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* The World Bank and Civil Society: Forward to the past

* Faceless, by Ammo Darko

Students at a Southern US Christian school are reading a controversial booklet that critics say whitewashes Southern slavery with its view that slaves lived "a life of plenty, of simple pleasures." Leaders at Cary Christian School say they are not condoning slavery by using "Southern Slavery, As It Was," a booklet that attempts to provide a biblical justification for slavery and asserts that slaves weren't treated as badly as people think.

The overall goal of this programme is to encourage mid-career professionals and their institutions to contribute to poverty eradication strategies and national action plans that are based on a human rights framework. UNESCO contribution under this programme is aimed at strengthening national capacities for research and policy analysis on poverty eradication, thus, assisting selected Member States in developing anti-poverty strategies and action plans based on human rights and in monitoring their implementation. This programme targets researchers in selected Member States in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and parts of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The "I" stories: speaking out on gender violence in Southern Africa is a collection of the writing of men and women who have been affected by violence – as survivors and rehabilitated perpetrators. The 17 stories from five Southern African countries are testimony to the strength and courage of the writers who, despite social and cultural norms which compound the silence surrounding gender violence, have spoken out. The stories are told simply and honestly by ordinary people in their own words. This booklet is a unique compilation of the authentic voices of those in our community who have spoken out, and who in doing so have opened the way for others to do the same. Booklet available from Gender Links (R30.00). Call Susan Tolmay on 27-11-622 2877, email [email protected] or go to www.genderlinks.org.za

Friends of Tafo is a UK registered charity that aims to empower as well as help the people of Kwahu-Tafo, an impoverished rural town in Ghana, via responsible giving that generates a capacity for self-development in education, health, employment and infrastructure. Robert Taylor (photographer and FOT trustee) has recently published a book 'Impressions of Tafo' including photo portraits and interviews with Tafo's community. "This is a wonderful insight into a small but vibrant community in Ghana...I learnt so much from this beautifully presented book."  Jon Snow, Channel 4 News.

Genocide in Rwanda, massive floods of refugees and displaced people in the Horn of Africa, violent civil wars in the West African countries of Sierra Leone and Liberia - these are testimonies to the tremendous cost to grassroots communities when the authority and legitimacy of national political systems and leaders are called into question. The consolidation of democracy represents one tangible strategy to restore authority and legitimacy of political rule, providing the peace and security necessary for political enfranchisement and economic opportunity. This volume explores the factors that are crucial to the emergence of democratic political systems on the African continent, specifically focusing on Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

Death and pain are frequently recurring themes in this highly personal book by Noerine Kaleeba, the founding director of The AIDS Support Organisation (TASO) in Uganda. Yet this is by no means a depressing book. On the contrary, it is engaging, surprising, challenging and absolutely inspirational.

The first edition of WE MISS YOU ALL was published in 1991. Noerine Kaleeba's experience of AIDS had begun five years earlier: "AIDS came to my house," she wrote, "on the afternoon of the 6th June 1986, when the British Council sent me a telex to tell me that my husband Chris was seriously ill in a hospital in England." Chris had been undertaking postgraduate studies in Hull, where Noerine was able to visit him in hospital. She was shocked by how AIDS had enfeebled and emaciated her once-handsome husband. Chris was able to return to Uganda, but a few months later he died in hospital, in severe pain, shunned and neglected by the nursing and medical staff.

After Chris's death, Noerine withdrew to her mother-in-law to grieve. Three weeks later she returned to Kampala and began meeting with a group of 16 friends who were either living with or directly affected by AIDS. These meetings led to the formation of TASO, which aimed to provide medical, practical and psychosocial support to people living with HIV/AIDS. TASO quickly established itself as an effective organisation, mobilising hundreds of volunteer counsellors and other service providers.

But TASO also went further, by pioneering an approach known as 'positive living', which enabled HIV-positive people to retain (or regain) their dignity, to improve the quality of their lives, to overcome HIV-related stigma and discrimination, to plan for the future, and even to prolong their lives. This approach - since adopted by HIV support and service organisations in many parts of the world - was a huge break-through at the time.

Under Noerine Kaleeba's leadership, TASO rapidly developed its services and expanded its outreach, achieving an international reputation for the clarity of its vision and the quality of its innovative work. But suffering and death were never far away. Of TASO's original 16 founding members, for example, 12 died of AIDS within the organisation's first year.

