Dynamic Africa
Formerly, "This is Africa/fyeahAfrica".
(Profile Photo by Mama Casset)
DISCLAIMER:
I do not endorse any of the products or opinions shared on this site, nor do I claim any of the work posted here to be my own - except where stated. All posts originally made by me are credited. If no credit is given then the work is either my own/written by me or reblogged from another source.
A LITTLE ABOUT ME:
Student, 24
Based in Cape Town, South Africa
From Lagos, Nigeria
Want to advertise through us? Send an email to dynamicafricablog@gmail.com
(As an unemployed media student, all donations go into ensuring my survival in this cruel world and future projects I hope to embark on).
hit counter
(since Oct. 21th 2012)
Richard and John Lander visit the King of Badagry, Nigeria, circa 1830-31.
The two men, brothers and British explorers from Truro in Cornwall, England, had been sent by the British government to explore the length and course of the Niger River and map it. They published their results in a “Journal of an Expedition to Explore the Course and Termination of the Niger”, in 1832.
Note the European arms in the King’s place.
Not sure who the King of Badagry was at this time but you can read more about Badagry, a coastal town in southwestern Nigeria that served as a port during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade where many of the kidnapped and enslaved peoples were transported to Brasil.
Nigeria’s first Christian mission is located in Badagry.
A member of the House of Lords, Lord Lea, has written to the London Review of Books saying that shortly before she died, fellow peer and former MI6 officer Daphne Park told him Britain had been involved in the death of Patrice Lumumba, the elected leader of the Congo, in 1961.
On the main road to the home of Zambia Sugar Plc, a large sign advises visitors: “Welcome to Mazabuka – 4km to the sweetest town in Zambia.”
Lying around 100km south-west of Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, the town has been described by the chief executive of Zambia Sugar’s parent company as an island of “relative prosperity” in a country where malnutrition and poverty are still rife.
George Weston, 48, who earns £918,000 a year plus an annual bonus of £864,000 leading Associated British Foods, is right. Jobs created by Zambia Sugar in and around its Nakambala Sugar plantation in the Mazabuka district are vital to local livelihoods.
And it is a growing business, an important part of the Kingsmill bread, Primark clothing, Silver Spoon sugar, Twinings Tea and Ryvita crackers empire. The plantation and factory made record profits in 2012 and is expected to exceed 400,000 tonnes of sugar production this year for its Europe and Africa markets.
But as ActionAid’s report into Zambia Sugar’s tax arrangements notes: “Even amidst Mazabuka’s lush green cane fields, the availability of overstretched public services is sometimes literally a matter of life and death. Such public services rely, of course, on everyone paying their due taxes.”
Mazabuka’s Nakambala Urban health centre say two malnourished children die every month with it. At the school, 1,200 children fit into 12 classrooms in shifts taught by 20 teachers.
The local public services need cash from the government, and the state is reliant on almost 20% of its income from corporation tax and taxes on money leaving the country. Yet between 2007 and 2012 Zambia Sugar paid less than 0.5% of its pretax profits in corporation tax. Between 2008 and 2010, it paid no corporation tax at all.
The company says “as a direct result of our investment in Zambia since 2008, the availability of substantial capital allowances has led to virtually no corporate tax being payable”. It also benefits from other tax reliefs, including one for farmers which it won after taking the government to court in 2007.
But ActionAid’s year-long investigation into the complex corporate structure around Zambia Sugar suggests there is a more troubling story behind the numbers. A third of the company’s pre-tax profits – more than $13.8m a year – are paid out of Zambia via tax haven sister companies located in countries where taxes have been, currently are, or are likely to be, lower than in the African state.
Before the Zambian taxman gets to it, the company pays large “purchasing and management” fees to an Irish sister company which does not employ a single member of staff, according to its company accounts. Money can flow freely from Zambia to Ireland untroubled by the taxman due to a bilateral treaty.
Associated British Foods says it has repeatedly made accounting errors and it actually has 20 people in Ireland doing “real work”. Yet they were peculiarly absent when ActionAid phoned and visited the offices in Dublin to find that neither the telephone operator nor receptionist had heard of the company.
Today in History: Jan 12, 1879, the Anglo-Zulu War begins
The Anglo–Zulu War was fought between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom.
Following a campaign by which Lord Carnarvon had successfully brought about federation in Canada, it was thought that similar combined military and political campaigns might succeed with the various African kingdoms, tribal areas and Boer republics in South Africa.
