• About
  • Activism/Initiatives
  • Contact Us
  • Mission Statement

~ A Blog of the African Diaspora

Monthly Archives: August 2009

“Strongmen or Strong Institutions: Which Way for Africa?” by Nkwazi N. Mhango

30 Sunday Aug 2009

Posted by asabagna in Africa, AfroSpear, AfroSphere, Barack Obama, Corruption, Exploitation, Geopolitics, Leadership, Life, Nkwazi Mhango

≈ 3 Comments

Those are my catch words from President Barack Obama’s stunning speech in Ghana, although he dwelt on many issues reminiscent to Africa’s endemic and systemic problems. Unlike other past American presidents, Obama seems determined to face the reality by giving African potentates a bitter pill to swallow.

Before becoming US president, many African strongmen such as Paul Kagame (Rwanda), Yoweri Museveni (Uganda) Meles Zenawi (Ethiopia) and Teodoro Obiang Ngwema (Equatorial Guinea) were darlings of the US, thanks to enhancing the exploitation of Africa’s resources. Things seem to have taken a new turn with Obama’s promise of change. His “Yes We Can” slogan seems to have started working. Yes, Africa can be a good and prosperous place without thieving dictators at the helm. Yes, we can kick dictators out of Africa’s political landscape.

“No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or police can be bought off by drug traffickers”, Obama says. He speaks as if he lives in our streets where the police force protect and promote crime. He speaks as if he lives in our state houses where thieves-in-chief steal public money.

Tanzania, my own country, is the fifth giant when it comes to mineral abundance but interestingly, the country is fifth on the tail as far as poverty worldwide is concerned. Small countries with fewer resources like Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda outshine Tanzania.

“Development depends upon good governance. That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long. That is the change that can unlock Africa’s potential”, Obama adds. Many African mumbo jumbos cannot like this. It is like carpet-bombing them. They have always preached rule of law and good governance even when they govern tyrannically. 

Telling African chronic thieves to stop stealing by their volition is as good as telling the monkey to stop stealing maize. What needs to be done is to categorize crimes involving rulers and their cronies stealing from public coffers as crime against humanity. Most Africans lose their lives to corruption than wars. Genocide in Rwanda claimed over 800,000 lives. In Darfur, it has claimed over 200,000. Malaria that is curable, shall our rulers stop stealing from the public, is killing many more people than all genocides put together.

Continue reading →

sat’day riddymz #22

30 Sunday Aug 2009

Posted by asabagna in African-Americans, AfroSpear, AfroSphere, Jazz, Miles Davis, Music, sat'day riddymz

≈ Leave a comment

Is The Semenya Case Old Wine in an African Bottle?!

29 Saturday Aug 2009

Posted by Maxjulian in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

  • The 10 Most Shocking Olympic Gender Scandals


    Edit Stats Delete
  • 1. Dora Ratjen

    For the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin, Adolf Hitler wanted to show the world the supremacy of the Aryan race. German, Dora Ratjen, notable for her deep voice and her refusal to share the shower room with the other female athletes, was Germany’s entry for the women’s high jump. She came in fourth. Britain’s competitor, Dorothy Tyler, who won a silver medal, remembers her. “I had competed against Dora and I knew she was a man,” she says. “You could tell by the voice and the build.” Ratjen was discovered to be a man on his way back from the European Championships at a train station in Germany. Although Ratjen was wearing a skirt, two women spotted him with a five o’clock shadow. A doctor was summoned and Ratjen’s sex was revealed. In 1938 Ratjen was barred from further competition. via 1 via2.

  • 2. Stella Walsh

    At one point, Stella Walsh, a Polish-American sprinter, was the fastest woman in the world. She won gold in 1932 and silver in 1936 for the 100m sprint. During her career, she set more than 100 national and world records and was inducted into the American Track and Field Hall of Fame. She lived her entire life as a woman, and even had a short-lived marriage to an American man. In 1980, Walsh was killed by mistake during an armed robbery at a shopping mall in Cleveland, Ohio. The postmortem revealed she had male genitalia. She was also found to have both male and female chromosomes. via .

  • 3. Sin Kim Dan

    Dan broke the women’s records for 400m and 800m in 1961/62. She was the first woman to run 400m in less than 52 seconds. In 1963 in Moscow, other female sprinters refused to run against her because she looked like a man. At that same time a South Korean man claimed that she was his son who had disappeared during the war. Obligatory sex-testing for international athletics was introduced in 1966, and for whatever reason, Sin did not compete after that. via.

  • 4. Edinanci Silva

    Born with both male and female sex organs, the Brazilian judo player had surgery in the mid-90s so that she could live and compete as a woman. According to the IOC, this made her eligible to participate in the games and she competed in Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000 and Athens in 2004. In Sydney, she beat the Australian Natalie Jenkins, who raised the issue of Silva’s gender in a press conference, constantly referring to her as “he” via.

