The US National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) plans a one-week diaspora trade mission to London, Paris and Accra starting Thursday 10 June 2004. The NBCC says it reaches 95,000 Black-owned businesses. Apparently, there are one million Black-owned businesses in the United States. Black businesses account for over $100 billion in annual sales. African Americans have over $800 billion in expendable income each year according to the US Bureau of Census.

The International Roots Foundation (IRF) will hold its biennial Roots Cultural event from June 26 to July 2 in 2004 in The Gambia. The program offers a close encounter with Roots Culture - a diverse culture and heritage and a unique celebration of a full circle of the encounters of life.

The Boston College Centre for International Higher Education has launched the International Network for Higher Education in Africa (INHEA), an information clearinghouse for institutions and individuals engaged in research, development, and advocacy activities in postsecondary education in Africa. INHEA’s purpose is to strengthen and foster interest in African higher education through information sharing. (See also http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/newsletter/News35/text012.htm)

Tanzanians in the diaspora have launched an online petition making the case for recognition of dual citizenship by the Tanzanian government.

April marks the tenth year since the genocide that left a million dead in Rwanda. There will be many acts of remembrance, public and private. Many will be intensely personal. There will be those who wish that we would all forget, that the whole thing would just go away. Many of these will be in prisons in Rwanda, Tanzania or hiding out in capitals around the world. The feelings and reactions about the date will be as varied as the individuals who dared not look away.

Much more complex is the reaction of Africans in the Diaspora. For them as for many others around the world, there was what to make of the scarcely believable horror that forced itself on their lives through television sets. The shock of what was taking place before the world’s eyes froze most people’s analytical faculties. In some sense, the whole world participated in the genocide in Rwanda. Thanks to the miracle of television, we all went along as spectators. Unwilling, reluctant spectators, horrified and yet gripped by the terrifying depths to which human souls could sink. As people watched helplessly, representative governments, chiefly Great Britain, the United States and of course France, worked overtime to ensure that what was happening in Rwanda was not called genocide, because then they would have been obliged to intervene. For them this technicality was all-important.

And so a more convenient, comforting description gained currency in newsrooms. The world was informed that what was taking place in Rwanda was ‘tribal killings’. It was an Old Faithful that never fails to satisfy the questions what and why whenever a conflict in Africa degenerates to such an appalling extent that it forces itself on the attention of a wider world that would rather focus its attentions elsewhere. For most people watching, this line provided some comfort in that it at least provided a context into which they could put the abominable crimes they were being forced to witness.

The line provided a way in which they could distance themselves from what was being done. Such savagery could have nothing to do with them. It could only be done by that ‘other’, the ‘other’ that did not have their sensibilities.

The irony is almost chilling; this is how the organisers of the genocide spoke of their eventual victims. The Batutsi were “snakes” (Rwandans’ horror of snakes should be understood in a biblical sense: an insidious and perfidious killer) that not only could but should be mercilessly destroyed. They were not to be thought of like other people, they were different, they were the other. Upwards of 300,000 children were killed in the genocide, although ‘kill’ is too kind and innocuous a word for how their young lives were ended before they had hardly begun. The leaders of the genocide simply put the rhetorical question to the Bahutu population, “when you hunt for a snake, do you spare its young?” Such reasoning was designed to make even infanticide acceptable.

For Africans in the Diaspora, there could be no such easy comforts. The people committing such unspeakable crimes were no aliens that could be disowned, they were just like them. Diaspora Africans could not distance themselves from the perpetrators of the genocide by seeing them as the other. The other that were not like them, the other that were capable of such inhumanity that they themselves found so abhorrent. They had to endure that terrible unease that must come with witnessing a human being just like you descend into such depths of inhumanity that one would not have even dared to imagine.

The dictionary description of the word empathy, is the power to enter into the feeling and spirit of others. The trouble with empathy is that while it leads one to identify and wish to protect and comfort the victim, it cannot protect itself from the horror of the knowledge that the perpetrator is a human being just like oneself. How could the minds and hearts that could just as easily be theirs, not only perpetrate, or even contemplate such an abomination? How could the eyes that could easily be theirs bear to look upon such evil?

As it should have done, the Rwandan genocide challenged the assumptions for the basis of our own humanity. If a general observation can be made about how Africans in the Diaspora responded to this most profound and personal of challenges, it is that above and beyond the abhorrence that gripped every decent human being, they felt it incumbent upon them to help in some way. And many did. In Britain, a number of organisations both large and small collected money and material for Rwanda, long before the call to respond to the crisis begun to be heard commonly in the mainstream.

A number of individuals organised fund raising events. This was particularly true of those in the media. A number of well known professionals exploited their celebrity status and managed to bring together a number of pop stars and other entertainers for fundraising events. The speed with which this was done was surprisingly impressive and for the few Rwandans then living in the United Kingdom (UK) profoundly touching.

The Diaspora community in the UK is relatively small, powerless and lacks any real organised unity. It was for instance notable that while they were organising events for Rwanda, holding meetings, talks and seminars about Rwanda, neither the individuals nor the organisations involved had any awareness that there existed a Rwandan community in their midst.

While they talked of the need to show support and solidarity with their Rwandan brethren, they had no idea that they could share these feelings and deliver these messages, face to face in the same city. Conversely, the tiny Rwandan community in the UK stoically continued to plough a lonely furrow, doing all it could to support people back home. The community never realised that less than three-quarters of an hour’s drive away, people who thought of them as brothers and sisters were almost desperate for an opportunity to help. With this state of affairs it was therefore most impressive that so many were galvanised into action so quickly and so effectively.

