#reminder that western countries stole people and resources from Africa | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

turtlesandfrogs · 10 months

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So I was scrolling and saw this image in an article about the European heat wave,

And was like, uh, are you missing something there, buddy? Like all that red in northern Africa? Because that's a lot of red.

And I was going to give them the benefit of doubt, since I don't know much about the climate in Northern Africa, aside from Morroco and Egypt, which seem like really hot places, so you know, maybe it's normal there?

But nope, that's not the case:

"While the planet broke multiple records for average worldwide temperatures last week, a heat wave gripped northern Africa.

The region has been experiencing some of the most intense heat waves in recent years, but in many cases they’ve been under-reported due to misconceptions about Africans’ ability to withstand them.

“Africa is seen as a sunny and hot continent,” said Amadou Thierno Gaye, a research scientist and professor at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. “People think we are used to heat, but we are having high temperatures for a longer duration. Nobody is used to this.”

North Africa, the Sahara desert and the Sahel, a semi-arid belt north of the Sudanian savanna, are some of the most vulnerable areas because they have larger land masses relative to the rest of the continent, meaning they tend to heat up faster. Scientists have attributed the unprecedented temperatures to a combination of human-induced climate change and the return of El Niño, a natural phenomenon that alters weather patterns.

The Sahel, for instance, has been heating at a faster pace than the global average despite being hot already. Burkina Faso and Mali, both in West Africa’s Sahel, are among countries that are set to become almost uninhabitable by 2080, if the world continues on its current trajectory, a UK university study found. Its people are especially vulnerable due to shrinking resources, such as water, and poor amenities, and a dearth of trees and parks means there are few options for places to cool off.

“People talk of climate change as if it’s a thing of the future,” said Gaye. “Climate change is already here and we see its implications in people, livelihoods, economies and even in cultures.”

While studies on heat impacts on health are limited in Africa, research published last year found that children younger than 5 years old are particularly vulnerable to the hotter weather as they are less able that adults to self-regulate their bodies’ temperatures. The authors estimated that heat-related child mortality was rising in sub-Saharan Africa due to climate change. Other researchers have named the elderly, pregnant women and people who work outdoors, as groups at risk of heat strokes or heat-related infectious diseases.

Elsewhere on the continent, the crisis is also being felt. In the Horn of Africa, at least 43,000 people died in Somalia alone last year as a result of the worst drought in four decades. A study found that global warming is changing rain patterns and bringing more heat to Somalia and some of its neighbors, for longer stretches of time. Further south, unusually destructive cyclones in 2019 claimed more than a thousand lives in Mozambique and Zimbabwe alone.

“If we continue business-as-usual, the heat is not just going to get worse, it will get much worse,” said Mouhamadou Bamba Sylla, research chair in climate change science at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. “We are going to see more frequent, longer and more intense heat waves.”

Much of the continent, responsible for just 4% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions generated from burning fossil fuels, is ill-prepared for a hotter world. Meanwhile, Group of 20 nations, with air conditioning and access to functioning healthcare facilities, account for 80% of the world’s emissions.

Hundreds of millions of Africans lack electricity to even power a fan. One in three people in Africa is affected by water scarcity, according to the World Health Organization, so hydration can’t be taken for granted. Even shade is harder to come by due to widespread deforestation and land degradation. And only 40% of people on the continent are covered by early warning systems for extreme weather.

“More funds have to be allocated to climate adaptation and they need to be made more easily accessible to the most vulnerable countries,” Sylla said.

The UN climate talks later this year aspire to come up with a plan for richer nations to pay for loss and damages. But they’ve collectively fallen short of their commitment to spend $100 billion each year on projects in developing nations to cut emissions and to help them adapt.

“That’s where the issue of climate justice comes in,” said Gaye. “It’s not just that people are uncomfortable, climate change is killing them.”

#climate change #is happening now #we're seeing the effects now #reminder that western countries stole people and resources from Africa #environmental racism

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king-shango-the-great · 3 months

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Shangos Thoughts:

The Immigrant Dilemma

youtube

This is an excellent video, tuat breaks down the Pan-African immigrant dilemma.

On the the Western side, I give zero fucks about how white people feel. Bitch, you ransacked & destabilized our countries, & so we are left w8th coming to your lands to partake in the resources (OUR resources) that you stole. These are your chickens coming home to roost, so fuck you 🖕🏿🤬🖕🏿

However, in tue immigrant side.... As an immigrant myself, I'm of 2 minds about this.

On one side, I understand the how many of us desires to flee our conditions. I was a child of immigrants that came to Amerikkka from Jamaica 🇯🇲. I was well aware of the livity of sufferation in JA.

