Kaari Murungi, the Director of Urgent Action Fund - Africa, passed by Fahamu's office this week to tell us that as a result of the appeal sent out in Pambazuka News in January for support for the rape crisis centres in Kenya, they received nearly $1 million! Kaari told us: "The majority of the funds we received were from people who had read about the appeal in Pambazuka News."

We take this opportunity of thanking our readers for responding so wonderfully. This is exactly the kind of solidarity that Pambazuka News stands for. So, thank you to all of you who responded!

The Council, at its meeting of 13th March 2008, approved the appointment of Professor Issa G. Shivji to the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Research Chair in Pan-African Studies of the University of Dar es Salaam.

Born in Kilosa, Tanzania in 1946, Professor Shivji was for 36 years a distinguished professor in Constitutional Law in the University of Dar es Salaam's Faculty of Law. He is a professor of international renown, having built his reputation through the publication of over 18 books, numerous articles and book chapters. He has received several national and international distinguished scholar awards, including an honorary doctorate from the University of East London, UK. Professor Shivji has devoted most of his life to addressing issues on the exploitation of Tanzanians through both the national and the international economic and legal orders.

The University Research Chair is envisaged to be motivated by interdisciplinary research, which will address the socio-economic, scientific and cultural problems facing the African Continent and the country, and which will stimulate thinking and debate that takes account of the continent's historical achievements and the international challenges facing it.

The functions of the Chair will be to develop and promote ideas in interdisciplinary basic research on broad development issues from a Pan-African perspective; to reinvigorate the University as a site of rigorous intellectual debate and discussions through varied activities including quality publications; and to create opportunities for debates on development directions.

The Chair will be officially launched on 15th April 2008, to coincide with the week of Mwalimu's birthday. The occasion will be marked by lectures, palavers, a book launch and exhibitions.

Pambazuka News and Fahamu staff extend their congratulations to Issa on this well deserved appointment.

Pambazuka News is pleased to announce that one of its writers, Shailja Patel has been awarded the FannyAnn Eddy Poetry Award, from the International Research Network (IRN -Africa), for her poem, "Screaming."

FannyAnn Eddy, fearless leader of the Sierra Leone Lesbian and Gay Association, was brutally raped and murdered in 2004.

The awardees said that "Screaming" is striking because it illustrates how damage to the body is one of the many weapons patriarchy uses against those who dare assert dissident sexualities. One way of theorizing eroticism is exceptionally demonstrated through this poem.

Screaming" will appear in IRN-Africa's forthcoming collection of writing on alternatives to heteronormativity in Africa, "Outliers".

Pambazuka News spoke with Wangui Wa Goro, a public intellectual, writer, translator and academic and an Associate Fellow at the Institute of Human Rights and Social Justice at London Metropolitan University about the power sharing agreement reached by Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga on February 28, 2008. Pambazuka News readers will remember her for her incisive commentary on Kenya pre and post the crisis. We spoke about the implications of the peace-deal on the larger questions of peace and justice, the meaning of democracy itself, the continuing role of Civil Society Organizations and lessons for other African countries.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The power sharing deal has Raila Odinga as the Prime Minister and Mwai Kibaki remaining the President. We are not yet clear on exact day-to-day functioning of each – but what are your initial thoughts?

WANGUI WA GORO: I am glad that the parties have come to some agreement at the moment because it will ease the tension in the country. I am however wary because of the way in which we have witnessed the mediation process. I think that many Kenyans are skeptical about the goodwill of some in the process. As Kenyans, we are also aware of our capacity for duplicity and doubletalk ("ujanja").

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Both Kibaki and Raila formed a coalition government shortly after the 2002 elections that collapsed and in way, the violence we saw was a direct result of their inability to get along – do you a see a difference this time? Will it hold?

WANGUI WA GORO: I think the fact that the process is being witnessed nationally and internationally by all will place a huge burden on those who want to cheat unlike before when “Memorandums of Understanding” were agreed behind closed doors. This is a significant difference between 2002 and 2008.

