http://www.pambazuka.org/images/authors/Doreen-Lwanga.jpgAlthough there is much for Africans to celebrate in post apartheid South Africa, Doreen Lwanga is troubled by the 'psychological burden' of having to engage in the profiling of black youth when walking the streets of urban centres such as Johannesburg.

A while ago, I wrote about the psychological trauma that beggars on the New York City subway undergo, as they prepare to ask passengers for a dollar. Here, I would like to explore the psychological burden of profiling young black males in South Africa as a visitor to the country.

I recently travelled to South Africa. I had not been to South Africa since I left in 2001, following a year of working with the Lawyers for Human Rights Refugee Rights Project in Pretoria. I had promised myself never to return to South Africa because of the 'not-so-friendly' welcome I received when I was there. I had gone to South Africa assuming that I would be 'going home', but my inability to speak any of the eleven national languages prohibited me from freely enjoying the social scene.

South Africa provides hope to so many Africans on the continent. Its diversity of culture, landscape, vibrancy, peoples, history, leadership and resilience makes it the most admired and one of the most sought after destinations. It has become a favoured destination for many international Africans students and academics flock to pursue a world-class education, teaching or research experience outside their home countries. It is Africa’s economic capital.

Many Africans like me who visit or live in South Africa want to enjoy a part of it or be a part of it. We expect a 'home welcome' and a pat on the back, yet many of us, particularly from outside Southern African are profiled because we do not speak any of the South African black languages.

Amazingly, both South Africans and foreigners in the country are scared of street life and miss out on the most vibrant experience of any city. We are warned of walking in the city without clinging onto our handbag during the day and scared from enjoying the night life for fear of rape, murder or robbery in the cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria. The tourists and immigrants claim crime is high in these cities because there are many unemployed young South Africans. While South Africans claim it is due to the high influx of immigrants.

I remember one evening in 2000 while I was walking home from work in Pretoria at about six o’clock, two young black males came running after me. When they approached me, one pulled my bag while the other struggled to break my necklace. As I fought back and yelled for help, none of the passer-bys stopped to rescue me from these attackers. If this had happened on the streets of Kampala, the mob would surely have meted out justice onto these two robbers.

Certainly, it is expected that we all take the necessary precaution while living in big cities. I realise that it is risky to park one’s Pajeros on some streets of Pretoria or Johannesburg in the night without guaranteed security. However, I am bothered that I can safely walk the streets of Kampala or New York without psychological fear of attack, rape or murder from young black males unlike in Johannesburg or Pretoria.

Then I wonder, am I, like many other foreigners and South Africans living in these cities, too paranoid? Are we too impatient with the recently acquired public space that the new South African transition ushered in for free enjoyment of all, including young black males? Is it just young black males clearly restricting our ability to move freely within Johannesburg and Pretoria, and are they all South Africans?

Clearly we have many reasons to celebrate that the new South Africa has extended to many of us from the rest of Africa easier access to its borders without the cruel apartheid system.

However, I do not want to live a stratified lifestyle where those who consider 'to have' live under key and lock from those who supposedly 'do not have'.

I enjoy street life, and the ability to interact with local people and observe the daily lives of ordinary people. I enjoy public transport and do not want to be chauffeured around in private car hire at seven times the cost of public transport.

I hate the fact that walking the streets of Pretoria and Johannesburg makes me paranoid, particularly when as a black person I participate in black-on-black profiling.

As a black person and a self-acclaimed black nationalist, I cannot bear the psychological burden of profiling young black males on the streets of South Africa nor deny myself the opportunity of opening my Luganda or English-speaking mouth for fear of attack from my own people.

* Doreen Lwanga is an Africa Scholar, Researcher and Activist working in the areas of African security, Pan-Africanism and Higher education in Africa.

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

Commemorating the 300th Issue of Pambazuka News I first came across Pambazuka News in/around 2003 when I was a graduate student in Boston, Massachusetts. After reading the first issue, I immediately subscribed and forwarded the web link to all students and scholars of Africa at my school. From time to time, I continue to forward specific articles to various people that I know are interested in listening to an African voice published in an African platform. I have never turned back since then.

Pambazuka News has given me a voice, a home, a reflection point and a reaffirmation that my thoughts and believes are not crazy but shared by many individuals in our world. The weekly articles give us a visual picture of “the African” activist through the style of communication that reflects expressions of reality rather than abstract or theoretical imagination of issues concerning civil society in Africa.

