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Filed under Antifa, Blog by T. Miles on 24 August 2010 at 1:02 am
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To the editors of the BBC,
Your appalling “Muslim Brotherhood expands westward” by Magdi Abdelhadi seems entirely based on two writers who have no academic qualifications or credibility and one of whom has a long history of extreme right-wing religious bigotry. The premise, pushed by Steven Emerson and several extreme right organizations like the Committee for the Present Danger and David Horowitz’s “Front Page” (the creator of “Islamo-Fascist Week”, who regularly republishes Emerson’s work), is that the Muslim Brotherhood has underground organizations plotting terror throughout the west. It would be laughable if it were not so pernicious.
Perhaps your writer might Google Steven Emerson’s name before you base an entire story on his fantastic and hateful views.
Some examples:
“controversial terrorism expert Steve Emerson-who has been accused of sloppy journalism and with having a pervasive anti-Arab bias-and behind the scenes was remaking himself into a self-styled authority on terrorism” (Salon.com, January 19, 2002).
Emerson was the prime mover behind the extreme-right “documentary” “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West” which extreme-right groups produced to be distributed during the 2008 US presidential campaign. It argued that Islam “is threatening, with all the means at its disposal, to bow Western civilization under the yoke of its values.”
Isabel Macdonald noted of Emerson in 2008 that:
“his research has been repudiated many times over. This is an “expert” who initially blamed the Oklahoma City bombing on Middle Eastern terrorists, and who is now going around claiming that the Bush State Department is collaborating with extremists.”
From the Minnesota Independent:
Emerson has a long history of getting into hot water over his anti-Muslim rhetoric. In the 1998 nuclear standoff between India and Pakistan, Emerson fed reporters with an informant who said Pakistan was set to strike India with a nuclear weapon. The media eventually found the informant to be unreliable – but not until international media had used Emerson’s source and intensified an international crisis.
In 1990, he was accused of plagiarism in his writings about Pan Am 103.
He sued a Florida paper after it published reports that he was supplying reporters with documents he said were from the FBI. The Florida Weekly Planet reported that the documents were frauds and Emerson sued. When he couldn’t substantiate his claims, he withdrew the lawsuit.
Emerson once claimed that an extremist Muslim group put out a hit on him and that the FBI offered to put him in a witness protection program. The FBI denied that claim.
Emerson told Fox News “80% of the mosques in the United States are controlled by the Wahhabists. That’s the reality. No one wants to admit it. They’re the ones that attract terrorists.”
In March of 1995, Emerson told The Jewish Monthly, “nearly all of the Islamic organizations in the United States that define themselves as religiously or culturally Muslim in character have, today, been totally captured or dominated by radical fundamentalist elements…”
In 1998 Emerson falsely wrote that in the 1960s one of his critics, California journalist Reese Erlich, ‘was charged with conspiracy to carry out violence in support of the Black Panthers.’ Emerson apologized and paid Erlich $3,000,” (Washington Post, November 14, 2001).
Emerson had concluded before September 11th, that “the U.S. has become occupied fundamentalist territory” (Jerusalem Post, 8/8/97)
Emerson is quoted by The Palm Springs (California) Desert Sun Newspaper as saying that “Islam’s ‘leadership and organizational superstructure’ threaten Western values” and that (radical) Muslims “want to conquer the United States. They want to conquer Europe.”
The Wall Street Journal stated in 1993, “Mr. Emerson’s prime role is to whitewash Israeli governments and revile their critics.”
Emerson appears regularly with Pamela Geller, the woman who is organizing the anti-Mosque protests in NY right now, along with another of Emerson’s regular collaborators, Robert Spencer. Spencer, author of the “Jihadwatch” blog who regularly equates all Muslims with terrorists, and their religion is “a cult”. With inspiration from groups like the English Defense League and Dutch neo-fascist Geert Wilders, Spencer and Geller run the group “Stop the Islamization of America”. Emerson regularly contributes to their work. Emerson has claimed that the Imam of the Islamic Community Center proposed for lower Manhattan Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, and former GW Bush era US government advisor, is a “radical extremist cleric who cloaks himself in sheep’s clothing.”
One could go on.
What possible research could your reporter have done to afford this — controversial at best — writer the forum of an entire article showcasing his crackpot theories, which include the belief that every major Muslim-American organization are involved in terrorism though a secret ‘US Muslim Brotherhood” group?
How could someone identified as your “Middle East Editor” be so startlingly ignorant of the background of their sources?
