Africa Unchained

I love to draw and I am deeply interested in how these drawings can be applied to different surfaces as a way to make them accessible and visible facilitating connections with and inspiring people in the process.

The drawings I make are created using traditional and/or digital processes and are indicative of my desire to combine different 'cultural' elements in other to create art that is universally appealing and reflective of my interests in textile motifs, the graffiti aesthetic, t-shirt graphics, sneakers, advertising, character design and geometry.

In Africa, non-tariff trade barriers raise transaction costs and limit the movement of goods, services, people and capital across borders. To further development, African governments must embrace regional integration, break down these barriers and help Africans trade with each other.

I do not want to write about Nicholas Kristof. The sheer banality of his representations of Africa paralyzes me. His columns and blogs about Africa in the New York Times are repeatedly under fire for their poor research, careless reading of studies on Africa, and blatant generalizations. This allows him to repeat troubling and problematic tropes about Africa and about how Africans need foreign help. Yet student bodies across the country frequently invite him to speak on their campuses. Saving Africa has become a favorite hobby for celebrities and ordinary Americans alike. And journalists like Nicholas Kristof, who write endless stories about Americans doing good in Africa, are central to this shift. Kristof even got to bunk down with actor George Clooney in Chad so that they could report back about the conflict in Darfur across the border...[continue reading]

The following is the first of a series of excerpts that Al Jazeera will be publishing from The Invisible Arab: The promise and peril of the Arab revolutions by Marwan Bishara.

In much of the world's media, the narrative goes like this: An oppressed people who have suffered passively suddenly decide that enough is enough and, thanks to Western technology and inspiration, spontaneously rise up to reclaim their freedom, inspiring what is called the Arab Spring.

Like most revolutions, however, this one was a long time coming. The historic takeover of Tunis's November 7 Square, Cairo's Tahrir Square, and Manama's Pearl Square, among others, were the culmination of a long social and political struggle - countless sit-ins, strikes, pickets, and demonstrations by people who risked and suffered intimidation, torture, and imprisonment.

What started as a desperate act of self-immolation by Mohamed Bouazizi, a street vendor, soon became a viral event on the internet, one that led angry Tunisians to pour into the streets by the thousands. Demonstrations turned into national upheaval and culminated in a full-fledged revolution that toppled the Tunisian dictatorship and spread east to other countries to kindle the greatest Arab transformation in memory. Never had the region witnessed such collective vigour and yearning for change.

Read more of our Tunisia coverage Within a few weeks, millions of Arabs filled their streets and squares, giving new meaning to Mark Twain's claim that there's power in numbers. The silent majority finally spoke, breaking the psychological barrier of fear erected by regimes through decades of oppression, and discovering in record time that, as the fairy tale foretold, the emperor had no clothes.

Doing away with the ‘wall of fear’

For the first time since they were liberated from colonial powers, Arabs have shown a high level of persistence in their revolt. They have relieved themselves from a fear of being imprisoned, persecuted, tortured or even killed if they protest against authoritarian rulers. “The wall of fear is gone,” said a woman participating in a protest march for the “blue bra girl” in Cairo.

When Wangari Maathai began her campaign to reforest Kenyan’s landscape, her success was not with the members of her government. It was with her people; local people without much education, but who had a vision bigger than any government official had the mind to conceive. Trickle down policies do not work in Africa, because there is rot at the head. Africa’s only way forward is a grassroots/wildfire movement. With one spark, you can ignite an entire continent. It’s not going to be easy, and change never easy. Sometimes you will have to take a beating – figuratively and literally – to get the change you want to see. Ask any person who has been successful if that success did not come with some measure of pain.

Gaddafi backed several insurgencies in African including Chad and Uganda. And months after his death, at the height of a violent uprising, his weapons continue to fuel unrest.

According to reports, the over 1000 Tuareg militants, commanded by a former colonel in the Libyan army — brought with them enough of an arsenal to match the Malian army.

Emboldened by their new weaponry, they have formed the National Pour la Lib̩ration de l'Azawad (MNLA) Рa so-called liberation movement.

The rebels have retaken some towns and attacked half-a-dozen more  in the north...[continue reading]

Fifty years after Independence, Africans have refused to deconstruct and reconstruct the foundations of its colonially bequeathed knowledge. There is no one for Africans to blame, but themselves. The blame goes to African intellectuals who would rather write in ways that would please the West. To African medical doctors who despise indigenous medicine and healing systems, opting completely for Western medical knowledge – the origins of acupuncture, yoga and other acclaimed Eastern medical practices notwithstanding. To African historians bent on analyzing and presenting African history to their students from the Euro-American point of view. To African graduate students unconcerned with applying themselves to objective and critical studies and research on African issues. To African parents who refuse to speak their native languages to their wards, constricting their children’s world, their thoughts and their expressions to the limited vocabulary of the English language. To African religious leaders who have not espoused Africans to love themselves as Africans, before loving their European and American neighbors, just as the Holy book admonishes. Yes, all Africans are to blame for the situation of Africa today. Not one person is exempt, not one.