  • 5. Tamara and Irina Press

    Sisters Tamara and Irina Press won five track and field Olympic gold medals for the Soviet Union, and set 26 world records in the 1960s. Their careers suddenly ended at the time that gender verification was introduced. Critics have suggested that the Presses were actually male, or perhaps hermaphrodites. via.

  • 6. Heidi Krieger

    It is believed that as many as 10,000 East German athletes were caught up in a state-sponsored attempt to build a race of superhuman communist sports heroes and force-fed cocktails of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. One of them was Heidi Krieger, a shot putter. When she was 16, her coach put her on steroids and contraceptive pills and she gained weight, built muscle and started to develop body hair. By 1986, aged 20, she was European champion and an Olympic shotput gold medalist. In the mid-90s, Krieger underwent gender reassignment surgery and changed her name to Andreas. via.

  • 7. Ewa Klobukowska

    Eda was a Polish sprinter who won the gold medal in the women’s 4×100 m relay and the bronze medal in the women’s 100 m sprint at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Klobukowska was the first Olympic athlete to fail a gender test. Having registered “one chromosome too many”, she failed an early form of the chromatin test in 1967 and was subsequently banned from competing in professional sports. via.

  • 8. Santhi Soundarajan

    Santhi Soundarajan, a middle distance runner from India, won a silver medal at the 2006 Asia Games. She was stripped of her medal after she failed a verification test. via.

  • 9. Mary Edith Louise Weston

    Mary Edith Louise Weston of Great Britain was the best shotputter from 1924 to 1930, and the best javelin thrower in 1927. She still holds Great Britain’s shot put record. Mary Edith Louise Weston became Mark Weston in the mid-1930s. via.

  • 10. Iolanda Balas

    After mandatory gender testing was implemented in the 60’s, high jumper Iolanda Balas refused to compete in the Olympic Games. She went to the Budapest games – but only as a spectator, wearing an Ace bandage. She was suspiciously, according to Rumanian track officials, suffering from a “calcified right tendon,” and was said to never be able to compete again. via.

“Darfur: Are Muslims a Betrayal?” by Nkwazi N. Mhango

28 Friday Aug 2009

Posted by asabagna in Africa, AfroSpear, AfroSphere, Arabs, Darfur, Genocide, Geopolitics, Islam, Life, News, Nkwazi Mhango, Omar al-Bashir, Slavery, Sudan

≈ 18 Comments

“Brother, to me, there are no Muslims in this world presently except Darfuris. Since the Arab-backed illegitimate regime under Omar Bashir started butchering my people, all we mistook to be Muslims, especially Arabs, became infidels (kaffirs) for not acting.”

These are the sarcastic words by Salih Fur whom I met on plane on my way to Winnipeg from St. John’s early this year. He goes on: “I came to Canada from Egypt where I was called ‘slaves’ and other bad names, simply because I am black.”

Salih was on his way to Toronto and we coincidentally shared a seat. He sadly told me: “Can you believe? Sudan still has black people who regard themselves to be Arabs and discriminate against fellow Africans!” His cry is clear. Muslims, the world over, have betrayed their colleagues in Darfur. This betrayal, according to Salih, has rendered them kaffirs. 

I wanted to know further why this was his take. He has good Quran-based reasons. He told me that his people goofed thanks to being referred to as “Ahal Quran” or “the people of book” by Bashir. Little did they know it was a ploy he used to fool them as they refrained from pursuing modern education! They heavily regret his lie.

Salih seems to be good at this holy book of Muslims thanks to verses he gave me. When I arrived home, I touched base with another friend from Darfur, a Mr. Etahir. This guy -I met also in Canada-, hates everything Islamic and Arabic. He was born and raised a true Muslim till 2005, when he survived beatings in Cairo simply because he was black, and thus, slave, as per Arab take of black people. Therefore,  was not supposed to attend prayers. Infuriated and badly injured at heart, he kissed Islam good-bye.

[49:11] O you who believe, no people shall ridicule other people, for they may be better than they. Nor shall any women ridicule other women, for they may be better than they. Nor shall you mock one another, or make fun of your names. Evil indeed is the reversion to wickedness after attaining faith. Anyone who does not repent after this, these are the transgressors.

James, a Darfur Christian convert, too was born and raised Muslim. But when Arab-sponsored Janjaweed started killing his people as they uttered “Allah Akbar!” (God is great), he reverted to Christianity. There are many such incidents reminiscent to Darfur people.

