THE YEAR IN PERSPECTIVE: QUOTES FROM PAMBAZUKA NEWS

It’s been a frantic year for Africa. On the international stage there’s been the release of Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa report, the G8 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland and the World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting in Hong Kong, all of which have had enormous implications for Africa. There have been elections in Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Kenya and elsewhere, while the crises in the Ivory Coast and Darfur have dragged on throughout the year. To this you can add ongoing issues related to women’s rights, human rights, justice, the environment, HIV/Aids and refugees. We’ve tried our best to bring to the fore commentary and analysis on these issues that can’t be found anywhere else, to showcase the voices of the African continent. The result is over 150 originally commissioned or submitted pieces of commentary and analysis from over 100 writers. It would be impossible to summarise or reflect all of these in one article, but in this issue you can find a selection of key quotes from the year 2005. Click on the links to read the full articles or browse the back issues to find out what happened in the year that was.

MAKING REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH RIGHTS A REALITY

“Within the health sector systemic violence against women remains highly invisible and there are glaring gaps within the health sector as well at the community level for dealing with violence against women. Most health providers have consistently failed to recognize and consider violence against women an important part of their work. Some health workers, being products of a culture that condones violence against women, view it as a normal way of life and do not feel obligated to pay attention to women who present with signs and symptoms of abuse.” - Anne Gathumbi, Pambazuka News 190: 20 January 2005

TRADE LIBERALISATION, HUNGER AND STARVATION

“The agriculture negotiations when taken up by our governments are treated as gender neutral. These discussions do not take into account the 75% contribution women make to agricultural production. They assume a common myth that separates affluence from poverty. If you produce what you consume, you do not produce. This is the basis on which the production boundary is drawn for national accounting that measures economic growth.” - Mohau Pheko, Pambazuka News 191: 27 January 2005

ZIMBABWE: ELECTIONS, DESPONDENCY AND CIVIL SOCIETY'S RESPONSIBILITY

“The official results of Zimbabwe's March 31 parliamentary elections, announced on 2 April, give the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu PF) 78 seats, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) 41 (down from 57 seats in 2000), and 1 to an independent (Mugabe's notorious former information officer, Jonathan Moyo). What happened? Simply this: the urban poor and working-class were cheated. The rural poor were intimidated into supporting a government whose costs to them now far outweigh the limited benefits (for 130 000 households) of the ineffectual land redistribution strategy that began in 2000. And the regional super-power collaborated to the full.” - Patrick Bond And David Moore, Pambazuka News 201, 7 April 2005

ECONOMIC ALTERNATIVES TO NEOLIBERALISM

“Any attempt to build economic alternatives to neoliberalism also needs to take account of its ideological and repressive elements. As potentially viable alternatives are developed, the neoliberal system will do all in its power to repress these initiatives. Therefore, as well as being visionary and identifying offensive demands towards realising that vision, attention must also be given to defending the space that is available to develop alternatives. The closing down of forms of expression, passing of restrictive legislation and acts of violent repression must be resisted together with the building of alternatives. Maintaining the space to be able to develop alternatives is thus an integral dimension of the struggle for alternatives.” - George Dor, Pambazuka News 209: 2 June 2005

THE LIVE 8 CONCERTS: HOLD ON AFRICA – HERE WE COME!

“The real reason the rich world should be racing to deal with African poverty is the central role we have played in causing and perpetuating it. Has anyone told Paul Wolfowitz that vastly more money pours out of Africa each year back to rich countries than flows in? That's the key to Africa's development crisis, and it's almost entirely unrecognized.” - Gerald Caplan, Pambazuka News 212: 23 June 2005

FIGHTING FOR THE RIGHTS OF AFRICA'S REFUGEES: WORLD REFUGEE DAY 2005

“The problem (with participation rhetoric in regards to refugees) is that it is just that, rhetoric. The first thing that any agency assisting refugees would have to do to allow them to meaningfully participate in 'planning' is to tell them how much was the budget for a particular project. Can you imagine an Oxfam or a Save the Children or a UNHCR actually sharing such information with refugees?” - Barbara Harrell-Bond, Pambazuka News 212: 23 June 2005

ASPIRATION INTO ACTION: RATIFY THE PROTOCOL NOW!

