AfricanStream

In East Africa, locals often refer to White visitors from Europe and the US as ‘mzungu’ - and it occasionally prompts concern among non-Swahili speakers that it could be derogatory. But as our Ethiopian sister Weyni Tesfai here explains, the word is no slur. She says it originated in the 19th century, when European explorers landed on the continent. Among them was Scotsman David Livingstone, who was looking for the source of the river Nile. Locals on the island of Zanzibar wondered about this visitor, who seemed to be ‘spinning’ (Swahili ‘zunguka’), or wandering, around the area in search of something. Hence was formed ‘mzungu’ - meaning one who spins around or wanders. Since then, ‘mzungu’ has evolved to mean any White person. Do you know any interesting African word etymologies? Please share in the comments.

Cost of living-hit Nigerians have been facing petrol-price hikes amid widespread fuel shortages in the country, which have led to long queues at gas stations. And yet Nigeria’s got oodles of oil. An attempt by the Tinubu government to stimulate the private-sector oil market by cutting subsidies for state firms has failed, and promises to put the country’s refineries into action are sounding increasingly hollow. African Stream’s Nigeria correspondent Poloum David reports from Abuja.

Palestinian children can be seen playing in the rubble in Gaza. They’ve created a makeshift swing from collapsed power lines. A moment captured by Gaza press photographer Mariam Dagga. Over 13,000 youngsters have been killed by Israel’s bombardment since October. That’s higher than from four years of global conflict, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). Images like these vividly remind us of the desperate human cost. Amid the chaos, little boys and girls are finding a semblance of peace and joy. Perhaps a small chance to relive their childhood robbed by war. Back in February, UNICEF estimated the conflict has orphaned 17,000 children. That figure is now likely way higher with the number of Palestinians killed topping 34,000. We’ve noticed some people on social media have questioned this footage, based on the fact some of the children are Black. FYI Afro-Palestinians make up around one per cent of the Gaza Strip’s population. You can read more about their history here: https://www.voice-online.co.uk/news/world-news/2024/04/15/afro-palestinians-the-untold-story-of-a-community-caught-in-gazas-crossfire/

Ashanti King Otumfuo Osei Tutu II presided over a colourful ceremony on 1 May to mark the return of looted royal artefacts. One hundred and fifty years after the British colonial war against the Ashanti people in what is now Ghana, 32 royal items of gold and silver have been placed on display at the Manhyia Palace Museum in Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti region. The return of the treasures is part of two three-year agreements between two British museums and the Asantehene, or king of the Asante kingdom.

George Mpanga, better known by his stage name George the Poet, is a UK-based African spoken-word artist, poet, rapper and podcast host. For @georgethepoet’s achievements, the British Empire chose to award him Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE), which the 33-year-old rejected in 2019 because of how the empire treated his homeland, Uganda, and other colonial holdings. In this 30 April interview with the UK’s Channel 4, George the Poet said all Global South people should question what the British Empire stands for and reject such awards. He also spoke about how British politics has morphed into displaying indifference toward the working class, which may have more to do with the evolution of capitalism than a breakdown of ethics.

The word Karen is often used to described self-entitled White women, who abuse Black men. However, the racist phenomenon was around long before it became an internet meme. One such example is the shocking case of 14-year-old Emmett Till who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955. He was tortured and killed after being wrongly accused of whistling at White woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family’s grocery store. His case galvanised the rising civil rights movement, but also highlighted the emergence of what we call ‘Karens’ today. It’s deep-rooted behaviour that’s been around for decades.

In this clip from our round table with Congo activist Chakabars, he compares how the West has totally ignored the ongoing genocide in DRC with how it rallied to stump up a billion dollars in just 24 hours after Paris’ iconic Notre-Dame Cathedral burnt down. Obviously cultural preservation is a wonderful and important thing, but you’d have thought human life is - or rather, millions of human lives are - a more urgent priority. If this discussion piques your interest, the full round table is on our YouTube channel. As always, your input in the comments is appreciated.

Throughout the ‘80s, during the height of the AIDS scare, the US banned first Haitians and then Africans from donating blood. Back then, Black immigrants along with gay and bisexual men, haemophiliacs and users of hypodermic needles were all deemed by The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as high risk when it came to transmitting HIV. In response, tens of thousands of Haitian and African immigrants took to the streets in protest - leading, eventually, to the reversal of the FDA’s decision. It’s a reminder of the institutional racism our people have had to combat, but also an inspiration - collective action works. In what struggle today do you want to see more collective action?

