Mukoma Wa Ngugi's Article on Political activism (Pambazuka News, Thursday 2 August 2007), which I very much enjoyed reading, reminded me to put my fingers down and share observations from my recent visit to Uganda. In fact it fits very well into Wa Ngugi's observations about the struggle to communicate and realize Pan Africanism for peoples of Africa. I agree for the most part with his argument, that Pan Africanism cannot be left to the elites but should be a people's struggle. However, the case he cites of Cuba and another not mentioned of Tanzania, shows that the elite took the high road of forging national unity among their people higher success. Therefore, I believe the same strategy should be adopted for most of Africa and particularly, my country-Uganda.

First, my disclaimer is that not all African political leaders and elites are doing enough to promote the spirit of Pan Africanism and national unity similar to Fidel Castro or Mwalimu Julius Nyerere. Many of our leaders are in political leadership for their own ideology or their satisfaction, and that partly explains why none of the 53 heads of states could agree to United States of Africa at the recent Accra Summit. However, nor are Africa “people organizations” and ordinary people doing a lot to realize the dream of African unity. In fact there are more Afro-pessimists about African unity than are Afro-optimists, as if this is a new invention. Many Africans move further away from Pan Africanism once they become richer and more exposed to the world outside their own.

In Uganda where I am from, success is measured in terms of who has the most exposure to foreign (read western) culture, material goods or lifestyle. Value is placed on who can purchase the latest Germany Mercedes Benz, the latest Swedish Nokia phone, American jeans, Japanese electronic or who speaks with an American, British accent or French. It is not uncommon to listen to newsreaders imitating a “British Accent” on Uganda airwaves. Little is celebrated of those people in the local manufacturing industries who produce cooking ware, car engines, household equipment, storage containers and farm tools. Little is celebrated of national sports, as most Ugandans associate with European sports clubs. For instance, there are more supporters of England's Manchester United football team in Uganda than are supporters of the national football team, the Uganda Cranes. In fact many Ugandans are quick to purchase Manchester United T-shirts but would not donate a shilling to promote national sports. If you quickly surveyed the Uganda public on their favourite football team, very few people would claim the Uganda Cranes as their favourite team. Ugandans love to consume what they do not produce, and despair what they produce. I returned to Uganda recently after seven years when I left to work and study in South Africa and the United States. Throughout this time, people have told me of the changes in Kampala, and many said I would not recognize the city when I returned. That was partly true because there were more new and celebrated Ugandan musicians, actors and fashion designers than seven years ago. I was amazed that Uganda music has replaced Congolese music as the dominant entertainment on national airwaves, clubs and discotheques. I saw more shops selling African fabric and more Ugandans (particularly women) wearing African clothes, as opposed to the pre-dominant European attire. Of course the European suit and tie is still very popular among men and European skirt and jacket for young professional women. Indeed, there were more designers of African fashion, more enterprising young people in business and more positive outlook on life. However, many of these new developments lack an element of originality or indigeneity and/or are carbon copies of foreign products. For instance, many of the Uganda musicians tend to copy the dressing, dancing and singing style of African American. I am not saying there is anything wrong with African Americans. I am wondering why Ugandans musicians do not promote a “Uganda brand” as a national identity, and strategy for global marketing and competition? It is more likely to find Ugandan entrepreneurs branding their businesses with Europeans names or Europeans cities. For instances, there is an enterprising Ugandan who is one of the pioneers of world-class private boarding secondary schools in the country. His school has branches established across the central region with names such as London College and Paris Campus. One wonders why he didn't continue with the initial naming of branches based on location, such as Kabaka's Lake Campus? Of course the other concern that comes to mind is the kind of identity this school principal is trying to create in these students. Is high-class education only comparable to London or Paris not Uganda? Should these students look toward further education in London or Paris, instead of investing in a higher education in Uganda and participate in national building?

Even Uganda fashion designers feel that tagging western labels onto their products would increase their sales? I went into a store owned by one of the most celebrated Uganda fashion designer to see her “Ugandan brand”. Instead, what I saw were clothes familiar to me from New York City stores and on European fashion runways. I wondered if the 'designer' had not sewed on her own logo on clothes purchased in New York? If not, why did she have to copy New York and European fashion? I am being too hard on her, when it is possible that New York and Europe copied her creations? It was hard for me to buy that reasoning because when I went to another store selling African prints with my mother to buy an African print shirt for my brother, the tailor had sewed on “Calvin Klein” labels. I asked her if Calvin Klein would sew on his clothes “Ugandan” or “Nalwoga” (a random name for a Muganda). She felt that I was insulting her while my mother said I was so “Westernized” in my behaviour. Personally, I thought that I was carrying my Pan African torch by questioning the mentality in Uganda that tends to assume that everything Europeans (read white) is what sells.

Around the same time, I attended another event that made me mad about Ugandans obsessions with the Western hemisphere. It was the unveiling of contestants for the 2007 Miss Uganda beauty pageant contestants at the Kampala Serena International Conference Centre. Contestants were asked questions regarding their dreams, hobbies and their role models. Out of the 27 girls, only two or three mentioned Uganda role models. The rest mentioned personalities mainly in the United States, such as Oprah Winfrey, Bill Clinton and Michael Jackson. One contestant went as far to state that her dream was to become that first female president of the United States! Did she know it was Ms. Uganda beauty pageant!

Then again, one cannot blame the entrepreneurs, artists or beauty queens from despising the Uganda brand when the heads of state do not serve by example. When our President's family wants to give birth, a presidential jet flies her to Germany because they do not trust Uganda hospitals. The President does not trust Uganda doctors, even though Uganda-trained medical professionals are sought after the world over. The rich send their children Europe or North America for higher education, instead of investing in Uganda's cheaper and world-class public universities. These destinations are also favoured for shopping and vacation by many “well-to-do” Ugandans, even before they visit a neighbouring African country. Now there is a new trend of Ugandan women flying to the United States to have their babies, so that their children become US Citizens and benefit of the riches of this world”! This behaviour does not convince me that our first priority as Ugandans and Africans is pan-Africanism. We do not invest in the beauty of ourselves, exploring our own surroundings and building our continent before we enrich those economies that we worked so hard to build as slaves. We cannot put our roads, garbage disposal and utilities to proper public consumption yet we are quick to feed the pockets of European and American markets. Uganda's President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is a highly known public proponent of regionalism, yet the main trade route between Uganda and Kenya via Busia border is full of potholes on either side. In the US, which we Ugandans love to imitate so much, “the-haves” rich do not make a name by consuming Ugandan products. They donate to their Alma meters or to non-profit institutions where they can have their names erected on building and held in memorabilia. Conversely, Ugandans prefer to make a name by spending holidays in the west (even in winter), imitating western accents or clamouring for US passports. Should I be surprised that I am despised at most African immigration points I go through with my Ugandan passport while holders of Europeans or North Americans passports go through with ease, most often without visa? So, Wa Ngugi needs to convince me that surely, the people will lead the Pan African struggle and we do not need strong political leaders to steer the wheel.

* Doreen Lwanga is African Scholar, Researcher and Activist working in the areas of Pan-Africanism, African security, and Higher education in Africa.

* Please send comments to or comment online at

Like the I-phone of the consumer telecommunications industry, Biofuels are the most talked about and most anticipated development in the energy sector. The increased attention on the production and development of Biofuels can be attributed to an international convergence of ecological, political, economic and social factors. Biofuels are not new, they have been used since World War II, but the recent biofuel-convergence has led to a boom in investment; over the past three years alone venture capital investment in Biofuels increased 800%. Moreover, the International Energy Agency predicts that biofuel production would double by 2011.

Biofuels help reduce carbon monoxide emissions, can replace the lead addictives used to increase the octane levels of gasoline and are sulfur free. The two most widely used Biofuels today are ethanol and biodeisel. Ethanol is basically an alcohol derived from the fermentation sugarcane or maize and can be used by itself or blended with petroleum. Biodiesel on the other hand is derived from rapeseed, soybean, jatropha, palm oil and other vegetable oils and can be used directly in diesel engines or blended as well.

Africa is usually last on the list of receiving cutting edge technological investments but in the case of Biofuels, Africa is leading the charge.

Africa

Africa increased ethanol production from 100 million gallons in 2006 to already over 160 million gallons in 2007. The Mozambique Petroleum Company (Petromoc) is partnering with Brazil based INM International to raise over $400 million to invest in biofuel production. In October, fuel stations in Addis Ababa will begin to sell blended fuel, of which 5% will be ethanol. British based Sun Biofuels Plc has invested $20 million in a 9,000 hectare jatropha biofuel project in Tanzania. In Zambia BP is keen to invest in the emerging Biofuels industry and two other companies have already invested 200 million in the sector, according to the Government. The Indian Government has given $250 million to the West African Development Bank for investment in biofuel production and Nigeria plans to build over two dozen ethanol plants with assistance from Brazil by 2010. As Rachel Slater of the Overseas Development Institute has suggested “Africa's biomass production potential is five times higher then that of the UK” and “massive potential is coming out of South Africa”.

South Africa

South Africa's gasoline consumption accounts for 80% of the entire southern Africa region hence is will be a key entrepôt for the development of Biofuels in Africa. South Africa's Biofuels strategy hopes to achieve a market penetration of 4.5% of liquid road transport fuels by 2013.

Ethanol Africa planes to open eight maize supplied ethanol plants in South Africa; the first has already been commissioned in Bothaville and the last will be commissioned in 2012. According to Ethanol Africa, the typical Bothaville style plant “will displace 987,500 barrels of oil. At a price of $70/bb, this equates to about R500 million and of wealth that will not leave the country”. South Africa has great potential for energy crop production such as maize because of the large tracks of arable land and suitable climate, but it is not all good news.

According to Mathabo Le Roux writing in Business Day; in South Africa only 10% of the land is irrigated yet it takes up 65% of total water use, so any increase in large scale maize production would affect South Africa's water supply. Moreover, the head of South Africa's Central Bank Tito Mboweni, questioned the wisdom of using maize as the main feedstock for ethanol production in South Africa “That's a doubt in our case because we suddenly have a shortage of maize … also pushing the food prices because or production of ethanol from maize.” There is an overall fear that the increased use of maize based ethanol feedstock will cause a price increase; putting maize beyond the reach of Sub-Saharan Africa's poor, but as Slater suggests “the world maize price does not correlate well with local prices especially in SSA”. For example, according to the United Nations Integrated regional Information Network “South African maize prices have stayed near R600 ($85) per tonne, but in March 2007 increased to R2,000 ($285), still less then the world price of R2,500 ($352).” Although there is a difference between international and South African maize prices, this does not discount the food price inflation.

The Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Program suggested that “In the 12 months between January 2006 and January 2007, the food costs of very poor rural dwellers rose by 9.6% and the very poor urban dwellers by 8.3%. Foodstuffs linked to biofuel production rose by 10.7% (grain), 11.8% (oils) and 12.8% (sugar) in rural areas.” Africa is not alone in dealing with the affects of increase biofuel production.

United States

The US government wants to reduce gasoline demand by 20% by 2010 and biofuel use is a key strategy for achieving the goal. Since 2001 the amount of maize used to produce ethanol has increase 300%. According to the Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Program there are presently 78 biofuel refineries under construction; but biofuel production is not the panacea for an environmentally friendly energy consumption strategy for future.

Professor M.A Altieri estimates that dedicating all USA corn and soybean production to biofuel production would only meet 12% of gasoline and 6% of US diesel demand. Moreover, Cornell University professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences David Pimentel, states that “The average U.S. automobile, traveling 10,000 miles a year on pure ethanol (not a gasoline-ethanol mix) would need about 852 gallons of the corn-based fuel. This would take 11 acres to grow, based on net ethanol production. This is the same amount of cropland required to feed seven Americans.” The Other Factors There are other factors at play in the debate about Biofuels such as the refining process. Ethanol attracts water much easier then petroleum therefore the same infrastructure used by petrol refineries cannot be used. Hence Biofuels are usually blended near the end of the supply chain. This means that for Biofuels to become widely available a well developed and efficient downstream petroleum sector must exist which may not be the case in many Sub-Saharan African countries.

The environmental questions cannot be ignores either. Although Biofuels produce less carbon monoxide emissions, replace the lead addictives and are sulfur free, there is a loss in fuel economy. According to F. William Engdahl, ethanol contains at least 30% less energy per gallon then normal gasoline translating into a fuel economy loss of 25% per gallon. Food security is the most controversial issue in the biofuel development debate. In short it is the idea of “food versus fuel” or the competition between the world's one billion drivers and the world's two billion poor. As Slater suggests “filling a petrol tank of a Range Rover will require enough grain to feed one person for one year”.

As the cost per barrel of oil increases the demand for alternative energy source will increase; and biofuel development from crops such as maize, soybeans and sugar are seen as a viable solution. Hence a situation is rapidly developing whereby the price inflation of the world's key food crops will be pegged to the price of oil, and because Biofuels will continue to be an insignificant source of energy when compare to diesel or gasoline we can expect a continue increase in food prices for the foreseeable future, as biofuel refineries absorb the world's surplus grain production.

This year increased maize demand for ethanol was partly to blame for the increase in price of Mexico's basic food: corn flour. In February 2007 thousands of Mexicans marched in Mexico City to protest the 400% increase in Tortilla prices. The key cost in ethanol production is the price of feedstock such as maize and sugar; hence there will be a move towards economies of scale to improve margins and yields which will favour large scale farmers over small growers, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Moreover, large scale maize and sugar farming will lead increased use of water, fertilizer, chemical, pesticides and petroleum which may adversely impact production systems, fertility and biodiversity. Hence what really needs to happen is that we must find a cheap, non-food crop or waste product that is easier to turn into biofuel and blends well with petroleum or diesel.

Conclusion

There remains ample room for debate on the future of Biofuels, especially in relation to Africa. If we look at what is happening in Africa with a historical understanding it is clear that Africa is entering yet another cash crop boom, except this time it is not tea, coffee or cocoa, but maize - food! If selling tea, coffee and Cocoa for the past 50 years has not lifted Africa out of the development quagmire how will placing her food at mercy of commodity traders in Chicago, New York and London be any different?

* Mark J. Sorbara is a freelance writer and researcher on Africa issue.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at

The internationally renowned African scholar Mahmood Mamdani is said to hold the view that the only feature of post-colonialism he is aware of is the post office. He tries to suggest that true Independence as liberation from the structures, contents and ideologies of the colonial era remains a remote goal.

Decolonisation was more so a hand-over of formal political power, while social structures and hierarchies - as well as mindsets - remained largely intact.

Little has changed in terms of a shift in power relations or alternative concepts of power. This includes the political sphere with regard to the character of political dominance. Looking back at the 17 years since Namibia's formal Independence one is tempted to agree with Mamdani's sobering conclusion.
As if to make a point, the current political culture is a far cry from the liberating gospel originally preached. Not that there was - realistically and in retrospective - much to be expected (although we did). After all, more than a century of colonial occupation took its toll. Apartheid was anything but a fertile ground to socialize democrats and to allow for the internalization of fundamental respect for human rights and differing opinions. Nor was the authoritarian organization of the exile situation under the liberation movement Swapo an alternative to repressive control.

The movement's recognition as the sole and authentic representative of the Namibian people by the General Assembly of the United Nations in the mid-1970s was a celebrated diplomatic victory in our ranks and within the supporting solidarity movement. What we then did not realize: it was also a very undemocratic notion, based on exclusion. It handed over the sole power of definition of legitimate Namibian identity to the leadership of one (admittedly by far most relevant) among several organizations. Those not members or followers of Swapo were not entitled to any representation to shape the guiding principles leading into Namibian nationhood.

