Think Africa Press

All African Issues

Search
Menu
Search

Latest stories

  • in Economy

    It’s Time to Shine a Light on the Poverty Creation Industry

    172 Views

    By Alnoor Ladha, Joe Brewer, Martin Kirk

    A skyscraper in the City of London by night. Photograph by Adrian/acediscovery.

    It’s about time we called out the great myth that mass poverty just is, as if it were a natural part of some universal moral order. Such thinking is both profoundly untrue and disastrously misleading.

    Poverty is human-made. It is created – knowingly and with scientific efficiency – by a vastly sophisticated industry that includes private companies, think tanks, media outlets, government policies, and more. This ‘Poverty Creation Industry’ is about the least talked about feature of our global economy and yet it is perhaps the greatest market force in the modern world. Until we acknowledge this startling truth, progress towards global prosperity and sustainability will fall far short of what is possible.

    This isn’t to suggest that there’s a dark, smoky room somewhere in which a small cabal plots to cause immeasurable misery just because they can. This isn’t a conspiracy theory. In truth, it happens in big boardrooms and political conferences, where people create rules and execute strategies to ‘maximise self-interest’ as economists say, by extracting wealth from others. This is largely driven by a maniacal focus on short-term profit or advantage while ignoring one of its primary effects – the impoverishment of hundreds of millions of people. Wilful ignorance, though, as any legal scholar will tell you, is no defence in law. It’s about time we applied the same standard to our economic rules and realities.

    Revealing the culprits

    You don’t need to dig very deep to find the main culprits. If we apply the old Latin rubric cui bono? – literally ‘who benefits?’ – there are some very clear and unsurprising suspects.

    The richest 0.001% of the world control 30% of the financial wealth; the wealthiest 0.1% about 81%. So the rich are indeed extremely rich. More important than their static worth, though, are trends over time.

    Over the last two centuries, global inequality has steadily increased. We know this because whilst ratios of absolute poverty have been decreasing over the last two centuries, the standard measure of inequality – the Gini coefficient – has risen from 43.0 in 1820 to 70.7 in 2002. (A score of 0 means everyone has exactly the same amount and 100 means one person controls everything.) This trend has been accelerating since 1980, when the latest round of ‘free market’ policies was put in place. It is being exacerbated still further in most countries by both the economic crisis and climate change.

    Of course, just because someone benefits from a system doesn’t automatically mean they are controlling it. To investigate who is doing that, we need to look at the industries that have been built, who has built them this way, and observe their strategies and business operations. The best place to look is the industry at the heart of it all, whose very purpose is the management of wealth: banking and finance.

    The global shadow economy

    What we find is a two-tier system comprised of, 1) a global mainstream economy where basic rules of fairness and transparency apply, and 2) a global shadow economy where fairness is an irrelevant concept, transparency a state to be avoided at all costs and the social contract is ignored.

    This shadow economy has been steadily and systematically created through a series of very clear strategies. Its sole purpose is to provide a place above national tax laws, where profit and capital can be hoarded without limit. It is extremely popular with those who can afford to access it. It is vast. It is comprised of over 80 tax havens, innumerous trade agreements and legal frameworks, and employs a small army of people to lobby policymakers, provide legal defence, manage and buy-off elected officials.

    Somewhere between $21 and $32 trillion – or 10%-15% of all privately held wealth – is hidden behind the great walls of secrecy. Of the 100 largest companies on the London Stock Exchange, 98 routinely use tax havens. Over half of all global trade flows between and within them so that profits can be siphoned off untaxed.

    In other words, the shadow economy is not only immense, but it is intricately sewn into the mainstream economy. Like a parasite, it is attached to the body of its host and drains its financial lifeblood at a rate and scale that is large enough to perpetuate global inequality and poverty.

    There could not be a clearer case of an industry designed to benefit through active and willful exploitation, and at the expense of the majority of the world’s people. An industry designed with rules that enrich some through the impoverishment of others: the Poverty Creation Industry.

    Let there be light

    This industry relies on one thing above all others: secrecy. It is only through the ‘discretion’ of tax havens and the creativity of lawyers, accountants and bankers that they can operate in the way they do.

    This is where hope lies. The ability to maintain this secrecy is dependent on the public not seeing, and not using its collective power to demand change. With public pressure, rules can be enacted that shine a light onto these secret places. The gross imbalances of our current system can be corrected so that wealth is more equally shared; and advantage and profit enjoyed within reasonable bounds.

    In service of this vision, we have helped create one avenue for action: /The Rules is a new global citizens movement aimed at tackling these root causes of inequality and poverty. By coming together in common purpose and with a common understanding, using smart organising and global communication networks, we believe ordinary people have the power to stand up to the Poverty Creation Industry, and bring about new rules. Our first step is to demand transparency in the global hub of the tax haven system, the City of London. It will take a massive and ongoing global effort – to paraphrase Martin Luther King, the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice. We believe change is possible only if the citizens of the world demand change.

    Click here to learn more about /TheRules.

  • in Kenya

    Displacement and Resistance: The Ogiek of Kenya

    241 Views

    Finding themselves increasingly marginalised, can the indigenous Ogiek community in Kenya preserve their culture, traditions and way of life?

    By Chelsea Purvis

    Mau Forest, Kenya:

    Ogiek elders guide visitors through Bobo’s Farm. They wear traditional Ogiek clothing, animal-skin wraps and fur caps. The elders explain the ecological and cultural significance of each tree and plant: the silibwet attracts bees to the Ogiek’s hives, while the septet is used in Ogiek coming-of-age ceremonies. Every living thing here is a vital component of the Mau Forest ecosystem and Ogiek way of life. “We want to bring back the indigenous forest”, says Elijah Kiptanui Tuei, “so that we can practice our traditions”.

    The Ogiek are an indigenous minority ethnic group of about 20,000 people. For centuries they have hunted and gathered in the Mau Forest – located in Kenya’s Rift Valley – and around Mount Elgon in western Kenya. They depend on the forest for their traditional livelihood of hunting, foraging, and bee-keeping. The forest is also an integral part of Ogiek culture and identity, and it is taboo for Ogiek to cut down any live tree. “The Ogiek are the guardians of the forest”, explains Charles Ruto, the founder and owner of Bobo’s Farm.

    The 25 Ogiek members of Bobo’s Farm, a conservation and cultural organisation, have access to a small section of the Mau Forest. But this is a rarity – most Ogiek are completely cut off from the Mau. Over the past century, the Ogiek have been continuously evicted from their ancestral land. The British colonial government first displaced the Ogiek, repeatedly evicting them to areas outside the Mau Forest. The British then logged much of Mau and replanted it with exotic trees to harvest for export. The Ogiek, facing disease and starvation as a result of displacement, returned to their homelands after each eviction and hid deep in the forest. In some areas, the British then gathered the Ogiek in small villages and encouraged them to ‘modernise’ by adopting small-scale farming. “Despite all this, we secretly continued to practice our Ogiek traditions of hunting and honey-collecting”, says William Kiptanui Koskei, a member of Bobo’s Farm.

    When Kenya became independent, the Ogiek’s situation only worsened. The post-colonial government divided the Mau Forest and distributed land to commercial interests and political allies. To clear the Ogiek from valuable forest land, the government evicted them violently. When the government needed more land, it evicted the communities again, each time farther from the forest.

