Sokwanele present a moving and shocking account of last week's brutal attack on Zimbabwean pro-democracy activists, the 'Save Zimbabwe Campaign', by Mugabe's government forces.

A week ago, Zimbabwean pro democracy activists, campaigners, political leaders and supporters tried to attend a rally in Harare, organised by the Save Zimbabwe Campaign. Their purpose was to come together and collectively, peacefully, protest against the terrible conditions in Zimbabwe. The government's forces were lying in wait for them.

Riot police surrounded the venue and many of those trying to attend were arrested en masse. Gift Tandare, a young NCA and MDC activist was killed, shot by the police, whilst running to escape. Those taken to Machipisa were viciously tortured and many suffered serious injuries. In fact, the attacks were so brutal and callous, that those being beaten struggled to comprehend the enormity of what was actually taking place. Tendai Biti, who witnessed the attack on Morgan Tsvangirai, described the experience as 'like being in an old bad violent movie, surreal, but where you find that you are one of the actors'.

International audiences learned of all these atrocities within a relatively short space of time, the news spreading like wildfire through the international media; images and interviews prompting analyses, comment and endless interpretation. By the time the news - our news - filtered through Zimbabwe, it was already 'old news' in neighbouring countries and abroad. Zimbabweans held hostage by Robert Mugabe's repressive AIPPA laws (Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act) struggled for information and updates.

Tracey Chapman famously informed us in song that 'Talkin' about a revolution sounds like whisper". Zimbabweans could add that 'talking about a revolution looks like an sms message'. The first message I received from Harare read 'mass arrests @ rally. 1 killed. lots beaten by police. v v bad. r u ok where u r?' It was the first of many sms messages that day. The details of our collective experience filtered down slowly via texts, emails, and phone calls from concerned family and friends in the diaspora who have blissful access to extensive information.

Those involved with, or on the fringes of, activist work benefit from a network of trusted friends who freely share their information among themselves. Those outside the network, occupied with the daily business of trying to survive in Zimbabwe, exchange the information they have in guarded language - eager to find out more, but careful or fearful of whom they can trust. The majority of people in Zimbabwe do not have the luxury of an internet connection or a cell phone, and they rely on second or third hand information, constantly re-cycled and checked. On their way to work they walk pas newspaper billboards broadcasting disinformation and blatant lies. If they are lucky enough to have a radio, the state controlled media brings more of the same to their ears.

On Monday 12 March, the day after the torture and assaults, The Chronicle's headline was 'Mugabe ready to stand in 2008 poll'. On Tuesday, as the news started to trickle down, the headline changed to 'State warns MDC against lawlessness'. The article emotively and deceptively informed its readers:

'Tsvangirai and Mutambara were actually commanding (hooligans) using children as shields". Wednesday's headline: "Suspected cop killer appears in court.'

On Thursday, the propaganda machine kicked in with an article titled 'Govt warns MDC on violence'. A lengthy article consisting mostly of quotes by Zanu PF Minister of Information and Publicity, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, ducked all mention of torture by deftly sweeping it under a sentence that described the police action as an 'appropriate response from officers of law and order'. The images of Morgan Tsvangirai with a swollen battered face, so widely circulated in the international media, have still not been seen by the majority of people in our country. But by Thursday, a tiny minority of Zimbabweans with DSTV subscriptions had seen the footage and images on their screens of the government's barbarity - most notably in the 24 hour news programmes (BBC World, Sky News and CNN International) - and the detailed descriptions will have started filtering down. Note the channels that horrified Dr Ndlovu the most; note too how any condemnation of violence and brutality is re-written in the Zanu PF lexicon to be an 'unconditional statement of support' for the opposition:

'Government has noted with utter dismay the unconditional statements of support to the violent MDC by a number of western governments, including those of Britain, America and New Zealand. It also notes the role played by big western media networks, led by the British Broadcasting Corporation and Cable News Network, in seeking to absolve and whitewash the MDC from obvious and inescapable blame of public violence.'

Information threatens Mugabe. Days after the attacks, Grace Kwinje and Sekai Holland were prevented from leaving the country to receive specialist medical attention on the spurious grounds that they required a letter from the ministry of health granting permission to leave Zimbabwe; Arthur Mutambara was arrested while trying to leave Zimbabwe to visit his wife in South Africa. Violence was shamelessly used to stop Nelson Chamisa from attending an EU-ACP meeting in Brussels - he was viciously attacked at Harare International Airport by men with iron bars.

This is the Zanu PF regime's way of silencing their voices. Kept within the country, their first hand accounts of torture and brutality can be moderated by limited access to the international media. Outside the country, the press would be queuing up to interview and speak to them.

The fight for information is key to the looming non-violent revolution in Zimbabwe. A colleague described how she had watched the BBC News footage with all her friends and associates assembled together. The footage concluded with a statement by one of the opposition leaders that Zimbabweans were angry and ready to take action. There was silence in the room until someone said, 'I'm ready, but how?'

'How' to get the message of the revolution to the people is one of the biggest challenges facing the Save Zimbabwe Campaign, how to synchronously organise and mobilise a nation from within an information vacuum. Information will also help ensure a non-violent revolution; chaos is Mugabe's friend and his excuse. Ordinary Zimbabwean can help too. The message to them is to be less careful, to share information more freely. If you have not signed up to mailing lists delivering information by email, then do so now. Share with others. Print out articles and images and leave them in a public toilet as reading matter for the next occupier of the cubicle.

Think about how we can collectively fill the silence with sound.

Zimbabweans are ready. The initial shock at the brutality is wearing off and has been replaced with outrage and anger at the regime's vicious tactics. Perhaps the single most important outcome from the recent events are the strong messages of unity emanating from the opposition movement. Morgan Tsvangirai has said:

'They […] brutalised my flesh. But they will never break my spirit. I will soldier on until Zimbabwe is free" and Arthur Mutumbara has said: "I can assure Robert Mugabe that this is the end game. We are going to do it by democratic means, by being beaten up and by being arrested - but we are going to do it.'

Unified messages like these reinvigorate hope and bolster flagging spirits. The excessive violence was designed to instil fear in the population and to intimidate the opposition leaders. But by being so extreme, Robert Mugabe also revealed his fragile position, and for the first time looked weakened. Rather than being his usual despotic self, using dirty tactics to stay one-step ahead, Mugabe looks increasingly like a crazed dictator cornered and fighting his last fight. He is a man surrounded by battles and by enemies he has created for himself. They are coming at him from within his own party, from the opposition, from Zimbabwe's civil society, and from the international community; but, his biggest enemy is the economy.

People who are struggling to survive, talk openly and endlessly about their daily battle to feed, educate and care for their families. People who are careful about 'talkin about a revolution' are less careful about talking about the internal succession battle within the Zanu PF party. We are looking for someone to be accountable for our misery. The combination of poverty, Zanu PF conflicts and outrage at the torture inflicted on our leaders has left ordinary Zimbabweans feeling a little more emboldened.

Mugabe is famous for once saying: 'absolute power is when a man is starving and you are the only one able to give him food'. But what happens to the person holding the reins of power when the food runs out and the cupboard is bare?

Mugabe is on the brink of finding out.

* Sowkwanele - This is Zimbabwe is a Civil Action Support Group based in Zimbabwe. In order to protect themselves under the repressive brutal regime of Robert Mugabe they have to remain annoymous.

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/296/china-africa.jpgPeluola Adewale examines China’s investment expansion into Africa and the impact on local markets and industries. However, alongside this massive investment exists a rising hostility by the Africans workers due to China’s appalling anti-labour practices, low wages and disregard for the environment.

'The need for a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, and establish connections everywhere.' With these words, Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto capture the basis for the expansionist instinct of capitalism. Perhaps, so far in this millennium, no state, the organ of the ruling class of a nation, has more aptly characterized this exposition than China, an ex-Stalinist-Maoist state on the irreversible transition to capitalism.

As for its predecessor, the western imperialism, Africa provides the choicest place for China’s products: oil to fuel its growing economy, natural resources to feed its industries and of course market for its manufactured goods. China dated its relations with Africa to 1956 when it supported liberation movements in the continent - Angola, Mozambique, etc. But that relationship was driven, in that 'cold war' era, by rivalry with both imperialism and Moscow's rival Stalinist regime. Often the Beijing and Moscow elites would back rival liberation movements not for ideological reasons, but to gain points of support. This time around the motivation is primarily business - a classical pursuit of naked economic interest.

With the visit to the Seychelles on 10 February, Chinese President Hu Jintao completed a 12-day tour of Africa. This visit, which had earlier taken him to other seven countries - Cameroon, Liberia, Sudan, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa and Mozambique - was his second to the continent in just nine months and the third since assumed office in 2003. This underscores the strategic importance of Africa to the phenomenal growth of China.

Quest for Africa's natural resources

China, the second biggest consumer of oil after the US, having overtaken Japan, is responsible for 40% of growth in global oil demand. It gets one-third of its imported oil from Africa. This is in addition to raw materials - minerals, farm products and timber - it gets in abundance from the continent. More than 50 per cent of China's investment abroad is in extractive resources and Africa has a fair share of it. It invested hugely in the exploration, production infrastructure and transportation of oil in Sudan. In return it gets almost 80 per cent of the Sudan's oil export. In a similar vein, it imports 25 per cent of Angola's oil. In Nigeria, last year it secured $2.3bn 45 per cent stake in an oilfield which will produce 225,000 barrels per day when coming on stream in 2008.

To guarantee supply of copper from Zambia, on the top of already over $500 million investment in Zambia, China is setting up a new economic partnership zone in Zambia's Copperbelt province expected to draw in $800 million in the next three years. The zone is expected to create 50,000 jobs in addition to 10,000 jobs already created by Chinese investment.

China earns concessions from Africa governments in oil and mining rights through aid, preferential loans and construction projects. At the end of the last November Sino-African Summit, Beijing announced the provision of $5bn in loans and credits for a three year period, the establishment of $5bn China-Africa development fund to encourage Chinese companies to invest in Africa and the cancellation of debt in the form of all the interest-free government loans that matured at the end of 2005 owed by the heavily indebted poor countries and the least developed countries in Africa that have diplomatic relations with China. Five African countries: Gambia, Burkina Faso, Sao Tome, Swaziland and Malawi do not have diplomatic relations with China for recognizing Taiwan, an independent state considered a renegade part by China. While preparing to set for the journey to Africa, Hu announced that 33 African countries would benefit from the debt write-off.

No free lunch

China does not however give free lunch. Its aid also has strings, though of much lesser degree than that of the West, and mostly commercial. For instance, in 2004 China granted Angola a $2bn credit for rebuilding infrastructure destroyed during the civil war, but in return Beijing would receive 10, 000 barrels of oil per day. On top of this was a condition that only 30% of the construction project would be subcontracted to Angolan firms. Similarly, last year after the visit of Hu, China gave Nigeria $2.5bn loan for infrastructure development, but secured an $8.3bn contract for modernization of the Nigeria's primitive railway. The Chinese firm handling what is called a "design, construct and maintain" project said 50, 000 Nigerians would be employed in the work. Ordinarily, this job promise would have been welcome with hurrah, but for the horrid experience of Nigerians working in Chinese companies, which are the worst forms of sweatshops in the country. Also attached to the loan is the control stake of the 110, 000 barrel per day refinery in Kaduna, northwest Nigeria, that has been won by China.

It is not only China that sees the Sino-Africa cooperation as a strategic partnership for development, the African leaders also do. They jointly formed Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which had its maiden summit in 2000. The trade between China and Africa rose from $10bn in 2000 to $55.5bn last year and projected to hit $100bn by 2010. Of course, oil, minerals, other raw materials and Chinese made goods make up most of the trade. Largely connected to this trade, Africa, for instance in 2005, witnessed 5.5% growth in its economy, though concentrated among the mineral-rich countries. Besides, on the surface, the trade is more favourable to Africa which records surplus in relation to China. However, in reality Africa is the net loser. While it imports raw materials particularly oil to enhance its growth, China floods the continent with cheap goods that contribute to killing of local industries, particularly the textile and clothing. This is a major element in the growing hostility against China's presence in Africa, which will be addressed in a greater detail later on.

The West frightened

The West has appeared green with envy on the China's success in Africa. Though it still trails the West in term of investment and trade in the continent, China has overtaken Britain to become Africa's third biggest trading partner after the US and France. This new situation has allowed some African regimes some limited room to play off different foreign powers against one another. The western imperialism is worried about increased diplomatic and economic competition from China as regards access to resources. The US which at present gets 15% of its imported oil from Africa, in the face of the growing geo-political threat to oil supply in the Middle East, has projected to secure 25% of oil import from Africa, particularly the Gulf of Guinea, within a decade. Achieving this target may be threatened by China. But to protect its interest the US has constituted the oil-rich countries in the Gulf of Guinea into what is called Gulf of Guinea Energy Security.

France is also feeling the heat on its tracks. The effect of China on the France’s influence in Africa has become an issue in the on-going campaign for the forthcoming presidential elections. The two leading candidates, Segolene Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy have promised to improve on the relation with Africa where France’s traditional influence has come under threat from China red-hot quest for resources. Apparently trying to incite African leaders against China, French President Jacques Chirac, at this year biennial France-Africa summit in February whose one of the themes was "how to tap and protect Africa's natural resources", admonished, "Africa is rich, but Africans are not. The continent holds one-third of the planet's mineral reserves. It is a treasure trove. But it must be neither pillaged nor sold off cheaply". Good talk! But it is a kettle calling pot black. The West including France is the worst culprit, however not the only one, in rendering Africa underdeveloped and poverty stricken in the midst of its colossal wealth. Right from trans-Atlantic slave trade through the colonial epoch to the current era of neo-liberal capitalism and multinational domination, the West has continued to pillage the resources of the continent.

While it can only make murmur on the China's 'encroachment' on its sphere of influence, the West ostensibly hinges its grumble on the Beijing's lack of qualm about dealing with dictatorial regimes rendered pariah by the West like Sudan and Zimbabwe. Of course this does not prevent the West fully backing the oil rich feudal Saudi dictatorship. China a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council has severally prevented sanction against Khartoum for its role in Darfur conflict where government sponsored militia has killed some 200, 000 people and left 2.5 million homeless since 2003. Paul Wolfowitz a former US Deputy Secretary of Defence in the Bush Jnr administration and currently President of World Bank has reportedly accused China of ignoring human rights in Africa. But China is treading the path already charted by the West. Thus, the west does not have moral authority to condemn China's support for repressive regimes. History is replete with several instances of the West supporting repressive regimes all over the world out of economic and strategic interest. The US and Britain have severally vetoed criticisms against the belligerent Israeli government over its repression of Pakistani and Lebanese people. The New York Times in its editorial of February 19, 2007 aptly captured the point, 'China is not the first outside power to behave badly in Africa. But it should not be proud of following the West’s soory historical example'.

Who ruined Africa's local industries?

Inside Africa it is not all a pat on the back for China on its economic expedition in the continent. Workers and poor masses have protested the flooding of Africa with Chinese cheap goods that kills local industry particularly textile and clothing, and makes hundreds of thousands to lose jobs in Zambia, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa and elsewhere in the continent. The opposition has already taken to the street thousands of South African textile workers where about 100 manufacturing units have been closed and close to 100,000 jobs lost. In Nigeria though there has not been political action, textile trade unions have been grumbling over closure of about 100 factories and loss of about 200, 000 jobs in the last eight years.

But can one reasonably blame the collapse of local industry in Africa solely on cheap Chinese goods? Let's take Nigeria as an example. Despite being blessed with the world 10th largest reserve of gas in addition to vast availability of coal and hydroelectric potentials, Nigeria generates only 3,000 MW of electricity. Even recently this dismal output has plummeted to ridiculous 1,500 MW for a population of over 140 million. Yet, the government claimed to have spent over $2bn on the power sector in the last six years. The attendant inadequate and epileptic power supply has meant that companies are run on generating set powered by expensive fuels that are sometimes scarce commodity in spite of the country being the seventh largest producer of crude oil in the world. As a result the cost of doing business is dearly and products are expensive. Yet, the anti-poor neo-liberal economic policies have meant that the purchasing power of workers and poor masses are low. Factories are closed and workers thrown into labour market. In January, Michelin, a tyre manufacturing company that had over 2,000 Nigerian workers in its workforce, announced closure of its operations in Nigeria citing high cost of energy that makes business unprofitable. Chinese cheap apparel has only worsened the situation in textile industry.

Rising hostility against China

But the Chinese anti-labour practices and contemptuous disregards for rights, safety and improved living and working conditions of workers have attracted to the Chinese the deep-seated odium of workers and poor masses in the continent. Chinese companies are characterized by unsafe working conditions and poor environmental practices. In 2005, 51 workers died in explosion at the Chinese run mine in Copperbelt while 5 workers were shot dead during a protest over working condition at the same mine last year. Similarly, in Lagos Nigeria, 29 workers were roasted alive in inferno at a Chinese firm in 2002. The workers in the firm were always locked inside without emergency exit. The affected workers died because they could not escape.

Chinese firms do not respect minimum wage and labour laws of the host country. The workers are usually engaged as casuals on low pay and with no benefits and rights to form or belong to a trade union. Some of the firms also bring to Africa their own low-paid Chinese workers who however earn much more than the average African worker. But it is important for African workers to see that workers in China could be one of their strongest allies, their common enemy is capitalism. Today the Chinese working class is the largest in the world and when it starts to struggle for democratic rights and better living conditions this will be in the interests of workers and poor around the world.

While in Zambia President Hu himself had a taste of bitterness against Chinese by ordinary workers and the poor. To avoid being embarrassed by a planned protest over poor working conditions by workers at the Chinese mine, he had to cancel at the last minute his scheduled visit to Copperbelt province, the economic heartland of Zambia, where china has heavily invested and planned to build a stadium. For the same reason, the University of Zambia was heavily cordoned off with the armed police for the two days the visit lasted.

In the same Zambia, the Chinese investment became an issue in the last year general election with the main opposition leader, Michael Sata capitalizing on the growing hostility against the Chinese. He promised to chase away the Chinese and recognize Taiwan if he won. Though, the incumbent, Levy Mwanawasa won the presidential election, the Sata's party, Patriotic Front, swept the parliamentary seats in Lusaka, the capital, and Copperbelt province.

In apparent attempt to launder its image in Africa, the China on the eve of the last Sino-Africa summit issued 'nine principles' to 'encourage and standardize enterprises' overseas investment'. The principles require Chinese companies operating overseas to abide by local laws, bid contracts on the basis of transparency and equality, protect the labour rights of local employees, protect the environment, etc. But can the Chinese give what they do not have? The Beijing government is undemocratic and does not accord any rights to workers in China. Implementing the 'nine principles' will be a tall order, though they could be forced by circumstance to shift ground to an extent.

Some African leaders like Thambo Mbeki of South Africa have also warned against Africa relations with China assuming colonial relations. Mbeki told a youth conference in Capetown in December 2006 that, 'China cannot only just come here and dig for raw materials and then go away and sell us manufactured goods'. He opined such arrangement could condemn Africa to underdevelopment. However Mbeki himself is not concerned about the plight of African workers, he is worried about the future of the South African ruling class.

Who underdeveloped Africa?

Agreed, on the basis of logic of capitalism, any economy rested on primary commodities, which are usually non-renewable, is doomed. But, it is shameless for any leader of mineral-rich Africa to impute continent's underdevelopment solely to China and other industrialized nation, which need raw materials for their economies. Nigeria, for instance, has realized about $400bn from the sales of crude oil alone since 1958, yet there is nothing to show for it, besides being looted by its thieving capitalist ruling elite. This huge revenue, a study reveals, is six times what the US spent through the Marshal Plan to successfully rebuild the Western Europe devastated by the Second World War. The primitive accumulation was so alarming that the World Bank was forced to reveal in 2004 that only 1 per cent Nigerian thieving elite consumes 80 per cent of the country's oil and gas revenue. If the resources rich countries had used the enormous wealth to provide infrastructure and industrialize, they themselves could as well become net importer of raw materials. China is oil-rich and only import 40 per cent of its oil consumption.

However, it is apposite to state that besides the parasitic nature of African leaders, the western imperialism created the pre-condition for the underdevelopment of Africa. The World Bank that was originally established to assist in reconstruction and development of the war-devastated Western Europe through state interventionist economic model today prescribe to Africa and the third world the market oriented neoliberal economic policies for their development. The African leaders are encouraged by the Western imperialism to cut social spending on basic needs like education, health care, housing etc, and thus left with huge but loose resources for looting. But they are advised to provide infrastructures not for the sake of their populace but in order to make their economies more easily exploitable. In its Newsletter of November 9 2006, the World Bank Group stated, 'Africa is enjoying economic resurgence but a focus on social spending means poverty-stricken lack sufficient roads and communication to attract foreign firms.' The dictate of World/IMF explains why workers and poor masses in Africa have not seen improvement in their living condition despite the increased wealth and economic growth brought about by rise in commodity prices occasioned by China's growth and other factors.

Genuine path to development

To set stage for development the African countries have to commit their huge resources to build viable industrial base that could produce manufactured goods of international standards and engender diversification of economy. But to mobilize adequate resources to finance its industrialization along with the provision of basic needs for its populace, the commanding heights of the economy have to be nationalized and put under democratic management and control of the working masses. This however entails attack on the rapacious interest of multinationals and greed of the local capitalist elite. Therefore, achieving this will require a mass struggle of workers and poor masses of Africa, with the international working class solidarity including with Chinese workers, aimed at defeating capitalism and enthroning genuine socialism on the continent.

* Peluola Adewale writes for the Socialist Democracy, Lagos Nigeria

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

Mugabe – leadership without vision or a brutal power-drenched dictator who has lost all sense of reality and humanity?

Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe, once said the problem of Africa is a problem of leadership without vision. That cannot be truer than recent events in Zimbabwe have proven.

Battered bodies, broken bones, bleeding human flesh. That is all President Robert Mugabe has been able to give to the people he is supposed to protect and lead, in the past few weeks, even before. The president can only offer brutal violence to a nation suffering from so many human catastrophes: economic collapse, shortages of food and fuel, massive unemployment, unprintable inflation figures, and finally, national hopelessness.

'Our people have bad eating habits. They should eat rice and potatoes', he said in the midst of a critical shortage of the staple maize in a country which produces neither.

For President Mugabe, the national vision ends with him. 'L'etat, c'est moi', the leader seems to say. The state is him, and he believes he owns every citizen, and so can do whatever he wants with them. The outside world must not interfere in the 'domestic affairs' of Zimbabwe. The president's vision ends with his own power and self-preservation. Inflicted with deafness and blindness, the president has lost the capacity to see anything else around him. 'He has lost the plot,' as some have said. But the reality is that he has lost any sense of reality. He is totally out of touch with the real world around him.

Zimbabwe introduced a massive education programme in the 1980s, enabling every child to go to school. And the children did. Mugabe's ambition was to have a secondary school in every cluster of villages. He almost succeeded. With such a high thirst for education, the children and teachers flooded the countryside and the cities. Almost every secondary school acted as two: one group comes in the morning, and another in the afternoon, two schools in one.

The educational yields were unbelievable. Zimbabweans still believed in the power and efficacy of education. It was the only way they knew that would take them and their children out of poverty and ignorance. From school, the child would get a job, thus help to save the whole family, including uncles and the whole village. Parents would sell the last chicken, goat or cow to send the child to school, their economic saviour. Teachers, too, were trained in guerrilla-style courses. Those of us already qualified to teach were assisting new teachers to train on the job. This went on until the late 1980s when the World Bank intervened, claiming that Mugabe was giving Zimbabweans too much education which would flood the country with educated but jobless people.

