Dynamic Africa

masembe:

Camp de Thiaroye (1988) - Ousmane Sembene & Thierno Faty Sow

“We’re back from Europe where we fought your enemies. Now we fight for Africa.”

NOTABLE AFRICANS: Danieri Basammula-Ekkere Mwanga II Mukasa

Taking to the the throne at age 16, following the death of his father Muteesa I of Buganda in 1884, Mwanga ruled as the Kabaka (king) of Buganda from 1884 until 1888 and from 1889 until 1897. The 31st Kabaka of Buganda, he would eventually be captured by colonial British forces and exiled to the Seychelles where he would eventually die in 1903.

He is most notably known for his aggressive expulsion of encroaching Christian missionaries in his kingdom by ordering Christian converts to either abandon their religion or face death.

From the Daily Monitor:

Two months into his reign, and oblivious of the negative reactions from imperial powers on his action, Mwanga censured all foreign religions, labelling them dangerous and destructive to Buganda. He saw the burning to death of three Christian converts; and also ordered the capture of Alexander Mackay and two of his fellow Protestant missionaries.

Three years after ascending the throne in 1884, Mwanga had ordered the burning of 45 of his pages; 32 of the murdered converts would later gain worldwide recognition as the Uganda Martyrs.

The executions, including of Bishop James Hannington in 1885, alarmed the Protestants and Catholics, who despite their potent religious disputes, allied to dethrone Mwanga; and they did on August 2, 1888 with the help of the Muslims.

By the time of his first ouster from the throne, Mwanga had no major group to support him. The Muslims were not on his side, after he refused to convert to Islam; the Christians didn’t shield his back either—for ordering several executions; and the Traditionalists, convinced that the small pox ravaging the kingdom then was a result of neglect of traditional cultures and beliefs, had little faith in the king.

The most crucial threat to Mwanga’s reign would, however, be the Europeans, who had the same year he ascended the throne in 1884, met in Berlin, Germany, to allot Africa among themselves. Although he knew that the ‘white man’ was intent on ‘eating’ his kingdom, Mwanga was clueless about the extent of their imperial appetite and greed.

After his deposition, Mwanga was replaced by his brother Kiweewa—but just like his brother, Kiweewa refused to face the circumcision knife and the Muslims - the strongest group then, united to depose him, 40 days into his reign.

(cont. reading)

Further reading: Wikipedia*

*This source makes reference to same-sex relations that the Kabaka may have had, which is how I came to know of him (I was watching a televised debate on whether homosexuality is un-African and one of the speakers mentioned this incident). What I do not appreciate is the way in which some sources (linked source elaborates on this) have used his sexuality as something that is synonymous with evil, or the leading catalyst that led to him ordering the execution of several Christians.

Colonial postcard: “The Fashionable Hair, Native Woman”

Photo by F. Arkhurst, Grand Bassam, Ivory Coast

Watch Ousmane Sembene’s 1975 film Xala in its entirety.

“It is the dawn of Senegal’s independence from France, but as the citizens celebrate in the streets we soon become aware that only the faces have changed. White money still controls the government.

One official, Aboucader Beye, known by the title “El Hadji,” takes advantage of some of that money to marry his third wife, to the sorrow and chagrin of his first two wives and the resentment of his nationalist daughter.

But he discovers on his wedding night that he has been struck with a “xala,” a curse of impotence. El Hadji goes to comic lengths to find the cause and remove the xala, resulting in a scathing satirical ending.” - IMDb

We do not debate race here at any meaningful level, but use it to settle old scores and maintain the status quo in often violent, usually vitriolic ways. So anything that is mildly critical of white society is seen as anti-democratic , prejudiced and radical. It thus does not serve to unify the nation in any way, but to polarize a dangerously polarized country even further. White society in my part of the world has cleverly made itself the victim, and it has done this with the full backing of the international establishment.

Tsitsi Dangarembga (via b-sama)

This is the truth. I’ll add that now even Black Africans have joined in defending/supporting this false white victim hood.

(via thefemaletyrant)

(via manufactoriel)

b-sama:

Colonial PR Films Provide Window into Africa’s More Recent Past

The UK’s Colonial Film Catalogue, a database of more than 6000 films (150 viewable online) provides an impressive, although subjective, window into the peoples living under British colonial rule.

Although at times condescending, these videos find their value in providing a fantastic trip through time into life in these places.

The website has a collection of films from across the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australia, and dating back as far as 1895. From Ghana (then the Gold Coast) to Nigeria, British Guyana, India, and the Sudan, perhaps these videos are most valuable for providing an eye into the colonial mentality of the British empire.

