U.S. President Joe Biden (center) at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit held Dec. 12-16 in Washington, D.C. On left is U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and on right is Senegalese President and African Union Chairperson Macky Sall / credit: The White House
WASHINGTON, D.C.—It was a meeting of Uncle Tom and Uncle Sam.
At least, that’s how African-led anti-imperialist organization Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) referred to the Biden administration’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit during a Dec. 16 press conference.
“Uncle Tom” is a euphemism for a person of African descent whose loyalty appears to be with their European-descended master. “Uncle Sam” is a nickname for the United States.
“Some people think that was somewhat harsh,” said BAP National Organizer Ajamu Baraka, moderating the press conference at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies. “We believe it reflects the character of that relationship. African leaders claim that they want to have respect, but it’s difficult to get respect when you allow yourself to be put in a position where you are summoned to the center of empire with a stick and a carrot.”
Some perceived a major deal that took place at the summit as an example of the subservient relationship many African countries have with the United States. On Dec. 13, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the U.S. government and the governments of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that would employ U.S. agencies’ technical assistance and financing support to mine for copper and cobalt. The goal is to help Zambia and the DRC develop an “electric vehicle value chain,” according to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The terms of the deal remain unclear.
He added the DRC possesses 70 percent of the world’s known cobalt reserves, though other sources estimate it at about 50 percent. Meanwhile, Zambia is the world’s seventh-largest copper producer, according to the U.S. International Trade Administration.
After the deal was announced, media outlets reported a Bill Gates-backed startup, KoBold, bought a $150 million stake to use artificial intelligence to search for copper in a Mingomba-based deposit owned by the Lumambe Copper Mine in Zambia.
“Converted to copper contained in electric vehicles, it’s like 100 million electric vehicles,” KoBold President Josh Goldman told the Wall Street Journal.
Blinken touted the deal as a way to combat the global climate crisis. However, the thirst for minerals to produce gadgets and electric cars has been linked to the 2019 coup of Bolivian President Evo Morales and 5.6 million Congolese dying in a war. That led the International Court of Justice to order Uganda to pay $325 million in reparations to the DRC.
“Non-governmental organization Global Witness reported in April that 90 percent of minerals coming out of one DRC mining area were shown to have come from mines that did not meet security and human-rights standards. Companies relying on minerals from such mines include U.S.-based Apple, Intel and Tesla.”
‘Uncle Tom Part and Parcel of U.S. Plunder of Africa’
To counter the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, various organizations pulled together events to raise public awareness. The African Peoples’ Forum held Dec. 11 in Washington, D.C., attracted a couple of hundred African-descended people for three panel discussions, two of which Toward Freedom published here and here. The Global Pan-African Congress held a “people’s intervention” on Dec. 10, while BAP organized a week of actions Dec. 12-16.
“The U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit was clearly set up to obscure the real U.S. role in Africa and give legitimacy to the continuing U.S. plunder of African resources, exploitation of African people and military domination of the African continent,” said BAP Mid-Atlantic member Khari Gzifa, as he read aloud an organizational statement at the Dec. 16 press conference.
BAP Coordinating Committee member Margaret Kimberley defended the use of terms like “Uncle Tom” and “Uncle Sam.”
“Do not rejoice just because African leaders gather in Washington,” she said. “The U.S. cannot cover up its many crimes […] the overthrow and murder of [first Congolese Prime Minister] Patrice Lumumba, coups against [first African-born Ghanian Prime Minister] Kwame Nkrumah, the destruction of Libya, the murder of its president. You cannot cover all of that up with a few days of receptions and photo opportunities.”
Samir Amin analysis of neo-colonialism with Frantz Fanon Critique of the National Bourgeoisie is so useful to understanding economic constraints on African nations today. pic.twitter.com/nIzvr8wqFU
Rafiki Morris, who represents the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party on BAP’s Coordinating Committee, said the summit wasn’t simply a meeting, but an indication of a partnership.
