Essential The Africa the Media Doesn't Tell You About

[Poitier]

Israel steps up fight against Ebola in Africa
Three teams of medical professionals, along with mobile emergency clinics, will be sent to West Africa.

A UN convoy of soldiers passes a screen displaying a message on Ebola on a street in Abidjan.. (photo credit:REUTERS)

Israel, whose researchers are doing pathfinding work in the fight against Ebola fever that is spreading in Western Africa and beyond, will send three mobile emergency clinics to the region.

The Foreign Ministry’s MASHAV department, which is the Agency for International Development Cooperation, has decided to increase Israel’s contribution to the international effort to prevent the spread of the epidemic, the ministry spokesman said on Sunday.

MASHAV announced the decision in response to the requests by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, the World Health Organization (WHO), many governments and Israeli and international aid organizations. The clinics, which were manufactured here, were built in accordance with the WHO’s standards and guidelines for the treatment of Ebola. A staff of medical experts to be attached to each clinic will train local medical staffers in the operation of the clinic and its equipment. In addition, staff training will focus on preventing the spread of the disease and raising awareness among populations with high potential for infection.

An Israeli team has already been sent to Cameroon, where it was favorably received by the local authorities. The ministry also sent emergency equipment to the government of Sierra Leone, and in recent weeks, it shipped personal protection equipment to teams of the African Union.

Asked to comment, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Ebola researcher Dr. Leslie Lobel toldThe Jerusalem Post “This is great news. Finally, Israel is joining the righteous and helping out with Ebola.” The US-born researcher has for the last 12 years devoted himself to the study of viral diseases at BGU’s Health Sciences Faculty. Born in Queens, New York, he has an MD degree and doctorate in virology from Columbia University and studied the human immune response to cancer and developed human monoclonal antibodies.

He and his lab team in the faculty’s microbiology, immunology and genetics department, isolate and produce in the lab molecules that are naturally produced by the immune system in survivors, and they attach to the Ebola virus to inhibit infection. These are the antibodies that the body produces naturally as part of the immune system's response to the pathogens.

Lobel travels to Uganda five times a year and is the first to follow up Ebola fever survivors. A team from the US military, he said, has joined him “along with wonderful collaborators in Uganda," he said. “I protect myself with anti-malaria pills and antibiotics and meet with survivors who were infected at least three months before but survived and are healthy. I study their immune systems to find out why they survived and others didn’t,”: he explained. “I participate more as a scientist than as a physician for developing better diagnostics.”

The disease may be acquired upon contact with blood or bodily fluids of an infected animal, such as bats or monkeys, and it is not naturally transmitted through the air. Consumption of bush-meat is also believed to spread it.

Previously, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon turned down the idea of sending an Israel Defense Forces field hospital to Sierra Leone and Liberia; the Foreign Ministry decision therefore jumped in to cooperate. So far, more than 3,400 Africans have died of the infectious disease and it has spread to Western countries, including a first patient diagnosed in Texas.

 

[Sinnerman]

so much money to be made in nigeria right now brehs

 

[Poitier]

Richest African Presidents 2014

Africa is the second largest continent in the world. It is also world’s second most populous continent and regarded as the poorest continent. There are 47 nations in Africa, led by different leaders who have been ruling for several decades. Some of these leaders and their families are very rich and their wealth are considered ill-gotten. They make their wealth from natural resources of these nations through the creation of companies under the names of their families. Here is a brief overview of the richest Presidents in Africa.

The 9 Richest African Presidents and Kings as of 2014:

9) Robert Mugabe – Net Worth: $10 Million
Country: Zimbabwe, Years in Power: 26

Robert Mugabe is the President of Zimbabwe. His net worth is estimated to be around $10 million. The dictator’s family is very wealthy. Mugabe has won many elections, although frequently these have been criticized by outsiders for violating various electoral procedures.


via wikipedia

8) Idriss Deby – Net Worth: $50 Million
Country: Chad, Years in Power: 23

Idriss Deby has been the President of Chad since 1990. His net worth is estimated to be $50 million. Towards the end of August 2006, he made international news after calling for his nation to have 60 percent stake in its output after receiving crumbs from foreign companies running the industry.


via wikipedia

=6) Goodluck Jonathan – Net Worth: $100 Million
Country: Nigeria, Years in Power: 4

Goodluck Jonathan is the President of Nigeria. His net worth is estimated to be around $100 million. He launched a “Roadmap for Power Sector Reform”, launched the Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria and launched the Transformation Agenda. He is a member of the ruling “People Democratic Party”.


via wikimedia common

=6) King Mswati III – Net Worth: $100 Million
Country: Swaziland, Years in Power: 28

The 15th richest royal in the world, according to Forbes Magazine. Mswati III is the King of Swaziland. He is worth more than $100 million; down $100 million of his 2012 ($200 million) fortune. The King has often been criticized for his lavish spending. In 2009 summer, several of his 13 wives reportedly spent over $6 million in a shopping spree. In the 2014 budget, parliament allocated $61 million for the King’s annual household budget, while 63 percent of Swazis live on less than $1.25 per day. His luxury car collection include a $500,000 Daimler Chrysler’s flagship Maybach 62. And has banned the photography of his cars.


