The first time I heard of Rwanda it was not as a separate country. It was as hyphenation: Ruanda-Urundi. That knowledge came from a Sociology class taught by a German Lecturer, in a pre-degree class at Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria’. In those days Sociology was heavily dominated by Anthropology and its preoccupations with ‘the tribe’, ‘the clan’ and ‘the native’. Sociology was a discipline introduced out of protest at the uses and abuses of anthropology.

Anthropology has always had a bad name because of its close association with the colonial enterprise. European colonialists captured Africa through an unholy trinity: Christianity, the Maxim Guns and the Trade. The Anthropologists acted as the civilian contingent of the imperialist enterprise by providing what intelligence officers today provide for the modern state.

This is the same kind of far-reaching specialized local knowledge that ubiquitous Western NGOs can still provide (though a lot of information and knowledge are easily available today) to their sponsors today. The anthropologists were not necessarily ( like many of the missionaries) conscious agents but their knowledge, studies, ‘participatory research’ and activities among ‘the native’ directly and indirectly helped the colonialist project.

For Ruanda-Urundi what we know was that these were countries divided between ‘two tribes’, Hutu and Tutsi. The former looked more like us: Negroid, broad nose, short and stocky while the latter does not look like us: they are lighter skinned, taller, with long noses. With that, our racist focus on Rwanda and Burundi was constructed and the template put in place.

When you then consider the colonial imprint of indirect Tutsi rule in cahoots with the colonial rulers as the traditional aristocratic overlords, the anti-Tutsi prejudice became complete and got given a kind of respectable ideological justification.

Later in Political Science classes one was presented with another set of truisms that did not square with the tribal angle. Rwanda and Burundi, this time joined together with Somalia, we were taught, were the only countries in Africa where ‘tribalism’ was not an issue as in many post colonial African states, because the people of those countries were the same ‘tribe’, same faith. In the case of Rwanda and Burundi they did not even have significant dialect differences.

So if the people of those countries are not of different tribes how come they are killing each other? The answer lies in politics and power, not in ‘tribe’.

It took me moving to Uganda in the early 1990s to complete my education about Rwanda. Most Africans’ understanding or misunderstanding of Rwanda and Burundi was shaped by racist anthropological understandings. The ambiguities of some of the most radial scholars on this continent about the 1994 Genocide, and in understanding Rwanda since then, are rooted in this.

Many Africans believe themselves to be Hutus and by definition are apologetic about Hutu extremism. People who are usually critical of colonial constructs of ‘tribalism’ and ‘ethnicity’ in Africa, lose their critical faculties when it comes to Rwanda and Burundi. Because Genocide was carried out in the name of the majority, against a minority, does not make it ‘democratic’ or excusable. One’s opposition to minority rule should not condone genocide or atrocities against ethnic or racial minorities or minorities’ of any kinds.

The role of past colonial and neocolonial powers, especially Belgium and later France, in manufacturing these tribes and playing them against each other in order to perpetrate foreign domination in that part of Africa, cannot be separated from the successive Genocide that has engulfed the two countries (though with different victims and villains) since the late 1950s.

Without France and Belgium, the Genocidiare regime of Habyarimana and MRND could not have held on to power for so long. Without France and its ‘operation turquoise’ after the defeat of genocide in 1994 the Genocidiare regime, its army and clergy could not have forced genuine refugees behind fugitives in camps in Goma and other parts of Eastern Congo that eventually led to forceful closure of those camps, prolonged wars in the Congo and instability that continues until today.

It is therefore very rich, insulting and most mischievous and mendacious that a French judge sitting in some obscure province, and an even more obscure kangaroo court, can start issuing indictments against the President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame and nine of his officers.

Was the Genocide really caused by the shooting down of the plane of Habyarimana? If it had not been planned well in advance, with weapons being put into place how could it have been carried out and executed so swiftly and with such clinical precision?

Africans too readily accept Westerners sitting in judgment over us, without us doing the same for their many atrocities against us. Very often we allow our disagreements or opposition to particular regimes or leaders to cloud our better judgment and this gets non-Africans off the hook and even inflates their pomposity towards us. For many of us, as long as we are opposed to the person, people or governments being attacked, we think it is alright regardless of the principles that may be at stake.

How many African judges have issued indictments against Western leaders for their complicities in the many tragedies that continue to take place on this continent? Why can’t our judges, governments or institutions and even our human rights organizations who are quick to accept donor funds to campaign (rightly in many cases) against abuses by our governments also put some energy into prosecuting and campaigning against non-African excesses against Africa?

France and Belgium in particular and their successive leaders, ministers, corporations, diplomats, bureaucrats are guilty of aiding and abetting Genocide and should hang their heads in shame instead of looking for Africans -leaders or the led - to prosecute. They are only trying to ease the burden on their own consciences about their moral, political and legal complicity in murdering the innocent in Rwanda. 1994 may be the worst expression of these excesses but there are too many similar cases across this continent. Where do we even start when counting these cases? Is it Genocide by the Germans against the Hereros in Namibia? Or King Leopold’s Genocide in the Congo? Is it the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, coordinated by the Belgians and the CIA? Is it the overthrow of patriotic regimes including that of Nkrumah, Ben Bella, and so many more by agents of the West? Or do we cite the testing of nuclear weapons on innocent people of the Cameroon by the British in the 1960s?

