My Beauty Best Teacher

Toilet capitalism in Zimbabwe

A penguin profile of Chinua Achebe's personal history of Biafra, There was a Country:

The defining experience of Chinua Achebe’s life was the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War, of 1967–1970. The conflict was infamous for its savage impact on the Biafran people, Chinua Achebe’s people, many of whom were starved to death after the Nigerian government blockaded their borders. By then, Chinua Achebe was already a world-renowned novelist, with a young family to protect. He took the Biafran side in the conflict and served his government as a roving cultural ambassador, from which vantage he absorbed the war’s full horror. Immediately after, Achebe took refuge in an academic post in the United States, and for more than forty years he has maintained a considered silence on the events of those terrible years, addressing them only obliquely through his poetry. Now, decades in the making, comes a towering reckoning with one of modern Africa’s most fateful events, from a writer whose words and courage have left an enduring stamp on world literature.

Achebe masterfully relates his experience, both as he lived it and how he has come to understand it. He begins his story with Nigeria’s birth pangs and the story of his own upbringing as a man and as a writer so that we might come to understand the country’s promise, which turned to horror when the hot winds of hatred began to stir. To read There Was a Country is to be powerfully reminded that artists have a particular obligation, especially during a time of war. All writers, Achebe argues, should be committed writers—they should speak for their history, their beliefs, and their people. Marrying history and memoir, poetry and prose, There Was a Country is a distillation of vivid firsthand observation and forty years of research and reflection. Wise, humane, and authoritative, it will stand as definitive and reinforce Achebe’s place as one of the most vital literary and moral voices of our age

Julie Owono writing in Al Jazeera:

Image courtesy of USA Today

The year 2012 started dramatically for elephants in the central African country of Cameroon. According to the UN, 450 carcasses of these animals - a protected species - have been found in the Bouba N'Djida National Park, near Cameroon's northern border with Chad. The slaughter is especially worrisome given that, as of 2007, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimated that only 1,000 to 5,000 elephants are still left in Cameroon.

The massacre is sad proof that in spite of serious efforts, poaching continues to damage Cameroon's biodiversity, endangering an animal so important in the collective imagination of a continent.

Cameroon's Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife, the government agency in charge of the country's anti-poaching policy, saw its budget slashed from $43m in 2011 to just $33m in 2012. The money dedicated specifically to anti-poaching action was only $2m in 2011 - an amount clearly insufficient for tackling the problem.

The Bouba N'Djida National Park, where the elephants were killed, comprises about 2,200 square kilometres, making it the biggest protected area in the country. Only five guards patrol its grounds, one of whom was killed in 2011. They receive a modest salary of $160 per month. In April 2011, it was announced that the US embassy donated $39,000 worth of equipment to the park, including motorcycles, bicycles, radios, digital cameras and truncheons

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From Mind of Malaka:

Can I speak plainly, reader? I am SO SICK of Black people and their twisted dogma concerning the “White Savior” Syndrome. Oh, you haven’t heard of it? It’s the belief in certain circles of the Black Intelligencia that because Black folk can’t do for themselves, White people have to come in and do for them, or more specifically, solve our problems for us. In the case of Joseph Kony in particular, one rather prolific individual on twitter summed up the KONY2012 (and implied White savior Campaign) movement by saying “the world exists simply to satisfy the needs – including, importantly, the sentimental needs – of white people and Oprah”. Prior to that, he says that “the white savior supports brutal policies in the morning, founds charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evenings.” This message has been retweeted quite a few times on Twitter, and I do see why. At first glance, this all sounds very witty and well thought out until you think about it, at which point you grasp your head and shout:

Oh My GOD, Black people!!

On apathy:

Oh Black people. You like to complain and criticize. But where is the action, eh?? Why are we not staging sit- ins at our Ghanaian embassies around the world, demanding that OUR president take a firm stance on Kony until he’s captured. Why are Nigerians, Gambians and Kenyan’s not doing the same? Why are we not speaking out until our voices are impossible to ignore? Here’s a better question: Why did an AFRICAN not start the Kony2012 campaign? It’s because you people care, yes, but you don’t care enough

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An Open letter to Africa's Academics, Scholars and Intellectuals from George Ayittey:

Upon reviewing the current upheavals in North Africa and elsewhere on the continent, I felt it is necessary for us – African academics, scholars and intellectuals – to take stock and a fresh look at ourselves: What role have we played in advancing the cause of liberty and improving governance in post colonial Africa. Our record is not very good. Sometimes, self-criticism is necessary in order for us to make progress. You do not have to agree with what I am going to say – diversity of opinion is healthy. There have been outstanding individuals among us who risked death to champion the cause of freedom in Africa. However, as a group we have let Africa down badly by not providing intellectual leadership to the democratic struggle.

