Ricado Jacobs (2012-01-26)
© abahlali.org‘The uprisings in Egypt and everywhere remind us that direct action is an important pillar for the poor and the oppressed all over the world.’
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Sokari Ekine (2012-01-26)
© Nairaland.comIt may appear like business as usual but people do not experience such an outpouring of solidarity and power and remain unchanged. The apathy barrier has been broken and there has been a shift in consciousness.
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Jared Sacks (2012-01-26)
© abahlali.orgBy taking back the commons, thousands of poor and working-class people, together with many middle-class allies, are saying that they no longer want to live in a city which remains segregated.
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Pedro Alexis Tabensky (2012-01-26)
© abahlali.orgOne way of measuring the quality of a democracy is to assess the behaviour of its police. The recent brutal attack on the Unemployed People’s Movement leader Ayanda Kota reveals the sad state of democracy in South Africa.
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Christopher McMichael (2012-01-26)
© abahlali.orgJoint operations between the police and military are becoming increasingly commonplace. But maintaining a strict demarcation between the police and the military is essential to the protection of democracy.
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Onyango Oloo (2012-01-26)
cc O SThe confirmation of charges against four Kenyans, three of them wealthy and powerful elites, is welcome news for the victims of the 2007/8 post-election violence. But there are thousands of other perpetrators who are still walking free.
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Christopher Zambakari (2012-01-26)
cc UN PhotoNorth and South Sudan will not find durable peace so long as the marginalised population in the border States continues to die. There must be stability in Abyei, Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile, Eastern Sudan and Darfur.
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Yash Tandon (2012-01-26)
cc FMSCThere are at least a million people in the West who live off the aid industry. They have a vested interest in perpetuating it. But it will disintegrate over time and die slowly.
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Michael Dorsey and Patrick Bond (2012-01-26)
cc OxfamClimate gamblers have been led astray since 1997 when the Kyoto Protocol was amended to let corporations buy the right to pollute in exchange for endorsing the treaty. Predictably, Washington has refused to honour this ever since.
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Mandisi Majavu (2012-01-26)
cc S C‘The Mozambique food riots of 2010 and the recent mass protests in Nigeria show that people are capable of forcing governments to back down from enforcing policies that have a negative impact on their lives.’
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Horace Campbell (2012-01-26)
cc MMChina and Japan have taken a decisive step to diversify their reserve holdings away from the dollar. African peoples have a lot of lessons to learn from both the capitalist crisis in Europe and this new financial arrangement.
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Chika Ezeanya (2012-01-26)
cc ChuffinIt is an insult to the African Union and to every African that in 2012 a building as symbolic as the AU headquarters is designed, built and maintained by a foreign country – it does not matter which.
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Stephanie C. Horton (2012-01-26)
cc TedeytanPresident Sirleaf won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize and should know that the oppression and exclusion of any group is anathema to Alfred Nobel’s vision of an equal society.
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Robtel Neajai Pailey (2012-01-26)
cc J TThe shocking news that the former Liberian strongman was indeed a CIA informant in the early years of his rise to notoriety calls into question America’s complicity in Taylor’s destruction of Liberia.
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Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe (2012-01-26)
cc S VThe British government, which 46 years ago fully backed the brutal repression of the Igbo secession attempt is now not opposed to the independence of Scotland. For the Scots, Igbos or any other people, the right to self-determination is inalienable.
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David Comissiong (2012-01-26)
cc Wikimedia1649 is arguably the most revolutionary year in the history of Barbados. The oppressed Barbadian working class – the white indentured servants and the enslaved black Africans – erupted in revolt against the repressive white slave master class.
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African Awakening, The Emerging Revolutions• What the media has missed – the 2011 uprisings in their African context.
• Pambazuka News's respected writers offer in-the-moment comment and analysis as well as informed reflection.
• An almanac with its eyes open – Africa's radical review of the year
The tumultuous uprisings of citizens in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have seized the attention of media analysts who have characterised these as 'Arab revolutions', a perspective given weight by popular demonstrations in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and elsewhere. However, what have been given less attention are the concurrent uprisings in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Western Sahara and Zimbabwe. The uprisings across Africa and in the Middle East, the book argues, are the result of common experiences of decades of declining living standards, mass unemployment, land dispossessions and impoverishment of the majority, while a few have engorged themselves with riches.
Through incisive contributions from analysts and activists across the continent, the essays inAfrican Awakening provide an overview of the struggle for democratisation which goes beyond calls merely for transparent electoral processes and constitutes a reawakening of the spirit of freedom and justice for the majority.
Contributors: Charles Abugre, Essam Al-Amin, Massan d'Almeida, Samir Amin, Patrick Bond, Horace Campbell, Lila Chouli, Sokari Ekine, Hassan El Ghayesh, Lakhdar Ghettas, Nigel C. Gibson, Adam Hanieh, Konstantina Isidoros, Peter Kenworthy, Sadri Khiari, Mahmood Mamdani, Firoze Manji, Imad Mesdoua, Fatma Naib, Explo Nani-Kofi, J. Oloka-Onyango, Richard Pithouse, Jean-Paul Pougala, Khadija Sharife, Yash Tandon, Melakou Tegegn, Kah Walla