I am however still concerned that the Kenyan people should know the outcome of the election that just took place. These agreements could undermine our confidence in the mechanisms of democracy and the institutions for this. We are bowing to the will of individuals rather than to the will of our nation and this is wrong. I hope, therefore, that this arrangement is a transitional one. We are rolling back our attainment of multipartism which should provide checks and balances.

I think the loss of life and displacements we have witnessed should act as a wake up call for all of us and the world and if the two leaders are serious and actually work together, this may work. I still believe that the civil society, other political players and the international community should continue pressing for the delivery of the agreement in order for the transitional process and justice to take place. The hard work now has a framework as does the chance for a new constitution. Kenyans will have to work hard to heal the nation and to continue to seek peace, truth and justice. I hope that these processes can heal the nation. I pray that for this alone, that peace will hold.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Do you see a continuing role for the international community? Should there be a difference between African and Western pressure?

WANGUI WA GORO: No. I think that what should matter the most is what Kenyans want and the African and international pressure should reflect that will of the Kenyan people. I see a continued role of the international community in "supervising" the agreement and ensuring that Kenya does not slide into anarchy. This they can do by using the agreement to hold individuals and their parties to account.

I hope that The Kofi Annan Team remains with Kenyans for the duration of the Transitional Period in an advisory or consultative role to ensure that we remain within the spirit and letter of the agreements. I hope that Parliament will also take responsibility for running the affairs of the country and that Kenyans find mechanisms for engaging constructively with their leaders, particularly the civil society in an organized form. We have never been here in our history.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The civil society organizations have been agitating for an arrangement that would make peace possible. What should their role be in the post-peace deal period?

WANGUI WA GORO: The role of the civil society is now more crucial than ever. They will have to be the domestic monitors of the agreement and further, because of their knowledge and the way in which they have conducted themselves over the last two months, they will find an important role as a lobby which is not entrenched in the processes. They can engage constructively and this will be very important for the country. We have also seen the importance of their vanguard role in this process. There are many lessons to be learned here and I hope that unlike 2002, they do not let up.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: A short question- Where are the people in this deal?

WANGUI WA GORO: That is precisely the point! I believe that the discussions with Dr. Kofi Annan are continuing on the longer-term issues this coming Friday. We should wait and see what is agreed then.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Moving forward - The Kenyan society has been divided in ways we have not seen before- probably not since the end of British colonialism. More than 1,500 dead, hundreds of thousands of refugees, not to speak of an economy in tatters – how do we repair the torn fabric?

WANGUI WA GORO: On the Kenyan society being divided for the first time, this is not correct. Divide and rule tactics were part of British colonial rule. Kenya has also had very difficult moments in its history such as the assassination of Tom Mboya when the so called differences amongst ethnicities were supposed to be very high. People were very hurt then.

And many other terrible things have happened to people like Pio Gama Pinto, Bishop Muge, JM Kariuki, Robert Ouko etc. and Kenyans can see patterns here which are not ethnically driven. Some of these leaders were asking fundamental questions about injustice and inequality. We have also had a coup d'etat in 1982 when many people died, and in 1984 many Kenyans were killed in the Wagalla Massacre. In 1992 many Kenyans were displaced from the Rift Valley and many were also killed - over 1500. And between 1982 to 1990 many Kenyans were jailed, tortured, killed and exiled. These traumas have continued since independence. I hope that this disregard for life and for Kenyans stops for once and for all. All of us are important and our lives are precious in equal measure.

You will also know that those who fought for freedom have died in abject poverty and without recognition until recently. We have to have a broader understanding of our history and not allow the distortions of "ethnicism" to blind us to the class dimension, corruption, poverty and disenfranchisement of the majority Kenyans of all ethnicities, cultures and religions.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can we reflect on the role of Western democracy on historical legacies? Does the Kenya crisis suggest there is something wrong with Western democracy? What does African democracy look like?