via wikipedia

5) Paul Biya – Net Worth: $200 Million
Country: Cameroon, Years in Power: 31

Paul Biya has been the President of Cameroon since November 6 1982. His estimated net worth is around $200 million; this figure was published by the ForeignPolicy.com. Around 48 percent of the citizens of Cameroon live below the poverty line. Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development (CCFD) and several on-and-offline media has placed him in the list of leaders with ill-gotten wealth. In 2009, French online newspaper, Rue 89, reported the Cameroon President’s vacation was the top most expensive among world leaders. More than that of the American President. He was criticized for spending 30,000 euros ($40,000) per day on renting a villa.


via wikimedia common

4) Uhuru Kenyatta – Net Worth: $500 Million
Country: Kenya, Years in Power: 1

Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta is the President of Kenya and the son of Kenya’s first President, Jomo Kenyatta. In 2011, Forbes estimated his net worth at $500 million. Most of his wealth comes from property. With his family, the President owns stakes in Kenya’s largest dairy company Brookside Dairies, media company Mediamax, Heritage Hotels, Commercial Bank of Africa and hundreds of thousands of prime Kenyan land. He is regarded as man of the people due to his sociability. During his inaugural speech, he promised economic transformation through Vision 2030, free maternal care and unity among all Kenyans.


via wikipedia

3) Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo – $600 Million
Country: Equatorial Guinea, Years in Power: 34

Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo is the President of Equatorial Guinea. He came to power in August 1979 by ousting his uncle Francisco Macias Nguema in a military coup. He has overseen the emergence of the nation as an important oil producer, beginning in 1990s. This President and his family literally own the economy, his personal fortune exceed $600 million, according to Forbes Magazine. In October 2011, the United States government seized $70 million assets of his son, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue. Though Equatorial Guinea is Africa’s second richest nation, majority of the population actually live under the poverty line.


via wikipedia

2) Mohammed VI of Morocco – Net Worth: $2.5 Billion
Country: Morocco, Years in Power: 15

Mohammed VI is the current King of Morocco. He is also the country’s leading businessman. He is worth more than $2.5 billion, according to Forbes. The King ascended to the throne following his father’s death in 1999 and he immediately set about improving upon his appalling human rights record and alleviating poverty.


Photo Credit: Map.ma

1) Jose Eduardo dos Santos – Net Worth: $20 Billion
Country: Angola, Years in Power: 34

Jose Eduardo dos Santos is the President of Angola. He has held on to this post since 1979. His personal estimated wealth exceed more than $20 billion, according to Cabinda Online. While around 70 percent of Angolans live on less than two dollars a day. His daughter, Isabel dos Santos is among the Forbes Africa’s billionaires with a net worth of $3.8 billion. She’s currently Africa’s richest woman and also the world’s richest black woman.


via wikimedia common

Some of the above-mentioned Presidents’ exact wealth and source of wealth are unknown that’s why they cannot be included in the Forbes Africa’s Rich List. They steal from their own people.



Read more: http://www.richestlifestyle.com/richest-african-presidents/#ixzz3FTvFqOaO

 

[Poitier]

Let’s build one house! What Tanzanians think about the East African Community
6 Oct 2014 new | Uwazi

Eight out of ten citizens (80%) think Tanzania should remain in the East African Community (EAC). In addition, nine out of ten (85%) approve (or strongly approve) of greater integration with Kenya and Uganda in particular. Six out of ten citizens also support increased integration with Rwanda (62%) and Burundi (59%).

These findings were released by Twaweza and the Society for International Development (SID) in a research brief titled Let’s build one house! What Tanzanians think about the East African Community. The brief is based on data from Sauti za Wananchi, Africa’s first nationally representative high-frequency mobile phone survey that interviews households across Mainland Tanzania. Data were collected in August 2014.

Aside from supporting integration, citizens broadly believe the impact of the East African Community will be positive. The strongest vote of confidence is economic, twice as many citizens think that the EAC will have positive impact (42%) as compared to negative (20%) on the economy of the country. Similarly more citizens think the EAC will have a positive rather than negative impact on security (37% against 20%), politics (35% versus 25%) and culture (33% versus 24%).

Although citizens appear to be largely in favour of the East African Community and greater integration in the region at a conceptual level, the most interesting findings emerged when they were asked about specific proposals. Their support is unequivocal. More than half of citizens approve of the following proposals

• A single tourist visa for the region (82% approve)
• Ability to travel across the region with a national identity card (82% approve)
• Joint infrastructure projects (78% approve)
• Free movement of labour (69% approve)
• A common passport (67% approve)
• Tax free trade (58% approve)
• A single currency (55% approve)

The only proposals which received lukewarm support are the creation of a joint army (64% disapprove), freedom of land ownership (70% disapprove) and a unitary government with a single EAC parliament (71% disapprove).

