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To Save a Child: An impure child, a mingi, in pictures? The Omo Valley in Ethiopia

Posted by: on: December 7, 2012

To Save a Child: An impure child? The Omo Valley in Ethiopia

Mingi is the ritualistic killing of infants and children who are mingi because they are considered impure or cursed.
A child can be mingi for many reasons, but once they are mingi they are left alone in the desert without food and water or drowned in a river.

The Omo River Valley is located in Southwest Ethiopia, Africa. It has been called “the last frontier” in Africa. 
There are 9 main tribes that occupy the Omo River Valley, with a population of approximately 225,000 tribal peoples. 
The majority of the people living in the Omo River Valley live without clean drinking water and without medical care.

Photographer Steve McCurry joined John Rowe in Ethiopia to photograph the work he is doing with Lale Labuko and his wife Gido in their work to end the practice of mingi (abandoned impure children) and to house
and shelter the mingi children who have already been rescued.

Steve McCurry had posted on October 2, 2012 “, , “.

I could just insert the link in anyone of my posts on Africa, or just simply copy/paste.

Since I love this post, I decided to work on it a little bit and make it mine…


I met John in Burma a few years ago. He is a photographer and
successful businessman who has founded companies which develop software
for digital media and the entertainment industry. 
He has also devoted a tremendous amount of time, energy, and
financial assistance to the work of Omo Child.

John Rowe and friends 

Lale was born into the Kara Tribe in the Omo River Valley.
He was one of the first of his tribe to receive a formal education.
That opportunity led him to realize the critical importance of ending the tribal ritual of Mingi.
Outlawing and stopping this devastating practice of Mingi is his life’s mission.

 

Lale Labuko, founder of OMO Child

 

Once safely in the care of the loving and nurturing care of nannies at the Omo Child shelter,
they are fed, clothed, sheltered and educated.

The hope is that the rescued children will be future leaders in their communities and
will help raise awareness to help advocate the ending of the tribal practice of mingi.

The Omo River Valley is located in Southwest Ethiopia, Africa. It has been called “the last frontier” in Africa. 


http://www.omochild.org

Lale and his wife Gido Labuko

Steve McCurry in the Omo Valley

Help John and Lale rescue and care for these children.
http://www.omochild.org

You can follow any responses to Steve McCurry entry through theRSS 2.0 feed You can LEAVE A RESPONSE, or TRACKBACK from your own site.

 

Follow Steve McCurry’s WordPress.com blog! If you’re not sure where to start, consider these four posts first to sample the stunning work he produces:
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Zionists in Africa? Training presidential guards in almost every African State?

Posted by: on: August 13, 2012

Zionists in Africa

On November 23, 2010, a retired “Israeli” colonel by the name of Avi Sivan died in a helicopter crash near Yaounde, the capital of the Central African nation of Cameroon.

Sivan was responsible for training the Cameroonian presidential guards and was also the head of the Jewish supremacist military delegation to Cameroon . The question was: “if the Zionist entity’s tentacles in Africa had penetrated a nation as geopolitically obscure as Cameroon, where else was it reaching?”

On the books, the Israel has intelligence contacts in Eritrea, Kenya, Malawi, Zaire, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Egypt and Morocco.

Off the books, the list is even more extensive. A brief but precise overview is necessary.

First, it must be understood that even America’s policies towards Africa, the geopolitical network of stratagems for the continent, are shaped by the Zionist regime in Israel and its plethora of think tanks.

Secondly, the plan of senior “Israeli” foreign policy advisor Oded Yinon, “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s,” a plot discussed on numerous occasions at Mask of Zion, which features the fragmentation and dissolution of Sudan and Libya as prominent points, has been exported by the Zionist regime across the African continent.

Yinon program is being assisted by the Ugandan dictatorship of Museveni, and the corrupt regime in Kenya and Ethiopia, the longtime marionette State of Zionism

The objectives of “Yinon Africa” are to Balkanize African along three lines: ethno-linguistics, skin color and religion.

The concept of an US Military Central Command in Africa (AFRICOM), was designed and promoted by the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS), the same Zionist think tank that produced the infamous “Clean Break” papers.

The late apartheid regime of South Africa is perhaps where the Jewish supremacist entity’s ties were the strongest. In South Africa, Jews benefited and thrived under the racist regime’s protection, maintaining and strengthening their ties with the Zionist entity. The Board of Deputies of South African Jewry, a major Zionist Lobby front on the African continent, declared “neutrality” in regards to apartheid so Jewish interests weren’t compromised.

The “Israeli” security establishment saw the relationship with South Africa so vital that it actually believed the ties saved the Jewish “state” from extinction. Israel provided a plethora of arms to the apartheid regime, and it “created the South African arms industry.”

Zionist occupation officers also assisted Pretoria with its atrocious operations in Angola.  From the illegal Jews-only colony of Kibbutz Beit Alfa, “Israel” developed a profitable industry selling anti-riot vehicles to the apartheid regime.

Israel extended to South Africa with nuclear technology and expertise, helping it build its own miniature nuclear arsenal (of about 45 bombs).

Israel was active with South African forces in Angola operations. Angolan warlord Jonas Savimbi, the darling puppet of America’s Jewish Lobby, the neoconservative establishment and “Israel,” was assassinated by Zionist special forces when he no longer served a purpose.

Nowhere has the usurping and criminal Zionist entity been more successful in executing destruction than Sudan, a prime target of the Yinon Plan in its past and current incarnations.

Oil-rich Sudan has been cracked in half, its unity split and destroyed. The Zionist military-intelligence apparatuses designed this balkanization, instigated it, funded the players, and from Uganda and Ethiopia dispatched troops and agents. Israel still maintains agents and assets to uphold the new fragmented Sudanese status quo.

“Israel” has already entered the new, fabricated nation-state of ‘South Sudan.’ The deceptive and dangerous IsraAID, backed by Zionist Lobby organizations like the American Jewish Committee and United Jewish Appeal, is on the ground. The newly-created Zionist puppet state has opened its doors to “Israeli” companies to do business in the fields of agriculture, infrastructure, security and medicine, business worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

South Sudan views this gesture as gratitude for the Zionist dragon’s committed military and intelligence support to its ‘rebellion.’

To make the relationship between South Sudan and Zionism globally legitimate, full diplomatic relations have been established between the two entities, so Tel Aviv can officially take control of South Sudan’s oil-rich economy.

“Israel” has been exceedingly active in Ethiopia for decades, but 1990 is where relations hit new peaks. The Zionist regime fueled the Ethiopian Civil War as a testing ground for what it could do with its real enemies, Iraq, Syria and Iran.

“Israel” supplied the regime of war criminal and collaborator Mengistu Haile Mariam (Ethiopia) with cluster bombs, several hundred IOF military trainers to guide the Ethiopian Army, 150,000 bolt-action rifles and an unknown number of its patented “Uzi” machine gun. The assistance has continued under the rule of Ethiopian Prime Minister and horrific human rights abuser Meles Zenawi Asres, in power since the fall of Mariam, with the most recent development being the purchase of murderous drones from the “Israeli” firm, Bluebird.

Kenya has been dear to the heart of the Jewish “State” since its assistance to Mossad and Aman during Operation Entebbe. In late November, the Kenyan regime signed a security pact that would have “Israeli” security consultants sent to the East African nation to govern its assault against the Islamic Resistance of occupied Somalia, Al-Shabab.

