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Gizenga had been widely expected to become the prime minister [AFP]
Joseph Kabila, the newly-elected president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, has named Antoine Gizenga, the 81-year-old opposition veteran, as the country's new prime minister. Kabila announced the decision through a presidential decree read on state television on Saturday. The nomination of Gizenga, leader of the Socialist-leaning Unified Lumumbist Party (PALU), has been widely expected since Kabila was sworn in on December 6 as the country's first democratically elected president in more than 40 years. Gizenga, who came third in the first round of a presidential election in July, signed an agreement with Kabila's political coalition ahead of an October runoff, promising his support in exchange for a guarantee that the post of prime minister would go to a member of his party. "PALU is extremely pleased," Godefroid Mayobo, Gizenga's spokesman, told Reuters shortly after the announcement. "We have finally come back to where we were when we were pushed aside." Gizenga served as deputy to Patrice Lumumba, Congo's first prime minister, who was assassinated in early 1961 months after the vast, mineral-rich country spanning central Africa achieved independence from Belgium the previous year. He later headed a rebel government of Lumumba's supporters in Kisangani in the country's northeast, following a coup led by Mobutu Sese Seko. First arrested, then driven into exile for nearly three decades, Gizenga has not had an official government post since 1960. Until the 2006 elections, his PALU party had never held a parliamentary seat, having refused to take part in a series of undemocratic elections in Mobutu's dictatorship, during which the country's politics was largely reduced to kleptocracy. The UN-backed elections were meant to draw a line under a 1998-2003 war and resulting humanitarian crisis that killed an estimated four million Congolese, mostly from starvation and disease. However, militia violence continues in eastern areas. Joseph Kabila came to power as the world's youngest head of state following the murder of his father Laurent in 2001. |
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Nigeria Holds Presidential Primary Governor wins Nigeria party ticket
Yar'Adua secured 3,024 votes out of a total of 4,007 valid votes cast
Nigeria's ruling Peoples Democratic Party has chosen Umaru Yar'Adua, governor of the northern Katsina State, as its candidate for the April 2007 presidential election. The vote will choose a successor to Olusegun Obasanjo, whose second four-year term is coming to an end and who is constitutionally barred from standing again. Yar'Adua, 55, won hands down, garnering 3,024 votes out of a total of 4,007 valid votes cast, an AFP journalist attending the PDP convention in the federal capital Abuja said. Rochas Okorocha, a former special adviser to President Obasanjo came second with just 372 votes. Expected victory Muhammed Gusau, a retired general who spent his career in intelligence, came third with 271 votes. Ninety-four votes were disqualified. Yar'Adua's victory had been widely expected after the governors of PDP-controlled states on Friday chose him as their "consensus candidate" and urged all party delegates to vote for him on the grounds that he "presented the best credentials" and was "generally acceptable across the country." The PDP, which won national elections in 1999 when the military ceded power to civilians, controls 28 of Nigeria's 36 states and has a majority in the national parliament. The party was again victorious in 2003 and has promised to win again next year. Given that the ruling PDP remains powerful, despite internal feuding, observers say that the candidate fielded by this party stands a good chance of winning the presidential election. |
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Guyana's Bharrat Jagdeo and the PPP/C Party Declared Winners
GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Fri. Sept. 1, 2006: Forty-two year-old Bharrat Jagdeo last night thanked Guyanese for their “maturity” in ensuring a peaceful election as he was again handed the mandate to serve Guyana for a fourth consecutive term. Jagdeo and the People’s Progressive Party/Civic was yesterday declared the winner by the Guyana Elections Commission as the agency wrapped up its official count of the votes from the August 28th election. Despite low voter turnout, the PPP/C, according to GECOM’s Chief Election Officer, Gocool Bodhoo, scored the largest number of seats in the National Assembly. This victory was welcomed by Jagdeo, prime ministerial candidate Samuel Hinds, executives of the party and other members and supporters at the Freedom House headquarters, Robb Street last evening. “We have worked hard over the years. We have campaigned hard over the months and our work is vindicated by the results,” Jagdeo commented after the results were announced. “I am very pleased that we have, since the return of democracy to Guyana, the highest number of seats in Parliament, matching the results of 1997. That is another big success for us. I want to thank the many people who helped us in various ways to achieve this victory…without their hard work and support we would have never achieved these results.” The PPP/C scored 183,887 of the 338,839 valid votes or 54.6 percent to give them an increase from 34 to 36 seats in the 65-member parliament. The opposition People’s National Congress Reform – One Guyana garnered 114,608 to give them 21 seats and the new Alliance for Change, 28,366, or an equivalent of about five seats. The main opposition PNCR-1G, for its part, accepted the results while still maintaining there were some irregularities. Still the party, in a statement last night congratulated the people of Guyana for their exemplary conduct on Elections Day, saying they definitely “defied the prophets of doom.” Many had predicted an outbreak of ethnic violence during and after the election but amidst a barrage of security, peace reigned. Jagdeo meanwhile is already moving on to the business of leading Guyana for another five years, saying last night he will soon name his cabinet. Prior to the election he had announced there would be new faces in the government but last night declined to make any major disclosures, saying instead, “We will take our time and do it well. I am in no rush. I will not be rushed by anyone to form the cabinet or to even go to the National Assembly immediately.” But he reiterated his intention to create a framework that will hopefully enhance cooperation between the political parties in addressing the problems of Guyana but expressed skepticism about interfering with the electoral system. President Jagdeo is scheduled to be sworn in to office on September 2. |
