“Rwanda can still talk to FDLR and move forward” by Nkwazi Mhango

Franz Fanon in the Wretched of the Earth said, “The last battle of the colonized against the colonizer will often be the fight for the colonized against each other.”

Rwanda’s unrepentant refusal to talk with the DRC based, Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR) rebels, eat many heads up in the region. Of late, the world evidenced the tug of war between Rwanda and Tanzania after President Jakaya Kikwete proposed round-table talks. Again, despite all misunderstandings, we need to face it that the conflict in the Great Lakes needs to be dealt with. For better or for worse, nothing human is forever. For how long will we live under fear and conflicts?

Currently, the US is in dialogue with the Talibans in Afghanistan. Israel and Palestine have recently resumed peace talks. This means that any conflict, be it protracted or otherwise, can be resolved. Reconciliation is the only way forward wherever there is conflict. Rwanda as well as DRC needs to move forward given that FDLR rebels will never live in DRC forever.

I understand how Kigali feels, especially when it remembers the magnitude of the sin that FDLR committed during the 1994 genocide that wiped out about one million Rwandans, Tutsi and moderate Hutus. I know how traumatizing it is to revisit such history. Importantly though, reconciliation is inevitable shall the region aspire to have peace and prosperity. Africa’s still dependent on its former masters and other rich and developed countries. How come now that such dependent continent is embarking on creating more conflict than reducing them? Again, history is always written by survivors. Methinks Rwanda should search its soul to see to it that the conflict is solved so that life can go on and write a new history of reconciliation.

Rwanda won’t be the first country to embark on reconciliation. Blacks in South Africa suffered more than any country under the Apartheid regime. Nelson Mandela who spearheaded fight against Apartheid was jailed for long. Again, after realizing that conflict can be used constructively to avoid more destruction, Mandela was the first person to forgive Apartheid regime after understanding the way it felt about what it committed. Through talking to each other, both parts in South Africa were able to read each other’s way of looking at things. In the end, South Africa made a precedent to which almost every peace lover refers to. African sage has it that, those who fight are the ones that cooperate. No way can human beings live without differences, conflicts and all sorts of things as far as misunderstandings are concerned. On this ground, it makes sense to call upon Rwanda and FDLR rebels to talk peace, instead of harbouring hatred and vengeance. Such stance won’t solve any problem. Instead, it’ll double if not triple them.

It defies logic, for example, to presume all Hutus as genociders. How if at all those born during or after genocide did not partake in this megalomania? Hutus who did not partake in the crime feel betrayed and victimized. Those judged wholesomely feel that they’ve the duty to cleanse their names. Those born in DRC, just like those who took over after Genocide, who were born in Uganda, think that they’d go back home. This is where it boils down to scheming to deal with current Rwandan regime either peacefully or violently. This is not the situation a country is supposed to live in. Why don’t we want to learn the menacing danger refugees in Uganda caused to Rwanda? Suppose DRC stabilizes and supports FDLR to take on their home government as Uganda did? This means that another calamity is in the making. This is why it becomes inevitable for two sides to talk and reconcile. How if at all, genocide was the work of a select few in power by then? Rwandans need peace. And peace will come from reconciliation.

I know verily that Kigali would like to respect the dead. Again, as Gerard Prunier put it in his book, The Rwanda Crisis; History of Genocide, “Respect of the dead does not preclude the efforts to understand why they died.” Such take helps us to seek truth and peace in order to avoid repeating the same in the name of preserving and honouring the dead.

Prunier goes on saying that Hutus and Tutsi were not created as cats and dogs. Allowing the conflict to shrive amidst Rwandans is but faulting God’s goodwill of endowing us with higher and bigger brains that make us humans and not animals. Sometimes, due to ignorance, fear and confusion, man can commit sacrilegious things that even an animal can’t commit. Again, once this happens, sane minds must intervene. This is why the international community formed Arusha-based ICTR. This aimed at punishing the guilty and redressing the offended. Now, if ICTR and Gacaca did punish the guilty, why then presume all Hutus as killers?