Leading TASO through its early years of growth and development took their toll on Noerine. In April 1995, feeling "totally burned out", she retired as Director of TASO. In the following year she joined the newly established United Nations Joint Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS), based in Geneva. She still works for UNAIDS, as the organisation's specialist in community mobilisation. In this new edition of her book, she describes - with typical, self-deprecating humour - how she has coped with the move:

"My training is in physiotherapy; my experience is in counselling and caring; my heart is in supporting people who are sick. Fighting for budgets and attending meetings and writing reports are not activities in which I excel (ask the long-suffering UNAIDS administrative staff who have to clean up after me!)."

Yet she has been a highly effective and respected spokesperson for UNAIDS at scores of international meetings throughout the world. Moreover, she is still firmly convinced of the supreme importance of the organisation's work:

"I continue to work with UNAIDS because I see it as the only hope, the only way to focus advocacy in order to provide the much needed influence."

Much has changed on the international HIV/AIDS scene since the first edition of WE MISS YOU ALL was published, over a decade ago. The most obvious change is the availability of effective antiretroviral drugs (which TASO is helping to make more accessible in Uganda). Equally important, however, is the fact that people living with HIV are increasingly viewed as important partners rather than simply as victims of the HIV pandemic. This is due, in large part, to the emergence of literally thousands of HIV/AIDS support and service organisations - many inspired by TASO - throughout the world. As a result of these and many other changes, HIV/AIDS is increasingly recognised as a preventable, manageable health condition, rather than as an inevitable fate or as a certain death sentence.

Noerine Kaleeba's book reminds us, however, of the human cost of the HIV pandemic. Uganda is regarded as one of the few 'success stories' on the international HIV/AIDS scene, having reduced HIV prevalence by two-thirds since the early 1990s. Noerine Kaleeba pays tribute to her country's achievements, but also adds:

"I have to put quotation marks around the word 'success' every time I use it, because although the statistics are impressive, it certainly doesn't feel like a success to me or to anyone I know. Too many are still dying and suffering."

In fact HIV/AIDS has continued to ravage Noerine Kaleeba's own family. Since the first edition of WE MISS YOU ALL was published in 1991, 12 of her close family members have died of AIDS. She is now responsible for looking after 14 orphans, in addition to her own four children. Most families in Uganda and many other African countries have similar stories to tell.

Unusually for an international civil servant, Noerine Kaleeba is not ashamed of personalising the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Speaking to the dignitaries gathered at the World Health Assembly in 2001, for example, she described how her own family has suffered from the exorbitantly high prices of antiretroviral drugs:

"I have four siblings who are HIV-positive, and although we had previously agreed with our family that we could not afford ARVs for any of them, the issue is being revisited now - thus placing enormous pressure on me, as I am the key breadwinner of the family!"

Yet Noerine Kaleeba's basic conviction is still one of hope, based on her faith in God, in her children, and in the friends who have supported her for nearly two decades:

"My message to all people in the world remains one of hope. Hope for a future world without HIV and AIDS. This hope will come out of a realisation that the whole population - the infected, the affected and the uninfected - need to join the fight against HIV and AIDS. ... To everyone living with HIV infection or disease the message is of hope, and the courage to fight until a cure is found. We triumph over the virus when we do not allow it to spread!"

Reviewed by Glen Williams (Series Editor, Strategies for Hope)

* WE MISS YOU ALL (second edition), by Noerine Kaleeba with Sunanda Ray. xii + 124 pp; ISBN 0 7974 2525X; published by SAfAIDS, Harare, 2002. Available from SAfAIDS: [email][email protected] Telephone: +263 4 336193/4.

Should a national athletic team or a rugby team have racial quotas to reflect the nation's racial composition? Political activists in South Africa are launching protests when a sports team becomes "too white", causing the white-dominated opposition to talk about a "race obsession" among certain ruling party members.

Mee Ali is lucky; her marriage to Michael is a happy one. Unfortunately, for her friend Kauna, marriage brings more pain than pleasure. Her husband Shange is a violent man, and the bruises he leaves on his wife’s body and soul are living proof of his brutality. Although the other villagers of Oshaantu are aware of her situation, no one except Mee Ali does anything to intervene. Kauna’s story, as told by Mee Ali, reveals the value and strength of friendship between women, and how their sense of community goes far beyond a mutual adherence to customs and tradition.

"South Africa has slid gently out of the media limelight over the past ten years. Apartheid ensured the country was always in the news, despite the regime’s best intentions. Then the transition from Afrikaner-dominated parliament to parliament of the people kept us enthralled for a good few years. But now South Africa’s trials and tribulations are not substantially different from many other countries. In fact, it has become almost mundane, ordinary. It is this struggle "to learn to become ordinary" that lies at the heart of Achmat Dangor’s latest novel, Bitter Fruit, which was named as one of the five titles on the prestigious Booker prize short list for 2004." - From a review by Richard Bartlett, African Review of Books. Visit the website to read the full review.

