Over time, Africa seems de-booked. Long before bookstores elsewhere started succumbing to online stores, African bookshops have been struggling to survive. Partly because local authorship isn't thriving, partly because foreign publishers got packing, partly because governments have yet to wake up to the twin dangers of illiteracy and ignorance. It pays dictators and despots to use both to suppress, repress and depress the populace!
Well, the Arab Spring is reaffirming history's truism: not for long.
In my native Nigeria, for example, we even took development assistance and world bank funds for book development. Nothing to show for it all, folks, nothing! Publishers are closing shop, writers are languishing, piracy is racing wild, libraries are derelict, reading is declining...and our governments at all levels, parents and guardians, natural and religious leaders, the media and our diaspora will not come together to ACT! Shame.
With the under-funding of our education sector and the debasement of the teaching profession over the last three decades, lecturers and researchers aren't writing or publishing. We have thus been fueling and feeding the brain drain monster.
Final result? The BOOK business is Dying! And PEOPLE are hardly READING! Pity.
Press Nigeria, tap Africa. Common story.
NEPAD is still a paper-tiger, alas. Will it wake up for BOOK Business, now? Hope. You never lose with hope...
Showing posts with label AU. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AU. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
MENA Region Will Change Our WORLD
After the turmoil be over and the dust settled, the world will be a different and difficult place for bad leaders and their cohorts. Not that all the problems highlighted will or can be solved, but many issues will be resolved - some by just the overthrow of dictators, others by the overhaul of the systems post-despotism. And the casualties will span the globe!
We speak of the revolution going on in the Middle East and North Africa .Call it The Arab Spring or The Arab Awakening or The MENA Movements or The MENA Massacre, something monumental is afoot! Its public face is its private pain, and its political projectiles will pierce many closets and countries in months and years. Oh, there will be socioeconomic conflagrations of varying dimensions, of shapes and colours. The grounds are already shifting!
Will the bloodshed save the adamant leaders from the more adamant masses? Never! Let the blood-bath stop. Where are world leaders?
We speak of the revolution going on in the Middle East and North Africa .Call it The Arab Spring or The Arab Awakening or The MENA Movements or The MENA Massacre, something monumental is afoot! Its public face is its private pain, and its political projectiles will pierce many closets and countries in months and years. Oh, there will be socioeconomic conflagrations of varying dimensions, of shapes and colours. The grounds are already shifting!
Will the bloodshed save the adamant leaders from the more adamant masses? Never! Let the blood-bath stop. Where are world leaders?
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Is Cote d'Ivoire Now FREE?
Hardly. But the prospects are good. And we wish the people all the best in the difficult task of rebuilding, reconciliation and rebirth - true renaissance.
President Alassane Ouattara has his job cut out for him, and his team. He is a well-equipped man. Let him do the job as a professional, not a typical African politician. He has so much goodwill, empathy and sympathy going for him and the beleaguered country. Squander them not, sir!
Let's plead with Ivoriens: give your nation a chance to heal, and to bond. You have no other land.
Goodluck brethren!
President Alassane Ouattara has his job cut out for him, and his team. He is a well-equipped man. Let him do the job as a professional, not a typical African politician. He has so much goodwill, empathy and sympathy going for him and the beleaguered country. Squander them not, sir!
Let's plead with Ivoriens: give your nation a chance to heal, and to bond. You have no other land.
Goodluck brethren!
Thursday, March 31, 2011
This AFRICA!
Can you be perplexed by your beloved continent? Absolutely. Can you give up on your Mother-CONTINENT? Hell, no!
What to do, then? The struggle continues!
And that is what is going on right now in most of North Africa and the Arab World. It has only begun - more will follow.
That “more” will depend on two factors: the resolve and resilience of The People and the obstinacy and occult of The Potentates. The tie-breaker is The Global Village fronted by World Leaders. In other words, the UN has our standing mandate - abounding duty - to stand up for The People by standing up to The Potentates! Period.
The UN Security Council has finally corrected the “double standards” it was accused of vis-à-vis Libya and Cote d’Ivoire. We hear Nigeria and France tabled the resolution. Left to the AU, we would still be dancing in the dark, stumbling in broad daylight! Even as people are dying, and millions are fleeing! Okay, blaming the AU right now will be a little harsh. This AU, as is, is an AU of Heads of State & Governments FOR Heads of State & Governments!! There is little a brilliant bureaucrat or patriotic technocrat can do about it. For a kettle to call a pot “black”, it must be squeaky clean, right? And since they love working by consensus, if not unanimity, na serious dilemma, fa!
Do not despair, be not depressed: The Peoples’ AU is on its way - give or take 3-5 years, on the outside. Sad? Yes. Slow? Yes. But surely? No question.
