I was born and brought up in a predominantly Muslim community but the best schools around were fee paying Christian missionary schools. Our parents were ambitious enough for us that they had no hesitation about paying (government Schools were free) to get us into these schools. They were strong enough in their faith to trust that we were there 'for their knowledge not their God.’ And so it was. I can recall only one Muslim pupil converting to Christianity for all the years that the school was run by the Baptist Missionaries.

By the time we finished our primary education, the school had become majority Muslim and taken over by the State government and renamed Shehu Primary School.

In those days there was a clear distinction between kids exclusively going to Quranic Schools (Almajirai) and those of us either going only to ‘western’ schools or a combination of both. The Almajirai were often children living far away from their homes having been sent away to seek Islamic knowledge and upbringing by their faithful parents - a decision usually reached by the fathers. But those of us ‘Yan boko’ (pupils in state or missionary schools) generally lived with our parents/guardians. We went to school during the day and returned to the warmth and security of our homes in the afternoon. Quranic schools would then be open in the afternoon during school days and morning and evening during weekends.

The Quranic schools were private initiatives designed to ensure that the student learned the whole of the 114 chapters of the Quran by heart. This was in turn followed by going further into the religion as a knowledge system including learning the Arabic language. Unfortunately for many of us 'yan makarantan boko' the higher you climbed up the western educational ladder the less likely you were to return to the Quranic schools. So you got into the incongruous situation of knowing the Quran or parts of it by heart without actually knowing the Arabic language. Our knowledge was thus short-circuited through the interpretations by Mallams and Sheiks (teachers and learned Scholars).

There has been a lot of opprobrium directed at African leaders for lacking the political will to put in check if not end Mugabe’s misrule. However I have a different take on the outcome of the recent Sharm El Sheikh Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the African Union.

Media reports and public reaction both in Africa and outside of Africa have been highly critical and dismissive of the AU resolution. For many, this was yet another unprincipled stand by the African leaders, many of whom have no better democratic credentials than those of Uncle Bob’s. So what would you expect from such a group the cynics ask? As understandable as this position is, it fails to take cognisance of the changing dynamics of intra-African diplomacy. For that failure those holding this view become unwitting allies of President Mugabe whose tainted and stale reading of Africa convince him that no African leader can criticise him.

Mugabe said this much soon after his one-man presidential run-off and his hurried ‘swearing in – just in time to rush off Egypt. He claimed that none of the leaders had cleaner hands than his, which are certainly bloody. In a sense he was daring those with cleaner hands to cast the first stone. It was desperate bravado from a man who has lost all claims to moral or political integrity. He exonerates himself not by proclaiming his innocence but declaring that he is not the only one guilty. No doubt his fellow riggers and robbers feel uncomfortable.

I skipped the AU summit in Egypt and did not feel guilty about it.

In the past 15 years I can count the number of times that I have missed the OAU/AU summits. And in the few times that I have, it was due to unavoidable circumstances.

I have been part of a core of African activists who have remained engaged with our premier diplomatic and political organisation long before it became fashionable as it has become today. Those were bleak times when the OAU was a pejorative term, a symbol of all that was wrong with Africa especially its leaders.

Today everybody talks of engaging, interfacing, collaborating and working with the AU. It is looked upon as an important forum for African leadership, African problems and African consensus on global issues. African and non-African NGOs in particular have in recent years ‘discovered’ that relating to the AU is important for their advocacy and even funding!

It is so sad that a leader who came as a new Nkrumah is going down as a Mobutu, writes Tajudeen Abdul Raheem about Mugabe. It is a grave understatement to continue to describe him as an embarrassment to Africa. He is a dangerous autocrat who does not care anymore if the whole nation crashes with him. He needs to be stopped and stopped now.
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It is extremely sad to watch, hear or read about the tragic events happening in Zimbabwe. Not even the proverbial ostrich, notorious for burying its head in the sand no matter what is happening around, it can claim not to notice.

This week's withdrawal of the ppposition presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, is not surprising at all. In conditions such as those orchestrated by the ZANU-PF regime and its ageing revolutionary turned autocrat, holding a credible election is impossible. Mugabe has made it clear, and his security goons and freelance political enforcers have repeated it in words and brutal actions, that on no condition would he hand over power to the MDC and Morgan. So why bother to hold an election at all? Mugabe is willing to accept only one outcome: his continuation in office.

In conditions like these, an election is not an indication of democracy but a conspiracy against the masses. The issues facing Zimbabweans are no longer about electoral disputes but a one-sided civil / political war situation where the state and its agents are persecuting their political opponents and those they believe to be their supporters.

It is not only the coercive instruments and institutions of the state that are extremely and openly partisan. They also allow their supporters to operate with impunity. The army, the police, security and intelligence services, state and government officials, and party officials all operate as outlaws, while militias operate as regular officers. It is a post liberation state gone full circle. The people's state has become the enemy of the people.

The problem is political. Therefore the solution is also political. Our first responsibility is to discourage President Mugabe from his destructive self-succession in going ahead and contesting against himself on the 27th of June. If he insists, as it is likely, the immediate response should be a withdrawal of official observer teams that may have been sent there, recall of ambassadors, travel advice to nationals not to go to the country and possible evacuation of citizens. All these will signal to Mugabe that Africa is serious.

If he goes ahead with the farce, African countries must publicly state that they do not recognise his election. That should invite immediate break in diplomatic relations to demonstrate to President Mugabe that we mean business.

If western pressure alone could have done it, Mugabe could have gone many years before now. He has survived western diplomatic isolation because African states and leaders, even those opposed to him, have refused to accept Western dictates on the matter. He has exploited this to his advantage without giving back any significant concessions even to his closest allies and defenders, like Thabo Mbeki.

Mugabe has become a collective embarrassment to Africa and we need to be rid of him. It is no longer enough to say he is not alone. The fact that there are other thieves is not a plea against prosecution by those caught in the act. Those who continue to focus on Western hypocrisy and multiple standards on the matter are guilty of being accessories to the continuing suffering of the people of Zimbabwe.

As African leaders arrive this weekend in Sham El Sheik for the AU summit, we must campaign in our various countries, lobby foreign ministers, African ambassadors in our countries and our heads of state to take firm stand against Mugabe to ensure a credible political negotiation for a transitional government in which both ZANU-PF and MD and other stakeholders share power for a limited period, with an eye toward a level playing field for democratic elections. This is not possible with Mugabe therefore he needs to be eased out.

Africa has been an experimental laboratory for all kinds of transitions. Zimbabwe itself has historical memory of different transitions that were initially thought to be impossible. Ian Smith died of old age in a free Zimbabwe in spite of his atrocities against Black Zimbabweans. A negotiated settlement may indemnify Mugabe too while the cause of justice and democracy is enhanced by him seeing other people (including those he called traitors) govern the country. The handwriting is on the wall but Mugabe cannot read it; therefore African leaders should spell them out in BOLD letters to him.

It is so sad that a leader who came as a new Nkrumah is going down as a Mobutu. It is a grave understatement to continue to describe him as an embarrassment to Africa. He is a dangerous autocrat who does not care anymore if the whole nation crashes with him. He needs to be stopped and stopped NOW.

*Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this column as a Pan Africanist.

*Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

For Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, "Obama’s nomination and his eventual victory should make us reexamine our legal, political, cultural and social attitudes about citizenship and stop using it as a means of exclusion and marginalisation."
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There is a carnivalesque celebration across Africa greeting Senator Barrack Obama historic presidential campaign. The excitement is such that one would be forgiven to think that Obama was about to be sworn in. No where is this excitement more infectious than in Kenya, the homeland of Obama’s father.

Even Kenyans who in the closely fought Presidential elections of last year swore that Raila would never be president, not because of anything other than his being Luo, without any sense of irony, are part of the Obamamania. A 100% Luo is not good enough for them as President of Kenya but they are supporting a 5O% Luo to be president of the USA!

Kenyans are not alone in these contradictory responses. I am not sure how many of the millions of Africans celebrating Obama’s possible victory would as enthusiastic were Obama running for office in their countries. Can you imagine an Obama as a presidential candidate in Ivory Coast? Would he not be reminded that he is not African enough? How could he pass the ‘ivorite’ test when even a former Prime Minister of the country born in the country was disqualified? If Obama had run in the Nigerian election would he have generated the same mass adulation?

This a continent in which a former President (Kenneth Kaunda), who was founding father of the country, a man who served as President for 25 years had his citizenship stripped off him by his successor because his parents allegedly came from a neighbouring country, The former President of Tanzania, Benjamin Mkapa, had the citizenship of a number of Tanzanians annulled just because they disagreed or he suspected that they did not agree with him politically. One of them was a serving High Commissioner and the other a former member of Parliament and leading member of the ruling party. As part of his campaign of prolonging his gerontocracy President Mugabe stripped some Zimbabweans of their citizenship. The journalist, Trevor Ncube, was declared a Malawian but his siblings who were not considered sympathisers of the opposition remained Zimbabweans. Ethiopia and Eritrea shamelessly engaged in tit for tat denationalisation of innocent citizens because of the senseless war between the two leaders. There are so many extremely bad examples of routine denial of citizenship across Africa.

The ease with which political opponents are foreignised across Africa would never have given any hope for an Obama to even dream of becoming a local councilor let alone aspire to the Presidency.

Even within the same country claims of who is an indigene, a settler, a resident, etc are used to disempower fellow citizens. And if you are a woman who married across ethnic or national boundaries you are doubly disempowered. You may not be fully accepted by the Man’s group or country and your group/country will disown you for marrying out.

Obama’s nomination and his eventual victory should make us reexamine our legal, political, cultural and social attitudes about citizenship and stop using it as a means of exclusion and marginalisation. Obama did not have to hide his African and non-African origins and heritage and both are not considered to be disadvantages to his political ascendancy. Instead he is celebrating and using them as a political selling point saying that the diversity of his heritage and upbringing equip him to lead a multi cultural America in an even more diverse world. Without stating it directly he challenges the WASP (White Anglo –Saxon Protestant) hegemony with a global cosmopolitanism that makes the provincialism of the likes of Bush antithetical to the wider interests of the US in the world. When he says he understands the world and could make the world understand America, it is more believable coming from him than from any of his opponents.

Obama’s victory should open the doors of opportunity for the enjoyment of full citizenship rights to all Africans wherever they may be from Cape Town to Cairo and lift the veil from the injustices that continue to surround citizenship across the continent. If we can be happily anticipate an Obama victory in the US elections we should be equally prepared to accept that a Munyarwanda raised in Uganda can be president of Uganda; A Nigerian of Ghanaian or Togolese extraction can be President of Nigeria; an immigrant from Zimbabwe or Mozambique who are targets of negrophobic attacks in South Africa today or their descendants can aspire to be president of South Africa in our life-time.

If we cannot accept this we should stop the hypocrisy. If an Obama is good for America he or she should be good for Africa too. Show that you really care about Obama’s promised brave new world of tolerance and inclusion by recognising the many Obamas near you.

*Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this column as a Pan Africanist.

*Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Tajudeen walks us through the skepticism that initially greated the Obama candidacy, the pitfalls of the hubristic Clinton campaign and Obama's strengths but cautions us that Obama will be an American President who happens to be of African origin. He is never going to subordinate America’s interests to ours where they clash in a fundamental way.
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I must confess that I am one of those pundits who did not give Barrack Obama a significant chance of winning the Democratic Party presidential nomination. For most of December as we witnessed the tragic conflicts in Kenya with two good Professors/comrades/Pan Africanists, Horace Campbell and Okello Oculi, I was most scathing about Obama, while Horace did his best (including giving me the two books of Obama) to educate me, with Okello playing partisan moderator.