We do not have to look far back in history to find evidence of Western conspiracies and wrongs against Africa. Most western countries will stand indicted without too much research. France will be in a special class of its own as both a brutal colonial power and neocolonialist on this continent.

There is more than enough for many western countries, and their leaders - political, religious and corporate -to be hauled before the ICC. That they are not is because they are the ones making the rules and then breaking them. That they get away with it is because we let them. International law should not only be for the poorer countries to obey, used to threaten current leaders, or enforce on leaders who have fallen out of favour (like Taylor, Milosevic, and others). It should apply equally. In a just world, how many western leaders, current and past, would be sitting comfortably in their mansions?

The responsibility for Genocide is not about who shot Habyarimana, it is about those who aided and abetted Genocide in that country ending with the delivery of their final script in April 1994. That responsibility, Monsieur Judge, is on France and their Belgian cousins.

• Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

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

Friday (ranar Jumaa in Hausa) is supposed to be the holiest of holies and the most blessed of all the blessed days for all believers in the Muslim faith. But last Friday 10th of November has given us cause to rethink this belief. For members of my family and me it has become a day of infamy. Instead of being a day of strengthening faith it is a day during which our faith in Allah was tested and some of us may have momentarily failed. It was the day we were robbed of one of the more gregarious siblings in our family of 10 brothers and 8 sisters from four mothers. Our dad passed away at a very mature age of 90 in 2000 but my mum, the youngest of the four wives from whom all 18 of us came died very young, at less than 60 years old when she died in 1997. We thought then and still do now that death was most cruel taking my mum at such a young age, in a life that was full of sacrifice for all her surviving 9 children. I said surviving because we could have been 12 (to the best of my knowledge). The girl before me died before she was one month old and at least twice when I was old enough to know what was happening my mum had lost one baby through still birth at full term and another child at slightly more than one year, a brother, Suleiman, after whom our last born boy, Sule, was later renamed. It is possible my mum had more than the 12 I could recollect but never bothered to tell me, her first surviving child because these things are not talked about both culturally and religiously.

However if my mother had been alive the death of my second brother, Sikiru (popularly known as Parrot) last Friday, would have killed her instantly. And I am not sure I could cope with losing both of them at the same time given how rotten I still feel 9 years since my mum passed away and how bad I am feeling at the moment for Sikiru’s death. Even though my mum had many children and had been luckier than all the other wives(most of us survived and made her a posthumous 50 % stakeholder in my Dad’s estate, her children being exactly 50% of all surviving children of my Dad) . Other wives always believed that we survived in that huge numbers because the Old man loved our mum most as the youngest wife but really my educated guess is that we survived because both the material situation of the family and access to medical facilities when my Mum joined the Harem was much better than when the older siblings were born, many of whom died when they were under 3 years old. Sikiru was her favorite. It is difficult for mothers to choose between their children but emotionally they tend to be more attached to the weaker ones. Sikiru was a very sickly child as a toddler. I could recollect his having concussions almost every week and my mum screaming to the whole neighborhood and everyone bringing one concoction or the other to ‘wake him up’. The hawkish eyes of a loving mother became so focused on this sickly boy and remained so throughout my mother’s life, something that Sikiru got accustomed to and used to good effect in all kinds of sibling rivalries as we grew up. As the first child my tasks and obligations were cut out for me. I had to be the responsible one and look after all those who followed me. . Between Sikiru and I there was a special bond because he looked like me and together with Amina , our last born, the number 9 for my mum and the 18th of the whole family, the three of us were the ones who looked most alike. When he came to Kampala for the 7th PAC he caused so many breaches of protocol and security as many (including our Chairman then Colonel Kahinda Otafiiremi and our then Chief of Staff one young Lt. Mayombo) misstook him for me! Through choices that he made consciously and those made for him by accident of birth by being my brother Sikiru became like a clone to his older brother following in my footsteps to go and study Political science at Bayero University Kano after secondary education at the notoriously harsh, seniority-obsessed Rimi College in Kaduna and A levels at Kwara State College of Technology, Ilorin. It was in Ilorin that the mustard seeds for his Student Union activism and political activism were planted and came to gregarious fruition at BUK where he was elected Publicity Secretary of the Student Union. By this time I had left home for further studies in the UK and had become a political exile against successive military dictatorships in Nigeria from Buhari/Idiagnon dual autocracy through IBB’s corrupt patrimony and Abacha’s sadistic regime. Sikiru was vocal, very eloquent and gifted writer who had no problem committing his views to paper. I have always thought he could have been a more successful journalist than anything else but he was too energetic and spread himself in different directions as though he had foreboding that he would not live long. He packed many things into his restless life: politics, PR, education, entrepreneurship, sponsorship of sports, promotion of theatre, Cinema, music promotion, journalism and more. And he did all of them with gusto. If God had a fixed address Sikiru would have found him and He would be impressed. But no sooner HE makes his acquaintance Sikiru will disappear! He would have moved on to other hobbies and challenges. When my mum passed away in 1997 he was in Funtua managing a private secondary school. It was on his advice and persuasion that we bought out the previous owners of the School and renamed it after our late MUM: Hauwa Community College. It was through his creativity, diligence and ways and means that we were able to buy the school change the name and he nurtured it to become the first ever private College to have been given full College Status and registration for both NECO and WAEC in Katsina state. He was a trail blazer but a restless spirit.

