The impact of colonialism on Africans & Diaspora
People TakenNok: The impact of colonialism on Africans & Diaspora (From a Yoruba perspective): Nok: The impact of colonialism on Africans & Diaspora (From a Yoruba perspective):
(Please note this is not an attack on older forms of Christianity such as the Early Gnostic Christianity or Coptic Ethiopian Christianity both of which entered Africa long before European colonialism. It is an analysis on the Eurocentric Christianity brought by European…
nok-ind:
Q: What were your thoughts as you lay in the hospital...
Q: What were your thoughts as you lay in the hospital recuperating from the gun shots?
Tupac: They shot me! Straight up, like I just kept thinking “They really did shoot me”. I really did believe at one point, up until I got shot, that no black person would ever shoot me. I was their representative. I believe that, um, you know I didn’t have to fear in my own community. You know, I was like, I represented them. I’m the ambassador to the world. They would never harm me, they would never rob me, they would never do me wrong -that’s not true, I’m just one man.
Be happy for no reason...
“Be happy for no reason, like a child. If you are happy for a reason, you’re in trouble, because that reason can be taken from you.”
- Deepak Chopra
- Deepak Chopra
Weak Mnfr Rev. Chickenwing Jerusalem Slim Ministers
your-maj3sty:
When the early Churches established their system, they collected all the writings they could find, and managed them as they pleased. It’s unsure whether these writings under the name of the Old and the New Testament, are in the same state(meaning what’s written in them), in which those collectors say they found them; or whether they were altered, changed, or dressed up.
Regardless, they decided by vote which of the books(out of many) should be the WORD OF GOD, and which should not. They rejected many, and others were said to be doubtful…such as the books called the Apocrypha. Books that had a majority of votes, were voted to be the word of God. Had the votes gone otherwise, people calling themselves Christians would of been believing otherwise! The votes of the few, has literally become the belief of others!
When it comes to the Old Testament, the people who did this, we know nothing of. It was just, “The Church”. As for the New Testament, The Councils of Nicea, and Laodicea were held around 325-350 years after the death of Jesus (Jmmanuel). The books that make up the New Testament, were voted for, by these councils, with yeses and nos. Many books that were offered had a majority of no’s, and were rejected. This is the way the New-Testament came into being. Moreover, it’s probable that the Old Testament books were also voted and deliberated upon.
- Here, is a letter from Athanasius(a theologian who attended the Council of Nicea meetings), and he admits that changes and votes have taken place in the New Testament. [this is one out of the many proofs]
- Here is SOME of the things that were talked about/banned at the Council of Laodicea.
- Here are additional books that were also left out by the 2 Councils
One Chart Showing How Race Influences Your Chance of Dying from Gun Violence
One Chart Showing How Race Influences Your Chance of Dying from Gun Violence:
The waves of press following recent horrific mass shootings in Connecticut, Colorado, and elsewhere have brought gun violence back onto the national agenda.
One thing that sometimes gets obscured in the debate, however: The victims of gun violence remain overwhelmingly African-American. Indeed, black people make up just about 13% of the population of the United States — but more than half of all victims of gun violence.
Black victims are overwhelmingly killed by handguns, and the congressional focus on semi-automatic rifles has no obvious connection to the violence plaguing cities like Chicago.
One factor in the intense focus on white victims may be who is leading the conversation. Here's a snapshot of the people talking about guns on cable news between January 29 and February 5:
- - - - - - - -
One Chart Showing How Race Influences Your Chance of Dying from Gun Violence
More accurately written:
One Chart Showing How Racism from the time of these centuries and the places of this America Influences Your Chance of Dying from Gun Violence
There is in this world no such force as the...
deadbeatsblog:
There is in this world no such force as the force of a person determined to rise. The human soul cannot be permanently chained.
— W.E.B. Du Bois
The Disappearance of General Joseph Warren Statue
(edited to add a link to a Boston Globe article and contemporary photo of the statue, 1/11/2013)
Staying in Roxbury, we're going to honor the memory of General Joseph Warren, lament the loss of Warren square, and consider the, ahem, relocation of his statue. Joseph Warren was born in Roxbury in 1741. He became a doctor, and played an active role in events leading up to the American revolution. Warren authored the Suffolk Resolves and served as President of the Massachusetts Provisional Congress. It was Joseph Warren who sent Dawes and Revere to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams that the British were on their way to Lexington. He was appointed to the rank of Major General (they did things like that in those days), but chose to serve in the front lines at Breeds Hill, where he was killed in the third assault when he was recognized by a British officer and shot in the head. In death, Warren was memorialized as the first martyr of the revolution.
The Warren homestead was in Roxbury along what is now Warren street. Warren street is one of the original roads of Roxbury; it shows up in the earliest listing of roads, in 1662. In 1825, during another comprehensive listing of roads, it was renamed Warren street. The Warren house shown in the 1931 map above was built by Joseph Warren's nephew. John C. Warren in 1841. Like both his uncle Joseph and his father John Warren, John C. was a doctor. John Warren was one of the founders of Harvard Medical School, and served on the faculty. His son, John C. Warren, took his father's place on the faculty, and was one of the leading surgeons of his day.
In 1902, a statue of Joseph Warren was placed on an island in what became Warren square, within sight of the old Warren house. The photo above shows the community out to honor General Warren. A schoolboy band, scouts, a military contingent and dignitaries are observed by a small crowd.