Much as I tried I could not bring myself to understand what the man really stood for. He was, and still remains, all things to all kinds of people. Maybe that is his strength. But it all seemed like a David and Goliath duel between him and the well-oiled political and financial machine of the presumed front-runner for the Democratic nominations, Hilary Clinton.

Not a few of us thought that Obama was just another protest candidate who would have his few moments in the limelight and then fizzle away as Hilary romped home to certain victory. How wrong we were! Even the Clintons, the power couple, misread Obama’s strengths. They mistook the political hurricane for a storm in a teacup until it was too late. They threw their considerable weight at him but somehow, in a twist of fate, he became more than Bill Clinton and Hilary could manage. Obama is the Teflon candidate reminiscent of the first Clinton campaign. Nothing sticks as the Chicago senator just ran and ran.

Why did we get it wrong? One, we thought Obama was a Black candidate and believed that the USA was not ready for a Black president. Two, even his Blackness was doubted because he did not come from 'traditional' African American/ black backgrounds and his CV was too short as both a Black/African icon.

The enigma of Obama is in making his opponents and critics underestimate him while he builds a broad spectrum of popular support that eats away at the support base of his critics. He believed in the small ordinary people and organized them into an electoral movement built on hope.

Obama did not have to be a Black candidate. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have both done that. He did not have to revisit covered grounds hence he became the candidate who happens to be black. There is no way he could have become a serious contender if all he has was his skin colour. The initial ambiguities of many African American elite who were used to putting their faith in 'the good white liberal' like the Clintons raised the prospect of a Black candidate without a Black base which the Clintons already took for granted. But the initial disadvantage among the Blacks who thought he was not black enough actually made it possible for him to attract a broader section of White Americans.

Bush has so damaged Americans’ faith in themselves and made America even less loved if not universally hated that Americans consciously or unconsciously expect a messiah to make them feel good about themselves again - and if not instantly loved, at least less hated by the rest of the world.

It is that yearning for the ‘feel good’ aura that has led many to believe that Obama is the man of destiny and the harbinger of ‘Change you can believe in.’ You may not put your finger on it. It may not add up to a grand vision but it is uplifting enough to rouse America. The Clintons misjudged the moment and Hilary has had to fight in such a despicable way that discussing them now leaves a bad taste in the mouth of many former supporters who used to love ‘the lovable rogue’ Bill Clinton.

Though Bill Clinton was a ‘feel good’ president worshipped by many, his wife was not always endearing to many. Indeed Obama is more like Bill than Hilary. If Hilary had not been his opponent, Bill might have been one of the early democrat grandees that would have declared support for Obama. Spousal loyalty (nothing extraordinary considering the pains he has caused Hilary over the years) combined with the power couple’s delusion of themselves as the democrats’ counter to the dubious aristocracy to the Bushes, contributed greatly to their undoing.

In defence of his wife, Mr. Feel-Good became Mr. Sour grapes and a not so skin-deep liberal who thinks he is entitled to Black and poor white working people’s votes as a right and that such loyalty is transferable by osmosis to any Clinton.

Instead of quitting in a dignified way they have fought almost to the bitter end. Those who fight to the finish get finished. Are the Clintons so bitter in defeat that they would actually prefer McCain to Obama?

The next few days will tell. However, now that Obama is the candidate in waiting, attention will shift to whether he can beat McCain come November. Whether he wins or not he has already lifted the ceiling on the ambition of every Black person in America. There is already victory in the symbolic importance of his candidacy. The prospect of his victory, barring assassination (as it happened to Robert Kennedy before being elected or earlier John Kennedy, after being elected) is very real. His victory will see a repackaging of the American dream as a country where anyone can make it.

Initially support for Obama candidacy was most unanimous in Kenya (where many may not vote for a Luo President but are quite convinced that his nephew can be president of the US!), but it is now universally being prayed for all across the continent. If many Africans have their way they will voluntarily become proxy voters come November!

But while I recognize the mix of historical, socio-psychological, emotional and great expectations that Obama’s candidacy has inspired among Americans and also in Africa and in her diasporas, we should have no illusions that Obama will suddenly make America do right by Africa or the rest of the world, for that matter. He is going to be an American President who happens to be of African origin. He is never going to subordinate America’s interests to ours where they clash in a fundamental way but he may package them less arrogantly and may add more honey to the poisoned chalice that any super power dishes out to smaller states - that is unless those states are firm in the defence of their own interests so they can get a better, if not fairer deal.

*Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this column as a Pan Africanist.

*Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem looks at the Yar Adua's administration and the political mileage the stolen election has cost him and argues that the only Yar Adua will win back legitimacy is "through public policies that reduce poverty, deliver education, creatre decent jobs for the millions of youth roaming the streets, empower women. bring security to cities, towns and villages and light up all homes, industry and streets of Nigeria."

May 29 was Democracy Day in Nigeria. It marks the day in 1999 when the Nigerian Generals returned the country to civilian rule albeit under a recivilianised former General, Olushegun Obasanjo. After 8 years of civilian politics under Obasanjo, the best that can be said is that democracy remains a national aspiration especially in terms of its capacity to deliver on the bread and butter issues that afflict the majority of Nigeria's boisterous millions. While the kind of brutality, arbitrary arrest, gross violation of the rights of citizens and other excesses that were characteristic of the direct military dictatorship of previous military regimes especially that of the kleptocratic Babangida and Abacha's sadistic regimes are no longer the case, it is perhaps an indication of the impatience of the public or the short memory of the chattering classes in the country that some people will argue that 'Obasanjo is worse than Abacha'.

The current scandals being exposed about the regime of Obasanjo and the financial recklessness of companies and individuals allied to his nightmare team of free loading parasites not withstanding, I do not agree with those who believe that Obasanjo's has been the worst regime Nigeria has ever had. By all means the atrocities, bad judgements and policy hypocrisies of the regime should be exposed and those guilty punished. The fact that these matters are coming to light, albeit after the regime has left office, is indeed part of growing demands for accountability. It may have been delayed but it sends out a message that there is no statute of limitation on abuse of office and betrayal of public trust. Many of those who are now clamouring for Obasanjo's head, or were public critics of his regime while he was in office, could not do the same under either IBB or Abacha. That in itself should count for something. But there are just too many people who cannot forgive Obasanjo for his arrogance and holier than thou attitude.

This year's Democracy Day also represents the first year of the administration of Alhaji Umar Musa Yar' Adua. The stench from Obasanjo's administration continues to hang over Yar Adua and the obsessions of those after Obasanjo and his cabal is making it look like Yar Adua's regime is a mere extention of Obasanjo's. As far as many of these people are concerned no change has taken place and the ghost of Obasanjo is seen looming large and haunting every room in Aso Rock. The low profile personality of Yar Adua and his even lower lustre style have combined to enthrench this view that he is a dithering and indecisive president. Hence the various sobriquets applied to him and his regime: 'Mr Go-Slow', 'Mr Hold-Up', and 'Mr No-Show' etc. They all point to the frustration of the public at his seeming lack of dynamism. It is a regime that has been too cautious and that caution is inducing executive inertia.

The circumstances under which Yar Adua was imposed as a candidate and eventually being handed the keys to Aso Rock meant that the legitimacy issue initially made it too defensive. There was uncetainty about how long it would last and some wrong-headed optimism that the courts would invalidate the robbery of the electorate.

These issues made the government less ambitious from the start, waiting to see what would happen. It was not as though Yar Adua had nothing else going for him. I argued then and continue to believe that he would have won without rigging. No serious observer could objectively claim that either of his two closest rivals had won. He also had a personal reputation of not being corrupt and a record of leading a decent administration in Katsina State for 8 years. So there were people willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But the regime was caught between being grateful to the Obasanjo PDP robbery machine which gave it the stolen mandate and robbed public which wanted the new President to distance himself from his benefactors. Neither could be fully satisfied.

It was obvious that the PDP had more influence in the making of the new government. Yar Adua did not seem to have much room for manouvre therefore the party prevailed. All he had was his personal credibility as revealed in his innauguration speech where he assured the country he would be a servant leader and lead by example. That he was not Obasanjo and was not given to what Nigerians call 'I too know' and associated 'Baba-cracy' (rule of Baba by Baba for Baba!) was a positive development. His simplicity and austere outlook encouraged many Nigerians who are tired of the profligacy and ostentatious high living of Nigeria's power elite.

However governing a country as diverse and routinely mismanaged polity like Nigeria requires more than just being nice and wanting to do good. It seems that Yar Adua has become a prisoner in Aso Rock, distrusting his corrupt party and the wheeler dealers across the country. Unfortunately they have been so preoccupied with this that they have not been able to leverage the potential public support and good will from many Nigerians.

The PDO operates like a regime under siege - withdrawing into a tiny laager of few trusted people around the presidency. While this may have worked in a provincial setting like Katsina, it is not working any wonders in Abuja. Many people may want to help Yar Adua but they do not have entry points. The system's core is still dominated by malevolent individuals whose only claim to their position is because they have been part of previous misrulers! Yar Adua's small band of believers' inability to have its own narrative and grand vision has made it become vulnerable to other people's agenda. The most successful in filling this executive vacuum created by Yar Adua's excessive caution is the anti- Obasanjo lobby. While it is important to hold all leaders accountable the same Nigerians will blame Yar Adua for doing nothing later.

Let those who want to go after OBJ do so by all means possible under the law but Yar Adua needs to embark on his own programme very aggressively. A programme that will help launder the stolen mandate through public policies that reduce poverty, deliver education, create decent jobs for the millions of youth roaming the streets, empower women, bring security to cities, towns and villages and light up all homes, industry and streets of Nigeria. He needs to throw caution to the winds and break out of the presidential prison that Aso Rock has been for him for the past one year.

*Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this column as a Pan Africanist.

*Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

In this Africa Liberation Day Postcard, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem warns that "if care is not taken to take decisive action to stop the violence against other Africans and challenge the widespread xenophobia, South African businesses and other interests across Africa will soon become legitimate targets, not just for demonstrations, but for campaigns of boycott and who knows, even targets for sabotage and revenge attacks across this continent."

This Sunday, 25 May 2008, is Africa Liberation Day. This year’s celebration marks the 50th anniversary of this day set aside for reflection, celebration and rededication to the cause of Africa and Africans’ total liberation from social, economic and political injustices, initially by external colonialists but later neo-colonialists and their local agents. Today the struggle continues against the local oppressors and their foreign patrons in a renewed attempt at re-colonising Africa - through the combined forces of unpatriotic national leaders who sell our countries to anti-people globalisation and uncritical adoption of neo-liberal policies that continues to impoverish our peoples and ensures that the majority of Africans remain poor, even though ours is one of the richest continents in the whole world.

Central to the agenda of Africa’s liberation is the notion of ‘Africa for Africans’ and the unification of Africa ‘from Cape to Cairo’. As symbols go, both points were chosen not because they are the most symbolic representation of Africa, but because of the extreme geographic poles of this vast continent and its diversities. Yet both cities and the countries they are in have, at best, contested Africaness. Cape Town never fails to remind us that it remains a European enclave (that may apply to leave the AU and join the EU, if that is possible!). While a trip to the vibrant souks of Cairo by an African visitor is not complete without at least one Egyptian trader asking: ‘Are you from Africa?’; completely oblivious to the fact that Egypt is in Africa and that the proud civilisation that makes them feel superior to others, including other Arabs, was very much an African civilisation.

However, ambiguities about being African are not limited to the two cities or countries. 45 years after the OAU was headquartered in Addis, many Ethiopians still talk of, or see Africans, as others. In Egypt and South Africa, the anti-Africa feelings extend to areas that are ‘more African’ than both cities. The tragic events unfolding in South Africa around townships close to Johannesburg may have come as a surprise to those not familiar with the ‘rainbow’ nation after 1994, but not to Africans living there. We were all on a high about the end of apartheid, and swallowed the triumphalism and claims of exceptionalism as the legitimating ideology of the new post-apartheid state. If ever there was an inappropriate slogan ‘rainbow nation’ (later discovered not to include the colour black in it), this was it. It invited everybody but the majority black people.

