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The Guardian
28-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Trump's unfounded attack on Cyril Ramaphosa was an insult to all Africans
The meeting at the White House between Donald Trump and the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, was, at its heart, about the preservation of essential historical truths. The US president's claims of white genocide conflict with the actual racial persecution and massacres that took place during the two centuries of colonisation and nearly 50 years of apartheid in South Africa. It is not enough to be affronted by these claims, or to casually dismiss them as untruths. These statements are a clear example of how language can be leveraged to extend the effects of previous injustices. This mode of violence has long been used against Indigenous Africans. And it cannot simply be met with silence – not any more. The Kenyan writer Mzee Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o wrote: 'Language conquest, unlike the military form, wherein the victor must subdue the whole population directly, is cheaper and more effective.' African nations learned long ago that their fates are inextricably linked. When it comes to interactions with the world beyond our continent, we are each other's bellwether. In 1957, the year before my birth, Ghana became the first Black African country to free itself from colonialism. After the union jack had been lowered, our first prime minister, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, gave a speech in which he emphasised that, 'our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of Africa'. Shortly after, in 1960, was the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa, which resulted in 69 deaths and more than 100 wounded. In Ghana, thousands of miles away, we marched, we protested, we gave cover and shelter. A similar solidarity existed in sovereign nations across the continent. Why? Because people who looked like us were being subjugated, treated as second-class citizens, on their own ancestral land. We had fought our own versions of that same battle. I was 17 in June 1976, when the South African Soweto uprising took place. The now-iconic photo of a young man, Mbuyisa Makhubo, carrying the limp, 12-year-old body of Hector Pieterson, who had just been shot by the police, haunted me for years. It so deeply hurt me to think that I was free to dream of a future as this child was making the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom and future of his people. Hundreds of children were killed in that protest alone. It is their blood, and the blood of their forebears that nourishes the soil of South Africa. The racial persecution of Black South Africans was rooted in a system that was enshrined in law. It took worldwide participation through demonstrations, boycotts, divestments and sanctions to end apartheid so that all South Africans, regardless of skin colour, would be considered equal. Nevertheless, the effects of centuries-long oppression do not just disappear with the stroke of a pen, particularly when there has been no cogent plan of reparative justice. Despite making up less than 10% of the population, white South Africans control more than 70% of the nation's wealth. Even now, there are a few places in South Africa where only Afrikaners are permitted to own property, live, and work. At the entrance to once such settlement, Kleinfontein, is an enormous bust of Hendrik Verwoerd, the former prime minister who is considered the architect of apartheid. Another separatist town, Orania, teaches only Afrikaans in its schools, has its own chamber of commerce, as well as its own currency, the ora, that is used strictly within its borders. It has been reported that inside the Orania Cultural History Museum there is a bust of every apartheid-era president except FW de Klerk, who initiated reforms that led to the repeal of apartheid laws. Both Kleinfontein and Orania are currently in existence, and they boast a peaceful lifestyle. Why had the America-bound Afrikaners not sought refuge in either of those places? Had the Black South Africans wanted to exact revenge on Afrikaners, surely, they would have done so decades ago when the pain of their previous circumstances was still fresh in their minds. What, at this point, is there to be gained by viciously killing and persecuting people you'd long ago forgiven? According to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, half of the population of South Africa is under 29, born after the apartheid era and, presumably, committed to building and uplifting the 'rainbow nation'. For what reason would they suddenly begin a genocide against white people? Ramaphosa was blindsided by Trump with those unfounded accusations and the accompanying display of images that were misrepresented – in one image, pictures of burials were actually from Congo. Trump refused to listen as Ramaphosa insisted that his government did not have any official policies of discrimination. 'If you want to destroy a people,' Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, 'you destroy their memory, you destroy their history.' Memory, however, is long. It courses through the veins of our children and their children. The terror of what we have experienced is stored at a cellular level. As long as those stories are told, at home, in church, at the beauty and barber shop, in schools, in literature, music and on the screen, then we, the sons and daughters of Africa, will continue to know what we've survived and who we are. Mzee Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o wrote: 'The process of knowing is simple. No matter where you want to journey, you start from where you are.' We journey forward with a history that cannot be erased, and will not be erased. Not while there are children dying in the mines of the Congo, and rape is being used as a weapon of war in Sudan. Our world is in real crisis; real refugees are being turned away from the borders of the wealthiest nations, real babies will die because international aid has been abruptly stopped, and real genocides are happening in real time all across the globe. John Dramani Mahama is president of the Republic of Ghana
