Black Looks

• the real scary people have bacon and eggs for breakfast

  Posted: January 29, 2008, 12:06 pm by Sokari

  This short clip from the BBC series “Century of the Self” shows how Edward Bernays (founder of public relations) set about creating fear in the people of the US as a way of fighting the “communist threat”. What is really interesting is his belief that “human beings were driven by irrational forces” so when [...]

• Continued violence in Kenya

  Posted: January 28, 2008, 2:21 pm by Sokari

  Over the weekend the death toll is reported to have now reached 90 in Naivasha. Included are 16 mainly women and children who were burnt to death in a house……… more. Also see the OCHA Kenya for regular updated and detailed situation reports. OCHA - Kenyan situation report Tags: Kenya Share This:

• Fire in the delta

  Posted: January 27, 2008, 8:17 pm by Sokari

  In 2005, the High Court declared gas flaring illegal yet both the Nigerian government and oil multinationals have ignored the court ruling. Last year the Nigerian government once again promised to stop all gas flaring on the 1st January this year - a promise that goes back nearly 40 years. [...]

• Anti-Chinese Feelings in Lesotho

  Posted: January 25, 2008, 11:03 pm by Rethabile

  Lesotho — Anti-Chinese Resentment Flares: UN Integrated Regional Information Networks 24 January 2008 Posted to the web 24 January 2008 Maseru For 14 years, Mathabo Mabekhla was one of Lesotho’s most successful entrepreneurs. Her ladies’ clothing boutique sold dresses, blouses and slacks imported from neighbouring South Africa, and boasted a client base that included cabinet ministers and [...]

• Breaking down prison walls

  Posted: January 25, 2008, 7:31 pm by Sokari

  Palestinians stand at the forefront, in the front lines of peoples’ insistence everywhere that their rights, well-being and fundamental values as human beings be respected by governments. And they do so (and I write this as an Israeli with great sorrow and shame) against one of the world’s strongest and most ruthless military powers - [...]

• ATTACK ON GAZA

  Posted: January 25, 2008, 1:19 pm by Sokari

  Holocaust in Gaza - Breaking the walls “Those responsible for such cowardly action are guilty of serious war crimes and should be prosecuted and punished for their crimes,” Dugard said. When U.S. government offices are closed, and the media is not paying attention, during special holidays-in this case Dr. Martin Luther King’s Birthday-Israel often takes full advantage [...]

• Can we pass?

  Posted: January 25, 2008, 9:24 am by Annie

  Annie has been in Martinique as part of her comparative literature degree and though we have been in touch regularly this is the first post she has sent. I miss her writings but she is keeping a diary and hopefully she will find the time and space to share some of her experiences in [...]

• Muzzled wounds of slavery

  Posted: January 24, 2008, 4:17 pm by Sokari

  Santa Anastacia, Anastácia Escrava, an Angolian princess, kidnapped and forced to become the mistress of her white master in Brazil. Anastacia resisted her capture, her rape and abuse and for that she was forced to wear a metal muzzle - common practice in Brazil and the Caribbean. Muzzles were used to prevent [...]

• Side Bars and WordPress breakdowns

  Posted: January 22, 2008, 7:14 pm by Sokari

  As no doubt anyone passing by has noticed I have lost my sidebars. The left is floating around the bottom of the page and the right with search, comments and post has disappeared altogether as I accidentally deleted the whole of the right instead of one piece of script. I have tried to [...]

• Ours to keep……….or ours to destroy?

  Posted: January 20, 2008, 11:20 am by Sokari

  A friend of mine took this photo whilst in the Antarctic. I think it is beautiful, amazing, powerful, with all the movement and feelings of life. It is all that SHE IS and all that WE ARE. It is OURS TO KEEP, or it is OURS TO [...]

• where u from? I’m bre-ish!

  Posted: January 19, 2008, 12:00 pm by Sokari

  agbrokotee on “I’M BRE-ISH” Part II No “Proudly African” Tags: Black Britain Nigeria Share This:

• AFRICOM heads for the Gulf of Guinea

  Posted: January 18, 2008, 11:39 pm by Sokari

  The US Africa Command, AFRICOM is reportedly on it’s way to the Gulf of Guinea. I am beginning to feel as if we’ve been projected back in a time machine to the day the Portuguese emissary, Diego de Azambuja landed in what was to become El Mina with the intention of building a “a storehouse” [...]

• Another 3 gay men convicted in Cameroon

  Posted: January 17, 2008, 9:25 pm by Sokari

  3 gay men were convicted in a Cameroon court and sentenced to six months hard labour after already spending 6 months awaiting trial. Their lawyer Alice Nkom stated that “None of these people were caught in homosexual act, so the court cannot condemn them for something they never did”. Ms Nkom has [...]

• Criminal Attack on shack settlement

  Posted: January 17, 2008, 8:04 pm by Sokari

  Criminal Attack on shack settlement in Reservoir Hills The Arnett Drive Settlement has been in Reservoir Hills since 1972. Many of the people living there came there after being evicted from Cato Manor in 1959 and then Newlands in 1971. Today they are under armed attack by the eThekwini Municipality that has its notorious Land Invasions [...]

• Messages from Kenya

  Posted: January 17, 2008, 2:49 am by Sokari

  NABUUR is an online volunteering site that connects people in the Global South with volunteers who support small scale projects in towns and villages. I was browsing through the site when I clicked on Kenya and discovered messages sent by members either through email or by SMS to their supporting volunteers. It is [...]