During the 1960s, the intersection was reworked, removing the triangular island that once housed the Warren statue. The buildings on the west side of Warren square are all gone, in including the handsome Hotel Warren building and the Swedenborgian New Jerusalem church. And gone, also, is the statue of Joseph Warren. So where did it go?
The story is that on a tour of City of Boston facilities, an alumnus of Roxbury Latin school noticed the statue of Warren in a garage somewhere. As it wasn't being shown, and as Warren was himself an alumnus of the school, the gentleman made inquiries as to whether the statue might temporarily be moved to Roxbury Latin, now located in West Roxbury. As the old home of the statue had disappeared, and as there was no apparent interest by current Roxbury residents in a statue of a dead white guy, the statue was duly sent to West Roxbury, where it sits to this day. There have been calls to bring Joseph Warren's statue home, but with little community support, he stays at Roxbury Latin, overlooking Centre and Spring streets and St Theresa's church. A Boston Globe article from 2011 discusses the movement of the statue to West Roxbury in 1969, and provides a photo of the statue in its current location.
Posted Comments:
Dear Good Old Boston:
Question: so how did it get to the garage? That's a big part of the question "where did it go?" No? (smile). And there is more to the "current Roxbury residents" story (smile). The current Warren/Moreland Roxbury residents are, yes, largely african-american and very likely yes 'don't want a dead white guy' but he is more than that. He purchased & owned an African boy, and because of patterns of racial power politics in the city (held over from that time) residential changes to the Dudley Sq. area could again, put Gen. Warren back in racial 'fashion' sooner than one might think (smile).
Perspective on Rome
US - $341.98/week
Ecuador - $5.03/week
Egypt - $31.55/week
Chad - $1.23/week
watch7maker:
Photographer Peter Menzel’s book, Hungry Planet, features families photographed with a week’s worth of food.
Look... ...& write what you thot as u thot what u thot.
This is from photographer James Mollison’s project; “James And Other Apes.Reblogging peachandtherattlesnake for his/her crediting the work.
Arturo & John
- Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (an Afro-Boricua master scholar of African history) to his then protege, Dr. John Henrik Clarke (an African-American master scholar of African history)
How I wept...
Lord, how I wept when I came uponblackpoemusic:
a land whose people thought that they
could make boats to sail the stormy
ocean between the color of my skin
and my humanity.
Thought by Henry Dumas
Potato chip (or crisps) sales...(GEORGE CRUM yo).
knowledgeequalsblackpower:
Potato chip (or crisps) sales generate about $6 billion dollars in sales every year and is one of the world’s most popular snack foods.
As popular as it is today, one would think it was the brain child of some White man named “Lays” or something…. but this is not the case.
As we’ve already discussed, African-Americans learned to preserve foods through the frying process from Native Americans. However, what led George (Speck) Crum, the son of a Native-American mother and African-American father, to invent the potato chip was not his heritage but an opportunity for revenge.
Born as George Speck in 1828…he adopted the professional name “Crum,” a name his father also used in his career as a jockey. In his early years, Crum worked as a trapper and a mountain guide in the Adirondacks before he realized his talents with food.So, it was a complete accident. From then on, the chips, which Crum named “Saratoga Chips,” appeared on the Moon Lake Lodge’s menu as a house specialty.
In the summer of 1853, Crum was working as a chef at the Moon Lake Lodge, an elegant resort in Saratoga Springs. As the story goes, Crum was cooking in the kitchen one day when a guest sent back the restaurant’s popular French-fried potatoes complaining that they were too thick. An angry Crum grabbed a new potato and sliced it spitefully thin, so thin that the guest would not be able to eat it with a fork. Fried in oil and salted, these crispy potato slices were sent out. And the guest loved them! Crum had stumbled upon what would become America’s favorite snack.
In 1860 George Crum opened his own restaurant [“Crum’s House”] on Malta Avenue in Saratoga Lake featuring potato chips in baskets on each table. The restaurant was successful for 30 years, serving several rich and famous guests of Saratoga. Crum closed his establishment in 1890, and he died later in 1914 at the age of 86.Of course, others would come along and realize the profitability of potato chips and the rest is [White] history…
(via The Free George, George Crum’s Memorial)
The Order of Myths: Race and Mardi Gras in Mobile
The Order of Myths: Race and Mardi Gras in Mobile:
Few people outside of the South know that the first Mardi Gras celebration was held in Mobile, Alabama in 1703, 15 years before New Orleans was a city. A 2008 documentary, The Order of Myths, chronicles the politics of the town’s Mardi Gras celebration today, which remains almost entirely segregated by race. The black and white communities throw two separate Mardi Gras celebrations. In this clip, starting at 40secs, a woman describes this segregation:
The documentary isn’t heavy-handed about it, but the film does a wonderful job of showing how race is, isn’t, and is sorta talked about in Mobile. The trailer gives you an idea:
Manohla Dargis, reviewing the movie for the New York Times, tries to capture the uncomfortable co-existence, separation, and choreographed intersections of the black and white communities:
Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)
Few people outside of the South know that the first Mardi Gras celebration was held in Mobile, Alabama in 1703, 15 years before New Orleans was a city. A 2008 documentary, The Order of Myths, chronicles the politics of the town’s Mardi Gras celebration today, which remains almost entirely segregated by race. The black and white communities throw two separate Mardi Gras celebrations. In this clip, starting at 40secs, a woman describes this segregation:The documentary isn’t heavy-handed about it, but the film does a wonderful job of showing how race is, isn’t, and is sorta talked about in Mobile. The trailer gives you an idea:
Manohla Dargis, reviewing the movie for the New York Times, tries to capture the uncomfortable co-existence, separation, and choreographed intersections of the black and white communities:
The black queen and king — Stefannie Lucas and Joseph Roberson, both schoolteachers — are cautious yet optimistic about their city and its racial divide. They see change, glimmers of real progress, but they don’t have the luxury of naïveté. Most of the white revelers — including the queen and king, Helen Meaher and Max Bruckmann — all of whom appear significantly wealthier than the black participants, are either vaguely or keenly aware of race. Mr. Bruckmann, a jovial type with the round face of a well-fed baby, and Ms. Meaher, a willowy blonde who’s all but swallowed up by her heavily jeweled costume, are swaddled in privilege, tradition and culture. It’s hard not to notice that every hand that serves them is black.I highly recommend the film not only for it’s coverage of the role race plays in Mardi Gras, but for it’s portrayal of the unique racial politics of the South more generally.
Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)
Dorner has become the first human target for remotely-controlled airborne drones on US soil
Dorner has become the first human target for remotely-controlled airborne drones on US soil:
In a bold affirmation from the facts ascertained by the Express, though, the paper concludes that “Dorner has become the first human target for remotely-controlled airborne drones on US soil.”
RT | As authorities intensify the manhunt for accused LAPD-killer Christopher Dorner, law enforcement agencies are doing everything under the sun to search for their suspect, apparently even deploying drones.
The specifics regarding the tools being used to track Dorner, a 33-year-old former Los Angeles Police Department officer suspected in three recent murders, is a mystery for now. But with a $1 million bounty out for his arrest and a nation at high-alert, it’s no surprise that the search for Dorner is on the way to becoming one of the most remarkable in ages. Now according to some reports, police are relying on high-tech unmanned aerial vehicles to snoop from the sky.
Britain’s Daily Express cites a senior police source in a report this week as saying that the surveillance capabilities of UAVs might be the only option for locating Dorner, who has been at large since a string of murders that began last Sunday.
“The thermal imaging cameras the drones use may be our only hope of finding him. On the ground, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack,” the source tells the paper.
The Express adds that police figures on both a city-wide and federal scale have suggested drones are being deployed to search for the triple-murder suspect. In his report, journalist Mike Parker writes that Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz responded to a direct question about UAV usage by saying, “We are using all the tools at our disposal.”
Parker adds: “The use of drones was later confirmed by Customs and Border Patrol spokesman Ralph DeSio, who revealed agents have been prepared for Dorner to make a dash for the Mexican border since his rampage began.”
“This agency has been at the forefront of domestic use of drones by law enforcement. That’s all I can say at the moment,” DeSio told the paper.
In a bold affirmation from the facts ascertained by the Express, though, the paper concludes that “Dorner has become the first human target for remotely-controlled airborne drones on US soil.”
Meet chess progidy Phiona Mutesi
She's 14, lives in the slums of Uganda and is just now learning to read. But Phiona Mutesi's instincts have made her a player to watch in international chess.
This story appears in the January 10, 2011, issue of ESPN The Magazine.SHE FLIES TO Siberia in late September with nine teammates, all in their 20s, much older than she is. When she won the match that put her on this plane she had no idea what it meant. Nobody had told her what was at stake, so she just played, like always. She had no idea that she'd qualified for the Olympiad; no idea what the Olympiad was. She had no idea that her win would send her to the city of Khanty-Mansiysk, in remote Russia; no idea where Russia was. When she learned all this, she asked just one question: "Is it cold there?"
But here she is, journeying with her countrymen 27 hours across the globe. And though she has known many of them for a few years, they have no idea where she is from or where she aspires to go, because Phiona Mutesi is from a place where girls like her don't talk about that.
AGAPE CHURCH COULD collapse at any moment. It is a ramshackle structure that lists alarmingly to one side, held together by scrap wood, rope, a few nails and faith. It is rickety, like everything else around it. At the church on this Saturday morning in September are 37 children whose lives are equally fragile. They wander in to play a game none had heard of before they met Coach Robert, a game so foreign that there's no word for it in Luganda, their native language.
Chess.
When they walk through the door, grins crease their faces. This is home as much as any place, a refuge, the only community they know. These are their friends, their brothers and sisters of chess, and there is relative safety and comfort here. Inside Agape church it is almost possible to forget the chaos outside, in Katwe, the largest of eight slums in Kampala, Uganda, and one of the worst places on earth.
There are only seven chessboards at the church, and chess pieces are so scarce that sometimes an orphan pawn must stand in for a king. A child sits on each end of a wobbly pew, both straddling the board between their knobby knees, with captured pieces guarded in their laps. A 5-year-old kid in a threadbare Denver Broncos No. 7 jersey competes against an 11-year-old in a frayed T-shirt that reads "J'Adore Paris." Most of the kids are barefoot. Some wear flip-flops. One has on black wing tips with no laces.
It is rapid-fire street chess. When more than a few seconds elapse without a move, there is a palpable restlessness. It is remarkably quiet except for the thud of one piece slaying another and the occasional dispute over the location of a piece on a chessboard so faded that the dark spaces are barely distinguishable from the light ones. Surrender is signaled by a clattering of captured pieces on the board. A new match begins immediately without the slightest celebration.