The Somali Resistance assailed the Kenyan regime for the traitorous move, slamming the deal as an attack on Islam. The Zionist entity has provided Kenya with weapons in the past and this pact will significantly expand the existent ties, which is promising for “Israeli” arms firms; as usual, the innocent civilians already being butchered in the Zionist proxy war are of no concern to the Jewish “state”,considering that the civilians are of African origin and therefore “cursed” in Zionist eyes.

The “Israel”-Kenya dirty deal is already “bearing fruit,” as Kenya has allowed Israel to house 5 drones in a Kenyan military base on the border with Somalia in exchange for a stash of heavy weaponry and 13 “Israeli” military advisors making their home in Kenya.

The Zionist drones have illegally taken to the skies in Somalia and launched hellish missile attacks, with the latest one murdering at least 17 innocent people and wounding more than 60 others.

A 53-year old IAF engineer named Hanoch Miller, who founded a defense firm called Radom Aviation, which has worked with “Israeli” Aerospace Industries, has been caught attempting to smuggle weapons to the pathetic puppet regime in Somalia, which is fully complicit in the crimes against the Somali people carried out by the US-backed UN-AU occupation.

Though Miller appears to be acting independently, this is highly suspect due to his elite status in the IAF and the fact that the Zionist entity wants to establish relations with the regime (54). Only because of the steadfast Resistance of Al-Shabab has Somalia not been colonized, but it is indeed in the sights of the Merhav Group of “Israel,” a powerful Mossad-run consortium headed by elite Mossad agent Yosef A. Maiman that has already taken over the energy interests of occupied Afghanistan.

Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi is dead. In an operation led by NATO and its rebels, Gaddafi was sodomized and tortured before he was murdered.

The invasion, which took place on the Jewish revenge holiday of Purim, like Iraq before it, was designed by the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), the renamed Jewish-Zionist “Cabal” once known as the Project for a New American Century, and the lies of “human rights violations” and “impending genocide” used by the Zionist media to sell the invasion to the world were generated by UN Watch, a Zionist affiliate of AIPAC’s foreign policy wing, the American Jewish Committee, and headed by “Israeli” citizen Hillel Neuer.

Gaddafi was planning to introduce a gold dinar into the African economy for oil trade, a move that would have devastated Jewish-Zionist financial domination of the continent. The NATO rebels are not only willing to recognize the usurping Zionist regime, they are prepared to let it establish a base in eastern Cyrenaica on a 30-year lease. Gaddafi is spinning in his grave.

Another African revolutionary life that “Israel” ended was that of Mehdi Ben Barka, routinely described as the “Moroccan Che Guevara” and, “the Frantz Fanon of Morocco.” The Zionist entity’s Mossad kidnaped the great revolutionary theoretician and murdered him in cold blood.

Nigeria as of late has been rocked by an unrelenting campaign of violent car bombings, including a horrific attack on Christmas Day, which the Zionist media blames on an Islamic group known throughout the capital of Abuja and other cities for its social services, Boko Haram.

Nigerian Muslims view the attacks as a means of instigating a religious war to divide the country on ethno-sectarian lines, as per one of the directives of “Yinon Africa,” and Nigerian Muslims also reject the idea that Boko Haram is behind the sophisticated attacks, saying it is far beyond their scope and antithetical to their agenda. They say that Boko Haram has become a “boogeyman” used by the Goodluck Jonathan regime to obtain Western grants.

It is not by luck of any sort that the bombings in Nigeria began right around the same time that the Jonathan regime brought in a team of Mossad and CIA operatives, overseen by “Israeli” Ambassador to Nigeria Moshe Ram, to probe (read: run) its security services. The Zionist entity is attempting to break up Nigeria using the same successful methods it used in Sudan and it couldn’t be any clearer.

“Israeli” activity has even been found as far as the tiny island state of Madagascar, where an “illegal commando unit” of Zionist mercenaries led by 60-year old Joseph Akiva from the illegal Jewish settlement of Netanya were involved in a savage crackdown that left dozens of protesters dead.

Akiva and his band of goons were suppressing rivals of former Madagascar President Marc Ravalomanana. Despite business interests on the Indian Ocean island involving construction, Akiva has been extradited back to occupied Palestine for his murderous criminal activity.

One of the most unknown examples of Zionist puppetry in Africa was “Emperor” of the Central African Republic, Jean-Bédel Bokassa. The closest friend of the megalomaniacal Bokassa was one of the usurping Jewish entity’s “famous generals,” General Shmuel Gonen-Gorodish. The “Israeli” general, in addition to his military and security advice, built up the public relations of Bokassa throughout the globe. Gonen-Gorodish also embezzled large amounts of taxes and customs from the state treasury.

Though their relationship didn’t last long, when a military coup ousted Bokassa from power, Gonen-Gorodish helped him flee to the Ivory Coast, where, ironically enough, the luxury hotels, palaces of the rulers and monopolistic companies were all built with the close assistance of the private firms and racist Histadrut of the Zionist entity.

The coastal West African nation of Sierra Leone has been pillaged by some of the most vile elements of International Jewry. From the Brooklyn neighborhood of Brighton Beach, the small, troubled and diamond-rich Sierra Leone was “virtually run” by Marat Balagula, the Ukranian-Jewish mob boss of the most powerful criminal organization on earth, the Red Mafiya.

Sierra Leone’s president, Joseph Momoh, didn’t have any problem with the Jewish syndicate setting up global smuggling and money laundering operations in Freetown because Balagula’s associates, in return, bankrolled Momoh’s 1985 presidential campaign. The Jewish ultra-gangster’s main contact in Sierra Leone was a Mossad agent named Shabtai Kalmanovitch, who trained Momoh’s presidential guard and assisted in the crushing of an attempted coup in 1986.

Balagula and Kalmanovitch were introduced by Rabbi Ronald Greenwald, a frontman for the interests of Marc Rich, the famous billionaire Jewish criminal pardoned by Bill Clinton. This revelation shows a clear nexus between the “Israeli” entity and organized crime, united in the ancient Jewish hatred of the Black man, working together for the furtherance of Jewish interests.

In the Congo, where a catastrophic genocide has been occurring since 1996, in which up to 10 million people have died at a maddening rate of 1,500 a day, the profiteers of this downright insidious humanitarian disaster are almost exclusively Jewish and intimately linked to the larger network of international Zionism that has been responsible for every major conflict of the last century.

Led by Dan Gertler, the grandson of Moshe Schnitzer, an Irgun terrorist known throughout the Zionist entity as “Mr. Diamond” and for founding the “Israel” Diamond Exchange in Tel Aviv in 1960, which today brings the usurping regime $14 billion annually in blood business, there is a Jewish-Zionist network in the Congo so interlocked, so powerful and so domineering, that it can truly make one’s head spin.

Gertler, a member of the influential Chabad Lubavitch supremacist gangster cult and guided by Rabbi Chaim Yaakov Leibovitch, is in bed with Jewish diamond dynasties that include the families of Templesman, Oppenheimer, Mendell, Blattner, Hertzov and Steinmetz, his main partner.

The Chabadnik criminal bought off the Congolese government in exchange for high-level “Israeli” defense and intelligence assistance. The endeavors of Gertler and Beny Steinmetz, one of the richest Jews in the Zionist entity, have proliferated and today, they have a monopoly over Congo’s diamonds, a dominant stake in Congo’s copper and the largest cobalt-mining company in the world.