I have been a regular visitor to South Africa since the inauguration of Mandela and have seen the rise in anti-African xenophobia, bigotry and discrimination against Africans. This took the form, from day one, of an anti-African racist immigration and visa regime.

Unfortunately as with everything else, the ANC leadership particularly Thabo Mbeki, tried to intellectualise the problem instead of addressing it. Remember, this is a President who claimed he had never known a person who had died of AIDS; and when confronted by a grim rise in crime, he retorted by asking whether crime was rising or it was more regularly reported. Government propagandists even suggested that there was some conspiracy by enemies of the new government to discourage investment and undermine the new dispensation. While there may be some truth in this, given the skewed media ownership and control in the country, one must beg the issue. Media does not create crime waves.

The denial default of the Thabo leadership means that problems are not nipped in the bud but rather debated endlessly, subjected to all kinds of panels, probes and investigations without end.

The anti-African xenophobia went through these motions. Initially it was thought that xenophobia was limited to some illiterate citizens (ignoring the ugly heads of university campuses, public parastatals, NGOs and board rooms). Illiterate citizens who would soon be rid of their ignorance as prosperity spread a la neo-liberal economic policies predicated on perpetual growth, with enough economic crumbs dropping off the tables of the new black bourgeois elite for the masses. Of course this is not how it is turning out. The new elite have proven to be more rapacious and the economic model they chose is not delivering as envisaged. But instead of the excluded masses turning on their elite, they find it convenient to vent for their anger and frustration in refugees - migrants from Africa who they blame for their inadequate housing or for stealing their jobs.

It is instructive that this violence is directed predominantly at other black Africans principally Zimbabweans, Nigerians, Somalis, Mozambicans and other southern Africans. They are the majority of other Africans in the country. How come this ‘anger’ has not extended to white immigrants from Europe and the former Soviet Union? Why it is not directed at new immigrants from Asia including Chinese and Indians?

It is encouraging that after initial shock sections of the South African establishment (the Human Rights Commission for example), and more importantly parts of the civil society, especially the churches led by the Methodist Church (that has been providing refuge to African refugees and asylum seekers before this crisis) are beginning to speak out openly. There are also attempts by local communities to reclaim the streets from criminal bigots. President Thabo Mbeki’s reaction remains professorial: ‘What is behind this? Who is behind it?’ I heard him asking on SABC Africa. Why can he not understand that we do not expect questions from our leaders? We expect answers and actions; concrete actions. If the South African political leadership is failing us, why are African leaders whose citizens are being killed not saying anything? Can you imagine if even one European, Canadian or American citizen had been attacked, what the noise would have been like?

And what about our busybody civil society? Why are there no demonstrations in front of South African embassies and High Commissions across this continent and abroad? Are they waiting for donors? Did we need donors to demonstrate against white apartheid? Why are we silent in the face of this creeping black apartheid? There is no point in making moral claims by reminding South Africans how the rest of Africa sacrificed in cash and kind for their liberation. Their memory has proven too short for that. There is no point reminding them that many of them were refugees in the rest of Africa and there was no similar incident of mass xenophobia against them.

What we need to do is to demystify the widely held belief that every African wants to emigrate there and that Africans in South Africa are taking jobs away from South Africans. The University faculties are full of other Africans, especially Southern and Western Africans. Would South Africa be able to sustain the entire educational system without the skills of these academics? The Somali stores that are being burnt grew because of a niche in the market not being met. South Africans also need to be made aware that the prosperity of their country, which they think the rest of Africa is coveting, is not wholly generated from within; prosperity, internal and external jobs are increasingly dependent on the rest of Africa. DSTV, MTN, South African Airways, Shoprite, water and management corporations, farmers, banks and other South African businesses, are rapidly expanding and minting money across Africa.

If care is not taken to take decisive action to stop the violence against other Africans and challenge the widespread xenophobia, South African businesses and other interests across Africa will soon become legitimate targets, not just for demonstrations, but for campaigns of boycott and who knows, even targets for sabotage and revenge attacks across this continent. A country that sees itself as the beacon of African renaissance, originator of NEPAD and chief lecturer on human rights, democracy and constitutionalism should be ashamed of itself for treating other Africans so appallingly. Especially in light of the fact that many of their leaders were themselves refugees or migrants in other African countries for several years. The bigger shame, however, will go to other Africans, should they remain silent in the face of this brutality and gross abuse of their rights.

On Africa day say “No!” to an attack on any African, from Cape Town to Cairo, wherever you may be. You can do something. Do so now.

*Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the Deputy Director of the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned Pan-Africanist.

*Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Tajudeen rages against the attempts in Kenya to criminalise African language media. The state should be making laws to protest society and be willing to sanction those who use the media to exacerbate ethnic tensions rather than seeking to ban them.

African Languages should not be criminalised. In this column last week I wrote about the demonisation of the media in Kenya as Kenyans tried to exorcise themselves of their recent ghostly past.

The media is not without its faults but to blame it for the hatred, violence, wanton destruction of property, neighbours killing one another and communities turning against themselves is simply finding a scapegoat. Such a convenient foil will make it possible to let off all the other culprits and in this case the grand architects of the mayhem, the politicians, the political class, and Kenyan ruling class in general who whip up these sentiments and manipulate the genuine grievances of the masses in pursuit of their own personal and class interests.

As the grand coalition government that is increasingly exposing itself as lacking many grand people, struggles to take off the politicians who were only a few weeks ago sprouting all kinds of extremist statements are uniting against everybody else , becoming holier than thou in preaching national reconciliation, peace and trying to outshine one another as ‘the patriotic Kenyan’! Everyone else is guilty except the political leaders.

The Nairobi Star (Saturday May 10) reported on ‘radical proposals’ emerging from the recent bonding retreat of the new government : ‘vernacular radio stations should be closed down, cabinet ministers agreed …’ . The decision according to the report ‘… followed discussions on what role the media played in the post election period…’.

Really? I do not speak nor understand any of the languages of the 42 officially recognised ethnic groups in Kenya. My understanding of the more widely spoken National language, Kiswahili, is still very much ‘kidogo kidogo’ (i.e. little), yet I am acutely aware of the crass hostilities between different communities, charges of ethnic discrimination and allegations of ethnic monopoly of this or that by one group or the other. So which media is poisoning my mind?

The Kenya ruling elite have been quite successful, until recently, in living in grand denial about the injustices, social, economic and political that have made them one of the most prosperous middle classes in Africa but also one of the most unequal societies in the world. The tragic violence on the back of the disputed elections finally punctured deep holes in this class/crass delusion.

Even a casual familiarity with Kenya’s colonial and post colonial history will reveal the extreme violence perpetrated by the British, well thought to the independence elite who perfected their rule through the same divide and conquer of the British and turned Uhuru (independence) into a permanent burden to the masses. Yet somehow the elite swallowed their own propaganda that Kenya is an oasis of peace and stability. They took comfort in the disintegration of their neighbours and somehow believe that civil wars, genocide, military coups, economic meltdown, etc were things that happen to their neighbours, not in Kenya, the country known internationally as the destination of all exotic safari complacent to the tune of ‘Kenya Yetu, Hakuna Matata’!

The decades of violence from independence including ethnic clashes, ethnic cleansing and high level unsolved political murders were minor details conveniently airbrushed from the official self image of the country, until December 2007.

Now that the ideologically manufactured innocence has finally been exposed the rulers are looking for scapegoats for the troubled paradise, a paradise that has always excluded the majority of its peoples whatever their ethnicity, religion or race.

By making the media broadcasting in indigenous languages the enemy the political elite is only showing itself up as the local settler colonial masters that they have always been. In that colonial mindset the majority of the people, their culture, traditions and their languages become objects of attack and persecution.

The colonialists justified their predatory adventures, oppression and exploitation of the colonised as ‘white man’s burden’ to bring civilisation and God to the natives. The post colonial elite continues the same attack on their own peoples in the name of modernisation which culturally translates as westernisation and uncritically aping the language and cultures of wazungu (Europeans) . That’s why our indigenous languages are referred to as ‘vernacular’ and our children are made to feel ashamed of speaking their mother tongues at school and even punished for speaking them!

The current attack on indigenous language media in Kenya is not unique to Kenya. It is not limited to the media but wholesale attack on Africaness. It takes different forms in many other countries but relentless, all the same.

It is not just about freedom of expression but part of a long attack on the mind of the masses that must be resisted. The English language media are no less guilty of xenophobia, ethnic hatred or distortions, misrepresentation or disinformation. So why pick on the indigenous language stations? Is it because English phobias and ideological biases are preferable to indigenous ones?

In the UK, the Welsh are proud to use their local language and insist on having signposts in Wales in Welsh and have mandatory broadcast in their language. In Britain in general ethnic minorities are not ashamed to reclaim and retain their culture including their languages while being part of a vibrant multi cultural society.

And yet in Kenya the politicians want to legislate against ethnic media! Just imagine the ridiculousness of it all. A kikuyu, Luo, Luhya or any of the numerous diaspora of Kenyan communities in the UK can establish a radio station or any other media in their mother tongue, sometimes even with government support but back home in Kenya, if the politicians have their way, such endeavour would be criminalised!

I am very much aware of the role which the media especially radio (which is still the most influential media across Africa because it is virtually accessible to everyone) can play both negatively and positively in our societies. Radio Mille Coline in Rwanda was both orchestrator and perpetrator for genocidaire elements and genocide. But the solution in post genocide Rwanda was not to ban Radio in Kiyarwanda but to change the laws, criminalise hatred broadcast and publications and reorient the content of programmes in a wider public education programme of continuous fight against the ideology from which genocide springs.

The state should make laws that protect the whole of society and be willing to sanction those who violate them whether in the media or politicians or academics instead of blaming indigenous languages. In blaming the language rather than those who instigate these sentiments Kenyan politicians are behaving like the proverbial ostrich man in the Yoruba saying : O fi ete sile on pa lapa lapa (i.e. someone who is suffering from leprosy is busy seeking medicines for eczema!).

*Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this column as a Pan Africanist.

**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem asks the question: Do we expect too much from the media when we ourselves are failing African societies?

May 3 was International Press Freedom Day. Journalists make their living by poking their noses into other people’s affairs but are not very good at looking at themselves, their institutions, their own practice and how they advance or hinder the values of freedom of expression that their profession is built on.

I was at the Goethe Institute in the City of Nairobi to hear journalists celebrate the day and talk about the various challenges facing the Media in Kenya. A very interesting documentary film ‘Uncovering Kenya Media’ produced by one of Kenya’s veteran Pan Africanist photojournalists, Khamis Ramadan was screened. The film looked at the unsung contributions of photojournalists. In general African journalists are badly paid and ill treated by their employers, governments and the wider society.

But photojournalists are even more badly treated because media houses and the wider society do not recognise their real value. In Africa they are still seen as poor cousins of the ‘main stream’. Yet in this age of multimedia the image is increasingly more important than the written word. What people can see or hear are more believable than what they can read. How many times have you heard people affirm the truth of their position by saying: ‘I saw it on telly’ or ‘I saw the pictures with my own eyes’? These are more validating than even ‘I heard it with my ears’ that used to put stamp of authority on radio. In the order of things ‘I read it’ is less affirming because many people still can neither read nor write. And even among those who are ‘literate’ many will read more ‘pictures’ than the text!

The film was both a celebration of the media and also an auto-critique by practitioners. There was a sad illustration of both the courage and danger of being a working journalist in Kenya is the case of journalist who was handicapped escaping Police arrest in the bloody days of Moi/KANU dictatorship and was bedridden for many years. He died after the film was concluded. It raises the question of how those in power treat the media but it is also about how journalists treat one of their own.

