Obama Plotting to Bring Down the LRA?

Looks that way:

US President Barack Obama has outlined a plan to disarm one of Africa's most feared rebel militias, the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army.

It aims to defuse the spiralling bloodshed in central Africa by removing the LRA's leader, Joseph Kony.

LRA fighters will also be encouraged to defect or lay down their arms.

US ally Uganda has for more than 20 years failed to defeat the LRA, notorious for kidnapping children to serve as soldiers and sex slaves.

And Uganda doesn't even seem to mind.

"It's a good move. A welcome move," James Mugume, permament secretary at Uganda's ministry of foreign affairs, told AFP.

Mugume applauded the US for not solely focusing on the military aspect of the LRA rebellion.

"Dealing with demobilised combatants, post-war recovery in northern Uganda, these are key parts of the LRA conflict," he said.

Obama's plan, which followed a law on the LRA passed by the US Congress six months ago, focused on "the defection, disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration of remaining LRA fighters."

The plan, presented to Congress on Wednesday, also aims to "increase humanitarian access and provide continued relief to affected communities."

Mugume said the African troops currently hunting the remnants of LRA can handle the military operation but would welcome increased logistical support.

"External support is always welcome, but we have the capacity to lead the military campaign," he said.

Of course, the masterplan is thin on detail. I'll have more to say when there's, well, more to say. For now, I suppose I'm just incredulous that the Ugandan government can be so sanguine about what ultimately is a dismissal of them. Much as I'd like to see the LRA gone, shouldn't the Ugandan government, not the United States, be leading the charge here?

Really, Hollywood?

Another South Africa movie. Jennifer Hudson as Winnie Mandela. Ha. Ha. Ha.



That's the trailer. I'll have more to say about this whole shenanigans, I suspect. Right now, though, I'm just stuck wondering what the heck is the Hollywood fascination with South Africa. This is a bit like how Edith Wharton is granted a voice in U.S. literary royalty, when most women writers are not. I don't understand how certain places, certain things, certain situations get singled out for special attention.

Last Night a VJ Saved My Life

Heh. In the U.S., I was always the music snob who wouldn't be caught dead on that MTV/BET/VH1 mess. I still get to hold on to my snob cred though - I wouldn't be caught dead with a D'Banj CD, TuFace's new album sucks, and I can't sit through most of the songs by a vast majority of Nigerian singers/rappers/autotuners. Still, there's some good ish out there. MTV Base Africa is behaving itself so well, I had to throw this up in its praise. Here's some music I've been jammin' to.

Marginalization in Europe

While clawing my way out of the wilderness that is slow internet and all-too-constant travel, I've been watching and listening to a lot on the state of Roma populations across Western Europe. There's been a bit of a controversy surrounding the recent BBC documentary (Just some stuff on the internet I read, honestly - may be nothing), but I pretty much really liked Rageh Omaar's take on Al Jazeera, some of which you can see right here.

This is admittedly a bit outside the scope of the blog, but I find the Roma's situation quite interesting because of what it says about “otherness”and marginalization especially when they clash with political gain on the part of unpopular political leaders (It's worth noting, after all, that neither Berlusconi nor Sarkozy are particularly popular in their respective countries). This isn't a tidy parallel at all, I realize, but I raise this in the first place because it presents a good counterexample to the subject of Chinese who emigrate to Senegal, in particular the position of power that Chinese government occupies in the business dealings of its people in the country, versus the castaway nature and powerlessness of the Roma population in Italy and France.

Along with the Chinese example, this got me thinking about the constant strain of argument about how class, not race, is the main problem facing modern society today. I'm among those who would respond that, well, race is class. Being black itself – just like being Roma itself, or being Latino, or insert-minority-here – isn't the problem, after all. It's the conclusions drawn about one's self-worth, and the apportioning of rights therefore, like food rations.

Ummm....

I never know what to do when I start blogging after long absences. It feels hella presumptious to be all "You guys missed me, right?", but it also feels weird not to acknowledge the time lag before the previous post and this one. Here goes: Was out and about. Back to your regularly scheduled program.

I'm going to buy this kid's album at some point in this week, I just know it. This song is sort of stuck in my head.

Paging Derek Walcott

V.S. Naipul -- yea, that one -- has a new book on African traditional religions titled The Masque of Africa. In his review of the book, Johann Hari is righteous on the right to speak of African religions. Cue the sighs.