    Koskei remembers when police raided and destroyed his village. “The police burned down the schools that our fathers had built”, he recalls, “I was never able to finish school”. Two children fled into the bush and disappeared forever; one woman in the village was arrested, taken to prison, and beaten to death. “We felt emotionally tortured by the government”, says Koskei. “People’s lives spiralled out of control because they had nothing to depend on.”

    The Ogiek are now scattered throughout the Mau and other regions of Kenya, forced to assimilate with dominant ethnic groups. Cut off from the forest, they cannot practice their traditions. They experience discrimination in employment and education, and most are desperately poor. Ogiek suffer during conflict between larger ethnic groups, particularly during volatile election seasons.

    Environmental consequences

    Kenya’s division and destruction of the Mau Forest has also had disastrous ecological consequences. For decades, the government has repeatedly promised to ‘resettle’ the Ogiek in the Mau Forest, but under the guise of settlement schemes has awarded ecologically sensitive land to politically-connected businesses and individuals. Two government commissions found that the government has allocated the vast majority of excised forest land to non-Ogiek, including senior politicians and companies.

    The Kenyan government has recently come under pressure to protect the Mau Forest. But perversely, it now uses conservation as its reason to take further land from the Ogiek. In 2009, for example, it reclaimed a further 24,000 hectares of Ogiek land in the name of conservation. The Ogiek have reacted with incredulity: “The government came with saws and cut down indigenous trees”, argue elders from Bobo’s Farm. “And when they finished, they blamed the Ogiek for destroying the forest.”

    However, while the government may allege that the Ogiek damage the forest, they have also put them in charge of protecting the forest from illegal logging. Charles Ruto and other Ogiek are part of a Community Forest Association, which the government tasks with protecting 3,000 acres of forest. “Portions of these 3,000 acres are logged, and portions grow naturally and are protected”, Ruto explains. “In the logged portion, we ensure that when [logging company] Timsales cuts down trees, they plant new ones. In the protected portion, we ensure that the forest is not illegally felled.”

    The case before the African Commission and Court

    In response to the problems they have faced, the Ogiek have been fighting back to have their rights to their ancestral land as an indigenous community recognised. But while they have brought numerous cases before domestic courts to challenge the government’s actions, this litigation has not been effective. Representatives of the government frequently fail to appear in court and ignore court orders. Furthermore, international experts have found that the Kenyan judicial system is plagued by corruption, excessive delays, and judicial bias. The Ogiek have also appealed to other mechanisms – such as the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission established in 2008 – but the government has not complied with their rulings.

    Having exhausted domestic options, then, the Ogiek in 2009 brought a communication to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. They are represented by the Centre for Minority Rights Development (CEMIRIDE), Minority Rights Group International (MRG) and the Ogiek Peoples’ Development Programme (OPDP).

    The Ogiek argued that the Kenyan government’s actions violated their right to life, freedom from discrimination, freedom of religion, right to property, right to cultural life, right to tradition, right to freely dispose of their wealth and natural resources, and their right to development under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The Commission had previously found Kenya to have violated the rights of indigenous people by evicting them from their ancestral land.

    The African Commission issued provisional measures on 23 November 2009, requesting that Kenya not take “any measures that would cause irreparable damage to the alleged victims and prejudice the case, and in particular, not to evict the Ogiek” until a final decision has been made. The Ogiek and their representatives argue that Kenya has not complied with this request.

    In 2012, the Commission referred the case to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the basis that it evinced serious and mass human rights violations, and the case is now at the admissibility stage. “This is a major and very positive development,” says Lucy Claridge, Head of Law at MRG, which is litigating the case. “The decision to refer the case to the Court is both indicative of the seriousness of the situation of the Ogiek in Kenya and also the prominence of land conflicts in the African context more generally. It is particularly exciting because it is one of the African Court’s first cases, and it could be the Court’s first decision on the rights of indigenous peoples.”

    Bobo’s Farm: conservation and culture

    As the Ogiek of Bobo’s Farm wait for a decision in their case, they work to conserve the Mau Forest and their way of life.

    Charles Ruto was lucky to be allotted a five acre plot during a settlement scheme in the late 1990s, though it was bare land when he received it, the trees having been razed by a logging company. Ruto took the opportunity to create Bobo’s Farm, a non-profit organisation, and invited Ogiek to join him in reforesting the land. He has invested heavily in the project with his own money despite fears of losing his land through government land-grabbing. The five acres are now lush with trees, a stark contrast to the surrounding agricultural fields.

    Ruto is a passionate advocate for the environment. Formally trained in conservation, he wishes to share his knowledge on preserving the Mau. Bobo’s Farm invites visitors – Ogiek and non-Ogiek alike – to come and learn about conserving the indigenous forest. Each visitor plants a seedling to commemorate their visit. Ruto also takes indigenous tree seedlings from Bobo’s Farm nursery to community events. “I teach the group about conservation and forestry, and then we plant the seedlings together”, he explains. Ruto has even worked to sensitise local officials in conservation.

    Bobo’s Farm is about more than ecological conservation, however. It is a space where the Ogiek can observe their way of life and practice their culture. Here in the forest, the Ogiek can grow herbs for traditional medicine and produce the honey for which they are famous, though they cannot hunt as the government prohibits this. They also come together as a group to make decisions – a rare opportunity for a community scattered across thousands of acres. Here, they can teach children about Ogiek heritage and culture.

    When asked why he wears animal-skin clothing at Bobo’s Farm, Tuei explains, “This clothing is special to the Ogiek. It is unique to us. It is important for us to wear this traditional clothing now because it symbolises our culture”. Tuei and others have planted indigenous trees on their own land to expand the Bobo’s Farm project.

    Uncertain future?

    Despite its success so far, Bobo’s Farm faces substantial obstacles moving forward. Ruto has run out of money to purchase seedlings and other supplies and so Bobo’s Farm members cannot easily expand the project on their own land. While Ruto’s high profile protects his land from land-grabbers, other members of Bobo’s Farm have less secure tenure. Koskei has planted 20 indigenous trees on his property, for example, but he is at high risk of losing his land – his home was destroyed by someone claiming to hold title to his property.

    The Kenyan government provides no material or financial support to Bobo’s Farm. Because of their membership in a Community Forest Association, Ruto and other Ogiek are permitted access to five acres of Kenya Forest Service land. There they can grow trees, harvest honey, and practice their traditions. They must pay rent, however, and cannot live or hunt on the property.

    For the Ogiek of Kenya, forest conservation is a matter of life and death. Their forested ancestral land is inextricably connected to the Ogiek way of life; without it, their survival as a people is threatened.

    But the Kenyan government shows no signs that it will protect the Ogiek or the Mau Forest. Indeed, in the run up to the 2013 presidential elections, politicians curried favour with voters by promising to open up the Mau for further settlement. Meanwhile in November 2012, the government quietly lifted restrictions on land transactions in large portions of the Mau. This means that holders of illegally-obtained land title can now sell Mau land. The government’s move has the potential to increase violence against the Ogiek, who already feared violence around the election. “The losers will be the Ogiek”, says Ruto.