WANGUI WA GORO: I think that there is a difference between the cultures of practice of "democracy" and what we understand as democratic principals. Democracies are built over time through good practice over years. There must be some of the values of what is called a "good society" which people seem to understand to be in the contract for democracy such as accountability, representation, transparency and the institutions and mechanism for delivering these such as the rule of law, independent institutions such as Parliament and the Judiciary which remove entrenched power from parties or individuals..

Now, I don't think we have seen African Democracy working at its best in Kenya or much of Africa because of the kinds of legacies and traditions and practices we adopted after Independence. You will know we inherited the Constitution and some of the practices from colonial rule, in our case from Britain. For instance, the police force was used to defend the state from the people and this culture has continued. We did not have a moment of reflection of the kind of nation state we might want for ourselves. This question of regional representation and distribution of resources for instance is one;, it was raised for debate but then shelved and ignored, and is at the heart of some of the difficulties we have today.

The philosophy of forgive and forget is another. Another is the power of the presidency which grew and grew since Kenyatta and became entrenched in the constitution because people became so frightened of him and the Presidency. This continued under Moi and in 1982, Kenya moved from a de facto one party state to a de jure one party state which really entrenched Moi's dictatorship.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Is it all about what the rulers want, not what citizens want…So we need constitutional reforms that speaks to the Kenyan political reality, for example?

WANGUI WA GORO: I think that is what has come out as a most over riding desire of the Kenyan people. But as you know, fine constitutions can be written, and in fact, the first Kenyan one was not that bad. It is having it implemented that is a problem. Britain for instance does not have a written tradition but it evolves rules and values through Acts of Parliament and the law. Kenyans can use this opportunity to enshrine the kind of nation they want and BOMAS began to address this issue. I think a new constitution will be very good for Kenya because KENYANS will feel that they own it.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What does equality mean to democracy? It is a word that is assumed to be already contained in democracy, yet we see nations with vicious inequalities call themselves democratic - your thoughts?

WANGUI WA GORO: On paper, Kenya has a Bill of Rights which recognises equality. But in reality, we have seen the day to day treatment of women, people with disabilities, people of "other" religions or "ethnicities" treated badly. In public, it is difficult to pass bills against violence against women such as rape. There are no policies on the aged and it is only recently that the rights of the child have come on board.

Words are meaningless if people do not feel protected from their historic and cultural vulnerabilities. Our laws have been couched in ambiguous terms such as both recognising civil law and common law. We are not aware of what these issues mean in a diverse nation state of different ethnicities and religious persuasions so you will have one Kenyan treated differently than another because of common law which recognises the different cultures. We also do not know about each others cultures so we are limited in our arguments for Kenyan universal values. Our democracy will be most tested and beneficial when we address these issues because they lie at the heart of our current disquiet over disenfranchisement from power and lack of self-determination.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Wangui, the question of whether Kenya should be a federal state has come up quite a bit - those for it argue that resources will be distributed better - those against it that it will entrench ethnic tension. Your take?

WANGUI WA GORO: I think that a federal state would be premature. I think that if local government was strong and there was less corruption, such a system could work. As it is now, some regions have been marginalised eternally in punitive ways and naturally they will want to have federal states. Our local government has also not been representative in the political sense or professional enough, similar to the public institutions which remain in a colonial and postcolonial time warp. They need to modernize to reflect the modern Kenyan and global world. Then we have this parallel system of administration of Provincial and District Officers who are powerful but not locally accountable. I think that these arrangements cannot foster democratic engagement when power is distributed through patronage. Appointment to senior positions has also been problematic as has been corruption and the allocation of resources.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: How do we develop and implement a people's agenda?

