Sokari Ekine

23 April 2009

column

What happens when a state (Somalia) becomes a rudderless ship? This week's roundup of blogs by Sokari Ekine suggests that it is not just Somalia that is without direction. Abductions in Zimbabwe, the outing of gays and lesbians in Uganda and the election of Jacob Zuma as president of South Africa all call into question the direction of the leadership and status of human rights across the continent says Ekine.

What happens when a state (Somalia) becomes a rudderless ship? But it's not just Somalia that is without direction. Abductions in Zimbabwe, the outing of gays and lesbians in Uganda and the election of Jacob Zuma as president of South Africa all call into question the direction of the leadership and status of human rights across the continent.

Somali pirates still continue to occupy the African blogosphere and this week Rosemary Ekosso adds her $1 worth to the discussion. I say $1 as it is one of the better posts on the subject. Rosemary takes us back to 1991 and the collapse of Somalia into 'lawlessness and statelessness' and the division of Somalia into Somaliland and Somalia. She goes on to ask the rhetorical questions 'what happens when a state becomes a rudderless ship' - the answer is 'bad people step in' which is only part of the Somali equation. The other part is the dumping of nuclear waste and the stealing of Somali tuna. She goes on to suggest that it is not just the Western powers doing 'bad things to Somalis' but also other Africans.

'Foreign powers doing bad things to Africans are very often helped by other Africans. Just look at many of the continent's so-called leaders. In fact, Africans doing bad things to Africans are very often helped by other Africans, sometimes even by the victims of the bad things. Who helps to rig elections in Africa? Ordinary people who suffer as much from the depredations of dictatorial regimes but are bamboozled into thinking that they are protected by their ethnic or regional affiliation with the corrupt dictatorships. But before you sink into Afropessimism and start wringing your hands and saying we are a cursed race, remember Marshall Petain of France and Vidkun Quisling of Norway. Remember Oswald Mosley and Lord Haw-Haw.'

Kahenya posts the second in his two-part rant (I can't really call it anything else but clearly there is much anger) against Africans (Kenyans and Ethiopians in particular) in the diaspora.

'I'm very disappointed in the diaspora 'cause its full of haters. And its sad because when they talk about we, they refer to them and their adopted country folk. Which is ok, cause we don't really need them back here, we are doing just fine. This is to the Kenyan and Ethiopian haters. Kenyan haters cause you have been trying to fuck our game up and Ethiopian haters cause when I wrote the first post, you nearly murdered me on the net. And also offline'

Ishmail Dhorat reports on the ANC debate hosted on Twitter last week. Obviously it is now over but I thought it worth reporting on because it is the first time that I am aware of a political party in Africa using the social web to host a debate. However as one of the commentators rightly points out, this is not really such a huge step because most ANC supporters don't have access to the internet and aren't aware of Twitter.

'It's the most ridiculous idea I've heard. You're saying this is a huge step because "they are making an effort at real engagement". The point is, with whom? Not the majority of their supporters sitting at home, not knowing what the internet is, let alone Twitter. I don't see this 'publicity stunt' getting them any new supporters. Do you honestly think they will make compelling arguments, say anything intelligent?'

This is Zimbabwe reports on the Zimbabwean government's plans to revoke the bail given out to three political abductees who face torture whilst in custody.

'As hard as it may be for people outside Zimbabwe to believe, torture in our country is actually illegal - but not something the State or the state-controlled media appear to give much weight too.

We have just received an email received from someone who has spoken to Chris Dhlamini - one of the abductees still hospitalised for torture injuries sustained while he was in custody - and it highlights the extreme anxiety the article has produced in the three.'

Project Diaspora comments on the recent online celebrity stunt by Ashton Kutcher who went into compete with CNN to bring the number of his Twitter followers using the carrot that he will buy 10,000 mosquito nets if he gets to 1 million followers. TMS Ruge (the blogger) points out the flimsy nature of stunts like these which are short lived and do not enable or empower the people who are, in this case, affected by malaria.

'The solution to malaria, much like varied solutions to ending our addiction to aid, can be found within Africa. My problem with the strategy of dealing with malaria employed by Malaria No More, Nothing but Nets, et al is that it erodes the ability of local capacity to deal with this problem. It is also not infinitely sustainable, and dare I say it, smacks of paternalistic ethos. It's a band-aid on a gashing wound. It's the "fly-to-Africa-and-adopt-a-brown-baby-instead-of-investing-in-a-sustainable-business-that-can-help-the-entire-family" syndrome. Africa's capacity to tackle these issues is vastly eroded by a Western celebrity culture of "look at me, look at me, I am saving Africa"-ism, and the misguided notion that Africans can't do anything for ourselves, therefore it is the West's right to do things for us.

Sure bed nets keep you from being bitten, but what are we supposed to do when we are not under the nets.'

Black Looks reports on the repeat outing of lesbians and gays by Ugandan tabloid Red Pepper.

In this despicable act of pure hatred 50 gays and lesbians are named and described with some even publishing their home address, occupation and car type. A number of those mentioned are human rights activists and members of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG). The horrific thing about this piece of vicious cheap journalism is it puts all the named people at risk of loosing their jobs, their homes and being ostracised from their families. It is also of great concern that they can publish names like this with impunity. I hope that one of the many human rights organisations operating in Uganda including the Ugandan Human Rights Commission will take up this vile act and sue the paper.

Moving on to a lighter note, Cameroonian blogger, Dulce Camer has a feature post with an interview with musician, Blick Bassey.

'Blick was born in 1974 to parents of the bassa tribe of Cameroon and grew up in Yaounde, the capital town where the dominant languages are English & French. By the age of 17, he created his first music band named the Jazz Crew with their sound being a fusion of African melodies, jazz and bossa nova. With this, they quickly became a very sought after band in town.'

* Sokari Ekine blogs at Black Looks

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

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