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African Liberation is not a done deal (Beyond Mandela, part deux)
2007-10-11 08:16:00
By Lahai J SambomaLike most “normal” people, I like a good laugh. And, as luck would have it, I had an exceptionally good one today, both during and after reading a think piece in a leading London “liberal left” daily. And then, I cried. And laughed some more, in the process almost choking on my food.The article, “Beyond Mandela” was published in the Guardian and written by a “bro” by the name of Onyekachi Wambu. I do not believe the writer is a comedian, nor that his intention, as he put fingers to keyboard, was to be a source of mirth or stimulant to the left lacrimal gland of yours truly.Shorn of all its accoutrements, and the red herrings about development and dignity for Africa and African s, Mr Wambu’s thesis is simply this: post-Mandela, African and black liberation has been won and what is needed now on the continent are what he calls “leaders of development”.
More About: Deal , Part , Political Economy , Libera

On journeys and being back
2007-06-07 16:50:00
By Lahai J Samboma Some journeys are worthwhile. They make us more well-rounded human subjects and objects, enriching us with experiences that inform the multilayered, multifaceted beings we are becoming every second and every minute of each passing day. The decision to embark on them may or may not have been ours in the first place - and their impact on our lives could be devastating and not amenable to getting-up-and-dusting-ourselves. But it could nevertheless be argued that such journeys are worthwhile.
More About: Back , Comment , Bein , Journeys , Being

Ceasefire or trojan horse?
2006-08-18 20:09:05
By Mike WhitneyIsrael’s sudden push to the Litani River is a blatant act of political desperation intended to conceal the humiliating defeat the IDF has suffered at the hands of Hezbollah. It comes in the wake of a UN ceasefire agreement worked out by friends of Israel in the Bush administration who were looking for a diplomatic way for Olmert to climb down from Israel’s greatest debacle since the Yom Kippur war.
More About: Trojan , Fire , Ease , Horse , Roja

Misinformation, the media and the foiled terror plot
2006-08-18 20:09:05
By Lahai J SambomaSoon after the alleged terror plot to blow up trans-Atlantic flights last week, one of the first things that became apparent was that the so-called independent media were being far from independent in their reporting of this alleged plot foiled by the British police and security services, for long plagued by accusations of being inept and trigger-happy.
More About: Media , Information , Terror , The Media , Info

?War on terror? is last birth pangs of American fascism
2006-08-12 20:00:36
By Lahai J SambomaIt is possible that the idea for the present article may have been lurking somewhere in my subconscious for some time, but the decision to finally write it came suddenly after hearing Bush’s claim on television today that the foiling of an alleged plot to blow up several US-bound aircraft was definitive proof that “we” were in a war against “Islamic fascists”.This was rich, coming as it did from the 21st Century’s greatest fascist leader and the single most potent threat to international peace and security. During the course of his short speech, which our hero delivered on an airport tarmac, he did his handlers and speechwriters proud. Not only did he not read from a script - at least not one that we could see - he also remembered to repeat the all-important buzz-words and phrases: “…those of us who love freedom and democracy…freedom …democracy” - you name it, it was there!
More About: America , War On Terror , Terror , War , American

Terrorism threat to West won?t end soon
2006-08-12 20:00:36
By Lahai J SambomaAccording to this morning’s newscasters, the British police and security services have foiled a “major plot” by “Islamic fundamentalists” to blow-up trans-Atlantic flights using devices hidden in hand luggage. As a consequence, all passengers on such flights will not be allowed hand luggage on board aircraft with immediate effect until further notice.
More About: Terrorism , Terror , West , Error , Threat

'War on terror' is last birth pang of American fascism
2006-08-11 13:40:00
By Lahai J SambomaIt is possible that the idea for the present article may have been lurking somewhere in my subconscious for some time, but the decision to finally write it came suddenly after hearing Bush’s claim on television today that the foiling of an alleged plot to blow up several US-bound aircraft was definitive proof that “we” were in a war against “Islamic fascists”.This was rich, coming as it did from the 21st Century’s greatest fascist leader and the single most potent threat to international peace and security. During the course of his short speech, which our hero delivered on an airport tarmac, he did his handlers and speechwriters proud. Not only did he not read from a script - at least not one that we could see - he also remembered to repeat the all-important buzz-words and phrases: “…those of us who love freedom and democracy…freedom …democracy” - you name it, it was there!
More About: War On Terror , Terror , American , Fascism , Birth

