponents of the Israeli state by smearing them as anti-Jewish racists. And so, like others before him, he draws attention away from real hatred of Jews. He also unwittingly encourages it by associating an entire people, the Jews, with the actions of a violent state.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">This is not a new tactic. As my book </span><a href="https://witspress.co.za/page/detail/Good-Jew-Bad-Jew/?k=9781776148486" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Good Jew, Bad Jew</span></i></a><i></i> <span style="font-weight: 400">shows, the Israeli state and its supporters have been using claims of anti-Semitism</span> <span style="font-weight: 400">against critics of the state’s racism since the 1970s. They do this by claiming that there is a “new antisemitism” that demonizes Jews by targeting the Israeli state, ignoring the obvious difference between a state—and the ideology that underpins it—and a people. Western governments have jumped on the bandwagon: they eagerly shred core democratic values such as freedom of speech as they demonize the supposed racism of the Israeli state’s anti-racist critics.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Feldman seems to know that, despite its success, this tactic has been crude and often laughable. Many people accused of hating Jews are themselves Jewish. What the targeted people are saying is obviously not racist; opposing nuclear energy was branded as anti-Jewish racism because it would strengthen the power of oil-owning Arab states. Feldman has attracted attention because he tries to seem more tolerant and open to debate. But the difference between him and other muzzlers of anti-racism is one of style, not substance.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Unlike others who weaponize claims of anti-Semitism, Feldman acknowledges that, “It is not inherently antisemitic to criticize Israel.”</span> <span style="font-weight: 400">He warns against tarring all critics of the Israeli state with an antisemitic brush. He adds: “To deploy the charge of antisemitism for political reasons is morally wrong, undermining the horror of antisemitism itself. It is also likely to backfire, convincing critics of Israel that they are being unfairly silenced.” He notes that: “ Like other criticisms of Israel, the accusation of genocide isn’t inherently antisemitic.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Having established his democratic credentials, he spends a large part of the article doing precisely what he has criticized.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Consistent with his concern for public relations, Feldman never says critics of the Israeli state are antisemites. Instead, they “run the risk” of anti-Jewish racism or might “veer” into antisemitism. But this is a difference without a distinction. The intent is exactly the same as that of his “crude” predecessors, to silence critics of the state, particularly its Jewish opponents.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Feldman repeats most of the smear tactics of writers on the “new antisemitism.” Like them, he insists that antisemitism has shifted shape and is now directed at the Israeli state. Like them, he claims “well-meaning” people can be antisemitic without knowing they are. Like them, he insists that the Jew-hatred of the right is no longer the core problem because “the most perniciously creative current in contemporary antisemitic thought is more likely to come from the left.” All this is as convenient to the Israeli state as it is devoid of substance.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">As the British scholar of antisemitism, Anthony Lerman, points out in his recent book </span><a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745338774/whatever-happened-to-antisemitism/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Whatever Happened to Antisemitism?</span></i></a>,<i> </i><span style="font-weight: 400">the claim that people who oppose a state are expressing racism to a people is a basic “category mistake.” A state is not a person or a group of people and claiming that opposition to Israeli state racism is anti-Jewish is no different to the claim that opposing the apartheid state betrayed hatred of whites. The claim that you can be an antisemite even if you don’t dislike Jews is a blank cheque to label all critics as racist when they are clearly not. The left is always a target of this propaganda because it calls out Israeli state racism; no left-winger has murdered people in synagogues simply because they were Jewish as a right-wing racist in the US did not that long ago.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Feldman is eager to show that opposition to the Israeli state is so clearly based on falsehoods that anyone who opposes it must be racist. Like all other attempts to defend the indefensible, his effort is full of holes and borders on the unintentionally comic.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">He insists that the Israeli state is not a settler-colonial enterprise. The theory of settler-colonialism, according to Feldman, is meant to explain countries whose colonists wanted to displace the local people, not exploit their labor. He insists this does not apply to the Israeli state because it was created by a UN resolution establishing a Jewish and Palestinian state.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">This reads very much like an exercise in Spot the Deliberate Error, in both fact and logic.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Settler colonialism does not only describe states that tried to displace their indigenous people. It was also applied to apartheid South Africa, which tried to both displace and exploit the labor of black people. Nor is it clear why Feldman makes this point since the Israeli state is precisely the type of settler colony he says the theory is meant to explain: it is built on displacing Palestinians, not exploiting their labor.<br />
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">His first attempt to explain this away commits a basic logical error. It assumes that what the UN decided is what the leadership of the Zionist movement that founded the state wanted. It wasn’t. The UN might have hoped to establish two states living side by side but the Zionists went along with this only because they thought it was the best they could get at the time. Their aim was always to expand as much as they could, which they have been doing with vigor ever since. The state’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, told his son in a 1937 letter that the Zionist movement would accept what became the UN proposal because: ‘</span><span style="font-weight: 400">The establishment of a state, even if only on a portion of the land, is … a powerful boost to our historical endeavors to liberate the entire country.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Feldman’s argument is a bit like insisting that South Africa’s apartheid leaders didn’t want to dominate black people because UN resolutions said they shouldn’t.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The displacement of Palestinians began, as Israeli historians showed long ago, immediately as the Israeli state was formed—a key goal of the war that the state fought at the time was to displace as many Palestinians as possible, producing the Naqba, or catastrophe, which Gaza’s residents are again experiencing.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Feldman knows all this and so he offers a lame account of the Naqba which does his argument no favors. He acknowledges that Palestinians did not, as Israeli state propaganda at the time claimed, leave on the instructions of “Arab states” but were driven out: “Instead of ending up in an independent Palestine </span><a href="https://www.un.org/unispal/history/#:~:text=After%20looking%20at%20alternatives%2C%20the,(II)%20of%201947)." target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">as proposed by the UN</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, those who had stayed in their homes found themselves living either in Israel or under Egyptian and Jordanian rule. Then, </span><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39960461" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">in the 1967 war</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, the West Bank and Gaza were conquered by Israel.” </span><span style="font-weight: 400">It is unclear how any of this supports Feldman’s claim that the Israeli state did not want to displace Palestinians.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Logical errors and factual omissions appear again when Feldman tries to show that only bigots would accuse the Israeli state of white supremacy. He writes that half of Israeli Jews are of European descent but that Europe did not consider Jews to be racially white. The reality was more complicated. But, even if it was not, the fact that bigots thought Jews were not white does not mean the bigots were right. Similar prejudices were expressed about very white Irish people. Nor does it mean that these European Jews did not see themselves as white. My book argues that this is precisely how they saw themselves and that a Jewish state was meant to turn them into white Europeans.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Feldman adds that the other half of the state’s Jewish population, mainly Mizrahi or Eastern Jews, is not racially “white” so they can’t possibly be white supremacists. But who is and who is not white is a product of society, not biology; people who have not been seen as white in some countries have “become white.” The Mizrahi may not hail from Europe but they identify with white Europeanness and so they tend to vote for parties that, in their view, express a white, European, identity. This partly explains why the right-wing majority among Jewish Israelis expresses anti-black bigotry alongside its contempt for “Arabs.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Identifying the Israeli state as a racist enterprise is not an antisemitic prejudice, it describes reality. Feldman’s liberal and “balanced” defense of the state is, at bottom, still a defense of racial domination. The difference lies only in the packaging. This makes it hardly surprising that his response to current events repeats the biases of the apologist mainstream from which he wants to distance himself.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Here, Feldman’s phony liberalism is again on view. Responding to the charge of genocide brought against the Israeli state at the International Court of Justice, he offers platitudes regretting the killing of Palestinians and statements by Israeli state power-holders promising to wipe them off the face of the earth. He then declares that, despite all this, the Israeli state’s actions are not genocidal because its “military campaign has been conducted pursuant to Israel’s interpretation of the international laws of war.” Since there are many interpretations of this law, he suggests, its interpretation is as good as any other.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The Israeli state is allowed to use severe violence, he adds, because it is responding to the evil of Hamas which, like the rest of the Israeli state’s supporters club, he treats as the American mainstream once treated communism: as something to be denounced, not understood. Hamas, he writes, is antisemitic. “During the Hamas attack, terrorists intentionally murdered children and raped women.” Its charter “calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.” Despite these obvious sins “…the accusation of genocide is being made against Israel.”<br />
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">For lovers of English literature, this recalls Joseph Conrad’s </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Heart of Darkness</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> in which an attempt by the main character to cloak colonialism in civilizing clothing collapses into the appalling demand that the African “brutes” be exterminated. The liberal mask is removed to reveal the real face of the colonizer and its apologist.<br />
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Feldman offers no evidence for his claims against Hamas. The charter he denounces was written many years ago and Hamas has discarded it. Even if it still existed, an Ivy League professor of law should know the difference between defeating a state and attacking a people. Harvard law professors should also know the legal principle that accusations of criminal behavior must be backed by evidence. The claim that children were murdered has been dropped even by most who made it while the rape claims are yet to be backed by evidence that would pass muster in a court. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Nor is there any mention of the context of the Hamas acts. Nothing about a decade and a half-long blockade of Gaza, nothing about overturning Hamas’s election victory, and absolutely nothing at all about Hamas’s multiple offers of a long-term ceasefire which were rebuffed by the Israeli state and its American patrons. While none of this justifies killing civilians, a serious jurist would take it into account before reaching a verdict.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">But serious jurists also do not decide the outcome of court cases until they have heard the arguments of both sides. Yet Feldman’s law training does not deter him from declaring the outcome of the ICJ case before the substance of the proceedings has begun. His claim that a state can’t be guilty of genocide if it claims that it is applying international law gives a handy excuse to apologists for racial violence everywhere.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">These failures to apply basic legal principles are no surprise. His article shows that Feldman is a cheerleader first, a jurist third. Like many in the Western academy, his scholarship gives priority to the demands of power, that of the Israeli state and of its chief backer.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Near the beginning of his article, Feldman describes himself as “a proud citizen of the freest country in the world, in which Jews have been safer than in any other country in history.” The rest of us might wonder whether a country in which police are regularly accused of killing black men because they are black or where strenuous efforts are made in some states to deny racial minorities the vote, or where academics are afraid to speak their minds about Gaza for fear of punishment is free at all. South African Jews may also wonder why Jews in the US who are murdered in synagogues are safer than those of us in this and many other countries who have thankfully been spared that fate.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">But, in America’s mainstream, evidence matters as little as legal principle. All that matters is to defend the West and its allies from the hordes who are yet to reach its level of arrogance.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Despite his supposed nuance, this Harvard law professor is a loyal servant of that project. And so he becomes yet another voice that makes the fight against anti-Jewish racism a little more difficult by turning a very real hatred into an excuse for the violence of a state.</span></p>
<hr/>
Steven Friedman
https://africasacountry.com/2024/03/the-affective-politics-of-afcon/
The affective politics of AFCON
2024-03-14T12:14:22Z
2024-03-14T12:00:12Z
<p>The dust is settling on the training pitches and stadiums of the 2023 edition of the</p>
<h3>This year’s AFCON in Côte d'Ivoire showed that it’s not just the politics of the football that matters, but the politics of the vibe as well.</h3>
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Image credit Monnivhoir Aymar Kouamé via Pexels.
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The dust is settling on the training pitches and stadiums of the 2023 edition of the African Cup of Nations (AFCON), as Morocco gears up to host the next tournament in 2025. To be sure, it was a spectacular AFCON. Not only did the host nation’s team make quite the comeback—deemed by some to be a resurrection—but the performance of other teams as well, which sent some of the most revered giants of African football home earlier than expected, was nothing short of astounding. This AFCON absolutely delivered on plot twists. It also delivered on fun and banter or, to put it more succinctly in Nouchi, an Abidjan urban vernacular, on </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">enjaillement</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">. The incredible music produced for the tournament, along with the endless videos on social media of fans and football players engaging with this music, will certainly be remembered. Ivorian artists had promised this AFCON would be </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">la CAN de la joie</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">. Fun it certainly was, and it was also food for thought about the politics of affect in Côte d’Ivoire and in the transnational Africanity showcased by the tournament’s musical production.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">President Alassane Ouattara had undoubtedly mobilized this year’s AFCON as part of a hardly covert pre-electoral campaign in view of </span><a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/332405/cote-divoire-will-alassane-ouattara-run-again-in-2025/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">the presidential elections due to be held next year</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. However, his concern is not just with the upcoming elections; in fact, he has been on a campaign of affective politics for the better part of his thirteen-year presidency. Earning several sobriquets—including “PRADO” earlier in his presidency, “le PR” and “Papa Ado” more recently—Ouattara has focused heavily on building an image of a president who delivers on infrastructural development, harkening back to the days of Côte d’Ivoire’s first president, Félix Houphouët-Boigny. Consolidating his image in the Ivorian public imaginary has been a core feature of his presidency, and it is more critical now than ever with </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/ex-credit-suisse-chief-thiam-eyes-ivory-coast-2025-presidential-race-2023-11-17/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Tidjane Thiam’s return to Ivorian politics</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In light of historical and current political developments in Côte d’Ivoire, the stakes with AFCON were high. For Ouattara, it mattered that the tournament was well organized and that the Ebimpé stadium bearing his name hosted key matches, including the final. It mattered that Côte d’Ivoire’s national team, the Elephants, won on home soil. This had never happened before, not even in 1984 under Houphouët’s presidency, when Côte d’Ivoire first hosted AFCON and the victory placed Ouattara in a league of his own. Thus, it will go down in history that during Ouattara’s presidency, the Elephants won AFCON twice (in 2015 and 2024), including once on home soil. This achievement helped tamper the growing disgruntlement of many Ivorians, who perceived that </span><a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ivory-coast-gets-ready-for-1bn-afcon-with-a-little-help-from-china-q3kl5fqfx" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">the expensive tournament</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> would eventually translate into higher taxes for businesses and higher utility costs for the general population.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Furthermore, and critically, it mattered that the president’s affective campaign drew not just on infrastructural development but also on astute cultural engagement. </span><a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijab037" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">The realm of popular culture has become an important frontier</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> in Ivorian politics. The official AFCON 2023 theme song, “</span><a href="https://youtu.be/QktjMQh2cFA?si=ajNZwkXxEFrZaNHn"><span style="font-weight: 400">Akwaba</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">,” is evidence of this. Featuring the now-iconic bridge over the lagoon between Cocody and Plateau (which also bears President Ouattara’s name), the song and music video bring together Ivorian Zouglou group Magic System, Nigerian artist Yemi Alade, and Moroccan artist Mohamed Ramadan. The song is multilingual, celebrating Africa’s diversity and welcoming other African nations to the Ivorian cities where the tournament was held: Abidjan, Bouaké, Korhogo, Yamoussoukro, and San-Pédro.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">But while “Akwaba” might have enjoyed great levels of popularity, the tournament’s official theme song had to reckon with the fluidity and spontaneity of musical production in Côte d’Ivoire. Having emerged a few weeks before the start of the tournament, “</span><a href="https://youtu.be/5zaeAcjTito?si=VB4DNFkoZs_ARPAj" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Coup du Marteau</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">” by Tam Sir and collaborators very quickly supplanted “Akwaba” as the most popular AFCON song in Côte d’Ivoire and online. “Coup du Marteau” pays homage to one of the most loved Ivorian coupé-décalé artists, Douk Saga, and inscribes the more recent iteration of Saga’s artistry, le Paiya. The song weaves together Ivorian French, Nouchi, and Lebanese Arabic, speaking to multiple segments of Ivorian society and various urban generations. It certainly was not the only popular song that contributed to creating an electrifying atmosphere in the country throughout the tournament. Official interventions tried to keep up, but it was difficult to steer the general euphoria to align with the objectives of the government and the president. Some songs, like Francky Dicaprio’s “</span><a href="https://youtu.be/6UCrXcodxWg?si=3DYCOmnb0jogPSoK" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Desserrez</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">,” became popular as the Elephants posted videos dancing to them. In other instances, TikTok challenges popularized songs, as in the case of Obam’s “</span><a href="https://youtu.be/DN8ncDPRfp8?si=ec87eQ1rfCRnBWnB" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">On a pris</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">.” Other songs worth listening to in the now-lengthy Ivorian AFCON playlist include Yodé and Siro’s “</span><a href="https://youtu.be/Db6LFByuTeU?si=e8kGsJvYKN33lhbh" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">La CAN c’est Chez Nous</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">,” VDA’s “</span><a href="https://youtu.be/QCpG3jHT_is?si=9z8qfnULydunPqoa" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Zouzouwôwô</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">,” Team Décalé’s “</span><a href="https://youtu.be/KFNOkLaMExI?si=4VffxfMP8bYGlAKV" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Ambiance</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">,” and Kehou Mousso, Soukeïna, Dre-A, and Le Juiice’s “</span><a href="https://youtu.be/umBiDsjIsDQ?si=lns4Cgia-HA0lSn7" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Mouiller Maillot</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">.” </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">One of the most powerful things that these songs did was destabilize the direction of affective politics such that no single political entity could monopolize or control it. Song production over the month-long tournament revealed the workings of public affect beyond electoral politics. Ivorian coach Emerse Faé’s stellar performance made him a favorite with football fans and the Ivorian population at large. This was after widespread anger in the face of an embarrassing loss against Equatorial Guinea, leading to the firing of Jean-Louis Gasset, and after the Ivorian Football Federation’s plan to rehire Hervé Renard was thwarted. Not only did Faé’s performance make him popular, but he has gained further popular affection for his fluency in urban Abidjanais banter and for his sense of fun, having been caught on tape dancing to “Coup du Marteau.” If one considers recent AFCON wins and the role of black African coaches in leading teams to take the cup, it is hardly surprising that the Elephants would win with Faé, a black Ivorian national, as their coach. Emerse Faé has become quite the national hero, taking us back to 1992, when the workings of public affect and a protest on the part of the Elephants helped put Ivorian coach Yeo Martial Paul at the head of the team when white French coach Philippe Troussier was the Ivorian Football Federation’s preferred pick.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The musical production of this AFCON reveals the making of Africanity at the boundaries of nationality and citizenship. Through various forms of what anthropologists have called joking relationships, the songs playfully allude to and, in the process, archive historical African transnational rivalries and relations. If the official theme song highlights Africanity as the bond underpinning the tournament, Ivorian artist Molière’s song “</span><a href="https://youtu.be/M6V3qHsDA8Q?si=zpoBuWzGzc6WYFYv" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Vous va voir”</span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400">examines the Cameroon–Côte d’Ivoire rivalry by framing this AFCON as payback for Cameroon’s win in 1984, when Côte d’Ivoire first hosted the tournament, explaining that forty years on, with the caliber of players on the Ivorian team, Cameroon would not win again. Further exploring this rivalry, Fior 2 Bior’s “</span><a href="https://youtu.be/LvRqjyCUMJ4?si=NIjTkfsflwuwdOgV" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Qui a mis huile sur riz de Zaha?</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">”</span> <span style="font-weight: 400">and VDA’s “</span><a href="https://youtu.be/Wp-qIV1SPyM?si=iR2ZaePn6cUQuotu" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Ils seront logés</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">” revisit the last AFCON hosted by Cameroon and the ways that the Cameroonian public jeered at the Ivorian team and its fans after the Elephants’ elimination. Through tongue-in-cheek references, these songs capture how the African experience is emotionally negotiated at the interstices of nationality.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">There is much more to be said about AFCON. For instance, just after the tournament ended, </span><a href="https://youtu.be/KwfhgCe8CqA?si=Ob9-b6K6diG4w96f" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">a video circulated of the women’s football team</span></a> <a href="https://youtu.be/eY7ZJ1VdCtM?si=hNE4JrzCepHk6xnJ" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">describing the unacceptable conditions they are subjected to and the sexism that still structures football</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. Paying attention to the affective politics of this and other AFCON tournaments has the potential to shift considerably how the international relations of francophone Africa, as well as the wider African region and its diasporas, are framed, studied, and taught.</span></p>
<hr/>
Lyn Kouadio
https://africasacountry.com/2024/03/being-young-and-african-in-elite-america/
Being young and African in elite America
2024-03-13T12:54:23Z
2024-03-13T12:00:54Z
<p>Arthur Musah’s feature-length documentary Brief Tender Light, which follows four African-born MIT students from admission to</p>
<h3>A new film follows the lives of four African students at MIT, where youthful idealism gets tested by the realities of American racism and inequality.</h3>
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Still from Brief Tender Light © 2023.