All of this blood money ties into Jewish organized crime, “Israeli” arms dealers, multiple influential Chabad houses and the Zionist occupation itself all the way up to Netanyahu’s office. Gertler, a Jewish supremacist of the highest order, revels in sucking the Congo’s blood and he’s so sadistically thirsty for it, he just won’t stop his criminality until there is nothing left but millions more dead.

If the late Mehdi Ben Barka was the “Moroccan Che Guevara,”  Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara, the Pan-Africanist leader of Burkina Faso from 1983-1987, was certainly the “Che Guevara of Africa.” Sankara was known for his incorruptibility and radical (and successful) policies that included land reform, women’s rights, literacy promotion, education, famine prevention, resource nationalization, anti-neoliberalism, anti-Zionism, anti-imperialism, public health care, social justice and legal punishment for all previous oppressors, colonialist and collaborator alike.

Thomas Sankara (see link in note 1) was nothing short of remarkable. His extraordinary and pristine life came to an end on October 15th, 1987, when he was overthrown and executed in a coup d’état by incumbent Burkinabé president, Blaise Compaoré. It has been known, for quite some time, rather indisputably in all actuality, that French intelligence and the CIA aided the coup, but there is yet another player that isn’t discussed.

Not only has the usurping Zionist entity’s Foreign Affairs Ministry described Burkina Faso as “one of ‘Israel’s’ most loyal friends in Africa,” but Blaise Compaoré is an honorary member of The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, a known front for the usurping Jewish regime’s Mossad in which Yosef A. Maiman, the aforesaid Mossad agent who runs the Merhav Group of “Israel” consortium that is currently targeting Somalia, sits on the Board of Directors.

The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation was founded by Argentine Jewish supremacist Baruch Tenembaum, a devoted Talmudist, Kabbalist and Zionist who made it his life’s work to undermine Christianity (69).

The fact that Compaoré belongs to such an organization is damning; he is a Mossad asset and has been one from the moment that he sold his soul and Burkina Faso to the enemies of Thomas Sankara. Moreover, in a startling admission from former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas, it is now known that French intelligence is compromised and has been so for some time; the Zionist entity controls it. This is yet another damning piece of evidence that Thomas Sankara was indeed a martyr made so by Zionism.

The widow of Sankara, Mariam, declared with her head held high, “What remains above all of my husband is his integrity.”  And just one week before Mossad asset Compaoré led the coup against him which would result in his untimely death at the tender age of 36, Thomas would famously state, “While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas .” Indeed again.

The ideas of Thomas Sankara have not died; they are more alive now than ever before, in the hearts of the Islamic Resistance of Somalia and the Libyan Green Resistance fighting Zionist-designed occupations of their ravaged homelands, and in the streets of Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco, fighting counter-revolution and repressive, pro-“Israel” dictatorships.

What the people of Africa, Black and Arab, Christian and Muslim, and everything in between, must know, is that the Zionist entity, inspired by a primordial Jewish supremacist ideology, has no interest in your land except to exploit it, and exploit you. Zionism is a cancer that infests, infects and destroys everything in its path. But like any other cancer, it can be counteracted and cut out, so it never returns.

O’ Africa! Cut out the Zionist cancer from your midst. Cut it out like a knife to flesh and vow never to mix with it again. It is what Sankara would have wanted. It is what Gaddafi would have wanted. It is what Mehdi Ben Barka would have wanted. It is the right thing to do; the just thing, for all of the martyrs of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

For Rwanda. For the Congo. For Burkina Faso. For Somalia. For Zimbabwe. For Uganda. For anyone and everyone who has suffered at the hands of the usurping Jewish entity; to all oppressed people from Africa to what lies beyond its beautiful and ancient borders, heed the call: cut out the Zionist infestation before it is too late.

Cut this cancer out before you wake up one morning to the cruel jackboot of Jewish cultural imperialism stepping on your soul, with no Fela Anikulapo Kuti to remind you of the “Zombie” that now personifies your very existence.

Note 1: Zionist lobbies in the USA and Europe have been relentless in putting the heat on successful Lebanese business men in Africa for two decades now. The latest strategy is taking this smokescreen of combatting Iran nuclear program and Hezbollah in order to pressure Lebanese banks from facilitating the transfer of money of Lebanese expatriates into Lebanon. How? Disseminating the falsehood that all the money coming in is the result of whitewashing operations…

Note 2: This post was of Nalliah Thayahbaran in reply to my post https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2012/06/29/mania-of-rebranding-africa-disaster-vogue-of-italy/

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Pan-Africanism: A reaction to colonialism program in Africa…Part 3

Posted by: on: July 15, 2012

Part 3. Pan-Africanism: A reaction to colonialism program in Africa…

You may first read the previous Part 2 https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2012/07/14/part-2-connecting-a-few-dots-colonialism-and-blood-money-in-africa/

It was against the background of genocide in the name of “European civilisation” that Africans in the Diaspora who had been shipped from Africa and enslaved in the West Indies and in the Americas realised that the solution to Africa’s people both at home and abroad was Pan-Africanism.

Pan-Africanism is a political philosophy that was conceived in the womb of Africa and formally organized in 1900 by Sylvester Henry Williams.

Pan-Africanism is relevant to Africa’s people as a solution to their problems.

1. Its effectiveness and prowess were demonstrated at the 5th Pan-African Congress in Manchester in 1945. It is Pan Africanism that won present political freedom for Africa and reversed the African tragedy and humiliation that was orchestrated at the Berlin Conference.

2. It is Pan Africanism that brought about the Organisation of African Unity, the African Union, the Pan-African Parliament and Africa Liberation Day that Africa’s people throughout the world are commemorating each year.

3. It is Pan Africa’s spirit that led to assisting African Liberation Movements of Southern Africa against colonialism.

4. Pan Africanist pioneers, including a few in the Diaspora such as Henry Sylvester Williams, Marcus Garvey, W.E. B. Du Bois, George Padmore, C.L.R. James, Frantz Fanon, Yosef Makonen, Malcom X, John Hendrik Clarke, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Binito Sylvania and Martin Delany, worked so hard to bring Africans to where they are today.

In fact, Marcus Garvey was the first to organise Africans globally on the principles of Black Consciousness and Pan Africanism.

The pioneers of liberation in Africa such as Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Julius Nyerere, Ahmed Ben Bella, Abdel Nasser, Modibo Keita, Ahmed Sekou Toure fought, the first stage of African liberation with distinction. That is political freedom.

The pioneers are now reminding this generation that there is much to be done.

True sons and daughters of Africa must tighten their belts for a more fierce war.

That is a war against neo-colonialism – the last stage of imperialism. The battle cry is now for economic liberation of Africa and her technological advancement.

A glaring example of the riches of Africa is the Democratic Republic of Congo, the country of Patrice Lumumba. Economic experts have pronounced that, when developed, Congo alone can feed and provide electricity for the whole of Africa. During the Second World War, the Nazi forces of Hitler over-ran Belgium.

The Belgians established their government-in-exile in London. How did Belgium manage financially? Well, Congo was their colony. Let this come from the horse’s mouth. Godding was the Colonial Secretary of the Belgian government-in- exile.

Godding boasted:
“During the War, the Congo was able to finance expenditure of the Belgian Government-in-exile in London, including the diplomatic service as well as the cost of armed forces in Europe and America. The Belgian gold reserve could be left intact.”

To this minute, Africa’s riches are fuelling the economies of imperialist countries. Africans remain the poorest people in the world amidst their own riches in their own African Continent.