We were to later fall out on his management of the College leading to his exit. Unfortunately this is what everyone will remember. Whatever our disagreements though I never stopped loving him as a brother. I was very happy that he bounced back (yet again , as anyone who knew Sikiru knows, ba kasawa, i.e. no surrender) in one of his abiding loves, journalism, representing first , The Independent Group of Newspapers as Katsina State Correspondent and later till he died THE VANGUARD. . I followed his progress on the net but we never met or talked much in the past two years. I regret this because now it is too late for us to make any amends. But we are thankful to Allah that he is survived by Three Children from two wives. May Allah rest his soul, forgive his sins and bless the children to continue the good works that he had started. I would have wished to hold him, shake his hands and tell him how sorry I am about what happened between us but it is too late now. If you have any member of your family or friend with whom you may have fallen out please make amends because there is no guarantee that you or them will be here later today or tomorrow.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

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

What makes the voters of one country, electing none other than those who govern them in a legally recognised political community, superior or inferior? Any normal person will ask why am I asking such a funny Question, the answer to which should be clear. I agree. But I am talking about two elections held in the same week. Many will know one of them: the US election in which Bush, to the relief of billions of people across the world, is finally being shown the door. The other election is the one in Nicaragua where the Sandanistas, who had liberated the country but were defeated in elections in 1989, were returned to power.

In spite of the suspense of the closely fought race for the US Senate. The mid-term elections in the US have returned control of the American legislature to the opposition Democrats. They now control both chambers for the first time since 1994. The voters have shown a red card to Bush and his lunatic neo-cons that enough is enough.

Much as it is claimed that all politics is local, this election was fought on Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The loss of credibility internationally is finally hitting home even in the heartlands of conservatism across America.

There is hope both in America and outside that the changing political landscape in America symbolized in this election may lead to a post Bush regime change that may have more positive impacts on the people of the world. Even orchestrating Saddam Hussein's guilt and death sentence during the campaign did not divert people's attention from the tragic mess long foretold but denied by Bush and his hawks.

One thing that is clear is that Americans are no longer willing to be prisoners of an administration that governs them with fear. They are willing to re-engage with other Americans and the rest of the world. Politically Americans are saying good bye to a one party government.

It is not only Americans who my be feeling a bit safer with a weakening Bush. Even the rest of the world should feel safer. Bush is finally suffering what his allies suffered at the hands of their electorate.

But US elections are not the only ones taking place. Another significant election was decided among one of its smaller and poorer neighbours this week. It may not have the same impact on the world but it is of no less significance both for Americans and the ret of us.

Daniel Ortega, leader of the Sandanistas, was reelected President of Nicaragua more than 16 years after losing to a right wing coalition of parties funded and supported by successive US administrations. The Sandinistas remained the largest single party but others (mostly pro US politicians) conspire to keep it out of power. But it remained focused, renewing itself among the masses in elections and working on. Within Latin American politics Nicaraguans have shown again as we saw in Brazil and Venezuela that resurgent left parties and governments have the right to imagine a different world from that dictated by Washington.

What unites both elections for me is the right of people to choose those who govern them. All people have the right and duty to elect their own leaders without the interference of other governments. It is an insult to democracy that the Bush administration that is being chased out by its own electorate should be interfering in the electoral process of other countries. They made their preference clear in the Nicaragua vote and issued not so disguised threats to Nicaraguans not to vote for the Sandinistas.

Even as the results of the electoral meltdown of the Republicans in the Congress was being broadcast on CNN the Bush administration still had time to issue a statement on the Nicaraguan elections 'with cautious welcome'. Who do they think they are? If they need any caution it is to be applied to their own electorate which has punished them for their arrogance and irresponsible leadership of America. Incompetent at home and running wild abroad the Bush administration should just keep quiet about other peoples' elections and face the consequences of its own policies.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

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

I have been writing obituaries so frequently in the past year that I am beginning to feel there are no more adjectives left to appreciate the lives of fallen comrades. But somehow one has to find the words, both as part of grieving and also in defiance of death, to remind us that the thief of all thieves, while it may rob us of loved ones, will not be able to rob us of their memories too.

On Saturday, 26 October, 2006 they buried a very dear comrade and friend: Dr Wanjiru Kihoro. Unfortunately I could not be at the funeral but did attend two public testimonials (one an evening of political tributes and the other a funral service on Heroe’s day, both in Nairobi) as part of the farewell to Wanjiru. She was buried in the land of her ancestors in the picturesque Kikiyu District of Nyeri, Kenya. Wanjiru had been in a coma for over three years and nine months since she suffered severe injuries in a plane crash early 2003. A number of prominent politicians, including MPs in the newly triumphant NARC-Kenya government, died in the accident.

For all these years, friends and relatives, but especially her incredibly optimistic husband and comrade, Wanyiri Kihoro, and her father took turns by her side at the National Hospital in Nairobi. They all hoped against hope and prayed for her recovery. Any small sign of attentiveness no matter how dim was interpreted as a sign of her ‘coming back to us’. Friends and relatives were encouraged to visit her and talk to her normally with the hope that one voice, or a cacophony of recognizable voices, might jolt her sensory nerves back to life.