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Ethiopian troops enter Somalia Hundreds of Ethiopian troops in armoured vehicles have entered the central Somali town of Baidoa, home of the country's transitional government. Residents said Ethiopian troops arrived on Thursday afternoon and set up a camp near the president's home there. A spokesman for the transitional federal government denied that any Ethiopian soliders were in the town and maintained the claims were part of an Islamist plot to launch an attack. "It is absolutely false," Abdirahman Nur Mohamed Dinari told AFP news agency. "Every time the Islamists want to attack, they start propagating rumours and manufacturing lies." A top Islamic leader Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed responded to the reports saying: "We will declare jihad if the Ethiopian government refuses to withdraw their troops from Somalia." Berhan Hailu, the Ethiopian minister of information, told Reuters in Addis Ababa on Wednesday: "We will use all means at our disposal to crush the Islamist group if they attempt to attack Baidoa, the seat of the transitional federal government." Forces from the Supreme Council of the Islamic Courts moved to a town near Baidoa on Wednesday, causing fears of further conflict. UN Appeal Later on Thursday, Francois Fall, the United Nation's special representative to Somalia, urged the transitional government and the Islamists to restrain their respective forces and resume the dialogue they started in Khartoum last month. Fall said: "I appeal to both sides to respect the ceasefire and other provisions of the Khartoum agreement, including their commitment to refrain from any provocations that could lead to an escalation of the situation. "The place to deal with differences is at the negotiating table." Fall said the two sides had made a good start to negotiations when they met in Sudan last month. He said: "A continuation of the Khartoum process will give them a further opportunity to flesh out their expectations and move towards a peaceful solution." Islamist Withdrawal On Tuesday, the Islamists advanced as far as Buurhakana, about 40km east of Baidoa, which they said they had entered to collect defecting government soldiers. However, they withdrew from the town on Thursday. "Ethiopia is closely monitoring the jihadist Islamist group which has now returned to Mogadishu after a warning from Ethiopia not to attack Baidoa, the seat of the transitional government," Hailu said. The United States has urged Ethiopia to exercise restraint and said the European Union, the US, the African Union, the Arab League and others in an international contact group on Somalia will meet soon to consider the situation. Somalia invaded Ethiopia in 1978 in an attempt to take land occupied by ethnic Somalis. Ethiopia has since attempted to influence Somali politics to prevent another invasion. Ethiopia sent troops into Somalia in 1993 and 1996 to crush Islamic fighters attempting to establish a religious government. Ethiopian Ally Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed is allied with Ethiopia and has asked for its support. Hundreds of Ethiopian troops have been spotted along the countries' border in recent weeks prompting criticism from the Islamists. Relations between the government and Islamists have been tense since the Islamic courts took control of Mogadishu last month, challenging the authority of the largely powerless government. The two sides agreed a truce and mutual recognition deal in Sudan on June 22 – the government says the Islamists have broken the deal. They were due to hold further Arab League-sponsored talks in Khartoum last weekend, but the government boycotted them. On Monday, officials changed their minds and the talks were rescheduled for this Saturday. Somalia has been without effective central government since clan-based regional commanders overthrew the president, Mohamed Siad Barre, in 1991 and then turned on each other. |
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Bicentennial of Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade There will be an Emancipation Festival in Owen Sound, Ontario. The website link is: www.emancipation.ca/picnic/picnic.html The University of York (UK) hosts a conference that looks at the meaning and impact of the abolition of the slave trade across the Atlantic world (12-14 April 2007). |
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U of A Department of Political Science Speaker Series FALL 2006 - WINTER 2007 SEPTEMBER 2006 Dr. Hakim Adi Dr. Adi is Reader in the History of Africa and the African Diaspora at Middlesex University, London, UK Thursday, 28 September 2006 Location: University of Alberta Building/Room: TBA Title: "Disguising Race: the Sanitisation of Discourses of Development" Abstract: Those concerned with the study of African political economy and 'development' have often neglected those ideas that emerged from the African Diaspora, while those who study the African Diaspora have often been more concerned with issues of 'identity' than with the political future of Africa. This paper argues that for those whose main concern is the study of anti-colonialism, it is often difficult to separate the history of Africa and the Diaspora during the colonial and neo-colonial periods of the 20th century. Many key anti-colonial