Celebrating the Day of the African Child
"War in our time is always a war against children. And if the children of other countries are to be granted an equal right to life with our own children, then we must use our extraordinary human ingenuity to find nonmilitary solutions for world problems." - Howard Zinn.
The Methare Ghetto Kids dancing in Nairobi
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4CX9P6GQcw ]
Day of the African Child is in Memory of the Soweto Uprising against apartheid on June 16, 1976.
On 16 June 1976 between 3000 and 10 000 students mobilized by the South African Students Movement's Action Committee supported by the BCM marched peacefully to demonstrate and protest against the government’s directive. The march was meant to culminate at a rally in Orlando Stadium.
On their pathway they were met by heavily armed police who fired teargas and later live ammunition on demonstrating students. This resulted in a widespread revolt that turned into an uprising against the government. While the uprising began in Soweto, it spread across the country and carried on until the following year.
The aftermath of the events of June 16 1976 had dire consequences for the Apartheid government. Images of the police firing on peacefully demonstrating students led an international revulsion against South Africa as its brutality was exposed. Meanwhile, the weakened and exiled liberation movements received new recruits fleeing political persecution at home giving impetus to the struggle against Apartheid.
"Today! Day of the African Child
Join the discussion at #DayOfTheAfricanChild Twitter
40 years later African children to commemorating Soweto uprising. This year’s theme for the day is Conflict and Crisis in Africa: Protecting all Children’s Rights. http://cajnewsafrica.com/2016/06/15/african-children-to-commemorate-sowe...
Today! Day of the African Child
The five worse school systems in the World.
Niger: Oil-rich and regionally powerful Niger tops has the lowest education level in the world today. Tied for the lowest adult literacy rate on this list at 28.7%. Today's headline: Refugee crisis: 20 children among dead in Niger desert. Total of 34 bodies of people trying to reach Algeria found after being abandoned by human traffickers, officials say. Source
Burkina Faso: adult literacy rate in Burkina Faso is tied with Niger at 28.7% ALR. Today's headline Jihadism on the March in West Africa. Source
Mali has a 31.1% adult literacy rate. 2012 saw massive amounts of internal violence.Today's Headine: UN Looks to Beef-up Mali Peacekeeping Force -- Annadif said that he was asking for more armored personnel carriers to counter the threat of Improvised Explosive Devices and also helicopters and drones to spot people placing bombs by the side of the road. Source
The Central African Republic (CAR) has been mired in violence since December 2012. More than 625,000 people have been displaced because of the fighting—most of them women and children. Education levels are taking a back seat to the mass exodus taking place within the country that some are calling an “ethnic cleansing”. The country is currently engulfed in internal violence with “people killed by machetes, torture, lynchings, shootings, explosion and burning”. Today's headline is, "Lords Resistance Army rebels have kidnapped 17 people from a village in eastern Central African Republic, a senior local official said on Thursday." Source 1 and Source 2
Ethiopia: has an ALR of 39%; the 5th lowest in the world. Today's Headline: Lethal Government Force Brings Ethiopian Region to Fearful Standstill -- more than 400 people have died, with thousands wounded and tens of thousands arrested in a campaign marked by the “lethal force” of the Ethiopian security forces, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch. Nearly all of those killed were civilians... No one is going to school anymore, out of fear. Source
10 Worst Education Systems in the World
No School Toilets At All
While politicians in America busy themselves in rancuos debates concerning transgender toilets, in many countries around the world most schools have no toilets, or single sex toilets in schools.
"Schools without any toilets, or toilets shared with boys, pose a health and safety risk for girls.
"At best a girl will face long queues, unhygienic conditions and lack of privacy. At worst, fear of sexual harassment will prevent her from attending school at all. In sub-Saharan Africa, 31% of primary schools do not have toilets."
Meanwhile, Africa has shown the greatest increase in military spending in the world.
A large number of readings for the entire world:
History as a Weapon - Resources
Breaking the Silence, An animated film about gender violence by children in Uganda. (See in commentary, I can't get it to embed correctly).