Kenyan media has seen a rebirth in the past few years where acts of courage and hope triumph over adversity. But the political glasnost in the post Moi era has its own dangers and as the society became more polarised the media itself is caught up in the conflicts. It is not just an impartial reporter but also active partisans.

There was a very interesting exchange of views after the film. Sometimes the exchanges were recriminatory, at times heated and impassioned but mostly educative throughout. The discussions were led by an impressive panel of experienced media persons including my UN Millennium Campaign colleague, Sylvia Mudasia, who in a previous life was a frontline journalist in both Kenya Times and The Nation and also David Matende (Editor/Publisher), Mitch Odera (Editor/Media Trainer) and Kabando wa Kabando, an MP and Assistant Minister in the Grand Coalition government.

Most of the interventions, understandably, focused on the role of the media in the recent political conflicts and violence that unfolded in Kenya consequent to the inconclusive nature of the Presidential elections and its mismanagement by the Kenya Electoral Commission. There were all kinds of questions and even more comments. There was a set directed at the role of the media in the recent conflicts. Did the media foresee the calamity? Could they have done anything to avert it? Did they contribute to it? Did they fan the embers of ethnicity and xenophobia?

Another set of questions and comments were about the professional role of the Media. Is the media free in Kenya? Is it performing according to the highest of professional core values? Is it controlled by the powerful? Is it too beholden to the rich and other vested interests? Is it cowed by government? Does the public trust it? Does it reflect the truth?

There were as many people on either side of these questions as there were people in the audience and all argued their cases passionately.

What I found very interesting is the assumption implied in all the condemnations, criticisms or praises of the media that we expect the media to be above conflicts, prejudices, sectarianism and partisanship in its discharge of its functions. Yet the journalist, the TV or Radio producer, the radio announcer, the anchor woman or man, the photographer, the subeditor, the editor, including this columnist and other columnists are all human beings and living in the same environment as their readers, listeners or viewers.

In any polarised society would it not be expecting too much to believe that the media will not be part of it? They are also citizens and being in the media should not deny them the right to political participation. What can be legitimately expected is for the media to discharge its duties in as non-partisan way as possible.

As for being political we are all political whether we state so openly or not. Even when many feign lack of interest in politics it does not mean that they do not have a political position. Not having a position is also a political position! Politics affects you whether you are interested in it or not. The Media is both a source of information and disinformation depending on the social, ideological or political perspectives of the persons involved. Objectivity itself is an inter-subjective process mediated by education, skill, personal integrity or lack of it, values, cultural norms, and the power relations between the journalist and his or her employers and between them and the powerful in society be they government, corporate leaders, advertisers, their audience, etc.

If we are not angels ourselves, it is unrealistic to expect that our media will be peopled by saints because like governments a people get the media they deserve. They report as much as they reflect their society and the world around them, its contradictions, its highest and lowest of values and sometimes the plainly mediocre.

The election conflicts exposed the various fissures in Kenya long neglected by a self satisfied elite and complacent public. It is not only media that should engage in retrospection about its role in the conflict. The whole of Kenya needs the honesty to confront their not so hidden but conveniently ignored socio-economic and political demons. No institution is neutral. The religious establishments failed woefully in its moral duty to speak truth to power.

But they were not alone as many leaders in the arts, academia, professional associations, the NGOs/ CSOs, and respected public intellectuals failed the same moral test. It is convenient to blame the media but every Kenyan and to some extent all of us who live in the country need to ask where we stood / stand on the issues that divided / divide the country. Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?

*Dr Tajudeen Abdul Raheem writes this syndicated column as a concerned Pan Africanist.

**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem argues that "there is nothing revolutionary in perpetuating personal rule in the name of liberation" and therefore Africans have a duty to see electoral justice in Zimbabwe regardless of where the West stands

A couple of weeks ago it was the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther king Junior. He remains relevant even for generations that never knew him largely because the great injustices and oppression of his days which  he confronted with nothing more than exemplary moral courage to take a stand against unjust power. Those injustices  still continue to mutate not only in the US but across the world. That's why the words and example of martin Luther King Junior continue to echo as a source of inspiration to all those who speak truth to power. One of his many quotable quotes that I like is: "evil triumphs because good men refuse to speak up". We have to forgive the absence of gender sensitivity in the emphasis on 'men' as typical of the age but it does not deter from the import of the statement. Good people must speak up in the face of injustice no matter the consequences They obligation is not just to speak up it must extend to taking whatever action one is able to.

Zimbabwe and President Mugabe is a situation we cannot in all good conscience continue to pussyfoot about anymore. It is indefensible that one man, no matter his contribution to the country, should be holding the people to ransom. I know that a tree does not make forest. I am quite aware too that Mugabe alone is not responsible for the situation. There are many interests hiding behind him. It is even conceivable that in spite all the rhetoric and masochistic belligerence that the old man has become an executive prisoner trapped in a power system he pioneered which now has him cornered without escape route.  This kind of structural analysis is important  but it risks underestimating human agency and individual responsibility. Its primitive determinism  may even be used to justify any situation rendering intervention impossible. If individuals are not important why do we have heroes and heroines? Why do we have leaders? We are neither zombie not automatons who behave in a predetermined way. Choices are made and unmade by human beings therefore accountability is first and foremost individual. Mugabe is no longer part of the problem of Zimbabwe: he is now the problem. The choice that he makes or not make can either help resolve the crisis or accentuate it. If he decides to step down there will be no body who will force him to remain in office. Neither the v dreaded Security services nor the  aged ZANU-PF nomenclatural can force him to remain in the  presidential palace. The fact that he has not taken that option is a deliberate personal choice just as his one man contest for candidacy of the party has always been his choice.

It is simply wrong and unacceptable that weeks after the March 29 general election the result of the Presidential contest is yet to be declared. Meanwhile there is a recount of the declared Parliamentary results! Even those who were willing to overstretch their good will to Mugabe must be finding it ridiculous or running out of excuses.   Some of them continue to beg the issues further by  forcing parallels with other botched elections. They point out that it took 6 weeks and the Supreme Court to declare Bush President of the USA in 2001. why should an avowed Pan Africanist leader vomiting all kinds of anti imperialist attacks be defended by Washington's non standard?  They also point at the two months it took before the final results of the 2005 controversial elections in Ethiopia could be released. I am surprised they are not even saying that Mugabe is better than Meles who jailed those who defeated his party! Why should Africans always judge themselves by looking down instead of looking up to  higher standards?  Other people's bad manners and the hypocrisies of others should not justify the mischief making by Mugabe and his hirelings.

They have now shot themselves not just on the foot but all over the body by this syndicated circus. Whatever the outcome now they are losers because most reasonable people have concluded that they have tampered with and are still tampering with the result. Even if they declare the MDC as winners people will still say it is because of delayed shame or fear of consequences.

It is really sad that President Mugabe who is probably one of the better (if not the best) prepared leader for the job should end like this. He has 7 degrees (not honorary) for goodness sake! A man who acquired a mosaic of  degrees in an academic cocktail of humanities and social sciences disciplines and also led one of the most successful liberation movements in Africa could not be accused of arriving in state house by accident. But he is ending his rule and life as a tragic figure hanging on and increasingly sounding and behaving like a man trapped in a time warp. It must sadden all Africans and good ammunition to all enemies of Africa who believe that nothing good comes out us no matter how well and promising the beginning was.

Unfortunately for Africa when one of us fails it is blamed on all of us. No one will blame Americans and other westerners for all the atrocities of George Bush. No one will even blame Brown for Blair's evil fraternity with Bush and other Europeans will quickly wash their hands clean of him. Yet these same people use Zimbabwe and Mugabe to beat our heads all the time. Consequently many Africans whether Presidents or peasants have become defensive about the situation. The fear of not being seen as echoing London and Washington has policed many of us into silence which ZANU-PF/Mugabe hard liners have harvested as popular support among Africans . While it maybe true that many Africans identify with Land reform (including grabbing it from the descendants of settlers who had violently grabbed it from Africans in the first place) and hale Mugabe's anti imperialist posturing we must be painfully aware that the conflicts in Zimbabwe goes beyond Land. It is high time we are more proactive in saying to the old man : thanks for the Land but enough is enough of your personal rule. It is dodging the issue to be constantly saying he is not the only one. Tripoli, Kampala, Douala, Addis Ababa, Luanda, Liberaville , Conakry and other places have long term rulers who really have to be looking at life outside of state house. However the fact that there are other culprits does not mean that those caught should not be dealt with. President Mugabe still has opportunity to exit with some dignity but it requires a level of selflessness and patriotism that may be lacking in him at the moment.

There is nothing revolutionary in perpetuating personal rule in the name of liberation. How many more Zimbabweans have to die before we stop blaming our leaders, the AU, SADC, COMESA, etc? What can you do wherever you may be to show concrete solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe? The workers of South Africa who refused to allow arms from China meant for Harare to be offloaded in the Durban port have shown the way. Their Mozambican comrades have done the same. Now the arms are heading for Angola and the workers of Angola need to also be clear that they will not be party to arming a regime destroying its own people. How can a country that cannot feed its citizens be importing arms? If our governments cannot act what about us in whatever symbolic way possible?

We need to rid ourselves of the anti western default reflexes we have internalized that makes anyone being attacked by the West,   is ipso facto, African nationalist and anti imperialist hero or heroine. It is moral cowardice and politically irresponsible for us to hide indecision and inertia behind anti Western postures. London, Paris, Brussels or Washington and New York should not be our moral compass. We need to judge ourselves by higher standards .  We have to stop watching our shoulders to see where London or Washington stands before taking a standard on matters of principle.  It is is time to speak out and stand up for what we believe in.

*Dr Tajudeen Abdulraheem writes this syndicated column as a concerned Pan Africanist.

**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem looks at the the Africa Public Health Development Trust (APHDT) campaign to hold African governments to their commitment of allocating 15% of their annual budgets to health.

There are many people who used to be firebrand revolutionaries who have retreated into NGOs and are adapting guerrilla strategies to their advocacy, ambushing governments and others who hold power over what we eat, what we drink, our leisure and pleasures, be they corporate shirks, religious establishments or other powers that may be.

Many are moving away from inertia-inducing cynicism to active engagement and strategic infiltration of global, regional and sub-regional multilateral meetings, and influencing their agenda both from within and without. A downside of this, of course, is the constant danger of being incorporated, of popular ideas being hijacked and subverted, or of becoming too respectable and ineffectual.

There was resistance among many of Africa's leaders about opening up their summits and other regional multilateral meetings. Many of them were bent on keeping the business of government the exclusive preserve of 'sovereignty and territorial integrity' of largely unelected and mostly unelectable dictators. However, due to the persistence and perseverance of pro-democracy forces and continuing democratic gains, the spaces that opened up at national levels gained complementary spaces at sub-regional and continental levels. In some cases rights, conventions, charters and other politico-legal instruments agreed at the continental level have become a catalyst for reform at national levels. The engagement by human rights and other pro-democracy groups with the African Commission for Human and People's Rights (ACHPR) is one good example.

A major consequence of entering the corridors of power is that many of us are ceasing to be active revolutionaries and becoming expert RESOLUTIONARIES, adept at tracking these events, plodding through voluminous and sometimes unreadable documents.

But this no longer true among a growing brigade of African Resolutionaries. They read these documents and use them as entry points to engage with our governments, policy makers, multilateral agencies and developments partners at various levels. One group that is likely to be more influential in the long run is the Africa Public Health Development Trust (APHDT), a coalition of health advocacy groups across Africa being coordinated by the indefatigable Rotimi Sankore, a veteran in Africa's social movement. As we gain more legitimate space for civil and political rights, socio-economic and cultural rights, rights to development will become more central to our social movements, superseding the 'sexy by default' traditional human rights groups and the protest by per diem that some of them have become.