  • in Legal

    The Arms Trade Treaty: In Search of a Silver Bullet

    64 Views

    Delegates are at the UN negotiating a treaty regarding the world’s most corrupt and corrosive trade. What could a global arms treaty mean for Africa?

    By Abigail Nehring

    Down the barrel of a South African gun. Photograph by Dan Maudsley.

    A cluster of thatched makuti huts looks out over a vast grassy landscape in Kenya’s semi-arid Tana Delta region. This is the village of Kipao, still recovering from a raid two months ago in which men from the neighbouring Pokomo community set fire to 45 houses. But the raid may not have ended in 32 deaths had it not been for the arsenal of AK-47s the men carried with them, most of which would have come from illegal gun-runners working a route that winds its way across Somalia and Ethiopia before crossing into Kenya.

    “Most of [the guns] don’t actually have [serial] numbers, so you can’t say which country they came from”, says Kenyan journalist Kassim Mohamed, but he suspects they are of Russian, Chinese, or Ukrainian origin.

    Incredibly, international law currently has firmer rules regarding the trade of commodities like bananas and electronics than it does conventional arms. That is why delegates from around the world are currently at the UN headquarters in New York to discuss a new Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). If passed, the ATT stands to regulate arms transactions and could throw a wrench in the works of the complex trade networks that, while not responsible for the 32 deaths in Kipao, act as enablers of violence where tensions are already near boiling point.

    The wrong hands

    Developing nations have long dominated arms sales agreements, accounting for nearly 85% of agreements in 2011. Meanwhile, the US and Russia top the list of the world’s biggest arms exporters, with France and the UK following behind.

    “This expenditure has profound impacts on the world we live in”, explained anti-corruption activist and former South African parliamentarian Andrew Feinstein at a panel discussion, “from the enabling, fueling, and perpetuation of conflict, to the corrosion of democracy in both buying and selling countries”.

    According to some research, the global arms trade accounts for a staggering 40% of all corruption in trade around the world. “Arms deals stretch across a continuum of legality, from the official or former trade to the grey and black markets”, said Feinstein. And developing countries are often where weapons that have entered the “shadow world” of arms transactions end up.

    Indeed, the armed men that ransacked Kipao may very well be the downstream result of “formal” governmental transactions. Mohamed speculates that some of Kenya’s illegal weapons may have once belonged to the overthrown regime of Somalia’s Siad Barre. “When there are all these past troubles, what happens? Arms end up in the hands of civilians”, he explains. Similarly, proponents of the ATT see weapons flowing into Syria and Mali today and imagine where they will end up ten years down the road. “It’s hard because it’s not a straight point we’re trying to make”, Mohamed says. “In order to plan for ten years from now, you have to plan for tomorrow.”

    Small arms and light weapons in Africa

    African states have shown strong support for an ATT covering a broad range of weapons, including small arms and light weapons (SALW), and most African states have signed onto legal agreements regulating SALW. After all, it is these small arms that can filter down to the civilian level most easily, are most transportable and most abundant.

    A number of African countries have therefore thrown their full weight behind the issue. In a statement made on behalf of the East African Community during the 2011 treaty preparatory meetings, Burundi said it “strongly supports the inclusion of Small Arms and Light Weapons and ammunitions in the future Arms Trade Treaty (ATT)”, while similar statements were made by the Economic Community of West Africa and in Central Africa’s Common Position on the Arms Trade Treaty.

    But not all African countries are on the same page regarding SALW. Egypt, for example, has indicated that it does not want SALW included in the ATT, citing concerns that North African states may not be able to defend themselves in the midst of a volatile Middle Eastern security environment. Egypt’s dissent reflects the rift between northern African states and sub-Saharan Africa on the ATT. The current legal obligations African countries have agreed to regarding arms exist mainly in the Great Lakes region, the Horn of Africa, West Africa and Southern Africa – the regions most affected by illegal arms transfers.

    According to Adotei Akwei of Amnesty International, removing civilian arms from the ATT “would basically render the treaty useless”.

    Firing on all fronts

    Another point of disagreement that could undermine the ATT is between advocates of a treaty and certain major arms exporting nations. Indeed, the 2001 UN-backed Programme of Action on Illicit Trade of Small Arms and Light Weapons was severely limited by the fact some of the world’s major arms exporters did not agree to it. Similarly, efforts in 2006 fell apart in part due to the US’ reticence to sign onto any multilateral treaty.

    According to Jeff Abramson from Control Arms, a coalition of NGOs in support of a treaty, “The US domestically always has fears of being involved in treaties, which is a problem diplomatically when you’re trying to set up an international regime”. And, then as now, part of the US’ reluctance has been domestic rather than international. That is why part of Akwei’s efforts around the ATT have been in trying to dispel misinformation circulating about the ATT within the US gun rights lobby which fears a treaty would infringe upon Second Amendment Rights. But controlling access to firearms domestically “is not what the treaty is really about”, says Akwei. “It’s about the proliferation of arms wreaking havoc in the Maghreb and North Africa. It’s about the use of child soldiers, the rapes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the violence that destroyed Columbia and Mexico. Those are the things the gun lobby is silent on.”

    Indeed, as Kassim Mohamed says, “It’s the weaker countries in Africa that are feeling the effect”. And so far, not enough is being done. The gunrunners Mohamed has interviewed in Kenya and Somalia are not unlike the entrepreneurs who deal in legal markets, he says. “He was just a business person, another common man”, Mohamed recalls about his encounter with one of Kenya’s major illegal arms barons.

    The global arms trade may be the most corrupt industry in the world and one of the most sprawling, complex and shady. And advocacy groups all agree that a treaty will only be worth passing if it contains all the necessary components to make it a strong tool in combating the proliferation of SALW; “if the treaty itself is not strong, it’s not worth having”, says Abramson.

    Campaigners are also aware that even if new regulations are passed this month in New York, their impact may not be felt for months or even years.

    But for now, the international human rights community has put their faith in the ATT being clearest path to defeating the laissez faire weapons industry that facilitates human rights abuses, insecurity and instability. And despite the numerous setbacks in the treaty process in recent years, there is a renewed sense of hopefulness about the ongoing conference.

  • in Zambia

    Dying on a Prayer: Preachers tell Zambians to Stop Taking ARVs

    112 Views

    A trend is emerging in southern Zambia of preachers claiming to be able to cure HIV/AIDS and telling followers to stop taking medication to prove their faith.

    By Rose Bewick

    Inside a church in Zambia. Photograph by Seyemon.

    Choma, Zambia:

    Over the past few years, Zambia, which has one of the heaviest HIV/AIDS burdens in world, has managed to reduce its HIV/AIDS rate and make promising progress in the areas of diagnosis, treatment and care. But while there have been some heartening national advances in combating HIV/AIDS in Zambia, a worrying trend has been developing in the southern town of Choma.

    Over the past year, there has been an increase in the number of people with HIV/AIDS who have stopped taking their medication there. Health workers in the area cite the growing presence of ‘prophets’ as the main reason behind this. Some preachers in the area have been claiming to be able to heal HIV/AIDS through prayer and holy water, and been urging congregants to prove their faith by abandoning their prescribed drugs. Only then will God heal them, they are told.