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Arthur Musah’s feature-length documentary </span><a href="https://www.onedayitoogofly.com/films/brief-tender-light/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Brief Tender Light</span></i></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, which follows four African-born MIT students from admission to graduation and beyond, fulfills the promise of his 2016 short film </span><a href="https://africasacountry.com/2017/01/documenting-nigerias-brain-drain" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Naija Beta</span></i></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. Like that earlier work, </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Brief Tender Light</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> examines the ambivalent pursuit of higher education in the US, a country to which ambitious young Africans are drawn even as they continue to feel the complex and perhaps opposing pull of home. The Ghanaian Musah, who himself studied at MIT, narrates the film, which had its theatrical release in New York City on January 5, 2024, and its television premiere on PBS on January 15—Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.</span></p>
<p><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Brief Tender Light</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> is an eloquent study of the expatriate experience, one that occasionally draws on Musah’s own. His Ghanaian father earned a scholarship to study in the Soviet Union, and while abroad he met and married Musah’s Ukrainian mother, who became an expat herself when she relocated to Ghana to raise him. Moving to Boston to study at MIT, Musah, like the four students he would follow in </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Brief Tender Light</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">, was forced to navigate the unique challenges of life in the US. For example, the film shows that some things never change: many Americans, upon meeting expatriate Africans, will ask them if they have lived among lions and elephants.</span><i></i></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Noah Tsika sat down with Arthur Musah to discuss the film, his thoughts on the state of American higher education, and his hopes for the future. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.</span></p>
<hr/>
<h2></h2>
<dl>
<dt>Noah Tsika</dt>
<dd><p><b><i>Brief Tender Light</i></b><b> follows MIT students from admission to graduation and beyond. When was the film shot?</b></p>
</dd>
<dt>Arthur Musah</dt>
<dd><p><span style="font-weight: 400">From 2011 until 2018. 2018 was the last time I filmed with any of the participants. And then some of the Ghana protest stuff [was filmed] in 2021.</span></p>
</dd>
<dt>Noah Tsika</dt>
<dd><p><b>You also commissioned some video recordings from the participants. Or did they simply volunteer their video recordings?</b></p>
</dd>
<dt>Arthur Musah</dt>
<dd><p><span style="font-weight: 400">We call them video diaries: I provided the little video camcorders—portable camcorders—and then just told [the participants], “We would love to have you film parts of your life. Whatever you think is interesting or fun.” So not too many parameters. It was very open-ended and really interesting because each one of them used the video diaries differently. As documenters of their own lives, their works were distinctly different. Originally, the reason we used the video diaries was that I was living in LA when I started the film. I would go from LA to New York or Boston, to film for a bit and then leave. And I felt I was missing a lot of the beginnings of the adjustments [the students made to] foreign culture. The participants helped us document what was going on. There’s an interesting quality in the footage that they provided. They got to be themselves in ways that were different from when I was [filming] them. </span></p>
</dd>
<dt>Noah Tsika</dt>
<dd><p><b>Could you talk about the process of identifying and selecting individual students—and, by extension, individual African countries—for inclusion in the film?</b></p>
</dd>
<dt>Arthur Musah</dt>
<dd><p><span style="font-weight: 400">Well, I knew I wanted to work with MIT students from the same class. I realized it’d be more powerful to see the same people go through college and see how they change through that experience. So I wanted to basically start with one class—the class of 2015—and then film them until graduation. Of course, later on, we followed them a little bit beyond graduation, which was special. But I wanted to work with MIT students because I knew MIT. I had gone through my [own] MIT experience. I wanted to work with Africans coming directly from the African continent. I sent an introductory letter to the admitted [African] students in the class of 2015. I think there were 12 that had accepted MIT’s admission offer. Eight of them responded to my initial query. And so we started communicating via email and phone to learn when they were arriving in Boston, when to arrange to meet them and start filming them. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">We [narrowed the list of students] down to four for a couple of reasons. One is I was looking for participants who could take the project in stride, and I wanted to make sure that the project wasn’t a distraction from their main reason for being in Boston: college. For some of the participants who ended up dropping out, it was a matter of the level of comfort with the intimacy that the film required. Because I felt like it was important to see [the students back] home as well—to meet [their] homes and meet [their] families. [The final four] ended up offering us a diversity of socioeconomic backgrounds. Ultimately, everybody kind of provided a different, complementary piece of the puzzle. And so I was just really excited about how that panned out. </span></p>
</dd>
<dt>Noah Tsika</dt>
<dd><p><b>Your film explores the timelessness of a certain youthful idealism (and also of homesickness), but what do you think has changed, socially and culturally and maybe even institutionally, in the 20 years since you set off for MIT? What generational differences have you observed?</b></p>
</dd>
<dt>Arthur Musah</dt>
<dd><p><span style="font-weight: 400">The biggest change that I can think of in terms of the cultural landscape or the world in general is this: I think the [African] participants in the film kind of more easily or more quickly understood the Black struggle in America. My explanation for that has to do with social media. You know, when I was in college, we didn’t have videos of police brutality and of the microaggressions and the macroaggressions that happened to Black people on a daily basis. Whereas the participants in my film [did]. Because there are all these conversations across the continents. Ghana in particular has done this thing of trying to invite the African diaspora back onto the African continent through the Year of Return, your end-of-year celebrations and activities and tourism and all of that. Those are examples of how much cross-pollination or conversation there is among African Americans and Africans. There is more awareness of struggles and maybe how they’re interlinked, how each of us is personally affected by the other’s struggles. So I would say that’s one of the most striking differences [between then and now].</span></p>
</dd>
<dt>Noah Tsika</dt>
<dd><p><b><i>Brief Tender Light</i></b><b> addresses the sense of responsibility that expatriate African students feel toward their home communities. It examines the pressure to Americanize and the associated fear of losing touch with one’s roots. And then there is the matter of moving from a Black-majority country on the African continent to a Black-minority country like the United States. Could you say a bit about how these themes emerged during the making of the film?</b></p>
</dd>
<dt>Arthur Musah</dt>
<dd><p><span style="font-weight: 400">It’s definitely something I was looking out for. And I think even if I wasn’t, you know, it would have maybe crept in. But I was definitely interested in that because it’s most Black Africans’ experience of America. You know, stepping away from home and coming here. But I was trying to figure out: what is the new thing that [my] film could add to the conversation? Because there are lots of films that address American racism and trace its history and its present. And so it didn’t seem adequate to just show racism. It’s one of the things that makes America difficult and unpleasant and inconvenient and maybe dangerous. And so it’s one of the palpable forces that may be pushing people back [to Africa]. So the way I was thinking about structuring the film was in terms of the arc of one’s relationship with home and what everyone’s mission is, or the mission of youthful idealism. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Initially, all the participants were on a mission to get the skills [at MIT] and then go back home. But racism is rearing its head. In the first couple of years, it’s an inconvenient thing that just needs to be tolerated. [You tell yourself that] you’re just here for four years and it’s a nuisance, right? “These [racist Americans] are ridiculous. You know, I’m fully capable. You’re acting like I scammed my way into this institution. You’re the fool. I just need to ignore you for four years, and then I’m out.” But then in the halfway point of the film, probably around Fidelis’s trip [back home] to Zimbabwe, I think the [students] come to the realization that their time in the US might have to be longer than four years. “Either we’re going to take jobs on or we’re going to study more or we’re going to have to actually get more skills or real-world expertise, or make connections and network, and take on American jobs before we go back home. Or we make lives here [in the United States].” And so then racism is not just an inconvenience, but it is something you have to wrestle with [on a more permanent basis], and you have to make a decision about how you’re going to deal with it. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">And I think Sante is the one who most explicitly takes that on. She’s the one marching in the streets [in the film]. So the students [actively] contributed to the fight against racism in America.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">After college, when I was working, one of my closest friends was African-American, and we would have really intimate conversations about his experiences as a Black man in America. [At first] I could not understand what he meant [when he said that] he would walk in a room and instantly start counting how many Black people [were in the room]. I, as an African, did not have that burden [in Africa]. But in the film, the journey [of confronting racism in the United States] happened much faster [for the students, who were determined] not to be bystanders [but to] join the fight against [racism]. So I felt that that was the role of the film, to show how that transformation [into active antiracist] happens. It’s about making a decision about what you’re going to do. Personally, it was about linking the roots of American racism—white supremacy and colonialism—[to what is happening today], including the homophobia that I’m trying to find safety from, and that I had to navigate very uncomfortably as a queer kid in Ghana. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">So those things [racism and homophobia] have common roots. And so I wanted to tie them together, especially because I’m a Black gay man in America—and a Black gay African also.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The film is a study of how youthful idealism gets tested by things going on in the world. By the specifics of the individual backgrounds that people come from, and then by their desires for their adult lives. So let’s track the times that they’re living in and what’s going on and how that’s shaping and applying pressure on that youthful idealism.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">What I wanted to talk about [in the film] is really how American society has a specific gaze on Black people that is one of suspicion. And no matter how strong you are as a person, that does affect you. It makes the self-doubt, the insecurity that Black people feel much worse. [The film also addresses] suspicion towards women in engineering spaces. [One] sequence focuses on Sante specifically because she’s the one woman among the participants that we followed closely, and then she’s Black. So the gaze of suspicion is twofold—it’s doubling. I think that Sante has a very specific constitution as a person. From the get-go, she was never afraid to speak her mind or to ask questions that others might deem uncomfortable, and to really speak out about things that she thought just didn’t make sense. She was very brave about how she carried herself in general. And that’s a quality I learned.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">When we traveled home with Sante, I realized through the stories that her family told that she has always been this strong-willed person who has a very strong sense of self and clarity in terms of how she’s gone about changing educational opportunities [for women] in Tanzania. Her dad actually told the story of when she was a kid [and the family considered] changing their last name to honor a male ancestor in his village. And [Sante’s] brothers went along with it. But she refused to change her name—Nyambo—and her dad talked about how, when he thought about it, that was actually really appropriate because the name Nyambo was the name of a female ancestor who was also very strong-willed and was very well-known in that community. </span></p>
</dd>
<dt>Noah Tsika</dt>
<dd><p><b>The film is biographical as well as autobiographical, and there is a wonderful moment when one of your subjects—one of the current MIT students, Billy, from Rwanda—asks you, in a reverse interview, how you think you changed during your time at MIT. Later, Fidelis, in Zimbabwe, turns the camera on you and begins peppering you with questions. How did you approach this blending of the biographical and the autobiographical?</b></p>
</dd>
<dt>Arthur Musah</dt>
<dd><p><span style="font-weight: 400">It emerged gradually, although there were hints of it from the very first [cut]. I didn’t think I had to be in this film. But even in that very first cut, we included moments like where Fidelis turns the camera on me. But I wasn’t a full character. It was just kind of an acknowledgment that, OK, there’s a filmmaker here. I think I was always drawn to those moments because they had an energy to them that was really compelling. But the film [was always going to] be about the four lives that I followed in real-time through college. [There was] a long editing process. [During that time] the bill got introduced in Ghana targeting LGBTQ people and I started protesting in New York and in other countries around the world. [That] forced me to basically confront my own estrangement from Ghana. And why I felt uncomfortable whenever I got on a plane to go visit home for a couple of weeks. And it clicked for me what my role could be and I realized I had to take a cue from the participants and be as vulnerable as they had been throughout the years [of filming]. And those moments where the camera was reversed on me or, you know, there was a conversation across the lens, even if I wasn’t on screen—those moments belong because, in some ways, the film had always been shot as a collaboration. How do you piece together an identity when you’re shaped by [different] places and all these pressures? </span></p>
</dd>
<dt>Noah Tsika</dt>
<dd><p><b>You come out as gay to one of the students, a young man who admits that, as a Christian, he has reservations about marriage equality but who later reveals that his opinions about homosexuality have changed during his years at MIT—and that he wants to make a film about your experiences as a gay African. How did you feel about your filmmaking seemingly inspiring self-reflection and even a kind of reverse ethnography?</b></p>
</dd>
<dt>Arthur Musah</dt>
<dd><p><span style="font-weight: 400">It was great that Fidelis brought it up. Actually, he brought it up on multiple [occasions]. There were several other scenes that didn’t make it into the film. Ultimately, the couple of scenes that we included were enough to show the progression of his thoughts or opinions on gay people. I thought that, for a film that was tracing how people change, it was such a clear moment of growth and change. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">I think that’s one of the beautiful things about the college experience in America: even in an engineering school, even at a place like MIT, you’re forced to take humanities courses. I took some music classes. I took writing classes. I took political science classes. So it’s an opportunity to kind of expand your horizons. </span></p>
</dd>
<dt>Noah Tsika</dt>
<dd><p><b>Along those lines, your film is partly about learning to embrace the unexpected. You went to MIT to study computer science and electrical engineering, but you discovered there the joys and challenges of creative writing. What surprises did the making of the film have in store for you?</b><b> Did the production process subvert your expectations in any similarly generative ways?</b></p>
</dd>
<dt>Arthur Musah</dt>
<dd><p><span style="font-weight: 400">I always loved writing. I loved writing before I got to MIT. I wrote in high school, as well. And I was part of the drama club in high school—the drama club defined my high school experience. We used to write our own plays and put them on. I grew up in Ghana from when I was 3 until 19, and I didn’t get to travel anywhere else on the continent. During that time, I think the only time I stepped out of Ghana to anywhere else in Africa was across the border, the northern border in Paga, to go into Burkina for a day trip. So being invited by all the families [in </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Brief Tender Light</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">] to either live with them or close to them—to be invited into their lives and their communities really gave me this beautiful experience of seeing four different [African] countries, with their different histories, their different realities, their different governments. That was a big blessing and a beautiful thing.</span></p>
</dd>
<dt>Noah Tsika</dt>
<dd><p><b>The sequence on Rwanda, in Kigali, is stunning. On the eve of her wedding, Billy’s sister recalls her determination to return to her home country after five years of study in the US, and the pride she derives from her national identity, from her sense of Rwanda as having survived unimaginable tragedy. Like her brother, she is a member of what might be called the post-genocide generation, and she reflects that generation’s insistence on defining Rwanda in non-miserablist terms. Could you talk a bit about this sequence and how it came about?</b></p>
</dd>
<dt>Arthur Musah</dt>
<dd><p><span style="font-weight: 400">If somebody invites you, with a camera, into their life and you just stay with them and pay attention, you’ll get something really compelling about what makes them tick, what they are about, no matter who the person is. And so my whole philosophy about making this film was: be guided by the things, by the questions, I was interested in exploring, but also just see where people take you and invite you. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">That’s the exciting thing about the film for me, and that’s what I was chasing from the very beginning. That’s what I meant by wanting to make a story about a more complex Africa. Africans have a sense of pride. We have our sense of ambition. We’re complex, complicated people. We’re not looking for crumbs and we’re not looking to be “saved.” </span></p>
</dd>
<dt>Noah Tsika</dt>
<dd><p><b>In your voice-over narration, you talk about guilt, a guilt that’s bound up with the impossibly heavy burden that so many expatriate Africans feel—the largely self-imposed sense of responsibility not only for entire families and home communities but also for entire countries and even for the African continent itself. You conclude: “We are citizens, not saviors.” Could you say more about this?</b></p>
</dd>
<dt>Arthur Musah</dt>
<dd><p><span style="font-weight: 400">I think for me it was about distilling the lesson that I have learned. I believe less in “saviors” or somebody who says, “I alone can fix this problem.” I believe in everybody contributing. Because I think if all of us contribute a little bit as citizens, then we can create better societies for all of us, and that improvement can be more long-lasting. I think there’s a lot of power in collectively stepping up as citizens and not relying on one person—on somebody who’s going to be the MLK who gets assassinated or the LGBT rights activist in Uganda who gets murdered.</span></p>
</dd>
<dt>Noah Tsika</dt>
<dd><p><b>What does the film’s title mean to you?</b></p>
</dd>
<dt>Arthur Musah</dt>
<dd><p><span style="font-weight: 400">I’ll tell you the story of how it came about. For a couple of years, I was editing the film, trying to refine the rough cut and raise some funding, and during that time I was trying to figure out the structure and I came across a lecture by a documentary [expert] who said that even if you have multiple characters in your film, you can only have one protagonist, and that protagonist sometimes is not a person. It’s an idea or phenomenon. And that was the moment when a light bulb went on in my head. And I realized that [my film] is about this question of how youthful idealism grows up, and whether it can survive the process of growing up. So that became an organizing principle for me. It was the central protagonist, and we were exploring this protagonist’s journey into maturation through the lives of these four students I wanted to come up with a title that pointed to that a little bit and also set the right tone for the film. I was brainstorming and I came up eventually with “The Brief Tender Light of Youthful Idealism,” which is a mouthful, and so I decided on </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Brief Tender Light</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">“One Day I Too Go Fly” was the original working title for the film. And now it’s the name of my production company. [</span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Brief Tender Light</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">] was really about capturing the voices of young African students who have this ambition in life to participate in everything cutting-edge, to contribute to it, but also to see the world.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The mission of [my production company] is really to celebrate African stories. To make films that reveal or represent and celebrate Africa in a world that’s global. It’s about revealing, representing, and celebrating Africans.</span></p>
</dd>
</dl>
<hr/>
<p><i>Brief Tender Light</i> is <a href="https://www.pbs.org/video/brief-tender-light-pv6typ/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">available for streaming on PBS</a> until April 14, 2024.</p>
Arthur Musah
https://africasacountry.com/2024/03/keep-eyes-on-sudan/
Keep eyes on Sudan
2024-03-11T01:43:19Z
2024-03-11T01:38:19Z
<p>In the global discourse on humanitarian crises, the struggle of the Sudanese people is often overshadowed</p>
<h3>The indifference towards Sudan's suffering can be traced to a disturbing pattern deeply rooted in antiblackness.</h3>
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<img alt src="https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/03/11013113/638677510_2c4c30363f_o-720x540.jpg"/>
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Darfuri Refugees in the Central African Republic, 2004. Image credit <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/hdptcar/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hdptcar</a> via Flickr <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CC BY-SA 2.0 Deed</a>.
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In the global discourse on humanitarian crises, the struggle of the Sudanese people is often overshadowed by more widely publicized conflicts. Currently home to over 10 million displaced individuals and with half its population experiencing acute hunger, Sudan faces the world’s most severe humanitarian and displacement crisis. Yet the silence surrounding Sudan’s struggle is clear, leading to a pressing question: Why is the plight of the Sudanese consistently overlooked?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">This indifference toward Sudan’s suffering can be traced to a disturbing pattern of antiblackness—a pervasive societal attitude that systematically downplays the agony of black communities, particularly within the African continent. The intricate history of Sudan, marred by European colonialism and Arab conquests, has left an indelible impact, perpetuating a relentless cycle of marginalization and violence.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Arabization policies, implemented during periods of conquest, further inflamed ethnic tensions, culminating in atrocities such as the Darfur genocide, which began in 2003 under the dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir. Al-Bashir’s ruthless reinforcement of Arab supremacy not only suppressed minority ethnic populations but also sowed the seeds for what is now recognized as the first and longest ongoing genocide of the 21st century. The insidious racism directed toward the people of Nuba and South Sudan illuminates how certain ethnic groups in Sudan, despite the universal blackness of the nation, endure heightened suffering due to their perceived proximity to blackness.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The Sudanese experience, caught between the forces of Africanism and Arabism, is marked by identity crises that resonate deeply within the collective consciousness. Racism, from overt bigotry to subtle microaggressions, stains the Sudanese experience in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Racist remarks and the use of blackface to portray Sudanese characters have become normalized within the Arab entertainment industry—visible manifestations of the underlying antiblack sentiment.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">However, the normalization of racism extends far beyond the realm of entertainment. A recent incident involving a Gaza reporter making a derogatory remark about skin color, when aid intended for Sudan was rerouted to Gaza, exposed the deeply rooted antiblack sentiment within Arab communities. The response on social media, dismissing Sudanese concerns as overly “Westernized,” highlighted a fundamental misunderstanding and denial of the pervasive antiblackness within Arab culture. On the internet, Sudanese people who displayed their discomfort with the situation were called “ignorant Americans,” despite having never stepped foot in America their whole lives. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Despite the reporter’s subsequent apology and the Sudanese community’s acceptance of it, the reaction to Sudanese people expressing their concerns about a comment on skin color amid ongoing war and genocide underscored the depth of the issue. This incident is a microcosm of the larger challenge faced by Sudanese activists, as they contend with both global indifference and the denial and normalization of antiblackness within Arab communities. Arab supremacy, far from being benign, not only perpetuates suffering but also has the potential to escalate into genocide. The denial of its existence isn’t merely an oversight; it becomes a dangerous force that blinds societies to the real consequences of such supremacist ideologies. In Sudan, Arab supremacy has become pervasive and destructive, dictating policies and attitudes that exacerbate suffering and deepen divisions.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Despite the undeniable consequences, a paradoxical phenomenon unfolds within Sudanese communities. Amid the chaos and strife, many individuals proudly cling to their Arab identity while distancing themselves from their African heritage. This dynamic is rooted in the ideology of Arab supremacy, which falsely dictates that Africans are inherently inferior to Arabs. This internalized superiority complex has severe consequences for the nation, further fragmenting an already fractured society.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In shedding light on Sudan’s silent suffering, this article calls for more than passive acknowledgment; it urges a collective awakening to the need for action. Breaking the chains of indifference demands a concerted effort to dismantle the deeply ingrained issues of antiblackness and historical trauma that continue to cast a dark shadow over the Sudanese people.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400"><a href="https://africasacountry.com/location/sudan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The current war in Sudan,</a> which has been ongoing since April 2023, has left tens of thousands dead and millions displaced and out of school; only through a shared commitment to understanding, empathy, and active intervention can the Sudanese people hope for a future free from the shackles of indifference and oppression. By listening to Sudani voices, amplifying their emotions and words internationally, and calling for an end to foreign involvement in the conflict unless it is to condemn the RSF militia, we can all come together with the Sudanese community to give the people their homes, dreams, aspirations, and livelihood back. To create a new world where civilians can lead their government and their futures. Because Sudanese people deserve better, we all deserve better, and we’re all Sudanese.</span></p>
<hr/>
Omnia Mustafa
Ghaida Hamdun
https://africasacountry.com/2024/03/la-femme-fatale-africaine/
La femme fatale africaine
2024-03-08T12:16:07Z
2024-03-08T12:00:54Z
<p>The recent explosion of artists like Rema, Amaarae, Tyla, and Ayra Starr on to the international</p>
<h3>Africa Is a Country is partnering with AfroWave Echoes to present their quarterly playlist of African music.</h3>
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<img alt src="https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/03/08100014/Miriam_Makeba10-720x493.jpg"/>
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Miriam Makeba and Dizzy Gillespie. Image credit Roland Godefroy via Wikimedia Commons. <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CC BY 3.0 Deed</a>.
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<p>Africa Is a Country is proud to present a new partnership: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/afrowave.audio/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">AfroWave Echoes</a>. Utilizing the convenience of digital platforms, the following essay and accompanying playlist are an invitation to engage in music away from the manipulative tentacles of corporate algorithms. We hope that they will immerse you in a form of intellectual and emotive listening that is enhanced through reflection, repetition, and communal participation. AfroWave Echoes is presented in partnership with the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/weardiop/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Diop</a> clothing brand, listen to it on your <a href="http://afrowave.audio" target="_blank" rel="noopener">preferred platform</a>.<span id="m_405121316821622785gmail-docs-internal-guid-d72aaabd-7fff-b1f6-54bc-eeb0ab3a9679"></span></p>
<p>The recent explosion of artists like Rema, Amaarae, Tyla, and Ayra Starr on to the international stage, underscores the growing global recognition of African music. We at AfroWave curate playlists that speak to the multiple fusions and adaptations of local genres and their accompanying scenes in Africa—including afrobeats, highlife, amapiano, and alte—that are taking over local and international charts. At a time when music journalism faces challenges, our goal is to serve as a platform that celebrates and contextualizes Africa’s musical landscape, while also building a community around it.</p>
<p>In the vibrant tapestry of African popular music, the threads woven by African women shimmer with a resilience and brilliance that have both challenged and transcended the constraints of their time. Female musicians often showcase greater innovation as a direct response to the patriarchal systems that restrict their creative expression and roles. This innovation is a form of resilience against the stringent societal norms and gender-based constraints prevalent in both traditional and contemporary African societies. By <a href="https://pitchfork.com/features/rising/amaarae-afropop-interview/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blending traditional and modern sounds</a>, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/25/africa/asa-nigeria-paris-prejudice-intl-cmd-lgs/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">articulating their struggles through music and activism</a>, and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/world/africa/uncle-waffles-amapiano-dj-africa-spc/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">leveraging digital platforms to bypass industry gatekeepers</a>, these artists create unique musical styles and foster community engagement. Operating at the intersection of tradition and modernity, their work not only brings vibrancy and dynamism to African music but also challenges and transforms societal perceptions of gender, illustrating the profound impact of overcoming oppression through creativity.</p>
<p>African women were always at the forefront in the emergence of African popular music. Mariam Makeba, affectionately known as Mama Africa, emerged in 1967 as a pioneering force. Her classics, such as “Pata Pata,” offered the world a glimpse into the rich diversity of African music. Makeba’s voice, embodying the spirit of the African continent, transcended boundaries, making her a symbol of the fight against apartheid and a champion for civil rights worldwide.</p>
<p>The legacy of Makeba paved the way for a new generation of artists such as Brenda Fassie, Angelique Kidjo, and Tiwa Savage, each carving their niche within the pantheon of African music. Fassie, dubbed “The Madonna of the Townships,” brought South African pop music to international prominence in the 1980s with her electrifying performances and lyrics that resonated deeply with the apartheid struggle. Kidjo, from Benin, has been celebrated for her eclectic fusion of West African traditions with global genres, earning her multiple Grammy Awards. Tiwa Savage, from Nigeria, has become a powerhouse in afrobeats, reflecting the evolving landscape where female artists gain recognition for their talent and innovation.</p>
<p>Despite their successes, these women navigated a male-dominated industry rife with sexism and racism Makeba’s marriage to Stokely Carmichael, a prominent Black Panther Party leader, in 1968 led to <a href="https://face2faceafrica.com/article/what-was-the-result-of-miriam-makeba-and-stokelys-marriage" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cancellation of her record deals and concerts</a> in the United States, demonstrating how political and racial discrimination impacted her personally and professionally. Angélique Kidjo has been more vocal about her experiences and views regarding gender equality in the music industry and society at large. Her music often includes themes of female empowerment, and she has used her platform to speak against the cultural practices that discriminate against women. Kidjo’s career, marked by her refusal to be pigeonholed into traditional roles or genres, <a href="https://nawmagazine.com/?p=5867" target="_blank" rel="noopener">challenges the gender norms and expectations</a> that often limit African women’s creative and professional opportunities in the music industry.</p>
<p>More recently, Tiwa’s music video for her smash hit, “<a href="https://vocal.media/beat/this-strategy-worked-it-got-their-attention-tiwa-savage-reveals-how-she-made-it-in-nigeria" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Wanted</a>,” featured her dancing seductively in a nude catsuit, and was banned in Nigeria for being “<a href="https://www.stelladimokokorkus.com/2014/05/tiwa-savage-wanted-what-do-you-think.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">too raunchy</a>.” This treatment highlighted the double standards and contradictory societal<br />
expectations placed on women in comparison to men, who regularly sexualize women in their videos. In 2005 MzBel was brutally attacked after a performance by a rabid mob of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology students, an attack for which she received no justice. Both Tiwa and MzBel talk about how the media at the time <a href="https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/entertainment/Negative-media-reportage-affected-my-career-Mzbel-1858400" target="_blank" rel="noopener">negatively impacted their careers</a> because of how they chose to express themselves and their art.</p>
<p>The struggle of African women in music is not confined to West Africa. One of our curators, Laura, a Dublin-based DJ from Rwanda, explained that while “women were always present in the music I consumed, they mainly appeared in music videos as back-up singers, and generally as the subject of the lyrics.” Despite these challenges, her and her female peers in Rwanda found inspiration in female artists who broke through and gained wide traction.</p>
<p>Jess, another one of our curators, and a DJ who splits her time between London and Accra, recalls the impact of music channels like MTV Base and <a href="https://sundayworld.co.za/ziwaphi/channel-o-celebrates-25-years-of-music-culture/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Channel O</a> in her youth. She explained to us: “Channel O was where I first interacted with African music from other countries and discovered legends such as Angelique Kidjo and Brenda Fassie.” Through Channel O she was excited to finally see in Black African form what she had only been able to see on MTV from the West: beautiful sexy women dancing in the latest fashion/costumes and singing about fun, relatable topics that excited her—like telling men they didn’t need or care for them, owning their bodies and agency, feeling themselves and bragging about how hot and fly they were. These representations inspired her to pursue a career in music.</p>
<p>Such stories of perseverance and activism among African women in music highlight their crucial role in advocating for women’s rights, social justice, and equality. They have broken ceilings and forged paths for future generations, serving as beacons of hope and calls to action for the music industry to support diverse voices.</p>
<p>Other notable artists to highlight from our playlist include Lady Donli, who revolutionized the classic genre highlife, modernized it, flipped it on its head and bulldozed her own lane in music history. Artists like Somadina and Mowalola, effortlessly traverse punk rock and EDM, while Bloody Civilian finds her own lane with electronic-r&b and pop-fusion. Ayra Starr and Tyla dominate afropop, Brazy and SGawd pioneer “afro sexy,” a concoction of EDM, afrobeats, Jersey bounce and rap; while Amaarae brings it all together, dancing effortlessly across hip-hop, trap, r&b, pop, rock, and afrobeats.</p>
<p>In the gqom and amapiano spaces, artists like Sho Madjozi and Uncle Waffles are also making moves. Madjozi stormed the world with “John Cena,” which became a viral hit. Known for her dance moves, Uncle Waffles blew up last year with the viral song “Adiwele.” Today, she’s one of the most sought after DJs in the world.</p>
<p>We would be remiss not to mention the queen of contemporary Francophone music, Aya Nakamura. If Beyonce had a French equivalent, it would certainly be Aya. Her breakout hit “Dja Dja” is <a href="https://www.rfi.fr/en/culture/20200730-aya-nakamura-the-unstoppable-queen-of-streaming-music-afropop-french-malian-rnb" target="_blank" rel="noopener">one of the most streamed songs</a> ever by an African artist. In 2021, she challenged preconceived notions about who can be a fashion icon by appearing on the cover of French Vogue. In 2023, she <a href="https://www.radiofrance.fr/mouv/ces-artistes-qui-ont-sold-out-bercy-en-moins-de-24h-7297365" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sold out her shows at Accor Arenas in Paris in 15 minutes</a>, setting a record for French artists. The best thing about all these names? They remain authentic and true to their African roots, singing in their local languages and flairs, appealing directly to and driving their own culture.</p>
<p>These contemporary examples illustrate the success of African women in music. As the global audience continues to embrace African popular music, it is imperative that the contributions of African women are not merely acknowledged but elevated. Their resilience, creativity, and activism are not just footnotes in the annals of music history; they are central chapters in the ongoing narrative of African cultural expression and its impact on the world stage. The legacy of these women, against all odds, serves as a powerful reminder of the role of art in societal change and the enduring strength of the human spirit.</p>
<p>In the essence of “La Femme Fatale,” <a href="https://www.thecollector.com/femme-fatale-quintessential-symbolist-motif/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a stereotype</a> of which we celebrate the reclamation of, we at AfroWave have meticulously crafted <a href="http://afrowave.audio" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a playlist</a> that honors the impactful legacy of African women in music. Explore and support some of our cherished favs!</p>
<p><iframe title="Spotify Embed: AfroWave XVIII: Femme Fatale" style="border-radius: 12px" width="100%" height="352" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/46E72kWxaxa8wbatFy0gGE?si=ae14ed1a284142d8&nd=1&dlsi=556c69d8983d4327&utm_source=oembed"></iframe></p>
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AfroWave
https://africasacountry.com/2024/03/ecowexit/
Ecowexit?
2024-03-08T09:27:07Z
2024-03-08T00:00:19Z
<p>Leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) announced on February 24 that economic</p>
<h3>Caught between pro-West loyalists and anti-West populists, West Africa’s regional bloc has come apart.</h3>
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Ouagadougou Burkina Faso, 2016. Image credit Staff Sgt. Candace Mundt for the US Army via Flickr <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CC BY 2.0 Deed</a>.