(via africlecticmagazine)

mediterraneenne:

Hocine Hassina remembers family members who disappeared during the Paris massacre of 1961, as she stands next to the Saint Michel Bridge by the Seine river in Paris. (Photo: Reuters)

The Paris massacre occured on october 17, 1961. As Algeria’s battle for independence spilled into France, Paris police chief Maurice Papon ordered police to crack down on thousands of Algerian protesters who defied a curfew. At least 300 algerians were killed (bodies were later pulled from the River Seine)

(via fuckyeahalgeria)

NOTABLE AFRICANS: Reverend John Chilembwe

John Chilembwe was a Baptist educator and political leader who organized an uprising against British colonial rule in Nyasaland (today Malawi). Though details about Chilembwe’s early life are largely undocumented, it is believed that he was born in the Chiradzulu region of Nyasaland sometime around 1871 to a Yao father and a Mang’anja slave. The Mang’anja were the traditional ethnic group of the area but fell victim to enslavement by Arab and Yao slave traders; the Yao, originally from northern Mozambique, fled famine in their native country and served as middlemen for the Arab slave-raiders. Chilembwe, a mix of the two ethnic groups, embodied the plight of both. He grew up under the prevailing atmosphere of insecurity of the southern Nyasa regions. When the British colonized the area in 1891, naming it Nyasaland, they established newly organized governance and missions, and sought to control the indigenous people of the region.

In the autumn of 1892 Chilembwe met the Baptist missionary Joseph Booth, who had recently established the Zembesi Industrial Mission as an alternative to the older Scottish Presbyterian missions that exploited the indigenous population. Though Chilembwe initially applied to be Booth’s cook, he quickly became a close friend and ally of Booth and took care of Booth’s daughter. The missionary educated Chilembwe on his egalitarian philosophy and baptized him on July 17, 1893.

The pair traveled to the United States in 1897 to fundraise for the Mission. There, Chilembwe was plunged into a milieu that was highly critical of whites. He met and was influenced by the radical Zulu missionary John L. Dube from South Africa, Dr. Lewis Garnett Jordan of the Negro National Baptist Convention and many other African American preachers and radicals. Staying behind in the United States as Booth returned to Nyasaland, Chilembwe attended Virginia Theological Seminary and College at Lynchburg, Virginia in 1898 and 1899. In the United States, Chilembwe gained an increasingly global perspective on the struggle of people of African descent against injustice and white supremacy. He took these newly acquired political ideas back to Nyasaland in 1900, returning as an ordained Baptist minister.

Once returned, Chilembwe founded the Providence Industrial Mission with aid from the American National Baptist Convention. By 1912, he had established a chain of independent African schools, constructed a brick church and planted crops of cotton, tea, and coffee. His attempts to uplift the local population, however, were undercut by continuing exploitation of Africans by the British. Triggered by British mistreatment of famine refugees from Mozambique as well as the conscription of natives to fight the Germans in Tanzania during World War I, Chilembwe invoked the name of the American abolitionist John Brown and organized a rebellion against the British.

He and 200 followers staged an uprising on January 23, 1915 with the aim to kill all male Europeans. The revolutionaries killed three British subjects, including a particularly corrupt plantation owner named William J. Livingston, a descendant of failed Scottish missionary David Livingstone, who they beheaded in front of his wife and daughter.

When the uprising failed to gain local support, Chilembwe fled to Mozambique, where he was killed by African soldiers on February 3, 1915. Though his rebellion was ultimately unsuccessful, Malawi, which gained independence in 1964, celebrates John Chilembwe Day on January 15th as his uprising is viewed as the beginning of the Malawi independence struggle.

Further reading:

(source)

South Africans remain divided: Did Margaret Thatcher help or hinder the demise of apartheid →

Nineteen years after the end of apartheid, South Africans are still passionately divided over whether Margaret Thatcher helped or hindered the cruel system of white rule and prolonged the incarceration of Nelson Mandela.

The heated discussions triggered by Thatcher’s death show how influential South Africans believe she was on the fate of the last bastion of white-minority rule in Africa.

The former British leader supported the apartheid government when it was at its deadliest, killing many in the late 1980s in state terrorism at home and abroad in bombings and cross-border raids on neighboring states accused of harboring guerrilla fighters, said Pallo Jordan, a former Cabinet minister and stalwart of the governing African National Congress.

“Maggie Thatcher and Britain were important figures … they were defending (apartheid) South Africa, they were preventing international sanctions,” said Jordan to The Associated Press.

“Many lives were lost (as a result of the apartheid regime). I don’t think it’s a great loss to the world,” Jordan said of Thatcher’s death. She died after a stroke Monday at the age of 87.

“I say good riddance,” he said Tuesday on South Africa’s Talk Radio 702.