I was one of those fearful friends who dreaded going to see Wanjiru while she lay in bed. A few times, I had synchronized my contact with Wanyiri to coincide with the closing hours for hospital visits so that I could be disallowed but could wait for Wanyiri to get out so that we could sit and chat. One such night on my way from Kla we ended up sitting up till after 2.00am. Instead of me giving him words of encouragement it was Wanyiri who was cheering me up, insisting that I must go and see Wanjiru, talk to her , even syndicate our political arguments, jokes, saying that maybe it would help.

About eight weeks ago, a mutual friend and comrade, Micheline, who had worked with Wanjiru at the Africa Centre, Akina Mama Wa Africa and Abantu, who is now
Africa Director of UNFIFEM in New York, came to Nairobi. She dragged me and her husband, James Oparo, who was as squeamish as me, to go and see Wanjiru instead of meeting up with Wanyiri after the closing hours.

And I am now glad I went again. We spent quite a long time with her, Mzee and Wanyiri chatting, being nostalgic and generally doing the usual exchange of hot political gossip that political activists are known for. Of course the Wanjiru on the bed was not the Wanjiru we had known. She was much smaller but the machines monitoring her heart beat became very agitated and Wanyiri explained to us that it meant she could hear us and was trying to respond.

After looking after a terminally ill person for a long time carers tend to become both medical doctors and believers in miracles. Wanyiri’s father in law and Wanyiri were virtually part of the hospital establishment. It was an act of spousal and parental devotion that is rarely seen these days.

Any African who was in the UK from the early 1980s to the mid 1990s would have known or heard about Wanjiru. She was very active in the Kenyan and Pan African struggles of those years. She was a pioneer African feminist working both for the liberation of Africa and the emancipation of African Women. At a time when many progressive groups paper over the gender dimension of struggles by declaring the revolution the only target, she and her fellow pioneering sisters formed AMWA and were insistent that the liberation of the African Woman should not be delayed until victory came. She was also an early mobilizer and organizer for what we called disdainfully in those days, ‘bourgeois democracy’. She believed in and worked for a democratic Kenya at a time when many of us thought we could use AK47 to shoot our way to State Lodges and rain down Socialism from above! She built solidarity with all kinds of progressive groups be they African, Latin American, Asian or European, believing and putting into practice the unity of progressive humanity in the face of national oppression and imperialism.

She was a mobiliser, organizer, agitator but also very enterprising. While she was ideologically and intellectually on the Nkrumah and WEB du Bois side of Pan Africanism, she was organizationally in the Garveyite tradition of creating independent economic bases for political struggle. She would organize Whip rounds, Harambe, individual taxation, fee paying get-togethers, sales of publications, auctions, and others all to support the struggle.

Most of the famous and not so famous Kenyan politicians that I know today were influenced by Wanjiru. The Kihoro’s little flat in Union Street, Clapham North, became both a haven and transit lounge for Kenyan activists running away from the authoritarian killer government of Moi and KANU. Wanjiru would organize for them to meet other Kenyans and Africans, members of the British establishment (Conservative or Labor), human rights groups, Diaspora lobbies, and others. She was capable of remaining in solidarity with comrades who had fallen out and even those fighting against governments like Jerry’s Ghana or the NRM in Uganda, with whom she had close personal and political associates.

When her husband, Wanyiri, was arrested in Kenya and detained without trial in the infamous Nyayo detention centre (a place built in the basement of a huge shopping complex without people suspecting for a long time that human beings were being tortured under their feet as they do their shopping) Wanjiru did not become a grieving exile widow but used his incarceration and torture to focus international attention on the deplorable human rights situation in Kenya. At that time Kenya was darling of the West. Moi was regarded as ‘moderate African leader’, provided military bases for the West and throughout the Cold War was on the right side of Washington and London. In return, his masters rewarded him with aid and loans. Western tourists and INGOs trooped to Kenya.

So close was the relationship with the British that throughout the 1980s the Thatcher government and later the Major government never allowed any big peaceful demonstration in front of the Kenyan High Commission. They used to allow only 12 demonstrators at a time. We used to organize 12 hour non-stop demos and the Kenyan security would film the 12 of us for those 12 hours! So complete was the hold of Moi/KANUon Kenyans that Wanjiru and her comrades could not raise 12 Kenyans for the demonstrations. The Kenyan regulars were usually Wanjiru and her comrades in the UKENYA and UMOJA external groupings for the Kenyan pro-Democracy Movement including Mwakenya. They included Yusuf Hassan, Wangui Wa Goro, Shiraz Duraini and Adulatif Abdallah. Ngugi wa Thiongo, after his release from detention without trial, became the titular leader of these groups. People like Irungu Houghton provided the back-stopping secretariat. Of course there were numerous other Africans, especially Nigerians and Ghanaians, allied to the Africa Research and Information Bureau (ARIB) and the journal, Africa World Review (AWR) and also those in the Solidarity movement on Kenya the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners in Kenya ably led by the Trinidadian writer and publisher, John La Rose of New Beacon Books who, also sadly passed away early this year.

As Wanjiru is laid to rest I salute her courage in staying the course of the struggle and living to see a Kenya free of Moi and KANU rule. But I regret that she did not live long enough to enjoy the benefits of democracy for which she fought and sacrificed so much - ultimately her life, and am sadder still that many of the political leaders in Kenya today have forgotten so soon the pains and groans of the masses that brought them to power, and are behaving in a way that may make KANU seem electable again.