ideas were developed as much in the Diaspora, and often in the capitals of Europe, as they were withing the African continent. Ideologies such as Pan-Africanism, which developed mainly within the Diaspora, the thinking of Fanon and others, as well as the liberation struggles in Africa, created the basis for alternative strategies for the anti-colonial struggle. They also created the basis for a modern African political theory, a necessary requirement for people-centred development in post-colonial African states. Bio: Dr Hakim Adi (Ph.D SOAS, London University) is Reader in the History of Africa and the African Diaspora at Middlesex University, London, UK. He is a founder member and currently chairs the Black and Asian Studies Association, and a member of the Mayor of London´s Commission on African and Asian Heritage. Hakim Adi is the author of West Africans in Britain 1900-60: Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and Communism (Lawrence and Wishart, 1998) and (with M. Sherwood) The 1945 Manchester Pan-African Congress Revisited (New Beacon, 1995) and Pan-African History: Political Figures from Africa and the Diaspora since 1787 (Routledge, 2003). He has appeared in several television documentaries and radio programmes, and has written widely on the history of the African Diaspora and Africans in Britain, including three history books for children. ----------------- NOVEMBER 2006 DR. EMMANUEL CHUKWUDI EZE Associate Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University in Illinois, Chair of the Committee on Critical Race Theory, and an Affiliate Faculty Member with the Program in African and Black Diaspora Studies Thursday, 23/30 November 2006 Location: University of Alberta Building/Room: TBA Title: "Diversity and The Languages of Reason." Abstract: "In the first part of the paper ("Languages of reason") I argue that rationality in the sciences ("science" construed broadly: physical, social, or moral and literary) is diverse because reason itself is internally diverse. In the second part ("Philosophy, science and cultural principles of reason") I argue that because reason occurs in cultures, cultural considerations can be seen as inescapable in the sciences. Taken together, the two sections argue that there exists, whether we like it or not, diverse languages of reason. Similar to human capacity for language, reason itself (if we can phrase it like that) speaks different languages. We cannot hear any of reason's forms of speech, nor are we ourselves able to speak rationally, except in awareness of diversity. Diversity, I conclude, must be thought of not merely as an idea we make up (and may choose to reject) about reason but rather as an inherent part of what it means to live a life of reason or to engage in rational practices, such as we do in the sciences." Bio: "Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at DePaul University, Chicago. He did his undergraduate and graduate studies at Jesuit colleges in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo and at Fordham University in New York. His teaching specializations are in European and African philosophy, social and political theory, and postcolonial studies. His previous publications include Achieving our Humanity: The Idea of the Postracial Future (2001), Postcolonial African Philosophy: A Critical Reader (1998), and Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader (1997). He edits the journal Philosophia Africana." --------------------------- LONG BIO: Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University in Illinois, Chair of the Committee on Critical Race Theory, and an Affiliate Faculty Member with the Program in African and Black Diaspora Studies. Since 1997 he has been the Executive Editor of Philosophia Africana. Dr. Eze was educated at Fordham University in addition to universities in Nigeria and Zaire. He specializes in African Philosophical Thought, Social and Political Theory, Postcolonial Thought, Theories of Race and Racism, Philosophy and Human Rights, Ethics of Multiculturalism, and History of Ideas. Dr. Eze is the editor of Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader (Blackwell 1997), Postcolonial African Philosophy: A Critical Reader (Blackwell 1998), and African Philosophy: An Anthology (Blackwell, 1997), and authored Achieving our Humanity: The Idea of the Postracial Future (Routledge, 2001), Pensamiento Africano. Ética y política (Barcelona: Bellaterra 2001), and the forthcoming book, Reflections on Philosophy, Memory and Politics (Johannesburg: University of South Africa Press, in press). Some of his recent articles include: "Epistemic Conditions of Genocide," in John K. Roth, ed., Genocide and Human Rights: A Philosophical Guide, New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005: 115-129; "In Search of Reason's Traces," in J. Obi Oguejiofor and Godfrey Igwebuike Onah eds., African Philosophy and the Hermeneutics of Culture: Essays in Honour of Theophilus Okere, Berlin: LIT-Verlag, December 2005; "Transition and the Reasons of Memory," South Atlantic Quarterly, 103.4 (Fall 2004): 758-70; "Politics and the Ordinary," Soundings, volume 87, no. 1-2, (Spring/Summer 2004): 149-174; "Disciplining Postcolonialism and Postcolonizing the Disciplines," in Eiman O. Zein-Elabdin and S. Charusheela, eds., Postcolonialism and Economics, New York: Routledge, 2004: 65-70; "African Philosophy and Religions, 500-1590 C.E" (with Pierre Damien) in Damien, ed., West African Kingdoms and Empires, 500-1590 C. E., Columbus, SC: Manly Publishers, 2004: 450-671; "The Time and Arts of Africa's Modernity," Antipode, 35:2 (Spring 2003): 392-408; "What remains of the Enlightenment?" Human Studies: A Journal for Philosophy and the Social Sciences, 25 (Fall 2002): 281-88; "El Color de la razon: Las ideas de 'Raza' en la anthropologia de Kant," in Walter Mignolo, ed., Capitalismo y geopolitica del conocimiento: El eurocentrismo y la filosofia de la liberacion en el debate intellectual contemporaneo, Argentina: Ediciones del Signo, 2001: 201-52; "Out of Africa: Communication Theory and Cultural