Dingz was an average Wits student – struggling with money, partying with his friends, picking up girls, skipping lectures, making up elaborate excuses for missing exams. A bright, articulate guy, Dingz and his circle of friends sit around drinking and discussing current affairs - Aids, racism, South African politics and history – in between some hair-raising adventures, like being kidnapped by taxi-drivers, contracting gonorrhoea or trying to fake a death certificate. A constant backdrop is the subtle and not-so-subtle racism of the university, which threatens to exclude him financially.

Last Monday I participated in a segment of the BBC discussion Programme ‘Four Corners’. The topic I discussed with two other guests (one Portuguese and the other from The Netherlands) was whether the relationship between former colonies and former colonial masters can ever be rid of master-servant complexes. The immediate stimulus for the discussion was the tragic situation that has been long unfolding in that former shining star of former French colonies on the West Coast of Africa, Cote d'Ivore.

Needless to say that the three of us had divergent views (that's the whole purpose of a multi sided discussion, isn't it?). But our disagreements were not principally due to the obvious: That because the other two were Europeans and myself an African, one belonging to victims and the other a descendant of perpetrators, there were objective and subjective contradictions. No. We were all opposed to colonialism and agreed too that the consequences were generally bad for the victims regardless of who the colonizer was. But that's where the agreement stopped.

Our differences emerged as a result of what is happening today and what can be done. Both Europeans were rather sanguine about the impact of history on contemporary relations between the former colonies and their erstwhile colonial subjects. The Portuguese saw no direct influence for his country as could be found in former British or French colonies. Maybe because the Portuguese were the first to arrive in Africa and the last to be chased out! The Dutch representative also felt his country did not have much control in the former colonies.

Both of them however saw moral and political responsibility to intervene in their former colonies. The Portuguese chap even argued that, but for Portugal, who cared about Guinea-Bissau or Cape Verde? When I retorted that even if both countries were not important internationally or even regionally they mattered to Cape Verdians and people of Guinea-Bissau the man was still relentless, finally quipping that he was not even sure about that! A few seconds later he realized the incongruity of his colonialist template by qualifying the absurd claim with ‘I don't think the elite care’. But the genie was already out of the bottle. So powerful and consuming is the latter day missionary fervour of many in the West that they actually believe that they care more about Africa than Africans themselves. This ideology of being more Catholic than the pope is so pervasive that even many Africans share in it. On the surface the argument is so beguiling and dressed in humanitarian concerns that it is almost seductive. But it is only a latter day repackaging of the old imperialist ‘white man's burden’.

The relationship between former colonies and their former colonial masters need not necessarily be a continuing repackaging of the same colonial attitudes through neo-colonialism or present threatening recolonisation. Looking at the relationship between Britain and the USA today, especially Tony Blair's ‘America right or wrong’ servitude to Bush, many would have forgotten that America used to be a colony of the British. The relationship between Britain and the former white colonies of New Zealand, Australia and Canada are also different. And yes too the relationship with India is different say from that with Gambia or Sierra-Leone. Even within Africa I do not think that Britain can be presumptuous enough to take South Africa or Nigeria's cooperation for granted. The Italians can never dream of controlling Libya, which is their former colony. And the French or the Belgians cannot walk like former masters across present day Rwanda.

What makes African countries vulnerable to continuing manipulation by former colonial powers is their essentially unviable nature built as they were to serve foreign interests and mostly lacking in organic linkages and legitimacy among the peoples forcibly brought together in these artificial states. But more than the economic linkages, in many countries security and intelligence networks help in retaining metropolitan hold.

This is certainly more evident in many of the former French colonies where the added burden of the French cultural policy of assimilation made many of their elite think they were French. It must be said that there are so many elite in the former British colonies too who regard themselves as English and mimic the English in many ridiculous ways, including confused middle class elements who refuse to speak their African mother tongue to their children even in the home because they fear their English will suffer.

But generally the colonial cultural project seems more complete in former French colonies. That was why France has always had far greater neo-colonialist influence in her former colonies. In recent years it has gone into retreat - but old habits die hard hence the current situation in Ivory Coast. But that mess is made messier by the fact that Laurent Gbagbo's government and his leadership is that of a genocidaire yet to be put on trial.

However that situation can only be sorted out by the Ivorians themselves, their sub regional neighbours, the African Union and the support of the international community. A positive role for former colonialists is one in which they support African efforts if and when asked and not by justifying continuing imperialism with 'the need to do something'. Too many times that something has turned out to be nothing but old fashioned imperialism in new robes.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to

Heinrich Bomhke’s debut 12 minute film, Marcel King is Dead, captures the events which led to and followed the brutal murder of nineteen-year-old Marcel King by ANC-led Durban metro security guards on June 24, 2004 in Phoenix, Durban. Marcel’s mother was part of a community resistance against the electricity disconnections faced by the poors of the democratic South Africa. In the ensuing struggle, one security employee cocked his gun. Aimed. Marcel King used his body to shield his mother from the eminent gun fire… He was shot in the head at short range. The film tells the story which unfolded from death to burial.

