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Africa

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    Imprisoned Intellectual: A Review of "Meditations on Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth" Dan Berger December 1, 2010

    MEDITATIONS ON FRANTZ FANON’S WRETCHED OF THE EARTH
    BY JAMES YAKI SAYLES

    Kersplebedeb and Spear and Shield Publications, 2010

    For more than twenty years, James Yaki Sayles (also known as Atiba Shanna) was one of the most profound theorists writing from within US prisons. Yaki turned his decades of confinement into a time to theorize and a place to strategize, working to maintain connections between what was happening inside prisons and what was happening outside of them.

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    Playing Games with the Poor: The 2010 World Cup in South Africa Anna Majavu June 1, 2010

    Different oppressed groups in South Africa, having been promised for years that great things will happen to them during the World Cup, are now waking up to the fact that 30 days before kickoff their lives are unlikely to improve.

    Those who work as taxi drivers, hawkers, and vendors have recently been displaced from their places of work amidst the different cities’ last minute frenzies to shut down entire streets in order to create tourist-friendly walkways. They say they are realizing with a shock that the World Cup will not only fail to bring the promised positive change, but that it has made their lives demonstrably worse.

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    Take Back Your Land! Take Back Your Homes! Amandla Ngawethu June 1, 2010

    Land was once a public resource for all but has now become a false commodity through privatization. The privatization of land was the original sin, the original cause of the current financial crisis. With the privatization of land comes the dispossession of people from their land which was once held in common by communities. With the privatization of land comes the privatization of everything else, because once land can be bought and sold, almost anything else can eventually be bought and sold.

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    Foreign Intervention in Somalia: Panacea or Poison? Sadia Ali Aden June 1, 2010

    Today, central and southern Somalia are being ravaged by one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Since US-backed Ethiopian troops invaded the country in late 2006, shattering months of peace and stability, the conflict has left more than 1 million people internally displaced and 3.5 million on the brink of starvation. Although armed resistance forced the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces in early 2009, Somalia still finds itself contending with the turmoil unleashed by this most recent foreign intervention. 

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    AFRICOM in Action: Undermining Democracy and Promoting Militarism in Africa Nii Akuetteh June 1, 2010

    On Monday, May 3, 2010, 600 US Special Forces kicked off exercises close to the Sahara Desert. They were not alone. Four hundred soldiers from ten African armies and 150 troops from five European countries participated. The diverse group was beginning Operation Flintlock 2010, the latest AFRICOM escalation of militarism across Africa.

    Notwithstanding the exercise’s multilateral nature, AFRICOM privileged one of the countries: Mali. Flintlock’s opening ceremony was held in Bamako and U.S. Ambassador Gillian Milovanovic delivered the keynote.

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    Unmasking Microfinance: From an Interview with Maria Darria - Institute for Popular Education, Mali Beverly Bell June 1, 2010

    Touted as the solution to women’s poverty, microfinance is anything but. Often it is a trap where vulnerable women become mired and indebted in an economic system in which they cannot compete. Former “development” worker Maria Diarra of Mali talks here about the problems of microfinance and offers alternative solutions.

    The thing that makes me scared is micro-credit. People think that cash is the only way to get out of poverty, and the only place to get cash is micro-credit because the bankers only give to the rich. When the micro-credit industry first came to Mali, the programs spoke of fighting poverty, but that’s not what they’re doing.

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    Grassroots Struggles for Dignity and Democratization in Africa Toussaint Losier June 1, 2010

    On the morning of May 22, 2010, South African President Jacob Zuma made a second unannounced visit to the small mining town of Balfour in Mpumalanga province. About ten months ago, over a thousand residents of Balfour's impoverished Siyathemba township took to the streets for several days, blockading roads with burning tires over the continued failure of municipal officials to meet their most basic needs like clean water, street lighting, and paved roads.

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    Gender, Technology, and Social Change Across Africa Sokari Ekine June 1, 2010

    The introduction of mobile phones in Africa over the past decade has transformed people’s lives.  Unlike in the West, where there was already an existing network of communication through landlines, mobile phones in Africa provide communication where previously there was none.   What makes the mobile phone such a dynamic tool for supporting social change is its sheer range of actual and potential functionality, making it an extremely versatile technology. 

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    NEPAD: Repackaging Colonialism in Africa Michelle Robidoux July 14, 2002
      “We have a duty to act. This is the best chance in a generation to save the continent… Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world.” – Tony Blair, February 2002

    Africans are weathering a flurry of visits from the rich and powerful these days. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Canada’s Prime Minister Jean ChrÈtien, and most recently, US Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill have been busy criss-crossing the continent promoting the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). NEPAD will dominate discussions on Africa at this month’s G8 Summit in Kananaskis, Canada.

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    Wentworth Women’s Statement on the Earth Summit Wentworth Women October 10, 2002

    “Cease your dealing in our death”

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