Lessons for the Misguided. (1914)

From the February 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

South Africa is in strike turmoil that has set the Union Government in such a panic that, in addition to the most elaborate military precautions, it is described as a revolution more than a labour quarrel. Yet the demand of the strikers is for the reinstatement of the men displaced by the economies effected in the railway service by a policy of retrenchment!

The Capitalists’ Risks

Making full allowance for the fact that any will do to hang a quarrel on when a quarrel is brewing, it is difficult to imagine a revolution in any way connected with what the red flag, that decorated the streets of Johannesburg, is supposed to indicate, being dependent upon a question of capitalist administration.

On the other hand, the Government in South Africa have expressed the opinion that the present trouble arises from the presence of “agitators,” and that when these are successfully deported the trouble will cease. This is flattering to the agitators, but very doubtfully true to facts.

The most successful labour agitator must have the conditions for his success present, and the discontent must arise from something material in addition to the appeals of the agitator. The following figures from an article which appeared in the "Daily Telegraph” (Jan. 15th, 1914) may help to explain the economic conditions on which the “agitator” had to work:

  In 1912 the Rand, as it, is colloquially known, produced in round figures, £37,000,000 of gold. Over £13,500,000 of that vast sum was paid in wages, £7,865,000 going to Europeans of whom 23,518 were employed on the mines, and £5,691,000 to South African natives, of whom 193,351 were employed. Stores and supplies consumed on the Rand cost nearly ten millions sterling; £5,800,000 was spent in development work, leaving a balance of about £8,000,000 to be distributed as dividends to investors who had furnished the necessary capital for the mining enterprises.

Why Safety cannot be Afforded

It is interesting to note that the “investors who had furnished the necessary capital” had already had that capital returned to them in dividends up to forty-four times over, drawing 12 per dividend.

The “Daily Telegraph” says further:

   Some of the Rand mining companies have made enormous returns to their shareholders. There are 115 companies on the Rand from which returns were received, and it is impossible to give details of all of them, but a few typical instances of high dividends may be mentioned. The Ferreira Company, since its flotation has paid 4,415 per cent, on its capital, and has distributed nearly four millions sterling in dividends. The Crown Reed has paid 2,404 per cent. ; the Johannesburg Pioneer 2,107½ per cent. ; the Emmer, 1,237 per cent. ; the Meyer and Charlton, 1,105 per cent, ; the Durban Roodeport, 1,100 per cent. ; the Crown Mines, 1,067½ per cent. ; the New Hereto, 992½ per cent. ; the New Primrose 817 ½ per cent. ; and there have been many distributions amounting in the aggregate to 200, 300, and 400 per cent, and upwards. The total sum paid in dividends by the Rand mines amounts to £88,159,489. If the whole of the Transvaal gold mines be included, the payments to shareholders reach the colossal total of £91,462,773 distributed between 1887 and 1912.

Then if we recall the articles that went the rounds of the Press last July on the occasion of the former strike on the Rand, which showed how short-lived the miner was on account of the mortality from a form of phthisis resulting from breathing the dust-laden atmosphere, we shall get a further glimpse of the motive force behind the agitator.

The Answers to Industrialists

Apart, however, from the actual conditions of labour for white workers in South Africa, which on the showing of the above figures represent a degree of exploitation seldom to be met with – and leaving out the industrial position occupied by the native blacks and the imported Indians, which is infinitely worse – the attitude of the Government is enlightening. There is a growing body of labour opinion in this country and elsewhere, that contemns and belittles the political forces which we Socialists pronounce of the very first importance. In South Africa, a big strike is on, and a general strike is threatened, and the answer of the capitalist Government is the mailed fist—the mobilisation of all forms of the weaponed arm of the law. With it the capitalist Government can batter the working class into submission, whether it, be in Johannesburg or Dublin.

The same lesson was taught by the strike of French railway workers that was scotched in a similar way—by calling up the military reserve, many of whom were of the strikers.

That lesson was quite lost upon the Industrialists. They argue that a general strike will bring society to a standstill. Which may be true, but the working class are at a hungry standstill easily first. The workers cannot hope to starve the masters into surrender. In the starvation handicap the workers are half way along the course to start with. Nor can they fight the masters, while the latter control the fighting machinery. Nor can they lock the master out while he holds the keys. If and when they are ready to stop capitalist exploitation, and expropriate the master class, granting they will instinctively turn to direct and immediate force to express such a conviction, we ask as—How will they use the vote they already possess?

The Weapon of the Vote.

According to the attitude of the Syndicalist, he would not use it at all. To tell him that the vote is —or should be—the modern, civilised methods of registering the opinions of citizens leaves him cold. Historical explanations of the growth and significance of the vote merely cause his lips to curl. But the majority of votes controls the policy of government, and if you refuse the social expression of your opinion you leave the majority with the enemy; your case is lost by default.