Mugabe had not realised that the education system was producing people who would begin to think for themselves without being necessarily grateful to him. Who could analyse the problems of society on their own, including the root causes of those problems. Unfortunately, they discovered that the Mugabe government had made no plans for a concrete skills programme to equip them to enter the economy at a productive level. Students then started to revolt, and Mugabe was furious. That was when he declared that he had 'degrees in violence', challenging the students and calling them hooligans. If Mugabe had realised the importance of his education programme, he would also have realised that the youths were being given skills to analyse everything and everyone, including him. Now he hates the youth of the country, except those he hires to kill and break the bones of his critics.

Mugabe would have preferred all Zimbabweans to remain illiterate. That is his biggest regret. Even when he addresses villagers, he uses impeccable English, better than Tony Blair and George W. Bush - his arch-enemies.

Like most African leaders, Mugabe hates the situation in which the citizens know their rights and are able to demand them. His philosophy on democracy is what he calls 'guided democracy', which means, as one of his vice-presidents, the late Simon Muzenda, once said, 'If Zanu PF gives you a monkey as a candidate, you have to vote for it'. This arrogance is typical of the Mugabe government since he seriously believes that he is the most intelligent leader in Zimbabwe and the rest of the continent. Mugabe's rule is arrogance - 'arrogancocracy', if such a word exists. His ministers have also taken the cue. And it flows down the ladder to his members of parliament and village leaders who hardly ever visit or consult their constituents.

The current violence in Zimbabwe has also to be understood in the context of the 'liberator mentality'. No liberation war has ever produced a democrat of substance.

'If you don't vote for me, there will be war', Mugabe declared during the presidential campaign of 2002. And being the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the army commanders were soon to appear at a press conference in which they declared that they will never salute a president who did not come out of the liberation war. That was a silent military coup. So, even if the opposition leader had won the presidency, he would never have been allowed to go to state house.

The 'liberator' mentality also produces the 'father of the nation' mentality. Mugabe intensely hated Joshua Nkomo because Nkomo was establishing himself as 'the father of the nation' long before anyone knew Mugabe. Hence the violence in the southern provinces from 1983 to 1987. The purpose was to destroy Nkomo's political base and make his supporters realise that Nkomo was vulnerable and easy to destroy. The image had to be destroyed, even if it meant destroying the man himself.

'I liberated you, so I can subdue you and rule as I wish. You must be forever grateful to me', is the thinking. When Mugabe attacks his opponents and critics, he uses the liberation war as a licence to subdue all and sundry, by whatever means.

Former liberation war leaders love things and places named after them. In every town in Zimbabwe, there is a Robert Mugabe street, usually cutting through the centre of the city. In every government building and office, the framed picture of Mugabe looks down at you as if you are under the omnipresent eye of the President. It becomes a god-like symbol reminding every citizen that the demi-god, Mugabe, is watching you, day and night.

In the quest for glory and grandeur, the presidential palace is full of charlatans, praise-singers and flatterers. First they used to call him 'the son of God', and then one minister publicly said 'Mugabe is our Jesus Christ'. Next the minister of education and culture has recently designed and installed a 'throne' in parliament, for 'king Mugabe.' Then the minister of local government would not be outdone. He has decided to build 'a shrine' in Mugabe's home village. A shrine is a place of worship. So the president has become a god who deserves a 'shrine.' Thus, from VaMugabe ndibaba' (Mugabe is our father) to 'the son of God' to 'Jesus Christ' to a 'shrine' a place of worship, God.

When a mortal human is elevated to the status of a god, what can he not do? In biblical terms, God said, 'I am the God of war. I punish children for the sins of their fathers.' Hence President Mugabe, having elevated himself to that level, does not hesitate to inflict pain and death on men, women, children and the rest. All the problems of the country have nothing to do with him. It is all because of the West, Tony Blair and George W. Bush. Were he to admit a mistake, he would lose his infallibility. So, when he was asked many years ago, if he had made any mistake in the governance of the country, he answered, with a straight face: 'none at all'. The violence in Zimbabwe is Mugabe's 'rightful' demand to rule like a god.

African leaders have developed the capacity to transform themselves from elected leaders to royals, then to demigods and finally gods, from a presidential medal to a royal throne to a shrine, in their own lifetime.

Unfortunately, Africa is an extremely religious continent. We love to worship, even if it means creating our own gods in the name of a president. Religious hymns initially meant to praise gods are soon adapted to praise The President. Church uniforms normally depicting angels and Jesus Christ are soon flooded with images of The President. Bank notes are also soon covered with pictures of The President.

Africa is a continent of love and generosity, so we always believe. But somehow it produces such these monstrosities of political and financial power that it boggles the mind. We have a reputation of creating laughter at every occasion, including death. We have the capacity to produce an Idi Amin, a Bokassa, a Mobuto, a Banda, a Mugabe, at the same time that we laugh and dance. Could it be that we laugh and dance too much at the expense of serious business? All one can think of is: if Africa did not laugh, it would be crying all the time. 'We laugh in order not to cry', an African once said.

Not many African leaders have ever bothered to develop the language of democracy. President Mugabe is known to be probably the most foul-mouthed president in the world. There is no word he will not use against the opposition. At one time they are 'dogs', at another they are 'stooges', 'terrorists', 'tea boys,' 'traitors', 'sell-outs', and many other vulgarities only the mother tongue can pronounce. The ethics of language usage do not exist for President Mugabe and his cronies. He has no capacity to realise the implications of using a certain vocabulary in the political arena. When he says 'we will crush the opposition', he does not seem to realise that his youths will physically 'crush' the heads and limbs of his opponents.

'Power is a desolating pestilence,' an Indian scholar once observed. Power consumes human memory and conscience. President Mugabe has been so totally consumed by power that his memory does not seem to be about to rescue him. By training youths to murder and maim, he has destroyed a whole generation which has to be brought up again so they can learn to respect human life, freedom, dignity and compassion. All this in the insane pursuit of power for its own sake, power to loot and plunger the material and spiritual resources of a country.

The powerful in Africa seem to be infected with the diseases of deafness, blindness, and lack of vision of a past, and a future without them. They will kill their own mothers, sisters and brothers, if it makes them remain in power. When they inherit the instruments and technology of torture and oppression, they seem to be so grateful to their colonial masters whom they take pleasure in blaming for other convenient things: 'As Africans peacefully walked to the townships in the afternoon, just as they had walked to work in the morning, they were beaten up, and dogs were let loose on women and children', words of the late Zimbabwean nationalist, Maurice Nyagumbo, as he remembers the colonial rulers' treatment of Africans in Southern Rhodesia in the 1950s.

History, especially in Africa, seems to repeat itself, in different colours of skin and flag.

* Chenjerai Hove is a Zimbabwean writer living in exile in Norway.

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

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/295/DRC_collage.jpgProfessor Wamba dia Wamba presents a critical analysis of the concept of democracy in the age of globalisation, which equates with Western political democracy. He provides historical context to the recent elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in which outside influences continued to play a large part in the outcome of the elections, and concludes with reflections about the future of the democracy project in the DRC.

1. The World context: how do we orient our thinking about democracy?

Democracy, or more accurately democratic materialism, has become the dominant ideology. It is increasingly obligatory to be a democrat. It has almost become the single political thought. Democratic materialism asserts that there are only bodies marked by languages, and nothing else. There is only one market, one politics, one economy. In brief, there is only one order of things. That is all there is and that is how it is (Alain Badiou, 2006). There is no exception, unless it is to be totalitarian or terrorist. Bodies are interchangeable, and languages and opinions are equivalent. Anything unlike the only order of things is effectively and intrinsically anti-democratic. Democracy equals the Western political order of things. It is compulsory to have Western style democracy.

Is there a political truth? How do we give an account of it? We are in the epoch of a democratising mission, following the old civilising mission. Like the latter, set to impose, by force if need be, democracy on other countries. At the beginning of the war in Iraq, some people in the US were wondering whether or not one country can build democracy for another country. Whether or not the people of a country knew how to build democracy for other countries. There were no conclusive answers to those crucial questions. Democracy has become a package of 'techniques' — constitutions, electoral mechanisms, management systems — to be exported or imposed, top-down, on Third World countries. In these countries, the demos has been reduced to voters who are passive, without civic education. How is this a break from the liberal world: responsible for Atlantic slavery, colonialism and neocolonialism; a world created by slavers, colonialists and neocolonialists?

It is also true that the nation state as the horizon of political revolution, or a state policy of war — in the sense of war as the continuation of state policy through other means, and thus of a short duration — to get another other nation state to agree, is no longer possible. Ultra-liberalism or neoliberalism is opposed to nation states, and promotes weak states to which are assigned minimal functions of keeping order, to allow people to buy into its consumer governance. War is now conceived as opposing good and evil, waged to eradicate evil. Such conception calls for the intervention of law and crime. Proxy figures are identified as being responsible for crimes: Saddam Hussein, Milosovic, Interahamwe, Bin Laden. Some Cold War crusaders have suddenly become proxy figures. War against evil tends to be very protracted, even when the axis of evil is identified. It is not clear what victory in this war consists of. Is it imposed democracy? Is it the elimination of the criminal figure: the hanging of Saddam Hussein, for Iraq? Is it the destruction of a nation state and its people, or the grabbing of its strategic resources? The world becomes divided in a Manichean manner: good democracy versus bad democracy (the recent experience of the Palestinians); good Muslim versus bad Muslim (Mamdani 2004); good states versus rogue states; democrats versus terrorists. And are these the fuelling dynamics of globalisation?

Democracy is reduced to a certified formality. It is rare that protests against the democracy of covered fraud and buying votes, promoted through unjust laws, are taken seriously. It does not matter whether or not voters have seen or read the basic texts of the constitution or electoral laws. Especially since voting is the sole way, for most voters, of having access to some resources. Has being an observer not become a very satisfying activity? Electoral campaigns have ceased to be a way of debating different visions of 'national interest', instead becoming a way of distributing things (T-shirts, foods, appliances, etc.), and money. When you have nothing to wear, you capitalise on collecting t-shirts. When you have nothing to live on, you sell your vote for money. Is the one who buys your vote your representative in the institutions?

On the other hand, the national liberation mode of politics which opened up with the independence of India, died with the assassination of Salvador Allende and Amilcar Cabral in 1973. That was the most active period of transformative politics the world has seen — with leaders such as Ghandi, Mao Tse-tung, Fidel Castro, Frantz Fanon, Ho Chi Minh. The imposition of draconian structural adjustment programmes on impoverished countries, and the recent very aggressive imperial interventions — in Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Lebanon, and the protracted resistance of people in those countries, are reawakening hope for other active, transformative politics in the world. Qualitatively different democratic elections have been taking place in Latin America, for example. The protracted character of resistance in the Middle East is exposing the bankruptcy of the dominant ideology of democracy. Will democracy cease to be closely tied up with a package of conditionalities?

Different experiences of democratic constructions could be identified in the history of democracy. Each has had specific obstacles, targets and concrete results. The US experience, for example, was born out of the genocide of indigenous people, the enslavement and discrimination of black people, the civil war, white Anglo-saxon supremacist bigotry, imperial new-frontierism, male chauvinism. The Indian experience has confronted the caste system, the external imperial pressures and colonial heritage, active religious differences. Today, most of Western European democratic experiences still confront the colonial heritage, the effects of neocolonial interventionism; the 'multinationalisation' of their nations, worsened by a refusal to deal correctly with the so-called ‘sans papiers’ or immigrants: foreign born workers. The new-frontierist US has gone as far as to build a wall to keep potential immigrants out. Most of these democracies, refusing to count every person as being worth one, no more or no less, cannot really be said to be truly democratic. There may be good cases of rules of laws — with some unjust laws, of course - but, they are not democracies, respecting the rights of the uncounted marginalised groups. Should it actually not be the excluded people of those democracies that may help us orient our thinking about democracy?

2. The imported democratic project of the DRC

Is there a Congolese project of building democracy in the DRC? No serious debate has really dealt with the question. Building democracy should, normally, focus on the formation of the demos, the empowerment of its capacity to make sound choices, its mastery of the crucial issues of what a good democratic state would be like.

From the very beginning, with the precipitous granting of independence on 30 June 1960 by Belgium, the Congolese have never had a chance, by themselves and without external interference, to debate the parameters of the definition of the crisis they have protractedly been facing since the crusaders of the Cold War dismantled the nationalist regime and assassinated Patrice Lumumba. Even the so-called Sovereign National Conference (SNC), singling out Mobutu as the cause of every evil, ended up failing to grasp the significance of the impact of the Cold War on the country. It finally adopted a proposal by Herman Cohen — a former US under secretary of state for African Affairs — to keep Mobutu in power and reduce only his powers. Such a solution, later on, turned into a farce.

New rebellions could not have been avoided. These claimed to seek solutions to the crisis. Each time, proposals of solutions came from without, often offered as necessity for the democratic project. Once in power, AFDL, for example, kept postponing the implementation of its so-called democratic project. Another rebellion, claiming to be more committed to implement its democratic project emerged. This time also supported by African regional states and great personalities.

What appeared up to the signing of the Lusaka Accord (July-August 1999) to be an exclusively African initiative for the resolution of the crisis that often led to civil wars, rebellions or external armed interventions, got hijacked by the forces of international community. These, according to the late Mwalimu Nyerere, were responsible for imposing a bad solution in the person of Mobutu, who eventually destroyed the country. The financial package required to implement such a 'solution', could only to come from the international community; the African states could not afford it.

Each time an occasion to confront such a crisis arose, the Congolese were led to shift their focus, as demanded by interests of other forces: from the necessity of an organised people’s palaver to unearth the roots of the crisis, to power-sharing as a way of achieving peace by rewarding proportionally those with a capacity to threaten peace and continue the war. Warlords, being so rewarded, were transformed into democrats responsive to the needs and aspirations of the victimised and impoverished masses. Democracy built on that basis cannot but favour the same people.

What was supposed to be an Inter-Congolese Dialogue practically became UN-type conflict resolution in which the facilitating process becomes the initiating or imposing process. 'Dialogue' becomes technical and hierarchical. It ended up with CIAT almost getting power of veto over the transition. Without this external pressure, no objective of the transition could have been achieved. When crisis deepeners and crisis alleviators or pro-change people for the best and pro-status quo people are put on equal footing, it becomes difficult to reach consensus about where to begin and where to end — the main task of the transition. Mistrust among the actors was rampant. Of the five retained objectives of the transition, only two could be said to have been fulfilled: the setting up of the transitional institutions, and the rushed electoral organisation. All the others were either half done, or not done at all. National truth and reconciliation, for example, hardly took off.

The process of drafting of the constitution was fundamentally withheld from the-would-be Congolese demos. Senatorial consultations with targeted social categories were either rushed or very abstract — asking people to make choices on concepts they barely understood - form of the state, semi-presidential regime, federalism. Senators refrained, supposedly to not influence the results, from explaining things. Two days before the referendum vote, only 500,000 copies of the constitution were printed for 25,000,000 or so voters. Of those actually in circulation, four different texts of the constitution could be identified. This explains the frustrations of the lady who was asking for the picture of 'Mister Referendum' to help her decide how to cast the vote.

A necessary educational debate over the drafting of the constitution did not take place. The basic issues needing to be addressed by the constitution were hardly debated, namely: what sort of state are we in, and what do we want it to be in the future? What sort of relations do we want to have with the outside world? How should power be organised for it to be responsive to the basic needs and aspirations of the large majority of the people, in the present, and in the future? How can we empower the people to control the institutions? Debates on the variant experiences of constitutionalism were not entertained, except for the desire to copy the constitutions of others, on the ground that modernity can only come from elsewhere. The most creative experiences were hardly identified or discussed to help us draft a better constitution.

Because of the scarcity of fundamental debates involving all strata of society, laws tended to be tailored according to known possible candidates rather than for the entire foreseeable future. Crucial elements, such as levels of education, moral integrity, capacity for leadership, were not considered in a country torn apart by negative values and the exclusion of competency and workmanship. Looters and people who have become rich for being close to the treasury dominated the institutions. High financial fees were required, by law, to be paid by standing candidates, which excluded decent fellows, who did not have a chance to loot.

Although laws required that debates were part the electoral campaigns, no serious debates took place. A national consensus over what situation our country was in, what must be done to get it out of it, with whom to work, and the kind of leadership capacities to promote, was not achieved. The fact that our country is in a catastrophic and urgency situation, an exceptional situation calling for an exceptional response, was never addressed. Elections were an occasion for each person to display as much financial capacity as possible to get a post in a scheme of power sharing. Some people who could afford it got themselves elected to different posts. More accurately, they bought themselves different posts, and placed their relatives or clients in them.

It was not possible, due to the way the transition was unfolded, for the formation and development of a Popular National Democratic Coalition (PNDC) to be created. Such a coalition could have been the vehicle to promote necessary debates on pertinent issues. Etienne Tshisekedi’s UDPS, still suffering from oppositional politics — ‘what those in power are doing is no good, when we get in power, things will be better’ -, could not help organise such a coalition. To its credit, it did call for the need to have consultations at the summit to agree on the best way of organising the elections to everybody’s satisfaction. But nothing came out of it, and UDPS stayed away from participating in the elections.

The elections were organised mostly on the basis of external financing. This gave external forces the leverage to control the process, its pace, scope and order of priorities. Ascendancy to their preferences made a mockery of national sovereignty in the elections: of the democratic project as a whole. Almost no funds were allocated to the crucial task of civic education for the electorate. Diaspora Congolese, among the most informed, and in some cases people living in democratic countries, were excluded from the process, on the dubious grounds of costs. Congolese in the security forces were not allowed to exercise their democratic right, as part of the electorate, for 'security reasons'. Violating the constitution, under the pretext of security, is arguably equivalent to a coup d’Etat. From the ICD, through the transition, up to the elections, no national consensus was reached about what constitutes the national cause. It was taken from the suggestions of the external forces that the organisation of free, fair and credible elections could be such a cause. Yet there was no real internal social process of popular self-organisation to ensure that those elections would actually be free and fair.

The attempt, by the Catholic Church, to do so fell short. The Union for the Congolese Nation (UN), formed around the second round contending presidential candidate, Jean-Pierre Bemba, failed to properly provide a national leadership to rally all the national forces interested in a transparent electorate process. The monitoring process which it set up was weakened from within — giving the impression of a lack of commitment or clear vision.

An important political space opened when it became obvious that the second round presidential elections results were fraudulent. Instead of organising a big protest against such fraud leading up to a great gathering around the Supreme Court of Justice, and requiring from the latter just justice, the leadership vacillated and finally gave in, on grounds of saving human life and salvaging peace — an unjust peace and saving a dying human life (about 1800 Congolese people die everyday). There was no space for the rise of a radical transformation. This would be a question of vision, aims and style of leadership. The latter seemed to have been trapped in the politics of power sharing after the electoral victory, not sticking to the two demands of the masses of people: to liberate the country from too heavy control by external forces, and to put in place a regime that would be responsible to the people and responsive to their needs and aspirations. It remains to be seen whether the promise of organising a rigorous and republican opposition, by J-P.Bemba, will achieve those demands.

Six provinces out of eleven voted against the incumbent president because they felt that he was too dependent on external forces. He was also accused of selling out on the country. He was for the most part unresponsive to the basic needs of the majority of the impoverished population. Bemba’s MLC’s programme, too lenient on liberalism in the epoch of ultra-liberalist globalisation, would not have realised those demands either. This may explain why the MLC was unable to genuinely lead the masses of people gravitating around the UN. Once again, the question of the relationship between fundamental changes and the leadership came to the fore. It is the actions and ideas of the rebelling masses of people that bring change; yet the popular masses credit the leadership for the changes. Their blind faith in the leadership is, very often, eventually betrayed. The same faith makes the people fail to be vigilant, and actually deal with the task of how to control the leadership so that it will not betray them. There was no way and no structure within the UN to control Bemba, for example, in his dealings with various people — including his meeting with the incumbent President, at a critical moment. Most often, the so-called ‘Political Council’ of the UN he presided over, meetings of which he was the only one to call for, did not meet.

Money and promises or hopes of big institutional posts were the only motives of the so-called Alliance of the Presidential Family. Its victory, which underlines the fact that we are in a 'corruptocracy' rather than a democracy, has made that camp suffer from what could be called ‘political drunkenness’ that makes them blind to see that legitimacy is not just a question of legal victory, but, more importantly, the capacity to rally everyone and thus generate mass enthusiasm for the new regime. Instead of working out a concrete policy to deal with those who voted against the Presidential camp, by rallying them around a convincing programme, the camp has tended to discriminate against them; in fact, an attitude of revenge has characterised the presidential camp. This attitude explains also why political matters have been increasingly assigned to police and military forces to treat them. Arbitrary arrests and even the Kongo Central massacre (31 January 2007— 1-3 February 2007) could account for much of that. The rumours according to which the President had said that he would reserve only two places - the prison and the cemetery - to the Bakongo who did not vote for him, appeared aposteriori to be credible.

Very briefly, the so-called democratic project has been, in the DRC, another process of grafting a Western experience of democracy, reduced to a 'universal model', on to an ill-prepared and un-attendant Congolese political soil, justified, aposteriori, as a necessary consequence of globalisation. No lesson seems to have been learned about the process of grafting from the history of the colonial state in the Congo; which although now decomposed and fragmented, still operates like a Western Trojan horse. Such a state readily represses the people rather than responding positively to their basic needs and aspirations. The newly 'elected' President is still surrounding himself with a militia that hardly is aware that in a democracy, the army is supposed to serve the people, and not harass them for its enjoyment. Western democracy experts - our democratic teachers - come and go, and democracy does not seem to be growing deeper roots. Goodwill is often found wanting.

The permanent paradox faced by the so-called Congolese elite remains. They want to lead the people, from whom they are culturally and socially detached. They claim to ‘liberate’ the country from the extended control of external forces, to which they are culturally and socially attached. While capable of producing a constitution and a nationality law that forbids holding dual-nationality concurrently, some members of the elite do actually hold dual-nationality. Those who genuinely believe that they can solve the fundamental problems facing the Congolese people — and who claim to have worked out some solutions — spend most of their time struggling to survive by devoting their time to reinforcing the very system that causes those problems. Change is always a task for tomorrow.

3. By way of conclusion: what future for democracy in the DRC?

The country remains divided on the issue: some have voted enthusiastically for the presidential camp that enticed them financially to vote, and are now marked by a sense of victorious crowing — forgetting that the strategic aspect of democracy is the protection and defence of the rights of the minority. Those who, around the UDPS, did not participate in the electoral process, and so far unclear about what type of oppositional position they are going to assume. Those who supported the UN camp have been mostly disappointed with J-P. Bemba, frustrated by the turn of events. The massacre of people in Kongo Central, the only place where a very active opposition against the corrupting democratic process took place, did not galvanise the various opposition forces into a movement. If if is the case that the Bakongo nation consisted of all the consistent anti-colonialists from 1921 (with Kimbangu’s Kintwadi) up until to 1959 (January 4th uprising), the core of the Congolese nation struggling for national independence,as F. Fanon and A. Cabral asserted, one should not be surprised that some of their descendants are leading the struggle against corrupting democracy.

Will the use of force or threat of force succeed in silencing the protests? The stability of the cemetery can not lead to a genuine construction of democracy. Dealing with the catastrophic and urgency situation with repression will not last as long as it did under Mobutu. Not only will more protests take place, political implosion is likely. The ways things are going, the next five years might turn out to be very rough indeed.

This piece was originally a lecture given at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on 9 February 2007.