Read more: East African Community regional integration Sauti za Wananchi

 

[Poitier]

So much of the discord and paralysis in the pro-rights movement in Ethiopia and the Diaspora comes down to one factor: ethnicity. Politics related to Ethiopia has become so heavily “ethnicized” that we have a difficult time distinguishing between ideology and identity. Conversations about change cease to center on shared concern (like justice, human rights and democracy) and turn to disputes over ethnicity. While recognizing that we shouldn’t sweep these issues under the rug, it is clear that currently no one benefits more from this fragmentation than those who are interested in maintaining the status quo—chiefly, the ruling regime which has inflicted injustice and repression on people of all ethnic groups, including its own.

Increasingly elites in Ethiopia are using ethnicity as a basis for political organization, infusing linguistic and cultural differences and competing historical narratives with new political meaning. In recent years, there has been a rise of ethnic consciousness and ethno-nationalism, most notably amongst Oromos—the nation’s largest ethnic group (estimated at over 25 million people within Ethiopia, larger than most African states), which has historically been disproportionately underrepresented in national politics. Under the existing Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) government, power has been wielded predominately by elites from the minority Tigrayan ethnic group, while in the past—with the noted exception of the Derg regime during the 1970s and 1980s—it shifted mainly between Amhara and Tigrayan monarchs.

Despite having introduced ethnic federalism, a system of decentralization that, in theory, distributes power and resources to regional states based on ethnic majorities, the EPRDF government views ethnic nationalism of any sort as a threat to its centralized rule. In fact, the intention of this new system was never to share power but to maintain political dominance. According to a 1993 EPRDF manifesto:

The interests of the majority of the population would be fulfilled only through our revolutionary democratic lines. So the objective condition requires the establishment and continuity of our hegemony”. The way that the EPRDF seeks to establish this hegemony is by institutionalizing ethnic divisions: “The mission of these nationally-based organizations is, on the one hand, to disseminate in various languages the same revolutionary democratic substance, to translate this substance into practice by adapting it to local conditions (history culture, character, etc.).

Though the EPRDF envisioned ethnic federalism as a means of maintaining control over an ethnically-diverse state, when groups assert their autonomy, the government’s response to ethnic mobilization around political grievances—similar to its response to any type of political opposition—has been harsh and swift. For instance, earlier this year, Oromo students took to the streets in the town of Ambo to protest the government’s plan to expand the administrative boundaries of the federal capital, Addis Ababa, into parts of the Oromia Regional State. According to the government,11 students died in Ambo when they encountered police who were deployed to quell the protests, although eyewitnesses say that dozens of students were killed. As protests spread to other towns,hundreds more students were arrested. Although human rights groups and activists rightfully condemned the brutal massacre and crackdown, there was scant national or international coverage of these deaths or arrests—not surprising given the state’s control of the media.

Within the vocal Oromo Diaspora community, the state violence in response to the student protests has been described as more than an attempt by a repressive regime to crush opposition to government policy. Instead, it is understood as part of a systematic and long-standing history of oppression against Oromo people by the Ethiopian State. The expansion of Addis Ababa into 1.1 million hectares of the Oromia Region demonstrates blatant disregard to the authority of the Oromia Regional Government and is viewed as legally and morally indefensible. Mohammed Ademo explains: “For the Oromo, as in the past, the seceding of surrounding towns to Addis means a loss of their language and culture once more, even if today’s driving forces of urbanization differ from the 19th century imperialist expansion.”

Conversely, for some non-Oromos, the fact that the protestors were advocating for upholding Oromos’ regional autonomy over federal planning priorities is viewed as “anti-Ethiopian” and an impediment for national development. This idea is aided by the government’s response that the protesting students were “anti-peace forces.” While seemingly laughable, re-focusing the debate on whether Oromo nationalism is “threatening” Ethiopian stability has quietly shifted attention away from the government’s egregious actions against peaceful protestors.

Beneath the recent dispute over urban expansion, federalism and the government’s common use of excessive force against protesters is a boiling debate about identity, history and state legitimacy in Ethiopia. One typically encounters two competing narratives on the question of Oromo national identity. The first is a narrative of imperialist expansion, in which Oromos have been marginalized politically and economically for centuries and continue to be oppressed under the current regime. In this version, what is promoted as Ethiopian culture—food, music, language, and traditions—is largely Amhara and Tigrayan and does not reflect the unique contributions of Oromo people.

The second is the multi-ethnic nation narrative, where (similar to South Africa) Ethiopia is construed as a multi-ethnic nation that accommodates and embraces its cultural diversity. Under this framing, all ethnic groups have equal standing in politics, and those who complain of marginalization are portrayed as being “anti-Ethiopian” – promoting their own self-interest above what’s best for all. Repression, injustice and inequality in Ethiopia under this narrative are not issues related to ethnicity but rather to class and political affiliation.

