Research Africa: March 19th, 2018
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News and Issues
Cairo University: A short film entitled “We are All Humans,”
A number of students at the Institute of African Research and Studies at Cairo University produced a short film entitled “We are All Humans” which promotes the African identity and orientation of Egypt. The students are members in the African Union Model run by Dr. Samah Al-Marsa, Professor of Economics at the Institute, Cairo University. Al-Marsa explained that the model aims at developing awareness of African issues, emphasizing the African identity of Egypt and Egyptians. Themes of interconnection and cooperation between the peoples of the African continent are represented by the students in this work.
Al-Mursi added that the model includes 154 students representing 14 African countries. Previous models have adopted several development projects by the students for the United States of Africa. They issued a call and support for a unified African currency and a unified African passport. There are also developing projects for energy integration among the countries of the continent, an African radio broadcast in local African languages such as Hausa and Swahili, and collaboration with the countries of the BRICS.
Access the film in this link:
http://www.kashqol.com/3676
There Is No Case for the Humanities and Deep Down We Know our Justifications for it are Hollow
The Chronicle Review (originally appeared in American Affairs)
The humanities are not just dying; they are almost dead. In Scotland, the ancient Chairs in Humanity (which is to say, Latin) have almost disappeared in the past few decades: abolished, left vacant, or merged into chairs of classics. The University of Oxford has revised its famed Literae Humaniores course, “Greats,” into something resembling a technical classics degree. Both of those were throwbacks to an era in which Latin played the central, organizing role in the humanities. The loss of these vestigial elements reveals a long and slow realignment in which the humanities have become a loosely defined collection of technical disciplines. The result of this is deep conceptual confusion about what the humanities are and why they should be studied.
Read the story in this link:
https://www.chronicle.com/article/There-Is-No-Case-for-the/242724/#.Wp58Da0KADg.facebook
Whatever happened to Afwerki’s comely face? Eritrean music in an age of YouTube
By Abraham T. Zere, February 2018
In 2005, Eritrean singer Ghirmay Andom had just completed his latest album. As required by the government, he submitted the lyrics of his ten songs to the Ministry of Information’s censorship office (officially known as the evaluation unit). The artist was hopeful that his uncontroversial songs of love and life would pass the censors and that he would be allowed to start distributing his album. When he finally heard back, he received notice that all his lyrics had been rejected. He was informed that “when the country is facing lots of adversaries, it is unjustifiable to consistently sing about romance”.
Andom’s experience was far from unique. The government in Asmara has long tried to maintain a close control on artistic expression. It has not only shut down the independent press in the past but also continues to impose a medieval practice of censorship on literature, art, and music.
Read the story in this link:
http://africanarguments.org/2018/02/13/whatever-happened-to-afwerkis-comely-face-eritrea-music-in-an-age-of-youtube/?mc_cid=a8f60e8ce7&mc_eid=fab0566d63
China Is Turning Ethiopia Into a Giant Fast-Fashion Factory
By Bill Donahue
Standing in a sunny office in Indochine International’s brand-new factory, Raghav Pattar, vice president of this Chinese apparel manufacturer, is ebullient. It’s November, barely six months since the Hawassa Industrial Park opened, and already he has 1,400 locals at work. Pattar is shooting to employ 20,000 Ethiopians by 2019. “Twenty-four months ago, the land we’re sitting on was farm fields,” he says. “What country can change in 24 months? That is Ethiopia!” Ethopia is currently serving as Beijing’s big experiment in outsourcing. This $10 billion shot in the arm for the African nation may come at a cost to social stability.
Read the story in this link:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-03-02/china-is-turning-ethiopia-into-a-giant-fast-fashion-factory?mc_cid=a8f60e8ce7&mc_eid=fab0566d63
The Oromo of Eastern Africa: Ali Mazrui’s Perspective
By Seifudein Adem, 2018
Lately, the Oromos have been in the news in regard to their growing demand for self-determination. Now is the right time to understand some of the relevant issues more fully from a historical perspective. Exactly 10 years ago at the annual meeting of the Oromo Studies Association in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the late Kenyan philosopher Ali Mazrui (1933-2014) gave the keynote address in which he spoke about what he called the largest ethnic nation in Eastern Africa: the Oromo. So, what did Mazrui, regarded as one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the world at the time of his keynote speech, have to say about the Oromo? What are the implications of the Oromo question for Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa? An adaptation of Mazrui’s keynote speech, mostly in his own words, is presented in this piece.
Read the story in this link:
China’s Engagement in Africa: What can we learn in 2018 from the $60 billion commitment?
By Yun Sun
Since 2000, six FOCAC (Forum on China-Africa Cooperation) summits have been held at three-year intervals. If the trend continues, the next summit is scheduled to take place in Beijing some time this year. FOCAC has been the primary institutional platform and mechanism for the economic cooperation between China and African states. Perhaps as a part of President Xi Jinping’s prestige diplomacy, the level of commitment China made at the 2015 summit in Johannesburg was surprisingly high. The $60 billion funding promised tripled the previous $20 billion commitment made during the 2012 FOCAC Summit. This article hypothesized the scale and pace of Chinese financing in 2018.
Read the story in this link:
Language Is a ‘War Zone’: A Conversation With Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
The Kenyan author discusses colonialism and abandoning English to write in his native Kikuyu.