After all, genocide can be said to be the product of European eugenics, especially John Speke by proxy, that created Hutus and Tutsi for their reasons of exploiting them. It is absurd and indifference to keep on, for example, calling the 1994 genocide, genocide against Tutsi. So too, it’ll be nonsensical to keep on alleging that all Hutus committed genocide. To do away from this danger, Rwanda must willingly talk to rebels instead of feeling that the international community is forcing it to talk. The upshot is those situated out of the conflict, see it better than those involved in it.

Nkwazi Mhango is a Tanzanian living in Canada. He writes regularly for “The African Executive” and also has a blog entitled “Free Thinking Unabii”. He is a regular contributor to AfroSpear.

“Anarchy and Hegemony” by Robert D. Kaplan

Article from STRATFOR

Everyone loves equality: equality of races, of ethnic groups, of sexual orientations, and so on. The problem is, however, that in geopolitics equality usually does not work very well. For centuries Europe had a rough equality between major states that is often referred to as the balance-of-power system. And that led to frequent wars. East Asia, by contrast, from the 14th to the early 19th centuries, had its relations ordered by a tribute system in which China was roughly dominant. The result, according to political scientist David C. Kang of the University of Southern California, was a generally more peaceful climate in Asia than in Europe.

The fact is that domination of one sort or another, tyrannical or not, has a better chance of preventing the outbreak of war than a system in which no one is really in charge; where no one is the top dog, so to speak. That is why Columbia University’s Kenneth Waltz, arguably America’s pre-eminent realist, says that the opposite of “anarchy” is not stability, but “hierarchy.”

Hierarchy eviscerates equality; hierarchy implies that some are frankly “more equal” than others, and it is this formal inequality — where someone, or some state or group, has more authority and power than others — that prevents chaos. For it is inequality itself that often creates the conditions for peace.

Government is the most common form of hierarchy. It is a government that monopolizes the use of violence in a given geographical space, thereby preventing anarchy. To quote Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century English philosopher, only where it is possible to punish the wicked can right and wrong have any practical meaning, and that requires “some coercive power.”

The best sort of inequality is hegemony. Whereas primacy, as Kang explains, is about preponderance purely through military or economic power, hegemony “involves legitimation and consensus.” That is to say, hegemony is some form of agreed-upon inequality, where the dominant power is expected by others to lead. When a hegemon does not lead, it is acting irresponsibly.

Of course, hegemony has a bad reputation in media discourse. But that is only because journalists are confused about the terminology, even as they sanctimoniously judge previous historical eras by the strict standards of their own. In fact, for most of human history, periods of relative peace have been the product of hegemony of one sort or another. And for many periods, the reigning hegemonic or imperial power was the most liberal, according to the standards of the age. Rome, Venice and Britain were usually more liberal than the forces arranged against them. The empire of the Austrian Hapsburgs in Central and Eastern Europe often protected the rights of minorities and prevented ethnic wars to a much greater degree than did the modern states that succeeded it. The Ottoman Empire in the Balkans and the Middle East frequently did likewise. There are exceptions, of course, like Hapsburg Spain, with its combination of inquisition and conquest. But the point is that hegemony does not require tyrannical or absolutist rule.

Stability is not the natural order of things. In fact, history shows that stability such as it exists is usually a function of imperial rule, which, in turn, is a common form of hierarchy. To wit, there are few things messier in geopolitics than the demise of an empire. The collapse of the Hapsburgs, of the Ottoman Turks, of the Soviet Empire and the British Empire in Asia and Africa led to chronic wars and upheavals. Some uncomprehending commentators remind us that all empires end badly. Of course they do, but that is only after they have provided decades and centuries of relative peace.

Obviously, not all empires are morally equivalent. For example, the Austrian Hapsburgs were for their time infinitely more tolerant than the Soviet Communists. Indeed, had the Romanov Dynasty in St. Petersburg not been replaced in 1917 by Lenin’s Bolsheviks, Russia would likely have evolved far more humanely than it did through the course of the 20th century. Therefore, I am saying only in a general sense is order preferable to disorder. (Though captivating subtleties abound: For example, Napoleon betrayed the ideals of the French Revolution by creating an empire, but he also granted rights to Jews and Protestants and created a system of merit over one of just birth and privilege.)

In any case, such order must come from hierarchal domination.