I expect a reply,
T Miles, NY, NY
For a little background on Emerson see:
- http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1443
- http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Emerson_Steven
- http://www.cairchicago.org/2007/03/31/steven-emersons-disturbing-track-record/
- http://www.loonwatch.com/2009/05/steve-emerson-wowser/
- http://www.cairchicago.org/2009/05/05/career-hatemonger-steven-emerson-enraged-by-cair-chicago%E2%80%99s-positive-social-engagement/
- http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/42070
- http://smearcasting.com/smear_emerson.html
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/isabel-macdonald/the-anti-muslim-smear-mac_b_133695.html
- http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/ground_zero_mosque_imam_bush_partner_for_peace.php
Filed under Blog, NYC by T. Miles on 18 August 2010 at 12:07 am
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Sometimes you just need to hear that not everyone has lost their minds.
Filed under Blog, Footy by T. Miles on 18 June 2010 at 3:15 pm
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…by complaining about the officiating.
Two hours after the US Match: Koman Coulibaly still on en.wikipedia.org's "List of bank robbers and robberies"
Also see Koman Coulibaly’s Wikipedia Page Defaced Within Minutes of US Draw
Poor Koman Coulibaly. He had a tough match, and as much as I love Mali and Malian football, that was a goal he whistled off. I do find it interesting that he’s an anti-corruption investigator, and likely the most honest and unflamboyant fella you’ll ever meet. So there’s really no justification for accusing the man of corruption over this, as Eric Wynalda apparently did, from the front lines of his California living room.
But what an appalling call.
Filed under ..., Afrique by T. Miles on 17 June 2010 at 4:29 pm
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One of the many menacing street parties of South Africa, from soccerphile.com. Chilling.
As I’ll be spending most of this month tied to a TV or radio, I’ve so far noted one shocking fact: The South African World Cup is not riven by crime, corruption, shoddy workmanship, or terrorism. In fact, things are going swimmingly, the stadiums operations and infrastructure are beautiful, and the only deaths among the 450,000 visitors have been from road accident and falling off a mountain while admiring the scenery.
There’s more realistic complaints about the football itself, especially after the South African side’s almost suicidally poor performances (not to mention a drought of goals, dashed expectations for most African sides, and disastrous English, Spanish, and French performances). But even if rose gardens have not been delivered on the field or in terms of secondary development, so much of the press run up was so negative — even years of rumors that FIFA would move the cup at the last moment — that it may come as a shock how happy foreign fans are with what they’ve found in South Africa.
One report quotes a puzzled German fan. Puzzled because, despite the foreign press hysterics, he can go to a local bar and discover “I’m the only white guy in the room but I feel very safe.”.
South African sports reporter Peter Davies has a wonderful piece entitled An Open letter to our Foreign Media friends, marveling at the gloom of foreign media outlets who quake in terror of “machete-wielding gangs roaming the suburbs in search of tattooed, overweight Dagenham dole-queuers to ransack and leave gurgling on the pavement.” But surprise! There’s no fear in walking the streets provided you don’t hang a wad of cash out your back pocket. There are also a surprising shortage of wild animal attacks and collapsing stadia. “For instance, you will find precious few rhinos loitering on street corners, we don’t know a guy in Cairo named Dave just because we live in Johannesburg, and our stadiums are magnificent, world-class works of art.”
Andrew Harding, the BBC’s Africa correspondent, writes about tourists having “had some preconceptions overturned” as England fans descended on Phokeng. While local worried about hooligans (there were none), visitors realized they may have been misled about the dangers of “black Africa”. “We stayed at Sun City, said a couple from Leeds, sitting at [a black African run] bar. We were worried about the crime. But now we just wish we’d come and stayed here.”
Football, eh?
That said…
There are real complaints about South Africa — suffering from gross inequality and rampant poverty — throwing this much money at a World Cup party. I do agree. But that’s all of capitalism, not just football. And it’s not like they were really going to spend this money on poor folks. At best this can be an opportunity to cross borders in solidarity, to share these struggles, both in Africa and abroad. But I for one love sport, and the joy it brings. While those who look after the rich alone will always screw the poor, football can be our weapon as well as ours. Here are some links to the Poor People’s Movement and The Shack Dwellers Movement in South Africa, and social struggles around the World Cup, including the brilliant “Poor People’s Alternative World Cup.”
Other Related articles
Filed under Afrique, Blog by T. Miles on 4 June 2010 at 4:03 pm
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It’s beautiful in New York, and the world if full of things to argue about. Here are three important issues I’ll have to get back to you on.
