When the Cuban revolutionaries took power on January 1, 1959, the political leaders of the United States were initially ambivalent towards the Castro leadership but after the leadership nationalized foreign capital and set about major land reforms for the majority of the population there was total opposition to the Cuban Revolution.
Mazrui’s humanism was based on the dignity of all human beings regardless of race, religion, region or gender. It was a humanism linked to the quest for reparative justice, peace, self-determination, the rights of women, secularism and prosperity for all.
As the Ebola outbreak rages, and there are projections of more than 1.4 million persons infected in the next few months, the African Union and ECOWAS has taken a back seat as the international media uses this virus to stigmatize Africa and Africans.
President Obama is on a collision course with the social justice forces that elected him. Beneath the soaring rhetoric of his ‘progressive’ inauguration speech lay the reality that after four years in office, the oligarchs are stronger that they were in 2009.
There is enough evidence that the US Africa Command has increased resource exploitation and imperial expansion, instigated more violence, intensified regional conflicts and undermined the authority of regional organizations and the African Union.
Propping up the US financial system is a clever ploy that vests power in the top one per cent globally, with dire consequences on commodity prices and forward planning. The peoples of Africa and the global South must adopt measures to respond to this cascading economic and political maelstrom.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019