Coach Robert Katende is here. So are Benjamin and Ivan and Brian. And up near the pulpit sits Phiona. One of two girls in the room, Phiona is juggling three matches at once and dominating them with her aggressive style, checkmating her young opponents while drawing a flower in the dirt on the floor with her toe. Phiona is 14, and her stone face gives no sign that the next day she will travel to Siberia to compete against the very best chess players in the world.
ICE? THE OPENING CEREMONIES at the 2010 Chess Olympiad take place in an ice arena. Phiona has never seen ice. There are also lasers and dancers inside bubbles and people costumed as chess pieces marching around on a giant chessboard. Phiona watches it all with her hands cupping her cheeks, as if in a wonderland. She asks if this happens every night in this place, and she is told by her coach no, the arena normally serves as a home for hockey, concerts and the circus. Phiona has never heard of those things.
She returns to the hotel, which at 15 floors is the tallest building Phiona has ever entered. She rides the elevator with trepidation. She stares out of her room window amazed by how people on the ground look so tiny from the sixth floor. She takes a long shower, washing away the slum.
PHIONA MUTESI IS the ultimate underdog. To be African is to be an underdog in the world. To be Ugandan is to be an underdog in Africa. To be from Katwe is to be an underdog in Uganda. And finally, to be female is to be an underdog in Katwe.
She wakes at 5 each morning to begin a two-hour trek through Katwe to fill a jug with drinkable water, walking through lowland that is often so severely flooded by Uganda's torrential rains that many residents sleep in hammocks near their ceilings to avoid drowning. There are no sewers, and the human waste from downtown Kampala is dumped directly into the slum. More.
ESPN the Magazine NEXT - Meet chess progidy Phiona Mutesi - ESPN
SHOVELLING DRIVERS PLEEESSEEE BE CAREFUL
Boy dies from carbon monoxide while trying to warm up from shoveling:
The Boston Fire Department reports an 11-year-old boy suffered cardiac arrest this morning while he and his father sat in a running car with the exhaust covered by snow. He was pronounced dead at Boston Medical Center.
His father was also taken away in bad shape from in front of 3 Nazing St. around 11:40 a.m., the department says.
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His father was also taken away in bad shape from in front of 3 Nazing St. around 11:40 a.m., the department says.
The father and son were shoveling walkway and around their SUV. Boy got cold. Car started and boy sat in car getting warm. The back of the SUV was completely encased in snow about 4 feet high. The car filled with carbon monoxide. The exhaust was completely covered in the large snow bank.
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deep disillusionment...,
deep disillusionment...,:
enidnews | The military stresses integrity. It is apparently a lesson learned well by two Vance Air Force Base students.
An Enid church is a little richer today thanks to the integrity of Lt.
Andrew Baugher, a Marine student at Vance, and Ensign Chris Dorner, a
Navy student pilot.
Andrew Baugher, a Marine student at Vance, and Ensign Chris Dorner, a
Navy student pilot.
The two were driving into Enid Sunday afternoon when they spotted a bank bag in the middle of the road.
After turning around, they picked up the bag and found it contained
nearly $8,000. They promptly took the bag to the Enid Police Department
nearly $8,000. They promptly took the bag to the Enid Police Department
The money belongs to Enid Korean Church of Grace, 724 W. Randolph, and the bag contained $7,792 in cash and checks.
“I thought it was a wallet. We turned around and found it was a bank
envelope,” Baugher said. “We opened it and found plenty of cash in
there.”
envelope,” Baugher said. “We opened it and found plenty of cash in
there.”
Baugher said the pair did not know if the money was lost or stolen, but took it to the police department.
“I thought it was a piece of cardboard,” Dorner said. “When we passed it I thought it was a large purse and turned around.”
When the two opened the envelope, they saw the checks and the church’s deposit slip.
"Leave the sister and brother..."
with the yellow/gold
red/orange streak in their hair
yeah, leave them alone.
Traditions die slowly.
Cultural patterns are never quite erased.
ostriches
cheetahs
lions
leopards
honkies
We have always imitated animals.”
- carolyn rodgers, knowing the difference. (via black-poetry)
The Real Invasion of Africa Is Not News
The Real Invasion of Africa Is Not News:
A high-level meeting between the Navies of the United States and Nigeria to discuss cooperation in the waters off the coast of Africa. AFRICOM is carrying out its first full operation against Libya., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
The real invasion of Africa is not news
Thursday, 07 February 2013 00:00
John Pilger
A full-scale invasion of Africa is under way.
The United States is deploying troops in 35 African countries, beginning with Libya, Sudan, Algeria and Niger. Reported by Associated Press on Christmas
Day, this was missing from most Anglo-American media.
The invasion has almost nothing to do with “Islamism”, and almost everything to do with the acquisition of resources, notably minerals, and an accelerating rivalry with China.
Unlike China, the US and its allies are prepared to use a degree of violence demonstrated in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Palestine. As in the cold war, a division of labour requires that western journalism and popular culture provide the cover of a holy war against a “menacing arc” of Islamic extremism, no different from the bogus “red menace” of a worldwide communist conspiracy.
Reminiscent of the Scramble for Africa in the late 19th century, the US African Command (Africom) has built a network of supplicants among collaborative African regimes eager for American bribes and armaments. Last year, Africom staged Operation African Endeavour, with the armed forces of 34 African nations taking part, commanded by the US military. Africom’s “soldier to soldier” doctrine embeds US officers at every level of command from general to warrant officer.