“Uncle Tom isn’t colluding with U.S. imperialism,” Morris said. “Uncle Tom is part and parcel of the U.S. plunder of Africa.”
Morris added no amount of attempting to appeal to U.S. Congressional Black Caucus members’ or African leaders’ conscience could work to transform their actions or, as he said, bring them over to “our side of the fence.”
“We now realize Uncle Tom helped build the fence.”
Frantz Fanon’s 60th death anniversary is an occasion to explore the impact of the Martiniquais writer and psychiatrist, who has influenced many a revolutionary with his study of the psychology of the oppressed.
Editor’s Note: The following is the writer’s analysis.
“The master’s room was wide open. The master’s room was brilliantly lit, and the master was there, very calm… and our people stopped dead… it was the master… I went in. “It’s you,” he said, very calm. It was I, even I, and I told him so, the good slave, the faithful slave, the slave of slaves, and suddenly his eyes were like two cockroaches, frightened in the rainy season… I struck, and the blood spurted; that is the only baptism that I remember today.” —Aimé Césaire
Today marks the 60th anniversary of the passing of one of the greatest thinkers to have emerged from the ranks of the oppressed, Frantz Fanon (1925-1961).
Fanon’s contributions are timeless. As long as white supremacy and neocolonialism remain in the driver’s seat of human relations, Fanon’s thought will continue to arm the colonized in the Battle of Ideas.
The Radicalization of Fanon
Born and raised in what is still France’s Caribbean island colony of Martinique, Fanon was exposed to and shaped by the everyday class and race relations that characterized the island in the early 20th century. Forced to join a segregated column of Black troops, he fought in World War II. Upon continuing his studies in post-war France, he came face to face with the racism that dominates the European world. In his first book, Black Skin, White Masks (1952), Fanon reflects on coming of age in a world, where, “For the black man there is only one destiny. And it is white.” At the time of publication, Fanon had just turned 27.
In 1953, the Martiniquais psychiatrist was assigned to Algeria, where he treated patients who were severely traumatized by the violence French colonialism had spun into motion. He met Dr. Pierre Chaulet, a French doctor who secretly treated members of the guerrilla resistance, Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), who had survived torture and captivity. “Viscerally close to his patients whom he regarded as primarily victims of the system he was fighting,” Fanon immediately became a cadre of the Algerian Revolution.1
By 1956, Fanon’s consciousness no longer allowed him to oversee operations at Blida Hospital in Algeria. In an influential resignation letter that moved many on the left, he wrote:
“There comes a time when silence becomes dishonesty. The ruling intentions of personal existence are not in accord with the permanent assaults on the most commonplace values. For many months my conscience has been the seat of unpardonable debates. And the conclusion is the determination not to despair of man, in other words, of myself. The decision I have reached is that I cannot continue to bear a responsibility at no matter what cost, on the false pretext that there is nothing else to be done.”
The Wretched of the Earth
Fanon produced a prodigious amount of intellectual work. Toward the African Revolution is a compilation of his writings on forging African and Third World unity with the Algerian Revolution at the vanguard of this process.2A Dying Colonialism explores how the Algerian people threw off their internalized inferiority complex by turning away from the colonizer’s cultural practices and embracing their own traditions.3
He dedicated his last days to dictating the final ideas of his most moving work to his wife, Josie. Six decades after it first hit the streets of Paris, The Wretched of the Earth: The Handbook for the Black Revolution That Is Changing the Shape of the World is as accurate and explosive as ever. The title comes from the line “Arise, ye wretched of the earth” from “The Internationale,” the Second Communist International’s official anthem, and from Haitian communist intellectual Jacques Romain’s poem, “Sales négres:”
too late it will be too late
on the cotton plantations of Louisiana
in the sugar cane fields of the Antilles
to halt the harvest of vengeance
of the negroes
the niggers
the filthy negroes
it will be too late I tell you
for even the tom-toms will have learned the language
of the Internationale
for we will have chosen our day
day of the filthy negroes
filthy Indians
filthy Hindus
filthy Indo-Chinese
filthy Arabs
filthy Malays
filthy Jews
filthy proletarians.