As the late President Kwame Nkrumah put it:

“If Africa’s resources were used in her own development they would place Africa among the most modernised continents of the world. But Africa’s wealth is used for the development of overseas interests.”

Mangaliso Robert Sobukwe, the Pan-Africanist giant that was banned “this side of eternity”, as John B. Vorster put it.

Sobukwe had declared:

“The potential wealth of Africa in minerals, oil, hydro-electric power, and so on, is immense.” Sobukwe envisioned that by the end of the 20th century, “the standard of living of the African masses will undoubtedly have arisen dramatically.” Lo! This has not happened.

Perhaps, venerated Martyr Steve Biko was being prophetic of the African condition, when he said:

“At the end of it all, the Blacks have nothing to lean on, nothing to cheer them up at the present moment, and very much to be afraid of the future.”

Whenever an African country is about to be liberated, imperialists have always divided liberation movements into radicals, extremists and militants and so-called moderates.

Colonialists have often called these so-called moderates to the “negotiating table” and offered them the flag and parliament – things Africans never made the fundamental objective of their liberation struggle.

From day one of the arrival of colonial invaders in Africa, the primary objective of Africans’ struggle was repossession of their land and its riches taken from Africans at gunpoint. Anyone one who doubts this historic fact must consult Kings Sekhukhene, Makado, Hintsa, Cetshwayo, Moshoeshoe, Makana and Bambatha, even Mzilikazi for that matter.

Land is what African people have died for, for over three hundred years of their existence, in their case in Azania.

A Kenyan political activist and former presidential candidate, Koigi Mamwere, captured this truism accurately in April 2000 when he proclaimed:

“Today, Europeans own almost all the land in the Americas, almost all the good land in Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania and most of the best land in African countries like South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Kenya. To acquire this land outside Europe, Europeans did not use law, justice or money. They took the land and its riches with the gun….Europeans continue to own millions and millions of hectares of the best land in Africa….Whatever Robert Mugabe’s past mistakes, we must agree that on this one question of finally redistributing land to African people, he is 100% right…”

“Regime change” is the new name coined by imperialists to continue with colonialism in a new form.

The political situation in “post independent” Africa demonstrates that any true leaders, who the imperialists perceive as a threat to their economic interests, are targeted through aggressive campaigns such as “regime change.” Some of these leaders were Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Chief Moshodi Abiola and recently Moammar Gaddafi.

So far, imperialists have found President Robert Mugabe a hard nut to crack. Two British Prime Ministers, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and President George Bush of America have become despicable casualties in the battle field of “regime change” in Zimbabwe against President Robert Mugabe.

The imperialist European leaders have gone down the political drain, on the shores of Africa. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France who enthusiastically created a “New Libya” in the imperialist war for “regime change” ia already the political dustbin of history.

Mugabe is still standing. He is still in command. Africa needs more African leaders like President Mugabe. Otherwise, Africa’s authentic liberation will never arrive.

Under America’s Bill Clinton’s government, Chief Moshodi Abiola, a democratically elected Presidential candidate was prevented from taking power in Nigeria. Abiola was a staunch defender of Africa’s economic liberation. In 1993, he convened the First Pan-African Conference on Reparations.

Moshodi Abiola said:

“Our demand for reparations is based on the tripod of moral, historical and legal argument….Who knows what path Africa’s social development would have taken if great centres of African civilisation had not been destroyed in search of human cargo by Europeans? Who knows how our economics would have developed? It is international law which compels Nigeria to pay its debts to Western banks. It is international law that must now demand Western nations to pay us what they have owed us for nearly six centuries.”

There are two main things that Africans must do to advance Africa’s authentic liberation.

1. African rulers must exercise sovereignty over African lands and riches and use them for the benefit of their people. This is true national independence from colonialism and imperialism. Secondly, education is the key to the development of Africa, wise control of her raw materials and use of her human resources.

2. Quality education is the key to creating, owning and controlling Africa’s wealth and mentally decolonising her people’s captured minds.

Africa needs a diverse education that is tailored to the economic needs of her people. That education must be free for the poor. No African child must be without education, merely because of his or her condition of poverty. And these African children must be taught the true history of Africa, not the colonial history of Africa’s invaders that is full of perfidy to protect their colonial interests.

All African countries must prioritize the study of science, technology, economics and finance and of course International Law. Africa’s children must be equipped with skills and professions that arm their countries with technological capacity to process Africa’s raw materials and export them to the outside world as finished goods.

An African nation that exports its raw materials unprocessed will remain a perpetual pauper.

Where there is urgent need or desperate lack of high technology to process raw materials rapidly, African countries must exchange Africa’s raw materials for high technology; not for cash or foreign goods. Countries that enrich themselves from Africa’s raw materials are secretive and refuse to transfer technology to Africa. Knowledge is power.

Africans both on the continent and in the Diaspora must have the agenda for economic liberation of Africa and technological advancement.

Pan-Africanism is more relevant to the African world today than when it was formalised over one hundred and twenty years ago.

Africans may be Jamaicans, Tanzanians, Trinidadians, Kenyans, Zimbabweans, Angolans, Nigerians, Ghanaians, Basotho, Zambians, Namibians, South Africans, Azanians, African-Americans, Afro- Brazilians etc. But the train that will take all Africans to their destination and give them power to take their destiny into their hands is the Pan-African train.

It is not ethnicity, regionalism, sectarian politics or flirtation with the forces of neo-colonialism and imperialism. Forces that are determined to make Africans their perpetual slaves work together against Africans.

A divided Africa cannot defeat these plunderers and thieves.

Africans need to ignite their Pan-African Nationalism.

Pan-African Nationalism is the privilege of all Africans wherever they may be to love themselves and to give their way of life preference. Pan-African Nationalism views the personhood and humanity of the African people and of the people of African descent as equal to any other human beings on this planet.

Pan-African Nationalism rejects with contempt any philosophy that holds that Africa’s people are destined to exist in servitude to other human beings. Pan-African Nationalism does not look down on other members of the human race.

But it demands justice for African people. Africa’s riches belong to Africans. They are there for the benefit of the African people. They are not there to fuel foreign economies and perpetuate economic exploitation and poverty of African people.

The ultimate goal of African political struggle was to regain African lands and economic power, and rapidly advance Africa’s people technologically.

The question is not whether economic liberation for Africa is winnable. The critical question is whether African can afford not to win such a life and death struggle and therefore, continue to be the wretched of the earth in their own country and continent.

The economic freedom of Africa is winnable. But it starts with the recognition that the greatest damage colonialism did was on African minds. Africans must decolonise their minds.

Only mentally liberated Black people with a vision for their country and continent can win Africa’s authentic liberation for themselves and their children.

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Africa, Blood Money, new colonialism… Part 1

Posted by: on: July 14, 2012

Part 1. Africa. Connecting the dots: Colonialism, Zionism and Blood Money

Part one is a general review of the history of Africa and its written languages (with slight editing and rearrangement):

“Africa is almost four times the size of the United States of America in land size and in all kinds of riches, especially in raw materials such as platinum, cobalt, uranium, tantalum, gold, diamonds, oil…

There is hardly an agricultural product that cannot be grown in Africa. Africa’s arable land for food security is reported to be the largest in the world. But Africa’s riches including her human resources have been brutally looted by imperialist countries for centuries and still are, even under supposedly liberated Africa.