Only pith helmets are missing.
It is as if Africa’s proud history of liberation, from Patrice Lumumba to Nelson Mandela, is consigned to oblivion by a new master’s black colonial elite whose “historic mission”, warned Frantz Fanon half a century ago, is the promotion of “a capitalism rampant though camouflaged”.
A striking example is the eastern Congo, a treasure trove of strategic minerals, controlled by an atrocious rebel group known as the M23, which in turn is run by Uganda and Rwanda, the proxies of Washington.
Long planned as a “mission” for Nato, not to mention the ever-zealous French, whose colonial lost causes remain on permanent standby, the war on Africa became urgent in 2011 when the Arab world appeared to be liberating itself from the Mubaraks and other clients of Washington and Europe.
The hysteria this caused in imperial capitals cannot be exaggerated. Nato bombers were dispatched not to Tunis or Cairo but Libya, where Muammar Gaddafi ruled over Africa’s largest oil reserves. With the Libyan city of Sirte reduced to rubble, the British SAS directed the “rebel” militias in what has since been exposed as a racist bloodbath.
The indigenous people of the Sahara, the Tuareg, whose Berber fighters Gaddafi had protected, fled home across Algeria to Mali, where the Tuareg have been claiming a separate state since the 1960s.
As the ever watchful Patrick Cockburn points out, it is this local dispute, not al-Qaeda, that the West fears most in northwest Africa. . . “poor though the Tuareg may be, they are often living on top of great reserves of oil, gas, uranium and other valuable minerals”.
Almost certainly the consequence of a French/US attack on Mali on January 13, a siege at a gas complex in Algeria ended bloodily, inspiring a 9/11 moment in David Cameron.
The former Carlton TV PR man raged about a “global threat” requiring “decades” of western violence. He meant implantation of the west’s business plan for Africa, together with the rape of multi-ethnic Syria and the conquest of independent Iran.
Cameron has now ordered British troops to Mali, and sent an RAF drone, while his verbose military chief, General Sir David Richards, has addressed “a very clear message to jihadists worldwide: don’t dangle and tangle with us. We will deal with it robustly” - exactly what jihadists want to hear.
The trail of blood of British army terror victims, all Muslims, their “systemic” torture cases currently heading to court, add necessary irony to the general’s words. I once experienced Sir David’s “robust” ways when I asked him if he had read the courageous Afghan feminist Malalai Joya’s description of the barbaric behaviour of westerners and their clients in her country.
“You are an apologist for the Taliban” was his reply. (He later apologised).
These bleak comedians are straight out of Evelyn Waugh and allow us to feel the bracing breeze of history and hypocrisy. The “Islamic terrorism” that is their excuse for the enduring theft of Africa’s riches was all but invented by them.
There is no longer any excuse to swallow the BBC/CNN line and not know the truth. Read Mark Curtis’s Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam (Serpent’s Tail) or John Cooley’s Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism (Pluto Press) or The Grand Chessboard by Zbigniew Brzezinski (HarperCollins) who was midwife to the birth of modern fundamentalist terror.
In effect, the mujahedin of al-Qaeda and the Taliban were created by the CIA, its Pakistani equivalent, the Inter-Services Intelligence, and Britain’s MI6.
Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser, describes a secret presidential directive in 1979 that began what became the current “war on terror”. For 17 years, the US deliberately cultivated, bank-rolled, armed and brainwashed jihadi extremists that “steeped a generation in violence”.
Code-named Operation Cyclone, this was the “great game” to bring down the Soviet Union but brought down the Twin Towers.
Since then, the news that intelligent, educated people both dispense and ingest has become a kind of Disney journalism, fortified, as ever, by Hollywood’s licence to lie, and lie.
There is the coming Dreamworks movie on WikiLeaks, a fabrication inspired by a book of perfidious title-tattle by two enriched Guardian journalists; and there is Zero Dark Thirty, which promotes torture and murder, directed by the Oscar-winning Kathryn Bigelow, the Leni Riefenstahl of our time, promoting her master’s voice as did the Fuhrer’s pet film-maker. Such is the one-way mirror through which we barely glimpse what power does in our name.
John Richard Pilger is an Australian journalist based in London. Since his early years as a war correspondent in Vietnam, Pilger has been a strong critic of American, Australian and British foreign policies. This article is reproduced from www.johnpilger.com
More...
A high-level meeting between the Navies of the United States and Nigeria to discuss cooperation in the waters off the coast of Africa. AFRICOM is carrying out its first full operation against Libya., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
The real invasion of Africa is not news
Thursday, 07 February 2013 00:00
John Pilger
A full-scale invasion of Africa is under way.
The United States is deploying troops in 35 African countries, beginning with Libya, Sudan, Algeria and Niger. Reported by Associated Press on Christmas
Day, this was missing from most Anglo-American media.
The invasion has almost nothing to do with “Islamism”, and almost everything to do with the acquisition of resources, notably minerals, and an accelerating rivalry with China.
Unlike China, the US and its allies are prepared to use a degree of violence demonstrated in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Palestine. As in the cold war, a division of labour requires that western journalism and popular culture provide the cover of a holy war against a “menacing arc” of Islamic extremism, no different from the bogus “red menace” of a worldwide communist conspiracy.