WANGUI WA GORO: I think that the local issues matter a great deal to people. Their day-to-day lives. Having power and control over their own immediate destiny -which cannot be done by some centralized remote, and often middleclass or bourgeois administration. There needs to be genuine engagement with governance by the people, ways of holding their elected leaders to account and ways for having their voices heard and acted upon. As we have lived in Kenya, it has been hard in the past to have access to your elected leader and people are frightened of these people whom they elected. That is my recollection of Kenya as I knew it then.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Finally Wangui, what can countries like Zimbabwe and South Africa learn from Kenya? Or countries like Uganda or Ethiopia where Museveni or Meles might point to Kenya as a warning for playing around with the fire of democracy? Are there lessons to be gleaned across the board?

WANGUI WA GORO: I think we need to start thinking outside the box. I think the whole of Africa can learn from itself. There are lessons that point to the failures of the post colonial states from the North to the South. You can see the upheaval everywhere. There are particularities about each of our countries, such as the resilience of the pro-people cultures and their continuities. There are also longer traditions of institutionalization in some places like South Africa and the economic power of Apartheid is very deeply entrenched.

So we need to learn from all our cultures and see how we can improve on the particular. The cultures we cultivate are also important, such as the cultures of struggle, the cultures of fear, the cultures of solidarity. What has amazed me in these last few weeks is the strength of individuals and organizations in the civil society and the pro-people movements and their willingness to defend "the good of society".

I hope that Kenyans and our leaders are willing to give peace, truth, justice and reconciliation a try. It will be very difficult to heal our nation now that blood has flown. There is no turning back the clock and these hurts remain for a very long time. We must learn from the holocausts in our continent and elsewhere. Kenya is and can be a wonderful place.

*Wangui Wa Goro, a public intellectual, writer, translator and academic and an Associate Fellow at the Institute of Human Rights and Social Justice at London Metropolitan University.

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

Pambazuka News is pleased to bring you this interview with the directors of the documentary 'Dear Mandela', Christopher Nizza and Dara Kell. 'Dear Mandela' deals with the growing contradictions in post-Apartheid South Africa where the majority black poor continue to be victimized by the state through measures such as forced evictions. Abahlali baseMjondolo, a new social movement of shackdwellers is challenging the conditions as well as the state of democracy itself in the country - what one the respondents in the documentary calls "new apartheid". You can see a clip of this important and timely documentary at "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZWIZX_8ub8.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The first question is on the title - Why 'Dear Mandela' and not Mbeki?

CHRISTOPHER NIZZA AND DARA KELL: ‘Dear Mandela’ examines how the lives of the poorest South Africans – those who had the most hope when Apartheid officially ended in 1994 – have changed in the 17 years since Mandela was released from prison. . Again and again, we heard appreciation for what Mandela did – that he sacrificed twenty-seven years of his freedom for the freedom of South Africans. The name ‘Dear Mandela’ emerged after spending time with shack dwellers who told us they saw Nelson Mandela as a ‘second Jesus Christ’. For many South Africans, when Mandela was released from prison, a ‘better life for all’, which became the rallying cry for the newly elected ANC government – finally seemed possible. The people we interviewed often wondered how Mandela would feel if he was allowed to visit the informal settlements, if he saw that conditions have not only failed to improve since the end of Apartheid, they have worsened. Mandela seemed to many of the people we spoke to, to be the one person who could change things, and so this short film almost takes the form of a plea – not just to Mandela, but to the world – to see what has been deliberately kept from view by a current South African government intent on creating ‘world class cities’ in preparation for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can you talk to PZN about the evictions? How are they reminiscent of the apartheid government? Or is that too much of a stretch?

CHRISTOPHER NIZZA AND DARA KELL: While we were filming in Durban with Abahlali baseMjondolo, we spoke to many shack dwellers who were facing eviction. Zamise Hohlo, a sixteen-year-old girl who was born and still lives in the Shannon Drive informal settlement, told us that municipal workers came and demolished her shack while she was at work. Sitting amidst the wreckage, she told us that she was at a crossroads: she could rebuild her shack, but the municipal workers had informed her that if she rebuilt, they would just come and tear it down again.