Some of the contradictory dynamics in engaging with governments are evident in APHDT's campaign to get African governments to meet their commitment to allocate 15% of their annual budgets to health. The APHDT and its allies are campaigning that they honour their commitment. However, at the recent AU/ECA joint meeting of African finance, planning and economic development ministers between 31 March and 2 April this commitment was going to be quietly dropped, but for the presence of the APDHT and its allies, including the UNMC.

The agenda was packed, but both APDHT and the UNMC shadowed the meeting to guarantee finance for Africa's capacity to meet the MDGs, and in particular to ensure that the public health commitments in relation to the four health-related goals, as well as the Abuja 15% commitment, remain.

Of the four points suggested by the CSOs that were persuasive to the experts, only the following two, in modified language, made it to the ministers' final resolutions:

1.That towards actualising the implementation of the AU Africa Health Strategy and associated health plans, including those on HIV, TB, malaria and reproductive health, African countries must urgently meet the AU Abuja pledge to allocate at least 15% of national budgets to health, combined with a consistent upward review of percentage expenditure on health and per capita expenditure on health, to ensure that the necessary levels of expenditure to increase life expectancy by 2010 and to meet the health-based MDGs by 2015 are achieved.

2.That African ministers of finance, planning and economic development organize a joint conference by 2008 or early 2009 to agree on the specifics for sustainable health financing to implement the Africa health frameworks and meet the health-based MDGs.

The recommendations that ministers adopted under paragraph 153 of the draft report, which also informed resolution 7 bullet 5 of the same report, were silent on the 15%.

There was discontent among the finance ministers regarding the feasibility of achieving the 15% target when there are so many competing priorities in the budget. Fiscal conservatism is the norm for finance ministers in these ideologically driven days of neo-liberalism. However, ministers have no right to refuse to implement their political bosses' decisions. They can only do so if their political bosses have forgotten their own commitments and the citizens are not aware of them. Citizens have a duty to remind them and also demand that these commitments are met.

It is most scandalous that according to the APDHT ‘…Africa currently loses over 8 million people a year mainly to TB, HIV, malaria, maternal mortality… This tragic loss, which is the equivalent of whole countries dying out and greater than losses from all modern conflicts combined, is a result of weak or collapsed public health systems.’

It goes without saying therefore that ‘…the long-term sustainable financing of public health as a whole should be recognised as a top social and economic development priority for the ECA and AU Member States.’ And indeed anyone seriously interested in Africa's development.

If you are outraged that millions of our peoples die annually in most cases from preventable diseases you have a duty to challenge your minister of finance to stop robbing the sick and causing more unnecessary deaths by balancing books against lives. The recommendations will be going forward to the next summit in Cairo. Be sure that your president recommits himself or herself to the Abuja pledge and not renege on them as the ministers are suggesting.

Our heads of state, ministers of finance, health, education and international partners express commitment to meeting the MDGs, yet they are unwilling to put their money where their mouth is. It must be that their hearts are not in it.

African governments are quick to partner with anybody, and cry their hearts out when it comes to aid, trade and debt, but are reluctant to be accountable to their own citizens about their own budgeting and spending commitments. Africa cannot insist (rightly) that the richer countries meet their commitment to increase aid to 0.7 % of their GDPs and then renege on specific commitments to their own peoples.

The 2001 Abuja 15% pledge is not just a number that can be conveniently erased from documents or dropped quietly. It is not just another statistic. It is a betrayal of the dead and the living. It is a choice between life and death.

*Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this column as a Pan Africanist.

**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem looks at Zimbabwe's ZANU-PF and MDC and asks whether the Zimbabwean people are being truly represented in the winds of change

I have to begin this week’s column with an open apology to a dear brother and comrade, Thomas Deve. He was one of the ‘original politburo’ of seven  idealistic young men (unfortunately  we were all men) who masterminded the organising of the 7th Pan African Congress in Kampala in 1994. The others were Napoleon Abdulai, Col. Serwanga Lwanga,  Major Ondogo ori  Amaza, Brig. Noble Mayombo Rwaboni and Myself. Our chairman was then Col. Otafiire (now Major-General, who was really  ‘utter fire’ in those days).

Sadly, of the four Ugandans in this team only one person (Otafiire) is alive today. By a coincidence all the other three non Ugandans have ended in the UN system! Is the UN where Pan Africanists retreat or resign to? The answer (s) will have to wait another time. In spite of changing trajectories we remain close both personally and politically. We generally hold similar views on political developments based on our shared political and ideological values and orientation. Most of the time none of us needed to do double checks to know where ‘the correct political line’ is. 

However twice now I have disagreed with Thomas’ judgement and twice I have had to recant. Both had to do with Zimbabwe. In 2000 I was part of the CDD delegation led by former President of Liberia, Prof Amos Sawyer, that the government of Zimbabwe had allowed to monitor the referendum. In several conversations with CSOs, National Constituent Assembly advocates, academics, journalists, opposition and government spokespersons and partisans the general conclusion was that ‘there was no way’ ZANU-PF was going to allow MDC and its allies to win the referendum. Even Morgan Tsvangirai was convinced that ‘Mugabe will not allow it’ and expressed doubts that if they won h Mugabe would put all of them in jail! 

Thomas Deve was the only one among all the people we officially interviewed who told us categorically that ZANU-PF/Mugabe was going to lose the referendum. I thought my comrade had been talking too much to disgruntled city dwellers and was taking the chattering classes for the masses. Off I went to Masvingo region where I was convinced that the rural masses as in other areas will troop out and vote for ZANU-Pf and dwarf the urban guerrilla movement of the MDC and angry CSOs. Was I not wrong?  The masses in the rural areas voted with their feet and the urban warriors were triumphant. At an African Association of Political Science (AAPS) and SARIPS  public Public Forum at Hotel Monomapata the day the result was released I had expressed my fears about the future of the country because the opposition was not prepared for Victory and the government had not been prepared for defeat. Both bore bad omen.  ZANU-PF went ahead to controversially ‘win’ the election the following year and the subsequent and has held on to power since then.

Come 2008 elections I and many other pundits repeated our ‘Mugabe will never allow the opposition to win’ mantra. He swore so himself openly. In case the world was deaf of hearing Army Commanders, Head of Police and other Security goons let it be known that they were not willing to salute a president who was not part of the Liberation war. Pity all those Zimbabweans  (demographically a majority of the population!)who missed out on the CHHIMURENGAs by being born too late. We had many discussions with Thomas and he insisted that there was  not going to be an outright winner and predicted a run off. I thought that Mugabe would not risk the humiliation of a run off.

Needless to say that Thomas was right again. How could we all have got it wrong? Could it because we have been so saturated with the 7days/24 hours highly biased reports on Zimbabwe and Mugabe that we have resigned ourselves to the devilish regime using all kinds of tricks to continue to hold on to power? One of the weaknesses of this politics of demonisation is that one becomes wedded to the doomsday scenario. Another is that we undermine and under estimate the creeping power of resistance and incremental democratic gains of the people of Zimbabwe. Even the opposition underplays its own victories (such as the reforms of the electoral processes) in order to have Mugabe permanently roasted in the court of public opinion especially in its constant pandering to Western audiences. The possibility of its victory was talked down in favour of a flawed process producing a flawed outcome . 

As in 2000 we were preparing for outright rigging by ZANU-PF which did not materialise.  Even when the much predicted violence did not happen we were still fearing it was only delayed. The Western Media and cynical reflexes about flawed elections across the continent had prepared our minds for rigging but the parliamentary results showed otherwise. The opposition’s victory then meant we had to change the script because of the potential contradiction of accepting  the parliamentary result and denying  the presidential result.

There is wrong comparison with what seemed a similar situation with the recent ‘top up’ rigging in Kenya but the real parallel is probably MKO Abiola’s denied June 12 1992 mandate  in Nigeria. In Kenya the conclusion of many independent observers has been that it was impossible to say with all certainty who had won the presidential election.  

In 1992 the Prodemocracy forces were able to unofficially publish Abiola’s result because of the ‘open secret’ ballot system that limited every polling station to a maximum of 500 voters and the requirement that each voter lined up behind their candidate’s poster and the certification of the result by all present.

It was possible to know who won by tallying the result from all polling stations which in Zimbabwe (for the first time) were required to be publicly displayed after counting. So no problem of we cannot find our returning officers as the Chairman of Kenya’s discredited Electoral Commission infamously claimed.

It now seems that in Zimbabwe the possible margin of error could swing either way. Even the MDC had only claimed it had barely met the 51% requirement. And ZANU-PF’s figures already conceded that they have not met the requirement by a few percentages. Strangely ZANU-PF had called for a rerun even before the official result is announced while the MDC now claims that it has ‘won’ and therefore there is no need for a rerun.

Is the MDC not falling into the trap of ZANU-PF and Mugabe? Are we not seeing a repeat of the referendum vote here where ZANU PF saw their defeat as a wake up call to clobber the populace into line by the time of the General elections.

Is it not clear that they are preparing for the rerun while the opposition is shuttling between the court and diplomatic capitals? I am not quite sure if the MDC will achieve anything by choosing this course. Why can’t they just go for the rerun and humiliate the Old man? 

It is to Thomas who has now earned his status as the ‘authentic guru’ that I turn for some homely clarity. His view is that the opposition may be more vulnerable  than everyone is predicting if there is a run off. If the rerun were to go against MDC what are we going to say? The only ‘solution’ we have been prepared for is Mugabe losing. One Member of the European Commission even suggested that  the EU and the rest of the international community (often used to mean EU and USA!) should recognize the result as declared by MDC. Where were they when Abiola was jailed for no other crime than winning an election? What implication does this type of ‘help’ have for the legitimacy of our institutions? 

Yes something needs to be done but what, by whom and when? And how? God knows that Mugabe is no longer part of the solution but central to problem but should he go simply because the West want him out? Should he also be holding the country to ransome in the name of defying the west even if the country is ruined? When would patriotic Zimbabweans both inside the ZANU-PF/MDC and those outside both parties say enough is enough.

How democratic is it that we hold elections with only particular outcomes in mind? Do elections ion themselves solve socio-economic and political problems Or they just reflect them? Were Hitler and Mussolini not elected? 

Instead of looking at ZANU or MDC victory is it not possible to conclude that Zimbabweans like Kenyans are tired of winner takes all politics by not giving overwhelming mandate to either the tired gerontocrat or his prodigal sons and daughters in the MDC?

Before you start following the Afropessimists’ please reflect that Kenya, Zimbabwe or Nigeria and their controversial Elections are not the only way . Botswana just had a transition from one president (voluntarily retiring one year before his term) and giving way to another without any fuss. It was so normal to the people of Botswana that it did not even make much news. 

Is Mugabe revolutionary enough to liberate himself from power and national suicide and bow out even at this late stage with some dignity or he will wait to be humiliated whatever the outcome of the result?

From Nigeria through Kenya  and now passing through Zimbabwe it is now clear that elections in themselves, important they may be, are not as decisive as the power to ‘announce’ the official result. How can we guarantee the integrity of this all powerful messenger? 

*Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this column as a Pan Africanist.

**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem talks about importance of political parties and asks the question: When the nationalists were fighting for liberation from colonial rule the people raised funds for the parties - What does it say of contemporary politics that members are not able or willing to fund their own parties?