Continue reading →

Caster Semenya Deserves Better

24 Monday Aug 2009

Posted by brotherpeacemaker in Uncategorized

≈ 57 Comments

South-Africas-Caster-Seme-001

Eighteen year old South African runner Caster Semenya bolted to the world’s attention when she shattered records on the track. At the African Junior Championships in Mauritius she posted the fastest 800-meter run of the year at the time with a 1:56:72. When she competed in her first senior championship at the world track and field championships in Berlin just a few days ago, she clocked another record for the year of 1:55.45 and finished two seconds ahead of the defending world champion.

cas595The wide margin of victory against elite runners of the world added to the speculation that Ms. Semenya could be a male. Officials from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), track and field’s governing body for the world, will be conducting a gender testing procedure that includes an endocrinologist, a gynecologist, a psychologist, and both internal and external physical examinations. The IAAF director of communications, Nick Davies, says that the organization does not believe Ms. Semenya has been intentionally cheating but is the victim of a medical condition known as Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS). AIS is a condition in which a person who is genetically male but is unaffected by male sex hormones known as androgens. Some people with AIS will have a totally female body on the outside, but will lack ovaries and a uterus while others may demonstrate partial AIS and will develop more muscle mass and have more facial hair than usual.

To say that the rest of the track runners are praying for confirmation of the AIS gender malady in the test results is an understatement. Ms. Semenya literally blows away the competition with the ability to literally walk away from the rest of the pack at will. With respect to her opponents, Ms. Semenya does a very good impersonation of Jamaican sprinter and Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt, who outruns his male opponents just as easily with his own record shredding performances. As a man Mr. Bolt is immune from accusations of gender confusion. No one is going to accuse him of running like a girl, not unless it’s the bionic woman.

1158florence-griffith-joyner-1And speaking of the bionic woman, if Ms. Semenya looked like Lindsey Wagner, who played the transistors enhanced Jaime Sommers, questions of her gender would not have been an issue. But because she does not fall into the typical standards of beauty of keen facial features and long wavy hair, it’s easy to dismiss her as nothing more than a freak of nature undeserving of her success. If she looked more like the Florence Griffith-Joyner and ran with a long flowing ponytail and sporting the latest in Cover Girl products or was a perky bundle of muscle like Dominique Dawes then we would simply call her the winner and stand in line to swoon all over her.

femalephysiqueInstead, we hear rumors that she might be more man than woman and suddenly point to her anatomy and ask, what gives? Does she really have too much muscle mass to be a woman? Some of her competitors look just as muscular. Maybe they should have their gender checked as well. Does she really have more hair than other women? I know for a fact that nobody questioned Brooke Shields’ gender when she walked onto the scene with her bushy eyebrows. But that won’t stop these fleet footed kettles from calling Ms. Semenya black. Italian competitor Elisa Piccione said that these kinds of people should not be allowed to run with normal women. I guess by normal she doesn’t mean slower.

Instead of being celebrated as the latest great athlete, Ms. Semenya is going to be systematically taken apart and studied all the way down to her genetic level. Her twenty third chromosome will be checked for the proper pairing and she’ll be put under a variety of technologically advanced microscopes so some of us can examine her every defect. Some of the test that she’ll be subjected to will be arbitrary and based on somebody’s opinion of what it means to be male or female. Seriously, what can a psychologist contribute to the understanding of this runner’s gender? The only reason she’s going in for psychological testing is that she did her best to win a race.

If this woman is going through a battery of tests simply because she won a race then maybe it should become standard procedure for all women who win a race to have their gender checked and their psyche scrutinized for their every Freudian flaw. Why stop there? Let’s avoid embarrassing the winners and the rest of the runners altogether by checking their femininity when they sign up before they run. But to wait until women like Caster Semenya are in the middle of experiencing their highest high, after they have put their best effort forward with astonishing results, after they have played by all the rules, while they’re steep in the middle of overwhelming emotions, to single them out for further testing simply because they won and don’t fit our expectations of how a woman should appear and act is some serious loser like behavior.

sat’day Riddymz #21

23 Sunday Aug 2009

Posted by asabagna in AfroSpear, AfroSphere, Music, Rose Royce, sat'day riddymz

≈ 1 Comment

District 9: The future in the shadow of the past that is today

20 Thursday Aug 2009

Posted by asabagna in Africa, AfroSpear, AfroSphere, Aliens, District 9, Entertainment, Immigration, Movies, Racism, Science Fiction, South Africa

≈ 9 Comments

Every so often a film comes along which blows me away… as it stirs so much emotions and thoughts within me. Earlier this year it was “Gran Torino“. Now it’s “District 9“.

I don’t want to reveal too much of the plot, but here is the basic storyline. The movie starts with the arrival of a spaceship over Johannesburg, South Africa, with over a million sick and malnourished aliens on the brink of death. They are removed from the spaceship and placed in a internment camp near the city called District 9, while the authorities decides what to do about them. The camp disintegrates into a crime ridden and very dangerous slum where the aliens and the native South Africans engage in violent conflicts… and Nigerian gangs openly operate a variety of black market schemes. A private company which specializes in weapons research and security contracting called Multi-National United, is given the task of forcibly relocating the aliens to a new area called Distict 10, which is miles away from Johannesburg… and therefore away from humans.