And here we are arisen
All the wretched of the earth
all the upholders of justice
marching to attack your barracks
your banks
like a forest of funeral torches
to be done
once
and
for
all
with this world
of negroes
niggers
filthy negroes.4
How many revolutionaries the world over became enraptured in his eloquent portrayal of the “Manichaean” differences between the neighborhoods of the rich white colonizer in Algiers and the casbah (ghettoes) of the colonized?
Here within this classic, that all revolutionaries have a duty to study, reside some of the most poignant prose on how the oppressed internalize violence and project it onto themselves:
“Where individuals are concerned, a positive negation of common sense is evident. While the settler or the policeman has the right the livelong day to strike the native, to insult him and to make him crawl to them, you will see the native reaching for his knife at the slightest hostile or aggressive glance cast on him by another native, for the last resort of the native is to defend his personality vis-a-vis his brother.”
Based on his treatment of patients in the Blida Hospital, which today bears his name, Fanon’s final chapter, “Colonial War and Mental Disorders,” examines the “ineffaceable wounds that the colonialist onslaught has inflicted on our people.”5
The fundamental pillar of the book, however, was Fanon’s conviction that the colonized could only shed their fear and shame through a baptism of revolutionary violence. Fanon’s former high school teacher and mentor, Aimé Césaire, had a profound influence on him. Césaire’s words cited at the beginning of this article from his epic poem on slave liberation, “And the Dogs were Silent,” set the tone for the Fanonian worldview. Despite a chorus of liberal complaints from the West that Fanon was “too violent,” Fanon concluded:
“As you and your fellow men are cut down like dogs, there is no other solution but to use every means available to reestablish your weight as a human being.”
‘You Can Kill a Revolutionary, But You Can Never Kill the Revolution’
Though Fanon died of leukemia when he was only 36, revolutionaries the world over have picked up his fallen weapons, his ideas, and applied them to their own particular national liberation struggles. Fanon’s observations and thesis continue to mold the thinking of awakening generations in life-and-death struggles from Johannesburg to Gaza to Harlem.
As political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal writes, the Black Panthers were Fanonists. His audio essay and tribute to Fanon discuss what the psychiatrist’s anti-colonial perspicacity meant to a 15-year-old Mumia, who has spent 40 years in prison. In Seize the Time, Bobby Seale talks about the influence of Fanon on the young Panthers and how Huey P. Newton read the book seven times.6
Malcolm X, Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Nelson Mandela all traveled to independent Algeria, which emerged as an epicenter of Pan-Africanism and internationalism. Paulo Freire stated that he had to rewrite Pedagogy of the Oppressed after reading The Wretched of the Earth. Hamza Hamouchene, president of the London-based Algerian Solidarity Campaign, discusses in CounterPunch what he deems Fanon’s unique contributions to understanding nationalism, the national bourgeoisie, political education and universalism, among other themes.
It is important to highlight that Fanon was more than just a doctor and writer.
At his graveside, Vice-president of the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA) Krim Belkacem emphasized Fanon’s diverse roles in the FLN’s total war. Beginning in 1954, Fanon worked as a writer, editor and propagandist for FLN periodicals Résistance algérienne and El Moudjahid. He also was a researcher; lecturer; a FLN representative in Ghana, Ethiopia, Mali, Guinea and Congo; as well as a clandestine militant.
Looking at the work of Karl Marx, Steve Biko, Cedric Robinson, Sylvia Wynter and other examples of revolutionaries/intellectuals, the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research wrote a tribute to Fanon because of how he embodied the praxis of a radical or organic intellectual: “The world will only be shaped by the most valuable insights of philosophical striving when philosophy itself becomes worldly via participation in struggle.”