While the world goes to hell in a handbasket, I have been trying to maintain my sanity with light reading, and sunny days on the back patio. This largely precludes the production of good (or even mediocre) writing. Further political catastrophes and World Cup drama could completely rule it out.
Despite that, there are several things which should appear here soon, plus a reading recommendation. Advice for further reading and different perspectives is always very welcome.
First, I’m working on a close reading of the latest US / West African drug arrests, this time focused on Liberia. Not to sound too paranoid, but these things never seem to hang together well when examined closely, and I’ve come to believe over the last few years that there is a commonality of interests between several right wing think tanks, a clutch of journalists and “terrorism experts”, UN Anti-Drug authorities, foreign governments, military, and local governments which play up the need for military and legal spectacle at the expense of actual work on development or ending corruption. While there is likely some real criminality going on in this case, I’m prepared to argue that this Liberian sting of aspiring West African drug runners serves more to allow these interests to further very specific political agendas.
Next, there are updates on the Nigerien political transition, with a new electoral law that has generated some controversy, while we wait for several party political and constitutional shoes to drop in Niamey (party leadership, coalitions, charges against Tandja supporters, not to mention and entirely new Constitution of the Seventh Republic that has to be written and voted on by the end of the year).
Most important to me, I’ve finally thoroughly read Dutch historian Baz Lecocq‘s 2002 dissertation, “That Desert is Our Country’: Tuareg rebellions and Competing Nationalisms in Contemporary Mali (1946-1996).“ As it is available online, I had read later chapters when I’d seen it cited some time ago. But having stormed through from the start, I must say that it is the best thing written on the Malian Tuareg in English (easily) and arguably better than anything in French (to be fair, I’m thinking only of articles I’ve read by Georg Klute, the Bernuses, Claudot-Hawad, and Bourgeot. I haven’t read Pierre Boilley’s “Touaregs Kel Adagh”, let alone Georg Klute’s ”Die Rebellionen der Tuareg in Mali und Niger”, which I’ve only ever seen in German). With very few changes it could be produced as a very valuable book.
Lecocq’s basic premise – which he candidly admits was not the one he began with – is that French colonialism and the process of independence heightened a pre-existing “racial” prejudice between northern and southern communities in what is today Mali, even when outsiders might be unable to easily distinguish between these groups. Independence, as well as French and upper class Tuareg resistance to the form this independence, only deepened these divisions, reinforcing mistrust on all sides, keeping these communities at daggers drawn. This has played out through profound reordering in the structures and meanings of the notoriously complex and shifting Tuareg social/political order on one side. On the other, the brutality and hamfistedness of southern politicians and military has often exacerbated conflict, frustrating Malian society. Nine of ten Malian live in the south, and these communities, having paid dearly to create the imperfect economic development and political liberties they now enjoy, have little sympathy with Tuareg demands.
If you’re anglophone and interested in French colonialism in the Sahara, Mali’s first decades of independence, the current “Tuareg problem”, or even the more general history of cultural conflict along the interface of the Sahel, there’s tremendous value in this work. Admittedly, Lecocq really focuses on the history of “free” clans of Tuareg in (what is now) Kidal Region’s Adagh des Ifoughas, who make up only a portion of the population of even this limited area. But their politics and culture are central to the 1963, 1990, and 2006/7 rebellions, and all north south relations in Mali. Without understanding this, I’ve always found the causes of fighting there hard to understand, even in relation to the Nigerien Tuareg rebellions, which seem much more enmeshed in Niger’s politics and culture.
Bibliographic References for Sunny Days
Filed under ..., Blog by T. Miles on 27 May 2010 at 7:23 pm
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A herd, starved to death, in North Mali. These animals represent many years of saved wealth and future investment for Malian pastoralists.
Hopefully by now everyone knows that parts of West Africa, especially pockets of Chad and Niger, are struggling with the worst food shortages since 2005. Alex Thurston reports that international humanitarian agencies, as well as increasingly concerned governments, are now worried that this crisis is more generalized than first reported (last September), striking areas of Mauritania and Mali.
In Mali, there is a crisis in the north (mostly Kidal Region) right now, with press reports of huge numbers of animals lost to the mostly pastoralist residents. As in Niger, prices for forage have skyrocketed, prices for animals have plummeted, so that recent reports have talked of Malians trading female goats – the future of their herds – for a single bag of rice in Algerian border markets. Malian press reports talk of traveling through rural Kidal last week, counting corpse after corpse of starved livestock, the very source of pastoralist livelihoods. Those that can have moved south, increasing the pressure on pasture and farm land, surely also risking more communal tension. Kidal Region is already rife with armed unemployed men, competing smuggling rings, and simmering tribal vendettas. The overflow from this must add sparks to the already smoldering Tombuctu and Gao Regions, not to mention the areas south of the Niger where pastoralists head during the dry season. The tragic destruction of Gao market, north Mali’s largest commercial center, by fire last week has got to be a final nail in the coffin for some people, even if the rains have now started there.