There was however another side to this general picture. In Britain, after the initial shock of the first images from Rwanda, one of the determining factors in black people’s response to the harrowing events in Rwanda, was the extent of their identification with Africans in Africa and Africa itself. This identification or lack of it is in turn influenced by their respective backgrounds. The majority of people of African descent in the Western Hemisphere are descendants of Africans that were forcibly removed from Africa during the slave trade.

From the moment of capture, these Africans were no longer treated as human beings. Once in the Americas or the Caribbean, those that survived the slave ships were soon deprived of everything that any human being takes for granted. They were stripped of their identity, even their names were take away and replaced with those of the slave owners. “Forget you are African, remember you are black” was drummed into their beings, often with whips. To be African was to be a person with a heritage, a family, a name. It was to belong. To be black was to be a subspecies, a beast of burden. For good measure, the idea of Africa was depicted as a dark primitive place from which the slaves should be grateful to have been delivered.

Over centuries, this notion has been burned into the psyche of many people of African descent. It has lain dormant ready to be triggered by any occurrence or happening that might lead to self-awareness or self-analysis. It is an enduring intellectual and psychological war in which many Diaspora African scholars and activists have been engaged for centuries. For many black people whose view of Africa and Africans have been shaped by this outlook, the Rwandan genocide, like other conflicts in Africa, are no more than the expected atavistic struggles in a modern age. This was a view held by a large minority within the African Diaspora.

It is a view that has been termed “the internalisation of racism” by informed opinion within the African Diaspora. Such thinking, or perhaps more accurately, such feelings were by no means restricted to Diaspora Africans whose ancestors had gone through the slave trade. While they are burdened by what has been called a “slave mentality”, many Africans still on the continent or who have relatively recently become part of the African Diaspora, can be said to be burdened with a similar mentality, which we may term a “colonial mentality.”

And this too came to the fore during the genocide. A veteran journalist of Camerounian origin, whom it might be unfair to name, was interviewed by one of the major television news networks and his responses were revealing. He was offended by events in Rwanda and Burundi, he said, because they were responsible for perpetuating Africa’s image in the West as savage and uncivilised. He irritably opined that these countries should refrain from making the rest of the continent look bad.

A million people had been killed in ways that would defy the most depraved imagination and yet for this senior African journalist, the deepest injury was to the image of Africa, the deepest worry, withdrawal of approval from the West. His was by no means a minority view. The former Secretary General to the United Nations Boutros Ghali was clearly of the same mind, when he visited Rwanda and complained of the smell from the dead. It is a view shared by Africans of a certain generation for whom the West’s view of itself as the arbiter of civilisation has become a deeply ingrained belief. For them Africa is indeed the ‘Dark Continent’.

Small Pan-African groups on the fringe in London had anticipated these feelings and had begun to rail against them long before they had been expressed in response to the genocide. For them the genocide was just another battleground against the colonial and slave mentalities. They automatically spoke of the Rwandan conflict as a colonial legacy, anxious to pre-empt and counter feelings of African insecurity and inferiority. They were more right than they imagined. Ethnic divide in Rwanda is a recent political construction that grew from the seeds sown by German and later Belgian authorities. True as this may be however, one is still faced with the fact that it was Rwandans who first accepted alien views of themselves, abandoned their own civilisations and massacred over a million of their compatriots.

When the first European arrivals from Germany arrived in Rwanda and espoused such fantasist ideas that the Batutsi were a different, finer race from the Bahutu, many from the two main ethnic groups did not challenge this view. Instead a number of earlier Batutsi and Bahutu intellectuals took up these ideas. It was these ideas that were repeated in the first massacres against the Batutsi in the 50s and 60s, during which hundreds of thousands died. It is these same ideas that were heard again in 1994.

There can be no rational explanation for the Rwandan genocide or any other genocide for that matter. None the less, when human beings are visited by such overwhelming disasters, they try to seek comfort in asking why and how. From within the African Diaspora, there was and continues to be a collective chorus of why and how. They need, want and demand an explanation.

However there is no explanation for genocide. Why did the Nazis murder six million Jewish souls? Could even the Nazis say why? The best that can be done for Africans in the Diaspora, who ask why, is to explain the circumstances and conditions surrounding the genocide. As for why they were committed, it is for every human being to answer that. Information may help and much needs to be done to provide it. A black American acquaintance asked me where I came from and when I said Rwanda, he asked me whether it was in South America. Most people know more about Rwanda now of course, but not much more.

Many Diaspora Africans have done and are doing much to increase understanding. Programme makers, journalists and writers like Jack Mapanji from Malawi - who offered a poem in response to what he witnessed - and many others. Rwandan communities in the Diaspora can offer information but none of us can answer the question why.

* Vincent Gasana is a Rwandan who lives and works as a broadcast journalist in London.

* NOTE FOR EDITORS: Please note that this editorial was commissioned from the author for Pambazuka News. If you would like to use this article for your publication, please do so with the following credit: "This article first appeared in Pambazuka News, an electronic newsletter for social justice in Africa, Editors are also encouraged to make a donation.