Fanon survived an assassination attempt, exile in Tunis and was staring down a crippling disease that he refused to talk about but that ultimately claimed his life. Aware he was dying, he pledged, “I will not cease my activities while Algeria still continues the struggle and I will go on with my task until my dying day.”7
Today, it is more necessary than ever to study Fanon to understand the psychological, emotional and spiritual damage wrought by neo-colonialism on the peoples of Africa, the Americas, Asia and what the Black Panthers referred to as the United States’ internal colonies. Fanon’s conclusion in The Wretched of the Earth on African and human liberation begs the same questions six decades later:
“Let us waste no time in sterile litanies and nauseating mimicry. Leave this Europe [U.S.A.] where they are never done talking of Man, yet murder men everywhere they find them, at the corner of everyone of their own streets, in all the corners of the globe.”
Danny Shaw is a professor of Caribbean and Latin American Studies at the City University of New York. He frequently travels within the Americas region. A Senior Research Fellow at the Center on Hemispheric Affairs, Danny is fluent in Haitian Kreyol, Spanish, Portuguese and Cape Verdean Kriolu.
Notes 1 Fanon, Frantz. Toward the African Revolution. New York: Grove Press. 1964. 2 Fanon, Frantz. Toward the African Revolution. New York: Grove Press. 1964. 3 Fanon, Frantz. A Dying Colonialism. New York: Grove Press. 1965. 4 Macey, David. Frantz Fanon: A Biography. London and New York: Verso. 2012. 5 Macey, David. Frantz Fanon: A Biography. London and New York: Verso. 2012. 6 Seale, Bobby. Seize the Time: The Story of The Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton. Random House: 1970. 7 Macey, David. Frantz Fanon: A Biography. London and New York: Verso. 2012.
Editor’s Note: The following represents the writers’ opinion.
A free and transparent media is critical for any democracy. But in every society, defending the integrity of the media requires constant vigilance. We found ourselves drawn into the work of exercising this vigilance by complete chance.
When the independent left publication New Frame closed down after four years of operations, the liberal media rushed in, in unseemly haste, to put the boot in. Perhaps the worst of the attacks was penned by Sam Sole and Micah Reddy of the investigative journalism outfit amaBhungane. They alleged, based on nothing more than salacious gossip, that there was an attempt to influence public discourse in South Africa by the Chinese state. Not a shred of evidence was provided for this conspiracy theory by Sole and Reddy in an article that was largely based on innuendo. They abused the institutional authority of amaBhungane as a trusted publication to give credence to a conspiracy theory, one that aligned closely with the
key tropes being driven by the United States in the New Cold War.
The hostility towards us in this story can only be because our new organization, the Pan-African Institute for Socialism (PAIS), aims to create a non-sectarian space on the left to reach consensus on a pragmatic minimum program to increase the prospects for the Black poor and working-class majority in South Africa, Africa and the Global South.
PAIS has never had any sort of connection to New Frame aside from a single meeting held at their offices to inquire about the process for submitting opinion pieces for consideration, something that never actually happened in the end. But, to our complete astonishment, we found PAIS, a new and entirely unfunded organization, drawn into the conspiracy theories recycled by Sole and Reddy. This quite bizarre experience led us to wonder who funded amaBhungane, and what the drivers were for such vehemence by publications that claim to be fair, even-handed, and balanced. Those questions soon led us to an intricate web of relationships that are clearly designed to hide the influence of powerful funders and networks.
What is the real project of these U.S.-led imperialists and their surrogates in South Africa? A common thread has been the use of proxies to stymie the liberation of the majority of South Africans, particularly the Black working class and rural poor. First was Inkatha.1 Then came the DA. Lately, it is a hodge-podge of xenophobic opportunists. In addition, there are organizations that pose as being ‘Left’ and the so-called independent media. They all have one thing in common. They have an agenda to drive the ANC vote below 50 percent, in towns, cities, provinces and ultimately nationally.2
While PAIS may irritate them because we shine a spotlight on these reactionaries, their real target is the liberation movement. They wish to stymie the realization of the National Democratic Revolution, the as-yet unrealized goal of the struggle.
