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Africa

Incoming AU Pres. C. Ramaphosa (l) and outgoing Pres. A. Ahmed

At African Union Summit, Ramaphosa Announces End of Colonialism

By News & Current Affairs

By Global Information Network — A stirring call to action was delivered this week in the august hall of the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, spoken by the incoming AU president Cyril Ramaphosa to distinguished members of the continental body representing over 40 countries. In his presentation at the AU’s 33rd summit, the South African President wove history with commentary into a tapestry of hope for a continent…

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Water is a human right

U.S. Civil Rights and Human Rights Groups Say Water is a Human Right

By News & Current Affairs, PAUD News, Press Releases / Statements

U.S. Civil Rights and Human Rights Groups Say Water is a Human Right — Express Solidarity with Struggle for Water Rights in Nigeria. February, 10, 2020, New York — The Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW) released a Statement today calling for a national and international movement to declare access to water a human right that should not be subject to profiteering by corporate interests. The Statement was released against the…

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Collection of Helena Rubinstein

A Letter to President Macron: Reparations Before Restitution

By Editors' Choice, Reparations

In the wake of initiatives to repatriate Africa’s stolen property, the author of this letter asks the French President to repair what his ancestors have broken, before attempting to restore the war trophies of colonial conquest. By Manthia Diawara, Hyperallergic — “All of the elements for a solution to the major problems of humanity existed at one time or another in European thought. But the Europeans did not act on…

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The Implicit Trust Given to Whiteness puts Black Children at Serious Risk

The Implicit Trust Given to Whiteness puts Black Children at Serious Risk

By Commentaries/Opinions

We need to do better at protecting our children from foreign men who come to prey on them in the name of “doing good”. By NWS — Last week we were sent this image of Mr. Daniel Illescas, a Spanish model from Madrid, laying shirtless with a small Kenyan girl who he seems to have an affinity for. The child he refers to as “xxxx” (name redacted for child’s privacy)…

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Plaque depicting warrior and attendants (16th-17th century), Edo peoples, Benin kingdom, Nigeria.

Liberating the precolonial history of Africa

By Editors' Choice

The West focuses only on slavery, but the history of Africa is so much more than a footnote to European imperialism. By Toby Green / Edited by Sam Haselby, Aeon — To understand the complexity and significance of West African history, there is no better thing to do than to go to Freetown. Sierra Leone’s capital is sited in the lee of the ‘lion-shaped’ mountain that gives the country its…

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The conference of Berlin,

Berlin 1884: Remembering the conference that divided Africa

By Editors' Choice

135 years ago today, European leaders sat around a horseshoe-shaped table to set the rules for Africa’s colonization. By Patrick Gathara, Al Jazeera — On the afternoon of Saturday, November 15, 1884, an international conference was opened by the chancellor of the newly-created German Empire at his official residence on Wilhelmstrasse, in Berlin. Sat around a horseshoe-shaped table in a room overlooking the garden with representatives from every European country,…

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Mmusi Maimane

Liberalism in South Africa isn’t only for white people—or black people who “want to be white”

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Steven Friedman — Liberalism is meant to be about freedom for all individuals, regardless of race. But linking liberalism to whiteness as is happening now is not new in South Africa. Most activists who fought for black freedom dismissed liberalism as a white ideology designed to tame black people, not to free them. This was hardly surprising, since many white liberals spoke and acted as if liberalism was exactly that:…

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