* Professor Ernest Wamba dia Wamba is a Senator, and was the vice president of the Senate Permanent Commission on Legal and Administrative Matters of the transitional administration of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/295/Street-kids-Kibera-Nai.jpg… Town's recent by-law, the 'City Streets, Public Places and Public Nuisance Act', not only adds to the vulnerability of the homeless, especially street children, by dispersing them to outlying locations around the city where there are no support mechanicisms, but may also lead to the criminalisation of poverty and homelessness in South Africa.

On 31 May 2006; the Cape Town City Council adopted a by-law relating to City Streets, Public Places and Public Nuisance after a vote yielded the result of 126 in favour and 82 against. The by-law deals with a range of issues such as trees in streets, control of goods offered for sale, the drying of washing on fences and boundaries, poison in streets and the conveyance of animal carcasses. The section which has been most problematic is that dealing with 'prohibited behaviour'. This includes intentionally touching another person or their property without consent, continuing to beg after someone has said no, starting or keeping a fire, erecting any form of shelter or sleepingor camping overnight and bathing or washing in public. The lumping together of human beings and toxic waste within one piece of legislation has sparked outrage in some quarters, with others taking offence at the references made to the poor and disadvantaged as 'nuisances'.

Despite the by-law having been adopted and published in the provincial gazette on June 23, 2006; a number of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and other concerned parties raised a number of concerns with the manner in which the by-law was passed through the system so quickly as well as the fact that it seemed to be utterly contrary to the inclusive spirit of the South African Constitution. It was then decided by the city to refer the by-law for further public participation, a process which is ongoing and often seems less than transparent. A number of NGOs, including Molo Songololo, SWEAT, The Big Issue, Tutumike, One Love, the Right to Work Campaign and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (COSATU) as well as a number of others have formed a task team opposing the by-law. The task team is a coalition of organisations that work with a diverse range of interest groups in and around Cape Town, they have stated that their opposition to the by-law is not allied to party political issues, but is instead a an independent and legitimate initiative of civil society organisations to engage organs of the state in the process of constitutional democracy.

According to a joint press statement by the task team, 'Despite minor alterations and claims to the contrary from the City, this by-law remains a pernicious piece of legislation which will impact inequitably on the poorest and most vulnerable members of our communities. It undermines the legitimacy of the law-making process and makes a mockery of the notion of Cape Town as a Home for All'. Key concerns include the manner in which the by-law specifically targets marginalised and vulnerable sectors of the community, prevents the poor and unemployed from making a living on the streets, criminalises the poor and does not compliment or support broader poverty alleviation, crime prevention and development strategies. There are also concerns as to whether or not the implementation of the by-law would be in violation of such constitutionally protected rights as equality, human dignity, freedom and security of the person and freedom of movement.

The Big Issue, a member of the task team, is a socially responsible job creation project which publishes a monthly magazine, which is sold to vendors for R6 and can then be sold for R12. Vendors are then allocated pitches at various points around Cape Town (such as intersections and outside shopping malls) from which they sell the magazine.

According to Do Machin, Social Development Manager at The Big Issue, 'The provisions of this by-law are going to create a more difficult climate for vendors to do the work that supports them and their families, whilst they are in the process of trying as hard as they can to create better lives and futures for themselves and those they support'. Machin also feels that the by-laws will have a detrimental effect on the developmental work being done by various NGOs. 'From our experience at The Big Issue we know that development work with people living and working on the streets is long-term, dependent on the kind of outreach work which builds relationships of trust and includes each individual as an active partner in that work. The provisions in the by-law which allow for the fining and arrest of people who find themselves in the position of having to survive from day to day, often hour to hour, are antithetical to the development process, and will not improve the situation in the long-term, as well as being an infringement of basic human rights and dignity'.

As to why The Big Issue is member of the task team, Machin unequivocally states that 'The Big Issue's participation in the task team is based on the belief that this City and its people, especially the poorest, most marginalised and vulnerable, need and deserve something much more forward thinking, humane and realistic than this piece of legislation'.

The problem which the City Streets, Public Places and Public Nuisance by-law highlights is an insidious one which affects a number of Capetonians and is a sad remnant of our oppressive past. For some people, the poor, whether they are children or adults, are viewed as a blight, an irritation and something which is best described by the age-old adage 'out of sight, out of mind'. They are seen not as fellow human beings but rather as something dirty and unpleasant, they are described as lazy and annoying and are ignored whenever they happen to cross our paths. This class discrimination is disturbingly evident in the public submissions made to the Mayoral Committee regarding the by-law, and include such shocking sentiments as 'citizens should be able to go about their daily business unhindered by these problems, there have been many occasions when I have avoided using shopping centres due to vagrants in the parking areas and entrances' and 'the implementation of this by-law will enable law enforcement to to stop my family from being harassed by beggars, illegal car washers, car repairers, car guards and hawkers'.

The Homeless and vulnerably accommodated in Cape Town remain soft targets and if promulgated the by-law would simply add to pre-existing discriminatory practices and attitudes. Perhaps none are more vulnerable than the children who call the streets of Cape Town home. These children are misunderstood and mistrusted by the general public. According to Sandra Morreira, Director of the Homestead (a project which works specifically with street children), her biggest fear regarding the by-law is that it 'will enable the Metro police to round up the children whenever they want to, if they refuse to move on when instructed to do so and lock them up for a while. It will also give the police many more ways of hassling them and making it impossible for them to survive on the streets'.

As it is, Morreira says that there have been reports of children being forcefully removed from the CBD and dumped in Muizenberg or up Table Mountain, as well as general harassment such as pulling off their blankets and hitting the children.

Hip hop artist and founder of the Brown foundation, Ryan "Brown" Dalton spent three and a half years getting to know Cape Town's street children and now focuses on preventative work and he says that government generally employs strategies which tend to focus on getting rid of street children rather than helping them. Dalton sees the by-law as directly targeting children and adults living on the streets. 'By doing this we are criminalising the children and and introducing them to a life of crime, for very petty things. I have seen cases of children, with no history of criminal activity, being locked up for something as petty as loitering. In some of these instances the children get sent to a juvenile facility, where instead of being rehabilitated, they are introduced to gang life.' Of course, such a system then creates real criminals out of children who could have been reintegrated into society at a much lower cost.

According to Patric Solomons, Director of Molo Songololo (an NGO dealing with children's rights), 'the public has very little care for children living on the streets, they are seen as nuisances'. Molo Songololo has also received reports of children being removed from the city centre and dumped in areas such as Belville, Eerste River and Khayelitsha as well as being physically assaulted, having their possessions confiscated and officials soliciting bribes form them. Solomons says that if the by-law is promulgated the children will be harassed and criminalised and that the by-law is reactive rather than preventative. 'The by-law can be used to clean selected areas in the City of Cape Town, such an application will be equal to apartheid when certain laws applied to certain people.' Here Solomons hits upon an important point, the by-law will inevitably be selectively applied and enforced mostly in affluent areas or where there are large numbers of tourists and businesses. The by-law would make provision for people to live in informal settlements but not in doorways in the CBD, what is the difference? Whether or not the by-law is promulgated and openly enforced, one can only hope that the attitude of apathy and disdain, which many Capetonians seem to exhibit towards those who cannot afford nice houses, cars and three-ply toilet paper and are instead forced to make a life for themselves on the streets of our city. will eventually become more humane and inclusive. Until then, if you do not want to buy what they're selling or give them you're spare change, why not at least leave them with their dignity, it doesn't cost anything.

* Bronwen Dyke is assistant editor of The Big Issue Magazine in Cape Town

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

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/295/Genetically-modified-rice… introduction of genetically modified rice into Africa is being justified by presenting it as a solution to diarrhoea, responsible for 2,000,000 deaths per year (mainly children) in the global South. However there are other very simple means of reducing cases of diarrhoea such as improved sanitation and cleaner, free water supplies.

On 6 March 2007, it was reported in the media that a new variety of Genetically Modified (GM) rice containing human genes obtained preliminary approval from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for large-scale planting in Kansas. California-based Ventria Bioscience, the developer of the rice, claims that it can be used to treat diarrhea. A BBC TV report on 6 March 2007 showed images of African children in a hospital as an example of some supposed beneficiaries of the new rice.

Friends of the Earth Africa believes that our continent does not need genetically modified solutions to diarrhea and condemns the use of African children as a tool to promote the new GM rice produced by Ventria Bioscience. Diarrhea is an illness that has well-known causes, and proven, inexpensive solutions. Ventria’s GM rice is unproven, unnecessary, and a distraction from ongoing programmes to save children suffering from diarrhea on our continent.

Monitoring activities undertaken by Friends of the Earth Africa in 2006 revealed that Africa has been contaminated by illegal GM rice LL601 in Ghana and Sierra Leone, main African recipients of rice as commercial imports and food aid from the US.

The dust raised by the revelation of the contamination of the food chain by an illegal rice variety, LibertyLink Rice601 (LLRice 601), had barely settled when news arrived of new contamination episodes in other parts of the world. On the 5 March 2007, the USDA announced that it was prohibiting the planting of another type of long-grain rice after confirmation of a new case of contamination. The genetically modified contaminant detected in a long-grain rice variety known as Clearfield CL131 was not authorised for commercialisation. Therefore, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) decided to prevent its planting and distribution.

Just a few days before this latest contamination episode, it was reported that the USDA had given preliminary approval to a large-scale planting of a new variety of GM rice containing human genes. The rice, produced by a company called Ventria Bioscience, has been engineered to produce recombinant human milk proteins to be extracted from the rice for a variety of suggested uses. In the media, Ventria claims these proteins will be used in oral rehydration solutions to treat diarrhea. But elsewhere, the company says it will use them as supplements in yogurt, sports drinks and granola bars.

If that earlier contamination was worrisome, the USDA’s support for planting up to 3200 acres of Ventria’s 'pharmaceutical rice' is even more so. We are particularly concerned that this massive planting of drug-containing rice is going forward even though the US Food and Drug Administration has refused to approve Ventria’s recombinant pharmaceutical proteins as safe.

The first GM food crop containing human genes is set to raise many socio-economic, cultural as well as ethical questions, besides environmental and health concerns.

This rice is being produced by Ventria Bioscience, a biotech company based in California, USA. According to Ventria Bioscience, the rice, which will be planted on up to 3,200 acres in Kansas, is endowed with human genes that produce recombinant versions of human proteins, including bacteria-fighting compounds found in breast milk and saliva. If Ventria’s application is fully approved by USDA, this will be the largest planting of a drug-producing food crop in the US.

Ventria has been field-testing rice engineered with human genes since 1996 to produce three pharmaceutical proteins–lactoferrin, lysozyme and serum albumin. When farmers, consumers and food companies protested against their field trials in California and Missouri, concerned that the engineered crops would contaminate rice destined for the food supply, Ventria shifted to Kansas.

According to analysts, pharmaceutical (pharma) crops such as Ventria's rice pose a threat to human food supply and public health, as the proteins they contain are intended to be biologically active in humans, yet have not undergone adequate testing or received FDA approval as drugs, and thus may thus be harmful if eaten accidentally. The chances of contamination are also high when such compounds are produced in food crops grown outdoors. The contamination routes are numerous, including cross-pollination and seed mixing during commercial growing and seed production.

Ventria’s rice has already been publicized in many written and audiovisual media as an important solution to one disease that particularly affects poor children in the Third World: diarrhea. On 6 March, a BBC report showed images of ill African children in a hospital as an example of some of the supposed beneficiaries of that new GM rice.

'We can really help children with diarrhea get better faster. That is the idea', said Scott E. Deeter, president and chief executive of Sacramento-based Ventria Bioscience. The proponents of this GM rice say they want to widely introduce their products into oral hydration solution,'which is consumed by at least half of the world’s children'. They define their product as 'the Holy Grail' of rice and assert 'that is what every mother would want for their child'.

From the company’s sources, an experiment using this technology has already been conducted in Peru on 140 infants from five to 33 months in age, in hospitals attended by the poorest sectors of the population. Several reports indicate that parents of the children were not adequately informed of the experimental nature of the treatment, and at least two mothers of infants in the clinical trial reported that their infants suffered from allergic reactions, causing the Peruvian government to launch an enquiry into the experiment.

Does Africa need a genetically modified solution for diarrhea? Diarrhea is responsible for over 2,000,000 deaths every year, the majority in the Third World. Despite being a major cause of deaths among children, particularly those under five years old, today there are already well-known measures to prevent and treat diarrhea. In fact, these proven and effective measures have already reduced the mortality rate of children suffering from diarrhea from 4.600,000 deaths in 1980 to 1,500,000 to 2,500,000 million deaths today, and is regarded as one of the greatest medical achievements of the 20th century.

Simply put, when a person has loose or watery stools, he has diarrhea. If mucus and blood can be seen in the stools, he has dysentery. It can be mild or very serious and may come suddenly or remain for many days. It is known that the disease is more common among young children and especially so with the undernourished ones. A well nourished child would usually recover from a case of diarrhea even without any medical treatment. For a poorly nourished child, on the other hand, an attack of diarrhea can easily prove fatal.

One of the most prevalent causes of diarrhea is linked to the limited access to safe water supply and sanitation coverage. In Africa, nearly 40 per cent of the population has an unsafe water supply and poor sanitation coverage. The World Health Organisation (WHO) found that a reduction in the number of diarrhea cases and deaths due to diarrhea was directly related to access to safe water supply and sanitation services. As the Water Quality and Health Council indicates, 'if access to safe water and sanitation coverage were improved there would be a smaller frequency of diarrhoea cases', which consequently would mean that patients would avoid costs related to treatment expenditures, drugs, transportation and time spent going to hospital and clinics. The WHO concluded in a 2004 study that simple technologies for improvement of water and sanitation 'would lead to a global average reduction of 10% of episodes of diarrhoea'. WHO concludes that if the level of intervention was higher, the reduction of diarrhea episodes could be higher: 'access to in-house regulated piped water and sewerage connection with partial treatment of waste waters, could achieve an average global reduction of 69 per cent'.

Diarrhea is a symptom of infection caused by a host of bacterial, viral and parasitic organisms most of which can be spread by contaminated water. It is more common when there is a shortage of clean water for drinking, cooking and cleaning, and basic hygiene is important in prevention. Water contaminated with human faeces, for example from municipal sewage, septic tanks and latrines, is of special concern. Animal faeces also contain micro-organisms that can cause diarrhoea. Diarrhea can also spread from person to person, aggravated by poor personal hygiene. Food is another major cause of diarrhoea when it is prepared or stored in unhygienic conditions. Water can contaminate food during irrigation, and fish and seafood from polluted water may also contribute to the disease (World Health Organisation).

It is important to note that diarrhea usually lasts a day or two and goes away on its own without any special treatment. Only prolonged cases, however, present indications of other problems Thus, special treatment for diarrhea is needed only occasionally. What children suffering from this condition need is rehydration as they lose a lot of water through the diarrhea. There are already very cheap and accessible ways of fighting dehydration by simple oral rehydration therapy.

It is obvious from the above that the world does not require rocket science in order to combat incidents of diarrhea. More than anything else, what is needed is basic hygiene, safe water access and the provision of infrastructure that would support that. Moreover, investing in GM solutions when 'simple' solutions exist constitutes a diversion of energies from the already challenging objective to guarantee the right to clean water and sanitation.

Interventions

Key measures to reduce the number of cases of diarrhea include:
- Access to safe drinking water
- Improved sanitation
- Good personal and food hygiene
- Health education about how infections spread.

Key measures to treat diarrhea include:
- Giving more fluids than usual, including oral rehydration salts solution, to prevent dehydration
- Continue feeding
- Consulting a health worker if there are signs of dehydration or other problems
(World Health Organisation).

African children have been used once again in the media in order to facilitate acceptance for a new product which is not needed in our continent. Diarrhea is a disease with well-known causes, as well as solutions. If deaths from a preventable disease such as diarrhea are to be stopped, more efforts should be undertaken to tackle its causes and greater investments should be made in improving basic water and sanitation conditions in our continent.

We once more state that Africans do not need GMOs and by no means want 'medicine crops' beyond the ones already supplied by nature. Africans do not need these expensive, experimental fixes.

* Nnimmo Bassey is the Director of Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria)

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

The internet was originally created as an open space for communication and sharing of information as well as a sight for freedom of expression. It has now become a place of danger for many. Danger of exposure of a personal nature, danger to those who criticise governments and multinationals, danger to proponents of free speech. But there are ways of fighting back against censorship and attacks on privacy. Dmitri Vitaliev explains how.

Imagine teaching Biology to 9th graders and realising that the material for this day's lesson, be it on HIV or contraception, has been blocked by your friendly ISP's (Internet Service Provider) web content filter as falling into the 'pornography' category of its software. In fact, all websites containing the word 'sex' get routinely blocked, be they about online escort agencies or anthropology.

Imagine two burly types appearing at your door with questions regarding the email you sent to your overseas friend last week. Yes, you did mention in your message how unhappy you were with the elections in your country, but you clearly remember sending it just to him. How did these guys hear about it?

Imagine being exposed in your local newspaper as an admirer of communism, or fascism, or as having bad breath, venereal disease or fondness for marijuana? You had kept these secrets to yourself, merely satisfying your urge for knowledge on the Internet at home. You did not sign up to any mailing lists, did not create any accounts or logins - how did this information get out?

These and many other scary scenarios are becoming reality with ever worrying frequency. Not only people are unaware of the dangers they face when using the Internet, they are actively nonchalant to the fact that ALL email they send and the Internet sites they visit are being recorded, and this information is being stored by global corporations and governments for reasons of homeland security, financial benefit etc.

According to Reporteurs Sans Frontiers [1] there are currently 60 people imprisoned for their activities on the Internet. “Cyberdissidents” is the name attributed to those who are persecuted for publishing or seeking information online. Although the majority of such cases occur primarily in China, the trend is quickly spreading, with countries like Syria, Tunisia, Iran, Vietnam, Egypt, Lybia etc. actively pursuing and jailing those wishing to express their opinions on the World Wide Web.

Where did it all go wrong? How did the Internet - a revolution in global communication, inclusiveness and understanding turn into a watchdog ready to pounce on us for a wrong word here, a bit of curiosity there?

The first bits...

The foundations of today's Internet were laid in the 70's by the people working for ARPA (Advanced Research Project Agency) in the United States. Robert Khan demonstrated the ARPANET during a Computer Communications Conference in 1972 and laid the first stone for the grand daddy of the Internet.

According to the Internet Statistics Survey [2], there were over 1 billion Internet users in January 2006. It has become a primary method of information storage and exchange for many people. In its essence, it encourages participation and global community awareness.

In the beginning, most people assumed that the Internet would not be popular, for too much investment was needed to make it a useful source of information, similar to a library. The breakthrough came when it became clear that anyone could construct web pages and contribute to them. Amazon.com was flooded with book reviews, while enthusiasts of various sports or hobbies would start their own websites, inviting like-minded people from anywhere in the world to join them in discussions, thus creating a virtual community. People embraced the technology and the possibilities offered by the Internet.

The Internet crossed administrative and geographic boundaries with the ease and speed never seen before. It provided a pioneering method of communication, in which one's voice could be heard simultaneously by all those connected. As opposed to traditional media, where information is sourced, rationed, edited and summarised – on the Internet people choose what they want. They are not fed political propaganda, celebrity news or sports round-ups unless they choose them. Users select what they want to read, who they want to communicate with and which truth is the right one for them. We hear of events minutes after they happen without any journalist present at the scene. All it takes to tell the story one has just witnessed (with photos and possibly audio/video) to a worldwide audience and at no cost is a single person with a mobile phone, or sitting in an Internet café. Unsurprisingly, this has caused a major headache for the countries wishing to maintain political, social and religious freedoms of their citizens within their grasp and influence.

Who bytes?

The Internet was meant to be an open platform, connecting the world through a protocol that made communication easy and instantaneous. Computer software was written to assist us in difficult tasks and make this process easier and quicker to perform. Neither had considered security an important feature for the digital world of tomorrow. And both have been catching up ever since.

In essence, the Internet is just a bigger version of your office network. It is also just a bunch of computers, connected by cables, and assisted by servers, routers and modems. Even though your message on the Internet may cross an ocean via an underground cable, bounce off two different satellites and be delivered to someone's mobile phone on a moving train - the system resembles an updated version of the telephone exchange. And when you are an operator, or a wire tapper, or a jealous boyfriend - all you need to do is create an additional receiver on the communicating line and you will hear the entire conversation that goes on. The same with the Internet. Anyone can intercept and read your message on its way around the computers of the world. And so it happens.

Internet surveillance systems have been implemented at national levels for some time. In 1998, the Russian government passed a law stating that all ISPs must install a computer black box with a link back to the Russian Federal Security Services (FSB) to record all Internet activity of its citizens at their own cost. The system is known as SORM-2. The United States introduced a similar system - CARNIVORE. China’s ‘Golden Shield’ project was announced on 2001. Rather than relying solely on the national Intranet, separated from the global Internet by a massive firewall, China is preparing to build surveillance intelligence into the network, allowing it to 'see', 'hear' and 'think'[3]. A global surveillance system known as ECHELON (reportedly run by the United States in cooperation with Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) was set up at the beginning of the Cold War for intelligence gathering and has developed into a network of intercept stations around the world. Its primary purpose, according to the report [4], is to intercept private and commercial communications, not military intelligence.

Surveillance and monitoring techniques have passed from the hands of intelligence personnel to the hardware and software systems, operated by private companies and government agencies. Phone bugging and letter opening has been superseded by the technology that allows monitoring of
everyone and everything at once. Now, we are all under suspicion as a result of the surveillance and filtering systems our governments install on the Internet. The technology does not often differentiate between users as it waits for certain keywords to appear in our email and Internet searches and, when triggered, alerts surveillance teams or blocks our communications.

For instance, when surfing the Internet in Iran, if you were to type in any of the following words into the Google search engine, your query will be blocked and fail:

condom
annmarie
chandice
chastity
bath
belly
dita
ebony [5]

Apart from feeling puzzled while guessing how someone searching for the word 'bath' could be plotting to undermine the current Iranian government, you have to bear in mind that the above words are for English languages web searches, and if you wish to surf in Farsi from Iran, you would encounter many other words, including 'woman', 'human rights' and so on.

Surfing the Internet from Hoi Chi Minh city (Vietnam), you would find that access to websites from Human Rights Watch, Hao Hao Buddhism Organisation, Committee for Religious Freedom, all opposition and most pro-democracy sites and many others is blocked [6]. Your Internet browser will show a blank page, explaining that the URL (the address of the website) is not allowed. These type of denial messages differ from one filtering state to another. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, you will be presented with an online form to fill in, should you wish to protest against the censoring of a website. Needless to say that few would be willing to submit their name and address as those opposing the government policy to the communication police. Browsing to a banned website from Tunisia will just bring up a message saying that nothing exists under that name (a 403 error in techspeak). Repeated attempts of access to blocked websites will cause your whole Internet connection to crash, should you be surfing from China. Probably the most sophisticated surveillance and censorship system anywhere in the world, the Chinese filters will begin to block any Internet queries should you repeat your attempts of accessing a banned website, and you could soon expect a visit from the police to your house.

The Chinese are able to pinpoint an Internet operation from your computer to the house where you live because every time we are on the Internet we receive what is known as an IP address. It acts as a unique identifier, like a postal address, to pinpoint our computer on the global network. Any IP address can be traced back to your Internet Service Provider and, more often than not, they keep a list of which client gets what IP address at a given time. In most countries ISPs are obliged to cooperate with the local government and provide details of who was browsing under what IP. This methodology was used to crackdown a worldwide Internet paedophile ring last month [7]. Whilst we may all agree with using this technology for the purpose of catching paedophiles and terrorists, the problem arises when we realise that these methods are being used to trace and punish a wide variety of Internet users operating within international legislations and moral covenants. You and I, in other words.

