Deadline: 11h00 on 25 November 2004

The Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site (COH WHS) Management Authority invites tenders for the appointment of consultants to develop and implement a destination marketing, investment promotion and fundraising strategy for the COH WHS. The Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site (Blue IQ) is a government project of the Department of Finance and Economics and the Department of Agriculture and Conservation.

Two decades after HIV/AIDS was discovered, it continues to spread across continents, infecting and killing millions and destroying entire communities. Sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for 11 percent of the total world population, has 70 percent of all HIV/AIDS infections in the world, making it the worstaffected continent.

Although one may dispute the alarming figures, the fact remains that HIV/AIDS has had devastating consequences for countries, societies, families and individuals. It is a global crisis and the outlook is worsening, with India, China and Russia projected to be the next centres of the pandemic.

HIV/AIDS attacks every sector of the society, affecting food security, depressing national economies, and rolling back the development gains of the last thirty or more years, as the African experience has shown, especially in the worst-affected countries.

Underlining the pandemic in which women figure disproportionately is the fact that HIV/AIDS thrives in and reinforces conditions of deprivation, poverty, oppression, conflicts, social violence, and social collapse. Thus HIV/AIDS has to be tackled from a social and economic perspective, taking into account the global structures and forces that have led to social and economic crises and exacerbated the vulnerability of populations to death and diseases including HIV/AIDS.

Combating social inequalities within a country and between countries is fundamental to Health for All. This means challenging the power structures and policies that engender ill health, be they governments, the World Bank-IMF, unequal trade agreements, structural adjustment policies, corporate-driven privatisation or free-market fundamentalism, all of which have severely affected public health systems particularly in the Third World.

It is within this context that the HIV/AIDS catastrophe has to be considered. HIV/AIDS cannot be tackled with technocentric and medical solutions alone. HIV/AIDS requires an integrated social, economic and political response, where health is recognised as a fundamental human right and health inequities are simply unacceptable.

This document is a joint effort of the Third World Network and the People's Health Movement. It is hoped that the articles and perspectives in the book can be a useful source for campaign and advocacy.

Produced by Third World Resurgence
154 Pages
Price: Third World - US$10.00; First World: US$14.00 (Prices are
inclusive of postage cost by air mail.)

For more information mailto:[email protected]

SOURCE: afro-nets mailing list
[email protected]
http://list.healthnet.org/mailman/listinfo/afro-nets

The world of men is a world of biologically inherited privilege. The quality of men's lives often turns on how they balance that privilege with the responsibility it determines and reflects. For many men, the balancing act leads to false pride, cruel dominance, violence, and corruption. For many others, it leads to narrow lives of limited ambition trodden on seemingly predetermined paths marked by regret over dreams and hopes set aside. But for some men, the balancing act yields happiness and contentment in relationships built on equity and empathy. S. W. Omamo's new novel, The Men Do Not Eat Wings is set in that world, in Kenya. This richly peopled book is full of surprises. The style is unusual. Omamo chooses a nonlinear format that covers three centuries and two continents. It is a risky approach that is at times bewildering as the plot dances quickly across time and space. But the storytelling is good enough to keep the pages turning toward a wonderfully graceful ending. Omamo gives words and agency to forgotten people - people whose lives, as he says at the beginning of the book, "…come and go without being told, without being recorded." The Men Do Not Eat Wings is a very fine book - one that announces Omamo as a major new voice in African literature. Rarely is a first novel written with such assurance and skill. This is an author to watch. The Men Do Not Eat Wings, a novel by S. W. Omamo (Richardson-Omamo Books, Kampala, Uganda, 2004). By Josiah Turubesa

The Institute of Network Cultures (INC), which was set up in June 2004, caters to research, meetings and (online) initiatives in the area of new media and society with a particular focus on the internet. If you are interested in internships, linked events, providing screenings, lectures and workshops in Amsterdam, fellowships and collaborative research, please contact us.

This new book is now available from the Co-operative for Research and Education and it explores the extent to which citizens, civil society organizations and government have fully exercised both their rights and obligations so as to entrench democratic governance in the ten years since 1994. This innovative and probing study includes a review of both theoretical and empirical literature from South Africa and elsewhere, a series of five in-depth case studies of interactions or encounters between civil society and government in the period since the early 1990s, and extensive analysis of other processes, institutions and events which have had a direct impact on governance. Many relevant practical recommendations aimed at entrenching sound governance are put forward. Ultimately, sound democratic governance must reduce and eventually eliminate poverty and inequality, and safeguard the right of all citizens to a healthy, productive life based on equal rights and opportunities. The book concludes that much has been accomplished since 1994, but the challenges that remain are significant and must be tackled. The burden of making democracy work as it should belongs equally to government, civil society and individual citizens.