My family came here, under the tutelage of Marcus Garvey, worked hard & did rather well. My mother was a nurse, & my father was in construction. They sent money & other resources back home. They put me thru school, by doing Sou-Sou. And now, I am doing very well in my career. And I am planning to move to Africa.

On the other side, I know how poorly we can be treated when we go to these Babylon places. None of what was said in this vid is news to me. We saw it with Ukraine. We saw it with Haitians 🇭🇹coming to Amerikkka.

In case we need a reminder:

This was 3yrs ago, not 30yrs, or even 300yrs.

This is the unknown/unseen reality that many immigrants don't foresee. The reality is, nothing can prepare many of us for the horrors that many of us will face when we journey to the west. That's because most of us fall into the "heavenly" western narrative, that this is the land of milk & honey, when it many cases, it's just as bad as where you came from.

I recently hired a Nigerian 🇳🇬 guy for team. He's a great worker with excellent character. He loves to work hard, even double shifts, & he's SUPER smart. He works so hard to send money back to his family back home.

However, I recently learned that he was sleeping in the break room after his shifts, because his housing situation is less than desirable. He can barely afford to pay for the over expensive rent rates in our area, & his land (slum) Lord treats him like crap.

The sad thing, is he is tolerating it, because he believes it's temporary. Little does he know, it's not.

Nobody here in Babylon is happy. Whether you're "native" to Amerikkka, 9r you're an immigrant. It's all perpetual slavery. Most of us leave a less than ideal scenario, just to come to a place with even more horrific circumstances.

No one thinks they will come here to be left on the streets, or chased down by racist white men on horseback, or (for women) sex trafficked by dirty rapists & pedophiles.

If your idea is to come to the West to escape the conditions of your native land, that's a recipe for disaster.

I highly recommend only coming here with a long term plan. Come here, make money, gain skills, & then take those resources back to your home.

Otherwise, you WILL become a slave to this place.

#The Black Brain Drain Is Real #Black Immigrants #Shango's Thoughts #Youtube

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xtruss · 3 years

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Recounting 'Seven Sins' of the US' Alliance System

— Bu Wuwen | June 4, 2021 | Global Times

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

Alliance is the evil weapon of hegemony. This is a common consensus reached among most countries, and one of the founding missions of the United States of America.

George Washington, the founding father of the United States of America, had repeatedly warned the American people to prevent the country from copying its European allies' pursuit of hegemony. In his farewell address in September 1796, Washington reinforced the idea that it was their 'true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world."

The US, driven by its irresistible greed for power, is now ironically what its founding father forewarned of and the world abominates. American geostrategist Zbigniew Brzezinski declared that the supremacy of the US in the world is supported by a fine system of alliances that covers the whole world.

The US is now desperate to find its few remaining nickles, being the over-spender it is, after being struck by financial crises and the COVID-19 pandemic. As an incurable addict of hegemony, the US cast its eyes on its allies. The US has created a gang out of the alliance system, whose trail is full of partisanship and fratricide.

We shall now recount the seven sins of this gang. '7 sins' of the US' Alliance System Infographic: Wu Tiantong — Global Times

1. Concealment

Those who chase profits are often entangled together — Old Chinese saying

Japan has recently declared that it would directly discharge the radioactive wastewater from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean, which has raised worldwide concern. Surprisingly, the US, a self-proclaimed shining beacon of environmental protection, human rights, and justice, betrayed Asian-Pacific countries and the Earth, and expressed "appreciation" in response to Japan's decision, exposing its hypocrisy.

None of this comes as a surprise. The US was always known for its double standards, where fairness and justice are nothing more than arbitrary fig leaves.

In Sharpeville of South Africa, during the apartheid era, the government opened fire on black demonstrators, killing 69 of them in the Sharpeville Massacre. In order to contain the former Soviet Union's influence in the Third World, the US could not accept losing an anti-communist ally. In the end, the "leader of the free world" cravenly defended the all-white government in South Africa without hesitation.

In fact, the standard criteria for the US' decision-making process are ideological confrontation and geopolitical interests. To serve its purpose, it stages nasty Faustian deals at any cost; it sells its soul to the devil in exchange for its gains.

2. Lying

We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment. - Michael Pompeo

In the past two decades alone, the US-led Multinational Coalition and Coalition of the Willing caused countless tragedies by fabricating lies.

Using a tube of detergent as evidence of weapons of mass destruction, the US launched the Iraq War that killed 250,000 civilians in the Gulf country. Jessica Lynch, a female private in the US Army was injured in the war and saved by Iraqi medics. CNN, however, falsified the story and said that Lynch was tortured as a prisoner in Iraq, and was a witness for human rights abuses. In 2007, Lynch testified in a congressional hearing that the US Army made false claims about her capture.