To be ready to right against capitalism and to refuse to vote against it is to us sheer folly—folly in its own account, and rank madness when the voting is an essential preliminary to successful fighting, and may even render the lighting unnecessary. The “agitators,” therefore, in South Africa may be arch-Larkins, but they are not Socialists. For the Socialist always emphasises the importance of the political weapon. It is this very emphasis that has enabled the Labour members here to steal our thunder, and substitute the form for the substance. While we insist on the necessity of political representation for Socialism, they insist upon political representation only, with themselves as the representatives.

The colour or creed of the capitalist government does not matter in the least. When Larkin brought his fiery cross across the Irish Sea, in his first speech here, at the Albert Hall, he said it was important that the Dublin strike should be won, but it was a thousand times more important that the Home Rule Bill should go through. Which shows that Larkin doesn’t understand the working-class position. For does not the situation in South Africa show the Boer generals— Delarey, Botha, and the rest who were prepared to fight for independence for South Africa, hand in glove, shoulder to shoulder, with their erstwhile opponents against the working class?

The incident in South Africa is a glaring instance of the fundamental nature of the class struggle, and a standing example of how it overshadows any sectional difference between the masters, which all Socialists know.

The authorities are inclined to blame the “agitators,” and made the mistake South Africa is copying of imprisoning them. The forces of law and order ran amok and battered people not wisely but too well. The official investigation that was to follow has provided an illuminating spectacle. The process of white-washing is so flagrant that a Liberal member of Parliament who saw the battering and was going to throw light on the investigation has been badly snubbed and is disgusted. It is to be hoped he makes a noise when Parliament meets, but it is to be feared he is too loyal a Liberal to have the heart to inconvenience an administration that is already up against difficulties enough. After his timely rescue of the Government last session when they were threatened with a minority on a snap division, surely he will not round on them now! They must explain things to him.

The conduct of the police, however, can only be considered from their point of view as indiscreetly over-zealous, and one can quite understand the displeasure of the legal luminaries engaged upon the difficult task of glossing over so rough a case, at an English M.P. “poking his nose in,” as they expressed it.

But the present writer is strongly of the opinion that if the working class do not want the police force, and the army, and the navy, and the bench, and the rest of the present social machinery, used against them, the only way is to grasp the power that wields these forces, which is to be had by the casting of a vote in the right way, with the consciousness and the intentions of the Socialist behind it. You must get behind the gun; you must guide the policeman’s baton from the centre of government. The capture of the political machinery is still the essential preliminary to a successful working-class revolution.

Dick Kent

Computer miracle

When Artificial Intelligence works as intended, Silicon Valley types often say it's "like magic".

But it isn't magic. It's Brenda, a 26-year-old single mother who lives Kibera, Africa's largest slum, and perhaps the toughest neighbourhood on earth, where hundreds of thousands of people live in a space not too much bigger than London's Hyde Park.

Each day, Brenda leaves her home here to catch a bus to the east side of Nairobi where she, along with more than 1,000 colleagues in the same building, work hard on a side of artificial intelligence we hear little about - and see even less.

In her eight-hour shift, she creates training data. Information - images, most often - prepared in a way that computers can understand. Brenda loads up an image, and then uses the mouse to trace around just about everything. People, cars, road signs, lane markings - even the sky, specifying whether it's cloudy or bright. Ingesting millions of these images into an artificial intelligence system means a self-driving car, to use one example, can begin to "recognise" those objects in the real world. The more data, the supposedly smarter the machine. She and her colleagues sit close - often too close - to their monitors, zooming in on the images to make sure not a single pixel is tagged incorrectly. Their work will be checked by a superior, who will send it back if it's not up to scratch. For the fastest, most accurate trainers, the honour of having your name up on one of the many TV screens around the office. And the most popular perk of all: shopping vouchers.

Brenda does this work for Samasource, a San Francisco-based company that counts Google, Microsoft, Salesforce and Yahoo among its clients. Most of these firms don't like to discuss the exact nature of their work with Samasource - as it is often for future projects - but it can be said that the information prepared here forms a crucial part of some of Silicon Valley's biggest and most famous efforts in AI. Being a data training expert is boring, repetitive, never-ending work. And when not in front of our cameras, some staff talked about how they faced pressure to work quickly in order to hit company targets, leading to fewer breaks. Some Samasource workers are freelancers who can work anywhere, but with a webcam watching them as they work.

 Samasource provides a living wage of around $9 a day. That's an improvement, but still a pittance for Silicon Valley.