In this graphic the authors provided, they connect South African media leaders to major funders and the U.S. government / credit: Phillip Dexter and Roscoe Palm
We have been stunned by the extent of the capture of much South African media by the U.S. state and how most of it is hiding in plain sight. The first article to come out of our ongoing research project, “Manufacturing consent: How the United States has penetrated South African media”3 noted a few key points, including the following:
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was created in 1983 during the Reagan era to conduct operations and functions previously carried out by the CIA.4 It supported the mujahideen in Afghanistan and the Contras in Nicaragua and has been involved in many U.S.-backed coups.5 It now has vast tentacles across Africa.6
The NED funds the Mail & Guardian’s (M&G) weekly publication The Continent7 via its own non-profit arm, Adamela Trust, and international organisations like the International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM),8 and the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA),9 all of which are linked to key people and organisations in the South Africa media. The editor-in-chief of the Continent is Simon Allison, former Africa editor of M&G, Africa correspondent of Daily Maverick, and a former consultant with Open Society Foundation (OSF)-funded Institute for Security Studies.10 11 It is noteworthy that the NED has continued its program through Republican and Democratic administrations, from Reagan through to Biden, and was headed by Carl Gershman from its inception until 2021. Its agenda has not changed. 3. The OSF and Luminate, another major foundation, are official U.S. government partners that often work closely with the NED and other parts of the U.S. state, strategically taking on and funding projects that the U.S. state cannot or does not wish to directly undertake.12 Among the many examples of direct collaboration is that the NED and the OSF jointly founded Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD).13 The Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) is an official initiative of NED that coordinates this work and lists OSF as a partner.14 Luminate, together with the MIDF, has facilitated “dedicated coaching and newsroom expertise in topics such as marketing, newsletters, community building, and audience development” for M&G.15 4. Key senior people in publications like the M&G and amaBhungane, including three former editors-in-chief of the M&G have gone on to work for U.S. and Western government-supported organizations, including three separate projects funded by the NED.16 17 18 5. At least fifteen people who passed through the fellowship program run by amaBhungane have been directly tied to U.S. government organizations and programs including the Voice of America.19amaBhungane has also led the formation of a regional investigative journalism network, IJ Hub.20 6. The M&G, the Daily Maverick and amaBhungane, as well as smaller projects like the M&G-linked Daily Vox and the local U.S. embassy-linked Africa Check,21 are part of a list of at least 24 publications that have been funded by one or more of the major funders that regularly partner with the U.S. government.22
As we continue with our research we are finding more NED links. For instance the NED has funded the Institute for Race Relations (IRR),23 which publishes the Daily Friend,24 a publication that is ostensibly liberal, but veers towards the reactionary right wing weltanschauung. Sam Sole, the editor of amaBhungane, is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ),25 which is funded by the NED.26 We are also finding more and more links between organizations, like the OSF and Luminate, and the U.S. state. It is also likely that some journalists are funded directly by organizations, so that the claim to independence of organizations can be upheld.