It’s been revealed the UK has sent its first failed asylum seeker to Rwanda. He voluntarily agreed to leave after being offered £3,000 by the British government. And Kigali has opened itself up to receive many more. From the summer, illegal migrants in Britain will be FORCIBLY deported to the East African country. It will happen under the UK’s controversial The Safety of Rwanda Bill which became law at the end of April. The scheme will see Rwanda process asylum claims on the UK’s behalf and could deport applicants back to their country of origin. It’s thought the deal will cost the UK government around £1.8-million per asylum seeker, although it’s not clear how much Rwanda will receive. But whatever the financial benefits, the scheme’s faced a barrage of criticism from human rights experts. Rwanda’s opposition parties have also been vocal, claiming the scheme does nothing to address the root cause of the UK’s migration ‘problem’. Migrants are fleeing wars, famine and economic catastrophe.

George Mpanga, better known by his stage name, George the Poet (@georgethepoet), breaks down how European colonisers introduced capitalism in Africa against the will of our ancestors. The Ugandan spoken-word artist describes how our land was ruthlessly appropriated from its rightful owners and converted into an asset for the sole benefit of colonisers. Thus were the livelihoods of Africans destroyed, and the exploitation continues today despite the attainment of 'flag independence.' George admits his rise to fame was enabled by the British capitalist system. He was offered an MBE before turning 30, and was invited to read a love poem at the 2018 royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. But he is now heading in another direction. He turned down the MBE because of what he called the 'pure evil' of the British Empire and is using his talent to take on the establishment and its ‘war on Blackness,’ which he defines as "a range of disconnected but related assaults on people of African descent by the global power structure." He's just published a memoir, "Track Record: Me, Music and the War on Blackness." What are your thoughts on George's take on capitalism's origin in Africa? Let us know in the comments.

Washington University typifies what students across the U.S. are protesting about. The institution has a long history with weapons manufacturer Boeing, which arms Israel. It has a research partnership with the aerospace firm which recruits WU graduates and donates millions to the college. Students now want these ties cut, following Tel Aviv’s destruction of Gaza that’s killed 34,000 Palestinians. Police arrested around 100 demonstrators who’d set up encampments on campus at the weekend. It’s a picture repeated across the U.S. where similar protests are taking place at dozens of universities. While it’s hard to know precisely how colleges manage their finances, one database from the U.S. Department of Education shows American colleges and universities reported about $342 million in gifts and contracts from Israel from 2014 to 2024.

Do you know where the world’s top mathematician comes from? Well, he’s a 38-year-old Cameroonian, Abdon Atangana. Inspired by the lack of references to African people in scientific literature or mathematics, he challenged the field’s Eurocentrism with his mathematical theorems. Now at the top of his field, his formulas are essential in their real-life application in science, technology and engineering. Here’s more from tech entrepreneur Sandra Babu-Boateng. Tell us which other ground-breaking African mathematician you want to see on our page.

The global student movement in solidarity with Palestine has received a boost. On Monday, 29 April, Tunisian students answered the call for demonstrations. Engaging in sit-ins at the French embassy in Tunis and the capital's municipal theatre, they condemned the French and US role in aiding Israel to k*ll more than 34,000 Palestinians, most of whom have been women and children. They further called for criminalising the normalisation of ties with Israel. So far, Tunisia has not recognised Israel, unlike a few of its North African neighbours, Egypt and Morocco. The student protests are most visible in the US, where universities have called for police and military crackdowns in response to demands that US universities divest millions of dollars from Israel.

The global student movement in solidarity with Palestine has received a boost. On Monday, 29 April, Tunisian students answered the call for demonstrations. Engaging in sit-ins at the French embassy in Tunis and the capital's municipal theatre, they condemned the French and US role in aiding Israel to k*ll more than 34,000 Palestinians, most of whom have been women and children. They further called for criminalising the normalisation of ties with Israel. So far, Tunisia has not recognised Israel, unlike a few of its North African neighbours, Egypt and Morocco. The student protests are most visible in the US, where universities have called for police and military crackdowns in response to demands that US universities divest millions of dollars from Israel.

