Africa

In September 1955 an editorial column in Toward Freedom, titled “Consent of the Governed,” criticized “the tendency to make the communist issue so big that it obscured all others.” During the recent Bandung conference, which had launched the non-aligned movement, the editor noted that the US press had focused hard on public criticisms of Soviet subversion. But it had ignored other statements by world leaders that “urged the third way of emphasizing democracy and the consent of the governed.”

While the heads of state busied themselves with neoliberal discourses about ‘poverty reduction and governance' at the May 25th African Union Summit, the intellectuals, activists, artists and writers focused on acceleration of the full unification of the peoples of Africa and the need for concrete steps towards a government that can defend Africans at home and abroad

The kind of tragic exploitation of workers in Bangladesh is present all over Africa, where people are denied basic labour rights as part of state efforts to attract and retain foreign investment. Militant and sustained efforts are needed to resist this trend.

The death of the renowned Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe, has thrust one of the most popular African books in the news. Although Achebe wrote multiple books and produced several works of scholarship, ‘Things Fall Apart’ acted as the catalyst for his popularity.

The Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe died on March 21. Achebe as a novelist, professor of African literature in US universities and editor of cultural journals was an important figure in the efforts to share African culture with others and to advance the multiple currents of contemporary African life.

Despite wide international recognition, Western Sahara still remains under occupation because of a complex web of geopolitical and strategic interests of neighboring countries and their Western allies.