A recently published play from the prolific Nigerian poet, dramatist and literary critic, which testifies to the author's commitment to socially relevant art and artistic activism for which he is justifiably renowned. The play tells the story of Yankeland, an imaginary African country, where the country's natural and donated wealth is in the hands of a few corrupt rulers in cahoots with the American military. The powerful prey on the exploited masses, whilst upholding a facade of god-fearing morality.

Mikela is a young and vivacious beauty with a unique artistic talent. Her nightmare starts in the open plains of the Tanzanian Maasailand where she experiences female circumcision. The saga of tradition and ensuing events force Mikela to embark on a blinded journey, one that would eventually take her across two continents.

An underground journal named after the Zimbabwean war of independence, Chimurenga, provides a platform for wordy renegades from Africa and the diaspora. In print since March 2002, the journal is published by Ntone Edjabe, a Cameroonian journalist based in Cape Town. It started as a quarterly publication, but now the magazine rather eccentrically only hits the streets when there is something worth talking about in the arena of arts, culture and politics.

This is the author's semi-fictional autobiography, written in the third person, following in the tradition of Camara Laye's African Child, Wole Soyinka's trilogy (Ake, Isara, Ibadan) and Tanure Ojaide's Great Boys: An African Childhood. The narrative describes the author's birth and childhood in Igbotako, education and career at the University of Lagos and at universities in the States. Throughout, the author is concerned with the historical junctures and social and cultural changes in postcolonial Nigeria.

Of the 12 million refugees in the world, more than 7 million have been confined to camps or segregated settlements, effectively “warehoused”, in some cases for 10 years and more. Refugee camps have become wards of the international community, a community that too often holds itself above serious scrutiny, sometimes even above the law, infringing the fundamental rights of refugees it should protect as well as the sovereignty of host countries. Holding European refugees in camps was anathema to the founders of the refugee protection regime. Today, with most refugees encamped in the less developed world, the office of the UN High Comissioner for Refugees and the humanitarian apparatus originally designed to protect and safeguard their human rights has in many ways been transformed into a custodial regime for innocent people.

Based on the analysis of rich ethnographic data, Rights in Exile exposes the gap between human rights norms and the mandates of international organisations, on the one hand, and the reality on the ground, on the other. It will be of wide interest to social scientists, human rights and international law scholars, and those interested in the work of international organisations. Policy makers, donor governments and humanitarian organisations, especially those beginning to develop 'rights-based' approaches, will also find it an invaluable.

Sudanese Arabs in Cairo have formed a fundamental part of Egyptian history and society during many centuries of close relations between Egypt and Sudan. In spite of being described as “brothers” in a united Nile Valley, recent political unrest negatively affected the Sudanese in Cairo. Neither citizens nor foreigners, their uncertain place in Egypt has given rise to an ethnic discourse that does not follow the common pattern of drawing upon obvious characteristics to mark difference. This rich study, available next year, shows that ethnicity does not only flow from sharply drawn distinctions, but can also be created from social values held in common.

Two new African Studies videos distributed by First Run/Icarus Films, 'In Rwanda We Say…The Family That Does Not Speak Dies' and 'J’y Crois: I Believe In It', have been selected for screening at this year’s African Studies Association Conference, November 11-14, in New Orleans.

According to a press release from Gary Crowdus, Director of Marketing and Publicity at First Run/Icarus Films the documentary 'In Rwanda We Say...The Family that Does Not Speak Dies' (54 minutes, color) portrays the difficult steps toward reconciliation between Hutu and Tutsi. For further details on this film, click on http://www.frif.com/new2004/inrw.html

'J’y Crois: I Believe In It' (55 mins., color) is a political documentary on the decentralization process in Mali, which aims to transfer political and economic power to the democratically elected political bodies in decentralized communities. Further details can be found at http://www.frif.com/new2004/jy.html

First Run/Icarus Films’s new release on South Africa, 'Story of a Beautiful Country', will be screened on February 3, 2005 at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, California. South African filmmaker Khalo Matanabe travels in a mini-van taxi across his country with a hand-held camera, giving his fellow South Africans the opportunity to discuss a wide range of controversial issues, including land, race, language, democracy, identity, and violence. Further details can be found at http://www.frif.com/new2004/beau.html