Africa Blog Roundup
Egyptian blog, "" (www.mindbleed.com) has resurfaced in a new blog called "In mourning". He reports (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4723339.stm) on the predictable backlash against British Muslims following the July 7th bombings in London. He asks whether the failure by the mainstream media to report the "faith related attacks" is "deliberately downplayed to stop anger fomenting in the ranks of British Muslims with violent tendencies of their own?" I am not sure which mainstream media he is referring to as the report he mentions was taken from the BBC which is about as mainstream as you can get. Also the London Guardian has a special report on attacks against Asians. Maybe he is referring to the tabloid press and surely one can only expect less than nothing from them.
Staying with the "Muslim" issue, SubZeroBlue (www.subzeroblue.com/archives/2005/07/us_muslim_scholars_i.html) from Tunisia reports that Muslim scholars in the US have issued a fatwa (religious edict) condemning terrorism and religious extremism.
In the edict, the 18-member FCNA said people who committed terrorism are "criminals," not "martyrs." It would be even more helpful if Muslim scholars in Britain and the Middle and Far East also issued a similar fatwa.
Kenyan blogger Bankelele (http://bankelele.blogspot.com) attends an AIDS conference in Kenya and provides an excellent breakdown of some very scary facts and figures on HIV/AIDS. Under "Bad Traditions" he writes:
- "We were circumcised on the same day, with the same knife" is a call to brotherhood that men often use. But such practices need to be updated, so that, perhaps, one knife per boy is used on that special day.
- While the Luo are chastised for their wife inheritance customs, in other communities (all over the country) young widows (whose husbands may have died from AIDS, and don't know their own HIV status) have silent affairs, cohabit, or even re-marry.
- The Church is still very negative towards potentially useful practices such as contraceptives and is also not very supportive of HIV+ people.
- Many family members still show very little sympathy or support to their HIV+ relatives
- Many employers still show very little sympathy or support to HIV+ workers.
Ethan Zuckerman's excellent blog "My Heart's in Accra" (www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=111) has a report on the blogger "Sleepless in Sudan" (http://sleeplessinsudan.blogspot.com) an aid worker who provides readers with daily reports from Darfur refugee camps.
"Sleepless recent posts have been about the Kalma camp, which houses about 150,000 IDPs. The Sudanese government is interested in breaking up the camp, either for the legitimate reason that it's in danger of flooding (a recent post describes Khartoum as a "veritable African Venice", with cabs and tuk-tuks stuck in an underwater traffic jam) or out of fear that rebels are training and regrouping within the camps."
What is worse is that Sleepless is reporting on rapes of women in the camps and the possibility that the attackers are anti-Janjaweed and anti-Khartoum rebels who want to make sure aid money continues to flow. Obviously this is her opinion based on her own observations on the ground but if true it is an extremely worrying development.
Sleepless blogs anonymously which is not unusual in countries where it is dangerous to speak out, to speak the truth. Bloggers have been subjected to harassment and police detention in countries such as China and Iran. In the case of Sleepless it is understandable as the Sudanese government have a record of arresting and detaining aid workers and human rights activists.
Akinyio (http://akinyio.blogspot.com) is a young Kenyan woman blogging from South Africa. Her blog is a "diary" blog basically covering the day to day happenings in her life. Here she provides us with an insight into Durban which she says is a beautiful city. However she makes the observation that beyond the beauty the legacy of apartheid remains.
"Durban is also a bit stuck in pre-1994 SA. There are places where you can actually count the black faces if any and there are times when you feel the tension. For me this was completely new and I hated having to second guess myself whenever I wanted to walk into a store or restaurant in a Mall because there were only white faces or only Indian faces in there."
Finally Black Looks (http://okrasoup.typepad.com/black_looks/2005/08/victor_julie_mu.html) has a number of reports on Ugandan lesbian human rights activist, Victor Julie Mukosa (http://okrasoup.typepad.com/black_looks/2005/07/ugandan_governl.html) who has been repeatedly violated by the Ugandan police. Since being detained and then released she has been in constant hiding and in fear for her life.