In 1874, Sir Henry Bartle Frere was sent to South Africa as High Commissioner for the British Empire to bring the plans into being, however, there were many obstacles. Frere, on his own initiative, without the approval of the British government and with the intent of instigating a war with the Zulu presented an ultimatum to the Zulu king Cetshwayo with which the Zulu king could not comply.
Cetshwayo rejected the British demand that he disband his troops, and in January British forces invaded Zululand to suppress Cetshwayo. The British suffered grave defeats at Isandlwana, where 1,300 British soldiers were killed or wounded, and at Hlobane Mountain, but on March 29 the tide turned in favor of the British at the Battle of Khambula.
At Ulundi in July, Cetshwayo’s forces were utterly routed, and the Zulus were forced to surrender to the British. In 1887, faced with continuing Zulu rebellions, the British formally annexed Zululand, and in 1897 it became a part of Natal, which joined the Union of South Africa in 1910.
Muḥammad ‘Abduh (1 January 1849 - 11 July 1905) (also spelled Mohammed Abduh, Arabic: محمد عبده) was an Egyptian Islamic jurist, religious scholar and liberal reformer, regarded as the founder of Islamic Modernism sometimes called Neo-Mu’tazilism after the Medieval Islamic Mu’tazilites.
Muhammad Abduh was born in 1849 into a family of peasants in Lower Egypt (i.e. the Nile Delta). He was educated by a private tutor and a reciter of the Qur’an. When he turned thirteen he was sent to the Aḥmadī mosque which was one of the largest educational institutions in Egypt. A while later Abduh ran away from school and got married. He enrolled at al-Azhar University in 1866.
Abduh studied logic, philosophy and Islamic mysticism at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo. He was a student of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani,a philosopher and Muslim religious reformer who advocated Pan-Islamism to resist European colonialism. Under al-Afghani’s influence, Abduh combined journalism, politics, and his own fascination in Islamic mystical spirituality. Al-Afghani taught Abduh about the problems of Egypt and the Islamic world and about the technological achievements of the West.
In 1877, Abduh was granted the degree of ‘Alim (“teacher”) and he started to teach logic, theology and ethics at al-Azhar. In 1878, he was appointed professor of history at Cairo’s teachers’ training college Dar al-Ulum, later incorporated into Cairo University. He was also appointed to teach Arabic at the Khedivial School of Languages.
Abduh was appointed editor and chief of al-Waqāʾiʿ al-Miṣriyya, the official state newspaper. He was dedicated to reforming all aspects of Egyptian society and believed that education was the best way to achieve this goal. He was in favor of a good religious education, which would strengthen a child’s morals, and a scientific education, which would nurture a child’s ability to reason. In his articles he criticized corruption, superstition, and the luxurious lives of the rich.
He was exiled from Egypt by the British in 1882 for six years, for supporting the Egyptian nationalist revolt led by Ahmed Orabi in 1879. He had stated that every society should be allowed to choose a suitable form of government based on its history and its present circumstances.
Abduh spent several years in Ottoman Lebanon, where he helped establish an Islamic educational system. In 1884 he moved to Paris, France where he joined al-Afghani in publishing The Firmest Bond (al-Urwah al-Wuthqa), an Islamic revolutionary journal that promoted anti-British views.
Abduh also visited Britain and discussed the state of Egypt and Sudan with high-ranking officials. In 1885, he returned to Beirut and was surrounded by scholars from different religious backgrounds. During his stay there he dedicated his efforts toward furthering respect and friendship between Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
When he returned to Egypt in 1888, Abduh began his legal career. He was appointed judge in the Courts of First Instance of the Native Tribunals and in 1890, he became a consultative member of the Court of Appeal. In 1899, he was appointed Mufti of Egypt, the highest Islamic title, and he held this position until he died.
While he was in Egypt, Abduh founded a religious society, became president of a society for the revival of Arab sciences and worked towards reforming al-Azhar University by putting forth proposals to improve examinations, the curriculum and the working conditions for both professors and students.
He travelled a great deal and met with European scholars in Cambridge and Oxford University. He studied French law and read a great many European and Arab works in the libraries of Vienna and Berlin. The conclusions he drew from his travels were that Muslims suffer from ignorance about their own religion and the despotism of unjust rulers.
Muhammad Abduh died in Alexandria on 11 July 1905. People from all around the world sent their condolences.