Accra is my favourite city on the West Coast of Africa, while I rank Maputo in Southern Africa first. I was in both last week for different purposes but the experience was always the same: marvellous peaceful cities by the ocean? I guess my fascination with both countries and their capital cities and the inspiration many find in them has a lot to do with Kwame Nkrumah and Samora Machel having walked those streets. In both cities I feel like being in the shadow of both larger than life figures in the Pan African Movement Both may not recognise the two cities (and the countries) now were they to rise from their graves but somehow their spirit lives or lingers on.

I was not in both capitals for holidays but for meetings. In Accra, I was attending three meetings in one, all organised by the Abuja –based Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD).In Maputo I was gate crashing the annual meeting of the Regional Bureau for Africa of the UNDP.

It is one of the three meetings in Accra that I wish to talk abut this week.  For two the past two years the CDD has been working towards developing a Political Parties Index (PPI) for West Africa. There are all kinds of Governance, democracy and Accountability Indexes (the latest being the Mo Ibrahim African governance index) measuring the state of our emerging or disappearing democracies, levels of popular participation, openness and transparency in the various systems competing for recognition as ‘democratic’. 

It is strange that there are no Indexes devoted to Political Parties. Yet competitive liberal electoral politics is not possible without organised political parties. They provide the foundation for peacefully organising and mobilising the citizens behind alternative public policies. At least that is the theory whether they do this in practice is a different matter. Without vibrant political parties competitive politics may become capitalism without capital. There is a chequered history and experience of Political parties across Africa that makes many people to be either ambivalent or completely dismissive of them. It is not just the history of parties that induce ambiguity even contemporary experiences of parties do not inspire confidence. For instance If you are Kenyan or Nigerian where parties are more disposable than hotel towels why should you bother about them at all? 

In many countries political parties are merely convenient political machines deployed during elections for the attainment of personal political ambitions of whatever cabal ‘owns’ or can appropriate the parties. Most of them have no ideology, no clear or different policies from that of their opponents but just naked desire to grab power at all cost.  However political parties need not and have not always been like this. The struggle against colonialism be they the so called peaceful ones and the more militant armed struggles were led by great men and women organised in political parties and Movements. As bad as the situation  may seem now   there are formidable political parties in  a few countries including South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania, etc It is not surprising that west African examples do not readily come to mind. So what happened to all the political parties that fought for independence whether CPP/UGCC in Ghana or PAIGC in Guinea Bissau, SP in Senegal? As the region that had had the most intrusive of political interventions by the military perhaps the region has least experience of political parties as they remained banned under the various military regimes that became the norm for at least three decades in a majority pf the countries.

In West Africa you do not talk about military intervention rather the general rule was military in power with infrequent civilian interludes in many of the countries until the last decade and a half. In east Africa with the exception of the ‘coup prone’ Uganda   both Tanzania and Kenya have had very long experience of party rule but they both became long term One party regimes with the consequence that in spite of Multi party politics Tanzania remains a One party dominant state whereas in Kenya KANU’s monopoly of power did not survive multi partyism and it is more or less a dead party now. Museveni’s Uganda, aided and abetted by the same Western powers that were insisting on democratisation in many other states toyed with the ‘NO party democracy’ for ten years but had to give way to a multiparty system that is still very much skewed in favour of the ruling NRM (now rechristened NRM-O, as if indicating it will end in an Own goal eventually!).

In general parties that led the independence struggles, parties of liberation movement (like FRELIMO, MPLA or ZANU-PF) and their latter day successors, the armed revolutionary groups whether EPRDF in Ethiopia, NRA/NRM in Uganda, EPLF in Eritrea, have been reluctant to transfer power peacefully. Many of them were either overthrown in military coups or disgraced out of office (Zambia, Malawi and now ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe). From popular independence parties or Liberation movements they became personal instruments of a small elite around the leader (He, who must be obeyed!) often degenerating into a demobilising political force holding on to power through dictatorship and intimidating the citizenry. They used to inspire the citizens but as they remain in power beyond their sell-by dates they put the masses to sleep if not forced them to exile or early grave! The only exception so far has been the ANC but even this relatively disciplined party with a large cadreship is facing challenges of renewal as it enjoys unchallenged political hegemony as the ‘natural party of government’.

In spite of these failings Political Parties remain very important to the democratic renewal of our states and we need to take them very seriously. Political parties are staging a comeback as coups become less doable and even less acceptable. Former military regimes have civilianised themselves (Rawlings /NDC Ghana, Compaore in Burkina or NRA/M in Uganda) while older parties are being reinvented and new ones are on offer everywhere. In some countries serious contenders for power is probably not more than one or two or a combination of them with others as merely ‘also there’. If Kenya and now Zimbabwe are anything to go by ‘grand Coalitions’ of parties may be the way forward. This may bring back more interest in political parties.

It is not only in Africa that political parties and Voter interest in them have been ebbing. In the older democracies there are continuing downward trend in active membership of political parties. In Britain for instance more young people vote in Pop Idol than in elections! In America it is difficult to know what the fundamental difference between the democrats and the Republicans are except for Personality projections. Substance has given way to form with the media, lobbyists and PR companies telling people what to think and who to vote for but packaging them as Opinion poll and public opinion.

CDD’s Index will definitely be filling a vacuum in the available monitoring tools. As a pioneering effort it is being received with caution even by those involved. How do political parties contribute to deepening or hindering democracy? Are they democratic themselves? How do they hinder or enhance the full participation of marginalised groups be they Women, Youth, ethnic/religious or other political minorities?  Is democracy better served by national parties or could a case be made for decentralised party organisation that may address the political interests of marginalised groups? How do you decide which party is contributing? Is it by the number of seats in parliament or the number of seats contested?  There is also the controversial area of party funding. Should there be state funding or should parties be funded by their members? Are the parties democratic themselves before measuring their contribution ore non contribution to democracy?
Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem talks about importance of political parties and asks the question: When the nationalists were fighting for liberation from colonial rule the people raised funds for the parties - What does it say of contemporary politics that members are not able or willing to fund their own parties?

When the nationalists were fighting for liberation from colonial rule the masses of peasants, workers, even chiefs and the educated elite supported and raised funds for the parties. What does it say of contemporary politics that members are not able or willing to fund their own parties? The answer to these and many other questions may provide some  bases for rating  the parties or raise more questions when the CDD’s first cut emerges during next year. It may raise more questions than answers but a necessary process that should interest anyone interested in the health of our growing democracies.

*Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this syndicated column in his private capacity as a Pan Africanist. His views are not attributable to that of any organization he works for or is affiliated with.

**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem argues that regardless of the outcome in Zimbabwe, African people's solidarity should be with the Zimbabwean people

Zimbabweans go to the polls on 29th April the outcome of which many have forecast as going only one way: the 84 years old former Guerrilla leader and President since independence in 1980 will, willy-nilly, be ‘re-elected’ to power. Admittedly he is facing stiffer challenge than before in the person of his former Finance Minster, Makoni, and the official opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.

If there is a more level playing field it may not be a foregone conclusion that President Mugabe will win. The playing ground is very much weighted against Mugabe’s opponents. In spite of the enthusiasm with which Makoni has been received both nationally and internationally by forces of regime change that are tiring of the dramas surrounding Morgan and beginning to wane in their support for him Makoni’s performance in the elections may actually be more to the benefit of Tsvangirai as it is at the expense of President Mugabe and his dwindling support within the ZANU-PF. I may be wrong but I don’t think the election will provide a Makoni moment. It is also highly unlikely that Morgan’s courage and perseverance in forcing open the political space is about to be rewarded with electoral victory. What the election may show is that as in Kenya in the 1990s the majority of the masses are tired of President Mugabe but the opposition is not ready to assume power.

The comparative experience from other countries in Africa with long term Personal/One party rule is that as long as the incumbent Maximum ruler is standing in the election it is more difficult to defeat the ruling party. A combination of intimidation, open bribery of voters, restraints on the opposition and the media or brutal force and scandalous manipulation of all rules governing the electoral processes will be used to retain power failing which direct theft of the votes would be effected. Senegal (Abdou Diouf) and Benin ( Kerekou) were exceptions in the 90s and early 2000s where Presidents in a One party Dominant state was defeated by an opposition alliance. In Kenya and Ghana before that it was not possible to defeat Moi/KANU and Rawlings/NDC respectively as long as the incumbents were standing. Coincidentally it took 10 years in both countries before the opposition could get their acts together and realise that individually they could not defeat the ruling party. Another factor is that in both countries the unseating did not happen without a significant breakaway from the ruling party thus eroding its hegemony through the equivalence of internal bleeding.

Is Zimbabwe at this stage now? Judged against the three factors I will say Zimbabwe has not arrived at the point for change. The incumbent is still standing. The opposition still believes they can win on their own or are expecting a runoff which will establish whether Morgan or Makoni is best placed to unseat their aged Uncle! Finally while Makoni represents an important internal rupture in ZANU-PF causing self doubt and realignment away from ZANU –PF the much talked about and expected break within ZANU-PF has not produced significant smoking guns. This means that so far not enough influential individuals and constituencies are willing to put their heads above the parapet to unseat Mugabe.

A particularly distorting aspect of the Zimbabwe conflict is the open advocacy for regime change by outside non African forces that has made it difficult for Africans to decisively intervene in the Zimbabwe situation without being dubbed lackeys of imperialism by Mugabe and his fellow travellers. Some of his more hard line supporters especially in the Diaspora have even accused some of us who openly criticise Mugabe and advise him to quit as being paid by MI5 and CIA!. What is so revolutionary about taking a country that you help to build back to the dark ages just to prove you are a strong man to Bush and Blair! Many of those who cheer Mugabe as revolutionaries from their rostrums outside Zimbabwe would not go and live and suffer in ‘revolutionary Zimbabwe’.

The focus on the Anglo-American and Western multiple standards in relation to Zimbabwe also make many Africans suspicious of the opposition and amenable to Mugabe’s propaganda that his opponents are traitors’ to the cause of Zimbabwe and Africa. In particular Morgan/MDC’s perambulations on the Land issue (very popular with Africans with historical memory of land alienation by colonialists) further strengthen their hostility. While Mugabe/ZANU –PF complain about the ‘unfair’ coverage they get from Western Media I have never heard them raise any query about their overwhelmingly positive image in many African Media!

However we should not allow other people’s agenda, legitimate or illegitimate, to detract us from formulating our own. The knee-jerk cold-war induced reaction of ‘if the Americans are here I must be there’ no longer hold. This does not mean that imperialism is dead or that the West has suddenly become our friends but their enemies need not necessarily be our heroes or heroines either. It is certainly not the case that everybody opposed to President Mugabe is a traitor working for the British just like it is true that not all those refusing to back the opposition are supporters of of ZANU-PF/Mugabe. They may even be ZANU-PF loyalists without being fans of Mugabe.

Our solidarity is with the people of Zimbabwe whether they are in ZANU-PF or outside of it and their right to choose those who govern them. President Mugabe does not own the people of Zimbabwe. They are no less Zimbabweans for voting the opposition therefore it is most undemocratic for President Mugabe to say as quoted recently that the opposition will never rule Zimbabwe in his life time . That is a decision that only the people of Zimbabwe can make.

This election may be another missed opportunity for changing the deplorable conditions that the long suffering masses of Zimbabwe live with. Real change may not happen until after President Mugabe either quits (highly unlikely) or is retired by the ancestors. Zuma coming to power in neighbouring South Africa may also trigger realignments that may limit Mugabe’s room for manouvre.

*Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this syndicated column in his private capacity as a Pan Africanist. His views are not attributable to that of any organization he works for or is affiliated with.

**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem turns a timely and critical eye on Colonel Muamar Gaddafi and asks: Have we indulged the Spiritual guide and first citizen of the Libyan Arab People's Socialist Jamahiriya for too long?

The Brother Leader, Colonel Muamar Gaddafi, the Spiritual guide and first citizen of the Libyan Arab People's Socialist Jamahiriya, is in Uganda on a four-day official visit.