IOL News
25-05-2025
- Business
- IOL News
Little to celebrate as conflicts overshadows continental progress
Ghana's founder and first President Kwame Nkrumah (left) and Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie (centre) at the formation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on May 25, 1963. The formation of the OAU is celebrated as Africa Day. Image: AFP Dr Sizo Nkala The occasion of the 62nd anniversary of the birth of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the adoption of the OAU Charter in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, provides an opportunity to reflect and introspect. Probing how and why Africa has dismally failed to live up to the promises of the OAU Charter six decades after its proclamation is a pertinent undertaking. Africa remains trapped in the neocolonial structures of the global political economy that continue to undermine the continent's development potential. The continent is struggling to shake off the colonial legacy of occupying a dependent and very vulnerable position in the global economy. Between 2 and 3 per cent, Africa's share of the world trade is disappointingly paltry despite its population making up 17 per cent of the global population. The content and quality of this trade are even more problematic as over 75 per cent of Africa's exports to the world are primary commodities like oil, coal, chrome, platinum, cocoa, cotton and tobacco to mention a few of which are exported in raw and unprocessed states. The trade model that was imposed on Africa in the colonial era remains intact. These trade dynamics reflect the failure to move from commodity and agro-based to industrialized and diversified economies. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), 83 per cent of African countries are dependent on the extraction and export of commodities. In Angola, South Sudan, and Nigeria, oil accounts for 95 percent, 92 percent and 80 percent of the export revenues respectively. Botswana, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) minerals make up between 70 and 99 percent of the countries' export revenues. Further, more than any other region in the world, the share of the agricultural sector in Africa's gross domestic product (GDP) stands at 35 per cent and supports the livelihoods of 50 per cent of the population. Even then productivity is still very low with the continent still spending a staggering US$50 billion annually in food imports. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ The share of the manufacturing sector in Africa's GDP decreased from 18 per cent in 2000 to 13 per cent currently – reflecting failed transformation and industrialization efforts. The lack of industrialization, coupled with infrastructure deficiencies, has severely limited the potential of intra-African trade which still stands at a paltry 15 percent. The unsustainable structure of many African economies has exposed African countries to global commodity price fluctuations which have precipitated a devastating debt crisis with 21 African countries being classified as being at risk of or in debt distress. Many countries now spend more of their revenues on servicing debt than on essential public services such as education, health, and water and sanitation. It is no wonder that Africa has the embarrassing opprobrium of being the poverty capital of the world with over 400 million of its people living in conditions of extreme poverty. As such, we commemorate the 62nd anniversary of the OAU under conditions of continued economic servitude and exploitation. Further, 62 years of political independence has done little to end Africa's marginalization in global governance institutions. The continent still has no permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and its calls for inclusion in the UN's most powerful organ have gone unheeded for decades. Thus, despite being home to over 30 armed conflicts, Africa has a limited say in the body that makes decisions on global security. Africa's 54 states share a total of 6.5 percent of the voting rights in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and only 11 percent of voting shares in the World Bank. This means that African countries exercise limited influence in the decisions of the institutions that determine the direction of the global economic policy. Even in the World Trade Organization (WTO) which formally uses a one country one vote system, decisions are often imposed by big economies at the expense of smaller ones. Moreover, because of perceptions and actual conditions on the ground in Africa, the continent attracts only 3-5 per cent of foreign direct investment (FDI) which is not nearly enough to stimulate the required levels of economic growth. As such, although Africa is slowly discovering its agency on the international stage, its independence and autonomy remain compromised by its economic weaknesses. The continent has not fared any better politically. In recent years we have witnessed the erosion of democratic institutions and the increasing frequency of military and constitutional coups. The raging conflicts in Sudan, South Sudan, the DRC, Mozambique and the Central African Republic (CAR) have killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions with continental institutions like the AU seemingly hapless to do anything. While the continental body has been 62 years in the making, it is still largely weak and ineffectual in addressing the challenges facing African people. As such, the occasion of the 62nd anniversary of the OAU brings little to celebrate. Africa urgently needs visionary and effective leaders who will confront the challenges facing the continent head-on. * Dr. Sizo Nkala is a Research Fellow at the University of Johannesburg's Centre for Africa-China Studies. ** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.