A decade later, the US replicated the Iraq lie. It fabricated footages of Syria using chemical weapons on civilians, which was a convenient excuse for the US to launch air raids on another country. From 2016 to 2019, the recorded number of civilian deaths in Syria was 33,584. Half of the 3,833 victims killed by bombs dropped by the US-led coalition were women and children.

Fortunately, the truth is beginning to reveal itself. Recently Vice President Kamala Harris blurted out: "You know for years and generations wars have been fought over oil." This matches the American magazine Foreign Policy's comment that "safeguarding human rights" isn't the driving force for US' external warfare, but a means to seek interests.

Hegemony monopolizes absolute power and dehumanizes the US into moral bankruptcy. The historically flaunted promised land of progression and idealism has now fallen. All is lost.

— Wu Tiantong | June 4, 2021

3. Violence

The Americans of the United States have achieved this double result with a marvelous ease, calmly, legally, philanthropically, without shedding blood, without violating a single one of the great principles of morality in the eyes of the world. You cannot destroy men while better respecting the laws of humanity. - Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville

Hegemony is by nature coldblooded. Throughout its 245 years of history, the Americans enjoyed as few as 16 years without war. From the end of WWII to 2001, the world had seen 248 armed conflicts in 153 regions, and 201 of them were started by the US.

In 1989, the US invaded Panama to depose the de facto Panamanian leader. In 1999, the US-led NATO forces, without authorization from the United Nations Security Council, bombarded the former Yugoslavia and "accidentally" bombed the Chinese embassy, killing three Chinese journalists. Since 2001, the US has started wars or military actions in Iraq, Libya, and Syria, leaving more than 800,000 dead and tens of millions of refugees.

The US military dragged its allies to wars that caused unprecedented refugee crises. Statistically, the number of refugees reached 11 million in Afghanistan, 380,000 in Pakistan, 3.25 million in Iraq and 12.59 million in Syria. About 1.3 million Afghans went to Pakistan and 900,000 to Iran. Of the Iraqi and Syrian refugees, about 3.5 million fled to Turkey and 1 million to Iran.

The US military always hit the headlines for its ruthless prisoner abuses. In addition, Australia proved to be a reliable lackey, allowing its soldiers to slaughter civilians in Afghanistan.

4. Plunder

The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do. - Samuel P. Huntington

In the US' alliance system, war is the most immediate way to plunder. The US, the world's top war machine, writes the word "plunder" on every page of its history of more than 200 years.

Dwight D. Eisenhower concluded his presidential term by warning the US about the increasing power of the military-industry complex. Michael Brenes, professor of history at Yale University, in his To Defeat the Radical Right, End American Empire pointed out that the American military has long been fertile ground for the far right and they together built the warfare state.

After unpegging the US dollar from gold in 1971, the US shaped a USA-US military-US dollar trinity to support its hegemony. In collaboration with its allies, the US grabbed control over the oil resources in the Middle East to prevent its dollar hegemony from falling apart, and also opened the door to plunder the region's wealth.

The US profits from every global crisis, such as from the crises in Russia and Eastern Europe when the former Soviet Union collapsed; from the Balkan Peninsula when the former Yugoslavia broke up; from the Four Asian Tigers and Southeast Asia during the Asian Financial Crisis. During the 2008 financial crisis, the whole world had to pay the American debt. Now, the US has brought out a $1.9 trillion stimulus package which, in fact, means massive amounts of banknotes will be issued to tamp down the exchange rates of foreign currencies, and consequently take advantage of the rest of the world.

Relying on its financial hegemony, the US has robbed tens of trillions of dollars from other countries. The victims, though filled with anger, are so afraid of the American military alliance which is armed to the teeth, that most of them choose to keep silent.

5. Infringement

The judicial system leaves you no room to have faith in it. It's like peeling layers and layers of onion skin. Every layer that you peel, your eyes get more teary to the point where you can't peel anymore because your eyes are so watery. You're literally weeping, and the Bible talks about this, until you have no more strength to weep. - Emmett G. Price III, host of WGBH, a public radio station located in Boston

The American alliance system expertly manipulates international rules. Power trumps justice in the pursuit of self-interest. The US chooses which international laws to enforce based solely on its convenience. In recent years, the US pulled out of the Paris Agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Treaty on Open Skies, and the INF Treaty, revoked the signing of the Arms Trade Treaty, and handled the renewal of the New START Treaty passively. It is addicted to breaching treaties.