Hegemony," in Beyond Dichotomies:Race, Nation and Ethnicities, ed., Elizabeth Mudimbe-Boyi, Buffalo, NY: SUNY Press, 2001:52-59; "'Race': A Historical Critique of the Concept," in Procesos de Paz en Africa: Una Experiencia para Colombia, ed., Madeleine L. Adenbeng Alingue, Bogota: Universidad Externado, 2001:31-68; "Democracy in Today's Africa," in Stephen Dawson and Tomoko Iwasawa, eds., Intercultural Philosophy, Charlottesville, Virginia: Philosophy Documentation Center, 2001:187-199; "African Philosophy and the Analytic Tradition," Philosophical Papers, 30:3 (October 2001): 205-213; "Frantz Fanon: Forty Years Later" (with Nigel Gibson), Philosophia Africana, 4:2 (August 2001): 1-4; "Africana Philosophy: Past, Present and Future" (with John P. Pittman), Philosophia Africana, Vol. 4, No. 1 (March 2001): 1-5; "Transcending Traditions: African, Afro-American, and Afro-Caribbean Philosophy," The Black Scholar, 30: 3-4 (Fall/Winter 2000): 15-29; and "Hume, Race, and Human Nature, "Journal of the History of Ideas, 64: 1 (October 2000): 31-88. For more information, please contact Dr. Malinda Smith, Political Science, Telephone: 780.492.5380 (or Department at 780.492.3429). Email: malinda.smith@ualberta.ca -------------------------------------- Dr. Malinda S. Smith Associate Professor, Political Science Coordinator, Globalization and Governance Certificate Department of Political Science * University of Alberta * 10-23 H. M. Tory Building * Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2H4 Canada * Telephone: (780)492-5380; * Fax: (780)492-2586 http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/polisci/Smith.cfm "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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Somali Islamists Declare Victory; Warlords on Run By MARC LACEY Published: June 6, 2006 NAIROBI, Kenya, June 5 — After months of fierce fighting, Islamic militias declared Monday that they had taken control of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, defeating the warlords widely believed to be backed by the United States and raising questions about whether the country would head down an extremist path. Militiamen from the Islamic Courts Union guarded the recently captured base of Home Security Minister Mohamed Qanyare Afrah in Mogadishu. The battle for Mogadishu has been a proxy war, of sorts, in the Bush administration's campaign against terrorism, with the warlords echoing Washington's goal of rooting out radical Islam and the presence of Al Qaeda in the region. But as the warlords who have ruled over Mogadishu for the last 15 years went on the run on Monday, it appeared that Washington had backed the losing side, presenting the administration with a major setback at a time of continued sectarian violence in Iraq and the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. One of the warlords, Muse Sudi Yalahow, was holed up in a hospital north of the city on Monday, surrounded by his enemies. Others fled the capital after their forces had been pushed from the strategic center, diplomats and local journalists said. The heavily armed militias driving them back are allied with the Islamic courts that have grown in influence throughout Somalia in recent years, filling a void left by the lack of a central government since 1991. The courts are made up of a loose coalition of religious leaders who have put forward Islam, the predominant religion in Somalia, as the way out of the country's long decline into anarchy. On Monday, at least, the capital appeared to be calm, after hundreds of civilian deaths there in recent months. "The people of Mogadishu have finally gotten some peace today," Ali Mohammed, 32, a schoolteacher, said in a telephone interview from the capital on Monday night. "We've had war for so long, and we're tired of it." But he also said he and others feared that the Islamic courts might clamp down and impose a stricter form of Islam on residents. "We don't know what's next," he said. The United States has been widely reported to have secretly financed the capital's warlords, who fashioned themselves into a counterterrorism alliance to track down and apprehend Al Qaeda elements in Mogadishu. American officials have said they fear that the country may descend into a situation similar to that of Afghanistan, where a hard-line Islamist group, the Taliban, seized control of the country and then gave safe haven to Al Qaeda. Already American officials have said that a handful of foreign fighters with links to Al Qaeda are being shielded by Mogadishu's Islamist leaders. The spokesman for the State Department, Sean McCormack, appeared to repeat those concerns at a news briefing on Monday when asked about the takeover in Mogadishu. "We don't want to see Somalia turn into a safe haven for foreign terrorists," he said. "We do have very real concerns about that." But some analysts were not surprised that the battle for Mogadishu turned out as it did. "The so-called Islamists provided a sense of stability in Somalia, education and other social services, while the warlords maimed and killed innocent civilians," said Ted Dagne, the Africa analyst at the Congressional Research Service in Washington. He expressed doubt that the takeover indicated the rise of extremists in the capital. "Somalis are secular Muslims, and the presence of the so-called Islamists is not an introduction of new ideology or religion," Mr. Dagne said in an e-mail message. Administration officials have not said whether American intelligence agents have made payments to the warlords, though academics, security analysts, politicians in the region and other Africa experts assert that they have. Many in Mogadishu said the common belief that the United States was taking sides only strengthened the Islamists, who accused the warlords of being puppets of Washington. According to one Somalia expert, the amount of payments to the warlords has increased significantly in the past year. "By our own estimates, the payments have been between $100,000 and $150,000 per month," said John Prendergast, who monitors Somalia for