We have found that there are stereotypes about shack dwellers that go against all of our experience in the time we spent with them. These stereotypes make it easier for the public to turn a blind eye to what is happening them, and make it easier for municipal workers to do their job of ‘clearing the slums’. One of the reasons we want to make this film is because by letting the shack dwellers speak for themselves, their dignity is respected, and our hope is that viewers will be able to see the shack dwellers not as illegal squatters who should be pushed out of the city, but as citizens of South Africa who have the same rights to housing under the Constitution.

Yes, in some ways the evictions are reminiscent of evictions during the Apartheid era. The notorious new ‘Slums Act’ certainly evokes the Native Land Act of 1913, The Group Areas Act of 1950, The Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act of 1951- acts which remove people from their communities and place them far away from the city, away from work, school, clinics. Some shack dwellers told us that what they are experiencing is a ‘New Apartheid’ between the rich and poor. Indeed, several people we interviewed said that life was better under Apartheid. The statistics suggest that life for the poorest of the poor was better under Apartheid - a UN study showed that the number of people living on less that $1 a day has doubled since 1994. These charges are sure to stir controversy and that is one of the motivations we have to continue on this project, to illuminate the rarely told story of post-apartheid South Africa’s most marginalized.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can you talk about the role of film in bringing about change?

CHRISTOPHER NIZZA AND DARA KELL: In much of the world, the way we communicate is visual. The visual medium is a language that everyone understands from advertisements on the street to television to a growing use of the Internet. While we are working towards a longer film, we posted the 6-minute version of ‘Dear Mandela’ on YouTube and were able to share the insights and struggles of South African shack dwellers instantaneously. Within days, hundreds of people had watched the film. In an age where the gap between rich and poor is increasing globally, there is a need for stories which show not just the plight of the poor, but the fight that they are engaged in. This is one of the main ideas behind Sleeping Giant, our media collective/production company. The corporate media and even some prominent left academics tend to stereotype the world’s poor as being this unruly mass of dangerous, lazy, uneducated people unable to contribute to discussions about issues affecting them most. Through film and video projects produced involving groups like Abahlali we hope to smash those stereotypes by providing a space for people to tell the story of their plight and fight thus projecting a more realistic portrayal.

Those who are struggling to survive while organizing for a better life need our encouragement and support. The film is a celebration of the work of Abahlali as well – of the almost sacred meeting space they have created, where old and young are welcomed and respected; of their refusal to accept the broken promises of the government; of their continuing to march in peaceful protest in the face of intimidating police brutality. And so while many of the stories in ‘Dear Mandela’ are disheartening, what we want to portray is a community that is figuring out the real meaning of democracy – democracy that is a far cry from ‘one man, one vote’ – it’s what Abahlali calls a ‘living politics.’

We’ve done research, and some preliminary filming, and the six-minute film ‘Dear Mandela’ is the culmination of that effort, but we intend to return for a much longer time, where we aim to interview government officials and other relevant players, to show many more sides of a very complex situation

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What other films have you made/are making?

CHRISTOPHER NIZZA AND DARA KELL This is our first venture into the world of feature documentary filmmaking. We have both worked as editors on other documentaries, like the Academy Award-nominated Jesus Camp, State of Fear, and others. We have also led filmmaking workshops for community leaders, to both encourage the use of media in their political work and transfer the skills required to produce media.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What can other Africans and international friends do to help out?

CHRISTOPHER NIZZA AND DARA KELL: From what we could see a major problem for Abahlali is lack of resources. We witnessed how they maximize literally every rusted nail and every tattered piece of wood. This goes on to money that is raised as all funds are decided by collective how to be spent. We saw this as some money came in following the tragic Christmas night shack fires at the Foreman Road. Very careful and respectful consideration goes into how all monies are spent. It is much different then donating money to an NGO where the people living in struggle are more often not the ones making decisions. People interesting in supporting can get some ideas here (http://www.abahlali.org/node/269) on the Abahlali website. The website is also extremely rich with days worth of wonderful reading for anyone interested in this extremely important and courageous work.