Indeed, from the end of World War II until very recently, the United States has performed the role of a hegemon in world politics. America may be democratic at home, but abroad it has been hegemonic. That is, by some rough measure of international consent, it is America that has the responsibility to lead. America formed NATO in Europe, even as its Navy and Air Force exercise preponderant power in the Pacific Basin. And whenever there is a humanitarian catastrophe somewhere in the developing world, it is the United States that has been expected to organize the response. Periodically, America has failed. But in general, it would be a different, much more anarchic world without American hegemony.

But that hegemony, in some aspects, seems to be on the wane. That is what makes this juncture in history unique. NATO is simply not what it used to be. U.S. forces in the Pacific are perceived to be less all-powerful than in the past, as China tests U.S. hegemony in the region. But most importantly, U.S. President Barack Obama is evolving a doctrine of surgical strikes against specific individuals combined with non-interference — or minimal interference — in cases of regional disorder. Libya and Syria are cases in point. Gone, at least for the moment, are the days when U.S. forces were at the ready to put a situation to rights in this country or that.

When it comes to the Greater Middle East, Americans seem to want protection on the cheap, and Obama is giving them that. We will kill a terrorist with a drone, but outside of limited numbers of special operations forces there will be no boots on the ground for Libya, Syria or any other place. As for Iran, whatever the White House now says, there is a perception that the administration would rather contain a nuclear Iran than launch a military strike to prevent Iran from going nuclear.

That, by itself, is unexceptional. Previous administrations have been quite averse to the use of force. In recent decades, it was only George W. Bush — and only in the aftermath of 9/11 — who relished the concept of large-scale boots on the ground in a war of choice. Nevertheless, something has shifted. In a world of strong states — a world characterized by hierarchy, that is — the United States often enforced the rules of the road or competed with another hegemon, the Soviet Union, to do so. Such enforcement came in the form of robust diplomacy, often backed by a threat to use military power. Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were noted for American leadership and an effective, sometimes ruthless foreign policy. Since the Cold War ended and Bill Clinton became president, American leadership has often seemed to be either unserious, inexpertly and crudely applied or relatively absent. And this has transpired even as states themselves in the Greater Middle East have become feebler.

In other words, both the hegemon and the many states it influences are weaker. Hierarchy is dissolving on all levels. Equality is now on the march in geopolitics: The American hegemon is less hegemonic, and within individual countries — Egypt, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Tunisia and so on — internal forces are no longer subservient to the regime. (And states like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are not in the American camp to the degree that they used to be, further weakening American hegemony.) Moreover, the European Union as a political organizing principle is also weakening, even as the one-party state in China is under increasing duress.

Nevertheless, in the case of the Middle East, do not conflate chaos with democracy. Democracy itself implies an unequal, hierarchal order, albeit one determined by voters. What we have in the Middle East cannot be democracy because almost nowhere is there a new and sufficiently formalized hierarchy. No, what we have in many places in the Middle East is the weakening of central authority with no new hierarchy to adequately replace it.

Unless some force can, against considerable odds, reinstitute hierarchy — be it an American hegemon acting globally, or an international organization acting regionally or, say, an Egyptian military acting internally — we will have more fluidity, more equality and therefore more anarchy to look forward to. This is profoundly disturbing, because civilization abjures anarchy. In his novel Billy Budd (1924), Herman Melville deeply laments the fact that even beauty itself must be sacrificed for the maintenance of order. For without order — without hierarchy — there is nothing.

The Black El Dorado

I am following an informative and interesting 4-part documentary series on Al Jazeera called The Secret of the Seven Sisters. It reveals the details of a secret pact that was made by the seven biggest oil companies in the world to control the industry to maximize their profits. To achieve this goal these comapanies: Exxon, Royal Dutch Shell, Mobile, Chevron, Gulf, British Petroleum (BP) and Texaco, control and manipulate the political and economic arenas of nations. In Episode 2 below, it discusses their fiendish pursuits for African oil: The Black El Dorado.

The Silence of America on the Murder in Gaza

Thanks to Sis. Deb. for introducing me to this powerful piece by Chris Hedges of Truthdig.

Meanwhile back on the plantation, the “White House” Negro defends his master…

The Shock Doctrine

A documentary adaptation Naomi Klein’s 2007 book, The Shock Doctrine. An investigation of disaster capitalism, based on Naomi Klein’s proposition that neo-liberal capitalism feeds on natural disasters, war and terror to establish its dominance.