Why were Diasporan Africans excluded from consultation during the process of the formation of the AU? What role does the AU perceive that the millions of Africans in the Diaspora can play in the AU? What do Diasporan Africans expect and demand of the African Union? These will be some of the questions this forum aims to answer.

“Sometimes an editor just knows when he comes across a book that needs to be published” were the words that publisher Robert L. Giron said recently when asked about the new release entitled Literatures of the African Diaspora by Yemi D. Ogunyemi. What makes Literatures of the African Diaspora special is Dr. Ogunyemi’s premise for the book and the manner in which he presents his case that all literatures of the world can find their root in the literatures of Africa in some form or another. In a very tightly written book, Dr. Ogunyemi crosses the globe and finds threads of the African Diaspora across the continents and in world literatures such that one will never think about the concept of a national literature in the same light.

* Opening March 12th - Lost Boys of Sudan
* Opening March 26th - James' Journey to Jerusalem

The Black Media Network (BMN) was co-founded in 2002 by cyberNomads and ISD Berlin e.V. to address the misrepresentation of minorities in the media and the stereotypical use of images of people of African descent, but also to increase the number of voices and debates concerned with positive change in a multi-cultural society.

Eleven international and African organisations and networks called on the new Pan-African Parliament to set an ambitious agenda as it was inaugurated in Addis Ababa. The organisations, including the African Women's Empowerment Network, Eastern African Sub-regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women, FEMNET, PADEAP, Pan African Movement, Fahamu learning for Change, Fahamu SA Trust, MWENGO, Justice Africa and Oxfam GB, called on the new Parliament to embrace improving governance, giving citizens a voice and improving the human rights environment in Africa as a key priorities. For most poor people and especially women in Africa, parliaments are far removed from the day-to-day realities and challenges they face. The Pan African parliament is far from being representative (one MP for every 2.6 million people) therefore the 256 parliamentarians must go beyond being a talk shop to advance the issues that face millions of poor Africans.

Imagine an Africa free from conflict, developing rapidly through an equitable and sustainable relationship with the rest of the world. In this Africa there is an entrenched culture of respect for human rights. Populations are healthy and governed by fair, transparent and accountable governments. This is the vision, but African parliamentarians gathered in Addis Ababa this week will be only too aware of the steep slope the continent faces in overcoming its many challenges so that all its people may live in harmony.

The Pan-African Parliament of the African Union has been established with the intention that it will ultimately function as a kind of continental democracy, representing all the peoples of Africa. In its initial stages it will only have consultative and advisory powers, but over time it is hoped that it will evolve into an institution with legislative powers, whose members are elected by universal adult suffrage.

In the context of the challenges facing Africa, the Parliament has many objectives relevant to Africa’s development. Some of these are to facilitate the implementation of the policies of the African Union, promote human rights and democracy, encourage good governance, and promote peace, security and stability.

The protocol states that: “In terms of its advisory powers it may examine, discuss or express an opinion on any matter, either on its own initiative or at the request of the Assembly or other policy organs and make any recommendations it may deem fit relating to, inter alia, matters pertaining to respect of human rights, the consolidation of democratic institutions and the culture of democracy, as well as the promotion of good governance and the rule of law.”

Clearly – and even in their advisory capacity - this does enable members of the Parliament to highlight key areas of concern relating to conflicts, human rights and good governance in Africa. It is therefore fitting to briefly recap on Africa’s status in key areas such as conflicts, human rights, good governance, gender equality and trade and development.

CONFLICT:

Africa began 2004 on an optimistic note. During 2003 long-standing and destructive conflicts such as the civil war in Angola were finally ended and there appeared to be a renewed commitment to brokering peace on the continent, as evidenced in efforts to resolve the civil war in Burundi.

However, the success of deals such as the one in Burundi will have to stand the test of time, while other conflicts around the continent are still cause for grave concern. In Sudan, peace talks have not prevented continued conflict in the Darfur region, while the war in Northern Uganda between the Lord’s Resistance Army and Ugandan government has intensified.

Meanwhile, several other regional conflicts, such as in West Africa and the border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea, are simmering and require close attention. Reports of sporadic violence in the DRC continue to surface. Zimbabwe remains a cause for concern.

Much work remains to be done before Africa can be truly at peace. African parliamentarians will face the challenge of how they contribute to conflict resolution and prevention on the African continent through oversight, reform of laws and the entrenchment of human rights.

HUMAN RIGHTS:

Protecting and enforcing human rights is one of the key challenges facing the continent. Human rights abuses are prevalent throughout Africa. According to Amnesty International’s 2003 Africa Report human rights abuses were committed with impunity across Africa in the year under review, especially in Burundi, Central African Republic (CAR), Republic of Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Liberia, Sudan, Senegal, and Uganda.

Torture, ill-treatment, and secret detentions were widespread and the death penalty continued to be imposed extensively by criminal courts in 14 countries, with actual executions in Nigeria, Sudan and Uganda, said Amnesty. Freedom of expression is far from being an established right, with journalists facing extreme harassment on a daily basis in many parts of the continent.

Amnesty International points out that the Constitutive Act of the African Union (the Act) attaches a particular significance to human rights in a more comprehensive manner. This is an area where African Parliamentarians can and must intervene.

TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT

Most of the countries of the world that were poorer in 2000 than in 1990 are in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report 2003. The report argues that to reverse declines, development strategies must focus not only on economic growth, but also on more equitable distribution of wealth and services. The Report also calls on developing country governments to prioritize spending on the basic services that poor people need most: “primary schools, not universities; rural clinics, not technologically advanced hospitals in big cities”.