Writing this article in a local café with a wireless Internet connection for its customers, I was able to perform some surveillance of my own. Choosing the unsuspecting café punters sitting around the room on their Apple laptops, I switched on a 'sniffing' program that I had downloaded for free from the Internet [8] a few minutes ago. Within 30 seconds I was able to read that Roger was writing to Jessica about meeting up next week at this very café to discuss some sort of a publishing event. If I were up to malice, I could have written Jessica another email, purporting to be Roger and change our place of meeting...

Biting back...

Newton's third law of motion states that 'For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction'. It applies to the Internet as well. In lieu of the surveillance and censorship infrastructures described above, the Internet community has come up with many options of bypassing these blocks and protecting your privacy. Tools range from a simple webpage that will help you to circumvent the censorship rules in your country to installing on your computer an anonymity system that would nullify the majority of sophisticated surveillance and filtering systems.

Whenever you cannot access a website from your country, you could ask another computer on the Internet to do it for you. This is known as using a proxy server, as this intermediary computer becomes a proxy between you and your desired website. There are numerous proxy services on the Internet, the easiest of which are web-based proxies. This means that all you need is to access a website, from which you can continue to browse the Internet unrestricted by your in-country censorship rules. A popular service is provided by Peacefire (www.peacefire.org), and if you sign up to their mailing list, you will receive news of all new web-based proxy sites they are setting up every fortnight or so.

If you have a group of friends in a country where the Internet is not censored, you could ask them to install a proxy server on their computer for you to use. A recent program, released by the CitizensLab in Toronto, has made this process incredibly simple and quite secure. The program is called Psiphon (www.psiphon.civisec.org) and will allow anyone with an Internet connection and the Windows operating system to install a web-based proxy on their computer. Your friend will then provide you with the IP number and password for accessing their proxy. Since this system is based on closed trust networks (small groups of friends), it is quite difficult for the surveillance agencies to detect and block.

A more sophisticated approach would be to join one of the anonymity networks that exist on the Internet. Browsing the Internet through such a network would disguise your true identity from any computer or website and will probably make any filtering in your country powerless to stop you. One such network is Tor (http://tor.eff.org), with an interface in many different languages and a huge team of supporters and contributors around the world. When you are using Tor, the ISP or the national surveillance agencies do not know what websites you are looking at and hence cannot prevent you from doing so. The website that receives your query does not know where this query originated. You are even hidden from the anonymity system itself - i.e. no one in the Tor network can successfully pinpoint you to a certain location.

There are many other tricks and methods to achieve a higher level of privacy and security on the Internet. They include different types of encryption - a way to make your information completely unreadable to all but the intended party; steganography - hiding text in a picture or sound file or even in other text; choosing good passwords to protect your Internet accounts and so on. There is not enough space in this article to dwell upon them all, but you could refer to numerous publications and blogs out there on the Internet.

Please note that in the world of security nothing is 100% guaranteed. You must be aware of the security provided by the tool you choose and its possible vulnerabilities. In other words, should you wish to increase the security and privacy of your operations, you must take time to study the possible risks and outcomes yourself, in order to decide which is the right tool for you and when you should refrain form using it.

Last bits...

This article touches but a tip of the iceberg of all the issues of Internet security. I hope it makes you feel a little worried for this is often the only way to bring about change in your habits and processes. If security and privacy are important to your work and leisure activities, then don't feel too comfortable next time you sit down behind a computer. There is a Big Brother out there and he is probably watching you.

But don't throw up your hands in despair. Install one of the tools mentioned above or those available on the Internet. Many do not agree with the way the Internet is being reigned and controlled. Start fighting back for that very basic reward - your rights.

Dmitri Vitaliev is the author of the recently published book titled 'Digital Security and Privacy for Human Rights Defenders' [9] (http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/manual/en/esecman/) and the co-editor of the NGO in a Box - Security Edition (http://security.ngoinabox.org) project.

[1]
[2] http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
[3] Privacy International www.privacyinternational.org - Privacy and Human Rights Report 2004
[4] European Parliament, Temporary Committee on the Echelon Interception System (2001) Report on the Existence of a Global System for the Interception of Private and Commercial Communications (ECHELON interception system) , May 18, 2001.
[5]
[7] www.wireshark.org
[9] http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/manual/en/esecman/

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

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/294/kwame-nkrumah.jpg
Nii Ardey Otoo defends Nkrumah and the CPP's declaration of a one-party state in Ghana.

It is often said that Kwame Nkrumah had his faults. This statement is used to provide grounds to criticise Kwame Nkrumah's policies, which his critics are not comfortable with.

Among the so-called mistakes attributed to Nkrumah was the declaration of Ghana as a one-party state. According to imperialist propaganda, Nkrumah declared Ghana a one-party state because he wanted to rule Ghana without opposition. This propaganda has gained credence through the pronouncements of some African intellectuals, such as Professor Ali Mazrui.

The truth is that from 1951 until Nkrumah was overthrown by the American CIA, Nkrumah and the CPP won every election with overwhelming majorities. Even when the British jailed Nkrumah for three years, for publishing a so-called seditious article in the Cape Coast Daily Mail, the CPP won an overwhelming majority of the votes. Nkrumah received the largest individual poll ever recorded in the history of Ghana: 22,780 votes out of a possible 23,122. This is because Nkrumah and the CPP chose the people first, while the opposition chose themselves first.

The declaration of a one-party state by Nkrumah was not for selfish reasons, as imperialist propaganda states. According to Nkrumah, the multi-party system is divisive, and a newly independent state needs the energy and enthusiasm of all the people to move forward. In a speech to the Indian Council on World Affairs, 26 December 1958, Nkrumah said 'We, in Africa, will evolve forms of government, rather different from the traditional Western pattern, but no less democratic in their protection of the individual and his inalienable rights'. In his book, Africa Must Unite, Nkrumah wrote: 'If the will of the people is democratically expressed in an overwhelming majority for the governing party, and thereby creates a weakening of the accepted two party system, the government is obliged to respect the will of the people so expressed. We have no right to divide our mandate in defiance of the popular will of the people.'

In a speech to the National Assembly on 1 February 1966, 23 days before he was overthrown, Nkrumah warned with great alarm, 'A one-party system of government is an effective and safe instrument only when it operates in a socialist society.'

In Class Struggle in Africa, Nkrumah wrote, 'Every form of political power, whether parliamentary, multi-party, one-party, or an open military dictatorship, reflects the interest of a certain class or classes in society. In a socialist state, the government represents the workers and peasants. In a capitalist state, the government represents the exploitative class. The state then, is the expression of the domination of one class over other classes'.

Yet through subversion, lies, corruption, the IMF, World Bank, and CIA pressures, the enemies of African progress and political unification have influenced most African politicians and intellectuals by prescribing the multi-party system as the only form of political governance. Even though the effects of multi-party system have been disastrous everywhere in the developing world, any leader with a vision of an alternative form of governance, would be overthrown by the CIA. And that is what happened to Nkrumah.

Presently it is happening to Presidents Chavez in Venezuela, and Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Proper scrutiny of world political history, will lead one to discover that in the 20th century, great political strides were achieved by one-party socialist systems.

The People's Republic of China also used a one-party socialist-system to build their country from a peasant economy, to a great regional super power. It is now challenging the world's only super power in all aspects of science, technology, and business - this came about in less than 60 years.

Vietnam also used a one-party socialist system to militarily defeat both French colonialism and USA neo-colonialism in the 20th century. Cuba used a one-party socialist system to build their nation despite the embargo imposed by USA and her allies.

Kwame Nkrumah used a one-party socialist system to lead the people of Ghana in nation building. In only nine years, Nkrumah and the CPP built the most modern road network in Ghana, including the Accra-Tema Motorway. Since his overthrow, other governments have not added a single kilometre. The Akosombo hydroelectric project was also constructed under Nkrumah and the CPP government. Dr. K.A. Busia, then leader of the opposition, described the hydroelectric project as a 'communist inspired prestige undertaking'. But this dam created the Volta Lake and it is the primary source of Ghana 's electricity forty years later. Other infrastructure built under Nkrumah and the CPP provided pipe-born water, housing, schools and hospitals.

In education, Nkrumah and the CPP achieved more in nine years, than the British did in 100 years of colonial rule; and more than all the successive governments after Nkrumah and CPP. There was free and compulsory education. Free education was provided from primary to university level. Textbooks were supplied free to all pupils in primary, middle, and secondary schools. Night schools for adults, males and females, were created as part of a mass literacy campaign. The state farm corporation developed a 20 square mile rubber plantation. Soon after Nkrumah's overthrow, this valuable plantation was given to the Firestone Rubber Company of the USA . Even the prison system was improved under Nkrumah and the CPP government. Nkrumah and the CPP built the most humane prison in Ghana, Nsawam Prison, the only prison in Ghana that had recreational facilities, a church, a mosque, and a library. Today, it is overcrowded and antiquated, as all successive governments after Nkrumah have turned a blind eye to the prison situation in the country. In short, Kwame Nkrumah laid the foundations for Ghana's development in every sector of the country.

The time has come for African intellectuals, and politicians, to stop analyzing Nkrumah through the eyes of the neo-colonialists. They must assess him on his political and developmental programmes, and on his contributions to the political and economic advancement of Africa. Professor Ali Mazrui, a leading neo-colonial intellectuals, still analyzes Nkrumah through CIA propaganda. Ali Mazuri said that 'Kwame Nkrumah was one of Africa's greatest sons, but he was not one of Ghana's greatest servants'. On the contrary Kwame Nkrumah was so busy serving Ghana, he did not so much as get time to build a one-bedroom house for himself.

On the one-party system, Ali Mazrui said, 'Nkrumah's policy of trying to create one Ghana by abolishing separate parties was usurpation'. However the introduction of one-party state in Ghana was an act of Parliament. It was not a decision implemented by Nkrumah alone.

One imperialist strategy in African politics is to brainwash us into believing that unless our constitution is based on an imitation of the Western Parliamentary system, we can't engage in politics and democracy. This notion must be overturned. Our intellectuals must rid themselves of this colonial mentality. Kwame Nkrumah devoted his life's energy to Africa's political freedom and unification. His achievements are there for all to see. Militants the world over admire how he set colonialism ablaze in Africa. Nkrumah has shown us the way, and we must walk it with confidence.

Colonial powers never educate their victims (those they called subjects) in how to win freedom. But Kwame Nkrumah taught us how to do it. 'Free market', 'privatisation', 'NEPAD', 'Structural Adjustment Programme', 'Highly Indebted Poor Country', 'globalisation' are all imperialist attempts to deceive Africans to participate in our own exploitation. In Nkrumah's words: 'There are only two ways of development open to an independent African state. Either it must remain under imperialist domination via capitalism and neo-colonialism, or it must pursue a socialist path by adopting the principles of scientific socialism.'

The choice is for us. Either we chose the path of the freedom fighters, or we follow the CIA gospel preached by the neo-colonialists.

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

On 2 March 2007, the issue of 'comfort women' was raised again by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who denied that the military had forced women into sexual slavery during World War II. He stated, 'the fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion'. Before he spoke, a group of Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers also sought to revise Yohei Kono's 1993 apology to former comfort women.

2007 marks the 30th anniversary of International Women's Day. The day has been observed since the early 1900s, a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialised world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies. In 1977 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution inviting member states to proclaim a UN Day for Women's Rights and International Peace - International Women's Day - observed on 8 March.

This important day provides an opportunity to celebrate progress made to advance women's rights and to assess remaining challenges. International Women's Day should encourage us to bring about equality for women and girls in all their diversity, and to celebrate the collective power of women past, present and future.

Women's suffering arises as a direct consequence of their gender

We should all bear in mind that many problems faced by women arise as a direct consequence of their gender. Everyday, in countries around the world, women and girls, desperate for economic opportunity, and seeking to follow their dreams of a better life, are lured from home by promises of jobs and security. Sadly, they too often find themselves turned into prostitutes, imprisoned by employers, mistreated, sexually abused and often never seen nor heard from again. While entire communities suffer the consequences of armed conflict, women and girls are particularly affected because of their status in society.

More than 1 billion people in the world today, the great majority of whom are women, live in unacceptable conditions of poverty, mostly in developing countries. Women's lives continue to be endangered by violence which is directed at them, because they are women. Violence against women knows no class, race, or age barriers. It exists across all socio-economic groups, It is a daily phenomenon in the lives of women throughout the world.

'Comfort Women', at a glance in 2007

The recent statement by Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, raising the issue of 'comfort women' strongly reinforces the suffering of women and girls today. He said that there was no evidence Japan coerced Asian women into working as sex slaves during World War II, backtracking from a landmark 1993 statement in which the government acknowledged that it set up and ran brothels for its troops. The 1993 apology was made by then-Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono, but was not approved by parliament. The recent Japanese Prime Minister’s denial came after several members of the US House of Representatives have drafted a non-binding resolution calling him to 'formally acknowledge, apologize and accept historical responsibility' for using 'comfort women' during the war. Supporters want an apology similar to the one the US government gave to Japanese-Americans forced into internment camps during World War II. That apology was approved by Congress and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1988.

This development is regrettable and shows that the ghost of inequality and disrespect continues to haunt the women and women’s rights. In fact, 'comfort women' or 'military comfort women' is a euphemism for between 80,000 and 200,000 forced sex labourers, mostly from Korea and China, conscripted into military brothels in Japanese-occupied countries during World War II. Women were enslaved against their will and repeatedly raped, tortured and brutalised for months or years on end, exclusively for the benefit of Japanese military. Women were abducted or obtained by deception and in some cases, girls were purchased from destitute parents. The majority of victims were under the age of 20 and some girls were as young as 12.

The Japanese Government has vigorously defended its legal position on this issue and has persistently maintained that all issues of compensation were settled by post-war peace treaties. Japan’s apologies to the former ‘comfort women’ have been half-hearted and the government has refused to accept any legal liability. Japan’s answer to compensation has failed to meet international guidelines on reparation and compensation.

No more 'Comfort women'?

Can we say that after the World War II, there are no more comfort women? The answer is no, if we consider the number and cases of sexual abuses committed by military and paramilitary forces around the world and especially in Africa. It is even worse when 'peacekeepers' are also involved in these practices.

The experience of women during WWII is not unique. Women continue to suffer from systematic rape and assault in war and conflict. Women in Rwanda, Liberia, Somalia, Sierra-Leone, Burundi, DRC and Sudan have reported deliberate and systematic rape and abuse during conflict. These crimes are war crimes and human rights violations of grave magnitude.

Japan, other states and individuals should be taught that this system of forced sexual slavery is a crime against humanity that does not lapse with the passing of time. The denial of a just remedy for surviving former 'comfort women' is a human rights violation. Victims’ needs have to be at the core of any attempt to address past violations. So far, Japan’s actions have ignored their victims’ needs and actually compounded the initial human rights violations committed against them. It is well established in international law that where a state has committed gross violations of human rights and humanitarian law, as Japan did in the case of the 'comfort women'," the government is obliged to investigate such abuses, prosecute those responsible, provide adequate remedies to the victims and prevent future abuses.

Never again, the brutality of men at war!

These women deserve justice. It is vital that the surviving 'comfort women' as we are celebrating the International Women’s Day, are given back their dignity. Just remedy for the survivors of the comfort system will give hope to survivors and victims, as well as set a precedent for other women suffering today.

* Joseph Yav is a lecturer in law, at the Faculty of Law, University of Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo and is also the executive director of CERDH (Centre d’Etudes et de Recherche en Droits de l’Homme, Democratie et Justice Transitionnelle/Centre for Human Rights, Democracy and Transitional Justice Studies)[email protected]

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

The generation and distribution of power (electricity) is political and economically driven. It is also surrounded by deception and falsehoods. Tristen Taylor explains why and how.

To illustrate that the energy cycle is centralised in a manner which reinforces the political domination of the few over the many, primarily through economic instruments, we now turn to South Africa and the generation and distribution of electricity.

95 per cent of electricity in South Africa is generated (and distributed) by one organisation, Eskom. The South African government owns 100 per cent of Eskom, with the Minister of Public Enterprises being the representative shareholder. In effect, this means that the South African government has total control over the conversion of energy into electricity and its subsequent distribution. Eskom generates this electricity overwhelmingly through the use of ten coal-fired power stations, producing 90 per cent of all electricity. The additional 5 per cent comes from nuclear (Koeberg) and hydro resources. This represents centralisation of energy conversion almost unheard of in human history. If we accept that the government is just one actor within our society, then it appears strange that it holds full control over one of society’s basic goods.

The South African government decides howEskom’s 208,314GWh of electricity is distributed. These are the proportions by sector: agriculture three per cent, commerce ten per cent, the transport sector two per cent. Industry is allocated a whopping 68 per cent. Residential users represent 17 per cent.

To recap - Agriculture and the business sector combined get a whopping 83 per cent of all electricity, while the citizenry must scavenge for the remaining 17 per cent. Approximately, 30 per cent of households are without electricity. And the pro-business, anti-poor bias is further illustrated in Eskom’s pricing policy. As Bryan Ashe notes:

'Soweto residents are charged 28 cents per kilowatt/hour while Sandton … residents pay 16 cents and big business pays seven cents. In rural areas, consumers are charged 48 cents per kilowatt/hour.'

How is such a distribution model justified? Mostly according to the dominant economic policy of our time, GEAR and its offspring. All of which are minor variations on the policies of the IMF and the World Bank, often termed neo-liberal economics or the Washington Consensus. The South African government gives more electricity to the business sector because, rightly or wrongly, it believes that business interests are greater than those of individual citizens, especially in a situation where demand has outstripped capacity. Given a choice between providing cheap electricity to industry and cheap electricity to the people, the Government has routinely chosen the former, as witnessed by the Alcan-Coega deal.

One may ask, if this is in the common good, this current distribution of electricity, why have so many conflicts occurred between government authorities and communities seeking access to electricity? Why do some South Africans have to make do with candles and paraffin while big business gets all the power it wants, at the price it wants?

Primarily because of the macro-economic policies adopted by our government. Incidentally, these macro-economic policies create what is currently considered a favourable investment climate for foreign capital, which is free to move anywhere it wishes (unlike people). If the government refused to create this climate, capital would not be invested and growth would not be possible, or so the argument goes. If the economic and social data are anything to go by, this macro-economic policy of the last ten years has produced an unrelenting assault upon the poor whilst facilitating fantastic levels of growth within the financial services sector. Of course, the poor and the working classes do not own shares or unit trusts. As Dale McKinley states:

'Research conducted by the Development Bank of South Africa in 2005 revealed that the number of South Africans in poverty (with the national poverty line for 2002 being benchmarked at a miserable R354 per adult per month) in all population groups increased dramatically, from 17,000,000 in 1996 to 21,000,000 in 2003…indeed, the state’s own figures for 2002 show that the poorest half of all South Africans earn just 9,7% of national income (down from 11,4% in 1995), while the richest 20% take 65% of all income.'

According to the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into a Comprehensive System of Social Security for South Africa in 2002, 55 per cent of South Africans live in poverty and 60 per cent of the poor receive no social security transfers and/or grants. Making matters even worse, the Report of the South African Cities Network (2004) revealed there was a 180 per cent increase between 1996-2001 in the number of urban households with no measurable income at all.

Further, in determining its energy position, the Government did it without seeking meaningful citizen-participation. Why should it? Why does any centralised authority have to consult with what are, after all, the end consumers of an energy chain? What can citizens do? Boycott electricity?

Access to electricity is a determining factor in one’s position within society, and the withholding of access to electricity, either through refusing to provide access or through tariffs, is an act of controlling individual access. In the power relationship between the citizenry and Eskom/the South African government, those who control the generation and distribution of electricity hold all the cards. There is very little citizens can do if the price of electricity is increased (for the poor with access, a rise in price means that their access becomes further restricted) or if supply is diverted to industry.

Put another way, the individual citizen is dependent entirely upon the government to provide him/her with a basic condition of modern life. This gives the government undue power over the circumstances of the fortunes of citizens, communities, organisations, and businesses, resulting in an insidious form of patronage. Furthermore, the total centralisation of energy conversion has enabled the government to use electricity as part of its macro-economic policy; witness the pre-paid meter wars in Soweto, the staggering numbers of disconnections (10,000,000 by 2002), preferential pricing for domestic and foreign corporations, an attempt at privatising Eskom, and a continued reliance on coal. Using only coal to generate electricity provides an effective market-subsidy to the coal mining and export companies (such as Anglo Coal and TOTAL).

For example, Anglo Coal produced 56.900,000 tons of coal in 2005 in South Africa, of which Eskom bought 34.300,000 tons. Furthermore, Anglo Coal is currently seeking new deals with Eskom for additional long-term purchasing arrangements to the tune of an additional 25,000,000 tons of coal per annum.

From global profits in excess of US$1 billion for Anglo Coal, US$439,000,000 came from South Africa. With such a huge amount of money at stake, it is in Anglo Coal’s own interest that Eskom continues its love affair with coal and, by necessity, that South Africa’s electricity generation remains centralised. TOTAL is the ninth largest oil and gas company in the world and the fourth largest coal exporter in South Africa, representing a major consolidation of local and global energy resources in private hands.

Perhaps one of the greatest and most tragic ironies of the current Eskom policy of pro-business generation and distribution of electricity is that the technology used was paid for by the citizenry as a whole, mostly through foreign and odious debt incurred during apartheid. Eskom was one of the prime beneficiaries of foreign loans during the apartheid era. For example, in 1974 Barclays participated in a US$15,000,000 Eskom Eurobond issue; in 1976 (after the Soweto uprising) Citibank, along with three other US banks and Barclays, provided credit of US$200,000,000 for Eskom. In 1980 Credit Suisse was the managing bank in loans worth CHF,000,000 million to Eskom. And so on. 16 per cent of all foreign debt in 1990 was the result of loans to Eskom. These loans became the obligation, post-1994, of the victims of apartheid to pay back via taxes. It is these same victims that are being discriminated against in Eskom’s current energy policy.

The feudal lords with their watermills were thinking small

But what does this social and economic problem have to do with the environment? In one sense, all social and economic issues are environmental. Human beings and all their artefacts are part of the global ecology. True that may be, but it sidesteps the real concern. Addressing the situation described above – that the centralised energy conversion system of South Africa is anti-poor – does not mean having to revert to traditional environmental issues such as dirty coal, global warming, renewable energy, cute and fuzzy bunnies. The answer would be to change the distribution policy of Eskom and the government, reduce cut-offs, lower residential tariffs, increase 'lifeboat' allowances, and build more transmission lines and bigger power stations.

This approach is fundamentally flawed in that it ignores two key factors. First, it ignores the fact that electricity generation (like all energy conversion systems) underscores a political power relationship. Within a centralised and tightly controlled system as South Africa’s, the citizenry already gets as much electricity as it needs, according to the system. Because the South African energy cycle is controlled entirely by an elite class, electricity is granted to non-elites in accordance with their ability to serve the elite class. By way of example, middle class individuals receive a fair amount of electricity because: 1) They provide a means of subsidisation for industry through the payment of tariffs, and a form of revenue for Eskom; 2) They need a fair amount of electricity to fulfil their roles as the technicians of the modern economy. One cannot be an effective engineer or doctor if one does not have electricity. The poor receive a more limited amount (or none at all) precisely because the system does not require them to be electricity-rich. In fact, the value of the poor for the system, besides the role of consumers, is to depress wages.