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) announced on February 24 that economic sanctions instituted against the Republic of the Niger by the West African economic bloc will now be lifted. The sanctions were imposed following the July 26 coup that arrested Niger’s elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, and transferred power to Presidential Guard commander </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_officer"><span style="font-weight: 400">General</span></a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdourahamane_Tchiani" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Abdourahamane Tchiani</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, as head of a new military junta. As with the other putsches that have recently occurred in francophone West Africa as part of the so-called </span><a href="https://africasacountry.com/2023/10/the-junta-belt" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Junta Belt</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, the regime in Niger justified its seizure of power based both on the failure of the civilian government to address terrorism and on growing anger against France for maintaining various colonial-era prerogatives, facilitated by a complicit civilian political elite. The sanctions imposed following the coup included a no-fly zone, the closure of Niger’s land border with its southern neighbors Nigeria and Benin, the halting of the supply of electricity from Nigeria to Niger (which accounts for 70 percent of Niger’s electrified supply). These economic restrictions will now be lifted on “purely humanitarian grounds,” according to the recent statement made by leaders of the bloc, while a set of political restrictions against junta members will remain in place. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Why were the sanctions removed?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Omitted from the statement, however, is the inconvenient detail that the lifting of the sanctions was the only sensible option left to ECOWAS now that the junta in Niger had thoroughly called its bluff. In addition to suspending Niger from the organization, ECOWAS’ immediate response to the Niger coup included an ill-advised threat that it would consider using force to restore constitutional order if the deposed president was not returned to power within one week. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The bloc’s leaders pushed this bellicose rhetoric even closer to the precipice after the inevitable expiry of this deadline, ordering the “immediate activation” of its intervention force, reportedly stationing some troops at the Nigeria-Niger border, and saying it had agreed on a date for possible military intervention.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The Niger junta quickly responded to these threats, mobilizing a highly effective propaganda campaign. It accused ECOWAS of turning against its own members in service to foreign powers, declaring that Niger—counting on the support of the allied military governments of Burkina Faso and Mali—was amply ready to defend against any attack on its territorial sovereignty. The statements were also followed by a series of populist maneuvers, including organizing pro-coup street demonstrations and mass rallies in stadiums in Niamey, </span><a href="https://www.jeuneafrique.com/1471543/politique/exclusif-au-niger-la-junte-refuse-de-recevoir-les-missions-de-mediation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">rebuffing initial efforts by ECOWAS mediators to establish formal diplomatic channels</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, </span><a href="https://www.channelstv.com/2023/08/11/niger-junta-threatens-to-kill-bazoum-over-planned-military-intervention-report/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">threatening to kill the deposed president</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> should an invasion occur, and calling for the immediate withdrawal of French counterterrorism forces stationed in Niger. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The latter measure in particular was much applauded in some quarters. A segment of pan-Africanist commentators (especially online) embraced the coups as the “</span><a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2023/08/niger-mali-burkina-faso-guinea-beginning-of-african-revolution-dr-quao/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">beginning of the Africa revolution</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">” in what has seemed a degraded version of the </span><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4005818" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">left-military vanguardism</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> that was prevalent in West Africa in the 1980s. However, missing from these optimistic portraits of liberation from France, especially in the case of the Niger putsch, is both a somber assessment of </span><a href="https://sahelblog.wordpress.com/2023/08/03/thoughts-on-nigers-coup-at-the-domestic-level-proximate-triggers-structural-causes-and-some-ramifications/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">the intra-elite competition that motivated the coup</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> and the potential risks that arise from increased diplomatic ties with Russia, often uncritically embraced as an alternative to Western influence.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Rahmane Idrissa offers some </span><a href="https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/rule-by-junta" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">explanation</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> for this conflation, noting that: </span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px"><span style="font-weight: 400">The elite in the Sahel, and in Francophone West Africa more broadly, traditionally tends to scapegoat the French for their own failures, relying on the familiar yet elusive concept of </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Françafrique</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">. In addition, a more recent ideological brew that combines decolonial radicalism, fringe ideologies like Kemetism (a religious belief that Black Africa is heir to Pharaonic Egypt), and the prickly sovereigntism of the weak, has seeped into the public via social media networks, sometimes from sources in France’s Black community. A Russophilia that was peculiar to Mali, going back to the reign of independence leader Modibo Keita, also percolated in this mixture.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Given that a Russian- and Wagner group-sponsored “</span><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/18/niger-becomes-hotbed-of-disinformation-after-july-26-coup" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">disinformation</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">” campaign continues to capitalize on France’s many shortcomings in the region—with a Wagner leader </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exiled-russian-mercenary-boss-prigozhin-hails-niger-coup-touts-services-2023-07-28/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">congratulating the coup plotters</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> for liberating themselves from their colonizers—it remains unclear how much of this online discourse was also driven by “bots.” Yet, while some stage management was clearly taking place, the junta’s populist measures did also seem to be greeted with genuine adulation among sections of the Nigerien populace and across the other junta states, sending a strong signal to ECOWAS that its forces were unlikely to be greeted as liberators should an invasion occur.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Meanwhile, among citizens of ostensibly loyal ECOWAS member states, the dominant response was far from hawkish, with most prominent voices—with </span><a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/pax-nigeriana" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">few exceptions</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">—expressing bewilderment and anger over the prospect that their governments were considering invading a neighboring country amid unresolved insurgencies and economic crises at the home front. The Nigerian senate, in a rare moment of perspicacity, reached a resolution </span><a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/614582-niger-coup-nigerian-senate-rejects-tinubus-troop-deployment-plan-urges-political-solution.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">rejecting the president’s request</span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400">for approval to ready troops for an invasion. It came as no surprise, then, when media reports started to suggest in October last year that ECOWAS had commenced </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerien_crisis_(2023%E2%80%93present)" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">quietly</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> demobilizing its forces. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Similarly, the formal closure of land borders—which was impossible to fully enforce, since much trade and cross-border movement in the region is informal and unreported—disintegrated within months of its declaration. In December, Benin, whose Cotonou port is </span><a href="https://www.afdb.org/en/news-and-events/press-releases/benin-african-development-bank-group-extends-eu80-million-loan-port-cotonou-upgrading-63154#:~:text=The%20Port%20of%20Cotonou%20is%20a%20transit%20port%20that%20handles,and%20Nigeria%20(5%20percent)." target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">one of the main access points for landlocked countries in the Sahel and a major source of revenue for the country</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, unilaterally lifted its ban on imported goods transiting through Niger. Meanwhile, farmers near Nigeria’s northern border </span><a href="https://punchng.com/traders-in-massive-food-diversion-to-niger-republic-cameroon-others/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">reportedly embraced the large-scale smuggling of grain to Niger</span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400">as a more profitable alternative to formal means of trade, further intensifying food </span><a href="https://punchng.com/famine-looms-as-sokoto-traders-flood-niger-republics-markets-with-local-rice/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">shortages</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, inflation, and the wider economic crisis in Nigeria. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In addition to the fraying of trade restriction enforcement in the ECOWAS countries bordering Niger, the junta-led alliance appeared to be seizing the diplomatic initiative. On January 28, the alliance announced its withdrawal from ECOWAS, stating that the bloc had “abandoned the ideals of its founding fathers and pan-Africanism” under foreign influence, imposing “inhumane” sanctions to overthrow their military regimes. It was clear that ECOWAS’ leadership would be the first to blink, when one of ECOWAS’ founding fathers, the former Nigerian military head of state Yakubu Gowon, issued a public statement calling for ECOWAS to remove the sanctions and foster dialogue in order to quickly reverse its disintegration.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">What are the prospects for the region going forward?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The removal of the economic sanctions on Niger is welcomed news for those who favor de-escalation, particularly after the hair-raising threat of a regional war was on the table. It was always an unlikely proposition that military intervention by ECOWAS would restore a stable democratic order in Niger or improve conditions in the region, particularly in light of the complex set of economic and geopolitical factors at play. Equally, a no-holds-barred defense of democratic norms by ECOWAS member states was likely to appear hypocritical at best following a disputed presidential election in Nigeria and a seeming attempt to subvert the timetable for elections and a democratic transfer of power in Senegal—both among ECOWAS’ more influential countries.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Nor does the junta-led populism of the Alliance of Sahel States represent a particularly enticing path forward. It does not bode well for the goal of diminishing France’s role in the region that an attempt by the junta governments to replace the French-backed CFA with a common currency </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/burkina-may-quit-west-african-currency-union-not-mali-2024-01-31/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">immediately floundered</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. The continuance of a US drone base in Niger as well as rising state repression and the continued immiseration of much of the populace make it unlikely that the junta’s anti-Western rhetoric can sustain popular support for long, especially in the absence of measures that tangibly improve the material well-being of citizens. The more likely trajectory, </span><a href="https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/rule-by-junta" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">as Rahmane Idrissa further observes</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> in reference to Burkina Faso and Mali, is that after a year or so, “genuine support for juntas dwindles to the committed ideologues and those who have staked their future on their regime.” We are left, on both sides of the diplomatic divide, with governments that are better suited to nationalist rhetorical posturing and the imposition of restrictions on trade and cultural exchange than to envisioning meaningful avenues out of the region’s chronic security and economic crises.<br />
</span></p>
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Sa’eed Husaini
https://africasacountry.com/2024/03/the-life-and-work-of-edward-webster/
The life and work of Edward Webster
2024-03-09T11:22:42Z
2024-03-07T12:00:41Z
<p>It is exactly 50 years since C. Wright Mills (1959) penned his rendition of the sociological</p>
<h3>The life of Edward Webster, one of South Africa’s most distinguished sociologists, can be compared to a windmill—taking in the winds of change and turning them into a prodigious intellectual engagement.</h3>
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<img alt src="https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/03/07140358/28_WebsterLifetimeAward-1080x720-1-720x480.jpg"/>
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Professor Edward Webster with his lifetime achievement award. Image credit Masechaba Kganyapa © Wits Vuvuzela.
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400">It is exactly 50 years since C. Wright Mills (1959) penned his rendition of the sociological imagination as the interplay of biography and history, or, more actively, as transforming private troubles into public issues. Given the currency of Mills’s pithy formula, one might expect sociologists to be all the more conscious of the connection between their own biography and history, or between their own personal troubles and public issues. Yet sociologists can be most obtuse about their position in society, silent as to how their ideas are an expression of the world in which they live, and, thus, naïve about the limits and possibilities of changing that world. So often, it is as if their ideas soar above the context in which they are produced as if their creativity is a unique and ineffable quality divorced from their own social worlds. Sociologists are guilty of what Alvin Gouldner (1970) once called methodological dualism—that sociological analysis is for the sociologized, not for the sociologist, who miraculously escapes the social forces that pin down and constrain everyone else.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">This asymmetry applies to C. Wright Mills himself, who harbored all manner of illusions about his self-defined isolation at the margins of academia, unshaped by the forces he described. Moreover, he thought that the analysis of the link between the social milieu in which people live and the social structure that shaped that milieu would spontaneously give rise to the transformation of personal troubles into public issues. In other words, he seemed to think that knowledge immaculately produces its own power effects. Although he did have political programs they were divorced from his sociological analysis. He did not investigate the way sociological imagination has to be connected to political imagination via organization, institutions, and social movements if it is to contribute to social transformation. In the final analysis, he shared with the academics he criticized the illusion of the knowledge effect, and thus like them justified his separation and insulation from society.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">I wish to suggest that, because it is a dominated sociology, Southern sociology more easily recognizes its own place in society, which sets limits and creates possibilities for sociology’s participation in social transformation. Moreover, </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">sociological imagination </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">is no guarantee of social transformation, the turning of personal troubles into public issues, as Mills implies, but this requires in addition a </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">political imagination</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">, forged through collective and collaborative practices with groups, organizations, and movements beyond the academy. The expansion of Southern sociology depends on the dialectic of political and sociological imagination.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">I will make this argument through the interrogation of the life and work of Edward Webster, one of South Africa’s most distinguished sociologists. He is a perpetual motion machine—a windmill. A typical day in the life of Edward Webster might start out with a run on the golf course, interrupted by a conversation with local workers, then a debate on the radio with the head of the trade union federation, moving on to a meeting of SWOP (Sociology of Work Unit that he founded in 1983), and then to a lecture to South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) journalists, who are taking the two-week course at the university, to the completion of a scholarly article, to a meeting with National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) who want him to research workplace control. Perhaps during the day, he will find some time to visit with his grandsons. He gets home late, energized by the day’s activities, to be cooled out and debriefed by his wife, the renowned biographer and popular historian Luli Callinicos.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">What marks Webster’s sociological practice is not just hyper-activity, but the intimate connection between his academic and his public lives: the one inseparable from the other. The Webster windmill takes in the winds of change—social, political, and economic winds—and turns them into a prodigious intellectual engagement. As the winds intensify the windmill accelerates, generating ever higher voltage sociology. Sparks fly, igniting the political will as well as the sociological imagination of all those around him, and thus feeding more energy into the windmill. We are not here talking so much about the personal career of Eddie Webster as the way his life comes to be embedded in movements and organizations. While such engagement is by no means confined to the Global South, nonetheless the turbulence of social transformation creates a fluidity between the university and the wider society—rarely observed in the North—encouraging deep involvement, often at great personal risk.</span></p>
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<h2>Foundations</h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Any windmill is only as strong as its foundations. The Webster windmill is founded on a moral vision that propels his engagements, early examples of which can be found in his student years at Rhodes, 1961–1965. In a reflection entitled, “Rebels with a Cause of Their Own,” Webster writes about the way he discovered Marxism in the writings of Christopher Hill and of how he disappointed his “opinionated and demanding” teacher, Winnie Maxwell, who would tell him, “Laddy, history is not a railroad and you should beware of simple answers to complex and individual events. This is not a sociology class and we are not socialists.” But it was not Marxism that impelled his moral vision, or at least that would come only later, but the patent injustice of apartheid. One of his earliest protests occurred when he was president of the Rhodes Student Representative Council (SRC)—the demand to lift the ban that prevented Africans from watching university rugby. As he writes, in a self-critical vein, “We were protesting on behalf of black supporters to watch our rugby not for non-racial rugby teams or the right of all players to participate in the same league.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">He was sowing the seeds of a life of protest not just on behalf of but also in collaboration with the African working class. That deepening engagement, however, was rarely revolutionary in intent but it took the form, as he puts it, of radical reform. In those early years, and indeed throughout his life, he maintained a critical distance from the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Communist Party (SACP), and any sort of vanguardism, but that did not mean he did not engage with them. He always believed in starting from actually existing institutions and actually mobilized movements, and for Webster these tended to revolve around labor unions and labor movements. He would take their issues as a point of departure if not a point of conclusion.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">No windmill can withstand gale-force winds without a strong foundation—in this case, an abiding moral vision combined with radical reform—but it also needs a powerful fulcrum for its rotating blades. That fulcrum did not arrive ready-made but was built over time and would eventually in 1983 become the Sociology of Work Programme (SWOP), housed in the University of Witwatersrand. After a stint at Unilever and then teaching history in high school, especially King David’s High School, Webster was ready to return to academic studies but now with a new political mission. He was admitted to Balliol College, Oxford, in 1969 to study for an MA in philosophy, politics, and economics (PPE) where he imbibed the fashionable Marxism of the time, influenced by among others Steven Lukes, before taking off for York University where he began to develop a dissertation on the so-called Durban riots of 1949—a dissertation that was intended to bring together Marxism and the pluralist perspectives of M. G. Smith, Pierre van den Berghe, and Leo Kuper. It was in Yorkshire that Webster had his first engagement with adult education, which anticipated his future connection to worker education.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">When Lawrence Schlemmer offered him a position at the University of Natal (Durban), it was natural he would take it and return to South Africa. He arrived in February 1973, just after the Durban strikes which had absorbed the attention of his colleagues, but especially Richard Turner, a young philosopher himself who recently returned from the Sorbonne with New Left thinking and a commitment to participatory democracy. At that time Turner was under house arrest, but nonetheless, the two became close friends and collaborators. Under the influence of Turner and the changing tide of events, Webster turned from his interest in the Durban riots to the insurgent African working class. The seeds of SWOP were born in Turner’s vision of an Institute for Industrial Education (IIE) that would be devoted to advancing the working class movement through workers’ education, labor research, and a labor journal. The IIE was founded in Durban, but Webster would leave for the University of Witwatersrand (Wits) in 1976, where he would continue the project that would eventually become SWOP. Turner himself was assassinated by the Security Police in 1978, but his ideas lived on in Webster’s political vision, even into post-apartheid South Africa.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">SWOP was Webster’s brainchild, and it grew into his “Modern Prince,” advancing the interests of the working class, but from within the relatively protected arena of the university. When formally established in 1983, it already came with its four arms in embryo. The first arm is an expanding research agenda that responded to changing political winds; the second arm is a public engagement, bringing research findings into the public arena for discussion and debate; the third arm is policy work—or, for reasons that will become clear, what I will call principled intervention—for trade unions, and, in the post-apartheid era, for government agencies and corporations; the fourth arm is institution building within the university, most notably SWOP and the department of sociology,—but he also began to redefine the meaning of sociology beyond the university.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">At the core of this re-envisioning of sociology lies the interconnectedness and inseparability of the four blades—institution building, principled intervention, expanding research program, as well as public engagement—joined together in SWOP. They whirl around together at speeds determined by the winds of change. Indeed, when the winds are gale force it is impossible to get close to the Webster windmill without being drawn into its vortex, and the participants in SWOP have to hang on for dear life. When a political storm rages, it is hard work to make sure none of the blades break off. As we explore these blades one by one it will become apparent just how interconnected they are. Moreover, their interconnectedness constitutes the political imagination—an interconnectedness rarely found in the North with its entrenched division of sociological labor.</span></p>
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<h2>Expanding research program</h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">We start with Webster’s expanding research agenda, ever sensitive to the issues thrown up by engagements with the world beyond. It began, however, with the more remote project of the so-called Durban riots of 1949 that was aimed at Indian commerce. Webster’s interpretation developed under the influence of both Marxist and pluralist understandings of South Africa. He argued that Indians’ access to land ownership, their control of transportation, their facility with English, as well as their ease of movement, gave them significant advantages over the emergent African petty bourgeoisie in controlling commerce and services. Through the eyes of Africans, especially the African petty bourgeoisie, Indians were perpetrators of a secondary colonization, and it was this that lay behind the Durban riots. The focus of the proposed research was the racial divide within the petty bourgeoisie based on “differential incorporation” into the apartheid order. The project was formulated in England, but Webster was deterred from pursuing this topic when he arrived in Durban in 1973. Instead, he turned his gaze on the African working class.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Through the 1970s and early 1980s, the African working class advanced toward a class for itself, joining with community organizations and the UDF to become ever more militant both at work and in the community. Webster was never far from these struggles campaigning for the recognition of trade unions. Once he arrived at Wits he turned to write his dissertation, now on the topic of working class formation. Influenced by the rising interest in labor process theory, that is the transformation of work with the development of capitalism, generated by the publication of Harry Braverman’s </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Labor and Monopoly Capital </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">(1974), Webster took advantage of the minutes of the meetings of the molders’ union that had been deposited in the Wits archives. Originally a craft union for whites only, its monopoly of skill was retained in the face of mechanization by appeal to job reservation. Racial solidarity successfully held up deskilling until after the Second World War, when slowly jobs were diluted and Africans were deployed as semi-skilled operatives. As the induction of semi-skilled Africans accelerated, the craft union dissipated, and in its place there arose an industrial union, explicitly recognized as such when the Wiehahn Commission established the right of Africans to form trade unions. The last part of the dissertation reflects on the burgeoning social movement unionism that united community and workplace struggles against apartheid.</span></p>
<p><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Cast in a Racial Mould </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">(1985) emerged from Webster’s dissertation. It made several significant contributions, but let me mention two. First, it showed how the labor movement was shaped by the transformation of work. In the labor process literature, with the partial exception of Richard Edwards’s </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Contested Terrain</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> (1979), there was little that linked the labor process to labor movement over the long durée. Equally in the South African literature, there were analyses of working-class struggles, such as the classic </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Class and Colour</span></i> <i><span style="font-weight: 400">in South Africa</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> by Jack and Ray Simons (1968), but these were not traced back to the transformation of work. Second, whereas the labor process literature has been inundated with critical commentary from feminists who insisted on the importance of gender in the regulation and transformation of the labor process, there has been very little analysis of the impact of racial orders on the labor process. </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Cast in a Racial Mould</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">, therefore, remains a classic in these two respects, reflecting a century of capitalist development in South Africa, seen through the lens of the emerging labor movement in the decade after the Durban strikes.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Absorbed in the labor struggles against apartheid, Webster would elaborate on different aspects of </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Cast in a Racial Mould.</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> We would have to wait for the end of the apartheid for the next phase of his research agenda, which would dwell on the democratic transition, dubbed the double transition, interconnecting democratization, and economic class compromise. With Glenn Adler in 1995, he would take on board the literature on the Latin American transition to democracy, which focused on pact-making among elites to the exclusion of popular participation. In South Africa, at least, the legacy of a strong labor movement would provide the opening for a different path of development. As the 1990s wore on Webster became less optimistic about the transition, but he never lost sight of economic development through redistribution and the creation of the </span><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0032329299027003003" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">institutions of class compromise.</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> His research agenda shifted to the effects of a market-driven economic policy that involved privatization and dismantling protections for labor. Working with Bridget Kenny, Sarah Mosoetsa, Karl von Holdt, and others, Webster would refocus his research on the informalization of the economy, those expanding sectors of the economy that were beyond the reach of trade unions, and from there, it was a short step to the </span><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275408883_Beyond_the_Apartheid_Workplace_Studies_in_Transition" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">examination of survival strategies of households</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">This led to a fourth phase of his research trajectory—the move into comparative studies. If Braverman (1974) and Richard Edwards (1979) had shaped his approach to the labor process and its connection to the labor movement, and if pact theory and class compromise had framed his analysis of transition, it would be Karl Polanyi’s </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">The Great Transformation </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">(1944) that provided the basis for teasing out the specificity of South Africa’s response to neoliberalism. Problematizing Polanyi’s countermovement of society against the market he, Rob Lambert, and Andries Bezuidenhout compared the responses to neoliberalism in South Africa, South Korea, and Australia by focusing on community responses to the restructuring of the white goods industry. </span><a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Grounding+Globalization%3A+Labour+in+the+Age+of+Insecurity-p-9781405129145" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Grounding Globalization</span></i></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> (2008) studied on-the-ground responses to global patterns of marketization, responses that ranged from informalization to building an international labor movement.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Each phase in the expanding research program was a quite specific response to the immediate political and economic context of South Africa, but it also drew on different strands of theory being developed in the UK or the US. The dynamism of this localization of theory from the North came less from the pursuit of its internal contradictions and more from the external anomalies, and issues thrown up by the context within which he worked. If in the North we have the luxury of developing a </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">research program</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">, in which its empirical belts are driven primarily by an internal logic, and only secondarily by the world beyond, the appeal of the Southern windmill is the way it develops a </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">research agenda</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">, primarily responsive to emergent public and policy issues. That is why it is impossible to disconnect SWOP’s blade of theory from the blades of public engagement, policy intervention, and institution building. That is how the sociological imagination can quickly become a political imagination.</span></p>
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<h2>Public engagement</h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">It is difficult to grasp the scope and intensity of Webster’s public engagement, which ranged from debates in the media (television, radio, newspapers) to worker education and the famous SWOP breakfasts. But public engagement can be a life-and-death matter as Webster would learn very soon after he returned to South Africa. In 1973 Charles Nupen, president of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), invited Webster to give a paper to a student seminar on the implications of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) for the white left. Webster (1974) distinguishes three responses of whites: the uncomprehending traditional liberal who responds defensively, reiterating commitment to equality and non-racialism, arguing for slow assimilation; the despairing liberal who accepts collective white guilt for racism, seeing no way out and so either “withdraws from the country or joins Anglo America”; and the committed radical who adopts a more critical stance toward Black Consciousness, carving out a space for political activism.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">While recognizing the importance of Black Consciousness and the cultural recuperation that lies behind it, Webster, standing as a committed radical, points to the potential reemergence of a black bourgeoisie that advances its own class interests in the name of race. But his most challenging intervention was to call on whites to examine how their institutions are implicated in the reproduction of racism, and to make white society “more receptive to the kind of change that the oppressed will force upon it.” Webster drew on black radical thought from the Black Panthers in the US to Steve Biko and BCM, on debates about African socialism and neocolonialism in independent Africa, but also derivatively on Frantz Fanon. He directed his concerns at white South Africans and argued that they had to change to meet the challenge of the rising tide of struggles against apartheid. This was as forthright and radical a statement Webster would ever make and, indeed, it attracted the attention of the Security Branch, leading to his arrest two years later, at the end of 1975, under the Suppression of Communism Act.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Webster moved to the University of Witwatersrand in 1976, the year of his trial. George Bizos, one of the defense attorneys, called it the trial of the NUSAS Five, since except for Webster the accused were all NUSAS leaders. Among other things they were accused of calling for the release of political prisoners, fighting for the recognition of African trade unions, and advocating the violent transformation of society. Webster defended himself with a lecture on the virtues of institutionalizing industrial conflict by establishing African trade unions. Rather than stimulate violence trade unions would minimize violence. “Trade unions,” he said, “were not the institutions that conservatives fear and that revolutionaries hope for.” Nonetheless, even if trade unions were not a weapon of revolution, this view—stemming from the elementary functionalist theory of conflict—had radical implications simply because Africans were not allowed to form them.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In the United States, the same theory was being branded conservative, precisely because it reproduced the social order, absorbing, channeling, and taming class conflict. Indeed, in the US sociologists had developed social movement theory to valorize the transformative potential of non-institutionalized conflict in civil society—the civil rights movement, the student movement, the women’s movement, the anti-war movement. They wrote off the labor movement precisely because it was institutionalized. When confronted with violence in South Africa, however, Webster would always underline the importance of recognizing actors and organizing conflict.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The accused were found not guilty, but the magistrate, commenting on the speeches Webster made, was compelled to declare Webster “an arrogant young man,” and in response, his father called out, “And that’s no crime!” At the end of the trial, Webster had a telling exchange with the head of Security Police, Colonel Johan Coetzee, himself a trained and sophisticated political scientist. Webster approached Coetzee, “Well, I’ve been found not guilty.” to which Coetzee responded, “Yes, but you are not innocent.” And, of course, he was right. Webster’s address to the NUSAS seminar was far from innocent. It was a radical statement for reform. The fact that the state was so handsomely defeated in the trial showed that charges against intellectuals would not stick in South Africa’s law courts with its independent judiciary. If it wanted to quash the spread of ideas hostile to apartheid, then the state would have to assassinate their authors. This is precisely what happened to Rick Turner, David Webster, and Ruth First, and indeed there were also attempts on Edward Webster’s life.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Webster may have been found not guilty, but, as Colonel Coetzee intimated, he was a marked man. A lesser man would have withdrawn from public engagement, but not Webster. Nonetheless, he had to be more circumspect. As we will see he did turn inward, building sociology within the university, but he also continued his outward orientation with the </span><a href="https://www.southafricanlabourbulletin.org.za/"><i><span style="font-weight: 400">South African Labour Bulletin</span></i></a> <span style="font-weight: 400">and workers’ education. The </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">SALB </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">was founded by Turner and Webster among others in Durban in 1974, and it continues to this day. Webster was on the board for 27 years. Widely read in the labor movement, it was host to some of its most important debates. Especially noteworthy was the intense debate over union registration. After the Wiehahn Commission had proposed recognition of African unions there ensued a major debate among unionists as to whether it was better to boycott the new legislation, resisting co-optation by the state, </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">or </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">to register in order to exploit spaces that opened up within the state. Alec Erwin would pose the dilemma in these terms: Should one use the state to undermine capital or attack capitalism to undermine the state? Together with the editors of the </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">SALB </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">Webster would come down in favor of registration, another case of hoped-for radical reform. Over the years every major issue affecting the labor movement has been debated in the pages of the </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">SALB</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The other prong inherited from Turner’s brainchild, the Institute of Industrial Education, was worker education. The IIE had introduced a diploma course in Durban for which they produced four books that presented a working-class perspective on the economy, on society, on the factory, and on organization. The books were translated into Zulu and played a pivotal role in the project of worker education that would bring together incipient unionists, and build a democratic base for unionism within the factories.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">After he arrived at Wits Webster and his colleague, the historian Phil Bonner, developed courses in worker education for the new leadership of the trade union movement. Initially, the course was held on campus, but later, the Wits administration banned worker education as political and therefore in violation of the university’s statutes. Despite protests, Webster was forced to take worker education off campus. The university did not want to be seen as harboring forces for social upheaval, especially given its close links with business. With the formation of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) in 1985, worker education was taken away from Webster and his colleagues, but SWOP would develop other forums of public education. More recently, for example, it has begun annual courses for journalists from the South African Broadcasting Corporation.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In 1992 it started monthly SWOP breakfasts at which SWOP researchers would present their findings and analysis to interested bodies in the community—trade unions, businesses, educators, politicians, journalists, and civil servants. This has been one of SWOP’s most successful, long-standing, and innovative initiatives—a prototype of public sociology in which the researcher and researched meet in public discussion. The researcher reports back to those who sponsored the research as well as to those who were the object of research, and, in the case of work in progress, rethinking its direction. It is much more than a conversation among those immediately involved in research, but involves developing new concepts, and new understandings of public issues that are of broad interest. There is a regular core audience of some 40 people who always appear, and then in addition are those attracted to a particular topic. The SWOP breakfasts serve multiple functions, generating public debate but also building a network of institutions upon which SWOP can draw in pursuing further research.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">What we see, then, over time is the movement from individual initiative to the cautious institutionalization of public sociology. What is institutionalized, however, is not the recognition of public sociology as a criterion of academic promotion, not incentivizing public sociology within a professional career but establishing the means and resources to communicate sociology to broader audiences regularly, contributing to a public sphere of dialogue. These outward-looking projects are rooted in a research agenda that SWOP manages to translate into the language and concerns of a variety of interested parties whose responses feed back into the research agenda. This organic public sociology is very different from traditional public sociology in which the sociologist broadcasts his or her ideas via books, op-ed pieces, interviews, and the like, although of course the former does not preclude the latter.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Above all, public sociology in the South can be a dangerous enterprise that puts not just careers but also lives at risk. Even though Webster steered clear of the ANC and the SACP—although he was a supporter of the first union federation, the Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU)—still he like others was deemed an enemy of the state, all the more dangerous because his critical independence proved unassailable in a court of law. In political regimes hostile to free speech and open debate, public sociology, especially the organic variety, can be a potent political force but one that comes at an enormous cost. Democratization has brought greater freedom for public sociology but also limited its political significance. With the evisceration of civil society and the corporatization of the university, public sociology is driven in the direction of policy intervention, thereby creating a host of new dilemmas.</span></p>