The struggle continues!
What to do, then? The struggle continues!
And that is what is going on right now in most of North Africa and the Arab World. It has only begun - more will follow.
That “more” will depend on two factors: the resolve and resilience of The People and the obstinacy and occult of The Potentates. The tie-breaker is The Global Village fronted by World Leaders. In other words, the UN has our standing mandate - abounding duty - to stand up for The People by standing up to The Potentates! Period.
The UN Security Council has finally corrected the “double standards” it was accused of vis-à-vis Libya and Cote d’Ivoire. We hear Nigeria and France tabled the resolution. Left to the AU, we would still be dancing in the dark, stumbling in broad daylight! Even as people are dying, and millions are fleeing! Okay, blaming the AU right now will be a little harsh. This AU, as is, is an AU of Heads of State & Governments FOR Heads of State & Governments!! There is little a brilliant bureaucrat or patriotic technocrat can do about it. For a kettle to call a pot “black”, it must be squeaky clean, right? And since they love working by consensus, if not unanimity, na serious dilemma, fa!
Do not despair, be not depressed: The Peoples’ AU is on its way - give or take 3-5 years, on the outside. Sad? Yes. Slow? Yes. But surely? No question.
The struggle continues!
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Cote d'Ivoire, why this?
Over the years, I have been a fan of Ivory Coast (as it used to be called) for a variety of factors. The West African country had been quite stable and dependable in the past. Yes, it had a dictator in Houphet Boigney and poverty was palpable everywhere, the place was nothing near the utter chaos and brink-hugging catastrophe we now endure.
One of my most intriguing memories was the refusal of Pope John Paul II to go dedicate a huge Basilica built by the late dictator in Yamoussoukro. It mocks Christianity!, the pontiff declared. How could a nation sprawling with poverty in the midst of plenty live with such monstrous hypocrisy, demanded John Paul. It was a lesson African leaders - with the generous help of the Western (especially European) handlers/backers - have never really learnt. If anything, they are now carting the people’s patrimony to the East!
The political crises in Cote d’Ivoire are elite-generated, driven and sating. All sides have their faults. But democracy, built on a UN Peace Deal, supported by ECOWAS, AU and the international community, has spoken the people’s voice. It must be heard and obeyed.
President Laurent Gbagbo must hand over to President -elect Alassane Ouattara or be made to do so. The world and the long-suffering people of Cote d’Ivoire deserve to savour this victory! Let’s have a full UN-organized Presidential Inauguration, with the loser embracing the winner in true African brotherhood and the spirit and letter of the peace accord!
Long live Cote d’Ivoire! Thank you, the United Nations - well done!
One of my most intriguing memories was the refusal of Pope John Paul II to go dedicate a huge Basilica built by the late dictator in Yamoussoukro. It mocks Christianity!, the pontiff declared. How could a nation sprawling with poverty in the midst of plenty live with such monstrous hypocrisy, demanded John Paul. It was a lesson African leaders - with the generous help of the Western (especially European) handlers/backers - have never really learnt. If anything, they are now carting the people’s patrimony to the East!
The political crises in Cote d’Ivoire are elite-generated, driven and sating. All sides have their faults. But democracy, built on a UN Peace Deal, supported by ECOWAS, AU and the international community, has spoken the people’s voice. It must be heard and obeyed.
President Laurent Gbagbo must hand over to President -elect Alassane Ouattara or be made to do so. The world and the long-suffering people of Cote d’Ivoire deserve to savour this victory! Let’s have a full UN-organized Presidential Inauguration, with the loser embracing the winner in true African brotherhood and the spirit and letter of the peace accord!
Long live Cote d’Ivoire! Thank you, the United Nations - well done!
Sunday, February 25, 2007
The African Union...on Darfur
Why is the AU so helpless on its own continent? How much more misery and mystery must the Darfur story convey before there be peace for all?
What was that whole thing about "Peer Review Mechanism" flaunted by African Leaders as a veritable part of NEPAD?
The Arab League, what is their stand on Darfur and their standing in the AU? Lip service?
Is Darfur going to be a metaphor for Somalia, too?
God help Africa!
What was that whole thing about "Peer Review Mechanism" flaunted by African Leaders as a veritable part of NEPAD?
The Arab League, what is their stand on Darfur and their standing in the AU? Lip service?
Is Darfur going to be a metaphor for Somalia, too?
God help Africa!