Comments
children and education
Alex you are so right to focus on children and education no matter where you are in the world but especially in the poorest of countries. Clean water is also an important focus from my view.
Once exploited as colonies (and now largely corporate colonies) African nations face tremendous challenges. Thanks for your insightful piece about these children.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
hard for me to read and listen to, but it's good you posted
this essay. It happens not often that someone goes through the effort to put something together about African countries and their little people's fate.
At least it's nice to see (and hear) that - like everywhere else in the world -, people fight their fate with music, dance and trying to eat together. Too much for me right now say more. I am just a crying mess.
Your last video doesn't work for me.
Kyampisi Children's Choir performing 'Yesu Ni Wangu'
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bzUvBidIJ8] I do love children choirs singing.
But, fundamentalist Christianity is very strong in Africa, as it is in the Caribbean. Unfortunately it is often funded and supported by extreme right-wing American missionaries. Responding to a humanitarian crisis, e.g. famine as you help them by “converting” the victims through forced proselytization is predation.
But it gets worse as Christian cults try and establish their own horrific kingdoms of god by force:
Ugandans and people of the Central African republic have, for one example, been dealing with the Lord’s Resistance Army insurgency that seeks to establish a theocracy guided by the biblical Ten Commandments. The LRA, composed mainly of forced child-soldiers, has been accused of abductions, rape, sexual enslavement of young girls and murder of innocent Ugandans. This news just appeared 24 minutes ago Lord's Resistance Army rebels kidnap 17 in Central African Republic LRA Kidnaps 17 from village. This appears to be an almost daily news item, two days ago it was 29 kidnapped.
From the Light House.
Breaking the Silence - Animating the violence in Karamoja
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAUO0IEgXN0]
From the Light House.
Ghetto Kids Dancing Osobola Triplets New Ugandan music 2014
STILL CELEBRATING THIS EVENING!
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-x6pfsgd2k&list=RDo4CX9P6GQcw&index=3]
From the Light House.
I am so happy to see a focus on children, especially
Africa's children. They cannot lobby for themselves.
Thank you.
To thine own self be true.
Good diary, ty
“U.S. expands secret wars in Africa”
http://chimes.biola.edu/story/2016/may/10/us-expands-secret-wars-africa/
Caught in the Crossfire
What stands out to me is:
https://www.wired.com/2012/08/somalia-drones/
Al Shabab, an "Al-Qaeda" affiliate is just as bloody,
Also the massacre at Westgate Mall in Nairobi... Here we find an image of a woman and her two children laying completely still.
And a documentry film about the attacks on the Mall: [video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Zvon2eualE]
The children are caught in the crossfire. The deep background of the madness is colonialism, resource extraction by predatory capitalism, insane warped religious beliefs from all sects in the region: Christian, Jewish and Muslim) and climate change.
Everyone should watch the following video from someone born in the slums of Nairobi.(and practically no one will - two years and only 1324 views and look, many of my comment posts not a single up-vote. Even progressives don't seem to care much preferring to discuss non-events like Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigning or not or (on the other side) how historic it is the evil first woman nominee is or how evil (he is) Donald Trump is). Even Bernie, "I wouldn’t end drone program," has a long way to go in understanding the problem in foreign lands.
Rural and urban poverty, slums, waking up without money or food, rape, violence... The street scenes, the families are familiar even if on the other side of the world. I see the scenes in Africa, in Afghanistan, in Palestine, and I could say these are from Bolivia and practically no one would be able to tell I was lying. This is the reality and the result of hundreds of year of colonialism, capitalism, religion and rape of our resources. And the empire won't allow us to solve our own problems. Its pathetic, dangerous, and morally repugnant.
From the Light House.
I reached the point where I realized that the best
documentaries and reporting won't change or influence the political and economic power structure and exploitation. I gave up on it and can't even stand one more big-eyed black child photo being used to point out the century old exploitation. I know that's bad, but I just can't believe in it anymore.