<hr/>
<h2>Principled intervention</h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The distinction between policy and public sociology is often difficult to draw. If public sociology aims at broadening public dialogue, policy intervention aims at a particular client—indeed, it is often in service of a particular client, accepting parameters defined by the client. If the danger of public sociology lay in alienating the apartheid state that sought to control the limits of public dialogue, the challenge of policy research is to avoid a compromising relationship with the client who sponsors the research. Webster has always been careful to avoid being captured by the clients for whom he undertakes research, retaining the autonomy necessary to adopt a critical stance toward the client, whether it be a union, party, or corporation. I call this principled intervention. The following cases, just a few of the many policy projects undertaken by SWOP, illustrate its achievements and dilemmas.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">SWOP was originally founded as a policy unit, when a group of engineers, known as the Technical Advice Group (TAG) approached Webster in 1983, hoping to deploy their skills and knowledge for progressive ends. This group included people who would become major players in the struggles around work and trade unions—Jean Leger, Judy Maller, Freddy Sitas, and Yunus Ballim. As Webster completed his dissertation on the molders, he developed a concern for respiratory diseases associated with foundry work. One of the members of TAG—Freddy Sitas, a student of medicine—followed this up and later </span><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27726784" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">published an analysis of the link in 1989.</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> Jean Leger would collaborate with Webster on another project concerned with occupational health—mine accidents—which had always been a thorn in the side of mining companies. Leger’s research would take several years, and it was done with the support of the new National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). In the end, he showed how work organization, in particular racial despotism, was at the heart of the high number of fatalities. White miners paid on an incentive bonus scheme would drive their African subordinates to work in the most unsafe of conditions.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The report was discussed in 1985 at a most dramatic public event organized by the then-emerging SWOP. Webster invited both NUM and the Chamber of Mines to discuss the report on the Wits Campus. Workers came on foot and managers by helicopter. Webster chaired the meeting of the two sides of the industry, pointing out that the university had long supported the mining industry concerning matters of engineering, but it should also be concerned with the livelihood of African labor. A heated debate ensued in which the representatives of the companies questioned the findings by attacking the methodology used in social research—snowball sampling. Webster and his colleagues were able to roll out experts in social science methodology that would justify the method, putting the Chamber of Mines on the defensive.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">This intervention on behalf of and commissioned by NUM was relatively successful. In 1986, NUM put out a popular version of the Leger report under the title</span><a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/A_Thousand_Ways_to_Die.html?id=ZNYuAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400"> “A Thousand Ways to Die: The Struggle for Safety in Gold Mines”</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> and the mining companies modified their operations underground. But the next project showed just how delicate the relationship between sociologist and favored client can become. It was an investigation initiated by Webster and his colleagues, with the tacit approval of the local branch of NUM, on the causes of HIV/AIDS among mineworkers. The research, conducted in 1988, when there was still silence around HIV/AIDs even as it was already taking so many lives in South Africa, pointed to the system of migrant labor as the ultimate source of the problem. Separated from their wives in the homelands, African miners took on multiple partners—women desperate for income—during their stints in the mines, spreading HIV at alarming rates. In this case, the NUM refused permission to publish the research since, from NUM’s point of view, it pathologized the sexual behavior of Africans, feeding the long history of racist views of Africans as uncivilized, even though the ultimate culprit was seen to be the mining industry’s system of migrant labor. SWOP was caught in a bind as NUM was trying to censor its research, but eventually, a compromise was reached and the paper written by the researchers—Karen Jochelson, Monyaola Mothibeli, and Leger—</span><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.2190/11UE-L88J-46HN-HR0K" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">was published in a foreign journal, the </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">International Journal of Health Services</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> in 1991.</span></a></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The clients of SWOP have changed in the post-apartheid period. SWOP now undertakes membership surveys for COSATU and the ANC. It undertook commissioned research for the mining companies such as a study of occupational cultures in deep-level mining, and then made proposals for training miners who would work in such conditions. But SWOP was also asked to advise government agencies. In 2007 the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) asked Webster and Sakhela Buhlungu to assess the increasing violence in and around industrial plants. The two sociologists first asked their union partners whether to accept the invitation. With union encouragement, Webster and Buhlungu made a presentation to the NIA on the importance of having strong unions to channel conflict if violence was to be avoided. This was a familiar argument that Webster had made on numerous occasions, not least as an expert witness in the case of workers indicted for killing scabs. The NIA was so pleased with SWOP’s presentation that it would then request their assistance in dealing with specific strikes. Here Webster drew the line, turning down substantial payment in order to preserve the integrity of SWOP—not to be captured by any agency, but particularly one that was hostile to labor.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">One might say that Webster’s policy intervention was governed by the principle of never crossing a metaphorical picket line—that is to say, he insisted on maintaining autonomy in the face of client pressure to come over to its side. This is as true for labor as it is for capital. Thus, he can sit on the boards of the Chris Hani Institute, a research arm of the South African Communist Party, as well as of the Southern African Development Bank. The picket line is never clear. It is an imaginary line that Webster continually draws and redraws as he is sucked onto different terrains of conflict and as the overall political context changes. Like public dialogue, principled intervention translates personal troubles into public issues, but he always tries to ensure that the link does not backfire and that it does not exacerbate the personal troubles of those whose cause he seeks to defend.</span></p>
<hr/>
<h2>Institution building</h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">At every point the contrast with Mills is stark, but none more stark than in Webster’s relation to the university. Mills constituted himself as a lone martyr at the fringes of the academy. He criticized those who would get their hands dirty in policy research or in anything like organic public sociology. He spoke to his mass society from the rafters of society, condemning its dominant institutions, not least the university. He stood at the fringes of an elite academic world, mocking those who ran it, not taking his teaching especially seriously. How different is Webster’s engagement with the world, always trying to build and rebuild institutions that would carry forward his ideas, his research, and his teaching.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Before the NUSAS trial in 1976, Webster had been following Turner’s ideas for the Institute for Industrial Education, embracing research into working-class culture that would shed light on the Durban strikes, developing worker education, and creating a journal that would address the interests of the emergent African trade unions. The arrest and then the trial taught Webster much about the thinking of the police and security forces and the possibilities of fighting the state on the terrain of law. But he was now a marked man and had to be more cautious in his political engagement. So after the trial Webster turned to the university that had supported him throughout the trial by continuing his employment on the grounds that he was innocent until proven guilty.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Webster set about changing the curriculum in the sociology department at Wits. He transformed the existing course in industrial sociology by drawing on critical theory, largely Marxist theory. Building on that success he introduced an honors program in industrial sociology which attracted some of the best and brightest students, including such figures as Karl von Holdt, Kate Philips, Jane Barrett, Avril Joffe, and Darlene Miller, all committed to a critical engagement with South African society. Many of these students would go on to play a major role in the labor movement but also transform sociology in a Marxist direction with a focus on labor.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">This was, of course, a period of escalating protest in industry but also in the townships in the wake of the 1976 Soweto Uprising. The Federation of South African Trade Unions was launched in 1979 after the Wiehahn Commission had endorsed African trade unions, and it was then that Webster and his colleagues Phil Bonner, Halton Cheadle, and Duncan Innes introduced their three-week courses for trade union leadership. As Webster was slowly transforming the Wits sociology department he was also working on his dissertation on the history of the molders. As already recounted SWOP would later develop out of a group of progressive Wits scientists and engineers (TAG) who had come to Webster in search of a social scientist who might help them with their research.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">SWOP was very different from the other group that had emerged at the end of the 1970s—the Wits History Workshop—that was intent on forging a history of South Africa from below. It championed rank-and-file workers and the marginalized, but many of its key members were less committed to active engagement with society, intent on protecting the autonomy of academic pursuits, but also suspicious of organizations such as trade unions as leading to the bureaucratization of social movements. Despite overlapping membership, the tension between these two academically rooted organizations became palpable in the 1980s, especially as SWOP became immersed in quite concrete and controversial projects, such as the study of mine accidents and HIV/AIDS.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Webster became chair of the sociology department from 1988 until 1994. As he tells the story, he had a three-fold agenda: staff development, especially young faculty; curriculum changes, in particular, the creation of an MA program; and building a common vision in what was a deeply divided department. This was a period in which the department expanded and moved left. It was perhaps one of the most vital periods in the department’s history, reflecting its engagement in the unfolding transformation of society. It was also a period in which Webster became more active in the Association of Sociologists of Southern Africa (ASSA), a multi-racial organization that had split off from the white sociological association (SASOV). Webster would become president of ASSA between 1983 and 1985 and enlarged its size by giving it new energy and direction. In the wider society, this was a period of virtual civil war, signaled on the one side, by the formation of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in 1983 and COSATU in 1985 and, on the other side, by the declaration of a state of emergency with all manner of repressive counter-moves from the apartheid state. It was in this climate that Webster sought to make ASSA reflective of the growing engagement of sociologists by creating working groups that captured the public issues of the time—education, labor, gender, urban, militarization, and the state. He brought in figures from other disciplines but also leaders from the labor movement and UDF to give sociology a sense of its public mission. It was under his reign that ASSA launched its own journal.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The transition brought a new set of problems in some ways more challenging than the struggles against apartheid. How does one transform the university from a bastion of white privilege to a more open and inclusive institution that would cater to new generations of African students? SWOP turned to an ambitious internship program that would train young black South Africans in the sociology of work and employment relations, attaching them to research projects on the transition. Here it should be said that Webster’s teaching style is of a piece with his public sociology, constituting students as a public that comes to the university with its own lived experience, a lived experience he engages, elaborates, and transforms. He thinks of his students as themselves teachers, returning to society endowed with new imaginations and a model of how to communicate them to others. As the festschrift dedicated to Webster-the-teacher underlines, he has a rare ability to draw students into a critical understanding of the worlds from which they come, seamlessly knitting together sociological and political imaginations.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In training Africans his project, of course, was impelled by the desire to transform the racial despotism inherited from apartheid. This turned out to be a far greater challenge than even he imagined. In many contexts the color bar simply floated up, leaving racial patterns intact. Ironically, the university seemed the most intractable to change. Webster turned his sociology onto his own workplace—the chalk face as he called it—just as he had turned it on to the apartheid workplaces of industry. He saw how the University of Witwatersrand could not reform itself easily, facing as it did the legacy of an entrenched white oligarchy. At the end of the 1990s, the university system of South Africa as a whole underwent change through amalgamations that were intended to dissolve the divide between the historically black and historically white institutions. Within the university there was a move to absorb the old disciplinary departments into schools—that is, interdisciplinary units. Webster viewed this as a destructive restructuring—eroding two decades devoted to building the sociology department. The restructuring justified insurgent managerialism within the university, building up the ranks of professional and highly paid-administrators.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">That was at one end of the university. At the other end there had begun a process of outsourcing low-paid service jobs, replacing workers with employment guarantees (and even access to free university education for their children) with contract workers employed by labor brokers. When the outsourcing plans were revealed, members of SWOP organized public support for the displaced workers, much to the chagrin of the Vice-Chancellor at the time, Colin Bundy, who called Webster into his office to tell him to discipline his troops. Webster refused. Here in his own backyard, he could observe the very processes of informalization that SWOP had been studying in the wider economy. Not only was the wave of neoliberalism flooding back into the university but at the chalk face racial dynamics had an obduracy of their own.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">No matter what the frustration and aggravation, the Webster windmill kept on revolving. The work of SWOP and of Webster in particular took a global turn. As early as 1994 Webster had attended the embryonic Research Committee on Labour Movements (RC44) of the International Sociological Association (ISA), and by 1998 he was elected to become its secretary, and in 2002 he became its president. Once again he brought new energy and direction to this fledgling group, building global relations not only among labor sociologists but also between labor sociologists and labor movements, showcasing his own unit, SWOP, but also other units in other parts of the world in which academics had developed partnerships with labor movements. It was at this time that he re-established relations with South African Rob Lambert, now teaching in Australia, who had been building the Southern Initiative on Globalisation and Trade Union Rights (SIGTUR). Together they injected RC44 with a new vitality and global vision that would crystallize in their collaborative book </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Grounding Globalization: Labour In the Age of Insecurity </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">(2008) which won the book award from the Labor Section of the American Sociological Association in 2009, marking the influence of SWOP on Northern sociology.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Consolidating this global engagement at the local level is Webster’s involvement in Global Labour University (GLU), an ILO project that connects universities in Germany (University of Kassel), India (Tata Institute, Mumbai), South Africa (Wits) and Brazil (State University of Campinas). Trade unions send officials from all over Africa to study at Wits, under the direction of SWOP, for a year and to receive an MA diploma or degree in labor studies and development. This created its own dilemmas, and Webster was again caught straddling the exigencies of the life of the union official on the one side and the demands of an academic curriculum on the other.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Throughout his career, the university has been the base of his principled interventions, public engagement, and research programs. Without this fourth arm, the windmill would be uncoordinated and its energy would flag. He has only been able to build SWOP as the fulcrum of his activities because it is grounded in the relatively protected environment of the academy. It is the relative autonomy of the academy that has allowed him to sustain intellectual critique alongside close collaborations and intense engagements with groups, organizations, and movements outside the university. The coordinated and interdependent blades of Webster’s windmill cut deeply, bringing sociological imagination and political engagement into close connection—the hallmark of the best of Southern sociology.</span></p>
<hr/>
<h2>For a Southern sociology?</h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The metaphor of the windmill captures what is distinctive about Webster’s sociology but is there something distinctively South African or Southern about his engagement, his theorizing? Can one make any general claims about South Africa or the South that distinguishes their sociology from the one found in the North? To be sure one can characterize Northern sociology as dominated by a division of labor in which sociologists are first and foremost defined by their professional role, barricading themselves within the university, only rarely venturing forth. If they pursue public or policy sociology it is often on the side and subordinated to professional sociology. Their research programs tend to follow an internal logic impervious to the winds beyond, even those beating down on the university. With the windmill, by contrast, the winds become the source of power, converted by the four blades, each revolving with the other, each inseparably connected to the other. Rather than the division of labor, SWOP works with flexible specialization, just-in-time adaptation to the pressures of the moment, or what Sizwe Phakathi called “planisa”—the spontaneous planning of underground workers, responding to the exigencies of deep-level mining. Yet we can find examples of similar engagements in the North, ranging, for example, from Huw Beynon’s organization of the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University to Ruth Milkman’s work as head of the University of California’s Institute for Labor and Employment to Ramon Flecha’s Centre for Research in Theories and Practices that Overcome Inequalities (CREA) in Barcelona. Are these, however, more the exception than the rule, an oasis of activity in a desert of professionalism?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Even if we grant a certain distinctiveness to the North can we make sweeping claims about the South? Certainly, many countries of the South are either so poor or so small that the university is overrun by political demands and pressures that make such projects as SWOP untenable. Indeed, that is true of many universities in South Africa. In so many Southern universities faculty are living from hand to mouth, often employed in several jobs to make ends meet. This, of course, is the other side of the Southern windmill, where foundations and fulcrum are too weak to withstand the political and economic storms, too stretched to sustain any coherence. Moreover, in our era of marketization, Southern research units are more likely to develop outside the university, siphoning off the best talent from the university, separating teaching from research, responding to ephemeral demands of well-resourced clients, often sponsored by international agencies with their own agendas. SWOP, too, has had difficulty reproducing itself in the neoliberal governmentality of post-apartheid South Africa—a climate in which independent political imagination is harder to sustain, in which commitments are more ephemeral and visions more limited. Difficult though it is, only in dynamic developing countries, such as South Africa, India, and Brazil, can the best universities provide the resources and protect academic autonomy to make windmills feasible.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">But what about the sociology itself—simultaneously the ingredient and product of the windmill? Here it is worth distinguishing between “Sociology </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">in </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">the South,” “Sociology </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">of </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">the South” and “Sociology </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">for </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">the South.” Sociology </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">in </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">the South is simply Northern sociology, presented as a universal sociology, transferred to the South. Like McDonald’s this is a mere replica, usually a poor replica of the sociology of the North, using its textbooks, its concepts, and its theories as though they applied directly to the South. Modernization theory was especially well adapted to this transplantation as the gap between theory and reality could be explained away as a mark of inevitable backwardness or the result of a stalled evolutionary process. Sad to say much sociology taught in the South is of this character.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Precisely because of its ubiquity, this Sociology </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">in </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">the South has spawned indigenous or alternative sociologies, a nativist sociology against the North. The most recent version is Raewyn Connell’s </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Southern Theory</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">,</span> <span style="font-weight: 400">which starts by dismissing canonical Northern sociology as an arbitrary and artificial construct—whether this be the classical theory of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim or the contemporary theory of Coleman, Bourdieu, and Giddens—that seeks to universalize and impose on the rest of the world what is quite particular and peculiar. Against a reductionist homogenization of “Northern theory” Connell presents us with an array of forgotten or silenced theorists from the South — Africa, Latin America, India, Middle East, and Asia. Sol Plaatje, for example, is the representative from South Africa, but Connell cannot tell us what it is about his writing that was not absorbed and elaborated in the enormous wealth of South African historiography. What purpose would be served by returning to Plaatje?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Apart from having lived in the South, it is not clear what makes these thinkers “Southern,” since many were trained and spent much time in the North; or what makes their thinking “sociological,” since many are more clearly philosophers, economists, historians. Even more problematic, Connell decontextualizes their thinking so that there is no reason to believe that they can become part of any grounded sociological engagement with the realities of the South, whatever those realities might be. The importance of </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Southern Theory </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">is to reiterate the critique of Sociology </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">in </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">the South—a diluted, textbook version of Northern sociology—but </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Southern Theory </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">is not yet Sociology </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">of </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">the South.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Very different from Connell, Webster’s engagement with Northern theory </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">has </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">developed a Sociology </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">of </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">the South. Thus, he has argued that US sociology presents itself as a false universal, which he particularizes in two ways. First, he deploys Northern theory in the South to reveal its very different significations. What is conservative in one place may be radical in another. Thus, taking the functionalist theory of conflict and the idea that trade unions manage dissent and limit violence, Webster challenged the anti-unionism of apartheid South Africa, and indeed of post-apartheid South Africa. Second, he has taken Northern theories and shown that they are false when applied to South Africa. Thus, his critique of transition theory pointed to the limitations of the theory of pacts that political scientists had applied to Latin American transitions to democracy and instead underlined the importance of class struggle and class compromise.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">But Webster has done much more than particularize Northern theory. He and his colleagues developed new theories of the relation between work organization and working-class mobilization. The concept of social movement unionism was debated in South Africa long before it was reinvented in the United States. Webster and his colleagues advanced novel theories of the double and then the triple transition, the links between formal and informal economies as specific responses to globalization. More than that, as I have been at pains to underline, they have developed a methodology of research and theorizing that is not simply grounded in but deeply engaged with the local.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">This is, indeed, Sociology </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">of </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">the South but it is not yet Sociology </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">for </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">the South. Particularizing and even expanding Northern theory is not the end of the road, but a necessary step in the development of Sociology </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">for </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">the South—a sociology which is not content with a particular sociology of the South, but makes its own move toward universality. It is a theory that binds the South to an emergent counter-hegemony that presents the interests of the South as the interests of all. We have examples of this in the broad appeal of dependency theory that emerged from Latin America or subaltern studies that originated in India, each of which incorporated a theory of the North, but from the standpoint of the South. Here, too, Webster and his colleagues have innovated. In its investigation of the specific responses to marketization in different countries, </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Grounding Globalization </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">takes a major step toward theorizing the place of the South within a world order dominated by the North, addressing the North as well as the South. Webster, Lambert, and Bezuidenhout’s Polanyian framework, bringing together market fundamentalism, fictitious commodities, and counter-movement through historical and cross-national comparisons, provides the basis of a sociology for the South—a sociology that selectively embraces theories from all regions of the world, that dissolves the blunt reifications of North and South, a sociology that can excite sociologists from Europe and North America as well as from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, but a sociology that never forgets its political origins and its political context.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Of course, it’s never easy and there are downsides to the Southern windmill. It is so continually in motion that it is difficult to find time to consolidate insights and deepen partial theories into something of more general applicability. The wind blows eternally, and the blades turn relentlessly. Research is driven frenetically from topic to topic. The foundations of Webster’s political imagination reside in his sustained collaboration with students, colleagues, and subjects of research—can such collaboration, even with Northern theorists, offset the continual pressures to meet the turbulence of the moment? Indeed, Latin American sociologists, no less embedded in society than their South African colleagues, were able to forge all sorts of synergies with the action sociology pioneered by Alain Touraine and his Parisian team.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Across the planet, a destructive combination of marketization and governmentality is transforming the university—corporatizing its management, auditing its output, and commodifying its knowledge. We are searching the world over for models of how to contest the often surreptitious onslaught against the academy. SWOP is one such model. It emerged under the exigencies of the South, but it has universal relevance. It provides a vision that defends the integrity of the university, not as a retreat into the ivory tower but as an advance into the trenches of civil society, that sees the sociological imagination and political engagement not as antagonists but as partners. The life and work of Edward Webster, institutionalized in SWOP, must command the attention of us all.</span></p>
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<p>South African sociologist Edward Webster passed away at the age of 81 on March 5, 2024, in Johannesburg.</p>
Michael Burawoy
https://africasacountry.com/2024/03/imperialism-in-black-face/
Imperialism in black face
2024-03-06T09:37:30Z
2024-03-06T09:30:05Z
<p>On January 26, 2024, Kenya’s high court deemed its plan to send 1,000 police officers to</p>
<h3>Kenya’s plan to send 1,000 police officers to Haiti undermine's the country's fragile sovereignty.</h3>
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Kenyan Police officers serving under the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in 2016. Image credit Omar Abdisalan (AMISOM) via Flickr public domain.
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400">On January 26, 2024, Kenya’s <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-68090488" target="_blank" rel="noopener">high court</a> deemed its </span><a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/preparations-to-deploy-kenyan-police-to-haiti-ramp-up-despite-legal-hurdles-/7399080.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">plan</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> to send 1,000 police officers to head up a so-called United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti unconstitutional.</span><span style="font-weight: 400"> This is because there is no evidence of an agreement between Haiti and Kenya granting these powers, even as the UN Security Council has already endorsed this problematic policing initiative</span><span style="font-weight: 400">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Despite this court judgment, and the many Kenyan voices expressing opposition to this project, President Ruto continues to assert that he will go ahead with this mission, </span><a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2024-01-31-plan-to-send-officers-to-haiti-will-go-on-despite-court-ruling-ruto/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">stating</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">: “We already have bilateral relations with Haiti, all that needs to be done now is for Haiti to make a request to Kenya and the mission will go ahead.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Yet, there is currently no </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/18/1149556481/haiti-last-elected-official-political-crisis" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">elected government</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> in Haiti. President Jovenel Moise, who was </span><a href="https://apnews.com/article/haiti-president-jovenel-moise-killed-b56a0f8fec0832028bdc51e8d59c6af2" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">assassinated in July 2021</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, had extended his term without a ballot process for years, and the current prime minister, </span><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/8/haitian-pm-calls-for-calm-as-violent-protests-demand-his-resignation" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Ariel Henry</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, was put in this position days before Moise’s assassination and continues to preside with no legal mandate or popular support. </span><span style="font-weight: 400">On March 1, 2024, President Ruto signed an agreement with Henry in Kenya, despite him being an unelected and unsupported prime minister. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In a scenario where there is no elected parliament, local government, or president, just who is President Ruto signing agreements with for a deployment of Kenyan Police in Haiti? </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">To reflect on this situation, and, above all, to amplify citizen voices to contest it, on January 24 the Pan-African Socialist Alliance held a “</span><a href="https://aaprp-intl.org/hands-off-haiti-event-in-kenya/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Hands Off Haiti”: Resist Occupation</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> program at the Kenya National Theatre. The objective was to challenge this UN mission encouraged by the US and the “</span><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t6RmBawvRCIY9VPYdv1ng_4fdEtor_zZp6njuzbBhlw/edit" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Core Group</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">.” </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">As its organizers, we agree with the US-based </span><a href="https://blackallianceforpeace.com/bapstatements/opposeblackfaceimperialisminhaiti" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Black Alliance for Peace</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> that this project is just imperialism in blackface. In keeping with the sentiment shared by many Kenyans, we say, “</span><a href="https://blackallianceforpeace.com/bapstatements/opposeblackfaceimperialisminhaiti" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">no to Blackface imperialism</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">” and “yes to Haitian sovereignty.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Unfortunately, our “Hands off Haiti” event on January 24 was </span><a href="https://aaprp-intl.org/hands-off-haiti-event-in-kenya/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">infiltrated</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> by a number of Ruto supporters, who seem to have very little information about Haiti currently or historically. These government stooges initially came early to observe, left, and then returned with t-shirts that read “Africa4Haiti” on the front, and “We Support the Peace Mission” at the back. These sentiments were overshadowed by the prevailing anti-imperialist sentiments of the audience, among them adept students of history; they do not close their eyes to the imperialism sanctioned by Kenya in Somalia and beyond, its penchant for being—in the words of human rights activist and community organizer Gacheke Gachihi—an “appendage of imperialism.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Erica Caines, our special guest from the Black Alliance for Peace, made plain America’s interests in this island of 12 million. From her narrative, it is clear that this proposed UN mission in Haiti will only yield disastrous results. Like </span><a href="https://www.cfr.org/timeline/iraq-war" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">America’s invasion of Iraq</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> to supposedly monitor and destroy “weapons of mass destruction,” or NATO’s 2011 intervention to “protect” civilians in </span><a href="https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/libya-floods/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Libya</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, this is the weaponization of imposed “peace” projects. The current genocide in Palestine tells you all you need to know about the priorities of the West, and who it actually wants to protect.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Haiti, named “Ayiti” by its indigenous people who were annihilated by the imperial operations of Europe, was the first nation to </span><a href="https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/haitian-revolution-1791-1804/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">liberate itself from slavery and settler-colonization</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> in 1804. Starting in 1791, the enslaved Africans led a heroic battle against the slave-owning settlers; they defeated the French, British, and Spanish, freeing the enslaved on both sides of the island formerly called Santo Domingue. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Haiti was a free nation for all Africans and was the only country to come to the aid of Simone Bolivar and the forces in South America fighting Spanish colonialism. With this internationalist gesture, they asked only one thing: </span><a href="https://ibw21.org/editors-choice/two-hundred-years-ago-haiti-received-simon-bolivar-with-open-arms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">for the enslaved to be free</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">It is this powerful history that continues to irk the West; the US did not recognize Haitian sovereignty then and, by their de facto actions against it, certainly does not respect Haitian sovereignty now. </span><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43741120" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">From 1915 to 1934</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, it invaded Haiti under the guise of stabilizing the country. Ironically, this, too, was after a president’s assassination. In this “stabilization” process, more contemporarily known as a “peace” mission, the </span><a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1914-1920/haiti#:~:text=In%201914%2C%20the%20Wilson%20administration,States%20control%20of%20the%20bank." target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">US looted the Haitian gold reserves</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> and installed a puppet regime. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Not content with occupation and thievery, the US-backed Presidents</span> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1971/04/23/archives/papa-doc-a-ruthless-dictator-kept-the-haitians-in-illiteracy-and.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Papa Doc</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> and Baby Doc Duvalier’s death squads, the “Toton Makout,” for two generations. This sinister meddling in the affairs of Haiti continued with the overthrow in 1991 and </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna4244322" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">subsequent kidnapping in 2004</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> of well-loved, and </span><a href="https://www.refworld.org/reference/countryrep/irbc/1992/en/19733" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">democratically elected</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. </span></p>
<p><a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/realtime/2023-09-25-kenya-to-receive-sh14-billion-from-us-for-haiti-mission/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">News reports</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> convey that Kenya will receive 14 billion Kenya shillings (USD100 million) in exchange for this proposed policing project. This is, perhaps, a drop in the ocean compared to what the “Core Group,” the progenitors of the disastrous </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-new-chapter-for-the-disastrous-united-nations-mission-in-haiti" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">2004 MINUSTAH</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> occupation of Haiti and ongoing self-imposed adjudicators of its “peace,” stands to gain from this new “stabilizing” mission.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Kenyans, Africans, and real peace activists can’t ignore the facts; the proposed Kenyan mission to Haiti is an imperialist charade—the UN is again being weaponized by the same forces that sought to control this island, but this time using a force that looks just like the Haitian people.</span></p>
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Sobukwe Shukura
https://africasacountry.com/2024/03/unearthing-indigenous-knowledge/
Unearthing indigenous knowledge
2024-03-05T10:07:26Z
2024-03-05T12:00:55Z
<p>In the past two decades, the acacia-studded savanna plains of West Africa have emerged as one</p>
<h3>If savanna West Africa is a new corporate mining frontier in the 21st century, it's because it is also home to the world’s longest-standing indigenous gold mining economy.</h3>
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The goldminers of the Kédougou region in Senegal. Image credit
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/carsten_tb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Carsten ten Brink</a> via Flickr <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed</a>.