The third edition of "Kenya - The Top 100 People" looks at the power handover to current President Mwai Kibaki, through exclusive biographies on the former and current President and other influential people who currently hold the true keys to power. This book reveals the personalities of the new president's inner circle of power, the young members of civil society who joined the new government, rising Kikuyu businessmen, the new heads of State companies and the regime's new security bosses. In addition to government officials, The Top 100 People discloses who are the men and women who really count in Kenya.

I have recently purchased some books and journals that may be of interest to Africanists, or anybody interested in Nigerian literature and academia. If you know anybody who may be interested in purchasing these, please have them contact me at this address. Thanks. Most of the materials range in period from 1937-the early 1970s.

As many African societies undergo political and economic transformations in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century, a new book entitled "Africa And The Need For Attitude Change" by Okoro I. Chima, takes an in-depth look at the continent and its people. Name any issue of regional concern - leadership, economy, corruption, education, the press, democracy and HIV/AIDS - it touches it all. It is bold, provocative and entertaining.

Ama Ata Aidoo writes: "From the first days of its publication, it was obvious that Tsitsi Dangarembga's NERVOUS CONDITIONS" had the makings of a classic: a timeless coming-of-age tale, great lyrical narrative, unforgettable characters and courageous. Sixteen years down the line, the notion has been amply confirmed." With an introduction by Kwame Anthony Appiah, the novel is published by Ayebia ISBN 0954702336

This book examines the important question of whether international human rights law and Islamic law are compatible, whether Muslim States can comply with international human rights law while adhering to Islamic law. It argues that there are no fundamental incompatibility between these two bodies of law. ICCPR, ICESR and CEDAW are examined in detail. Oxford, OUP 2003 ISBN 019926659X

The campaign for the ratification of the African Union Protocol for the Rights of Women in Africa have published a pamphlet to help mobilise support. The pamphlet is based on the special issue of Pambazuka News 162 of 24 June 2004. Further details: contact Faiza Jama Mohammed.

Deadline: 14 January 2005

The United-Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, (UNESCO) is calling on young researchers with advanced degrees (M.A., M.Sc. or equivalent) in developing countries to apply to the UNESCO/Keizo Obuchi Research Fellowship Programme for fellowships ranging from US$ 6,000 to US$ 10,000. The amount varies according to duration and place of study. The Programme is financed by Japan through its funds in trust programme for capacity-building of human resources.

The Cairo Institute of Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) uses arts and literature to engage people in the human rights debate and to demonstrate that human rights are celebrated in Arab cultures. CIHRS seeks out philosophers and artists who understand the debate between Islam and human rights and who are motivated to respond to conservative elements.

This insightful work analyzes the deficiencies of the existing counter-terrorism framework and assesses whether acts commonly referred to as "terrorism" are actually war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression, thereby falling within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Following a discussion of the international law definition of terrorism, in particular the anti-terrorism conventions and international humanitarian law, the author sets about constructing her own working definition of terrorism.

Children's work is currently on the increase all over the world in processes closely linked to globalisation. This book shows how children's work can take on widely differing forms; and how it can both harm and benefit children. Differing in approach from most other work in the field, it endeavours to understand working children from their own perspective. Particular attention is paid to the children's experiences and hopes, especially their attempts to find a public voice and fight together against exploitation and discrimination.

Faceless, Amma Darko’s third novel after Beyond the Horizon and The Housemaid, is the tragic story of street children in Accra, Ghana told through a chaotic urban fabric where pressing social issues like the gap between rich and poor, HIV/AIDS, broken families and the role of women in society are all-pervasive.

The story is an investigation of the death of Baby T, a child prostitute whose body is found dumped behind a marketplace, naked, beaten and mutilated. Darko skilfully reveals details about Baby T during the progression of the novel through her younger sister Fofo, herself a street child who comes into contact with group of women who run a documentation NGO called MUTE.

Baby T’s story is heartbreaking and entirely believable, not only in relation to Accra, but also in a global context. She is the third child of Ma Tsumu, born after a brutal beating intended to fulfil the ambitions of an abortion because the father believes that Ma Tsumu is “too fertile”. Kwei, the father, disappears after fathering Fofo, leaving Ma Tsumu to fend for herself with four children. The family manage alone with the two sons bringing home money from fish-related activities. But Faceless is a novel where things only go very wrong when men are involved and when Ma Tsumu takes a lover into her bed in the form of Kpakpo, who earns his keep by “dubious” means, the stage is set for tragedy.