The Oppenheimer family, whose wealth was wrung from the super-exploitation of Black labor in the mines, have long had considerable influence over political life in South Africa, including during the negotiations where the right of capital to continue to exploit was affirmed.27 But it is clear that, like OSF and Luminate, the Oppenheimers are also key partners of the U.S. state. The Oppenheimers fund amaBhungane28 and are given the red carpet treatment by the Daily Maverick to platform for their surrogates such as Greg Mills to propagate their pro-Western worldview.29 Founded by Branko Brkic, the Daily Maverick does list some funders, but asks you to take a leap of faith that a group of ten trusts, companies, and individuals that own anything between 0.1 percent and 15 percent of its investment holding company, are not compromised or party to any external leverage, as a cohort or as individual opaque entities. It also raises questions that the Daily Maverick and its biggest shareholder, Inkululeko Media, are indexed by Google as sharing the same office address in St. George’s Mall, Cape Town.30 31 Their opaqueness flies in the face of the Daily Maverick’s claims of transparency, which are merely a marketing strategy. Since their reader covenant was drafted in 2009, the Daily Maverick has become an important and influential player in the polity. It has evolved beyond being a blog with an angle that punched above its lightweight class and has accrued a tremendous amount of institutional authority in shaping discourse and curating narratives. With this power comes the responsibility to precisely disclose its funding. In short, it’s time for Daily Maverick to grow up, just like its peers in the mediascape.
The Oppenheimers also fund the Institute for Race Relations (IRR),32 the South African Institute for International Affairs,33 and their own foundation, the Brenthurst Foundation34. In each case, the links to the U.S. state are clear. Chester Crocker, who was Ronald Reagan’s point man in southern Africa at the height of the Cold War35 is an “honorary life member” and board member of the IRR.36 The Brenthurst Foundation has clear and open links of various kinds to NATO. The director of the Brenthurst Foundation, Greg Mills,37 served as a special advisor to the NATO Commander David Richards, who commanded the Western coalition forces as they stomped their way across Afghanistan.38 Greg Mills39 is one of four foreign policy right-wing hawks who are “allowed” to write on geopolitical affairs by the Daily Maverick. The other three are former U.S. diplomat Brooks Spector,40 former editor of M&G and president of consultancy group Calabar Consulting, Phillip van Niekerk,41 and lifetime foreign affairs hawk and stenographer of Western imperial interests, Peter Fabricius. Fabricius and Spector are also linked to the South African Institute of International Affairs as “experts”.42 The SAIIA is funded by USAID and the U.S. Department of State.43 But the systemic capture of much of our mediascape by the U.S. state and its partners extends beyond questions of funding, training programs, revolving doors, boards and collaborations of various kinds. There is also the question of editorial lines. In a number of publications, there is a systemic bias towards pro-U.S. positions, and very, very little critique of U.S. imperialism. There are a number of people writing as independent analysts, who are in fact embedded in the U.S. state in various ways. We also see that while the media has often served the interests of the public in terms of uncovering corruption in government, it has often done comparatively little in terms of doing the same in terms of private sector corruption, abuse of workers and control of policy.
All this is just scratching the surface. We are finding much, much more evidence of widespread media capture with every hour of research. Already some key questions are emerging for future research and articles. They include the following:
Why is the Daily Maverick’s funding not fully and precisely disclosed—including, in particular, the details on all equity, loan, or subsidy transactions?
How are the amaBhungane fellowship and training programs funded? Are there project costs, fees and expenses received from programs funded directly or indirectly from U.S. government agencies? Why do such large numbers of the fellows go on to work for U.S. government funded projects?
Which publishers, editors and journalists have attended the regular events for editors held by the U.S. consulate in Cape Town? What are the details of other briefings held by U.S.-directly or -indirectly funded organizations that senior leaders of South African media attend?
Who are the former publishers, editors and journalists who now work for the U.S. state or for U.S.-state directly or -indirectly funded organizations?
What other media projects are funded by the NED, OSF, Luminate and the Oppenheimers?
What is the percentage of articles in our “independent” media on geopolitics that support the U.S. line on international affairs and the percentage of those that are critical?
Transparency is a basic democratic value. It is time we knew who the masters of our media really are. It cannot be acceptable that while the editors and reporters of these publications demand accountability and transparency of those in government, labor and, occasionally, in business, they arrogate to themselves the right to not meet the same standards.