Admittedly this is an oversimplification, but that these two narratives dominate many conversations in Ethiopia today is revealing in demonstrating how a lack of open debate and dialogue begins to dangerously cloud the truth. Ethiopians should really be discussing how to respond to a government that feels the need to kill peaceful student protestors. The less we converse—and the more we compete to have our narrative told over others—the more dangerous our silences become.

http://africasacountry.com/lets-talk-about-ethnicity-and-nationalism-in-ethiopia/

 

[Poitier]

Africa’s choice of partners
October 2014, Volume 70, Number 5

AUTHOR:
Nicholas Westcott is Managing Director, Africa, at the European External Action Service

Mineral rich with untapped markets, this is the continent the world is now courting

Summits with Africa are in fashion: in August, President Obama hosted America’s first; in April, the European Union staged the fourth EU-Africa summit in Brussels; the BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – held one in Durban in March last year; and in June 2013 Japan hosted its five-yearly conference on African development in Yokohama. Next year will see the sixth China-Africa summit. South America, South Korea and Turkey, which have all held summits with African leaders in recent years, have pledged return matches in Africa.

Such is the profusion that African leaders are reviewing whether they can spend so much of their time cruising from summit to summit given their domestic priorities, the bi-annual African Union summits and the regular African regional meetings that demand their attendance.

What is the substance behind these summits? Is this a signal of Africa’s coming of age as a continent that the rest of the world takes seriously? Or is it simply a reflection that Africa has what the rest of the world wants: a rapidly growing population of consumers and an abundant stock of natural resources?

The first in the field, interestingly, was Japan, which held the inaugural Tokyo International Conference on African Development in 1993, though only four heads of state turned up. The conference has always focused as much on business partnership as on traditional development and has always, until now, been held in Japan. Despite the country’s recent slower growth, Africa remains an important export market for cars, electronics and machinery and a source of raw materials – though two thirds of the latter come to Japan from a single country, South Africa.

China and the EU came next, inaugurating summits in 2000. China has held them every three years since, alternating between Beijing and Africa. Its own trade with Africa has grown dramatically in the past decade: from about $5 billion each way in 2001, to more than $110 billion imports (almost all raw materials) and $85 billion exports (predominantly transport, clothing and machinery) by 2012.

Many see its rapidly growing economic engagement with Africa as redressing the balance for a continent hitherto hitched too closely to former colonial powers and western multinationals. Others argue China is behaving exactly as western countries do – using Africa as a source of raw materials and destination for exports, the only difference being that they are ‘politically blind’ and give no lectures on governance.

In practice, this approach is changing. China has recognized that political turmoil does not serve its commercial interests. In Sudan and South Sudan, for example, its concern to broker a political peace is as great as that of the West. In Zambia, it has had to adapt to the unexpected changes in government a democratic system brings; and in Zimbabwe, it recently demonstrated the limit to its willingness to bail out even an old friend. So as China’s engagement with Africa grows, its interests grow closer to those of the rest of the world. It was one of the first to provide medical help to tackle the ebola crisis in West Africa.

The European Union and its member states still have the closest, deepest, broadest and most complex relations with Africa. The shadows of history lie long and sometimes dark over the relationship. Though there have for many years been regular EU meetings with the African, Caribbean and Pacific nations under the1975 Lomé Convention, the first EU-Africa summit took place in Cairo in 2000. It then took seven years before the second summit, in Lisbon, could agree a joint EU-Africa strategy to guide the relationship for the future.

This year’s summit marked a turning point. It was the largest, with 40 African and 20 European leaders present. Disappointingly for the press, it was harmonious, business-like and productive.

The economic relationship continues to grow – not as fast as that with emerging economies, but the EU remains Africa’s largest economic partner. In 2011, Europe provided nearly half of Africa’s total investment stock, worth around €200 billion. Trade has continued to grow and in 2012 the EU imported €186 billion from and exported €152 billion to Africa. A significant proportion of European imports from Africa (around 35 per cent) were value-added food, drink or manufactured goods, indicating that Europe is moving away from the traditional view of Africa as merely a source of raw materials.

Both trade and investment, therefore, combine with more traditional EU development cooperation, worth about €4 billion a year, plus EU member states bilateral programmes, to contribute to the continent’s economic transformation. An integral part of the summit was the Business Forum, which gathered 1,000 businessmen from the two continents.

An increasingly close area of EU-Africa partnership is security. As Ghana’s President John Mahama said, if your neighbour’s house is on fire, you help him to put it out. The growing threat both from terrorism and the collapse of law and order in several states pose a risk to both continents. The EU is the largest funder of Africa’s own peace support operations, as well as the provider of training missions and protective deployments in a number of countries. In Somalia, in Mali and the Sahel, and now in the Central African Republic, the EU and African Union are working hand-in-hand with the UN to combat terror and disorder.

The only other partnership that deals with the human and security issues in such depth is that between Africa and the United States. Despite the signing by the US Congress of the African Growth and Opportunity Act in 2000, the trade relationship has declined. Though annual US exports to Africa have stayed steady at more than $30 billion since 2011, imports from Africa have declined from $90 billion in 2011 to $50 billion in 2013. US investment in Africa also lags behind both the EU and China. One of President Obama’s motives in holding the Washington summit was to stimulate a renewed interest in African markets among US businesses.