Africa has put forward its own development plan, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) as the fix-all solution to Africa’s development problems. The plan seeks greater integration of Africa in the world economy and commits to standards of good governance across the continent. Nepad has faced criticism from some quarters, especially in civil society. Opponents of Nepad have argued that greater integration of Africa into a profoundly unfair international economic system is a recipe for disaster and say the top down implementation of Nepad smacks of the imposition of neo-liberal economic solutions for the continent.

Africa has shown strong signs of intent to deal with the unfair terms of trade it faces in its trading relationship with the developed world. During the World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico in 2003, the continent signaled that Africa would demand fairer terms of trade with the rich world.

Debt is another key problem still hampering Africa’s development. In 1996, the Highly Indebted Poor Country Initiative (HIPC) committed to partial debt cancellation, but according to a report from the New Economic Foundation, progress since 2000 has been “glacial”, hamstrung partially by onerous conditionalities. If African governments are to free up significant resources to meet the Millennium Development Goals, it is clear that the debt situation will have to be speedily resolved.

GENDER EQUALITY

There has been some progress towards gender equality on the African continent, but it is generally agreed that the continent has a long way to go before women achieve full equality.

Five of the 10 commissioners of the African Union are women, and females hold a significant percentage of government posts in Rwanda, South Africa, Cape Verde, Gambia, Mali and Zimbabwe, according to a news report quoting the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). But less than 15 percent of economic managers in Africa are women, the UNDP says, while just 10 percent of parliamentarians and eight percent of government ministers on the continent are female. Women are also more likely to suffer from the HIV/AIDS virus and suffer more from the effects of poverty.

A big step forward was taken on 11 July 2003 when the African Union adopted the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, a supplementary protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which was adopted in 1981.

The new Protocol covers a broad range of human rights issues. For the first time in international law, it explicitly sets forth the reproductive right of women to medical abortion when pregnancy results from rape or incest or when the continuation of pregnancy endangers the health or life of the mother.

In another first, the Protocol explicitly calls for the legal prohibition of female genital mutilation. In other equality advances for women, the Protocol calls for an end to all forms of violence against women including unwanted or forced sex, whether it takes place in private or in public, and a recognition of protection from sexual and verbal violence as inherent in the right to dignity.

GOVERNANCE

Coups, counter-coups and rigged elections: Africa is notorious for its governance problems. Consensus has emerged that in looking at the social, political and economic problems facing Africa, the missing link is the absence of good governance.

In February, African leaders agreed to start a review process on the key areas of good governance, democracy, human rights, transparency and domestic business environment under the peer review mechanism of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad).

According to the United Nations Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN), the countries whose review is expected to take place in 2004 are Ghana and Rwanda, in April and June respectively.

Kenya and Mauritius will also to be reviewed but the process for these nations is expected to end in early 2005. The purpose of the peer review is to foster the adoption of appropriate laws, policies, standards and practices that lead to political stability, high economic growth and sustainable development on the continent. Nepad established the peer review mechanism in 2003 in a bid to counter Africa's reputation for bad governance.

Links to background news and information:

* Protocol establishing the Pan-African Parliament
http://www.africa-union.org/rule_prot/protocol-panafrican-parliament.pdf
* Other organs of the AU
http://www.africa-union.org/organs/Pan-African_Parliament.htm
* Meetings of African Parliamentarians on the Pan-African parliament
http://tinyurl.com/create.php
* Statement to the AU summit on behalf of the meeting of African parliaments
http://www.au2002.gov.za/docs/speeches/ginwala.htm
* An Underwhelming Response to the Pan-African Parliament
http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=22592
* Africa at large: Pan-African Parliament to open March 2004
http://www.afrika.no/Detailed/4510.html
* SA wants to house African parliament
http://www.suntimes.co.za/2003/06/22/news/africa/africa10.asp
* Senegal ratification paves the way for Pan African parliament
http://quickstart.clari.net/qs_se/webnews/wed/bm/Qafricanunion-parliame…
* The new African parliament: a giant step towards unity
http://mathaba.net/x.htm?http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=40204
* The Pan-African Parliament: An opportunity for African women
http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000608/page2.php
* African Union adopts protocol on the rights of African women
http://www.equalitynow.org/english/navigation /hub_ph01_en.html
* Pan-African Declaration on PRSPS
http://aidc.org.za/sapsn/declaration/kampala.html
* Africa united: not helpless, not hopeless
http://www.newint.org/issue326/keynote.htm
* Is Pan-African unity possible?
http://www.newint.org/issue326/colours.htm
* A History of Pan-Africanism
http://www.newint.org/issue326/simply.htm
* Ordinary people and pan africanism
http://www.newint.org/issue326/future.htm
* New meanings of Pan Africanism in the era of globalisation
http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/files/Panafri1.pdf
* Monitoring the MDG’s: A List of the MDG’s with links to key indicators showing progress
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mi/mi_goals.asp
* Amnesty recommendations to AU session
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGIOR630012003?open&of=ENG-2AF