"Yes, it's cost effective," Janah said. "But one thing that's critical in our line of work is to not pay wages that would distort local labour markets. If we were to pay people substantially more than that, we would throw everything off. That would have a potentially negative impact on the cost of housing, the cost of food in the communities in which our workers thrive"

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46055595

Making Vaccines in Africa

Almost 17 percent of the world's population live on the continent — but it produces less than 1 percent of all the world's vaccines. 

And every year African governments spend millions on importing them. 

 In East Africa alone, we speak about 178 million people, and they're importing not only vaccines but also every kind of pharmaceutical product.

In 2014 alone, Africa governments purchased almost $900 million (€790.7 million) worth of vaccines for basic child immunization.

Manuel Batz, the director of Africa sales at the German pharmaceutical giant Merck,  estimates that, new manufacturing plants in Africa from a technical point of view, could start producing within two years. But before that they would need clarification on some central questions. 

"The issue is profit," he says in a DW interview. "Anyone who invests in a manufacturing plant with fill and finish vaccines needs to have the assurance that the vaccines will be bought at a certain price for a certain time to have a safe investment environment. Here the local government will be the main customer, but will only source if the cost of the locally filled vaccines is not much higher than the cost of vaccines sourced from India."

A hotter Africa is a hungrier Africa

OXFAM International has warned that the rising temperatures as a result of climate change could plunge millions of Africans into hunger and poverty.

Oxfam International Pan-Africa director, Apollos Nwafor, said, "Millions are already feeling the impacts, and the IPCC just showed that things can get much worse. Settling for two degrees would be a death sentence for people in many parts of Africa."

He continued, “A hotter Africa is a hungrier Africa. Today at only 1.1 degrees of warming globally, crops and livestock across the region are being hit and hunger is rising, with poor small-scale women farmers, living in rural areas suffering the most. It only gets worse from here. To do nothing more and simply follow the commitments made in the Paris Agreement condemns the world to three degrees of warming. The damage to our planet and humanity would be exponentially worse and irreparable.”

 For example, in this year, it was projected that Africa would likely have registered its hottest reliable record temperature in Ouargla, northern Algeria, of 51.3C (124.3F).

According to Oxfam the 2016 El-Niño phenomenon, which was super charged by the effects of climate change, has also crippled rain-fed agricultural production and left over 40 million people food insecure in Africa. Oxfam has said there is mounting evidence that higher temperatures linked to climate change have worsened drought and humanitarian disaster in East Africa, including last year’s drought, which left over 13 million people dangerously hungry. Even at 1,5 degrees of warming, there are fears that climate impacts in West Africa would be devastating while wheat yields could fall by up to 25 percent. In sub-Saharan Africa 1,5 degrees warming by the 2030s could lead to about 40 percent of present maize cropping areas being no longer suitable for current cultivars, and significant negative impacts on sorghum suitability are projected. Under warming of less than 2 degrees by the 2050s, total crop production could be reduced by 10 percent, said Oxfam.

“Without urgent action to reduce global emissions, the occurrence of climate shocks and stresses in the Africa region are expected to get much worse,” said Oxfam. “While time is short, there is still a chance of keeping to 1,5 degrees of warming. We must reject any false solution like large scale land based investments that means kicking small-scale farmers off their land to make way for carbon farming and focus instead on stopping our use of fossil fuels, starting with an end to building new coal power stations worldwide.” 

https://www.chronicle.co.zw/climate-change-will-push-millions-of-africans-into-poverty-oxfam/

CAR chaos continues

 Following the latest outbreak of violence between armed groups on Wednesday 31 October 2018 in the north and centre of the Central African Republic, more than 10,000 people have sought refuge in the compound of a hospital supported by Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

In Batangafo, in northern Central African Republic, violent clashes between armed groups led to the burning of three IDP camps, numerous homes and a marketplace. More than 10,000 people sought refuge in the compound of the MSF-supported hospital, while several hundred others fled to the bush.

https://reliefweb.int/report/central-african-republic/car-more-10000-seek-refuge-msf-supported-hospital-batangafo

New technology - Old slavery

Demand for electric vehicles is fuelling a rise in child labour in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, experts said.

Cobalt is a key component in batteries for electric cars, phones and laptops, and Congo provides more than half of global supply. The majority of Congo's cobalt comes from industrial mines, while about one fifth is mined informally, according to rights group Amnesty International.

Tens of thousands of children as young as six dig for the toxic substance in artisanal mines in the country's southeast, without protective clothing, rights groups say.

Rising demand in the last several years has already led to increases in cobalt production, drawing more people - including children - into the sector, said Siddharth Kara, an author on modern slavery who visited Congo this year.

"Based on what I saw on the ground, right now there is absolutely no way any company in the world could assure its consumers that the cobalt in its products is not tainted by child labour," Kara told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

http://news.trust.org/item/20181102144515-pvelt/

Biafra Tragedy (1969)

The pitiful victims of Nigeria’s civil war are the latest in a long line, preceded by such as Palestine, Algeria, Korea, Vietnam . . .

One estimate is that about one million children alone will die each month in Biafra unless they are evacuated or given proper food and medical attention.

The civil war has roused compassion all over the world and to many people, concerned at the death and suffering, the situation is full of perplexing questions.

Why won’t the Nigerian Federal government, as an act of simple humanity, allow food and medical supplies into the surrounded and shrinking Ibo land?

Why does the Labour government, which assured us that moral grounds caused them to prevent the sale of arms to South Africa, not take a similar stand over Nigeria, and stop sending weapons to the Federal forces?

Why can’t both sides simply call off the war?

These questions, and many others, are valid enough, except that they all assume capitalist states are guided by concern for human welfare.

When we realise that this is not so— that capitalist governments act as the property interests of their ruling class demand—the questions are not so perplexing.

The civil war in Nigeria, for example, is partly a struggle to flatten the tribal structure which was a part of the old society and to replace it with a national unity which is so essential for a modern developing capitalist state.

This is a ruthless struggle. Everyone is in the firing line; the Nigerian government are deliberately starving children because such tactics are an accepted and necessary part of modern war. The British government, for example, did it in both world wars.

It is futile, then, to wring our hands over Biafra. War is an inescapable part of capitalism and it cannot be removed by charity, no matter how sincere. The killing will not stop and Biafra will not be the last great tragedy.

The Nigerian Army and Trump's Approval

The Nigerian Army has used Trump’s own words about the use of force against migrants throwing stones to justify shooting at Shia Muslim protesters.

The army posted a  tweet featuring a video of  Trump encouraging armed troops to shoot at any Central American refugees and migrants who throw rocks at authorities when crossing the US border.  “Please watch and make your deductions,” the tweet read. 

Trump said armed troops should consider equating rock-throwing with shooting from a rifle. He also said the US military is trained to fight back against anyone in the migrant caravan who throw rocks at soldiers. “We’re not going to put with that,” the president said in the video. “They want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back.”

Nigerian Military Spokesman John Agim said the video was tweeted in response to criticism from Amnesty International that the army used “unconscionable use of deadly force by soldiers and police” by shooting at about 1,000 Shia Muslims. 
“We released that video to say if President Trump can say that rocks are as good as a rifle, who is Amnesty International?”  Agim told The New York Times. “What are they then saying? What did David use to kill Goliath? So a stone is a weapon.”

deadly clashes between the protesters and Nigerian security forces began when the authorities prohibited them from passing through a checkpoint during their march. Heavily armed soldiers opened fire after protestors hurled rocks at them. The Nigerian military claims six people were killed. The IMN said that the military killed at least 49 people with their live bullets. Amnesty International put the death toll at 45 said there is evidence of police and soldiers using automatic weapons to kill the protesters.

The Nigerian army’s justification for killing protesters highlights a growing concern that Trump’s hostile rhetoric incites violent repression. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/nigerian-army-donald-trump-shia-muslim-islamic-movement-migrant-caravan-shooting-a8615281.html

Fish stocks off West Africa disappear

Foreign trawlers and an expanding fishmeal industry are increasingly threatening the livelihood of Senegalese fishermen, forcing many to migrate to Europe.

Mor Ndiaye, 34, has lived all his life in St Louis, a bustling fishing town in northern Senegal.
"The fish just vanished, what can we do? We used to catch enough fish in a day or two. Now we need to go out at sea for weeks to catch the same amount. It's terrifying, we can only rely on God," he says.

St Louis lies at the heart of one of the world's richest fishing areas. Fish caught here - mainly sardinella and other so-called pelagic or open sea fish migrating up and down the coast - have provided up to 75% of the protein consumed by millions of people in Senegal and across Africa's interior in countries like Burkina Faso and Mali.But decades of mainly European and Asian trawlers scouring its coastline have meant that its waters have been overfished. As fish run out, artisanal fishermen are building larger boats to go further out to sea, making overfishing even worse.

Others have decided to migrate to Europe. They include Amadou Dieye, 28, who tried to get to Spain last August but gave up after spending several days drifting at sea when the boat's engine broke down.

"There were more than 100 people in the boat. Everyone was getting ill. It was terrible," he explains, while standing near the beach. "Every year there are less and less fish. Many young fishermen like me who don't have families want to migrate, but I won't try it again. I saw things I never want to experience again."