We hear Black people in the United States uttering with more frequency, 'Not all skin folk are kinfolk' and 'Black faces in high spaces won't save us.' In 2020, many people celebrated the election of Ritchie Torres, the first openly gay Afro-Latinx elected from the south Bronx to the US Congress. Yet, Torres chooses to side with the imperialist system for his gain. He once stated, 'There are few people in American politics who have been as visibly and vocally supportive of Israel as I've been.' As pointed out in this @codepink video, the pro-Israel lobby generously funds Torres. Not only does Torres consider pro-Palestine protests anti-Semitic, he opposes a ceasefire, disputes the EU's foreign policy chief's opinion that Israel is starving Gaza, and denies the International Court of Justice ruled Israel is 'plausibly' violating the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. We should have known that identity does not determine ideology.

In this clip from the Club Random Podcast, TV host Bill Maher sits down for a discussion with West Coast rapper Ice Cube. @icecube explained how the same people who own US private prisons own the labels and how they directly or indirectly make sure that the music feeds the US prison system. In the US, Black people are five times more likely to be incarcerated than white people. In Ice Cube’s words, this is a process of social engineering that musicians unwittingly take part in, contributing to the cycle of imprisonment affecting young Black men.

No Tech for Apartheid (@notechapartheid), a project of M Power Change (@mpower_change) and Jewish Voice for Peace (@jvplive), has accused Google of retaliation for firing as many as 50 workers the tech giant says protested Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with Israel's military. Nine workers filmed their sit-in protest and arrests on 16 April at the company's offices in New York and California. That included a protest in Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian's office. Protests also have taken place at US universities to hold institutions accountable for investing their endowments in Israel. Frustration has grown because the United States has vetoed three ceasefire proposals at the UN Security Council, and it has been supplying weapons to Israel. Just a few days after reports emerged of mass graves at two Gaza hospitals, President Joe Biden signed off on $26 billion of unconditional military aid to Israel. In January, the International Court of Justice ruled in South Africa's case against Israel that Israel's acts are 'plausibly' violating the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. More than 34,000 Palestinians, most of whom are women and children, have been killed since the 7 October escalation in the 75-year Israeli occupation of Palestine.

He was no fortune teller but the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) party's Johnson Mlambo correctly predicted a partial overhaul of South Africa's apartheid system would not lead to the total emancipation of the country's people. In his words, 'Apartheid cannot be reformed.' Lo and behold, his words ring true some three decades after racial segregation officially ended. Despite achieving what many see as political freedom, South Africa is still characterised by high levels of poverty among its majority Black population and currently ranks as the mos unequal country in the planet. It’s the result of apartheid-era economic systems and structures that were never properly dismantled by successive governments.

Ever wondered what Africa would be like now had the European colonisers never come? What kind of societies would we have, and what kind of leaders? This is no mere exercise in fantasy. According to Pan-African scholar PLO Lumumba, we need to think hard about the kinds of government we really want on our continent - because, right now, we are making do with systems inherited from the colonisers, which are not fit for our purposes. He goes further. We need to see beyond the artificial borders imposed on our lands. Division doesn’t help us on the global stage. What’s the point of 54 nations with little clout when united? They’d hit the ball out of the park. Lumumba is the first to admit that it’s easier to talk about all this in grandiose terms than actually making it happen. Watch him here passionately plea to Africa’s young to seize this ‘inter-generational project’ by the horns. Are you on board? So what’s the plan?

In this video, 23-year-old rapper and Pan-Africanist based in Kenya @realsensicalsense ranted about many African leaders upholding the neo-colonial system. For centuries, the world's industrial powers have treated Africa as an open market for cheap raw materials to fuel their economies. At the end of the European slave trade and throughout the colonial period, Europeans forced Africans into a global economy that disadvantaged Africa and other colonised regions of the world. Today, most African countries are nominally free. Yet, African states still find themselves beholden to unfair trade deals, widening the gap between the industrialised Global North and the extractivist economies of the Global South. It's a race to the bottom at the expense of our lands and people. Every country is looking out for its interests. In some cases, two countries can strike a mutually beneficial deal. New collaborations between Russia and African countries like Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are allowing these Sahelian states to move away from France's stranglehold and develop new industries.