The kids dance and laugh as long as they are not starving, we cry and are silent and feel guilty as long as we are living. Some good souls write and report and make videos to make those, who will never see the conditions live and locally, aware of it. We look at it and nothing happens. Why wouldn't one despair over it?
There is a point when everybody gives up and goes his own ways. Yes it is pathetic and dangerous and morally repugnant. I fully agree. Yet I can't even believe anymore in the positive influence of good reporting and documentation. That's how destructive all of it has become.
It will never stop and the struggles be reborn over and over again and the sins of your ancestors with them.You can only be lucky that the kids don't know them yet and just go on living and laughing ... til they don't.
I have respect for your essay. Kudos and thanks.
mimi, we are being gound into flour, not for the poor,
but for the rich well-fed. How to step off? We know it is morally reprehensible, but no one listens enough to act significantly. Peace Corps becomes summer vacation, NGOs are stymied, FSM gets bombed. They (whoever they are) want us to dissolve. Peace, sister.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Changing is possible
We did manage to change (partially solve) in Bolivia, even if it is a continued struggle against the empire that we may not win (meaning just getting the empire out of our lives, not any sort of military or terror crap) in the end.
The Bolivia situation needs its own essay. But we won and in spite of what empire propaganda says there has been a GREAT improvement on all fronts. We did it with marches and blockades and without weapons beyond stones. I see the madmen and madwomen of the world on all sides who don't give a shit how many kids they blow up and wonder how anyone thinks that its going to change anything.
There are different kinds of fears generated... what if there is an economic collapse and I lose my pension? What if my daughter's little toy store fails? What if the substandard construction in her house tumbles down in an earthquake or a flash flood? What if the empire decides to destroy our economy? What if a new neo-liberal government comes into power and arrests and assassinates socialists? What if the empire decides to eliminate me or get me arrested? Or maybe some nutcase who doesn't like atheist socialist Palestine supporters or whatever? Am I on the empire's terrorist list because I know who the enemy is and complain. about it?
I should have kept my mouth shut, right? Then I could just go buy a cable TV connection and some opiate painkillers and kick back and relax like a typical elderly pensionista... instead of having intermittent panic attacks.
From the Light House.
Alex, please write an essay.
We need experimental models forward.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Well I could start...
by outlining how fair, open elections are managed, LOL. The USA has certainly failed in this respect.
I have posted commentary on how the Bolivian non-violent revolution was successful... but, like most everything I post, only a couple folks are at all interested. Unlike a post about the latest email scandal... it is not much of a model for the core capitalist for empire... I doubt if you all in the USA would be allowed to non-violently blockade entire cities and all the roads in the country. I doubt if media brainwashing would even let a seed of this sort of revolutionary thought through the coal fired smoke thats melting down the planet.
So you all, I think, are confined to a mix of electoral politics on a local level and highly controlled demonstrations addressing specific issues.
I keep harping on non-violent because the last thing anyone wants is a bunch of gun totting assholes with some sort of nutty cake ideology preopting (sp?) the revolution. The revolution has HAS to be based on non-violent theory and practice.
From the Light House.
you are very courageous to speak up
I am not. I heart you and can feel for your panic attacks. I think I would be a bit more courageous, if I would be all by myself.
I am really totally uneducated about Bolivia. The only thing I remember is that Che Guevara fought there and was executed there.
If you feel up to it even if only few people read your diary, it's worth writing it, I think.
The ‘Hillary’ Africa will never forget
This morning's feature article from: Gana Web
This is an important article from Ghana in that it notes something that hasn't been mentioned much -- that is that while everyone knows or should know the Clinton disaster in Libya, no one is talking about the effects that action had on the rest of Africa. In fact, I doubt most people in the USA know that bomb attacks on civilians, many of which dwarf Orlando, are an almost daily occurrence in African nations and that Libya is the base.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/17/world/africa/nigeria-suicide-bombers-attack.html?_r=0
Women and girls!! Are these the same women and girls that are being kidnapped and raped by such extremist groups?
From the Light House.
Women and Children Freed from Boko Haram
From the Light House.