The April-June 2010 food security conditions across West Africa, according to FEWS net.
There are also reports that Bamako is hoarding food aid, sending only the old supplies stashed at Mopti north and keeping the rest in the south, where the crops were good last year. True or not, people report it as such in Kidal. On the other side, some southerners accuse Kidal politicians of profiting from the misery of their own people. Other reports again, more neutral, document intense efforts on all sides, facing nearly insurmountable shortages and logistic impossibilities.
So things in Mali, if they receive the international focus or not, are as bad as in areas of Niger.
In Niger many more farming communities were stricken by the start-stop rains of June 2009, and the pockets of Tillaberi, Tahoua, and Maradi Regions (mostly) have long reverted to crisis mode. Men are on extended “exode”, the dry season trips abroad for wage labor. Other communities have picked up en masse, fleeing to towns, other regions, or even to Hausa northern Nigeria, where some have trade or family contacts. Others still remain, depleting the last of their food stocks, and somehow making it on less and less each day.
"We are experiencing, like all the countries in the Sahel, a food crisis due to the poor harvest and the locust attacks of 2004," Mr Tandja said in 2005. "The people of Niger look well-fed, as you can see."
It’s important to differentiate between drought and famine (one may cause the other, or may not), and recognize that some places like parts of central Niger have suffered chronic seasonal malnutrition since the 1990s, and recurring drought caused famines since 1968. The causes are debated, and while climate change no doubt is happening, one should not discount the structural changes we have seen over the last 30 years. The IMF’s austerity policies which did such obvious damage to urban West Africa in the 1980s, and triggered much of the 1990-2 democratization wave thereafter, also had pernicious effects on rural areas. The “free trade” treaties of the 1990s — as Bill Clinton recently admitted in the case of Haitian farming — drove world commodity market forces into even the most protected rural communities. Subsidized western industrial agriculture can produce food and cash crops cheaper than most smallholders in the Sahel, but can also cause basic food prices to swing wildly on the back of market speculation, as we saw in 2008. As Marx famously said, in the face of commodification, structures, forms of productions, and traditions have no recourse. “All that is solid melts into air…”, and much of the rural economic structure of the developing worlds has so disintegrated in the last decades. Some areas might survive, sending farmers flooding into urban export driven production. For whatever reasons, Niger, like Haiti, never saw enough of this to absorb the mass of small farming which supports %80 of its people. They continue to literally scratch a living out of dusty millet fields, with less and less ability to turn to either community or markets when things go wrong.
FEWS net's projected food security situation (July-September 2010), Niger. We expect a normal harvest to come in September.
Some pastoralists in North Mali and Niger never really recovered from the loss of herds in the early 1970s. They starved in 1984 because of this, and (arguably) supported armed struggle in the 1990s in part because of this. [It's more complicated that this, with longstanding communities of grievance, and militants trained abroad, but the 72-74 drought can't be discounted]. These are as much political and economic/structural problems as environmental, and they need to be treated once this hungry season passes in September.
In Niger, as grim as this is, some things have improved. Then President Tandja (and current opposition leader Hama Amadou, as well as some “progressive” westerners, for the record) purposefully denied the food shortages and deaths in 2005 were “famine”. They were seeing severe seasonal malnutrition in limited areas, and most children were dying of malnutrition related disease rather than starvation. This is how people die in famines, but the “f” word has political connotations which were painful, and so it is better to try and trivialize the suffering of the rural poor, apparently. I hope there is a special ring of hell for such people. We are not hearing that this time, in part thanks to the Nigerien Junta. Salou Djibo can play on an oft repeated trope in Niger (1974 being the model) of military rule justified by food emergencies mishandled by corrupt civilians. I would hope those in Niamey recognizing this as famine would do the same if they had been in power last year. I also hope they target the structural causes that allow this to happen, after they face the monumentally complicated distribution of food aid.