Despite a constitutional framework, which laid the foundation for a pluralist, human rights oriented and democratic society (as a result also of the international - meaning Western - desire to control and limit social change), Namibia since then became neither more tolerant nor more democratic. Nor did the majority of the formerly colonized population reap any meaningful material benefits from the shift in political power (forget about the fat cats). Poverty remained chronic, so did other forms of destitution. Violence against women and children has abhorrent dimensions, and the self-enrichment by members of the new elite seems to have no limit. Educational services and health provisions deteriorate, and Namibia's rank in international standardized surveys (as problematic and dubious as some of these might be) did not improve. Instead, we are campaigning for a status as an “as if Least Developed Country (LDC)”. What a shame.

Namibia started under a United Nations supervised transition to a sovereign state as the darling of the international community. In the meantime it has become - in the words of Joe Diescho - just another African country; which, of course, it is. The way Diescho uses the image, plays with the existing Eurocentric stereotypes, that this is nothing to be proud of. But did we not have the opportunity to build a society offering reasons for pride, self-respect and confidence as an African country, which used its opportunity to present evidence that this is nothing to be ashamed of or associated with negative stereotypes?

The honeymoon is long over. Hardly noticed, all Nordic states - once the pioneers among the Western countries, which supported Swapo and the Namibian people for the right to self-determination - have reduced diplomatic representation below the rank of ambassadors or even closed their embassies. Their bilateral development cooperation is shrinking continuously. Norway has withdrawn years ago, and Sweden will be closing its offices next year. Finland's ambassador - who dared to publicly share criticism over the government's dubious priorities to engage in a war in the Congo instead of reducing poverty at home - was requested a decade into Independence not to return from his annual leave at home. He was never replaced on an ambassadorial level, nor was the Swedish ambassador whose term ended shortly afterwards. The government seemed not to be bothered by such visible loss of legitimacy among these good friends. Instead, other alliances were consolidated with countries such as Zimbabwe, China, North Korea, Russia and other states hardly known as welfare societies or for their democratic achievements.

Looking at the hype of the last few weeks and months, one has no reasons for optimism. John Makumbe, who was denied to deliver his lecture on Zimbabwe as originally announced on the campus of UNAM, sees the writing on the wall. Let's hope he is wrong. Students only a few weeks earlier felt a need to demonstrate in support of the University's chancellor and Founding Father of the Republic in a political and legal dispute not related to the university at all. Sadly enough, they did not come out as forcefully to defend academic freedom, which was so blatantly violated by the same person, when intervening to prevent the internationally well known Zimbabwean academic from presenting his lecture, thereby making a mockery of the country's highest research and teaching institution's autonomy.

Interesting too is that almost everyone - despite controversial views - seems to accept that the NSHR submission to the ICC touches upon the (undefined) notion of national reconciliation. It does not. It seeks to hold high-ranking office bearers in the former liberation movement accountable for human rights violations within its own ranks. This addresses issues of internal oppression against own members, including rape, torture, execution and murder by neglect. That some among the many victims were suspected to be spies is not the point.

The point is, that many were not, and that the treatment as such violated any minimum standards of a human rights based culture, as the kind of injustice practiced under the Apartheid regime against which we were actually fighting.

Those few hundred who survived the ordeal (while most others did not) have ever since their return in mid-1989 asked for an admission that Swapo did wrong and should deal with the issue instead of sweeping it under the carpet. Seeking to enforce such demands after painful 18 years of denial by trying to use international legal options at hand (even though the effort is doomed to fail for formal reasons) is declared an act of national betrayal and heresy. This merely confirms the misperception among the political rulers that their party organization is in their eyes identical with the nation and the state. They are untouchable and above the law. - Instead of hiding behind such a misleading smokescreen, they should regain legitimacy and moral commanding heights by dealing with the failures if not within the national judicial system then by an honest and fact seeking investigation initiated by themselves. Otherwise the rule of law will soon end as law of the rulers.

Instead, once again, it's the old game of blaming and accusing the messenger for disclosing the worrying moral decay when it comes to the state of the nation. The so-called misguided elements allegedly seeking to orchestrate a vendetta for merely personal frustrations (which these victims undoubtedly and understandably also have) are singled out and blamed. So are those media, which dare to make it a public affair and provide a platform for the dissenting voices in civil society. Far from dealing with the matter, it is dealt with those who dare to join the demands for transparency and accountability through efforts to limit their rights to do so. It is about getting rid of inconvenient truths and their advocates, not about addressing the root causes of the affairs.

Just as with John Makumbe and the likes: prevent them from speaking out, as if this would allow ignoring what is going on. At the end, we might indeed end in a similar state of affairs as his home country, in which so many dedicated citizens were forced into exile once again. This time by those who claimed to have liberated the people. So far, differences do however still remain: Namibia's head of state generously offers one-way tickets to unwanted dissenting voices. They are neither arrested nor killed. Not yet. But his softer approach is already another form of liquidation.

Namibia lacks civility defined as an agreement to disagree agreeably. But Independence is something to fight for, daily and always. Solidarity should be with them, who dare to do so and challenge the sell-outs to individual privilege, who are occupying state power and shy away from taking responsibility in the public interest. Their duty would instead require acting not only in their own interest, but in the interest of all they claim to have liberated. Like in so many other societies, however, those will ultimately have to accept and execute such responsibility themselves, guided by their own convictions and values, against all odds. The fight for ownership over the definition of what is supposed to be acceptable and what not is far from over. It has just started.

* Henning Melber joined Swapo as a son of German immigrants in 1974. He was director of The Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) between 1992 and 2000 and is currently the executive director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala/Sweden.

* Please send comments to or comment online at

Democracy has many different meanings. To Philani Zungu, a shackdweller in Durban, democracy means “accepting the unacceptable”.

People have different definitions of democracy. Some people say that democracy means freeing everyone to do whatever they want, regardless of rule or controls, with no instructions or boundaries, no importance to whether what is done is wrong or right.

Some people say democracy is the power of the state to decide things, acting in the interests of those who hold state power, its behaviour designed to suit their demands. In this vision, society is always in a position of compliance with orders from the state.

Some people say democracy is about rights. After the Freedom Charter was created, people came to know about their particular rights. The more they understood their rights, the freer they became. We never expected to be disappointed in turning these rights into reality. But we were.

Some people say democracy is for all of us - as society. They say it is a reason to improve and protect our lives. It is equality, whereby all should participate in building a better society and achieving a better life for all.

Let me share my experience of democracy since 1994 as a shackdweller in Durban.

I stayed with my mother, step- father and my younger brother in a small house, four by four meters. We were tightly squeezed up. The eThekwini Department of Housing decided that we could no longer build or extend shack structures. We had no choice. If we built, they would come and demolish the same day, or soon after.

I also felt the shame of women giving birth in the shacks. This they did after not attending clinic for a long time, because nurses shout at them, and when they are admitted, are not being attended to in good faith.

New to unemployment, my parents had no finance to support us; so I had to come from school and look for work, such as car washing and gardening.

I had to stop school at grade 9. When I was 20 years old, I needed to be independent, so I tried to build a house. It was demolished, and inside it was everything I owned. I was was assaulted by the land invasion unit, and had to be admitted to Addington Hospital. I was denied a right to housing.

This happened purely because it was already decided for me, in advance,without any redress or consultation, how I could live.

I was arrested for demonstrating against the lack of delivery, and lack of of consultation in 2005.

In 2006, I was arrested again. This time, I was being searched by a police officer on the way to a radio interview. I asked why I was being searched. It was a relevant question to ask, in case I might have some information to assist on a particular case. But the policeman replied that a black man is always a suspect. And then they arrested me. This time I was arrested for asking why I could not be treated like a human being, with rights, in a democracy. Once again I was assaulted, this time in the Sydenham Police station.

In 2007 I was arrested for not agreeing to be treated like an animal by the police. The police had come to my home and demanded to search me after I had built myself a new home so that I and my wife and child could move out of my mothers' house where I had lived for 16 years. I had nothing to hide. I had written a letter to the Land Invasions Unit and the Housing Department telling them that I was going to build my own house and why. I just asked the police why they wanted to search me and their response was arrest. Formal warnings were issued by the Sydenham police Station.

I can see that in the future, I'm expected to accept the unacceptable. That is the reality of democracy of the state and democracy of human rights in my experience. My only remaining hope for an acceptable future is hope in the democracy of society.

* Philani Zungu is Deputy President of Abahlali baseMjondolo, the shack dwellers' movement with members in almost 40 settlements in South Africa.

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

Underneath signs of economic progress in Tanzania, religious tensions persist, which threaten social cohesion and the political stability of the nation.

It was a case of petty arson turned media spectacle. Amidst the violence of the 2005 Zanzibar elections, the Janjaweed militia— loyalists to the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party—were charged with vandalizing and setting fire to a Kinuni residence by Civic United Front sympathizers. As cyberspace is a preferred platform for political protest throughout East Africa, one need look no further than the message boards of CUF activists to gauge the tone of this ideological duel. Speaking about the fire, one impassioned commentator writes, “Even the Holy Quran was not spared” beneath the image of a few charred pages.

Through a broader lens, coverage of the event serves the CUF in an effort to redress voting irregularities they claim have kept them from power since the introduction of multiparty democracy in the early 1990’s. Religious references add another layer of meaning. With Muslims accounting for 98% of Zanzibar’s population, this is not a typical case of Muslims vs. Non-Muslims. This is a case of secular Muslims against their radical brethren. Despite a shared creed, religion remains the symbolic fault line of Zanzibar’s political fallout expressed through CUF suspicions around of CCM pieties.

The religious dimension of politics in Zanzibar and throughout Tanzania cannot be overstated. A general survey of Tanzanian politics airs a religious subtext that, in the light of recent provocations, inches into the foreground, posing a significant challenge to the long-term stability of the nation. More specifically, the grievances not only of the CUF but of groups throughout the country are reaching a crescendo as many assert their rights as Muslims.

These tensions are not a recent apparition, but have grown steadily over decades. British colonial rule, in its support of Christian mission schools, impaired Muslim access to educational opportunities. Muslim apologists cite this as resulting not only in the under-representation of Muslims among Tanzanian’s educated elite, but also within the civil service and parastatal institutions. This process was cemented with the undoing political ties between Muslim organizations and the government under Nyerere. More recently, the participation of Tanzania in the US-led war on terror is interpreted as a means to suppress the political opposition by linking would-be competitors with terrorist activities.

While this substantiates perceived discrimination, there is much concrete evidence to support these suspicions. In 1992, the Tanzanian government acknowledged after many years the educational disparities between Christians and Muslims. Years later, only 20% of secondary school students in Dar es Salaam—a city where 80% of inhabitants claim Islam as their religion-- are Muslim.

The perceived marginalization of Muslims in Tanzanian can be juxtaposed with the enabling of other special interest groups. The multiplication in number and grandeur of churches in Dar Es Salaam occurs within the bounds of religious freedoms granted by the constitution. However, when read against the 2004 closure of the renowned al-Furquan Islamic Primary School and the suspension of the Islamic press, a confounding portrait of the “secular” state comes into focus. It is difficult to refute that a special brand of discrimination preoccupied with the habits of Muslims forms the crux of religious tension in Tanzania.

In the grand scheme, with macroeconomic indicators suggesting upward turn in the country’s fortunes, Tanzania appears to be doing well. While we can all look with pride on its successes, enthusiasm over recent advances in Tanzania must be read cautiously against religious tensions percolating beneath. The consolidation of economic gains in the long term will require serious efforts to redress persisting disparities.
Aaliyah Bilal

* 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

Western visual paradigms are obsessed with the body. Annwen Bates asserts that in the imagery of the “Black African other” and HIV/AIDS, this translates into a mixture of “ghoulish fasincation and horror when confronted with the body’s demise”

“There are only two kinds of people in Africa: those infected with HIV, and those affected by it.”
These are the words of dedication in a booklet entitled Positive Health, which is filled with practical hints and tips for living with HIV. The dedication continues, “If you are infected, this book is for you. If you are not infected, this book is for a friend, a loved one or a colleague.” Even within our own ranks, we have become a continent defined by a virus.

This definition of Africa and Africans worries me, a lot. Partially because the reality is that many people are both infected and affected by the virus, but also because HIV and AIDS are the reductionist buzz words that have settled on this continent. To define a whole continent and its people by a virus and a body degenerating, immune-depleting virus, recalls the whispers of Africa/ns ever lacking. There are many mental and physical health conditions affecting our communities: various depressions, cancers, organ malfunctions and failures, STDs, common colds and ‘flu that get out of hand. All our bodies are affected in sickness and health by poetics and politics. When last was there a global outcry over the limited availability of donor organs in Africa, or the exorbitant immuno-suppressant drugs necessary for transplants? (It is ironic that this goes out in the wake of the recent Tshabalala-Msimang debacle. Perhaps organ donations will become a hot topic.)

Maybe these medical conditions don’t make for good photo-journalism stories. In the discourse of Western visual paradigms, there is an affinity with the body. This affinity turns into ghoulish fascination and horror when confronted with the body’s demise. In imagery of the Black African Other in a state of decay (and our 21st century world is far from cutting the ties of these stereotypes), affinity and horror mingle into grand humanitarian urges. This, I propose, has given the HIV/AIDS ravaged body great visual – and media- currency in the West. Not to undermine the suffering of those who have died AIDS-related deaths or are still suffering. The medical reality is that with the compromised immune system, AIDS does spiral often curable conditions out of the control of modern doctors, drugs and solutions. And it is control of life itself that is the ultimate frontier.

The West may no longer be political colonial masters, but there is a territory they claim to know well: science, medicine and the ‘able-body’. It is not surprising that in visual images of Africa, the potential of science, medicine and the ‘able-body’ seldom feature. The image canon of Africa as lacking still fuels Afro-pessimism, in the West and elsewhere. Over the last three years, I have collected posters, brochures, comic books, leaflets – any printed public health material to do with HIV/AIDS in my home corner of the world, Cape Town. I have come developed an interpretation that South African organisations are attempting to tackle what one might suggest as a ‘counter-narrative’ of the HIV/AIDS situation. My point of departure is the poetics of the situation: how the hopes, realities, concerns and underpinning ideologies spill into public health material (both from government and NGOs) in language and particularly images. It is particularly interesting to look at this material in it's visualising of action: informing, preventing, supporting and acting.

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) provides a fine case study of an organisation that visualizes this counter-discourse of Afro-empowerment. Moreover, this visualization is intentional. Like any brand-name campaign, they have recognised the value of a good image. A picture is worth a 1000 words, if not a $1000. On their website they acknowledge the power of visual images in furthering their cause by offering free use of their images, as long as the organisation is acknowledged. This is (South) Africans doing it for themselves. Such is one of the narratives around the materiality of the wider HIV/AIDS situation in South Africa. Indeed, there are more; some hopeful, others heartbreaking.

Visual representations of (South) Africans active in the face of a destructive virus delineate a social psyche trying to move forward. It is not a luxurious or distracting social dream, but part of a very real and hopeful social truth. Like the truth of fighting for political freedom that fuelled so many movements on our continent.

What the HIV/AIDS situation has brought to our attention is the politics of health- and consequently, the very politics of life. In our increasingly visual age, we reflect these politics in the subtle meanings invested in images. For a long time, post-colonial studies have lobbied for previously silenced voices to be heard. I propose the image as the new voice, so that it might be said: there are two types of people in Africa, those who are represented by others and those who choose how they represent themselves.

* Annwen E. Bates is a visiting lecturer in Art History and Visual Culture at Rhodes University. She holds degrees from UCT and the University of Oxford. With regret she writes above about ‘Africa’ as a cohesive whole, a strategy she often criticises, and is open to invitations that will guide more

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

Koni Benson from the International Labour Research and Information Group in Cape Town argues that contrary to stereotypes in the South African mainstream media, there is solidarity and a common agenda between South Africa's poor, and asylum seekers and migrants in the region, notably from Zimbabwe, and amongst women's groups, with roots in the liberation struggles.

The dominant story in the mainstream press in South Africa is that the South African poor act out of desperation when migrants and refugees are violently attacked. That the 'problem' is competition for scarce resources and that SA must first get its house in order, and solve the poverty crisis; and then desperate South Africans will stop lashing out at desperate asylum seekers.