Reminiscent of the Scramble for Africa in the late 19th century, the US African Command (Africom) has built a network of supplicants among collaborative African regimes eager for American bribes and armaments. Last year, Africom staged Operation African Endeavour, with the armed forces of 34 African nations taking part, commanded by the US military. Africom’s “soldier to soldier” doctrine embeds US officers at every level of command from general to warrant officer.
Only pith helmets are missing.
It is as if Africa’s proud history of liberation, from Patrice Lumumba to Nelson Mandela, is consigned to oblivion by a new master’s black colonial elite whose “historic mission”, warned Frantz Fanon half a century ago, is the promotion of “a capitalism rampant though camouflaged”.
A striking example is the eastern Congo, a treasure trove of strategic minerals, controlled by an atrocious rebel group known as the M23, which in turn is run by Uganda and Rwanda, the proxies of Washington.
Long planned as a “mission” for Nato, not to mention the ever-zealous French, whose colonial lost causes remain on permanent standby, the war on Africa became urgent in 2011 when the Arab world appeared to be liberating itself from the Mubaraks and other clients of Washington and Europe.
The hysteria this caused in imperial capitals cannot be exaggerated. Nato bombers were dispatched not to Tunis or Cairo but Libya, where Muammar Gaddafi ruled over Africa’s largest oil reserves. With the Libyan city of Sirte reduced to rubble, the British SAS directed the “rebel” militias in what has since been exposed as a racist bloodbath.
The indigenous people of the Sahara, the Tuareg, whose Berber fighters Gaddafi had protected, fled home across Algeria to Mali, where the Tuareg have been claiming a separate state since the 1960s.
As the ever watchful Patrick Cockburn points out, it is this local dispute, not al-Qaeda, that the West fears most in northwest Africa. . . “poor though the Tuareg may be, they are often living on top of great reserves of oil, gas, uranium and other valuable minerals”.
Almost certainly the consequence of a French/US attack on Mali on January 13, a siege at a gas complex in Algeria ended bloodily, inspiring a 9/11 moment in David Cameron.
The former Carlton TV PR man raged about a “global threat” requiring “decades” of western violence. He meant implantation of the west’s business plan for Africa, together with the rape of multi-ethnic Syria and the conquest of independent Iran.
Cameron has now ordered British troops to Mali, and sent an RAF drone, while his verbose military chief, General Sir David Richards, has addressed “a very clear message to jihadists worldwide: don’t dangle and tangle with us. We will deal with it robustly” - exactly what jihadists want to hear.
The trail of blood of British army terror victims, all Muslims, their “systemic” torture cases currently heading to court, add necessary irony to the general’s words. I once experienced Sir David’s “robust” ways when I asked him if he had read the courageous Afghan feminist Malalai Joya’s description of the barbaric behaviour of westerners and their clients in her country.
“You are an apologist for the Taliban” was his reply. (He later apologised).
These bleak comedians are straight out of Evelyn Waugh and allow us to feel the bracing breeze of history and hypocrisy. The “Islamic terrorism” that is their excuse for the enduring theft of Africa’s riches was all but invented by them.
There is no longer any excuse to swallow the BBC/CNN line and not know the truth. Read Mark Curtis’s Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam (Serpent’s Tail) or John Cooley’s Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism (Pluto Press) or The Grand Chessboard by Zbigniew Brzezinski (HarperCollins) who was midwife to the birth of modern fundamentalist terror.
In effect, the mujahedin of al-Qaeda and the Taliban were created by the CIA, its Pakistani equivalent, the Inter-Services Intelligence, and Britain’s MI6.
Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser, describes a secret presidential directive in 1979 that began what became the current “war on terror”. For 17 years, the US deliberately cultivated, bank-rolled, armed and brainwashed jihadi extremists that “steeped a generation in violence”.
Code-named Operation Cyclone, this was the “great game” to bring down the Soviet Union but brought down the Twin Towers.
Since then, the news that intelligent, educated people both dispense and ingest has become a kind of Disney journalism, fortified, as ever, by Hollywood’s licence to lie, and lie.
There is the coming Dreamworks movie on WikiLeaks, a fabrication inspired by a book of perfidious title-tattle by two enriched Guardian journalists; and there is Zero Dark Thirty, which promotes torture and murder, directed by the Oscar-winning Kathryn Bigelow, the Leni Riefenstahl of our time, promoting her master’s voice as did the Fuhrer’s pet film-maker. Such is the one-way mirror through which we barely glimpse what power does in our name.
John Richard Pilger is an Australian journalist based in London. Since his early years as a war correspondent in Vietnam, Pilger has been a strong critic of American, Australian and British foreign policies. This article is reproduced from www.johnpilger.com
More...
35 Ancient Pyramids Discovered in Sudan Necropolis
At least 35 small pyramids, along with graves, have been discovered clustered closely together at a site called Sedeinga in Sudan.
Discovered between 2009 and 2012, researchers are surprised at how densely the pyramids are concentrated. In one field season alone, in 2011, the research team discovered 13 pyramids packed into roughly 5,381 square feet (500 square meters), or slightly larger than an NBA basketball court.
They date back around 2,000 years to a time when a kingdom named Kush flourished in Sudan. Kush shared a border with Egypt and, later on, the Roman Empire. The desire of the kingdom’s people to build pyramids was apparently influenced by Egyptian funerary architecture. Read more.