Aid Agencies (links to give, and learn more)
Filed under Blog, Niger by T. Miles on 25 May 2010 at 4:14 pm
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- From 2005: “Drought has turned farmland into useless dirt…” Image via Wikipedia
An unsigned editorial from Le Pays (Ouagadougou): A quite good reflection on the educational and other restrictions coming for future governments in Niger, but tying the famine. The papers in Niamey have little mention of the small farmers and herders Tahoua, Tillaberi, Diffa, and the north, who are long out of food and fleeing their homes. It’s evidence both that patches of famine sit beside areas which had passable crops last year, and that Nigerien politics is often quite distant from the realities of most Nigeriens. The Burkinabe writer ascribes blame for the chronic malnutrition of Niger’s citizens to both past policies and horrible governance (which is only partly the case), while leaving us with the distinctly uncomfortable vision of Niamey debating constitutional clauses while elsewhere in Niger people are dying.
Filed under Blog, History by T. Miles on 26 April 2010 at 12:37 pm
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The Guardian had provided blow by blow coverage of the recent hatefest between two British historians of Russia, Orlando Figes and Robert Service. Figes, once touted as the “angry young man” for historians, is more accurately the spoiled brat. A real McCarthyite ax-grinder, who augments his live hatred of dead dictatorships with a holier-than thou “narrative history” creed. This is the 1980s-90s movement of British writers who refused to get their PhDs and were able to write things non-specialists could read, extrapolating their abilities to some new academic movement, heavily laced with Thatcherist posing and making stuff up so the plot’s better. They’re oppressed, apparently.
To sum up, Figes is both a hack and an ass, but he appears on TV frequently, and his fellow academics hate him for that more than anything.
Skip to last month when more traditionalist (but no less conservative, uninspired, presidential-biography writing) historian of Russia Robert Service was “sickened” to discover rude reviews of his work on Amazon! Imagine. Through a series of clever deductions (one of the Amazon screen names was “Orlando_Birkbeck”, Birkbeck being the college where Figes teaches) it was discovered that the rival bad boy was writing said reviews, as well as abuse aimed at other “rivals”. Along with orgasmically positive reviews of his own work. As if that weren’t bad enough, Figes threatened to sic the notoriously harsh British libel laws of Service for complaining. Presented with more evidence, Figes admitted “my wife did it without my knowledge.” Having graciously thrown his life partner under a bus, Professor Figes was later forced to admit that he himself was the malicious “reviewer” (can you call people who write screeds on Amazon reviewers? Perhaps Orlando can pad his resume a bit more).
As entertaining as all this is, it’s the post-partum letters page in the Guardian that’s the real hoot. Amid calls for Figes to be fired, are gems of British wit, such as:
“I really felt for Robert Service (Comment, 24 April) after reading about the turmoil caused to him and his family by someone calling his book crap. News stories of poverty, war and starvation often overshadow the intense difficulties faced by academic historians. I’m sure I’m not alone in finding how he stoically continued to eat sea bass and go jogging while his wife went to yoga during that terrible fortnight to be truly inspirational.”
And Dr Glyn Powell sums up right-thinking opinion: “In all the furore no one appears to have noticed the elephant in the room; Robert Service’s work is, in fact, awful.”
Filed under Afrique, Blog by T. Miles on 15 March 2010 at 3:01 pm
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Faure Gnassingbé, understandably pleased.
Jeune Afrique editor François Soudan has a biting new piece on the recent Togolese election. Noting defeated opposition candidate Jean-Pierre Fabre’s neologism “Africaneries” (for “African Inherited rule”, presumably) Soudan turns the tables of blame deftly.
“For African oppositions, some of whom, in Guinea and Niger, have been reduced to military coups to break political deadlocks – which says a lot about their disarray – the lesson of Lomé is a cruel one. As long as opposition leaders contest polls without program, and act without strategy or self-criticism, the powers that be will sleep soundly. Resigned, disillusioned and unwilling to serve as canon fodder for the powerful, the voters will more and more the “exit option” of abstention. As for Faure Gnassingbé, he received on March 4 that which he sought. A brand new legitimacy, given neither to his party nor to his family nor to his surname, but to him. Without doubt he would do well in his next speech, to thank Mr. Olympio [the historic leader of the opposition] for the assistance he has so kindly provided … “
Filed under Afrique by T. Miles on 14 March 2010 at 12:28 am
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Image by Getty Images via Daylife
The French press initially reported midday Sunday (14 March, local time) that the Central African Republic government had foiled plans for a coup attempt, set to take place between the 15th and the 20th. No one does coups quite like Bangui, usually with the French government pulling the strings: they’ve had a lot of practice. Jules Bernard Ouanda, the Minister of National Security and Public Order, recorded an announcement for Radio Centrafrique, passed on to the press, and since confirmed.