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In the past two decades, the acacia-studded savanna plains of West Africa have emerged as one of the world’s most lucrative gold mining frontiers. Today, gold mining corporations listed on the stock exchanges of Toronto, Sydney, and Johannesburg operate dozens of gargantuan open-pit mines and tailings ponds across modern Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Senegal, Mali, and Niger. Beyond the gates of mining enclaves, these companies also hold thousands of acres of land under gold exploration permits, across which mobile geological teams search for future mining prospects. But if savanna West Africa is a new corporate mining frontier of the 21st century, this is possible because it is also home to the world’s longest-standing indigenous</span> <span style="font-weight: 400">gold mining economy. West African men and women of diverse ethnic, linguistic, and religious affiliations have been mining for gold in these territories for well over a millennium. Gold mined from Mali and Senegal fueled the trans-Saharan caravan trade and the rise of medieval empires along the Senegal and Niger Rivers. Today, West Africans living in these territories must compete with corporations for the legal right to mine gold deposits that, in some cases, they and their ancestors have exploited for hundreds of years.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In her bold first book,</span> <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/3061/A-Ritual-GeologyGold-and-Subterranean-Knowledge-in" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><i><span style="font-weight: 400">A Ritual Geology: Gold and Subterranean Knowledge in Savanna West Africa</span></i></a> <span style="font-weight: 400">(2022),</span> <span style="font-weight: 400">Robyn d’Avignon argues that the region’s contemporary gold mining boom is built upon the gold discoveries, evolving ritual practices, and skills of African miners, known as</span><i><span style="font-weight: 400"> orpailleurs</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> in French-speaking West Africa. Centering </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">orpailleurs</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> as producers of subterranean knowledge, d’Avignon begins and ends the book with an intimate ethnography of gold mining in southeastern Senegal. She zooms outwards, in time and in geography, to incorporate developments in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Cote d’Ivoire from the medieval past to the postcolonial present. These states are undergirded by a single geological formation, one infused with gold seams and known as Birimian rocks. By using geological formations as an entry into regional history, d’Avignon invites us to consider new units of spatial analysis for writing the history of science, technology, and religion that transcend the borders of modern nation-states elsewhere on the globe.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">At the end of 2023,</span><i><span style="font-weight: 400"> A Ritual Geology</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> became the first book on Africa to win the</span> <a href="https://hssonline.org/page/pfizeraward#:~:text=The%20Pfizer%20Award%20was%20established,with%20the%20history%20of%20science." target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Pfizer Award</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> of the History of Science Society, one of the oldest book prizes in the history of science. It was also co-winner of the</span> <a href="https://ae.americananthro.org/prizes/julian-steward-award/#:~:text=The%20Anthropology%20%26%20Environment%20Society%20of,%2C%202023%20%E2%80%94%20May%201%202024." target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Julian Stewart Award</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> of the Anthropology and Environmental Society of the American Anthropological Association, and the winner of the</span> <a href="https://ssha.org/prizes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">President’s Book Award</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> of the Social Science History Association. In this interview, d’Avignon, an Associate Professor of History at NYU, discusses key arguments from the book with historian Madina Thiam, including her hopes for how this text will shape histories of science in Africa. </span></p>
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<h2>Dialogue</h2>
<dl>
<dt>Madina Thiam</dt>
<dd><p><b>Arguably, the most celebrated episode in the history of gold in West Africa is Mansa Musa’s pilgrimage to Mecca in the year 1324. Medieval sources report that when he journeyed through Cairo he injected so much gold into the local economy that the metal’s value plummeted in Egypt. Iberian cartographers would later represent Mansa Mussa proudly displaying a nugget of gold in his hand on a map depicting leaders of the known world. But as you explain, Mansa Mussa’s curated performance of his wealth in gold would have been undesirable to those who actually mined the metal! Gold miners in the savanna of West Africa regarded gold as a dangerous substance that they rarely used for ornamentation or in burials. Rather, gold miners valued gold for its exchange value. You argue that this reticence to keep gold close to home was one dimension of a “ritual geology” that was shared by gold producers across a massive geography. What is this ritual geology and how did it evolve over time?</b></p>
</dd>
<dt>Robyn d'Avignon</dt>
<dd><p><span style="font-weight: 400">A “ritual geology” is a term I developed to describe a set of practices, prohibitions, and cosmological engagements with the earth that are widely shared and cultivated across a regional geological formation. Ritual geologies are widespread globally, today and in the past. However, studies bound by region, colony, ethnic group, or nation-state have failed to capture the ways in which sacred engagements with minerals, water, and soil are often tied to transnational geological formations. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In the book, I track the ritual geology elaborated by generations of </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">orpailleurs </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">along gold-bearing Birimian rocks. Evidence dating to the ninth century reveals that </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">orpailleurs </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">produced a ritual geology with several core features. For one, </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">orpaillage </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">was spatially expansive and based on the seasonal mobility of small groups of miners. Second, by the 18th century, Maninka was the lingua franca of goldfields located in present-day Senegal, Guinea, and Mali, and Maninka ritual authorities governed gold mining. Third, </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">orpaillage </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">was an incorporative institution adapted to cyclical drought. Goldfields welcomed strangers because gold was a famine resource shared by a wide range of people. If goldfields near home became depleted, you could migrate to a distant goldfield and expect to be welcomed. Fourth, subterranean property ownership was predicated on a sacrificial exchange relationship between gold miners and spirits, the guardians of this metal. These spirits included mobile spirit snakes and deities bound to specific tracts of land. Finally, </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">orpaillage </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">was framed in ideological opposition to Islam. While the earliest known gold traders in West Africa were Muslims, gold producers themselves resisted conversion to Islam well into the 20th century. </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Orpailleurs </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">appear to have viewed gold as a substance tied to powerful, and often malevolent, occult forces. Gold miners parted with the metal for substances associated with ritual protection and beneficence, such as cloth, copper, and salt.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">I did not set out to write a book about ritual or religion in West Africa. But as I conducted archival research and collected oral histories for this project, it became clear that I could not understand the political, and scientific history of </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">orpaillage </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">in isolation from the ritual ideologies innovated by the men and women who have prospected and mined gold in West Africa for over a millennium. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">West Africa’s ritual geology is neither monolithic nor static. It is similar to a language family with many varieties: some are mutually intelligible, others share only core vocabularies and grammatical forms. Languages shift over time from the innovations of their speakers, encounters with new languages, and ecological change. West Africa’s ritual geology has also evolved and adapted to different corridors in response to the rise and fall of medieval empires; the transatlantic slave trade; European colonialism; the emergence of novel ritual complexes; and ever-shifting techniques for mining gold. Despite these changes, core idioms of this ritual geology reemerge in the historical record of </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">orpaillage</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">, a West African mining tradition that is as much a part of the history of technology and science as its better-known counterpart: Euro-American industrial mining capitalism. As I detail in the book, </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">orpaillage, </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">and Euro-American mining capitalism are historically entangled extractive systems across which gold discoveries, expertise, equipment, and labor have long been pirated and exchanged. But </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">orpaillage </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">has also retained distinct material forms and sociocultural logics that deserve to be understood on their own terms and as part of global histories of mining, technology, and religion.</span></p>
</dd>
<dt>Madina Thiam</dt>
<dd><p><b>I was struck when you explained that “by the turn of the 20th century, the British financed extensive geological research in South Africa, Ghana, Rhodesia, colonies with capital-intensive gold and copper mines,” whereas the French did the opposite and “dismissed plans for industrialization out of fear they would ‘proletarianize’ African peasants.” Can you say more about how gold mining under French colonization in West Africa differed from how mining developed elsewhere on the continent under British colonization? What accounts for these differences? </b></p>
</dd>
<dt>Robyn d'Avignon</dt>
<dd><p><span style="font-weight: 400">A confluence of economic, cultural, and geological factors account for why mining took off in Britain’s African empire while it did not in France’s African colonies. By the late 19th century—when European powers colonized most of the African continent—Britain was far more entrenched in transcontinental mining capitalism than France. The British had participated in large numbers in “gold rushes” in Australia, the United States, and Canada. Some prospectors made fortunes and started mining enterprises that would, in the decades to follow, move machines, expertise, and capital into British colonies in South and West Africa (today’s Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa, and Ghana). </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">British and French colonialism in West Africa epitomized colonial rule on the cheap—what Sara Berry famously called “hegemony on a shoestring.” But while the British invested in a minimum of roads and rails to facilitate private mining developments in their West African colonies, the French adopted anti-industrial policies in their African colonies. These divergent imperial policies translated into vastly different outcomes for indigenous African mining economies. In most cases, the British outlawed small-scale mining by Africans, reducing Africans to wage laborers on European-run mines. By contrast, the French encouraged gold mining by Africans, which they profited from through taxation. In fact, </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">orpaillage </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">was France’s largest mining industry until the eve of decolonization in the late 1950s. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Imperial divergences are important for thinking about continuity and rupture for African families who have historically mined for gold across the continent. In former French colonies, Africans have retained far more control over the political and ritual institutions of gold mining than in former British realms. In the face of growing corporate encroachment on these goldfields today, history shapes expectations for—and political battles over—who should benefit from wealth derived from gold.</span></p>
</dd>
<dt>Madina Thiam</dt>
<dd><p><b>Today, African governments, as well as numerous media and policy circles, routinely criminalize </b><b><i>orpailleurs</i></b><b>, underscoring the dangers of their work and the environmental damage they cause. In January 2024 in Mali, when over 70 artisanal miners were </b><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/24/more-than-70-dead-in-artisanal-mine-collapse-in-mali" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><b>killed</b></a><b> in the collapse of a gold mine, they were blamed for having ignored safety requirements. At the same time, miners working for a subsidiary of Endeavour Mining at the Tabakoto mine (20% state-owned and 80% corporate-owned), had to go on strike over unpaid wages and poor equipment. Your book shows that the discourses that blame artisanal miners have a history</b><b><i>. </i></b><b>How did French African colonies, and the postcolonial states of Mali, Guinee, and Senegal, define, discuss, cooperate with, or criminalize </b><b><i>orpailleurs</i></b><b>?</b></p>
</dd>
<dt>Robyn d'Avignon</dt>
<dd><p><span style="font-weight: 400">One burden of this book was to tell the legal history of artisanal mining—a category of technological practice that, I argue, emerges from colonial-era mining laws. By framing indigenous African mining economies as primitive, inefficient, customary, and static, colonial states justified denying Africans stable rights to minerals. Even in French West Africa, where the colonial state did not criminalize African mining outright, they severely restricted the rights of African miners. This gave the state the flexibility to issue mining concessions to European firms when it was profitable to do so. The history of artisanal mining is thus inseparable from the broader legal apparatus used by colonial states to restrict, deny, and discredit some African uses of the environment, while the colonial state (and private industries working in the colonies) skilled themselves on African environmental expertise. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Postcolonial states in West Africa took an even harsher legal approach to </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">orpaillage </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">by outlawing it. </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Orpailleurs</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">—who were mobile cosmopolitans who transversed international borders—threatened the goal of African socialist states to build nationalized mining industries. Orpaillage also challenged the rise of multinational corporate mining in West Africa in the late 1990s, driven by rising gold prices, the dismantling of socialism, and the adoption of pro-market mining codes in much of Africa. Mining corporations framed artisanal mining as ecologically destructive, wasteful, and anathema to modern economies. Some of this language was new, but the idioms were both colonial and racist. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Of course, artisanal mining is</span> <span style="font-weight: 400">ecologically destructive. In fact, this has been the overwhelming focus of most scholarship, journalism, and development work in the sector. But industrial mining is also ecologically destructive. And reducing the complex and long history of indigenous mining in Africa to its environmental impact is to overlook its place in the region’s economic, religious, and political life. It is also to reduce artisanal miners to environmental subjects, a trope that has been central to anti-Black environmental racism dating back to the era of the transatlantic slave trade. My goal is not to deny the importance of ecological questions in the study of mining in Africa or elsewhere. Rather, I aimed to understand deep regional idioms and exchanges with the natural world on their own terms. </span></p>
</dd>
<dt>Madina Thiam</dt>
<dd><p><b>Lastly, your book centers a specific region in Senegal: Kédougou. We learn that this region, whose residents have accused the Senegalese state of chronic neglect, is a storied land where much has happened. It served as a refuge for marooning communities in the era of Atlantic slavery; it was where Senegal’s first president Léopold Sédar Senghor imprisoned former allies who pursued more radical socialist agendas; and it also later became the seat of Senegalese-Soviet cooperation during the Cold War. Can you tell us about Kédougou?</b></p>
</dd>
<dt>Robyn d'Avignon</dt>
<dd><p><span style="font-weight: 400">Kédougou eludes easy categorizations. Today, Kédougou shares many characteristics with mining frontiers around the globe: increased migration, violence, and disease transmission coupled with ecological upheaval and new investment opportunities for those well placed to exploit them. But long before Kédougou was a site of corporate mining investment, it occupied a unique place within colonial and postcolonial Senegal. The region’s broken topography and rocky cliffs made it a “natural” refuge for people on the run—including those fleeing Atlantic-era enslavement. When the borders of French West Africa were demarcated, Kédougou became a borderland far removed from European strongholds, as well as the road and rail infrastructure, feeble as it was, of France’s African empire. The result was that, for myriad reasons across the span of centuries, a host of ethnic, linguistic, and religious minorities have made their home in Kédougou. Though it is remote and sparsely populated, Kédougou’s population is as diverse as any port city or as Senegal’s cosmopolitan capital of Dakar. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Grounding this book within the histories of interethnic settlement that characterize Kédougou also allowed me to work against the tendency of scholars of Senegal to narrate the country’s history through the lens of the nation or a single ethnic “group,” such as the Wolof, Pular or Serer. But most Senegalese do not experience everyday life or understand their plural histories through the lens of bounded ethnic groups. </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">A Ritual Geology</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> was my attempt to think through important chapters in Senegal’s economic, political, and religious history through the prism of Kedougou’s multiethnic and multilingual worlds. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In the writing of this book, I also tried to capture my deep love for Kédougou, a place I have lived and worked in intermittently over the course of almost 20 years. I am honored to bring stories from this region—long overlooked by the region’s historians and misunderstood by the states that have encompassed it—into conversation with global histories of science, technology, and the environment. </span></p>
</dd>
</dl>
<hr/>
<p data-pm-slice="1 1 []"><a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/a-ritual-geology" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>A Ritual Geology: Gold and Subterranean Knowledge in Savanna West Africa</em></a> (2022) by Robyn d’Avignon is available from Duke University Press.</p>
Robyn d'Avignon
https://africasacountry.com/2024/03/wagners-war-on-civillians/
Wagner’s war on civillians
2024-03-04T23:47:38Z
2024-03-05T00:00:42Z
<p>The Sahel region is facing a series of crises, and the rest of the world seems</p>
<h3>In Mali, Wagner militias are terrorizing the Fula, Tamasheq (Tuareg), and Moura population.</h3>
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Kidal, Northern Mali, 2015. Image via <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/un_photo/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UN Photo</a> on Flickr <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed</a>.
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The Sahel region is facing a series of crises, and the rest of the world seems unaware. In addition to the ecological dimension, which includes advancing desertification and climate catastrophes, the region is experiencing political instability with successive military coups, notably in Mali (2020 and 2021), Burkina Faso (2022), and Niger (2023). While for some, these military governments offer hope for a permanent break with French neocolonialism, part of the population is suffering an unprecedented escalation of violence.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">After NATO’s invasion of Libya in 2011, criminal networks were formed to smuggle people, weapons, and drugs across the Sahara Desert, expanding beyond national borders and challenging the power of armies. For more than ten years, this region of the African continent has been immersed in a multidimensional crisis that gets worse every day. In the last three years, the number of massacres and deaths of civilians has evidently and alarmingly increased. Mass population displacements are being driven by armed groups, which are sometimes agents of the state and other times third-party agents acting under the protection of the military.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">As the eyes of the world are focused on the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the military that controls power in Mali is taking advantage of the situation in the Middle East to discreetly exterminate ethnic minorities, using the fight against terrorism as justification. In this context, against a backdrop of a major political crisis and growing international isolation of the military junta in power in Bamako, the Russian mercenary company Wagner arrived in Mali in December 2021 to “help” the military junta in its antiterrorism fight.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Since then, extreme danger has afflicted the Fula, Tamasheq (Tuareg), and Moura populations of northern Mali. In September 2023, the military junta decided to launch operations led by men from the Russian Wagner militia. The mercenary groups <a href="https://www.military.africa/2024/01/mali-boosts-its-drone-fleet-with-new-bayraktar-tb2s-from-turkey/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">use Turkish drones from the company BAYRAK</a> with high destructive potential, targeting those it treats as “terrorists,” including not only the representatives of the former armed fronts—who were their partners until the beginning of this attack, under the Algiers Peace Agreement signed in 2015—but also the Fula, Tamasheq, and Moura.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400"><a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/07/24/mali-new-atrocities-malian-army-apparent-wagner-fighters" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Military actions amounting to ethnic cleansing</a> of minorities are underway, combined with discriminatory propaganda calling for violence against and persecution of all civilians who wear turbans or other clothing typical of nomadic populations. Violence does not spare the elderly, women, and children, who have their homes burned down and their land, livestock, and little wealth stolen.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400"><a href="https://acleddata.com/2022/08/30/wagner-group-operations-in-africa-civilian-targeting-trends-in-the-central-african-republic-and-mali/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Since 2022</a>, men from Wagner have been <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/mali/20230512-Moura-Report.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">accused of involvement in several massacres and human rights violations</a> by the United Nations Mission for the Stability of Mali (MINUSMA) and several local and regional associations, such as the Association Kisal and Tabital Pulaaku of Mopti (both of which work to defend the Fula community in Mali and around the world) and Imuhagh International and Kal Akal Association (which defend the rights of the Kel Tamasheq people). In addition to the reports made available by these organizations, we managed to gather testimonies from some refugees and victims through social networks, and according to them, Wagner’s militias dominate through terror, destroying all nomadic camps, poisoning water wells, raping, and looting homes of these communities.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">According to the December bulletin published on the group’s Facebook page on January 7, 2024, Kal Akal Association detailed that “the types of violations documented include: summary executions, massacres, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, acts of torture, destruction of sources of water and food for the population, deliberate destruction of public and private infrastructure, looting and depredation of properties and installation of explosives on the bodies of already dead civilians to reach more people.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The note from Kal Akal went on to say that the “main targets of these violations are the Tuareg, Arabs [Moura] and Fula.” It also reported systematic robberies “wherever Wagner and FAMA went,” and cases of looting recorded in the cities of Kidal, Tadoumoumt, Larnab, Tarkint, Anafif, Ber, Aguelhoc, Ghali Loumo, and Lougui. Infrastructure was destroyed in the municipalities of Aïn Rahma, Eritedjeft, Tarkint, Tehardjé, Aglal, Tessalit, and Larnab, to the detriment of health centers, water towers, mosques, and homes. The association also reported several rapes in the cities of Léré, Kidal, Ber, and Anafif; two forest fires in the Kidal region; at least two mass graves, each containing dozens of bodies in the Timbuktu and Kidal regions; and 40 arbitrary arrests, including two members of the International Committee of the Red Cross team in the Kidal region.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">“They came to us after a terrorist attack against the Malian army. After being interrogated, they took 14 people, Fula, Tuareg and Arabs [Moura], and to this day none of them have returned. Soon it will be a year since we have heard from them. They have families, wives, and children. It’s really deplorable,” detailed a witness in a WhatsApp group.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In its statement from January 2024, the office of Tabital Pulaaku, the international association for the defense of Fula rights, in Mali denounced the massacre of a dozen young Fula herdsmen killed by Wagner in Ndoupa, in the central region of Mali. In addition to these massacres, the Fula organization also expressed its concern about the multiple kidnappings and the destruction of camps that its community has suffered at the hands of both Wagner and the Malinese Armed Forces (FAMA) since the end of 2021.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">“We suffered the expulsion of our families to refugee camps for fear of Wagner’s torture and oppression. We lost our jobs, our cities, and our lives that we were used to, just as our children lost their education,” says a refugee who fled across the Algerian border.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Since September 2023, thousands of innocent civilians, mainly residents of rural areas (including the sick, injured, and maimed), have been forced to flee on foot for more than 300 kilometers to cross the borders with Mauritania and Algeria. In these countries, it is estimated that there are already around one million refugees from Mali, in forced displacements that began in 1990 and worsened in 2012 due to violence committed by FAMA. Despite the terrible living conditions, those who manage to be welcomed in refugee camps celebrate. “The most important thing is that my entire village received asylum in Mauritania,” declared a man from the Timbuktu region who is in the M’Berra refugee camp in Mauritania.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Turkey is another important actor involved in this catastrophe. Through its company BAYRAK, Turkey is using its technologies to serve an army guided by a military junta that frequently attacks innocent and defenseless populations. Thus Turkey, a country that claims to be a “defender” of Islam and Muslims, is an accomplice in ethnic cleansing in the most Islamized region of Africa, making it clear that the motivation for the massacre is not simply religious.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The massacre and extermination continue silently, without occupying pages in the international press, covered up by the military government of Assimi Goïta, which watches everything as if it had planned the ethnic cleansing of the people in the north of the country. This guarantees the suppression of rebellions and the confiscation of productive lands, where relevant mineral resources are found.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">For now, associations like Kal Akal continue courageously documenting, as best they can, the abuses perpetrated by FAMA and Wagner, which systematically attack defenseless civilians, commit torture, murder, steal property, and burn houses and crops.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In short, this violence disrupts nomadic communities, making life impossible for these populations, who are forced to flee in total misery to refugee camps on the borders of Algeria and Mauritania. Humanitarian aid is almost impossible to reach these improvised refugee camps, where protection is not even guaranteed, as they have already been hit by Malian drones. It is worth remembering that more than 70% of the space called the Alliance of Sahel States (AES)—a military pact created in September 2023 by the junta that governs Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso—belongs to these violently displaced communities. Once victimized by the creation of colonial borders that disrespect their ethnic identities, Fula, Moura, and Tamasheq are now being arbitrarily decimated. Breaking this silence is necessary.</span></p>
<hr/>
Mohamed Issouf Ag Mohamed
Mariana Bracks Fonseca
https://africasacountry.com/2024/03/never-again-should-be-for-anybody/
Never again should be for anybody
2024-03-04T11:28:02Z
2024-03-04T12:00:28Z
<p>My name is Zukiswa Wanner. I am a writer, editor, publisher, and curator who considers the</p>
<h3>South African writer, publisher and curator Zukiswa Wanner explains why she is surrendering her 2020 Goethe Medaille.</h3>
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People protest outside the German consulate in Cape Town on February 9 over the country’s position on the war in Gaza. Image credit Ashraf Hendricks (<a href="https://groundup.org.za/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GroundUp</a>) <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CC BY-ND 4.0 Deed</a>.
