Review of African blogs

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/321/blogs_01_trench.gif comments on the suspension of South African Chief Prosecutor, Vusi Pikoli, by President Thabo Mbeki:

'Am I alone in feeling increasingly perturbed by these actions by our president? The timing of this announcement was clearly also designed to limit any public discussion or interrogation of the president’s decision, coming as it did on a public holiday and as the president jets out of the country away from the domestic limelight.

Now there is talk of a new commission to review the functioning and accountability of the office of the national director. Why? I know I sound increasingly bitter but I cannot deny feeling despondent when it seems that any voice which articulates an independent view appears to have no place in the administration of our country.'

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/321/blogs_02_gndhlovu.gifGershom Ndhlovu writes about threats made by Zambian Information Minister Mike Mulongoti to journalists of the state-owned media whom he claimed 'were not created to be critics of the government..'

'It is very sad that Mulongoti, should, in this day and age, threaten state-owned media journalists with dismissal if they criticise the government even if its officials err in running the affairs of the nation and there are many errors in the governance of our beautiful country.

Is this the reason why government has been dragging its feet to legislate the Freedom of Information Bill which has dragged on for nearly a decade now?…Well, maybe it pays to toe the MMD line especially now when a number of journalists have just been rewarded with appointments into the Diplomatic service. But, ultimately, it is the ordinary Zambian who places so much trust and faith in journalists whether from state or private media who is being short-changed by this kind of myopia in the approach to media issues.'

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/321/blogs_03_otherside.gifStill on the issue of press freedom, The Other Side condemns what it considers the shameful contributions of Ethiopia's foreign correspondents’ to the deterioration of the free press in that country.

'…stories are routinely ignored or intentionally killed by the international wire services, whose journalists are even, on occasion, encouraged by bureau chiefs to re-interpret, or “contextualize” the more inflammatory responses of government spokesman (with a suggestive, “surely that is not what he actually meant!”)!
...
Perhaps I am merely naïve, but something seems intrinsically wrong when major news outlets are encouraging their journalists to perpetually wine and dine government officials on the company expense account, while strictly advising them to avoid socializing with known opposition members and supporters, whose activities are to be regarded as automatically subversive.
….
The most popular justification amongst African press circles is clearly the claim that their organization would otherwise be expelled from the country…. Regardless--since when did tailoring the news to suit the temperament of a brutal dictator become an acceptable compromise?'

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/321/blogs_04_ngwane.gifhttp://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/321/blogs_05_egyptian.gifEgyptian Chronicles writes about the strike of workers of the Misr Helwan Spinning and Weaving textile factory at El-Mahalla El-Kubra:

'This is biggest strike Egypt has seen from a very long time. I believe it is also the first time that the workers occupy a factory in their strike with their families and children, and there are fears and concerns that the Anti-riots won't be merciful with them… It is not about socialism, it is about stolen rights. These workers deserve better treatment…

Yesterday it was the universities, today it is the factories, tomorrow.. I am happy and afraid the security won't this pass easily. I believe more restrictions will be imposed. Already, it is enough to see the trials of the journalists to feel where this country is going.'

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/321/blogs_06_bl.gifBlack Looks writes about a memorial being erected in Germany in honor of the forgotten victims of the Holocaust:

'Hitler referred to them as “Rhineland bastards” - the hundreds of children born of German mothers and African fathers. The men were African soldiers deployed by the French army in Germany’s Rhineland after WW1. Finally a memorial is to be erected outside the home of one Black victim of the Nazi holocaust giving a name to the nameless. Mahjub bin Adam Mohamed originally from Tanzania who married a German woman and was charged with ‘miscegenation’. He died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, in November 1944. The idea behind the memorial - part of the Stolperstein Project, is to remember the millions of nameless and forgotten minorities Blacks, Gypsies, Disabled, Homosexuals, Communists, and coincides with the publication of “Truthful Till Death” by Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst.'

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/321/blogs_07_backweri.gifStill on the subject of Africans who lived in Nazi Germany, www.dibussi.com

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