Thatcher branded Mandela and his ANC movement “terrorist,” amid concerns that they received backing from the former Soviet Union during the Cold War era and because of their guerrilla war for democracy.

Jordan was at Mandela’s first meeting with Thatcher after his release from 27 years in jail, at Downing Street in London in 1990.

“What amused the old man (Mandela) more than anything else was that here she was engaging in a conversation with this man that she thought an arch-terrorist.” He said Mandela’s inherent charm disarmed “the Iron Lady,” and the meeting passed without confrontation.

Thatcher’s spokesman said in 1987 that anyone who thought the ANC, then the leading anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, would govern South Africa was “living in cloud cuckoo-land.”

But others argue that Thatcher was strongly opposed to apartheid and racism and helped influence the white government to free Mandela.

“Thatcher did more to release Nelson Mandela out of prison than any of the other hundreds of anti-apartheid committees in Europe,” Pik Botha, the last foreign minister of the apartheid regime, said Tuesday on Talk Radio 702 in Johannesburg.

F.W. de Klerk, the last apartheid-era president of South Africa, said in a statement that Thatcher, whom he called a friend, was “a steadfast critic of apartheid.” He said she had a better grasp of the complexities and realities of South Africa than many of her contemporaries.

“She exerted more influence in what happened in South Africa than any other political leader,” de Klerk said. He said Thatcher “correctly believed” that more could be achieved through constructive engagement with his government than international sanctions and isolation of the South African government.

Thatcher argued that sanctions were immoral because they would throw thousands of South African blacks out of work. Her stance allowed British companies to continue operating in apartheid South Africa, where the United Kingdom was the biggest trading partner and foreign investor.

Former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda berated Thatcher bitterly at a 1986 Commonwealth conference where she refused to join six nations including Australia and Canada in imposing a package of sanctions against South Africa.

Kaunda told reporters Thatcher cut a “very pathetic picture indeed” and accused her of “worshipping gold, platinum and the rest” on offer from South Africa.

It was a far cry from his amused references to Thatcher as “my dancing partner” after the two famously waltzed at a 1979 Commonwealth summit of Britain and its former colonies in Livingstone, Zambia.

The rapport engendered there led Thatcher to help resolve the impasse in Rhodesia’s 7-year war. With Australian negotiators, she persuaded the warring parties to sign a peace settlement that ended that country’s white-minority rule and installed Robert Mugabe as leader of a democratic Zimbabwe in 1980.

Mugabe, now derided for destroying the economy of his country through violent and illegal grabs of white-owned farmlands, always enjoyed a collegial relationship with Thatcher. He said he admired her and that she was easier to deal with than Tony Blair who later became prime minister for Labour Party.

But Britain’s government under Thatcher ignored the killings of an estimated 20,000 Zimbabwean civilians of the minority Ndebele tribe, prompted by an uprising of dissidents, that lasted from 1982 to 1987. Queen Elizabeth II even gave Mugabe a knighthood after the massacres. Donald Trelford, editor of The Observer newspaper in London, later charged that Thatcher and her Foreign Office were more concerned about their relations with Mugabe than with human rights.

Only after thousands of white farmers were driven off their land and more than a dozen killed did the queen strip Mugabe of his knighthood in 2008.

Thatcher finally was forced to impose sanctions against South Africa by following the lead of the U.S. Congress, which in 1986 passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, overriding Reagan’s presidential veto after South Africa attacked Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana on the same day, recalled Pallo Jordan.

The official ANC statement on Thatcher’s passing was surprisingly restrained, perhaps reflecting an African tradition of respect for the dead.

“She was one of the strong leaders in Britain and Europe, to an extent that some of her policies dominate discourse in the public service structures of the world,” said ANC national spokesman Jackson Mthembu, referring to her view that the apartheid regime was a bulwark against communism. “Her passing signals the end of a generation of leaders that ruled during a very difficult period characterized by the dynamics of the Cold War.”

bolding mine.

b-sama:

AFRICAN INDEPENDENCE

African Independence is a feature-length documentary covering the history of the African continent since enslavement and colonization by Europeans.

The film highlights the birth and realization of and the problems confronted by the movement to win independence in Africa.

The story is told through the voices of freedom fighters and leaders who achieved independence and justice for Africans.

It seeks to enlighten and provide audiences with African insights into the continent’s past, present and future through the lens of four watershed events: World War II, the end of colonialism, the Cold War and the era of African republics.

On my ‘to watch’ list.

Africa is that vast stretch of land within my soul
Undefiled by the stride of the colonial lion
Hunting down the gazelle of my being.
It’s the common darkness of our skin,
Night; speckled with dots of light
Different languages, cultures, identities
All beaming around the common moon of
Ubuntu, Chivanhu, Humanity.