the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit research organization. Initial statements from the Islamists emphasized a need for dialogue instead of warfare. Since February more than 300 people have been killed and more than 1,700 injured in what was called the fiercest fighting Mogadishu had seen in the 15 years since Somalia's central government collapsed. "We want to restore peace and stability to Mogadishu," Sheik Sharif Ahmed, chairman of the alliance of Islamists, known as the Islamic Courts Union, said Monday on a radio broadcast, according to The Associated Press. "We are ready to meet and talk to anybody and any group for the interest of the people." Still, he made clear the religious nature of the rule to come. "We won the fight against the enemy of Islam," he said. Backing the Islamists have been business leaders eager to end the arbitrary rule of the warlords, as well as freelance gunmen willing to work for anyone who pays them a salary and supplies them with a daily fix of khat, the leaf that is widely chewed among Somalis for its stimulant effect. Now that the Islamists have taken over, it remains to be seen how they will choose to govern and whether infighting among them may send the city back into the chaos it has long known. "We have to appeal to the moderates in this Islamist movement," said Mario Raffaelli, the Italian special envoy for Somalia. "We have to make clear that we are supporting the government." The outcome in Mogadishu has occurred as a transitional government created after two years of peace talks struggles to establish a toehold in the country. Based in Baidoa, 155 miles from Mogadishu, because it lacked the strength to take on the warring gunmen based in the capital, the government finds itself negotiating with a new center of power. In a late-night cabinet meeting on Sunday, as the victory by the Islamic courts became clear, the government decided to open talks with the new rulers of Mogadishu. It also fired the four Mogadishu warlords who held cabinet positions in the transitional government but had flouted calls by their colleagues to stop the fighting. The four men are Mohamed Qanyare Afrah, who was national security minister; Muse Sudi Yalahow, commerce minister; Botan Isse Alin, demobilization minister; and Omar Mohamed Mohamud, religious affairs minister. The Islamist militias had been slowly gaining control over the capital for weeks. On Sunday they took over the strategic town of Balad, 20 miles north of Mogadishu, in fighting that killed 18 people. That cut off the warlords' northern supply route. Then on Monday the Islamic fighters took Davniile, the stronghold of Mr. Qanyare, a major warlord who left the area two days ago after elders in his clan criticized the heavy civilian casualties that fighting by his men had caused. Somalia has been without a central government since the country slipped into civil war more than a decade ago. An American-led relief effort in 1993, which metamorphosed into a hunt for one of the warlords whose fighting with one another interfered with food distribution, ended tragically after 18 American soldiers were killed in a battle made famous by the film "Black Hawk Down." The United States has largely kept the country at diplomatic arm's length ever since, viewing with skepticism the 14 failed rounds of peace negotiations over the years. The latest one produced an interim government carefully balanced by clan representation, which has been urging Washington to back it more vigorously. |
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How the Media Use Blacks to Chastise Blacks The Colored Mind Doubles By ISHMAEL REED
ITivo Don Imus as much as I can because his putrid racist offerings are said to represent the secret thinking of the Cognoscenti. Maybe that's why journalists like Jeff Greenfield and others admire him so much. He says what they think in private. On any day, you might find Bernard McGirk, the man, who, according to "60 Minutes," Imus hired to do "nigger jokes," doing a lame imitation of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, using a plantation type dialect. The blacks who are satirized by McGirk and others are usually displayed as committing malaprops, but, though white writers appear daily on the show, I've rarely seen a black author. In the last twenty years, black authors have received every prize available to authors. His idea of a black author must be the same as the producers of the movie, "The Tenants:" Snoop Dogg. Recently, McGirk referred to Rev. Joesph Lowery as a "shameless skunk," and a joke was made about the manner in which Betty Shabazz, Malcolm X's window, was murdered. Black athletes are referred to as "knuckle draggers," which, the Irish and and Scotts Irish members of Imus's crew--they discussed their ethnic heritage on C-Span--might be surprised to learn, was the way that the British referred to their groups. When an exhibition of great apes was presented in London, the British commentators said that the exhibition showed the Irish to be the link between ape and man. But their being Irish and Scots-Irish makes sense because it was members of these groups who used to entertain the Anglos by blackening up. Maybe that's why Imus has listeners in Kennebunkport. Bush I is a fan. Another fan is Congressman Harold Ford (D-TN), whom Imus endorses so as to deflect attention from the show's lowbrow racism. I'm sure that Ford understands what Imus is all about, but he needs the country and western vote in rural Tennessee in order to gain a senate seat. Imus has a big following among this constituency. So did James Earl Ray. But why pick on Imus? His approach to the treatment of black issues and personalities has become mainstream, the only difference being that instead of using the Irish and Scot-Irish, the traditional white-trash mercenaries, who stand between the Other and the Anglos, when, given their social and economic position, they should strike common cause with blacks, the network and newspaper executives use people who resemble blacks to chastise blacks. This colored auxiliary