IOL News
23-05-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
Africa Day 2025: Independence without justice is a fallacy
Former Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie said we must become bigger than we have been: more courageous, greater in spirit, larger in outlook. Image: Wikipedia ON this year's May 25th, Africa stands at a crossroads. As we mark Africa Day, we honour the historic formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, now the African Union (AU). We must be earnest, however, in reflecting not only on the past, but also the present and future of Africa. It has been 35 years since Namibia, the final African nation to gain independence, became sovereign. Yet decades after the end of colonial rule, Africa continues to bear the weight of foreign-imposed borders, extractive economies, and systemic underdevelopment. This Africa Day, we must confront a painful truth: Independence without justice is a broken promise. It is time to interrogate — and actively address — why countless African nations that have been independent for decades still arduously struggle to enact development and stability, and why meaningful justice continues to slip through the cracks. Africa doesn't need another empty celebration — it needs radical change, action, and a return to the bold, uncompromising spirit of Pan-African unity. Africa Day and the AU have not only been revolutionarily symbolic to the continental agenda of Africa, but they have also been transformational in their existence alone. To this day, they are marked by the commemoration of formidable leaders across the entire continent, such as Kwame Nkrumah, Haile Selassie, Julius Nyerere, Sekou Toure, Leopold Senghor, Kenneth Kaunda, and so many more. These leaders' commonalities were many, but none as important as the fact that they all understood that the freedom of one African nation meant nothing without the liberation of all. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ The formation of the OAU and the establishment of the first meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was a bold declaration of unity, resistance, and solidarity against colonial domination, apartheid, and foreign exploitation overall. The OAU gave voice to the oppressed, shelter to revolutionaries, and support to anti-colonial movements. From Cape to Cairo, Morocco to Madagascar, the OAU stood not just as a diplomatic body but as a symbol of African defiance and collective will. Today, as the OAU's successor, the African Union, the mission remains just as urgent. The chains of colonialism may have changed form, but they certainly have not been broken. The AU, at its core, speaks to the social justice of Africa. Social justice itself, across the continent, is highly intersectional with issues of economic inequality, Western imperialism, foreign military presence, extractive trade practices, and so many more. The challenges that are faced by modern Africans are highly complex and orchestrated, but they highlight a fundamental fact: the value of Africa remains immeasurable. The AU has the potential to be more than a bureaucratic institution; it can be a force for radical Pan-African cooperation, self-determination, and justice. In a world that continues to undervalue African lives, labour, and land, the AU must reclaim the spirit of its founding, one rooted in liberation, unity, and unapologetic resistance to global inequality. Pan-Africanism is not a relic of a romanticised past. It is a living, breathing vision for the future — one that demands a radical reordering of power, rooted in solidarity, equity, justice, and dignity for all African people. It calls for us to imagine an Africa that belongs to Africans. Not to multinational corporations, foreign creditors, or puppet regimes, but to its people, its workers, its youth, and its communities. From public service delivery to rampant corruption in leadership, to debilitated healthcare systems, to extreme rates of illness and disease, amongst others, Africa's people continue to endure the consequences of broken systems and global inequality. The reality is that people across Africa are stuck in a loop of generational impoverishment, despite their excruciating sacrifices to obliterate colonial and imperial rule in their nations. By all ethical and legal standards, this is injustice in its purest form. To answer today's challenges, the AU must scale a mountain riddled with discriminatory histories and hardships. This is certainly no time for complacency. The AU has a mountain of resistance, reform, and reckoning ahead. The AU cannot afford to remain a symbolic gathering of heads of state while the continent continues to bleed under the weight of colonial scars and modern imperialism. If it is to be the voice of Africa's liberation, the AU must rise with urgency and purpose. It must dismantle the economic inequalities, rampant poverty, corruption, displacement, illiteracy, and institutional biases that have plagued contemporary African nations. Despite the promises of independence, far too many Africans still live in conditions shaped by colonial-era inequalities. Land is stolen or sold to foreign investors. Resources are extracted while local communities are left in poverty. Education systems glorify European thinkers while silencing African knowledge. Debt traps, climate injustice, and global trade structures continue to rob Africa of its potential. Furthermore, many of Africa's leaders of today have failed to uphold the values of those who formed the OAU. Let's call it for what it is: betrayal. Too many African leaders have sold out the Pan-African vision, trading liberation for tea with global elites and foreign applause. They speak the language of unity while striking deals that deepen