Our research project is growing in scope and urgency by the day. We need help from all interested citizens of South Africa who wish to contribute to media reform in the interests of transparency and the important work of defending and deepening our democracy. As a start, we welcome suggestions for further questions for us to explore and, in due course, to present to the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF). Please do contact us at [email protected] and share the questions that you think should be raised.
Phillip Dexter and Roscoe Palm are co-founders of the Pan-African Institute for Socialism, which can be found on Twitter at @PaisSocialism.
Footnotes
1 The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) started as a cultural movement in present day KwaZulu-Natal, but quickly morphed into a political movement to oppose the ANC’s liberation struggle. See “Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP),” South African History Online. 2 For example, in a recent opinion piece in Financial Times, Gideon Rachman wrote, “The best thing [the ANC] could do for the country’s future would be to lose the next election and leave power.” Gideon Rachman, “South Africa’s fear of state failure,” Financial Times, Aug. 15, 2022 3 See Ajit Singh and Roscoe Palm, “Manufacturing consent: How the United States has penetrated South African media,” MR Online, Aug. 8, 2022. 4 See David Ignatius, “Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups,”The Washington Post, Sept. 22, 1991 (“‘A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,’” agrees [Allen] Weinstein.” Weinstein was a co-founder of the NED.) 5 See David K. Shipler, “Missionaries for Democracy: U.S. Aid for Global Pluralism,”The New York Times, June 1, 1986. 6 For example, in FY2021 alone, the NED’s Africa program granted $41.5 million dollars across 34 countries and hundreds of projects. See National Endowment for Democracy, 2021 Annual Report. 7 See National Endowment for Democracy, “Regional: Africa 2021,” Feb. 11, 2022. 8 See International Fund for Public Interest Media, “About”. 9 See National Endowment for Democracy, Awarded Grants Search, (search: “Media Institute of Southern Africa”). Additionally, MISA has received funding from and is a “key partner” of the U.S. Agency for International Development. See United States. Congress. House. Committee on Appropriations. Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs, Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations for 2002: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, One Hundred Seventh Congress, First Session, U.S. Government Printing Office, 2001, p. 870. 10 See Simon Allison LinkedIn. 11 See Institute for Security Studies, “How we work”. 12 “Private sector funding of independent media abroad … has several advantages over public financing. Private funders can be more flexible … and their programs can operate in countries where U.S. government-funded programs are unwelcome. “In many places around the world, the people we train are more open to participating in programs funded by private sources than those funded by the U.S. government,” says Patrick Butler, ICFJ [International Center for Journalists] vice president.” National Endowment for Democracy, Center for International Media Assistance, Empowering Independent Media Inaugural Report: 2008, Ed. Marguerite Sullivan, (cited in Manufacturing consent article). 13 According to the Global Forum for Media Development, OSF and NED are its “core funders.” See Global Forum for Media Development, “Partnerships”. 14 See Center for International Media Assistance, “Partners”. 15 See Luminate Group, “Sixteen media selected for Membership in News Fund,” Feb. 4, 2021. 16 Roper became editor-in-chief of M&G in 2009 and left in 2015 to become the Deputy CEO of Code for Africa (CfA). CfA is a member of Code for All, which is funded by the NED. Additionally, Roper was a Knight Fellow at the International Center for Journalists, which is also funded by the NED. See, Chis Roper LinkedIn profile; Code for All, “Our Supporters”; International Center for Journalists, Impact Report, 2022, p. 17. 17 Former editor-in-chief Khadija Patel (2016-2020) left the M&G to chair the NED-sponsored International Press Institute. In 2021, Patel became head of programs at the NED-funded International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM). See fn. 2 (above) (NED funding of IFPIM); International Press Institute, “Supporters and Partners”; International Press Institute, “Executive Board”; International Fund for Public Interest Media, “About”. 