The New Dark Age

9 January 2014 — Pambazuka News

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Pambazuka News (English edition): ISSN 1753-6839

CONTENTS: 1. Features, 2. Comment & analysis, 3. Advocacy & campaigns, 4. Obituaries, 5. Books & arts

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1 Features
HAS SOUTH SUDAN PASSED THE TIPPING POINT?
No signs of a ceasefire as violence intensifies
Eric Reeves

The horrendous violence that has torn the lives of South Sudanese in the
past three weeks has caught many people by utter surprise. Former Vice
President Riek Machar, believed to be leading a rebellion against President
Salva Kiir, appears determined to get a favourable political settlement at
whatever cost
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/90075
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NEGOTIATING PEACE IN SOUTH SUDAN: DEMOCRACY, POLITICS AND ARMED MOVEMENTS
Christopher Zambakari

South Sudan is facing a profound crisis of governance within the ruling
party and its military wing, the SPLA. Without addressing serious
nation-building issues, democratizing the ruling party and opening up the
political space, any temporary solutions will only defer the problems to a
later date
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/90096
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SOUTH SUDAN AND THE PROSPECTS FOR PEACE AMIDST VIOLENT POLITICAL WRANGLING
Jok Madut Jok

South Sudan is at a crossroads. The government might have to swallow its
pride and reward Riek Machar’s unconstitutional and deadly political
actions. Any attempt to punish him could backfire terribly. But this option
has its own dangers as well
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/90076
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SOUTH SUDAN: PEACE, DEMOCRACY AND RECONSTRUCTION INSTEAD OF WAR
Horace G. Campbell

It is necessary to place the current political crisis in South Sudan within
a historical context and accept that if the South Sudanese were able to
fight for independence over six decades and unanimously vote for
independence in 2011, there is no reason that they cannot vote for peace
and stability in 2014
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/90091
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THE SINGLE SOLUTION TO SOUTH SUDAN’S PROBLEMS
Maker Mayek Riak

The crisis in South Sudan is the outcome of a deadly cocktail of personal
ambition, state failure, high level corruption and neglect of service
delivery to the people, political manipulation of negative ethnicity and
failure to transform a revered liberation movement into an accountable
ruling party. To start with, the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement
should be dissolved
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/90077
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‘SWEET GRAB, SWEAT LABOUR’: MALAWI SUGAR PLANTATION EXPLOITS
Collins Mtika

The South African sugar giant Illovo has 6159 hectares of sugarcane in
Malawi, where it is a monopoly with an annual production of 2.8 million
metric tonnes of sugar. The company denies persistent claims that it has
grabbed land from smallholder farmers
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/90079
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RICHES UNDER RICE IN ALLEGED MADAGASCAR LAND GRAB
Nadia Raonimanalina and Will Fitzgibbon

A Chinese company in Madagascar, with strong links to the government, is
accused of unlawfully acquiring land, blighting the environment and leaving
farmers destitute
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/90078
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2 Comment & analysis
WHAT DOES SOUTH SUDAN’S FAILURE SAY ABOUT AFRICA GENERALLY?
Cameron Duodu

What makes African politics particularly fragile is that African
politicians inherited weak superstructures from their former colonial
masters and failed to dismantle such structures as their political egos
sought to step in to the former master’s shoes
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/90092
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SCHIZOPHRENIA AS MANDELA’S FINAL CAUTION
Chika Ezeanya

The deaf signer at Mandela’s memorial who confessed to schizophrenia
revealed a deep-seated schizoid behaviour among African people. Voices in
the heads of African people continue to program Africans to elevate all
that is Western; African governments, intellectuals, businessmen, students,
teachers and parents continue to suffer from an imitation of all that is
non-African and anti-African
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/90093
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DECEPTION AND DOUBLE STANDARDS AT MANDELA FUNERAL
Nizar Visram

Western leaders who sow violence around the world to entrench capitalism
were full of praise of Mandela as a man of peace. Yet from thousands of
miles away, President Obama, who led the charade, decides who dies by the
unmanned drone, whether they are at a wedding or funeral, women collecting
firewood, infants or the elderly
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/90080
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FAREWELL TO A COMRADE, NELSON MANDELA
Adios Madiba
Ameth Lo