function as their mind doubles and iPod people. I'll bet the executives got the idea from the cynical packagers of President Bush's political strategies. The administration's advocates of torture for example are Vietnamese, Chinese and Mexican Americans. The former domestic policy advisor who was recently arrested for scamming a department store is black, and the secretary of state is black. When they come before congressional committees, the idea is that congressmen would be reluctant to submit them to harsh questioning for fear of being called racist. That way, they can promote the administration's megalomaniac foreign policy with very little criticism. I'm sure that's Karl Rove's thinking. Unlike Ms. Rice, who I, in a heated public exchange with her, dubbed "the Manchurian Candidate" about a year before she joined the Bush campaign, journalist Barbara Reynolds is a progressive. She said that she was fired from USA Today because she didn't appeal to the demographic group from which the paper gets its sales: Angry White Men. Those black syndicated columnists who have remained must fit the bill. They have become the go-fers for backlash journalism, all of them competing with each other to blame the country's social problems on black behavior. Clarence Page and others are regularly blaming the victim. Harvard's Orlando Patterson is also brought in by the Neo Con op-ed editors at the Times to characterize the problems of African-Americans as self-inflicted, using the kind of argument that would be ripped to shreds in a freshman class room. Even Bob Herbert, a liberal and the token black on the New York Times' Neo Con editorial page, has to take the brothers and sisters to the woodshed from time to time in order to maintain credibility with his employers. He too says that Gangsta Rap is the cause of society's woes. (David Brooks, who promotes some of the same ideas as David Duke, but has a more opaque writing style, even blamed the riots in France on Gangsta Rap). For these writers, black peoples' style is the irritant. If we could only get Rep. Cynthia McKinney to a new hair stylist. Michel Martin, who was assigned to beat up on Ms. Mckinney by the producers of" Nightline," spent half the interview on Ms.McKinney's hair even though Ms.McKinney has been outspoken on a number of serious issues. Can you imagine Ms. Martin conducting an interview with Trent Lott, the last person on the planet to use Wild Root Cream Oil, or Joe Biden, and spending half the time on his hair? If "Nightline's" Martin had subjected a white male congressman to this kind of hostile sarcastic interview, sarcastic not only in words but in body language, to which she subjected Cynthia McKinney, Martin would have gotten the same treatment from her bosses that Connie Chung received when she interviewed Newt Gingrich's mom, who denounced Hillary Clinton as "a bitch". (Ms. Martin knows whom to aggress upon. When she appeared on a program with "white militant" Joe Klein and Klein,who lied about his authorship of Primary Colors, talked about "the poverty of values within the inner city," she just sat there and took it.) Before Chung's interview with Newt's mom, the network executives, according to a media publication issued by the Freedom Forum, wanted someone like Connie Chung for their shows. She still hasn't recovered and has been assigned to a Saturday morning show on MSNBC. Oblivion. Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Constitution was also solicited by "Nightline" to join in on the ambush of Ms. McKinney. Ms.Tucker, who blames the Hudlin brothers, producers at Black Entertainment Network, for the problems confronting some black kids, is the syndicated columnist who relied on the usual inflammatory and racist reporting to describe those who sought refuge in the New Orleans Astrodome as "bestial." The New York Times, the New Orleans Time-Picayune and the LA Times all discounted these rumors and the LA Times even apologized, saying that such reporting would never have occurred had there been white middle class inhabitants of the Astrodome. Ms.Tucker never retracted her false accusation, nor did Jeff Koinange, the reporter whom CNN has assigned to cover all of Africa. He replaced the African-American reporter who was covering the Astrodome because this reporter presumably wasn't sensational enough. While one can see African leaders, intellectuals, and scientists, sessions of parliaments, cultural events on the B.B.C., CNN's view of Africa is on par with that found in the Tarzan movies. When CNN bade Koinange farewell on the occasion of his new assignment, they presented the highlights of his Africa coverage. One picture showed him staring at a crocodile. Another showed him grinning at a monkey. No wonder the American public's knowledge of the world is on par with that of their president's. You'll also notice that the moderator of the "Nightline" show where Congressperson McKinney was grilled was of South Asian origin. According to a memo I have from a Cuban reporter, who was fired from CNN, the executives there, led by Jonathan Klein (the new head of CNN who is trying to boost his ratings by running mug shots of black males all day, while dropping the story about the middle class white kids, who were caught on video beating up homeless people, killing one of them; they were sent to psychiatric counseling) prefer South Asians as anchors, especially the women, and particularly on CNN International. CNN Atlanta features a South Asian anchorwoman who giggles while the male correspondents exchange remarks with her that are loaded with sexual innuendo, certainly an issue that feminists should take up. Even C-Span, the only network where you can obtain a variety of viewpoints from African Americans, though they give disproportionate time to think-tank blacks like Shelby Steele, has gone Imus. Last week, Jadish Bhaghati, a South Asian professor at Columbia who supports Bush's plan to bring Mexican slave labor into the United States to serve his big agri-businesses contributors, shared laughs with host Pedro Echevarria and a caller, a white