The current lack of capacity within Eskom to generate additional electricity is being addressed only because the dominant interest group (business) is demanding more and cheaper electricity. This demand is virtually unlimited, and additional increases in generating capacity (more power stations) will be absorbed and used by industry. To radically alter this equation to truly favour the poor would require a complete change of the economic and social paradigm of the economy itself. This would require a transition to a democratic socialist regime and a degree of central planning to the economy. Only after this has happened, after the power of capital has been broken, can the policy of Eskom be changed.

Any move towards a democratic socialist South Africa will not happen overnight, for such a move will be strongly (if not violently) resisted by current elite groups and capital in general, and could take generations to achieve. There is no time to wait for such a transition, both in terms of human suffering and external factors. Nor is it evident that the populace as a whole wants a socialist South Africa.

Further, even a socialist South Africa will not remove the underlying power dynamic between the citizenry and centralised energy conversion. As long as the generation and distribution of electricity remains in the hands of a single entity or the few, the entire citizenry will remain at the mercy of the few. Electricity and other forms of energy, petrol, for example, are not luxury items. An individual requires constant access to them in order simply to survive in the modern world.

The second factor, which renders much of the previous factor mute, is that external factors will force a change in the current energy cycle. Coal is not an unlimited resource, and South Africa’s coal reserves will run out. Current reserves are at about 34 billion metric tons, and by 2040 South Africa could have only 7 billion metric tons. 8 Yet these statistics are not the whole story. The demand for coal is growing on a global scale and will continue to do so, despite diminishing reserves. Simple economics means that the price of coal will keep on increasing, making coal-generated electricity increasingly expensive. There are already signs of this happening. For example, China is concerned that it does not have enough coal to fuel its industrial expansion:

'This year, China's domestic demand for coal is expected to reach 1.78 billion tons. Taken together, the four major industrial sectors of power generation, metallurgy, building materials manufacture and fertilizers will consume 1.58 billion tons, up 12.9 percent on the previous year. Meanwhile exports will exceed the 80 million ton mark. Energy expert, Han Xiaoping, says, ‘The fundamental reason for China to slash its coke export quota lies in China's deepening energy crisis. China's current coal reserves and rates of exploitation are just not sufficient to continue to sustain the rapid development of the Chinese economy.'

Shortages in coal supply will be further exacerbated by declining petroleum reserves and rising petroleum prices. As the price of oil per barrel increases, the viability of transforming coal into oil increases. This is what SASOL does, and it is a technology in which China has heavily invested in. This makes coal an even more useful resource thereby increasing demand, price and rate of extraction. This will mean greater pressure on the poor and working classes for, as energy prices increase, more and more people will be unable to afford access to energy, leading to negative social implications such as the further entrenchment of poverty, poor/minimal education, disease, and social conflict.

Recent moves in the biofuels sector (ethanol and biodiesel are now economically viable alternatives and additives to petrol and diesel) are showing a similar trajectory. The production and distribution of biofuels is rapidly becoming consolidated in a nexus of agribusiness and traditional oil companies, often with generous state subsidies. Once again, the only role for the individual in this system is as the consumer. Further, as ethanol and biodiesel become the cash crops of the 21st century, good land will be used for them, contributing to the increasing driving out of small-scale farmers to ever more marginal soil.

Simply speaking, the odds are that the coal and petroleum global economy will be abandoned or it will collapse before it can be shifted to a pro-poor approach. There is an ecological limit on our current growth trajectory and method, and this is applied to capitalist, communist, and socialist economies alike.

The other external factor that will force a change in the global energy conversion cycle is climate change. The overwhelming body of scientific evidence states that the current use of petroleum and coal is the primary reason why the climate is warming. As the climate warms, weather and oceanic patterns will change, causing massive disruption to ecologies. We can expect longer droughts, rising sea levels, increasing extinctions, reduced food supplies (especially marine food sources), and unhealthy weather. Most likely, you will be cursed to live long enough to see this happen.

Climate change is not only an environmental issue. It is a social issue, and will have profound social implications. Those with access to resources (capital) will be better equipped to deal with the negative effects of climate change; those without access to capital will suffer the most. Hurricane Katrina has been an abject lesson on how social, economic and political relationships will be played out as climate changes increase.

Just before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005, the rich and middle classes deserted the city - they simply drove or flew away. They had the access to capital required to move themselves out of harm’s way. The poor (and black) were left behind to face the storm. The white guys left town and watched the show on CNN, the black folks drowned. Welcome to the future.

In the coming decades the world will either make the transition away from a fossil fuel economy or it will suffer the negative consequences of climate change. And, because this change is imminent (assuming we don’t 'choose' to drown instead), there is a great danger that the transition towards an alternative energy system will ignore the social and economic relationships that exist in energy conversion, especially within the minerals-energy complex.

If the negative affects of global warming and air pollution are temporarily excluded from the equation, it makes no difference in terms of societal power relationships if the system for producing electricity comes from a centralised coal-based system or a centralised renewable energy (or nuclear) system. Both systems will produce the same kind of socio-economic relationships that currently exist. And the environmental movement seems to have forgotten, ignored, or is unaware of this fact. Replacing one system that bolsters domination with another that also bolsters domination does not advance the cause of human justice one bit.

The only long-term solution that will address both the environmental and human justice concerns is one that addresses the political economy of power. Moreover, addressing the political economy of power is a necessary step towards a better, brighter world for all of us.

I’ll keep my remarks on how to address the political economy of power to the generation of electricity; no alternatives for petroleum, unfortunately. To begin, we must remember that there is no shortage of energy. The only limit that exists is our ability to tap into that energy, and this is a technological problem.

Fortunately, there do exist alternative technologies - such as solar, wind, biogas - and there are also methods of using energy with greater efficiency, that have the potential to change the political economy of power. Some of these technologies will require state subsidy, others need further research and development, but neither of these two factors are prohibitive. Technologically speaking, we are close to the point of having a carbon-based paint that can be applied to a wall and generate electricity using solar radiation.

What needs to be done is to decentralise the generation of electricity to the level of municipalities, towns, villages, and, most importantly, individual households. The goal is that each household should be able to generate enough electricity for its own use, as well as generate excess electricity that can be fed back into the national grid. This goal is not impossible to achieve. The laws of physics do not prevent it, and it is not beyond current engineering capacity. This can be achieved. It is not science fiction. The technology will have to be renewable and use materials available at a local level. Wind and solar provide two potential sources for such a system, and, because they are free to all, cannot be controlled by the few.

The basis of the electricity conversion system needs to be at the grassroots level. Individual citizens and communities must have the ability not only to set their own electricity requirements but also to meet their own needs. If this can be achieved, it will provide adequate electricity and will also alter the political economy of power. No longer would communities have to beg from the State for an extra couple of kilowatts a month; the State would not be able to use electricity as a means of control and oppression, and as a vehicle for implanting its own desires. To use a slightly different terminology, the means of the production of electricity would be in the hands of the users themselves.

The social and economic implications of such a system are clear – in at least one important sector of modern life, the people would have direct and clear ownership of the electricity sector. The corrosive and dominating relationship with regard to electricity would be dissolved and replaced with a situation of community and individual level self-sufficiency, providing a basis for advances in other areas such as economics, liberty, human rights, and real education.

Quite often in the struggle for human and environmental justice, we see ourselves fighting a rearguard action while hoping to survive until some future date when things will, miraculously, be better. Salvation is at a distant point, for the conditions for change are not yet right. Current struggles often seek to enable the foundations for change, not the change itself.

Breaking the political economy of power and decentralising electricity generation needs not wait for some far off event. The time for change is now. The current system has systemically failed both the poor and the environment, and has just about reached its ecological limits. Coal and oil are running out. The continued use of fossil fuels is producing an ecological response (climate change) that is already having widespread and negative effects. A change must happen, the historical moment of change has arrived. Just as Europe and China shifted to coal as wood supplies dwindled, so Africa will shift from fossil fuels to alternative sources of energy.

For the past 250 years we have had the feudal lords and their watermills. Time for some windmills and freedom.

* Part 1 was published in Pambazuka News 293
* Tristen Taylor is the energy policy officer at Earthlife Africa Jhb. The views expressed in this work are not necessarily those of Earthlife Africa Jhb.

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

1 David A. McDonald, “The Bell Tolls For Thee: Cost Recovery, Cutoffs, and the Affordability of Municipal Services in South Africa”, Municipal Services Project, March 2002, pg. 5
2 Bryan Ashe, “South Africa's Mammoth Electric Company Leads the Way in Utility Privatisation while Touting Sustainable Development”, 16 August 2002, http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=3528 Bold added
3 Dale T. McKinley, “The Making of a Myth: South Africa’s Neo-Liberal Journey”, 22 March 2006
4 David A. McDonald, “The Bell Tolls For Thee: Cost Recovery, Cutoffs, and the Affordability of Municipal Services in South Africa”, Municipal Services Project, March 2002, pg. 3
5 Currently on hold, but which would result in a centralising of energy conversion in the hands of business, a far smaller and less accountable group than Government.
6 Brendan Ryan, “Anglo Coal pitches for Eskom”, MiningMX, 21 December 2005, http://www.miningmx.com/energy/531028.htm
7 For more on the role played by multinational banks in propping up Apartheid, see Tristen Taylor, “Funding Repression”, 2005.
8 Note estimates vary widely. Source used: http://www.mbendi.co.za/indy/ming/coal/af/sa/p0005.htm
9 Tang Fuchun, “Call for Coal Reserve in Energy Security Strategy”, China.org.cn, 17 June 2004.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/294/slavery.jpg
Bro. K. Bangarah, in this second part of his essay, argues that it was military, economic and political forces along with the actions of a group of Afrikan activists in Britain that led to the abolition of slavery, and not William Wilberforce. He was merely an unofficial government appointee who negotiated and claimed leadership of the movement and his name in history.

Wilberforce: Government agent and bogus anti-slavery ‘leader’?

The recruitment of Wilberforce by the Prime Minister is an important clue suggesting that he may have been appointed to perform a subversive role designed to hold up the abolition process. Pitt was determined that Wilberforce, a backbencher, should be the official spokesman for the abolition society and in that role, present the abolition bill in Parliament. This is very surprising since the bill would have stood a much greater chance of success if the Prime Minister had taken it on as part of government business, headed and presented by a cabinet Minister. If he had really wanted to abolish the ‘slave trade’ he could have used the full power of his office to make it happen. The truth is that the Prime Minister’s situation was delicate as he wanted to appear to be in favour of abolition, whilst in reality being doggedly opposed to it.

Pitt was forced into giving the false impression that he favoured abolition because of the growing awareness about: (i)the barbarity, wickedness and general evil of slavery, and (ii)the large number of deaths of British seamen, soldiers and other personnel overseas. The resulting and ever growing outcry from the British public for the abolition of the ‘slave trade’ increased the pressure on him and his government to act. This then created serious problems for a government that relied heavily on the income that it received in the form of taxes from enslavers and others who profited from the human misery of enslaved Afrikan people. Pitt’s tactical response was to send in his close and trusted friend Wilberforce; so close that at one time they even lived in the same house (Howarth, 1973). Wilberforce’s role was to function as the society’s mouthpiece with the latent agenda of containing, stifling, thwarting, delaying and otherwise redirecting the pressure on government so as to stave off the abolition of slavery.

There are signs that initially Wilberforce was not quite up to the task of infiltrating and undermining the organised structures and processes developed to achieve the abolition of slavery. It evidently became necessary to coerce him into stepping more fully into the bogus leadership role ascribed to him because in 1787 Pitt found it necessary to warn Wilberforce that: ‘… if he did not bring the motion in [to the House of Commons], somebody else would …’ (James, 1963). The thought of somebody else stealing his limelight seems to have helped him overcome his reluctance.

Some readers might find it strange to think in terms of Wilberforce having operated as an under cover government spy working to subvert the abolitionist movement. However, we know that Pitt was really against the abolition of slavery because of his response to the Haitian revolution. When the world saw the Afrikan people in Haiti rise up and abolish slavery, Pitt failed to offer them either his government’s support or even its official recognition. Instead he sent 60,000 British soldiers, mostly to die, in an unsuccessful attempt to crush the Afrikan people there in order to return them back into slavery (James, 1963). Pitt’s actions must have been designed to maintain slavery, because he did not send his troops into nearby France to assist attempts to crush the revolutionary Jacobins who were fighting a similar cause.

Instead of correcting his close friend the Prime Minister and championing the cause of the Afrikan people fighting for their freedom in Haiti, Wilberforce publicly supported Pitt’s decision to send British forces into Haiti in order to fully re-instate slavery on the island. There can be little doubt that this action was specifically against the enslaved Afrikan people who were fighting for freedom. We know this because in 1792 he used the Haitian revolution as a pretext for abandoning the bill to abolish the ‘slave trade’ that had already successfully passed through the House of Commons (Hart, 1997). It was agreed that this bill would bring the slave trade’ to an end on 1 January 1796. That they should be prepared to go to such lengths is proof conclusive that both Wilberforce and Pitt were unequivocally and fundamentally opposed to the abolition of slavery. Any other utterances that they made were just anti-slavery rhetoric designed to camouflage their real agenda. It is just not possible for an honest and objective observer to consider these facts and reasonably draw any other conclusion.

In addition, there is documented evidence confirming that governments of that period in British history actively used their own under cover agents as spies against groups that they did not approve of. Afrikan anti-slavery and anti-imperialist heroes such as William Davison (Fryer, 1984) and William Cuffay (Fryer, 1984) were executed or otherwise persecuted as a direct result of the subversive activities of government sponsored undercover agent provocateurs. The Briton Arthur Thistlewood suffered a similar fate (Foot, 2002).

As will be seen, Wilberforce consistently behaved in ways that ran counter to the objective of abolishing slavery. It is his consistent pattern of blatant anti-abolitionist, blatant racist and blatant sexist behaviours that lay him open to the accusation of being a subversive government agent. It is also interesting to note that all the time William Pitt, the man who appointed him, was Prime Minister all bills to abolish the kidnapping and deportation of Afrikan people failed to make their way through Parliament. It was only after the death of Pitt in 1806 that the abolition of the slave trade bill finally made it onto the statue book.

Racist Wilberforce opposed the abolition of slavery

Another of the methods used by imperialism to propagate its lies is to create or control organisations that pretend to champion particular just causes whilst, at the same time, adopting the hidden agenda of derailing or containing that just cause. The actions of the so called ‘Abolition Society’ were consistent with that pattern in that despite its progressive sounding name, it openly boasted that it did not seek the abolition of the enslavement of Afrikan people. For instance, on 12 August 1788 just months after Wilberforce started operating as its ‘unofficial’ Parliamentary spokesman, the ‘Abolition Society’ issued its first public statement: ‘… proclaiming that the abolition of slavery was not their objective’ (Hart, 2006). The following year 1789, a Privy Council report concluded that free waged labourers were three times more productive than enslaved people (Ferguson, 1998). There was an increasing realisation that enslaved people had no purchasing power and that this was as an obvious impediment to the development of the capitalist market system of distribution and exchange (Hart, 1998).

The society appears to have been completely unmoved by the mounting sources of information and pressure supportive of the abolition of slavery. They still stubbornly refused to advocate for the abolition of slavery and on 31 January 1792 Wilberforce’s friends in the ‘Abolition Society’ issued their second public statement: ‘… proclaiming that the abolition of slavery was not their objective’ (Hart, 2006). If these actions were not enough to demonstrate the desire of Wilberforce and his friends to hold back progress towards gaining the ‘freedom’ of enslaved Afrikan people then, on 29 March 1797 the case was sealed; three years after Wilberforce officially joined, the disingenuous nature of the ‘Abolition Society’ was confirmed when it issued its third public statement: ‘… proclaiming that the abolition of slavery was not their objective’ (Hart, 2006). From the point of view of Afrikan people, this is an aspect of Wilberforce’s ‘help’ that we could have done without.

The success of the Haitian revolution and the Haitian declaration of independence in 1804 forced all of the imperialist nations to reconsider their approach to the enslavement of Afrikan people (James, 1963). All of Pitt’s and Wilberforce’s attempts to support the maintenance of slavery on that island had ended in unmitigated disaster. The experience forced them and other imperialists to accept that they could be militarily defeated by enslaved Afrikan people. It also forced them to accept that if they continued to kidnap and deport Afrikan people to the Americas that they would be adding to the military might of the already powerful enslaved Afrikan people resisting their enslavers. This in turn would lead to the inevitable demise of their European kith and kin living in and colonising those lands.

Denmark wasted no time and abolished the ‘slave trade’ in 1802 (Greenwood, 1980). Britain’s response was slower: Since the 1790s the British Parliament had developed the habit of thwarting all attempts to abolish the kidnapping and deportation of Afrikan people into enslavement. Despite their military defeats at the hands of Afrikan people in Haiti. Some sections of the British establishment refused to accept the need to abolish. Over a period they began to accept reality, Britain changed stance and a bill for the abolition of the ‘slave trade’ was, though not for the first time, approved by the House of Commons in 1804. It was however, held up by the intransigence of House of Lords (Hart, 1998).

When in 1807 the House of Lords finally capitulated under the overwhelming pressure to abolish the practice of kidnapping and deporting Afrikan people, Wilberforce attempted to put the breaks on the Afrikan liberation process by publicly denouncing the idea of emancipating enslaved Afrikan people (Williams, 1944). Following that, Wilberforce was to go on to prove just how reactionary he actually was when he and his friends delayed advocating the ‘gradual emancipation’ of enslaved Afrikan people until 1923 – 16 years (Hart, 2006). It is clear that he did not feel it necessary to consult with enslaved Afrikan people since he expressed the opinion that we were not yet: ‘… fit … to bear emancipation …’ (Martin, 1999). Wilberforce’s actions are clearly consistent with those of a person who was completely opposed to the idea of Afrikan people being freed from imperialist oppression.

Racist Wilberforce delayed the abolition of slavery

After the abolition of the ‘slave trade’ in 1807, the next logical step for those in favour of Afrikan emancipation was the immediate abolition of the institution of slavery itself. However, Wilberforce found curious ways of showing his ‘support’ for the cause of immediate abolition. In addition to openly opposing immediate abolition, he practiced behaviours which did not fall far short of those carried out by the racist fascists who controlled the abhorrent anti-human Apartheid system in South Afrika. For instance in 1816, when he claimed to be advocating for ‘equality’ and the ‘emancipation’ of Afrikan and other oppressed people, Wilberforce chaired a dinner of the friends of Afrikans and Asians Society and: ‘… the token Afrikans and Asians invited to the gathering were separated from the other guests by a screen set across the end of the room.’ (Fryer, 1984).

Wilberforce was not shy in demonstrating his apparent ‘compassion’ for enslaved Afrikan people in other ways. For instance, he advocated the idea that Afrikan people should only be whipped at night – presumable so as not to adversely affect production, which took place mainly in the day (Hochschild, 2005). Furthermore, our ‘great hero and saviour’ recommended that Afrikan people be bred like animals as a substitute to boosting our population in the Americas through the kidnapping and compulsory deportation of our people – otherwise referred to as the ‘slave trade’.

Following the rebellion of enslaved Afrikan people in Demerara in 1823, calls for the immediate abolition of slavery once again grew amongst the British public. Wilberforce and his friends had successfully held back the aspirations of those people genuinely desiring the immediate abolition of slavery until that year, but the pressure was now becoming too great. The mounting public pressure compelled Wilberforce and his friends to launch the Society for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery (SGAS) (Hart, 2006). They launched the society as a last ditch tactic to further delay the prospect of ending the institution of slavery. Since it was becoming clearer that they could not stop the progress towards abolition, they would drag it out and delay it for as long as possible. The SGAS advocated ideas and policies that would help slavery to survive for a further 100 years. Its members openly boasted that they wanted slavery to gradually: ‘… die away and to be forgotten …’ (Williams, 1944).

Wilberforce’s anti-abolition position was completely out of touch with the will of the British people and diametrically opposed to the majority of the membership of his own organisation. In May 1830 the SGAS passed a resolution for the immediate abolition of slavery against the wishes of its ‘leadership’ i.e. Wilberforce and his new side kick Buxton (Hart, 2006). This was an important catalyst in the history of the abolition movement. Wilberforce and his friends had successfully delayed, suppressed and contained the demand for the immediate freedom of enslaved Afrikan people for over 40 years. Wilberforce was clearly an enemy of Afrikan people, not a friend.

Sexist Wilberforce opposed women’s groups advocating the abolition of slavery

In Britain, women were, after the Afrikan community itself, the most radical advocates for the abolition of slavery (Martin, 1999). Whilst Wilberforce was openly advocating against the abolition of slavery, women’s groups were actively campaigning to achieve immediate abolition. One example comes via Elizabeth Heyricke who wrote a pamphlet entitled, Immediate Not Gradual Emancipation (Martin, 1999). Women were also prolific in the amassing of millions of signatures for anti-slavery petitions. More importantly, they led the mass boycott campaigns that damaged the economic interests of the plantation enslavers and their allies. Peckham Ladies Anti-Slavery Association is an example of a women’s group that contributed to the organisation of the campaign to boycott West Indian sugar (Williams, 1944).

Wilberforce actively opposed female anti-slavery associations and their role in organising boycott campaigns (Williams, 1944, p. 182). Wilberforce refused to accept women’s signatures on anti-slavery petitions (Martin, 1999). He tried to discourage and silence the political activities of women’s groups working for the anti-slavery cause. If he was genuinely in favour of the abolition of slavery, he would have thanked and encouraged the women’s groups for the sterling work that they were doing to advance the cause that he claimed to stand for. In failing to do so he was demonstrating his overt sexism and simultaneously harming the prospects of Afrikan people being freed from the bondage of imperialism. His undermining behaviour was clearly inconsistent with that of person sincerely working to achieve the abolition of slavery.

Whilst he vociferously denounced the idea of women being involved in open political activity aimed at abolishing slavery, he made no such condemnation of the public exploitation of women as prostitutes in brothels. During that period innocent Afrikan women were kidnapped, transported from their homes and held captive as sex slaves in British brothels. If he was genuinely against the enslavement of Afrikan people, he would have used his position in Parliament to help outlaw this most despicable of human abuses. However, instead of condemning this outrageous practice as a crime against the humanity of Afrikan women, he joined the exploitation process. He personally participated in systematically organised episodes of rape perpetrated against these defenceless Afrikan women, whose misfortune it was to be imprisoned in British imperialism’s brothels.

This aspect of his behaviour was brought to the attention of the public by cartoonists in the national press (Howarth, 1973). Wilberforce does not appear to have denied these public accusations, nor did he take legal action to protect his ‘good name’. He would have had some difficulty defending himself given that his secret mistress Agnes Bonte described as a ‘prostitute’ actually set up and ran a ‘top people’s’ brothel in London. She is said to have developed her liking for bondage after going on private boat trips with Wilberforce where he demonstrated the way in which Afrikan people were held in chains on the human trafficking ships of the time (Agnes Bronte 1813-1892).

Perhaps one reason why he was so openly against the abolition of slavery is that it could have led to a personal ‘loss of privileges’ on his part, by denying him his unrestricted access to the group of disempowered Afrikan women whom he used as sex toys. Wilberforce’s perverted, misogynistic and racist behaviour falls significantly short of that which should be expected of anybody posing as an ‘Afrikan liberator, hero and saviour’.