It’s this ‘darkness’ which they tried to defile
With their light, borne by Moffat and Livingstone,
Sent to rape our identities in missionary position
Then fail to explain what colour the Father is
If the ‘son is white’, thus Africa
Is that part of me that doesn’t belong to
Jesus of Nazareth, whose holey hands
Have sent more tumbling to the pits of hell
Than they have saved!

Often I say these things and my own people
Get cross and want to crucify me,
They call me sacrilegious ’cause I have the balls
To read the Bible upside-down
And say what it’s saying when it’s saying
What they are not saying it’s saying;
Who’s insane?! Why not call me mean, because I mean
What I say and I say what I mean and what I mean is
Jesus is not the menace, no,
It’s those that used his stripes to bind our eyes,
Aye! Like those powdering the bones
Of Nehanda and Kaguvi to poison our minds:
I’m talking about you Gabriel, Lucifer!
And all you other angels turned demons,
All you fools of empty promises,
Yes you ho smile for the camera and frown
As you toast civil servants baking in the sun
For daily bread.

You see the African I am is not a Google definition,
But how do I wean my siblings off the nipples
On the internet and make them face books
And realise that they are more than just a Facebook profile?
That Africa is not straight caps, baggy jeans and cheap
Fifty cent rhymes, no! It’s the song of Bambatha,
And that beating beast beneath my breast
That bellowed ‘AMANDLA!’
While Desmond was shooting his mouth like a 2-2.
When dubul’ ibhunu was the right thing to say,
Apologies white folks for any ricochet.

Zimbabwean poet Philani Amadeus Nyoni delivers a poignant poem that strikes deep at the heart of one of the most critical periods in recent African history.

Listen to him deliver the poem, “African Thought”, here.

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.

(read more)

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.

(read more)

The 1945 French Massacre in Setif & Guelma Algeria

TW: Savagery, brutality, violence, horrific images.

Despite the fact that most of the fighting against the Axis forces and Vichy France in North Africa had been conducted with honour and dispatch by Algerian troops the French decided to celebrate the victory of the Allies (a small part of whom were French) by committing an act of barbarism and genocide that echoes to this day. In one weekend of violence they murdered 45,000 Algerians.

Peaceful demonstrations had been taking place across Algeria for some months against the unfair treatment of indigenous Algerians (an oft-mentioned example was the reservation of bread for Europeans, the others only having the right to barley) and 15,000 people had protested in the streets of Mostaganem earlier without any incidents.

On May 8, 1945, a day chosen by the allies to celebrate their victory over Nazi Germany, thousands of Algerians gathered near the Abou Dher El-Ghafari mosque in Setif for a peaceful march - for which the sous-prefet had given permission. It was a market day.

At 9am, led by a young scout Saal Bouzid, whose name had been drawn for the honor of carrying the national flag, the demonstrators set off. A few minutes later the crowd, chanting ‘vive l’independance’ and other nationalist slogans, came under fire from troops commanded by General Duval and brought in from Constantine.

Saal Bouzid fell dead, becoming a national martyr. The scene soon turned into a massacre - the streets and houses being littered with dead bodies. Witnesses claim terrible scenes, that legionnaires seized babies by their feet and dashed their heads against rocks, that pregnant mothers were disemboweled, that soldiers dropped grenades down chimneys to kill the occupants of homes, that mourners were machine gunned while taking the dead to the cemetery.

A public record states that the European inhabitants were so frightened by the events that they asked that all those responsible for the protest movement should be shot. The carnage spread and, during the days that followed, some 45,000 Algerians were killed. Villages were shelled by artillery and remote hamlets were bombed with aircraft.

A Colonel in charge of burials being criticized for slowness told another officer ‘You are killing them faster than I can bury them.’ These incidents led to the upsurge of the PPA and ultimately, 17 years later to the country’s independence. In the retaliatory violence that immediately followed 104 Europeans were assassinated, but by the end several thousands were to die.

These incidents were particularly hard for Algerians who had fought the Nazis alongside the French forces, some of whom came home to find that their families had been decimated by the troops of General de Gaulle.

Led by the FLN (the national liberation front) the independence struggle caused France to draft in thousands of troops. In spite of opposition by Europeans living in the country a cease-fire was agreed to in March 1962. An extremist wing of the Army, the OAS, expanded its campaign of murder, torture and destruction, carrying on despite the cease-fire.

Survivors say that to this day France as a colonial power ‘has not had the courage to recognized its crimes. carried out in its former colonies and that it pretends to be a champion of human rights’.

Ending the liberation war, the Evian Agreement declared that extremist French soldiers (both regular, OAS and pieds noir irregulars, would not be prosecuted for crimes carried out in Algeria.

Both Chirac and Le Pen served in Algeria in the French Army.

(source)