Since she died, there have been so many eulogies and praises from all kinds of people (many well meaning and deserving) but there are many from people shedding crocodile tears - especially politicians who betrayed the struggle – as well as those she helped bring to power who forgot about her as she lay wasting on the hospital bed I am sure Wanjiru would not have been surprised about this since she did not engage in the struggle because she wanted to be acknowledged. She was not without her own contradictions and weaknesses like all of us mortals. And for anyone engaged in struggle there were bound to be mistakes and misjudgments because the only person who does not make mistakes is the person who does nothing.

Sleep well Wanjiru, You did your best and your best was more than enough in one lifetime. Adieux Mama Pambana!

• Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

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

Have you ever wondered if there is anything you can do to contribute to solving global poverty? Did you sometimes ever get that sinking feeling that you are just one person who is too insignificant in the face of the forces of global domination and systematic oppression to make any difference? How many times has helplessness at the things happening around you or in the wider world forced you to conclude that you cannot beat the system, and that, at best, your only choice is to either join them or drop out?

If you have answered yes to one or more of these questions do not be embarrassed at all. You are one among billions of us (actually 6.5 billion) who inhabit this earth. Most of us feel helpless, often disapproving of many things happening around us and in the world but feeling we lack any power to change them. There is frustration that no matter what we think or do, the world will always remain skewed against the poor and powerless, the little men and women, who constitute the majority. Whether it is the environment, the economy, education or health, many have to come to accept that the rich classes amongst us, and the richer nations of the world will always squeeze the poor and get their way all the time.

We all know that Mahatma Gandhi’s famous words: ‘there is enough in the world to satisfy our needs but not enough to satisfy our greed’ uttered so many decades ago are as true today as ever. The vast wealth from improved technology, science and genetic engineering in the last five decades is more than enough for all of us. However, the structures of power within and between nations continue to reward those at the very top, while penalizing the majority poor at the bottom of the pile.

Poor people in poorer countries of the world cry out against their rich who also groan at the richer countries. Within richer countries the poor feel no better. Yet the system that is producing this fabulous wealth in one pole, and desperate poverty in another is created by human beings. Therefore it can only be changed through their individual and collective efforts, sometimes cooperatively, but often in confrontations and through contradictions.

The United Nations ushered in the third millennium (and its 55th anniversary) at the Millennium Summit in 2000 with a declaration that recognized that the world could be made better and that we all deserved to treat each other and our shared environment better. This was encapsulated in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It was an attempt to create a new social contract between the peoples and governments of the world. It committed to eight goals ranging from ending hunger through universal access to basic education, women empowerment, health, and environment to reforming the unequal global trade, increasing quality aid and cancelling debt of poor countries.

Since the MDGs became the ‘new’ language of development discourse, there continues a debate as to whether they are achievable or not.

The UN itself realized that neither the declaration alone nor the official adoption of the MDGs will guarantee their fulfilment both in the north and the south. That is why the UN Millennium Campaign was established to work with citizens to hold their governments accountable for the fulfillment of the MDGs. The campaign works with and through national coalitions in various countries allied to the Global Call Against Poverty (GCAP) but also with faith based groups, local councils, national, sub regional and regional legislatures, youth, students, women and trade unions, to ensure political accountability of all leaders to their peoples at various levels. The MDGs can only be achieved at the local and community level. That is where their impact will be directly felt.

Over the recent years of neo-liberal economic hegemony, economic policies have become even more undemocratic. The policies are dominated by technicians, all kinds of latter day voodoo experts from the Bretton Woods institutions, to the total exclusion of citizens who are the producers of their national and global wealth. The majority of citizens become victims of these policies. The MDGs have tremendous potential for opening up democratic spaces for political accountability of leaders. Through MDGs it is possible to begin to reverse this arrogant trend of making economic issues the sole preserve of economic egg-heads, and judge economic policies not just in terms of macroeconomic growth but development, how they impact on the general welfare of the majority of the peoples of the world who are poor.

As part of efforts to popularize the MDGs and focus global attention on poverty, the UN Millennium Campaign in partnership with GCAP allies and others including OXFAM, Action Aid International, NOVIB, and Micah Challenge, has been participating in a one month campaign of activities. This began on the 16th of September and will culminate in the International Day for Poverty Eradication on Tuesday 17 October.

If you have not been involved it is not too late. You could still join the activities this weekend. On Sunday, October 15 and Monday, October 16 there is a ‘Stand Up Against Poverty Challenge’ in which anybody who cares can be a full participant.

Can you imagine a world in which the MDGs are a political priority for all our governments and other governments in the world? A world without poverty where every child is guaranteed education, where many women do not die in labour and people living with HIV/Aids have universal access to free treatment based on need not cash. A world where malaria, TB and other preventable diseases no longer kill us in the vast numbers they currently do. A world in which the environment is fully protected and the vast creativity of human mind and scientific discovery will be used for sustainable development that guarantees that this earth that we are loaning from the future generation is handed on safely.