Based on breakthrough historical research and four years of on-the-ground reporting in disaster zones, The Shock Doctrine vividly shows how disaster capitalism — the rapid-fire corporate re-engineering of societies still reeling from shock — did not begin with September 11, 2001.

The films traces its origins back fifty years, to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, which produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today.

New, surprising connections are drawn between economic policy, shock and awe warfare and covert CIA-funded experiments in electroshock and sensory deprivation in the 1950s, research that helped write the torture manuals used today in Guantanamo Bay.

The Shock Doctrine follows the application of these ideas through our contemporary history, showing in riveting detail how well-known events of the recent past have been deliberate, active theatres for the shock doctrine, among them: Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973, the Falklands War in 1982, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Asian Financial crisis in 1997 and Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

African American Arrogance 2: The Audacity of the Plantation Negro

Allow me to present these questions to you directly:
1.  What is your position, and more specifically, what do you suggest as an alternative to voting for the president, and
2.  If you are a non-African American living in Canada, what dog do you have in this fight? What is your purpose of arguing that AFRICAN AMERICANS should not vote?

I was in a debate on an African American Facebook page about Barack Obama and the upcoming US 2012 presidential elections after I had posted this insightful article by Black Agenda Report: “Tired Old So-Called Leftists Give Same Old Excuses For Supporting Obama in 2012“. Of course the Obamabots (one in particular) took exception to the article and my continual opposition to the presidency of Obama. Par for the course, the strategy of “killing the messenger”… since it’s impossible to discount or refute the message… was employed by the Obamabots. Those in opposition to the Obama administration are termed “ignorant, turncoats, snitches and yes… Herman Cain!” (that last one really hurt, ’cause I consider myself much better looking than Herman…lol!)

The fact is though, I don’t take it personally. First, I am fully aware that there are two political plantations in America that most African Americans have enslaved themselves to. These “Plantation Negroes” would gladly give their lives (and some do) to defend their white master’s Democratic and Republican plantations to the detriment of their own self-interests as a community. Second, I’m not an African American, so I have no allegiances to either plantations, nor do I have an emotionally distorted/biased attachment to Obama just because he is Black.

Therefore in reality I have no “dog in this fight”. To be honest, I do get a somewhat juvenile guilty pleasure in riling up the Obamabots (especially one in particular), so whenever I get an opportunity to do so, I will post an anti-Obama article and he always takes the bait. Regardless, the fact is I do expect Obama to easily get re-elected. Why not? Under his administration, the rich have gotten richer, poverty levels are at an all time high in America, and American Corporate Imperialism continues to be expanded and entrenched militarily throughout the “Black and Brown world” unabated… by the 2009 Nobel Peace Laureate. Other than cosmetic and media manufactured differences, both Obama and Romney are pretty much the same guy. Obama has clearly stated that he is not the President of Black America, however his actions are clear that he considers himself the President of Corporate America, Hispanic America, Jewish America and Gay America.

I was asked the above questions by an admitted Obama supporter on the Facebook page. These are legitimate questions that I am happy to answer. In regards to the first, the plantation negro only envisions two choices. If you don’t reside on one plantation, then you must belong to the other. If you don’t support Obama and the Democrats, then by default you must support Romney and the Republicans. However, I do see other alternatives.

One is not to vote for either party. Both political plantations are corrupt and under corporate control, so they are in no way committed to serving the interests of the majority of the electorate… and African Americans in particular. It’s also counter-productive (as well as foolish) to take the approach to vote for the lesser of two evils. In the words of WEB Dubois: “I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no “two evils” exist. There is but one evil party with two names…”

However, if one does believe that engaging in the current political process is the only avenue to address African American concerns, then why not field your own candidates under the banner of your preferred political plantation to influence your party and government policies for your own self-interests… sounds familiar? Whether their power was real or perceived, the handful of elected “Tea Party” legislators have been able to influence the policies and direction of the Republican Party, as well as that of the Obama administration. For as long as they have been around, why hasn’t the Congressional Black Caucus been able to have this type of impact within the Democratic Party, nor with the Obama administration? Could it be they are in reality just a group of “Plantation Negroes” whose purpose is to be stooges for the white masters of their Democratic plantation? If so, then they all need to be replaced. They are the real “turncoats and snitches”!