This story of displaced frustration and resentment does not fairly represent the range of opinions, and even more importantly, the organised actions of the poor and working class in South Africa who invest precious resources in directly supporting refugees and migrants, especially in the case of Zimbabweans right now.

In fact, new research is showing that while xenaphobia is rampant and often played out amongst the poor in South Africa, it is also precisely some of the poorest South Africans living in shack and townships who have been most sympathetic to the struggles of Zimbabweans worst affected by the current crisis.

South African movements of the working class have mobilised around the politics playing out in Zimbabwe right now. In fact, the issue of Zimbabwe has captured the attention and has been prioritised by grassroots activists in South Africa. These are groups of people, many of whom are unemployed, and struggle with the challenge of solidarity within the same neighborhoods and the same city to fight for basic survival like water, housing, electricity, and health care. Yet they are taking a stand about Zimbabwe. Why?

This support is not only forthcoming out of sympathy for the hardships inflicted by the power wars of Mugabe and the like, but rooted in the belief that, like during repression of activism during the liberation struggle in South Africa, international solidarity is decisive right now for Zimbabweans who are resisting an 'elite transition', which will not change the structures of inequality in any meaningful way for the poor.

At the recent 'Towards an Africa Without Borders' conference in Durban, one Bulawayo debt cancellation activist argued for solidarity between the poor in South Africa and in Zimbabwe, because our interests are in the same pot. South African activists at the conference likewise argued that 'we see our problem as rooted in poverty and elite deal-making, which sees no international boundaries'. In this view, President Mbeki and his SADC counterparts will not act against the Mugabe regime in defence of the Zimbabwean people. Rather, they are angling for an 'elite transition' similar to the ones in South Africa, Namibia, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where those who have the backing of the rich and powerful, work out among themselves how to divide the power and money. From this perspective, the majority of the people are excluded from the process, and, inevitably, the resulting system leaves them at the mercy of the oppressors and exploiters and trapped in the associated poverty and social crises.

With this motivation to mobilise, over 2,500 people come out in protest in Durban to criticise the Mugabe regime. Abahlali baseMjondolo has hosted members of the Combined Harare Residents' Association (CHRA) in shack settlements, worked with the Zimbabwe Crisis Coalition, and written comparisons of Murambatsvina and shack demolitions in South Africa. In Cape Town, People Against Suppression and Oppression of People (PASSOP) have held regular pickets. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the Social Movements Indaba have appointed Africa desks to better address the issues. These movements have an impressively clearly defined 'enemy', and it is not displaced Zimbabweans crossing the border in search of survival.

In Cape Town, for example, women from a range of grassroots organisations from seasonal women farm workers, to refugee women, to anti-eviction activists, to unionists, to wellness centre organisers came together after the violent attacks on women activists in Zimbabwe in March, to analyse the relationship between state and domestic violence and speak out on the way elite politics were being played out across women's bodies.

They argued: 'We see no distinction between domestic and state violence, or between Zimbabwe and South Africa when it comes to responding to the attack on our sisters... the violent the victimisation of everyday women through demolition of houses and businesses in Operation Murambatsvina, and as political and feminist activists has a specific dynamic where women are hardest hit, and attacked on multiple levels at once.'

They collectively wrote a solidarity statement and in April held a picket on the days the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) convened a stay away. 'We write this statement to acknowledge and listen to the pain of Zimbabwean women and to support their quest to become full citizens which we in South Africa are also fighting for. We recognise that in the context of poverty, displacement, violence, and exclusion state oppression adds another unbearable layer to women's oppression which we are determined to fight together...we in South Africa know too well the gap between the hard earned theories set out in law, and the reality of women's access to justice in practice.'

Most interestingly these women welcomed Zimbabweans into South Africa, arguing: 'We recognise the national boundary between us and Zimbabwe as a colonial creation and just as we were welcomed into Zimbabwe during our struggle, we welcome Zimbabweans fighting for a free Zimbabwe into South Africa.'

These organisations of the working class may be small and weak but they are adamant to support Zimbabweans worst affected by the ongoing power struggles. Their perspectives and actions are being overlooked in official talk about Zimbabwean refugees 'flooding' across the border and the rhetorical questions of how South Africa can possibly help because of poverty issues 'at home'. In fact, the South African poor are arguing that the meltdown in Zimbabwe shares its roots with the same forces rapidly entrenching poverty across the region. It is precisely this support by struggling South Africans for Zimbabweans attempting to organise for an alternative Zimbabwe that is being ignored in the press. They are falling further and further off the radar of the South African imagination in which the poor are continually painted as inherently xenophobic.

* Koni Benson is a researcher at the International Labour Research and Information Group in Cape Town.

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

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/authors/Grada_Kilomba.jpgGrada Kilomba analyses hierachies of race and gender with respect to the privileging of authority, scholarship and knowledge production. 'Academia is not a neutral location', she says. 'This is a white space where Black people have been denied the privilege to speak... It is not that we have not been speaking; but rather that our voices - through a system of racism - have been systematically disqualified as valid knowledge; or else represented by whites, who ironically become the 'experts' of ourselves. Either way, we are locked in a violent colonial hierarchy.' Derived from her experiences of working in Germany, her comments are widely applicable to debates about academia, identity, power, the centre and the periphery.

Every semester, on the very first day of my seminar, I play a quiz with my students. We first count how many people are in the room in order to see how many of us will be able to answer the questions. I start by asking very simple questions such as: What was the Berlin Conference of 1884-5? Which African countries were colonised by Germany? How many years did German colonisation over the continent of Africa last? I conclude with more specific questions, such as: Who was Queen Nzinga and which role did she play on the struggle against European colonisation? Who wrote Black Skin, White Masks? Who was May Ayim?

Not surprisingly, most of the white students are unable to answer the questions, while the Black students answer most of them successfully. Suddenly, those whose knowledge has been hidden, become visible, while those who have been over-represented become unnoticed and invisible. Those who are usually silent start speaking, while those who always speak become silent. Silent, not because they cannot articulate their voices or tongues, but rather because they do not possess the knowledge.

This exercise makes us understand how the concepts of knowledge and the idea of what scholarship or science is, are intrinsically linked with power and racial authority. What knowledge is being acknowledged as such? And what knowledge is not? Who is acknowledged to have the knowledge? And who is not? And who can teach knowledge? And who cannot? Who is at the centre? And who remains outside, at the margins? So, who can indeed speak in the academy? And who cannot?

Academia is not a neutral location. This is a white space where Black people have been denied the privilege to speak. Historically, this is a space where we have been voiceless, a space we could not enter. Here, white scholars have developed theoretical discourses which formally constructed us as the inferior Other - placing Africans in absolute subordination to the white subject. We were made the objects, but we have rarely been the subjects.

This position of object, which we commonly occupy, does not indicate a lack of resistance or of interest, as it is commonly believed, but rather a lack of access to representation by Blacks themselves. It is not that we have not been speaking; but rather that our voices - through a system of racism - have been systematically disqualified as valid knowledge; or else represented by whites, who ironically become the 'experts' of ourselves. Either way, we are locked in a violent colonial hierarchy.

As a scholar, for instance, I am commonly told that my work is very interesting, but not really scientific; a remark which illustrates the colonial hierarchy in which Black scholars reside: 'you have a very subjective perspective'; 'very personal'; 'very emotional'; 'very specific'; 'are these objective facts?'.

Within such masterful descriptions, the discourses and perspectives of Black scholars remain always at the margins - as deviating, while white discourses occupy the centre. When they speak it is scientific, when we speak it is unscientific.

Universal/specific; objective/subjective; neutral/personal; rational/emotional; impartial/partial; they have facts, we have opinions; they have knowledge, we have experiences.

These are not simple semantic categorisations. They own a dimension of power which maintains hierarchical positions and upheld white supremacy. We are not dealing here with a 'peaceful coexistence' of words, but rather with a violent hierarchy, which defines who can speak.

We have been speaking and producing independent knowledge for a long time. But when groups are unequal in power, they are also unequal in their access to the resources which are necessary to implement their own voices (Collins 2000). And because we lack control over such structures, the articulation of our own perspective outside the group becomes extremely difficult, if not unrealisable.

Moreover, the structures of knowledge validation, which define what true and valid scholarship is, are controlled by white scholars. So, as long as Black people and 'people of colour' are denied positions of authority and command within the academy, the idea of what science and scholarship are, prevails, of course, intact - it remains an exclusive and unquestionable 'property' of whiteness.

So, it is not an objective scientific truth that we encounter in the academy, but rather the result of unequal power race relations, which define what counts as true and in whom to believe. The themes, the paradigms and the methodologies of traditional scholarship - the so called epistemology - reflect nothing but the specific political interests of a white colonial patriarchal society.

Epistemology derives from the Greek words: episteme=knowledge and logos=science, the science of the acquisition of knowledge. It determines, therefore, which questions merit being questioned (themes), how to analyse and explain a phenomenon (paradigms), and how to conduct research to produce knowledge (methods). And in this sense, it defines not only what true scholarship is; but also in whom to believe and trust, because who is defining which questions merit being asked? And who is asking them? Furthermore to whom are the answers directed?

Interesting, but unscientific, but subjective, but personal, but emotional and partial, 'you do over-interpret', said a colleague, 'you must think you are the queen of interpretation'. Such comments, reveal that the endless need to control the Black subject's voice and the longing to govern and to command how we approach and interpret reality. By using these remarks, the white subject is assured of her sense of power, and of her own authority over a group which she is labelling as 'less knowledgeable.'

The last comment, in particular, gives two powerful insights. The first is a form of warning which describes the standpoint of the Black woman as a distortion of the truth, expressed here through the word 'over-interpretation'. The female colleague was warning me that I am over-reading, beyond the norms of traditional epistemology, and therefore, that I am producing invalid knowledge. It seems to me that this idea of over-interpretation addresses the thought that the oppressed is seeing 'something' which should not be seen, and is about to say 'something' which should not be said. 'Something' which should be kept quiet, as a secret - like the secrets of colonialism that most of my students could not answer.

Curiously, in feminist discourses as well, men try to irrationalise the thinking of women, as if such feminist interpretations were nothing but a fabrication of the reality, an illusion, maybe even a female hallucination.

Within this constellation it is the white woman who irrationalises my thinking, and by doing so, she defines to the Black woman what 'real' scholarship is, and how it should be expressed. This reveals how complex the intersection between gender, 'race' and colonial power is, and how the idea of a unitary category of women based on the assumption of an absolute patriarchy which divides the world into powerful men and subordinate women is problematic: for it neglects white women's role as oppressors and the reality of oppression experienced by both Black women and Black men.

In the second instance, she speaks then of hierarchical places, of a queen she fantasises I want to be, but who I cannot become. The queen is an interesting metaphor. It is a metaphor for power. A metaphor, also of the idea that certain bodies belong to certain places: a queen or a king naturally belong to the palace of knowledge, but not the plebeians; they can never achieve the position of royalty. They are sealed in their own subordinate bodies. Such a demarcation of spaces introduces a dynamic in which Blackness signifies 'being outside place'. I am told to be outside my place, for I cannot be the queen, only the plebeian. My body is improper. Within racism, Black bodies are constructed as improper bodies 'outside place', while white bodies are always proper, they are bodies at home, 'in place', bodies which belong. The same way in academia, in which Black scholars are persistently invited to return to 'their place', at the margins, where our bodies are at home and where they are proper.

Such dynamic reveals how dominant scholarship performs a fruitful combination of power, intimidation and control, which succeeds in silencing oppressed voices. Fruitful indeed, for after this last episode I remember I stopped writing for more than a month. I became temporarily voiceless. I had a 'white-out', was waiting for a Black-in.

Speaking about these positions of marginality evokes, of course, pain. They are reminders of the places we can hardly enter. The places we never 'arrive' at or 'can't stay' in (Hooks 1990). Such pain must be spoken and theorised. It must have a place within discourse, because we are not dealing here with 'private information'. Such apparent 'private information' is not private at all. These are not personal stories or intimate complains; but rather, accounts of racism. They mirror the historical, political and social realities of 'race relations' within the academic spaces, and should be articulated in both theory and methodology.

Such experiences confirm that academia is not a neutral space. It is not only a space of knowledge and wisdom, of science and scholarship, but also a space of violence. This violence remains as long as we remain outside at the margins, while white others are inside the centre, speaking in our own name. That is the essence of the violence - the violence of always being placed as the white subject's 'Other', who defines how to speak.

Therefore, I call for an epistemology which includes the personal, the subjective and the emotional. For as I mentioned earlier, there is no neutral, no objective no rational. Only the results of specific political interests of a white colonial patriarchy. Besides, once we find our voices, as Black writers, it is impossible to speak or to write disembodied of such emotions, of such passion or pain, because we are transgressing sorrowful boundaries. We are moving from the margins to the centre.

This is in remembrance of our ancestors.

Grada Kilomba is writer, researcher and psychologist from the West African Islands of Sao Tomé e Príncipe. Having studied clinical psychology and psychoanalysis in Lisbon, she is living and working in Berlin, Germany where she researches and writes within the area of cultural studies.

She is a guest lecturer at the Berlin Humboldt and Freie universities in the gender studies and psychology departments respectively. In her research and teaching, she focuses predominantly on psychoanalysis, slavery, colonialism, trauma and memory.

This article is based on a presentation she gave at an AfricAvenir dialogue-forum in May 2007 at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin.

References:

Collins, Patricia Hill (2000), Black Feminist Thought. Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge.
Hooks, Bell (1990), Yearning. Race, Gender and Cultural Politics. Boston: South End Press.

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

Leslie Mullin reports from Haiti, a 'deeply African country', where, after Aristide, there is 'a deliberate and violent attempt to reverse a truly democratic effort that stood firmly for the poor majority...a violent, brutal counter-insurgency, a counter-revolution', blame for which she lays at the door of the US and the UN.

The experience of travelling to Haiti is amazing, because Haiti is so deeply an African country and people. The first time I was there, three years ago, I was astounded by the sights and sounds of Haiti which are so resonant of West Africa: the market women; the young girls riding donkeys in the countryside, huge baskets on their heads; the vigour of massive demonstrations - the pounding rhythmic feet, visions of Soweto. Everywhere in the darkened poor city neighbourhoods at night, without electricity, in their cinderblock houses stacked on top of each other rising up hillsides, people sing, blast radio music, play instruments.

It is my privilege to have travelled on two trips to Haiti with fiercely political Black activists who have embraced Haiti as a cherished symbol of liberation to African people everywhere. They evoke deep bonds of shared experience among African people of Haiti and America, who came on the same slave ships. They point out that the same people who are killing and oppressing Haiti's people left Black people to die by the thousands in New Orleans after Katrina, and now attempt to steal their land. Haiti's grassroots movement recognises this powerful bond among the two peoples. Everywhere we spoke about the San Francisco 8 or about New Orleans. Lavalas activists sent a message of solidarity.

It is taking things out of context to try to talk about what exists in Haiti now without acknowledging what was achieved by Haiti's grassroots movement under Aristide. Because it is not just that things are bad right now, but that what is happening is a deliberate and violent attempt to reverse a truly democratic effort that stood firmly for the poor majority. It is a violent, brutal counter-insurgency, a counter-revolution.

For a brief moment, after decades of dictatorship and a long history of resistance, Haitians achieved the dream of social justice and freedom. The poor had power. During that brief period of time, there were no boat people leaving Haiti. During that brief period of time, massive projects were undertaken to support the poor. The goal was to move Haiti's people from misery to poverty with dignity. Beautiful public parks were built in poor neighbourhoods; schools, health clinics, a medical school; micro-loans to market women and literacy projects flourished. During that brief period, poor street kids swam in the presidential pool; Haitian legal teams held Truth Commissions, took on the tonton macoutes. Death squads who had terrorised, tortured and killed thousands, were prosecuted and imprisoned.

This is why Aristide is so revered in Haiti. As one Lavalas activist put it, Aristide never gave up; he stood up to the Western powers, and fought for those who cannot speak. He is a symbol of hope and democracy for Haitians.

What we found in Haiti now are activists struggling everywhere to resist the renewed assaults on Haiti's poor, to move in a period once again dominated by foreign guns, foreign economic clout and terrorism. 24,000 march on Aristide's birthday; a transport workers' strike blocks roads and shuts down traffic throughout the country. 50 grassroots activists, the elderly women in dresses and straw hats, mark the 92nd anniversary of the 1915 US invasion in a spirited protest at UN headquarters. We are there to see the dozens of heavily armed UN troops aligned against them, ensignia marking their countries of origin - Sri Lanka, Jordan, Philippines, France, Bolivia, and among the unmarked Westerners, surely Americans. The Haitians are undeterred - chanting, yelling, dancing, singing, photo displays of UN and other coup victims prominent.

Why must the poor be shot down by UN troops in Cite Soleil? Why are the market women beaten, even killed, by petty bureaucrats and police thugs to drive them off the streets, why burn the markets and deprive them of their meagre income? Why must armed thugs storm into a school of 700 poor children, headed by Lavalas activists, breaking the blackboards, desks, drinking fountain - the few artifacts needed to teach those who could not afford $100 a month to go to school? Why must their teacher be beaten? Why must prisons be filled with those who fight for democracy, starving on diets of foreign white rice, deprived of clean water to drink, sleeping in shifts in stifling cells built for 20, housing 80? Why must life be nearly impossible - transport workers up against heavy license fees and fuel costs, telephone workers laid off? Why?

Because Haitians are a deeply political people; they have tasted democracy; they insist on their human rights. Western powers cannot enforce their elite, global agenda on Haiti unless they can contain this massive popular movement and destroy its righteous vision.

Here is what Randall Robinson says in his new book, An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, from Revolution to the Kidnapping of President:

'What was it, though, about Haiti that made the place so different from other Caribbean places, so especially combustible? What property, what special character did it have that would incite the rich white West to engage a poor, largely black nation with such glowering, unrelenting hostility...The Haitians knew their history. The Haitian peasants may have had few material possessions to speak of, but they knew what their slave ancestors had done to the French, to the English and to the Spanish. They also knew what they had done to liberate all of Latin America, as well as themselves. No matter how poor they were, the Haitians knew these things about themselves, things that made them special to themselves, that made them resilient and independent, that gave them great art, that unsettled, even now, those nations the peasants' slave ancestors had once soundly thrashed.'

US 'low-intensity' warfare is so termed, not because it is mild, but because it comes under the radar of the American people, as does mostly anything having to do with Haiti. What did the UN come to do in Haiti? As one Lavalas activist put it, they came to make the country go backwards. They spend $500 million a year to maintain UN troops - money that could provide water, schools, healthcare for Haiti but instead the UN does nothing for Haiti.

What do the Haitian people want from us? They want our solidarity. They want us to expose and mobilise people against what is happening. They want us to demand the UN mandate in Haiti not be renewed; to support the return of Aristide to Haiti; oppose privatisation; to insist on freedom for Haiti's political prisoners.

* Leslie Mullin is a long-time San Francisco-Bay Area human rights activist who returned in late July 2007 from a week-long Haiti Action Committee delegation to visit Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. The delegation met with organisers across the breadth of Haiti's grassroots movement.

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

Betty Maragori reports on her experiences of visiting the US. The big thing that she experienced for the first time in the US was hard wired virtual segregation. There were no signs designating white and black zones, but the reality of segregation was visible to an untainted African eye.

I went to study in the USA in the 1980s in the time of what was to me the inexplicable presidency of Ronald Reagan. It was an enigmatic presidency for me for two reasons. First, at my university and amongst the mostly left leaning circle that I was to hang out with it, I never found anybody who had voted for him. The second reason was that for me Reagan was clearly challenged on the intellectual front. I could not believe that a nation with all that maendeleo or development, we in Africa so covet, would tolerate some folksy guy who could have come from a darker and more ignorant century. Certainly the cool left leaning students at C University had no time for Reagan.

In my two years in the US the only person I found who would publicly admit to voting for Reagan was a 65 year old black man, in Albany, Georgia, the father-in-law of my cousin. Pops, as he was called by his children, in that quintessential African American manner would routinely proclaim his love for President Reagan, loudly to people, in the presence of his children. Pops broke two rules I had come to accept about voting patterns in America, first that black people were not members of the republican party and second that they always voted for the Democratic party. To this day I am still left with the question, “So how did President Ronald Reagan win with such landside victories twice, if only one black man in the South voted for him”?

America’s Presidents and War

Eight months into America, I had imbibed the paranoid conspiracy theories of my Marxist circle and lost my African ease. Late one night I turned on the television to find the President of the United States of America, Ronald Reagan ranting and raving in the most alarming manner about the “evil empire”. He was referring to the former Soviet Union, America’s then mortal enemy country of cold war days. And you thought “Axis of evil” was original? Do you see a pattern here? This is clearly the language of America’s dumb dumb presidents.

Twenty years later as I watched the elections that brought another dumb, dumb unfathomable US president into power, George Bush Jr., I realized that my vantage point with its emphasis on linear “development” or maedeleo had warped my thinking. Until that instant, I had thought development also brings highly enlightened people who would not lie about the presence of weapons of mass destruction to bring pain and destruction to innocent women and children many miles away in another country. For what, for oil, (I can’t believe that), to get revenge for daddy, (that’s too weird) to get their way (what way, the American way in Baghdad?) To be right about a perspective? (Probably the only right answer outrageous as it may seem).

For us in this part of the world, things like technological advancement, elimination of hunger, industrial development, foreign vacations, microwaves, one doctor per 100 people, four lane highways, per capita income of US$ 30,000, a new car every two years, pensions, social security, (pick your top ten) all of which come with development also lead to progress, to maendeleo. And ultimately to enlightment, the cherry on top of the development cake. We think, surely in America or Europe there must be such enlightenment that people, ordinary people everywhere must have become immune from the dictates of the baser human urgings like fear, malice, jealousy, racism, intolerance, corruption, violence, the need to declare war for dubious reasons, religious fanaticism, (again pick your top ten).

I now realize of course that human beings may have made huge technological advances such that they can send men to the moon or invent the internet and they will still rely on some form of magic, juju or alchemy for managing their lives. The advances have not created certainty. In fact they create even more uncertainty and the threat of a backlash which can take people deeper into the bosom of their juju side.

Impressions of the American South

I went to visit my cousin’s in-laws in the American south in Albany, Georgia for a week and discovered I could not hear so I took to endless grinning and nodding my head. I left those people thinking I was simple in the head. But I couldn’t understand them and I soon got tired of asking them to repeat themselves so I withdrew into an African grin of protection and lost my reputation in the process. They speak English in the south so it wasn’t the language and there was still a language barrier. The long dragged words that go on seemingly forever lost my short attention span. I found that my mind had wondered before the end so I never heard the finish. Caaaahhhn aaaaah speeeek to Eyyyyd Coooook is what I thought I overheard a woman in a bank asking. It was shocking to hear, like somebody caricaturing an American. I tried not to laugh and asked my cousin-in-law what the woman was saying. And she translated, “Can I speak to Ed Cook?”

Virtual Segregation in the American South

The other big thing that I experienced for the first time in the US was hard wired virtual segregation. There were no signs designating white and black zones any where in Albany, Georgia that I saw. Indeed on the surface all seemed well in race terms. But even my Republican cousin’s father-in-law made sure he hid his de-segregated business to keep up appearances. He was in business with a white person because it was a good business cover that allowed him to get white business. The trick was he had to keep his partnership hidden so that he could get and keep that lucrative white business. He passed himself off as a worker in the business. I know the logic is challenging.

The two groups occupied the same physical spaces, they ate at the same restaurants, entered all buildings and transport from the same entrance, sat anywhere on buses. And yet my stranger’s eyes quickly saw through this façade and identified the fault lines of virtual segregation. The new apartheid still did not allow the twain to commune freely even as they congregated. As soon as I stepped into those spaces I could feel the barriers. There was a sense of forced togetherness. If the gap between the two races could speak it would say, “OK we have to share this same physical space but we are not giving up our right to be separate. They can take away our right to segregation but they can’t take segregation out of our hearts.” It was in what was missing in the interaction between black and white. There was no ease, peacefulness, insignificance, silence, freedom, love.

What existed in that gap was tension, a hateful watchfulness and worst of all an embryonic violence that was always ready to grow into fully-fledged adulthood. You could feel it. This violence ebbed and flowed and hung around like a dark threat. When I was amongst black people everyone was relaxed. They are a very laid back people, but in the presence of a group of white people in the segregated spaces there was an all round tensing alertness, an expectation of something unpleasant.

Black and white people occupied those common public spaces differently too. White people seemed to strut and begrudge black people’s presence. It was white people who still seemed to be the bona-fide owners of the space. Black people were the interlopers, but they had no choice, they had to occupy the spaces, otherwise they risked recreating segregation by their absence. But the sense of threat in those spaces implied that Black people occupied those spaces under peril. Desegregation had been about pulling down the limits placed on the existence of black people. It was not white people who were fighting to sit in the seats reserved for black people on buses or to use the black only entrances. Desegregation demands that white people cede space and privileges that define their superior place in society.

Race in the North

My experience of race in the American north was not one of absence rather the north was racially clandestine, a state I much preferred. It gave me freedom to spend many more hours in a day being just another human being. The colour of my skin was not a constant conscious presence foisted on me by open racial hostility. Thank you but I am not black, I really am just a person. I am an African living in Africa so although I have many identifies being black is not my premier identity. That is the advantage of growing up black in Africa.

When I brought this to the attention of my southern black relatives-in-law they made that claim that always bemuses me. “I like the south they said, the boundaries are clear people here are not hypocrites like in the north. I know where I stand here with them.”

“I know where I stand?” What the hell is that? What I understand from that telling statement is an admission on the part of black people that it’s OK for there to be limits on a black person’s existence. I never heard a white person say things like that, only black people. For a person simply because of the hue of their skin to know where he or she could go and what he or she could expect from their world? In other words there was a limit of possibility which means that there was no possibility at all. And it was fine for white people to have veto powers over the dreams, scope of existence of black people. You can dream so much and no more. You can aspire so far and no further, these are the limits on your movement. And black people accepted this proscribed world and were happy that they knew their place in this controlled world. That world was a banned dream which they passed onto their children and this was done with the active connivance of black people. To know my place?

I understand how dangerous the world in which black people live in the south. I imbibed a small part of that fear many thousands of miles away from movies and media reports of the Ku Klux Klan. So much so that I arrived in America terrified. For four days I refused to leave my sister’s apartment because I was sure the Ku Klux Klan were going to gun me down. Living with that dreadful history can skew any one and the wonder is that black people have lived to step out of the shadow of such terrors and nightmares. The journey has had its negative impact that sometimes their ability to see beyond the boundaries of their terror has been compromised. A person exposed to these negatives on a daily basis for most of their life will loose their perspective. Such an environment can beat down the most-thick skinned, sanguine, optimist man and woman and create an oversensitive “defensive human” who can no longer see the forest for the trees and perceives racism under every bush. Such an environment can leave people severely embattled and debilitated. Centuries of actual and virtual lynching that black people are subjected to in the USA will do that.

This is where Africans can lend their sight when the dreams have been extinguished. We have the same racial reality because our existence in the world gives us the same reference points. Yet we live in our own homes largely amongst our own people. We are not vested in only a racial reality. Our human reality predominates. We can fly above “black person negatives” and separate fact from damaging fiction.

* Betty Wamalwa Muragori is especially interested in how Africans are constructing new identities as they redefine their place in the world. She believes in the power of words. She has a BSc degree from the University of Nairobi and MA in Environment from Clark University in Worcester Mass. USA. Currently Betty works for an international conservation organization in Nairobi, Kenya

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

Once upon a time there was a country which had only one restaurant. All the people in that country had to eat in that restaurant, so thousands went there every day.

But the service was a bit of a problem. People who were hungry had to wait for hours, and in some cases even days. There did not seem to be an order to things. Some people who arrived late got service quicker, a few others got particularly big plates of food, but most suffered more or less silently.

They did not dare to ask questions of the waiters or managers. Experience showed that it did not help. Those who had asked in the past had been told ‘be patient’, ‘don’t you see I am busy’, ‘come back tomorrow’ or ‘we have lost your order’. Others were told ‘come back tomorrow’ or ‘who are you anyway?’ The customers paid ‘a little something’ to expedite the order, or waited, take your pick.

When the food did arrive, often it wasn’t very good. It wasn’t very balanced or healthy, at times it wasn’t clean, and usually it wasn’t enough—especially in the second half of the month because the restaurant had ‘run out of supplies’. You had to pay anyway, though some waiters charged a little less if you agreed not to demand a receipt, right underneath posters exclaiming ‘this is a corruption free zone’.

One day the restaurant owner passed by, and became quite alarmed. He called a meeting of all the managers and told them things had to change. The managers were to remember that ‘customers were king and queen’. Service had to improve, and there was to be more accountability. New rules were issued, including a code of ethics for managers, a manual for waiters. There was even a ‘client service charter’, that explained the restaurant values and its obligations to customers, though most of the customers never got to see it.

Afterwards, there was some difference. Several managers worked really hard to make their part better organized than before. Some of the waiters were more alert and kind to customers, though they could do little about delays in the kitchen or the mosquitoes. But for many others it was business as usual. Another problem was that a lot of the managers and a few waiters always seemed to be away for capacity building seminars. They would come back with lots of files and papers on improving restaurant services, but kept the little brown envelopes for themselves.

The funny thing was that it did not seem to matter if you treated the customers well or did your job right. The incompetent and uncaring staff always got their salaries, and were not held accountable. The hard working ones got the same as the rest, and no special recognition. If anything, the other staff ridiculed them, saying ‘you think you are better than us’, ‘you think you are smarter’, etc… and so after a while even they stopped taking initiative, asking questions or going out of their way to make the restaurant work better.

The newspapers kept reporting about the continued problems at the restaurant, so everyone was aware. This time a team of expert consultants was hired, with funding from donors. They interviewed a lot of the customers and managers and wrote large reports. A strategy was developed with a Swahili name to show it was locally owned – MKUKUHUMGA (Mkakati wa Kuboresha Uwajibikaji na Huduma za Mgahawa) More capacity building seminars were done. Managers went abroad on exchange visits. Codes of ethics, manuals and client service charters were all updated.

But life for most of the restaurant customers did not improve. The food was mostly poor and the service bad. And despite all the tough talk about accountability, the rules were rarely enforced. The reality was that it did not matter whether the managers or waiters did their job or not. There appeared to be no consequences; at most a few of the really bad ones were transferred.

All this puzzled the frogs, who lived at the edge of the restaurant, immensely. “Instead of all the rules, guidelines and seminars”, observed one frog, “why don’t they just get their incentives right – reward those who do well and sanction those who don’t?” “Moreover,” quipped another frog, “and why not give power to the customers to hold the staff accountable?”

* Rakesh Rajani is the executive director at HakiElimu (http://www.hakielimu.org/)

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

Politics in Ethiopia, region and in Africa has been, for the most part, destructive since the post-war period, writes Mammo Muchie. There is a need to find an alternative system, where conflict is managed through debate and conversation, rather than by lethal or non-lethal fighting.

‘Since anyone who criticises the entire systems of others has a duty to replace them with an alternative of his own, containing principles that provide a more felicitous support for the totality of effects to be explained, we shall extend our meditation further in order to fulfil this duty.’ – G. Vico, La Scienza Nuova in 1725, quoted in Reinert, E., 2007, How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor, London: Constable and Robinson.