Less fish has also meant that the price of this once-cheap staple has increased. At the local fish market, dozens of women are busily selling sardinella amid the searing heat, but the frantic activity belies a different reality.

"A few years ago you used to buy three sardinellas for 100 CFA francs ($0.20; £0.16), but now it costs 400 or 500 CFA francs," buyer Hadi Khadiata Diop, 30, says. "Our national dish is thieboudienne: rice with fish. We cannot live without fish. I don't know what we're going to do."

As it became harder to catch fish in Senegalese waters, fishermen increasingly depended on catching fish in Mauritanian waters. But two years ago, the Mauritanians put a stop to this, causing the catches of fishermen from St Louis to plummet by 80%. Still, many fishermen keep crossing into Mauritania illegally, even if it means risking their lives. Earlier this year, Fallou Diakhaté, 19, was killed by the Mauritanian coastguard, sparking riots and the looting of shops owned by Mauritanian immigrants.

There are reports of dozens of fishermen having been killed, although no-one knows the exact number. If they are caught, the Mauritanian coastguard confiscate their boats and equipment, dropping them off on shore to make their way back to Senegal on foot. Mauritania says it is trying to protect its own fish but it recently agreed to let the Senegalese catch 50,000 tonnes with 400 boats every year, in a quest to improve relations with its neighbour. However, this agreement is yet to be implemented, and it represents only a small number as there are thousands of boats in St Louis alone.

 At Nouadhibou, Mauritania's only fishing port thousands of fish are being turned into dust to create fishmeal - a kind of powdered protein used for animal feed, exported mainly to China to feed other fish and livestock. Last year, almost half of Mauritania's fish catch was processed into fishmeal, according to the government. 5kg (11lb) of fish required to produce just 1kg of fishmeal. There are already some 20 plants in Nouadhibou alone. But critics say this industry is creating very few jobs.

"The Senegalese were replaced with mainly Chinese and Turks who now catch the fish being processed by fishmeal plants, mostly owned by the Chinese and Russians," Alassane Samba, a former director of Senegal's oceanic research institute, explains."Mauritania is protecting its waters not for its people, but for foreigners."

Making matters worse, some foreign trawlers feeding these fishmeal plants are accused of fishing illegally.

"Chinese and other foreign trawlers sometimes catch small prohibited fish or operate in protected areas," Henoune Ould Hamada, a former fisheries inspector, says. "We even found evidence of them using dynamite to catch fish," he adds, referring to the practice of using explosives to blast thousands of fish to the surface.

Mr Hamada says he and many other inspectors lost their jobs and were replaced by a quasi-military inspection team. He believes this is because they refused to turn a blind eye to illegal activities.This is despite Mauritania priding itself as a leading campaigner against corruption in the fisheries sector globally. Mr Hamada says that when trawlers were fined for illegal fishing, the upper echelons of the now-disbanded inspectorate took a percentage. This happened between 2005 and 2010, when the inspectorate was led by Cheikh Ould Baya, he adds. Mr Baya, now the president of the National Assembly and one of the richest men in Mauritania, said five years ago that 48% of all fines was kept for the benefit of the whole team, and said that this was legal. This is disputed by Mr Hamada, who says he and other inspectors never received anything.

traditional Mauritanian fishermen, who are supposed to benefit from the restrictions imposed on Senegalese fishermen, are also complaining about the lack of fish.

"Before you used to catch lots of fish in a single day, but now it's very hard to find anything because the large trawlers are catching everything," says fisherman Abdullahi Bahry, standing in the beach, with endless rows of fishmeal factories stretching behind him. "Things are terrible. Unless we do something, the blue sea will turn black, we will run out of fish."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46017359

Nigerian Poverty on the Rise

The latest report according to The Cable, has brought the number of Nigerians living in extreme poverty – or below $1.90 per day, to 88 million.

Over 1.1 million Nigerians have slipped into extreme poverty in just four months.

Nigeria overtook India as the world poverty capital, despite being six times smaller in population.

The World Bank estimates that almost 1.6 billion people in the world live in extreme poverty and subsist on an average of $1.25 or less a day, and 29% of that number live in sub-Saharan Africa.

http://www.konbini.com/ng/lifestyle/1-1-million-nigerians-slipped-extreme-poverty-last-four-months/

Protect Gay Fellow-Workers

Homosexuality is illegal in Tanzania and punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

Tanzanian authorities have already been handed thousands of names as officials declared a desire to “educate” gay people.

Paul Makonda, the regional commissioner of Dar es Salaam, announced that a 17-strong committee consisting of police, lawyers and doctors had been formed to identify homosexuals.

Makonda said authorities had already been handed 18,000 messages of support for the policy from people “disturbed by moral erosion”, many of which also named individuals believed to be homosexual.