No sooner than he landed in Uganda did he start saying things that delighted his adulatory supporters and lullaby to his host, but make his critics cry wolf. In closing a ten-day meeting of African/Arab Youth he repeated his controversial thesis about revolutionaries not retiring, not needing term limits and democracy as an imposition from the west and surprise! Surprise!! The revolutionary leader He (in power for 39 years)declared his host, Museveni (in power only for 22 years but still counting!) and uncle Bob of Zimbabwe (in power for 28 years and soon getting himself 're-elected' whether Zimbabweans like it or not!), as the genuine articles among Africa's state house bound revolutionaries!

I do not subscribe to a lot of the Gaddafiphobia that we have been fed with over the years by reactionary African leaders and western ideological warriors who are now falling over themselves to do business with Gaddafi. I have met the Leader several times and support Libya on many Pan African and international issues. When we held the 7th PAC in Kampala his support was only second to that of the host country, Uganda. I am and will always consider myself a friend of the Jamahiriya.

However, as any person who has been in solidarity with Libya may admit privately, Brother Gaddafi is a very difficult friend to have. The political system he has developed in Libya is highly personalised and leader-centric with the inner core vulnerable to instability based on who is in and who is out based on his whims. While the Leader may enjoy popular support, there is no strong evidence that the popular masses have really internalised the ideals of the revolution, four decades after. That is why you have periodic conflicts between Libyans and other Africans often with racial overtones while the Leader is busy promoting stronger unity, solidarity and Pan Africanism.

Unfortunately, most of the supporters and the so called friends of the Jamahiriya do not tell the Leader the truth. This makes him vulnerable to flatterers, charlatans and opportunists both in interstate relations and in popular diplomacy. And he seems to enjoy and even crave the fake adulation. And they come wearing all kinds of ideological and religious masks. The more militant the better!

A consequence of this cheap populism is the tendency for the Brother leader to say anything, make unguarded declarations and sometimes espouse half-baked ideas that should embarrass any genuine comrade. But no one will tell the emperor that he is naked.

Sometimes when he really has original ideas and is willing to put his money where his mouth is, the penchant for showmanship becomes fertile ground for his enemies and critics to kill the ideas and even some of his so-called friends to play games with him.

One of such is his support for an accelerated integration of Africa which he has been championing since the Sirte extra ordinary Summit in September 1999. It was not just reactionary African leaders that led the onslaught in Accra. His 'revolutionary’ friends, including Presidents Museveni, Mbeki, and Prime Minister Meles were among those who torpedoed the Union Government proposal in favour of tortoise speed.

Yet Libya continues to spend disproportionate resources on lobbying leaders believing that once they say yes, we will achieve Unity by fiat. If Libya had spent a tiny proportion of what it spends on these leaders in building strategic partnership with democratic forces, peoples groups, parliaments, youth women and student groups, trade unionists and other progressive forces in raising popular consciousness and political mobilisation in many countries in Africa, there would have been greater success because the masses will be driving and pushing the leaders. Unfortunately because its system is also leader-driven from top downwards it cannot engage with genuine democratic forces. When Libya attempts popular diplomacy because they are not always good readers of country situations, they fall victim to conference mercenaries just like the jamboree that has just ended in Kampala.

In spite of his continuing rhetoric against imperialism Libya is in reality now aligned to the west in an understandable Post Lockerbie realism. It is no longer a pariah state. And Tripoli has again become a magnate for all manner of western companies and executive tourism for western leaders. That is why it is cooperating with the EU on xenophobic immigration policies to enhance fortress Europe by stopping desperate Africans from using Libya to cross into the EU. I am no advocate of Africans going to wash plates and do all kinds of dirty jobs in Europe. Our future lies on this continent with so much wealth but only appreciated and appropriated by others thanks to the collaboration of our leaders who act as dealers. However a genuine Pan Africanist state should not act as Gate Keepers for the West. Instead of deporting these Africans, why can't Libya show its seriousness about freedom of movement for Africans by giving them the right to settle and work in Libya? That will be leadership by example with which it can challenge other African states to set our peoples free and return Africa to Africans.

We have indulged the Brother leader for too long.

While Revolutionaries may not retire from the revolution, they should not imprison the revolution in the state house by insisting they have to remain there for life. The longer they hang on to power the more reactionary they become as revolutionary goals give way to personal and regime security.
What kind of revolution is the Brother leader talking about that depends on only one leader after so many decades?

Let history judge whether those who speak uncompromising truth to power are the real revolutionaries or those who flatter leaders as irreplaceable.

There is no doubt in my mind that even if the citizens cannot remove these permanent leaders, death will eventually retire them. The grave yards of history are full of many delusionary leaders who thought themselves immortal.

*Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this syndicated column in his private capacity as a Pan Africanist. His views are not attributable to that of any organization he works for or is affiliated with.

**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem looks at where Africa is, in regards to meeting the Millennium Development Goals and argues that Africa should try to meet and exceed them.

Can Africa fulfil the MDGs by 2015? That's a question that is often asked anytime there is a discussion about MDGs. It was on many lips during the celebration of the International Women's day last Saturday. Behind the question of course is a lot of cynicism by the questioner(s). There is a generalised doubt that the MDGs may not be met on schedule in a majority of African states. Official reports and anecdotal evidence suggest that at the current pace even by 2050 the goals may still remain unmet by these states.

The situation is not helped by the fact that most of the reports available are usually aggregated. Hence the negative conclusion is that Africa's progress is at best very slow and patchy. Like all generalisations and aggregated statistics they hide the specific, more positive picture of steady progress on a number of the goals in quite a few countries across Africa. It also panders to the fashionable Afro pessimism that caricatures events in Africa promoting embedded attitudes of 'Hopeless Africa'. A 'helpless people and continent' that needs the help and handout of everybody else except its own peoples and leaders.

The truth is mostly to the contrary but 'good stories' are boring, they do not make headlines. Without bad stories from Africa how can the hordes of humanitarian agencies and organisations, local and foreign, who operate as latter day missionaries or mercy mercenaries make their fund raising successful? How can the compassion industry survive without the back drop of Kwashiokored children, diseased mothers and other suffering Africans?

It is rather late in the day to be asking if Africa can meet the MDGs or not. Still more pointless are the criticisms of the goals as being too minimal. All of them are more than 7 years out of date. We are half way through and those questions are unhelpful especially among campaigners who are committed to holding their governments to account for these commitments. The problem with asking the wrong questions is that you get the wrong answers that may divert you from the tasks in hand. A more proactive way of looking at this is to ask what can be done to fill the obvious gaps that still exist that may prevent countries from meeting the goals. The desirability of the goals is no longer debatable. Meeting them will not hurt anyone. If you can half poverty nobody will stop you from eradicating it.

Answering the more proactive type of questions also requires one to look at the progress that has been achieved instead of just looking for the challenges. An appreciation of progress so far will then open one's eyes to the challenges of what remains to be done. Then we will ask what more needs to be done to make sure that there are no excuses for not meeting these goals and even surpassing them in many cases.

Almost in all African countries there has been remarkable progress in education in terms of enrolment in schools. There is universal access to education across many countries that have allowed millions of girls and boys who would not have seen the inside of classrooms to do so. Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and others are good examples of the rapid enrolment in schools. On child mortality Malawi is only second to Costa Rica in the dramatic drop in child deaths (over 30%) in the past three years. The same Malawi that used to rank as the 'poorest country in the world', a country that was recipient of Food Aid a few years ago, has now become a food donor to some of its poorer neighbours including Zimbabwe. On controlling the spread of HIV/AIDS Uganda used to be a lone star but a few other countries have become even more aggressive in fighting the disease.

Huge numbers of African children today have better chances of survival than 10 years ago. More and more are likely to live beyond their 5th birthdays and have hope going to primary school and even better chances of going on to higher education as countries upscale their investments in education and move beyond universal primary education to secondary education.

It is not all smooth sailing. There are issues around quality, retention in schools, drop out rates between boys and girls etc, however quantitative changes are important steps as countries deal with the issues of quality. We cannot say that more children should not go to school until all schools are of the same quality. Both go hand in hand.

The external environment is also changing as international partners are held to more scrutiny and challenged to walk the walk as fast as they talk the talk. Debt relief has not been universal and a majority of African states have not become beneficiaries, but the minority (Uganda, Mozambique, Ghana, Rwanda, Malawi, Zambia, etc) that have got it are generally transforming the gains into meaningful dividends on a number of MDGs. Those not qualified like Nigeria, but who have renegotiated discounts on their National Debt, have not only increased the country's financial credibility but also Nigeria now also has a virtual fund of more than 1 billion Dollars that is devoted to MDGs. In many countries the MDGs are being localised with targets that are more ambitious than those of the Millennium Declaration.

So the question is not whether we can meet the goals or not, but why country X is doing well on a number of goals and country Y is not performing. By concentrating on 'can't meet' we are letting political leaders off the hook of accountability for commitments they made voluntarily to their own citizens. 7 years may not be long but it is certainly long enough for all the countries to change their policy direction and resource allocation that prioritise the needs of the poor and marginalised and accelerate the fulfilment of the MDGs. African citizens have a duty to remind their leaders about these commitments and be vigilant in demanding that they are met and even go beyond them where possible. If the goals are not met it will not just be because of government insensitivity but also citizen complacency or indifference.

* Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the Deputy Director of the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned Pan-Africanist.

** Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Someone very important is visiting Africa, specifically 5 countries including Tanzania, Rwanda, Benin, Ghana and Liberia. He is the President of the United States of America. The hassles of hosting a U.S. president are bad enough. His people take over your whole country and make our normally inefficient states go into over drive and our egregious First Ladies and their husbands go into overkill to show their hospitality. We never knew many of them could bend their knees until they were leading cleaning troops across the capitals in preparation for Clinton’s visit in 1998 from Kampala to Accra!

I could not forget seeing resident Museveni being a perfect gentleman with a spread umbrella for Mrs Clinton! In Accra, Jerry Rawlings and Mrs Rawlings went out of their ways for a few hours of stop over. But with Bush it is not just the ridiculous security and obsequious protocol laid on by our Presidents that concerns me. African hospitality knows no bounds. Remember some of our chiefs and Kings were so friendly that they parted with ancestral lands and carted away able bodied young men and women for as little as mirrors, umbrellas and walking sticks! Whatever our rational concerns though, the officials in the five ‘chosen’ countries will be beside themselves to give him a reception he will never forget. To them, it is a major diplomatic and political coup for the President of the U.S. to be visiting their countries. It shows their “ungrateful” citizens how very important these leaders are.

I can easily explain why four of the countries were on the itinerary. Tanzania remains one of the most peaceful countries in Africa and saves for the mess in Zanzibar and reactionary victimisation of dissenting citizens under the previous regime, it remains a decent state with a government that everyone wants to befriend. With Uganda now becoming less fashionable and Kenya inflicting enormous self injury on itself Dar es Salaam is indeed living up to its name as a rendezvous of peace! Rwanda is probably the best governed and effective state in Africa today (I don’t mean most democratic!).

Kagame has won the grudging respect of reluctant neighbours and admiration of outsiders as a place where you see real value for Aid money and other ‘investments’. It also enjoys the political and diplomatic dividends of guilt-tripping westerners for their actions and inactions prior to, during and after genocide in 1994. Ghana, mother Africa, I wonder how Nkrumah like Nyerere in Tanzania is turning in his grave that the country he built on radical nationalism has become a desirable Executive tourist destination for western Presidents. Ghana has had a prolonged 50th anniversary magic effect only punctuated by the unfortunate defeat by Cameroon in the Africa cup. You cannot go wrong with Ghana as a steady gentleman country. As for Liberia, its historic links to the U.S. is flaunted by its elite without any sense of irony. Post Taylor it has regained fashionability in the U.S. establishment. Bush is therefore bound to receive the warmest of receptions in Monrovia, a city created for freed slaves from the U.S. but whose elite had no qualms in recreating plantation power relations against fellow Africans and continue to behave as the missing state of the U.S. on the West coast of Africa!. But Benin, I do not know why Bush is going there. Maybe to balance up the Anglo-French divisions and remind a waning Paris that there are no no go areas anymore. But maybe he wants to go close enough to Africa’s sleeping giant, Nigeria but without entering it given the uncertainties surrounding the federal administration consequent to rigged elections.