Fleets of Drones Descend on Africa
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
U.S. drone bases are multiplying on the African continent. Niger has just “given the green light to accepting American surveillance drones on its soil”; neighboring Burkina Faso already has one; two new drone facilities are opening in Ethiopia and the Seychelles; and UN peacekeepers in Congo want U.S. drones. Drones have terrorized Somalia from AFRICOM’s base in Djibouti for the past seven years.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20130206_gf_DronesInAfrica.mp3
Dome piece
zathros:
From Lisa’s demonstration at IMATS Pasadena January 2013.
Airbrush and handwork.
No Photoshop all in camera.
Artist: Lisa Berczel
Model: Michael Foster
Kill List Exposed: Leaked Obama Memo Shows Assassination of U.S. Citizens "Has No Geographic Limit".
Kill List Exposed: Leaked Obama Memo Shows Assassination of U.S. Citizens "Has No Geographic Limit"
An ka wili
Tiken Jah Fakoly, a well-known reggae artist who’s been based in Bamako’s Niamakoro neighborhood for the past several years, just released a single entitled “An ka wili” or “Let us rise up,” urging Malians to unite against the Islamists who have taken over the north of their country.
True to form, Tiken Jah grounds his call to action in Mali’s precolonial history. Below is my own translation of the lyrics to “An ka wili”:
Mali will slip away from us [Mali bè na taa k'an to] / Kidal will slip away from us / Timbuktu will slip away from us
Chorus: Let us rise up, let us rise up, if we don’t rise up, Mali will slip away from us
Where have the descendants of Sunjata gone? Where have the descendants of Da Monzon gone?
Let the descendants of Sumaoro rise up! Let the descendants of Sunjata rise up! Let the descendants of Sonni Ali Ber rise up!
What will we tell our children, that Timbuktu once was ours?
Sonni Ali Ber, died in 1492, the greatest hero and legend of the Songhai empire / A brilliant strategist, authentic military genius / He led 32 wars over 26 years, and won them all, Mali!
Tiken Jah Fakoly, Pan-Africanist iconThere’s nothing unusual about these lyrics’ heavy historical content: in my previous post, and in a recent scholarly article, I’ve referred to the role that Mali’s legendary precolonial rulers and heroes continue to play in the nation’s political imagination. What may appear unusual, at least to outsiders, is that Tiken Jah is not Malian: he was born and raised in Odienné, in northwestern Côte d’Ivoire. He only left his native country in 2003, after his outspoken criticism of the nativist doctrine called ivoirité earned him death threats from the supporters of then-president Laurent Gbagbo.
In other settings it would probably be strange to see a non-citizen leading calls for nationalist mobilization. (Could “God Bless the USA” have been recorded by Michael Bublé or Celine Dion? Could “The Rising” have been written by Bruce Cockburn instead of Bruce Springsteen?) But the collective sentiments to which Tiken Jah’s lyrics appeal don’t correspond neatly to the modern Malian nation-state: they cite the names of kings and warriors — Sunjata, Samory, Sumaoro and others — who ruled over territories encompassing much of present-day Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Burkina Faso; notably, they also cite Sonni Ali, who conquered areas stretching from Senegal to northern Nigeria, and whose capital was Gao, the largest city occupied by Islamist militias today.
(Bamakois have embraced Tiken Jah as one of their own, but his activism on behalf of Mali’s national unity only gives ammunition to his critics in Côte d’Ivoire, who claim he’s not a true Ivoirian anyway. As Sasha Newell demonstrates in his new book about “nouchi” youth culture in Abidjan, a large number of urban Ivoirians regard anyone wearing a boubou as unfit for citizenship in their country.)
Another reference to bygone heroes: the cover of Tiken Jah’s 2010 release “African Revolution”When Tiken Jah sings “Let us rise up,” he’s primarily addressing citizens of modern Mali; his video was produced in Bamako, after all, and it is Malian people of various walks of life (laborers, soldiers, seamstresses, civil servants, youths, street vendors) who appear in it. But the singer is also framing himself as a descendant of those illustrious forebears who united the populations of many ethnicities and localities, and who led opposition to foreign domination. (Note that in Bamako, the Islamists are widely perceived to be non-Malians, and indeed many of the leaders of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and its offshoot MUJAO are from Algeria and Mauritania.)
Tiken Jah’s secondary audience might be citizens of neighboring countries who take their inspiration from some of the same founding figures, and whose governments could support a multinational military offensive to take back the Malian regions now under Islamist control. The “An ka wili” video is also replete with Pan-Africanist symbolism, from the red, green and gold colors to the outline of the continent. It speaks to a broad range of loyalties to unite listeners in opposition to the Islamist threat.
“I’m calling for a general mobilization,” the singer told the AFP. “Mali has known great men, great empires and it is unimaginable to leave the country divided as it is today. Malians must count first on their own strengths.”
Tiken Jah’s message is in line with the public mood in Bamako (on which I reported in my previous post), where people are fed up with waiting for outside assistance to reunify their country. I doubt that any attempt to mobilize the Malian people can succeed without making reference to the kinds of historical imagery presented in “An ka wili.” Interim President Dioncounda Traoré and his speechwriters should take note.
Postscript, Jan. 12: Bamako Hebdo features a write-up on Tiken Jah’s song.