It is up to the progressive forces favourable to radical changes within our
societies to reconnect with the tradition of organizing and struggle by
combining forces and by clearly stating through a clear vision where they
would like to take Africa in the decades to come
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/90094
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SOUTH AFRICA AFTER NELSON MANDELA: TIME FOR THE WHITE MINORITY TO MAKE
CONCESSIONS AS MADIBA DID
Lokongo from Congo

Among some of the important ways to continue to honour, cherish and act
upon Madiba’s legacy are for Africans to stop fighting one another and the
white minority to give up their white privileges and economic might
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/90095
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WALTER RODNEY: WHY THE CHINESE WANT TO READ HIM
Eusi Kwayana

His eminently outstanding scholarly contribution, ‘How Europe
Underdeveloped Africa’, is set to be translated into Chinese. The decision
is a vindication of Rodney’s scholarship and global vision
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/90083
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SOMALIA AND SOMALILAND: THE YEAR 2013 IN REVIEW
Bashir Goth

There was noticeable evidence last year that the Somali people are ready
and willing to rebuild their country after many years of turmoil. External
support also improved. But the government of Hassan Sheikh Mahmoud
squandered a lot of opportunities
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/90082
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NIGERIA’S DEEPWATERS RUN SHALLOW
Toyin Akinosho

Oil is big business. In Nigeria, it is the life of the economy, blood as
oil pumping through the veins of pipelines. But the Production Sharing
Contracts (PSC) that replaced the Joint Venture (JV) agreements between the
cash-strapped state hydrocarbon company (NNPC), and oil companies, have
facilitated a loss of $5 billion annually from deepwater extraction
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/90081
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3 Advocacy & campaigns
SOUTH AFRICA: LETTER OF SUPPORT TO NUMSA
Socialist Party of Azania

The metal wokers union has consistently refused to be used as a rubber
stamp to all the anti-worker policies of the South African government that
is clearly pursuing policies that have put profits above people, especially
workers
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/90087
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SOUTH SUDAN ACADEMICS’ LETTER TO US ENVOY: RESOLUTION TO CURRENT CRISIS

Looking ahead beyond an end to the current violence, these academics
propose measures that would ensure long-term stability of the world’s
newest nation
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/90097
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SOUTH SUDAN: CIVIL SOCIETY CALLS FOR DIALOGUE TO END CONFLICT

The groups say open and free dialogue that yield a mutually accepted
agreement reached through the informed opinion of all the concerned
parties, are the only way to resolve the current political differences
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/90085
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SOUTH SUDAN: LISTEN TO THE PEACEMAKERS
Justice Africa

Justice Africa calls for support for civil society engagement in
transformation processes in South Sudan
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/90086
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STATEMENT CALLING FOR A CEASEFIRE IN SOUTH SUDAN
Sudan Solidarity Network

Sudan Solidarity Network calls for immediate end of the fighting that has
killed hundreds of people and displaced thousands of others in the world’s
newest nation
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/90084
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4 Obituaries
BABA JOHN WATUSI BRANCH BECOMES AN ANCESTOR

Baba John Watusi Branch was and is the spiritual embodiment of an African
with profound love, an authentic legacy and an uncompromising loyalty to
African people
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/obituary/90090
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5 Books & arts
QUNU, A POEM
Charles Mwewa

The route to time-warmed freedom is still long
And is a thousand Mandela’s resilience strong
The aura of the splendid Cape Mountains
Just lay few metres away from Qunu’s fountains
For here, the great’s remains have been buried
And here, his scepter of freedom’s is carried
In these terrains of bigoted Apartheid, he walked
And here, the towering figure of history has talked
To a people, but all the people of his homelands
For to one brother as to one sister all make bands
And here forever the light of the night has risen
In his long walk to freedom, injustice has fallen
Mourn all nations, if not this peace we butcher
For yourselves, not the dead, and your
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‘LONG WALK’ HUMANISES MANDELA
But do we lose sight of the man who was Madiba?
Robtel Neajai Pailey

The movie serves up a series of perfectly punctuated snapshots of the late
stateman’s life. But it lacks the kind of psychological depth befitting a
man who was larger than life
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/books/90088
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