Occasionally, other social activists from outside Africa contribute to our discussions on international justice and its impact on Africa and other marginalized groups.

Indeed, Pambazuka News has established itself as an African mouthpiece for social justice for all of civil society. As we move toward the 301st issue, I ask Pambazuka News to help us begin a conversation with our national, sub-regional and regional political leaders. Civil society tends to monopolize concerns for social justice in Africa in Pambazuka News and the current publications in Pambazuka News tend to affirm this trend.

Most of the contributions are from people (myself without exemption) decrying or rebuking the government without an opportunity given to the government to respond in this forum. It cannot be true that there are no individuals within our national, sub-regional and African Union concerned about social justice in Africa. We in civil society do not hold a monopoly of concern for the welfare of Africa. We, therefore, need to make a concerted effort in working with our governments, providing them our ideas and accepting that them and us can richly contribute to shaping the growth and health of Africa and African Unity.

As my friend Chidi Odinkalu once said to me, “If Oxfam has an African Union Representative in Ethiopia, why not us, African organizations and civil society?” I fully agree that, rather than disengaging with our governments, this kind of engagement will help us achieve the transformations for Africa we expect from our leaders.

Politicians come from among civil society, some of whom have been activists before they are transformed into government officials. Let us, therefore, begin a conversation with our governments through Pambazuka News, and if possible, let Pambazuka News establish a regional desk in Ethiopia to capture proceedings as they unfold.

Thank you for the great service Pambazuka News and may you keep it up and strong!

Two recent articles on the criminalisation of the poor in the recent Pambazuka News have intrigued me.

Bronwen Dyke in 'Where being poor could become a criminal offence' shares with us a law passed in Cape Town to criminalise people who continue to beg after somebody has said no.

Jacques Depelchin's In solidarity with Cité Soleil in Haiti (Pambazuka News (2007-03-22) shows how France with the help of the US, Canada and the Vatican forced the Haitian government that defeated their slavery of the Africans to agree to pay compensation to the slave and plantation owners, in exchange for being accepted as a nation state.

Sadly, the poor are criminalised everywhere. In the time I have lived in the United States, I have been perplexed by how the poor and vulnerable are criminalised amidst plenty. Here, poor people without a home are chased away from sleeping inside the train station in the night even during the freezing winters.

The other day I was walking down the street in my neighborhood and met this lady, scrounging from the dumpster. I guess she was collecting empty bottles and glass containers for sale. She reached out for a yoghurt container, which somebody else had half-eaten and she started scooping the left-overs from it. When I told this story to my mother in Uganda, she responded: 'even there (in the US) there are beggars?'

Indeed there are beggars in this country and that's what really scares me. It scares me to imagine that in this country where food is thrown away every second, there are people who eat from the dumpster. There is also another group of poor people or the less well-to-do who are scolded for being very materialist by the kings and queens of materialism.

Oprah Winfrey, while justifying why she spent money on building a school in South Africa instead of improving inner city schools in the United States responded tha, all the kids care about here are iPods.

Surely, why would she be surprised, when all these kids see is Oprah giving away cars and diamonds on TV? This is not toattack Oprah or her gestures but to show the contradiction of the materialists who scold the 'have-nots' for being their reflections.

What is not recognised is the psychological humiliation of people who beg on the streets, or trains or take showers on the roadside. I've watched how people who beg on the New York trains have to prepare themselves before they open their mouths.

Both Dyke and Depelchin call upon our social solidarity to stand against these established regimes that impoverish, dehumanise and criminalise the struggles of the unemployed and freedom fighters.

* Doreen Lwanga is from Uganda and currently lives and works in New York.

Dear colleagues:

You probably have already heard about the tragedy that befell Malian families in the Bronx this past Wednesday night. Eight children and their mother were killed in a fire which devastated a three-storey building in the New York City borough of the Bronx. It is so hard for the communities here to come to terms with such a terrible tragedy. The fire is suspected to have been caused by an electric heater in the basement.

Members of the community and throughout New York are responding kindly to the families and friends undergoing great pain at this time. African communities within the New York boroughs are also collectively reaching out in different ways.

If you can in your individual capacity reach out to the families, I believe that your gesture will be very much appreciated. The African Services Committee is collecting donations to help victims of the fire, including those were were injured and are currently in the hospital. Here is the website of the African Services Committee. I plan to go over to the Bronx tonight to pay my respects.