Even though the US was accused of playing catch-up on Africa, it did illustrate the wider significance of the relationship. The US commitment to help Africa fight terrorism as well as achieve development was clearly reaffirmed by the summit conclusions, with assistance to African security and peacekeeping as well as an increase in development assistance.

For the others – Brazil, South Korea and Turkey – the interest in Africa remains economic. Competition for markets is growing, but from the African countries’ point of view, the potential access to increased investment and trade is welcome. For each partner, the growing economic links will increase their interest in the continent’s stability, likely to be reflected in continued support to achieve that goal.

The reality is that Africa has more freedom and choice than ever before. Money is available – if African countries can guarantee their own stability and economic openness. Far from trying to control them, the world wants African nations to take charge of their own destinies.

- See more at: http://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/africa’s-choice-partners#sthash.0ZbaRNAe.dpuf

 

[Poitier]

 

[Poitier]

Britain to send 750 troops to Sierra Leone to build Ebola treatment centre - BBC
LONDON Wed Oct 8, 2014 3:45pm BST

(Reuters) - Britain will send 750 troops to West African state Sierra Leone to help build an Ebola treatment centre, the BBC reported on Wednesday following a meeting of the government's emergency response committee chaired by Prime Minister David Cameron.

Without citing sources, the BBC said the troops would be sent as part of Britain's international response to the deadly virus which has killed more than 3,400 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.



(Reporting by William James; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

 

[Donny]

Wrong thread

 

[Poitier]

 

[Poitier]

There is one African Nobel prize per 55 million Africans; by contrast, there is one American Nobel prize for every 900,000 Americans.


A shot from the 1956 film 'The Forbidden Planet'. Africans seem to be missing from the creative process of advancing technology through fiction - or are they? (Photo: Flickr/ James Vaughan)

THIS week is Nobel Prize week. On Monday the award for Physiology and Medicine went to three scientists – two Norwegians and one Briton – who discovered the brain’s “GPS system”, how the brain knows where you are and how to navigate from point A to B.

Tuesday the prize for Physics went to three Japanese scientists for their work in inventing the now-ubiquitous LED lights, and on Wednesday the Chemistry Prize went to another trio – one German and two Americans – for their work in developing super-resolved fluorescent microscopy, which has allowed scientists to observe pathways of individual molecules inside living cells, in detail that was long-considered impossible to visualise.

On Thursday the Prize for Literature will be announced, and the big one – the Nobel Peace prize – will be announced on Friday October 10.

Since its inception in 1901, more than 1,000 Nobel prizes have been awarded, but in that time, Africa has won a mere 18 Nobel prizes, and 61% of them have been for peace.

Taken on a per capita basis, there is one African Nobel prize per 55 million Africans; by contrast, there is one American Nobel prize for every 900,000 Americans.

Put it differently: Nobel prizes have been awarded to people from 72 different countries, but more than half all Nobel laureates come from just three countries: the United States, Britain and Germany.

Some critics point to this as clear evidence of Western bias, but the data tells another story – excluding North Africa, university students in Africa today represent just 5-8% of their age group which began primary school, so the pool to select from in Africa is much narrower.

Africa’s Nobel “opportunities”

The Nobel Prizes, too, focus heavily on the “pure sciences” – mathematics, physics, chemistry – but less than a quarter of African university students will major in science, technology, engineering or maths.

Perhaps the strong showing in the Peace Prize among African laureates might be explained by the fact that Africa has experienced much conflict, thus has had many “peace opportunities”.

But this isn’t the whole story. First, Africa isn’t exactly a scientific black hole – there is a vibrant tech scene in most big African cities, driven by mobile technology and cheaper Internet access. One World Bank surveyput the figure at 90+ tech hubs that have now sprang up all over African cities.

Still, the kinds of innovations coming out of these spaces tend to be “donor-friendly”, which means two characteristics trump all others: the invention has to be useful, and it has to be scalable, fast– which would allow any potential investor to recoup his money quickly.

This is all well and good – God knows Africa needs many more useful, scalable inventions – but this emphasis has a sinister effect: intellectual curiosity is often sacrificed at the altar of investor appeal.

On Tuesday I was involved in a conversation on Twitter, where on person argued that any design that is not useful is a “waste of time”.

I disagree; I believe there is always room for creativity for creativity’s sake, that utility is not the only value worth pursuing.

How to own the future

One much-quoted saying “The future belongs to those who can imagine it” (paraphrased from Eleanor Roosevelt) sounds like those slogans which prosperity-gospel preachers today love to use to rally their congregations into a blessing-claiming frenzy. But there is some truth to it.

The link between imagination and invention is obvious, and science fiction is perhaps the clearest demonstration of the symbiotic relationship between fiction and real-life science.

Numerous scientific innovations that we take for granted today – from credit cards, video calls, CCTV, guided missiles, even headphones and antidepressants – first came into the popular imagination through a work of science fiction.