    The perceived power of prayer

    Christianity is a huge part of many Zambians’ lives and the Christian church is a very powerful institution in the country. In recent years, Pentecostalism in particular has exploded on the continent, and with it the teaching of the so-called ‘prosperity gospel’ – also called the ‘health-and-wealth gospel’ or the ‘faith gospel’ – which claims faith and donations will be rewarded by God here on earth. The idea is that God wants to bless his followers, and that these blessings need only be ‘unlocked’ through prayer and demonstrations of faith, which often entail large monetary offerings to the church.

    An off-shoot of this thinking is the idea that those who pray for healing must also prove that they trust in God’s power by rejecting medical aid. Congregants are sometimes asked to go as far as to burn their medication.

    Many preachers also style themselves as prophets anointed by God, thus removing the possibility for criticism from their congregation; any doubt or complaint against him would, by this line of thinking, be a doubt or complaint against God himself. Furthermore, given that the literacy rate is low in the area, pastors are often the only source of Christian teaching.

    It is important to note, however, that not all Choma’s pastors preach the same message. On a recent visit, I witnessed how the leader of one local church now makes an unusual announcement every Sunday. Before he opens the Bible, the preacher declares that he has an announcement to add, and that this is the most serious of them all: “There is not, and has never been, a cure for AIDS”, he says. The church goes quiet as he continues: “If you are HIV positive, you can take medication called ARVs…Some people claim to have found the cure for AIDS and they want to sell it to you. It is not true. If you are HIV positive, take ARVs.”

    But for opportunists, the combination of low literacy and high potential for profit has made the church an attractive option – contributing to a trend that can be seen in a number of countries across Africa. Paul Gifford notes that Africa’s economic situation “has made of the church a road to status and professional or economic advancement”, while Reverend Timothy Njoya claims that “over 90% of the clergy in Kenya today have no call at all”. “They come to the ministry because they could not have achieved a better career [elsewhere]”, he says.

    Television in Africa has much to do with the growth of the prosperity gospel. ‘God-channels’ are numerous and widely watched, since they are often one of the few options available. They feature regular sermons on giving and receiving ten-fold, and the performance of healing miracles and exorcisms. The preachers on these channels – TB Joshua of Nigeria being a prominent example – are often seen as celebrities in Zambia, attracting followers because of their fame, money and influence. The desire among some clergy to emulate them is one reason for the emphasis in many churches on healing, and especially on healing AIDS, since this is considered highly impressive.

    Fighting back

    So what is being done to stop this trend of HIV/AIDS sufferers stopping taking their medication?

    One thing health workers are doing is finding those who claim to have been healed by preachers and encouraging them to get re-tested. This has been found to work in many cases with patients, who learn they are still HIV positive, restarting their medication and stopping attending the church that claimed to have healed them.

    In some cases, however, re-tested sufferers insist that the machines are lying or are told by preachers that they simply did not pray hard enough or give a large enough offering to the church. Some others refuse to go for re-testing at all.

    But there are also many other possible ways of pushing back against the trend. In terms of enforcement, destroying ARVs (of which there are often shortages in clinics) is already illegal and can lead to imprisonment, but, according to residents, no-one in Choma has been convicted of this practice and people are reluctant to speak out against ‘men of God’.

    In terms of changing perceptions, more community education regarding HIV/AIDS would certainly help. Health workers providing home-based care and regularly visiting HIV/AIDS sufferers agree that lack of knowledge and understanding makes it easy for their patients to be exploited. Alongside this, more media coverage of the issue – such as the emotive and furious article in the Zambia Daily Mail last year, in which a Zambian commentator warned his compatriots of “merchants of death” in churches – could also help raise awareness.

    A final initiative being tried out directly incorporates religious leaders into efforts. The District AIDS Task Force has responded to the growing phenomenon by inviting church leaders to a series of group discussions about healing and the bible. Their approach is wholly educational, rather than confrontational. They refer to the story of Moses, who was instructed by God to make a snake out of bronze and put it on a pole, so that the Israelites bitten by snakes might look on it and be healed. This implies, they explain, that God can provide a remedy for sicknesses through his instructions to someone in authority like a doctor, and HIV/AIDS sufferers are encouraged to pray to God but to pray to be healed through ARVs, doctors, and health workers.

    Whether with crossed fingers or bowed heads, many hope such initiatives will help change perceptions and push back against the trend of sufferers stopping taking their life-saving medication.

  • in Gender

    How African Feminism Changed the World

    307 Views

    ‘Feminism’ has often been seen as a Western concept, but African women are increasingly redefining it to suit their own purposes. This, in turn, is influencing the rest of the world.

    By Aili Mari Tripp

    Today, on International Women’s Day 2013, one is likely to hear a raft of statistics that both celebrate and lament the status of women. While some indicators of gender equality have improved, others continue to shock and disappoint. And drawing firm conclusions using these different, discrete areas can often prove a troublesome task. How, for example, should news that South African women hold 40% of the country’s parliamentary seats be balanced against reports that in Gauteng province 1 in 4 have been raped?

    However, in this context, the more significant contributions that African women’s movements have made globally often go unnoticed. Far from following a trajectory that seeks to ‘catch up’ with Western feminism, several African countries and social groups have forged their own conceptions of equality and provided models for the rest of the world to follow.

    Trajectories of change

    Women’s movements in Africa have come a long way over the past half century or so. In the first three decades after independence, women’s organisations were often tied to the patronage politics of the single-party state and tended to focus on welfare, domestic and developmental concerns whilst avoiding political engagement. At the grassroots level, women’s groups produced handicrafts, promoted literacy, farmed, engaged in income-generating projects, and engaged in cultural activities.

    This began to change in the 1990s as women’s movements were increasingly influenced by international women’s rights agendas as well as by the United Nations, African Union, Southern African Development Community and other sub-regional organisations. The 1985 UN Conference on Women held in Nairobi and especially the 1995 UN Conference on Women in Beijing served as catalysts for many organisations and activists. International donors, weary of state corruption and waste, began to shift resources towards non-governmental organisations, including women’s associations.

    At the same time, women activists became involved in democratisation movements, which, in turn, opened up political space for women’s mobilisation. One-party systems gave way to multiparty systems; military dictatorships dissolved into civilian rule; freedom of press, association and assembly expanded. The decline of conflict in Africa, especially after 2000, further sped up the push for women’s rights, especially in post-conflict countries.

    With time, women’s organisations became increasingly independent of government and the dominant political party. Women activists began to acquire their own resources, select their own leaders, and forge their own agendas. New women’s networks and conferences organised around violence against women, peace, the environment, and reproductive rights. They started taking on some of the most challenging issues relating to domestic violence, inheritance rights, female genital cutting, child marriage and other issues relating to customary law. More recently, there has been increased support for the rights of gays and lesbians as human rights, and more awareness around abortion and other contentious issues.

    Although the older welfare-oriented and developmental agendas persist to this day, a new emphasis on political participation and advocacy has emerged. New women’s organisations formed to improve leadership skills, encourage women’s political involvement, promote women’s political leadership, press for legislative changes, and conduct civic education.