“These homosexuals boast on social networks,” the commissioner declared, “Give me their names. My ad hoc team will begin to get their hands on them.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/tanzania-gay-report-names-arrests-government-lgbt-rights-discrimination-a8612706.html

Nigerian Army Slaughters Protesters

At least 45 members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) were killed in thecapital, Abuja, and the neighbouring state of Nasarawa on Saturday and Monday, Amnesty International said.

Soldiers used automatic weapons on the protesters in a “horrific use of excessive force by soldiers and police”, according to Amnesty. On Saturday, at least six people were killed. On Monday, the death toll was at least 39, with another 122 sustaining gunshot wounds.

Osai Ojigho of Amnesty said: “It seems the Nigerian military are deliberately using tactics designed to kill when dealing with IMN gatherings. Many of these shootings clearly amount to extrajudicial executions.

“This violent crackdown on IMN protesters is unjustified and unacceptable. They were perfectly within their rights to hold a religious procession and protest and there was no evidence they posed an imminent threat to life.”

The Nigerian military said its troops were acting in self-defence, although there were no reports of casualties among the security forces.

Defence spokesman, John Agim, said: “They met the soldiers in the call of their duty and the soldiers tried to defend themselves.”

British money is spent on training Nigerian soldiers in a long-term arrangement, which was bolstered by the security agreement Theresa May signed with the country’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, on her trip to Africa in August.

The US president, Donald Trump, approved the sale of $600m (£462m) worth of military jets to Nigeria in May, a deal that Barack Obama had frozen after a Nigerian fighter plane bombed a refugee camp, killing 100 people.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/01/nigerian-soldiers-shoot-dozens-of-peaceful-shia-protesters

The Gay Refugees in Kenya

African countries have some of the most prohibitive laws against homosexuality in the world. Same-sex relationships are considered taboo and are a crime across most of the continent, with punishments ranging from imprisonment to death.  33 African countries out of a total of 54 nations criminalise same-sex relations.  Persecution of LGBT+ Africans is also rife, with sexual minorities routinely being abused, blackmailed, assaulted by mobs, or raped by police or vigilantes. Moves to strengthen anti-gay laws in Uganda in 2014 sparked a wave of homophobic attacks which has resulted in hundreds of LGBT+ people crossing the border.

After Joe's father was shot dead for being gay the 24-year-old Ugandan college student realised the men from his church would be coming for him next. First came the anonymous phone calls in the dead of night. Then the chilling text messages detailing how he would be "hunted down". It was only after he was attacked and lay bruised and bleeding in a public toilet that Joe fled to Kenya, a country he believed would be a safe haven for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT+) refugees like himself but it has been more like a living hell. He walks the streets of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, in constant fear of arrest. He is frequently evicted from his lodgings. And with no means of income, he is forced to sell sex for 200 shillings ($2) through gay dating apps.

"I try and get through one day at a time. But I don't see a future ahead for me," said Joe, now 28. "In Kenya, I can't even get a job and in Uganda, they will kill me if I return. These are my options. Sometimes I just want to kill myself," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Kenya hosts around half a million people fleeing conflict, drought and persecution from countries such as Somalia, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Burundi. But largely forgotten, say, campaigners, are the hundreds of LGBT+ refugees - predominantly from Uganda - forced to live in the shadows and pushed to the brink due to a lack of protection, safe housing, and employment.

"While laws criminalising homosexual acts exist across Africa, LGBTQI people see Kenya as the least bad option as anti-gay laws are rarely enforced and there is less violence," said Adam Fitzgerald from the Refugee Coalition of East Africa. "But in Kenya, they also face multiple discrimination. As foreigners with no income, they face classism, racism and xenophobia. They are subjected to the prejudices of being a refugee. And then they also endure anti-LGBT attitudes." This discrimination, coupled with Kenya's restrictive refugee policy, which denies asylum seekers the right to work and requires them to live in remote camps, has led to high poverty rates - pushing many into survival sex, he added.

For many LGBT+ refugees in Kenya, life isn't better.

It can take more than four years to be granted refugee status, during which time asylum seekers cannot work. And even after gaining refugee status, LGBT+ refugees find it impossible to find a job due to discrimination from anti-gay employers. Refugees must live in either of the country's two northern camps, Kakuma or Dadaab, which offer basic accommodation, clean water, some food rations and access to healthcare and education.

But sexual minorities say they are not safe there. Following a Gay Pride event in Kakuma in June, there has been a spate of attacks on LGBT+ refugees who make up just 170 of the more than 180,000 refugees at the camp, say refugees and the UNHCR. Some LGBT+ refugees said they were beaten while walking through the camp, and others said their shelters were deliberately set on fire by refugees who were against sexual minorities. Most LGBT+ refugees prefer to take their chances, illegally residing in Nairobi where they risk arbitrary arrest, evictions, and harassment - but where they can live in relative anonymity.

