Are you confronting religious fundamentalisms or regressive political-religious movements in your daily life and work? Are you witnessing important links between different types of fundamentalisms (economic, national, social, cultural and religious) and seeing similarities in how these work across religions and regions? Have you or your organization been involved in actions to resist and challenge religious fundamentalisms that you would like to share more widely with women's rights advocates from around the world?

Amnesty International has called for the role of the United States in Somalia to be investigated, following publication of a report accusing its allies of committing war crimes. The human rights group listed abuses carried out by Ethiopian and Somali government forces, and some committed by al-Shabaab, an anti-government militia which the US designated a terrorist group.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called for the release of Davison Maruziva, the editor of a privately owned weekly The Standard, who has been arrested and charged with "false statements prejudicial to the state and contempt of court" after his paper published an opinion piece by a leading opposition politician.

The dire human rights and humanitarian crisis facing the people of Somalia has been revealed in a groundbreaking new Amnesty International report. First-hand testimony from scores of traumatized survivors of the conflict is included in the report, which exposes the violations and abuses they have suffered at the hands of a complex mix of perpetrators.

Donor countries pledged a total of USD 4.8 billion for assistance to Sudan during the Sudan Consortium in Oslo from 5 to 7 May.‘The donor conference was a great success, primarily because it demonstrated that there is strong political will behind the efforts to promote peace and development in Sudan,’ said Minister of the Environment and International Development Erik Solheim.

What links employment and poverty? This International Poverty Centre paper examines the links between poverty and unemployment, underemployment, employment and labour earnings in Kenya. It finds that poor workers need short-term social protection and all workers need an effective, long-term and employment-focused development strategy. The paper simulates the potential impact of two programmes designed to provide income support to poor households: a cash-transfer programme based on the number of school-age children, and a job creation programme.

Ngugi wa Mirii was born in Roromo, Limuru in 1952 as the second born in a family of six to John Mirii and Elizabeth Wanjiku. He was educated at Ngenia Secondary School and from 1972 to 1974 he worked with the Kenya Posts and Telecommunications.

He took a diploma in Adult Education at the Institute of Adult Studies, Nairobi University and then joined the Institute of Developmental Studies. Whilst working for the Institute he became involved with peasants and workers in Community Development at Kamiriithu, Limuru. It is then that he co-authored the play Ngaahika Ndenda, in 1977 (I Will Marry When I Want) with Prof. Ngugi wa Thiong'o. The play's uncensored political message became very popular in Kenya, and the government went ahead to censor it. Despite his arrest and torture Comrade Ngugi continued with his activism.

In 1982, he collaborated on yet another play written by Prof. Ngugi along with Dr. Kimani Gecau, 'Mother Sing for Me'. This time the authorities were ruthless. Fearing for his life and that of his family, Comrade went underground and then went into exile in Zimbabwe. He was joined a year later by his wife, Wairimu wa Ngugi and one-year old daughter, Elizabeth Wanjiku Ngugi. Comrade Ngugi then joined Zimbabwean Foundation for Education with Production (ZIMFEP) where he worked for a few years.

Ngugi was above all a man of action. He was a theatre lover, and in 1985 he founded the Zimbabwe Association of Community Theatre (ZACT), an umbrella organisation for which had a membership of over 300 hundred theatre groups in its lifetime. Through ZACT Comrade helped the youth concientise their communities on vast issues. The concept was theatre for the people by the people--for concientization really on issues ranging from the political to championing rights for women and addressing the rapidly spreading HIV/AIDS. His contributions to the world of theatre in Zimbabwe, Southern Africa and the rest of the world is immense.

Ngugi loved writing. If he wasn't with his family or friends, or reading, he was writing. Writing was his mainstay, and it is how he connected us with his ideas. He wrote extensively on the question of neo-colonialism and imperialism. His focus was always towards a united Africa, but he was also an internationalist. He traveled all over the world connecting the Pan-African struggle to the international movement in the fight against imperialism. Those who know him, know that he was very passionate about this. Shortly before his tragic death, he had just returned from a conference where he gave a key note address in the USA at a conference titled 'Creative Uprisings.: Work at the Intersection of Art, Education and Activism that has engaged masses of people in some sort of mobilization.