    African feminism

    On the one hand, some of the successes of African women’s movements can be attributed to the roles played by international organisations in catalysing change, providing broad spaces for debate and action, and offering examples for African nations and campaigners to emulate.

    But on the other hand, African organisations can be seen to have taken unique and novel approaches to campaigning for female empowerment in ways that have influenced the rest of the world. In Africa, the term “feminism” has often carried with it the baggage of being regarded as a Western and foreign construct. However, this is rapidly changing as feminism itself has been increasingly redefined by women leaders in Africa to suit their own purposes. While some of these women’s rights agendas have been inspired by international feminisms, African women are themselves contributing significantly to global understandings and implementation of women’s rights as we see in the struggles over quotas and constitutional reform.

    When they came to the 1980 World Conference on Women in Copenhagen, for example, African women representatives were prepared with draft policy proposals regarding development. As Devaki Jain explained in Women, Development and the UN, “African women were several steps ahead of the rest of the world’s women during the 1960s and 1970s” as they were already conducting research and translating it into policy recommendations for government officials and regional bodies. The notion of ‘gender mainstreaming’ that became popular in the 1980s had been articulated by women like Jacqueline Ki-Zerbo from Burkina Faso already in 1960, when at a UN meeting she argued for the need to “keep a double stream, to have specific support for women while at the same time trying to involve them in the mainstream of decisions and actions”.

    More recently, women’s increasingly visible presence in African legislatures has also resulted in new global discussions about strategies to enhance women’s political representation. Scandinavian scholars like Drude Dahlerup and Lenita Freidenvall, for example, have argued that the incremental model of increasing women’s representation in parliament that led to high rates of female representation in the Nordic countries in the 1970s has now been replaced by the ‘fast track’ African model whereby dramatic jumps in parliamentary representation are brought about by the introduction of electoral quotas.

    In the predominantly Muslim country of Senegal, for instance, the proportion of female parliamentary representatives jumped from 23% to 43% in the 2012 elections, following the adoption of a new parity law. For over a decade, the movement Conseil Senegalais des Femmes (COSEF) had been campaigning for greater gender parity and their efforts finally bore fruit with the establishment of a law that ensured candidate lists alternate between male and female candidates.

    Another area that has generated considerable momentum in Africa has been the adoption of ‘gender budgets’, or attempts to make the gender implications of national spending priorities more explicit and ultimately fairer. After the 1995 UN Women’s Conference in Beijing, many countries in Africa adopted women’s budgets patterned along the lines of South Africa’s 1994 budget exercise. While South Africa’s budget was itself inspired by Australia in 1984, gender budgeting has been taken on by a number of countries across Africa, facilitating its subsequent spread more widely in the rest of the world. The European Union has endorsed this approach as have the parliaments of some of its member states such as Germany.

    The future’s bright

    On this special day, there is a lot to celebrate: Rwandan women now hold 56% of the country’s legislative seats. In Senegal, Seychelles and South Africa, more than 40% of parliamentary seats are held by women, while in Mozambique, Angola, Tanzania and Uganda more than 35% of the seats are occupied by women. There are female speakers of the house in one fifth of African parliaments, which is higher than the world average of 14%. But beneath these statistics lies an even greater success: Unlike many other rights, which are dictated from a top-down international (and often Western) level, Africa has actively enhanced global understandings of feminism.

  • in Kenya

    Nubians in Kenya: A People Denied

    388 Views

    Despite a long history in Kenya, Nubians struggle to be recognised as Kenyans and to enjoy the rights and support than come with citizenship.

    By Rachuonyo Duncan

    Issa Abudul Faraj, chairman of the Kenyan Nubian Council of Elders during an interview at their Nairobi office. Photograph by Rachuonyo Duncan.

    Nairobi, Kenya:

    For over a century, Kenya has been home to members of the Nubian ethnic group. Originally from Nuba, a region located along the River Nile in northern Sudan and southern Egypt, many Nubians were brought to Kenya in the early 1890s to serve as soldiers in the British Army. At the time Kenya was under British colonial rule as the British East Africa Protectorate and, accordingly, many Nubians taken to Kenya carried British colonial passports and had birth certificates that stated their nationality as British.

    In modern day Kenya, however, the Nubian community – claimed to be 100,000 strong by the Kenyan Nubian Council of Elders– finds itself denied many citizenship rights. The ethnic group has been labelled as a ‘detribalised community’ rather than a Kenyan tribe, and Nubians have become part of a growing number of stateless people. As a result, the community has been subjected to the persistent denial of access to employment, the right to vote, and the ability to work in the formal sector, leaving most Nubians trapped in poverty.

    Arab others

    Kenya’s Nubian population originally served as Askaris (colonial soldiers) in the British Army before being settled in Kenya. In 1912, the British government designated over 4,000 acres of land for the Nubians to settle, which they finally granted to the Askaris and their dependents in 1917. Kibera, the large urban slum on the outskirts of Kenya’s capital Nairobi, grew grown out of the Nubian settlement – originally called Kibra by the Nubians, meaning ‘land of forest’. Today, the majority of Nubians still live in the Kibera slums, with the rest scattered across other major towns.

    But while they originally came from Nuba, the community has also earned considerable Kenyan credentials. As well as having lived in Kenya for over a century, Nubians, for instance, helped defend Kenya and East Africa during both World Wars by serving in the King’s African Rifles in countries such as Somalia, Abyssinia (now Ethiopia), Madagascar and Burma.

    Nevertheless, the community’s problems today perhaps start with ongoing portrayal as outsiders. Unlike the majority of Kenyans, Nubians are Muslim and speak Ki-Nubi, an Arabic creole, as their first language. “After the Nubians soldiers joined the military”, Issa Abdul Faraj, chairman of the Kenyan Nubian Council of Elders (KENUCE), explained to Think Africa Press, “they had to understand the Arabic language, and in most cases would be instructed using the Arabic writings. This shows the legacy of the Arabic language among the Nubians, and that is why in the streets of Mombasa, most of the signs are written in Arabic.”

    This legacy has lived on and maintaining their mother tongue is an important part of retaining the group’s cultural identity. Unfortunately, however, Faraj pointed out, “Speaking the classic Arabic language has [presented] a big challenge for the Nubians community since most Kenyans from other tribes assume that they do not belong here”.

    Shattered dreams

    The Kenyan government’s designation of the Nubian community as detribalised natives rather than a Kenyan tribe – a classification the colonial British made originally – has repeatedly been used to deny the Nubians’ claims to land, and they are now considered squatters in Kibera. Many other Kenyans have moved in to Kibera, transforming the area into one of Africa’s largest slums. And now the Nubians face eviction by the Kenyan government, which is seeking to ‘upgrade’ the slums and who refuse to recognise the Nubians’ rights to the area.

    With tribal association used to establish citizenship in Kenya, many Nubians have also found it very difficult to obtain passports and national identification. Adam Hussein Adam, who trained in chemistry at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, is one of the few Nubians to have been afforded fuller access to education. He was offered a scholarship in New Zealand in 1992 and in the United States in 2008, but was denied a passport. After producing 13 documents to prove his identity, Adam was eventually invited for questioning by a vetting panel at Kenya’s Ministry of Immigration, where he says he learnt that Nubians are not regarded as Kenyans.