To this minute, Africa’s natural wealth are fuelling the economies of imperialist countries. Africans remain the poorest people in the world amidst their own riches in their own African Continent

Africa was destroyed by imperialist Europe and is still being destroyed by Europe. The effects of colonialism past and present are visible all over Africa.

Africa is maybe the Mother of Humanity. Ancestors of Africa built the pyramids which even in this 21st century no one can reproduce.

Africans built the city of Memphis in ancient Egypt in 3100 B.C. Greeks built Athens in 1200 B.C. The Romans built Rome in 1000 B.C. Up to the 14th century A.D. Africa was ahead of Europe or on par with Europe militarily.

The Romans used spears and Africans used spears in war.

Earlier educated Greeks received their education in Africa, to be precise in Mizraim (ancient Egypt). Africans invented writing. It was Hieroglyphics before 3000 B.C. and Hieratic alphabet shortly after this. Demotic writing was developed about 6OO B.C., while a Kushite script was used in 300 B.C.

Other African scripts were Merotic, Coptic, Amharic, Sabean, G’eez, Nsibidi of Nigeria and Mende of Mali. There were many others such as the Twi alphabet of the Twi people of Ghana.

Africa remains the privileged source of the manifestations of intense human creativity.

The “Atlantic” Ocean was called the Ethiopian Sea as late as 1626, and the “Indian” Ocean the Azanian Sea.

The Azanian civilisation, has a long history. The people of Azania (colonialists called it “South Africa”) mined gold and copper in Mapungubwe as early as the 9th century. Azania like Kush, Mizraim, Egypt, Kemet, Ethiopia means Blackman’s country or continent.

In 1930, excavations at Mapungubwe in the area of Limpopo River revealed skeletal remains of people who became known as ancient Azanians. These Africans were also referred to as Kushites or descendants of Kush.

In 1990, Dr. Gert Viljoen who was F.W. de Klerk’s Minister of Constitutional Affairs gave reasons why his apartheid colonialist regime would not negotiate with those African revolutionaries who subscribed to the Azanian school of thought.

Africa has suffered the worst genocide and holocaust at the hands of the architects of slavery and colonialism. What is called “European Renaissance” was the worst darkness for Africa’s people.

Armed with the technology of the gun and the compass that it copied from China, Europe became a menace for Africa against her spears. So-called “civilised” Europe also claiming to be “Christian” came up with the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

There was massive loss of African population and skills. Some historians have estimated that the Gold Coast (today’s Ghana) alone, lost over 2 million of its people to slavery for four hundred years.

What would have been Britain’s level of development had millions of her people been put to work as slaves out of their country over a period of four centuries?

As if slavery had not already done enough damage to Africa’s people, European leaders met in Germany from December 1884 to February 1885 at the imperialist Berlin Conference.

The Belgian King Leopold stated the purpose of the Berlin Conference as “How we should divide among ourselves this magnificent African cake.”

Africa was thus plunged into another human tragedy.

Through the Berlin Treaty of February 26, 1885, the European imperialists sliced Africa into “Portuguese Africa”, “British Africa”, “German Africa”, “Italian Africa,” “Spanish Africa”, “French Africa” and “Belgian Africa.”

There was no Africa left for Africans except Ethiopia (until Mussolini of Italy conquered it), encircled by paupers of land dispossessed people who were now the reservoir of cheap native labor for their dispossessors.

Part 2 will describe the colonial devastation of the African people…

Note: The first part, out of four, was sent in reply to my post https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2012/06/29/mania-of-rebranding-africa-disaster-vogue-of-italy/ by Nalliah Thayahbaran under “Colonialism, Zionism and Africa”

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Mania of “Rebranding Africa” disaster: Vogue of Italy

Posted by: on: June 29, 2012

Mania of “Rebranding Africa” disaster: Vogue of Italy

Every now and then, someone is trying to rebrand Africa, and it isn’t going so well. Vogue Italia’s latest issue — boosted by great billowing gusts of editorial hot air from both the New York Times and the Guardian — is called “Rebranding Africa.
 
  posted on June 6, under “Vogue Italia’s Rebranding Africa disaster”

“First.   Suppose you’re re-branding the continent of Africa:  who do you pick as your cover star?  What self-inflating fashion magazine wouldn’t lead their Africa edition with a picture of a South Korean diplomat sitting behind a desk in Manhattan?

The new face of Africa is none other than UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. There are so many ways to read this choice. An obvious take is that Vogue Italia, despite their claims of “rebranding” Africa must have decided Africans can’t govern themselves and need UN intervention.

The interview with Ban is very curious reading indeed. Apparently, the man is just world-class at regurgitating very precise development statistics. It reads like an annual report of a large multinational NGO.

Either that, or what we’re reading is a mashed up press release or a stilted email exchange dressed up as a conversation that actually took place (the latter is most likely the case).

Ban Ki-Moon drones endlessly on about the Millennium Development Goals, which is exactly what you’d expect him to do, but is also precisely the opposite of the kind of thing which invites the readers of Vogue Italia to think of Africa in a new way.

With Ban Ki-Moon as its new face, Africa is (a) boring and uncool, and (b) a stubborn problem to be managed by foreign technocrats. No change there.

So why is he on the cover? We have absolutely no idea. The man dresses like any other boring technocrat. The Guardian said the Vogue Italia coverage showed that the effort to rebrand the continent “wasn’t just a token effort” and that it made us (in the West, naturally) sit up and take notice. How?

To us, all that this shows is that the addled people at Vogue Italia are incredibly unimaginative, and quite weird when it comes to its coverage of the unfamiliar — that is, the dark continent/country of Africa.

One guy they could have picked instead for the cover is Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, whose moribund interview with chief editor Franca Sozzani really ought to be somehow preserved in formaldehyde and wheeled out at journalism school graduations as a chilling example of just how bad journalism can get. Much of the copy is taken up with Sozzani’s worrying whether they can photograph Goodluck the Vogue way.

The “interview” is really long passages of Sozzani generously offering her explanation to Jonathan of exactly what is wrong with Nigeria:

All the richest Nigerians spend their money abroad because there a no shops here, no hotels with a chic African flair, no hip restaurants or clubs.

Why not build an African Rodeo Drive in Lagos or Abuja, with boutiques carrying both imported and Nigerian goods?

Finally, there’s a single lonely quote from Jonathan in there, in which he agrees with the long speech Sozzani has made. It’s not often we feel sorry for Goodluck Jonathan, but seriously, poor chap.

It’s also not sure when they did the interview. There’s no word of Occupy Nigeria, which showed Jonathan up to be insensitive and dithering.

You also get the sense that the next time Vogue Italia “do” Africa, Nigeria’s notoriously corrupt and terrifyingly incompetent oil minister will probably be the new cover star, as Sozzani drools mindlessly over one of Nigeria’s most detested politicians:

We are joined by the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, a gorgeous and elegant woman – who also happens to be a princess – dressed in traditional robes, with a Master’s from Cambridge and the distinction of being the first woman to run Nigeria’s most important ministry.

Actually they did already. In the same issue.

Sozzani’s representation of Nigeria’s complex social and political situation is as astute as you’d expect it to be, and thanks to the internet, she gets called out big-style by a Nigerian called “Rachel”, whose comment on the website is by far the best piece of writing in the entire magazine, print or online:

This is possibly this worst piece of journalism on Nigeria I have EVER read. I cannot tell you how angry people are reading this. It is a shallow piece of vanity which glosses over the complexities of the tensions in Nigeria.