“He who doesn’t know where he came from doesn’t know where is going,” says an African proverb. We of the intellectual community are lost; we don’t know where we are going. The recent upheavals in Africa caught us completely off guard. We did not see it coming because we were pre-occupied elsewhere. It seems we are way behind the curve, late to the struggle for democracy in Africa and are now only playing “catch-up.”...[continue reading]

Thandika Mkandawire writes:

Image courtesy of LSE

...one has to consider the cases of many African countries where these institutions were severely compromised during one-party rule.

Such countries have had huge political problems with their democratisation since they have no credible institutions to adjudicate even the simplest of squabbles. In Malawi all political actors have respected the courts and sought to redress their grievances through the court system. Malawi had more litigations going on than the entire SADC region. One can point to some of the abusive aspects of these litigations but all in all they are partly evidence of the faith in our court system.

When Bingu came to power he promised to reverse the creeping trend towards the politicisation of these institutions. He specifically promised to strengthen the meritocratic basis of the civil service. What we are witnessing now is the shredding of the legitimacy of these institutions by politicising them and by implying that their daily management of their affairs depend on “orders from above”. The institutions are now being pitted one against another.

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via Jimmy Kainja

Malcom Fabiyi writes:

Nigeria’s followership is loud and ineffective because all that it does is talk. Loud, boisterous, garrulous and banal talk – that is all we do. In Newspaper editorials, internet chat rooms, on twitter, facebook, in beer parlors, market squares and bus stop libraries, our voices loudly bemoan the state of the country. We blame everything under the sun for our problems - from a colonial experience that ended over 50 years ago, to the poverty of leadership & ideas that currently afflicts us and our ethnic & religious differences.

We are blessed with a marvelous ability to convince ourselves that we are the victims of circumstances that we conjured into existence. We talk as if these leaders that we denounce at every turn were dropped on us from outer space, forced on us by malevolent beings intent on seeing our national tragedy extended. We conveniently forget that we voted them in ourselves, with our very own hands. We seem to forget also that national growth has roles not just for those who lead, but for those who follow as well.

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via Boing Boing:

Image courtesy of Army Of God

This is the first chapter of Army of God, a non-fiction graphic novel about the Lord's Resistance Army that has terrorized the Congo. Based on reporting by David Axe from the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2010, the comic explores the history of the LRA with eyewitness accounts from captives and those working to stop the destructive militia. Each chapter will focus on a different character and their role in the saga, from diplomats to LRA soldiers to the women and children they capture. The first chapter recounts the Congo's long history of colonialism, corruption, and strife that have set the stage for the conflict of today. The artwork is by Tim Hamilton.

Emmanuel Iduma in Black Looks:

Perhaps you failed to see that all of this, this ad hoc revolution, was simply the beginning of a shift of consciousness. It takes a lot, you should know, to transcribe the language of a dream into the spoken word of reality. True, all dreams are translatable, all dreams are reality. But within the terrain of the dream and the terrain of reality lie shadows.

What you did was tell the shadows you are beginning to reclaim your reality. Do not feel undermined, betrayed, or normal. There is no such thing as normalcy; there is change lurking everywhere and those mountebanks from the other side know it. They have seen the rise of reality; they have seen, yes. And they know that it is only a matter of time before they are overtaken, overridden, outpoured.

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In Black Looks Emmnauel Iduma's 'Thoughts on Boko Haram':

Consider the danger of infinite silence.

They come to us in the name of God, for evil has taken the guise of virtue. They say they are speaking a collective language, premised on restating the religious utopia created by their prophet. Their prophet. Clearly, their God and their prophet are imagined. Evil has taken the guise of virtue.

I realize that, in the final analysis, what Boko Haram wants is to silence our freedom. They want to introduce a regime of creative stagnation. I understand that creativity begins at the threshold of freedom. Let me explain....[more]

In Africa Report:

Image courtesy of African Report

Gaddafi backed several insurgencies in African including Chad and Uganda. And months after his death, at the height of a violent uprising, his weapons continue to fuel unrest.

According to reports, the over 1000 Tuareg militants, commanded by a former colonel in the Libyan army — brought with them enough of an arsenal to match the Malian army.

Emboldened by their new weaponry, they have formed the National Pour la Libération de l'Azawad (MNLA) – a so-called liberation movement.