Last year, UK supermarket Tesco announced that it would install screens at its tills that would scan the age and gender of each shopper and play customised advertisements – but science buffs would instantly recognise this as described in the 2001 film Minority Report starring Tom Cruise.

It’s not that scientists necessarily go out of their way to create the technology they read in a work of fiction – the influence is subtler. What it does, on many occasions, is simply plant the seed of intellectual curiosity: “What if?”

African science fiction

But where is Africa on the science fiction map? Science fiction in Africa is largely considered irrelevant, not serious, even childish – considering that Africans have “real” problems to deal with: bad roads, corruption, refugees, militants, etc. It ends up seeming irresponsible to spend your time dreaming up some fanciful future.

Still, there are a handful of science fiction works on the continent – Nnedi Okorafor’s short story Spider the Artist features a bunch of artificially-intelligent robotic spiders guarding oil pipelines in the Niger Delta, and literary journal Chimurenga recently had a sci-fi issue.

Last year, the first anthology by African science fiction writers, AfroSF was published to critical acclaim, with reviewers calling it “at once familiar and disarmingly original”; Nigerian writer A. Igoni Barret gushingly called it a book of “subtle refractions and phantasmic resonances”.

The short film Pumzi, directed by Kenyan filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu explores a dystopian future where the world as we know it is a desert after “World War III – The Water War”; and there is the South African feature film District 9 which, although was criticised for its ugly portrayal of Nigerians, still, put Africa on the sci-fi map.

Still, it isn’t all well written – as Nnedi Okorafor says in her blog, a lot of African sci-fi writers feel they have to prove that they are “real” writers so they make it “extra difficult or uselessly complex”.

The biggest criticism of sci-fi in Africa, however, is that it comes from a Western worldview that Africans have no stake in – in other words, that Africans “just don’t get it.”

Old fantasy genres

But others beg to differ, including celebrated Nigerian author Ben Okri, who has argued that Africans have always told stories and imagined the unseen realm. Much of what was condemned as “witchcraft” – the myths, rituals and folklore of traditional Africa – was actually the fantasy genre, as understood in the modern literary sense.

He argues that even the concept of the Internet – which, stripped to its core, is actually just an invisible system of connecting the here and now with far away, unseen people and places– is an invention of the African consciousness: African traditional religions had exactly the same structures: visiting a shrine to commune with the ancestors could be considered analogous to going to a cyber-café to chat with a distant friend.

It’s a stunning way of looking at the world. “Afrofuturism” – a term that Wanuri Kahiu dislikes as it segregates Africa from the whole human experience, “we’re not unique” she says – whether overtly featuring the familiar sci-fi tropes of alien invasion or artificial intelligence, or as African allegory and magical realism, is increasingly becoming a recognisable genre.

Africans may or may not be interested in spaceships, but no one can convince me that Africans are so caught up in the pressures of making ends meet that an entire continent is incapable of imagining the future.

 

[Poitier]

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o is the bookmakers' favourite to win the Nobel Prize for Literature tomorrow. About time too. Others strongly fancied include Haruki Murakami and Belarusian investigative journalist Svetlana Aleksijevitj. What's your favourite work by Ngũgĩ and why?

 

[Poitier]

The Feminist Who Could Change Nigeria
A clip from The Supreme Price, a new documentary about human rights activist Hafsat Abiola
CHRIS HELLEROCT 8 2014, 4:49 PM ET

In this clip from The Supreme Price, a new documentary by filmmaker Joanna Lipper, civil rights activist Hafsat Abiola laments the structural obstacles that have plagued Nigeria for more than five decades. As the daughter of pro-democracy leaders M.K.O. and Kudirat Abiola, who were killed in the 1990s amid the twilight years of Nigeria's military junta, Hafsat founded a non-profit in her mother's name devoted to the social, political, and economic advancement of women. I spoke with Lipper last week about her film, Hafsat's work, and the future of women in Nigeria. This interview has been edited and condensed.

Chris Heller: I'm curious to learn how you met Hafsat Abiola. When did you first hear about her story?

Joanna Lipper: I've known Hafsat since the 1990s. We overlapped at Harvard and met a few years after we both had graduated, when she was in the early stages of first building Kudirat Initiative For Democracy while in exile in the United States. I went to an event where she told her family story; both her parents were already dead at that point. She stood up with incredible poise and power and told this story that was so moving. That's how we met. Her story stayed with me for many, many years.
I was very impressed when she went back to Nigeria and built KIND into a major organization that nurtured women who were developing into leaders. I kept in touch with her when she came through the U.S., then in 2010, I was invited to Lagos to show a photography series I had done on seaweed farmers in Zanzibar. So while I was there, I visited KIND's headquarters, I met executive director Amy Oyekunle, I got to see their operation. I realized they had the infrastructure there that would allow me to make a film. That's how the idea first emerged.

Lipper began filming The Supreme Price in 2010.
Heller: This is an ambitious documentary. You've tasked yourself with condensing decades of Nigerian history into fewer than 90 minutes. How did you decide what to include? Were you concerned that audiences wouldn't be familiar with the story?