There is a small chance to put your imagination into action. The goals sound like dreams but even the creation of this world must have begun with a dream. It needs not remain so. It is a world that we can bring about by first making people aware of the MDGs and working with them to demand their fulfilment from their leaders. Holding leaders to their promises is all that it takes. If the richer countries deliver on goal 8 the poorer countries can also deliver on goals 1-7. It is a complementary process which must run concurrently from goal 1 to 8. You can contribute to making it happen wherever you maybe. Together we can all make the difference between fulfilment and indifference.

This weekend you can add your voice to that of millions of other citizens of the world by joining the campaign against hunger amidst plenty: ‘Stand Up Against Poverty’ and stand up for the MDG’s. It will take not more than five minutes.‘Stand Up Against Poverty’ is an innovative Challenge in which we are attempting to set an official Guinness world record for the highest number of people ever to ‘Stand Up Against Poverty’ and stand up for the MDG’s.

We have just 24 hours to set this record. Be one in a Million!

Check for details of campaigns near you this Sunday 15 October (from 10.00 am GMT)to (10.00 am GMT) Monday 16 October and also how you can organize your own stand up moment and register it to be counted: and [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

I have maintained an unusual silence over the past few weeks about the exposures and counter exposures between the President of Nigeria, retired General Olusegun Obasanjo and his estranged Deputy, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku. My initial reaction was dismissive because it is a case of the kettle calling the pot black. However, while I was neither fazed nor dazed by the gutter level to which their internecine warfare had descended, I must confess that I did not know that they could sink even lower and do so openly.

But like many concerned Nigerians I had recoiled into an embarrassed indifference, consequently feigning lack of interest and convincing myself that I could not care less. Dog eats dog or vulture ogling vulture - why should I care? But that was just a defensive front. What the President and Vice President of any country do affects the citizens. Government machinery is virtually paralyzed by the war between the two who seem locked in a loveless cohabitation from which they are unable to disengage.

Neither of them is catholic therefore divorce should have been easier! But Atiku has refused to jump and Obasanjo's people have been inept at pushing him. So the cohabitation falters on.

The tragic death of many Senior Army Officers in yet another air crash a few weeks ago forced a temporary truce between the two warring factions in Aso Rock, but they have now resumed public hostilities. One gets a feeling that this is some kind of Nigerian bastardized form of truth without justice. We have heard, and will hear more gory details of officials looting, squandering, comprador activities, and betrayal of public trust, but may not see the perpetrators punished or even showing any remorse.

The general public discussions seem to suggest that many people believe that the revelations are prompted not by any wish for corruption to be rooted out but by a political vendetta against political opponents. While this may be true and has a bearing on how the public perceives the official war against corruption, it smacks of public complacency.

All looters may not be caught but it is baffling to suggest that those exposed, who can be proven guilty should not be tried. Even if Obasanjo is trying only his real and imagined enemies I have no problem with their trial if they actually are guilty. However, when another administration comes to power, Obasanjo and his cronies can and should be tried too.

It is very strange that the supporters of his Deputy are not actively pleading the innocence of their Godfather but rather saying he is not alone and that his boss, the President, is also guilty. It is an unprincipled defence based on a warped logic suggesting that unless all thieves are caught, the few should not be tried. This cannot be a plea for discharge, though it could be a plea bargain in some cases if the accused fully cooperates with the court.
We need to separate the hypocrisy of those prosecuting and pointing fingers at corrupt politicians from the possible guilt of those being targeted.

If all Obasanjo’s enemies happen to be thieves they should pay for their crimes. It does not excuse Obasanjo, but since he may not be tried while he is still in power his day in court may be postponed. If we look at Latin America (in the 70s) the Generals initially got away with impunity but more than twenty years later some of them faced justice.

The other argument in support of Atiku is that he is supposed to be a very popular politician. This similar argument is used in favour of Jacob Zuma, who has populist appeal in South Africa. But should popularity be a reason for the law not to take its course? Readers may ask how these questions relate to my article (which a few critics believe to be too ‘understanding’ or even ‘adulatory’) on Winnie Mandela last week? My support of Winnie was not an endorsement of the acts for which she was convicted but rather pointing out the disproportionate attention paid to her while others were left to go scot-free. If she had not been Winnie Mandela it is doubtful she would have been treated this way. However because she is Winnie it is reasonable to expect higher standards from her. Understanding how things went ‘horribly wrong’ is not the same as conferring impunity on her. One could still admire her, not because, but despite these convictions.

Atiku is in no way a Winnie Mandela but closer to a Zuma. But if he is as popular as his supporters claim why should his conviction make a difference? Zuma has remained a serious challenger to the South African presidency in spite all kinds of acrimonious litigations and despite being fired from his post. He has survived rape charges and only had his corruption case struck off the court roll.

Atiku’s supporters are not so sure about the legal process in Nigeria. They are even more uncertain about their own party. This says a lot about the rule of law and democracy in the country. They fear that the timing of his corruption trials may prevent him from contesting for nomination for the presidency and contesting the election itself next year.

Obasanjo can try Atiku, but Atiku cannot put Obasanjo on trial, at least not in any court other than that of public opinion. Obasanjo’s crude tactics against his deputy have certainly made Atiku more popular and created a false hero for democracy to some people. His supporters are milking the goodwill claiming that his travails happened because he was opposed to Obasanjo’s third term. So great is the public disenchantment with Obasanjo’s lacklustre, arrogant government that not many people are asking what his opponents really stand for.