RESOURCES FOR PAN-AFRICAN PARLIAMENTARIANS

Relevant organisations and useful websites

* An A-Z of African regional integration
http://www.focusintl.com/whoswho1.htm
* Africa Action
http://www.africaaction.org/index.php
* Africa Commission on Human and People’s Rights: Links
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/africa/comision.html
* African Centre on Democracy and Human Rights Studies
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/africa/ACOHRS.htm
* African Gender Institute
http://web.uct.ac.za/org/agi/
* Africa Human Rights Instruments
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/afrinst.htm
* African Human Security Initiative
www.africanreview.org
* Africa Information Centre
http://www.africainformation.net/
* African Population and Health Research Centre
http://www.aphrc.org/
* Africa Security Dialogue and Research
http://www.cdd.org.uk/
* Africa South of the Sahara: country and regional guide
http://gill.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/guide3.html
* African Union
http://www.africa-union.org/
* Alliance for Conflict Transformation
http://www.conflicttransformation.org/index.asp
* Alternative Information and Development Centre
http://aidc.org.za/
* Association for Women’s Rights in Development
http://www.awid.org/index.pl
* Bretton Woods Project
http://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/
* Centre for Democracy and Development
http://www.cdd.org.uk/
Coalition for the International Criminal Court
http://www.iccnow.org/
* Centre for Civil Society at the University of Natal
http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/
* Development Policy Management Forum
http://www.dpmf.org/
* Dialogue Webpage for conflicts worldwide: Africa
http://www.dwcw.org/cgi/wwwbbs.cgi?Africa
* Electoral quotas for women website
www.quotaproject.org
* Fahamu - Learning for Change
http://www.fahamu.org
* FEMNET
http://www.femnet.or.ke/
* Focus on the Global South
http://www.focusweb.org/index.php
* Global Coalition for Africa
http://www.gca-cma.org/
* Jubilee Movement International
http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/rweo_top.aspx?page=952&folder=146
* Justice Africa
http://www.justiceafrica.org/index.html
* Mwengo
www.mwengo.org/
* Pan-African HIV/AIDS treatment action movement
http://www.phrusa.org/campaigns/aids/news082502.html
* PanAfrican Women’s Liberation Organisation
http://www.wougnet.org/Profiles/pawlo.html
* Parliamentarians for Nepad
http://www.parlanepad.org
* Pan African Movement
http://www.panafricanmovement.org
* Pan African Congress Movement for Humanity
http://www.crin.org/organisations/viewOrg.asp?ID=1968
Safer Africa
http://www.saferafrica.org/
* The African Forum Network on Debt and Development
http://www.afrodad.org/
* The Institute for Human Rights in Africa
http://www.africaninstitute.org/html/institute_for_human_rights_and.html
* The Human Rights Trust of Southern Africa
http://www.sahrit.org/
* The Parliamentary centre
http://www.parlcent.ca/africa/panafrica_e.php
* The Southern African Regional Poverty Network
Http://www.sarpn.org.za
* Third World Network Africa
http://twnafrica.org/
* Women of Uganda Network
http://www.wougnet.org/
World Organisation Against Torture
http://www.omct.org
* 50 years is enough network
http://www.50years.org/

Useful Newsletters and Mailing Lists

* AF-AIDS
"A regional HIV/AIDS information network for Africa (in English and French)...Over 200 organisations working in or with African Nations in the response to the epidemic have already joined the forum." To join send e-mail to: [email protected] with the word 'join' in the subject line.

* AFRO-NETS
The AFRO-NETS mailing list has been set up to facilitate the exchange of information between the different networks active in Health Research for Development in the Eastern and Southern African Region. It is a forum for discussion that can support collaboration between the networks in the fields of capacity building, planning and conducting research, transformation of research recommendations into action, etc. The list also serves as a forum for announcing meetings, training courses and other events of interest to the networks. Subscribe by sending an email to [email protected].

* Africa Focus Bulletin
The Bulletin will feature material from a range of Africa-focused organisations. It will be limited to an average of 2 to 3 issues a week and offer selected material relevant to promoting international policies that advance economic, political, and social justice and human rights in Africa. Contact [email protected] to subscribe or unsubscribe.
http://africafocus.org

* Africa Trade Agenda
African Trade Agenda is produced by the Political Economy Unit, Third World Network-Africa. TWN-Africa is co-ordinator of the Africa Trade Network. For more info contact: TWN-Africa, Box 19452, Accra-North, GHANA. Tel, 233 21 511189/503669
Contact: [email protected]
www.twnafrica.org

* E-Africa: Journal of Governance and Innovation
To subscribe, email your name, job title, organisation and country to [email protected]. To unsubscribe, email to [email protected].

* Elections Talk
Election Talk from the Electoral Institute for Southern Africa is available in both electronic format and hard copy. It will now appear fortnightly to give the latest briefing on the forthcoming elections in the SADC region. These policy briefs are written by regional experts to give you a succinct overview on the latest developments in those countries holding elections in 2004.
Contact: [email protected]
http://www.eisa.org.za/PDF/et7.pdf

* Femnet Bulletin
The African Women's Economic and Policy Network (AWEPON) is a network founded on the principle that women have the fundamental right to shape economic policies that impinge on their lives. It has partners in several African countries and works with them to strengthen the capacity of women especially at the grass root and national levels to influence the shape of economic policy. Find out more information about Awepon and other organisations by reading the Femnet bulletin. http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=20811