• African Womens Blogs

  Posted: January 16, 2008, 11:28 pm by Sokari

  Apologies to everyone who has tried to access the African Women’s Blog aggregator over the past week. It is now up and running once again. Share This:

• I am lesbian, A queer, A shoga, A dyke, An “abboration” of nature

  Posted: January 16, 2008, 2:14 pm by Sokari

  Kenyan Pundit publishes a moving piece by Mariposa in which she relates the intolerance of the Kenyan people towards her sexuality with the ethnic intolerance towards each other. I left Kenya when i was 24 years, 10 month and some days old. With me were two suitcases stuffed with books and unsuitable clothing for the [...]

• Let the women speak!

  Posted: January 15, 2008, 11:31 pm by Sokari

  Africa Files have organised a series of ezine articles on the Economic Empowerment of African Women to be edited by Anene Ejikeme. The series starts with an editorial by Ms Ejikeme titled “Let the women speak!” in which she challenges the standard view as African women lacking agency and “African” [...]

• hey it’s saturday, lets pretend to be a slave for a couple of hours [branding with hot irons not included]

  Posted: January 12, 2008, 8:48 pm by Sokari

  According to reports, ‘visitors to Memory Village would decide whether they wanted to be spectators or participants during a twelve-hour day. The latter would receive traditional African clothing and then be mock-kidnapped from their homelands, shackled, chained and forced to march to the slave ship (resting on a real stream), where they’d be piled in [...]

• Ushahidi Update

  Posted: January 11, 2008, 6:25 pm by Sokari

  The Ushahidi team have now added some additional functionality to the site - Spread the word * You can now SMS your report to +447624802635 with your mobile phone. * You can email your reports and images to tips@ushahidi.com * We have added a “Peace Efforts” [...]

• Spread the word, it’s yours to spread

  Posted: January 10, 2008, 6:08 pm by Sokari

  At the beginning of a project like this the technology portion can seem to be the hardest to get off the ground. In the end, it’s just the tool, and the hard work will come from people in the field who are working with NGO’s to keep this information accurate and to chronicle as much [...]

• Our weapon is our nakedness

  Posted: January 10, 2008, 2:16 pm by Sokari

  “The Naked Option: a last resort,” is a feature documentary highlighting the struggle by women of the Niger Delta against the multinational oil companies and military occupation by the Nigerian Federal Government. The film is still in production but based on the preview and from comments by activists in the ND it should be [...]

• Technology for Advocay in Kenyan Crisis

  Posted: January 9, 2008, 8:37 pm by Sokari

  Cross Posted from Kabissa Blog Two weeks into the Kenyan post election crisis has seen a range of technological initiatives being applied by advocacy groups, Kenyan bloggers and human rights organisations. In an environment of fear and violence with many businesses closed and little or very expensive transport how do you communicate with friends and family? [...]

• Kenya action alerts

  Posted: January 9, 2008, 2:55 pm by Sokari

  Pambazuka News has created an Action Alert blog for up to date news and alerts on Kenya. Below is a press release from human rights and civil society organisations: Kenyans for Peace with Truth and Justice Statement from concerned citizens and governance, human rights and legal organizations We speak in the name of Kenya’s governance, human rights [...]

• Kenya

  Posted: January 8, 2008, 1:21 pm by Sokari

  For those who have been closely monitoring the events in Kenya over the past two weeks, political activist and author of the Kenyan Democracy Project blog, Onyango Oloo has written an excellent analysis of the opposing political consensus in Kenya. From the progressive side is the view that a “civilian coup with [...]

• Books for children

  Posted: January 5, 2008, 11:24 am by Rethabile

  Chatoyance: Books will fly through the air for children (Tag, you’re it!):  In honor of all those folks who’ve tagged me with memes (or are memes now all called “hooplas”?) this year and had to listen to me grumble, I’ve got a twist on the theme of meme. I read Doris Lessing’s Nobel speech through [...]

• Europe twists Africa’s arm

  Posted: January 4, 2008, 2:02 pm by Rethabile

  World Development Movement comment on Bali roadmap: The EU [says] it will increase taxes on imports from African, Caribbean and Pacific countries on 1 January 2008 if agreements are not signed. At the same time, the EU has suggested that the existence (or not) of an Economic Partnership Agreement will influence EU decisions on which countries [...]

• Bloggers covering Kenyan elections

  Posted: January 3, 2008, 8:02 pm by Sokari

  White Africa has published a comprehensive list of Kenyan bloggers covering the elections and the post-election violence that has erupted over the past week. Below are my choice bloggers Kenyan Pundit Joseph Karoki ***(new picture blog) African Path Mentalacrobatics Gerald Baraza Gukira Links: Guardian Video Tags: Kenya + Elections Share This:

• Dreams of Dust - gold digging in the Sahel

  Posted: January 3, 2008, 2:39 am by Sokari

  Dreams of Dust is the first full length feature film by writer and director Laurent Salgues. The film was shown at this year’s Pan African Film Festival in Ouagadougou and won the Grand Jury Prize at 2007 Sundance Film Festival. The gold diggers of the Sahel region of the Sahara are [...]

• New Year musing(s)

  Posted: January 1, 2008, 10:40 pm by Chinwe

  New Year, Same Dawn   At the stroke of midnight the shouts of jubilation reach a crescendo Glasses clink, lips cheer, hands clap mortals rejoice to bear witness to the onset of another sequence of time on earth yet somewhere, at the exact minute, a life departs. So the new year meets the eyes of waiting hearts.   Eventually, day heaves a sigh of tiredness, shuts [...]

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes