“Yeah, we’re Americans for 10 seconds then we’re just “niggers”! a documentary on the Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico.

Links: Tibet

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1968 Olympics Mexico

St Lucian poet and Noble Prize winner, Derek Walcott pulverizes VS Naipaul at a literary festival in Jamaica - I had so much pleasure reading this since I am unlikely to ever meet Mr Naipaul I was satisfied with the image of him squirming in his seat having his Biswas knocked off his arrogant face. The piece is let down by the use of “cunt” by Walcott and “bitchy” by the article author - expletives too far and very Naipaulish……..

“I’m going to be nasty,” announced Walcott at the end of an enthusiastically received reading session, and proceeded to read “The Mongoose”, a long, vituperative poem which opened with the couplet: “I have been bitten. I must avoid infection/Or else I’ll be as dead as Naipaul’s fiction.”

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Caribbean Literature
Derek Walcott
VS Naipaul

Nehanda Abiodun celebrates her 58th birthday in Cuba. Like her friend and fellow activist, Black Panther Assata Shakur, Abiodun has been living in exile in Cuba where she set up a branch of the Black August Hip-Hop project. Black August was set up to honor Black Panthers San Quentin Six - “honor fallen Freedom Fighters, Jonathan Jackson, George Jackson, William Christmas, James McClain and Khatari Gaulden”. Today is the 37th anniversary of the assassination of George Jackson. A small group of faithful gathered together outside the US Embassy in London to remember.

On August 21, 1971, three days before I was to go on trial, a guard gunned me down in the prison yard at San Quentin in what officials described as an escape attempt. That was my chance to get out of prison and help the fight on the home front, away from containment. Had I been released, who knows what could have happened. I was first shot in the ankle, which through me to the ground, then, in my own blood was shot again by a sniper in the prison yard…

A tribute by another African, Walter Rodney, also assassinated - in 1980, points to the importance of the prison industrial complex dating back to slavery, in the African independence movements and Black nationalism continuing today as witnessed in New Orleans, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, with prison slave labour and the prison of poverty.

Once it is made known that George Jackson was a black revolutionary in the white mans jails, at least one point is established, since we are familiar with the fact that a significant proportion of African nationalist leaders graduated from colonialist prisons, and right now the jails of South Africa hold captive some of the best of our brothers in that part of the continent. Furthermore, there is some considerable awareness that ever since the days of slavery the U.S.A. is nothing but a vast prison as far as African descendants are concerned. Within this prison, black life is cheap, so it should be no surprise that George Jackson was murdered by the San Quentin prison authorities who are responsible to Americas chief prison warder, Richard Nixon The President.

IN 2008, the colonial prison returns in the form of the new military high command for Africa, AFRICOM which can also be traced back to slavery and the arrival of Portuguese on the shores of the Gulf of Guinea.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Nehanda

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Nehanda Abiodun
George Jackson
Assata Shakur
Black Panthers
Black August
AFRICOM

Ghana is preparing to embark on oil exploration and it looks like they have learned some lessons from their neighbours in Nigeria and Gabon on the need to have a PLAN

Ghana has taken a bold initiative towards a systematic establishment of economic, technical and legal framework to manage its oil extraction, whilst maximizing its benefits to improve living standards. To this effect, the government has assigned a team of experts in the oil industry to develop a master plan for the petroleum sector.

The team of experts has been subdivided into six working groups and each is supposed to produce a policy document which would become part of the master plan to guide the development and management of Ghana’s emerging oil industry and how it interfaces with the rest of the economy.

Having a PLAN may help avoid situations like this “MEND 30 day ultimatum ………..

THE Defence Council (DC) of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND), yesterday, issued a 30-day ultimatum to both Bayelsa and Rivers State Governments to constitute the Boards of the Bayelsa and Rivers States Oil and Gas Commissions for the host communities or face the wrath of the militant group.

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Niger Delta
Nigeria
Ghana + Oil

President Museveni of Uganda continues his assault on the Ugandan LGBTI community by praising the Anglican church in Uganda for “resisting homosexuality” and for this he is happy to give Bishops presents of cars “since walking is outdated”………

“I salute the Archbishop and bishops of Africa for resisting disorientation and a decadent culture, which he said was being passed by Western nations.”

Describing homosexuality as mtumbavu (Swahili for stupid), the President said: “Don’t fear, resist and do not compromise on that. It is a danger not only to the believers but to the whole of Africa. It is bad if our children become complacent and think that people who are not in order are alright.”

Gay Uganda responds with an open letter “I am not a foreigner and I am not white”…

For the beloved leader of my country to deny my birthright as a Ugandan, and demonise me, just because I am homosexual is something which hurts me a lot. For His Excellency the President, despite the wealth of advice that is at his hands, to do this from ignorance of what homosexuality is, that, again, is deeply disturbing.

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Uganda
LGBTI
Anglican Church