The success of traditional mediation emerges from rules of engagement that are not predicated on conceptual frameworks of punishment or reward, winning or losing, right or wrong, justice or injustice. Mediation must not free one party and censure the other, make one the ‘hero’ and the other the ‘saint’.

The main concept of traditional mediation is to bring the parties from a state of conflict into normal communication. It asks them to refrain from pursuing grievances through threats, legal action, courts, violence and imprisonments. It brings opposing parties to negotiate, accept the principle of dialogue and find workable settlements.

In some cases, mediation can be so successful that enemies turn into partners. But mostly it is a case of ‘antem tew, antem tew’, meaning ‘stop pushing your maximum demand on the case and settle for the average or the golden mean’.

In a country such as Ethiopia, where litigation is plentiful, poverty and deprivation encourage conflict, and there are insufficient judges and courts, nearly 90 per cent of disputes fall into the domain of traditional mediation. The creation of justice requires more than formal courts. The context of Ethiopia requires that traditional mediation remains critical to redress justice and conflict resolution.

There is thus a lot to be gained from our tried and tested methods of traditional mediation and to develop it by providing the resources to reach and expand the justice sphere in our society. In fact, this alternative method may be the most appropriate mechanism for dealing with the intractable difficulties that our country, region and continent have been suffering from the times of the colonial encounter.

Let us be bold enough to suggest traditional mediation as an alternative to war, violence, endless court wrangling, imitated legal ideas and discourses from Euro-American jurisprudence that may not work in the difficult contexts of our largely peasant societies and peoples.

Perhaps intractable problems that have defied solution, such as the chaos in Somalia, could be resolved, not by mounting an invasion to support despicable warlords, but by supporting traditional mediation amongst peoples.

The problems between Eritrea and Ethiopia cannot go on with each side using refugees as political opposition; but by engaging in mediation, including on the vital issue of why such an unjust settlement was reached in 1991 that denied Ethiopia its historic right of access to the sea.

Settling major political disputes through mediation The submission of the recently detained Ethiopian prisoners of conscience and the government to a traditional mediation process sends a positive signal: left to ourselves, we Ethiopians are capable of dealing with any problem, however intractable, by using local imagination, local arbitration tools and local ideas of fair-dealing and fair play. This is a generous way of reading the outcome.

Beyond the politics and propaganda of the government, the settlement between the prisoners and the government crystallised something new and original in the culture. Regardless of how the regime wishes to capitalise on the release of the prisoners, who were threatened by its courts with the death penalty and life sentences, we ask: does its action betray that it may have broken from fast-held and worn-out politics of ‘my way or the highway’?

The only way we can admit proof that the Meles [Zenawi] government is prepared to see traditional mediation as an alternative model of conflict resolution is if – and only if – they commit themselves beyond the contested episode of the prisoners of conscience. The government will only demonstrate acceptance of traditional mediation when it has conceptualised and committed itself to choosing traditional mediation as an alternative and critical method for broad and comprehensive national reconciliation and the resolution of all major conflicts. If they are not prepared to use traditional mediation with the other problems in the country and region, it is fair to conclude they have no commitment to the approach.

While it is an encouraging that the government might consider traditional mediation as an alternative to perpetual conflict, it is not easy to ascertain whether it is converted to this model for reasons of conviction or tactics. From the way it behaved before and after the release of the prisoners of conscience, the regime seems eager to capitalise on the fact that it had to play politics, using the carrot of pardon, after wilfully administering the stick of court punishment.

The prisoners of conscience never recognised the court or the charges against them. Thus entering into traditional mediation, of which some had openly advocated the value for a long time, has been natural to them.

As the government insisted all along that the case against the prisoners of conscience was a ’crime’ that only the courts can settle, its submission to traditional mediation is a real climb-down from such a public position. The government stuck to ’the political is the legal and criminal position’. But eventually it gave in to mediation. By its action, if not by its words, it bolstered the traditional mediation system of conflict resolution; in fact doing exactly the opposite of what the government seemed to want to achieve through the courts.

The acceptance in principle of a mediated model of conflict resolution represents a new flexibility, uncharacteristic of this regime for the last 16 years. We must recognise and encourage such flexibility, even from this regime.

Solving such major national conflicts through traditional mediation is a new phenomenon, regardless of the motivation and subsequent barrage of propaganda. For a regime stuck in a dogmatic time warp of the mindless position of the politics of ‘my way or the highway’, its latest stance must be acknowledged as new.

Judging by the pardon politics, by claiming it was giving total ‘pardon’ to those who confessed, after they admitted guilt by signing, it is hard to think that this regime has accepted the principle of traditional mediation. That it had to resort to such gimmick is deplorable.

Its stance does not however eclipse the significance and importance of the emergence of traditional mediation as a new domain. Traditional mediation has been ignored by elites, too often seduced by the trappings of Western legal notions that very often have not helped create sustainable resolutions to our intractable troubles. The fact that traditional mediation is being seen to produce results is significant for efforts to resolve complicated conflicts in Ethiopia, the region and Africa.

The partner group, headed by the Canadian ambassador, appears also to have facilitated traditional mediation efforts. If indeed traditional mediation is supported and resourced by citizens, opposition, government and partners, our country may move faster from pervasive conflict to secure development.

Broadening the domain for traditional mediation Now that the prisoners of conscience are released, and traditional mediation has played a significant role in the process, the prisoners, the mediators, and all who submitted to the process, including Ethiopia’s current government and the partner groups, especially Canada, deserve our acknowledgment.

But we must not stop at the first success, and must follow this with a further demand: to create a new alternative method for all the conflicts in our country, region and continent. The only way we can truly appreciate the significance of changing the method of conflict resolution to traditional mediation is when mediation is applied to all domains of intractable conflict based on a sustainable and consequential strategy.

The positive energy and spirit for the millennium requires that all the political prisoners detained from May 1991 be released. And everything must be done to open the opportunity for those who suffered to forgive those who disrupted their lives and killed their loved ones. If families refuse to forgive, it is understandable But government, political parties in opposition and traditional mediators must do all they can to encourage the concept that those who killed others may not handle being forgiven by those they hurt.

Launch the era of productive politics

Politics in our country, region and in Africa has been, for the most part, destructive since the post-war period. A number of productive moments have existed, but have not been sustainable. There is a need to find an alternative system, where conflict is managed through debate and conversation, rather than by lethal or non-lethal fighting. Fair dealing, fair play and the attenuation of grievance thresholds must be clear objectives to create a context where people feel secure to carry on normal lives. The fact that the regime, which has been so adamant in refusing any form of dealing with political opponents, conceded and accepted a mediation process is a break with the last 30 years. The question is whether this new engagement in mediation can be generalised to provide a framework for a national and regional reconciliation strategy from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.

We should encourage this traditional model as a realistic alternative of creating a radically new political environment, no matter how intractable and difficult a conflict may be. Only then will it be possible for destructive politics to lead into a new era of productive politics. Traditional mediation empowers and accords agency to local stakeholders. It bolsters national self-confidence and creates learning and local competence. It is hugely beneficial in many respects. It requires our total commitment.

A fresh and empowering start We would like to see a generalised and comprehensive application of traditional mediation, and full political support for it inside and outside the country. We would like a full amnesty and the release of all political prisoners arrested since 1991, with the sole proviso that those who enjoy generalised amnesty must commit to carrying out politics without resorting to violence, and by agreeing to engage in debate and a political culture of reason and argument. Perhaps this will not be so difficult, provided the prisoners are fully informed, and their prior understanding is secured.

The acceptance and extension of traditional mediation as an alternative or integral part of comprehensive reconciliation from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean may be the most significant achievement of the millennium. All armed and non-armed political forces would voluntarily accept rules that silence the gun, and put forward programmes and arguments peacefully, getting the people to vote freely and choose the party they support.

We would like traditional mediation to be extended between the Ethiopian government and all its opponents from Eritrea to Oromia, Somalia. Inside the country, we would like to see all the multi-national and self-determined armed and non-armed parties enter into traditional mediation to create a favourable environment of tolerance, free debate and competition where only those voted for by the people can come to power.

What is needed is the courage to stop fearing the loss of comfort of the current position. There is no comfort in continuing destructive conflict. There is everything to gain by creating a peaceful environment. Conflict is productive only when it is pursued within legitimate rules that all have agreed to promote peaceful and civilised competition. Let us hope the coming millennium catapults the nation, the Horn of Africa and indeed wider Africa to climb the great wall of peace, stability, security and prosperity for the next 1000 years.

* Mammo Muchie is chair of the Scandinavian Chapter of the Network of Ethiopian Scholar. He writes on their behalf. He is a professor at the Center for Comparative Integration Studies, Department of History, International and Social Studies (CCIS) (http://www.ccis.aau.dk/) and director of the Research Center on Development and International Relations (DIR) (http://www.ihis.aau.dk/development/), both at the Aalborg University, Denmark.

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

At the beginning of August the AU and UN special envoys for the Darfur peace process, Salim Ahmed Salim and Jan Eliasson, will convene a meeting of Darfur rebel leaders in Arusha. The meeting is one of the components of the Joint AU-UN Roadmap for the Darfur Political Process, which aims to revive negotiations between the Sudanese government and the Darfur rebels. Is the Roadmap more likely to bear fruit than the Abuja talks that preceded it? Have any lessons been learnt or might the same mistakes be made?

In 2006 the AU-led peace talks in Abuja culminated in the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) that was signed by the government and one of the rebel groups but rejected by the other groups. The agreement was divisive and unpopular in Darfur, exacerbating a protracted conflict that has left over two hundred thousand people dead and roughly two million displaced.

The glaring problem with the Roadmap is its unrealistic timeframe: in May and June there will be consultations with the Sudanese parties and Darfurian civil society, the development of a negotiation strategy and efforts to unify the divided rebel movements; June and July will be devoted to finalising the consultations and preparations for negotiations; and the final phase in August will entail a “brief and intensive negotiation session”.

This four-month timeframe has already slipped because it is completely out of sync with the dynamics of the conflict. Many formidable hurdles have to be overcome before substantive negotiations can begin, let alone be concluded with a settlement that enjoys popular support in Darfur.

For example, there is no consensus among the Sudanese government and the rebels on the agenda for negotiations and on who should participate in the talks. Nor is there consensus on whether the DPA should be revised in part, renegotiated entirely or thrown out the window. There is little common ground on the causes of the rebellion and the most appropriate remedies, and the parties’ mutual hatred and mistrust make the search for common ground a tortuous endeavour.

Complicating matters further, the rebels are even more fragmented than they were in 2006. The Abuja talks were wracked by antagonism between the three participating rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement and the two factions of the Sudan Liberation Movement. Today there are at least twelve groups, many of which claim to represent the same constituencies and few of which have proven support in Darfur. The leader with the most support, Abdul Wahid al Nur, is an erratic and indecisive negotiator. Regrettably, he has refused to attend the forthcoming AU-UN meeting in Arusha.

The violence in western Sudan poses another serious impediment. The Roadmap correctly highlights the need to consult Darfurian civil society, tribal leaders, internally displaced people, refugees and women’s groups, but this will be extremely difficult in conditions of chronic insecurity.

To add to the envoys’ woes, the AU and UN are not viewed favourably by all the parties to the conflict. The government in Khartoum is hostile to the UN while some of the rebel groups resent the AU because of its association with the DPA and because its peacekeeping force has failed to protect civilians in Darfur.

The AU and UN are painfully aware of all these obstacles. The logic of their tight timeframe is that it conveys the seriousness of the international community and the need for the Sudanese parties to move rapidly to a negotiated settlement. Given the dire situation in Darfur, the message is one of impatience and urgency.

The logic is appealing but the Abuja talks showed that it is ill-conceived and counter-productive. These talks were characterised by a steady stream of unrealistic deadlines emanating from the AU, the UN and foreign donors. Intended to put pressure on Khartoum and the rebels, the deadlines were ignored by them and succeeded only in pressurising the mediators who were obliged to heed the stipulations of their funders and masters.

This had several negative effects. First, the ever looming short-term deadlines inhibited a programmatic effort by the mediators to build momentum gradually over time and led instead to an ad hoc approach that proceeded in fits and starts. The deadline diplomacy was too simplistic to constitute a viable strategy and too rigid to allow the mediators to develop a smart strategy.

Second, the tight deadlines made it impossible for the mediators and negotiators to communicate with the people of Darfur and with important groups that were not represented at the talks. Darfurian civil society had no opportunity to shape the draft DPA and could not conceivably have acquired a sense of ownership of it.

Third, the haste induced by the deadlines precluded effective mediation. A mediator’s job is to help adversaries overcome their enmity, build their confidence in negotiations and facilitate dialogue, bargaining and collaborative problem-solving. The deadline diplomacy caused the AU mediators to neglect these tasks in favour of writing an accord that sought to reconcile the apparently irreconcilable positions of the parties. The result was that the DPA was owned by the mediators and not the parties.

In all civil wars the humanitarian need for a quick accord is indisputable. But there is never a quick fix. These conflicts have multiple, complex and intractable causes, and the difficulty of resolution is heightened immeasurably by the protagonists’ mutual hatred and suspicion. There is no point in rushing negotiations and forcing the parties to sign an agreement to which they are not committed. As happened in Abuja, they will simply leave the signing ceremony and continue fighting.

Sustainable peace requires a negotiated settlement that sufficiently meets the interests and needs of parties and citizens, sufficiently addresses the causes of the conflict, and rests on the parties’ willingness to implement agreements in a co-operative fashion. This will not be obtained through a “brief and intensive negotiation session”. A rushed process will only reproduce the errors of Abuja.

This is not to say that the international community and special envoys should stand by idly while people are being slaughtered in Darfur. If a conflict is not ripe for resolution, then the challenge is precisely to find ways to ripen it. In addition, it is absolutely imperative that African countries and foreign powers boost the AU peacekeeping force in Darfur until UN military support finally arrives.

The special envoys should not be driven by spurious deadlines, which are meant to signal seriousness but convey the opposite when they are missed and then reset without any repercussions. Instead, the envoys should be guided by a comprehensive mediation plan that reflects the realities of the conflict. They should be based in Sudan and should engage constantly in dialogue with the government and the rebels. These discussions can themselves be a useful form of indirect negotiations, preferable to big conferences where the delegates lambaste their opponents and make pious speeches about peace.

For peacemakers working on intractable conflicts, the greatest challenge is persistence and the greatest bravery, as Eliasson himself put it many years ago, is patience.

* Laurie Nathan, research fellow at the London School of Economics and the University of Cape Town, was a member of the AU mediation team for Darfur in 2006. An earlier version of this article appeared in The Sunday Times (South Africa) on 8 July.

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

Mphutlane Wa Bofelo says that the programme planned by the Steve Biko Foundation as part of the 30th anniversary of the killing of Steve Biko looks like a homage to a writer and cultural worker rather than a tribute to a freedom fighter.

Looking at the weeklong programme planned by the Steve Biko Foundation at the BAT Center in Durban as part of the 30th anniversary of the martyrdom of Steve Biko, I realized that it is focused on literary and cultural discourses and the exhibition of works on, about and by Biko. It is noteworthy that the joint programme of the Steve Biko Foundation (SBF) and the newly established Biko Legacy Reference Committee (BLRC) are also focused on literary and theatrical activities. It is as if the initiative is paying homage to an ingenious writer and cultural worker rather than a tribute to a freedom fighter whose work and that of the movement he belonged to straddled the worlds of socio-political activism, mass mobilisation, community development, labour and working class politics. Biko is presented as an icon whose only claim to fame is the monumental piece of literature, 'I write what I like', and dying a lonely and gruesome death in an Apartheid cell rather than as a social and political activist who was a member and leader of a socio-political movement.

There is a conspicuous absence of activities and themes overtly dealing with the local and global socio-political and economic state of affairs. There is nothing in the programme that investigates how far the country that Biko laid his life for is with regard to the reclamation of the collective human dignity of Black People and the enhancement of their socio-economic wellbeing, and how far it is towards advancing Biko's vision of a South Africa with a human face; an anti-racist society in which there is equal allocation of power and equitable distribution of the wealth and resources of the land.