* Global Campaign for Education e-newsletter
The Global Campaign for Education is an independent coalition of NGOs and trade unions campaigning for the right to free, good quality education and immediate action on the Education for All goals. Their email bulletin is produced as an information resource for activists and practitioners. To subscribe, send a message with the word 'subscribe' in the subject line to:
[email protected]
http:// www.campaignforeducation.org

* Independent Advocacy Project governance news
Independent Advocacy Project (IAP), the Nigerian good governance group, promotes - through advocacy, coalition building, research, publications and information sharing - respect for good governance in Nigeria. IAP produces a monthly electronic journal and you can contact [email protected] if you are interested in subscribing.
Contact: [email protected]

* SADC Barometer
The SADC Barometer, a quarterly analysis by the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), focuses on key issues and trends affecting the Southern African Development Community (SADC). For more information or comment, please contact the SAIIA SADC researcher and SADC Barometer editor, Richard Meissner on +27 (0)11-339-2021, e-mail: [email protected] or [email protected].

* Seatini Bulletin
Seatini focuses on trade issues. For more information and subscriptions, contact SEATINI, Takura House, 67-69 Union Avenue, Harare, Zimbabwe, Tel: +263 4 792681, Ext. 255 & 341, Tel/Fax: +263 4 251648, Fax: +263 4 788078, email: [email protected],Website: www.seatini.org

* Pula – A newsletter on women and ICT’s in Africa
Pula is the newsletter of the Association for Progressive Communications Africa Women (APC-Africa-Women). Pula aims to promote and profile the work and activities of women's Information and Communication Technology (ICT) initiatives in Africa and to act as a communicative tool to link women to each other and to initiatives and opportunities. To subscribe or unsubscribe email [email protected]

A selection from the Pambazuka News Archives:

* The Challenges before Africa and the African Union
http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?issue=112
The challenges facing the African continent are enormous. On every front: economic and industrial development; scientific and technological know how; electrification; agriculture; education; healthcare; housing; telecommunications; transport; peace and stability; institutional respect for social, economic, political and human rights, and all other indices of modern society the continent is yet to fulfil its potential.

* Ensuring a pro-poor focus in Agriculture and rural development through Nepad
http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000491/index.php
The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) recognises the central role of agriculture. But the bias towards a certain model of agriculture - commercial and export orientated - points to gaps in its conception of a more wider and deeper perspective on rural development.

* Nepad: What is it? What is missing? http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000550/index.php
The New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) has gone by many names. Critics have depicted Nepad as a 'neo-liberal' project, clearly contrary to the views of its supporters who see Nepad as a revolutionary plan. Whatever name and epithet one chooses, Nepad has clearly generated a great deal of debate, says this paper prepared for the labour research organisation Naledi.

* The Maputo Declaration
African Civil Society Statement To The Second Summit Of The Heads Of States And Governments Of The African Union
http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=16150
"We are convinced of the crucial role played by civil society in development and governance and further call on the AU member states to establish the necessary mechanisms to involve civil society in policy making, development planning, implementation monitoring and evaluation in accordance with the African charter on popular participation and development...”

* The role of the state in development in the SADC region: Does Nepad provide a new paradigm?
http://twnafrica.org/resdetail.asp?twnID=225
Academic discourse and development policy debates have grappled with the contentious issue of the state-market interactions in Africa’s development agenda and process, particularly since the 1960s independence era. At the heart of this debate has been the contestation over agency for development: what is the key locomotive or engine of development? This article revisits this debate and critically interrogates the extent to which the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) presents a new paradigm in development thinking in the African continent

* ‘No Longer Dinner’: African Activists speak on Cancun
http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?issue=126
Picture this. An island strip of expensive Florida styled hotels, white beaches and brilliant blue skies, disturbed by the violence of wrought iron barriers the length of the Convention Centre and 20,000 armed Mexican police and federal paramilitary. More than 10,000 people land on the island strip for the Inter-ministerial, 3,000 accredited NGO officials - but only 180 from Africa and 30 Africa Peoples Caucus activists on the outside; 1,200 accredited media journalists, of whom fewer than 100 from Africa; roughly 600 European Commission staff, but only 10 African Union staff and consultants. While the Italian delegation consisted of 106 people, there were 45 on the Kenyan delegation and 3 on the Gambian delegation. Towards the end, long and anxious hours waiting for the secretive green room discussions to end… The tears ... and then the shouts of joy and relief when the Kenyan Head of Delegation leaked the news of the collapse of the talks at 3pm on Sunday, 14 September. Africa emerged from the talks a major negotiating player, no longer the dinner of other trading partners, but defining the direction and outcome of the talks in Cancun.

* Barriers to African Regional Integration: The International Aid System and Corporate Interests
http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?issue=115
Why is the entire African continental economy no larger than Spain's, at $580 billion? Why is the combined GDP of the 40-plus countries that lie between South Africa and Egypt scarcely bigger than the annual turnover of ExxonMobil? There's a weary consensus that blames low prices for Africa's agricultural exports, corruption, cash-starved infrastructure and, increasingly, the devastating economic impact of AIDS. But less explored is the perverse logic of dividing Africa's small economic space into fifty sovereign entities. Regional economic integration is an absolute prerequisite for poverty reduction: expanding markets, attracting investment, and increasing savings. Unfortunately, there are powerful interests that stand in its way – mainly the politicians and bureaucrats who extract rent from their possession of sovereign privileges to tax and regulate.