A third alternative is to get off the plantation altogether and research the policy positions of third party and independent presidential candidates. During the 2008 presidential campaign, if I was an American, I would have voted for Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente of the Green Party. Interestingly, when I discussed with the plantation negroes who were going to vote for the then presidential candidate from their Democratic plantation, Barack Obama, the idea to support the McKinney and Clemente ticket… a Black and Hispanic woman whose political platform and policies were more in line with their interests, they all had the same response: “they won’t win”. Well that’s the classic American attitude…  it’s not about principles… it’s all about winning!

The second question posed I find interesting. Isn’t it ironic that an American would ask what is my “purpose” in expressing an opinion on their electoral process!? Since World War II, which country has interfered most in the electoral processes and outcomes of African and Caribbean nations!? Which nation has continually assassinated our elected leaders that they couldn’t control and rigged elections to install the ones they could? Which nation has financed armed rebellions against our democratically elected governments, destabilized our countries economies, sponsored sanctions and embargos against our nations, vetoed United Nations efforts for our empowerment and encouraged our genocide by deed or silence? All for the purpose of corporate greed! The good ole USA! So let’s see if I understand this correctly: it’s quite alright for Americans to interfere in our political affairs abroad, but we… those of African descent in the motherland or diaspora… have no right to offer any opinion nor criticize your corrupt, corporate driven political plantation system? Such is the audacity of the plantaion negro.

As I discussed in my previous post: “African American Arrogance“, those of us of African descent outside of the USA are painfully well aware that “Black Americans are still Americans”. Most embody the American imperialistic worldview and display their American arrogance in their dealings with other people of color. It is therefore no surprise that African Americans make up a significant portion of the US armed forces and have no problem doing their patriotic duty by invading and killing other Black and Brown people for the glory of American Corporate Imperialism. In fact, the first commander of AFRICOM, created by President George W. Bush on the recommendation of then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to militarily recolonize Africa for American interests, was an African American, General William E. “Kip” Ward. See also:

AFRICOM and the Recolonisation of Africa
Obama’s Scramble for Africa

These two African Americans, “Plantation Negroes” from opposing political plantations, have this one thing in common. They are both warmongers who brought death, disease and destruction to the nations of Black and Brown people in the name of American Corporate Imperialism. Isn’t it also ironic that African Americans fear that voter i.d. laws are a strategy being employed by the Republicans to deny them of their right to vote, while these same African Americans are literally the foot soldiers of the American strategy to deny those of African descent worldwide, the right to vote for the governments of our choosing. The chickens have indeed come home to roost.

Therefore my answer to the question: “What is your purpose of arguing that AFRICAN AMERICANS should not vote?”, is the same as the (African) American soldiers and military helicopters I saw as a boy growing up in Jamaica, engaged in a supposed “drug war” against the supporters of the anti-US and pro-Castro political party, for the benefit of the pro-US government. I do so because I can.

Byts and Bytes

Another missionary in Africa: the Bill Gates myth

The Egyptian Elections and the Arab Spring 

The War on Gays

Why I Don’t Support Same Sex Marriage

New French Socialist Government Appoint 3 Black Cabinet Ministers

“Africa needs to sign a new social contract‏” by Nkwazi Mhango

Jean Russeau wrote in Social Contract, “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.” To free himself, Russeau suggests that man must gain security and a measure of freedom from action, in exchange for surrender of rights and property to the general will. This is not the language of compliance or cowardice but of rebellion. This means, if you want me to pay my tax as my obligation, you must meet my rights as your obligation. As a leader, you are nothing if you cannot deliver. Your right to spend my tax corresponds with your duty to fulfill your duties.

It is no exaggeration to assert that Africa, politically, socially and economically is in the 14th century. Many African countries are sitting on the vast resources which are abused by a cabal of people in power. While this is happening, the big population is dying in abject destitution.

When philosophers Thomas Donaldson and Thomas W. Dunfee coined a phrase, “Intergrated Social Contract Theory” (ISCT), they stated categorically that every right an individual enjoys also has corresponding duty. In business they call this sharing risk and reward. The upshot of this is: whenever there is a risk, change, calamity or needs, the corporate as a big entity benefitting more from the business must help employees- who also benefit from the business but at a less magnitude comparably- in this period of transition.

