Review of African Blogs

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/301/blogs_liquidplastic.gif Tanzanian blogger, Nasra Al Adawi who has been working with breast cancer survivors in Southern Africa posts an interview with “An Everyday Heroine” Rebecca Musi from Soweto, Johannesburg.

“When Rebecca was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of forty-nine, her mother became ill at the same time. “I never got a chance to tell her as I did not want to upset her”, said Rebecca. “This was just before I started my treatment, so I suspended treatment and looked after her.” Ironically her mother died four months later. She was ninety-five years old.

Today, Rebecca Musi is a breast cancer survivor, and she travels around the world supporting other breast cancer survivors. She works for Breast Health Foundation (BHF) in Johannesburg. She is also a participant in the Avon Foundation initiatives for cancer awareness. Avon has launched a campaign called the “Global Connection Ribbon Tour”. This tour links survivors from one country to another.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/301/blogs_dibussi.gifScribbles from a Den comments on the first round of the French elections in which right wing candidate, Nicholas Sarkozy is ahead with 31% of the vote. In the Cinq estates around Paris there was an incredible 80%+ turn out of voters against Sarkozy. Sarkozy is not good for the non-white population of France as Dubussi writes…

“Sarkozy's own pronouncements about minority groups are provocative to say the least. Any French president whose right-wing policies promise the perpetual maltreatment of a section of the population, should be rejected. He cannot be a president that unites the present deeply fragmented society.
Ségolène must win this decisive second ballot. She needs only appeal to the centrist voters of François Bayrou to give her about 43.57% over Sarkozy and his racist votes from the Nationalists of 41.75%. If she could manage to mop up the votes of the undecided voter, she will emerge the winner.

France needs a political ideology which favours social responsibility. There is a culture of contempt from the immigrant population due to the institutionalized discrimination that continuously keep them out of the concours of national issues. The only way individuals could become responsible would be by giving them the power to control their own lives, by a widespread socialist agenda. This means jobs and social integration. That is what their so-called NATIONAL IDENTITY IS, a gateway to economic revolution”

One good thing is that the far right party of Le Pen has been completely ignored but that could be partly because of the centre right choice of Sarkozy rather than a rejection of the far right itself knowing that Sarkozy has a far better chance of winning that Le Pen ever would.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/301/blogs_addax.gifAddax reports on the attack on Spanish patrol boats in the waters just off the coast of Mauritania by prospective immigrants to spain.
“African would-be immigrants travelling to Spain by boat attacked a Spanish police vessel with petrol bombs, preventing the officers on board from detaining them, the daily El Pais reported Tuesday.

"The boat was taking 57 migrants from Mauritania in West Africa to the Canary Islands, when a Spanish patrol boat based in Mauritania attempted to intercept it.The immigrants hurled petrol bombs and other objects at the vessel and tried to puncture a rubber dinghy which was sent to accost it.”

Some months ago the Senegalese government agreed to allow the Spanish navy coastal guard to patrol Senegalese waters in the hope of stemming the flow of immigrants to Spain and Europe but clearly the boats are still managing to get through and people are finding different routes by sea and by land to reach Europe such is the desperation for a better life and the ability to support families back home.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/301/blogs_dramatikpsychology.g…Thoughts from Southern Nigeria reports from Southern Nigeria on last weekends Nigerian elections.

“For this reporter and other journalists who went round the state on the Election Day, it was war that was fought on that day and not an election. The trip was without hitches from the INEC office in Warri South local government, where people thronged the office as early as 8.30 am, creating an atmosphere of insecurity for officials of the Commission. Between 9.00 am and 9.30 am, voting materials had not left the office but some people alleged that the ballot papers had been thumb-printed the night before. It was difficult to confirm the allegation but the same chaotic situation prevailed as we passed through Effurun, Enerhen and Ovwian-Aladja areas. According to reports, voting materials came later in the day but while some voted, others could not. ..At the Uvwie local government secretariat, some people were already spitting fire, threatening to go on rampage, as at 10.00 am, saying that there was no voting, but as it was later learnt, the INEC encountered some logistic problems earlier in the day, and so materials could not be distributed as scheduled in some areas. However, as far as the groups of protesters, mainly DPP members were concerned, there was no logistic problem; it was a calculated design by the PDP and their collaborators in INEC. There were pockets of demonstrations and bonfires everywhere, forcing the state government to slam a curfew on the local government.......The situation was not different same at Otu-Jeremi in Ughelli South local government, where a presiding officer told Sunday Vanguard that the voting materials were hijacked earlier in the day by thugs but another source said the INEC officials were working out the distribution arrangement in the office and that voting would commence after the distribution.”

In many parts of the Niger Delta especially in Bayelsa and Rivers State, voting did not take place at all. Polling booths were closed and even the few that did open had a very low turn out of voters.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/301/blogs_ethiopundit.gifEthiopundit explains how “How Meles, Museveni, the Donors Group, the IMF, the World Bank, and even North Korea, all got together to create The Greater East Africa Co-Prosperity Sphere”

“In a dictatorship, however, getting along with the natives means getting along with the government, however nasty and brutish it may be. Getting along with the government in the guise of the people then takes on a life of its own and become is own justification. We are not talking about appreciating foreign cultures here or respecting other ways of life.

What we are talking about is convincing oneself to appreciate foreign dictatorships and to respect the ways of dictators because without some measure of approval by the regime there is always the threat of expulsion, rejection of projects or paperwork and bad reviews from one’s superiors back in Washington or Brussels or any media HQ etc. Occasionally when it happens, rebellious ferenjis can feel justifiably brave and good but ultimately for national or international or N.G.O. bureaucrats or reporters it is not a realistic agenda to follow.

Not getting along with the native thugs is career suicide and even institutional suicide because whoever is paying for it all wants something or the appearance of something in exchange for all those dollars, euros and yen. Part of that approval has to come from the native thugs who might not get with the program if their own despotic interests are threatened - no matter what harm comes to the people themselves.”

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/301/blogs_laila.gifMoroccan literary blogger, Laila Lalami comments on the racialisation and Islamisation of the Virginia Tech massacre.

“The focus on the murderer's background was not restricted to his nationality; there was also the religious angle. The New York Post quickly speculated that the words "Ismail Ax," which were scrawled on the gunman's arm, were a reference to the Qur'anic account of Abraham's sacrifice of Ismail, or possibly also to Abraham's destruction of pagan idols, also in the Qur'anic tradition. The fact that the document sent by Cho to NBC contained such bizarre claims as "Thanks to you I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people" did not seem to merit the kind of religious exegesis that the New York Post was so keen on doing earlier in the week. People look for intrinsic reasons for Cho's acts, when the simpler explanation--to the extent that such a horrendous act can ever be explained--is that Cho was a mentally ill young man, who should never have had access to guns.”

Whilst I agree with Laila on the racialisation of the act, I do believe it is too easy to dismiss the murders as simply an act of a “mentally ill young man”. Surely there must have been something that drove this young man to madness? Could it have been racism? Bullying? Exclusion that his classmates because he was “un-cool”, different? It is important to ask these questions and find answers rather than simply say he was a coward and mad.

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