When you say ‘Muslim’s ultimatum to the Christians’ – do you mean that all the Muslims who make up half of the 158 million people living in Nigeria have a vendetta against Christians? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT????

It was Boko Haram’s ultimatum – you can’t just say ‘Muslims’ throwing in millions of people into a sentence who have felt just as much violence and suffering as Christians in Nigeria. It isn’t just Christians who have died during the violence but many Muslims.

Sweeping statements like this fuel tensions between Christians and Muslims but of course that is perfect for the American audience who probably believe every Muslim is part of Al Q’aeda.

Your dramatic entrance to Nigeria was completely unnecessary. There are thousands of expats who have lived here for years in complete safety. It is reports like this that do nothing for the country. Do not flatter yourself to believe that you would be of ANY value to a terrorist.

You would probably annoy the hell out of them. WHY did the editors think it would be important for readers to hear what you think what should be done in Nigeria?

You were talking to the President of the country who is dealing with increasing rates of poverty and a decline in security and you are telling him to build an African Rodeo Drive? Oh yes, please build it so the 5% of the super wealthy population that can actually afford to buy from these sort of shops will no longer travel.

The rest of the population can look on with their begging bowls in envy.

And the Petroleum Minister is probably one of the most corrupt people in Nigeria who has only added to the poverty, and therefore the security problems in the country.

Don’t you know ANYTHING about the fuel subsidy scandal here? Do you know how many people are calling for her resignation? I feel so disappointed. I dread to think what the issue is like.

I agree with you on one thing, it is important that people see beyond the famine and death in Africa and see the potential it has to grow but the potential has to be found in communities who are doing what they can to get out of poverty whether it be telecommunications to do banking, solar energy to power their small businesses or community initiatives to support women. What use is a Banana fricking Republic?”

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Africa Land-Rush for multinational Agribusinesses

Posted by: on: June 9, 2012

Africa Land-Rush for multinational Agribusinesses

If you have lands with no water,

If you have water and no fertile land,

If you have accumulated enough in your Sovereign Fund…

The way to go for States is to invest in foreign fertile lands for agricultural “self-sufficiency”, which means import food at much lower prices. 

Japan, South Korea, China, India, and Saudi Arabia are leading these kinds of joint ventures. For example:

South Korea has acquired a total of 3 millions hectares (three times the superficies of the State of Lebanon); it is growing fields in Russia (500,000 ha), Sudan (700,000 ha), Madagascar (1.3 million ha), Mongolia (300,000 ha), Philippines (100,000 ha), and Indonesia (25, 000 ha).  The Korean agency for international cooperation (State owned) is creating private and public enterprises to invest into agribusinesses by loans or direct governmental investments. Leases of fertile lands are for 60 years and an extension of another 40 years. In return, Korea will extend technologies and development planning.  It appears that South Korea is projecting unification with North Korea and the flooding of North Korean refugees soon.

China has invested for a total of 2 millions hectares.  It has 1.25 millions in South East Asia (Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Laos), in Mozambique (800,000 ha), in Russia (80,000 ha), in Australia (45,000), and in Cuba (5,000 ha).

Japan has acquired a total of one million hectares in Philippines (600,000 ha), USA (225,000 ha), and Brazil (100,000 ha).

India has acquired a total of 1.7 millions hectares in Argentina (600,000 ha), Ethiopia (370,000 ha), Malaysia (300,000 ha), Madagascar (250,000 ha), Indonesia (70,000 ha), and in Laos (50,000 ha). 

The Indian government has extended loans to 80 agribusinesses to purchase 350,000 ha in Africa.  Ramakrishna Karuturi (the king of rose production in 4 millions hectares) is leasing the hectare for two dollars a year in Ethiopia!

Saudi Arabia has invested in Indonesia (one million ha), Senegal (500,000 ha), and in Mali (200,000 ha). 

The Arab Gulf Emirates has invested in Pakistan (325,000 ha), and in Sudan (400,000 ha).

Egypt has invested in Uganda (850,000 ha). 

Libya has invested in Ukraine (250,000 ha), and Liberia (5,000 ha). 

Qatar invested in the Philippines (100,000 ha).

Africa is the remaining poorest continent with vast fertile lands and plenty of manpower to exploit for agribusiness enterprises. Africa is targeted to be exclusively the world’s food basket in this century.

Contrary to the talking points of President Obama and the other leaders of the G8 nations, the problem of feeding the world isn’t about the need to produce more food.

The main catastrophe is how to stop wealthy countries from:

1.  Subsidizing their richest farmers,

2. Grabbing up the best land in Africa for speculating on food commodities in their financial markets,

3. Wasting food,

4. Diverting crop production to livestock feed and biofuels,

5. and ratcheting up the costs of farming by encouraging the use of expensive and unsustainable GMO seeds, pesticides and fertilizers.”

 

We hope that the world community will pressure these investors to grow food slowly and not ruin the remaining land with fertilizers and pesticides.

We hope that the African can enjoy what the lands are producing for their daily staples…

We hope the African people get first cut at the distribution of food produced and receive first priority to ward off recurring famine…

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Mauritania? An “Arab” State in West Africa? Where a Third of population are slaves?

Posted by: on: June 8, 2012

Mauritania?  An “Arab” State in West Africa? Where a Third of population are slaves?

Mauritania is a vast desert State in West Africa, bordering Morocco, Algeria, Mali, Senegal…and the Atlantic Ocean. Apparently, its population is barely 3 million, a third of them are slaves and mostly women.

Mauritania is a member of the “Arab League“, but the US State Department opted to group Mauritania smack in Africa, and this State is “administered” as such by the US Secretary of State…

Lucky Mauritania?  That the US has decided to forget this country as part of the “Arab”World”: It must have been saved plenty of humiliation and indignities heaved on the remaining “Arab States” by the US foreign policies…

 posted on May 23, 2012, under: “The Arab Spring you haven’t heard about — in Mauritania”:

“You may not have heard of it, but the West African country of Mauritania has what is probably one of the most vibrant and active protest movements in the world today.

Protests drawing tens of thousands of people take place almost weekly in the capital Nouakchott, with many smaller protests happening on a daily basis around the vast country.

Photo by Magharebia, via Wikimedia Commons

The protests are overwhelmingly nonviolent, even in the face of frequent violent suppression, and have been going on since February 2011.

It would be comfortable to file these protests as another part of the Arab Spring: Mauritania is on the southern reaches of the Saharan Arab belt, and large-scale protests here started with the self-immolation and subsequent death of Yacoub Ould Dahoud, an action mirroring the suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi, which set off the revolt in Tunisia.

As in other Arab countries that experienced large-scale protests, Mauritania is governed by an autocratic regime whose leader, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, originally came to power through a coup d’état.

But while these similarities exist and the pro-democracy protests in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world surely have been a source of great inspiration for local activists, Mauritania merits a second look.

First, the range of participating actors in Mauritania are as diverse as their agendas. While a common concern of all protest movements is the end of the rule of Abdel Aziz, there are a host of other issues that various groups want to have addressed, not all directly related to the country’s ruler.

(Saidou Wane, a Movement for Justice and Equality in Mauritania activist speaks during a protest against the government at Fountain Square in April. Photo via Cincinnati.com)

Chief among the issues is of slavery.

Some estimates say that up to a third of Mauritania’s population is enslaved (even though the practice has been formally abolished many times). Victims are overwhelmingly ethnic black Africans.

This creates racial tensions in Mauritania’s multi-ethnic society, but also religious ones, as certain interpretations of Islam are used to legitimize slavery.