Friday, December 01, 2006
FOUL FARM, FARM FOUL
( Note To First-Ever Africa-South America Summit, ABUJA 2006)
I sat glued to my TV screen taking in the stirring words. I thumbed through the newspapers poring over the reports. Quite exciting, truly promising. And why not? This is South-South Cooperation rising a notch further, reaching out to the future, calling for change - real change. Why not!
Was I pleased Abuja was hosting? Ask again. About time Africa's giant rose up to its natural duty, not flip-flopping. Is there hope of anything concrete coming out of this? Yes, I'll say. Why, what be different from the perennial talkshops? Well, I do not speak for their excellencies but I intend to let them into some very OPEN secrets - just in case their very large protocols and tinted (some may suggest, tainted!) car-cum-office screens hinder them from seeing or hearing. It is one way of securing and sustaining my boundless optimism!
My opening salvo on the open secrets is done in verse. We are very soulful peoples, these two continents. We are about 1.5bn in population, and have the world's most fertile and ecologically and geologically diverse lands, bursting with marine and mineral resources. We can change our lot in a jiffy, and can help save the world in tow. Our forebears handed us proverbs, folklores, songs, dance and art, so our peoples sense the seriousness of the matter when you address them in verse. Elders are venerated, the Sage is virtually worshipped. Verses be code, be mode.
In so wrapping my message, this piece is a demonstration of the place and power of PopPoetry. Welcome to my music to the land:
FOUL FARM, FARM FOUL
Our land is breeding:
not food but famine
not winners but weaklings
not mothers but murders
not honour but horror
As for man, materials have
taken his place
As for hope, hype dealt
it a fatal blow
and hell has taken over
The lucky generations have
blocked tunnels, channels
and passages
The doomed generations are
pruning their chances
to bare bones
in the heat of waste
From these throes
the web of multiple traps
is choking our willing limbs
From this betrayal
a million scenes have grown
into the movie reels of angst
so our land conjures blockbuster
tales and magic cartoons
Neither the Sage nor the sapling
can fathom this thunderbolt
The eerie passion of diabolical
leaders meets a sonorous silence
of deprived masses, in a kokoma
peace of the grave-yard:
cloaking the poverty of leadership
the depravity of dishonour
and mesmerisation of short-termism
Oh, be not deceived!
No roads for tractors
autobahns for tanks
No cash for ploughers
foreign aid for choppers
No stores for harvests
vast dumps for bombs
Hard times for kids
swell life for thugs
As we turn our fields to graves
we search for help abroad
As we loot our land to death
we beg for stones abroad
When the giver sets snide terms
we turn whimsical in fits!
Pray shame
We foul our farm with glee
robing greed as glory
posting stench as status
Farm be great fantasy
in white and green, blue and red
black or yellow paper rituals
fouling senses, freaking sensibilities
Farms be seething staples
gasping for life in annual budgets
jinxed programmes, junk projects
As we go, when we go
others farm fruits of health
we farm foul health
we foul the air
and choke fair help away
For easy dough, we foul
For easy fame, we foul
For all our shame, we foul
the bond of change
and send the Sage to rage!
Pray pain
We have no centre
lest it holds
We shun them griots
none to heed
Poor moms, how cope ye now
Lost dads, where seek ye more
Our lands be slaughter fields
not farms or mines
Our forests be blighted fields
all gone to logs
Our waters quench thirst no more
just rivers of blood -
fouled by ruptured bowels
of pregnant beauties;
soaked in crying crimson
of craggy kids;
virussed with drawing matter
from riddled skulls!
It is a curse of mounting contempt
flowing from our mountains of hate
jumpy intolerance, and haunting distaste
It is a blessing seen and denied
It be hell undue, love untaken
It is how we look in base brashness
and react in feverish frenzy
The Sage be so in pain
Yes, it is the farm we foul
and the fouling we farm
It is how we mock
and now, we're mocked
Pray change
There is nothing more helpful than the wave of democratic embrace of sustainable development which appears to be sweeping through our two continents these days. More elections and some change of guards will cement our optimism. No one gets to solve their problem unless and until they get to accept its existence, its reality. That means telling it as is, seeing it as is. No padding.
The media has a fair reflection/representation of the stark reality on ground in the two regions. The internet and our diasporas, especially the dissenting segments, have opened up the debates just as multilateral agencies, the donor community and friends of the Third World constantly do. Most crusaders, civil society groups, student bodies, labour unions and intellectuals have told our leaders some home-truths, calling for more stakeholder-voices to rise in tandem. Speak TRUTH, bitter truth, to power! So they may ACT in earnest. Especially now that they've seized the initiative to change things, to turn things around, by this and all other summits. Again, no padding.
This verse, may I humbly suggest, does that. May our leaders now wash our shame away!