Blair is 5th London bomber
2006-08-06 19:54:08
The search has been on, ever since the London bombings a year ago, for an elusive individual the police and intelligence agencies describe as “the fifth bomber”. He is the mastermind behind 7/7, who presumably slipped out of the country just before the bombers struck. The search is now over. I have found him, still living in London, at 10 Downing Street - and his name is Blair .As he is such an honourable man, it is only fitting that the Police Commissioner himself, namesake and equally-beleaguered Ian Blair, should make the arrest and bring him in for questioning. I am serious; I am not trying to be satirical or funny here. The London bombings last year - and the attempted follow-up a fortnight later - are directly linked to Blair’s decision to commit British troops to Bush’s mass-murderous imperial expedition to Iraq.
More About: Ondo , Bomb , Bomber

Demonising Islamic Faith
2006-08-06 19:54:08
The first anniversary of the London bombings has provided the Masters of the Universe with another platform from which to lecture us lesser, presumably thicker mortals about the evils of “Islam ic terrorism” - and in the process to consciously, deliberately manufacture the “fear of the other” that permits them to strip us of the remaining human and democratic rights of which their “war on terror” has yet to rob us.Television screens all over the global village inform us that the “Islamic terrorists will never defeat us”. Images of London’s Nazi-era “Dunkirk Spirit” are invoked, even as we are told that more of our rights are going to be taken from us. They don’t of course put it that blatantly; they say they “will do everything necessary to defeat the jihadis.” In the US, UK, Canada, EU countries and elsewhere more “anti-terror” legislation is in the pipeline.
More About: Faith , Sing , Demo

Blair attacks internet freedom
2006-08-06 19:54:08
Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, was very steadfast in his opposition to the Bush-Blair Gulf Slaughter. He was eventually sacked for opposing his government’s and American complicity in the human rights abuses by Karimov’s one-party state, and has now been threatened with legal action by Blair’s government.His crime? Publishing on his website government documents that corroborate claims made in his just-published book, Murder in Samarkand - and denied by Blair - that, among other things, show that British and American authorities used intelligence gained through torture. The government claim ownership of the document’s copyright and say he must remove them or face the consequences - a hefty fine and imprisonment if it’s not paid.The Blair people are on a roll, but we can take some of the wind out of their sails the more these documents are published on the internet. This is an affront not only to the much-vaunted Free dom o...
More About: Internet , Inter , Edom

George Bush executed today
2006-08-06 19:54:08
Capital City -- George Bush Jr, the former president of the now defunct dictatorship of the United States of America, was executed twenty minutes ago at Capital City’s Marx Correctional Facility. He was hung by the neck until he was dead.The welcome death of the most hated man on the planet comes just two months after the victorious forces of the Socialist International took power - after one of the most bloody battles in the popular struggle against the international fascist dictatorship of Bush-Blair and their imperialist foot soldiers. Bush, along with co-defendants Blair of Britain, Hussein of Iraq and the Zionist Olmert, were last week found guilty by the People’s Supreme Tribunal of crimes against humanity in Iraq and Palestine, genocide-by-IMF in Africa, and of taking the long-suffering people of the world for fools. His co-conspirators will join Bush in Hell as soon as their appeals against their death sentences are over.Mama Williams, a popular local comrade who...
More About: Cute , George Bush , Today

Africa: What is to be done?
2006-08-06 19:54:08
I have been away for a couple of days doing this and that and so could not post. And today, I have been blogging elsewhere - and I enjoyed myself very much, thank you. It is only fair that I should share with you, gentle reader, my input into the debate I was involved in. It was a response to an article by a writer who was essentially plugging his new book. Here it is:Problem of Leadership"You make a very poignant point abouth the problem in Africa being the leadership. I could not agree with you more. A close second to that has been the defective, exploitative and so-called laissez-faire economic prescriptions foisted on the region by the neo-colonialist bastions of the IMF and World Bank.With the right calibre of leadership, Africa would be able to pull itself out of poverty and underdevelopment without the so-called genorosity of Western governments, which get more out of Africa than the other way round.The imperialist and neocolonialist economic straitjacket within whi...
More About: What , Hat , Done