Unlike in Kenya where the protagonists are trying to dialogue even if there does not seem to be much good will in Nigeria they are all in court. And so far the courts have been overturning some of the ‘topped up’ victories for the ruling party. What is the point in going to dine with a president who may not be there by the time you arrive or the week after you leave? The visit is obviously packaged to showcase ‘America working with Africa’ hence the concentration on HIV/Aids programmes supported by the U.S. government through bilateral grants and NGOs. There is no doubt that the Bush administration has given more money, several times, more than that of the Clinton administration, so loved by both African – Americans and Africans. However this generosity is dampened by the insistence on giving money to their own religiously inclined and anti-condom groups. But HIV and Aids is not the only threat that Africa faces in which a globally responsive U.S. President could be of help but to which Bush has turned deaf ears for the past 7 years. He is ideologically opposed to the Millennium Development Goals. He has remained more belligerent than his predecessors on global Climate Change.

In spite of all evidence to the contrary he still believes he can bomb countries into democracy which has strengthened the hands of many dictators and legitimized further militarization and regime change politics especially in the Great Lakes region. He may want to be remembered by the few good ones but the consequences of his bad policies are just too many and will outlast him and some of them irreparable due to the collateral evil they have spurned. In spite of my reservations what kind of African would I be to say a visitor is not welcome? And a visitor as important as George Bush. He is welcome to enjoy his stay and our hospitality. We are also hoping that the next President of the U.S. will not behave like a settler landlord of the world and treat the rest of us as illegal tenants in our shared earth. It is a shared world and the US must learn to inhabit it with the rest of us in peace, solidarity, and respect for all big or small. It needs us as much as we need it. Therefore the next President need not be asking why the rest of the World hates America rather he or she needs to be more introvertic by asking if America loves the world enough to live in it peacefully and in justice with the rest of us.

*FPIF Analyst Tajudeen Abdulraheem was formerly the General Secretary of the Pan-African Movement. He is based in Nairobi, Kenya.

**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Tajudeen to Africa and EU leaders: Who is fooling who?

In spite of all the controversies and mountains of news reports the final outcome of the Africa-EU Summit in Lisbon is nothing if not an anti climax. The joint declaration signed by the 67 leaders promised to be a new partnership that will propel both continents to ‘a new, strategic level’ which will forge ‘a new and stronger partnership that builds on their new identities and renewed institutions , capitalizes on the lessons of the past and provides a solid framework for long term cooperation’.

Why should the EU and Africa be looking for a new partnership when the much touted NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development) has been in existence for the past five years?

Why are the same African leaders who claim that NEPAD is our economic blue print and the AU our political means of achieving its aims signing new partnerships? Why should other regional blocks who claim to support African initiatives using all kinds of carrots and sticks to induce us to sign new ones while making ritual commitment to support ‘African solutions to African problems’.
The Yoruba have a saying : ‘ Enia meji ki pa adanu iro, bi eniti an tan o ba mo o ye ki eniti ntan’ ni o mo’ (i.e. two people cannot both lose out on a lie, if the one being deceived does not know it is a lie , at least the deceiver should know it is a lie). The irony of Lisbon is that one is not sure who is fooling whom?

What is so new about this promised partnership which was dictated at all levels by the EU? It should rightly be called Europe’s strategy for Africa instead of the deceitful tag of EU-Africa Strategy. The basic principles, contents, negotiations and processes were dictated by the Europeans with the Africans playing catch up or merely reacting as reviewers of papers drafted by the EU and their consultants. I should know what I am talking about because I was partly involved in the CSO (more appropriately NGO) process. Instead of the European NGOs talking and partnering with their African NGO counterparts they were dealing directly with the AU bureaucrats, principally the African Citizens Directorate (CIDO). CIDO (which should be more appropriately called Centre for disempowering African Citizen Participation in the AU) then proceeded to cherry pick which African NGOs and NGIs (like myself) that they can involve. Things were not that different in the governmental processes. So bad did it become that there were deliberate leaks to NGO activists by concerned Ministers especially on EPA by African finance Ministers despairing at the bullying of African governments by the EU and their governments to force Africa to sign up by the time of the Lisbon summit.

It is obvious that the same divide and rule tactics which Europe successfully used to conquer us as slaves and later colonize and balkanize the continent into mostly non viable states was at play. How can we be negotiating with the EU as EAC, ECOWAS, SADC, etc when they were negotiating with us as the EU? Perhaps it is most appropriate that the venue of the Summit was Lisbon, capital of Portugal. Portugal was the first European country to set foot in Africa and the last to leave its colonies forced by armed struggles in its colonies. Indeed it was revolution in its colonies that precipitated revolution in Lisbon itself that freed it from Military dictatorship.

We really cannot blame the Europeans for leading us by the nose. We should ask our selves why our noses are so readily available. Why are we so ready and willing to respond to other people’s agenda with no respect for ours? Is it that we cannot refuse any invitation to dinner even if the food is not palatable or when we may be full?

Respect is not given on demand but earned by the way one respects oneself. If African leaders can sign up to NEPAD, AU, RECs and other intra African multilateral agreements and conveniently forget them whenever extra African powers come calling we cannot blame others for over writing them.

There is no amount of agreements that our leaders can sign with other regions of the world that will deliver social progress and development to our peoples unless we put our house in order and learn to deal with the rest of the world with a united front in spite of the contradictions between us. Others have their own internal contradictions too but they know where their best interest and what their long term strategies are.

If we say the AU is our primary diplomatic and political organ for Africa’s shared interests then we need to give it the essential power to do so on our behalf instead of constantly running around sucking up to any powers that claim to have interest in Africa.

The politics of the process that led to Lisbon is yet another demonstration of the ugly truth that we are yet to be taking our selves seriously and hence we belittle our own institutions and through that ourselves and privilege others in our affairs. It is time to stop this circus of Executive mileage and saver miles across the world. The leaders should just stay at home and implement all the agreements we already have to accelerate regional and continental integration. Anybody interested can come and join us as we rebuild this continent from Cape Town to Cairo. We do not need new agreements. We just need to fulfill existing ones we made among ourselves. Without this all agreements will just be like one between cats and Mice. Is there any wager who the mice are?

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is Deputy Director, Africa, for the UN Millennium Campaign, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this column in his personal capacity as a concerned Pan Africanist.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Tajudeen reflects on the the life of the late former prime minister of Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and the injustices he committed against the people of Zimbabwe.

We shall not mourn this racist, and nobody should make us feel guilty for our freedom!

Ian Smith died in a South African hospital on Wednesday 21 November. He died a cantankerous old man, incorrigible racist with no redeeming features and no remorse for his atrocities against the Black people of Zimbabwe whom he ruled without their consent for 2 decades until popular resistance and liberation war defeated him. He was defeated in spite of the active support of the military machine of apartheid South Africa and the not so indirect collaboration of his British first cousins and his second cousins, many times removed, in Washington and other Western powers.

These facts are worth restating here because the World has changed so much in the past 2 decades that I would not be surprised even if many Zimbabwean Young People (not to talk of other Youth in Africa) do not have a memory of Ian Smith and what he stood for. For many Young people in Zimbabwe government means Mugabe/ZANU-PF. For those of us shaped by the struggles against apartheid and racist settler regimes in Southern Africa we know about Ian Smith and Rhodesia. It is only in Africa that such evil people benefit from lopsided National reconciliation and live till their old age with impunity. One day One day we will be strong enough and stable politically to demand accountability of all our leaders past and present as it is happening in Latin America and beginning to happen in Cambodia. Let all our oppressors live till old age (at the scene of their crimes) so that justice can catch up with them.

Whatever one thinks about the current situation in Zimbabwe we should not be fooled by the western Media into believing that Ian Smith was some kind of benevolent dictator under whom Southern Rhodesia (as it was then called) prospered. The BBC has been doing its usual best in balancing this evil racism represented by Smith with their opposition to Mugabe.
They are simulating nostalgia for this vile white supremacist. If there is a hell I hope Smith is roasting in it, in the most hellish section of it!

Africans are so alienated from our political leaders that many of us find it very hard to acknowledge any good in them. Even when they are doing the right things we often suspect them of doing them for the wrong reasons. And we are reluctant to praise them because of the many false prophets that we have suffered in the past. These erring on the side of caution make us even look at our many victories with cynicism post facto.

That’s why you will hear many Africans, not necessarily apologists of colonialism or imperialism, declaring that ‘things were better under colonialism’.
It is not that they want colonialism to return (with the exception of Some Sierra Leoneans!) but they are disheartened by the inability of the post colonial government and elite to sustain the initial popular legitimacy and live up to the expectations of Uhuru in a sustainable way.

Colonial apologists in the west interpret this disenchantment to mean Africans would be better served by a return to colonial rule. This way they wash their hands off their shame and guilt of their fore fathers.

Whatever Zimbabwe under ZANU-PF and President Mugabe may have turned into it will be most erroneous and deeply offensive to celebrate Ian Smith and White Minority rule. No mater how well a master treats his Slaves on his plantation they remain slaves with little or no dignity. That was why Sekou Toure made that famous nationalist declaration against colonialism when the French offered all their colonies a choice between freedom and remaining under French tutelage in the name of French Federation. He said:
‘We prefer Independence with dangers to prosperity on our Knees’. It is the same spirit of freedom that made that foremost Kenyan Nationalist, Dedan Kimathi at the height of Mau

The likes of Ian Smith preferred that we live on our knees. Even if some of the actions of our leaders like Mugabe may tempt us to draw the unpleasant parallels we should avoid this throwing away the baby with the birth water. We can resist them the way they resisted racist oppressors but lets us not be blinkered by racist propaganda that sees only perpetual conflict and collapse in Africa since we gained our freedom from them Without the enormous opportunities for public education, building of social infrastructure and expansion of the economy and its benefits brought about by independence I for one (the son of a Tailor and a petty trader) would never have had the chance to go to school and be able to write this article.

Just ask yourself how many Black Zimbabweans were graduates, medical Doctors, Lawyers, school teachers, academicians, civil servants, even bankers, business people , investors , diplomats and even farmers before independence in 1980. As a student in England in the
80s I recall how Zimbabwean Students were an elite group to themselves, with more allowances than Nigerians and their Oil bonanza.

It is in the nature of things that the middle class that is Mugabe regime’s creation that have now become his biggest critics and opponents. They have a right to take freedom as a starting point and to desire more their fathers’ generation. However they will be committing political suicide if opportunistic alliance with the West makes them throw away their rightful inheritance by saying that Mugabe is not better than or is even worse than Ian Smith and the Rhodesians.
That way they are giving all the credits for National liberation to Mugabe and denying the contribution of their own parents and the many generations of Zimbabweans who struggled, paid with their lives and suffer many degradations so that they can be free.
Memory is very important. Even if former enemies have become our new friends we should not forget the scars.

Ian smith was bad news all his life and even in death he remains that. I cannot in all honesty say May his soul rest in peace (in PIECES, yes, please God!). It will be hypocritical. May the spirit of those Zimbabweans murdered by his regime and its criminal killer squads, the Rhodesian army and allied fascist groups, be waiting to haunt him and hold him accountable for his crimes against their humanity.

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the deputy director of the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/