By Rohit Inani
Last year, Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o entered a packed auditorium at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and immediately received a standing ovation. The audience whistled and hollered, their fists jabbing the air as they cheered: “Ngũgĩ! Ngũgĩ! Ngũgĩ!” He remains a literary superstar and perennial favorite for the Nobel Prize even 50 years after the publication of his book Weep Not, Child, the first English novel by an East African.
Read the story in this link:
https://www.thenation.com/article/language-is-a-war-zone-a-conversation-with-ngugi-wa-thiongo/
NEW BOOKS كتب جديدة
Institutions and Democracy in Africa: How the Rules of the Game Shape Political Developments
[المؤسسات والديمقراطية في أفريقيا: دور قواعد اللعبة السياسية
في توجيه الأحداث]
Author: Nic Cheeseman
The author challenges the argument that African states lack effective political institutions and claims these systems have been undermined by neo-patrimonialism and clientelism. Scholars such as Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz have argued that Africa’s political culture is inherently different from the West and that African political systems are actually working through the “instrumentalization of disorder.” While acknowledging some of the contributions that Chabal and Daloz have made to the understanding of African institutions, the contributions to this volume challenge the notion that political life in Africa is shaped primarily by social customs over formal rules. The book examines formal institutions such as the legislature, judiciary, and political parties and shows their impact on the social, political, and economic developments on the continent. It is evident that political and institutional developments vary across the continent, thus African states should not be treated as if they are all the same. The author argues that informal institutions have helped to shape and strengthen formal institutions. The authors of the different chapters are cutting-edge scholars in the field, and they propose convincing arguments for the importance of understanding formal institutions in the study of Africa.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2018
Le Cheikh des Deux Rives: Actes du Colloque International sur le Centenaire du Rappel a Dieu de Cheikhna Cheikh Saad Bouh (1917-2017)
[امام النهرين: وقائع الندوة الدولية في الذكرى المئوية لإحياء ذكرى شيخنا الشيخ سعد بوه (1917-2017)]
Author: Rector, Ibrahima Thioub
This edited volume (written in both French and Arabic) highlights the life and contributions of Cheikh Saad Bouh (1917-2017). It consists of the work of various scholars from Senegal, Mauritania, France and the US who attended Cheikh Saad Bouh Centennial Celebration Colloquium held at University Cheikh Anta Diop in March 2017. The different disciplinary backgrounds of the contributors marks this volume as distinct from other texts that analyze modern Sufism and its rapport to the French colonial authorities. Furthermore, in bringing together scholars of orality, academicians, and Arabists, a new pathway for re-interpreting this important juncture in the West African history has emerged.
Publisher: Presses Universitaires De Dakar, 2018
Jostling Between “Mere Talk” and Blame Game?
Beyond Africa’s Poverty and Underdevelopment Game Talk
[:بعد الهراء ولوم الآخر
كيف ننئي بدراسات أفريقيا عن منظاري الفقر والتخلف]
Author: Munyaradzi Mawere
One of the fundamental challenges in seeking development in Africa is that too much of “mere talk” occurs. The “blame game” has played out at the expense of “real action”. The blame game and mere talk on Africa’s poverty and underdevelopment is a problem for the continent at large, and Africa’s dire situation warrants nothing less than real action. This book focuses on the empirics of the production and reproduction of poverty and underdevelopment across Africa in a fashion that warrants urgent pragmatic policy attention. In searching for workable, homegrown solutions to persistent predicaments, the volume advances the need to recognize the impact of global inequalities. The book promotes the necessity for actors to move swiftly in a most informed and transparent manner to address the poverty and underdevelopment conundrum. The book highlights the need for praxis and pragmatism on the African situation. This work is relevant to students and practitioners in African studies, and the fields of poverty and development studies, global studies, policy studies, economics and political science.
Publisher: Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon, 2018
Soviet Journey: A Critical Annotated Edition
[الرحلة السوفييتية: نسخة مشروحة و منقحة]
Author: Christopher J. Lee
A Soviet Journey was a travel memoir written by South African writer and anti-apartheid activist Alex La Guma. The memoir described La Guma’s experiences in Soviet Central Asia, Siberia, and Lithuania. La Guma’s notes on his travels in the Soviet Union in the 1970’s provide insight on the lasting impact of the Soviet Union on writers and intellectuals from the Third World. In this work, Dr. Lee has edited, annotated, and provided an analytical introduction to La Guma’s work. He places La Guma and the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) in the context of the Soviet’s role in anti-imperial struggles of the Third World. Through this, he provides the audience with a deeper understanding of the African National Congress’s connection to radical groups like the CPSA. Lee also shows, through La Guma’s writing on Soviet Central Asia, how anti-apartheid activists saw the anti-racist and anti-imperialist message of the Soviet Union.
Publisher: Lexington Books 2017
The Heresiad. Song of Reason: Operatic Poetry
[الهرسياد: أغاني الضمير من الشعر التوظيفي]
Author: Ikeogu Oke
The Heresiad by Ikeogu Oke won The Nigeria Prize for Literature in 2017. The poet employs the epic form in questioning power and freedom. He probes metaphorically the inner workings of societies and those who shape them. The book displays the author’s use of innovation, tenacity, and joyful experimentation in social commentary in a way that provokes delight and engagement.
Publisher: Manila Publishers Company, Nigeria, 2018
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