    “The Kenyan government shattered my dreams deliberately, I have lost many international jobs in the Middle East and good opportunities to study abroad,” he laments.

    Similarly, Adam’s sister apparently had to wait 17 years for her an identity card, something essential for any Kenyan citizen. Adam says that government committees are deliberately discriminatory and ask for a whole range of documents from Nubians to establish their status – such as grandparents’ birth certificates – which other Kenyans were not required to provide. Many Nubians are unable to meet these demands as documents may have been lost over the years or never received in the first place.

    Adam says that “many Nubian youths are suffering. Some of them are afraid of being arrested by the immigration department because they do not have their National Identification”.

    Plight of the Nubian child

    “Our children are suffering and as a result of that, cases of insecurity are on the rise”, Shafi Ali Hussein, the Chairman of the Nubian Rights Forum (NRF), tells Think Africa Press. “We want the Kenyan government to respond to our grievances.”

    Hussein emphasised the need to demonstrate and organise to push the government to change its ways. He was part of a group which filed a case against the Kenyan government’s plans to upgrade the Kibera slums and delivered an ultimatum to the government over ID cards and the discriminatory vetting system. “The future of the girl and boy child is still uncertain”, he says, “We will not allow our children to suffer like us. We will seek attention from the highest authority.”

    Hussein believes that cases of high school dropouts are high in Kibera because the majority of the Nubians cannot work and cannot afford to put their children through high school and college. He says that young children are engaged in drug peddling because problems with national identification documents mean they cannot find employment. “Our children have been denied a good educational foundation and we also lack direct representation in the government departments”, he explains.

    Recently, a delegation from the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child led by the chairman Benyam Sawit Mezmur met with Nubian community leaders to discuss the plight of Nubian children and the Kenyan government’s lack of progress towards answering their grievances.

    The problems facing the Nubian community in Kenya are complex and manifold. They will no doubt take time to alleviate and correct. But Hussein sees one simple first step as being self-apparent. “We have held talks with the government officials but nothing much is done”, he says. “Our problems will only end when we will be fully accepted as Kenyans”.

  • in Mali

    Mali’s Model Democracy Myth

    161 Views

    The international community seems intent on “restoring democracy” to Mali. But it was the pre-coup status quo that led to collapse in the first place.

    By Joe Penney

    The Palais des Congres in Bamako, Mali. Photograph by Robin Taylor.

    Bamako, Mali:

    Both the Malian people and the international press have been almost unanimous in lauding the French military campaign in Mali, which started in earnest on January 11. The ultimate French goal appears to be returning Mali to its status quo circa 2011 – i.e. before the start of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) campaign in the north. In accordance with this plan, Mali’s interim president, Dioncounda Traoré, recently announced imminent elections for July 2013.

    Thus France will claim to have completed its dual objectives of regaining Mali’s ‘territorial integrity’ and accomplishing a ‘democratic transition’. The French then plan to withdraw smoothly, replacing its fighters with a UN peacekeeping force and conceding the presence of some jihadist fighters in the Adrar des Ifoghas Mountains.

    Yet, despite recent triumphalism, France’s President François Hollande’s long-term plan for Mali is remarkably short-sighted. Restoring Mali’s ‘democracy’ by reverting to the pre-coup status quo poses a major threat to Mali’s long-term future. After all, it was precisely this pre-coup status quo that allowed the country’s dramatic collapse to begin with.

    Mali’s borders, original constitution, and official language are all inherited from its former avaricious French colonial masters. Its cumbersome colonial-era boundaries – resembling two large triangles stuck hastily together with a thin strip of land in the middle – has proven particularly significant during the recent conflict. 90% percent of the population resides in the southern triangle, whose crops feed the whole country, while the northern triangle, which accounts for two-thirds of Mali’s territory, consists almost entirely of sparsely populated desert. Mali’s political and economic structures were also built using models left by the French colonial administration; they were not designed to benefit the Malian people, and the economic situation is liable to collapse at any time.

    Yet many in the West are calling for a return to the politics of the past, and economic reform seems absent from any plan to rebuild Mali.

    Mali: “model of democracy”

    The dominant media narrative holds that pre-coup Mali was a “model of democracy”. A relatively free press and the material trappings of constitutional democracy go some way to explaining this assessment. More significantly, an elected president (Alpha Oumar Konaré, whose ascension to power ended three decades of military rule) did not seek to stay in power after his second term ended in 2002 – in full accordance with the Malian constitution. “It was from this moment that Mali was considered a model of democracy,” Ndiaga Loum, professor of law and human rights at the University of Québec, told Think Africa Press.

    But arguably, Mali’s label as a ‘model of democracy’ – despite its modest democratic achievements – is merely a result of low standards. Loum continued: “Western states have extremely low criteria for judging democracy [in Africa]. The principal criteria are elections and the links that the West makes with the countries are through the leaders they meet with.”

    After ten years of Mali’s ‘democratic model’, these failings have led many to question whether Mali’s leaders or its foreign backers are actually interested in democracy. “The [wellbeing of the] country is not in [the politicians’] minds, it’s not in their hearts. The country is not in their souls,” asserts Bissau-Guinean historian Mario Cissoko. “The politicians are caught between personal and national interests, and they have chosen personal interests.” These sentiments stand in stark contrast to American and French diplomats’ nostalgic views of deposed president Amadou Toumani Touré and his government.

    As Loum points out, “It’s not enough to have institutions. It’s not enough to have elections. It’s not enough to have ministers dressed in business suits and not military uniforms to say it’s a democratic model. The error analysts make is to confuse a country in a democratic transition with a truly democratic state.”

    Poor literacy is also a substantial problem. Almost 70% of Malians cannot read or write at all. Most are not fluent in French, and those who are speak it as a second language. In 2012, only 12% of secondary school students passed their graduation exam, which is standardised throughout many francophone countries. Naturally, low literacy inhibits political participation by Mali’s citizens, without which there can never be true democracy.

    Weathering the economic storm

    Mali’s inadequate political system may have collapsed on itself after a decade of decline under Touré, but the economy has proven remarkably resilient to the loss of two-thirds of its territory and the demise of central government. Indeed, Mali’s GDP will likely grow this year. But the Malian economy’s fragility cannot be understated, and nor can the severity of the consequences should it implode.

    90% of the population survives from agriculture (many from subsistence farming), and production for local consumption accounts for the lion’s share of the GDP. Until recently, Mali’s two main exports of cotton and gold – alongside foreign aid and loans – financed the government in lieu of a comprehensive tax system.

    Despite reports to the contrary, Mali’s economy actually fared better in 2012 than in 2011 – despite the political and security crises. This is because Mali’s economy is based almost entirely in the government-controlled south, where healthy rains boosted cotton and other agricultural production beyond 2011’s figures, and gold mining continued to grow.

    But looking ahead, Malian economist Alhousseini Maiga is not optimistic. “The economic bases are not solid. Next year, if there is a bad harvest [and] a famine… everyone will migrate to the cities. This will spike unemployment and create more insecurity.” He added, “Mali does not control whether or not it has a good harvest, it depends on the rain”. Indeed, Mali’s GDP growth rate over the years reads like a weather report, with no period of sustained growth since independence.