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400">My name is Zukiswa Wanner.<br />
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">I am a writer, editor, publisher, and curator who considers the African continent my home. In 2020 I became the first woman on my continent to receive the Goethe Medaille alongside Bolivian artist and Museum Director Elvira Espejo Ayca and writer Ian McEwan from the United Kingdom. While the Goethe Medal is conferred by the Goethe-Institut to “non-Germans who have performed outstanding service for international cultural relations,” it is important to note that the award is an official decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">I note and appreciate Goethe-Institut President Carola Lentz’s statement from an article of </span><a href="https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/debatten-ueber-antisemitismus-kulturarbeit-muss-unabhaengig-bleiben-a-28079d1f-41b1-4f95-845a-43fc1bc8d6bf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">January 14, 2024, in </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Der Spiegel</span></i></a> <span style="font-weight: 400">where she says, and I quote:</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px"><span style="font-weight: 400">Longstanding partners in the international cultural world are losing trust in the liberality of Germany’s democracy and poses the question, should the Auswartige Kultur und Bildungspolitik (AKPB) support only persons or groups who accommodate the political/moral agenda of the respective German government?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">She concludes otherwise and notes that organizations like Goethe-Institut must not become the extended arm of the government, particularly in difficult political times. In the same vein, Goethe-Institut Johannesburg, which is the regional headquarters for Sub-Saharan Africa, </span><a href="https://www.goethe.de/ins/za/en/ueb/sta.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">stated on February 7, 2024</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, “As to the current war in Gaza—we are convinced that in view of the catastrophic situation, a new ceasefire is urgently needed. The rising number of civilian victims is unacceptable.”</span><span style="font-weight: 400"><br />
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">It’s important to state this so I highlight that this is NOT a statement surrendering the medal because of the Goethe-Institut and its position even where we may not always agree. I mention the Goethe-Institut statement by way of explaining that my actions are not a critique of the cultural institution but rather of the government. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In May 2023, while attending the Palestine Festival of Literature and months before October 7, I was in the Occupied Palestine Territories and traveled to Ramallah, Nabi Saleh, East Jerusalem, Hebron, and Lydd. As a writer coming from a country with a history of apartheid, what I experienced shook me and resulted in my writing a long essay, “Vignettes of a People in an Apartheid State.” </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">One did not need to be from a country with a history of apartheid to see the daily injustices and indignities visited on Palestinians. Palestinians have separate roads, and different number plates and are constantly under threat from strangers from the United States or white South Africans with apartheid nostalgia who come with guns and the protection of Israeli Defence Forces to settle into their homes. Indeed, unlike most literature festivals, PalFest takes the writers to multiple cities since Palestinians are unable to travel without permission from Israel, much like South Africa during apartheid, just more cruel. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">This is why I am giving up the medal. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">I understand Germany’s guilt for the Holocaust. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">I do. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">That guilt is appropriate and has enabled Germany to face its unconscionable past. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">But it is this that makes its position on the current genocide in Palestine all the more shameful. As an aside and as an African, I wish the German government exhibited the same regret for their history in Namibia with the Herero-Nama genocide and for the genocide during the Maji Maji Rebellion in Tanzania. Equally important, I wish that the German government, in reflection and saying “never again” would acknowledge that NEVER AGAIN should be for ANYBODY. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Instead, what I see is Germany being on the wrong side of genocide again (as per the International Court of Justice’s provisional ruling to the case brought on by South Africa). Additionally, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States of America are the biggest arms exporters to Israel. With more than 30 thousand killed in Gaza, this should have been a mea culpa moment for the Federal Republic of Germany, instead, they seem to have doubled their support for a very problematic government. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Culturally, since October 7, I have seen Germany disengaging from artists for their position on the colonial state that is Israel even in light of Israel’s failures to adhere to the Oslo Accord (which was a super mediocre document for Palestinians). I am reading that of the cultural events canceled by Germany, 30 percent are by Jewish artists who are anti-Zionist. This has failed to make sense to me that Jews can be considered antisemitic (obviously ignoring that Palestinians are a Semitic people as those in support of the Israeli government seem intent on forgetting). More recently, during the Berlin Film Festival, Palestinian filmmaker Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham won the best documentary prize for their film No Other Lands which shows the eradication of Palestinian villages in the West Bank. The German Cultural Minister is reported to have stated her applause was only for the Israeli half of the filmmaking duo. South African history has a phrase for this. Petty Apartheid. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">I thus find myself unable to stay silent or keep an official decoration from a government that is this callous to human suffering.<br />
</span></p>
<hr/>
Zukiswa Wanner
https://africasacountry.com/2024/03/mandela-for-sale/
Mandela for sale
2024-03-04T10:38:26Z
2024-03-04T00:00:46Z
<p>Among the almost 100 items up for sale in the now-halted Nelson Mandela auction, the appearance</p>
<h3>Are Nelson Mandela's personal belongings sellable family heirlooms or heritage artifacts of national significance?</h3>
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Image credit <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gerardstolk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gerard Stolk</a> via Flickr <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CC BY-NC 2.0 Deed</a>.
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Among the almost 100 items up for sale in the now-halted Nelson Mandela auction, the</span> <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/madibas-id-book-should-be-protected-by-heritage-authorities-says-nelson-mandela-foundation-20240126" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">appearance</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> of his identity document stunned South Africans aware of the history behind this modest green booklet. Hosted by his eldest daughter, Makaziwe Mandela-Amuah, and the Guernsey Auction House in New York City, the auction contained a range of personal possessions belonging to the struggle icon. Mandela was issued the ID a year before the country’s inaugural democratic elections, which he’d go on to win as a first-time voter and the president of the African National Congress (ANC). For over 30 years, Mandela had no paperwork connecting him to the land of his birth. Less than a week after the</span> <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/sharpeville-massacre-21-march-1960" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Sharpeville Massacre</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> on March 21, 1960, where the apartheid police opened fire on demonstrators challenging laws that</span> <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/pass-laws-south-africa-1800-1994" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">forced</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> black South Africans over the age of the 16 to carry a passbook (a mandatory type of ID), he</span> <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/on-this-day/entry/nelson-mandela-burns-his-passbook-in-protest-against-the-sharpeville-massac"><span style="font-weight: 400">threw</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> his own passbook into a pot of fire outside his house in an act of protest. It was the last form of identification Mandela would own before being</span> <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/nelson-mandela-sentenced-to-life-imprisonment-44-years-ago" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">sentenced</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> to life imprisonment on Robben Island. When he received the green ID booklet in 1993, it was not only a symbol of the freedom for which he was prepared to die, but a sign of the old regime going up in the flames he’d helped to ignite decades before.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">But for Mandela-Amuah and Guernsey’s, the document was a commodity</span><a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/lifestyle/743977/mandelas-belongings-are-up-for-auction-including-his-id-book-for-r1-4-million/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> <span style="font-weight: 400">purchasable</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> by anyone with $75,000 to spare. In total, Mandela’s personal possessions</span> <a href="https://explain.co.za/2024/01/18/mandela-auction-given-go-ahead-while-houghton-home-crumbles/"><span style="font-weight: 400">were expected</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> to fetch around $2 million to $3 million. In addition to his ID, Mandela’s trademark patterned shirts, his walking sticks, his personal sketches, gifts from foreign dignitaries, the Robben Island prison key (provided by his former warden Christo Brand), and his hearing aids were some of the items on offer in the auction, which was to be held both in-person and online. Mandela-Amuah</span> <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/sunday-tribune/lifestyle/mzansi-reacts-to-makaziwe-auctioning-nelson-mandelas-valuable-items-a75569ab-84ed-485b-a5b2-25be410db0b7" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">insisted</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> that all proceeds would be used to erect a memorial garden and museum for her father in his birthplace of Qunu in the province of the Eastern Cape. In </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/31/arts/design/nelson-mandela-auction-suspended-guernseys.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">an interview</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> earlier this January, she told the </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">New York Times </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">that Mandela was passionate about attracting tourism to the province, which she was certain the memorial garden and museum would accomplish.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The latest cancellation was another setback in a two-year conflict between Mandela-Amuah, Guernsey’s, and the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA). Originally</span> <a href="https://www.guernseys.com/v2/images/Mandela_Memorial/docs/Mandela_Catalogue_v12-17-SP.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">slated</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> to take place on January 28, 2022, the auction was</span> <a href="https://pagesix.com/2022/01/18/nelson-mandela-auction-in-nyc-halted-over-controversy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">suspended</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> after SAHRA queried the sale, arguing that some of the objects, particularly Mandela’s prison key, were heritage artifacts that required exit permits to leave the country. In December 2023, the North Gauteng High Court</span> <a href="https://www.saflii.org.za/za/cases/ZAGPPHC/2023/2012.pdf"><span style="font-weight: 400">denied</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> SAHRA an interdict to prevent the sale of 29 items that they had identified as “heritage resources of national significance” according to the National Heritage Resources Act (NHRA). A</span> <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/mandela-auction-suspended-amid-row-over-heritage/a-68121933" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">description</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> of the auction on Guernsey’s website, which has since</span> <a href="https://www.guernseys.com/v2/Mandela_The_Auction.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">been removed</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, stated that it was “almost unthinkable” to “imagine owning an artifact touched by [the] great leader.” Those words would prove to be prophetic as the auction date, rescheduled to February 22, was canceled yet again amid</span> <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-south-african-government-seeks-to-block-us-auction-of-nelson-mandelas/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">public outrage</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> on social media.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">For South Africans who opposed the auction, there was</span> <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/who-sells-their-fathers-id-ndaba-mandela-slams-aunts-plans-to-auction-madibas-id-and-other-items-20240120" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">shock and disgust</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> that Mandela-Amuah would seemingly pawn off pieces of her father’s legacy to line her pockets, preventing future generations from interacting with Mandela items that are part of their history. In a country where </span><a href="https://www.siu.org.za/south-africas-infrastructure-built-anti-corruption-forum-ibacf-welcomes-saps-progress-in-tackling-construction-mafia/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">corruption</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> is the language and currency of the rich and powerful, South Africans were skeptical about Mandela-Amuah’s assertion that proceeds would be used to build a memorial garden and museum in Qunu. Given all the buildings, parks, facilities, statues, and amenities bearing the Mandela name, it seemed odd that Mandela-Amuah would choose to raise funds through an auction instead of approaching the public and private sector for financial assistance. Both parties are no strangers to pouring millions into “Brand Mandela”—especially if they stand to profit from it. And if reviving tourism in the Eastern Cape was the primary motive behind the auction, then why hadn’t she consulted the Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency (ECPTA), the Department of Tourism, South African (SA) Tourism, and the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) to assist with the administration and logistics of the commemorative project?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Nonetheless, the pushback against the auction has revealed the paternalistic dynamic that still characterizes the relationship between South Africa and the Father of the Nation. While perceptions of the struggle hero have undergone different phases since the giddy years of early democracy, there is a sense of ownership that South Africans continue to feel over their most famous citizen. During his first and only term as president, he was deified as a prophet with the Midas Touch. His ability to lead a country whose divisions ran deep and often turned violent inspired the highly marketable term “</span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/mandela-magic/mandelas-madiba-magic-cast-spell-of-sporting-success-idINDEE9B506Q20131206" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Madiba Magic</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">,” deployed to celebrate any triumph that substantiated South Africa’s tenuous status as a “</span><a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-1994-miracle-whats-left-159495" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">miracle</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">” democracy. Madiba Magic</span> <a href="https://theconversation.com/mandela-saw-sport-as-a-way-to-bring-south-africans-together-21244" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">became associated</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> with sporting wins like the</span> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/08/nelson-mandela-francois-pienaar-rugby-world-cup" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Rugby World Cup in 1995</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> and the</span> <a href="https://m.allfootballapp.com/news/La-Liga/Mark-Fish-%E2%80%98Our-AFCON-96-win-helped-Nelson-Mandela-unite-South-Africa%E2%80%99/2750202" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">African Cup of Nations (AFCON) in 1996</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, heralding the country’s return to the world stage after decades of isolation. It was also used to bolster the concept of the “</span><a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-rainbow-nation-is-a-myth-that-students-need-to-unlearn-66872"><span style="font-weight: 400">Rainbow Nation</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">” coined by the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, which Mandela</span> <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/xarchive/voices/is-south-africa-really-a-rainbow-nation-20180719" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">used</span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400">to encourage</span> <a href="https://www.cogta.gov.za/cgta_2016/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Nation-Building-and-Social-Cohesion.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">social cohesion and nation-building</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> in the so-called New South Africa. However, the term has since been denounced for</span> <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/ral.2010.41.2.93" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">prioritizing</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> sunny multiculturalism over lingering racial and economic inequality, segregation, unemployment, and crime.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">After his term in office, Mandela ventured into</span> <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/overview" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">philanthropy</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> while reducing the scope of his public life as his health began to decline. Though he faced criticism over his</span> <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/nelson-mandela/mandela-arrived-late-to-the-fight-against-hiv-aids/article548193/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">management of the HIV/AIDS epidemic</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> and handling of</span> <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv02167/04lv02168/05lv02171.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">the transition to democracy</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, he remained an instrumental part of South Africa’s national identity and global standing. Brand Mandela</span> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/may/16/southafrica.football" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">reached</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> its pinnacle when Madiba played a crucial part in securing South Africa’s bid to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Before the institutionalized corruption within FIFA and the World Cup bidding process</span> <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3878335-World-Cup-Garcia-Report" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">was exposed</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> in the 2014 Garcia Report, the triumphant image of a smiling Mandela holding the World Cup trophy appeared to be the cherry on top of a lifetime of service to his country.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Following his passing in December 2013, Mandela’s legacy suffered the kind of assaults common to leaders considered martyrs while they’re alive. He was called a</span> <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/how-mandela-sold-out-blacks-20120717" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">sellout</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> and a puppet interested in appeasing the interests of “</span><a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/research-news/2018/2018-09/the-making-of-mandela-in-the-media.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">white monopoly capital</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">” rather than improving the lives of the black majority who had voted the ANC into power. Yet for all the</span> <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/2/11/embracing-nelson-mandelas-contested-legacy" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">post-mortem critiques</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> leveled at him, Mandela has proven to be far more principled than the cadres in the party he once led, triggering some to </span><a href="https://mg.co.za/thought-leader/opinion/2023-11-28-ramaphosas-economy-and-mandela-era-nostalgia/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">yearn</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> for the country that could have been, but never was. This is one of the reasons why the auction struck a raw nerve with South Africans. Not even Mandela’s image is safe from the growing decay within South African society. Not even his own children can resist the urge to exploit his legacy as opportunistically as those who used his name for personal and political gain. The</span> <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/news/2021-03-21-overgrown-lawns-soaring-utility-bills-madiba-home-decays-into-ghost-house/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">dilapidated condition</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> of the formerly stately Mandela home in the upmarket suburb of Houghton in Johannesburg, where some members of the family have lived, came to symbolize the corrosion of the state and the entitlement of his offspring, who have</span> <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/saturday-star/news/mandela-family-shocker-as-houghton-home-lies-in-ruins-due-to-family-disputes-3be1c5ea-12ac-47fa-8dc9-e529998b87b6" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">blamed</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> the trustees of the Nelson Mandela Trust (NRM) for failing to pay the bills. Consequently, they’ve come to be</span> <a href="https://mg.co.za/news/2022-01-24-the-rogue-daughter-mounting-bills-mum-trustees-how-mandelas-artefacts-were-almost-auctioned/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">viewed</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> as spoiled political nepo babies, battling to crawl through the doors the Mandela name has opened for them.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In a statement from January 31, 2024, Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture Zizi Kodwa</span> <a href="https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/minister-zizi-kodwa-decision-suspend-auction-mandela-items-31-jan-2024#:~:text=Minister%20Zizi%20Kodwa%20on%20decision%20to%20suspend%20auction%20of%20Mandela%20items,-31%20Jan%202024&text=The%20Minister%20of%20Sport%2C%20Arts,with%20former%20President%20Nelson%20Mandela." target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">commended</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> the decision to postpone the auction, promising that the government would challenge the “unpermitted export” of the items. Yet the High Court ruling and ensuing disagreement between Mandela-Amuah, Guernsey’s, and SAHRA has revealed the challenge of applying the various legislation relevant to the items within the Mandela auction. Not only do the courts have to account for statute and case law relating to South African heritage artifacts, but they also have to factor in legalities around trusts, succession, wills, and identification documents. Drafted in 1999, the National Heritage Resources Act</span> <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/a25-99.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">created</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> an “integrated and interactive system for the management of the national heritage resources.” To facilitate the running of the system nationally, SAHRA was established “to protect heritage resources of national significance” and “to control the export of nationally significant heritage objects,” among other directives.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">While a number of the auction items fit the NHRA’s broad definition of a heritage resource of national significance, these were moveable assets housed in the Houghton property, which</span> <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1011581-nelson-mandela-will-and-testament" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">falls</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> under the family trust that Mandela established for his heirs.</span> <a href="https://www.enca.com/videos/watch-mandelas-grandsons-speak-out-against-controversial-auction" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">In an interview</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> with the news broadcaster eNCA, Mandela’s grandsons Mbuso and Ndaba Mandela claimed that Mandela-Amuah, who is their aunt, had “emptied” the Houghton property back in 2019, failing to inform the family of her intention to auction their grandfather’s belongings. The</span> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/25/world/africa/messy-legal-fight-over-mandela-trust-goes-public.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">extensive legal disputes around Mandela’s estate</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> prevented the brood from apportioning the patriarch’s possessions among themselves, a custom practiced in many black South African cultures. And despite one of the Mandela grandsons initiating a case to recuperate the items from Mandela-Amuah, she was ultimately granted the right to keep and sell the items as one of the beneficiaries of the trust.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">It remains to be seen who will emerge victorious in the ongoing saga over the Mandela auction. With the</span> <a href="https://www.dsac.gov.za/MinisterKodwatosuspendauctionofMandelaitems." target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">support</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> of the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture and the Robben Island Museum, SAHRA</span> <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/auction-of-nelson-mandelas-id-personal-items-suspended-20240130" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">has lodged</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> an application for leave to appeal the High Court ruling. The suspension will provide them with enough time to present a stronger case for why some of the items are heritage artifacts that belong to South Africa. However, should they prove unsuccessful, SAHRA would have to plead with Mandela-Amuah to call off the auction. As the oldest Mandela heir and the sole remaining child from his strained marriage to first wife Evelyn Mase, Mandela-Amuah has been open about the</span> <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1321130/Nelson-Mandelas-daughter-I-dont-know-father-loves-Sometimes-children-really-loved-parents.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">uneasy dynamic</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> with her father, by whom she often felt</span> <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nelson-mandelas-daughter-he-was-not-there-as-a-father/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">neglected</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> throughout her life. It falls on the South African government to convince her why a country that has also had its own fraught relationship with Mandela deserves to own items that represent their complex heritage and difficult history.</span></p>
<hr/>
Khanya Mtshali
https://africasacountry.com/2024/03/learning-from-chile/
Learning from Chile
2024-03-01T10:31:45Z
2024-03-01T10:00:48Z
<p>In his 2021 book Time for Socialism French economist Thomas Piketty urgently made the call for</p>
<h3>Chile’s march to a progressive constitution and egalitarian transformation has stalled. What can movements in the Global South learn?</h3>
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<img alt src="https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/02/01094938/Protestas_en_Chile_20191022_11-720x480.jpg"/>
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Protests in Plaza Baquedano, Santiago, Chile, 2019. Image credit Carlos Figueroa via Wikimedia Commons <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CC BY-SA 4.0 Deed</a>.
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In his 2021 book </span><a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300268126/time-for-socialism/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Time for Socialism</span></i></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> French economist Thomas Piketty urgently made the call for “participatory socialism.” He envisioned it as a system that would preside over a fairer distribution of the world’s wealth, amassed over centuries through “unbridled exploitation of human and natural resources.” However, he indicated that this would not be a top-down transformation led by a vanguard proletariat. Instead, he insisted that “real change can only come from the reappropriation by citizens of socioeconomic issues and indicators.” The Chilean left has tried for more than 50 years to achieve this deep socialist transformation, but the effort has stalled at every consequential stage.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">These repeated false starts and failures have left progressive forces around the world wondering what would be the best path, if any, to socialist change. After decades of guerrilla warfare, Latin America chose the ballot box. However, after the initial electoral victories of the “pink tide” in the early 2000s, right-wing governments re-emerged through elections (as in Uruguay and Ecuador) and constitutional coups or electoral coups (as in Brazil, Bolivia, and now Peru). In Africa, no left-wing government (except in Mauritius) has come to power through the ballot box since the 1980s structural adjustment programs (SAPs). Rather, military coups, such as those that occurred in Mali (2021), Burkina Faso (2022), and Niger (2023), arguably carry people’s hopes for more equitable societies. What can Chile’s efforts teach leftist parties and movements seeking socialist transformation? </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In the 1970s, guerrilla warfare was a popular option for the left to accede to power in South America. However, in Chile, </span><span style="font-weight: 400">the </span><a href="https://nacla.org/article/chile-thirty-years-later" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Unidad Popular (Popular Unity</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">), a coalition of left-oriented political parties and social movements, elected Salvador Allende, a physician and politician from the Socialist Party of Chile, as president. He was the first democratically elected Marxist leader in the Western hemisphere. Allende’s government wanted mineral and other resources to serve the working poor: land was to be redistributed among those who cultivated it; education, health, and other services were to be affordable and managed by the state; indigenous people, especially the Mapuche, who had fought for long decades against the expropriation of their lands, were to govern their own communities.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">On September 11, 1973, Augusto Pinochet brutally overthrew Allende through a military coup d’état in which Henry Kissinger, then US secretary of state, played a decisive role. After 17 years of active popular resistance, Chile returned to free elections in 1990. However, Pinochet remained the head of the army and a senator for life. Some of his collaborators stayed in their positions and the political-legal framework of the 1980 Constitution was preserved. Despite the alternation of center-left and center-right parties in power between 1990 and 2019, and despite a relatively stable and prosperous economy at the macroeconomic level, no profound structural changes took place.</span></p>
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<h2>The 2019 “Estallido Social” or “Social Uprising”</h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In October 2019, an uprising took place in the context of severe inequalities, high levels of privatization, and erosion of public institutions. The protesters’ demands included: a quality public healthcare system, a state-run and affordable pension system, free education at all levels, and access to water. Chileans wanted affordable housing, public safety, an end to police brutality, and improved rights for LGBTQI+ communities and women. The uprising gained momentum, spread, and escaped state control.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The ruling right-wing </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Renewal_(Chile)#:~:text=National%20Renewal%20(Spanish:%20Renovaci%C3%B3n%20Nacional,a%20member%20of%20the%20party." target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">National Renewal Party</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> and its leader, Sebastián Piñera (</span><a href="https://www.infobae.com/en/2022/04/07/who-are-the-most-millionaires-in-chile-according-to-forbes-the-former-president-who-is-among-them/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Chile’s fifth-richest man</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, who died on February 6, 2024, in a helicopter crash), and the conservative political class suggested rewriting the 1980 Constitution as an antidote to the uprising, </span><a href="https://obtienearchivo.bcn.cl/obtienearchivo?id=documentos/10221.1/76280/1/Acuerdo_por_la_Paz.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">diverting attention to social peace, rather than engaging civil society in its pressing demands</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. All parties except the Communist Party </span><a href="https://obtienearchivo.bcn.cl/obtienearchivo?id=documentos/10221.1/76280/1/Acuerdo_por_la_Paz.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">accepted the proposal on November 15, 2019</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">For the Chilean left, the time was propitious to rekindle the longed-for socialist transformation. It was also a chance to finally change the 1980 Constitution, which had been drafted by the University of Chicago-educated neoclassical economists The Chicago Boys, led by Milton Friedman. The constitution had granted a huge role to the private sector in health care, education, housing, and banking. To solidify the system, strict rules with supermajorities in Congress made it difficult to amend the constitution. The status quo was guaranteed by law enforcement agencies and the armed forces.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">According to </span><a href="https://www.statista.com/topics/11228/key-economic-indicators-of-chile/https://www.statista.com/statistics/1294530/average-wealth-by-percentile-brazil/"><span style="font-weight: 400">Chilean economic indicators published by Statista’s Research Department</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> on August 8, 2023, “the top 1% of the population owns 49.6% of the country’s wealth, 10% owns 80.2%, the middle 40% owns 20.1% and the bottom 50% owns 0.6%.” On average, the richest 1% owned almost 3 million USD each. Pinochet’s rule halted Chile’s socialist experiment. However, its ideals were kept alive. First, the level of mobilization and political activism against Pinochet intensified, but was focused more on ousting the dictatorship. Political activism intensified with the resurgence of the right during Piñera’s two terms in office, and later with the emergence of José Antonio Kast, a far-right Christian politician. Second, the issue of the </span><a href="https://nacla.org/chile-50-years-pinochet-coup" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">disappeared and tortured under Pinochet had not been resolved</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. Third, the arts and popular culture </span><a href="https://nacla.org/art-resistance-chile-coup" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">became active micro-sites of resistance</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. Fourth, the indigenous movements that had long struggled for land, </span><a href="https://youtu.be/x3rIIP0AciM?si=3Ws7k8wTOUz1643x" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">especially the Mapuche</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, were emboldened by the successes of similar movements in Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru. Fifth, the Communist Party and the unions rejuvenated and boasted a few electoral victories. Sixth, rights-based movements multiplied and fought for their goals. Seventh, social media played an important role. These factors, together with a generalized discontent, led to the 2019 social uprising.</span></p>
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<h2>The collapse of the 2022 Constitution</h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The way the constitution was rewritten (automatic participation of indigenous communities, parity for women, elected rather than appointed members of the assembly) was, by itself, a novelty for Chilean politics. Leftists savored the prospect of an imminent democratic and socialist nation-state. Although the 2020 National Plebiscite for a New Constitution was the largest voluntary vote in Chilean history and yielded 78% in favor of the process, the proposed constitution, this time with mandatory voting, was defeated (62% no and 38% yes).</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The following reasons explain its rejection. First, the campaign to discredit the constitutional convention and the related </span><a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/experts-say-news-coverage-led-to-chiles-rejection-of-new-progressive-draft-constitution/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">disinformation campaign financed by the Chilean oligarchic media</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> reached deep across all levels of society. The constitutional process occurred in a post-COVID context of uncertainty where work had become precarious. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Second, the disinformation campaign in Chile belongs to </span><a href="https://nacla.org/reinvention-latin-american-right" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">a larger movement of conservatives across the Western Hemisphere</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> whose ideas—anti-globalism, anti-wokism, return to traditional family values, anti-feminism and anti-LGBTQI+ ideology, and anti-communism—have gained immense popularity through various channels including evangelical churches. </span><a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/latin-americas-cpac-right-still-has-big-ambitions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">They aim at resisting what José Antonio Kast called “the ideology and the violence of the few.”</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> From February 21 to 24, 2024, </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/growing-alliance-republicans-latin-american-right-on-display-cpac-rcna139795" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">the US-based, pro-Trump Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) invited right-wing leaders Javier Milei and Nayib Bukele</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, respectively of Argentina and El Salvador, to speak at their convention near Washington, DC. They had held similar meetings in Brazil and Mexico</span><span style="font-weight: 400">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Third, political mobilization by leftist organizations and parties lacked purpose and intensity at the grassroots level. They did not reach out to lower classes to explain and discuss the ins and outs of the constitutional proposal, which reduced their electoral base in the plebiscite.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Fourth, </span><a href="https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/chile-could-become-plurinational-what-does-that-mean/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">plurinationalism</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, which aims to provide indigenous peoples with legal and constitutional instruments to manage their own affairs, was presented by the private and right-wing oligarchic media as a threat to the country’s unity, as it would grant unfair privileges to specific groups. In reality, the construction of the Chilean nation occurred through a process of white nationalism, invisibilization, and exclusion of Afro-Chileans and indigenous people. Plurinationalism has been practiced in Ecuador and Bolivia, respectively, since 2008 and 2009, and has increased the political power and visibility of indigenous communities.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The sectors of the population for whom the constitution was drafted rejected it, although polls on specific aspects of the constitution provide a different picture. The </span><a href="https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2022/10/LAMBERT/65154" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Feedback Research survey</span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400">conducted on September 6-7, 2022, asked voters, “Regardless of how you voted on September 4, what do you think of the following proposals contained in the draft of the new constitution?” According to the results, 83% of the people declared themselves in favor of the project of free higher education; 81% agreed that water should not be privatized; 61% approved of the idea of “creating a state pension and social security system.” If 55% of the people rejected the “creation of a plurinational state,” 67% were in favor of the “constitutional recognition of native peoples.” Voters could possibly have been more receptive if the project had been presented differently, and if the process had been accompanied by concrete and timely measures on the part of Gabriel Boric’s government, especially to support those who suffered the most from the pandemic.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Some other reasons explain the failure of the process. First, the new president, Gabriel Boric, elected only on December 19, 2021, did not depart </span><a href="https://www.laizquierdadiario.cl/spip.php?page=voice&id_article=249963" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">from governing habits rooted in securitization and militarization.</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> As a consequence, they lost the support of large sectors of the left. Second, although Boric entered politics as a student leader, </span><a href="https://www.laizquierdadiario.com/Boric-criminaliza-la-lucha-secundaria-Los-estudiantes-que-quieran-utilizar-medios-violentos-tendran" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">he quickly criminalized the student movement and disregarded it</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">.</span><span style="font-weight: 400"> Third, the large gap between the actual vote and people’s political awareness, as exemplified by the survey mentioned above, demonstrates that voting itself is problematic. Fourth, social movements and political parties were unable to establish lasting spaces of education, organization, solidarity, and collaboration with rural, indigenous workers and the “precariat” in the sector of services. As a result, voters’ lack of knowledge and miseducation became crucial as voting was compulsory.</span></p>
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<h2>The failure of the Second Plebiscite and its implications</h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">To draft the second constitution, the Congress, dominated by right-wing parties, elected a council of experts, headed by a Pinochet supporter, Hernán Larraín, and a constitutional council, elected by the people, with parity between men and women, but without any seats reserved for indigenous communities. On December 17, 2023, voters rejected this right-wing constitution, with 55.8% against and 44.2% in favor. As the government decided not to attempt a third revision, the maintenance of the Pinochet constitution represented a major setback for the left. Leftists around the world have paid close attention to the political process in Chile, to see if its success would consolidate the democratic electoral model as a plausible path to socialism. Even though most of the objective conditions for socialist change in Chile seemed to be in place, once more, the transition did not occur. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Many points arise from this debacle: First, how possible is it today for a liberal democracy to deliver and secure the longevity of a socialist transformation in the Global South through elections? Second, about 78% of the population wanted a new constitution, voters elected a convention to draft it, but 62% of the population rejected it. This obvious disconnect raises a fundamental question: Does voting actually reflect people’s true interests? Third, as socialist and communist parties find it difficult to mobilize, does ideology no longer play a role in the effort to transition to socialism?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Fourth, elected officials do not resemble the people they represent. Sixty percent of those elected at the first electoral convention were lawyers and professionals, despite the decision not to choose among elected officials. Karl Marx believed the proletariat should seize power and govern. That way to socialism was abandoned long ago in Chile, but progress to socialism has stalled. </span><a href="https://www.ciperchile.cl/2021/11/12/empleo-en-chile-antes-durante-y-despues-de-la-pandemia/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">The workforce itself had changed from Allende’s time, and it was again recomposed by the pandemic</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Fifth, funding is the engine of electoral democracy, and the left does not have a lot of it, which makes the competition apparently unequal. Sixth, in Chile and other Latin American countries, in addition to an entrenched bourgeoisie, the militarized police, and the army, the left must deal with a growing, well-publicized, and highly funded evangelical movement and its ideology.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The failure to pass a new progressive constitution took its toll on the progressive movement, with the disappointment that four years were lost. Based on the Chilean experiment, the advent of a socialist state, as Piketty envisioned it, seems barely plausible. Because of the asymmetry of financial and economic power, and the enormous gaps in property ownership and wealth between common people and the higher classes and elites, no socialist transformation can emerge in Chile without a profound overhaul of current electoral systems and structures. Perhaps, the future of the left in the Global South, including Chile, lies in </span><a href="https://nacla.org/zapatistas-at-30-building-and-inspiring-autonomy" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">regions of autonomy as practiced by the Zapatistas</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, far from the grand narrative of a socialist nation-state.</span></p>
<hr/>
Ignacia Cortés Rojas
Simon Adetona Akindes
https://africasacountry.com/2024/02/whos-afraid-of-academic-boycotts/
Who’s afraid of academic boycotts?
