The upcoming AU Summit will be “closed”, allowing only the accredited delegations and staff to participate in and witness its deliberations. What is clear is that it will give the current class of Africa’s Heads of State a once-in-a-generation opportunity to re-shape the organization.

Negotiations with descendants of the Herero and Nama people massacred by Germany in Namibia have been difficult. The government of Chancellor Merkel does not want to pay compensation for the genocide. But at the same time Germany is attempting to reassert its political and economic influence in Africa.

The current efforts to elect a new Chair of the AU Commission have been caught in the crosswinds of the impact of illicit capital outflows, the question of reseating Morocco in the AU and the challenges that Africa will face during a period of the ascendancy of the ideas of Donald Trump and Marie Le Pen. The AU will survive this turbulence. But the rise of the Pan African Movement will likely sweep away the present crop of leaders.

Negligence of African languages invites ignorance and misconceptions about Africa. Some professors in their very high institutions of learning call bohali or lobola “bride price” or “bride wealth.” Yet our daughters and sisters have never been up for sale. Eurocentricity finds nothing wrong with calling African traditional doctors or herbalists “witchdoctors.” Can a person be a witch and a doctor at the same time? This is senseless.

Many postcolonial regimes are still mired in protracted civil wars and violence, struggling economies, corruption, bad leadership, broken social and economic infrastructure and famine.  It is rather dishonest for a country whose main university could be closed for months by presidential decree, whose professors strike year in year out over emoluments, to complain about an overwhelming European or American presence in their studies.

In the light of the former British Prime Minister’s dismissal of reparations, activists must push the debate further by detailing what reparations should entail. Fundamental to a reparations programme must be the fact that we transform the system of capitalism which slavery gave birth to.

The next African Union summit will be on January 31, 2017 in Addis Ababa, where Morocco is hoping to achieve its sinister agenda against Western Sahara, Africa’s last colony. The honourable thing for the AU is to rebuff Morocco’s arm-twisting and vigorously support the self-determination of the Saharawi people.

At the recent public ‘debate’, part from Senegal’s Prof Abdoulaye Bathily all the other candidates for African Union Commission Chair read from prepared scripts. They all had interesting things to say on the issues brought up, but clearly Bathily emerged as the more passionate and pan-Africanist candidate with a clear vision of what he would bring to the position.

Canada’s position towards the African liberation struggles of the 1970s and 1980s should influence how people view deploying troops to the continent today. This history – and the media’s distortion of it – suggests the need for healthy dose of skepticism towards Ottawa’s intentions.

Extremely feared in life and in death, South African anti-apartheid revolutionary leader Sobukwe remains largely silenced as all attention has been lavished on Mandela. Subukwe articulated an uncompromising internationalist vision with Afrika at the centre. He eschewed multi-racialism and a narrow nationalism. Restoring land to Black people was at the heart of his praxis of liberation.

The new film on the former slave, Nat Turner, whilst deeply flawed should inspire people to find out more about this historical heroic figure, beyond populist narratives. More importantly, his legacy of revolt should inspire the generation of Black Lives Matter to struggle against new forms of domination in our capitalist, imperialist white supremacist patriarchal world.

His anti-imperialist policies, socialist initiatives and strong internationalism have earned him a lasting place in world history.

Museveni and Castro both came to power through a revolution. Despite a crippling international blockade led by America, Cuba under Castro made huge strides in development while Uganda, a darling of the West, has remained backward - with all those millions of dollars in aid. It is a country where ordinary diarrhea is a life-threatening condition.

Despite the obvious propaganda attempting to demonize him, Fidel Castro will always remain an icon, a warrior for the poor and disenfranchised. He will forever be a symbol of revolution against Western imperialism, colonialism, subjugation, human exploitation and profit before people.

Fidel Castro embodied in his life the unending struggle of ordinary people for a life of dignity against the forces of oppression. In him dedicated revolutionaries find the inspiration to resist their enemy, regardless how mighty.

It is laughable – or pitiful – to compare Barack Obama to Fidel Castro. The fundamental truth is: Barack Obama is the president of imperialism. By necessity he must be a mass murdering, lying, enemy of humanity. It is an unspoken prerequisite for that job. Fidel Castro is the opposite. That’s why a long line of U.S. presidents has tried to assassinate Castro over 600 times, and committed 1,000 acts of terror against his people.

Fidel Castro was a fierce Cuban revolutionary whose principle and dedication to revolutionary ideals of international socialism was like no other. Fidel passed away on 26 November 2019 at the age of 90 years. The following interview was conducted in February 1961 in Cuba.

Vivid accounts of Castro’s brave encounters with the forces of oppression enabled people of diverse cultures and backgrounds to envisage waging similar struggles in their own terrain. Suddenly, revolution was seen as a possible and viable alternative to corrupt dictatorship in many developing countries.

Nobody should be under the illusion that the conditions of poverty and hopelessness that crush the masses of the people in Africa are one day going to end without a bitter struggle. The time is ripe for a Socialist revolution in Africa that will overthrow elite misrule and put the continent on the path to true transformation. That is the urgent task for Africa’s teeming masses of young people.

No other political figure outside of Africa symbolized global solidarity with the aspirations of the people than Comandante President Fidel Castro Ruz of the Republic of Cuba.