Obasanjo may get his pound of flesh by denying Atiku the chance to run but as he himself knows too painfully well: no condition is permanent. He has travelled full circle from presidency to prison to presidency. And he could restart the journey all over again in the near future.

The revelations have also exposed the Nigerian ruling elite as not only rotten to the core, but rotten from the core. For Obasanjo and his apologists his holier-than-thou, I- know-best messianic politics have been exposed for what they are: empty. In days gone by these revelations would have triggered a coup. But coups are out of fashion not only because of the fundamental shift in international opinion but also because internal power dynamics (unlike those recently seen in Thailand) have changed.

In any case the generals control the levers of the economy and political machineries (including even important sections of the traditional aristocracies) undisguised across Nigeria. They are able to use their looted monies to buy criminal infrastructures and therefore do not need the traditional military coup anymore. They have elected to resolve their secondary contradictions through the current democracy without democrats, a civilian regime, only in name with the generals imposing their will on the society. Welcome to the Latin Americanisation of Nigerian politics. All power to the generals!

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

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

On September 26, a gorgeous African woman, about whom no one is indifferent, turned 70. She has lived more lives than the proverbial Cat of nine lives. But she still manages to retain her poise, grace and popular appeal through what we can all agree is more than a fair share of personal and political trials and tribulations. She was born Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela in the Village of Bizana, Pondoland, South Africa,in 1936. She became more famously known world wide as Winnie Mandela after marrying (in 1960) a divorced upwardly mobile Black Lawyer, Nelson Mandela, who later became world famous for his political activities and incarceration. It was not a ‘normal’ marriage because politics interfered with any attempt by the couple to settle down. By 1962 the apartheid state had sentenced Mandela along with his comrades to either life or long term imprisonments. Mandela remained in prison for the next 28 years becoming the symbol of the yearnings of the oppressed Black people for freedom.

He was not to see the outside of the prison walls till 1990. Two years after his release their unusual marriage ended in separation in 1992 and divorce by 1996.

Many of us grew up on Hugh Masekela’s famous tune “Bring back Nelson Mandela, bring him back home to Soweto, I want to see him walking hand in hand with Winnie Mandela……no more war”. It was never to be for long. We constructed a romantic canvass on the lives of these two people regardless of the empirical fact that they have lived apart for such a long time. At a human level it is daunting enough to catch up on almost four decades of separation let a lone such extraordinary lives lived in very public glare. Public and private disolves when it came to Winnie and Nelson.

There were those who had somehow expected that after those defiant fists that walked hand in hand with Mandela out of the Prison gates in 1990, Winnie was going to step aside, even go back to the kitchen and be ‘the good wife’. In the very public disagreements that visited their separation and divorce, Bishop Tutu famously chided her for not living up to this expectation suggesting in an unfortunate pre feminist choice of words that Mandela needed someone to bring his slippers.

It was a relationship in which everyone had an opinion and even more than a decade after the divorce opinions are still divided. Some people think it is an act of betrayal to admire Mandela and like Winnie and vice versa. But the issue cannot be that clear cut. Many struggle with admiring both and the inevitable contradictory emotions. The ambiguities are made more complicated by Mandela marrying, Graca Machel, the widow of another iconic man, Samora Machel.

Both Winnie and Graca share the double burden of being prominent in their own right but also for the men they married. It is a case of the chicken and the egg. There is an endless debate about whether these women would have been as prominent as they are if they had not married these great men. It is an argument from a reactionary ideology of patriarchy that does not value women in their own right but see them only in the shadows of men whether their fathers, uncles, brothers, husbands (or lovers) or even sons! But looking at the lives of both women they would have been prominent politically. Graca married Samora after his first wife Josina died and she was already active in the struggle for the liberation of Mozambique through FRELIMO. They married as comrades who met in the struggle.

The fact that most women married to, or in a relationship with famous men do not end up being famous should caution those who believe that Women can only be something under a man’s umbrella. Ironically those who argue this way do not argue the opposite as true. Why are Men married to famous women not famous by virtue of their sleeping arrangement too?

In the case of Winnie I doubt if anyone below the age of 50 years today would have known Nelson Mandela but for Winnie. She is the Mandela that kept Nelson in our consciousness. She did marry him young but she grew up politically mostly outside of his tentacles. By the time he came out of prison she was a political figure with a huge following in her own right. Men in general, even the greatest amongst us, consciously or unconsciously, find it difficult to adjust to famous partners. Things were not helped by the brutal battles for power within the liberation movements and the maneuvers around the transition. It was not just personal distance of many years that had to be faced but also salient political differences between a more reconciliatory Mandela and the more radical Mandela whose whole life had been shaped by confrontation with the apartheid state and also factional struggles within the movement and control of township militias.

The crux of the matter is that Winnie is generally judged by many people as a woman, wife and mother, not as a politician. How many men we greatly respect and admire and at the risk of heresy, Madiba himself, will still be standing if we apply the same gendered judgments? If the situation had been reversed and Winnie was inside and Mandela was outside would anyone had been surprised that he took interest in other Women? There is no doubt Winnie made many mistakes and made personal and political choices that are questionable. As she admitted at the prompting of Bishop Tutu in the famous encounter at the TRC: ‘Things went horribly wrong’. But who among the other liberation leaders has not made any mistake? She has been charged with everything imaginable both by the apartheid state and sadly even under the ANC government. The persecution complex is futher sttrenghtened by the ease with which previous pillars of apartheid slipped into post apartheid respectability without remorse, all in the name of National reconciliation! Without excusing Winnie’s serial lapse of judgment, it is difficult for many of her admirers including this writer not to conclude that she is being persecuted. But somehow she emerges triumphant, head unbowed. Even at 70 Winnie is neither down nor out. Perhaps her parents saw the future when they named her, Nomzano, which means ‘Trial’ in the Xhosa language. Happy birthday Mama Afrika!