Thank you for your kindness and please feel free to pass this on to anyone who can help

Doreen Lwanga

The spirit of Nkrumah and Pan-Africanism still lives on in Ghana today through its various citizenship laws. Ghana is the first African country to provide the right to return, and indefinite stay for Africans in the diaspora. The government also recently passed legislation giving Ghanaians in the diaspora the right to vote.

As we commemorate Ghana at 50, let us not forget the founding father of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah and his notion of pan-Africanism. Kwame Nkrumah pursued the political independence of Ghana and committed himself to the struggles against foreign domination in other African colonies. He cemented Arab-African ties through special friendships with Egyptian leader Gamar Abdel Nassar. He welcomed Africa freedom fighters such as Malcolm X, W. E. Dubois, and George Padmore. He established a continental radio station (the External Service of Radio Ghana), which helped fuel the African liberation struggle. To this end, Kwame Nkrumah envisioned pan-African citizenship for all peoples of Africa.

50 years later, Ghana continues the vision of Kwame Nkrumah in its generous citizenship laws that provide for a permanent home for peoples of African descent. In 2000, Ghana introduced the Dual citizenship Act 2000 under which a citizen of Ghana may hold the citizenship of any other country in addition to his Ghanaian citizenship. A person of non-Ghanaian origin could also apply for Ghanaian citizenship by registration if s/he is an ordinary resident of Ghana, and by naturalization if s/he has made a substantial contribution to the progress or advancement in any area of national activity.

However, critics of the law point to the fact that the 2000 Act was intended to reward Ghanaians in the diaspora who have acquired another citizenship but contribute greatly to the national development of the country. In fact, following the enactment of the law, Dr. Addo-Kufuor, then acting Minister of Interior explained that Non-Resident Ghanaians had remitted US$400,000,000 annually to boost Ghana’s economy against contributions of Foreign Direct Investment, which since 1994 to 2002 had contributed US$1.6, or about US$200,000,000. Indeed the acquisition of Ghanaian citizenship by registration and naturalization is subject to ability to speak and understand an indigenous Ghanaian language.

Nevertheless, Ghana is the first African nation to provide the right to return and indefinite stay for Africans in the Diaspora. Under Section 17(1)(b) of the Immigration Law, Act 573 of 2000, the Minister may grant the 'right to abode' to a person of African descent in the diaspora with the approval of the President. Some say, this provision was aimed at tapping into the rich African Americans who have returned to Ghana since its independence and taken up residence in the country, and rewarding those who contribute to the budding tourist industry.

Despite the contestations and shortcomings, all these achievements indicate the persistence, hard work and pan-African spirit of the Ghanaian government, Ghanaian parliament, ordinary Ghanaians, and Ghanaians and other African peoples in the Diaspora. Last year, the Ghanaian Parliament responded positively to lobbying of Ghanaians in the Diaspora by passing the Representation of the People Amendment Bill, (ROPAB) granting them right to vote in national elections. In December 2008, Ghanaians in the diaspora will vote for the first time in Presidential elections through absentee ballots. Their next move is to challenge through Ghanaian courts a provision in the Citizenship Act, 2000, which prohibits Ghanaians who have acquired citizenship of another country from standing for political office in Ghana. Later this year, the same group working with Benjamin Afrifa of the Africa Federation, Inc. intends to launch an African TV station broadcasting from the US. The TV station will broadcast African diaspora affairs as well as continental affairs. Ultimately, Ghanaians hope to carry on Kwame Nkrumah’s mantle, and influence other Africans in the diaspora to engage fully in their own nations.

I hope that all African countries will follow suit by allowing us free access to our continent without visa restriction and administrative humiliation. It is true that some African countries have embraced Kwame Nkrumah’s pan-Africanism and granted citizenship to African immigrants or refugees. For instance, Tanzania granted citizenship to Burundian refugees in the early 1990s and offered long-term stay to many freedom fighters from Mozambique, South Africa and Uganda. Senegal extended citizenship to Mauritanian refugees expelled from their home country in 1989. These gestures of welcoming Africans as citizens in other African countries needs to be recognizsd and encouraged throughout Africa.