2024-03-01T05:22:33Z
2024-02-29T11:00:42Z
<p>On January 11, 2024, South Africa filed a case against Israel asserting that the latter had</p>
<h3>South Africa’s Wits University likes to vaunt its anti-apartheid credentials. So why is it cozy with Israel and Zionism?</h3>
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<figure>
<img alt src="https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/02/29114442/IMG_2629-720x480.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Palestine Solidarity vigil held in October 2023 near the Wits Health Sciences Campus in Parktown, Johannesburg. Credit Gulshan Khan © 2023.
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400">On January 11, 2024, South Africa filed a case against Israel asserting that the latter had engaged in genocide in Gaza violating the 1948 Genocide Convention, to which both countries are party. This charge encompasses a range of actions, including the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians, especially children, the destruction of residential buildings, forced expulsion, and the enforcing of blockades that restrict access to essential services. The seriousness and urgency of the case prompted South Africa to request that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) initiate “provisional measures,” seeking the court’s intervention before the main proceedings begin in order to immediately curtail what South Africa deems to be a persistent affront to Palestinian rights.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">On Friday, January 12, Zane Dangor, the director-general of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO), was seen sporting his Wits University jacket while interviewed outside the ICJ. Dangor is an alumnus of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and played a crucial role in coordinating South Africa’s submission and case presentation. Professor John Dugard, who was one of the advocates arguing South Africa’s case, founded the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at Wits University in 1978, which aims “to encourage law reform and improve access to justice during apartheid.” There are Wits minds behind our case at the ICJ, and the University’s silence and failure to take a stance on the case is glaring. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">It is imperative to examine the position of Wits University, which has, on a number of occasions, revealed its connections to Israel. Wits prides itself on being a progressive institution at the forefront of social change, but it acts in a contrary manner regarding Palestinian liberation.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">On numerous occasions, student groups on campus like the Wits Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) have requested that the University disclose its relationships with apartheid Israel and other Zionist entities. The University has responded by saying that they do not have any formal agreements with Israeli universities or companies. However, to what extent is this true, and is the University complicit in normalizing ties to apartheid Israel and furthering its Zionist agenda?</span></p>
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<h2>Ties to the Israeli embassy and Zionist Federation</h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">On January 4, 2024, the South African Zionist Federation (SAZF) shared a post on its </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0DEiHjHazjQ46wMNsQu5Ra4M5Fk87SxVwybnDfwEWRS2ZHC8dRKAcqEaekSsv4395l&id=100064558428192&paipv=0&eav=Afbzgy4zzdu3jbmmi9pQClsI0UEUcm8p0eSejkuFRTyy9mb2BgKQW8wE5kGLuRxvPts&_rdr" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Facebook</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> page with the headline “OrCam MyEye: Israeli Tech Opens New Horizons at Wits University.” The post explained that the Israeli embassy in Pretoria, which the South African Parliament voted to shut down in November, donated the OrCam MyEye device, valued at R80,000, to Wits University. The Federation viewed this as “a shining example of SA-Israel collaboration.” The post was accompanied by photos of Wits’ dean of student affairs, Jerome September, receiving the device from Israeli Ambassador Eli Belotserkovsky. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Upon further investigation of this most recent incident, an article in the </span><a href="https://www.sajr.co.za/sazf-and-israeli-embassy-donate-reading-device-to-wits/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><i><span style="font-weight: 400">South African Jewish Report</span></i></a> <span style="font-weight: 400">clarified that Wits’ acceptance of the Israeli embassy and SAZF’s donation was held in July 2023, and that it was intended for the Wits Disability Rights Unit (DRU). Neither Wits nor DRU has publicly disclosed the acceptance of this donation. The following is an extract from the article in the </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">South African Jewish Report</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">:</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px"><span style="font-weight: 400">Israeli Ambassador Eli Belotsercovsky said Israel had a strong connection with Wits because the mother of President Isaac Herzog, the late Ora Herzog, had studied mathematics at the university. “We’re so happy this device will help students, and we look forward to strengthening our relationship with Wits,” he said.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The OrCam MyEye device is intended to aid the visually impaired. There is a dark irony to this considering the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) deliberate and consistent practice of shooting Palestinians in their eyes with sponge-tipped bullets to maim and disable them. These accounts have been published by human rights groups, including the Israeli organization </span><a href="https://btselem.org/firearms/2020024_eye_injuries_in_gaza_protests" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">B’Tselem</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, and publications like </span><a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/twilight-zone/2021-04-30/ty-article-magazine/.premium/idf-troops-shot-palestinian-boy-in-the-eye-and-didnt-even-try-to-save-it/0000017f-f278-df98-a5ff-f3fdd5b90000" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Haaretz</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. In the past three months alone Israel has injured more than 57,296 Palestinians in Gaza and more than 3,800 in the West Bank. Among the injured are civilians who are paralyzed, are amputated, or have lost their limbs in airstrikes. A prominent Afro-Palestinian disability rights activist, </span><a href="https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/profile/bader-mosleh" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Bader Mosleh</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, was also killed by the violent and ableist Israeli state. In light of this systematic and targeted onslaught, a donation in the name of disability rights is disingenuous. It is, in fact, a brazen attempt to manage Israel’s image and deepen its connections to powerful institutions.</span></p>
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<h2>Facilitating the spread of Zionist propaganda</h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Wits University’s facilitation of the spread of Zionist propaganda is most apparent during Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), an annual international event raising awareness of the Palestinian struggle for liberation and its links to other forms of oppression. Every year, the South African Union of Jewish Students (SAUJS) at Wits hosts a counter-event, and every year, the University grants them a more visible platform. SAUJS is a student organization that purportedly caters to Jewish students but is primarily a Zionist organization that does not accommodate anti-Zionist Jews. Its Wits chapter even has a designated “Zionist officer” on its executive team. During IAW, SAUJS is placed outside the Chamber of Mines building, alongside the AMIC deck, an area with heavy foot traffic, while the PSC is given the FNB walkway on West Campus, an area with much less visibility. The University also increases the presence of private security on campus during this time. Accommodating and amplifying a counter-event to IAW—a scheduled international event called for by the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions National Committee—is a deliberate attack on Palestine solidarity efforts. It thwarts Palestinians’ fight against settler-colonialism and occupation by encouraging a “both-sides” model. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In 2019, SAUJS went as far as to host </span><span style="font-weight: 400">Ashager Araro, a reserve soldier for the IDF, on campus grounds. The University, which claimed it was unaware of Araro’s military occupation, eventually had her </span><a href="https://witsvuvuzela.com/2019/04/05/iaw-speaker-escorted-off-wits-campus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">escorted off campus</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. Jabu Mashinini, senior program advisor for student governance, said that the University has no policy preventing the presence of military personnel on campus, therefore exempting SAUJS of any repercussions. In fact, in that very same year, under the vice-chancellorship of Adam Habib, the University awarded SAUJS the </span><a href="https://www.sajr.co.za/saujs-wins-best-society-award/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Best Society Award</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">.</span></p>
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<h2>Censoring and intimidating pro-Palestine students</h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Wits University has a track record of censoring and intimidating pro-Palestine students, including members of the Wits Palestine Solidarity Committee. One of the most recent examples of censorship is the attempt by the University to control what is shared on class WhatsApp groups and students’ personal social media accounts.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In October 2023, when Israel began its deliberate attacks on hospitals, ambulances, and healthcare workers, many health sciences students at Wits voiced their condemnation on their personal social media pages and on class WhatsApp groups, which, in the past, were held as spaces for discussion. Third- and fourth-year medical students received two emails from their course coordinator explaining that students were not complying with the faculty’s social media policy and that failure to act appropriately would lead to repercussions. Neither of these emails cited a specific violation of the social media policy. Certain students were also asked to attend private meetings regarding this policy.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Additionally, the 2023 third-year medical class WhatsApp group was temporarily switched to “admins only,” preventing anyone besides the class representatives from contributing. Students were told that this decision came from Vice-Chancellor Zeblon Vilakazi’s office and was based on some students feeling “unsafe and uncomfortable” due to content highlighting Israel’s attacks on health care.</span></p>
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<h2>Employing a member of a pro-Israeli organization and a former Israeli pilot</h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In August 2023, Professor Vered Aharonson was inaugurated at the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment at Wits University. The dean of the Faculty, Professor Thokozani Majozi, publicly confirmed Professor Aharonson’s qualifications, obtained from Israeli academic institutions including Tel Aviv University, as well as her positions as a lecturer at Tel Aviv University and Afeka College. In her inaugural </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoYMD7lF880" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">lecture</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, Professor Aharonson briefly mentioned her “military service.” What the dean did not acknowledge in his introduction is that Professor Aharonson is a former officer for the IDF and pilot for Aviation Bridge, a private Israeli flight operator. In 2011, she and her copilot were detained for a month in Asmara, Eritrea, for arms smuggling, as a package that they were flying into Eritrea </span><a href="https://www.haaretz.com/2011-08-24/ty-article/ex-minister-sneh-helps-free-israeli-pilots-held-in-eritrea-on-arms-rap/0000017f-e36a-d9aa-afff-fb7a9ba20000?v=1705248363646&lts=1705248418589&lts=1705348176732&lts=1705348192465&lts=1705348213864" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">contained parts for Kalashnikov rifles</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Since Israel’s assault on Gaza, one of the most public and fervent supporters of Israel in South Africa has been Professor Karen Milner, an associate professor in psychology at Wits University and the national chairperson of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD). Professor Milner has a track record of spreading disinformation in favor of the apartheid state. On </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tR3mLZMqHA" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">SABC News</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> she compared Hamas to ISIS, proclaimed that Gaza and Israel had been “operating quite effectively, quite peacefully” until October 7, and even went as far as to justify Israel’s genocidal intent by claiming that when one says Israel “shouldn’t take every means at their disposal to get those hostages back, and you do that against the only Jewish state, it does begin to feel like it’s anti-Semitic.” Her statements ignore Israel’s 17-year blockade on the Gaza Strip and its 75-year occupation of Palestine. Unsurprisingly, when South Africa took Israel to the ICJ for the crime of genocide, </span><a href="https://www.sajbd.org/index.php?p=media/sajbds-statement-on-sas-case-at-the-icj-inversion-of-justice" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Professor Milner wrote</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> that this “can only be interpreted as anti-Semitic.” In line with Israeli hasbara, her statements weaponize anti-Semitism—a legitimate concern in the light of right-wing fervor around the world—against a just cause. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Both Professor Aharonson and Professor Milner are reflections of the University. Employing a former member of a military organization that, as South Africa’s legal team indicated at The Hague, is committing genocide and other war crimes and an academic who believes Israel is justified in its assault on Gaza is simply immoral. We recall </span><a href="https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20231228-app-01-00-en.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">South Africa’s submission to the ICJ</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, which states that “no armed attack on a State’s territory no matter how serious—even an attack involving atrocity crimes—can, however, provide any possible justification for, or defense to, breaches of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.”</span></p>
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<h2>Hiring the services of an Israeli company outside the official vendors list</h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In May 2021, the PSC was notified by a French magazine, </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">The Funambulist</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">, that an Israeli subscription agency, Teldan Information Systems, purchased a subscription order of 200 euros on behalf of Wits University. An invoice billed to Teldan describes the University as a party to the subscription, with the relevant online access information listed together with an email address belonging to the cataloging and metadata services librarian at the University. Teldan is not listed among the official vendors employed by the University, as was confirmed by the University’s communications manager, Shirona Patel. The PSC made inquiries to various university functionaries, requesting clarity on the nature and extent of the University’s relationship with Teldan. Unfortunately, no respondents were aware of any relationship.</span></p>
<hr/>
<h2>Academic collaboration with Israeli institutions</h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In an </span><a href="https://africasacountry.com/2023/10/the-deafening-silence-of-south-african-universities" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">article</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> published by </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Africa Is a Country</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">, Dr. Savo Heleta explained that “UCT and Wits have produced more co-authored scholarly publications with institutions from apartheid Israel than any African country over the past decade.” Dr Heleta points out that “these same institutions are geographically located on the African continent and like to claim to be the ‘</span><a href="https://www.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/image_tool/images/328/research/publications/reports/UCT%20Research%20Strategy%2015%20November%202014.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">gateway</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> to the continent’ (in the case of UCT), or speak about the</span> <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/about-wits/wits-2033/strategic-framework-2033/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">importance</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> of collaboration with the African continent (in the case of Wits).” Dr Heleta concludes with a demand for higher education institutions to honor the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) just as the international community boycotted apartheid South Africa’s universities. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Collaboration with the settler-colonial and genocidal state of Israel and its affiliates by a South African public university cannot be tolerated. Even before considering our country’s foreign policy and its most recent presentation at the ICJ, a moral stance against the perpetrators of genocide and ongoing apartheid is imperative. Instead of marketing our country’s history and using the images of its progressive alumni to its commercial benefit, the University of the Witwatersrand needs to honor its commitment to social justice and adopt an academic boycott of Israel—one of the tactics that, it knows very well, brought apartheid South Africa to its knees.</span></p>
<hr/>
Wits Palestine Solidarity Committee
https://africasacountry.com/2024/02/the-league-of-nations/
The league of nations
2024-02-28T16:47:29Z
2024-02-28T12:00:45Z
<p>Bafana Bafana might have missed out on a chance of ending their almost three-decade wait to</p>
<h3>If South Africa’s Premier Soccer league matters, it is because it’s the country’s most successful pan-Africanist project.</h3>
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<img alt src="https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/02/28122553/emilio-garcia-AWdCgDDedH0-unsplash-720x421.jpg"/>
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Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@piensaenpixel?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Emilio Garcia</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/man-playing-soccer-game-on-field-AWdCgDDedH0?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Unsplash</a>.
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Bafana Bafana might have missed out on a chance of ending their almost three-decade wait to return to the summit of African football, but South Africa’s Premier Soccer League (PSL) was the big winner in the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON). </span><span style="font-weight: 400">The PSL, the country’s first division, is the only league in Africa with a representative from each of the three teams that finished on the podium in Côte d’Ivoire.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">First, Sekhukhune United’s Badra Ali Sangare was part of the victorious Elephants who stomped Nigeria’s Super Eagles in the final—dramatically rising from the dead to claim their third AFCON title. </span><span style="font-weight: 400">Then, the Super Eagles squad featured two Africa-based players, including Chippa United’s Stanley Nwabali. The Nigerian goalkeeper was one of the stand-out players of the tournament with four clean sheets in seven matches. He was the hero in the Super Eagles’ penalty shoot-out win over Bafana in the semifinals.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">And finally, </span><span style="font-weight: 400">South Africa—who supplied the bulk of the 36 PSL-based players at the AFCON, making it the African league with the most representatives—settled for a bronze medal. Bafana beat the Democratic Republic of Congo in the third-place playoff to record their best finish since claiming bronze in 2000. </span><span style="font-weight: 400">Bafana defied the odds, going from failing to qualify for the previous edition in Cameroon to being one of the top four teams on the continent. For their efforts, the team also bagged the Fair Play award while captain Ronwen Williams was named Goalkeeper of the Tournament. The 2023 Afcon highlighted not only why the PSL is the most important league in the continent, but also why it’s South Africa’s most successful pan-African project.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">South Africa has a complicated relationship with the rest of the continent. At best, the country is insular, believing that there is no life beyond the Limpopo. South Africans speak about the continent as if Africa is indeed a country and South Africa is one of its neighbors. At worst, South Africa is xenophobic. Many African nationals have lost their lives violently in Mzansi during xenophobic attacks that flare up from time to time. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">As one of the strongest economies in Africa, South Africa attracts many people from the continent in search of a better life. They come to escape economic hardships, political instability, intolerance, and in some instances wars in their home countries. Yet South Africa—whose democracy was won in large part because of the support of the international community—isn’t welcoming to most Africans from beyond its borders. Migrants are regularly scapegoated by both the ruling African National Congress and opposition parties. The government’s stance betrays the African Renaissance ideals that the former president Thabo Mbeki, espoused. In his famous “African Renaissance” speech, Mbeki said that:</span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: 400">As South Africans, we owe our emancipation from apartheid in no small measure to the support and solidarity extended to us by all the peoples of Africa. In that sense, our victory over the system of white minority domination is an African victory. This, I believe, imposes an obligation on us to use this gift of freedom, which is itself an important contribution to Africa’s Renaissance, to advance the cause of the peoples of our continent. </span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Years later, the PSL seems to have listened, with the league advancing the case of the people of our continent. This is more evident in the number of goalkeepers from other African nations who play in the league and who were among those at AFCON. In addition to Nwabali and Sangare, Ghana’s No. 1 Richard Ofori, Namibia’s first choice Lloyd Kazapua, and third choice Edward Maova, along with Equatorial Guinea’s Manuel Sapunga, all ply their trade in the PSL. Those who didn’t make the trip to Côte d’Ivoire include Nigeria and Moroka Swallows’ Daniel Akpeyi, Ugandan legend and Mamelodi Sundowns’ shot stopper Dennis Onyango, his countryman Samil Magoola of Richards Bay and Guinea-Bissau’s Jonas Mendes who is on the books of Black Leopards. A large Zimbabwean contingent also includes Elvis Chipezeze, Edmore Sibanda, and Washington Arubi. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">There has been criticism that the large influx of goalkeepers from other parts of the continent stifles the growth of South African talent. When Bafana was thrown into a mini-crisis with the injury of the country’s most-capped goalkeeper, Itumeleng Khune, with no ready-made replacement, the dominance of foreign goalkeepers was evident. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Most clubs in the PSL’s two divisions—the DStv Premiership and the Motsepe Foundation Championship—have a foreign goalkeeper on their books. When Khune was injured, a handful of DStv Premiership clubs were fielding South African goalkeepers, which intensified the calls for a ban of foreign goalkeepers (following in the footsteps of Egypt) to safeguard the interests of the national team. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">But the PSL didn’t listen to those calls, largely because of the political spat between the league’s chairman Irvin Khoza and Danny Jordaan, the president of the South African Football Association (SAFA), Khoza and Jordaan are two of the most powerful figures in SA football. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">They were the dynamic duo that brought the first FIFA World Cup on African soil, with Khoza serving as chairman of the local organizing committee and Jordaan its CEO. The two, however, don’t see eye-to-eye and have allegedly used their positions to undermine each other. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Jordaan is said to have driven SAFA’s decision to amend its rules so that no club owner can run for the association’s presidency, effectively ruling out Khoza who also owns Orlando Pirates, one of the biggest teams in South Africa. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Khoza’s PSL ignored Bafana Bafana coach, Hugo Broos’ pleas for the first half of the 2023-24 season to finish a week early ahead of the AFCON break to give Pirates and Mamelodi Sundowns some rest following a grueling season due to their CAF Champions League commitments. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Broos asked this of the PSL at the end of the 2022-23 season, so that when the 2023-24 fixtures are drawn up it would be with his request in mind. The Belgian claimed to have been ignored by the league, only receiving an answer on the eve of the tournament with the PSL saying they had already drawn out their fixtures so they couldn’t help Bafana. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The PSL played its last game of 2023 on December 30, 2023, forcing Broos to take time out of his camp to give players a rest. The toll of the hectic schedule was evident on the players, with Williams coming into camp with a knock and Mothobi Mvala almost missing the tournament entirely because of the strain his body was under. Luckily, these two were fit for the tournament and formed a vital cog in Bafana’s defense. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Bafana’s success at the AFCON was despite the PSL’s actions, though their performance raised the profile of South Africa’s domestic league. Bafana bucked the trend of most nations relying on Europe-based players, with countries like Tanzania ignoring their strong domestic clubs to pluck players from the obscurity of Europe’s lower leagues because there’s a belief that gives them an edge over African-based players. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">So, when SAFA, which controls amateur football and national teams, banned international goalkeepers for the upcoming women’s national league, it did so not for the good of the game, but to score political points against the PSL who at the moment are viewed as unpatriotic. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">But SAFA’s approach is not the silver bullet that many think it will be, with the danger of creating complacency. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">“The quality of foreign goalkeeping that we have is of a high enough standard [among those] who are playing in the PSL,” legendary South African goalkeeper and 1996 AFCON winner, Andre Arendse, </span><a href="https://africa.espn.com/football/story/_/id/39470045/nwabali-williams-rise-sa-premiership-goalkeepers-afcon" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">told ESPN.</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> “What that says to me is that aspiring young local goalkeepers will have to work their socks off to get those opportunities in the PSL.” </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">South Africa’s open-door policy regarding African goalkeepers is a lifesaver for the continent’s top talent with Europe still looking down on Black and African goalkeepers. Edouard Mendy (during his time at Chelsea), and Manchester United’s Andre Onana are among a small contingent of African keepers who have been trusted at the highest level in Europe. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">“Clubs don’t trust Black goalkeepers,” Onana was quoted by Spain’s </span><a href="https://www.marca.com/en/football/international-football/2019/11/22/5dd82eeeca4741bb568b4620.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Marca</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. “It’s a reality, you just have to look at it, it’s not me who says it. There are not many black goalkeepers in the elite and people have it in their heads that black goalkeepers don’t provide security or [that they] make too many mistakes.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In the PSL talented keepers from the continent can earn good money and are exposed to a higher level of competition. This makes the PSL’s accommodation and openness to African goalkeepers revolutionary. But it’s not because of the league’s benevolence. The PSL attracts more foreign players than any league in the continent because of the country’s openness. Unlike Egypt and Morocco, whose leagues are as lucrative, the PSL is more welcoming to outsiders. Some Christian players have complained about not feeling welcomed in these largely Muslim countries. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Egyptian Christians have criticized the team, saying they feel unwanted. This religious tension was confirmed by Mido, an AFCON winner with Egypt in 2006: Regrettably, there’s a lot of people in Egypt who are bigoted over color, religion, and ethnicity,” </span><a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/many-egyptian-christians-feel-left-out-of-world-cup-20180623-3" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">said</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> Mido. “We must confront them and not bury our heads in the sand. Can you believe it that in the history of football in Egypt, only five Christians played at the top level?”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The PSL appears open to everyone, which is why players from North Africa have signed for South African clubs—with most going to Sundowns who are more visible as a force in those countries, and also financially stronger to match or better what players would have received back home or in Europe. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The football infrastructure in the country is also a major draw card, with the players able to get the best medical and technical support, allowing them to grow tactically and be well-taken care of medically. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">This is how Burundian international, the late Papy Faty’s heart problem was spotted. He refused to believe it and went to play in a league in eSwatini, where medical requirements for participation aren’t as rigorous as in South Africa. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The other reason why South African clubs opt for foreign talent is that they are a quick fix. Instead of spending millions in development, some clubs would rather opt for an almost ready player who can be polished quickly and won’t be as expensive as a homegrown player.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The PSL’s Board of Governors—made up of the 32 clubs in the first and second divisions—is the league’s highest decision-making body. It’s made up of club owners, which means decisions prioritize their well-being. It’s a shrewd, cut-throat arrangement where profit is the only language spoken. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Yet, the PSL does give back to the continent. The success of most countries in West Africa is largely dependent on players who were refined in Europe. Most of those players are in-field, leaving a massive void for goalkeepers. This explains the longstanding problem of goalkeeping at the AFCON. Keepers have been left behind in terms of overall development and investment. The PSL is filling the void in developing and refining African goalkeepers. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Onyango was a promising goalkeeper when he came to SuperSport United in 2006. He improved when he worked with the best goalkeeper coaches available, including Arendse and current Barcelona goalkeeper coach Jon Pascua. It’s because of the coaching he received in SA that Onyango was able to lead Uganda in 2017 to their first AFCON tournament in almost 40.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The same can be said for Kennedy Mweeene who led Zambia to their AFCON success in 2012 and Nwabali who was a non-entity in the Super Eagles before his development in SA. That’s why the PSL’s influence at the 2023 AFCON felt like South African football was returning the favor to the African athletes who sacrificed their Olympic dreams in 1976 when they boycotted the games. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">African countries, including Nigeria, dominated the 29 nations that refused to participate in the Olympics in Montreal because the International Olympic Committee refused to ban New Zealand for breaking the sports boycott against South Africa to take on the Springboks in rugby’s richest rivalry. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Most of the athletes who had to go back home when they had already arrived in Montreal, like Segun Odegbami of Team Nigeria, did so without complaints, understanding that this was for a course bigger than them or their athletic ambitions. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">“We came back from Montreal without any fanfare and we all went our separate ways without our role in the struggle for the emancipation of South Africans properly recognized,” Odegbami told Nigeria’s </span><em><a href="https://guardian.ng/sport/47-years-after-nigeria-led-montreal-olympics-boycott-air-peace-niia-reward-athletes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">The Guardian</span></a></em><span style="font-weight: 400"> during a ceremony to honor the sacrifices of the class of 1976. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">“Some of us had trained for four years and made sacrifices and were on the verge of achieving our Olympic dreams when it was all taken away,” he added. “Of course, it was ultimately for a good cause, but some of the athletes made huge sacrifices to get to the Olympics, only to be stopped at the gate.” </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The PSL stepped up when it was its turn to make sacrifices for the good of the continent, making Bafana’s success even more special. The league looks set to continue being the destination of choice for many players in Africa. The peak of the PSL’s importance in Africa was in 2019, when the league was the outright No. 1 in supplying the most players in the tournament, beating the French and European leagues which are the ideal destination for many. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">South Africa might not have gotten its hands on the AFCON trophy they last lifted in 1996, but the country’s league had a hand in the Elephants’ success and the Super Eagles’ good run. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">That victory is bigger than any piece of silverware.</span></p>
<hr/>
Bonginkosi Ndadane
https://africasacountry.com/2024/02/kenya-israel-and-the-gaza-genocide/
Kenya, Israel, and the Gaza genocide
2024-02-27T11:56:37Z
2024-02-27T11:00:40Z
<p>Over the last 20 years, Kenya-Israel diplomatic relations have intensified and expanded in scope. Kenya, always</p>
<h3>Israel’s strategy of economic partnership and development support to Kenya is a bid to legitimize its ailing international reputation.</h3>
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<img alt src="https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/02/27112122/27476113914_c810caf2f2_k-720x413.jpg"/>
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Regional Summit on Counter Terrorism, Kampala, 2016. Image credit Paul Kagame via Flickr <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed</a>.