The death of Comrade Ngugi--the son of two Nations as he so often referred to himself--is a loss to not only Kenya and Zimbabwe but to Africa as a whole. It is a loss of an outstanding intellectual, really a man of ideas, a fighter for peace and progress, and a dedicated patriot of Africa. Indeed his life energies were ultimately dedicated to the Pan-African dream, which he one-day hoped to see realised. He will remain one of our great pan-Africanists, and we can only hope that his dream will triumph some-day. That is what Ngugi would have wanted, that is what he dreamed, that is what he lived for.

To quote many, Ngugi was a beautiful human being, a Kenyan revolutionary, our friend, our comrade; To lose him is to lose part of our ourselves.

Cde. Ngugi was also a loving Husband, father and son. He is survived by his wife, Margaret Wairimu Ngugi, and five children. Martha Nyambura, John Mirii Ngugi, Elizabeth Wanjiku, Jane Wangari, and Kiarii (Kish) Ngugi; his parents, brothers and Sisters. May his soul rest in eternal peace!

* Wanjiku Wa Ngugi is a Kenyan activist.

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

As part of a new project jointly funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Wallace Center at Winrock International (www.wallacecenter.org ) is seeking innovative examples of locally owned food enterprises, and we need your help.

Our new initiative, Community Food Enterprise: Local Success in a Global Marketplace, will analyse and present 24 cutting-edge models of local food enterprises from around the world. If you know of non-US examples of community-based or local food enterprises, please contact Cari Beth Head at [email][email protected], or visit our project site for additional information, case study criteria, and the full press release by clicking here.

You may also sign up here to receive email updates as the project progresses.

Based on a multi-year ethnography, this presentation describes township youth's multiple social representations of morality. Drawing on Moscovici's theory of social representations, it details what these might be, how they are empirically elicited, and why social representations are important for social science that aims at making a difference.

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) issued the English version of its first quarterly report on freedom of religion and belief in Egypt. The report covers the first three months of 2008 and documents new court rulings, legislation and government policies relevant to freedom of religion and belief, as well as instances of religious discrimination and other violations of religious freedom. It also reports on incidents of sectarian tension and violence and reviews the most pertinent reports, publications, and activities during the reporting period.

Human Rights Watch ("HRW") is seeking a highly-qualified, senior-level professional to head its Africa Division. The Executive Director of HRW's Africa Division is responsible for the development and implementation of strategies for HRW's work in Africa and ensuring the setting of programmatic priorities, including response to emergencies. S/he is responsible for overseeing the division's research on human rights violations and for developing effective advocacy and communications strategies for maximum impact.

On the 23rd of June 2006 I arrived in Fort de France to celebrate Aime Césaire's 93rd birthday. Visiting the beautiful island of Martinique, and meeting her celebrated son filled me with a deep sense of joy.

The 22nd of July 2006 will remain one of the most important days of my professional life, a gilded moment in one's lifetime.

Césaire, to borrow his characterization of Haiti:...where negritude stood up... was negritude standing up, as unique as the slaves' victory over their master. He was both the uniqueness and the universality of the black experience.

The universality of the black experience is particularly critical to the current discourse on human rights, especially when one considers that negritude is in essence a revolt against the specific conditions facing black people everywhere; oppressed, shunned, victimized, as expressed by the likes of Rimbaud in Abyssinia. It is through this expansive lense that we understand Césaire's negritude. At the end Toussaint Louverture we read: Toussiant demonstrated that there is no pariah race; that there is no marginal country; that there is no special nation of people. The aim was to emphasize and give force to a principle. In the struggle for human rights, Louverture was an advocate for all blacks, and this is his true legacy. Toussaint Louverture fought to concretise the rights of man and for this reason the slave revolt of Santo Domingo is inscribed in the history of human civilization.