However, it will be a travesty of history and the truncation of the legacy of Biko to remember Biko without raising issues such as genuine transfer of political and economic power to the black majority and without any initiative to let Biko (and BC) speak to the issues and challenges facing black people and humanity in the era of the attack on the environment and the economies, cultures and natural resources of the global south by the regimes and regiments of global capitalism and the Washington consensus in the form of the structural adjustment programmes (implemented as GEAR in South Africa), liberalisation, privatisation, deregulation, socially unequal taxation and dependence on direct foreign investment and speculative capital.

The historical fact is that his writings, political activism and community work clearly articulates that, as opposed to the ideologically neutral humanist that he is portrayed to be, Biko subscribed to the philosophy of Black Consciousness and his affinities were towards a pro-poor, pro-working class political agenda geared towards an egalitarian society. He was a member of the BCM under the flagship of SASO-BPC. He led and was led within the structures of the BCM. If not combated, the subtle and not-so-subtle attempts to de-link Biko from the philosophy of Black Consciousness, the BCM and radical working-class oriented politics in order to look sexy and to court corporate capital and be in the good books of the powers that be, will result into turning Biko into a piece of iconoclast and a collectors item the same way that corporate capital and the corporate media is doing with Ernesto Che Guevara.

Simply put, this will be the case of remembering Biko so as to forget him, or as others have said, a matter of murder by memory. While the Steve Biko Foundation is said to have insisted on the exclusion of the Umtapo Center (which held up the name of Biko and BC when doing so invited being 'necklaced' and other things), it is interesting to see who the important figures in the BLRC are. Muntu Myeza's assertion that renegades cannot be advocates of a cause they have deserted will be instructive in this case. Sello Rasethaba jumped from the BCM to join the ruling ANC, saying the philosophy of BC and the BCM has run its course and went on to become an associate of the late corporate hooligan, Brett Kebble.

Rakhs Seakhwa's credentials in as far as governance and fiscal discipline is concerned include virtually leading the once dynamic Congress of South African Writers to its (un)natural death. The tale of how Rakhs and his comrades through COSAW directed the Staffrider magazine away from a BC line is another story. Duma Ka Ndhlovu was recently reported to have received R4.5 million shares from Tokyo Sexwale as part of Sexwale's attempt to have influential people in society tied to his wallet. People who allegedly received Sexwale's shares include the SBF's Xolela Mangcu. Let's remember how Mangcu wrote an opinion piece extolling the virtues of Sexwale and overtly canvassing for him, immediately his chief announced his availability for the ANC presidential race.

I might be accused of being subjective in my argument that people with a proclivity to dance to the tune of corporate capital are not the right candidates to preserve the legacy of Biko. But who can argue that as it stands, the current programme of the SBF and the BLRC points in the direction of fossilising the legacy of Biko, restricting our memory of Steve Biko to the remembrance of 'that guy who wrote "I Write What I like" and died in a prison cell', and steering away from any recollection of Biko the member and leader of SASO-BPC and founder of the Black Consciousness Movement; Biko the activist, Biko the militant, let alone Biko the socialist? Otherwise, why is the BLRC constituted only by individuals who represent themselves instead of also including representatives from the various segments of the BCM, and why is the programme so apolitical?

Mukoma Wa Ngugi, reflects on the third international Toward an Africa Without Borders Conference and concludes that political activists 'must invest time and energy in developing a Pan-Africanism from below'.

We either value African life, understand a black life as equal to a white life, and the poor as equally deserving as the wealthy – or we do not. This reformulation of Frantz Fanon’s 'a given society is either racist or not'; or better yet of Malcolm X’s 'If you stick a knife nine inches into my back and pull it out three inches, that is not progress' are reminders that there are no fractions when it comes to human dignities and freedoms. They either exist in full or they do not. Africans, however, have been prescribed quarter-doses of health and education, one-sixteenth dignities, and piece-meal freedoms for so long that what would not be acceptable elsewhere is welcomed in Africa.

These were my thoughts recently as I travelled back from Durban, South Africa, where I spent the last two weeks of June and the first week of July as one of the organisers of the third international Toward an Africa Without Borders Conference.

This simple recognition, that we either value Africans or we do not, was fuelled by one more frightening thought. The kind of activism that we, the political activists, have been doing is not enough. It can never be enough. Problems facing the African continent, from slavery through colonialism, neocolonialism, and now the hurricane of globalisation that opens up African markets, leaving more poverty in its wake, have never been fully addressed.

Slavery was abolished and the millions who died were swept under the rugs of progress. When colonialism ended, true independence was bargained away at the Lancaster and Paris tables, colonial history and its dead blown away by the 'winds of change'. In the 1970s and 1980s we struggled against neocolonialism; but against our dying and the dead we have globalisation which has swept the idea of social justice under the carpet of a democracy without content.

At what point in history do we simply say what we are doing is not enough? Not because the path we have chosen is bad, or entirely wrong-headed. But simply because the problem is clearly much bigger than the solution we are struggling for? And if we keep doing the same things but expecting different results, aren’t we just a little bit mad?

Whether we are conservatives, World Bank officials, NGO activists, philanthropists, political and scholar-activists, the whole lot of us, we all share the same statistics. We find them indicating that in Africa infant mortality is on the rise (the only place in the world where such indicators are actually worsening). We find that millions are projected to die from Aids and the poverty that feeds the fury of treatable diseases like Malaria and TB. We look at the statistics that find African economies counting foreign aid as part of the national budget; that indicate Africa loses more money through unfair trade than it gets in foreign aid. We find indicators of the extent of environmental degradation, and the human misery caused through exploitation of resources such as oil in places like the Niger Delta. We look at statistics which, like bread crumbs, can be followed back to days of slavery; that show present day exploitation of resources and a rather bleak future if things continue as they are.

Yet, in the face of these enormous problems, based on our ideological professions, we proscribe solutions that have one thing in common – inadequacy. Conservatives launch an anti-corruption campaign, and prescribe more foreign aid, but to accountable governments. World Bank officials call for the opening of markets and transparency. Philanthropists set up more save-the-African-child foundations. NGO activists call for strategic donations and fairer US intervention. Political and scholar activists have their international conferences and alternative world summits only to pass resolutions calling for better representation of Africa in international media. In the meantime, in a most myopic move, African leaders at the helm of this sinking ship gather in Accra to call for a United Africa to be led by one president and a 2,000,000 strong army.

In a word, our various remedies have long been outstripped by the maladies. Cynicism is not mine alone here. Nelson Mandela, the face of the anti-apartheid struggle, started in 2003 a joint foundation with the apartheid/colonialism crusader Cecil Rhodes’ Trust. The Mandela-Rhodes Foundation, the website declares, seeks 'to build exceptional leadership capacity in Africa'. What could be more cynical? Who is fooling who here? In another context, this would be unbelievable: we could never imagine Jewish Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel starting a Wiesel-Himmler Foundation, for example – but somehow in Africa we are willing to suspend our disbelief. With all due respect - is this madness? Have we become this cynical, or are we suffering from collective schizophrenia that allows us launder history through foundations and other self-help projects?

We are in a peculiar position of being behind history. We misread the present. And for it, the future is not ours. Each day unveils what the future will hold – the US Africa Command Centre, wars on terror that, like globalisation, have no boundaries, and an African leadership whose best foot is Mbeki’s embrace of international capital at the expense of the majority of South Africans. We must stop sending one another congratulatory notes after each successful rock concert, international conference, or summit.

These were my thoughts as I stood in the middle of Inanda Township in Durban, as I walked through settlements demolished under the watchful eye of the ANC government. Near a chemical plant, children tickled by our presence broke into giggles; but my laughter died where their feet were discoloured by walking barefoot in chemical soaked homes and playgrounds.

I could trace these thoughts to 2004 in Kenya’s Dandora slums. Sitting under a tree with writer Binyavanga Wainaina, my brothers and sisters, and members of the Kalamashaka Hip Hop band, we could hear random gunshots announcing random deaths a few miles away. Later that evening we left the slum for Runda Estate, one of the richest estates in Nairobi, to visit a progressive Kenyan politician, where we were served food by maids and cooks dressed in snappy white checkered uniforms. Then it occurred to me that our political leadership really do not see the people in Dandora, Mathare or Kangemi slums as having lives with value.

The anger and the most basic humanism that moved the revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries are gone. They have been replaced by 'progressive' politics laced with contempt for the poor; as if history did not happen; as if – here comes another statistic - the 380,000,000 Africans living in dire poverty are stubbornly refusing to take advantage of the all-you-can-eat democracy buffet. These politicians do not have the political imagination or the will to deal with the devastation of extreme poverty and the historical legacies of colonialism.

But in 2004 it had not occurred to me that even we, the political activists, had lost that imagination, if not the will. We too were speaking the same language as the politician. Realising earlier this month that African life lacked as much value in South Africa as in Kenya, that there was nothing more Pan-African than shared poverty, and the many of ways of dying, that Aids is as much a Pan-African issue as African culture, I had to admit that my way of doing things has been wholly inadequate. Not because I was waiting for a magic wand that can be waved (it is locked away in coffers of the global rich in the little drawer titled stop living at the expense of others); rather, my activism was miles away from comprehending, let alone squarely addressing, problems that were multi-generational, sanctioned by history, and local and international at the same time.

Understanding the problem, history not withstanding, lies in comprehending when and why the revolutionary became a political activist. The activist, as I understand it, was born in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the revolutionary died. Revolutions under the banner of Marxism had degenerated to coups and counter-coups which produced paranoid movements and dictators. By the early 1990s, even the thin banner of Marxism was no longer being hoisted. It was war for power, one group against the other for the state house. Communism in the East collapsed; and with the chaos and deaths that followed, it was no longer fashionable to talk about the masses, classes and revolution.

But movements of trickle-down economics and welfare also produced the same results – war for profit, coups and counter-coups, paranoid dictators. Only the left took the blame. So when Margaret Thatcher declared that there was no alternative to capitalism, not only did the conservative, liberal and radical politicians believe her, but so did the would-be revolutionaries who, looking to the East, only saw chaos and turmoil.

Political activism as the mainstay of change rose out of the ashes of revolutionary activism. And imbedded in the idea of political activism is the belief that there are no other alternatives. Herein is the paradox: we, the political activists work within a closed system of no alternatives even when we think we do not. Anti-globalisation will not make a dent on globalisation; and anti-capitalism cannot counter movement of massive international capital. We simply have to break way from this closed system; offer, and fight for other alternatives.

If we are to stare boldly at the problems facing the African continent, we must dare to say that there are alternatives not only to how societies are arranged but to how we can bring about those changes. We must return to these two twin aspects of change: the boldness of revolutionary thinking and dreaming and the boldness of action. People power movements in Latin America, exemplified by Chavez, are one alternative. We must speak about their potential as well as their limitations. We cannot turn our back on what is happening in Latin America. It is our duty to keep Cuba alive, that star the United States has been trying to dull, so that it remains an example of what is possible. But if we see potential in Latin America, we must use it to jump-start our own ideas and approaches to change, not as a template to be blindly copied.

In Africa we must invest time and energy in developing a Pan-Africanism from below, one that recognises we are not uniting governments but the people; one which is revolutionary, in that it will unite the people as it frees them from local and international exploitation; that sees the emancipation of women as an integral part of its vocation, and has the content of social and economic justice. The only way to make sure of this, contrary to the July African Union meeting in Accra, is by a people’s mandate.

Pan-Africanism cannot be a lofty idea that comes from an enlightened leadership. The days of the missionary, the small glorious band of men, the talented tenth, the revolutionary van-guard are gone. Pan-Africanism will have to travel through the same borders as refugees, breaking down barriers and borders along the way. It has to travel through African languages, dynamic cultures, and the shared politics of anti-colonial struggles (after all, anti-apartheid was a pan-African struggle), and resistance in this day of globalisation. Only then shall Africans become visible to each other. And it is only when Africans are visible to each other that African solutions become possible.

There are collective questions that cannot be answered by one person in the same way a solution cannot be an individual affair. And what do the African people want? What would the economy of a united Africa look like? What kind of political systems would we create? What kind of culture would pan-Africanist frameworks produce? What kind of social-gender relations should the Africa of the future embrace? What would a borderless Africa look like? In trying to answer these questions from our various locations, we will be creating the much needed alternatives – and implementing them.

Political activism would not dream of changing governments or unifying African people. Revolutionary thinking that is cognisant of the world as it stands will. In this 21st century of a thousand changes: we are either revolutionary, or we are not.

* Mukoma Wa Ngugi is the author of Conversing with Africa: Politics of Change (Kimaathi Publishers, 2002), the collection of poetry Hurling Words at Consciousness (Africa World Press, 2006), and editor of the forthcoming New Kenyan Fiction (Ishmael Reed Publications, 2008).

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

Yobachi Boswell returns to Katrina two years on and finds 'hope juxtapose to some despairing scenes, and simmering anger'.

Perspective of an outsider

I’ve always considered the Mississippi Coast my home away from home. I didn’t grow up there, but my family is from the Coast, and I spent many a summer there tip-toeing through the hot beach sand to get to the water, braving the heat of insufficiently air-conditioned homes, and sucking down succulent crayfish and crabs.

That’s why with the onslaught of Katrina bearing down via my television screen two years ago, I took it a little more personally than others not living there; not to mention I had a lot of family in the middle of it. Seeing the sturdy 1.6 mile Biloxi Bay Bridge, which I had ridden over from Ocean Springs to Biloxi numerous times, lying in the water in tattered pieces is what really brought home the power of the storm for me. Having seen and ridden over it in person and then seeing it humbled in the water; served as a great reference point.

On 30 June, I travelled back to the Gulf Coast, for the first time since Katrina, for my annual family reunion that is held around the 4 July every year. Last year, it was held outside of Mississippi for the first time, hosted by my mom in Montgomery Alabama; so I had not had opportunity to go back until now.

I arrived in Ocean Springs off I-10 a little after noon. It was a straight shot from the interstate to Highway 90, the main thoroughfare running through Ocean Springs (a small costal town of 17,000). Having not been there since before Katrina, I braced as I approached, wondering would things look spectacularly different, or would it all be easily recognisable. I made a left at the Burger King and headed up 90, and all was normal. That’s the same Burger King that had been there at least since when I was in junior high in the early 1990s; when my parents let me roam the area free with cousins and we would walk through the park across 90 to get burgers and fries. Particularly memorable for me, because free reign wasn’t exactly a hallmark of my folks parentage; but vacation, particularly in the laidback, water front atmosphere that the easy summers of the Gulf Coast brings, seems to loosen things up. To this day, I’m always more relaxed just being there, that’s why I always hate to leave; but the threat of a Katrina is why I never stayed.

Apparently though, natives of the region don’t share my concern. There has been no appreciable decline in population in Ocean Springs since Katrina, according to all anecdotal information. I would say that holds true for my family members who live in Moss Point, Ocean Springs and Biloxi. Only one cousin moved away, but then she wasn’t from there. She grew up in Oakland California and Kansas City Kansas.

As I travelled up Highway 90 and back down Government, and through various neighbourhoods for two days. As far as lingering damage goes, I tell you what – I couldn’t tell the damn difference. Maybe it was there and I didn’t see it, but if so that says something that one can go about there way and not notice unless someone went out of their way to show it to them.

I took a ride over to Biloxi with my cousin Joe to go see the rebuilt house of my Uncle Kitten, as we call him. Kitten’s nearing 70, and his home, only blocks removed from those casinos you saw pushed up on shore across Highway 90; sustained major damage though it remained standing. He still lives in a trailer in his own yard while he puts the final touches on the rebuilding; much of which he’s doing himself.