Moreover, it feels glorified instead of being ashamed, and starts to advocate the "rules-based international order" in which the "rules" refer to its alliance's own rules and unequal terms.

The US and its allies challenged the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea with the Freedom of Navigation. They attempted to prevent the International Criminal Court (ICC) from investigating its crimes committed in the Afghan War at all costs, which included threatening the ICC investigation staff that they would be subject to retribution.

In the information sphere, the US is a hackers' empire. Early in the Cold War, it organized the notorious Five Eyes alliance to monitor electronic communications worldwide. The US blames others for information theft and cyber-attacks while it covertly obstructs cyber security.

In 2013, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee Edward Snowden brought to light the PRISM program operated by the US, which was a surveillance program targeting both citizens and political figures on a global scale. Also in 2013, Der Spiegel disclosed that the National Security Agency (NSA) had installed spyware or modified hardware in the computers before they were delivered for foreign diplomats' use.

In 2017, WikiLeaks released thousands of confidential documents that exposed how the CIA was hacking the world. In 2020, it was revealed that since the end of WWII, the CIA has been controlling a Swiss encryption company to intercept top secrets of many countries, including its allies.

6. Destruction

Moral depravity defines US politics. The United States is regarded as the greatest threat to world peace. - Noam Chomsky, US philosopher

The US and its allies have long been the fallen angel that wreck foreign regimes and regional peace.

According to Covert Regime Change: America's Secret Cold War by Assistant Professor Lindsey O'Rourke at Boston College, in the 42 years between 1947 and 1989, the US had 64 covert subversions and six open operations. The US seems to show more excitement and enthusiasm for overthrowing foreign regimes than it does for celebrating Christmas.

After the Cold War, the US has turned into an even more unscrupulous interventionist. Its frequent attempts to export the Color Revolution brought the Arab Spring. Unfortunately, it only brought an Arab Winter and an Arab Disaster.

In his On Western Terrorism: From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare, Noam Chomsky sorrowfully wrote, "This relatively short period has arguably seen the greatest number of massacres in human history. Most of them were performed in the name of lofty slogans such as freedom and democracy."

The US boasts its grandiose offshore balance strategy with its soft power and smart power when in reality, it is merely thick black theory full of schemes. In contrast to the Eastern tradition of valuing harmony and peace, the Anglo-Saxon world (the US and the UK) believes that disagreements and conflicts equals opportunity.

The US manipulated NATO to squeeze Russia's geo-space, and undermined the EU-Russia reconciliation and oil pipeline program. It supported Brexit to cripple the EU and reinforce US' control over Europe. It sowed discord in the Middle East in order to control the oil resources and made Iran an enemy of the region.

When it comes to China, the US spares no effort. The US rocked the boat in the South China Sea and made provocations, which led to turbulence in regional stability. It casts controllable tension on the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Straits to hinder peace progresses. At the China-India border, it fanned the flames of conflicts and mediated in favor of India. It also used the Quad to lure India into confronting China, intending to cause a lose-lose fight between the two developing giants.

Recently, the US obstructed the passing of a joint statement on ceasefire and cessation of violence and the protection of civilians at the Security Council despite the ongoing escalation of the Palestine-Israel situation and the overwhelming majority of UNSC members' call for an immediate ceasefire. Rather than taking proactive measures to promote peace, the US stands ready to fuel tension.

Time and time again, history has proven that the US and its allies always bring with them trouble and turmoil.

7. Disunion

In a war, you can only be killed once, but in politics, many times. - Winston Churchill

Forty years ago, the US forced Japan to sign the Plaza Accord to secure its economic supremacy. The Japanese hi-tech industry was dismantled and the Japanese economy crippled for decades. Today, it turns to South Korea and Chinese Taiwan, threatening to relocate their semiconductor industries back to the US.

From 2009 to 2017, the US imposed its long-arm jurisdiction on Europe, whereby it collected US$190 billion in penalties, monopolized massive quantities of personal information, and forcefully took over European enterprises that were sanctioned. In an attempt to reap profits, the Wall Street recently tried to overturn the century-old European football world by forming an independent European Super League, which was widely resisted and disgracefully aborted.

The COVID-19 outbreak put the US in the spotlight. The egomaniac that it is, the US selfishly fed itself even at the cost of its allies. The mask war between the US and its allies is indeed an abomination.

Ever since they have developed the COVID-19 vaccines, the US has ranked its allies. It is generous to Anglo-Saxon purebreds like the UK and Australia, lukewarm to Europe and other common allies, but haggles over ounces with Japan and South Korea.