* Part 1 was published in Pambazuka News 293
* Bro. K. Bangarah is a member of the Global Afrikan Congress, based in the UK,
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org

References
1. Ferguson. James, (1998), The Story of the Caribbean People, Ian Randle Publishers, Kingston, Jamaica
2. Foot. M.R.D., (2002), Secret Lives: Lifting the Lid on the Worlds of Secret Intelligence, Oxford University Press
3. Fryer. Peter, (1984), Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain, Pluto Press
4. Greenwood. R., & Hamber. S., (1980), Emancipation to Emigration, Macmillan Caribbean
5. Hart. Richard, (1998), From Occupation to Independence: A Short History of the Peoples of the English Speaking Caribbean Region, Pluto Press
6. Hart. Richard, (2006), A talk on the subject of: The Slaves Who Abolished Slavery, Centerprise Bookshop, Dalston, London, 11th October 2006
7. Hochschild. Adam, (2005), Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves, Mariner Books
8. Howarth. David, (1973), The British Empire; Volume 2, BBCTV Time Life Books
9. James. C.L.R., (1963), The Black Jacobins, Vintage Books
10. Martin. Steve, (1999), Britain’s Slave Trade, Channel 4 Books
11. Schama. Simon, (2006), Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the
12. Walwin. James, (1993), Black Ivory: A History of British Slavery, Fontana Press
13. Williams. Eric, (1944), Capitalism and Slavery, Andre Deutsch

Internet References
1. A Web of English History, http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/adw03/c-eight/people/wilberf.htm
2. Agnes Bronte 1813 - 1892, http://freespace.virgin.net/pr.og/agnes.html
3. Ligali, (Monday 6th November 2006), Set All Free Deny Wilberforce Film Endorsement, http://www.ligali.org/article.php?id=563
4. The Amazing Change, http://www.theamazingchange.com/timeline.html
William Wilberforce 1759-1833, Biography, http://www.brycchancarey.com/abolition/wilberforce.htm

The spirit of Nkrumah and Pan-Africanism still lives on in Ghana today through its various citizenship laws. Ghana is the first African country to provide the right to return, and indefinite stay for Africans in the diaspora. The government also recently passed legislation giving Ghanaians in the diaspora the right to vote.

As we commemorate Ghana at 50, let us not forget the founding father of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah and his notion of pan-Africanism. Kwame Nkrumah pursued the political independence of Ghana and committed himself to the struggles against foreign domination in other African colonies. He cemented Arab-African ties through special friendships with Egyptian leader Gamar Abdel Nassar. He welcomed Africa freedom fighters such as Malcolm X, W. E. Dubois, and George Padmore. He established a continental radio station (the External Service of Radio Ghana), which helped fuel the African liberation struggle. To this end, Kwame Nkrumah envisioned pan-African citizenship for all peoples of Africa.

50 years later, Ghana continues the vision of Kwame Nkrumah in its generous citizenship laws that provide for a permanent home for peoples of African descent. In 2000, Ghana introduced the Dual citizenship Act 2000 under which a citizen of Ghana may hold the citizenship of any other country in addition to his Ghanaian citizenship. A person of non-Ghanaian origin could also apply for Ghanaian citizenship by registration if s/he is an ordinary resident of Ghana, and by naturalization if s/he has made a substantial contribution to the progress or advancement in any area of national activity.

However, critics of the law point to the fact that the 2000 Act was intended to reward Ghanaians in the diaspora who have acquired another citizenship but contribute greatly to the national development of the country. In fact, following the enactment of the law, Dr. Addo-Kufuor, then acting Minister of Interior explained that Non-Resident Ghanaians had remitted US$400,000,000 annually to boost Ghana’s economy against contributions of Foreign Direct Investment, which since 1994 to 2002 had contributed US$1.6, or about US$200,000,000. Indeed the acquisition of Ghanaian citizenship by registration and naturalization is subject to ability to speak and understand an indigenous Ghanaian language.

Nevertheless, Ghana is the first African nation to provide the right to return and indefinite stay for Africans in the Diaspora. Under Section 17(1)(b) of the Immigration Law, Act 573 of 2000, the Minister may grant the 'right to abode' to a person of African descent in the diaspora with the approval of the President. Some say, this provision was aimed at tapping into the rich African Americans who have returned to Ghana since its independence and taken up residence in the country, and rewarding those who contribute to the budding tourist industry.

Despite the contestations and shortcomings, all these achievements indicate the persistence, hard work and pan-African spirit of the Ghanaian government, Ghanaian parliament, ordinary Ghanaians, and Ghanaians and other African peoples in the Diaspora. Last year, the Ghanaian Parliament responded positively to lobbying of Ghanaians in the Diaspora by passing the Representation of the People Amendment Bill, (ROPAB) granting them right to vote in national elections. In December 2008, Ghanaians in the diaspora will vote for the first time in Presidential elections through absentee ballots. Their next move is to challenge through Ghanaian courts a provision in the Citizenship Act, 2000, which prohibits Ghanaians who have acquired citizenship of another country from standing for political office in Ghana. Later this year, the same group working with Benjamin Afrifa of the Africa Federation, Inc. intends to launch an African TV station broadcasting from the US. The TV station will broadcast African diaspora affairs as well as continental affairs. Ultimately, Ghanaians hope to carry on Kwame Nkrumah’s mantle, and influence other Africans in the diaspora to engage fully in their own nations.

I hope that all African countries will follow suit by allowing us free access to our continent without visa restriction and administrative humiliation. It is true that some African countries have embraced Kwame Nkrumah’s pan-Africanism and granted citizenship to African immigrants or refugees. For instance, Tanzania granted citizenship to Burundian refugees in the early 1990s and offered long-term stay to many freedom fighters from Mozambique, South Africa and Uganda. Senegal extended citizenship to Mauritanian refugees expelled from their home country in 1989. These gestures of welcoming Africans as citizens in other African countries needs to be recognizsd and encouraged throughout Africa.

It is a pity that in most African states, we continually experience unfriendly citizenship and immigration laws in the name of 'national security'. Many countries still in fact still uphold laws inherited from colonial regimes that have either separated nations across the border or deemed Africans as strangers in our own continent. It is often easier to enter an African country carrying a European or North American passport than, say, a Ugandan passport. For instance, Senegal, which parades itself as the 'Land of Teranga' still upholds an immigration law inherited from the French that makes it hard for Africans bearing a passport from a non-ECOWAS country to enter. This is not to suggest that a Senegalese does not need a visa to enter Uganda, however, the process is less cumbersome particularly for African visitors. Why should a country that struggled to rid itself of the colonial regime still uphold colonial law as national law? Why don’t we in Africa give preferential treatment to each other as members of the African Union, similarly to how this is done in EU or the United States? Or is movement within Africa a right for only African diplomats, Europeans and North Americans?

As a start, we could abolish visa regimes for Africans in preference for regional arrangements similar to the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) and the East African Community (EAC). We could also follow the EAC arrangement and issue African Union passports to all peoples of Africa, from the African continent and the Africa diaspora. Opponents of free borders argue that people will migrate en masse from their homes/regions of economic hardship and stay indefinitely in economically well-to-do countries if borders were made more porous. However, evidence within the ECOWAS, EAC or the EU illustrates that where borders are open to community members, people move back and forth. Everyday, Ugandans, Kenyans, Guineans, Senegalese and others within the EAC and ECOWAS community move freely between the borders and return to their places of permanent residence. In fact, the greatest pan-Africanists are the border communities engaged in daily socio-economic and cultural activities across the borders, such as the Masaai along the Kenya-Tanzania border, the Peulh along the Seno-Mauritania border and the Luo on the Uganda-Sudan border.

However, a fear of one's neighbour guides immigration and citizenship policies in most of Africa. Zimbabwean traders who travel across the border to Botswana are subject to stringent entry visa restrictions and high fees even though both countries are member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This trend, though not unique is particularly disturbing coming from Botswana whose economic development owes a lot to the huge number of African professionals who have lived and worked in Botswana for many years. Many are still denied the right to citizenship based on unfair residence laws that grant short-term stay with hardly any chance to qualify for legal permanent residence. Similarly, many Africans whose ancestors were taken as slaves to Europe and the Americas have expressed disappointment about being excluded from the new dual citizenship regimes sweeping Africa. Whereas African Presidents appeal to Africans living in the diaspora to participate in national development, incentives are provided for those 'who left on their own free will', as against those whose ancestors were sold into slavery. On the other hand, there are sentiments among Africans on the continent that it is possible to be a national without being a citizen, and the latter should be reserved for 'those left behind' who are working for national development. For instance, Oteng-Attakora, a Ghanaian writer, argues that although Ghanaians in the diaspora have family ties and their remittances may alleviate the pain of the fortunate few, they neither pay taxes nor create jobs that would contribute to national building.

Ultimately, African states should borrow a leaf from Israel, which encourages and in fact solicits all persons of Jewish heritage to immigrate to Israel and gathering a in of its exiles. The African Union could sponsor annual tour to Africa (like Israel does for the Jewish diaspora) to visit the homeland. If called upon, interested Africans of the diaspora will finance their own trips to the homeland, as evidenced by on-going return and tour trips to the Cape Coast in Ghana, Goree Island in Senegal and others. Certainly, the Africa diaspora has a role to play, not only in lobbying for political rights but also in contributing to national development and promotion of the African affairs. Until we as Africans learn to value and trust each other, we cannot demand other countries, particularly in Europe, Asia and the Americas to value us. VIVA OSAJEFO!

* Doreen Lwanga is a Pan-Africanist and a Scholar of Citizenship and Security in Africa. She can be reached at [email][email protected]

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at pambazuka.org

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/294/ghana_stamp.jpg
What does freedom mean in an African context? Can a country be free when 75% of its budget is provided by donors? Not necessarily, but this does not mean that the achievement of Ghana’s independence in 1957 is not worth celebrating. It does mean however that there is still much work to be done.

On 6 March 2007, Ghana will celebrate its 'Golden Jubilee', frequently referred to as 'Ghana at 50'— fifty years' independence from their colonial oppressors, Britain. The ancestors have blessed me with the opportunity to bear witness to this momentous event. Although I am an African (or black) American, like many North American and Caribbean blacks, I consider the African continent to be my spiritual home. I have travelled to seven West African countries. I am a pan-African in terms of sentiment, by which I mean that I advocate the operational unity of black/African people all over the world in our individual and collective interests.

In my country of birth, the United States, black people as a group are still, in my assessment, second-class citizens. Far too many of us continue to be victimised by police brutality, a racist criminal (in)justice system, sub-standard schools, inadequate health care and housing. It is for this reason that I do not celebrate American Independence Day on 4 July 1776. I do not salute the American flag, nor do I sing the American national anthem. I protest not because I am anti-American or unpatriotic but, rather, because I am principled. The black American freedom fighter Frederick Douglass asked over a century ago, 'What to the slave is your Fourth of July?' Due, primarily, to the prodigious struggles of our ancestors, black Americans are no longer enslaved. But we are still unfree. It is from the standpoint of an unfree, so-called, African American who has travelled back-and-fourth to Ghana since 1997 that I offer my personal perspective on the significance of Ghana’s Independence Day celebrations.

Fifty years ago, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, in his Declaration of Independence speech, exclaimed that, 'Ghana, your beloved country, is free forever!' 'Freedom', however, can be fleeting thing. Is Ghana free today? What precisely do we mean by 'freedom in Ghana? Perhaps what is, I think, most instructive and ironic and about the Ghana at 50 celebrations is that the Ghanaian government is forced to rely on western donors, most notably Britain, to fund them. It makes one wonder in what ways exactly Ghana, and by extension Africa, is truly free? And, for that matter, what can freedom mean for Ghanaians when more than 70 per cent of the central government’s budget is provided by Euro-western donors? Well for starters, and this is perhaps the most disturbing irony of all, some (but not all) Ghanaian scholars and politicians are forced to uncritically accept British interpretations of the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism, and its consequences. True independence would mean that Africans had the freedom to interpret their past from the perspective of Africans rather than Euro-westerners (white people).

Here in Ghana it has become something of a fashion for Ghanaian analysts to compare Ghana’s progress as a nation with that of Malaysia, which also gained independence in 1957. In every instance that the comparison is raised, the Ghanaian commentator reaches the inevitable conclusion that by the Malaysian yard stick, Ghana comes up short in every major indicator of human and economic development (infant mortality, life expectancy, GDP). I have always been somewhat sceptical of the usefulness of these sorts of comparisons. After all, the post-colonial social, political, and economic challenges of Ghana and Malaysia respectively would have been very different.

If, however, one were bent on comparisons, another instructive juxtaposition would be with the first sub-Saharan nation to break free from colonialism: Sudan. That’s right Sudan. It is frequently reported that Ghana was the first sub-Saharan country to gain independence, but Sudan, having gained independence on 1 January 1956, had roughly a 14 month head start on Ghana. I suspect that this historical slight might have something do with the fact that Sudan is dominated by Afro-Arabs—or, to put it bluntly, due to its political and cultural ties with the Arab world, some folks tend not to count Sudan in the club of 'black African' nations. This perception raises all sorts of important questions about the politics of African identity. What is important to note for this purpose is that the Khartoum regime and the southern Sudanese rebels have only in the last few years negotiated a (very shaky) resolution ending what was one of the longest and most neglected conflicts on the African continent. More recently, the Darfurian region of western Sudan is in the throes of a humanitarian disaster, which some international observers are calling genocide. Consequently, the lives of ordinary Darfurians are extremely precarious as they continue to be squeezed by rebel groups on one side and nomadic militias (so-called 'Janjaweed'), allegedly backed by Khartoum, on the other.

Ghana for its part has experienced four military coups (at least one of which featured US and British intelligence agencies as co-conspirators), sporadic instances of state-sponsored violence, and a severe recession in the early 1980s. But, unlike Sudan, Ghanaians have never known the ravages and devastation of civil war. Ghana is today, despite the historical volatility of its central government and deep political divisions between the two major political parties, the National Democratic Convention (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), a relatively stable nation. While it could be proven empirically, I am of the opinion at this stability has something to do with Kwame Nkrumah’s tireless efforts to propagate pan-African nationalism.

What is incontrovertible, however, is that Ghana’s independence was an achievement of Ghanaian elites, the likes of Kwame Nkrumah and J.B. Danquah, Afro-westerners such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Marcus and Amy Jacques Garvey, and thousands of well known and lesser known black diasporan radicals who identified with the African anti-colonial struggle. Most importantly, Ghana’s independence was accomplished by ordinary Gold Coasters (Ghanaians) who refused to abandon their dignity even when faced with the most overwhelming odds. In other words, Ghanaian independence was a pan-African accomplishment of great significance. This history, I suspect, is well known to many of the readers of this article.

What is less known is that the currents of revolutionary inspiration that fuelled the struggle against racial subordination did not flow in one direction across the Atlantic. Ghanaian independence specifically, and the African independence struggle generally, had concrete implications for the US black freedom movement. First and foremost, the example of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah heading up an African nation and encouraging blacks of the diaspora to 'return' to the African continent invigorated the black American anti-racist struggle. Why, for example, are so few of us taught in school about Martin Luther King’s visit to Ghana in 1957 for Ghana’s independence ceremonies? Why are we never taught about the tremendous impact this experience had on King’s thinking? Why do we know so little about Malcolm X’s two visits to Ghana? Most importantly of all, why are we never taught that the US government viewed African American and continental African cooperation as a threat to 'national interests' (i.e. a threat to the interests of white elites and their non-elite and/or non-white collaborators), and took concrete steps to undermine this perceived threat?

I raise these questions because they are crucial if we are ever to be truly free and independent. Although we have made huge strides, we Africans are not yet in control of our destiny. Freedom and independence must be consistently demanded, tenaciously fought for, jealously guarded, and vigorously defended. I am not an Afro-pessimist. There is rarely a day that passes here in Ghana when I am not inspired by the graciousness, optimism, creativity, and resilience of Ghanaians. Indeed, my experiences have convinced me that, as John Kufuor, has affirmed, all is not 'doom and gloom' in Africa. Ghana and, as Kwame Nkrumah would have it, Africans generally, have much to celebrate. But there is still a massive amount of work to do. What will your contribution be?

* Brother Kwame Zulu Shabazz can be reached at: [email][email protected]

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at pambazuka.org

Kwame Nkrumah: From pan-African visionary to one-party state dictator? Peluola Adewale looks back on the legacy of one of Africa's most famous political leaders.

The independence of Ghana on 6 March 1957 was a watershed in the history of Africa, being the first in black Africa. It was a catalyst in the struggle for liberation from colonial rule on the continent. For the African masses one man's stood out, Kwame Nkrumah. Inspired by the independence of India from Britain in 1947, he saw the possibility of defeating imperial Britain with coordinated and consistent political struggle. He thus became a quintessential anti-colonialist. His return to Ghana and formation of the anti-colonialist Convention Peoples Party (CPP) gave radical impulse to the independence struggle and set the stage for the exit of the British colonialists.

Unlike the current generation of African leaders who are mostly only satisfied with earning foreign exchange from the sales of natural resources and self-enrichment, Nkrumah was genuinely committed to using the resources of Ghana for industrial development and economic growth. Ghana was rich in bauxite which could be used to manufacture aluminum, even for exports if there were a reliable power supply. This together with the need to produce electricity for industrialisation informed the Volta Dam project. The project was only half-succeeded, but nobody could reasonably doubt the positive intention behind it.

Nkrumah openly asserted that capitalism was too complicated to achieve the goals of development. But beyond the rhetoric of anti-capitalism and scientific socialism in his celebrated speeches and writings, he never truly cut links with capitalism and imperialism. His socialism was based on the Stalinist Soviet Union model and a utopian African version. This was the undoing that made it impossible to achieve his lofty goals. For instance, his government relied on a bureaucratically run marketing board - a colonial invention - to mobilise the required resources from the sales of cocoa, the country's economic mainstay. This created a more enabling avenue for official corruption than the provision of basic needs and infrastructure development that it was originally designed to achieve.

Nkrumah set up state owned companies and public utilities, apparently to provide some basic needs for the people. But lack of democratic management and control of the companies by the workers themselves bred crippling mismanagement and corruption. They did not only fail to largely achieve their objectives, they became a curse rather than a blessing. Since Nkrumah could only use the revenue from cocoa to bail out public companies, he had to sacrifice poor farmers. The government, through the market boards, reduced the price paid to farmers for cocoa in order to raise more revenue. This was at a period when there was an increase in the price of cocoa on the world market, and farmers expected fortunes. They were thus highly disappointed and demoralised. This culminated in a series of events that made Ghana lose its place as the world's largest producer of cocoa.

The economic downturn created a social crisis that made the government of the self-styled Osagyefo ('the Redeemer') - the once hope of Ghana and beacon of Africa - unpopular. The government's response to the various worker agitations worsened the situation. Rather than mobilising workers and the poor to break completely with capitalism, Nkrumah became dictatorial and took draconian measures against the widespread protest and disaffection to his government. Unfortunately, Nkrumah who had once proclaimed during the anti-colonial struggle, 'if we get self-government, we will transform the Gold Coast (Ghana) into a paradise in 10 years', almost turned the country into hell for workers and opposition alike. He declared strike actions by workers to be illegal, arrested and detained opposition without trial, and declared Ghana a one-party state with him as life president.

There remains no doubt that Kwame Nkrumah was one of the greatest African nationalist leaders. The military coup in 1966 that dethroned him, provided him the opportunity to give more speeches and writings on Africa's development. He was a pan-Africanist, par excellence, with a radical and socialist flavour. However, Nkrumah was not a fully rounded Marxist. This limitation largely contributed to his inability to actualise his objectives and goals.

Their limitations notwithstanding, Nkrumah and his kindred spirits still tower above the current generation of African leaders who have rolled back, the gains of the 1960s that saw massive investment of public resources in developmental projects. The rapacious colonialists refused to develop the continent despite sitting on its fabulous wealth. They only provided infrastructure that would aid exploitation of the resources of the continent. This placed enormous responsibility on the new African leaders after the independence to begin the process of necessary development and develop a welfare state. The idea of a welfare state, built on the Keynesian theory of state interventionism in the economy was fashionable globally in the period after the independence.

In the present era of neo-liberalism the current corrupt leaders of Africa have embarked on the shameless sale of the patrimony of their nations, built with public resources, to the rapacious capitalists locally and internationally. The new set of African leaders has bastardised the original idea of African solidarity, championed by Nkrumah and others. They have come up with initiatives such as the New Partnership for Africa Development (NEPAD) designed to rely on the exploitation of Africa's resources in the service of the West, and the anti-poor neo-liberal economy, as vehicles for development. With this vicious, anti-poor, pro-capitalism, it is no surprise that the idea of Nkrumahism, despite its limitation, has remained alluring to many individuals, genuinely interested in the development of Africa.

It is possible to state that the shortcoming of an Nkrumahist welfare state was not due to the personal failings of Nkrumah; rather that it arose from his attempt to seek improvement and development within the confines of capitalism. Africa is the weakest link of global capitalism. Here a revolutionary movement could start, with international working class solidarity, that could defeat capitalism and imperialism.

Kwame Nkrumah in his speech, 'I Speak of Freedom: A Statement of African Ideology', spoke of economic cooperation and political union among African countries as the viable means of bringing about full and effective development of the continent's natural resources for the benefit of African people. This statement is still largely relevant today. But to be truly valid, and achieve the desired objectives, such economic cooperation and political union was intended to be built on genuine socialist programme that aimed at formation of socialist confederation, if possible, a federation of Africa in solidarity with the working class internationally. This together with discovery of the first-hand ideas of Marxism as taught by Marx, Engel, Lenin and Trotsky should be the task of workers and poor masses in Africa.

* Peluola Adewale writes for the Socialist Democracy, Lagos, Nigeria

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

The generation and distribution of power (electricity) is politically and economically driven. It is also surrounded by deception and falsehoods. Tristen Taylor explains why and how.

For too long the issue of energy has been set aside, treated as if it had no influence on how South African society is shaped. And there has been a somewhat valid stereotype that within civil society, energy has been the domain of white environmentalists - aging hippies in sandals going shoo-wah over the teachings of the Dalai Lama and speaking about how we all must conserve electricity, how we all must make sacrifices, whilst black children die in shack fires caused from having to use a paraffin stove because the household electricity lifeline was used up weeks before.

The generation and distribution of power (primarily electricity) does not happen in a political vacuum; it cannot be divorced from the social and economic conditions under which most South Africans labour and starve. In fact, as I will attempt to explain, the generation and distribution of power is informed by social, economic and political realms.

The generation and distribution of energy is a murky topic. Omission, falsehood and deception surround the use of light switches, refrigerators, irrigation pumps and industrial smelters. Mis-information is pumping out faster and harder than a 'six-pack' power station spews out SO2 and CO2.

Who, then, is deceiving us? There are the usual suspects: coal mining companies, government, oil cartels, Eskom (power companies of South Africa), and other assorted free-market robber barons. There are also the traditional flag-carriers of the centrally planned economy. Then there is the environmental movement, which has traditionally refused to see beyond the forest to glimpse human misery and suffering. Without fail, the one lie that all of the above seem to propagate is that there is an energy shortage. It goes like this:

Since we can only generate x amount of power and the practical demand of each and every user is greater than x, x will have to be allocated. Of course, someone will have to make this allocation, and this someone is the state. The state, as a supposed neutral actor and invested with, to quote Max Weber, "a successful claim on monopoly of the legitimate use of force", will decide that industry will get so much power, agriculture so much, and residential users so much. The best allocation of resources will be on the basis of what is deemed in the best interest of the common good. It may be unfortunate that not all of us get the power we want, but that’s life and sacrifices have to be made.