Across the street from his house and all down his street you can see the new fabricated homes waiting for occupancy. There are more remnant signs of destruction here, but it didn’t appear overwhelming at this point. The Highway 90 strip with all the Casino’s was as lit up and bright neon lights as 90 has ever been; and to my understanding they are just about all back up and running.

On 1 July, Joe and I moseyed over to New Orleans; about an hour East of Ocean Springs/Biloxi on I-10. Joe grew up and went to college there. He’s lived elsewhere since, but has been back a couple times since Katrina, including as recently as November 2006.

As we entered the city by first crossing the five mile stretch of bridge connecting Slidell Louisiana to New Orleans over Lake Pontchartrain, the culprit of the Katrina disaster, having spilled over into New Orleans flooding the city after the storm had seemingly passed; we noticed a number of large trees sticking up out of the lake that looked as if the tops had been chopped off. This juxtaposed to brand new multi-story houses on the other side of the levy; behind the trees that had not yet recovered.

Joe was impressed that the city in large had at least cleaned up the piles of debris from the street and that it was looking significantly better since his previous trip seven months earlier. He cautioned though that it is 'not a whole lot of improvement, but improving'. He initially had come down three months after the Katrina in the fall of 2005 'It was dead the first time I went, no street lights; it looked hopeless', Joe told me.

Well, here in the summer of 2007 I found both plenty of hope juxtapose to some despairing scenes, and simmering anger. World famous Canal Street was humming with traffic, and the large grassy medians that line the middle of the city’s major thoroughfares were cast over by well groomed oaks and even imported palm trees.

But just as things look like a normal American city for a spell, you then see a house still bearing the red X mark that rescue workers used to denote that a house had been checked and whether dead bodies had been found there or not.

After making our way through down town we headed east on Claiborne. I’ve seen great urban decay before, but nothing like a standing house with whole front ripped off of it on 'Maine Street'. We headed over the Industrial Canal into the much devastated Lower 9th Ward community. And guess what, it still is devastated. The interior neighbourhoods look like ghost towns. The housing lining the main street aren’t a great deal better. Gutted house after house characterises the area, but with a depressing note - people are living on the same streets where the majority of houses are unlivable. Most of the ones that they’re living in aren’t a great deal better. In the subdivision that you often saw on television, it still looks like what you saw on television - rows and rows of devastated houses. In some cases just the cement slabs where house used to be. At one point I saw a slab with three stairs on the backside. Undoubtedly those steps once led into someone’s backyard.

All the debris is not off the streets here, but most of it. Never mind that though, most houses are gutted and in ill repair. The majority still carry the rescue worker markings. In the midst of this, you’ll see one newly rebuilt home almost ready to come back online - on a block full of other houses that look like they were hit by a bomb. We turned the corner at one point and I thought “wow, that house is nicely rebuilt”. As we got closer we realized it was just a nice new roof. The inside of the house was still bearing the repercussions of being trounced by Lake Pontchartrain.

We also visited higher ground where water damage didn’t do as much devastation, in the Garden District an Uptown. We met up with folks rebuilding on the weekends while living out of state during the week. We also visited the French Quarter and Bourbon Street that evening. I’d been to Bourbon St. before, about 7 years earlier during Essence Festival weekend. It wasn’t the same, but the strip was readily active. Not a stalwart of people, but a pretty steady stream. Then again, this was a Monday night and no festivals were in town (Essence was coming back the following weekend); though my cousin Joe didn’t feel that it was up to par for even a normal pre-storm Monday night.

Things are coming back around in Mississippi and Louisiana, for some anyway, in some places. There are still a lot yearning to go back home who don’t have the means, who’s insurance didn’t pay, and who’s president didn’t follow through on his empty promises in the weeks after the disaster.

According to Mitch Carr of the Mississippi Department of Transportation, the Biloxi Bay Bridge will have two lanes open by November of this year, and will be fully functional by Spring of next year; with 6 lanes and dual-use walking and biking paths as well.

* Yobachi Boswell is author of the .

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

Sengbe K. Khasu discusses what may only be considered the 'Liberian Condition'.

Sermon Title: “Occupy Until I Come” (text and verse forgotten). Circa 1980.

We are at Sophie’s Ice-Cream Shop playing truant from church again when she preached this sermon. The pastor’s eldest son and grandchildren. Scandalous.

The blood clot bubbles up an artery and lodges itself someplace in her brain, seizing her tongue. Saints take her into the upper-room. They lay hands on her. They exalt.

Rebuke. Speak in tongues. Some face the wall. She dies.

They say it was a miracle. An act of God.

My grandmother was one of many units that make up the place called Liberia. She died of a stroke. It was the “how,” the symptom, not the cause, as some would like to believe. The Liberian Condition was the “why,” the cause.

I am fruit of her fruit. My human constitution, which governs my health and well-being, I get partly from her. My full-time occupation these days is making sure I cure this condition at least in me.

This grandmother, the one I was closest to, not the quiet Muslim woman we giggled at when she spoke Vai to us or the grandfathers, men bearing surnames that could never be their own even if passed down several hundred years from the time of the Providence landing.

This grandmother, she was a Bassa (her father or grandfather may have been from Jamaica, West Indies). A nurse. Administrator of a school for the poor. She loved us dearly and took mess from no one. But “Pentecostal minister,” “Christian,” “Prayer warrior,” would be her primary identity. Her life story is what I must use to focus my personal discourse in this post-conflict period (although I have come to learn we have had many post-conflict periods before). She is my chart.

I count back my grandmother’s age from my father’s. She is a 20th Century born woman. To Bassa people. And perhaps, a West Indian ghost.

I imagine her as a child the same age as I was when she died. Ten going on eleven.

Whuh you parents pray to? Whuh dey worship?
De people beat you to come to de pray to de strange man?
You was scare?
Da who name you Rebecca so? You pa?
I wonder how long it took before she learned to discard herself in order to survive in ““Sweet Liberia”? She cannot tell me. She has been dead nearly a quarter century. But I imagine the instant her native soul was “won.” I imagine that moment multiplied a million and more ways and times everyday for nearly two hundred years.

Liberia. “Sweat land of Liberty.” “Africa’s oldest republic.” “Founding Member of the League of Nation.” Liberia. The only African country without at least one nationally spoken African language.

We hide our ancestral gods and goddesses under soggy mattresses. But our delusions of grandeur and inferiority has burst once again for all to see. With the exception of one group us. I hear this time is different.

I look forward to getting on the ground and being a part of repairing what was broken when the souls were “won.” My grandmother would be so upset at me were she here. She would be hurt. Angry. But most of all, she would fear for my salvation. Others will do it for her. Cousins, aunts, uncles. The ol' man will understand even if he is initially stunned. Someone close has already given up on my salvation. They will not bother to read the rest.

But the truth of the matter is all that matters: we have deluded ourselves into a quandary. And the net creation of our delusions of grandeur/inferiority is plain for the world to see. Every Liberian life contains a small perfect atom within it. And I am aware that ever so often that atom bubbles over and bursts like a vessel set to some remote timer, visible to all others except us.

I do not believe our Liberian Problem stems only from our traumatic conception. And I refuse to believe in our position in the 500 year plus old “New World Order” (must remain static in order to maintain harmony in some minds. And in the main time, we should all be good global citizens and go through the motions).

It is the role we’ve played to date. And risk playing unless we change character(s). And I do not just mean individuals. That step comes only after we reclaim our sense of self. Some would say we are doing that. We have got trained Liberian minds on the ground, the first woman President (again one of our glorious firsts), we have foreign investors. We have a new resolve.

Then why do we continue to avoid the business of dealing with our real truths? That our history is rife with all that we have seen the last twenty years. And more. You want so-called ethnic cleansing? Gaze into our past. Cannibalism? Presidential coups real and make-believe? Start with E.J. Roye, the fifth President. He was killed shot while swimming to a ship or dragged through the streets of Monrovia, depending on who is telling long before “native people” were even recognized under the Liberian brand.

And what about our habit of calling Papa America to help? Goes back to the very first attack of the deadly “fever” and marauding “heathens” years before the start of official Dependence in 1847. Would we have “acted up” as usual if we sobered to the fact that America’s lack of response has been their consistent response every single time since 1821?

Okay, so they usually respond when our mouth is dragging, as the saying goes.
Would we tear shit down if we realised “de Poppay” was not coming. Or maybe he did. Ol’ man Jimmy did. And those young surfer dudes who declared our graveyard beaches home to the best waves in the world. And they would know. They claim to have hit all the top resorts around the world when on breaks from the Ivy League schools of the West.

We are where we are because of our Constitution as a people. Because of our actions (or inactions). I’m not apologising for the bad behavior of outsiders. I just want to acknowledge our role in the whole play.

We keep looking for reasons to be “saved.” I have lived amongst tribesman from the dominant Tribes of Europe and Asia for most of my life now. I know them well. They are not better nor less diverse as a people. They have many languages. They have beheaded cousins and clansman for centuries. Their brains are not sharper. They do not work harder. Their “kpahn-kpahn” not more potent. They are more honest with themselves. And their agendas around the world. They spend no time devising ways to fool us. We do that quite well ourselves.

I look at my grandmother. I see the girl who probably went to live with some “Congo” or Americo-folks. I pass no judgment. It is the past. It cannot be changed. But nature is not kind to animals who forget or refuse to be themselves. I am reminded of what a close friend recently said to me: you torture a tree you corrupt the fruits. Corrupted fruits over a period of time will be accepted as what has always been. A body out of touch with its cognitive memory functions is connected to nothing. It is incapable of self-preservation. At best, it depends on others for everything. Here is the Liberian Condition. The African in general. Stuck chasing stimuli from outside in order to feel “alive” - even if it kills. More “book,” “big-big house dem,” “prayer vigils,” “fancy embroidered paper engraved Harvard degrees,” and cell-phones. We do this over and over again blindly--we pray to God or Allah when we need brain surgery and then blame certain death on “sumu” or “juju.”” A nation of pathologically delusional people would.

Battles fought for your soul don’t hurt when fought by people who not just look like you but to whom you belong. And in the ‘80s the crusade raged on. We enjoyed it tremendously. Saturdays spent with the world’s greatest grandmother involved matinées at Relda Cinema, sometimes two. And for me, a large bowl of fufu and soup. Then came the spider stories told on the porch by older cousins. Now what kid in his right mind would mind a long Sunday afternoon in church after that? An aunt calls to tell me she has heard my father is a fixture in the old church on Sundays. “The Lord gets you when it’s your time, Sengbe.” I take that as a warning and call the guy up. He admits his backslide. I tell him he is such a disappointment. We laugh about the changing of familiar roles. He tells me he has changed his mind about church. That I must begin to go; his mother would rage hell if he showed up on Judgment Day without any of her grandbabies. We laugh again. But there will be no more talk about it. The Liberian Condition is the “why.”

* Senghbe K. Khasu is a screenwriter, film director and musician living in New York City.

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

Elma Shaw discusses how refugees are being reintegrated into Liberias societal fabric.

What makes refugees decide to return to a home they left in shambles? What are the challenges to becoming adjusted and reintegrated into a society after years of absence? How are refugees being reintegrated in post-war Liberia?

What makes refugees decide to return to a home they left in shambles? What are the challenges to becoming adjusted and reintegrated into a society after years of absence? How are refugees being reintegrated in post-war Liberia?

It is early July, 2007, and at Roberts International Airport a team from LRRRC, UNHCR, Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), and GTZ (German Technical Assistance) is waiting to receive a group of Liberian refugees returning from Ghana. The lady from NRC is wearing a T-shirt with the map of Liberia on the front, and the words Theres No Place Like Home. I am there with Nancy Garley, herself a returnee (Yomou Refugee Camp, Guinea, 1990-1999) who now works as a Repatriation Monitor at LRRRC, the Liberia Refugee Repatriation and Resettlement Commission.

This airport mission is significant because June 30th was the deadline for refugees in the West African sub-region to sign up for Voluntary Repatriation to their home countries. The returnees we came to meet are among the last that will be transported back home with assistance from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. All of them will be given enough bulgur wheat and split peas for four months, non-food items such as blankets, buckets and cooking pots, and a small amount of money to help them get to their final destination.
Voluntary Repatriation began in October 2004, and UNHCR statistics show that as of June 30, 2007, a total of 108,198 refugees have been repatriated with assistance. 51,237 came from Guinea; 28,701 from Sierra Leone; 19,907 from the Cte dIvoire; 5,906 from Ghana; 2,136 from Nigeria; and 311 from other countries. These asylum countries have recorded, during the same period, 50,032 spontaneous, unassisted departures.

The returnees soon file out of the Kenya Airways plane clutching the clear plastic folders that hold their Voluntary Repatriation Forms. This formthe VRFserved as a passport, and will continue to be used as official identification for several more months if they wish to apply for further assistance from UNHCR and its partners.

The 55 returnees at Roberts International Airport today consist of 16 women, 20 children, and 19 young men in their teens and 20s. They are separated from the other passengers, whisked through Customs, and led outside where they will board a large truck for the drive to the Transit Center. I ask Eunice Lloyd, a returnee who spent six years between Nigeria and Ghana, about her first impression. I dont see any armed civilians walking among us, she says with a smile. Im very happy about that. So far, so good!

At the Transit Center, a 30-minute drive from the airport, the returnees gather in a large room where they are officially welcomed by Saah Fayiah of UNHCR. Hanging from the ceiling behind him are encouraging signs. Among them:

LIBERIA CAN ONLY BE BUILT BY LIBERIANS THEMSELVES
UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL. ITS TIME TO COME BACK HOME TO REBUILD OUR MOTHERLAND LIBERIA
RECONCILIATION IS THE BEST WAY TO NATION-BUILDING

While Saah tells them about the procedure to be followed at the Center, someone passes around large bottles of Blue Lake mineral water bottled right here in Tubmanburg, Bomi County. I can see the surprise in some of the faces as they read the label that displays the Liberian flag, and I am so proudof Blue Lake and of the brave returnees and of the welcome team for giving out our own waterthat my eyes suddenly fill with tears. The returnees get their first Liberian meal, and then go through the routine: screening by the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalisation, medical screening, cash payment of transportation, pick-up of non-food items, and pick-up of food rations.

For urban-based returnees (i.e. returnees who will live in Monrovia, Montserrado County) there are a number of opportunities available through Education and Economic Recovery programs. The Monrovia Vocational Training Center, for example, offers masonry, carpentry, electronics, tailoring and other courses. LOIC, the Liberia Opportunities Industrialisation Center, provides computer training, as does many other vocational schools. UNHCR, in the Economc Recovery and Reintegration Sector, awards small business grants ranging from $100 to $500 to applicants who have skills and good business plans. Returnees who qualify for this extra assistance are able to adjust and reintegrate quite quickly, while those who come with no skills, or who resettle in other counties, sometimes find it more difficult.

Richard Johnson is a success story. He stayed in Liberia throughout the battles of the1990s, but when renewed fighting reached Monrovia in 2003 and he lost his car to the rebels, he decided he did not want to experience any more trauma. He gave away the simple metal file he used to cut keys in his small key duplicating shop, and was one of the few lucky Liberians allowed to leave on a plane that had come to evacuate Ghanaian citizens.

While Richard was at the Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana, he got a job with a metalcraft company in Accra. There he learned how to use a machine to cut keys, and how to melt brass to make new keys. Richard decided to return home after he saw President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf on Ghanaian television saying the war was over and Liberians should come home to help rebuild the country. He signed up for voluntary repatriation and came home on a ship, along with returnees from Nigeria, in April 2006.

When Richard got home he applied to UNHCR for a small business grant. He had bought a key-cutting machine in Ghana, but had no shop to work from, and no generator to run the machine. He received a $500 grant from UNHCR to help him start over. With it he got a small generator and was able to rent shop space at $40/month. Two Keys are Better than One is located on Newport Street, opposite the Duncan Alley gas station. Richard says he needs to make more people aware of his little shop, and will eventually melt brass and produce his own keys.