Japan, challenged by the upcoming Olympics and the worsening pandemic, received no vaccines from the US. The Japanese Prime Minister had to beg American vaccine companies. The vaccination rate is 1 percent in Japan, which is only one fiftieth of the US. The South Korean foreign minister also begged the US for help but heard a resolute no.

At the early stage of the pandemic, India offered the Trump administration large quantities of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). Now that India is in the midst of a severe pandemic, it has received neither the vaccine raw materials that the US promised, nor any American oxygen or inhalators.

The US is an octopus and its allies are its tentacles. It uses them to try and rule the world but stay alert to prevent them from growing too strong. Once its interests are threatened, the octopus won't hesitate to cut off one or more of the tentacles or even feed on them.

So how could such an egoist and a corrupted alliance system take on global governance? How could they shamelessly claim to represent the international community?

After the Vietnam War, former Senator J. William Fulbright expressed his deep concern about the aggrandizement of the Arrogance of Power that would incur immeasurable destruction, and excessive expansion that would result in the nation's decline.

Recently, renowned American scholar Joseph Nye rang the alarm again: more and more countries are beyond the control of the US. It is extremely dangerous to believe the US is invincible.

What goes around comes around, and where vice is, vengeance follows. There will be severe penalties for the seven sins committed by the US. Justice may be served later, but it will never be absent.

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vkexploresworldthroughart · 3 years

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Te Tiriti o Waitangi in a Future Constitution Removing the Shackles of Colonisation

Read the following lecture by Prof Margaret Mutu, and note key points in your journal, highlighting ramifications since 1840 for Aotearoa New Zealand.

‘When rangatira reminded the Crown’s agent of his treaty obligations in April 1840, he responded that he would uphold those promises. Yet just one month later, in May 1840, he made an announcement that claimed that rangatira throughout the north island had ceded their sovereignty to the Queen of England by signing the treaty. But he was talking about a document written in English that had little or nothing in common with Te Tiriti. It claimed to be a treaty of cession of sovereignty. The rangatira of the hapū had never seen the document he was talking about. The only one they knew was the one they signed, and they stuck to it.’ (Mutu 1).

This sets up the theme of the ongoing lies, myths and betrayal that the British have enforced on Māori since 1840. The fact that Māori were only shown Te Tiriti (the Māori version of the Treaty of Waitangi) shows that this is the British’s trademark to deceive, used against many indigenous people or so-called ‘inferior race’.

‘The report’s title is Ngāpuhi Speaks. It demonstrates conclusively that

•Ngāpuhi did not cede their sovereignty;

•the Crown had recognised He Whakaputanga as a proclamation by the rangatira of their sovereignty over this country;

•the treaty entered into by the rangatira and the Crown, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, followed on from He Whakaputanga, setting out the role that the British Crown would have in respect of Pākehā;

•the treaty delegated to Queen Victoria’s governor the authority he needed to exercise control over hitherto lawless Pākehā people in areas of hapū land allocated for the Queen;

•the Crown’s English language document it calls The Treaty of Waitangi was not seen or agreed by Ngāpuhi and instead reflects the hidden wishes of the British imperial power’ (Mutu 3).

These were the concerns addressed by outraged Māori at many tribunals concerning the Te Tiriti as they address the different promises they were informed by the Māori version of the treaty.

‘Moana Jackson has pointed out ‘...colonisation after 1492 was based on the belief of most of the White States in Europe that they had the right to dispossess most of the non-White Indigenous Peoples of the world.Colonisation was driven by racism, and efforts to “improve” race relations in this country will fail unless we address that, and try to deal with the constitutional, social and economic injustices which it creates’ (Mutu 3).

The white ignorance and belief of many white people in New Zealand that British colonisation was the best thing to have ever happened, and it has shaped the future of western advances are deluded to what cost colonisation has damaged Māori. Colonisation is described as this saviour to many indigenous people of specific land, shaping them into more technological and advanced people, bettering their lives. Instead, colonisation is a form of covert racism, for the British cease control over said ‘inferior races’; in the eyes of the British in the early 1800s, Māori was that said race. I believe that the more we uncover the dark truths and history of our colonisers and what minor and major ramifications it has on Māori and even other indigenous people, the more comfortable we can get in address racism in this country.

‘Their attitudes allowed them to construct myths that would shield them as they set out on their colonizing mission. The first myth was that Pākehā were supreme and could do and have whatever they desired. The second myth was that Māori were inferior and would inevitably yield to Pākehā supremacy. Layer upon layer of myths were constructed on top of these two’ (Mutu 4).

These myths have corrupted many young minds and created the ideology of white people being the superior race, and without them, many other races would not have advanced. We need to also address that the only reason why the white people are this advanced is they stole resources from many other countries, such as India, Africa to better their wealth and deplete others.