*Dara Kell is a South African documentary filmmaker.  She divides her time between South Africa and New York, where she edits documentaries and leads grassroots video-making workshops. 

**Christopher Nizza is a New York born, bred and based director and editor.  He also has worked on a project in the U.S. called the University of the Poor which works to provide education and exchange in a variety of disciplines to organizations working in the struggle to end poverty forever.

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

Dear Pambazuka Community,

We are very pleased to bring you this Special Issue, a collaboration with Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF). First Clinton, then Blair and now Bush – it seems Africa is fast becoming a legacy maker. With Iraq up in flames and Afghanistan still at war, and with a Pakistan where democratic voices are assassinated, Africa (a few select countries) for Bush seems like a logical destination. But what is his legacy?

Activist organizations Africa Action, Africa Faith and Justice Network (AFJN), International Labor Rights Forum, and Jubilee USA Network tackle this question by looking at the various components to his foreign policy: AIDS, Global War on Terror/AFRICOM, and Debt Relief.

We have also included in this Special Issue the contact information and the general take of a number of these organization on Bush for those who may wish to follow up on this conversation.

A very special thanks to Emira Woods, Co-Director of Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org) for being the force behind this special issue.

Thank you,
Pambazuka Editors

Dear Pambazuka Community,

Just a few quick words! Starting with this issue you will note a new category – African Writers’ Corner. Why should Pambazuka News - a place for Pan-African analysis - also create a space for our creative workers? Because they themselves are the first to remind us that they have been at the forefront of making Africans visible to each other. Africans meet over Things Fall Apart, see each other in the Famished Road as they look for a Grain of Wheat. Ah, and since African literature is really a Question of Power, surely, can we leave behind sister Killjoy? So we want to have a corner that will feature the creative mind as it wrestles with African issues – be it through poetry, fiction, non-fiction and memoir and the occasional song. It’s about beauty… and the politics.

We also wish to invite you over the next few weeks in the run up to the March 2008 Zimbabwe elections to contribute in depth articles/analysis.

Already there is much contestation to do with the pre-election environment. The opposition is struggling with its own internal dynamics in terms of readiness to participate or not to participate. Consensus for a new people driven constitution remains within the broader civil society's agitation.

Another essential dynamic is the emerging consensus around the fact that the SADC mandated mediation by Thabo Mbeki has collapsed, with very little gain for Zimbabweans in terms of changing their lot towards democratic governance.

There are other thematic cross-cutting issues that can also be considered, gender or women's participations an issue that has been pushed to the periphery, political-economy environment - inflation is the highest in the world; pre- and post-election conflict - mechanisms for handling this, etc.

The idea is to generate debate on such issues as we have been doing with the Kenyan crisis, with a view to giving space to progressive citizens of the world, to once again contribute towards the unfolding events in Zimbabwe.

To help us achieve this is feminist and political activist Grace Kwinjeh. She can be reached on [email][email protected]

Pambazuka editors give you the war on the word "tribe"

What’s in a word? What does the word “tribe” carry? Here below Pambazuka Editors give you a few snippets of what is a long struggle to get US Mainstream media to stop using a racist and stereotypical lens in its coverage of Africa. You can find the fascinating discussion at www.h-net.org/~africa. We end with an excerpt from an Africa Action essay [www.africaaction.org/bp/ethall.htm"> on the word.