The first consequence of the new lover is that the brothers, unable to stand the new nightly sounds of the shared bedroom, pack their bags and disappear. This leaves Baby T at the mercy of Kpakpo, who sexually abuses her. Hurt and confused, she confides in a family friend, Onko, who brutally rapes her. Ma Tsumu, a tragic figure destroyed by the men in her life, is unable to do anything but take money from Onko, who then continues to live in the same compound as Baby T. Clearly the situation is untenable and Kpakpo has the answer. Baby T can be sent away to a distant relative of his who is actually a Madame – in reality Baby T is sold into prostitution.

Discrimination against women is a constant theme of the novel and symbolically Baby T is representative of the sins visited upon all women in a society where from birth women are discriminated against and made responsible not only for their sins, but for those of men in society. As mentioned earlier, nothing goes right when men are involved and many of the male characters in the novel are murderers, child abuses, rapists – or simply good for nothings.

Even those not presented in this light are trapped in their perceptions of women as caregivers and housewives, such as NGO worker Kabria’s husband, who expects her to be waiting at the door to take his briefcase when he returns from work. Despite the fact that Kabria works a long day, she is still expected to manage the household, cook and take care of the children. Darko is keen to highlight this hypocrisy.

The response of women to their experience at the hands of men varies from Ma Tsumu’s “Because they are animals, They know no mercy…” to the positive engagement of the NGO MUTE, which is made up entirely of women as if to suggest that it is women who must be in control of their response to a warped male world.

But if the fate of women in society is a major theme of the novel, it plays itself out through a street children narrative which allows Darko the scope for powerful social commentary that demonstrates the personal tragedy of each and every child that ends up on the streets. As one of the characters says in quoting assassinated US president John F. Kennedy: “The future promise of any nation can be directly measured by the present prospects of its youth.” What is the hope, Darko seems to be asking, if societies can allow the conditions that result in the fate of Baby T?

Darko’s landscape is not entirely bleak: she does offer hope in the form of Fofo, who by the end of the novel looks set on the right road, and in the form of MUTE, whose members are the positive role models of the novel.

It might be said that the solutions offered by the novel are too simple, but Darko does leave enough in the air to suggest that nothing is certain. Indeed, the story is told with just enough skill to keep the reader guessing. While it is true that some of the characters sometimes feel a bit stereotyped, Darko is also capable of demonstrating some character complexity and contradictions, as in the case of the pimp Poison, who is also shown to be a victim through is own abuse as a child, but who now “no longer suffered the pain, he inflicted it.”

These criticisms aside, Darko succeeds in hammering home a powerful message that it is children and the way they are treated that are the true measure of how societies are judged. It is through their eyes that the answers to the myriad moral predicaments that society finds itself in, are to be found.

* Reviewed by Patrick Burnett, Fahamu

* Publisher: Sub-Saharan Publishers

* Exclusively distributed by African Books Collective
To purchase, email: [email][email protected]
http://www.africanbookscollective.com

Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob's Winnie Mandela: A Life, is the first book-length biography that takes into account Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and the first to take her life story to the (near) present. Such a book is long overdue, and this is beautifully presented, with a stunning photographic cover portrait of Winnie Mandela, perhaps from the 1950s. The cover portrait captures the tone of the book: a tribute to a tragic heroine. Her fatal flaw in the Shakespearean tradition is perhaps her trusting nature; her fall, however, is attributed to a particular form of post-traumatic stress disorder, brought on by the unrelenting, torturous pressures of the apartheid regime.

Boy is an adaptation of Collen’s 1996 Creole novel Misyon Garcon, and was therefore seemingly unwritten in English in order to be re-iterated in relation to the Creole native to Mauritius. Before we have even read a word of Boy, we have been pitched into the middle of a linguistic exchange; a dialogue that interfaces languages (French, Creole, and English) in order to both showcase the linguistic mosaic of Mauritian identity, as well as posit these languages in a larger spectrum of political power. With Boy, Lindsey Collen’s own sensitivity to language is also evident, as she seems to be writing first as an activist whose writing has been censored, threatened and banned, and subsequently as a novelist, and in this respect, Collen has not departed from the political role that has traditionally defined African novelists.

Drawing on fieldwork from Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Peru, Guatemala, India, Chad, Columbia and South Africa, the contributors discuss the form and reach of the modern state and how people understand and experience the agency of the state, whether on the margins or at the centre of power. Issues raised include the impact of the trade in arms, diamonds, goods and currency; the role of language as cultures try to articulate their struggles; and the problems that mercenaries pose to the state.

i asked her to tell me her story
she started by looking away –
gazing back into that darkness when she knelt to pray.
the planes dropped the bombs before daybreak -
the janjaweed stormed with the dawn.
those who could
fled to the forest
to hide till they’d gone.
returning to ruins by moonlight
she found she was orphaned and then -
there they began
their exodus out of
sudan.