It is a pity that in most African states, we continually experience unfriendly citizenship and immigration laws in the name of 'national security'. Many countries still in fact still uphold laws inherited from colonial regimes that have either separated nations across the border or deemed Africans as strangers in our own continent. It is often easier to enter an African country carrying a European or North American passport than, say, a Ugandan passport. For instance, Senegal, which parades itself as the 'Land of Teranga' still upholds an immigration law inherited from the French that makes it hard for Africans bearing a passport from a non-ECOWAS country to enter. This is not to suggest that a Senegalese does not need a visa to enter Uganda, however, the process is less cumbersome particularly for African visitors. Why should a country that struggled to rid itself of the colonial regime still uphold colonial law as national law? Why don’t we in Africa give preferential treatment to each other as members of the African Union, similarly to how this is done in EU or the United States? Or is movement within Africa a right for only African diplomats, Europeans and North Americans?

As a start, we could abolish visa regimes for Africans in preference for regional arrangements similar to the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) and the East African Community (EAC). We could also follow the EAC arrangement and issue African Union passports to all peoples of Africa, from the African continent and the Africa diaspora. Opponents of free borders argue that people will migrate en masse from their homes/regions of economic hardship and stay indefinitely in economically well-to-do countries if borders were made more porous. However, evidence within the ECOWAS, EAC or the EU illustrates that where borders are open to community members, people move back and forth. Everyday, Ugandans, Kenyans, Guineans, Senegalese and others within the EAC and ECOWAS community move freely between the borders and return to their places of permanent residence. In fact, the greatest pan-Africanists are the border communities engaged in daily socio-economic and cultural activities across the borders, such as the Masaai along the Kenya-Tanzania border, the Peulh along the Seno-Mauritania border and the Luo on the Uganda-Sudan border.

However, a fear of one's neighbour guides immigration and citizenship policies in most of Africa. Zimbabwean traders who travel across the border to Botswana are subject to stringent entry visa restrictions and high fees even though both countries are member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This trend, though not unique is particularly disturbing coming from Botswana whose economic development owes a lot to the huge number of African professionals who have lived and worked in Botswana for many years. Many are still denied the right to citizenship based on unfair residence laws that grant short-term stay with hardly any chance to qualify for legal permanent residence. Similarly, many Africans whose ancestors were taken as slaves to Europe and the Americas have expressed disappointment about being excluded from the new dual citizenship regimes sweeping Africa. Whereas African Presidents appeal to Africans living in the diaspora to participate in national development, incentives are provided for those 'who left on their own free will', as against those whose ancestors were sold into slavery. On the other hand, there are sentiments among Africans on the continent that it is possible to be a national without being a citizen, and the latter should be reserved for 'those left behind' who are working for national development. For instance, Oteng-Attakora, a Ghanaian writer, argues that although Ghanaians in the diaspora have family ties and their remittances may alleviate the pain of the fortunate few, they neither pay taxes nor create jobs that would contribute to national building.

Ultimately, African states should borrow a leaf from Israel, which encourages and in fact solicits all persons of Jewish heritage to immigrate to Israel and gathering a in of its exiles. The African Union could sponsor annual tour to Africa (like Israel does for the Jewish diaspora) to visit the homeland. If called upon, interested Africans of the diaspora will finance their own trips to the homeland, as evidenced by on-going return and tour trips to the Cape Coast in Ghana, Goree Island in Senegal and others. Certainly, the Africa diaspora has a role to play, not only in lobbying for political rights but also in contributing to national development and promotion of the African affairs. Until we as Africans learn to value and trust each other, we cannot demand other countries, particularly in Europe, Asia and the Americas to value us. VIVA OSAJEFO!

* Doreen Lwanga is a Pan-Africanist and a Scholar of Citizenship and Security in Africa. She can be reached at [email][email protected]

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at pambazuka.org

Doreen Lwanga responds to a review of Blood Diamonds by Del Hornbuckle and contextualises the role of the RUF in the Sierra Leone civil war.

Del Hornbuckle’s recent review of Blood Diamond, “Blood Diamond…TIA (This is Africa)” in Pambazuka News 287 (2007-01-17)() offered me an inside look at the film without having to give my money to Hollywood. My reason for boycotting Hollywood movies on Africa was due to their deliberate refusal to get the story right and preferring sensational exaggerations and faces of miserable and chaotic Africa in need of a “white humanitarian”. The last Hollywood movie on Africa I watched was “Black Hawk Dawn”, expecting to see the gallant Somalis taking down the US military invaders. Instead, I was bombarded by pictures of Somalis handing roses to US marine saviours on the streets of Mogadishu. What part of Mogadishu was that? Ironically, many on the African continent anxiously await such movies (including the acclaimed Last King of Scotland) even when they depict Africans as brutal and bloodthirsty cannibals.

Back to Blood Diamonds. Although I learned a lot from Ms Hornbuckle’s film review, I was not convinced by the equation drawn (seemingly from the film), that is, the RUF war was about child soldiers and blood diamonds. It is easy for Hollywood to accuse the RUF of accelerating the war through illegal diamond mining and using child soldiers without putting all the facts together. For one, why was a movie based on events that occurred in Sierra Leone shot in Mozambique, a country in Southern Africa with no regional context? Remember that the Sierra Leone civil war involved regional players in Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia and Nigeria. This reductionism of the Sierra Leone conflict to a “RUF problem” of greed, violence and conflict reminds me of Robert Kaplan’s thesis entitled “The Coming Anarchy” published in The Atlantic Monthly of February 1994. Kaplan claimed that scarcity of resources, crime, overpopulation, tribalism, and disease in Africa where rapidly destroying the social fabric of our planet. His essay was so influential that the US State Department faxed copies to all of its Embassies around Africa, undoubtedly shaping its Africa policy.

Fortunately for us, whose attention to context and historical understanding of events does not wither away, along came Paul Richards’ 1996 book ‘Fighting for the Rainforest: War, Youth & Resources in Sierra Leone’. Richards dedicated this book to critiquing the New Barbarism thesis espoused by the likes of Kaplan. He analysed the Sierra Leone civil war as deeply rooted in the troubled history of resource exploitation, involving slave trade, timber, ivory, and valuable mineral resource exploitation. Through dedicated scholarship and long-term residence in Sierra Leone, Richards conducted interviews with child soldiers, ex-combatants, youth, diamond traders, RUF members, government forces, village leaders and residents in mining areas and other regions with RUF incursions in Sierra Leone. Thus, he successfully contextualises the RUF struggle as a revolt against the patrimonial rule of Sierra Leone and marginalization of ordinary people rather than one driven by greedy and trigger happy illiterate people.

It is also true that RUF cut off people’s limbs but not necessarily as alleged by Ms Hornbuckle that, “the less desirables, one-by-one, have limbs chopped off when they’re not useful as child soldiers or mine workers.” RUF cut off limbs to stop people from going into fields for the harvest and to stop hands from voting in the elections of February 1996 (Richards, op cit. xx). However, RUF also had a disciplined and non-materialistic way of life, which involved sharing looted food and medical supplies to all recruits and punishing anyone who looted for personal wealth. According to Richards, RUF was a group of “excluded educated elites”, a product of intellectual anger making rhetorical point deeply rooted in the troubled history of resource extraction (pp. 25-27).

The RUF war in Sierra Leone included several professionals and school dropouts who joined as a protest against the socio-economic marginalization and corruption of the ruling government in the distribution of national resources. Schoolteachers who joined the RUF sought to avenge against the ruling government’s failure to pay their salaries while school-going youngsters in the diamond districts of eastern and southern Sierra Leone saw no future with schools broken down long before the RUF arrived (Richards, Chapter Four). Even conscripts terrorized in the process of capture, later discovered that RUF political analysis addressed their sense of exclusion and the rebels often treated them generously (Richards, p. xix; 53). Richards tells of girls who had never owned decent shoes, being offered a choice of shoes and dresses by the rebels. Others had a chance to resume their education, and received a good basic training in the arts of bush warfare (pp. 28-29).

Since I didn’t see the film myself, I am relying on Ms Hornbuckle’s account that leaves out the political economy context in which RUF incursion took place in Sierra Leone. That is, the patrimonial state benefited from blood diamonds and distributed national resources to political constituencies, thus accelerating social marginalisation, fuelling social grievances and the emergence of the RUF guerrilla movement. For instance, in exchange for security, the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) granted huge mining concessions in Kono district to the South African private security company, Executive Outcomes (p.17). The RUF joined the control of some mineral deposits and diamond resources as a means of obtaining basic subsistence and military equipment. Whereas the patrimonial government collected revenue for personal consumption from trade in diamonds with licensed dealers (mainly Lebanese), the RUF as an outlawed non-state entity could not legally trade in its diamonds. The act of criminalizing the activities of ordinary diamond traders in resource-rich communities denies them an income for school fees and family survival. Previously, communities in resource-rich areas of Eastern Congo, DRC have spoken out against international sanctions and boycott campaigns that criminalize their non-licensed batter trade in their minerals. This is perhaps what President Nelson Mandela meant to re-echo.