These tensions have forced their way into the open in the context of current protests, with anti-slavery activist Biram Ould Abeid publicly burning Islamic legal manuals discussing the issue. Abeid was subsequently arrested by the authorities, and his case is controversially debated among other activists.

Another very active group, traditionally eyed suspiciously in Western societies, are the Islamists. Organizations like Tawassoul demand a State and society based on principles of Islamic law.

While not cooperating a lot with other protest movements, they have been incredibly persistent in their activities against the regime, including protests of Salafist women against democracy (which is seen as not compatible with Islam) and for the release of imprisoned husbands.

More familiar political standpoints are expressed by the traditional political opposition and various youth movements, the biggest of which has followed the modern tradition of naming itself after the date of the first big protest, 25F (February 25, 2011). These groups focus on democratic reform and an end of the reign of President Aziz.

With all these different actors and goals competing for internal support and attention, it is remarkable that protests have almost completely stayed peaceful for well over a year. While protesters frequently face violence from police (including kittling, arbitrary arrests, beatings, water cannons, tear gas and attack dogs), the protesters have employed a wide range of nonviolent tactics.

In addition to traditional rallies, marches, speeches and sit–ins, protesters have occupied public squares with tents and use social media and video live streaming to coordinate protests, document violence and communicate with the outside world.

As the growing momentum of the protests show, these nonviolent tactics have so far fulfilled their goal of mobilizing the general population against the regime. But President Aziz should not be counted out just yet.

While the diversity of the protesters and their goals shows that a vibrant civil society and widespread discontent exists in Mauritania, their disunity may still allow Aziz to carry the day.

Already, the affair around the Islamic book burning by anti-slavery activist Abeid has allowed President Aziz to portray himself as a defender of Islam.

Given the incompatibility of demands by pro-democracy activists and Islamists, it is easy to imagine President Aziz discovering his inner zealot to rally support from this part of society (a strategy tried and tested on the other side of continent in Sudan).

Another possible development could see Aziz taking advantage of the regional situation.

There are large parts of neighboring Rep. of Mali controlled by Islamist groups who proclaimed the Independence of Azawat in the northern region (see link in note). And the fear of an “African Afghanistan” is running high in European, U.S. and African capitals.

President Aziz could implement some feigned democratic reforms and present himself as a beacon of stability in the region, hoping for (and probably getting) Western military support and closed eyes, ears and mouths in the U.N. Security Council and the African Union.

Given the level of mobilization in Mauritania so far, the pro-democracy movements in Mauritania have a good chance of succeeding against such moves. Looking at successful nonviolent struggles elsewhere, activists in Mauritania could enhance the likelihood of success by working to undermine the foundations of the regime.

Actions like strikes and boycotts can be incredibly effective, if well employed. Additionally, the protest movements could reach out to security forces, trying to convince at least elements of them to turn over to their side.

After all, police and soldiers need to feel that they will be part of a better future as well, otherwise many of them will go with the devil they know instead of with the change they mistrust.

Note 1: Since, France has engaged troops to stop the Islamist forces marching toward south Mali, and so far, a few African contingents are participating, lukewarmly.

Note 2: https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/western-africa-rep-of-mali-azawat-tuareg-south-sahara-al-qaeda-sahel-whats-going-on/

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An excursion with French-speaking African authors (Francophone authors). Part 1

Posted by: on: January 8, 2012

Part 1. An excursion with French-speaking African authors (Francophone authors)

Alain Mabanckou, an author from the Congo Brazzaville called Rep. of Congo, published “writers and birds of migration“.  Alain described his meeting with many African Francophone authors.  Here are samples of the stories.

On Ahmadou Kourouma (The African Voltaire?) from Ivory Coast: In early 1990’s, Ahmadou visited Paris for the Salon of book. He was a tall old man, wearing dark suit and thick eye glasses and moving swiftly amid the crowd. Ahmadou seemed kind of disoriented and approached my stand to buy my book of poems. I refused to take the money on account that he is a Classic African author. Ahmadou laughed and said: “The youth are constantly “mommifying” the elder authors” and he quickly left the salon.

Two years later, I met Ahmadou in Abidjan and handed him my latest “Blue White and Red” and he sent me a letter that I kept as a trophy. For many years it was complete silence: I was under the impression that Ahmadou will be known for his only two books: “The suns of independence” and “Money, outrage and defiance“. As Cheikh Hamidou Khane is known for his “Ambiguous Adventure“, or Yambo Ouologuen for his “The duty of violence”…

By the end of the 90’s, I met Ahmadou in another salon of the book in Charente-Maritime: He was the main invitee. We were lodged in a medieval house along with my friend Pius Ngandu Nkashama. Kourouma would have loved to be assigned in the main floor: He had difficulty climbing the stairs. Kourouma was writing a new novel and he told us at breakfast: “I am a dying volcano: I may eject the remaining of my lava in my new book…It might be titled “Waiting for the vote of the wild beasts”.

This book would launch Kourouma as a successful author, and the next book “Allah is not obligated” will consecrate him in the  summit of the Francophone authors and received the Renaudot Prize.

On Sony Labou Tansi (The equivalent to the French Rabelais) from Congo Brazzaville:  Sony published his first book “The life and a half” in 1979 and it became a cult book and Sony was compared to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I waited two years before I made the short journey to his hometown of Makelekele. I was attending Law School and I had no difficulty locating his residence: Everybody in town knew him. Sony was engaged in a game of volley ball in the wild field by his house.

At the first break, Sony invited me to his run-down wood house: I had to part wild branches in this small tropical forest. The door was never locked. Two huge posters of Che Guevara and Bob Marley were hung.  There was no typewriter, and no bibliotheque. Two candles illuminated a page that Sony was handwriting. He said: “I am trying to finish “The seven solitudes of Lorsa Lopez“.

I discovered just two books: The Illuminations by Rimbaud and “Chronicle of an announced death”by Marquez. Sony sat on the ground and I said:

“Frankly, I write occasionally, but it is not real literature. I write poems…” Sony replied: “It is not easy to publish books of poetry. I also wrote poems in the beginning and they were refused, although I wrote prefaces to famous poets.  It is as if there could be no valid poets in Africa after Senghor and Cesaire. You have to keep trying: You might be luckier than me.  Do not limit your reading to French and African poets.  Open up to Neruda, Octavio Paz, Giacomo Leopardi, Pouchkine…You’ll find copies in the French Cultural Center.  Read a lot before trying to write. This is the only secret to writing well. For the time being, give priority to novels.”

Sony retrieved a dusty manuscript of his “The life and a half” and handed it to me. And he returned to his volleyball game saying: “Consider this house as yours”. I kept the manuscript for an entire year before leaving to France: The handwriting was straight, willing, and very few corrections…

Two years later, Sony was invited at a TV show of Cavada “The March of the century“. I retrieved Sony’s manuscript to return as I see him. Sony was surprised to see me before the show and said: “Let’s meet after the show”. He asked me: “What have you published since then?” I replied: “No editor would publish me…”  Sony said: “Proust also was refused…”  I gave him his manuscript and he exclaimed: “I have been calling all my friends to return it, and searched the house as I never did before…” (To be continued)

Alain Mabanckou revealed that the ten books he would take to an isolated island would be:

1.  Le Livre de ma mere (The book of mother) by the Swiss Albert Cohen

2.  L’Enfant Noir(The black kid): Camara Laye from Guinea

3.  L’Ivrogne dans la brousse (The drunk in the bushland): Amos Tutuola

4.  Le Tunnel (The Tunnel): Late Ernesto Sabato (Argentina)

5.  Le Tambour (The drum):  Gunter Grass

6.  Pays sans chapeau ( Countries without hat): Dany Laferriere (Haiti)

7.  Of mice and man: John Steinbeck

8.  The music: Yukio Mishima

9. The contemplations: The French Victor Hugo

10.  Death on credit: The French Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Note: Alain Mabanckou is born in the Rep. of Congo (a Francophone State) in 1966.  He is professor of Francophone literature in UCLA.  He published “Broken Glass”, “Black Bazar”, letter to Jimmy (James Baldwin)”, and “Tomorrow I’ll be 20″…

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Elegant Niggers in white masks Society? Who are these SAPE?