On 18th Street and Cheesman Avenue in Sinkor, Margaretta Guanue-Donkeh is another example of successful reintegration. Margarettas situation was a little different from most refugees. She and a younger sister started off living in Accra with their older brother, who was doing well with an import-export business. It was not until the business suffered at the hands of a dishonest partner that things became a little difficult.

During her 10 years as a refugee in Accra, Margaretta studied computer software and engineering, while her sister learned sewing. When her sister died, Margaretta took up sewing as a way to keep the girls dream alive. She signed up for lessons at Ghanas well-known KALBS school of fashion, and after a while, because of her talent and her business acumen, she was asked to work there as a manager as well. But what Margaretta wanted to do most was finish school. She had left Liberia during her junior year studying Economics at the University of Liberia. Although Ghana assisted Liberian refugees in many ways, Margaretta was not allowed to transfer credits to a Ghanaian university. Her desire to complete her degree was one factor in her decision to return home. Another was the death of her father. Her mother needed her at home. What finally prompted her to come back though, was the new government. Enthusiasm was in the air and we had a lot of hope for a better future, Margaretta says. She was confident that with her sewing skills she could work to support herself and not have to rely on anyone. Friends said it would be tough, she adds, but I told them people can make any situation better.

Upon arrival in Monrovia, Margaretta began working out of her mothers home, but business wasnt going too well and she knew she needed more visibility. With a grant from UNHCR, she built a small tailoring shop in her mothers front yard and called it Workmans Fashion from a Bible verse in II Timothy. Business improved immediately, and she now wants to buy another machine and hire an experienced tailor to help with the increased workload. In the meantime, Margaretta is giving back and contributing to national development by training two women in the skills of tailoring.

The assistance given to both Richard and Margaretta has helped them become fully reintegrated, and, through their work, is helping to revitalise the national economy. Computer trainees like Vivian Franklin, who spent nine years in Ghana, and Augustine Pardea, who was in Sierra Leone and Guinea from 1990 to 2007, also feel like they are accomplishing something and will be able to contribute to nation-building activities upon graduation. But what is being done about the non-skilled returnees who dont qualify for training or for grants, and those who choose to return to rural areas?

According to LRRRCs Reintegration Officer, Nehemiah Gbaba, NRC helps build shelters for vulnerable returnees (the elderly and handicapped) to Bomi County, while other humanitarian partners provide community-based assistance in both urban and rural areas of return. This assistance includes school renovations, construction of hand pumps (covered wells) and latrines, and, in Lofa County, rehabilitation of roads by UNHCR. The projects help the entire community, rather than only the individual returnees. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) also plays a major role in community-based assistance by establishing and empowering District Development Councils (DDCs) to identify the development needs of the community and oversee implementation of development projects.

Registration for Voluntary Repatriation has ended, and those who signed up will all return very soon. With the exception of protection, assistance to refugees who choose to remain in countries of asylum will gradually be reduced, beginning with food rations, then medication, then education. After all, the war is over and Liberia, though not fully at peace until security and justice systems are working well, is in its reconstruction era.

* Elma Shaw writes about living in post-war Liberia, and strives to balance the scale between despair and hope. Writing with a sense of history, a bit of humour, and a sprinkle of irreverence, Shaw presents profiles & photos of people, places and current events that make Liberia truly the Lone Star of Africa.

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

Thomas Jaye lays out the contexts of and challenges to Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in Accra, Ghana on 18 August 2003 and the subsequent holding of elections in 2005 have ushered in an atmosphere for durable changes in Liberia. Like other post-conflict societies, the country faces enormous but surmountable challenges that must be addressed in order to make the relapse into armed conflict difficult, if not impossible. Certainly, one of the challenges facing the country is how to reconcile the people and heal the wounds of the past. The enactment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Act, 2005, and the subsequent launching of the Commission in February 2006 constitute positive steps in the right direction. The TRC provides a window of opportunity for the pursuit of transitional justice through truth telling. Nevertheless, the TRC cannot heal nor reconcile the Liberian society on its own; other things must be done in order for Liberian people to reconcile with each other.

Contexts

Like other post-conflict societies, the establishment of a TRC was based on recognition of the fact that there was a need to address impunity in the country. There was a need to deal with the deep sense of injustice generated by the war and even before. In this light, the setting up of the TRC reinforces the basic assumption that one of the unique characteristics of Liberian politics is that almost all the major political changes in the history of the Liberian state have been brought about largely because of a deep sense of injustice. Fifteen years of armed violent conflict caused the death of more than 250,000 people; led to massive and flagrant human rights abuses; destroyed the fragile environment; and led to state and societal collapse.

At the Accra peace talks there emerged two trends of thought about what to do with those who committed crimes during the war years. On the one hand, Liberian civil society groups, including delegates of some political parties, advocated for a war crimes tribunal in order to bring the perpetrators of crime to justice. On the other hand, the realities of post-conflict politics in Liberia suggested an alternative and compromised approach to pursuing transitional justice. Thus, the idea of a TRC became more attractive than a war crimes tribunal. The nature of the outcome of the war did not favour the latter.

Hence, Article XIII of the CPA called for the establishment of the TRC in order to address the issues of impunity, investigate the root causes of the conflict, Perhaps the point should be made that Liberia has a poor history of exploiting political changes for addressing past injustices. The declaration of independence on 26 July 1947, and the military coup of 12 April 1980 failed to address the grievances that caused and triggered these changes. Given the experiences of the past with specific reference to addressing injustices, the question is whether the TRC will make any difference or will it be business as usual?

Mandates

After the Accra Talks, the National Transitional Government of Liberia (NTGL) was formed incorporating all stakeholders to the Liberian conflict including armed factions, political parties, and civil society groups. One of the legacies of the NTGL (dubbed in Liberia as ‘Nothing To Give Liberia’) is the TRC Act of 2005, which provides the legal framework for the work of the Commission.

According to the Act, the TRC is empowered to:
-investigate human rights violations and economic crimes with January 1979 and October 2003 as the cut off points (However, cases before 1979 can be considered if there is application from any person or groups of persons to this effect);
-provide a forum to address impunity and an opportunity to facilitate ‘genuine healing and reconciliation’;
-investigate the root causes of the armed conflict; critically review the past in order to address falsehoods and misconceptions of the country’s socio-economic and political development, and establish ‘historical truths’ thereof;
-adopt mechanisms and procedures to address the experiences of vulnerable groups such as women, children and others; and recommend measures for the rehabilitation of victims of human rights violations in order to ensure national reconciliation and healing;
-and write a report on the activities and findings of the Commission.

The objectives outlined in the mandate are crucial to the overall process of post-war reconstruction in Liberia. For post-conflict Liberia, it is important that the people understand why there was war. Indeed, the people should be aware that there is a direct link between cause and effect because it is only through such an understanding that the country can find durable solutions to its problems. In this light, it is crucial that the root causes of the conflict be examined in order to address the problems of the past.
It is also important to stress that the TRC should not be an end in itself; it should be a means to an end – a strategy. If this is the case, then the TRC can serve as a vehicle for generating debates in Liberia that could shape the future of the country. In this sense, any attempt to investigate the root causes of the conflict as well as human rights violations and economic crimes over the past three decades should ultimately feed into broader tasks of post-conflict reconstruction. It should feed into the building of viable and stable national polity that is democratic and inclusive in every respect.

The other broader point to make about the significance of the TRC mandate is that the victims of human rights abuses have the right to justice; they have the right to know what happened and to reparations. Truth telling is very important for societies like Liberia because it brings to light what really happened in the past. Nevertheless, as important as the above objectives are, what worries me is the broad and ambitious nature of the TRC mandate. To add fuel to fire, it is inconceivable as to how the Commission can implement such a mandate within its initial life span of 18 months. Although truth hearings have started both within and outside the country, it seems impossible to complete such an exercise on schedule. The Commission is facing many challenges that must be addressed in order to do a successful job.

Challenges

To reiterate, the TRC is facing enormous challenges but a mention of the most critical will suffice. First, the entire process raises concerns over what constitutes truth, and whose truth. From historical experiences, you can get the ‘truth’ without reconciling people. Truth telling may not necessarily resolve tensions, distrust and mistrust among the people but produce an adverse effect. Under circumstances where both victims and perpetrators of crimes are apprehensive about the outcomes of truth telling, it may be difficult to get the truth; it may never be told but remain hidden under the carpets. This is a challenge that the TRC must address.

Secondly, although the Government of Liberia contributed 1% of its budget to the work of the TRC, the work of the Commission depends largely on donor funding. Based on experiences elsewhere, donor funding can sometimes induce donor-driven agendas; they have a tendency to push certain agendas that do not necessarily reflect national realities. In some cases, they bring in ‘experts’ who have little knowledge of the local situation and such behaviour can easily undermine national ownership. However, the dilemma for Liberia’s TRC is that without donor funding, it will be extremely difficult to implement its mandate. In recent times, the relationship between the donors and the Commission have been characterised by deep suspicion, mistrust and tension over the capacity of the latter to do its work; and the way in which resources were used by and on Commissioners.

Third, although the Commission had started some work in the area of truth telling, there is very little to show for the rest of its mandate. This verifies the assumption that the broad and ambitious mandate of the Commission cannot be achieved easily. For example, investigating the root causes of the conflict requires people with interdisciplinary academic backgrounds and experiences. My gut feeling is that the Commission should concentrate mainly on truth telling and reconciliation. The rest can be pursued if the life span of the Commission is extended. The challenge therefore is to prioritise its work or risk failure and mockery.

Fourth, as indicated earlier, reconciling the people of Liberia will not be achieved solely through the work of the TRC. Its work can certainly contribute towards national healing and reconciliation but its work should be mainstreamed. The TRC should combine with other national programmes that can improve the socio-economic, cultural, and political environment for national healing and reconciliation. For example, there is the need to improve the socio-economic conditions of the people; there is the need for inclusive and not exclusive politics; and traditional methods of healing and reconciliation must be used to achieve this objective.

Finally, reports of internal squabbles among Commissioners have tainted the image of the Commission; it has undermined its credibility in some ways. The challenge is for the Commissioners to confound their critics by addressing their internal problems in a way that will facilitate the work of the Commission.

Conclusion

It is important to stress that the TRC has a historic role to play in shaping the future of post-conflict Liberia. Its work can reassure victims by addressing impunity. To achieve its objectives, the TRC should serve as a vehicle for generating debates about the future of the country through its investigation of the crimes, human rights violations and root causes of the armed violent conflict.

References:

Funmi Olonisakin, Reinventing Peacekeeping in Africa. Conceptual and Legal Issues in ECOMOG Operations (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2000) p. 69

Funmi Olonisakin, Reinventing Peacekeeping in Africa. Conceptual and Legal Issues in ECOMOG Operations (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2000) p. 69

Article XIII of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, 18 August 2003, Accra, Ghana

Article IV, An Act to Establish the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Liberia, 2005, p. 4

* Dr. Thomas Jaye is currently serving as Senior Research Fellow at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Accra, Ghana and writing on regional security issues. He is author of the book, ‘Issues of Sovereignty, Strategy and Security in the ECOWAS Intervention in the Liberian Civil War,’ published by Edwin Mellen Press in 2003.

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

Keith Best postulates about how individual Liberians can act as change agents and advocates on their own behalf.

Among the many things the late Liberian political commentator and pamphleteer Albert Porte could always be counted on to do, one that impressed me most was his readiness to say what he felt about whatever claimed his attention. As those who read and listened to him might recall, Porte’s writing and comments, as they related to life in general, liberty and government in particular, often alluded to the “perception of things,” the way things appeared or were desired to be seen, as opposed to what might have been in actuality.

It was not until I found myself at a Liberian social event on Park Hill, Staten Island, in the late 1990s, that I was able to recollect and review Mr. Porte’s constant preoccupation with the difference between substance and form. It was all there. Someone had laid it all out, leaving nothing to chance: the fragrances and accents that wafted out of the décor, the distinct flavours that exotic dishes announced. And as the familiar, singsong chitchat floated across the room, despite barely audible inflections, it seemed impossible that any addition could render the atmosphere more evocative of the old country I had left behind over a decade before.

Gradually, chilled Heinekens, Becks, Guinness and wines, perennial staples at Liberian parties, began working their charm, pulling the guests to the dance floor. Soon they were gyrating to the seductive power of soft notes and angst-filled lyrics: once again, music and dance had trumped war and the confusion it bred, bringing brothers and sisters of a region together as one. Soon, young ladies from The Ivory Coast kicked the party into gear, flaunting their signature mime of a male and female negotiating a retreat to a less-crowded place. Their performance drew appreciative attention. The Sierra Leoneans followed. No longer strangers to the social scene in Abidjan, Accra or Freetown, a few Liberian couples joined what seemed to be turning into a competition. As more guests arrived, a burgeoning circle of Liberians that had fled the war-torn country were heard rediscovering one lost acquaintance after the other. Others joined in recalling their hurried flight from home and new experiences that awaited them.

Many had not travelled outside of Liberia; they had seen Guinea, Nigeria, The Ivory ?Coast, Ghana, Sierra Leone and even Senegal represented by local business people and traders, however. So why had Liberia had not been the commercial or cultural hub they thought it was, or had the potential to become, many of those forced to travel had asked in amazement? Imagine more paved roads in the Ivory Coast than Liberia had roads, though they never would have guessed, based on how importantly Liberia’s political and educated classes perceived and conducted themselves. Still, from the launching of the U.N. to the overthrow of blatant colonialism in Africa, Liberia has had its moment in the sun. Accordingly, following the demise of apartheid, that ultimate bastion of racism on the continent, the Liberian delegation had been the first ?received by South African president, Nelson Mandela, following his ?inaugural.

But back to the party and the emotional dam that broke as our young Liberians recalled the experience of leaving home aboard departing ships with standing space only. The dancing area now a crowded deck, our young men and women broke into song! And all at the party understood that rather than a defeated people, frightened of the unknown, those on deck had been laden with excitement, and hope, that historically had sailed with the adventure of promise and anticipation of possibilities the future held. With their heads held high, those fearless and hopeful young people had braved the ocean’s depths, caring little that they possessed no more than the clothes on their backs. Their triumphant “All Hail, Liberia, Hail” and ““The Lone Star Forever” gave wings to the irrepressible human spirit known to strike fear in the hearts of those who lurk in the shadows, scheming to control or take away by guile, though none could accomplish either. And those that had not been a part of that celebration felt left out and wished they had been there as well.

Now they knew what Bertha Corbin had felt and celebrated, singing the Liberian national anthem on her way to prison over half a century before, at Tubman’s behest; for that experience, Judge Emma Walser and John Stewart walked behind the Revelation Four through the streets of Monrovia singing “We Shall Overcome” to rattle the prison bars in 1975. So let others go on calling out to and waiting on national leaders to do one ?thing or the other. What must be hammered home to those to whom the future belongs is that they burden themselves needlessly over questionable baggage passed on by the choices made by generations past; that, shorn of the burden of care and need handed down by the system their fathers opted for, they allow their nobler qualities to come out; that moving ahead as a group will not happen if individual steps are not taken, though no more than one or two might be willing to move at times; that a “great nation” and “wholesome functioning society” someday might be built on the west coast of Africa; not by leaders who promise them but by those who stand up for what they believe and feel strongly about, especially as individuals.

'Leaders’ will do no more than what the people make them do. And until then, they will do everything in their power to make people accept reality as what they say it is. Only fools abandon what has sustained them in exchange for something questionable, that another proffers. That is why our young people must follow their own minds and listen to what comes from within. That is what will sustain them. That is the lesson of Wilmot Blyden, Albert Porte and a few others!

* Keith Neville Asumuyaya Best is a poet, essayist, journalist, and author. He was a member of the Revelation Four, a group of young intellectuals who set the pace for an era of radical free speech and were imprisoned at various times during the 1970s for their political activism and journalistic activities. Copyright © 2007 Keith Neville Asumuyaya Best
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org