No doubt that the atrocities committed by the RUF undermined their campaign. They failed to take their protest to the central government in Freetown and mostly hurt those people sharing similar grievances against the ruling government – the rural population. However, the usual story Hollywood enjoys telling about Africa is a decontextualised one involving the evil (RUF represented by Captain Poison), the disposable (Solomon Vandy) and the saviour (a white journalist Maddy Bowen). Paul Richards book is a must read for everyone because it excels in giving a human face to rebels and guerrilla fighters, as members of a frustrated society, something continuously diminishing with our fascination with the growing global terrorism outlook.

* Doreen Lwanga is an Africa Scholar, Researcher and Activist working in the areas of African security, Pan-Africanism and Higher education in Africa. In 1993, Robert Kaplan, a US journalist wrote a book on the Balkan conflict and later expended his argument to African events in Liberia, Rwanda, Somalia and Sierra Leone in an influential essay in the Atlantic Monthly, February 1994. This essay was a reading for my graduate class in the US on Humanitarian Assistance. Paul Richards also sought to challenge the “Resource Curse” thesis advanced by World Bank economist Paul Colliers and others. Paul Richards (1996): Fighting for the Rain Forest: War, Youth & Resources in Sierra Leone. Oxford: James Currey

* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

I read with keen interest Charles Aburge's article on debt, aid and trade which appeared in Pambazuka News 240.

I enjoyed his strategic counselling and "scolding" of civil society in Africa for mindful engagement with African regional bodies in areas of debt and trade with Africa. I especially enjoyed reading his recognition that sometimes we in civil society unconsciously contribute to the erosion of sovereignty and the loss of self-worth in Africa. We are sometimes quick to demand or endorse "governance conditionality" where aid and debt relief is made conditional to progress in these areas.

This reminded me of the on-going row between the Government of Chad and The World Bank regarding the "Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline", where Chadian civil society activists are encouraging The World Bank to withold financial support from Chad.

Surely, who suffers? Should the role of civil society be to support global institutions at the expense of national programs? I am mindful of the governing record of the government of President Derby. However, to seemingly support a project which from its inception was de-cried for its erosion of the supremacy of Chadian Constitution in the interests of corporate law is worrisome.

The key element of contestation by the Chadian government is the off-shore account where oil revenues are kept for future generations. Wouldn't it be in the interests of Chadian civil society that in fact these funds are made available to the current generations from whom oil is extracted? Wouldn't a better role of Chadian civil society then be to monitor proper government use of these funds for education, health, environmental management and security of the nation? Surely, sometimes civil society in Africa must work for national and/or even regional prosperity, not against it.

I read with great discomfort my friend Chidi's letter that the Nigeria State Secret Service (SSS) arrested two of his professional colleagues and is currently looking for him in connection with his work challenging Charles Taylor's asylum in Nigeria ( Pambazuka News 218, We are not fugitives, Charles Taylor is). That is indeed very frightening news knowing how much Chidi means to so many of us Africans, Pan-Africanists, human rights activists and Afro-optimists. Although I have known Chidi since 1999, I had the opportunity of meeting him in January 2004 when he was Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. I took Chidi's class, which was one of my best classes in my entire graduate studies program.

Chidi is indeed an "African Child" and one of the heavy brains that Africa is so gifted to have. He is an inspiration to so many of us committed to advancing our scholarly activism for the human security of Africa. Those who know Chidi would agree that he is as well a very cordial person, whose multitude of achievements have never stopped him from being humble and accommodative of even those junior or in opposition to him. I guess that is why he now gets into trouble with a government he seeks to engage with daily but which is opposed to his work. So, I wanted to write this letter to Pambazuka News, if Chidi is reading, to let him know how much we are thinking about him through this difficult moment, as well as his family and colleagues. I would also like to call upon everyone to please send a message of support or take a moment to offer your internal support to Chidi.