    Mali’s economy has been heavily influenced by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank since 1968, when Moussa Traoré staged a coup d’état against Mali’s left-leaning first president Modibo Keita. Most World Bank and IMF plans are based on research which inherently yields inaccurate results – running for only a couple of years, and never including a comprehensive reform of Mali’s crucial agricultural sector. As Maiga surmises, “there is no economic plan touching the topic of modernising the agriculture sector”.

    The gold sector (Mali’s primary export earner) has kept the public sector afloat since foreign aid was suspended after the coup d’état on 22 March. But Maiga explains how uncertain security renders this sector extremely fragile as well. “With one exception, all gold mining companies in production in Mali are foreign companies. All it takes is two or three companies to pull out – and it almost happened this year after the coup – and the state will immediately lose its financing, putting hundreds of thousands of people out of jobs.”

    States built on sand

    All international actors promote a return to constitutional democracy in Mali. But how can something be restored that never truly existed in the first place? Surely the international community cannot support a return to the rotten status quo that brought about political collapse in the first place.

    While much media attention is devoted to “victims of Sharia law”, the true roots of Mali’s fragility seem lost in the fray. The most glaring failure is the absence of a plan to stabilise the Malian economy whose collapse would have severe and immediate repercussions for both Mali and its neighbours. Equally, the economies of many of these neighbours are hardly sturdy enough to stave off a similar implosion themselves.

    The West’s response to the crisis in Mali has been focused exclusively on war efforts. While this has pushed back the militants, it has also reinforced pseudo-democracies in Mali’s neighbours: Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Niger. With no sustained major literacy or industrialisation effort in any of these countries since independence, it is hard to imagine efforts to deal with Malian crises will ever be entirely successful without addressing the instability of the region as a whole.

    So, as the Malian army and its African counterparts prepare to replace French forces in a war that will shape West Africa’s trajectory for years to come, what remains clear is that any effort to deal with the immediate present without looking at the larger picture will be doomed. Mali cannot be rebuilt on the same sand upon which it collapsed.

  • in Tunisia

    The Poet and Politician: Who was Chokri Belaid?

    245 Views

    The assassination of the highly respected opposition figure Chokri Belaid has thrown Tunisia into turmoil and could mark a turning point in Tunisian politics.

    By Mohamed-Salah Omri

    Chokri Belaid (pictured) giving a speech in Tunis in October 2012. Photograph by Amine Ghrabi.

    Since opposition figure Chokri Belaid was assassinated yesterday morning, Tunisia has been thrown into total turmoil. Political violence is rare in Tunisia, so the assassination targeting a household name and performed in such spectacular style – Belaid was shot four times at point blank range by an unknown gunman outside his home – shook Tunisians to the core.

    Following news of his death, protesters took to the streets of Tunis, clashing with police and calling for fall of the regime. President Moncef Marzouki flew straight back to Tunisia, cutting short his visit to France and cancelling his trip to Egypt. Four Tunisian opposition groups met in an historic and unprecedented meeting and announced their withdrawal from the national assembly. Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali said he would dissolve the government and install a small cabinet of technocrats in its place until elections. And al-Nahda, the ruling Islamist party and the party of which the prime minister is a member, rejected Jebali’s proposed dissolution.

    This has truly been one of the longest 24 hours in Tunisian politics. The scale of the response against al-Nahda and the new unified stance of the opposition could prove to be a turning point in Tunisian politics. All this was triggered by the death of the 49-year-old lawyer and secretary general of the Unified Patriotic Democratic Party (UPDP). But who was he?

    Who was Belaid?

    Student activist in the 1980s, civil rights advocate since the 1990s and prominent anti-Ben Ali figure, Belaid became a household name from January 2011, peering through the television screens almost daily, with his trade mark thick moustache, fluent speech and forceful opinions. He was smeared by Imams in mosques as being an atheist (‘kafir’); accused of being an informant for former president Ben Ali; blamed for instigating strikes and demonstrations by the government; and satirised in comedies and on social media.

    At the same time, he was – just like his even more iconic friend and fellow leftist, Hamma Hammami – “humanised” to the general public through human interest stories such as television visits to his home and appearances on social programmes and even in Ramadan entertainment shows. In addition, Belaid was a burgeoning poet before devoting himself to politics. He often quoted the literary tradition at will and spoke flawless Arabic. For these reasons, he could not be accused of being the traditional uprooted Francophile secularist or the customary dogmatic Marxist.

    And like in life, his tragic death also had poetic overtones. His assassination was foretold in more than the many threats he received, publicly and in private, and as a poet, he is best remembered for a poem dedicated to Husain Muruwa, the Lebanese intellectual assassinated by Islamists in the late 1990s.

    Along with his popular appeal, Belaid maintained a strong line against neoliberal policies and vociferously opposed many Islamist ideas. His message as well as his profile seem to have resonated well with the core values of the revolution: work, dignity and freedom. His line of thought and action ran through Tunisian politics largely through the potent and ubiquitous Tunisian General Union of Labour (UGTT) in which the Tunisian Left has maintained a strong presence at the regional as well as national levels. The same is true of the student movement, which Belaid led and in which he had his training as an activist.

    His appeal also has been complemented by a rather traditional leftist profile: he lived in a rented apartment with his wife and two young daughters; he did not own a car; he spoke the dialect of the interior regions of the country and avoided glamorous and rich circles.

    Behind Belaid’s personal and activist story lies the complex and compelling story of the Tunisian Left as a whole. Responses to his death may well mark the end of the line for Islamist politics as we know it in Tunisia. It may also mark the rise of a unified opposition, which now realises that its fight is not only, or no longer, for freedom of expression and association, but an existential one – a matter of survival.

    If Belaid was a thorn in the side of the al-Nahda, the Salafis and the government during his life, he is likely to be a decisive nail in their coffin now that he is dead. The split emerging between Prime Minister Jebali and al-Nahda is perhaps the start of this trend. But amidst this still-developing situation, one thing is now a reality: Tunisia, which prided itself on peaceful politics, is no longer an exception in the region.

     

     

  • in Mali

    Editor’s Q & A: What’s the Deal with Mali?

    126 Views

    Think Africa Press’ editor answers your questions on the situation in northern Mali.

    By James Schneider

    A camp for refugees who fled from northern Mali in Burkina Faso. Photograph by Pablo Tosco/Oxfam.

    What are France’s objectives in intervening in northern Mali? Who exactly are they fighting?

    It is worth beginning by dismissing some theories about France’s motivations for intervening which are erroneous.

    Firstly, it is not neo-colonialism. While France has a sorry record of neo-colonialism in its former colonies, this intervention is not an example of it. Mali is an outlier in French post-colonialism and French economic interests in Mali are relatively limited.

    Secondly, conspiracy theories about riches under the Sahara are misguided. Northern Mali has no proven oil or uranium deposits, and it is not clear that if any were discovered, France would recoup the costs of the intervention in preferential agreements. It is possible that worries of a spill-over into Niger – from which France imports 7% of its domestic energy supplies in the form of uranium – was a factor in French decision-making. But the intervention has put those assets more not less at risk.