I have stood in a blood-splattered house in Tanzania where an old woman had just been beaten to death for being a "witch" who cast spells on her neighbors. I have stood in battlefields in the Congo where the troops insist with absolute certainty they cannot be killed because they have carried out a magical spell that guarantees, if they are shot, they will turn briefly into a tree, then charge on unharmed. I have been cursed in Ethiopia by a witch-doctor with "impotence, obesity, and then leprosy" for asking insistently why he charged so much to "cure" his patients. (I'm still waiting for the leprosy.)
Where do these beliefs come from? What do so many Africans get out of them? Can they be changed? These are questions that are asked in Africa all the time, but we are deaf to the conversation. It's not hard to see why. The imperial rape and pillage of Africa was "justified" by claiming Africans were "primitive" and "backward" people sunk in a morass of voodoo, who had to be "civilized" in blood and Christianity. Just as there are legitimate and necessary criticisms of Israel but nobody wants to hear them from Germany, any legitimate and necessary criticism of the problems with Africa's indigenous beliefs will never be welcome from Europeans or their descendants. And yet there they are, ongoing and alive, waiting to be discussed. Must we ignore it?

Later on in Hari's review, he says that African religions "can bring both sweet, illusory comfort and intense terror" to Africans who adhere to more traditional beliefs. Muslims and Christians -- who make up the vast majority according to this Pew Religion in Africa poll -- also "retain these traditional beliefs not far beneath the surface." I found this interesting for several reasons: Don't the practice of religions get affected by the worldview of its adherents? How did the social evolution of Western society, for example, affect the interpretation of Christianity? Is it possible to consider traditional religions without considering the founding philosophy of respective African societies? I ask these questions, not of Naipaul's book (which I plan to read) but of this review and what it says about religion and tradition. I wouldn't have thought that V.S. Naipul would take this on, but I'm curious to see what he has to say.

(Photo Credit: Slate)

Islamic Superheroes?

This seems to have been on for awhile, but I'm only just hearing of this U.S.-based entrepreneur Dr. Naif al-Matuwa who is making a book of Muslim Superheroes called The 99. From the Guardian:

[That] conviction is that nobody from the outside is going to save Islam from its more extremist elements – it's going to have to save itself. And The 99, featuring 99 characters based on the 99 attributes of Allah, is, he hopes, that means: a way of focusing on the positive aspects of the religion, of inculcating peaceful, life-giving virtues in children and of presenting a peaceful, tolerant, multicultural version of Islam to the rest of the world.

It's a conviction that has seen him so far raise in excess of $30m in three rounds of funding from private investors, fight off a ban in Saudi Arabia (he's subsequently been re-banned but he's fighting it again), and persuaded Endemol, the company behind Big Brother, to produce a multimillion-dollar, 26-part animated series, which in the new year will be shown on Hub, the US network previously known as Discovery Kids that goes into 60 million American homes.

Interesting, huh?

I've always seen action heroes as a creation of myth that appeals to young boys, especially - a way of thinking of their new "superpowers" that come with their newfound maturity, maybe, or an amazement with physical ability that men are taught from an early age to prize. It's weird, then, seeing religion, especially a monotheistic religion, using such modern myths like action comics to launder it's image.

It's not like the marketing of Jesus didn't/doesn't have a comic book-like quality to it, though. The one thing that has always separated the religion from Judaism and Islam has been the Coca-Cola nature of its marketing. By accident of history, Christianity has been able to align itself with Western modernity, and has therefore excused itself of its more turbulent history and disturbing interpretations on now-touchy subjects that's no less violent, oppressive to women, discriminatory to sexual minorities and accepting of such things that we do not accept today (slavery, for example) than its monotheistic counterparts.

Unlike Coca-Cola, though, I'm not sure that growth in number of "consumers" of a religion should be the goal. There should be nothing wrong with religions maintaining a certain severity, even aloofness to mainstream culture. Judaism, for example, even goes as far as being unfriendly to the idea of new recruits, and Islam does not disguise its time-intensiveness, what with encouraging Hajj, encouraging headscarves for women, praying five times a day with ablutions each time. Were I more sternly religious, I'd worry about the omissions that inevitably happen when one puts one's religion in the make-up chair, airbrushes it for its close-up and puts it on a stand for mass consumption.

More generally, I think it's depressing that there are so many efforts these days to absolve the ignorant of the burden of their ignorance. This is where I have to remind myself that the ignorant among us are often the ones who have power. This is also where I get all the more exhausted. Yes, there is truth to the ranting against misinformation of the larger public about all minorities, religious and otherwise, but it scares me to think what it says about people who are so ready to believe such inanities about other people they, in most cases, have no experience with or idea about. And isn't that what we all we are, people?

Then, suddenly, someone thinks that putting an action hero with a Muslim name on a comic book would make Islam more relatable. Good luck with that.

(Photo: The Washington Post)

Jammin' Just Because...

... it's my blog and I can post what I want to. Some Beninois jazz. And, for good measure, Jimi's awesome set with Stevie Wonder on piano. You're welcome.