"Whether you are straight or gay, all refugees must live in the designated areas. We cannot change our policies for one group - but we do try to prioritise their asylum claims," said Kodeck Makori, Commissioner for the Refugee Affairs Secretariat. "They are welcome in Kenya, but they should also not distinguish themselves from others. As visitors, they know what the law is and how conservative attitudes are, so 'When in Rome, do like the Romans do' otherwise you risk becoming a target".

 "There is a need to recognise that the LGBT refugee community members should not be expected to go to Kakuma if it is clear that they need to live a protected area," said Walpurga Engelbrecht, UNHCR's deputy representative to Kenya. "At the same time, it is important that their refugee status determination is sped up so they have access to work permits and can look after themselves."

http://news.trust.org/item/20181031135156-xjb17/

Silence from the International Community

Between 330,000 and 340,000  Congolese forced out of Angola have flooded into a conflict-prone region where they have no food or shelter, aid agencies said on Wednesday, warning of an emerging crisis. At least 80,000 children among the returnees need aid, with the risk of malnutrition high as food prices around Kamako have sharply risen, said UNICEF, the U.N. children's agency. Returnees have also been subjected to extortion and illegal taxation by the defence and security forces in Congo, it said.

Angola this month launched a crackdown on illegal diamond mining, expelling hundreds of thousands of migrant workers back to neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. The U.N. human rights office last week condemned "serious human rights abuses" committed during the expulsions.

Most have gone to Kasai province, where in the border town of Kamako, with a population of about 20,000, some 50,000 migrants are stuck with no resources or means to travel home, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Others have continued north on foot, with children and belongings piled on bicycles, aid workers said.

The influx is putting pressure on scarce resources in Kasai, where a militia conflict in 2016 and 2017 forced 1.5 million people to flee their homes and left ethnic tensions simmering.

"The communities in Kasai are doing everything they can to help, but they are already struggling with poverty, hunger and disease," said Chals Wontewe, country director for global aid agency Oxfam. "Families are sheltering up to 30 of those who have returned from Angola, yet their own children are suffering from severe malnutrition," he said

"A main need is onward transport, as well as food and healthcare," said Andreas Kirchhof, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). "So far, the situation is relatively calm, but there is certainly a risk that ethnic tensions could be exacerbated," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Tanzania's Gay Witch-hunt

A Tanzanian governor has announced the creation of a surveillance squad dedicated to hunting down gay people.

Paul Makonda, governor of the economic capital Dar es Salaam, told reporters round-ups would begin next week. The team will scrutinise social media in order to track down and arrest people in same sex couples, he added. Makonda said he expected international criticism for the move, but added: "I prefer to anger those countries than to anger God."

Homosexual acts are illegal in Tanzania, where anti-gay rhetoric has been on the rise since President John Magufuli's election in 2015. Many gay, lesbian and transgender people are forced to hide their sexuality as a result. HIV clinics have also been forced to close after being accused of promoting homosexuality.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46048804

Africa Rising Without Its People

The Chief Executive Officer of the Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors (CBOD), Mr Senyo Hosi, has observed that African countries have failed to translate the recent strong growth in Gross Domestic Products (GDP) in their economies into direct prosperity to improve the lives of their people. In spite of outperforming the rest of the world in GDP growth, he said improvement in life expectancy had slowed while inequality and joblessness were worsening in the continent. “Africa is rising but not with its own. It is rising geographically but not with its people,” he said.

Hosi said, “Africa must industrialise by optimising the value of its natural resources and agrarian output. It must structurally transform its economies from a primitive primary production model to a secondary and tertiary production model,” he said.

He said it was disturbing that “Africa continues to export crude and import petroleum products. It cannot continue to export copper and import electrical cables, export cotton and import used clothing, export coffee and import Starbucks. It is unacceptable that Africa outpaces the world in arable land per capita and yet it is food insecure,” he said.

Explaining that the current primary level-based production economies of Africa made the continent highly vulnerable to commodity price volatilities.

According to him, while cocoa beans may experience volatility and weakness in prices, the prices of Cadbury and Lindt chocolates are relatively stable.

This, he said, affirmed the economic view that exports of manufactured products are a lot less volatile and sensitive to long-term price deterioration, hence the need for Africa to industrialise.

“Sadly, countries such as Switzerland with no production of cocoa are rather known to produce the best chocolates in the world with raw materials from poor farmers in places such as Asankragua (in the Western Region) in Ghana."