Interestingly, the title and storyline are based on a real events surrounding a racially mixed area that was in Cape Town, South Africa called District 6. The inhabitants were forcibly removed in the 1970’s by the government who had declared the area a crime ridden and dangerous slum… (subsequently they made it a “white-only” zone). Approximately 60,000 people were relocated to an area 25 kilometers away from that city. 

The events which unfolds within the film, deals with the such issues as the mistreatment and marginalization of refugees and immigrants, apartheid type government policies, immoral scientific experimentation, media propaganda, as well as the personal and societal cost of doing the right thing. There were also elements in the movie which I found somewhat troubling, as it perpetuates the negative stereotypes we constantly see of Africans in the media… especially by Hollywood: tribal like conflicts, drugs and weapons dealing, violent and bloodthirsty gangs, prostitution, witchcraft and cannibalism.

Although in my first impression of the film I didn’t find it to be racist, I however understand why some people would and I have read a number of articles which takes such a position (and I agree with most of them on a certain level). With all this being said… as well as upon further reflection… I still really liked the movie and highly recommend it. There is an obvious set up at the end of the movie for a sequal… and I am looking forward to it.

I would be interested in hearing what others who have seen the film thought about it.

U.S. Supreme Court orders new hearing for Troy Davis

18 Tuesday Aug 2009

Posted by asabagna in Activism, African-Americans, AfroSpear, AfroSphere, Capital Punishment, Criminal Justice, Justice, Life, News, Troy Anthony Davis, U.S. Supreme Court

≈ 1 Comment

Yesterday, Monday 17th August 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a federal judge in Georgia to consider and rule on the claim of innocence in the murder case against Troy Anthony Davis. Davis was convicted and sentenced to death in 1991 of murdering an off-duty Savannah police officer, Mark Allen MacPhail, in 1989.  Since his trial, Davis has claimed that seven of the state of Georgia’s key witneeses have recanted the testimony and several other individuals have implicated the prosecution’s key witness as the actual murderer. 

Read article on S.C. decision here.

Read previous post on the Troy Davis issue here.

Support the Troy Davis campaign here.

← Older posts

Select language then Translate

Subscribe via Email

Subscribe to Afro Spear by Email

Subscribe via Feed

Subscribe in a reader

Recent Posts

  • U.S. District Court Judge Carlton W. Reeves Sentencing Speech to Convicted White Racist Murderers
  • Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!
  • Cornel West on BBC HARDtalk
  • The Whiteness Project
  • Cornel West: “President Obama Doesn’t Belong on Any Shirt with Martin Luther King and Malcolm X”

Recent Comments

productreview on Caster Semenya determined to b…
Dawnatilla TheHun on “Why don’t Dictato…
Briana on Stuff Black People Like…
David Rohrig on When Will America Take Respons…
Mama Ayaba on Dr. Frances Cress Welsing: 12…

AfroSphere

  • Abagond
  • Africa is a country
  • Africa on the blog
  • Africa Portal
  • African Arguments
  • African Executive
  • African Hip Hop
  • AfriClassical Blog
  • Afropean
  • Another Way To View
  • Black Agenda Report
  • Black and Christian
  • Black Women of Brazil
  • Blog Africa
  • Breaking Brown
  • Brotha Wolf
  • ByBlacks – Canadian Black Experience
  • Colorlines
  • Daraja
  • Echwalu Photography
  • Electronic Village
  • Ewuare X. Osayande
  • Field Negro
  • Free Thinking Unabii
  • Global Voices Online
  • Hip Hop Republican
  • Kudzu, Mon Amour
  • Let’s Be Clear
  • Mind of Malaka
  • MsAfropolitan
  • Nana Kofi Acquah
  • NewBlackMan
  • Our Legaci
  • Outhouse Negroes
  • Pambazuka News Blogs
  • Poefrika
  • Project 21
  • Repeating Islands
  • Shawn James
  • Tafari
  • The Blackman Can
  • The Gentlemen's Standard
  • The Intersection of Madness and Reality
  • The Old Black Church
  • The Root Magazine
  • The Silver People Chronicle
  • This is Africa
  • This Is Your Conscience
  • Uhuru News

Site Meter

  • Site Meter

Afrospear Think Tank Blog

Afrospear Think Tank Blog

Copyright & Licence

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Archives

  • February 2015
  • December 2014
  • October 2014
  • August 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007

  • Follow Following
    • afrospear.wordpress.com
    • Join 177 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • afrospear.wordpress.com
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...