This story is sly and deceiving. To start with, there is no energy shortage in the universe. The universe is awash with energy (all there is, after all, is energy and matter), and energy can neither be destroyed nor created. For the purposes of the human race, there is a virtual limitless amount of energy for the species to tap. And, therein lies the problem. It is not easy to convert energy into power, and part of the struggle of human history has been various attempts to tap into the energy of the universe. This has primarily been achieved through conversion of solar energy into plant and animal energy. This energy chain, like all energy chains, is never 100 per cent efficient. Each time energy is converted there is a certain amount of energy loss. Humans have then eaten plant and animal materials, converting these to human bio-chemical energy. Humans have then used that energy for labour to hunt more animals, grow more crops, build dwellings, and contest for resources - war and conflict. For most of history, the primary source of useable energy has been human muscle and intellect.

This was the case during the eras of the ancient Greek, Persian and Egyptian societies. It was certainly true during the Roman Empire. All these societies were based upon slave labour as the primary source of energy conversion. Since human beings were the most efficient sources of energy (human beings have the ability for rational thought; they can solve problems; are fairly durable; and can be taught to do things with greater efficiency than a cow or a horse), elite groups used slave labour to build, manufacture and grow the materials needed for those societies to function. The elite classes functioned as managers and grew rich from their exploitation of the labour of others.

Things began to change during the Middle Ages in Europe. During this time, while human power still remained supreme, animal power began to be used more and more frequently in agriculture; wood (plant energy) was beginning to be more and more important, especially in the production of iron and other metals; and water was used in mills for the production of flour, although, slightly later, windmills were used for this purpose. One notable consequence of this ‘new’ strategy of converting energy for human use was the complete and utter destruction of Europe’s forests. This led to what is called an energy crisis and forced European society into a potentially painful situation: find another source of power or undergo an economic collapse and a return to the dark ages. The ultimate solution was coal.

However, the most important lesson that should be learnt from this era, with regard to current energy conversion practices, was the political situation regarding water and windmills. But these two different energy sources were used in two different manners despite having the same primary technological function, grinding grain into flour (Debeir, Deléage, and Hémery). Watermills required access to flowing water and were relatively expensive to build. As the feudal structure of the day controlled access to watercourses and held a great deal of society’s capital, the aristocracy was able to own and control the watermills, thus, locking down an important part of agricultural production for its sole benefit. The peasantry had no access to the watermills, and had to compete in the processing of flour with older, less efficient methods of production. Quite clearly, we can see the link between ownership of energy conversion and socio-economic relationships. As Debeir has stated, "[water] mills were not only a good deal for some, but also tended to bolster an oppressive social structure".

Windmills were another story. Not only was wind part of the commons, and thus a renewable resource accessible to all social classes, it was cheaper to build windmills than watermills. The increasing use of windmills enabled the burghers, cities and peasantry to compete favourably in the production of flour, for which the market was growing as bread became more and more part of the general diet. Windmills also also encouraged competition with the aristocracy in the important realm of agricultural production. This began to have a significant impact in political relations, especially in the contest between free cities and feudal landowners, one of the central conflicts of the Middle Ages. Once again, Debier states:

"Thus windmills were established in the conditions of freedom that opened with the growth of cities, and established a further breach in the lords’ energy monopolies. Although feudal reaction against the new facilities persisted - "The windmill was the commoners’ mill which feudal law tried to take over" - it proved unable to stop the irresistible movement which continued until the dawn of the nineteenth century."

The dawn of the 19th century brought about a major technological, social and economic revolution: the industrial revolution. While the social, political and economic effects of the industrial revolution are well documented, the roles of new sources of energy conversion are often overlooked. Coal was at the heart of the industrial revolution. Basically, coal is plant matter that has decomposed, chemically altered, compressed and hardened over millions of years. Coal is made up of carbon, sulphur, methane, water and various other materials. Essentially, coal is the storage of chemical energy produced via long dead plant photosynthesis. Most of the coal used today was formed during the Carboniferous era (280 to 345 million years ago).

While the use of coal had been around for thousands of years, the industrial revolution mined and used coal to a degree never seen before. A new energy cycle was born with coal (and its offspring, steam), the fossil fuel cycle. Coal was used to drive steam engines, railways, furnaces (purified coal (coke) replaced wood as the primary source of heat for metallurgy), shipping and household heating. It provided such an intense and useful source of energy that the industrial revolution was entirely dependent on the mining, distribution, and burning of coal. It should come as no surprise that this valuable energy resource was not in the hands of the common people although it was they who died of Black Lung, but instead in the hands of the burgeoning, to borrow a phrase from Tom Wolfe, 'masters of the universe' - the capitalist class. While perhaps not of conscious design, there was no way that the windmill story (commoner power equivalent to that owned by the feudal lords) would be repeated with coal. Coal quickly became a privately owned commodity to be sold and traded as necessary, and fortunes were made. This, in turn, meant that the majority of the populace were precluded from control of the energy chain and that the power (both economic and political) of the newly formed capitalist class was further increased. The conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat that has consumed human history since provides the basis of entire branches of philosophy, history and political analysis.

To highlight the point, the US was built on the private use of coal. It fuelled the beginnings of an industrial expansion that has lasted until today. Corporations have their origins in the rapid industrialisation brought about through the use of coal and the blood that was shed in producing it. As The Ukrainian Weekly points out:

"In the 19th century, America's industrialisation and dramatic economic development was fuelled, literally, by coal. Coal fuelled the expansion of the railroad into America's undeveloped western states, and in Pennsylvania it fuelled the mighty American steel industry. But extracting coal was dangerous work. Illness, injury and death were common. Several hundred coal miners a year died from methane gas explosions in the mines of the Pennsylvania anthracite region - the same type of explosion that recently killed the miners in Ukraine. Annually, tens of thousands of miners were maimed."

Coal has not disappeared from society as a valuable source of energy conversion. Quite the opposite. About 40 per cent of all electricity generated globally comes from coal-fired power stations with an efficiency of between 30 to 40 per cent; i.e. of one kilogramme of coal used in a power station, 300 grams is used to produce electricity and the remaining 700 grams produces waste heat. Coal is not only an important part of our power generation system, it remains, through its method of use, an important factor in how our societies are controlled and organised. The production and distribution of electricity in South Africa will be discussed later.

While coal remains an important part of the global energy cycle, another fossil fuel has eclipsed it: petroleum or crude oil, also called black gold. Petroleum became increasingly important in terms of the global energy chain throughout the 20th century, reaching a point where our economy is based entirely upon petroleum. About 84 per cent of petroleum extracted is refined into fuels (petrol, diesel, fuel oil, jet fuel, kerosene, and liquid petroleum gas (LPG)), the other 16 per cent is used in the manufacture of material, plastic being the most common. Like coal, petroleum is a finite fossil fuel comprised of decayed organic matter. Furthermore, petroleum is a cheap and effective source of energy.

To understand the extent to which we operate within a petroleum economy, take a look around you. The paper this is written on comes from trees cut down with machinery using petroleum; the wood is transported to the mills via trucks (petroleum again), from the mills to the stores, and from the stores to your office and home. Without petroleum, modern agriculture could not exist. There would be no cars or airplanes, no computers, no modern medicine, no electricity. There would be no plastic materials. There would be no modern economy. We would all be riding horses and to and from our subsistence farms. All of us who are alive now, owe that to the 20th century growth in population made possible by petroleum. Quite simply, if the supply of petroleum dried up tomorrow the world would enter a period of such utter economic collapse; the term 'apocalypse' could be considered an understatement. Many of us would starve to death within weeks.

The petroleum industry is vital to the life of every human being in the modern economy, and, yet, it is a tightly controlled industry with only a handful of key players divided amongst state and private control. Of the ten biggest corporations in the world (as ranked by Fortune 500), five are oil and gas companies with a combined annual revenue of US$$ 1.271 trillion. By way of comparison, South Africa’s Gross Domestic Product is US$215.5 billion. In the global market economy, this translates into an unequal balance of political power.

Not a great deal has changed in the petroleum market since 1900 when Standard Oil controlled 50 per cent of global sales.

Further, control over petroleum resources is vital not only for what is often termed the 'national interest', which actually means the interests of a thin elite class controlling any particular country, but for a country’s economic well-being. Anyone who thinks that America’s current military operations in the Middle East have nothing to with securing America’s long-term supply of petroleum is insane. A recent article in the (UK) Independent on a proposed law to allow multinational companies to drill Iraqi oil states:

"The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude oil, and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972."

Globally speaking, the energy cycle of modern life is dependent on petroleum, natural gas and coal. The global economy is a fossil fuel economy chasing after diminishing reserves with no alternative in mind. The control of this energy cycle is centralised in the hands of the few, with the majority of the world population reduced to mere consumers of energy, at best. Today, there are watermills everywhere and not a windmill in sight.

Part 2 will be published next week and Part 3 on 5th April

* Tristen Taylor is the Energy Policy Officer at Earthlife Africa Jhb. The views expressed in this work are not necessarily those of Earthlife Africa Jhb.

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

The US is increasing its military presence in Africa under the guise of fighting the war on terror and protecting US commercial interests in Africa, especially oil, writes John Bellamy Foster.

Capitalism is a system that is worldwide in its economic scope but divided politically into competing states that develop economically at different rates. The contradiction of uneven capitalist development was classically expressed by Lenin in 1916 in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism:

'There can be no other conceivable basis under capitalism for the division of spheres of influence, of interests, of colonies, etc., than a calculation of the strength of the participants in the division, their general economic, financial, military strength, etc. And the strength of these participants in the division does not change to an equal degree, for under capitalism the development of different undertakings, trusts, branches of industry, or countries cannot be even. Half a century ago, Germany was a miserable, insignificant country, as far as its capitalist strength was concerned, compared with the strength of England at that time. Japan was similarly insignificant compared with Russia. Is it “conceivable” that in ten or twenty years’ time the relative strength of the imperialist powers will have remained unchanged? Absolutely inconceivable.'[1]

It is now widely acknowledged that the world is undergoing a global economic transformation. Not only is the growth rate of the world economy as a whole slowing, but the relative economic strength of the US is continuing to weaken. In 1950, the US accounted for about half of world GDP, falling to a little over a fifth by 2003. According to the projections of Goldman Sachs, China could overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy by 2039.

This growing threat to US power is fuelling Washington’s obsession with laying the groundwork for a 'New American Century'. Its current interventionism is aimed at taking advantage of its present short-term economic and military primacy to secure strategic assets that will provide long-term guarantees of global supremacy. The goal is to extend US power directly, while depriving potential competitors of those vital strategic assets that might allow them eventually to challenge it globally or even within particular regions.

The National Security Strategy of the United States of 2002 gave notice that 'our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equalling, the power of the US'. But grand strategy extends beyond mere military power. Economic advantages vis-à-vis potential rivals are the real coin of intercapitalist competition. Hence, US grand strategy integrates military power with the struggle to control capital, trade, the value of the dollar, and strategic raw materials.

Perhaps the clearest ordering of US strategic objectives has been provided by Robert J. Art, professor of international relations at Brandeis and a research associate of the Olin Institute, in A Grand Strategy for America. 'A grand strategy', he writes, 'tells a nation’s leaders what goals they should aim for and how best they can use their country’s military power to attain these goals'. In conceptualising such a grand strategy for the US, Art presents six 'overarching national interests' in order of importance:

• first, prevent an attack on the American homeland
• second, prevent great-power Eurasian wars and, if possible, the intense security competitions that make them more likely
• third, preserve access to a reasonably priced and secure supply of oil
• fourth, preserve an open international economic order
• fifth, foster the spread of democracy and respect for human rights abroad, and prevent genocide or mass murder in civil wars
• sixth, protect the global environment, especially from the adverse effects of global warming and severe climate change

After national defense proper, i.e., defense of 'the homeland' against external attack, the next three highest strategic priorities are thus: (1) the traditional geopolitical goal of hegemony over the Eurasian heartland seen as the key to world power, (2) securing control over world oil supplies, and (3) promoting global-capitalist economic relations.

In order to meet these objectives, Art contends, Washington should 'maintain forward-based forces' in Europe and East Asia (the two rimlands of Eurasia with great power concentrations) and in the Persian Gulf (containing the bulk of world oil reserves). 'Eurasia is home to most of the world’s people, most of its proven oil reserves, and most of its military powers, as well as a large share of its economic growth.' It is therefore crucial that the US imperial grand strategy be aimed at strengthening its hegemony in this region, beginning with the key oil regions of South-Central Asia. [3]

With the wars on and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq still unresolved, Washington has been stepping-up its threats of a 'preemptive' attack on these states’ more powerful neighbour, Iran. The main justification offered for this is Iran’s uranium-enrichment programme, which could eventually allow it to develop nuclear weapons capabilities. Yet, there are other reasons that the US is interested in Iran. Like Iraq before it, Iran is a leading oil power, now with the second largest proven oil reserves behind Saudi Arabia and ahead of Iraq. Control of Iran is thus crucial to Washington’s goal of dominating the Persian Gulf and its oil.

Iran’s geopolitical importance, moreover, stretches far beyond the Middle East. It is a key prize (as in the case also of Afghanistan) in the New Great Game for control of all of South-Central Asia, including the Caspian Sea Basin with its enormous fossil fuel reserves. US strategic planners are obsessed with fears of an Asian energy-security grid, in which Russia, China, Iran, and the Central Asian countries (possibly also including Japan) would come together economically and in an energy accord to break the US and Western stranglehold on the world oil and gas market—creating the basis for a general shift of world power to the East. At present China, the world’s fastest growing economy, lacks energy security even as its demand for fossil fuels is rapidly mounting. It is attempting to solve this partly through greater access to the energy resources of Iran and the Central Asian states. Recent US attempts to establish a stronger alliance with India, with Washington bolstering India’s status as a nuclear power, are clearly part of this New Great Game for control of South-Central Asia—reminiscent of the 19th century Great Game between Britain and Russia for control of this part of Asia. [4]

The New Scramble for Africa

If there is a New Great Game afoot in Asia there is also a 'New Scramble for Africa' on the part of the great powers. [5] The National Security Strategy of the United States of 2002 declared that 'combating global terror' and ensuring US energy security required that the US increase its commitments to Africa and called upon 'coalitions of the willing' to generate regional security arrangements on that continent. Soon after the US European Command, based in Stuttgart, Germany—in charge of US military operations in sub-Saharan Africa—increased its activities in West Africa, centering on those states with substantial oil production and/or reserves in or around the Gulf of Guinea (stretching roughly from the Cote d'Ivoire to Angola). The US military’s European Command now devotes 70 per cent of its time to African affairs, up from almost nothing as recently as 2003. [6]

As pointed out by Richard Haass, now president of the Council on Foreign Relations, in his foreword to the 2005 council report entitled More Than Humanitarianism: A Strategic U.S. Approach Toward Africa: 'By the end of the decade sub-Saharan Africa is likely to become as important as a source of U.S. energy imports as the Middle East.' [7] West Africa has some 60 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. Its oil is the low sulfur, sweet crude prized by the US economy. US agencies and think tanks project that one in every five new barrels of oil entering the global economy in the latter half of this decade will come from the Gulf of Guinea, raising its share of US oil imports from 15 to over 20 per cent by 2010, and 25 per cent by 2015. Nigeria already supplies the US with 10 per cent of its imported oil. Angola provides 4 per cent of US oil imports, which could double by the end of the decade. The discovery of new reserves and the expansion of oil production are turning other states in the region into major oil exporters, including Equatorial Guinea, São Tomé and Principe, Gabon, Cameroon, and Chad. Mauritania is scheduled to emerge as an oil exporter by 2007. Sudan, bordering the Red Sea in the east and Chad to the west, is an important oil producer.

At present the main, permanent US military base in Africa is the one established in 2002 in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, giving the US strategic control of the maritime zone through which a quarter of the world’s oil production passes. The Djibouti base is also in close proximity to the Sudanese oil pipeline. (The French military has long had a major presence in Djibouti and also has an air base at Abeche, Chad on the Sudanese border.) The Djibouti base allows the United States to dominate the eastern end of the broad oil swath cutting across Africa that it now considers vital to its strategic interests—a vast strip running southwest from the 994-mile Higleig-Port Sudan oil pipeline in the east to the 640-mile Chad-Cameroon pipeline and the Gulf of Guinea in the West. A new US forward-operating location in Uganda gives the US the potential of dominating southern Sudan, where most of that country’s oil is to be found.

In West Africa, the US military’s European Command has now established forward-operating locations in Senegal, Mali, Ghana, and Gabon — as well as Namibia, bordering Angola on the south — involving the upgrading of airfields, the pre-positioning of critical supplies and fuel, and access agreements for swift deployment of US troops. [8]

In 2003 it launched a counterterrorism program in West Africa, and in March 2004, US Special Forces were directly involved in a military operation with Sahel countries against the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat—on Washington’s list of terrorist organisations. The US European Command is developing a coastal security system in the Gulf of Guinea called the Gulf of Guinea Guard. It has also been planning the construction of a US naval base in São Tomé and Principe, which the European Command has intimated could rival the U.S. naval base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The Pentagon is thus moving aggressively to establish a military presence in the Gulf of Guinea that will allow it to control the western part of the broad trans-Africa oil strip and the vital oil reserves now being discovered there. Operation Flintlock, a start-up US military exercise in West Africa in 2005, incorporated 1,000 US Special Forces. The US European Command will be conducting exercises for its new rapid-reaction force for the Gulf of Guinea this summer.

Here the flag is following trade: the major US and Western oil corporations are all scrambling for West African oil and demanding security. The US military’s European Command, the Wall Street Journal reported in its April 25th issue, is also working with the US Chamber of Commerce to expand the role of U.S. corporations in Africa as part of an 'integrated US response'. In this economic scramble for Africa’s petroleum resources the old colonial powers, Britain and France, are in competition with the US. Militarily, however, they are working closely with the US to secure Western imperial control of the region.

The US military build up in Africa is frequently justified as necessary both to fight terrorism and to counter growing instability in the oil region of sub-Saharan Africa. Since 2003 Sudan has been torn by civil war and ethnic conflict focused on its south western Darfur region (where much of the country’s oil is located), resulting in innumerable human rights violations and mass killings by government-linked militia forces against the population of the region. Attempted coups recently occurred in the new petrostates of São Tomé and Principe (2003) and Equatorial Guinea (2004). Chad, which is run by a brutally oppressive regime shielded by a security and intelligence apparatus backed by the United States, also experienced an attempted coup in 2004. A successful coup took place in Mauritania in 2005 against U.S.-supported strongman Ely Ould Mohamed Taya. Angola’s three-decade-long civil war—instigated and fueled by the United States, which together with South Africa organized the terrorist army under Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA—lasted until the ceasefire following Savimbi’s death in 2002. Nigeria, the regional hegemon, is rife with corruption, revolts, and organized oil theft, with considerable portions of oil production in the Niger Delta region being siphoned off—up to 300,000 barrels a day in early 2004. [9]

The rise of armed insurgency in the Niger Delta and the potential of conflict between the Islamic north and non-Islamic south of the country are major US concerns.

Hence there are incessant calls and no lack of seeming justifications for US 'humanitarian interventions' in Africa. The Council on Foreign Relations report More than Humanitarianism insists that 'the United States and its allies must be ready to take appropriate action' in Darfur in Sudan 'including sanctions and, if necessary, military intervention, if the Security Council is blocked from doing so'. Meanwhile the notion that the US military might before long need to intervene in Nigeria is being widely floated among pundits and in policy circles. Atlantic Monthly correspondent Jeffrey Taylor wrote in April 2006 that Nigeria has become 'the largest failed state on earth', and that a further destabilisation of that state, or its takeover by radical Islamic forces, would endanger 'the abundant oil reserves that America has vowed to protect. Should that day come, it would herald a military intervention far more massive than the Iraqi campaign'. [10]

Still, US grand strategists are clear that the real issues are not the African states themselves and the welfare of their populations but oil and China’s growing presence in Africa. As the Wall Street Journal noted in 'Africa Emerges as a Strategic Battlefield', 'China has made Africa a front line in its pursuit of more global influence, tripling trade with the continent to some $37 billion over the last five years and locking up energy assets, closing trade deals with regimes like Sudan’s and educating Africa’s future elites at Chinese universities and military schools'. In More than Humanitarianism, the Council on Foreign Relations likewise depicts the leading threat as coming from China:

'China has altered the strategic context in Africa. All across Africa today, China is acquiring control of natural resource assets, outbidding Western contractors on major infrastructure projects, and providing soft loans and other incentives to bolster its competitive advantage.'[11]

China imports more than a quarter of its oil from Africa, primarily Angola, Sudan, and Congo. It is Sudan’s largest foreign investor. It has provided heavy subsidies to Nigeria to increase its influence and has been selling fighter jets there. Most threatening from the standpoint of US grand strategists is China’s US$2 billion low-interest loan to Angola in 2004, which has allowed Angola to withstand IMF demands to reshape its economy and society along neoliberal lines.

For the Council on Foreign Relations, all of this adds up to nothing less than a threat to Western imperialist control of Africa. Given China’s role, the council report says, 'the United States and Europe cannot consider Africa their chasse gardé [private hunting ground], as the French once saw francophone Africa. The rules are changing as China seeks not only to gain access to resources, but also to control resource production and distribution, perhaps positioning itself for priority access as these resources become scarcer'. The council report on Africa is so concerned with combating China through the expansion of US military operations in the region, that none other than Chester Crocker, former assistant secretary of state for African affairs in the Reagan administration, charges it with sounding 'wistfully nostalgic for an era when the United States or the West was the only major influence and could pursue its...objectives with a free hand'.[12]

What is certain is that the US empire is being enlarged to encompass parts of Africa in the rapacious search for oil. The results could be devastating for Africa’s peoples. Like the old scramble for Africa this new one is a struggle among great powers for resources and plunder—not for the development of Africa or the welfare of its population.

A Grand Strategy of Enlargement

Despite the rapidly evolving strategic context and the shift to a more naked imperialism in recent years, there is a consistency in US imperial grand strategy, which derives from the broad agreement at the very top of the US power structure that the United States should seek 'global supremacy', as President Jimmy Carter’s former National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski put it.[13]

The Council on Foreign Relations’ 2006 report on More Than Humanitarianism, which supports the enlargement of US grand strategy to take in Africa, was co-chaired by Anthony Lake, National Security Advisor to Clinton from 1993–1997 and Christine Todd Whitman, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency under Bush. As Clinton’s National Security Advisor, Lake played a leading role in defining the U.S. grand strategy in the Clinton administration. In a speech entitled 'From Containment to Enlargement', delivered to the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University on September 21, 2003, he declared that with the collapse of the Soviet Union the United States was the world’s 'dominant power...we have the world’s strongest military, its largest economy and its most dynamic, multiethnic society....We contained a global threat to market democracies; now we should seek to enlarge, their reach. The successor to a doctrine of containment must be a strategy of enlargement'. Translated this meant an expansion of the sphere of world capitalism under the US military-strategic umbrella. The chief enemies of this new world order were characterized by Lake as the 'backlash states', especially Iraq and Iran. Lake’s insistence, in the early Clinton era, on a grand 'strategy of enlargement for the United States is being realized today in the enlargement of the US military role not only in Central Asia and the Middle East, but also in Africa.[14]

US imperial grand strategy is less a product of policies generated in Washington by this or that wing of the ruling class, than an inevitable result of the power position that US capitalism finds itself in at the commencement of the twenty-first century. US economic strength (along with that of its closest allies) has been ebbing fairly steadily. The great powers are not likely to stand in the same relation to each other economically two decades hence. At the same time, US world military power has increased relatively with the demise of the Soviet Union. The United States now accounts for about half of all of the world’s military spending—a proportion two or more times its share of world output.