‘Three levels of racism are often identified: Institutionalised racism, interpersonal racism and internalised racism’ (Mutu 5).

Institutionalised racism refers to the systemic approach to enforce racist ideologies through laws, legislation from governing bodies that marginalise ethnic minorities within society. This form of racism is more covertly done.

Interpersonal racism is the overt side of racism as minorities and marginalised races are subjected to verbal, physical abuse.

Internalised racism can become the outcome of interpersonal/institutionalised racism, where ethnic minorities start to accept the stereotypes and harmful ideologies of one’s race.

Bibliography

Mutu, Margaret. “Te Tiriti o Waitangi in a Future Constitution Removing the Shackles of Colonisation”. 2013 Robson Lecture. 22 Apr. 2013, Napier, Te Rūnanga-ā-Iwi o Ngāti Kahu and the University of Auckland.https://stream.massey.ac.nz/pluginfile.php/4162916/mod_resource/content/2/Te%20Tiriti%20o%20Waitangi%20in%20a%20Future%20Constitution%20Removing%20the%20Shackles%20of%20Colonisation%20by%20Margaret%20Mutu%20.pdf. Accessed 20 April 2021.

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thespearnews-blog · 7 years

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Why the youths should act now instead of waiting for dictators to die naturally

New Post has been published on http://thespearnews.com/2017/08/21/why-the-youths-should-act-now-instead-of-waiting-for-dictators-to-die-naturally/

Why the youths should act now instead of waiting for dictators to die naturally

Niger. Uganda. Mali. Malawi. Zambia. The world’s youngest populations — some of them with a median age of 15 years old —dictated upon by over 70’s

Africa’s oldest dictators

Given this picture, perhaps Africa’s young people are becoming the very change they wish to see.

In all of these countries, the voting age is 18. Assuming elections are completely devoid of fraud and everyone who can vote turns out at the booths, there is still no democracy — no possible rule by the majority. After all, the majority cannot vote.

Meanwhile, a survey of national leaders paints a contrasting picture. Uganda’s dictator Yoweri Museveni is 72 years old and has been in power for 31 years. (Fighting hard to change his age and constitution) About three-quarters of Uganda’s population has never lived under another head of state.

Mali’s Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta is also 72 years old. Peter Mutharika of Malawi is at least 76 years of age.

In Zimbabwe, the median age is 20 years old, which is 10 years younger than the world’s median age. Its dictator, Robert Mugabe, turned 93 years old on February 21. He is now three or four generations older than the majority of his country.

Why does such a vast canyon of political power exist between Africa’s elderly oligarchy and the youthful majority?

Youths are defined as those between ages 15 and 35. In other words, your youth begins when you are older than almost half of your country’s population; it ends when you already have multiple children old enough to attend school.

This overly inclusive rhetoric of “youth” has been used by political elites to justify the unemployment and exploitation of massive populations across Africa — many of whom are taking on serious life responsibilities like getting married, starting a career and raising children. Yet, according to their governments, they are still youth. Their time has not yet come [Leaders of tomorrow]

Acceptance of their subjugated position — based solely on the factor of age — has isolated young adults from seizing political control of their countries. They settle for competition in “youth parliaments,” which are devoid of any real power. Regimes arrange youth dialogues, lacking any genuine will to follow through on the results of these dialogues, to further decorate the façade of democracy.

Not all have settled for this co-optation, of course. In 2014, for instance, an uprising in Burkina Faso ousted President Blaise Compaoré, who was born in 1951 and had enjoyed a 27-year presidency.

The young people of Burkina Faso are not alone. Throughout Africa, so-called youth are struggling to take back their destinies from the gerontocracies that stole them.

Get them out before more damage is done

One such young activist, Promise Mkwananzi of Zimbabwe’s #Tajamuka/Sesjikile (meaning “agitated”) movement, is determined to see Mugabe off before he dies. Mkwananzi filed a case against Mugabe, claiming that he is too frail and unfit to rule.

Although the case was dismissed on the basis that Mugabe had not been served at the proper location, Mkwananzi’s spirits are high. “We showed that the president can be challenged and scared him out of his wits,” he said. “The judges had to hide behind technicalities and shied away from the merits of the case. He may have succeeded in destroying my generation’s hope, but he cannot be permitted to destroy my children’s hope too.”

Before the recent overthrow of Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, who had clung to power for 22 years, an activist told me, “We cannot wait until Jammeh dies because more will be killed, tortured or disappeared. We need to rise up and finish them before they finish us.”

