The recent African Union summit has once again raised the prospect of a United States of Africa . Whether this is ever going to be likely , Socialist Banner serious doubts , since there are often too many inter-capitalist rivalries for such an entity to exist . Not too mention the overblown giant egos...
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Africa
The African Union – An “Old Boys” Association
Eritrea – A Personal Experience
Michael Ghebre was on holiday in Eritrea . Below is an account of what he saw in this relatively newly ‘independent’ country. Everybody is afraid to talk politics in the coffee bar. The man sitting down opposite our table had heard that I was interested in talking about freedom and politics in post-independence Eritrea....
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The Nationalist Madness
In September 2005, a Moroccan newspaper compared sub-Saharan African migrants to “black locusts” invading northern Morocco. Frequent round-ups have occurred in immigrant neighborhoods and in improvised ad-hoc camps close to the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and larger cities, and unauthorized migrants are regularly deported to the Algerian border. Events in Morocco have...
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Live Aid – Live 8
Over twenty years ago, there was a high profile pop concert organised by the Live Aid group, to help the famine in Ethiopia. Now two decades later nothing has changed. The Live 8 concerts addressed the effects of poverty not it causes. Unless the present social system has changed, for many more decades...
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Who Gains from Female Circumcision
Female circumcision, like male circumcision, is a practice that dates back to the remotest of times in history. Today, however, the former has come under fire by feminists and other concerned groups and individuals. Why male circumcision is not touched is not clear. Perhaps the whole issue is still part of the male chauvinistic...
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Bushmen and the Progress of Capitalism
Three stories of the ongoing tribulations of the Kalahari Bushmen in Botswana 1. It has been estimated that the so-called Bushmen of the Kalahari have lived in southern Africa for at least 20,000 years, but that cuts no ice with the zealots hell-bent on the development of capitalism in that part of the world....
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The Dream
From The Sunday Herald :- In the muddy pits of Koidu, the capital of Sierra Leone’s diamond industry. 200,000 miners search for diamonds with a bucket, a spade and a sieve. Mohamed Sano gave up farming three years ago and came to seek his fortune . “If I have enough money I will stop,”...
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Inside the sports industry
On the night of Saturday 16 December 2000 the crowd at the Sheffield Arena must have been stunned when Paul Ingle’s corner forced him back to the centre of the ring to be savagely crushed by his opponent Mbulelo Botile of South Africa. Even one of the commentators remarked that the decision of Ingle’s...
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Zimbabwe workers win court case , face violence
A court has dismissed charges against three top officers of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), ruling on March 29 that the government failed to present evidence proving the union federation had violated “exchange control” regulations to affect the market. ZCTU secretary-general Wellington Chibebe, Elijah Mutemeri and Vimbai Mushongera were involved in an...
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The Online Picket Line
Why unions must set their own agenda in online campaigns Knee-jerk assumptions undermine working class solidarity I have been helping organize online campaigns in support of workers’ rights for several years now. The latest campaign I’m helping with concerns Zimbabwe. It supports a call by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions demanding that President...
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