inequality and crush transformation at home. Pan-Africanism was never meant to be about polite diplomacy or power games, it was a revolutionary project rooted in collective freedom and self-determination. Africa doesn't need more performance or empty rhetoric. It needs leaders who serve the people, who build with the grassroots, who uphold the fibre of indigenous Africans in their lands. The AU knows the contentious battles that have been launched in the name of exploitative trade deals and asserting full control over Africa's vast resources. It must stand boldly against foreign military occupations and debt traps disguised as aid. More importantly, it must listen - not just to presidents, but to the people: the youth, the workers, the elderly, the organisers who have never stopped fighting for a truly free and united Africa. Pan-Africanism was never meant to be polite diplomacy. It was, and still is, a revolutionary call to uproot oppression and reclaim African power. The AU must return to that radical promise, or risk becoming irrelevant in the face of mounting challenges faced by Africans everywhere in today's unscrupulous world. More than a ceremonial moment, Africa Day is a day of reckoning, a clarion call to rekindle the fire of Pan-Africanism, the liberation ideology that once rallied an entire continent against colonial rule, and which must now be revived to dismantle the ongoing chains of economic exploitation, political marginalisation, and social injustice. Pan-Africanism insists on justice, not charity, not aid. It demands reparative policies that correct historical theft. It is about the liberation of African people in every form: social, economic, political, psychological — a liberation that is truly entrenched in the lived realities of Africa's people. Africa Day is not just a commemoration of the past; it is a battle cry for a future rooted in unity, justice, and African self-determination. Today is more than a celebratory date; it is a demand for Africa to unite, not just in spirit, but in purpose, policy, and people's power. As the former Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie once beautifully articulated: 'We must become bigger than we have been: more courageous, greater in spirit, larger in outlook. We must become members of a new race, overcoming petty prejudice, owing our ultimate allegiance not to nations but to our fellow men'. Indeed, Africa for Africans. One voice. One struggle. One destiny. * Tswelopele Makoe is a gender and social justice activist and the editor at Global South Media Network. She is also an Andrew W. Mellon scholar at the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice, UWC. The views expressed are her own. ** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, Independent Media, or IOL.
Medscape
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Medscape
Dance Diplomacy: Breaking Down Barriers
This transcript has been edited for clarity. Hello. I'm David Kerr, professor of cancer medicine at the University of Oxford. Those of you who listen to me on Medscape will know that I recently did a video on the benefits of drumming, such as its rhythmic beauty, the fact that it induces exercise and a collaborative community, and so on. For this video, I'd like to talk about dance diplomacy. That's a term made up by my friend, who's a professor of radiation biology at Harvard. The history of dance diplomacy, in some negative ways, goes back to Salome, the Dance of the Seven Veils, and the execution of John the Baptist, but much more recently there's been a positive spin on it. In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, Britain and America were worried that Ghana, a great West African nation, would leave their commonwealth and fall under the influence of the Soviet Union. This was seen as a bad thing, potentially, the Soviet Union having a foothold in Africa in those heady, difficult days. Up stepped Queen Elizabeth II, in a mission to persuade the Ghanaian president, Kwame Nkrumah, not to leave the partnership of nations, which she so cherished. If there is one thing that the Queen felt perhaps most strongly about, it was the commonwealth and its maintenance, a duty that she followed through on until her death. During the regal visit, she was accompanied by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. During a visit to the capital city, Accra — another great city I love visiting — the Queen was photographed dancing very happily with the Ghanaian leader at a time when, in the United States, Black people in America were still denied the right to had a fantastic ripple effect, not only across the Commonwealth, but across the world, seeing these two heads of state dancing happily. Other iconic dances include Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher at a White House dinner held in her honor, in 1986. Again, the year before that, with the involvement of First Lady Nancy Reagan, John Travolta was persuaded to ask Princess Diana to dance. This was an extraordinarily iconic dance that rippled throughout the world at a time when Princess Diana was doing some fantastic work on HIV/AIDS. Some very memorable other images came from that meeting. Dancing is good for you. We know that. It's to do with rhythm. It's the same sense of community, collaboration, exercise, memory, and muscle memory. I love Scottish country dancing, including The Dashing White Sergeant and Strip the Willow. It's a fantastic way of really getting things going to the rhythm, often of a pipe band, which is another interest of mine. My dance diplomacy stemmed a couple of years ago when Beatrice Addai, a fantastic breast cancer surgeon from Ghana, chaired The Lancet Oncology's Commission on Cancer Control in Sub-Saharan Africa. We decided to launch the