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Over the last 20 years, Kenya-Israel diplomatic relations have intensified and expanded in scope. Kenya, always a poster child for imperialism, has embraced Israel’s support in several sectors of the country—from agriculture to medicine and, of course, security. A closer consideration of Israel’s objectives in forming and maintaining relations with Kenya and other African countries, reveals the apartheid state’s forethought in manufacturing consent across the continent for the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Indeed, Israel has never been shy about the role it sees African countries playing in legitimizing the </span><a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/using-the-right-language-the-incremental-genocide-of-the-palestinians-continues/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">incremental genocide of Palestinians</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. In a 2017 meeting with Israel’s ambassadors to Africa, </span><a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/using-the-right-language-the-incremental-genocide-of-the-palestinians-continues/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defined Israel’s foreign policy regarding Africa</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. Netanyahu stated that Israel’s goal was to use “trade, technology and investments” to entice African states to vote in favor of Israel at the United Nations and other international organizations. This tactic has worked in Kenya, with the country often being criticized for sitting on the fence or being pro-Israel.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Kenya’s president </span><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/10/14/israel-hamas-war-why-is-africa-divided-on-supporting-palestine" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">William Ruto chose to stand with Israel</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> at the beginning of what is now the second Nakba. Kenya has since voted for an immediate ceasefire at the UN General Assembly, but </span><a href="https://www.kenyans.co.ke/news/94215-kenya-takes-different-stand-us-israel-un-votes-israel-hamas-war" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">the country’s statement at the assembly, given by Ambassador Martin Mbugua Kimani,</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> shows that Kenya still does not recognize the colonization of Palestine. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Yet, Israel’s interest in Kenya is not limited to securing the country’s support in the political arena. In Kenya and other African countries, Israel sees both an opportunity for resource extraction and market creation for Israeli products. When Netanyahu visited Kenya in 2016, journalist </span><a href="blank" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Jeffery Gettleman observed</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> that: </span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="font-weight: 400">Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, cruised around the capital of Kenya with an entourage of dozens of Israeli executives, hoping to sell Africa everything from Israeli-made plastic wrap, sprinklers and irrigation pipes to software, CCTV cameras and military equipment. Even cantaloupe seeds.</span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Israel’s strategy of economic partnership and development support to Kenya is reminiscent of the West’s use of NGOs and technical support to further entrench their ideologies in the country. However, without a battery of Israeli NGOs and development organizations in Kenya, the work of “civilizing” Kenya is largely taken up by Israel’s ambassadors to the country. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">For this article, I chart Israel’s interests in Kenya for the year 2023, using Israel’s ambassador to Kenya Michael Lotem’s publicized events and meetings. I focus on government institutions and parastatals who have problematically granted Israel unfettered access to important resources in Kenya. Israel, a custodian of nothing but colonialism, should not have an embassy in Kenya nor have the kind of access it has to Kenyan resources. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">To start, below is a list of sectors that Ambassador Lotem proposed collaborations in 2023: </span></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Health</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Medical Research</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Tourism </span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Agriculture</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Infrastructure</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Water waste management and sanitation </span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">ICT</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Cybersecurity</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Security</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Policing</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Weapons and military technology</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Environment and Climate change</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Space science and technology</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">International trade</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Business</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">There are projects currently ongoing in most of these sectors. In 2023 alone, Ambassador Lotem visited at least five counties, including Taita Taveta, Nakuru, Uasin Gishu and Narok. In Narok, he opened a museum that had received Israel’s support. </span><a href="https://www.kenyans.co.ke/news/94215-kenya-takes-different-stand-us-israel-un-votes-israel-hamas-war" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">At this event, Lotem expanded on Israel’s plan to deepen tourism partnerships with Kenya</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">,</span><span style="font-weight: 400"> declaring Israel’s competitive advantage in tourism, which is based on the country’s claim to the land that it illegally occupies. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In March, Lotem visited the </span><a href="https://twitter.com/CCF_Kenya/status/1641427794365145088" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Chief Conservator of Forests</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> Alex Lemarkoko, whose statement on the visit is worth sharing verbatim:</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 40px"><span style="font-weight: 400">…we take note that the Israel Embassy in Kenya has taken up five hectares, a section of Uplands forest, Kiambu County, for rehabilitation. The area which is already transformed with 2,800 tree seedlings grown and benches placed strategically to allow recreational activities for forest users. The site is a historical ground where Kenya’s freedom fighters, the Mau Mau, were massacred in 1954. The Service will scale up the site to an arboretum status, in line with preserving our Kenyan culture and heritage. Under the umbrella of the Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs, of which the Israel Embassy in Kenya is a party, an additional 25 Ha have been taken up for rehabilitation in the same forest. These sites are critical and contribute to sustainable water yield for the people of Kiambu and Nairobi Counties because, the streams</span> <span style="font-weight: 400">and rivers coming from the forest feed into Ruiru dam which is one of the water sources for the city.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">We let Israel, a state that is guilty of stealing water in Palestine, and other acts of ecocide, purchase not only sacred Mau Mau land but also land critical to water access for two counties in Kenya. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In May, when Israel’s president Isaac Herzog visited Kenya, Ruto signed </span><a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2023-08-04-kenya-israel-to-explore-health-blue-economy-opportunities/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">eight memorandums of understanding</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> with Israel on matters to do with health, food production, the blue economy, and border control among others. In the same month, Lotem took several Kenyan civil servants on a trip to Israel to visit the Granot avocado plant. In September, he opened an Israel-owned avocado plant in Nakuru. Lotem has met with the Kenya Defence Forces at least four times in 2023, discussing collaboration in police training, enhancements in security technology and even aerospace. He has also met with Mary Muriuki, the Principal Secretary for Health, to discuss collaborations in health care. And on December 6, the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection announced its plan to send 1,500 Kenyan casual workers to Israel to help make up for the acute labor shortfall due to the ongoing military assault on Gaza.<br />
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">At issue here is the normalization of Israel’s relationship with Kenya even as Israel’s reputation is suffering on the world stage. The results of this are terrifying: Kenya not only did not endorse South Africa’s case at the ICJ, but </span><a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/opinion/article/2001488682/why-its-important-for-african-countries-to-rally-behind-israel" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Ambassador Lotem was offered ample space to make a national appeal</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> for support for Israel’s case. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">While our government continues to perform its preferential role as an imperial puppet, widespread condemnation by everyday Kenyans shows that this time around, citizen’s consent cannot be manufactured.</span></p>
<hr/>
Makena Maganjo
https://africasacountry.com/2024/02/nigerias-elephants-in-the-room/
Nigeria’s elephants in the room
2024-02-25T23:33:42Z
2024-02-26T00:00:35Z
<p>Nigeria’s loss at the African Cup of Nations Final stings for two reasons. First, after a</p>
<h3>For Nigeria to return to the peak of African football, it needs deeper introspection about how the country functions today.</h3>
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Image credit Serg Stallone via Wikimedia Commons <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en">CC BY-SA 3.0 Deed</a>.
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Nigeria’s loss at the African Cup of Nations Final stings for two reasons. First, after a month of enjoyable banter at the expense of our neighbors, especially Ghana, we were on the other side of hiding from what seemed to be the collective response of the continent. But, perhaps most painfully, was that the brief respite from the harsh economic and socio-political issues that plague the country was now over. We have been forced to acknowledge the other elephant in the room and it is another glaring hurt that we must address.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Earlier in the tournament, admittedly amid optimistic and patriotic hubris, I </span><a href="https://africasacountry.com/2024/02/on-eagles-wings" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">reflected</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> on how the run was bringing the country together. Few activities showcase the patriotic fervor that forms nations as when we do well in sporting tournaments. The nation’s maiden AFCON title in 1980 was just after the country’s return to democracy a year prior, and the optimism of that moment would be wistfully recalled when one considers the farcical election and the coup that followed in </span><a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article-pdf/83/333/441/280035/83-333-441.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">1983</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. Nigeria’s second AFCON title, in 1994, was won less than a year after the famed </span><a href="https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/tori-57438699" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">June 12 1993 elections</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> that were annulled and would eventually lead to the incarceration and death of the acclaimed winner M.K.O Abiola. The win would provide some sorely needed unity under a regime that would be criticized for its excessive disregard for human rights. The most recent win, in 2013, was in the middle of a rising militant insurgency that would lead to the defeat of the incumbent president two years later. Even then, the win was still a sorely needed boost for flagging issues and it is fair to say that the Super Eagles returning with the cup this time out would have been in line with historical moments.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Some might argue that Nigeria was also competing against the weight of history and narrative. Nearly half (15/34) of all tournaments have featured a host in the final, and roughly one-third of them (11/34) have seen the host win—Nigeria itself being a beneficiary of this fact in 1980 and an anomaly in 2000 when it lost to Cameroon on penalties. The hosts had also gone through a cathartic evolution from the group stages, changing the manager to a former international and then welcoming a feared forward who had overcome a </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/12/sport/sebastien-haller-ivory-coast-afcon-final-spt-intl/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">battle with cancer</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. Despite the imperious form that Nigeria appeared to boast heading into the match, it appeared resigned to playing the role of final foe in Cote d’Ivoire’s redemption arc. And who doesn’t love a good story?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The aftermath laid bare the different cleavages that the team had tried to cover, with many also reflecting the challenges facing the current Nigerian state. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">First, there has always been a miscalculation in where and how to demand accountability. Alex Iwobi, Nigeria’s seventh most-capped international, was </span><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/2/13/nigeria-iwobi-cyberbullying-after-afcon" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">cyberbullied</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> by supporters who believed he did not perform well in the final. While </span><a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/sports/football/667887-afcon-musa-appeals-to-nigerian-football-fans-to-stop-iwobi-cyberbullying.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">senior players</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> called on Nigerians to desist, football federation leaders who have fallen short of ensuring proper team planning were largely ignored in initial reviews. In the same vein, while there are </span><a href="https://www.thecable.ng/akpabio-fg-doesnt-even-know-what-to-charge-emefiele-with"><span style="font-weight: 400">calls for charges</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> to be meted against former Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele and other government officials, there has been little accountability demanded of former president Muhammadu Buhari, who </span><a href="https://africasacountry.com/2023/04/buharism-is-dead-long-live-buharism" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">presided over a poor economic period</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Second, Coach Jose Peseiro was criticized for not responding sooner to the threat posed by Simon Adingra on the flanks and Nigeria seemingly being overrun in the midfield and only doing so once Sebastian Haller had popped up with the eventual winner. The same squad also played most of the games, with fatigue playing a role in the barely-won semi-final and the final loss. The poor decision-making reflects recent state </span><a href="https://businessday.ng/columnist/article/the-economic-illiteracy-at-the-heart-of-tinubunomics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">policies</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, such as the removal of fuel subsidies and the floating of the Naira, carried out seemingly off-the-cuff and without proper planning. Poor situational awareness meant Nigeria still tried to defend against a team with momentum and playing in front of raucous home fans. It also shows how a government appears to be struggling with responding to increasing </span><a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2024/02/photos-youths-protest-in-ibadan-urges-tinubu-to-address-insecurity-hunger/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">protests</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> and threats of </span><a href="https://punchng.com/fg-toughens-border-surveillance-as-labour-declares-two-day-protest/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">strikes</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Last, and perhaps the source of considerable frustration, Nigeria did not appear to play to its strengths. Nigeria has a fearsome attack, led by reigning CAF footballer of the year Victor Osimhen, but most goals came from winger Ademola Lookman and defender William Troost-Ekong. Furthermore, the defensive solidity that was the hallmark of the run to the final fell apart at the most important moment. Likewise, Nigeria’s government </span><a href="https://africasacountry.com/2024/02/feesmustfall-in-nigeria" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">policies</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> so far have been damaging to a young population that has already been stung by the response to the EndSARS protests. For any government to succeed, it will require a stronger acknowledgment of its vibrant youth.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The 2025 AFCON will take place in Morocco, and there is a strong chance that most teams will rely on the same spines that represented them in Cote d’Ivoire. It offers a chance for the same mistakes to be made, but also an opportunity to course correct. Some countries have already made managerial changes and traditional favorites, including host Morocco, hope to go further. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">For Nigeria to return to the peak of African football, it needs to address the major challenges in the way the team is set up. Doing so might also mean a wider introspection about how Nigeria functions today. </span></p>
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Afolabi Adekaiyaoja
https://africasacountry.com/2024/02/yvonne-veras-gardens/
Yvonne Vera’s gardens
2024-02-23T11:06:15Z
2024-02-23T11:00:11Z
<p>Bulawayo is Zimbabwe’s second city, but it was once a dominant urban center with a network</p>
<h3>Tadiwa Madenga’s latest book offers us a biographical portrait of Zimbabwean author Yvonne Vera written through her love of plants, gardens and nature.</h3>
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Matopo National Park, Zimbabwe. Image credit <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/43555660@N00/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Carine06</a> via flickr <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CC BY-SA 2.0 Deed</a>.
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Bulawayo is Zimbabwe’s second city, but it was once a dominant urban center with a network of railways and a flourishing industrial base. It is this city and its surroundings where Yvonne Vera set her award-winning fiction: six books published in a short burst between 1992 and 2002. She emerged as one of the great, idiosyncratic talents. The expansive landscape of Matabeleland was the canvas on which she imagined her fictional worlds that spanned back to the 19th century. In these fictions, we learn of Vera’s studious dedication to gardening and the natural world. But such an attachment to a place is a vexed and sometimes impossible experience.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In a newly published book, </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">The Garden Letters of Yvonne Vera</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">, Tadiwa Madenga gathered as much information as she could find about Vera’s gardens from an eclectic mix of sources: newspaper archives, biographies, interviews, as well as visits to and recordings of the places Vera lived and worked. It is a generous, small book. The book’s style is informed by the radical design ethos of the </span><a href="https://chimurengachronic.co.za/stores/Chimurenganyana-Series-c29621114" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="font-weight: 400">Chimurenganyana series</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, which is described as “a pavement literature project consisting of serialized monographs” that comprise “factions, essays, scores, interviews, linear notes, musical analysis, travel writing, personal impressions, political and social commentary.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Though it’s a small book, the ingenuity of Madenga’s contribution to the series is that she offers us a biographical portrait of Yvonne Vera through her love of plants, gardens, and nature. Madenga’s book provides a richly emotional look at the inner life of a particularly introspective writer. It is a book that is personal and intimate, an original foray that opens new spaces in our reading and appreciation of Vera, beyond the tragic themes of her fiction. Altogether, it is a fascinating cornucopia. The question of what constitutes Vera’s gardens receives keen scrutiny and opens up the vistas of Vera’s imagination. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">For Vera, the garden was both a discursive and material space. She did not confine herself just to the domesticity of the back garden or front garden but often drove to Khami or Matopos to be in nature, to meditate. Vera’s refusal of the formal garden, an inheritance from colonialism, led her to embrace the wide swaths of landscapes in Matabeleland, physically, spiritually, and imaginatively. Throughout her life, Vera found not only solace but literary inspiration in Matabeleland. There is no doubt Vera was a writer of place and space. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">As Madenga observes, Vera’s garden letters reveal an unruly side. Vera wrote “the letters with a different DNA than that of her novels, more abrupt, less precise, less Godly. The bareness of the joy makes reading feel like trespassing on private property.” Despite the carefully welded prose of her fiction, Vera’s garden writing defies the writer’s desire for a prescribed form and shape. The fact that many of Vera’s garden letters were originally published in newspapers and not lifestyle magazines also demonstrates her rejection of the classed dimensions of this genre. Vera constantly returns to the garden in both her fiction and nonfiction, because it is a site that has historically refused the boundaries between physical and textual space.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Historically, Bulawayo was imagined as a paradise built on the ruins of King Lobengula’s kingdom. Cecil John Rhodes and his friends marveled at the beauty of the Matabeleland landscape and imagined a city in the wilds. They pictured a highly developed town surrounded by parks, flowers, and charming scenery. Rhodes desired that Bulawayo “be surrounded by parklands so that its people would never have far to walk to reach open country.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The garden is an architectural fixture of the postcolonial Zimbabwean suburban home. It is not for everyone though. A well-tended garden signals wealth and extra space. It is an aesthetic expression of good living. This contrasts with the patch in township neighborhoods often called the vegetable garden, whose worth lies in utility rather than beauty. Vera’s homes, which form the basis of this book, are located in Famona and Hillside, Bulawayo suburbs that have larger yards and gardens.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Madenga’s curation leads us through these gardens; she offers us mystery and meaning, secrets and surprises, grief and glory. It is not meant to be a tidy book. Using collage, Madenga is able to bring disparate elements together, to make unexpected connections. We engage with Vera in a new way, not just as the writer of unspeakable taboos about generations of black African women. Vera, as we know from her fiction, invented enormously lovable but tragic female characters, all victims of or dealing with rape, infanticide, abortion, suicide, and murder. These characters emerge from this pastoral paradise that their author inhabits. </span></p>
<p><i><span style="font-weight: 400">The Garden Letters of Yvonne Vera</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> is a book to be savored; sketching out a writer’s history with place, its text is as lively and informative as its subject is absorbing. </span><span style="font-weight: 400">Madenga successfully explores the affinity between texts and gardens. She shows us that gardens are among the most evanescent of our arts, because life is ephemeral; we are in eternal transit. As the South African poet Athambile Masola writes, with gardening we learn “to love beauty with the possibility of loss.” </span><span style="font-weight: 400"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The archives of Vera’s garden writing opens us to a world we sometimes overlook because we’re easily distracted by politics. This small book also reminds us that the garden is largely absent from contemporary Zimbabwean poetry and fiction, perhaps because we’ve tended to consider the postcolonial garden a social privilege, born of class and money. In fact, the garden is a neglected setting in the wide-ranging corpus of African poetry and fiction as well, and the reason may have something to do with historical and sociopolitical factors. It boggles the mind, because the garden is no longer an exclusive preserve of successful whiteness. It has come to have multiple symbolic resonances, especially today, as we reckon with an impending climate disaster. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Ultimately, we never fully see any of Vera’s gardens, because as </span><span style="font-weight: 400">Jamaica Kincaid once said, “I shall never have the garden I have in mind, but that for me is the joy of it; certain things can never be realized and so all the more reason to attempt them. A garden, no matter how good it is, must never completely satisfy.”</span></p>
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Tinashe Mushakavanhu
https://africasacountry.com/2024/02/a-forgotten-relic/
A forgotten relic
2024-02-23T01:24:39Z
2024-02-23T00:00:32Z
<p>This weekend begins the third round of qualifiers for the Paris 2024 Olympics in women’s football,</p>
<h3>Just two weeks on from Les Elephants greatest ever triumph, the Ivorian women’s national team is at its lowest point.</h3>
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The Ebimpe municipal pitches where Athletico Abidjan trains. Credit Alasdair Howorth © 2024.
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400">This weekend begins the third round of qualifiers for the Paris 2024 Olympics in women’s football, but Côte d’Ivoire will not be one of the eight teams vying for a spot. The reason for that is they could not afford the costs of playing the last round of matches.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">On October 26, 2023, just 10 weeks out from hosting Africa’s biggest men’s tournament, the Ivorian Federation released a statement that the women’s team would not have the finances to play in qualifiers against Tunisia, citing a lack of funding from the Ivorian National Sports Office. It represents a dramatic fall from grace for the team that a decade ago came third at the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations and qualified for the World Cup. Despite going on to finish bottom of their group in Canada in 2015, they narrowly lost to Thailand 3-2 and scored a famous goal against heavyweights Norway in a 3-1 loss.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">But after that historic high, the national team has seen a drastic decline. In fact, since that World Cup appearance, the team has failed to qualify for any major competition. Since 2020, the team has only played eight matches. Six of those came in WAFCON qualifiers and the only friendlies that the team has played were against Morocco in 2022 and Algeria’s under-20 team in 2023, both matches funded entirely by their opponents. Despite spending over $1 billion on the Africa Cup of Nations, Côte d’Ivoire can’t fund one match for its women’s team.</span></p>
<figure id="attachment_147825" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-147825" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-147825" src="https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/02/22094921/IMAGE-1-1024x768.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="768" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-147825" class="wp-caption-text">The Ebimpe municipal pitches where Athletico Abidjan trains. Credit Alasdair Howorth © 2024.</figcaption></figure>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">“Here women’s football is really difficult. Our Federation doesn’t make any intervention financially,” says Lakoun Ouatarra, the president of Mousso Foot, an NGO that helps promote women’s football in Côte d’Ivoire. “It’s not enough to prepare the team [playing no friendlies]. Nigeria plays against Brazil, Cameroon plays against France but here, we don’t have friendly matches.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">It is a similar story at the club level. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Abdul Olatunji, a Nigerian former footballer-turned businessman started Athletico Football Club d’Abidjan in 2017. In the last two seasons, Athletico Abidjan were crowned champions of the Ivorian Féminine Ligue 1. In November the team took part in the third edition of the CAF Women’s Champions League hosted in Côte d’Ivoire as a warmup competition for the AFCON. Despite their success, the team received very little help from the state or federation.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">“Normally when you’re a champion you’re supposed to get trophy, medal, prizes,” he says. “It’s been two years and we’ve got nothing. Not even medals. Their focus is just on the men’s national team.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Like the national team, club football has taken a back seat in the build-up and during the AFCON. Not only was the league paused during the competition, but the team could not even train. That’s because their training pitch, which is just two kilometers from the Stade Alassane Ouatarra where </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Les Elephants</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400"> beat Nigeria in the final and became African champions, was co-opted during the tournament to be used as a fan zone. The team was forced to train on one-quarter of the sandy pitch that was not taken up by a stage or gazebos. With no access to locker rooms, the team had to use the fan tent to change before and after training.</span></p>
<figure id="attachment_147822" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-147822" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-147822" src="https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/02/22094558/IMAGE-TWO-768x1024.jpg" alt="" width="768" height="1024" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-147822" class="wp-caption-text">Coach Anne Marie was recruited for the club having had experience in Cameroon, South Africa Madagascar, and Mauritius. Credit Alasdair Howorth © 2024.</figcaption></figure>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Notwithstanding the challenges, the club and team have been remarkably successful. Having run a men’s club since 2005, Olatunji was told by a colleague that by 2024 FIFA would require all professional clubs to have both women’s and men’s teams. Realizing that he could get ahead of the curve, Olatunji formed the women’s team but it wasn’t an easy start.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">“We went 1.5 years without playing in a league because the league had been stopped,” he says from the club’s offices, which previously housed his construction company. “We spent almost 18 months with only training and in 2018 we played our first match in the second division.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">After winning promotion in their first season the team had to wait almost two years before they could play their first First Division match after the COVID-19 pandemic brought football to a halt. But since they started playing again, the team has gone from strength to strength, winning back-to-back titles before playing in the third edition of the Champions League where they came bottom of their group (behind JKT Queens </span><span style="font-weight: 400">of Tanzania, Morocco’s Sporting Casablanca, and South Africa’s Mamelodi Sundowns).</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">When the team joined the Champions League, they were able to turn fully professional, the first team in the country to do so. But such is the lack of money in the women’s game that running the team is not financially sustainable despite the squad being on modest salaries at best.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">“The business of the women’s team is like an NGO, you are sponsoring it without a return because the money we get from the federation is 10m CFA ($16,400) every year and we spend almost 40m CFA ($65,400) every year,” says Olatunji.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">With the league having no broadcast deal—home teams are allowed to broadcast league matches, but only a handful stream games on Facebook—sponsors are virtually impossible to come by. Because Althetico Abidjan is a professional club now, they can make money from player sales to European clubs. However, this is not a reliable income stream because, with such little access to playing footage and the Ivorian international players failing to play at international competitions, they are not able to catch the eyes of the scouts.</span></p>
<figure id="attachment_147823" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-147823" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-147823" src="https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/02/22094717/IMAGE-3-720x540.jpg" alt="" width="720" height="540" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-147823" class="wp-caption-text">Athletico Abidjan has purchased one team bus but it is only one of a few clubs that has access to transport and doesn’t rely on public transport to get to matches. Credit Alasdair Howorth © 2024.</figcaption></figure>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">While the Ivorian men’s team is full of superstars who earn millions playing abroad, the women’s game seems like a forgotten relic. But hope for the women’s game remains in Côte d’Ivoire. Thanks to CAF’s new regulations requiring men’s teams playing in CAF competitions to have a women’s team, Athletico Abidjan has been joined by ASEC Mimosas, Côte d’Ivoire’s most successful men’s club team (with eight alumni featuring in the AFCON winning side), in having a professional women’s team.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Interest in the women’s game exists in the country, as testified by the CAF Champions League which despite taking place in smaller cities, attracted modest crowds, particularly at Athletico Abidjan games. After releasing replica jerseys for the first time for the tournament, such was the demand that the club sold out in a couple of weeks. And it isn’t just Athletico Abidjan that attracts crowds, says Lakoun. “The teams are creating opportunities to create money. When a team like ASEC Mimosa plays, supporters will come and pay.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">So, regardless of the current lack of support from the top, there is still hope that rather than training in the shadow of Stade Alassane Ouattara, the women of Atheltico Abidjan will eventually play in the stadium itself.</span></p>
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Alasdair Howorth