Pro-Palestinian protests continue at colleges across the US, with students remaining defiant. They include Jared Kannel, who gave this viral interview at Columbia University in New York. He believes authorities are labelling the rallies ‘anti-Semitic’ to deflect from Israel’s ‘non-stop massacre of Gaza.’ Jared also reveals he was raised a Zionist, but realised he was on the ‘wrong side’ after understanding the Palestinian perspective. He was speaking after police began arresting students and dismantling their camp on college grounds. Despite police crackdowns, similar protests keep going across the country, with students staying resolute. They say they want their schools to divest funds from entities connected with Israel and cut ties with Israeli institutions. Jared typifies the mood during this interview with TRT World, the Turkish news outlet.

The mainstream media describes former US football player OJ Simpson as someone who got away with murdering his ex-wife and her friend in 1994 in Los Angeles. Approximately 95 million people worldwide watched this ‘trial of the century’ on television. The case highlighted the racial split in the United States, with 75 per cent of white people believing Simpson was guilty, while 70 per cent of Black people said he was innocent. In light of Simpson’s 10 April death from cancer at the age of 76, we re-visit this @fallenstateTV interview with Judge Joe Brown, a former lawyer and TV personality who ran for mayor of Memphis, Tennessee. His insights on the contradictions he saw in the prosecution's case might pique your interest. Do you agree with him? Let us know in the comments.

Who should be arrested? The party committing massacres or the party protesting said massacres? For US universities, it’s the latter. In this 25 April video, an Atlanta police officer threw to the ground and handcuffed Emory University economics professor Caroline Fohlin after twisting her arm. This CNN video shows, just prior to her arrest, @carolinefohlin had raised questions about how Georgia state troopers had arrested a student. US universities have called on police and the National Guard (civilians who serve in the military) to arrest students amid a wave of campus occupations (or encampments), most notably at Columbia University in New York. Students demand universities divest from their investments related to the Israeli occupation. US university endowments were valued at $839 billion in fiscal year 2023. Universities invest these endowments in financial securities, real estate and in other ways. Endowments fund student scholarships and operating expenses. Emory University has the 13th highest endowment at $10.24 billion. No information is available on how much Emory has invested in Israeli companies. However, Harvard has invested $194 million in companies connected to Israeli settlements in Palestine, according to the Islamic Circle of North America. Universities have said they are trying to clamp down on anti-semitism despite many Jewish students participating in these sit-ins in solidarity with Palestine. Images of the police presence and arrests have gone viral online. Interestingly, US police forces have benefited from Israeli training, highlighting how the struggles in the US and Palestine are connected.

As Sierra Leone celebrates Independence Day, the country’s First Lady warns the nation’s still controlled by ‘Big Brother’ And in this frank interview, Fatima Maada Bio explains how international powers continue to exert control. Every single mining company in Sierra Leone is foreign owned. And despite breaking free from British colonial rule on April 27th, 1961, the UK still runs the country’s electricity. So what can be done? If you try to change the status quo, she says, external forces fund opposition uprisings and sow chaos. The country then becomes ungovernable. But whatever happens, Sierra Leone’s First Lady says things can’t remain as they are. After all, if you can’t control your electricity, how can you make sure you can educate your people?

Throughout US history, vibrant Black communities have often faced the devastating force of so-called ‘progress.’ One poignant example occurred in Willard, Virginia, an unincorporated Black settlement that formerly enslaved people seeking freedom and opportunity founded after the Civil War. By the early 20th century, Willard had blossomed into a bustling town with businesses, schools and churches, away from the apartheid Black folks had to endure in white-run cities and towns. However, as in the case of many other Black towns in the United States, impending construction of a new international airport displaced Black residents, with the US government handing one Willard family just $8,000 to leave by 19 September 1958, according to a survivor. Authorities bulldozed the town to make way for Washington Dulles International Airport, which serves diplomats, politicians and civilians just 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Washington DC. The airport was named after anti-communist US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (1953-59), who implemented US Cold War policy in Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Guatemala, Africa and many other places where US interventions, coups, proxy wars and military interventions took place. His brother, Allen Dulles, served as CIA director from 1953 to 1961. During that time, he oversaw coups in Iran and Guatemala, as well as the Project MKUltra mind control program and the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, among other ‘feats.’ Video credit: @moorthreads_store