>> To find more relevant articles on African issues, visit www.pambazuka.org and type your keyword in the search box to access nearly 20 000 archived articles.

>> For more articles relevant to the Pan-African parliament, visit the Conflicts and Emergencies, Women and Gender, Elections and Governance and Development sections of this edition of Pambazuka News.

One of the most important instruments of the African Union (AU) is contained in the protocol calling for the establishment of a pan-African parliament. This is so because a parliament in which the voices of all Africans are heard is a necessary tool, not only to deepen democracy but also to give expression to the aspirations of Africans everywhere.

Although originally published nearly a year ago, this article makes interesting reading.

Through this portal you can link to numerous resources about diverse aspects of the African diaspora’s existence and experience in Latin America.

Theme: African & African American Relations in US, Americas & Africa.
When? April 29- May 1, 2004
Where? California State University, Sacramento Univ. Union Building

The Argument

We have become so used to the rhetoric of the “global village” that talking about African nationalism sounds anachronistic and outdated. But that is exactly what I wish to address. In this paper, I will explore the “National Question” in Africa and its erstwhile expression, nationalism, in three sections. First, I will discuss the rise of post-Second World War nationalism and its true essence, if you like. Then, I will address the debunking of nationalism in the post-cold war period under the apparent hegemony of neo-liberalism and so-called globalisation. Finally, still holding high the Gramscian adage, “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will,” I anticipate the insurrection of a second nationalism.

Post-War Nationalism
The Essence of Nationalism

Introducing his book Freedom and After, Tom Mboya remembers what he calls the “proudest day of my life.” That was December 6, 1958, the opening day of the All Africa Peoples Conference in Accra, Ghana. Earlier in the same year, there had been a conference of independent African states, of which only eight existed at the time. “These two conferences,” says Mboya, “marked the rediscovery of Africa by Africans.”

"This rediscovery of Africa by Africans was ‘in complete contrast to the discovery of Africa by Europeans in the nineteenth century.’ The Conference of Independent African States had marked the birth of the African personality, and the delegates had all agreed on the need for Africa to rise and be heard at all the councils of the world affairs. "

The conference was attended by some five hundred delegates from political parties, trade unions, and organisations involved in the great awakening that was African nationalism. Patrice Lumumba and Roberto Holden were there, so was Dr. Kamuzu Banda. The nationalist upsurge in the post-war period in Africa was a great moment for a people that had been denied humanity by centuries of slavery and colonialism. Ideologies centered on Kwame Nkrumah’s “African Personality” or Leopold Senghor’s “Negritude” or Kenneth Kaunda’s “Humanism” or even Mwalimu Julius Nyerere’s Ujamaa expressed one central theme, nationalism.

The quintessence of nationalism was, and is, anti-imperialism. It was a demand and struggle against, rather than for, something. It was an expression of a struggle against denial – denial of humanity, denial of respect and dignity, denial of the Africanness of the African. It was the struggle for the “re-Africanisation of minds” or to “rebecome Africans,” as Amilcar Cabral put it. Archie Mafeje sums up the period well:

"It was the historical experience of racial humiliation, economic exploitation, political oppression, and cultural domination under European and American slavery, colonialism, and imperialism that gave rise to theories of ‘African personality’ and ‘Negritude.’ At the centre of these theories was the question of the liberation of the Black man – his identity or the meaning of ‘being-Black-in-the-world.’ It was a philosophical or moral justification for action, for a rebellion which gave rise to African nationalism and to independence. The latter was the greatest political achievement by Africans. It was an unprecedented collective fulfillment."

Early African nationalism should not be confused with the traditional discourse on the expression and development of nations in the womb of capitalism in nineteenth century Europe. Rather, it was an expression of a people that was an antidote to White supremacist rule. In a sense, it is correct to say that nationalism was the process, a process of struggle, in the formation of nations. In that sense, perhaps, nationalism preceded nations. Militant nationalists grasped this to some extent although they did not express it as consistently nor did they wholly appreciate the defining characteristic of nationalism, that is, anti-imperialism. In explaining the objectives of the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) to the UN Trusteeship Council in 1955, Nyerere said:

"Another objective of the Union is to build up a national consciousness among the African peoples in Tanganyika. It has been said – and this is quite right – that Tanganyika is tribal, and we realise that we need to break up this tribal consciousness among the people and to build up a national consciousness. That is one of our main objectives towards self-government."

This formulation is no doubt problematic. It lends itself to the reactionary side of bourgeois nationalism, or what later came to be called “nation-building theories.” Let us look at another formulation; this time, from a leading member of a national liberation movement and an avowed Marxist – Marcelino dos Santos, then a leading member of FRELIMO. In an interview with Joe Slovo of the South African Communist Party, Dos Santos analyses the tension between tribe and nation:

"The main conditions for [the] successful rejection [of tribalism] are present. On the general point of whether we have already moulded a nation in the true sense of the word, I want to say that a nation is based on concrete realities. And the most important reality in the present stage in Mocambique is the fight against Portuguese colonialism…It is our common fight against our common oppressor, which plays an outstanding role in creating a national bond between all the diverse groups and cultures…Of course, a nation is a product of history and its formation goes through different phases. In this sense, the work for the final achievement of nationhood will continue even after independence, although the fundamental elements of nationhood are already in existence and in the process of being further developed in Mocambique. "