commission report — a rather important piece of work, I think — in Ghana. It went well. We went north, to the garden city of Kumasi, where Beatrice has her hospital and she's done an enormous amount to raise awareness around breast cancer and its treatment. In the video that accompanies this, you'll see me make a complete dysrhythmic fool of myself doing dad dancing with some of the breast cancer survivors and their families, who knew how to shake a rug. I look a complete imbecile, but it was fun, it broke barriers down, and the ladies liked it very much indeed. It became a thing, every part of our tour around various other elements of the Ghanaian cancer system. I was known as Dancing Dave. I was persuaded repeatedly to get out front and to shake an incredibly inelegant rug. Why are we talking about this story? It's dance diplomacy. It's about people expecting someone like me — a stuffy, Oxford professor; aging, cancer professional-type person — to be rigid, distant, reserved. The sort of scientist that one would expect, but showing a glimpse of that sort of human side. This helps to break those barriers down, in an 'all of humanity in it together' sort of way. Have a look at the videos. Have a good laugh. Undoubtedly you will. You'll see some other of my friends and colleagues there. Think how you might not dance your way through diplomacy, but what other tactics you might employ to break down barriers between us and the patients and families that we care for, to show us as being similarly human and similarly aligned. Have a look. I'd be very interested in anything you have to say about it. Thanks for listening and watching, as always. I'm very pleased to receive any of your comments. For the time being, Medscapers, over and out.
IOL News
16-05-2025
- Business
- IOL News
Africa Month: Pan-Africanism Doublespeak Retarding Continent's Progress
Ghana's founder and first President Kwame Nkrumah (left) and Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie (centre) at the formation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on May 25, 1963. The formation of the OAU is celebrated as Africa Day. Dr. Reneva Fourie EVERY year on May 25, we celebrate Africa Day. It commemorates the founding of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963, a moment born from the fires of anti-colonial struggle and lit by a bold vision of a united, free and sovereign continent. In 2002, the organisation was reconstituted as the African Union, intended to carry the dream of Pan-Africanism into a new era. But over sixty years since the OAU's founding, the promise of liberation remains painfully unfulfilled. Africa is not yet free. Not in the way Patrice Lumumba imagined when he spoke of a Congo governed by its people. Not in the way Kwame Nkrumah envisioned when he declared that political independence was meaningless without economic emancipation. It is not yet Uhuru. Independence, in much of Africa, was cosmetic. The colonial flags came down, but a more insidious form of domination rose in their place. The colonisers changed uniforms, adopted new languages of diplomacy, development and aid, and returned through the back door of our treasuries, parliaments and boardrooms. Neocolonialism has become our daily reality. Despite African exports amounting to billions of US dollars, much of that wealth bypasses the continent. Mineral-rich countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, which supplies over the vast majority of the world's cobalt, remain trapped in poverty while multinationals profit from electric vehicle revolutions elsewhere. Oil flows from Nigeria and Angola fuel foreign industries, while power cuts paralyse local economies. Coffee and cocoa leave African farms to be branded and sold at ten times the price abroad. The chains have not been broken. They have only been polished. Economic dependency is matched by political manipulation. The International Monetary Fund and World Bank, dominated by Western interests, continue to shape our economic policies through conditional lending. Countries are told what to privatise, which subsidies to cut, and how to manage their fiscal budgets. The so-called structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s and 1990s devastated social services, dismantled local industries, and deepened inequality. Today, neocolonial manifestations are more subtle, but the outcomes remain the same. Sovereignty is traded for survival. And when an African leader dares to walk a different path and to speak with independence, they are swiftly punished. Consider the case of Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, who was murdered in 1987 after nationalising land and rejecting foreign aid. Or Muammar Gaddafi, whose push for a gold-backed African currency threatened Western financial interests before he was toppled in a NATO-backed intervention. More recently, leaders who defy global consensus on trade or security are isolated, sanctioned or unseated. Africa is told who to trust, who to trade with, and who to elect. Democracy is praised when it aligns with foreign interests, and questioned when it produces inconvenient results. The role of foreign military presence in Africa cannot be ignored. The United States operates AFRICOM, a military command with operations in over 30 African countries. France maintains troops across the Sahel, even after public protests against its influence. The continent is courted, yes, but rarely as an equal. We are treated as territory to be won, not as a people to be respected. While China builds infrastructure, often with little skills transfer and compliance with local labour laws, and Russia assists African leaders with arms and mercenaries, their mutually beneficial interventions cannot be equated with neocolonialism.