Lebanon must resist Zionists and neocons
2006-08-06 19:54:08
The blatant blackmail of the Lebanese people into accepting what Blair - Bush’s rear-end appendage - euphemistically calls a “stabilisation force”, has plunged the contemporary world into a new low, the likes of which would be very difficult, if not impossible, to match in recent history - despite the claim by apologists of Zion ist war crimes that such a force is the only way to broker what they call a lasting peace in the MidEast.And, as if on cue, the blathering birdbrain of a son-of-a-Bush was on our screens again today, talking of a “sustainable peace” and a “lasting ceasefire”, obviously oblivious to the fact that innocent children, women and men were being massacred even as he and his Wicked Witch Rice are playing realpolitik with the life of a whole nation.We all know the statistics: the sixty people massacred in the Qana “mistake”, 37 of them children, more than half of whom were missing body-parts; whole villages and tow...
More About: Lebanon , Zionist , Must , Neocon

Unfreedom: 1984 in Bush-Blair-land
2006-08-06 19:54:08
As I watch the television news, read the various press and contemplate bloody, barbaric death and destruction unfolding seemingly unstoppably in the Zionist-imperialist battlefield that Lebanon and Palestine have become, the words of two of the 20th Century’s great wordsmiths come to mind: those of Robert Nesta Marley, aka Bob; and Eric Blair , more popularly known as George Orwell.In his great anti-war song, Real Situation, singer-poet-philosopher Bob says:“Nation fight against nationWhere did it all beginWhere will it endWell it seems like total destruction’s the only solutionAnd there ain’t no use, no-one can stop them nowTotal destruction’s the only solution.”
More About: Freedom , Bush , Free , Edom

"Peace plan" is Zionist/Neocon plot
2006-08-06 19:54:08
The hubris of the woman was a must-see. There she was, addressing the cheap harlots of the assembled media, new war criminal Olmert by her side. Those with any doubts concerning America’s complicity in the ongoing Middle East turkey shoot got their rude awakening. “We want a different kind of Middle East,” Dr Condi said. “We will prevail. They will not.” Very succinctly-put. Yes, the Wicked Witch of the West had finally landed in Jerusalem - and was now mixing her evil broth. No pretence at peace-making diplomacy, no obfuscation, just plain old-fashioned, straight-to-the-point realpolitik. Yes, we are supporting Israel. They may kill as many people as they want, when they want and for as long as they want. We will pacify the misbehaving tribes - and there is nothing you can do about it. There, suck on that!As the US secretary of state and her Western and Arab counterparts make self-serving noises about deploying to Lebanon an “international s...
More About: Peace , Zion , Zionist , Plan , Neocon

Racism, resistance and Islamophobia
2006-08-06 19:54:08
I have just read a brilliant analysis of the machinations of US imperialist hegemony as it attempts, with the collaboration of expansionist Zionism, to pacify the misbehaving Muslim tribes of the Middle East and secure their energy resources. It was on a blog and, very predictably, it elicited a torrent of hostile responses from very hostile apologists for the gross rights violations being committed against the people there by America’s proxy Zionist army.However, instead of taking issue with the writer’s powerful thesis - that Washington was directing operations in the Middle East theatre of massacre - most of the writer’s detractors went for attacks against his person, or his political affiliations. And they revealed themselves to be unprincipled supporters of the Zionist apartheid regime who would justify anything that regime does.It is increasingly becoming apparent to me that this blind support in the west for the injustices that are being perpetrated against ...
More About: Islam , Islamophobia , Racism , Resistance , Slam

Yo, Bush! It?s you, stupid!
2006-08-06 19:54:08
The swaggering simpleton, his features half-frozen in that ridiculous smirk of the clueless nincompoop, lets slip to a credulous, beholden media that Syria and Iran are “responsible for this shit”. And, lo and behold, that is the message that is dutifully relayed to the world - and there is hardly a discernable tongue in any cheek as this unadulterated clap-trap is transmitted.So, having been given the green light by Bush and Blair, the Zionist terror apparatus continues to lay waste the people and infrastructure of Lebanon, a sovereign nation. This frightening exercise of raw military power we see on our screens everyday can by no stretch of the imagination be characterised as a case of Israel “defending itself from terrorism”.This wanton destruction is the work of one man. He sits at the apex of an axis of evil incorporating Zionist hawks, a craven British political class, America’s military-industrial complex, end-time Christian fundamentalists and a...
More About: Stupid