The goal of the new US imperial grand strategy is to use this unprecedented military strength to preempt emerging historical forces by creating a sphere of full-spectrum dominance so vast, now encompassing every continent, that no potential rivals will be able to challenge the United States decades down the line. This is a war against the peoples of the periphery of the capitalist world and for the expansion of world capitalism, particularly US capitalism. But it is also a war to secure a 'New American Century' in which third world nations are viewed as 'strategic assets' within a larger global geopolitical struggle
The lessons of history are clear: attempts to gain world dominance by military means, though inevitable under capitalism, are destined to fail and can only lead to new and greater wars. It is the responsibility of those committed to world peace to resist the new US imperial grand strategy by calling into question imperialism and its economic taproot: capitalism itself.

* John Bellamy Foster is a journalist, sociologist, essayist as well as editor of the (US) Monthly Review.

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

Notes

1. V. I. Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (New York: International Publishers, 1939), 119.
2. Richard B. Du Boff, 'U.S Empire,' Monthly Review 55, no. 7 (December 2003): 1–2; Dominic Wilson & Roopa Purshothaman, 'Dreaming with BRICs', Goldman Sachs Global Economics Paper, no. 99 (October 1, 2003), 4, http://www.gs.com/
3. Robert J. Art, A Grand Strategy for America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), 1–11.
4. Noam Chomsky, Failed States (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), 254–55; Lutz Kleveman, The New Great Game (New York: Grove Press, 2004).
5. See Pierre Abramovici, 'United States: The New Scramble for Africa', Le Monde Diplomatique (Engish edition), July 2004; Revealed: The New Scramble for Africa', The Guardian, June 1, 2005.
6. Fred Kempe, 'Africa Emerges as a Strategic Battlefield', Wall Street Journal, April 25, 2006.
7. Council on Foreign Relations, More Than Humanitarianism: A Strategic U.S. Approach Toward Africa, 2006, xiii.
8. Council on Foreign Relations, More Than Humanitarianism, 59.
9. Center for Strategic and International Studies, A Strategic U.S. Approach to Governance and Security in the Gulf of Guinea, July 2005, 3.
10. Council on Foreign Relations, More Than Humanitarianism, 24, 133; Jeffrey Taylor, 'Worse Than Iraq?', Atlantic, April 2006, 33–34.
11. Council on Foreign Relations, More Than Humanitarianism, 40.
12. Council on Foreign Relations, More Than Humanitarianism, 52–53, 131.
13. Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 3.
14. Anthony Lake, 'From Containment to Enlargement', speech to School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, September 21, 2003, http://www.mtholyoke.ed/
The above is a shortened version of the piece originally published in the Monthly Review.

Nigerian elections have always been surrounded by intrigue, corruption and violence. Nnimmo Bassey says that as the country prepares for the first elections where one civilian government hands over to another, it appears little has changed.

April 2007 looms near as the month in which Nigerians expect to go to the polls to elect a new set of political officers. Even as the days get closer, the entire exercise is shrouded in uncertainty and Nigerians have been left guessing who the candidates of the various parties would be.

Candidates whose names had been submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have to contend with the fact that clandestine clearing procedures are being conducted by any number of agencies and panels. It is a curious situation that with less than two months to go before the elections, the Nigerian people do not know their electoral choices.

One of the presidential candidates of one of the political parties is still battling to be cleared by INEC. That candidate is Atiku Abubakar, currently vice president of Nigeria. Mr Abubakar’s attempt to run on the platform of Action Congress after decamping from the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has been strenuously fought by the PDP and the presidency. The presidency has so far unsuccessfully tried to declare the seat of the vice president vacant on account of his changing parties, and for being disloyal to the president. In a judgement on the matter at the Appeal Court, the judges ruled among other things that the loyalty of the vice president is primarily to the nation and not the president.

Judiciary interventions have helped to curb the rabid rush for the impeachment of governors by state legislators. The courts have been heroic in their handling of thorny political matters in the build up to the elections. In fact, the judiciary appears to be the real hope for salvaging the forthcoming elections, even before they are held.

The rift between the president and his vice climaxed as they attacked each other in full public glare, in a manner that would shame writers of soap operas. They threw mud at each other over which one of them corruptly handled funds from the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF). While the vice president accused the president of having diverted funds for less than official purposes, the presidency accused the vice president of making unauthorised bank deposits with resources of the PTDF. So far even the investigations of the Senate have not managed to settle the dust.

The conflict between the two top citizens of the country has largely overshadowed the real issues that ought to be addressed by politicians on campaign trails at this moment. With so far unproven corruption charges flying both ways, the episode has taught election watchers that the Nigerian electoral processes are a long way from being on track. As at the time of writing this piece the Atiku Abubakar’s name had not found its way onto the ballot, even though the electoral body asked for and received his photographs, ostensibly for that purpose.

The 2007 elections may well be one in which candidates spent more time struggling to have their names on the ballot papers than on the soap box enunciating their manifestos and programmes. Only recently, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) released a list of persons it considers to be corrupt and who should not be allowed to seek elective office in the country. While some analysts insisted that EFCC had no statutory powers to screen candidates, the presidency went ahead to set up a committee who reviewed the EFCC list. Out of their activities, it released a somewhat moderated list of persons who will not bee able to run for office at the forth coming elections.

The names on the ballot are not the only names to worry about. The names on the voters register may prove to be another headache. For example Nigerians were apathetic during the voters’ registration exercise. There were a number of reasons for this. People did not have a clear sense of where the registration centres were. Where the spots were known, there was a dearth of registration equipment. It was not until the last few days of the exercise, declared work free days for public officers, that people thronged to the registration centres. Registration of voters has historically offered corrupt politicians the opportunity to engage in multiple registrations, inclusion of fictitious names and the accumulation of voters’ cards with which they perfected their ignoble acts. The recent registration exercise had at least one incident in which registration equipment was allegedly found in the house of a chieftain of the ruling party. While some of the chieftain’s staff were reportedly arrested, the chieftain has not been brought to account.

One may call this selective justice, but that would pale in comparison with the spate of selections that seem to have overthrown elections among the political parties. The parties had to hold primaries aimed at nominating candidates for the forthcoming elections. It turned out that in many instances, the primaries were exercises in futility. How could that be? This happened in two ways. In some cases, the primaries were simply occasions for selection rather than election of candidates. The winners were predetermined by political godfathers even before the primaries were held. The primaries were thus a rubber stamping process. The parties wasted more precious energies in the primaries after candidates who had been announced as winners at the primaries had their names erased and substituted by others, either at the party headquarters or with any other person with sufficient clout to twist the arms of members of such parties.

It was rather intriguing when all the governors, for instance, who wanted to run for the office of the president suddenly, stepped down for Mr Yaradua, governor of Katsina State. Governors of Akwa Ibom State, Rivers, Cross River and a number of other states stepped down for Yaradua at the convention field. Observers wonder why they had spent so many millions in preparation and campaigns if they were not seriously seeking to contest the election.

Throughout this process, persons who never wanted to be on the ballot found themselves there. And it does appear that some of them are depending on the parties that threw up their names to also conduct campaigns and win them the elections as well.

In this perilous situation we cannot avoid mentioning the volatile Niger Delta, where it is difficult to predict whether people will be able to vote freely. The Niger Delta remains an example of a festering ulcer that the nation has failed to heal over the years, and which may infect the entire body politic, if left for much longer without the needed political treatment. Armed resistance is not new in the Niger Delta. It was first utilised in an organised manner by the Isaac Adaka Boro’s led Niger Delta Volunteer Service (NDVS) in 1966. In that struggle, they NDVS declared an independent state of Niger Delta Republic that lasted only 12 days before it was crushed by the Nigerian state. Today the armed groups are not declaring secession but are insisting on political negotiation and that the social-economic and environment debasement visited on the region be addressed.

One would have expected that the question of the Niger Delta would dominate the campaign trail. This has not been the case. In fact only a few of the parties are making any serious attempt to address it. In a situation where candidates are busy struggling to place their names on the ballot and where others are struggling to keep their names off the corruption list, very little energy is expended on issue-based campaigning. It could also be said that campaigning on issues is also difficult because many of the parties are effectively only different in name.

The Niger Delta issue, has however, resonated in a way watchers never expected. On 30 January 2007 while commissioning his campaign headquarters in Abuja, the vice president announced to the world that the government was spending the sum of US$2 billion in arms acquisition in order to crush the insurgents in the Niger Delta. He was quickly accused of playing politics. There was oblique denial of any arms build-up in the region. But not long afterwards the president stated while campaigning for the PDP’s presidential candidate that there were many militia camps in the Niger Delta, to which no government could turn a blind eye.

Investigation by some journalists revealed that a huge investment in arms has indeed been made by the government with the Niger Delta in mind. The sum mentioned is 100 billion Naira, about US$800,000. This sum was allegedly provided by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) through an extra-budgetary arrangement.

Recently the president was quoted as saying that the election would be a do or die affair, or a matter of life or death for his party, and for the nation. This declaration sent shivers down the spine of a nation reeling in violence and insecurity. There have been no retractions. It is thus an open question if the spirit of sportsmanship will be anywhere near the election field when the whistle is blown - or when the gun is fired, for that matter.

The build up to the 2007 election has seen more high profile assassinations and murders than have been seen in other elections in the country. This has raised considerable concern among election watchers as to what level of violence will be unleashed during the actual voting, whether the ballot will count this time around, or whether political thugs will rake up fictional votes. According to Priscilla Achakpa, executive cirector of the Women Environmental Programme (WEP), a Nigerian NGO, 'the whole world is watching Nigeria and it is likely that the politicians will exercise some caution and not act with impunity. We cannot say categorically that the peoples’ votes will not count. What we can say with full confidence is that the electorate is much more enlightened today than they were in 1999 and in 2003'.

This election is not just another election in Nigeria. It is an election with deep historical significance. It will mark the first time a civilian government has handed over power to another civilian government. With dark clouds over the transition route, many are asking: will votes count? Will the electorate stand up to defend their votes? Only time will tell.

* Nnimmo Bassey is the director of Environmental Rights Action (Friends of the Earth, Nigeria) Visit

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at pambazuka.org

The wearing of the headscarf and hijab by Muslim women is increasingly becoming a contentious issue in the West. Halima Zouhar provides some historical context to the headscarf and opinions on why young Muslim women are choosing to cover their heads.

One of the most polemical themes associated with Islam is the status of women. Women are regarded as subaltern beings, deprived of rights, and subservient to men. And the symbol of a woman’s submission is the headscarf. But in fact, the headscarf is becoming more visible these days in this part of the world than it is in the Arab world or in the West. And most surprisingly, it has acquired great ‘popularity’ amongst young women, even those educated and in touch with Western civilisation. What are the reasons driving these women to publicly display their religious affiliation? What does the scarf symbolise? Are these young women searching for an identity? This article analyses these questions.

The removal of the traditional headscarf is relatively recent for the Muslim woman, dating back to the colonial and postcolonial eras. The headscarf did not used to carry the religious dimension currently accorded to it. Although introduced by Islam in the 7th century , it was anyway part of a Muslim woman’s traditional dress. Therefore the question of whether or not it symbolised the subordination of woman did not arise.

The scarf began to be defined as a symbol of the submission of Muslim women during the colonial period. Then, the colonial power, considering itself superior and endowed with a civilising mission to bear on a primitive, backward and archaic population, held it up as a symbol of resistance. The unveiling ceremony in Algiers in 1958 is extremely relevant here:

'13 May 1958, Algiers, the place du Gouvernement: Muslim women climbed on to a podium to burn their veils. The stakes of this staged gesture were measured: the colonial authorities required that Muslim women broke ranks with the struggles of their own people.'

Unveiling the Muslim woman of her headscarf was one of the coloniser’s great challenges: a means of validating his superiority and civilising mission that consisted of the ‘emancipation’ of the Muslim woman, whilst at the same time elevating the model of the Western lifestyle, which the indigenous population was supposed to assimilate. As Edward Said has pointed out, the colonial education system played a major role in assimilation:

'For Barrès, the essence of France is most visible in French schools; thus he says of a school in Alexandria: "it’s charming to see these little oriental girls welcoming and reproducing so vividly the imagination and the melody of the French Isle".'

This influence bore fruit, given that it educated an elite, which knew how to defend, and still defends, the interests of the West in the Arab countries. That elite has retained the Western model as a reference point well after independence, simultaneously disdaining and disregarding the Arab-Muslim tradition, perceived to be a disruptive and restraining force in the process of social evolution and the emancipation of women.

'Two factors render the triumph of orientalism even more evident. In so far as it is possible to generalise, contemporary culture in the Middle East tends to follow European and American models. When Taha Hussein said in 1936 that modern Arab culture was European and not oriental, he was merely putting on record the identity of the natural Egyptian elite of which he was a distinguished member. Likewise today he belongs to the same Arab cultural elite, even though the powerful current of anti-imperialist ideas from the Third World that gripped the region from the early 1950s has blunted the Western edge of the dominant culture.'

Generally during the post colonial period, Arab and Muslim women witnessed their being torn between two different cultural models: one, which fascinated; the other, the heritage of a strong tradition. In this context, there was little real knowledge about the Muslim religion, nor of the status of the Muslim woman at the centre of this religion.

It was not until the next generation of their daughters, that today’s young women, who faced with both the fascination of their parents for Western culture and the scorn attached by the West to Islam, have launched themselves into a quest to understand their religion, and simultaneously their identity, which is a mixture of influences, Eastern nor Western.

From this point on, wearing the Muslim headscarf has proliferated amongst young women: it does not signify the rejection of Western civilisation and a return to tradition, as in many aspects, tradition and religion diverge. Rather, Islam represents a balanced perspective for young people seeking to affirm their identity. The headscarf may represent a challenge to a society wishing to see in the woman wearing it subservience and regression. But this cliché does not correspond to contemporary reality. For in most cases, it is the woman making her own decision, choosing nevertheless to lead an active and independent life. In short, these women are adopting the emancipated lifestyle so revered by the West, whilst at the same time living with the precepts of Islam.

* Halima Zouhar is a post-graduate student at the University of Granada in Spain.

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

This piece was originally written in French and translated by Stephanie Kitchen.

'After all it’s only a piece of cloth.' Aaliyah Bilal discusses the complexities of the Hijab in East Africa with particular reference to Zanzibar.

'Sitara kubwa kuvaa Vazu refu miguuni Msiige bila nija… Nguo ziteremsheni Yapungue maasia…'

'Wear a full covering, for your protection, A long garment, to the feet, Do not imitate without morality, Lower your garments so that there may be less rebellion…'

Sheik Amri Abedi, the first black mayor of Dar es Salaam and close advisor to Julius Nyerere, published the poem 'Nduo Ziteremsheni' (Lower your garments) for political as well as aesthetic reasons. As a missionary of the Ahmadiyya movement and a statesman, Abedi was perturbed by the westernisation of women’s dress in Tanganyika and sought to redress this 'rebellion against God' with the release of the book Diwani in 1963. The quoted passage is a small portion of a much longer poem included in this volume. While it addresses the women of Tanganyika in general, Abedi takes issue with Muslim women in particular, going so far as to call those who wear western attire 'evil'.

However inaccessible the medium, the content of poems such as 'Nduo Ziteremsheni' reveal something essential about Swahili women’s experiences with a truth that resonates on all levels of society today as much as it did when it was written - women’s bodies are contested sites where upon society negotiates meanings. In Muslim communities, the hijab is central to this phenomenon. All of these factors, as they are played out in East Africa, take on a special quality in light of the increased adherence of women throughout the region to this form of Islamic dress: a fact that Amri Abedi would be proud to know.

The Zanzibari experience provides a rich study of the phenomenon, made more interesting by how drastically the culture of dress has changed in recent history. The revolutionary period of the 1960s was a time when traditional social mores were being challenged by Zanzibari youth on a grand scale. They protested Islamic cultural hegemony by wearing western style clothes. They watched western films despite condemnation by Muslim clerics. The reality one confronts today is starkly contrasted to this example. Whereas it was common to see young women in short skirts and other non-Islamic clothes during the1960s, today a jaunt through the streets of Stone Town exposes the almost universal compliance of women to hijab.

The reassertion of rigid Islamic dress codes in contemporary Zanzibar has not yet been the subject of any published scholarly analysis. A glimpse into Zanzibari transnational and local politics provides clues into why this may be taking place. Historical linkages between Tanzania and the peninsular Arab states, aided recently with the building of Islamic mosques and schools throughout the country, have made the island susceptible to ideological movements from outside. A significant dimension of this reassertion is also related to the course of party politics. The portrayal of the Civic United Front by the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (revolutionary state party) as a party of Muslim extremists, coupled with the widely condemned violence against the CUF constituents in the wake of the elections has put many Muslims in Zanzibar on the defensive. In light of these realities, the strengthened adherence to conservative Islamic dress makes sense.

Zanzibar represents an extreme case, but it possesses all of the major thematic characteristics at play in variety of East African contexts. The circumstances of women in southern Sudan, Kenya, and on the Tanzanian mainland attest that the entire region is undergoing a wave of islamisation. In all of these contexts, there is convincing evidence that politics plays a significant role in the increased use of hijab. Concerns arise, however, when we become overly reliant on political analyses to understand such gendered and religious subjects. Given the marginal position that Muslim women continue to play on the political stage, analyses that begin and end within the confines of a political framework yield a consistently damning message - Muslim women are oppressed by hijab.

While it is part of a cosmopolitan sensibility to question and condemn any subversion of women’s rights, one must ask if the attachment of African communities to Islam and symbols such as hijab really constitute such an outcome. In a discussion of women and hijab in East Africa, we should turn our attention to a different kind of evidence. What we find beyond the lens of a top-down political analysis illustrates how a nexus of factors hinder as well as help Muslim women.

However clear the connections are between the social status of women and Muslim practice, Islam is hardly alone as a marginalising force in the lives of East African women. Unfortunately, these women also contend with forms of patriarchy that are endemic to African societies at a rudimentary level. The threat of rape, mistreatment, or being outcast on the grounds of sexual impropriety cooperate with currents of islamisation in ways that endorse hijab. In contexts where donning hijab diffuses unwanted attention from men— although the practice underlines the patriarchal structures that make it necessary—the immediate needs of women encourage a favorable depiction of its use.

The contemporary discourse has become overly comfortable with the portrayal of Islam as a force that opposes modernity. What is most troubling is that these ideas are perpetuated in the face of substantial evidence to the contrary. The East Africa is home to a number of locales wherein processes of modernisation and islamisation work in tandem. In Kenyan costal towns, when confronted with an increase in drug use as a result of increased prosperity, the reassertion of an Islamic identity becomes a tool through which those communities resist the spread of substance abuse among their youth. A similar story comes to us from eastern Sudan where the migrant workers to Saudi Arabia, once they return home, implement Islamic structures in their communities that, in effect, cause a rise in school attendance among Muslim girls. While this is linked with an increased use of the hijab in both contexts, the overall effects are advantageous to women.

Another interpretive cleavage that is consistently ignored in discussions of women and hijab is the issue of a woman’s devotion to her perceived God. There is a tendency, especially in the context of a global Islamic revival, to short circuit all contemporary discussions of hijab to the political forces that are deemed to have triggered their appearance. The plausibility of these factors cannot blind us to the likelihood that at least some women cover for pious reasons.

Hijab is a word that turns heads and sells books, but it is a pretty empty subject on its own. After all, it is only a piece of cloth. Furthermore, any inquiry into the positive or negatives of its use does not end in answers, but exposes greater complexities. The story underneath the practice is more interesting. The idea that an increased adherence to hijab references the subversion of women’s agency within systems of Islamic jurisprudence seems to be the salient issue. In this regard, it is the personal jihad of Muslim women everywhere to create spaces within Islam where they act as subjects and not objects of Islamic discourse—a field that remains the guarded terrain of men like Sheik Amri Abedi.

In contrast to other parts of the Muslim world, there is some cause for optimism in the case of East Africa. One of the encouraging developments in African societies today shows women growing more powerful in their communities. Muslim women in East Africa, it is hoped, will begin to experience greater changes in their religious communities as they themselves play more visible roles in shaping the circumstances through which people come to Islam.

* Aaliyah Bilal is a masters student at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

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

The Sudanese government of Omar al Beshir continues to decline to cooperate with the Human Rights Council. This article argues that this defiance has implications for the concept of sovereignty and intervention when states are victimising their own citizens.

Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir on Friday rejected a UN peace force for Darfur and said he would not grant visas to UN rights monitors who want to visit the strife-torn region. He also said that the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, led by Nobel peace laureate and anti-landmines campaigner Jody Williams, would not be allowed to travel to Darfur because its members were biased.

While the international community is looking for ways to prevent further human rights abuses in Africa, especially in Darfur, the government of Sudan has declined to cooperate with the Human Rights Council by refusing to issue the necessary visas for the High-Level Mission to carry out its work inside the country in fulfilment of its mandate. Indeed, on the final day of an Africa-France summit gathering in the Riviera resort of Cannes, Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir justified that decision during a news conference, in the following terms: 'There are members of that delegation who in our view are not impartial therefore it is difficult to say that they will be honest and reflect reality.'

This refusal blatantly breaches the Council’s decision to establish the mission, which was adopted by consensus following intense consultations that included the participation of representatives of the Sudanese government. Under Decision S-4/101, adopted on 13 December 2006, the Human Rights Council established a High-Level Mission to assess the human rights situation in Darfur and the needs of Sudan in that regard. The Council asked the Mission to report to its fourth session, which will start on 12 March 2007.

This development is shocking, considering that such statements and decisions come from the head of an African state where at least 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2,500,000 displaced since 2003 as a result of fighting. Despite repeated pledges to stop the violence, the Sudanese government has utterly failed to do so and political negotiations have stalled. Reasonably, one can argue that the collective shame and regret expressed over the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and the commitment of African states to the promotion and protection of 'human rights, the rule of law and good governance' on the continent as principles and objectives of the African Union have had little or no impact on the gross violations of human rights and mass killings committed with impunity in Darfur.

This case reflects a widely-held view of sovereignty: that allows governments to do essentially what they want within their own national borders. It should provide sufficient cause for a more serious and pragmatic assessment of the practicality of the principles of state sovereignty and intervention. In fact, having experienced genocide in Rwanda more than twelve years ago, what should the world do when a large number of people are victims of violence originating from within their own country?

Weak, failing, failed, and poverty-stricken states often use notional borders to preserve the fiction of effective sovereignty. This is certainly true in the case of Sudan and sets the context in which any discussion of intervention on the continent should be placed. Khartoum’s government is invoking sovereignty, firstly, as a veil to hide its brutal campaign against civilians; and secondly, as a shield to fend off calls for international action to protect its victims. While respect for the sovereignty of Sudan must be upheld as a core principle of international law, general principles of international law and the AU Constitutive Act itself provide for inherent limitations on the exercise of this principle, inter alia, where what is at stake is the protection of citizens from exposure to grave and massive violations of human rights in the absence of the willingness or ability of the state to protect. Therefore, Sudan should be taught that sovereignty, properly defined, is not a defence against demands for redress of breaches or gross violations of fundamental human rights.

The deteriorating situation in Darfur demonstrates how urgent it is for African leaders and the international community to move the debate of sovereignty versus intervention beyond semantics and to reach a consensus on when a defence of 'state sovereignty' is patently unacceptable.

* Joseph Yav Katshung is a human rights lawyer from Congo.

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