Can Puntland Be Effective Against Piracy?

The folks over at Piracy Studies seem to think so. It's no secret that some of Puntland's governing officials are in the piracy business themselves -- and where there is money in an unstable situation political influence isn't far behind -- but anti-Piracy measures in the semi-autonomous region seem to be at least making the pirates squirm.

Puntland security forces have cracked down pirate hideouts. A substantial number of pirates have already been arrested and tried. An estimated number of 250 pirates are currently jailed in Bossaso, more than in any other country[9]. Moreover the government has sponsored a public awareness campaign to discredit piracy and discourage people from joining piracy gangs. For the campaign the authorities have collaborated with members of the Diaspora, religious representatives, clan leaders and community activists. It is also negotiating with pirates to give up their business.[10] For some these measures are however no more than lip service, have been inefficient and serve to shadow the role of Puntland officials in the piracy business.

The true role of the government of Puntland is probably somewhere in between these positions. While some officials might have benefited from piracy, it is also clear that the government has expressed willingness to encounter piracy and indeed already taken measures. The fact that the epicenter of piracy seems to shift to south-central Somalia, outside Puntland’s territory might be seen as supporting the view that piracy organizations face increasing operational difficulties in Puntland.

I'm surprised the status quo is changing at all, and kudos to Puntland for making any progress on this at all. I suppose I just think it is too much to ask for everyone involved to abandon short-term economic gain for a moral courage that will not pay off for a long time. Without the promise of international recognition, trade and investment in the country, asking that these people quit supporting piracy wholesale has always looked to me to be a fool's errand. I'm not being picky, though - these days, we should take our good news, however limited, where we find it.

Monsanto, Monsanto, Monsanto. And China.

Yasmine Ryan at the African Agriculture blog (h/t China in Africa) has an interesting piece on the success of Malawi's agriculture policies under Mutharika and the huge GMO organization Monsanto.

Professor Pedro Sánchez of the Columbia University’s Earth Institute was one of the scientists Mutharika chose to heed despite resistance from most of Malawi’s international donors.

“We had a meeting with the newly elected president, Bingu wa Mutharika," Sánchez recalled in an interview with TakePart. "The guy told several of us, ‘Hey, I didn’t get elected to be a beggar nation, and right now we’re begging for about 45 percent of our food. Do you have any suggestions?’

“We said, 'Yes, sir. Subsidize fertilizers and hybridized seeds.' And he did it.”

Within two years, Malawi went from famine to food exportation. Now the fertilizer subsidies have caught on among neighboring countries—10 are testing similar policies, including Tanzania, Nigeria and Zambia. Faced with the evidence of success, USAID, the World Bank, and many European donors are putting their support behind subsidy programs.

Not without its drawbacks, of course.

A major criticism of the Malawi model is that it encourages farmers to turn to a single staple crop (and yes, it's corn, in case you were wondering...). Horticulturist Linda Larish notes that the traditional Malawian staple, a taro-like plant called manioc, has largely been abandoned by farmers switching to imported hybrid corn.

“Even though they are self-sufficient and can grow their own food, they are at the mercy of the seed and fertilizer companies,” Larish says.

Not by coincidence, Malawi’s policies gave Monsanto a foothold for its hybrid maize in sub-Saharan Africa. Is it philanthropy, PR, or simply shrewd business?

Many people I know are ambivalent about Monsanto. When the Gates Foundation invested in the Monsanto, for example, The UK Guardian couldn't but ask why:

Seattle-based Agra Watch - a project of the Community Alliance for Global Justice - was outraged. "Monsanto has a history of blatant disregard for the interests and well being of small farmers around the world… [This] casts serious doubt on the foundation's heavy funding of agricultural development in Africa," it thundered.

But it got worse. South Africa-based watchdog the African Centre for Biosafety then found that the foundation was teaming up with Cargill in a $10m project to "develop the soya value chain" in Mozambique and elsewhere. Who knows what this corporate-speak really means, but in all probability it heralds the big time introduction of GM soya in southern Africa.

The two incidents raise a host of questions for the foundation. Few people doubt that GM has a place in Africa, but is Gates being hopelessly naïve by backing two of the world's most aggressive agri-giants? There is, after all, genuine concern at governmental and community level that the United State's model of extensive hi-tech farming is inappropriate for most of Africa and should not be foist on the poorest farmers in the name of "feeding the world".

Monsanto responded to the questions raised in this Guardian article. And it looks like China's trying to get in on the GMO act with their 20 new organizations devoted to hybrid rice seeds and such. Only time will tell just how destructive all of this, but I foresee lots of land issues in African countries' futures from all this, none of which will be to the benefit of small farmers' livelihoods.