Pro-Zionist appeasement
2006-08-06 19:54:08
I have been blogging elsewhere again! But, being a faithful sort of guy, I have dutifully reproduced here my humble input into the deliberations: How stupid of me! To be so naive as to attribute such a loaded phrase as "war criminal of Baghdad" to you. (Stupid, stupid, stupid me!)It should have been clear to me that people who regard Iraq as a war crime and those who provide beyond-reason support to Zion ist aggression are mutually-exclusive groups. That is as close to a natural law as one can have. If there are any out there with one foot in both categories, please show your hands, so we can refine this theory pronto.
More About: Men , Zionist , Peas , Ease

The Red-Indianization of Palestine
2006-08-06 19:54:08
A man comes to your house, beats you up and kicks you and your family out of your home. Even though you are prepared to share your large-ish estate with him. All you ask is that he builds his own house in another part of the estate. He will have none of it; he wants everything.He then brings his family in and banishes you to the most inhospitable tract of the estate. They are having a ball, partying, inviting friends over. You can hear the music and dancing, smell the food. When you complain he beats you up. Then he decides to invite some family to come live with him. He decides he will settle the new arrivals on the little bit of land you have by now resigned yourself to.So he decides to build a fence going right through your ever-decreasing patch of ground, further easing you out. When you complain to the local chief, he sides with the the violent usurper. For good measure, Chief blames you for the problem, and says you are the violent one. You should stay in your little corner an...
More About: India , Indian , Palestine , Dian , Pale

This war is a Zionist crime
2006-08-06 19:54:08
Israel is beleaguered by the Arab and Muslim states of the Middle East. It is rightly defending itself against aggression by the terrorists in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. It is enforcing UN resolutions calling for the cessation of hostilities and the disarming of the Hizbolla. It will never have security unless both Hizbolla and Hamas disarm. Should I go on?The sophistry currently doing the international rounds would be risible were the consequences of Zion ist aggression that it justifies not so tragic for both the Palestinians and, now, the Lebanese. It should be clear to all with eyes to see that the gross violations that have been perpetrated by Olmert and the Israeli army in the last two weeks or so tantamount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.In Africa there is a saying that when a parent tells their child to go commit a burglary, said urchin will begin the task by boldly kicking down the victim’s front door. Both the American dad and the almost-senile British ...
More About: Crime , War , This , Zionist

Self-Criticism and Apology
2006-08-06 19:54:08
At the end of June I posted an article titled "I am sick". It was a very angry article, written a day or so after Israeli army tanks entered Gaza and bombers destroyed a power station and other infrastructure in Occupied Palestine. I read it a day later and noticed that not only was it full of  moral indignation at Zionist aggression, but that some could interpret it as anti-semitic.But I stood by my article. Why? Because I knew myself, and I knew that I could never be racist and anti-semitic and was therefore, by definition, incapable of writing an anti-semitic line. My politics would not allow me to be. And, as a black man, would not my racism against other groups be ironic were I to condemn racism by others against blacks? So, concluding that the article could not be racist, I went about life.
More About: Self , Criticism , Apology , Crit , Ology

Lebanon war, Palestinian Question have one indivisible solut
2006-08-06 19:54:08
Station a “stabilisation force” in a south Lebanon “buffer zone“, disarm the Hizbolla resistance and, hey presto!, we have “lasting peace” in the Middle East. This is such a gross insult to our intelligence that even the producers of Pinky and the Brain - the cartoon characters bent on world domination - would baulk at even considering it a worthy plotline for their farcical characters.Yet this is the canard we are being sold by Bush-Blair, as they insist that “sustainable peace” in the Middle East presupposes the positioning an international force between the Hizbolla and the Zionist state. This should come as no surprise; what is indeed mystifying is that many who should know better have swallowed this odious farrago - hook, line and sinker.Even as a child I had an inkling that the dispossession of the Palestinians was a major Middle East and international issue, a view gleaned from an early cinema newsreel. This crystallised, in my ...
More About: Question , War , Tinian , Have