employer, who was voicing the kind of jokes about black work habits that one reads at the Klan's "Nigger Watch" website. Both Bhaghati and host Echevarria are black, but that didn't prevent them from enjoying the kind of barbs against African-Americans one hears on the Imus show. Of course, one should avoid generalizing about South Asians, but obviously the British, who, referred to them as "niggers," trained some of them very well and they're not the only "people of color" who serve as stooges for the corporate media. Michel Malkin, instead of a hard-hitting anti-establishment writer like Emil Gulliermo of Asia Week, represents Filipino Americans. For Muslim Americans they give us Irshad Manji, who refuses to debate the young playwright Wajahat Ali. For Mexican Americans we are awarded the syndicated Ruben Navarrette, Jr., who believes that black people are too dumb to compete with the cheap Mexican labor that has been brought into New Orleans. People who work off the books, for less than the minimum wages, and who are subject to blackmail by their employers. People who threaten to wipe out all of the gains that American workers have fought for over the last one hundred years. Apparently, there is no room for the views of Patricia Gonzales and Roberto Rodriquez, who are to the left of Navarrette, Jr. African-Americans have a number of individuals who are willing to serve as mind doubles. Some are supported by right wing think tanks like the Manhattan Institute's John McWhorter, black front man for the Eugenics movement. The Manhattan Institute boasts that they can provide enormous publicity for their fellows--the kind of clout that enables them to impose their viewpoints upon discussions about black issues--by using proxies who are unknown to black Americans. When McWhorter attacks me in Commentary, a magazine that praised Charles Murray's "The Bell Curve," or in his books, where do I go to get equal time? He once challenged me to a debate, threatening "to wipe up the floor with me," but when I accepted, he backed out. Another proxy person-of-color intellectual for right wing interests is Shelby Steele of the Hoover Institute. He just got three hours on C-Span to explain his one-note theory that blacks complain too much about their "victimization." He accused blacks of expressing "victimization" when they complained about being robbed of their votes in Florida during the Presidential election of 2000, even though there is abundant evidence that they were victimized. But even Shelby Steele isn't as popular with the right as Ward Connerly who is so firmly associated with proposition 209, the measure that ended Affirmative Action in California, that lazy journalists claim he started the drive that led to its being passed. He didn't. He was brought on when the real sponsors suffered a lapse in their notion of a color-blind society long enough to realize that a black face on their proposition would aide in its adoption. Before Connerly came on, the proposition was failing. (One of the two white founders of the proposition said that he did so because a woman got the job that he was qualified for (Lydia Chavez, the author of "The Color Bind: The Campaign to End Affirmative Action" Paperback, April 1998) an excellent book about the sinister maneuvering that led to proposition 209 says the woman has never been found.) Connerly, viewed as by the media as as martyr who braved the scorn of his black accusers to follow his conscience, only agreed to support the proposition if its supporters raised $500,000. Newt Gingrich helped to raise the money. He was also supported financially by President Clinton's nemesis Richard Mellon Scaife. Rupert Murdoch contributed 200,00 dollars and the Pioneer fund contributed thirty five thousand dollars to the campaign to end Affirmative Action in California, so that now Duke University and "Old Miss" have a higher black enrollment than the University of California and California State University. In his book, The Nazi Connection, Stefan Kuhl says that "Today, the Pioneer Fund is the most important financial supporter of research concerning the connection between race and heredity in the United States." Its largest contributor, until the 1960s, was textile magnate Wickliffe Draper, who worked with the United States House Un-American Activities Committee to demonstrate that blacks were genetically inferior and ought to be 'repatriated' to Africa." The Pioneer Fund also supported Charles Murray's "The Bell Curve," the book beloved by publications that hate Minster Louis Farrakhan so much. In this book, Charles Murray floats some of the same stereotypes about blacks that were once aimed at his Scots-Irish ancestors. Another supporter was Andrew Sullivan, who came to the attention of the mainstream electronic media after he did such a good job bashing blacks at the New York Times Magazine section, which describes blacks as cannibals and crack addicts. Obviously Ward Connerly, who has made millions from being associated with proposition 209, is supported by such ultra right individuals and groups that he has been reluctant to list his contributors. Such is the power of their right wing backers that Steele, Connerly, and McWhorter get more media attention than black elected officials. When Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Connerly appeared on C-Span, on the same day, it was Connerly who was featured. I remember the press conference held by David Duke when he announced that he was abandoning his quest for the presidency. Only a few news people attended. Duke complained that he had to quit because the mainstream candidates had co opted his program all about a growing black underclass threatening civilization. (His Nazi colleague, Tom Metzger disagreed with him. He said on Larry King's show that the average woman on welfare is a white woman whose husband has abandoned her.) The same might happen to Don Imus, whose "nigger Jokes" are sponsored by American Express and other famous brand names. Who needs a white man when there are plenty of people of color willing to take up the slack.