( Note To First-Ever Africa-South America Summit, ABUJA 2006)
I sat glued to my TV screen taking in the stirring words. I thumbed through the newspapers poring over the reports. Quite exciting, truly promising. And why not? This is South-South Cooperation rising a notch further, reaching out to the future, calling for change - real change. Why not!
Was I pleased Abuja was hosting? Ask again. About time Africa's giant rose up to its natural duty, not flip-flopping. Is there hope of anything concrete coming out of this? Yes, I'll say. Why, what be different from the perennial talkshops? Well, I do not speak for their excellencies but I intend to let them into some very OPEN secrets - just in case their very large protocols and tinted (some may suggest, tainted!) car-cum-office screens hinder them from seeing or hearing. It is one way of securing and sustaining my boundless optimism!
My opening salvo on the open secrets is done in verse. We are very soulful peoples, these two continents. We are about 1.5bn in population, and have the world's most fertile and ecologically and geologically diverse lands, bursting with marine and mineral resources. We can change our lot in a jiffy, and can help save the world in tow. Our forebears handed us proverbs, folklores, songs, dance and art, so our peoples sense the seriousness of the matter when you address them in verse. Elders are venerated, the Sage is virtually worshipped. Verses be code, be mode.
In so wrapping my message, this piece is a demonstration of the place and power of PopPoetry. Welcome to my music to the land:
FOUL FARM, FARM FOUL
Our land is breeding:
not food but famine
not winners but weaklings
not mothers but murders
not honour but horror
As for man, materials have
taken his place
As for hope, hype dealt
it a fatal blow
and hell has taken over
The lucky generations have
blocked tunnels, channels
and passages
The doomed generations are
pruning their chances
to bare bones
in the heat of waste
From these throes
the web of multiple traps
is choking our willing limbs
From this betrayal
a million scenes have grown
into the movie reels of angst
so our land conjures blockbuster
tales and magic cartoons
Neither the Sage nor the sapling
can fathom this thunderbolt
The eerie passion of diabolical
leaders meets a sonorous silence
of deprived masses, in a kokoma
peace of the grave-yard:
cloaking the poverty of leadership
the depravity of dishonour
and mesmerisation of short-termism
Oh, be not deceived!
No roads for tractors
autobahns for tanks
No cash for ploughers
foreign aid for choppers
No stores for harvests
vast dumps for bombs
Hard times for kids
swell life for thugs
As we turn our fields to graves
we search for help abroad
As we loot our land to death
we beg for stones abroad
When the giver sets snide terms
we turn whimsical in fits!
Pray shame
We foul our farm with glee
robing greed as glory
posting stench as status
Farm be great fantasy
in white and green, blue and red
black or yellow paper rituals
fouling senses, freaking sensibilities
Farms be seething staples
gasping for life in annual budgets
jinxed programmes, junk projects
As we go, when we go
others farm fruits of health
we farm foul health
we foul the air
and choke fair help away
For easy dough, we foul
For easy fame, we foul
For all our shame, we foul
the bond of change
and send the Sage to rage!
Pray pain
We have no centre
lest it holds
We shun them griots
none to heed
Poor moms, how cope ye now
Lost dads, where seek ye more
Our lands be slaughter fields
not farms or mines
Our forests be blighted fields
all gone to logs
Our waters quench thirst no more
just rivers of blood -
fouled by ruptured bowels
of pregnant beauties;
soaked in crying crimson
of craggy kids;
virussed with drawing matter
from riddled skulls!
It is a curse of mounting contempt
flowing from our mountains of hate
jumpy intolerance, and haunting distaste
It is a blessing seen and denied
It be hell undue, love untaken
It is how we look in base brashness
and react in feverish frenzy
The Sage be so in pain
Yes, it is the farm we foul
and the fouling we farm
It is how we mock
and now, we're mocked
Pray change
There is nothing more helpful than the wave of democratic embrace of sustainable development which appears to be sweeping through our two continents these days. More elections and some change of guards will cement our optimism. No one gets to solve their problem unless and until they get to accept its existence, its reality. That means telling it as is, seeing it as is. No padding.
The media has a fair reflection/representation of the stark reality on ground in the two regions. The internet and our diasporas, especially the dissenting segments, have opened up the debates just as multilateral agencies, the donor community and friends of the Third World constantly do. Most crusaders, civil society groups, student bodies, labour unions and intellectuals have told our leaders some home-truths, calling for more stakeholder-voices to rise in tandem. Speak TRUTH, bitter truth, to power! So they may ACT in earnest. Especially now that they've seized the initiative to change things, to turn things around, by this and all other summits. Again, no padding.
This verse, may I humbly suggest, does that. May our leaders now wash our shame away!
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