Postscript, Jan. 19: A group of Malian artists calling themselves “Voices United for Mali” has released a song “Mali-ko/Peace” (see the video). The group includes Tiken Jah, Fatoumata Diawara, Amadou and Mariam, Oumou Sangaré, Bassekou Kouyaté, Vieux Farka Touré, Djelimady Tounkara, Toumani Diabaté, Khaira Arby, Kassé Mady Diabaté, Baba Salah, Afel Bocoum, Amkoullel and Habib Koité among many others. Meanwhile, Bamako Hebdo features a write-up on a new single by rapper Master Soumy, of Sofas de la Republique fame, entitled “Sini yé kêléyé” (Tomorrow is a fight), which he calls “a song dedicated to the Malian army, dedicated to mobilizing the people behind their army.”
True to form, Tiken Jah grounds his call to action in Mali’s precolonial history. Below is my own translation of the lyrics to “An ka wili”:
Mali will slip away from us [Mali bè na taa k'an to] / Kidal will slip away from us / Timbuktu will slip away from us
Chorus: Let us rise up, let us rise up, if we don’t rise up, Mali will slip away from us
Where have the descendants of Tieba gone? / Where have the descendants of Samory gone?
Where have the descendants of Sunjata gone? Where have the descendants of Da Monzon gone?
Let the descendants of Sumaoro rise up! Let the descendants of Sunjata rise up! Let the descendants of Sonni Ali Ber rise up!
We cannot tell our children, “Kidal once was ours”
We cannot tell our children, “Timbuktu once was ours”
What will we tell our children, that Gao once was ours?
What will we tell our children, that Timbuktu once was ours?
Sonni Ali Ber, died in 1492, the greatest hero and legend of the Songhai empire / A brilliant strategist, authentic military genius / He led 32 wars over 26 years, and won them all, Mali!
Samory Touré, great African warrior, synonymous with resistance against the colonizers, Mali!
Sunjata Keita, King of Mandé, who brought the peoples together, founder of the Mandé empire, Mali!
Babemba, fierce opponent of colonization, Mali!
Rise up! The day has come!
Tiken Jah Fakoly, Pan-Africanist icon
In other settings it would probably be strange to see a non-citizen leading calls for nationalist mobilization. (Could “God Bless the USA” have been recorded by Michael Bublé or Celine Dion? Could “The Rising” have been written by Bruce Cockburn instead of Bruce Springsteen?) But the collective sentiments to which Tiken Jah’s lyrics appeal don’t correspond neatly to the modern Malian nation-state: they cite the names of kings and warriors — Sunjata, Samory, Sumaoro and others — who ruled over territories encompassing much of present-day Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Burkina Faso; notably, they also cite Sonni Ali, who conquered areas stretching from Senegal to northern Nigeria, and whose capital was Gao, the largest city occupied by Islamist militias today.
(Bamakois have embraced Tiken Jah as one of their own, but his activism on behalf of Mali’s national unity only gives ammunition to his critics in Côte d’Ivoire, who claim he’s not a true Ivoirian anyway. As Sasha Newell demonstrates in his new book about “nouchi” youth culture in Abidjan, a large number of urban Ivoirians regard anyone wearing a boubou as unfit for citizenship in their country.)
Another reference to bygone heroes: the cover of Tiken Jah’s 2010 release “African Revolution”
Tiken Jah’s secondary audience might be citizens of neighboring countries who take their inspiration from some of the same founding figures, and whose governments could support a multinational military offensive to take back the Malian regions now under Islamist control. The “An ka wili” video is also replete with Pan-Africanist symbolism, from the red, green and gold colors to the outline of the continent. It speaks to a broad range of loyalties to unite listeners in opposition to the Islamist threat.
“I’m calling for a general mobilization,” the singer told the AFP. “Mali has known great men, great empires and it is unimaginable to leave the country divided as it is today. Malians must count first on their own strengths.”
Tiken Jah’s message is in line with the public mood in Bamako (on which I reported in my previous post), where people are fed up with waiting for outside assistance to reunify their country. I doubt that any attempt to mobilize the Malian people can succeed without making reference to the kinds of historical imagery presented in “An ka wili.” Interim President Dioncounda Traoré and his speechwriters should take note.
*********
Following the example of journalist and fellow Mali RPCV Peter Tinti, below I suggest a few notable English-language press items on the situation in Mali:- “Al Qaeda carves out own country in Mali” (Rukmini Callimachi), Associated Press, Dec. 31
- “No Easy Answers in Mali” (editorial), The New York Times, Dec. 30
- “The secret race to save Timbuktu’s manuscripts” (Geoffrey York), The Globe and Mail, Dec. 27
- “Islamists’ Harsh Justice is on the Rise in Northern Mali” (Adam Nossiter), The New York Times, Dec. 27
- “Mali’s neighbours fear spread of terrorism from Islamists” (Geoffrey York), The Globe and Mail, Dec. 20
Postscript, Jan. 12: Bamako Hebdo features a write-up on Tiken Jah’s song.
Postscript, Jan. 19: A group of Malian artists calling themselves “Voices United for Mali” has released a song “Mali-ko/Peace” (see the video). The group includes Tiken Jah, Fatoumata Diawara, Amadou and Mariam, Oumou Sangaré, Bassekou Kouyaté, Vieux Farka Touré, Djelimady Tounkara, Toumani Diabaté, Khaira Arby, Kassé Mady Diabaté, Baba Salah, Afel Bocoum, Amkoullel and Habib Koité among many others. Meanwhile, Bamako Hebdo features a write-up on a new single by rapper Master Soumy, of Sofas de la Republique fame, entitled “Sini yé kêléyé” (Tomorrow is a fight), which he calls “a song dedicated to the Malian army, dedicated to mobilizing the people behind their army.”
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