 

Zimbabwe Woes

There is a worsening economic and political crisis hitting Zimbabwe. Inflation and prices are on the rise, there is a shortage of foreign exchange and supplies of fuel, food and pharmaceuticals are drying up.

Signs in Zimbabwe are pointing to a possible rerun of the massive crisis that engulfed the country about a decade ago. Among them is a sudden surge of the country's stock exchange's industrial index in October, which now stands at the relatively high market valuation of $22 billion (€19.3 billion), a sudden gain of more than 50 percent in a matter of days.

According to the market's spokesperson Tapiwa Bepe, the surge is a consequence of the country's profound crisis. "The political and economic environment is volatile. The heightened activity on the stock market was therefore investors scrambling to take positions in real assets by disposing of cash and bank balances," Bepe told DW. Foreign investors and national investors believe that stocks and shares offer more security.

But brokers like Itai Chirume say it has become extremely difficult to take out money locked in electronic bank balances from the stock exchange. "What we have seen is that foreigners have been taking their money out through the medium of fungible shares," investing them in foreign companies, he said. That way the money is leaving the country through legal means.

The 76-year-old leader said that Zimbabwe would continue using the multi-currency system which the country adopted in 2009 after abandoning its worthless currency. But the hard currencies – mainly the US dollar and South African rand -, making up the system together with government issued so called bond notes, have been hard to find lately on the formal market. And many in Zimbabwe believe that the time has come to scrap bond notes altogether. Economist John Robertson explains why it is a mistake not to: "The existence of the bond notes caused the US dollar to go out of circulation." An end to the bond notes would bring back in the US dollar, which would be good for the economy, Robertson told DW. Bond notes, a currency Zimbabwe started printing about two years ago to ease cash shortages and help fight hyperinflation, have been losing value lately. They were supposed to trade at par with the US dollar, but are now almost four against the greenback.

Is Africa Rising?

 Countries in Northern and Western Africa regions are more urbanized when compared to Eastern Africa. Population in urban areas are currently about 40 per cent and projected to increase, which will lead to an urban population larger than the rural population in about twenty years. African urban growth presents major challenges for sustainable development because migration to cities require access to land, infrastructure and basic services. This has also caused a strain on healthcare services. 

In sub-Saharan Africa, 41 per cent of the population lives in some form of extreme poverty and survive off just $1.90 or less per African per day.

 Half of all people living in extreme poverty worldwide can be found in Africa, which is one continent out of six others.

There are 145,000 millionaires living in Africa today and have a combined wealth of roughly $800 billion.

 Mauritius is the wealthiest country in Africa, standing ahead of South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Egypt and Angola. Wealth per individual living in Mauritius increased to $4,000 in recent years. 

On the opposite end of spectrum, people living in Zimbabwe are the poorest, which is about $200 per person. Other African countries in deep poverty are Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Liberia, and Niger.

 African countries received about $162 billion in 2015 mainly in loans, personal remittances and grants. 

Specifically, African countries received about $19 billion in grants, $68 billion went out via capital flight, mainly by multinational companies.

 Although the continent received $31 billion in remittances, multinationals repatriated about $32 billion in profits back to their home countries. 

African governments received about $33 billion in loans and paid back about $18 billion in debt interest and principal payments. 

An estimated $29 billion is stolen each year in Africa through illegal activities.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) to Africa was $42 billion in 2017.  Venture capital funding in 2017 reached $560 million. As seen in previous years, South Africa (167.9 million), Kenya (147 million) and Nigeria (114.6 million) continue to dominate as investment destinations, which accounted for 76 per cent of total funding for 2017.  

Thus, there’s an imbalance between money coming in and money going out of Africa, which causes setbacks to this continent’s ability to move ahead and prosper.

The informal economy accounts for a high amount of employment and also contributes to poverty reduction. Income from informal sector is what keeps many individuals and families across Africa out of extreme poverty. Even in countries where informal work is a small percentage of its workforce, such as South Africa, it has a significant impact on reducing poverty. 

The continent’s population is estimated to increase from about 1.2 billion people to 2.2 billion people between 2015 and 2050. About 41% of the people in the continent are below 15 years old while another 19% are youth between 15 and 24 years old. As you can see, there will be a new generation of young Africans in need of a prosperous  Africa to live in,  a continent where food is healthy and nutritional for human consumption, where water is clean to cook and shower with, when housing has running water and electricity 24/7, and healthcare is easy to access and receive treatment right away, with education preparing youth for a world full of technology and automation, and the institutions are working for the people and not for an elite few, and infrastructure built  to last a long time, and so forth.

Is Africa Rising?

https://face2faceafrica.com/article/stop-the-false-narrative-of-africa-rising