Running a country is like running a corporation. This is the rationale we are going to use in this argument. The difference though is that when somebody is employed by the corporation, does so because for having some qualities or qualifications the corporation needs to use to make profit and sustain it. When it comes to be a citizen in the corporate known as a state, the citizen qualifies by the right of birth or application for those who apply for citizenship of other countries.

When it comes to men and women manning Africa, they enjoy rights of spending poor taxpayers’ money as they deem fit without the corresponding duty of delivering service. The corporate-government is duty bound to deliver so as to enjoy the right of being a government. Failure to do this, the said government is in power illegally. Hither is whether the situation in African countries worsens more than even under colonialism in 1960s. If anything, African needs a jumping-off point from the 14th century style of management next to Caesars’, to the 21st century of responsible presidents or managers of the corporation known as state. It is high time for Africa to have responsible and accountable leadership championed by our academics.

We need advocates of new social contract who can decisively interpret and champion ISCT. This is possible only and only when our academics will stand and take on dirty regimes instead of joining them to plunder the hoi polloi as it currently is in many countries. It is no longer shocking to see African ignorant rulers using academics in their governments to destroy their country, as it once happened in the Gambia where President Yahya Jammeh used the minister of health, who is a doctor professionally, to claim he had discovered cure for HIV/AIDS. Under new social contract this wouldn’t be possible given that president would be accountable and responsible for whatever he does or says. But under current king-like presidency, Jammeh was able to get away with it. Is this the way academics are supposed to use their knowledge?

“Unless we learn to live together as brothers (and sisters), we will die together like fools.” Desmond Tutu quoting Martin Luther King Jr in No Future without Forgiveness. Indeed, our rulers are prone and proud of being referred to as Excellencies, loved ones and other fake homilies. Actually, they are the opposite of this and they know this too well so as to surround themselves with guards and terror. They live in the heaven amidst the hell of miseries of their people. Who is wrong hither between them and the citizens who are in bed with such abnoxious and notorious vices?

Gandhi once remarked, “How can men feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow-beings?” In the same book by Louis Fischer: Gandhi: His Life and the Message to the World, seems to have the answer. He wrote, “Some men loom larger by lifting up others and some by kicking and humiliating others.” If anything, this is the real situation between Africa and developed world. How can for instance, DRC produce tonnes and tonnes of mineral and Nigeria oil alongside with tonnes and tonnes of poor people? West countries, despite having fewer resources, were able to attain their development, among others, thanks to signing and ratifying a new social contract that empowers people and their governments. It’s through accountability of everybody that made western countries be ahead of us for everything.

Africa cannot forge ahead with the current mediocrity whereby academcs are used abusedly without even resisting. Instead of being in bed with irresponsible rulers for the sake of personal gains, our academics should enlight the hoi polloi so that they can take on their irresponsible rulers. This must be the war between hoity toity and hoi polloi spearheaded by academics. It does not make sense to see our rulers abuse our tax and donor monies while academics scrumble to join politics so as to share the loot. Is there any rationale of dining and wining rulers using taxpayer’s money while they don’t deliver any service to them? How can they spend our hardearned taxes on travelling abroad and recruiting private armies while we are dying wantonly? This is the question our academics need to ask and give the answer, instead of being in bed with those who arrest the future of our continent and her innocent people.

For African to move forward there shall be the force to sign a new social contract that holds our ruler accountable and responsible for whatever they say and do. We can draw a lesson from academics such as Martin Luther, Conrad Grebel, Bathsar Hubmaier, Thomas Muetzer, Ulrich Zwingli and others who gave the Roman Church hard time so as to change the world despite being young guys. We need to start asking our rulers: what have they done for us as agreed in elections or constitutions. What have they done so as to deserve staying in power they wantonly abuse? We need to start enjoying the fruits of our freedom that turned out to be enjoyed by rulers and their henchmen. Academics must pull Africa from the 14th Century to 21st Century by advocvating the signing of a new social contract making our rulers accountable.

Nkwazi Mhango is a Tanzanian living in Canada. He writes regularly for “The African Executive” and also has a blog entitled “Free Thinking Unabii”. He is a regular contributor to AfroSpear.