Dos Santos’ conception of nation formation does not differ fundamentally from Nyerere’s presentation of “nation-building,” although their points of departure appear different. Dos Santos, like Slovo, takes as his starting point the Marxist theory of nation (this, presumably, is “the true sense of the word”), which, in its Stalinist version, emphasises the European conception of a nation – common territory, language, culture, and economy. If these ingredients are not present, or not present to a sufficient degree, you have a tribe at worst or a nation in the process of being formed at best. Implied in the European conception of nation also is the idea of voluntarism, that is, forming or building a nation from the top. Perhaps the point to underline in Dos Santos’ exposition is that the anti-colonial struggle is an important ingredient of nationalism. The problem with Dos Santos- and Nyerere-type formulations is that the nationalist petty bourgeoisie, when it rose to power, wavered on anti-imperialism and ended up with top-down statist notions of “nation-building.”

I find Amilcar Cabral’s propositions more fruitful. They contain a germ of great potential in understanding the historicity and specificity of the National Question in Africa. Cabral suggests that post-war African nationalism was a struggle not only to reclaim history but also to assert the right of the African people to make history: “The foundation of national liberation lies in the inalienable right of every people to have their own history.”

Cabral also makes the point that “so long as imperialism is in existence, an independent African state must be a liberation movement in power, or it will not be independent.” These are profound insights. First, nationalism is constituted by the struggle of the people against imperialism, thus anti-imperialism defines African nationalism. Second, nationalism, as an expression of struggle, continues so long as imperialism exists. Third, the National Question in Africa, whose expression is nationalism, remains unresolved as long as there is imperialist domination.

Archie Mafeje builds on these insights, observing that “all the struggles in Africa and most of the Third World centre on the National Question.” He perceives nationalism as the common denominator underlying the different interpretations and connotations of the National Question. Furthermore, he says, nationalism is always a reaction against something. In African history, nationalism has been a reaction to imperialist domination. As proto-nationalism, the reaction was against the colonial phase of imperialism, or political domination by aliens. Since independence, meta-nationalism has been coping with the changing modalities of imperialist domination.

The dominant discourse on the National Question has run along different lines, however. In both the political right and left, the central debate has been over whether Africa has nations and nationalities or tribes and ethnic groups. In the Eurocentric worldview, nations represent a higher level in the evolution of social and political formations than tribes. Fed on Stalin’s rather schematic formula, and therefore unable to find nations within the territorial units called African countries, even radical Marxists, like Slovo, have found it difficult to theorise adequately about the National Question. In the hands of rightwing pundits, it has been worse. The so-called lack of nations has been used to debunk and delegitimise African nationalist movements and their achievements. With the current hegemony of neo-liberalism and the imperialist comeback, the spokespersons of imperialism have been quick to condemn nationalism as nothing more than an expression of ethnicity and tribalism.

Note this typical sample from an editorial in US News and World Report:

"In the Third World, there had been grand ideas of new states and social contracts among the communities, post-colonial dreams of what men and women could do on their own. There were exalted notions of Indian nationalism, Pan-Arabism, and the like. Ethnicity hid, draped in the colours of modern nationalism, hoping to keep the ancestors – and the troubles – at bay. But the delusions would not last. What was India? The India of its secular founders – or the ‘Hindu Raj’ of the militant fundamentalists? What exactly did the compact communities of Iraq – the Kurds, the Sunnis, and the Shia – have in common? The masks have fallen, the tribes have stepped to the fore."

This type of denigration strikes at the heart of nationalism, that is, at anti-imperialism. Be that as it may, let us look more closely at the various aspects and expressions of nationalism.

* This is an extract from a paper 'The Rise, The Fall and The Insurrection of Nationalism in Africa' by Issa G. Shivji, Professor of Law at the University of Dar es Salaam Tanzania. The paper is from Keynote Address to the CODESRIA East African Regional Conference held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, October 29-31, 2003. To read the full paper, please click on the URL below.

Faculty UK, an Association of Ghanaian faculty members in higher education in the UK, and members of other professions interested in education, is to be officially launched in London, on Saturday 20 March 2004. Faculty UK’s broad objective is to contribute towards providing global education for the Ghanaian. Its membership consists of lecturers and other staff in higher education institutions, as well as professionals with an interest in literary and other pursuits that border on education.

Black President is a multimedia exhibition that explores the influence and artistic legacy of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, the legendary Nigerian Afrobeat musician and activist who died in 1997. Thirty-four artists ranging from painters to rappers, who continue to be inspired by Fela's artistic genius and his dedication to justice and equality, will examine and respond to this cultural icon through approximately forty works of art. Black President is a multimedia exhibition that includes painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, video, film, computer animation, music, and mixed media and sound installation. Black President was curated by Trevor Schoonmaker and organized by the New Museum of Contemporary Art.

The African Diaspora Initiative (ADI) is an internet gateway designed to locate and highlight Africans in the diaspora, in keeping with the NEPAD plan and G8 Africa Action Plan. ADI aims to help African leaders and business leaders to access profiles, find solutions and opportunities, and to highlight dynamic, experienced, qualified and highly motivated African resources in the diaspora.

“We suggest that the question of identity, though not so deeply explored in the newer facets of African diaspora scholarship, permeates much of the cultural life of the diaspora and should be at the centre of diaspora scholarship generally. Thus the theme of our proposed workshop: Africa in the African diaspora, the diffusion of African identity.”