    Thirdly, references to the “strategic importance” of Mali should be quickly dismissed. Mali has little strategic importance to any outside power in terms of economic or other resources. Indeed, prior to the events of the last year, Mali was truly one of the world’s strategic backwaters.

    In that case, what reasons did inform France’s decision? The strategic interest that France sees, whether justified or not, is in removing, or halting the spread of, Islamist militants in the country and region. I am minded to take French strategic thinking pretty much at face value here, although I personally think the threat of Islamic militancy to both the region and outside the region is overblown.

    Nevertheless, to this end, the French are fighting against three Islamist militant groups: 1) al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which was an Algerian group that emerged out of splits within the Islamist fighting forces during Algeria’s civil war; 2) the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), which is a splinter group from AQIM, though to what degree and how they differ is hotly debated in specialist circles; and 3) Ansar Dine, a Tuareg-led Islamist group which emerged in 2012 and has recently split along radical and less radical lines with the less radical grouping, the Movement for an Islamic Azawad (MIA), attempting to ally with the Tuareg-led secular nationalist grouping the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA).

    One less self-interested reason why France intervened is that it was asked to by the government of Mali. It was already part of an extremely broad coalition of countries, regional and international bodies that was planning an intervention in September of this year. The timing was sped up by the militant extension of their assault into the central region of Mali, threatening the air base at Sévaré.

    One more self-interested reason could be French President Francois Hollande’s sagging approval ratings at home and the need to do something decisive. This was speculated to be part of the reason for his predecessor Nicholas Sarkozy’s desire to play a leading role in the Libyan intervention. Sadly for him, but happily for Hollande, it didn’t do Sarkozy much good at last year’s presidential poll.

    Fundamentally, Mali is a victim of structural dominances related to colonialism and its subordinate position in systems of global power. France’s intervention is an expression of that rather than an extension of it.

    Will the Malian army and AU force have the capacity to maintain control once French troops withdraw? What main risks do they face?

    Post-intervention northern Mali poses two great problems: 1) how will the Islamist militants be tackled now they are outside of the major population centres and in the vast desert; and 2) how will reprisal attacks and human rights abuses against the Tuareg and Arab populations be controlled?

    The Malian army is clearly not trusted to deal with either and there are already numerous reports of human rights abuses and indiscipline. This is why the French would prefer that a UN force replace them rather than leave the north under the control of a Malian and broader African force. It is also why France has called for international observers in the region and has effectively not returned sovereignty of the northernmost and most Tuareg-concentrated region of Kidal to the Malian government and army, fearing serious reprisals against the local Tuareg and Arab populations.

    What relevance do the MNLA and aspirations of Tuareg independence have now? Will the MNLA be incorporated into the peacekeeping process or be seen as a force against it?

    The Tuaregs are likely to be the biggest losers of their own rebellion. The MNLA is loathed throughout Mali by non-Tuaregs. The MNLA may have Paris’ ear, and to a lesser extent Ouagadougou’s, but it certainly does not have Bamako’s.

    While MNLA aspirations for independence are well and truly dead, the struggle continues within the community to define what they want. The newly-formed MIA, which would like to achieve an autonomous regional government akin to the Kurds in northern Iraq, has a different conception of Tuareg demands than the MNLA. This dispute will have to be fought within the community and resolved quickly; otherwise Tuareg negotiators could leave any future table with nothing.

    Who is in charge in Bamako? Does Mali have an effective and unified enough government to maintain order and resolve political grievances in the north in the longer-term?

    Mali has an interim government following a coup in March of last year. The government is run by a troika of President Dioncounda Traoré, coup leader Captain Amadou Sanogo, and Prime Minister Django Cissoko.

    The legitimacy and stability of this ruling triumvirate have come under severe questioning, especially after the military forced the resignation of the former interim prime minister, Cheick Modibo Diara, in what has been labelled a coup 2.0. This is why most of the international community, especially the US, wanted a political transition, including elections, in the south before any military intervention, though this stance has since softened.

    The balance of power in Bamako is essentially on ice until more is known about the outcome of the intervention. The current government is incapable of solving long-term political grievances anywhere in Mali. Yesterday’s events summed up this uncertainty well: in an interview, Traoré first said he would refuse dialogue with militant groups; but then, in another interview later that day, and apparently under pressure from France, performed a U-turn and said he would accept dialogue with the MNLA.

    Unfortunately for long-term stability, it seems the north will have more effect on what eventually happens to the government in Bamako than the government is currently able to address the issues driving the situation in the north.

    What dimension of the conflict would you say is most commonly misrepresented or given undue weight in explanations and analyses of the situation?

    Whilst wild and mutually contradictory conspiracy theories are frustrating, and ignorant headlines talking of ‘Africanistan’ are dangerous and unhelpful, neither have been completely accepted across the board. One false narrative which has been accepted, however, is that the events in northern Mali are blowback from NATO’s 2011 intervention in Libya. This narrative, whilst not without elements of truth, is overstated, overpowering so much other analysis.

    I have two main problems with it. Firstly, it completely ignores local dynamics alongside messy and unclear facts. Instead, it substitutes a kind of theory of cosmic payback for Western foreign policy. This places the effects of Western policy far above the moods and motivations of Malians. Whilst this easy assumption may have worked with respect to the War on Terror in other Muslim majority countries, it fails to properly face facts in Mali.

    Secondly, the theory, at least in its common, most exaggerated form, fails at the basic level of common sense. Niger, which actually borders Libya, unlike Mali, would be a far more likely candidate to suffer blowback from Libya. Fighters in the Libyan war crossed the border between the two. Niger has a large Tuareg population. There is a history of trans-border criminal and Islamic militant networks just like in Mali. And there are actually natural resources there (uranium and oil). However, Niger remains stable whilst Mali is in crisis. A significantly weaker version of blowback theory could explain this, but the usual blithe assumptions around the necessary link between Mali and Libya cannot.

  • in Video

    Kenya: Abolishing FGM through Grassroots Education

    76 Views

    A video obtained by Think Africa Press shows the work of a Kenyan NGO in educating local women leaders about the dangers of female genital cutting.

    This video, obtained by Think Africa Press, follows the work of Kenyan NGO Rural Women Peace Link (RWPL). Operating in the Pokot area of western Kenya, the groups show a documentary about the dangers of female genital mutilation (FGM) to a group of women leaders from the community. The meeting ends with women who used to perform circumcisions telling the women in the audience that they now refuse to circumcise.

    It is estimated that FGM affects 140 million women worldwide, while a further 2 million are at risk every year. Women who have undergone FGM can experience serious health problems and are significantly more likely to experience difficulties during childbirth. But the main challenge faced by organisations aiming to eradicate FGM is its status as a cultural practice in many rural communities. One girl in the film tells RWPL of how her father disowned her after she refused to undergo FGM, stating that she had dishonoured her family in front of the community.

    Major success has been made against FGM in recent years. Since the instigation of a UN project in 2008 it is estimated that 6,000 villages and communities in six countries have renounced the practice. The members of RWPL are an important part of these successes, educating women at the level of the grassroots. The meeting shown in the video ends with women who used to perform circumcisions saying they now vehemently refuse to participate in the practice; one former circumciser says she would call the police if she found anyone performing FGM.

Load More
Congratulations. You've reached the end of the internet.

Back to Top
Close