president sexmachine
runs out of semen
calls in juju magic
to foster a son like
father like pornstar
overzealous the heir
strips in public
it is not the clothes
that are off but the mind
the naked head gives
another meaning to nudity
groupies throw not their undies in the air
but their brains out of their heads
the hearts are locked
in the wallets
the bluenotes woke up everybody
the blandnotes sends everyone
to endless slumber
the business chamber
is a torture chamber
on the road to damascus
marx the dessident
transfiguers to max the pet
on the johannesburg stock exchange
socialist tongues are strangled
the new booby traps
are the equity shares
sophisticated snares (to) turn
revolutionary firebrands
into business brands
former guerillas into gluttonous
consumerist gorillas
from the khaki
to the gucci
we whistle vivaldi
where we once
chanted amandla
we shout armani

Anticipating Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's departure from office is much like waiting for Samuel Beckett's character Godot to arrive, Alemayehu G. Mariam writes – it never happens. Zenawi's preference for mud-slinging over logical debate in the face of criticism means everybody gets covered in mud, Mariam stresses, and merely underlines his administration's determination to rule according to its own greed and fear.

Any popular movement that is serious about building the power of the poor and about demanding the full recognition of the equal humanity of the poor will face many challenges and tests, write Abahlali baseMjondolo: 'We have confronted and passed many challenges and tests since 2005. The attack on our movement in Kennedy Road has been the greatest test that we have faced so far. But we have passed it.'

In accordance with its vision of “promoting credible elections and democratic governance in Africa”, EISA plans to deploy a 3 member pre election assessment mission to the Central African Republic (CAR). This forms part of EISA’s election related activities in the CAR which will include the deployment of a continental observer mission to the Presidential and Parliamentary Elections scheduled for April 2010.

President Zuma is 'not a saint', writes Alfred Muleka, but as a proud Zulu man, a traditonalist and a nationalist, he deserves 'protection and respect under the constitution'. Polygamy is not illegal in South Africa, says Muleka, so let's respect this right rather than judging it by Western stanadards.

With Nigeria locked in a constitutional crisis, Funmi Feyide-John discusses the role of the US government's interference. While praising the Nigerian government for its ability to calmly transfer power to Vice-President Goodluck Johnson following President Umaru Yar'Adua's absence due to poor health, Feyide-John writes, the US's alleged favouritism towards particular political players risks severely undermining democracy in Nigeria through casting whoever ultimately ends up as president as a foreign puppet. In meeting former military dictator Ibrahim Babangida in Yar'Adua's absence, Feyide-John stresses, the US's actions give credence to suggestions of its intent to secure a Nigerian base for its AFRICOM (Africa Command) initiative and bolster its access to oil, as part of political dabbling which will doubtless have a lasting impact on Nigerian politics.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/472/i_neda_agha_sultani.gif

American televangelist Pat Robertson was 'partially right' in saying that 'black people’s souls were compromised by evil', Charo Mina Rojas writes from Haiti. But it's not because people of African ancestry sold their souls to evil, it's that the evil of colonialism took their souls and 'traded with them'.

In this week's review of the African blogosphere, a new report on the recent crises in Niger and Nigeria, Africa's tendency to deify its leaders, Sarkozy's visit to Gabon, and calls for a new approach to advocating for gender equality the use of ICTs.

Waheeda Amien argues that while recognising polygyny – the practice entitling a man to more than one spouse – respects cultural and religious rights, this is done to the detriment of individual rights. Not only does polygyny discriminate against women in African and Muslim communities in equality terms, but wives, children and husbands are financially and emotionally affected. Amien, however, does not necessarily advocate monogamy, rather she holds that the aim should be ‘to work toward an egalitarian society where intimate and family relationships are based on an understanding of substantive equality for all involved.’

My mother said they found oil
Somewhere in western Uganda.
I am not excited, she said.
She sounded pained, but resigned.
Stoic, perhaps.
She has seen a lot, my mother.
‘Me, I’m not excited,’ she said,
And shook her head slowly.
‘Oil is trouble.’
She looked at me.
I looked at her.
We said nothing.
She shrugged and turned back to the counter.

You see,

Money’s mad temptations tug.
History’s heavy shoulders shrug.
Rewind, Repeat. Rewind, Repeat.
Rewind, Repeat. Rewind, Repeat.

South Africa’s African National Congress, has degenerated to the point where it poses ‘a clear and present danger to the integrity of society’ writes Richard Pithouse. Whereas empowerment ‘used to be imagined as a collective and political project that could transform society from below’, says Pithouse, ‘it is now understood as a matter of personal incorporation into the minority that is able to profit from an increasingly unequal society.’

If Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill is passed into law, the implications for LGBT people, and for the rights of everyone across Africa are ‘horrific’, writes Sokari Ekine. ‘Utterly inhumane’, the bill violates all African Union and International human rights legislation and treaties to which Uganda is signatory, says Ekine, but if it were to be passed, the chances are strong that some of 38 African countries criminalising same-sex relationships would attempt to copy it. Can a new book ‘Urgency Required: Gay and Lesbian Rights are Human Rights’ help to prevent legislation that threatens to cast homosexuals as ‘illegal beings’ rather than human beings?

With the death of both Rashid Kawawa of Tanzania and Akena Adoko of Uganda in January this year, Kintu Nyago compares their legacies. Of Kawawa he says: ' If Nyerere… was the grand architect of Tanzanian nation building, regional liberation and security, then Kawawa was his trusted, skilled, implementing mason.' Of Adoko, however, Nyago is not so praiseworthy. He argues that Adoko's actions were 'selfishly and politically calculated:… intended to retain power… against the wishes of the people of Uganda.'

Joséphine Ouedraogo

Youssou Gningue

Me Jean Claude Katende

The United Nations says it will evaluate and refer to a competent authority, which includes the International Criminal Court, any claims of enforced disappearances if there are legitimate grounds for concern. This is contained in the new report released by the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.

During a United Nations Human Rights Council review of Egypt's rights record on 17 February, Egyptian NGOs, including the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) and the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR), called on the government to seriously address human rights violations.

Four years after an innovative slum-upgrading project was launched in Huruma, to the northeast of the Kenyan capital, at least 200 households are now living in improved homes, complete with infrastructure such as running water, sewage connection, electricity, drainage, paving and renovated toilet blocks.

Tensions between street traders and the city authorities in Madagascar's capital, Antananarivo, are mounting as hundreds of recently unemployed textile industry workers compete with established informal traders; textile factories have been closing since the country was suspended from a preferential trade agreement with the US.

The Democratic Republic of Congo could see half of its debt to the Paris Club of creditors written off, according to an agreement announced today by the members. The agreement follows on the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) approval in December of a loan arrangement for the DRC, making the country eligible for an IMF debt relief programme.