Ishmael Reed is a poet, novelist and essayist who lives in Oakland. His widely-accalimed novels include, Mumbo Jumbo, the Freelance Pallbearers and the Last Days of Louisiana Red. He has recently published a fantastic book on Oakland: Blues City: a Walk in Oakland and Carroll and Graf has just published a thick volume of his poems: New and Collected Poems: 1964-2006. |
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Northern Alberta Alliance on Race Relations (NAARR) Edmonton Public School Board Presentation September 27, 2005 Purpose: To follow up on our initial board presentation of May 11, 2004. We wish to describe the work of the Action Group for Racial Equity in Education (AGREE) which is a community based group that was set up to follow up on the findings in our report Equity in Edmonton Schools. To conclude, we will present some commendations and recommendations with regard to what we see as the next steps in the process of increasing equity in Edmonton public schools. Presentation: The Northern Alberta Alliance on Race Relations (NAARR) presented results of our Equity in Edmonton Schools research and recommendations to you, the Edmonton Public School Board of Trustees, on May 11 of 2004. Since April of 2004, NAARR set up and coordinated meetings of a committee that was named Action Group for Racial Equity in Education (AGREE – Public). Similar committees worked concurrently with Edmonton Catholic Schools and the Conseil Scolaire Centre Nord (the Francophone district in this region). The groups have broad community representation: parents, representatives of organizations whose members are affected by racial inequities in schools, University of Alberta faculty, the Alberta Teachers’ Association, teachers, and other concerned individuals. This group met monthly over a period of 15 months where we engaged in dialogue about the concerns brought out by our Equity in Edmonton Schools research and educational concerns brought by committee members. We are grateful for the presence of Ms. Karen Bardy who represented your district at these meetings. Out of the original list of recommendations presented to you, AGREE identified 4 top priorities. They are, in order: 1. Provision of professional development to all teachers 2. Development of a comprehensive policy to address these concerns 3. Development of clearly equitable hiring practices 4. Development of a protocol for dealing with racial incidents in schools Commendations: Some of our concerns will be addressed by ongoing changes within the EPSB and we commend Edmonton Public Schools for the following: 1. The board priority of Cultural Diversity We understand that each school must address the issue of cultural diversity and report back on how this was undertaken. This highlighting of cultural diversity is welcomed but we would like to caution, with regard to our own specific concerns of racism, that highlighting culture does not necessarily address racism and that culture can be addressed without looking at the realities of racism. 2. Superb Results for ALL Students We are confident that policy and procedures that increase understanding of racism and intercultural communication help to ensure that the human rights of all students are respected and that this will certainly be reflected in increased achievement for racialized minorities. 3. On-line Aboriginal Resources Which is an excellent collection of teacher and student resources that pre-service and in-service teachers can access. 4. Reception Centre for Immigrants Potentially a very useful framework for working with immigrant students but we would also urge caution with regard to the length of placement and to potential bias in evaluation and testing of students for these centers. 5. Educational sessions being offered to school personnel on Aboriginal, Intercultural, and Anti-racism Education 6. Committing to continue working with the community through the “district advisory group.” This is an excellent idea that builds on NAARR’s efforts with the AGREE group to link community, school system administrators, teachers and university faculty. 7. Senior administration willing to work on this with us RECOMMENDATIONS: 1. Professional development in Aboriginal, Intercultural, and Anti-racism education: - be provided to schools at no charge. We recognize that there is currently no charge for Aboriginal and Intercultural education (when it involves English Language Learners). We submit that racism affects individuals outside of these 2 groups. - there be incentives and/or requirements for school staff to participate in these educational sessions e.g., points for taking such a course and a preference for hiring candidates who have taken such courses in university. Offering the sessions is an excellent step and the next step is to ensure that all teachers have the necessary tools to teach and discipline all students equitably and to recognize and deal with racism effectively. 2. Develop a broadly comprehensive policy including the following areas: curriculum, counseling, parent/community communication, assessment, student conduct, employment equity, and professional development AGREE submits that while Edmonton Public Schools has some good policies in place, it is necessary to highlight the issues in one comprehensive policy as many districts across Canada have done. We submit a sample policy that our committee has created, that addresses all areas of concern. We believe this is necessary so that parents may feel confident that this district will protect the legal rights of their children, and so that school personnel can be familiar with all aspects of this issue. We understand that your district hires based on merit. We submit that using employment equity supports this premise and works to ensure that all candidates are interviewed and assessed equitably. The federal government, and many provincial governments, municipalities and school districts have instituted such policies. We conclude by stating that providing more equitable schooling has economic advantages – for society by reducing costs associated with welfare, health, crime and justice – and for the district by attracting visible minority and Aboriginal students. These groups currently comprise 20% of Edmonton’s population , a percentage that will continue to grow. We submit in the form of a chart the economic costs and benefits of diversity, commonly used by large corporations to maximize their earning potential, which has been adapted to reflect costs and benefits to schools. We thank you for working with AGREE and the community and for hearing us as their representatives |
Guyana's Bharrat Jagdeo
is swarmed by the media after he and the PPP/C party are officially
declared winners of the Aug. 28th elections.