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Pambazuka News 836: Confronting imperialist capture
31 August 2017
CONTENTS: 1. Features 2. Announcements
Features
Even if embattled President Zuma were to leave (and replaced by, say, Cyril Ramaphosa), the country is nowhere near getting out of its political crisis. Why not? It is because the problem lies, essentially, in the captured polity of the South African state and economy. This has deep historical and systemic roots.
Attempts to foster a Black capitalist class in South Africa in co-operation with white capital have failed spectacularly. The price that white capital extracted for their co-operation was a neoliberal state that trapped the Black working class and poor in unemployment, inequality, poverty and gender based violence inherited from Apartheid and made worse.
Patrick Bond
The Brazil-Russia-India-China-
Containers have become a well-integrated and indispensable part of our global capitalist trade system. What we don't always fully realize, however, is what implications this containerization has for the daily lives of residents living in neighbourhoods nearby ports.
From commemorating Rwanda's dubious Liberation Day to applauding Paul Kagame's questionable landslide election victory, Canada's High Commissioner in Kigali has provided various forms of ideological support to Africa's most ruthless dictator. That should embarrass everyone who wants Canada to be a force for good in the world.
Tete Province is very rich in coal. An estimated 23 billion tons of mostly untapped coal lies beneath Tete. It is expected to become the region's energy powerhouse built on coal and hydroelectricity. However, local farmer communities have been on the losing side of the coal boom so far, especially since large scale resettlements forced them out.
Since independence 53 years, Kenya has had four presidents – three of them from one ethnic community. Control of state power has ensured that the Kikuyu and related groups have benefitted from national wealth far more than other communities. Recently, economist Dr. David Ndii sensationally called on those communities that feel excluded to secede.
The Igbo now dictate the terms of their freedom from Nigeria. They have acquired this pivotal status, in the past 24 months, it should be stressed, without firing a shot – either in defence or offence. They insist on a referendum to democratically secure the next crucial phase of the process.
Nation building is a serious business that requires clarity of vision and self-sacrifice, preparing the grounds for succeeding generations to prosper. It is not the prestige and grandeur of office that facilitates development and progress but the due attendance to the responsibilities of office.
What I find ironical is that you should visit the University of Cape Town as a reform evangelist when the spirit of the #RhodesMustFall which you are celebrating has been quietly and steadily stirring in Makerere Institute of Social Research since last year (and even long before that), largely due to your capricious and dishonest leadership.
Over two years into the International Decade for People of African Descent, very little has been done to achieve the objectives of the UN General Assembly declaration. It is not enough to make such a declaration. Serious efforts must be made to implement it for the benefit of Black people.
How does a man whose close and immediate family are designated by neo-Nazis as filth and the dregs of humanity then fail to condemn, without equivocation or excuses, such racism? Trump is either ignorant of history, or is so enarmoured by the idea of White supremacy, that he fails to comprehend that the ideas enacted under Hitler being regurgitated in the US in 2017 by persons who see him as President and being equivalently praiseworthy as Hitler is an affront and not a compliment.
Tsunami of soil
At least 500 people died and more than 800 were reported missing in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown on August 13-14, when heavy rains swept away everything in their path. Kenyan Poet Shailja Patel reflects on the tragedy.
Kenya's elections are always full of drama. And the recent one on 8 August was no exception. What looks like a simple process of voters casting their ballot, and these counted to determine the winner, turns out to be a complex matter of raising more questions than answers.
Announcements
Pambazuka Android App is now on Google Play Store
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Henry Makori and Tidiane Kasse - Editors, Pambazuka News
Yves Niyiragira - Executive Director, Fahamu
Websites: Fahamu.org, Pambazuka.org
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