Ouanda claims that on Friday, the government of President François Bozizé obtained a “Plan of Action” made by the coup plotters, whom they refused to name, but described as “several political and military figures.” Ouanda red from a detailed plan: a “special form” dated March 8, subtitled “Preparations for coup from the period from March 15 to 20.” The government notations on the plan describe it as (according to a brief glimpse by reporters) “hatched by elements KAMIKAZE commandos, mercenaries, militias and expatriates in the pay of former President Ange-Félix PATASSE” Ouanda repeatedly refused to name names, but did read a portion of the “plan” that included orders to “reinforcement elements in the home of AFP.”
Reporters also spoke with former President Ange-Félix Patassé who in his thirty years of political leadership has been more than once a coup plotter, like current President Bozizé who ousted the President Patassé on 15 March 2003. Patassé told reporters “I phoned the minister. He told me that it was not me” who was blamed for the coup plan. He added that he expected it still might be an attempt to “eliminate” him from the scheduled 12 and 23 April two round Presidential elections.
Another such rival, Charles Massi was a Minister under both Patassé and Bozizé, in 2008 left political life to become the respectable front on the northeastern CPJP. When I first saw report in the CAR expat press and on the CPJP website around Xmas saying he was “kidnapped in Chad and turned over to the CAR”, I assumed this was infighting or overreaction. I was wrong. Sometime around January 9, Massi was tortured to death by the CAR government in Bossembele prison, a fact which the government admitted last month.
Lord preserve the CAR from political leaders, near and far. It brings to mind a Brecht poem a friend of mind often repeats:
Empires collapse.
Gang leaders Are strutting about like statesmen. The peoples
Can no longer be seen under all these armaments.
More:
Filed under Blog, Niger by T. Miles on 13 March 2010 at 4:40 pm
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I’ve warned that, given the poor harvests and pastures, we can expect many incidents of communal and ethnic tension across the Sahel this year. The end of the formal insurgencies in both Niger and Mali last year also leaves a residue of unemployed armed men and grudges between communities.
One example of these risks is reported in Agadez‘s “Aïr Info journal” n°108 dated this week. On page 5 is the story of an attack by armed youth from Tchi-n-Tiguit (“Tchitintagatte”, about 50km south of Arlit, coincidentally in the middle of the new AREVA Imouraren mining concession) on their neighbors at Sekkiret (“Sikirat”, about 30km west of the famous Dabous Giraffe carvings).
Earlier this week, armed young men arrived at Sekkiret, firing in the air and chasing women and children out of their homes, but left before anyone was hurt. Sekkiret youths having returned home to frightened families, set off for revenge. The paper reports it was only the intervention of two former ministers (one from each community) and the local chieftaincy which ensured security forces were quickly dispatched to calm the situation.
The cause: Sekkiret youths had reputedly harassed Tchi-n-Tiguit two years ago during the insurgency. There is no indication here of ethnicity, but that history, and the name Tchi-n-Tiguit, suggests a community of Tamasheq speakers some Tuareg caste, subgroup, or related community). Some towns in the area – like Ingall – are populated by Songhai speakers, dating back to the time when they were outposts of the Malian and Songhay Empires. Others are made up of former Tamasheq bonded communities who still bear grudges against some higher caste communities. These groups are normally peacefully intermixed, along with other groups, tribes, caste communities, and Tuareg confederations. But in times of stress, as we’ve seen from Sarajevo to Jos, people do find enemies even among neighbors.
Aïr Info concludes: “The inhabitants of these villages, brothers since time immemorial, have now become two blocs that risk, if we do not take care, of turning on each other! The state must quickly find a solution to this problem which has already gone on too long!”
Filed under Blog by T. Miles on 25 January 2010 at 10:30 pm
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The Louverture Project (TLP) collects and promotes knowledge, analysis, and understanding of the Haitian revolution of 1791–1804. This unique history project follows the example of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, and is committed to creating a vast, accessible, and useful open content resource. Like Wikipedia, The Louverture Project is built and maintained by a community of users, all of whom have access to and responsibility for editing the 454 pages (and growing) currently online.
Filed under Blog by T. Miles on 22 January 2010 at 2:32 pm
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Le Corrier of 21 January reports "Tentative de «tazartchisation » de l’ANDP: Amadou Bagnou pris la main dans le sac". They bring us up to date on the just ended congress on the ANDP Zaman Lahiya, party of the recently deceased Tandja rival and member of the Dosso ruling house, Moumouni Djermakoye Adamou. In seeking a new leader for the, the party ended its congress on the 17th split, with a 6 month interim leadership going to Kindo Hamani. But the day after, one Amadou Bagnou appeared on government TV and newspapers claiming to be the new head on the party. Bagnou HAD been a member of the party in 1993, when he was Prefect of Tillaberi. But he left the party and joined the ruling MNSD, becoming sub-prefect of Boboye. More recently he was MNSD prefect of Loga under Tandja. Le Courrier suggests he's been re-inserted by Tandja's people to bring the ANDP into government. Odd, as the ANDP formed in 1991 as a split from MNSD when Tandja beat Moumouni Djermakoye for it's leadership.