“Affirmative action in politics in Uganda has delivered numbers. Presence and action of women has expanded and relatively deepened public concerns. Both at the national and local levels, the relative presence of women has brought new questions on the political agenda. The experience of the constitution making process in 1994 and the resultant 1995 constitution indicate that numerical presence of women in the Constituent Assembly had a lot to contribute to the gendered contestations and outcomes. The outlook of decision-making bodies has changed, ideologically accommodating the construction of a leader as male and female.” - Jacqueline Asiimwe, Pambazuka News 213: 30 June 2005

IT WILL SUFFICE TO STOP THE BLEEDING

“My image of Africa is a beautiful, welcoming and sharing person bearing a gaping and bleeding wound that threatens her/his happiness and life. Africa’s wound is old (historically rooted) and still festering. There are scars around its edges suggesting partial but superficial healing. The wound is constantly poked both by external objects as well as self. As a result, it is still gashing. Stopping the bleeding is a first aid priority to protect life, before healing is possible. To heal, we must get the diagnosis right and recognise the age of the wound, how it was caused and what continues to exacerbate it.” - Charles Abugre, Pambazuka News 217: 28 July 2005

IN SEARCH OF THE “DISAPPEARED”: TAKING THE CAMPAIGN TO AFRICA

“Enforced disappearances are an ongoing worldwide phenomenon. While the exact numbers for and extent of disappearances in Africa is not known, estimates clearly run into the tens of thousands. After twenty years of debate, the United Nations is now poised to finalise an international treaty to deal with disappearances in September 2005. It is critical that African civil society organizations and families of the disappeared join the debate and ensure that this international legal instrument becomes a reality and addresses the needs of African victims.” - Polly Dewhirst and Ewoud Plate, Pambazuka News 218: 04 August 2005

THE CHANGING DEVELOPMENT DISCOURSE IN AFRICA

“All in all, the development discourse in Africa among African intellectuals is alive, kicking, mentally refreshing and intellectually formidable, notwithstanding declarations of World Bank technicians, called consultants, proclaiming ‘the end of development’. Africans are reclaiming their right to think for themselves. - Issa G. Shivji, Pambazuka News 224: 06 October 2005

IMPUNITY AND INDIFFERENCE LEADS TO “DRAMATIC DETERIORATION” IN DARFUR

“Even as attacks on civilians have continued uninterrupted albeit without the aid of government air forces, the international community have taken little substantive action to resolve the situation and thus alleviate the humanitarian disaster unfolding in the region. The rhetoric from United Nations bodies including the Security Council has been one of condemnation and outrage; however rhetoric has failed to translate into action with the exception of the African Union (AU).” - Adwoa Kufuor, Pambazuka News 229: 10 November 2005

WORLD AIDS DAY 2005: PAMBAZUKA NEWS INTERVIEW WITH STEPHEN LEWIS

“I do think it's dawning on even the most regressive policy makers, though, that the AIDS pandemic is part of the price we are paying for allowing unabated gender-based violence and inequality. But that dawning awareness is excruciatingly slow, and we just don't have time for incremental progress. Entire countries run the risk of being depopulated of women! Nothing short of a global social movement demanding an immediate end to all forms of gender inequality can begin to reverse the trend.” – Stephen Lewis, Pambazuka News 232: 01 December 2005

STRONG-ARMING, SWEET-TALKING AND BELLY ROLLING – BUT NO DEAL ON AGRICULTURE IN HONG KONG

"The WTO is meant to be a forum of governments, and to the extent that governments represent the will of their people, peoples' voices ought to be heard at the WTO. It just happens that very few governments represent any kind of popular will, and the few that are able to represent these are sidelined, bought off, or brow-beaten." - Raj Patel Pambazuka News 233, 08 December 2005
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