On Thursday, June 23, 2005, Pambazuka News 212 covered World Refugee Day (WRD) 2005 featuring several well-thought out perspectives including an interview with Professor Barbara Harrell-Bond, whom many of us would agree is the founder of the first program on global refugee studies at Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford. Each year on June 20 the world commemorates WRD, a tradition “thankfully” began by leaders of African countries. I use thankfully in quotes because I am not sure if we should continue commemorating a day that could potentially cease to exist if actions of leaders guided us better and provided us with more human and national security. Instead, for various reasons including preoccupation with demarcating territorial borders created during colonial rule, our political leaders continue causing insecurity and refugee flows throughout Africa. Those who have already fled are either unable or unwilling to return to their home countries for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particularly social group and/or political opinion. In most cases where refugees have fled, many countries of asylum often deny them membership in their present or new social group. Therefore on this day I join other prominent African scholars such as Professor Mutua wa Makau, Professor of Law and Director of the Human Rights Center at The State University of New York at Buffalo in suggesting that we should “redraw the map of Africa” to recreate pre-colonial territorial integrity of African communities. This is also in respect of the Pan-African struggle against colonial rule and foreign domination throughout Africa and the African Diaspora.

The struggle to control Africa’s peoples and their territories by European slave traders, missionaries or colonialists created four major phases of massive human displacement and refugee flows in Africa. The first human displacement associated with European arrival in Africa came with slave trade where people fled from slave raiders while those captured were taken as slaves across the Atlantic. Next, was the partition of Africa which divided many former neighbours and kith and kin into different territories and created socio-cultural displacement among many Africans. When colonialism finally established its base, Africans resisting colonial rule and struggling for independence were forced to flee into neighbouring countries as refugees. Finally, African countries that succeeded in gaining their independence had as their first commitment to resist external aggression, avoid interference in the domestic affairs of a neighbouring African state and maintain the borders created during colonial rule. As a result, those who sought to exclude themselves from a territory where they had been forcefully included by colonial rule and wished to return to their former community were sabotaged and contained by post-independent African leaders. Others who struggled to reclaim their former territory were forced to flee into neighbouring countries.

Sadly, today many Africans countries continue struggling over territorial demarcation, separating relatives and creating insecurity and refugee flows among border communities. A recent joint-task force involving the governments of Malawi and Zambia has set aside close to US $1,130,000 in aid to demarcate a border allegedly for security purposes amidst protest of border communities with similar socio-cultural belonging. Similar territorial disputes continue between Nigeria and Cameroon, territorial disputes continue in the mineral-rich Bakassi peninsula, between Morocco and the Saharawi Democratic Republic, and between Angola and the Cabindese over the oil-rich Cabinda enclave. Previously in 1989, territorial disputes between Mauritania and Senegal involving dam construction in the Seno-Mauritania River led to the expulsion of Black Mauritanians to Senegal by Mauritanian President Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya. In 1998 following the international judgment on the border dispute between Eritrea and Ethiopia, armed struggles between the two countries claimed many human lives including expulsion of Ethiopians of Eritrean origin from Ethiopia. There are many more cases one can point to where territorial disputes have increased and maintained refugee movements. What is indisputable in many cases is how the actions of most of our political leaders have prolonged such insecurity and time spent in refuge throughout Africa.

Therefore, this article suggests that in order to minimize refugee flows, any efforts to “redraw the map of Africa” should seek to restore pre-colonial boundaries and recognize traditional communities with full property rights. African leaders should understand that Africa’s peoples have the ability to determine their communal boundaries and no amount of aid can replace the preferred social living among those of similar socio-cultural origin. Where people have already been thrown across borders as refugees and have lived in the country of asylum for a long-time, African host governments should consider incorporating them in the spirit of “African Unity” either permanently or until such a time when they can return safely to their countries of origin. Otherwise, suppressing internal self-determination and privileging the stability of colonial-created borders within post-colonial African states undermines the spirit and achievements of the Pan-Africanist struggle and the new spirit of African Unity.

African leaders should restore respect and togetherness rather than antagonize border communities. They should also seek to rid themselves of colonially crafted legal manipulations such as birth, race and descent as grounds for citizenship that continue to deny refugees belonging in communities where they have lived for a long-time. In fact many refugees have become prominent social, economic, cultural and political resources in countries of asylum, greatly contributing to national development and political stability. For instance, Rwandese refugees in Uganda fought with the National Resistance Army of Yoweri Kaguta Museveni to liberate Uganda from Obote’s regime. However, once they demanded citizenship many Ugandans quickly reminded them that they were foreigners and parliament enacted citizenship laws requiring that either a parent or grandparent were born in Uganda. In other countries, constitutional and citizenship laws required in addition to birth, an established residence (Zambia) or membership to an “indigenous” community (Nigeria).