Filed under Blog by T. Miles on 22 January 2010 at 12:13 pm
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The APA reports two Nigerien Police officers and one Gendarme are presumed dead in Haiti. They were part of the UN Mission for Stabilization in Haiti (MINUSTAH) in Haiti, and their deaths were reported by the government in Niamey.
Filed under Blog by T. Miles on 19 January 2010 at 12:26 pm
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Adam Thaim, chief editorialist for Bamako's Le Republicain, reflects on a Mali being caught in an international conflict over drugs and terrorism. In short, Malian's must solve this smuggling problem, before the West drags them into a "war on terror" and "war on drugs" from which they will benefit little. He notes a gang fight over cigarette smuggling at Batal – 15 km from Gao – last week that left one man dead, and another shot through each hand in punishment. Thaim fears the tie up in international conflicts will turn people against one another, and "Malians will soon assume every northerner is a bomber and any rich man is a drug dealer" While Malian's must pull together, the greater fear is from the perceptions of outsiders. "We are not owners of these conflicts and therefore it is not we, ultimately, who can gain from them. But rightly or wrongly, the link between this activity [the drugs trade] and the AQIM has been made and this will not win us the next Nobel Peace Prize."
Filed under Blog by T. Miles on 19 January 2010 at 11:07 am
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"L’Afrique peut-elle se développer? TANDJA a osé !" shouts the headline. A suck-up piece about how President Tandja dares to reject colonial notions of "democracy" in favor of real "African" traditions. This is the same crap we've been fed for decades: cult of personality dressed up as liberation. What's interesting is that the byline is Ousseini Lawali in "La nation" N°00 of 13 January 2010. Yes, Number Zero of a brand new paper in Niamey, bravely printing the stories other refuse to tell of how great the President is. And so last week's meetings of the government press authority (CSC) come into focus. While the CSC was founded in 1993 to protect journalism, it is now a government controlled censorship agency. Last week it announced a vague "refoundation" of press laws and journalistic standards in Niger. So we we likely see the vibrant, if little distributed, independent newspapers gagged in coming months, to be replaced by "independent" papers like "la Nation".
Filed under Blog by T. Miles on 19 January 2010 at 10:54 am
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This week's presidential decree: the rescinding of the "Journée continue" law of 2007. Much in vogue in the last decade across the Francophone world, the 2007 law mandating the elimination of the two or three hour lunch break was inspired by similar laws in Burkina and Mali. Government offices were expected to be open from 7:30 to 16:30 five days a week. But complaints continued that staff would leave on their short lunch at noon and just not come back. One can assume that this is a bone to administrators, as they will likely see pay cuts due to sanctions. Whatever the rights or wrongs, the initial change was made by the National Assembly, the government and the President, but in this new age, the stroke of Tandja's pen undoes it without public notification.
Filed under Blog by T. Miles on 15 January 2010 at 11:54 pm
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"This Week in Haiti," Haiti Progres, 17–23 September 2003. A two-part article looks at high-school textbooks in the U.S. to show why so may Americans are so ignorant about Haiti and how this limited knowledge has been distorted, muffled and hidden behind a veil of silence. Part of the large "World History Archives" fair use and free "Haiti Archives" documents.
Filed under Do this, SP by T. Miles on 18 September 2009 at 11:45 am
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Pittsburgh, PA – From September 22nd to 25th members of the NYC Local of the Socialist Party USA, will be in Pittsburgh, PA to participate in mass demonstrations in opposition to the G20 meeting being held in the city. We will be providing live reports, pictures and videos to the Socialist Webzine (http://socialistwebzine.blogspot.com) and our twitter account (@socialistzine). We will also be available by phone for interviews before, during and after the street protests.
Nations in the G20 control 90 percent of world GDP, and 80 percent of world trade and operate under the free market direction of the IMF and World Bank. As a result, UNICEF reports that more than 25,000 children die each day due to poverty and millions survive on less than $1 a day. The economic policies of the G20 are a direct cause of the current global economic crisis which has produced mass layoffs and social suffering throughout the world.