Posted by: on: December 26, 2011

Elegant Niggers in white masks Society? Who are these SAPE members?

There was this trend in the 80’s in Congo Brazzaville, a former French colony, when the expatriates from the Congo to France would return for the Summer vacation season.  These fresh comers would be dressed in the latest European fashion such as made by Cerruti, Gian Franco Ferre, Gianni Versace, Enrico Coveri,  Francesco Smalty, Yves St. Laurent, Armani, Guy Laroche…Weston and Church…

(I wonder, how they managed to earn enough to bring so many fashionable dresses and shoes… in order to “save face” toward their countrymen who didn’t get the opportunity to leave yet?)

Tchicaya U Tamsi from Togo wrote:

“One day, we have got to walk

With the high winds,

A wandering tree leave landing

On a heap of dung, a bonfire…

I inhabited a country of music

Inaccessible to the ear,

What went wrong in my life

Blame it on my legs, never on my heart… 

The general idea of this “Clothing religion” (Ya kitendi religion) was that “No matter how elegantly the European try to dress, if the Africans didn’t try on the latest fashion designed by Europeans, it will never look elegant on the White people...”

The ideology of “authenticity of the African Black customs and the rest…” was not in the program: What counted was: “Have you been away from your home State, have you visited part of the world, the triumphal return to the homeland, transformed in a white mask…

Looking elegant is an entire program of initiation, learning, practising, and keeping at it all the way.  For example, the black skin had to vanish in thin air, to be replaced by the color of yellow banana (the best that “skin de-blacking” products could reach)…

For that end, the young “Ambiance elegant persons society” SAPE members had to descend to the economic Capital of Point Noire in Congo and purchase the color “de-niggering” chemical products such as Green and Red Ambi, Diprosone, Dop, Venus…

What was the process?

The member of SAPE was not to take any shower or wash for an entire month, and he had to wear two to three layers of clothes in order to sweat profusely, and experience the skin breaking down, and wait for the lesions to heal slowly… Plenty of suffering and patience before the skin turns banana yellow…

Most of theses individuals in older age witnessed skin cancer and saw black blotches disfiguring their faces and skin: Once used, you had got to continue using the dangerous products if you wanted to maintain the yellowish skin color…

It was a must for the SAPE addicts to converge to a place called “Total Market” to exhibit their elegance: The King of the SAPE was elected there. Who the French magazines (Paris-Match, Le nouvel Observateur…) elected didn’t count: The real election test had to take place at Bacongo (the birth place of SAPE movement). For example, Djo Balard (in the movie Black micmac), had to face-off with Pechard (wearing Scots tunic),  Guy Freddy, Thomas Mbongoque…

It was no longer “Black is beautiful”, but rather how elegantly Blacks of Africa carry their stature, move, walk, talk… A SAPE famous member would shave on the front porch, in front of his admirers (ngembo), and relatives would be shining his shoes, and suggesting the “must locations” to visit in order to show-off their illustrious relative coming from France…

The famous singers in Congo relayed and disseminated the SAPE “ideology”. Papa Wemba (Viva la Musica), Emeneya Kester (Victoria Eleison), Koffi Olomide (Quatier Latin)…spread the culture of the SAPE proclamation…

Who emulated who? The SAPE or the drug leaders and rich rap musicians in the USA?  

It is to be noted that the Rep. of the Congo at the time was a communist State and the SAPE trend degenerated into mafia groups dealing in almost everything and terrorizing the citizens in the major cities of Congo Brazzaville.

Elegance has nothing to do with wealth discrimination: The wealthiest White American Anglo-Protestants didn’t display their arrogance and racism through ostentatious attires, but rather wearing cloths a little nicer than the  common people…The worst kind of devilish smokescreen display of commonality…Until liberal capitalism of the 90’s broke down all the red lines in decency…

Note 1: Topic extracted from a chapter in “Writers and migrating bird” by Alain Mabanckou from the Rep.of the Congo

Note 2: During the long reign of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko over Zaire (The Belgium former Congo colony), he coined the useless currency Zaire. The people flocked to communist Congo Brazzaville, just to be paid in real money, the French CFA.  

Do Currency rules over political systems? Is that how the former colonial powers maintained their positions in the newly independent African States?

Note 3:  In the 80’s, Zaire tried an incursion into Congo Brazzaville and the troops were repulsed.  It was not easy to round up the remaining troops since the citizens in both States speak the same language, look the same, and are from the same tribe.  

The pronunciation of a stupid vowel “u” uncovered the people from Zaire who pronounced the French vowels “u” as “i”:  For example saying “sicre” instead of  sucre (sugar).  The same would happen during Lebanon long civil war: To differentiate between the Lebanese Moslems and the Palestinian Moslems, you had to say “banadoura” (tomato) instead of “bandoura”, for example.

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River Congo to light up Africa: Any investors?

Posted by: on: February 22, 2011

 

River Congo to light up Africa: Any investors?

The hydroelectric potentials of the Congo River is estimated to 110 GW, enough power to cover the needs of all Africa.

The Inga Rapid on the Congo can produce 44 GW, double the power generated by the latest super Chinese complex of the Three-Gorges.  Just 44 GW can cover 40% of all Africa needs in electrical power.

So far, only 900 MW is being produced by the obsolete generators on the sites of Inga 1 and Inga 2.

The start of Inga 3 project has been postponed until 2020 for lack of funding.  The modernization of the generators and equipments of Inga 1 and 2 requires $450 million and the IMF phased out the funding till 2016 because it could not “find” the necessary funding!

In Africa of one billion in population, the average individual is allocated enough electricity to turn on a light bulb for three hours a day. The 48 States in the Sub-Sahara generate 68 GW, an amount that Spain generates alone.

In Africa, 500 million own a cellular phone while 700 million lack electricity.

Compared to other developing States, the sub-Sahara States have the highest costs for electricity ($0.45 per kWh compared to less than $o.1); for water ($6.5 per m3 compared to $0.1); and for transport of merchandize ($0.15 per ton/km compared to less than $0.05)

The only investment in Africa are directed to highways, ports, airports, pipelines, and all kinds of infrastructure designed to facilitating the organized transport, export, and flow of raw materials exploited by multinational companies.

For example, BHP Billiton, the number one world group for mining raw materials, was willing to invest $7 billion on generating 2.5 GW on Inga 3, simply because the company needed 2 GW for its aluminum complex in the Lower-Congo province.

The Chinese State companies signed the deal of the century with the Congo State in 2007:  Basically, it is a barter deal of exploiting raw materials in exchange of constructing infrastructure that will support the flow of the raw materials produced and exported to China.

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