Nevertheless, there are several countries in Africa whose approach to territorial dispute settlement and refugee protection could be emulated throughout the continent. In 1991, Senegal provided for the naturalization of Mauritania refugees reportedly to avoid regional insecurity, diplomatic fall-out with its neighbour Mauritania and to incorporate Mauritanian refugees who share historical and socio-cultural similarities with the Peulh and Wolof of Senegal. In 2003, the Zambian government announced a “Zambian Initiative” to provide citizenship to Angolan refugees unwilling to move to Angola on humanitarian grounds.

On this year’s WRD, Tanzania began the process of granting citizenship to 182 out of an expected total of 1,320 Somali Bantu. Other countries such as DRC, Ghana and Rwanda have recently enacted laws that either grant citizenship to all or recognized dual nationality to address political discrimination against migrants, encourage the repatriation of Diaspora communities and attract economic contributions from Diaspora populations and rich resident immigrants. Through sub-regional bodies such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), “transnational citizenship” is available to persons from any of the sixteen member states including refugees. Furthermore, the African Union (hereinafter AU) has also prioritized two other forms of citizenship alongside national citizenship - regional and continental citizenship.

In conclusion, whether some people within our national borders were former slaves vis-à-vis free people or strangers vis-à-vis indigenes, there is no reason why refugee host countries in Africa should deny such people the economic, political, and social rights by using politically opportunistic policies and practices of defining membership and demarcating territorial borders. Where refugees have resided in the area for decades, African countries should accord them membership through existing forms of citizenship, embrace new forms and patiently and creatively deliberate on other possible forms of resolving territorial disputes.

I am writing this letter to applaud the Live 8 events that have happened this past weekend in Berlin, London, Philly and elsewhere in the Western world. I have to say that after a long period of living and being exposed to real life in Western countries, I have become a Western- or to put it more specifically "White-pessimist" and developed a very big ego of Afro-optimism. This is particularly due to the way I have watched, observed and received news about Africa in these countries. The media, regular people and the education system mainly potrays its connection with Africa driven by a culture of pity. So, I had become convinced that white people have no intrinsic interest in Africa or Africans.

However, after watching "Live 8" events on TV in London, Berlin and Philly, I felt a change of heart. People coming out in numbers and thinking about Africa, performing for Africa, sweating for Africa, driving miles from the comfort of their homes for Africa. Although some of us Africans who love Africa very much are saddened by the way Africa is represented in Western audiences, today a part of me feels grateful and sad as well. I wrote to friends in Madagascar, in Senegal, in Uganda and in Nigeria, wondering how many cities in Africa have held similiar events? How many, really, how many places in Africa will you go and there is a band or fundraising event for the war in Northern Uganda or Darfur or Congo or Cote D'Ivoire? Yet if P Diddy or U2 or Snoop or 50 Cents were to come to perform in Africa for commercial purposes, many of us would save our salaries to watch their shows, and give our month(s) payment back to the rich when we cannot even raise money for our fellow Africans. Why don't African artists do this in their own countries? Or do we need an Africa International TV to show us that we are raising money for the continent?

One may say we have a lot of problems in our own countries but my goodness how many Ugandans even raise money for the people living in displaced camps in Northern Uganda? Besides those with relatives in these camps, usually it takes the likes of Save the Children to set up bases in Northern Uganda, so that our own media can report the humanitarian assistance. Then we complain that Bono or Paul McCartney are stealing the show....uhm! As Bob Geldof said today, "Don't let them tell you this doesn't work". Because twenty years ago, that girl on the TV screen had only two minutes to live. But this year, she finished her exam and degree in Agriculture in Northern Ethiopia. So, I thought to myself, even though these people's mercy is driven by an annoying culture of pity, I am watching Madonna, Snoop, Destiny's Child, Bono, Paul McCartney, sweating for Africa and raising their voice for Africa's poverty to the G8. And this made me rethink a part of my heart and pessimism about White people and the West. And I felt grateful and a little more certain that this money being raised now has a higher chance of making it to Africa unlike that money Western governments claim to allocate to Africa each year or the so-called humanitarian agencies but ends up paying their own staff and machinery.