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

The ongoing controversy about the Pope’s ill-judged statement on Islam and violence may not abate easily, as different Muslim populations across the world continue to react in different ways. One hopes that the spate of violent attacks on Christian places of worship end immediately. Governments must assume responsibility for stopping these attacks. It is not the Pope that is hurting, but fellow citizens and neighbours.

All citizens, whether Christian or Muslim or the majority who are neither, deserve and should enjoy the full rights to the protection of their lives, place of worship, and freedom of their consciences along with other rights.

The Pope’s statement may do long lasting damage to inter–faith dialogue and religious tolerance, something that his predecessor, Pope John Paul 11, was closely associated with.

Both the violent reactions from a minority of Muslims and the biased reporting from the dominant Western media suggesting that ‘Muslims are violent’ are not surprising. They fit a template only too familiar.

Not too long ago there were the Danish cartoons and the reactions to them. It is a rather simple ‘audience and cue’ circus: a western person or institution says or does something that is offensive to good taste but specifically offensive to the Muslim faith or Muslims. Then there is a spate of militant and sometimes violent reaction from people in virtually the same countries. The western media then turns on the reactions, suggesting that the Muslims are immature, unable to take criticism and unable to engage in rational debate. Some proceed to conclude that the reactions prove how violent Muslims are.

It is a case of someone slapping you and also dictating that you should not cry. It is not correct that every offended group in the world should be burning places down and killing people. However, those on global platforms must also learn to say and act in ways that do not inflame emotions.

The same pattern repeated itself after the Pope’s statement. The attention soon shifted away from what the Holy Father said, to the reaction of some of those he offended. It is true that the Pope gave an unprecedented apology and is taking very public steps to atone for the misjudgment.

Hopefully with time this may cool things down, but the bad blood generated may not easily subside. It is neither the worst statement ever nor would it be the last time such a statement will be made about Islam, however, it must be pointed out that the Pope is not just any other person. He is the closest the world has to a religious head.

Neither Islam nor other religions like Confucianism or Hinduism that have more adherents to their faith than Christianity (let alone just Catholics) have a head that is as globally influential as the Pope. There are no two Popes in the world. He is also a head of state with diplomatic relations with virtually all governments of the world. With this influence surely comes huge responsibilities.

What he says in private and public will be scrutinized; therefore, he has to weigh up his statements carefully. They carry both moral and political weight well beyond his tiny papacy and faith.

It was a rather evasive reaction to say that the Pope was only quoting an obscure writer. He has made that writer known to everybody now. Would the Pope have quoted many of the more obscure writers that wrote and are writing about Christianity, Hinduism, or the Jewish faith?

Could the Western Media be that understanding if the Pope had quoted a Nazi writer famous or infamous writing about Jews or the Jewish faith? Historians who question the holocaust are taken to court and convicted because Holocaust denial is deemed beyond the limits of academic debate and freedom of expression.

There is so much violence in the name of God that no religion, especially a monotheistic one, has a monopoly over violence and violent methods. That the Pope enjoys the political visibility that he does today is not because Catholics are the majority of the world’s population or that his city–state empire is of any indispensable strategic importance, but the result of historical powers of Rome and the Church.

These powers were built by conquest and pillage. The Roman Empire and the Roman Church were involved in slavery, colonialism, wars, and other forms of non-Christian activities.

More recently in Rwanda, the Church (even if it was not convicted of genocide) bears responsibility for keeping quiet while God’s children were butchered with the connivance of some of its clergy and even Bishops. If anyone is to condemn Christianity for all these crimes such a person will be descended upon. If the Church and all Christians cannot be held responsible why are Muslims always maligned as a group?

Islam and Christianity are both monotheistic religions with shared roots, built by evangelism, through empires that utilized peaceful and non-peaceful means to establish their hegemony. Once hegemonic they declared peace of the victorious!

Even though it is Muslims that gave vent to the offence caused by the Pope’s statement, Dr Jibo Ibrahim (one of very few people, including those reacting violently, who have bothered to read the full text of the paper) the Director of the CDD, a leading researcher on religion and interfaith relations based in Abuja, Nigeria noted that the Pope’s statement should be even more offensive to non-European Christians (the majority of all Christians) because of its Euro-centrist understanding of God, the church and Christianity.

It is not about which religious group(s) are offended but rather the responsibility of a political and religious leader like the Pope in these trying times. Why did the Pope say those things? If he wanted to promote dialogue, he chose a very strange way to do it.

In a world in which Muslims and the Islamic faith replaced Communism in the pantheons of Western phobias, the Pope’s statement is at best mischievous, and at worst deliberately provocative. Whether one is a Muslim or not, both reasons should be unacceptable. I am not sure whether it was a goof or a papal declaration of intent to line up behind Bush in his modern crusade.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement,
Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

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