Beyond his poetry, Césaire contributed ideas that provide us with a basis for the struggle for protection and advancement of human rights.

How do Césaire's ideas resonate in Brazil?

Eminent scholars have distinguished between the different forms that negritude has taken; the insurrectionist, the intellectual, Cesairian, Haitian, black-American in the tradition of Marcus Garvey, or Malcolm X, and even the religious, the rural, and the Brazilian.

In 1979 on the occasion of the First African Diaspora Studies Institute (FADSI) held at Howard University, St Clair Drake asked the question: Should black Brazilians be included in the broader pan-African network, or should their way of life and their more parochial form of negritude be granted its own legitimacy?

Roger Bastide addressed the same question at the end of his book Les Amériques noires (« les chemins de la négritude »), in which he makes a distinction between,a negritude that is lived, deeply rooted and rural, on the one hand, and that of the uprooted urban black proletariat, and intellectuals on the other.

Other scholars have noted the resurgence of a ritual and pan-Africanist negritude in the Afro-Brazilian religiosity and its spread to the United States

Besides the fact that Brazil is to some degree the the foremost « African » country in the diaspora, in terms of size, resources, population, and the struggle for the rights of its black citizens, the country provides an important case study on negritude and pan-Africanism. It allows us to explore the different political cultures within these literary and political movements.

I also recall that during Rene Depestre's sojourn in Brazil during the 1950s, he was challenged by Césaire for having defended the formalist style of [Louis] Aragon. He refers to the Haitian revolution in the poem « le verbe marronner »:
« C‘est une nuit de Seine et moi je me souviens comme ivre du chant dément de Boukmann accouchant ton pays au forceps de l’orage ».

Césaire's collection of poems Noria, published in 1976 expresses his perception of Brazilian negritude, especially in Bahia. This perception stems from a particular Brazilian Africanness that does not preclude a direct connection to the founding fathers of Quilombos, not the least of whom was Zumbi de Palmares, the famous maroon. This national hero was a revolutionary in the vein of Toussaint Louverture.

In a seminal speech delivered at the CIAD (I) conference, professor Mamadou Diouf recalled that it was not until 1956 at the first Congress of Black Writers and Artists, that there were any Brazilian or even South American delegates at any major pan-African gatherings. The Brazilian writer Jorge Amado attended that famous meeting in Paris.

Meanwhile on the 22nd of February 2006, Elisa Larkin Nascimento, wife of Abdias do Nascimento sent me an email in which she emphasized the point that the spirit of negritude was always present in the work of her illustrious husband, ever since he founded the Black Experimental Theater (BET) in 1944. this is what she had to say:

...I would say that Leopold Senghor and his work on negritude occupy have historically had a major influence in our struggle. More recently, they have served as a significant reference point. Abdias do Nascimento, Gerreiro Ramos and the BET, were the main, if not the only voices that advocated negritude in Brazil in the 1940s and 50s, at a time when mere mention of the term evoked indignation and horror. It is true that the negritude they embraced adopted the Brazilian language and the particular reality of Afro-Brazilians. However the reference to the essential negritude movement was always present.

The official delegation to the World Festival of Black Arts excluded Abdias and the BET, instead sending white intellectuals to represent the country's Afro-Brazilians. You are no doubt familiar with the open letter Abdias addressed to the Festival and that was subsequently published by Alioune Diop in Présence Africaine. In some way the critique may have been biased by an ideological position that tended to ignore the specific African realities, as demonstrated by the experiences of pan-Africanists like George Padmore and CLR James.

We would sooner identify with the voice of Aime Césaire and Leon Gontran Damas than Senghor, because of some of the latter's political positions, especially his membership in the Académie Francaise, and vis-a-vis Cheikh Anta Diop. This is no doubt a simplistic take on what is in essence a more complex problem. Nonetheless, I hope it is useful...