The G20 meetings have no published agenda and there is no accountability – the meetings are conducted in secret and remain closed only through the violent acts of police. We oppose these policies and will make this opposition clear by taking part in the demonstrations against the G20 meeting.
“People are tired of settling for the crumbs of the global economy,” says Billy Wharton, Editor of The Socialist and Socialist Webzine. “Thousands will march in Pittsburgh to demand democracy, economic redistribution, and a future beyond capitalism.”
The NYC Local of the Socialist Party USA supports the creation of a world where the vast wealth in society is used for the benefit of the greater good. We believe in a radical expansion of democracy to all areas of life and we promote the use of our civil rights to protest. With our participation in these demonstrations we are not only declaring our opposition to the G20, but also our belief that the exploitative policies of capitalism offer no way forward for humanity. For us, taking part in these demonstrations are a declaration in our belief that a more democratic and equitable future is possible.
###
For more information or to arrange interviews contact:
Billy Wharton
Editor, The Socialist and The Socialist WebZine
718-869-2279
billyspnyc (at) yahoo.com
Filed under Photos, Solidarity by T. Miles on 15 June 2009 at 6:29 pm
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Filed under Afrique, French by T. Miles on 27 May 2009 at 7:36 pm
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“If a crocodile buys a pair of trousers, don’t ask where he puts his tail.”
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As I noted on the 10th of March, the CSRD junta in Niger has replaced all the civilian Region Governors with military men to administer local affairs during the transition. We now have the full list, and while I for one hate to see any military governing, a careful look at the men (all men) coming and going in Niger's Regions gives us an opportunity to examine what's going on behind the scenes, and what it augurs for the future.
More ...
Nigeriens were - are - undoubtedly pleased that the army stepped in to end a newly installed dictatorship. But criticisms of this so called "good coup" are beginning to appear even amongst its strongest supporters. With many months of transitional rule ahead, these whispers give us some idea of the problems the junta will soon face. 
One doesn't see much film, let alone color film, of colonial era African football. So you can imagine my delight when I stumbled across clips of a French colonial propaganda newsreel featuring the my favorite African club side wining a colonial cup final from 1956. 
The new military Junta in Niger has released their first real vision of their promised return to democracy. Niger's expectations, a redux of recent history, are being played to by the soldiers.
After a day of confusion, President Tandja and his supporters are under arrest by the military. I have maintained the live updates from the 18th, and added an in depth analysis of the new CSRD junta.
"Poets are feared by those in power that use violence, who are prosperous at the expense of the collective suffering." - Adamou Idé 
a dinosaur comic about about potable water conservation in sub-Saharan Africa?
The US government will make much of the arrests of three Malians who they say were part of a West African criminal network, devoted to drug smuggling and Osama Bin Laden. So far all we have is hype and what looks like the entrapment of low level criminals. 
The December 18th anniversary of the Nigerien Republic begins a series of dates which may bring the political crisis to a boil, just as mediators think they've made a breakthrough.
A brief look, if one is possible, at the simmering crisis in the northeast Central African Republic. As commentators try to come to grips with this often ignored nation, here is some recommended reading for Anglophones interested in the République centrafricaine.
Niger's rulers would have expected this to be wrapped up by now, with the previous legal deadline for a new president to pass on the 22nd with a shrug. But fears (or hopes) remain that some of those most loyal to the project are looking to abandon their President
Join the second march on the UN by Guineans and their allies in New York City, Thursday December 8th. If you can't make it, there are ways to get involved, so please do!
"If you watch it frame by frame you can pinpoint the exact moment his heart rips in half..."
Anti-fascist activist Ivan "Bonecrusher" Khutorskoy was murdered in Moscow this Monday. 
As the "Abuja I" talks begin with ECOWAS, President Tandja of Niger is increasingly backed into a political and financial corner. Will his "6th Republic" be sacrificed as a way out?
The local elections are odd enough. But "Claude Levi-Strauss" is the 4th most popular search on Yahoo? Right between "Dancing With The Stars" and "H1N1 Symptoms". 
I know all the debates about voting not changing anything, and while I tend to agree, I'm not asking you to overthrow capitalism with a vote. It won't do that. But it is a splendid soapbox.... So Vote Reverend Billy for NYC Mayor, Greg Pason for NJ Governor, and Debbie Rose for City Council. 
Popular sound systems blend traditional sounds with DJ beats, and keep people across Bamako on their feet. But will Mali's capitol ban the "Balani Show" dance parties?
A recent seizure of US arms in Nigeria highlights the profit and loss of small arms supplied to West Africa.
Blood on the streets of Conakry is a price the Junta is willing to pay for power.