Africa Focus [http://www.africafocus.org/docs08/ethn0801.php"> narrates that in his December 31 New York Times dispatch from Nairobi, Jeffrey Gettleman argues that the Kenya electoral crisis, "seems to have tapped into an atavistic vein of tribal tension that always lay beneath the surface in Kenya but until now had not provoked widespread mayhem." Gettleman was not exceptional among those covering the post-election violence in his stress on "tribe." But his terminology was unusually explicit in revealing the assumption that such divisions are rooted in unchanging and presumably primitive identities.

However, Africa Focus gives an update indicating that since that particular bulletin on Gettleman’s use of language: “ Gettleman's coverage of Kenya in the New York Times has avoided the indiscriminate use of the word tribe in favor of "ethnic group," and has noted the historical origins and political character of the continued violence in the country, as well as its links to ethnic divisions”.

But Peter Alegi from Michigan State University in an H- Net Africa posting says and then asks: “While Gettleman (Times' EastAfrica bureau chief) seems to have toned down his use of "tribe" thanks to our protests, but isn't substituting "ethnic group" for it a minor victory?

Also, folks might be interested in this side story: the other day, I wrote a brief message to Bill Keller, Times' Executive Editor (ex NYT correspondent from Johannesburg [1992-1995]), alerting him to the H-Africa thread on his paper's handling of the Kenya crisis.

Mr. Keller's insulting response included the following statement:

"I get it. Anyone who uses the word "tribe" is a racist. [. . .] It's a tediously familiar mantra in the Western community of Africa scholars. In my experience, most Africans who live outside the comforts of academia (and who use the word "tribe" with shameless disregard for the political sensitivities of American academics) have more important concerns."

So Gettleman's ignorance about African languages, history, and cultural identities doesn't seem to trouble his boss one bit. And the utter disregard Keller seems to have for what scholars is reinforced in a closing line dripping with condescension:

"If you have a string that has something insightful to say about Kenya, I hope you'll pass it along."

Kudos to AfricaFocus then, but it seems that the struggle for accuracy and informed analysis of Africa in US mainstream media is going to be a long and tortuous one.

Carol Sicherman, a Professor Emerita at Lehman College underlines Alegi’s point with the following post to H-net Africa. She states that “On January 12, I wrote to the Public Editor of the New York Times as follows (I did not get an answer):

Reading recent dispatches from Kenya, I was pleased to notice that the Times has responded to years of complaints about the biased terms "tribe" and "tribal," replacing them with "ethnic group" and "ethnic." This editorial policy, however, seems to be confined to the news. Roberta Smith's article "Face Time: Masks, Animal to Video" in the Arts Section on Jan. 11 uses the egregiously offensive phrase "a tribal, almost animalistic ritual." It is exactly that equation that makes it necessary to remove "tribe" and its related words. In the case in question, removing "tribal" would have put the focus on "animalistic" without designating Africans as inherently animalistic. It is particularly odd to find such a cliché in a discussion of the work of Yinka Shonibare, a highly sophisticated, learned, and ironic artist.

I don't know how copy editors are instructed at the Times, but the policy adopted for the news section needs to be adopted for all sections.

And last but not least, in 1997, Africa Action said the following of the word tribe:

Tribe has no coherent meaning. What is a tribe? The Zulu in South Africa, whose name and common identity was forged by the creation of a powerful state less than two centuries ago, and who are a bigger group than French Canadians, are called a tribe. So are the !Kung hunter-gatherers of Botswana and Namibia, who number in the hundreds. The term is applied to Kenya's Maasai herders and Kikuyu farmers, and to members of these groups in cities and towns when they go there to live and work.

Tribe is used for millions of Yoruba in Nigeria and Benin, who share a language but have an eight-hundred year history of multiple and sometimes warring city-states, and of religious diversity even within the same extended families. Tribe is used for Hutu and Tutsi in the central African countries of Rwanda and Burundi. Yet the two societies (and regions within them) have different histories. And in each one, Hutu and Tutsi lived interspersed in the same territory. They spoke the same language, married each other, and shared virtually all aspects of culture. At no point in history could the distinction be defined by distinct territories, one of the key assumptions built into "tribe."