Lipper: When I set out to make the film, I had a very broad audience in mind. I wanted, first and foremost, to make a film that honored Nigerian history for Nigerians who knew the characters and knew their political history well. I also had in mind younger generations of Nigerians, who maybe had heard this story from their parents or grandparents, but did not know all the details. And then, a huge target was an international audience that did not know a lot about Nigeria. They needed some context to understand how a leader like M.K.O. Abiola emerged, what made him unique, what his objectives were, and what the opposition to his leadership was. How did a female leader like Kudirat Abiola emerge after her husband was incarcerated? How did she transition from being a wife and a mother to a leader? Each of these is a different story: the emergence of M.K.O. Abiola and his rise as a businessman and his transition into politics; Kudirat's role marrying this man, having seven children, and then becoming a leader of Nigeria's opposition movement. To understand either of these figures, I had to contextualize them against the backdrop of Nigerian history.

To really convey the impact of military rule, I had to go way back to 1960 to introduce people like [writer and activist] Wole Soyinka, who were both witnesses and international authorities on Nigerian politics and history. Figures like [U.S. Ambassador] Walter Carrington and [U.S. Ambassador] John Campbell—who both know a lot about foreign policy, politics, culture, and history—explain how the military established a pattern of oppressing the masses. What made the story really exciting to me was the challenge of weaving the emotional, intimate, personal story of the Abiola family into the fabric of Nigerian politics and history and culture. Basically, the story of the individuals wouldn't have been comprehensible without the larger story of Nigeria. It was a huge, time consuming process.

Heller: It's interesting to hear you describe the movie that way—as the story of the Abiolas, framed within the history of Nigeria's pro-democracy movement. Were you surprised to learn about the tension that exists within the family? I'm thinking of M.K.O.'s polygamy, Kudirat's feelings of inadequacy because she didn't go to college, and especially the religious conservatism of Olalekan, Hafsat's older brother.

Lipper: That's something I discovered as I was doing the interviews. I like to let the interview subjects guide and lead me. I approach topics they introduce, and then help them delve deeper into their own minds and psyches and memories. I think that process unearthed a lot.

What I wasn't surprised by, but what I was really moved by, was the level of honesty that Hafsat, Olalekean, and [Hafsat's younger sister] Khafila offered about the dynamics of the family. A lot of times, people want to preserve an illusion of "Oh, it was such a romantic story. It was a perfect marriage." Everyone knows that life isn't like that. Marriages are complex. They were willing to analyze, from their own perspectives, the complexities of their parents' marriage—and obviously, the influence of the patriarchal and polygamist culture they grew up in. To look at those structural elements and to look at the emotional consequences of those elements was really moving. It was something that I haven't heard discussed with that level of depth and honesty.

Heller: Their honesty was very striking to me. In some ways it reminded me of Sarah Polley's Stories We Tell, although that's a very different documentary. When you sat down for these interviews, how did you encourage the family to talk about themselves? Were they forthright from the beginning, or was this something you teased out through each conversation?

Lipper: I have a Masters in psychoanalytic developmental psychology and I'm really interested in the psychoanalytic process. We all have defense mechanisms; we all have modes of self-presentation that we use as adults. Interviewing a subject in a safe space allows their authentic, internal self to be visible and realized. To be able to get to that next level, that has always interested me as a filmmaker. One of the things I love about directing documentaries is the chance to get to those deeper layers and to reach that authentic self that is unguarded and is present in all of us.

In all of those interviews, it was a question of focus, a question of concentration, a question of trust, and a question of setting. These characters were interviewed in home environments, places that were very calm, very quiet, very peaceful. The film was made over several years, so I was able to capture people evolving over time: the way they tell a story, the way they think about things. You can help create that layer of memories. That is where you get that rich intimacy and detail.

Heller: How many years did you spend making this film?

Lipper: I started filming in November of 2010. The film premiered in the spring of 2014. So, it took time. A lot of that was going back to Nigeria and editing and raising money—with documentaries, you raise money over time—so it was a combination of those things. It ended up being positive for the film because it allowed me to learn about more Nigerian history. In between shooting, I would do archival research, I would interview people like John Campbell. There were things I could do between the shoots in Nigeria that added different layers to the movie.

Heller: How much did you know about Nigeria before you started?

Lipper: I would say I didn't know much. I knew a lot about the family story, but I had to go through a process of contextualizing it and learning about Nigerian politics and history and culture—the same process that the audience goes through when they see the film. Putting different pieces together, you know? Nigeria is such a complex place. To read any media story that's out there, it really helps to have a background. It's so complex that it's not something that can be done quickly. It took me a long time to do that—and I'm still learning every day.

Heller: I'd like to ask you about the end of the film. At least to me, it seems to imply that Hafsat could run for high office one day—or, at least, it suggests that she would have support if she chose to do so. Do you think she could be Nigeria's president?