18 Former editor-in-chief Phillip van Niekerk (1997-2000) left the M&G to take up a senior position at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in Washington D.C. ICIJ is funded by the NED. See “New editor of M&G,”Mail & Guardian, Mar. 20, 1997; “Over to you, Dr Barrell,”Mail & Guardian, Dec. 15, 2000; International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, “Our Supporters”. 19 See “Manufacturing consent: How the United States has penetrated South African media.” Full citation at fn. 3. 20AmaBhungane “is incubating the Hub… As incubator, amaBhungane has continued to support the Hub administratively.” IJ Hub, Annual Narrative Report 2021/21. 21 See Africa Check, “Partners” (“The U.S. Embassy in South Africa is proud to team up with Africa Check to tackle misinformation and disinformation in the media.”). 22 In addition to their own media-related grants, OSF and Luminate jointly founded the South African Media Innovation Program, a multi-million dollar media investment initiative managed by the Media Development Investment Fund, which is also funded by OSF and Luminate. See South Africa Media Innovation Program; Luminate Group, “South Africa Media Innovation Program (SAMIP) launched by Open Society Foundation of South Africa (OSF-SA), Omidyar Network, and Media Development Investment Fund,” Aug. 29, 2017. 23 See i.e. South African Institute of Race Relations, 86th Annual Report, 2015, p. 7. Additionally, the IRR has partnered with the International Republican Institute, which is one of NED’s four core institutes. See International Republican Institute, “Democratic Governance in Africa”; National Endowment for Democracy, “How We Work”. The IRR is also a member institute of the NED’s Network of Democracy Research Institutes. (See National Endowment for Democracy, “NDRI Member Institutes” (https://www.ned.org/ideas/network-of-democracy-research-institutes-ndri/ndri-member-institutes/#Top). 24 “The Daily Friend is the online newspaper of the Institute of Race Relations.” Daily Friend, “About” (https://dailyfriend.co.za/about/). 25 See International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, “Sam Sole”. 26 See International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, “Our Supporters”. 27 See Sampie Terreblanche, “The New South Africa’s original ‘State Capture’”, Africa Is a Country, Jan. 28, 2018. 28 See amaBhungane, “About Us”. 29 See https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/ray-hartley-and-greg-mills 30 See https://www.sayellow.com/view/south-africa/daily-maverick-in-cape-town 31 See footer on Inkululeko website for address. 32 See Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, “All Beneficiaries – S” 33 See Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, “All Beneficiaries – S” 34 See The Brenthurst Foundation, “Our Story”. 35 Interestingly, a 1983 New York Times profile of the Oppenheimer empire opens with the following: “In an oracular vein, an academic named Chester A. Crocker once said of South Africa: That country is by its nature a part of the West. It is an integral and important element of the Western global, economic system. Mr. Crocker, who has since become the State Department’s top Africa hand and author of the Reagan Administration’s policy of “constructive engagement” with South Africa’s white minority Government, was openly embracing a premise found in both South African propaganda and the arguments of Marxist analysts: that the West’s formal condemnations of apartheid mask an enormous stake in the outcome of the shadowy struggle between the races there.” See Joseph Lelyveld, “Oppenheimer of South Africa,”The New York Times, May 8, 1983. 36 See South African Institute of Race Relations, 92nd Annual Report, 2021, p. 6. 37 See The Brenthurst Foundation, “Greg Mills”. 38 See Greg Mills, From Africa to Afghanistan: With Richards and NATO to Kabul, Wits University Press, 2007. 40 See J. Brooks Spector author page at Daily Maverick. 41 See Phillip van Niekerk author page at Daily Maverick. 42 See South African Institute of International Affairs “Expert” pages for Peter Fabricius and Brooks Spector. 43 See South African Institute of International Affairs, “Funders”.
The outbreak of war in Sudan dominated headlines in April, but plenty more has happened in Africa, including in Comoros, Ethiopia, Kenya,Chad, Uganda, Morocco, Cameroon, West Africa, Tanzania and Algeria. African Stream reports.