This is just a personal view, but it clearly demonstrates how negritude was a wonder weapon for afro-descendant victims and their allies, faced with injustice, deprivation and both real and symbolic violence

My preoccupation is with the present form of this negritude, forged in resistance to all forms of discrimination, and human rights abuses... all human beings, be they Indian, European, black... we need to find political and institutional solutions. The work of the Special Secretariat of Policies for the Promotion of Racial Equality (SEPPIR) in Brazil , or even the Institut de Peuples Noirs in Burkina Faso is a good start. Could this work transform into an Institute for the people of Africa and the Diaspora in which the incandescent voice of our Osiris, Aime Césaire will echo through to all the immortals of the pan-Africanist movement

* Lazare KI-ZERBO
(Comité international Joseph Ki-Zerbo)
* Translated by Josh Ogada

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

An educational crisis has developed around the country with many schools suffering from a shortage of teachers, due to the current crackdown on suspected opposition supporters and officials. Our correspondent Simon Muchemwa said teachers are not returning to work because they are being hunted down and victimised for the role they played during the elections and because the ruling party considers them agents of the opposition.

To ensure the right to a basic education, the Dakar Framework called upon governments to develop responsive, participatory and accountable systems of educational governance and management. Since then, the search for improved institutions better able to deliver education has accelerated and it is now common for education programmes to have a ‘good governance’ component.

The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) is looking for a Deputy Director, to be based at its Headquarters in New Delhi, India. CHRI is an advocacy organization whose core concerns are Access to Information and Access to Justice. Send CV, with contact details of three referees and a covering letter outlining why you are applying for the position and how you would contribute to the organisation to: [email][email protected] Applications will be accepted until the position is filled.

GROOTS International/Groots Africa and the Huairou Commission are seeking an Africa Regional Organizer / Coordinator, based in Nairobi, Kenya, to support members of GROOTS and the Huairou Commission in the region to facilitate grassroots women’s effective participation in our networks and programs. The African Regional Organizer will work to fulfill GROOTS’ goals, and will work with a team based in Africa and New York to coordinate the Huairou Commission’s Women’s Land Link Africa (WLLA) joint regional partnership project.

Since the January post election violence and subsequent mediation and resultant national accord by the political elites there continues massive appeals on reconciliation by the grand coalition government behind the scenes the government has and continues to engage in massive infringement of fundamental rights of historical proportions never witnessed before on the civilian population in Mount Elgon district and surrounding areas.

Egyptian police have arrested 109 African migrants hoping to cross illegally into Israel from Egypt, an Egyptian security official said Wednesday. 95 migrants from Eritrea and 14 from Ethiopia were caught Wednesday in the city of Aswan, 685 kilometers (425 miles) south of Cairo, after crossing the border from Sudan on foot, said the official. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

We are pleased to announce the launch this week of the first ever Portuguese language edition of Pambazuka News. Since the launch of the French language edition in January 2007, we have sought to expand the reach of Pambazuka News in other languages. The Portuguese language edition is not only important for enabling those in Lusophone Africa to engage with the pan African social justice movement in Africa itself, but also with the diaspora Africans in Brazil, Portugal and elsewhere. We are still in the process of seeking support to develop an Arabic language edition, and at some point, we hope, a Kiswahili edition.

If you know of people who might be interested in subscribing to the Portugese language edition of Pambazuka News, ask them to write to [email][email protected] The Portuguese language edition is available online at http://www.pambazuka.org/pt/.

Our thanks to Christian Aid for their support for this initiative.

Morocco's trade unions announced a blanket rejection Monday (April 21st) of the government’s proposals in the third round of negotiations between the two sides. The Democratic Workers’ Confederation (CDT) complicated matters further by tendering its resignation from the second chamber of Parliament on April 19th, in protest at the social dialogue, describing the government’s proposals as "ridiculous".