The desperation for immediate change is an obvious concern for anyone trying to survive in a place where dead bodies are common sightings, and not every African has the opportunity to wait. Some dictators are fairly young. Democratic Republic of the Congo President Joseph Kabila is only 45 years old and has been refusing to hold elections due to what he calls a lack of money (in the world’s most mineral-rich country). Meanwhile, Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza — who is in the middle of an illegal third term — is 53 years old and still plays soccer.

The point is simple: Dictators are a problem now, and the problems they pose aren’t going anywhere without some sort of change. As Zimbabwean activist Raymond Chibatamoto said, “Whether Mugabe dies in power or not, his leadership years are genocidal. We must avoid a repeat.”

Deaths of presidents entrench African regimes

Such “repeats” — where rule of an authoritarian is inherited by his offspring or inner circle — seem to be the main product of an African dictator’s death. In my home of Uganda, I continually hear people say, “Let’s just wait until the old man dies.” History tells us such surrender holds no promise.

When Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi died in 2012, a successor — Hailemariam Desalegn — was appointed. In a single month, Desalegn’s interim position became permanent. Political space in Ethiopia has remained dreadfully thin under the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front’s lengthened administration.

Few counterexamples exist. There is no evidence that the passing of a head of state leads to democratic transition in Africa. In most instances, as in the case of Desalegn’s tenure, political space closes all the more.

Upon reviewing 79 dictators who passed away while in office, researchers Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Erica Frantz found that regimes endured in 92 percent of the cases. They also discovered that coups and revolts upon an autocrat’s death occurred only 6 percent of the time.

As they noted, “Death in office, it turns out, is a remarkably unremarkable event.”

Like father, like son

Family dynasties are making their mark on the continent.

Burials of important African men are often characterized by luxury and pomp. Self-important patriarchs want to ensure their survivors continue their legacy. My wife, a Lango of northern Uganda, often reminds me I shouldn’t take this intergenerational patriarchy lightly. “The success of your children will be attributed to you,” she says. “All blame for their mistakes is attributed to me, their mother.”

This is why Africans are so rarely shocked whenever state leadership is passed on to family members.

In 2013, Uganda’s defected spy chief David Sejusa called for investigations into President Museveni’s alleged plans to kill those who opposed the Muhoozi Project, an alleged scheme to pass on the dictator’s seat to his son Kainerugaba Muhoozi.

A similar plot is unraveling now in Angola. On February 3, dictator Jose Eduardo dos Santos reaffirmed his commitment not to run for another term. During his 38 years in power, he has reneged on such promises numerous times, but on this occasion the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola party has presented defense minister João Lourenço as its new candidate. Behind the curtain is dos Santos’ daughter Isabel, Africa’s richest female billionaire thanks to blood diamonds and the family’s grip on the oil sector. The presiding dictator seems to be moving his chess pieces ahead of a political transition to maintain the family’s grip on Angola’s wealth of natural resources.

Mugabe, two decades older than most of the next oldest African dictators, is an extreme case. As party loyalists commence the infighting, his wife Grace Mugabe, age 51, has elbowed her way into the mix.

“If God decides to take him, then we would rather field him as a corpse,” she said at a rally in eastern Zimbabwe earlier this month, taking her prior commitment to push him around in a wheelchair to the next level. Absurd as it sounds, such rhetoric hints at her own serious bid to remain close to the seat of power.

What about the wayward son?

Today many dictators send their children to study in Europe or North America, where education and exposure to new ideas could conceivably foster a kinder brand of leadership upon succession. Yet, even where there appears to be hope for such an outcome, regime structures have been so viciously consolidated that the next generation oftentimes has difficulty changing the way the game is played.

Africa, of course, has no monopoly on this lesson. When North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il died in 2011, some expected the youthful Kim Jong-un — a fan of American basketball and western pop culture — to be a bit less draconian. Nothing significant, however, has changed since the 2011 transition. If anything, he has been more outwardly aggressive than his father.

Meanwhile, in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad, who succeeded his father Hafez in 2000, showed an early promise toward reform. A brief surge in freedom of expression and the release of 600 political prisoners gave Syrians optimism for a new age. However, the old guard, having enjoyed access to the political levers during Hafez’s government, squelched the young leader’s influence. Bashar’s brutality intensified thereafter.

While gerontocracy and nepotism are global phenomena, they are particularly common in Africa. If dictators die today, tomorrow may be no better.

The task in deposing the despots rests in the hands of the hundreds of millions of African youth. Only the rising generations will be able to respond to the challenges ahead for a continent ravaged by centuries of oppression.