Tribe is used for groups who trace their heritage to great kingdoms. It is applied to Nigeria's Igbo and other peoples who organized orderly societies composed of hundreds of local communities and highly developed trade networks without recourse to elaborate states. Tribe is also used for all sorts of smaller units of such larger nations, peoples or ethnic groups. The followers of a particular local leader may be called a tribe. Members of an extended kin-group may be called a tribe. People who live in a particular area may be called a tribe. We find tribes within tribes, and cutting across other tribes. Offering no useful distinctions, tribe obscures many. As a description of a group, tribe means almost anything, so it really means nothing.

If by tribe we mean a social group that shares a single territory, a single language, a single political unit, a shared religious tradition, a similar economic system, and common cultural practices, such a group is rarely found in the real world. These characteristics almost never correspond precisely with each other today, nor did they at any time in the past.

Tribe promotes a myth of primitive African timelessness, obscuring history and change.

The general sense of tribe as most people understand it is associated with primitiveness. To be in a tribal state is to live in a uncomplicated, traditional condition. It is assumed there is little change. Most African countries are economically poor and often described as less developed or underdeveloped. Westerners often conclude that they have not changed much over the centuries, and that African poverty mainly reflects cultural and social conservatism. Interpreting present day Africa through the lens of tribes reinforces the image of timelessness. Yet the truth is that Africa has as much history as anywhere else in the world. It has undergone momentous changes time and again, especially in the twentieth century. While African poverty is partly a product of internal dynamics of African societies, it has also been caused by the histories of external slave trades and colonial rule.

In the modern West, tribe often implies primitive savagery.

When the general image of tribal timelessness is applied to situations of social conflict between Africans, a particularly destructive myth is created. Stereotypes of primitiveness and conservative backwardness are also linked to images of irrationality and superstition. The combination leads to portrayal of violence and conflict in Africa as primordial, irrational and unchanging. This image resonates with traditional Western racialist ideas and can suggest that irrational violence is inherent and natural to Africans. Yet violence anywhere has both rational and irrational components. Just as particular conflicts have reasons and causes elsewhere, they also have them in Africa. The idea of timeless tribal violence is not an explanation. Instead it disguises ignorance of real causes by filling the vacuum of real knowledge with a popular stereotype.

Images of timelessness and savagery hide the modern character of African ethnicity, including ethnic conflict.

The idea of tribe particularly shapes Western views of ethnicity and ethnic conflict in Africa, which has been highly visible in recent years. Over and over again, conflicts are interpreted as "ancient tribal rivalries," atavistic eruptions of irrational violence which have always characterized Africa. In fact they are nothing of the sort. The vast majority of such conflicts could not have happened a century ago in the ways that they do now. Pick almost any place where ethnic conflict occurs in modern Africa. Investigate carefully the issues over which it occurs, the forms it takes, and the means by which it is organized and carried out. Recent economic developments and political rivalries will loom much larger than allegedly ancient and traditional hostilities.

Ironically, some African ethnic identities and divisions now portrayed as ancient and unchanging actually were created in the colonial period. In other cases earlier distinctions took new, more rigid and conflictual forms over the last century. The changes came out of communities' interactions within a colonial or post-colonial context, as well as movement of people to cities to work and live. The identities thus created resemble modern ethnicities in other countries, which are also shaped by cities, markets and national states.

Tribe substitutes a generalized illusion for detailed analysis of particular situations.

The bottom-line problem with the idea of tribe is that it is intellectually lazy. It substitutes the illusion of understanding for analysis of particular circumstances. Africa is far away from North America. Accurate information about particular African states and societies takes more work to find than some other sorts of information. Yet both of those situations are changing rapidly. Africa is increasingly tied into the global economy and international politics. Using the idea of tribe instead of real, specific information and analysis of African events has never served the truth well. It also serves the public interest badly.

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