The rebels have retaken some towns and attacked half-a-dozen more  in the north...[continue reading]

Al Jazeera reporting:

Protesters in Senegal have clashed with police after a court approved President Abdoulaye Wade to seek a highly disputed third term, but barred music icon Youssou Ndour from running.
Senegal's constitutional court approved late on Friday a list of 14 candidates who had met the requirements to run for president in the February 26 election, and among them was the 85-year-old Wade...[more]

Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja writing in the Guardian:

Image of Patrice Lumumba via Wikipedia

When the atrocities related to brutal economic exploitation in Leopold's Congo Free State resulted in millions of fatalities, the US joined other world powers to force Belgium to take over the country as a regular colony. And it was during the colonial period that the US acquired a strategic stake in the enormous natural wealth of the Congo, following its use of the uranium from Congolese mines to manufacture the first atomic weapons, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.

With the outbreak of the cold war, it was inevitable that the US and its western allies would not be prepared to let Africans have effective control over strategic raw materials, lest these fall in the hands of their enemies in the Soviet camp. It is in this regard that Patrice Lumumba's determination to achieve genuine independence and to have full control over Congo's resources in order to utilise them to improve the living conditions of our people was perceived as a threat to western interests. To fight him, the US and Belgium used all the tools and resources at their disposal, including the United Nations secretariat, under Dag Hammarskjöld and Ralph Bunche, to buy the support of Lumumba's Congolese rivals , and hired killers.

In Congo, Lumumba's assassination is rightly viewed as the country's original sin. Coming less than seven months after independence (on 30 June, 1960), it was a stumbling block to the ideals of national unity, economic independence and pan-African solidarity that Lumumba had championed, as well as a shattering blow to the hopes of millions of Congolese for freedom and material prosperity.

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Sokari Ekine writing in Pambazuka:

...I believe the majority of the country is behind not just the strikes but the Occupy Nigeria movement which seeks to seriously challenge the status quo and once and for all end the rule by kleptocracy. However there are other small but extremely powerful interest groups working for and against the government: Boko Haram and whoever is behind them; Jonathan and possibly some of the ex-Niger Delta militants; Senators and Governors who fear loss of their power and wealth; the trade union movement particularly the oil workers - how trustworthy are they? – the independent oil marketers or cabal. And of course there is the religious factor, the cozy relationship between an all-powerful state and a powerful highly influential set of religious institutions. Nigeria is about oil and nothing but oil...

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Specialized corridors and other innovations for improving Agricultural productivity
Boughezoul: A Flawed "New Model of Urbanism" in Algeria?
Arabs and the long revolution, by Brian Whitaker
Intra-regional trade booming
Can Technology End Poverty?
A Book: The Trouble with Africa: Why Foreign Aid Isn't Working

From Storyful:

The ongoing Nigerian protests against the scrapping of the fuel subsidy have garnered the support of musicians and even invoked the spirits of some dead ones...demonstrators ‘resurrected’ dead afrobeat legend and human rights activist Fela Anikulapo Kuti to join their rally. Protesters have also shown how to ‘occupy’ Nigerian-style as some all but moved their sitting rooms out onto the street...[continue reading]

The FT reports:

By gambling that public anger would dissipate after a few days, Mr Jonathan placed and lost the biggest bet of his presidency. He has now opened talks with labour leaders that will resume on Saturday. If no solution is found, the main oil union says that, from Sunday, it will start shutting down crude production, which provides four-fifths or more of government revenues.

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Tolu Ogunlesi writing in the Guardian:

REUTERS/Akintunde Akinleye

...With inspiration from the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt and the power of social media, more people than ever before in Nigeria are aware of and angered by the corruption in the system. Never before in the country's history have ordinary citizens been inspired to discuss budget items line by line. The questions are mounting. For example, how can N1bn ($6.25m) be allocated to the president and vice-president's catering budget, in a country stalked by hunger?
The target of the protests is a system constructed to oppress the poor and protect wealthy criminals. Every day since 2 January, the day after the fuel price increases, protesters have been assembling across several Nigerian states, marching and sharing their messages. And in many cases, enduring police harassment.
Young Nigerians are waking up and realising that we are where we are today because previous governments – maintainers of the corrupt system – were hardly ever seriously challenged, or rigorously questioned.
Now, having woken up, we will not be going back to sleep.

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Anene Ejikeme writing in the NYTImes:

Image by Raquel Marín

On Jan. 1 Nigerians awoke to find that the price of gasoline had gone from just under $2 a gallon to almost $4 a gallon. Since the beginning of this week, tens of thousands of angry protesters have taken to the streets all over the country; several are dead. Apart from nationwide protests, the country faces continuing sectarian violence. Many fear Nigeria is on the precipice of total collapse...[continue reading]