African gerontocracy is not the only narrative

To say Africa was inevitably destined for gerontocratic pseudo-democracy with the rise of nation-states would be too simplistic of a narrative. Too many anecdotes run contrary to rule by elderly patriarchs, who often defend their prolonged control of national governments by accusing dissidents of violating patriarchal African culture.

“Ancient Kemet had a system called ‘Maat’ where the masculine and feminine principles were in perfect balance,” said Oyaka Makmot, one of the founders of Uganda’s Popular Resistance Against Life Presidency, which unsuccessfully tried to stop Museveni from abolishing presidential term limits. “The society thrived and built a great civilization that is in many ways unrivaled in it’s creativity and innovation. However, as Kemet went into decline, the masculine began to dominate the feminine.”

Oyaka further noted that most African societies established systems whereby elders were selected on the basis of their integrity and good social standing, but as the masculine began to dominate the feminine, dictatorship became the norm.

“Whereas gerontocracy once tried and tested people of character to be leaders,” Makmot explained, “it is now a system used by corrupt leaders to entrench themselves in power.”

If one former African head-of-state has shown that young people can lead their country forward, it is Thomas Sankara — also known as “Africa’s Che Guevara.” Assuming power in 1983, he urgently vaccinated millions of Burkinabé who had lacked access to proper health care. Corrupt leaders of the previous administration agonized through public, televised trials. Female genital mutilation and forced marriages were banned. Land was redistributed from feudal landlords to peasants, and Burkino Faso — formerly a donor dependent country — attained food sufficiency within four years.

Even in pre-colonial governance structures, according to Makmot, one finds examples of young leaders who diligently served their tribes.

“The Omukama [King] of Bunyoro [modern midwestern Uganda] known as Kabalega was only 17 years old when he became king,” Makmot said. “Some missionaries documented successful caesarian sections performed in the late 19th century [during Kabalega’s tenure].”

Kabalega allied with the nearby Lango tribe and staved off the British for five years, eventually conceding in 1899. (Under the British scorched-earth approach, surgical equipment used by the celebrated surgeons of Bunyoro was looted.) To this day, Kabalega is championed for his leadership, even as other older leaders from neighboring tribes sold themselves out to colonialists.

“Many visionary leaders led their nations between the ages of 17 and 40,” Makmot said. “What I would like the young people of Africa to do is resolve to retire every single leader above the age of 50.”

While such a goal may seem out of reach, it’s not hard to see some momentum in its direction. For starters, Makmot and his comrades are continuing to participate in nonviolent resistance against Museveni. Then there’s the Anglophone Cameroonians, who are rising up against Paul Biya amidst an Internet blackout, and the Sudanese — at home and in the diaspora — who are putting pressure on Omar al-Bashir. Gambians are already enjoying the recent exile of Yahya Jammeh.

Given this picture, perhaps Africa’s young people are becoming the very change they wish to see.

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thespearnews-blog · 7 years

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Why the youths should act now instead of waiting for dictators to die naturally

New Post has been published on https://thespearnews.com/2017/08/21/dont-just-wait-dictator-die-power-act-now/

Why the youths should act now instead of waiting for dictators to die naturally

Niger. Uganda. Mali. Malawi. Zambia. The world’s youngest populations — some of them with a median age of 15 years old —dictated upon by over 70’s

Africa’s oldest dictators

Given this picture, perhaps Africa’s young people are becoming the very change they wish to see.

Mali’s Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta is also 72 years old. Peter Mutharika of Malawi is at least 76 years of age.

Why does such a vast canyon of political power exist between Africa’s elderly oligarchy and the youthful majority?

Not all have settled for this co-optation, of course. In 2014, for instance, an uprising in Burkina Faso ousted President Blaise Compaoré, who was born in 1951 and had enjoyed a 27-year presidency.

The young people of Burkina Faso are not alone. Throughout Africa, so-called youth are struggling to take back their destinies from the gerontocracies that stole them.

Get them out before more damage is done

Deaths of presidents entrench African regimes

As they noted, “Death in office, it turns out, is a remarkably unremarkable event.”

Like father, like son

Family dynasties are making their mark on the continent.

This is why Africans are so rarely shocked whenever state leadership is passed on to family members.

What about the wayward son?

While gerontocracy and nepotism are global phenomena, they are particularly common in Africa. If dictators die today, tomorrow may be no better.

African gerontocracy is not the only narrative

“Whereas gerontocracy once tried and tested people of character to be leaders,” Makmot explained, “it is now a system used by corrupt leaders to entrench themselves in power.”

Even in pre-colonial governance structures, according to Makmot, one finds examples of young leaders who diligently served their tribes.

Given this picture, perhaps Africa’s young people are becoming the very change they wish to see.

0 notes