Lipper: I think that Hafsat has great potential and would bring tremendous expertise and intelligence to a position of leadership in Nigeria. What makes her distinguished as a leader is her desire to change the structure of the system—not just to fight corruption at all costs, but also her support of other women and women's leadership. It's something that she's not only pursuing as an individual, but as a national objective. I think the combination of those two things position her really well for leadership.

In the film, you see both sides. You see the resistance and the reality of the struggle, but you also see the glimmer of hope. I think the film is realistic about the structural and cultural obstacles that stand in the way of someone like Hafsat becoming a major leader. It's realistic about the resistance, but it's also championing the potential that is there.

Joanna Lipper
Heller: In your opinion, what needs to change in Nigeria before a woman could take on a leadership role?

Lipper: Well, Nigeria has some mandatory minimum quotas in state government. The problem is that the positions that are used to fill those quotas are frequently appointed, rather than elected, so they have less power and less influence. They have fewer resources at their disposal. I think there needs to be a focus on the system by which people get elected. How can women access the resources and party support necessary to be elected?

You also see the mindset of someone like Hafsat's own brother Olalekan, who says he would support a woman being a vice president or a deputy governor, but has a harder time imagining a woman in the top position. That's an ideology and a mindset that needs to change over time. I think the film shows how, in the most progressive parts of Nigeria, they're moving towards it. Olalekan has a mosque on the family compound and Kudirat Initiative For Democracy is less than a minute's walk away. They're coexisting every day, nonviolently and peacefully. That was something interesting to look at: the Abiola family compound as a microcosm of both tradition and progressive, feminist ideology in Nigeria.

Heller: I'd like to ask you about a scene that stuck with me, when Khafila talks about the different ways her siblings have coped with the loss of their parents. After spending so much time with Hafsat, why do you think she's chosen to follow in her mother's footsteps? What do you think drives her to do what she's done?

Lipper: I think her mother was an incredibly empowering figure. She didn't go to college, yet she made it a huge priority that her daughters would be educated in the United States. The sacrifices she made and her determination to give her daughters the opportunities she never had impacted Hafsat on a very deep level. When she moved back to Nigeria, she moved into her mother's bedroom on the family compound. She is inhabiting the physical space and, in some ways, the emotional space of her mother. That's her way of carrying on Kudirat's ideals and dreams. It's her way of keeping her mother alive within her.

When we grow from children into adults, we choose which parts of our parents we internalize. Particularly, it's acute when a parent dies because the mourning process includes a lot of internalization and incorporation. For Hafsat, that was the political struggle, it was returning to Nigeria, it was empowering women. When you see the way Khafila dresses and speaks, she looks like her mother. When she stands there saying, "My mother was only 44 when she died," she looks a lot like her. And Kudirat was very religious: all the kids talked about how she went to the mosque every day, how Islam was tremendously important to her. So Olalekan's connection to Islam is inspired by his mother. That's his way of incorporating her. Each of them has chosen an aspect of her to make central within their own identities.

 

[Poitier]

Liberia’s President Seeks New Powers to Fight Ebola


FILE - Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

James Butty
October 08, 2014 2:27 AM

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has asked the national legislature to give her more emergency powers in yet another effort to prevent the further spread of the Ebola virus. Liberia is already under a state of emergency and curfew. In a letter to the Plenary of the House of Representatives and the Senate, Sirleaf asked for powers to amend seven different articles under the constitution, including freedom of movement, speech, religion, confiscation of private property, and elections.

Acarous Gray, a member of the House of Representatives from the opposition Congress for Democratic Change, said he intends to vote “no” to the president’s request because he doesn’t want to return Liberia to the days of military dictatorship.

“In my view, this is dangerous, and it reminds us of the days when the dictators govern Liberia. While it is true that we have a state of emergency, the Liberian Constitution under Article 87 is very clear that during the state of emergency no provision of the constitution can be suspended. So, we cannot provide an absolute authority of such to the President that will be draconian. I will publicly advocate against it, and I will vote against it,” Gray said.

Gray said President Sirleaf has yet to make a dent in reducing the impact of Ebola, even as the country has been under a state of emergency and curfew.

“Authority under the state of emergency has been given to the President as [far] back as August 7 of this year. But what has the president done with that authority?” Gray asked.

Gray said he supports the efforts to contain the Ebola virus but is against giving absolute power to the president.

“While we support the fight against [Ebola], we cannot thwart the constitution of the Republic of Liberia and provide absolute authority to one head of state. We cannot do that today; we must not do that tomorrow,” Gray said.

A special senatorial election is scheduled to be held this year on the second Tuesday in October as mandated by the constitution. But all indications are those elections will be rescheduled.

Gray said any decision on the elections should come through a consultative process involving all stakeholders, including all political parties and the three branches of government.

“The National Elections Commission has written to both houses of the legislative branch of government to find a way out. But to provide the single authority to the president to make the decision on when to have elections is tantamount to chaos. Do we want chaos in Liberia? The manner in which the president is proceeding is dangerous. And I want to be very clear that we will not allow a military junta to govern our country under a constitutional arrangement,” Gray said.

 

[Poitier]